The return to Corinth brought bad news to the heroes. The war with Sparta had gone poorly. The League had officially backed down after heavy losses and Sparta remained independent. As a result, the general Damocritus has been expelled from the League, leaving Critolaus in charge of assigning the adventurers to their various adventures.

    Polybius's analysis of Homer's "The King" has yielded many good leads, which many parties have already been sent out to investigate. One particular lead though looked extremely promising, especially for the talented and experienced group that sent out from Corinth.

    When Jason recovered the Golden Fleece, the Argonauts sailed north towards Thessaly. As they approached the island of Crete, a colossus formed entirely from brass began lobbing boulders at the Argo. The creature was only stopped when the witch Medea mesmerized it long enough for Jason to remove a long nail from the back of the creature's heel. Without the nail in place, the colossus's lifeblood flowed out of its body and it became inert.

    Realizing the potential of a creature like that, Critolaus requested the heroes sail once again to Crete and search the island for the body, lifeblood and nail of the bronze colossus.

    Other than a small clutch of harpies, the heroes had smooth sailing to the city of Malia, capital of Crete. The city itself though, was a frantic cauldron of activity. Many rumors abound in the area, the first of which was followed up was of a rich, foreign merchant who had begun buying up local artifacts.

    After an ultimately unsatisfying meeting with the merchant and his manservant, the heroes left to return back to their inn, but were ambushed on the street by a variety of strange creatures of flame and heat who shouted "Death in Proscutas' name!"

    Soundly defeating the creatures, the heroes turned back to the merchant's home, and fought more creatures of smoke and flame to gain entry into the manor. The manservant quickly spirited his master, who turned out to be the Roman merchant Finellas Proscutas out for revenge, away with magic, he revealed himself to be an efreeti.

    The efreeti, Calish, battled the heroes in the burning manor, until he too was forced to teleport away. After a quick escape, the heroes found themselves safe on the streets of Malia. After assisting with the fire fighting efforts, the heroes were given leave to sift through the ashes and to their surprise, recovered a long brass nail.

    The second rumor of Malia related to a mad alchemist who had discovered a secret for bringing constructs to life. He had apparently locked himself away in his laboratory in a largely poor and abandoned neighborhood on the outskirts of the city.

    Breaking into the alchemist's lab was easy enough, but once inside, the heroes had to fight off his insane homunculi and golems. Finally, after defending from a sneak attack the alchemist had planned in order to get more 'parts' for his inventions, they killed him and managed to locate a vial and recipe for lifeblood, which looked old enough to have come from the brass colossus.

    The final rumor related to a group of mercenaries who had been buying up quite a lot of supplies, including picks and shovels from Malia and then travelling to an undisclosed location on the island for an unknown purpose.

    The heroes managed to stake out several locations and find out where the mercenaries were shopping and Rogerious went so far as to secret one of his knives in their cart. Eonus was able to cast location spells granted by Apollo on the knife so the heroes could track the cart back to the mercenary camp site.

    The mercenaries were not happy to see anybody near their treasure and attacked the heroes. The heroes were able to thrash through their opposition. Following the paths through the wilderness they found the dig site itself, where they fought off the mercenary captain and a tamed elephant they had neglected to calm down while at the camp site.

    The mercenary treasure lay in a small hole, the body of the bronze colossus himself. Loading the body in a cart, the heroes worked on securing a ship back to Corinth.