I found the party in the middle of a forest full of trees and things that keep turning shiny and metallic. We saw a dragon flying away, and the dwarf they claim is Thwak suggested we go to the cave.  After some argument, we did. The cave is *huge* with torches on the walls, and has nooks devoted to different uses.

Thwak grabbed a some books, and a crystal cracked above our heads. The dragon came racing back in, and I dropped to the floor, casting fireproof on my hex as I went.  I watched as the dragon swooped down in front of me and picked up the books Maura had been carrying without missing a beat.  The dragon passed in front of them and spread it's wings, impressively blocking the path. 
It turned Maura and Thwak into marble statues, collected it's stuff, and went away. I used shape stone to remove the baloon, which fell apart and was apparently full of true earth. I reshaped the marble that used to be the baloon into a bucket so Gilad could carry it, and I tied a thread and cast "Move Rock" on the statues so we could walk along and take the damn heavy statues without problems. (As long as we walk slowly.)
We're walking through a strange mist, with no walls, on some weird material that seems like grey sponge, and which has a glowing, lit, square-edged path through it.
We walk along the path for a while, until we get to a tent with a moldy statue
50 ft tall, of "Gilad, the hero and conqueror" in a throne with 18inch statues along the back of the rest of the party.  There are bones here, some of namegivers, and the statue is under a tent.  Steven suggested that I remove the Maura and Thwak statues, so I did, and Donk carried them. Then we continued down the path, which went over a hill. There are the remnants of a village here, and there appears to be a fire in one building, because there is a fire going here. There are a bunch of really dead people here, propped around towards the fire, all with their heads turned towards a point just in front of the fire. The fire is burning wood, and has a bunch of wood from houses nearby.
Something wearing burlap wanders in, chattering in Tskrang, that then I recognise as K'shrik. T'zeika punched K'shrik and knocked him out. Apparently K has been here moving dead bodies and telling them stories about the party and writing on walls and things. Steven asked for rope, and suddenly there was a cadaverman. 
"What are you doing here" Gilad
"Stories. I listen to Stories" Cadaverman-that-looks-like-Steven-but-dead
"Brought back, listen to stories. Have to listen to stories"
"I can tell you a story"-Gilad"
"No, his stories"-Cadaverman
"He'll be awake in a few minutes"
"I'll get others"-Cadaverman
K'shrik wakes up, and starts telling the story of (nullspace) then skips to the part about our party. These undead seem totally intent on listening to stories
"I think we need an appropriate locale for a ghost story" K'shrik leads the nethermancers to the graveyard, which appears to contain the fallen soldiers of many nations (millions).  Right now, though, it has a lot of 6 ft deep holes, and gravemarkers that look like "King Gilad", have names like 
"Born ___ Died___ Raised for storytime ___ NOW WE HAVE A PURPOSE"
I tried to shape stone so they would say "Laid to rest (today)" but it didn't work.  
"Most of them lived boring lives until being recruited to the Glorious Armies of Gilad, raised again to fight the horrors, and raised again to be the "best audience a storyteller ever had"
Gilad suggested that we dig them a mass grave, but that will be hard. 
"But I don't need to sleep"-K'shrik
"You need to seek new stories, yes?"-Gilad
"The epic needs an end... yes"-K'shrik
Suddenly, K'shrik starts telling a really neat story about the party. We all sit and listen for an hour.  Then we start talking about going to the temple of Gilad, and why there is a temple of Gilad.
I walk out of the village towards the statue of Gilad.  I separated K'shrik's statue from the Gilad-throne, and then I tried to cast "create plant" and made some nice grass. The first time it worked, but when K'shrik asked again, it appears to have animated T'zeika's robes.
We went back down towards the graveyard, where K'shrik tried to bow out and get them to tell stories to one another, but they insisted that they were there to listen to stories. "Your purpose now is to be what you're supposed to be... at rest. Don't you want to be at rest?" "No" "What do you want?" "stories"
I suggest that we pick them up and put them into their graves, then bury them that way.  
"If I think I am a good enough storyteller to raise thousands of undead to listen to me... someone needs to burst my bubble. I'm not that good. Well, I am that good, but... Tristain? Will you tell us a story of your homeland? The storyteller needs to learn to listen." -K'shrik
Tristain told us about Clan /brighforge
Clan Brightforge is one of the oldest clans. It' sait that the mountains were put there for the namegivers... forge... trolls have always been fond of the mouhtains. some raise, some build, Taurin was one of the trolls who built. He was a smith of no small renown, in the Brightforge nnmountains before they even had such a name--he built things--eyehole bolts, ways to tie down the airships. He was an outcast among his own people--he had not taste for fighting--but he did havbe a wife and a daughter. One morning, whent he sun shone down through the cold like a diamond, a strange troll came to his home. Taurin, being a good troll, offered him hospitality. After dinner, the stranger asked to see Taurin's forge. This was strange, but Taurin showed him how he cast metal, how he shaped metal, forged from the flesh of the earth into 
Many stories of passions roaming the earth--some in the 
This stranger wass ... himself, the passion of snmithcraft, who forged the mountains when the world was young. As a boon to taurin, __ granted that all his 
in honor of her father, she was named Elougha, a smith of great renown. It was she who forged the shovel of fortification, great war machines in the caverns of Brightforge until they were needed to fight off the horrors of the scourge. She gathered together all the trollish smiths, some say in the world. Clan ?Brightforge was the first clan to be formed on the basis of skill, not of blood"
(The cadavermen are watching K'shrik raptly "the source of all stories")

"Good story. Good verewereuiu" "no, not me" "play along, right, not you"
It's unclear where the caverns that riddle the mountains came from. Some say Elougha dug them herself, some say they were a gift from her tather. Their names are trockouc and brounndf--power and craft. Power burns brightly but erratically, so it can melt the hottest ores. Skill burns steadily, to hold the malleable at the same state so you can modify them as much as necessary./
We traded with the T'skrang for elemental water. We traded with the Dwarves for air and wood. We harvested out own earth and fire. Other skills began to emerge in the clan. ()Nethermancers were the masters of life, and death--of the worlds beyond. Sometimes, when heroes died, they were not brought to the volcano. Instead they were taken to the depths of the nmountain and lied in state. Nm spells were laid opon them, for it was known that they would be needed in days to come.  When the scourge first came, Clan Brightforge was not fully prepared. We'd begun late, and as more and more powerful horrors came, we struggled to bring up the defenses that had lain buried for so long. Tristain the Strong, whom my father named me after in the hopes I'd be a warrior, 
Lockish the Tricky devised dricks and traps. When the horror they'd risen to slay was slain, they would walk to the volcano, purpose served, and give themseles up to the fires. 
It's unknown how many are down in the tombs--the libraries aew as spread out as the tunnels themselves. Clan Brightforge knows that always when we need a hero, one of our own will rise up , living or dead.
When all is over, and the story comes to an end, fires take all, and reshape the old into the new, to provide fires for the forge.
This is an old world. An old town. Many of you have served your purpose, time and again, to fight when you were needed. Then, you went to the earth, not the fire. Reason for this? Heroes go to the earth for one reason--because they will be needed in the future. And when that need is served--when the contests, the trial they are facing, the one they are serving moves on, they give themselves over to the fire. The fire has come for you.
**I created 4 hexes of fire**
There have been time when the undead have refused to rest. <blah blah blah>

T'zeika started frying undead with her two hands full of flamejets, and Gilad was having issues. 
"I think I should be doing a tribute to Death, but I'm afraid she'd notice."
"Her siblings didn't like her--she marred their creation--and they locked her underneath a river of lava"
I went over and gestured to K'shrik that we'd listen to her stories, somewhere else. In the meantime, T'zeika and Gilad killed off thousands of the cadaver-men so we could leave. Tristain continued chattering about "they've served their purpose"
I cut (with my knife) "We need you" into the ground. I follow Steven towards the village, in search of the Path. T'zeika is still flaming the undead.
"Are you going to tell me that because they are undead, they do not have a right to live? They do not have a purpose?"
Gilad said "if you can make them do something to make them leave you alone, do it" "Stay in the vilage. Do you understand?" "Yes" "What did I ask" "stay. village" "okay. will you do it?" "yes"
(I turn around and walk away) (he follows you)
Everyone walked down the road, out of sight, except K'shrik and Gilad. There is a line of fighting horrors over the hill. 
(You, come here. May I wear you? --Lauren)
Why didn't we remember the True Earth? We could have laid the cadavermen to rest... --tzeika
Gilad reminded me about the statues, so now they are following me again. We pick up T'zeika and K'shrik and head back down the path we came in on. It's not there.
We don't want to go through the line of horrors, or to the graveyard, so we walk randomly into the mist. "K'shrik, would you like to lead us boldly into the mists"-Gilad
"Sure"
We head into the mists, following K'shrik.
"Are you sure this will work, and it doesn't mean that I haven't finished something?"
"No."
"Oh"
Steven: "We found K'shrik. If K'shrik doesn't want to be found, K'shrik doesn't have to stay found."
K: "If there are still any spirits here, thank you and goodbye"
We keep walking away from the village, into the mist.  We walk and walk and walk. 
K'shrik tells us a story about a caer, and a troubador's fiancee, and the three muskateers-style rescue of the fiancee from the horrible evil albino t'skrang, only to find that she rescued herself by hitting the bad guy with a frying pan.
I pantomimed a story. We were still surrounded by mist.
Gilad decides to reassert his leadership by leading us back to the village (through the featureless mist)
We can bury them, or we can build a pyre and burn them.
We take the big statue, make it into a monument telling the story of the village, and walk into the mist.
I used clouds to disperse it, and so there was a nice open area of mist, surrounded by mist.
T'zeika went up and saw the village we left, another abandoned village, and the linear horrors.
Steven said "we could look for Sedar-Krupp, my dreams said they were connected to herrings"
We have no idea what to do... Gilad says we have to go back.
We go back, and the mist is centered on the monument now. I caused it to fall apart. I threw one piece
started to throw another, and recoiled back from it.  ((image--eternal boredom and Gilad saying "you! lead us out of here"))

(The dweller on the threshold greeted each of the people there, and mocked them)

Thwak and Maura appeared, walking in through the mist. 
"We went to sleep in the pavillion. Then we walked up to you"
Gilad started trying to explain what was going on to Maura and Thwak. "We are on a quest to find the party"
"We've gone on a series of challenges..."
<gilad clue-dumps>
*k'shrik disappeared in blue bubble
*Donk got bubble turned off
*Went to Camrish
*Went to the statue building
*Someone noticed a door--portal to elsewhere
*Mentioned to Vorn, decided to rest for the night
*thwak and maura slept in the room, morning came, t&m were not there, door had been disturbed
*Party went through the door, except me, stayed to guard the door
*They explored a bit, since there appeard to be no way back, they met a grey thing that someone thought it
might be a gollum. It identified itself as "The Dweller on the Threshold" and proceeded to say things that many of the party member felt insulting, or which were not publically known. 
*Told us this was the threshold, and we could quest for anything we wanted. We said "all we want is to find the missing people in the party" they were told that we'd be in a challenge and needed to decide what order they wanted to find people in. Steven found one, and everyone else agreed.
*He left and there was a path through the mist.
*Tzeika's story: we followed a path and found one dead t'skrang from T's caer. Then 2 by arrows, three by fire, not 4, 5 chewed up in bits+bracelet from a friend, 6 fell down in darkness and a black-robed figure ran, 7 closest friends and family dead and rose, figure ran, Gilad shot, and the figure was Tzeika. There were 2, and then there was just one in a black robe who was responsable.
*Joan's story: (joan was hesitant to leave) There was a conflict and I decided to do something and I left.
(how helpful) There was a pillar there, and ... I flew out to it and was presented with something I really never thought I'd have to do, and I made a really hard choice.  I found Orleans, and she had a family, and she... I wanted to take her with me, but I couldn't take her from her family, and I didn't want to leave my family, which is you guys, and she really wanted to settle down with her family, so I decided the best thing to do was leave.
*Then we tried to walk away from the pillar, and couldn't. Eventually, T'zeika walked on air and found a penant flag with the symbol of Gilad.  Eventually, G got to the flag, picked it up and boldly led the party out of the mists
*Gilad's story: There were soldiers carrying similar penants. The battle seemed to continue infinitely in both directions. They went over to a command tent, and a much older Gilad was commanding both armies from the tent, both armies had variations of the same flag. They spoke with Gilad the general for both sides
"They wanted to hire the best" "So did they". When asked why he wasn't fighting horrors, he said, "oh, we conquered them" Scribes were writing down what was happening in the battle. In a temple thing was a book and a big statue of Gilad. The book said things about "Gilad ordered the party to do this... and that..."
Then there was a portal and a horror coming through, so they went to try to convince Gilad-the-General to fight the horrors. He didn't care. Joan convinced Gilad not to stay and learn and so decided that the statue should be smashed. A horror was walking off with it, so the party caused it to stop and it dropped the statue on Gilad. People took orders from the statue, and then Gilad convinced the people that the horrors were in the army. The people got beaten up, but the horrors joined one army or the other, and then there was a big battle of horrors. T'zeika caused people to airwalk over the linear scourge, and once Gilad let someone else boldly lead the party to the mists. 
*Steven's Story: there was a maze, and then a library. Steven started looking around and looking at books. The library was unindexed but alphabetical, and so Steven looked up "dream, the dreamers"
You need to get people into one named party, and the people from the two ages actually meeting would be *bad* . Steven sneezed, got himself and Joan into a dream, they dreamed about elves and politics.
*Other people looked up "biography of Steven Mandrake the Wizard" got to the part about Steven reading a book and falling to the floor, went to find Steven, and walked back along the path , which turned to wood
*The ground became a wooden plank, and we were on an airship, hovering, flying, anchored near a village.
There were trolls in the ship, dropping things off the ship into the village, plundering, wounding the dwarves in the village. Donk looked around the ship, and played with a working cannon. In earshot of the trolls, maiming plundering. and then therewere voices of dwarves who claimed to be thwak and maura calling out our names. We were skeptical at first (ass you should well have been) but then we were looking for you at the time, so... (I don't know about you, but I don't think I ever was a dwarf) I do admit I was in awe, went on a hunch, and took the gliding apparatus myself and went down with the other trolls. You claimed to be from a dwarvish prison, arguing, and I had to bop you in the head with my axe and carry you. The trolls were raiding and not taking prisoners. The captain told me to hold onto a dwarves leg, and next I knew, he was in half like a wishbone. They caught me bringing the T&Mdwarves and accused me of being a deserter. I climbed up the rope with the dwarves, and I had this weird idea to hijak the ship. Unfortunately they noticed this, and they were chasing us on wings. They had a shaman, and aerial control and were bombarding us with fireballs. I tried to buy time for people to abandon the ship and lowered it so it would crash. So, me, being all high and mighty captaining a ship decided to challenge their captain. "First blood? Death?" "Unconsiousness" I said. After a while, I came up with this idea, and I rammed the captain off the ship 300 ft to the ground. He tried to fireblood himself, but I punched him first. I went out, dead, but the party gave him a last-chance salve. Either way, by a technicality I won, so they said "Either way, if you want help from the Blackhearts, let us know"
*me? We were in a forest where occasionally things turned shiny and metallic. Local wildlife were throwing themselves at the bright shineys. Thwak the dwarf was pretty insistant that we should go into the dragon cave, where there were many petrified heads of namegivers and some other things. Some of us went in, and noticed there was mist. Thwak started picking up books and said "we should take these". Some people took stuff, and a crystal cracked above our head. T'zeika, Gilad and