The party is still in the forest after interrogating and killing a giant to learn the location of the giant’s cave. They identified a few items after resting for the night, including a very flexible suit of black chain mail, which Smoth took, and aided his tumbling ability. They also identified a short bow, which seemed to contain a large amount of malice for giants, which Smoth also decided to put to use. In the morning they tracked down the cave, and waited outside for any giants to wander out.

After a few hours, a single giant came outside the cave, to obey nature’s call, and our heroes decided to pounce. Smoth snuck up behind with it with the giant-bane bow, while Fin perched in the treetops nearby as a dire eagle. They hit the unsuspecting beast with a 1-2 punch of a barbed arrow to his side, and a flamestrike. However, it was not enough to down it, and it charged, howling, after Smoth as he beat a hasty retreat. An entangling did not slow it down much, while Smoth’s further arrows failed to hit their mark. Keldon and Shun closed the distance from where they waited, but none paid much attention to the unidentified spells they heard in the distance. This was to their folly, as two more giants ran up at incredible speed, surrounding the grounded heroes. Fin tried to befuddle the giants with a cloud of fog, but was interrupted by a huge lightning bolt striking him from an invisible enemy. Smoth pulled out his smoking bottle in order to facilitate their escape, and Keldon was able to elude the deadly circle unharmed, but Smoth was not quick enough to escape. The two hastened giants surrounded him and beat him mercilessly, a blur of motion from two tree trunk sized clubs. He was only conscious for perhaps a split second before his entire ribcage was crushed, his skull battered against the ground and split open.

The melee turned into a morass of confusion as the giants ran around in the fog trying to locate their enemies, and the party tried to both elude them, eliminate the one extremely damaged original target giant, and remove Smoth’s body from the field.

Once the party returned to their base camp with the still bundled Duke, and Blaine, they set about to reincarnate Smoth. Smoth had already been reincarnated once before, and was very interested in experiencing new races. He was kind of annoyed before, however, that he was reincarnated as a human.

For this ceremony, Fin crafted a body out of the surrounding snow, and as Blaine muttered about the unholiness of reincarnations in general, Smoth’s body drifted back from the upper planes to inhabit the vessel, and it was gradually transformed into an elf.

---

Experience

Good planning for the giant ambush – Story award – 500xp each

Jordan: This is applied after your reincarnation.

After the battle with the ogres, the party decided to head towards the caves previously occupied by the ogres and currently occupied by giants. As the party traveled along the path in the forest, some of the party members heard a commotion up ahead. Being in eagle form and able to investigate without being noticed, Fin along with his eagle companion Acer took to the air to find out what was going on. They discovered a small band of goblins fighting two hill giants. The leader of the goblins rode a worg and the arrows from his bow seemed like the only weapon that was able to affect the giants. He was able to get off plenty of good shots that weakened the giants, but his luck ran out as one of the large rocks thrown by a hill giant hit him square in the chest and knocked him off his mount. It didn’t take very long before his head was smashed by one of the giants. Without their leader, the goblin band soon became a non-issue to the giants because at this time, Fin and Acer decided to attack from the air.

Their initial attack disabled one of the giants and Fin initiated a grapple to hold him while Acer handled the remaining giant. Seeing that he was outnumbered, the mobile giant turned and started to run away. As Acer pursued, the giant periodically turned and attempted an attack with his club. The first few times he missed, but on one of his turnarounds he slammed his club directly into Acer’s head, giving him critical injuries. The giant then pressed the attack by following up with another swing of his oversized club. This second hit killed Acer. Hearing Acer’s dying call, Fin released his hold on his giant to pursue the Acer’s killer. By this time, the rest of the party had arrived and subdued the giant Fin left.

Enraged, Fin flew at high speeds and soon caught up with the fleeing giant. Fin attacked the giant and killed him. Not satisfied, Fin severed the giant’s spinal cord with his beak and removed the head from the giant’s lifeless body. Fin returned to the party with Acer and began to build a funeral pyre. During the ceremony, Fin swears an oath to take revenge upon the giants in this area, declaring that Acer did not die in vain. Sunn then led Fin in a prayer to St. Cuthbert to aid him in carrying out his oath.

The first step in fulfilling Fin’s oath was to question the surviving giant about his tribe and their hideout in the cave. After a few hand gestures and incantations, Keldon laid his hand on Fin’s shoulder. The magical energy transferred to Fin gave him the power to temporarily speak and understand any language, including Giant. Fin then questioned the giant but didn’t find out much. The giant was reluctant to give out information and what he did say could not be taken as being completely true. He did go into some detail about the giants’ current feud with the local goblin tribe. Realizing that he had gotten all of the information that he could out of the giant and deciding that it wasn’t satisfactory, Fin asked Smoth if he wanted to deal the death blow with his dagger. Smoth obliged and the party then searched the dead for treasure. The goblin that was riding the worg had a very nice short bow and a black chain shirt. The bow was of great interest to the party after seeing a single goblin almost slay a giant with it. But since no one had any spells prepared to identify it, they’d have to wait until they rested. By this time it was getting close to dawn, so the party (really just Keldon and Smoth, due to lack of sustenance rings) needed to rest anyway.

---

Experience

Defeated 2 giants – CR 8

8	2400xp
9	1800xp
10	1500xp

XP / person:

8	600xp
9	450xp
10	375xp

The party members interrogate the ogre who was captured during an ambush. After tying his hands and feet, they take turns intimidating and chatting him up. Finally, he gives a little information, the name of the leader of his tribe, Yarnat. Yarnat had given instructions to ambush travelers on the roads, which they had been doing for a while. Telling more, the ogre speaks about having to leave his favorite cave after giants took it over, but he hadn’t heard anything specific about Ilkaris. When asked about what sorts of giants inhabit the mountains, he explains that the population is mostly hill giants, with scattered frost. Mustering up some bravery, he refuses to reveal any more information about Yarnat or the giants, so after repeated warnings Smoth Harkshire slits his throat, sacrificing the ogre’s life to power his magical poisonous dagger.

While conferring on what to do next, Keldon sits down and identifies some red velvet boots that had been sitting in the bag of holding for while, and Smoth carves out an ogre tooth for his collection.

After a short discussion, the party decides to go after the ogres and try to take them out, because they are still a danger to the people in the area. Fin takes to the skies in eagle form to scout around and look for ogres, finding several in a camp with some crude, poorly constructed teepees.

Having two poison charged items, his dagger and spell-storing javelin, Smoth casts invisibility on himslef and sneaks into the camp. Keldon and Fin wait anxiously, waiting for the telltale sounds of commotion before attacking.

Smoth searches around between the tents, and begins counting adversaries: six ogres in the camp, one patrolling, one asleep, and then two of them having a conference of some sort in a large tent. The two in the tent are dressed differently than the others. One wears normal ogre garb, but has a massive axe with him, while the other wears a cape, chain mail, and sits with a broad sword across its knees. Smoth tries to keep investigating tents, but the female in mail hears him, and defensively casts a sleep spell on the area where she hears the noise, but Smoth easily resists it. However, within seconds she raises the alarm, and Smoth is forced to move to the outside of the camp as ogres begin spilling out of the tents.

Smoth tried to run back to Keldon (while still invisible) to give him some warning as to the numbers they were facing. Fin meanwhile, sees the commotion from his vantage point in the sky and decides to attack. Tucking his wings and going into a steep dive, Fin drops several hundred feet in only seconds. Without giving warning, he attacks the large ogre wielding the massive axe. In short order, Fin is surrounded, but acting quickly, he retreats back into the air and drops a flame strike on several of the ogres, killing them.

Combat rages on, with javelins thrown by ogres, searing light shooting out from Keldon’s outstretched finger, and a cone of cold from the suddenly un-invisible, flying ogre mage. Smoth, still invisible, intently scans the ogre mage, finding a weak spot to attack, only to have her turn invisibile again.

Rushing into melee, Keldon and Shun find the ogres to be strong opponents. Using some nearby trees as a wall, the two fight back to back, preventing the ogres from flanking from too many directions. Still, blow after blow rains down, nearly killing both of them.

Deciding that he can no longer stay out of the fight, Smoth, still invisible, creeps up behind the axe-wielder. Appearing suddenly with electricity crackling across his outstretched fingers, Smoth delivers a shocking grasp directly to the back of the ogre’s knee in a crippling sneak attack. Staggered, the ogre stumbles around the battlefield . Any strain on his part will surely cause him to collapse, yet he knows that when the fatigue from his rage takes its toll, he will die anyway.

Fin manages to summon 2 unicorns which run in and heal Shun and Keldon enough to survive. Taking a chance, Keldon spends precious time radiating a healing aura, in which their cures are maximally effective. Seizing the moment, Fin and Shun cast maximized cure spells and heal their most grevious wounds. Realizing the fight was lost, the ogre mage flees while invisible. Finn wild shapes into a giant bat and uses his echo-location to try to locate him, but finds nothing. Strange…

After the fight, they examine the surrounding carnage and reflect on just how lucky they are to have survived. Having faced death on many occasions, and sometimes losing, they decide to be more cautious in the future.

The party continued to battle the crazed wizard. At this point in the fight, the party members were beginning to wear down. To add to this, the wizard cast Feeblemind on Keldon, making him as intelligent as a common lizard. After the wizard cast another Wall of Fire, the party decided to retreat to the room containing the dungeon exit. They split into two groups with Shun, Keldon, and Smoth going one way and Finn going the other on the walkway around the center pool. While waiting to see if the wizard would follow them, some of the party members used the paintbrush to heal wounds. Of course Shun had to use the brush on Keldon because he was too busy drooling and staring at the wall to do it himself.

After no advance from the wizard, Smoth became fed up with the situation and decided to cast Silence centered on himself and run towards the wizard. Since the wizard had no weapon and could not cast spells while in range of Smoth’s Silence spell, he ran away into one of the cells while he continued his insanely screaming and ranting. Even though the party could not understand most of what the wizard was screaming, they did make out the name “Malgoth”, the same name spelled out in blood on one of the cell walls.

With the wizard cornered and unable to cast spells, the party made easy work of him. The party suspected that he might have information about Duke Killingsworth or might even be the Duke himself, so Finn used his healing skill to keep the wizard alive.

The party then left the dungeon and headed straight to the Temple of Pelor to see Father Cathaway. The priest was not being very helpful and the party sensed that something was wrong. He did give the wizard a sedative, but was reluctant to give the party any healing assistance. This was not like Father Cathaway, who is usually very generous when good-aligned parties require assistance. Keldon seemed especially disappointed in this turn of events and showed it by drooling a little extra and moaning slightly.

The priest did offer the party food, but at this time some of the party members began noticing Father Cathaway’s automated behavior. Finn and Smoth soon realized the priest was under someone else’s control and pretended to play along. They tried to give secret hand signals and gestures to each other indicating that someone needed to go get help, but it was lost in translation. Finn took initiative and excused himself from the temple. Knowing that Captain Belaine would surely provide assistance, he ran to the main city guard station.

After Finn left, Father Cathaway went to the back to get the food he promised earlier. Smoth and Shun were a little suspicious of this “meal”, so Shun and Keldon left while Smoth decided to stay and find out some more information. As his ferret familiar Qianto made a mess in the kitchen just for good measure, Smoth stood right outside the door to a back chamber and tried to make out the conversation taking place. He heard an unfamiliar voice giving Father Cathaway orders. By the sound of the voice, the creature it belonged to was otherworldly and not very friendly. Not wanting to find out for sure, Smoth retrieved Qianto and left the temple heading straight to the guard house.

Finn easily convinced Captain Belaine to assist the party and they decided to seek refuge at the Temple of Heironeous. The temple was small, but built more like a fortress than a temple. The lone cleric there welcomed the party and even used a scroll of Heal on Keldon to remove the effects of the Feeblemind spell. Weakened by their encounters in the dungeon, the party decided to rest for the night.

---

Experience

Escaped from the dominated Father Cathaway – Story award – 300xp each

Convinced Capt. Belaine to escape w/ you and left town – story award – 300xp each

Defeated an ogre ambush on the road – CR 8

8	2400xp
9	1800xp
10	1500xp

XP / person:

8	1200xp
9	1050xp
10	975xp

REVELATION!

Fresh off their encounter with the VROCK, our team wandered the halls before Finn crawled into what appeared to be a prison cell, while Smoth and Shun waited outside. Finn saw the horrid sight of a decapitated head hanging off a metal spike on the wall and also saw a demented, deceptive looking creature in his mid-forties rocking back and forth. There was writing behind him that predominantly spelled out the word “Malgoth”.

Suddenly! Finn pounced and slashed at the creature, the being became maniacal and erratic as Shun walked into the cell, and Finn struck again with a flame strike. The flame strike and no effect on the entity, and it retaliated by summoning a fire elemental that immolated Shun and Finn, via fire wall. By this time, the creature had unleashed a wasp swarm was spreading throughout the cell and Smoth stormed in trying to attack the fire elemental with his ice knife.

Keldon, the tied up prisoner, summoned two water elementals to battle with the fire elemental, meanwhile, Smoth opened up a smoke bottle to help conceal and protect the group from the wasps and elementals. Then Finn decided to use his “rod of water” to create a “Wall of Water” that would further aid the clan in beating the wasp swarm.

As the water flooded the room, the group found themselves completely submerged and suspended in the grey pool of silence. Little beads of light ignited the water and symbolically described the “pockets of hope” that have motivated them to continue their quest. It is clear that the overwhelming chaos that surrounds them is only trumped by the pure, morally praiseworthy people they have met and become.

Finn, now in cheetah form, guides the members to safety as the “wall of water” evaporates, leaving a floor covered with dead wasps in its wake. As the atmosphere settles and composes itself, a revelation reveals itself…..

IT’S THE DUKE!!!!

He was possessed and became the wasp swarming, elemental summoning beast. He’s still in horrid condition, and the group along with Keldon, take him back to the surface.

With the capture of the sorcerer turned frog and the guards who wreaked havoc the night before, the party met up with the captain of the city guard, Captain Belaine. With the help of the captain they subdued the guards safely and restrained the sorcerer with cuffs designed to create spell failures.

The party re-entered Istivin’s dungeons, looking for the missing Duke Killingsworth. Their previous incursion had been a bit of a stalemate, as the devils they encountered could teleport at will, making it nearly impossible to ever deal the final killing blow.

Upon entering the torture chamber, they again confronted the Vrock they had fought before. Teleporting into their midst, surrounded by mirror images, he attacked Shun with a fury.

Thinking quickly, Smoth uncorked the eversmoking bottle, filling the chamber with thick obscuring smoke. Both Smoth and Shun were wearing their goggles of fireyes, so the smoke was no problem. Finn quickly cast fireyes on himself, leaving only the Vrock unable to see.

Flailing about, unable to see, the Vrock was quickly out-classed. It made one last-ditch attempt to telekinetically throw Findail into a pool of acid, but failed. Heavily wounded and lying on the ground, the Vrock made a tactical retreat and teleported deeper into the dungeon.

After healing themselves and letting the smoke dissipate, the party pushed further on, only to encounter the same Vrock, this time supported by several Babau demons. Luckily, the passageways were narrow, and by cornering the demons, the heroes were able to dispatch them back to the Abyss.

The party arrived at Istivin, and with minor incident found their way into town. They meandered around the square for a bit, noticing that there was a large brownish stain near the center of the square, which seemed to be avoided by the populace at large. Other than that, the city seemed to be a large bustling city, though teeming with guards.

While looking around, debating which shops to look at, and who to talk to to get an audience with the duke, they were interrupted by the sound of stone cracking. The base of a large statue of Pelor was breaking, and the stone piece was falling into the square, and looked like it would fall directly on a small girl. While the party was still getting their bearings, a nearby bard quickly cast some grease on the statue to try to redirect its fall, but it didn’t do much good, it still headed towards the girl. However, Shun was able to make a mad dash to the girl and shove her out of the way before the statue hit the ground.

However, as soon as the statue touched ground, it immediately seemed to change. Its eyes, which before had been just stone, now were a blue fire. It stood up of its own accord, and started laying waste to everyone around it. Shun still tried to protect the girl, turning his body into a shield around her. Blow after blow fell upon his back, as everyone else, along with the town guards, tried to find a way to stop the rampaging golem. After hitting it with an array of spells and weaponry, it collapsed into a pile of rubble, leaving behind two blue fiery gems.

After it was defeated, a priest came out of the temple, and was shocked at the state of affairs. He invited everyone inside, including the bard, whose name was Klandarian. While going inside, they noticed that the people of the town had returned to their normal business, with no real interest in the matter of the giant rampaging statue. Inside, the priest thanked them for their help in fighting the statue, and assured them that he was not the cause of it. He described to them the state of the city: Duke Killingsworth had disappeared 10-11 months ago, very shortly after he made known his intent to seek the crown. After this, his wife had taken over running the city, but strange events had started occurring since then. There were random deaths at night, along with strange creatures roaming the streets killing anyone out at night.

Smoth and Klandarian immediately took a disliking to each other, and exchanged some rude words. They left the temple in order to offer their services to the duchess. The priest offered to give them lodging in one of the nicer inns for the night. Klandarian opted to spend his time that afternoon auditioning for various taverns, and trying to make money performing. Eventually, they all stayed that night in the swank hotel.

That night, while sleeping, a loud boom was heard. Another building down the street from the hotel had caught fire. As the group piled out of their hotel room, they saw guards standing dazed in the street, while some figure flew around up above, cackling. Findail created a huge updraft, which put out the fire and blew back the flying figure. The figure ordered the guards to attack, and most of the party then spent their time trying to placate the suddenly vicious guards. Fin managed to polymorph the villain into a frog, which then tried to run (it still being able to fly, and now blinking thanks to a previous spell). However, Fin and Smoth were able to combine to track it down, using Fin’s flight and eyes in eagle form, along with both of them detecting magic to sense it.

We last left our heros having recovered Ashaurok’s spare spellbook. With her backup book returned to her Ashaurok was able to teleport the entire party to her tower to attempt to recover her main spellbook. Of course her tower was watched and the fearless heros had to protect her as she attempted to solve the puzzle that guarded her spellbook. It was an ingenious device made out to look like artwork of some ships on the wall, but the ships had to be arranged in a specific order to unlock. To make this even tougher the puzzle changed itself every time, so Ashaurok always has to solve it again. While she is solving the puzzle the battle rages on, a tough fight in which Ashaurok and Solist almost die. Barely surviving the encounter, the party teleports out, returning to Ashaurok’s safehouse, in a small village a couple days journey away.

Once again safe the party decides to help clean out the cave in which Ashaurok had hidden her backup spellbook. It took a few days, and on the final day of cleaning and repairing the cave to be a place for the townsfolk to retreat to if they are in trouble, devils teleport in seemingly without warning, although Solist had gotten a strong sense of danger from his magic amulet just moments before. In a brutal fight the party is victorious, only barely avoiding having townsfolk killed in the fight. The next night Solist wakes in the middle of the night, shouts for the party to get ready, and casts a protective spell right before the wall of the inn is blown off. Once more devils have come for the heros, and again they have caught them almost totally unaware. The leader of the devils casts a magic rope at Solist, which entangles him grappling him and dragging him to her. There she removes Solist’s magic amulet before vanishing while the other devils kept Findail, Shun, and Smoth busy fighting for their lives.

His amulet gone, Solist is a broken man. He rarely talks and is constantly staring at the ground in a distracted silence, a glazed look covering his unfocused eyes. Only when repeatedly and rigorously addressed does he return to the active world for brief moments before once again staring at the ground. Sadly he is no longer in a condition to adventure. The party has no choice but to leave him with Ashaurok under her care. With Solist safe, the party decides to head north to discover what Killingsworth is like,the only contender for the throne that the party has no idea about. While traveling there the group notices a ravaged countryside. Stopping in one of the villages our heros find out giants from the east have been terrorizing the populace because Killingsworth recalled all his troops at the request of his wife. With this troubling news the party heads to Istivin to speak with Killingsworth and offer their services to stop the giants.

Our heroes were in a long tunnel type area that extended to a door. They had were tired of the acid traps and were ready to put this to an end. Solist shot a fireball precisely into the door slot and the screams were silent within due time.

The warriors went deeper into the dungeon and into a room with Smoth leading the way. As Smoth marched into the room, a portcullis swiftly came down behind him. While Smoth was calculating what had just happened two digesters revealed themselves and moved in Smoth’s direction. One digester spat acid at Smoth while the other moved into a position to flank him. Smoth tumbled away and tossed off an Ice knife, slowing down one of the monsters. With remarkable ease, Smoth was able to completely evade blast after blast of deadly acid.

While Smoth dealt with the digesters, Fin summoned a Dire Wolf into the room and had the wolf trip the other un-slowed digester. The digester swiftly got up and attacked Smoth with his burning acid. His luck finally expended, Smoth went down as the acid burned threw his skin, nearly killing him in a single blow.

Meanwhile, Solist and Shun attacked from outside the portcullis. Solist casted a fireball, while Shun fired an arow. Following the outside assualt, Solist cast levitate on the portcullis in order to gain entry to the room for the rest of the party.

As the portcullis moved up, Shun charged in and slashed his halberd at a digester. Following Shun’s attack, Fin summoned a unicorn to heal Smoth. While taking another attack Shun is also spat at by a digester.

Smoth slowly got up after being healed. Regaining his composure, he firee a magic missile which brought down one of the beasts. While Smoth basked in the glory of killing a digester, Finn healed Shun who was badly burned by acid.

Shun, now fully healed, attacked the remaining digester with his halberd, while Smoth flanked the beast with a Shocking Grasp. Managing to execute a sneak attack, Smoth discharged a burst of electricity directly into the digester’s hip joint, causing the monster excrutiating pain. Shun finally silenced the digester for good with a strong swipe to the Digester’s forehead with his halberd.

Surrounded by carnage and the stench of digested flesh, the party rested for a moment and tried to decide what to do next.

Ok, here we go. If anybody has changes, remembers things differently, just make comments and whatnot.

When last we saw our heroes, they had descended the giant staircase down underground near Vassar, in pursuit of the desecrorb. They had fought the contingent of drow at the bottom of the stair, and beaten them, along with a dragon (color?).

When they finished fighting, they scouted around the town, which was made entirely of stone. They found a house converted into a stable for the giant bats which the drow rode, which also held a small halfling-like creature, which was in a prostrate position, and did not move, even when called to. Smoth did not trust this small, silent creature, and so snuck up and sapped it into insensibility. When they examined him, they found that he carried no weapons, and also had his tongue cut out. They decided to leave him there. In another large house, they found two more halflingish servants, in the same positions. Solist tried communicating with them in undercommon, and managed to convince one to write down some answers to his questions on a piece of parchment. They were able to find that the desecrorb had left town with the ‘mistress’. Solist tried to convince them that the drow were gone, and that the servants were free, and after some coaxing, they seemed to believe him.

While searching for an out of the way place to rest, the group discovered a barn full of crates, which seemed to be the spoils of the drow raiding parties. Smoth was never one to pass up an opportunity, and so confiscated a bolt of green silk from an open crate.

The party rested the night and then set out along the path sent on by their servant informant. It was 8 hours of drudgery and mind numbing boredom from the landscape, along with the maddening silence which accompanies underground travel. While they slept, Smoth had more dreams, in which his mentor Ashaurak seemed to be calling out to him. They set out the next day using magical horses summoned by Solist, and eventually came across a lake, with a pair of docks stretching out from the path. There was a boat sitting by one of the docks, which had no sail, mast, or oars. They were hesitant to just jump in, so Smoth went ahead and searched the area. He found nothing worrisome, except for the lone contents of the boat, a smallish chest. He thought it was trap free, but was proven wrong as a small dart shot out and pierced his skull between the eyes. However, he was easily healed of this wound, and the chest was opened to reveal what looked like sea charts – however, they were written in undercommon, and even Solist could not make head or tail of the writings.

They waited to decide what to do, without knowing the layout of the lake, it would be foolhardy to set off into this giant unknown, but they did not want to turn back after coming this far. Shun fired off lighted arrows to try to gauge the size of the lake, but it revealed nothing – it stretched out far beyond what they could discern. However, after several hours, Solist was able to discern the charts, and figure out where they were. It turned out that the lake was massive, extending under large portions of the island. He was even able to figure out the location of another staircase labeled ‘Mensington’, which was surely the orb’s destination. The party decided to set off in this direction. The magical till and rudder of the boat enabled it to travel, and they were on their way. After 2 days of travel, Fin heard voices while flying above the boat. He scouted ahead and found a group of drow fixing their boat on a small island. The group figured that this probably was the ‘mistress’ with the orb, and so devised a plan of attack. Smoth would swim forward in one direction with the smoking bottle, a stone of daylight, and the newly acquired goggles to see through the fog, Fin would fly in from another angle to fire off spells from afar, and on the side would come Solist and Shun in the boat. Their plan worked up until the point where the drow Mistress cast a spell to allow her to walk on water, and then raced up to the boat, where she cast Slay Living on Solist, who was unable to resist the powerful magic. Eventually they overcame her, but were left with the body of their dead comrade.