Calorn reached the rendez-vous point and carefully placed a small scratch on the wall. In responce he heard Claybeg say 'Hey'. Relieved that someone else was there, Calorn started to whisper to Claybeg about his discoveries. Claybeg then told Calorn that he might have found Alquawen. He had gone up a stairs to the right of the banquet hall. This led to an area with well appointed quaters. He had found a door leading to a long and extremely narrow corridor. At the end of it was a door through which he had heard what sounded like an angry princess. They dicussed this for some time including the possibility that she might be a decoy. Eventually they fell silent and waited for John to show up.

A few minutes later another scratch appeared next to the one Calorn had made earlier. Calorn questioningly said 'John?'. John replied, they got down to dicuss what they ad found. John had also been exploring the lower levels. He had gotten through the door by which Calorn had waited so long. Supposedly it led down into another natural cavern. This one was partly filled by a large pool. John said he did not stick around long because there was some sort of giant turtle in the chamber. John reckoned it had been able to smell him, but had been confused cause it could not see him. John had seen some streams leading into and from the chamber. He reckoned that it might be possible to follow one of them out.

It was decided that Calorn should go down to the natural cavern and try to find a way out. John said he had left a stick with which to pick the lock on the door, next to the door. John and Claybeg would further investigate the where abouts of Alquawen. They agreed to meet again in 12 hours. John and Claybeg left, Calorn waitted five minutes in case in might run into the back of them, then he too left.

Heading down the stairs from the banquet hall Calorn carelessly brushed against someone. He frooze against the wall waiting for the mans reaction. Thankfully the man seemed half asleep and shrugged off the event. Calorn releived started down the stairs again, and managed to brush off another man. He also payed little heed and continued on his way. Calorn stopped to gather his frayed nerves crept to the base of the stairs and rested for a minute to restore his calm. From there he managed to procede to the locked door without incident.

Looking around the door he found the stick John had used to pick the lock. Having no experience at lock picking he gingerly set to work. Unfortunately he just could not get the lock to open. After sometime he gave up and decided to go exploring. He went back the stairs and climbed one level. He then headed down to a passage blocked by a large door which remained unexplored. The sounds of metal beating metal could be heard through the door. The door was suddenly opened by a large man, Calorn got out of his way and slipped through the door which the man had carelessly left open. After travelling down the corridor a short way it openned into a large chamber.

The room contained a large forge, two smaller fires and a large table on which a man was working some metal. There were two opennings in the wall to the right and two doors to the left. Cal;orn headed in one of the opennings and found it led to the same passage as the other openning. From there four ajar doors led into abonnded rooms. The rooms and passage were all filled with junk. Calorn reckoned these would make a good resting place as the likelyhood of getting disturbed was minimal.

Suddenly Calorn realised that he a had a lock pick kit in his bag. He had forgotten this while trying to open the door with John's stick. Cursing his stupidity he returned to the natural cavern and the locked door. Use the lockpicks he carefully attempted to open the door. Even with the lockpicks he failed to get the door open. Wondering how he would explain his incompetence to John he returned too the banquet hall. From there he headed to the corridor that led to the nice part of the keep. Settling into a corner of the corridor that afford him a good view of the hall he waited a few hours. He was watching for any interesting movements of guards or food. He did not notice anything exciting and when the time came returned to the meeting point.

As soon as Calorn made a scratch on the wall Claybeg and John responded. Claybeg incoherently explained their exciting news. There was lots of stuff about secret doors, avoiding guards, a spiral staircase and rooms walled with silver. Calorn reckoned you had to be there to understand it all, but congratulated Claybeg to keep him happy. Calorn was then forced to admitt that he had failed to open the door. He also told them that he had found good places to sleep. John and Claybed had not rested for nearly 24 hours at this point so were very grateful for that information. It was decided that Calorn would show John and Claybeg the way to the storerooms off the smithy. From there John would bring Calorn down to the door and open it for him. John would then return to the storeroom and sleep. It was agreed to meet at midnight in the storeroom. According to John it the current time was 4am. Calorn had thought it was more like 6 but decided John probably knew better. It was also agreed that if Calorn failed to make the next meeting it might be because he was stuck behind the door. In that scenario John would come down and release him.

Calorn then descrided how to get to the storeroom. He would have led them there but that would greatly increase the likely hood of colisons. Calorn then set off. He got down the stairs without issue, however while trying to get through a narrow door an issue arose. It took several minutes for someone to show up to open the door for Calorn, while Calorn was getting ready to slip through the door with them somebody walked into him from behind. This caused Calorn to bump off the man in front of him. Unlike the people Calorn had bumped into before this man did not ignore the incident. The man kinda chuckled to himself then set about swinging his arms around trying to see what hit him. Calorn managed to dodge all the blows and work his back against the wall. He was also looking around for who had walked into him from behind. After a minute or so the man seemed to satisfy himself that nobody was around and continued on his way. Calorn then heard Claybeg say 'Shit sorry'. Calorn muttered something about stupid Dunlendlings not leaving enough time betwwen departures and then led Claybeg to the storeroom.

In the storeroom Calorn gave John and Claybeg some rations from his backpack. This was the first food they had eaten for a full day. The then gave them directions to the foodstore he had found. After eating John brought Calorn down to the door he had failed to open earlier. John deftly opened the door with his stick. Calorn tried to learn by watching John but was still not terribly confident about the procedure. He confirmed that John would come down and release him if he failed to make the next meeting. The door opened onto a narrow spiral stair leading down. Calorn said goodbye to John, shut the door then headed down the stairs.

The stairs led down into a huge natural cavern. It was hot and drafty. The heat seemed to be coming from a large pool covering most of the cavern floor. A stream flowed into the pool and there appeared to be water flowing into a gap in the rocks at the far side of the pool. Where the stream entered the pool there was the ruins of a watchtower. Calorn headed towards the gap in the rocks where the stream entered the cavern. As he walked forward he spotted a shut door in the rocks on the far side of the stream. He also heard something moving in the pool behind. Wary of John's tails of a giant turtle he ran for the cave from which the stream entered the cavern.

Entering the cave claorn found a narrow path running beside the water. Folling the path led him to a small cavern with three other exits. The stream and path continues ahead off him, to his right a dry path seemed to lead back towards the main cavern and to his left was another cave from which another stream entered the small intersection. He headed left into the dark narrow cave. As the walked forward the caves ceiling got lower and lower and it was hard to get a good footing walking in the narrow stream. Contented that this would soon be impassable Calorn returned to the intersection and took the cave with the path running next to the stream. After turning a few corners, so as the light would not be seen from the main cavern, he took out and lit a torch. From there he continued along the cave.

Calorn's hopes that he had found an exit continued to grow as he followed the streams twisting path. He continued on for nearly three hours before the stream disappeared into a narrow cleft in the side of the cave. However the cave continued in an upward spiral. Heading up the spiral Calorn found his way impeded by a rock fall. Putting down the torch and removing hiis backpack, he climbed up the mound of rocks. At the top was a narrow gap that revealed a cave. A terrible stench wafted its way through the gap. Keeping still Calorn listening carefully for any sounds frm=om the cave. After adjusting to the almost total silence he begun to pick out low guttural voices. They seemed to be speaking Westron but using only small simple words in the most basic of sentences. Calorn realised that the had stumbled on a Orc or Troll cave, this probably meant that a exit was nearby.

Over the next hour Calorn gradually enlarged the gap at the top of the rock fall. After an hours work it was still too small for him to slip through but using the Belt of Living Change to reduce his size he worked his way through the gap. He found himself in a large cave that led to his left and right. Heading left he found an intersection. One cave ran to his left the other sloped down and seemed to split in two after only a short distance. He headed left. The cave was narrow but there was ample room for the skinny Elf. As the continued the flickering light of a fire started to light his way. The low sounds of voices also became much clearer. Stepping round a corner Calorn saw a large fire surronded by about eight Trolls. Some of them were fighting in a corner others appeared to trying to sleep. As he watched them in growing fear one of the large ones started to sniff the air muttering that it 'Could smell summit'. Calorn quickly slipped back along the cave. At the intersection he took one of the paths leading deeper underground. This cave was wept and covered in some form of moss. There Calorn waited trying to be totally silent, hopefully the smell of moss and damp cave would mask out the smell off Elf.

Calorn waited there for two hours. He had heard something sniffing about for a while, but it had now been silent for over an hour. Coming out of the cave he headed back to the rock fall. From there he continued along the cave which openned into another large chmaber. This chamber was linked to the one with the fire and most of the Trolls. At the fire end of the room seemed to be a large amount of swag. Calorn then noticed a Troll asleep at the edge of the chamber. The Troll was only doozing fitfully so Calorn slipped out of the room and returned to his earlier hiding place.

Thinking about the situation Calorn realised that it now probably only a short while after dawn. Therefore the Trolls were most likely only just back from a nights hunting. Calorn decided to wait for darkness. Then the Trolls would hopefully leave their lair. Calorn would then be able to scout out the rest of the cave, find the exit and safely enlarge the gap in the rock fall. Satisfied with his discoveries Calorn setteled in for a long wait.

Unfortunately Calorn's wait may prove long indeed. Mark our GamesMaster has moved to Australia. The game is unlikely to be concluded.