Rangers of Shadow Deep Campaign Continued

This is a continuation of the solo campaign I've been running using Rangers of Shadow Deep, a variation of the Frostgrave system by Joseph McCullough. 

 This was the conclusion of the adventure in which our heroes were tasking with recapturing the border tower of Tor Varden from the evil minions of the mysterious power of the Shadow Deep. At the end of my last session, the party had defeated a Gnoll outpost at a river crossing on the way to Tor Varden.  This session began as the party approached the tower itself.

As a reminder, here's the party of rangers - Sir Osmer of Esrey, a younger son serving with the Alladorian Rangers in hopes of making a name for himself. He is under the protection of three adventurers: a pair of Lygoshi barbarians, Kyra the Red and Bogdan the Black and Hanali the Wood Elf.  Sir Osmer is an NPC "companion" in game terms while the other three are stat’d as player characters.  

 This part of the adventure is divided into two scenarios.  The first covers the lower levels of the tower.  There are three large rooms in this level but what each room contains is determined randomly at the first entry of the rangers.

When the defeated the Gnolls in the last session, the heroes had obtained a map showing where all of the nearby outposts and patrols were located.  They were thus able to approach the tower without being noticed. However, they could hear screams coming from inside the tower; perhaps one of the garrison still survived.

Kyra was then able to pick the lock on the outer door, ensuring the complete surprise of the occupants within.

 This first room proved to be a store room containing four very surprised Gnoll warriors.

 The rangers were upon them before they could grab their bows.  Two gnolls went down in the first round.  The two remaing gnolls  ganged up on Bogdan.

Although lightly wounded, the barbarian held them off long enough for his friends to come to his aid.  The two gnolls were quickly put down.  In this scenario, the players have a limited number of turns to clear the room and open the door to the next room.  If they had failed, the gnolls would have been alerted and waiting in ambush. In the case of this game, the rangers held the initiative throughout and managed to clear each of the rooms in only two or three turns.

The next room proved to contain a shaman working some dark spell.

 The gnoll shaman was attempting to animate a corpse to make a flesh golem.  Unless the heroes killed the shaman quickly, they would have to face the horrific creature.

 While Bogdan, Kyra, and Osmer dispatched the gnoll guards, Hanali distracted the shaman by shooting arrows at it.  In a short time, the shaman was surrounded and struck down despite its fierce reistence.  The golem never had the chance to leave the table.

 The third room was a torture room. 

 A gnoll sergeant was working on a surviving member of the garrison while two other prisoners grimly waited their turn under the gnoll's knives.

The rangers charged the sergeant and struck him down.  This gave a chance to the other two gnoll guards to counter attack.

 After a surprising tough fight in which the rangers took some hits, the last of the gnolls was finally killed.  Leaving Helmer to get the prisoners to safety, the rest of the party took the stairs that led to the top of the tower.

 This was the next and last scenario in this adventure.  The top of the tower had been used for a signal beacon.  A rotting wooden walkway surrounded the tower.  Three gnoll archers patrolled the walkway.

The minions of Shadow Deep were using the beacon pyre for more nefarious purposes, some type of magic involving the sacrifice of one of the women of the former garrison.  It was her screams that the rangers heard when they first arrived at the tower. Preparing to sacrifice her was a Shadow Knight, one the Shadow Deep's more powerful minions, assisted by a gnoll warrior.

 At first only Bogdan, Kyra, and Hanali were able to hurl themselves through the trap door to the tower roof.

 They charged the gnoll fighter, hoping to kill it quickly and then face the counter attack by the Shadow knight.  Their plan worked.  The gnoll was killed in the first attack and then the Shadow Knight counter attacked. Bogdan was ready for him.  Using an Axe of Elemental Power he had found in the storeroom, the Crushing Blow special ability, his own Fight prowess and with the support of Kyra and Hanali (and a great deal of luck), the barbarian struck the Knight down with one mighty blow.

After freeing the prisoner, and now joined by Osmer, the party faced the problem of dispatching the gnoll archers.  They split up, Hanali began stalking one of the archers.  She noticed strange green smoke rising from the next signal tower, Tor Dargos, and the sight and smell of the foul smoke struck fear in her heart.  (The scenario rules provide that the other two towers in the chain were also part of the spell.  Every second turn, the pyre on one of these other towers was lit, causing negative effects on the heroes.  In this case, all the heroes had to role a Will check, failure of which meant being reduced to only one action per turn.  Hanali was the only one who failed her check.)  Nonetheless, she managed to have the good fortune of killing one archer with a lucky shot (She rolled a nature 20 which added to her shoot score guaranteed the gnolls immediate demise.)

 Bogdan and Osmer went after the second gnoll archers while Kyra attempted to hold the third at bay.
The party was now all armed with bows taken from fallen gnolls and could trade shots with the archers, weakening them before going out on the walkway to take them out.

After some maneuvering, the third archer was finished.  The party had retaken Tor Varden.

However, they saw that nearby, an enormous, crevice-like, poisoned tear had opened in the land, leading to the Shadow Deep itself.

After a brief rest, the rangers decided they had the duty to investigate and set off, down in the veritable bowels of hell.  To be continued...