Exiting the mine, we find ourselves high on a mountainside. It's a bit chilly. The tips of Raid's horns are starting to turn blue.

We find a promising cave and Raid rushes ahead. There are yetis living in the cave, but Raid doesn't even slow down. He breathes on the lot of them. He hands me the Spade of Digging and I enlarge the cave enough for the dragon and us.

On the way back to our cave, we are attacked by some harpies. Utelager rips off some bits of the corpses to take with him. He definitely has an obsession with collecting things.

Stumpel's sword is downgraded (on this world) to an 'enchant-ready' weapon. The visitors hand him a recipe for a flametongue enchant, and a magical container in recompense. He's not too happy about it. Elric seems pleased, tho. No more worrying about getting thwacked by a sentient sword that wants to set him on fire.

The visitors then give Elric a good talking-to about NOT spreading his lycantropy. Stumpel seems in better spirits after that.

Tim has lapsed into incoherency since gating through to this world. Cali is worried.

Yager discovers he can't cast his high level healing spells. He says he's going to need to find a new divine source.

Raid decides to test out his powers. After he comes down from the ceiling, he discovers that heating metal now requires physical contact. He wants to test out his breath weapon. I dig a pit to contain his experiments. We're moving all our gear out of the cave just in case.

There's now a pit in the cave with some dragon spit in it. Raid thinks it's normal, and gets ready to try igniting it. Utelager interrupts Raid: he wants to try igniting it with his/Tim's mage abilities. The pool is rapidly evaporating. Raid shrugs and says go ahead. I tie a rope to Utelager and hand the other end to the dragon as we're all standing around outside. Just in case. Have I said that before?

The rest of the evening is uneventful as we prepare for tomorrow's journey to the alchemist's tower.

There are some rather seedy looking dwarves milling about the entrance, and signs of a battle in the past week or so. The dwarves claim to be guards for some merchants that are currently in with the alchemist. I'm rather suspicious, but we can't prove anything yet.

Entering the tower, we avoid an open pit trap and pass into a room that looks to have been an office. The dwarves follow us in and offer to introduce us to the cook. Elric says, "Hey, what's that behind you?", but no one is sure who he's talking about. There is a slightly tense standoff and the cook offers to get the alchemist.

An imp suddenly appears in front of me, wings tangled in tail and falls to the ground. Rather startling. The dwarves choose that moment to attack. They're actually were-rats. The imp goes down permanently, and Utelager runs over to it and is attempting to bottle bits and pieces of it in the heat of battle. Elric is fencing with a wererat and trying to explain that the imp was what he was talking about when he said, "what's that behind you".

note to self: Have a chat with Elric about useful alerts and code words.

Ute's managed to collect one imp hand so far. I suggest that he help us deal with the five wererats. He mentions that Cali is coming with Raid, and rejoins the battle. Not without a few regretful looks at the imp corpse.

There's a thunderous roar just behind two wererats that are standing in the front doorway. Startled, they frantically run past Cachuck and into the room. Only one makes it. We finish off the wererats, and Utelager goes back to messing around with the imp. Raid likes the taste of wererat, and cleans up. Seems while he couldn't fit through the doorway, he could scare the crap out of them.

Nothing quite like an invisible dragon roaring right behind you to make you jump.

Raid and Cali set up camp outside while the rest of us explore the tower. Down one level is supplies. I spot a secret door that opens to another storeroom. Lots of chemicals and powders. Utelager has somehow managed to get inside a locked section of the storage area. We have to break down the door to get him out. There are some interesting items here. Sunsticks, thunderrocks, alchemist's fire...

The next level is an alchemy lab. Elric suddenly appears around a corner, retching and gasping for air. There's someone here casting spells. We are unsure if it's the alchemist or not. Cachuck attempts to tackle the wizard, but misses and slams into the wall. The wizard transforms into a wererat, which pretty much answers that question. Stumpel and I chop him down in one hit, and we notice a wererat cleric standing over a body. We chase him down a corridor, but he has a good lead on us.

The corridor leads to a balcony overlooking a waterfall. The cleric laughs, activates a ring, and leaps off the edge into the mists.

And loses his hat to a large, formerly invisible, dragon taking a bite at him. The cleric stops laughing.

There's a gout of flame, and more of the mist vanishes. We can hear the cleric screaming,"It's not fair!" as he floats down.

We fire our arrows as the dragon, Cali and the cleric vanish into the mists once more.

Utelager shows up on the balcony and wants to throw a fireball. Cali screams that he's down below and Utelager had better not do that.

I featherfall myself and Elric (who's finally recovered from the stinking cloud) down to the base of the waterfall. We find Cali holding an armful of loot and a dragon looking like he's ready for an after-dinner nap.

Back in the tower, Yager reports that the body the cleric had been leaning over was indeed that of the alchemist. The wererat had apparently been speaking with the dead when we interrupted him. The alchemist told Yager that it'd be nice if we could raise him, and gave us the name of a cleric in town who could do it. Yager also learned where the recipe was, for the cure to winterfever.

We check out the upper levels of the tower, which prove to be simple barracks. The alchemist's library is moderately interesting, containing such books as, "Sulfur: Influences and Actions", "Baubles and Better", and "Brewing: Corks & Casks".