They dug too deep… or did they?

Characters: Reese, Darius, and Brine

Reese’s cousin Reeve Alora Montmar refused to dole out his allowance, saying iron prices had tripled since Olga Ironmeister’s mine had shut down.

Meanwhile, Brine Grinder couldn’t find any salt for the leg of lamb he’d been carrying around over his shoulder, and took a loan from Herbria the apothecary.

Darius was tending bar on a slow day at the Albatross when old one-eyed Alvor told him Olga Ironmeister was looking for some adventurers to clear out her mine.

The party went up into the foothills and learned from sweaty Olga that one miner had died and the other had climbed out of the mine stark raving mad, breaking the magic windbox that ventilates the mine.

They went to talk the the survivor, Barton, and overheard him talking with a merchant named Markus Shagbarrow. Turns out Markus has promised Barton he could get his exile from Stonehall rescinded, and no doubt paid him to sabotage the mine.

A rust monster scared the rest of the miners out of the blast furnace and ruined Olga’s last store of iron, but was easily dispatched by the party.

Reese brought the bellows from the furnace to clear the mineshaft of toxic fumes and Darius manned the winch and lowered Brine on the elevator into the shaft.

Brine shrugged off the toxic gas and made it to the lowest passage where he could try to retrieve the fallen windbox. But he decided to explore a bit first and fell through a trapped bridge, almost dying.

He got the box and almost died again on the way back when the gas got to him and the elevator cable broke, but Reese valiantly swung down on a rope and rescued him.

On the way back down they spotted a secret door into a hidden shaft where they found hundreds of gold in gems and a magic pickaxe.

Down in the bottom of the mine they found an otherworldly creature that seemed to have been summoned from a book and was carving a patterned archway in the the mine wall.

It animated the dead miner into a zombie but the brave duelists and put fighter took it and the zombie out. Bribe harvested some zombie meat to bribe layers disgusting the duelists.

Olga let them keep the gems if they promised to get revenge on Markus. Wizards from Chodzin Observatory came and studied the weird archway the creature carved but couldn’t make head nor tail of it.

While carousing, Reese got embarrassed by a wizard who made them dance with a spell, Darius got cursed (no luck tokens next game), and Brine gravely insulted a mage and made an enemy of them.