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Bancroft The jingle of coins in his purse was a happy, heavy sound, a promise of steel and safety. Bancroft, his mind as clear and simple as a summer sky, had a singular purpose. “I have enough,” he’d declared to his friends, his voice booming with the certainty of a man who has counted his treasure and found it sufficient. “We go to Ironguard Motte. I’m getting my plate mail!”

The morning after their return from the shadowmaze, Wyz gathered his companions in his cramped room at the inn. The goblin’s scarred fingers trembled slightly as he worked the clasp on the scrollcase they had recovered from the rats’ nest—whether from anticipation or exhaustion, none could say. “Stand back,” Wyz commanded. “And try not to breathe too heavily. You’ll contaminate the arcane residue.” Perch snorted from behind his fish-head helmet.

Tin Soldier A dark reimagining of a timeless classic, where love defies the boundaries between metal and mortality. A one-legged tin soldier glimpses a beautiful one-legged lady in a distant castle and embarks on an impossible journey to reach her. But what begins as a romantic quest becomes a harrowing test of will, sacrifice, and the true meaning of love. Across treacherous forests, past fearsome creatures, and through encounters with dark magic, the soldier transforms himself—literally and spiritually—in pursuit of his impossible dream.

Bancroft The first blow that day came with the ordinary violence of the barrowmaze—bloody, sudden, and oddly intimate. Bancroft planted his feet, cursing his missing shield, and brought his sword down across a shambling zombie’s shoulder. The thing snarled with a voice like dry leaves and spun, its filthy claws raking the cleric’s forearm. “By Sylvanus,” Bancroft gasped, tasting iron, but he kept his footing. Irulan stepped forward without hesitation, her blade ringing true as it bit into rotten tendon.

The morning sun cast long shadows across Helix as Bancroft made his way through the town’s winding streets, his mind turning over an intriguing conversation from the previous evening. He had encountered a small goblin wizard—scarred and bearing himself with the cold authority of one who had gazed beyond death’s veil—who spoke of an animated serpent trapped near the rats’ nest in the shadowmaze. “An animated snake, you say?” Bancroft had mused, his farmer’s practicality already working through the possibilities.

The shadowmaze beckoned once more, and Wyz—still bearing the wicked scar across his belly from his previous near-death experience—gathered his “recalcitrant minions” for another descent into darkness. The goblin wizard’s eyes held that same cold fire that had burned there since his miraculous return from the depths, and his companions could sense that something fundamental had changed in their diminutive leader. “We return to the chamber with the statues,” Wyz announced, his voice carrying an authority that brooked no argument.

The morning after their devastating encounter with the mimics found the survivors nursing both wounds and wounded pride. Druidly’s absence hung over them like a shroud, but the barrowmaze waited for no one’s grief. Bancroft had managed to recruit four new souls willing to risk their lives for treasure—though their qualifications remained questionable at best. “Right then,” Bancroft announced with his characteristic optimism, shouldering a shovel alongside his sword. “Fresh start, fresh barrow.

The morning found their company diminished but determined. Druidly, the half-orc wizard whose arcane studies had served them well, shouldered his pack with the quiet confidence of one who had mastered the mysteries of sleep and flame. “The swamp barrow,” he declared, adjusting his spell components. “Those frogs won’t catch us unprepared again.” Bancroft nodded with the simple enthusiasm that marked all his endeavors. Despite his farmer’s origins—or perhaps because of them—he approached each challenge with the same methodical care he had once given to planting seasons.

Bancroft staggered through Helix’s gates like a man touched by plague, his once-proud bearing reduced to a shambling gait. Yellow mold clung to his skin in sickly patches, and his head bore fresh dents from their harrowing escape. Most telling of all, his jeweled sword—the blade that had marked him as more than a simple farmer—was gone, lost to the maze’s hungry darkness. One by one, his companions limped back to town, each bearing their own wounds and disappointments.

The shadowmaze had claimed its victims, and now it hungered for more. After the chaos of the previous session—where skeletal warriors had burst from concealment and Wyz’s own caltrops had become a treacherous obstacle course—the survivors found themselves scattered and desperate. The cunning goblin wizard’s plan to destroy the reforming skeleton had failed spectacularly, leaving him face-to-face with his undead nemesis as torchlight flickered and died around them. Aura stumbled southward through the suffocating darkness, her torch finally surrendering to the dungeon’s malevolent atmosphere.