The Whispering Cairn, Part One

  When last we left our intrepid crew, they were setting out from a dilapidated mine manager's home to seek fortune in the Whispering Cairn.

  I'll skip the boring bits, and tell you the highlights:

• Upon entering the cairn, Sarnek noticed several sets of wolf tracks back and forth across the entrance.
• After the party locates a broken artifact, Wren recalls from his class on History of Air Elementals at Tarth Moor that the glyph on the base is actually the name of a powerful creature of air called a "Wind Duke." [Rolled a natural twenty plus his skill bonus in Knowledge (arcana), total 26! 50 bonus XP for a clutch roll for vital information.]
• Continuing further in, the party encountered a small pack of wolves. Sarnek successfully used animal empathy to adjust their reaction from hostile to indifferent. The wolves returned to their den, taking a bribe of meat thrown to them. [Dane did fantastic with his ranger here... 50 bonus XP for good roleplay]
• Minutes later, the party disturbs the wolves in their den, drawing an attack. All three wolves killed. Oh well. However, they do find an important piece of a puzzle: an indigo lantern.
• Entering the false tomb, they begin to muck about with the turning sarcophagus, discovering all sorts of elevators, and releasing a swarm of acid beetles and a nasty aberration. Wren kills the swarm with one well-placed Burning Hands spell. The aberration is dealt with swiftly, but not before it can kill Norman the Interchangeable, our NPC cleric.
• With the cleric dead, and most spells used up, the party wisely retreats to Diamond Lake, bearing the remains of their fallen comrade.

End of first night, but not even close to the end of the adventure... we play again in three weeks.