The fiery light the PCs are confronted with turns out to be a green-burning skull and a quartet of disembodied skeletal arms wielding weapons, which attack them immediately. The skull fires out missiles of energy repeatedly, which our heroes cannot avoid, but they eventually manage to bring it down while they face off against the arms. The skull continues to regenerate so they keep hitting it, Indrid eventually tries to crush it, but it starts to reconstitute, so Mel drops it in the acidic green goo in the Bellowbroth burial chamber. Gary wild shapes into a carnivorous ape to toss the column off the giant anvil in the chamber, which turns out to be some sort of chest. In order to open it, they need to find a square headed hammer. Desiring to search the sarcophagus in the slime, the ape begins to pull it after attaching the gargoyle grappling hook. This activates the hammer golem in the chamber, and a desperate race begins. Thanks to a team effort and a pair of blows from Tess wielding the Grizzlebeard pick-axe, they are able to destroy it before it can do more than maul Ape-Gary a few times.
Sure enough, they find a square-headed hammer in the tomb of O_wy_ B_ll_w_br_th and crack open the not-anvil, to find a large amount of treasure bearing the Bellowbroth crest. Platinum bars, signet rings, and gems which cause the Grizzlebeard pick-axe to flash with an uncanny light. More importantly, a tome, a strange staff and a heavily ornate axe-head which the freshly dwarven Finian Redfoot picks up, causing him to take a point of Charisma damage and his magical short sword to instantly melt...some sort of curse. They surmise that this might be a piece of an artifact which was once used to banish the Death Titan Ulan Vhor by the hero Anwyl Bellowbroth. They use whatever healing potions they have left in the cache or from the Krennyk clan sepulcher drawers. Tess 'introduces' the others to their savior, the pick-axe known as Trogbane, which she claims has been speaking to her since she wielded it. Although it's not used to being wielding by a skeleton, it thinks Tess will do until it finds a surviving Grizzlebeard heir.
The PCs next find a 'Coldcrumb' tomb, containing four black urns similar to those they recovered from Stumptown or one beneath the graveyard in Floivin Keep. Two of them are shaking on the floor, and the crypt has been warded by a dusting of silver shavings that surround the room, and a ceiling from which hundreds of dwarven holy symbols are suspended on chains. They decide to turn back, and find another tomb, that of the 'Buld' clan, which contains a pool of clear water and a single rotten corpse chained into a sarcophagus with long flowing hair. They manage to drain the water by turning some torch sconces, and Mel and Finian investigate, both being cursed and sapped of health or strength. They find the tomb is labeled Thulmoginn Buld, and take some sealed jars and a pendant from the corpse, as well as another rune they'll need at the entrance.
After this, they move further into the Rest, and find a hallway blocked off by a shimmering door with five complex locks, each corresponding to a material used in currency (copper, silver, electrum, gold, and platinum). Fortunately for the PCs, while Mel cannot pick the locks, he determines that the whole thing is an illusion, and eventually convinces the others, though Gary still can't believe it even after having passed through. The next area is the Ravenbeard tomb, where they face a smiling stone plaque and several mirror-steel living statues. Gary stone shapes the plaque so its harmless, and the others manage to defeat the statues. In an illuminated pool they find a radiant saber weapon with Trogbane communicates is called a sunsaber, and they crack open and loot two Ravenbeard nobles' sarcophagi in the wings of the chamber.
Another dungeon area seems to be a stadium-shaped chamber with a partly collapsed ceiling, in which Finian finds a headless corpse that might belong to the missing dwarf noble from the Stimmy portrait. The corpse has a rune in its decayed leather pocket, and the former halfling sheriff also finds a white leather tome and a pair of scroll tubes protruding from the eyes of a deity's half-destroyed statue. They then head towards the smallest room they've seen yet in the Rest, which contains a single, large crypt which had columns and a ceiling suspended over it, most of which have now collapsed. The place seems eerie, and there's no name on the tomb or on the arch leading in...
PCs: Finian Redfoot, Gary Greasewax, Indrid Hosspotch
NPCs:
Trogbane (intelligent pick-axe): The weapon looks as if its formed from a silvered humanoid skull, with intricate etchings down its steel half. It communicates telepathically with its wielder, and seems to flash with light at the nearby presence of precious stones.
