Which Way Did He Go?

Following the trail of the Emkrah, the party heads west out of the city of Katapesh, shadowing the river Scorpius.  The Emkrah makes tracking easy by leaving a wake of destruction.  Turning to follow the Pale River, the trail leads into a nearby oasis.  In its history, the oasis was named the Deep Well of Paradise and served as a shrine to Sarenrae until it fell to the vampire Rotaimvei.  In recent years, a paladin of Sarenrae, Fadiyah Al’Qirym, set out to liberate the oasis and return it to being a shrine of the Dawnflower.  
As the party approaches, a lammasu named Assad Ashraf-asim introduces himself and warns the group to leave as the oasis is now called the Hell of Eternal Thirst as it is overrun with undead.  The party tells Assad that they are there to cleanse the well and recover the artifact Dawn’s Swift Burning, the sword Fadiyah borrowed to purge the evil in the oasis.  Assad reluctantly agrees and warns the party to be especially careful at night.
Entering the oasis, the party is assaulted by eight large apes.  Really no match for the deadly adventurers, the beasts fall to the group and the group resumes their trek.
Making their way to the ruined temple, the party spots an undead ettin lurking in the shadows.  Further in the temple a burnt corpse with a sword in its clutches.  Moving in the adventurers provoke both the skeletal ettin and the spectre dwelling inside.  Kushii engages the dangerous specter while Lars breaks out his trusty make-nice-with-the-undead spell.  The evil in the temple falls, and Luce is able to consecrate the place to purge the remaining vestiges of the curse.
The party passes through a graveyard, to a large obelisk structure.  Crude desecrations cover the base of the pillar, and a small circle of crushed skulls and red wax lies nearby.  The party makes camp and begins clearing the site to restore it back to its original purpose.  Vampire spawn and lacedons attack the party in the night.  Swift shadowy forms and wet stinky ghouls prove to be no match for the group.  At dawn the pillar is retouched by the Dawnflower and the party recovers under the rejuvenating effects.
Having spied something under the water from the top of the temple, the group takes a boat and discovers the unholy shrine at the bottom of oasis’s pool.  Luce isn’t about to let anyone else do the defiling in his presence, and purges the remnants of the lacedon’s dwelling.  
Still haunted, the party searches the graveyard and finds the sarcophagi of the vampire spawn.  Luce drops down into the well and smashes the stone sarcophagi with his adamantine falchion.  
With the last remnant of evil purged from the oasis, Assad returns and congratulates the party on their success.  Lars impatiently reminds the party that the Emkrah, while having visited the oasis, is still traveling further away.  With the chase back on, Rayhan sends a message that the Emkrah is being drawn to a site near the Pale Mountain:  Hammerfalls.
Quickly resupplying in Kelmarane, the party makes for the mysteriously abandoned dwarven stronghold of Hammerfalls.  Arriving there, the party discovers that the main entrance is sealed with an enormous stone slab.  Searching around the party discovers a secret entrance.  Wandering in the first room is a killing pit.  The group climbs up the ladders and moves down a hallway.  Suddenly, they are attacked by heavily armed and armored dwarven zombies.  Blackish-purple chaotic energy seeps out of the dwarves.  Into the constrained space of the hall, the dwarves toss a flash grenade.  
Well, the party isn’t too happy at this point.  Such rare items as flash grenades being tossed about by undead dwarves, so far from Numeria, can’t be a good sign.  The dwarves prove incredibly resistant to damage as the battle drags on.  After creating a pit to block the dwarves in their barracks, the over equipped walking dead draw zero (cold-laser) pistols and begin to shoot the party.  Luce closes a door to the room with the pit, and the party focuses the fight on the two dwarves in the other room.  Slowly they wear them down and it is time to go back to the trapped dwarves.  Pulling a replay of the hobgoblin crossbow incident, Lars turns the door invisible while Luce antagonizes the dwarves by smacking and wiggling his bare arse at them.
Predictably, the dwarves shoot at Luce.  It is a this point the party discovers an interesting principle of laser pistols, they can shoot through invisible barriers.  So, Luce gets bit in the buttocks for a nice chunk of cold damage.  That is all Luce is willing to put up with, and he charges into the room and engages the dwarves.  After a long, painful battle, the party prevails.
Kushi wonders out loud, “What crazed evil would create such creatures?”
Lars’ statue whispers to him, “It is very close now.”
Moving through a secret door in the end of the hall, Kushii disarms a trap, and the party travels though a banquet all, into a large open room.  They party encounters two more dwarves, who toss a bang grenade and a darkness grenade when the fight starts.  With more room to maneuver and 50% fewer dwarves, the party gets through the encounter more effectively that the last one.  
========== Session Characters:  Kushii, Lars, Luce, Billy, Scarlett, Nykton Session XP: 8080 XP each 

Session Loot:  ring of sustenance, three potions of cure moderate wounds, coins and art worth 3600 GP, three timeworn chaositech zero pistols (0 charges), timeworn chaositech zero pistol (3 charges), two timeworn chaositech zero pistols (4 charges each), six masterwork warhammers , six masterwork chainmail, six masterwork heavy steel shields, two bang grenades 

Are You My Mummy?

Exploring further, the party finds a room with a sarcophagus.  Detecting Undead, Lars prepares his spell to control undead.  Opening the lid, the mummy immediate falls sway to Lars' persuasion. Nubkaura Inyotef VII is your typical cranky mummy, he enjoys defiling the grave of his traitorous sone.  Lars strikes a new deal with Nubkaura and he agrees to help the party.

The Mummy warns the party about a few gargoyles that are guarding a storage room.  Ready for the surprise from the ‘statues’, the party makes short work of the guardians, and wishes they had been guarding better loot.

With the mummy's guidance, the party arranges an ambush for Khair al Din, the resident priest.  Knocking on the door, posing as one of the hapless rubes, they momentarily distract him and get the drop.  Quickly moving through the underground lair of the One source guild, the party passes up some sahuagin in an sea-filled cave.  Then they find the temple room, and a few smelly corpses and a few smelly ghouls hiding among them.  The ghouls never stood a chance.

Then the party finds a water filled cavern, with a rope and wood bridge crossing over to a rocky outcrop with an elaborate stone door.  While crossing the bridge, a weird-looking mutant eye of the deep, strikes out of the water at the party.  Lurking up to the bridge, it is unable to pull Luce into the water.  The party finishes off the beast quickly before anyone has to go for a swim.

Taking a bit to get the stone door to open, the party moves into the hallway and locates Rayhan.  Healing him, the party gets Rayhan back on his feet, and they move forward to the door at the end of the all.  Searching around the room, Father Jackal enters the room and combat ensues.  With a loud howl, Father Jackal summons help and pulls a giant bear out of a sack at his waist.  Lars hits the bear with a bead of force, while Father Jackal continues to dance around the edge of the summoned spiked pit.  Then another door opens and the ugly twisted form of a skeleton head in a veiny gelatinous blob with a base of tentacles wanders in.  Using the last bead of force, Lars gets the emkrah trapped in a bead of force, while Father Jackal falls into and jumps out of the spiked pit.  Now with all their focus on the jackalwere, he succumbs to the mighty prowess of the Little Rascals.

Lars starts to communicate with the Emkrah with his bizarre other planar knowledge.  Eventually Lars figures out that the Emkrah wants to eat the corpse of Father Jackal, and Lars agrees so long as the Emkrah leaves the party alone.  Once the force wall drops, the Emkrah eats the corpse and heads out the stone door.

The party finishes exploring the lair and encounters the captain of the Sunset ship.  After introductions are made, and the party finds out the captain's plan to ruin Father Jackal, the captain offers the party 40,000 GP in rubies to feed a vial to the Emkrah.  The party negotiates the reward up to  45,000 GP, and agrees to get it done in 7 days.  It is at that time the Sunset ship will sail away for another 7 years.

The party heads out after the Emkrah...

==========
Session Characters:  Kushii, Lars, Luce, Billy
Session XP: 7200 XP each
Session Loot:  wand of cure moderate wounds (37 charges); +2 full plate, +1 greataxe, obsidian and gold unholy symbol worth 140 gp, three potions of shield of faith +4, tan bag of tricks; +1 breastplate, +1 battleaxe, throwing axes (6), gauntlets of ogre power, key to one source temple and the prison cells

And... He's Gone.

After the dinner party, Rayhan and the party retire for the evening.  The party sets watches and all is quiet until the wee hours of the morning.  Then there comes a knocking.  Not really.  There was a noise at the gate.  Luce gets up, but before he can check, an elemental bashes in the door.  Several other thugs crash the party.  The rascally adventurers drag themselves out of bed and confront the band of thugs.  The thugs fall quickly, as if they are underpowered for the task.  Rushing up the stairs, the group discovers that Rayhan has been kidnapped.

The cops show up after the scrap.  Kazim warns the party that unless they can recover Rayhan in 24 hours, the Pactmasters will be forced to intervene.  Billy and Luce managed to drag several of the bodies off to a hiding spot, and Luce revived one for questioning.  They find out that the One Source Merchant Guild is behind the kidnapping and that little bastard Tamir led the kidnapping at the order of Father Jackal.

The party loads up on supplies, including several new and "gently used" pairs of pants.  Heading for the warehouse that Billy saw Tamir enter when he tailed him, Kushi disguises herself as a lady of the evening, and enters the front office.  Frontman for the One Source, Maysam Fajr, is not fooled and sets her pet cockatrices loose.  The party makes quick work of Maysam, the cockatrices, and a few thugs.  Peeking into the warehouse, the group spies a six guards milling around a score of slaves.  Sneaking into position, the party bushwhacks the guards and liberates the slaves.  Luce immediately puts them to work on his laundry, and they are offered freedom in exchanged for a year of service in Kelmarane.  The slaves accept the deal.

Going back and searching the front office again, the party finds the stairs down.  Exploring on, the party finds a barracks and completely overwhelm the thugs inside.

==========
Session Characters:  Kushii, Lars, Luce, Billy
Session XP:  3750 XP each
Session Loot:   seven potions of cure moderate wounds, four masterwork studded leather armors, nine masterwork short swords, four masterwork saps, nine masterwork hand crossbows, 78 bolts, four masterwork thieves’ tools, eighteen small flawed rubies worth 250 GP each, wand of cure moderate wounds (45 charges), chain shirt, +1 rapier, shortbow with 20 arrows, headband of alluring charisma +2, six potions of cure moderate wounds, six masterwork studded leather armors, six masterwork short swords, six masterwork saps, six masterwork hand crossbows with 60 bolts, six masterwork thieve's tools, twelve small flawed rubies worth 250 GP each.

Big City Lights

Arriving in Katapesh, Garavel leads the group up and around to Rayhan Xobhadi's villa.  The quivering merchant, Radi Hamdi, seems to be relieved to be out from Billy and Luce's watchful gazes.  Radi takes his leave and sets out for the northern gate into Katapesh.

Once at the villa, there is a stiff introduction as Rayhan's gardener/butler/cook Eramin greets them into the common room.  Things loosen up when Rayhan begins to examine the Scroll of Kakishon.  By then end, he is positively excited at the possibility that this may indeed be the genuine Scroll of Kakishon.

The party, at various times, is contacted by a few notable merchants in Katapesh.  Rumors of an ancient artifacts arrival in Katapesh, is whispered in the streets.  Marzuk, of the Mus'ad merchant family, Badra former Mercenary and now powerful merchant, Tamir of the One Source Merchants' Guild, have all made clear their interest in purchasing the scroll.

Rayhan suggests a dinner party, which is a traditional tactic when one is preparing to make a big sale in Katapesh.  The guests show up, along with Kazim, a very attractive cleric of Abadar, the representative of the authorities of Katapesh.  The party goes well, Billy demonstrated an extraordinary acrobatics feat.

==========
Session Characters:  Kushii, Lars, Luce, Billy
Session XP:  800 XP each
Session Loot: 100 GP each