We go to Zeaburg, in Ostland. Thora goes first, and finds us a decent teleport coordinate. Safranna comes along as a dog.

Zeaburg has a large number of foreigners around. The foreigners are not allowed to leave the foreigners' quarter, not without a local sponsor. The city itself is a decent size, with perhaps 10000 inhabitants.

It is a good thing that Arni is an acolyte of Odin, for he goes to the temple and finds us a sponsor, one Hauk, a priest of Odin. We explain a bit to him. Unsurprisingly, he didn't know about the Dark Elf War 2500 years ago. Hauk, feeling a little out of his depth no doubt, fetches the High Priest of Odin, Asgrim.

We explain most of the situation to Asgrim. He arranges his priests to look into the items in Hord's hoard.

(later)

An argument breaks out outside. A warrior is arguing with a priest. Apparently the warrior wanted to see us, a warrior of the Raven guard. The priest rebuffed him.

(later)

The warrior returns. He says the Queen wishes to see us, but the priest insists this is a matter for the priests of Odin.

It looks like the secular and religious are in a clash.

We inform the warrior that we'll speak to the Queen after we have met with Asgrim, tomorrow. We wish to avoid being impolite.

Zim, being Zim, makes the priest go all flustery.

Azgrim returns. The priests have had difficulty finding the item. It isn't helpful that they have no idea what it looks like.

He apologises the for problem yesterday, and explains that some of his priests simply took his orders too literally.

He will take us to the Queen around midday.

(midday)

We are taken to the Queen. The hall is, well, less than clean. It would be considered disgusting by Serraine standards.

There are warriors, wizened sages, and the like all present with the Queen.

The Queen herself is seated at the head of a large table, with various of her children.

Invited to sit at a table near hers, we introduce ourselves, and are then presented with a lunch, brought in by a troll servant.

We chat. We then look for the item, but are unsuccessful, until at the last moment, when returning to the Queen, Thora notices with her detect magic that the table is magical. It has, beneath it, a very large ring (not for wearing) - an elf circled from head to toe.

It is overwhelmingly magical - an artefact, of some necromantic design, made of solid iron, three feet in diameter. The locals had forgotten about it (perhaps they would have remembered later).

T'zaz tries, but fails, to determine anything about it.

T'zaz does a legend lore: Nine elves doomed to immortality, spirits bound, knowledge free, mouldering for eternity.

We do another legend lore, about the "knowledge free" part: All they know offered for free, nine elves, nine arts, free to those who know the keys. Perhaps eight specialist archmages and one generalist archmage? A possibility.

Leo commune:
Is the spirit within the item aware of our presence: no. Is there a penalty associated with using the item: no answer.
Do the spirits within these items have any means of communication available to them: no answer. Are the keys command words: yes.
Does the art of this item refer to necromancy: yes. Do the nine arts refer to the nine schools of magic: no. Are there other items like this one on Mystara: not really.
Have any of these nine been activated in the last ten years: no.
Does anyone in the northern reaches know how to activate these items: yes!
Would a speak with dead allow us to communicate with this item: no.
Does anyone within the city know how to activate this item: no answer.

Hmm. We check, and find no snakemen shapechangers in the court.

The artefact is overwhelmingly evil.

Lani goes to research.

Lani continues to research. Zim speaks to the Dean of Necromancy, and he suggests that there may have been a clue in one of the Legend Lores, the reference to Mouldering may have been a reference to Moulder dwarves.

Azgrim says we should speak to Stein the Giant (whom he has, reluctantly, had dealings with). He gives us directions, and even has a ship (of all things!) at our disposal. It would take days to get there! Gads!

The ship at our disposal, a longship, is named Foolkiller.

The Captain is Finn of Kroken.

We set sail. Thorhilde has a terrible time, frequently throwing up.

The weather through the journey is fine.

We arrive. We walk up a hill to see Stein, who appears from his Cave to greet us. He seems to have been cooking bread. Yes, he knows of a Moulder dwarf, nearby. We travel to where he indicates, a few miles distant.

He doesn't answer our knocks. We go in, and start avoiding traps. He has some very ingenious non-magical traps. Lani almost dies in the exploding flour trap.

We find some rocks, with some dwarven writing on them (a very old dwarven language). It says: Place your message here, with how much you are willing to pay.

We place a message, describing our situation, and indicate we're willing to pay thousands of gold.

We come back to the dwarf place. He has left messages at the front door. He will answer our question for 5000 gold. He also wonders if we are interested in other things, such as magical blades, and the like. He makes to order.