Chapter 2
"A Cancerous Secret"
page 8 - 'Don't mine those Orcs' part 2 of 2

Where we last left the PCs they just deafeated a large group of Orcs and piled the bodies against the door to protect them from the rest of the evil that is in this Orcish mining camp. <knock> <knock> can be heard from the door, not knowing what to do they just stood there until they heard two more knocks and Enutrof decided to open the door himself to reveal Dio and an Orc standing behind him. Dio sayed, "that the rest of the Orcs decided to leave the mining camp" and as the group was leaving he turned to the Orc and told it to finish what he started. On their way out of the mining camp they ran into a Alyssia, a ranger scout from Harfein, who saw an Orc body with boiled flesh just inside the large grove of trees. Dio was insistant that it wasn't anything to worry about but Allyssia and Myr took a look after Dio, Cade, and Enutrof went on ahead to track down the rest of the Orcs who were with Lita.

Only a few short hours later was Enutrof able to track them to find their cart filled with ore, however one of the wheels was broken and the cart was tipped over and the donkeys were still tied to it. Enutrof went up for higher grond to see if he could spot where they ran off to while Cade released the donkeys to slow them down. However of all the hills that Enutrof could of walked up was the one where the Orcs were hiding and waiting for the PCs to leave, but they got to anxious and started throwing their axes down upon Enutrof. Not far off Allysia and Myr were riding their horse hard to catch up and they saw the rest of the group being attacked by the Orcs and decided to join in.

They only saw four Orcs hiding in the brush so Cade circled around to the right and Enutrof let fly a few arrows as he approached from the left side. Enutrof killed off an Orc that was standing up high upon the rocks who fell into the brush opening a lot of their hiding positions and revealing a cave entrance. Lita stood up from her hiding space to command the rest of her hidden Orcs to attack and Dio finally became interested in this fight and started to hustle towards the opening. Allysia tried to gave Cade cover from the four Orcs that were rushing him while five rushed Enutrof. Dio went straight up the center taking out four Orcs who were in his way which opened enough space to get past them. Myr gave chase on his horse only making it to the entrance slightly after Dio but slightly before the Orc, which he didn't see, chased them inside.

A very elaborately decorated but simply made room opened up after a short walk through the hall. Red light shown through the windows, which were none existant from the outside, illuminating the two stairs that assended to a dias above. Four plate armors stood at attention like they were guarding something on the dias where Dio made his way too. <slam> <slam> Dio starts pounding the dias, "Nooooooo!, where is it!" he turned around to see the Orc that was chasing Myr. He ran down killing the Orc in two slices with his knife and continuing outside. Myr, thinking it a better use of his time, stayed in the room unable to see anything with Detect Magic he tried to imprint some of the unfamiliar runes onto his body with arcane mark.

Back outside the PCs were not doing too well with three Orcs standing over Enutrof's body moving on to Allysia who took out another Orc but still had two more to deal with. Cade was run through, and dying, by Lita who turned invisible to get behind him. Things were looking hopeless when Dio ran out of the cave entrance, stopped and looked around, then ran towards Cade, apparently to help him. Make that a straight line bull rush at Lita who stood defending. She trust with her rapier which Dio was able to dodge them caught her blade by wrapping the chain that hung from his knife around it. He then took her rapier out of her hands then took something else from her. Allysia saw that Lita was in extreme pain screaming bloody murder and Dio had his left hand on her face. A few seconds later she was on her knees, Dio kept asking her where it was and what (if anything) did she find. Believing, or knowing, that she knew nothing he let go and Lita curled up into the fetal position to continue to cry.

Because Enutrof was able to stick on a couple of rabbit ears (healing herbs) to clot and heal he roused in time to help Allysia with her remaining Orcs. Dio healed Cade slightly then walked down to the horses. Allysia walked over to Lita to check on her seeing that half of her face, the part Dio touched, was half boiled and half mummy rotted, so Allysia stripped Lita of her precious scrolls. Enutrof didn't want to leave her along so after Dio told them that he needed to talk to a friend in Pax Tharkas they took they donkeys and left. Enutrof wasn't able to get any more useful information from Lita who didn't seem to care that much about anything anymore, so instead of killing her as Cade tried to do Enutrof dropped her off in prison with Able.

Little did the PCs know that in Pax Tharkas both them and Dio wanted to see the same person, Able the commander of the guards. He told them that Pax Tharkas was still doing fine with the civilian council taking over because of Krass's misuse of power. Able wanted to show Dio something about Krass and Dio let the PCs come with. Able showed them the Krass's corpse which still had the purple puss all over the places where metal was fused to his body. Able swears to Dio that Krass died mysterously but he believes that it had something to do with the puss. Dio wished to stay at Pax Tharkas while the rest of the PCs left to head west towards Croc's Crossing which was where they were to meet Clive.