We debate on whether to head back to Verbobonc. We opt not to, but Elmo wants to go to Nulb to fill in his brother on what's been going on.

We offer the harlot (Evangeline) a choice - she can go with us to Nulb, which is a hole, or she can wait and we can go to Verbobonc later. She has a questionable past in Verbobonc, but her relatives are dead, and she no interest in returning there. So she'll hang out in camp for now.

The party heads into Nulb. It's a fine day in Nulb; the freezing temperature keeps the mud solid and smell down. The blacksmith shop is actually warm. Greetings and exchanged, and Moth tells a rambling version of the story. Otis interrupts and brings in the old herbalist.

She takes off her hood and reveals she's a cleric of St. Cuthbert - and outranks Pire! (Pire: She's not my boss. And the cleric smacks him in the head with her cudgel. Oh yeah, she is)

We retire to the tavern, and tell the story over the night. We tell her about the evil skull of Iuz. She's willing to guard it for now. And she takes a cursed ebon fly that turns into a demon. And she helps us take a cursed x-ray ring from Moth after he passes out from drinking.

We also ask about the sealed door on the second level of the temple we haven't been able to find the other side of. She tells us those were stairs going down. They didn't go in the door - but that it somehow leads to Zuggtmoy. Diren says he thought that was the throne at the bottom. The cleric thinks the throne can be used to get to the same place as the stairs lead.

We stay the night in Nulb. The next morning, we get an extra tent to accommodate our growing party from Otis. The back to camp, and into the temple again.

We chat with the bandits. No one going in, the bugbears came out yesterday. And the old merchant too. Elmo starts us tracking the old merchant - he's headed west, avoided Nulb, and was checking farmhouses for vacant ones. He found no empty houses and kept moving. But we lose him as he crosses the river. So we head back and ask Otis to send word to Hommlet to watch out for him.

Then back to the temple, and down to the fourth level. Over to the elemental nodes - first in order of right to left is Earth. We step onto the symbol and teleport into an earthen cavern. We can breath, and aren't freezing or burning. It's dusty and sturdy, looking a bit engineered.

Two bugbears are here - scared of us. We talk to them, they don't know how to leave. Theldin is hungover and watching the bugbears. We start moving and soon find the giant. Elmo asks if he wants to come with us. He's pathetic and sad. He'll follow us.

We find a fire symbol on the floor in a room nearby. It's magic and we think it might transport to the fire node. We move on.

In another room we find a zenarth - which looks a lot like a bullette. It's huge. Diren creeps forward but it sees him and comes at him. It tears a chunk out of him, but the poison does nothing. Javier whips out the rod of wonder! and causes a few seconds of heavy rain to fall.

Theldin goads the hill giant to attack. It charges in, gets savagely bitten by the beast, and smacks it with his fist. It hurts the beast, but his hand is burned by acid. Diren does get a flank and can make it bleed. The hill giant takes massive damage as the beast tears into it. The battle is fraught - Diren's sneak attacks let him actually hurt it, and it hurts him badly in return. Elmo's holy hammer (thanks to Pire) also does lots of damage. Eventually it's put down.

There's a pile of gems in the corner. One of them is a powerfully enchanted garnet, it matches the skull. Moth carries the skull, Diren carries the garnet. And then there's a lot of other valuable gems (8000 gp). Although the gem will let us get out, we decide to explore further.

We find a crazed man who calls us demons and promises great rewards if we get him out of this place. His name is Xargen, he says he offered his services to the temple, but they were jealous of his power and they imprisoned him here. We decide to let him follow with the bugbears.

Moving along, we find three xorn. They speak in Terran, and Xargen starts to translate. Pire casts tongues so we can talk without the crazy wizard. We trade some low value gems and items for them to scout ahead, and we'll help them get back to their home plane. They scout for us, there is no more money or valuables. We can avoid the monsters, see the other portal rooms.

They when head back to the prime material. The xorn head back to their own plane. Next up would be the air node. Elmo wants to wait til the ebony fly is back in action - 6 days. Maybe we'll do fire next?

We manacle up the wizard and the bugbears in separate rooms.