# AERUNEDAR [the Definitive thread]



## Tom Cashel (Jul 5, 2002)

_Prologue_
*The Story of Temuel Khiv*

I have hunted the necromancer Ruathgrym for two long years...

From the Dales in the east I followed his trail, seeking him all through the Year of the Agate Hammer and the Year of the Storm Skeleton, and almost caught him once while crossing the Thunder Peaks. The Necromancer’s Art brought the walls of the canyon in upon my companions of the Ironbell Fellowship—delaying me long enough for the “Corpsecoil” to slip away, but killing the rest. Now I have finally trailed him into the realm of Esparin. He cannot go far in the deep of winter, and I sense that the Necromancer is close...I am a Holy Blade of Tempus. I can never cease my search, until it be done.

1176 DR, _Year of the Prowling Naga_, 14 Hammer

On the 14th of Hammer I reach Eveningstar, a tiny hamlet swamped by drifts of snow at the stout Starwater Bridge, in the Northern Marches of Esparin.

It is composed of Tower Redhand, the Jagged Jaws Inn, and Tethyr’s Hardware and Sundries. There are a total of three residences as well, but these are outlying farms to the west. 
The “Warrior Queen” Enchara is known to be prowling the region with a large detachment of soldiers. The winter has been harsh indeed, and it is said that Enchara’s forces are here to protect a large caravan of food and supplies headed east to the Dales.

I join my old friend Redhand of Clan Darkfell at his tower this night. The wind howls through the tower battlements and flickers the flames in the hearth where I warm my frozen toes. He built this tower with his stubby, callused hands, Redhand did, just as he built the Starwater Bridge. I drink ale with the dwarf. 

“Many troubles that have come knocking with hammers upon my Clan's doors,” he groans.

King Under the Gorge Cindarm is still fighting the Splintered Shin, a vile and cruel tribe of goblins (and deep worgs) that have been assailing Aerunedar for over a year. There seems to be no end to the foul goblins, while the dwarves cannot replenish their armies fast enough to replace the fallen. 
“ ‘Tis thought some other Power holds the leash of the Splintered Shin—their strategies are too cunning,” says Redhand, “but neither Cindarm nor his bard Hathos have been able to identify the wurgym bastards. Not yet.”

Then there is the “Bandit King” Rivior, who is planning more raids than he should, in Redhand’s opinion—but how can Rivior refuse the hunger of his men? “We dwarves of Clan Darkfell built for Rivior a fine secret Hall—a back-up for his Keep in Starwater Gorge—but what good if its limestone corridors serve merely as a place for Rivior’s men to starve?” 

Redhand claims to know for certain that Rivior is planning to ambush the food caravan despite the presence of the “Warrior Queen” in the region.

Abruptly comes a muffled knock upon the tower’s oaken portal…it is Rivior himself, with his men, on his way to a rendezvous with Myrkul, Lord of Bones. He tells Redhand of his plans, and asks that the dwarf watch over a young boy, no more than eleven, named Ummatin Tencloak.

“Rivior, I do not think this raid is a good idea.” My words are firm.

“My dear Temuel,” says the bandit King with a droll curl of his lip, “I’m touched at your concern. You do not need to worry about me; I and my men will be fine.”

He cannot be dissuaded. They depart into the storm.

With the boy settled, I finally get to the point of my visit: my hunt for Ruathgrym, the Corpsecoil.

“Ruathgrym?” cries Redhand in alarm. “A necromancer? He became Rivior’s pet mage only a month ago.”

“I assure you he is no ‘pet.’ He raised an army of vile undead against the Dales not two years ago, and slew my companions at Thunder Gap.”

“Then we must warn Rivior,” Redhand says simply. He pulls a glassy egg-shaped item from the mantle. “Take this, old friend. Break it at the feet of the necromancer, and no matter how mighty he be, the magics will be wiped from his mind in one stroke.”

Hastily grabbing weapons and furred cloaks, we depart into the frigid howling storm.

A streak of light from the haze of snow.

Redhand’s stone Tower vaporizes into a blossom of bright orange flame. Smoking fragments rain all around us, and the ground trembles as the structure folds upon itself.

It is the Corpsecoil, a tattered black apparition drifting a league off the ground. His pale jade eyes glower down upon us. “Temuel,” he hisses. “You should not have come.”

“Ruathgrym,” I say, reaching for the pommel of the Blood Point, “your time is ended.”

Ruathgrym’s answer is a single word that smashes into my brain. My eyes pound with agony. The snow rushes up to meet me with a chill palm.

As Redhand shouts a hoarse battle cry and brings back his axe to throw, the Corpsecoil pulls a leather glove over one pale hand. A great translucent fist appears beside him. Redhand is scooped from the ground and lifted out over the pond. I reel in despair. I can do nothing.

Redhand is dropped a hundred feet onto the frozen pond, with a great clamor of armor, and there is the high glassy squeal of great panes of ice fracturing. But Redhand stands, defiant, and takes a single step…

…and plunges through the ice.

“Give up, Sir Temuel,” breathes the Corpsecoil. “I am not the only one of my Order who has come to Starwater Gorge. Leave this place before you tempt their wrath as well as mine.”

And abruptly, he is gone.

The following hours are a cloudy mess of panic, rousing whatever townsfolk can be found to save Redhand from drowning. But I cannot wait to see the result. I assure that young Ummatin is safe with them, and I set off for the Stronghold of Rivior.

The path rises into the snowy gorge. I trudge for hours, until my leggings are stiff with ice and my legs numb, to find skeletons awaiting me. Awaiting the will of Tempus that turns them back in craven supplication.

The hold is well-decorated with tapestries, warmly lit with torches and braziers. But silent. The stone muffles every sound.

Past the first chamber, a steel portcullis falls behind me with a clang.

Trapped.

In the next room, a pair of great bronze statues greets me, each of them with one arm outstretched to a vault of bronze doors. I open them, releasing the burning lightning of the statues’ hands. It does not stop me.

Nothing will. Not now.

I find him beyond, in the throne room. His pale jade eyes are pitying. “Poor Temuel,” he says. “You should have given up. Your sad devotion to Tempus has cost you your very life.”

I raise the Blood Point. “It is His to do with as he pleases.” In my other hand, I hold the egg…and I hurl it at the Corpsecoil’s feet.

Nothing apparent occurs, but Ruathgrym collapses as though stricken. He holds his head with both hands and screams.

I stride toward him, readying myself to dispense justice.

“Please, Temuel, no! Do not kill me!”

I raise the blade above my shoulder.

“Please! Take the source of my power instead! The thing that allowed me to raise an army of the Risen…” He holds out a yellowish gemstone to me; it is marked with a single rune.

“I will destroy it,” I say, and then you. But as I grasp the stone there is a brilliant flash of light. I am standing within yellow gem walls, close on all sides.

“What is this?” I think. Suddenly the huge and distorted face of Ruathgrym appears upon the gem wall. I hear his muffled voice from the other side.

“You are mine, Sir Temuel of Tempus. I will keep you safe.”

Soon the gem walls go dark. The hours pass. Sometimes I sleep. Or pray.

But I am not hungry, or thirsty. I do not feel my beard growing. Sometimes I am not sure how long I have been daydreaming, or praying, or sleeping. It does not occur to me, for some reason, to mark time. There is no time. Just the darkness.

How long have I been here? I remember who I am. I remember who put me here. I am Temuel Khiv.

Then…light. A face appears upon the walls of the gem, and certainly not Ruathgrym’s. My heart beats eagerly.

Let me free, you fools.

I am Temuel Khiv, and I seek the Corpsecoil.


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## Tom Cashel (Jul 5, 2002)

*Cast of Characters*

The *Company of the Wolf* met amongst the revelries and gambols of the Eveningstar Shieldmeet Festival, 1372 DR. Chartered at Eveningstar Hall three days later, they named themselves for Oginali, the moon elf druid’s companion, although the townsfolk had dubbed them the “Company of the Coin,” (for returning an abducted child to his mother and giving her a pouch of gold as well) and still refer to them by this name—much to their chagrin.

Bronn “Spellforger.” _He disobeyed his father at Thunderstone to study the Art with the War Wizards of Cormyr, and turned away from Moradin to worship Mystra, and his Clan has not forgiven him. For continuing to use the name that was stripped from him, he has been declared exile and criminal, and when he returns home will face the justice of Clan Trueforger. A joker and a braggart, Bronn is an Invoker with a mission: destroy the enemy with as many explosions as possible. Oh, and insult his cousin Velm every chance he gets. With the discovery of a map that may lead to a lost city of Clan Darkfell, Bronn finds that within his wizard’s breast beats the heart of a true dwarf._

Saeita Neví. _Born in Cormanthor, she still remembers the night her tree-village burned and she was spirited away to Shadowtop Monastery (where monks of the Old Order dwell), to begin the training that would last a hundred years. Traveling west to find answers, she was watching from a nearby ridge when Tilverton was eclipsed by shadowy clouds—and looked upon the Black Crater that remained when the sun rose again. Traveling again, she found herself in Eveningstar, and befriended the druid Enina Meliamne just days before Shieldmeet. Silent and enigmatic, Saeita seems to be channeling anger and frustration into her fists and feet._

Enina Meliamne. _Born and raised in the King’s Forest, the past of the druid is shrouded in mystery. She is serious in her role as protector, but musical laughter from her mouth is not unknown. It is thought that she trained with the druids of the Knightswood Nine, venerates Rillifane Rallathil, and has adopted Eveningstar as her territory...but why did she vanish into the forests without a trace after a single expedition with the Company of the Wolf?_

Van Dyksun. _Born and raised in Waymoot, and a devout follower of Selûne, Van Dyksun is a 17-year old among elder dwarves and elves, and he acts like it. White-haired and precocious, he ranged the King’s Forest surrounding Waymoot in his younger days, and learned to hunt orcs during the Ghazneth War. His art became the longbow. But Waymoot proved too small for Van; filled with wanderlust, he set out to the north as a caravan guard. On the way to Eveningstar, he made the acquaintance of a serious and tight-lipped dwarf named Velm._

Velm of Clan Trueforger, Blood of Nor. _Blond-haired Velm is descended from great warriors, and he takes the responsibility seriously, worshiping Clangeddin with a dwarven war axe. When the Clanmaster at Thunderstone sent him to hunt down a traitor and criminal at large in Cormyr, he accepted readily, even though the criminal was none other than the bookish cousin he once bullied, young Bronn the “spellforger.” Sure enough, Velm caught up with Bronn at the Shieldmeet Festival—what he didn’t count on was a newfound respect for the dwarven Invoker. Behind the steady stream of insults and jibes they toss at each other, a grudging respect is growing. Will Velm be able to arrest his cousin and return him to Thunderstone?_

Daziel. _Born in Immersea, Daziel spent her younger days in the study of Selûne’s teachings. With the coming of the Ghazneth War, she turned to books of tactics and strategy, determined to play a part in the protection of her church and of Cormyr. Once she took the silver cloth and joined the clergy, the dreams of the High Moonmistress at Immersea set her a path. The Banites are at work in the north of Cormyr, and Daziel must root out their dark designs and shine the pure pale light of the Moonmaiden upon them. But even more stunning: it is thought that one of the rings of the Moonweb may soon surface again, and the dreams of the High Mistress indicate that Daziel will be the one to find it..._

Corwyn Black. _Corwyn was born to be a blacksmith. He was raised to be a blacksmith. One problem: he didn’t have any intention of being a blacksmith. He craved adventure, and he craved gold. Period. Greed, more than anything else, motivates this young warrior. He turned down a tour of duty with Cormyr’s army during the Ghazneth War because the pay wasn’t good enough. Instead, he set off toward that famous crypt of hidden riches and magic, the Haunted Halls of Eveningstar. Long on strength but short on common sense, Corwyn puts his hammer to a slightly different use now: the smashing of foes. Or as he puts it,_ “Bonk-bonk on the head, then take the coins.”


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## Tom Cashel (Jul 5, 2002)

*AERUNEDAR
The Curse of Hathos*

*Table of Contents*

i.              _Prologue_
ii.             _Cast of Characters_

I.	The Southeast Gatehouse 
II.	The Haunted Halls
III.	The Corpsecoil
IV.	Tummarlin’s Wake
V.	Into the Lost City
VI.	To Face the Scarlet Flame
VII.	Serpents in Dark Water
VIII.	The Trials of Enthandas
IX.	Crown of Fire
X.	Ooltugula’s Portal


Episode I: *The Southeast Gatehouse*

Characters: Bronn “Spellforger” (shield dwarf Wizard), Enina Meliamne (moon elf Druid), Saeita Neví (wild elf Monk), Van Dyksun (human Ranger), Velm Trueforger (shield dwarf Fighter).

The Year of Wild Magic (1372 DR), Eleasias, The northlands of Cormyr

Shieldmeet—The Shieldmeet festival is less mirthful this year than four winters ago, bearing as it does the taint of recent history. In the crowded market square of the forest village of Eveningstar, four travelers meet a wizard and join him for lunch at the Lonesome Tankard. One of the travelers is the wizard’s cousin, intent on returning him to their home so he can face “justice” for his “crimes.” (i.e. continuing to use the Clan name though he was exiled for studying Wizardry). 

Despite this fact, the festivities are enjoyed until late in the evening—long after Lady Tessaril Winter and the village folk have renewed their promises of fealty to one another, long after the dancing and music have ceased, long after farmers’ lamps have been dimmed and the tressym have come out to soar amongst the shadowed branches of trees in moonlight.

Eleasias 1—Before any extradition can occur the next morning, word spreads that a local boy and his friend—Elonn and Talf—vanished the night before, in the company of a tall and dark-haired woman. The five agree to put aside their differences (for the moment), and seek out the missing boys.

On the High Road east of Eveningstar, they come upon a wagon with a broken wheel. Enina calls upon the forest trees to enwrap the merchant and his men-at-arms, while Bronn demonstrates his skill with the crossbow. Soon the merchant—in reality a Thayan slaver—is in custody, and Elonn and Talf are found drugged beneath the wagon’s oilcloth tarp. Upon Elonn’s return to his grateful and weeping mother, the woman dubs these new companions, “The Company of the Coin.”

The admissions of the Thayan slaver lead the Company to a Thayan Enclave west of Eveningstar. They speak with the haughty and imperious Fezarch Hinnar about one of the Red Wizards under her command—the diviner Kizzaf. Hinnar agrees to look into this matter; she will not tolerate actions that threaten the “good standing of this Enclave in the community of Eveningstar.”

But that night the evening victuals of the Company are interrupted by the arrival of Fezarch Hinnar herself at the Lonesome Tankard. Kizzaf has vanished from the Enclave without answering any questions, and the Fezarch wants her back in custody. She offers a reward of magic draughts, as well as a cryptic clue: “Doom of Redhand...1500 paces east...the Southeast Gatehouse.”

Eleasias 2—This morn finds the village of Eveningstar cloaked in cold thick fog. The Company sets out early, crossing the River Starwater and following a path toward the Gorge. At the old Thaddath Farm, there is evidence that someone (or something...) has been picking through the rubbish and filth.

Soon the Company spies a recently-exposed and excavated cave in the Stonecliff. Within they discover a pair of sentinels—tusked mouths, feral ears and matted black hair—orcs! A ferocious and bloody battle ensues, with the Company only barely victorious. At Velm’s suggestion, Bronn sneaks further into the cave (which is marked with the Rune of Clan Darkfell) and fells a sorceror with a single bolt. The spellcaster wears an ominous insignia upon his black tunic: a clawed hand, from which greenish beams emanate, on a fiery orange background. 

Using ambush tactics, the Company moves swiftly through the dwarven halls of ancient construction, slaying all the orcs they find (yet passing up a few unsavory portals and corridors...). Van displays his deadly accuracy with the bow, while Saeita fells opponents with a single strike of hand or foot. Many of the old halls have collapsed, but a path leads deeper into the ruin. 

Below, the Company discovers their quarry—Kizzaf and a malevolent cleric searching a pillared hall. The battle is long and fierce—the priest swinging a vicious mace and Kizzaf levitating above the fray and throwing down fire and frost—but finally the cleric is killed and Kizzaf beaten unconscious and captured.

As the members of the Company thank the Gods for their victory, the Darkfell Rune in the center of the floor fills with the priest’s blood. As the dark fluid flows down each of the eight radiating grooves and under the walls, there is an audible and curious click in the chamber...


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## Tom Cashel (Jul 5, 2002)

episode II: *The Haunted Halls*

Characters: Bronn Spellforger (shield dwarf Wizard, lvl 2), Corwyn Black (human Fighter, lvl 1), Daziel (human Cleric, Selûne, lvl 1), Saeita Neví (wild elf Monk, lvl 2), Van Dyksun (human Ranger, lvl 2), Velm Trueforger (shield dwarf Fighter--NPC, lvl 2)

Eleasias 2—In the halls of the southeast gatehouse, the members of the Company of the Wolf ready themselves as a secret door slides open...and a dessicated dwarf corpse slides to the floor in a puff of dust, trailing cobwebs. It wears the Star of Darkfell--one of Clan Darkfell’s warriors, or perhaps a leader. The druid Enina Meliamne and her wolf Oginali, disturbed by the stone walls and stench of death, depart immediately for wooded lands and open sky.

In the dust-choked passage beyond the secret door, the Company spies a flickering white glow, and rounding a corner they view its source: the luminous specter of a dwarven warrior, standing before a great fall of rock, an enormous spill of braided beard from beneath his helm. “The city is under siege,” he whispers, “goblins have sundered the gates...the King is in peril...aid us, dwarves,” and turning, vanishes through the rocks. The passage goes dark. 

Bronn and Velm realize that the cave-in will take many workers and months to clear. Perhaps the cryptic map labeled with Dethek runes showing a place called "Aerunedar," found tucked into the Red Wizard's arcanabula, bears some relation? 

Dragging their prisoner, the Company ascends to the second level.

There they find slain orcs and a locked room, and a hideous tentacled creature (a choker) that nearly gets the best of Saeita Neví before it is perforated by bolts and blades. In the room the company discovers prisoners of the tuskers--a militant priestess of Selûne, Daziel, and a former blacksmith, Corwyn Black--both of whom agree to join the Company of the Wolf.

At Starwater Bridge, the Company confronts a wall of horses and breastplates bearing Purple Dragon: soldiers of the Crown—Purple Dragons under the command of the sneering Hurvald of Espar. It seems the companions have broken a few of Cormyr’s laws, and although their deeds seem noble, they will have to come along for the time being. 

They are taken to Eveningstar Hall under guard, and placed in a “waiting room” until Lady Tessaril Winter will see them. Eventually, they are granted audience with the Lady, who explains the position of the Crown and offers a deal: a Charter and all charges dropped, if the Company will put an end to the poaching of sharrada from the High Pasture by “demon imps.” 

It is agreed, a certain Thayan arcanabula is returned to the Fezarch Hinnar, the Red Wizard in turn makes good on her payment of potions, and the diviner Kizzaf--now pariah--is returned to the Thayan Enclave in chains.

Eleasias 3, 4, 5—The Company recovers their health and trains in their newfound skills, as Bronn divines the functions of dweomered treasures. A visit is made to Myrkyr at the House of Morning. A runestone letter is sent to Thunderstone, and the members of the Company ready themselves to foray into the Haunted Halls. 

Eleasias 6—A sunny morning finds the Company of the Wolf setting off to the north, into Starwater Gorge. The path rises gradually from the trees into the rocky, scorpion-infested gorge, and soon the companions come upon a ruined, double-walled keep—the former fortress of the Bandit King Rivior, now known simply as the “Killing Keep.” A cursory survey turns up nothing but dust, rubble and a murder of startled crows. But Corwyn Black could have told them that...

Further up the gorge (approximately eight miles from Eveningstar), the Company discovers a pair of cracks in the rockface. And high above, Corwyn spies a barrel perched upon a cliff. A perilous climb discovers a rainbarrel and a small cave, and a terrifying fall elicits Bronn Spellforger’s wizardly acumen. Luckily, Corwyn’s death is averted as he settles gently to earth.

After plumbing the depths of an owlbear’s lair, and slaying the furious inhabitant, the Company enters the lightless and bleak Haunted Halls. An exploration of the lichen-encrusted entry halls discovers vermin and filth (monstrous spiders, scorpions and a nasty infestation of green slime) and several trinkets, but none of the malevolent ghosts that give the Halls their name. The Company returns to the owlbear cave for the night to regain their strength.

Eleasias 7—Back in the Halls, the Company adavnces quickly, setting off a triple crossbow trap. A faint gong is heard somewhere ahead. Finally the Company stumbles upon their quarry—a guardroom full of “demon imps”: yapping, chattering kobolds! 

A deadly melee leaves the diminutive red dogs hacked to pieces, and the Company intact. Beyond a secret portal, the Company finds a shaft stretching upward into darkness, rusting grabirons affixed to one side. Although Corwyn is eager to scale it, the Company decides to turn back and replenish their strength.

That night they again make camp in the owlbear’s cave, the silent and enigmatic wild elf guarding them in her meditative state. 

Eleasias 8—In the wee hours of the morning, Saeita alerts her friends to danger: a war-party of kobolds trekking past the cave mouth. Luckily, they are not discovered, but Daziel has an idea: remain awake until the kobolds return, hidden behind that rusted portcullis just within the Halls...

Once the Selûnite has prayed for the Power, and Bronn has studied his Art, the Company of the Wolf sets their trap in the entry chamber of the Halls. A far-off tapping of stone on stone catches the priest’s ear, but remains a mystery. 

Sure enough, half of the kobolds return before dawn, and they are peppered with bolts from Daziel’s crossbows and arrows hurtling from Van's bow, blasted and frozen by Bronn’s icy daggers, crushed by Corwyn’s hammer and Saeita’s fists, and split from nave to chops by the keen axe of Velm. In but a few moments the kobolds are sprawled all about, bleeding.

The discovery of another secret portal leads the Company to a dusty, long-unused hall. They spend a good deal of time breaking through a stubborn, locked panel, to find a black bear rearing up on its hind legs! 

Luckily, the bear is stuffed and on a wooden pedestal—but the companions’ luck does not stop there. They discover chests of gold coin, tapestries woven with precious metals, and a steel coffer holding gems. The only question is how they will carry their treasures to the sunlight...


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## Tom Cashel (Jul 5, 2002)

Episode III: *The Corpsecoil*

Characters: Bronn Spellforger (shield dwarf Wizard, lvl 3), Corwyn Black (human Fighter, lvl 2), Daziel (human Cleric, Selûne, lvl 2), Saeita Neví (wild elf Monk, lvl 3), Van Dyksun (human Ranger, lvl 3), Velm Trueforger (shield dwarf Fighter, lvl 2).

8 Eleasias—Deep within the Haunted Halls, Corwyn Black is breaking open a steel coffer, while the Company of the Wolf distributes small chests of gold coin among the strong arms gathered in the dusty vault.

_Spangg!_

The coffer bursts open, spilling smoky crystal lenses and a pair of golden yellow gemstones. As Bronn is appraising their worth, he catches sight of something inside one of them: a man dressed in archaic fluted half-plate, with a shield and a longsword. He shows the rest of the Company his find.

“I’m going to let him out,” says Bronn. But he is talked out of it by the others. None of them have any way of knowing why the tiny man is trapped inside the gem; Bronn Spellforger has never heard of such a spell. Booty in hand, they make ready to depart.

Listening at the door, Saeita Neví hears a dragging footstep just beyond the portal, followed by a dry human chuckle. “They’re right outside the door,” she whispers.

Corwyn wrenches open the door and chases the fleeting shadows. No one is there.

But moments later, a hail of bolts pelts them in the adjoining hall. Yapping kobolds flee into the dark. Corwyn and Daziel give chase, only to run headlong into another hail of bolts, fired by another knot of kobolds ready in the passage. They also flee. Into the ambush point they follow, and when they are fired at a third time from a point just below the tall shaft, they slam the secret portal shut and wait for the Company to catch up.

_click click click-click click_

Daziel of Selûne hears the far-off tapping of stone on stone. The Company gathers in the kobold ambush point, some of them strenuously advocating an immediate retreat.

Daziel looks out through an arrow slit into the passage beyond, pressing the smoky lenses that seem to banish shadows up against her eyes.

Nothing.

She looks through the other one, and finds herself staring into a jaundiced, bloodshot eye nearly three inches across.

She lets out a scream, startling all, and pokes one finger into the goggling orb. An inhuman moan of pain and rage erupts from beyond the arrow slit. When they shine a light into the halls on the other side, there is nothing to be seen but a hall of stone statues.

“Why don’t we get out of here while we still can?” suggests the young ranger, pushing white hair out of his eyes.

They retreat quickly, noting that the slime they burned away still glistens a sickening green in the upper corners of the old barracks. And before their eyes, a flickering apparition walks, turning slowly to fix them with a glowering gaze, before vanishing beyond a corner. The there is only the far-off click click-click of the stones…

In the entry chamber they are again pelted with bolts, and one kobold speaks arcane words and hurls spells, all from behind the safety of the rusted portcullis. A sleep spell takes down half the group, and the rest are mercilessly pounded by bolts, until Velm finally hurls a flask of alchemist’s fire. The explosion startles the yapping dogs, who run off into the Halls.

Outside, a chill fog fills the Starwater Gorge.

“I’m letting him out,” says Bronn.

“You can’t!” says Daziel.

“What if he’s trapped in there for a good reason?” asks Van Dyksun.

Saeita Nevi, still shaken by their encounter with the spirits of the dead, says nothing.

Ignoring all protests, Bronn and Velm (in a rare show of solidarity) smash the yellow gem.

The man in armor is suddenly sprawled upon the ground.

He stands slowly, and introduces himself as Temuel Khiv, a holy warrior of Tempus. As the tread the (now) well-known path back to Eveningstar, Temuel tells them his story (see above), and is horrified to learn that he has been trapped in the yellow gem for almost 200 years.

By midday the fog has burned off.

Headed down the trail, the Company approaches the Killing Keep…

In a grove of spruces just north of the Killing Keep, a gray squirrel chatters and screeches on a branch above Van Dyksun.

“Hey,” Van calls back to the others, “does anyone know if the squirrels are aggressive around here?”

The squirrel seems highly agitated.

Bronn laughs. “Come on, ranger, it’s a squirrel, for Mystra’s sake. Can’t you talk to it?”

Van shrugs. He scans the trail ahead, barely missing a hint of movement along a high ridge...

The Company reaches the wide point of Starwater Gorge, where the ruins of the Killing Keep are huddled against one wall, behind two crumbling walls and gatehouses.

Screechh! Tikka-tee-tikka! Scronch! The squirrel appears again, nearly leaping end over end in an attempt to do...something.

A woman’s voice, hoarse and ragged, echoes from the Killing Keep: “Help!”

The companions are instantly alert. “Someone’s in trouble,” says Temuel Khiv.

“You go investigate,” says Daziel. “I want to see what this squirrel’s problem is.” She and Saeita crouch over the agitated rodent.

The Company—Van Dyksun, Bronn Spellforger, Velm, Corwyn Black and Temuel Khiv—move off toward the forbidding walls of Rivior’s Keep.

The squirrel begins scratching at the dirt. Letters appear.

“What are you trying to tell us?” asks Daziel.

The squirrel manages, with great difficulty, to spell out FIND THE STONE TOOTH.

“Where?”

NORTH.

Just then the clash of metal on metal is heard from the Keep—Velm’s battle cry to Clanggeddin, Temuel Khiv’s bellicose roar, Corwyn Black’s wail: “The dead! They walk!”—with a glance at each other, Saeita Neví and Daziel run toward the Keep.

The Company of the Wolf passes through the first gatehouse to find a pair of tuskers waiting for them, and they charge...only to find that Risen corpses emerge from the inner bailey to hem them in. Add to that the fact that the area into which they have been drawn is tainted somehow: the air tastes flat and stale, somehow oily, and send shivers of despair down their spines. The inspiring presence of Temuel Khiv only partially wards off the fell influence. And worst of all: one of the corpses has a crossbow bolt through its throat—it is the Banite sorceror killed by Bronn at the southeast gatehouse.

Suddenly Kizzaf, the Red Wizard they thought was in custody at the Enclave, springs up from behind the battlements, atop the inner wall. “Time to die,” she gloats, in a ragged and hoarse voice, firing a crossbow down into the melee.

Bronn speaks words of magic, and swallows a live spider.

A swirling cloud of multihued energy emerges from the inner bailey. “Give up the map, and perhaps the Lord Bane will hear your pleas for mercy,” sneers a voice from within the vortex.

The battle continues, as Van Dyksun and Corwyn Black receive terrible wounds. A blue-skinned corpse with one hideously misshapen claw speeds into battle; the risen body of the Cleric slain at the southeast gatehouse, now somehow imbued with the evil of the Black Tyrant. Strikes from his claws elicit despairing curses from Velm—the creature’s blows seem to sap his skills and make him clumsy on his feet, filling him with unnatural cold...

The swirling vortex approaches Temuel Khiv, and a priest of Bane appears within the cloud, in the moment that he brings a heavy black flail over his helm in a deadly arc.

_Crack-splush!_

The flail sunders Temuel Khiv’s helm and drops him to the ground. From within the lacquered black helmet of the “Claw of Bane” comes a peal of mocking laughter.

Corwyn grabs the near-fallen Van Dyksun and attempts to flee.

Bronn climbs to the top of the wall, and readies his club. He and Kizzaf circle, she firing bolts stubbornly as the club swings close and closer, until finally Bronn is able to stave in her skull.

“We are leaving!” screams Corwyn.

“Cowards!” shouts Velm Trueforger. “My cousin is in there!”

Just then Daziel and Saeita Neví arrive at the gates. “Selûne commands you...begone!!!” The walking dead flee into the Keep with groans of fear and loathing. Only the Clawed Corpse and the Banite cleric remain.

With a few profane words, a red lash of energy extends from one of the Banite’s black gauntlets.

The battle is fierce and bloody. It seems to last until all are struggling for breath, exhausted with parrying and swinging their weapons at the Clawed Corpse, which shrugs off strikes as an oilcloth sheds water. At last, The Claw of Bane and his monstrous ally lie dead between the crumbling towers of the gatehouse.

And alas...so does Temuel Khiv, his noble brow split and spilling his lifeblood upon the soil.

A pyre is built, and Daziel hacks in rage at the corpses of the evil ones. The Claw of Bane, Kizzaf and the Clawed Corpse are piled upon the gathered kindling and set alight. “They’ll not plague us again,” says Daziel through gritted teeth.

Bronn glares at those who attempted to flee, and says almost nothing.

And what of the squirrel? Someone got to it while the battle raged...it has been crushed by a heavy boot. It gives a last twitch, and dies...and instantly ‘morphs into the dead body of an old wrinkled longbeard in dusty and tattered traveling clothes. In his rucksack is a small leather tome, which Bronn snatches away.

“Can’t you even respect the dead?” cries Daziel. “I’m beginning to think Velm was right about you, Spellforger.”

Bronn glares at her, and at all of them. “You’d foolishly give away everything we find, if I wasn’t here to stop you.”

“Let’s not fight,” pleads Van Dyksun. “We need to reach Eveningstar alive, after all.”

Victorious, alive, yet burdened by ill-will and heavy hearts, the Company of the Wolf sets off on the trail to Eveningstar.

9, 10, 11 Eleasias—In Eveningstar, the Company regains their health and hones their skills in training. Bronn uses magicks of Identification to discern what the dweomered items do. At the House of Morning, the legendary Temuel Khiv (known to “Trueservant” and Myrkyr of Lathander only through stories of long ago) is raised before he can enter the Gates to the Final Battlefield where General Tempus awaits: his quest is not yet finished. Bronn goes to the shore of the Starwater and summons a familiar: the toad called Wolf.

12 Eleasias—In the high chamber of Tessaril’s Tower, the Company meets with Lady Winter, and agrees to mount another journey to the Haunted Halls, this time to deal with the kobold threat once and for all. Temuel Khiv agrees to join them. “The Corpsecoil—Ruathgrym—still dwells in the Gorge...I can feel his presence.” They learn that Kizzaf escaped from the Thayan Enclave only a few days earlier...

13 Eleasias—The sun burns hot upon the green fields and bushy hedgerows. 

The Gorge is pale gray in the distance, rambling steadily from beyond the treeline to the misty fastnesses of the Stormhorns, their white caps only barely visible in the north. But in town the sun is bright and the apple trees are in full green cloaks studded with red. 

The Company—now including the diminutive Wolf in Bronn’s pocket, and a cart drawn by the pony Velm has affectionately named Bronn—sets out early for the Halls, and marches until noon along the scorpion-infested trail.

Inside the musty and lichen-encrusted Halls, the party makes their way to the old barracks. They’ve decided to proceed toward those welcoming statues Daziel saw, but first Van suggests, “Let’s spike shut the doors to the kobolds’ ambush point.”

Corwyn volunteers. Everyone takes up positions around the arched opening as Corwyn scans the barracks. “Nothing in there,” he says.

He takes the spikes, and his hammer, and enters the barracks.

“_Aaaiiiiiiieeeeeeeee--!!!_” Corwyn staggers back, covered in bright green filth that melts his bloody hands and half of his face, an acrid mist rising from the wounds.

They try to wipe it off—it dissolves the cloth. Daziel is without a Cure disease prayer. Bronn states boldly, “We must use fire.” Grabbing a torch, he ignites the slime and cauterizes the wound…emitting a whimper of agony, Corwyn Black slides the floor. Nothing in his days of smithing weapons at the forge has prepared him for this.

Daziel heals the wounds, but it will be many days until Corwyn truly regains his hale and hearty vigor. An agreement is reached that the green slime will act as a natural safeguard against the kobolds coming or going by that route.

At the welcoming statues, both of bronze and gesturing to the bronze vault, the Company halts, debating the merits of simply opening the doors. “I have been here,” says Temuel Khiv. “The statues hold out bolts of lightning to anyone who opens the portal.”

The party spends a while trying to figure out how to toss two grappling hooks so that they remain hooked onto the huge bronze pull rings, without touching the doors.

After long minutes of this, Daziel cries out, “Enough of this! Fortune favors the bold!” She reaches out to grasp the pull ring—

“Wait!” cries Spellforger. “I have an idea. One needs a mage’s hand for this.” 

He speaks an Artful word and moves a hand, and one by one the grappling hooks drift to the pull rings and attach themselves. With a sharp tug they open, blocking the lightning’s path and assuring safe passage.

In the passage beyond they discover a deadly house of traps, the corpse of Estrel (of the Band of Twilight) recently murdered as part of a ritual, and Rivior’s grand throne room with it’s mildewed tapestries, chest upon the throne, and its moving painting upon the southern wall depicting elves and men at war.

The Company does battle with skeletons that appear out of nowhere, and when Daziel turns them away they seem to flee toward a hall of pillars and vanish into thin air. Doors, pillars, rubble strewn about, halls blocked by falls of stone—even the ceiling of the pillared hall seems about to fall in despite Velm and Bronn’s assurances that it will not.

And always that distant click click click-click click from far away, and a deranged chuckle or groan from somewhere in the near darkness.

A six-hundred-pound stone block slides from the ceiling, crushing Daziel nearly to death, and the Company decides that they’ve seen enough of pillars. Besides, the others have opened a chest in the stone cellar, and released a cloud of potent sleep gas, and the sickly Corwyn Black is fully unconscious. No amount of shaking rouses him.

Through a secret door they discover the opposite side of the kobold’s ambush point, and receive a volley of bolts from the yapping “demon imps,” answering with a flask of alchemist’s fire.

They spike the door shut.

Back in the throne room, Saeita investigates the chest—it abruptly sprouts a pseudopod and swings at her. With a yelp she ducks, and the lid of the chest splits open to reveal a wide square red mouth lined with razor-sharp teeth. It uses another tendril to push open a secret panel behind it, and with the sandpaper growl of “Ee-Chutaa,” it slips away.

Through one of the throne room’s doors a scorched black room is found, with a tangle of scorched rags and a stone warhammer at the center. Slimy footprints disappear beyond the southern wall.

When the secret door is open, revealing a slimy staircase descending steeply into the dark, that crawling shiver goes down the neck of Temuel Khiv. “He is here,” says Sir Khiv, “the Corpsecoil is here.”

A trip step halfway down is spotted, averting a nasty fall into rusty sword blades. Corwyn sleeps peacefully in the scorched room.

In the Undercrypt, three dusty stone coffins line the far wall. Skeletons instantly spring to the attack, their bones slithering together and reforming as they are struck. One cloth-wrapped apparition rises from the center coffin, and is taken to pieces by the precise arrows of Van Dyksun and the spells of Bronn.

But from the third coffin rises another cloth-wrapped form, taller, dust sifting through its yellowed wrappings. In its gaunt and dessicated face, a malevolent intelligence seems to rest in its pale jade eyes. “Temuel,” it breathes, “you should not have come.”

“Your time is done, Ruathgrym,” replies Temuel, drawing from its sheath the Blood Point.

The battle rages fiercely, with the Company hammering away at the foul Corpsecoil from all sides. Bronn grants to his toad familiar a spell of combustion, and Wolf hops slowly across the chamber toward the unsuspecting Corpsecoil…

The Corpsecoil moans in fear now, as the blades of the Company wear away his foully-extended life. Gurgling, it hits the floor with a thud.

The Company cheers. At that precise moment, the toad hops through Temuel’s legs and touches the dusty cloth-wrapped corpse.

_Whhhhhooooooooosssshhhhhhhhh!!!_ Ruathgrym bursts into cleansing flame.

Another cheer goes up from the Company.

Nearby the party uncovers a secret treasure vault: a sword, a bow, several tomes, coins, and the sacred Golden Chalice of Lathander. “The task set before me by the Grand Generals of Tempus is complete,” breathes Sir Temuel Khiv. “The Corpsecoil is down, and the Chalice will soon be back in the hands of those at Lathander’s house.”

As they collect the riches of the Undercrypt, the Company of the Wolf debates what their next move will be, and some grudges begin to coil and rear their heads...

"Doomed," whispers a voice in the chamber. 

Bronn pulls open the door on the clicking noise.

The tolling bell fades into the distance.

As the door opens, the muffled muttering resolves into "Any moment...any moment...any moment..."

Surrounded by half-eaten rat carcasses and thousands of tiny yellow bones, a dirty male elf with wiry black hair and many tarnished earrings is tapping a stone against the wall and listening carefully...as he mutters "Any moment" over and over again.

He stops when he notices you all in the doorway.

“Do you hear it? Do you?” he demands in a whispery voice. "What took you so long?"

"Crap," mutters Bronn. 

Velm Trueforger: By all the orc whelps in Thunder Vale...is that an elf? 

Temuel Khiv: Does the elf have a weapon? He may need it on the way out of here. Though we don't yet know if he can be trusted with a blade...I'll help get him to his feet. By the Mailed Fist of Tempus, I am ready for battle!

Bronn: Wait a minute .. are you Quisvan?... no can't be ... better yet, Ivellior?? Let's get him the seven hells out of here! 

"It is I," he says, "Ivellior."
The elf has a longsword and dagger in scabbards, a bedroll, a backpack, and a whetstone.

"Ulodrin," he says to Bronn, "Finally you have returned. I knew you would hear the signal, and that it would safekeep your steps."

A look of blissful relief passes over the elf's features as he turns to Daziel. "And the lovely Estrel."

He pricks up his ears. "Wait. Do you hear it?"

...silence...

"It is free. We set it free." He breaks down into hysterical tears. 

Bronn Spellforger: You can rest now, Ivellior, you're safe. Tymora smiles upon you. But we must go. Grumbad here will help you.. we must return to Eveningstar. Velm, can you help him out of here? We need to move. NOW.

Daziel: checks over the elf for wounds. Speaks to him quietly for a few moments, makes him sip some water, then gets up and rejoins the group.

"Let's get him out of here. Someone want to search the room and help gather up his stuff. Who is he, Bronn? What is the Band of Twilight? Better yet, who does he think we are? Who or what does he think is in here, and might it have something to do with the sound of the cave in? Temuel, can you tell if he is possessed, or has evil intent?"

Although he is nervous and twitchy, Ivellior allows Velm and Temuel to lead him by the arms. 

"Grumbad, I never thought you would have such compassion...I apologize for the things I said." He turns to Temuel. "Ah, yes...Temuel Khiv...the voices speak often of you, the Servant of Tempus, the Paladin of the Gem."

He whimpers and sobs. "The Lockpick...crushed in Rivior's library...it seemed so innocent but we had to go and set it free..we were fools, Grumbad, fools...it's hungry..." Ivellior moans in terror.

Boots crunching on rat bones, it takes all of you only a few moments to reach the Chamber of Welcoming Statues. From there, you travel swiftly down the hall to where you can see the entry door beyond the rusted portcullis.

A quick detour to the north takes you past the slime-infested barracks and down the diagonal hall to the secret door.

You open it and enter the entry chamber. The pile of old shields and weapons still rests at the center of the room, and a stale scent wafts from the lichen-encrusted walls. The room is filled with a pale glow...

...emanating from the transparent form of a tall, broad man in fine clothing that is stained with blood, and a thick winter mantle over his shoulders. His long hair is swept back, his beard well-trimmed, and his eyes...his eyes burn with unholy loathing.

His voice grates like ice over rough stone. "You thought to plunder my Hold and depart unscathed? You are doomed."

Ivellior falls to his knees and shrieks, a jarring sound that sets all your teeth on edge.

The phantom's smile is a grim rictus; there is no humor in it. 

Rivior fixes his baleful gaze upon Bronn: "You speak as though I cannot hear you, little one. Like Redhand, you underestimate me. Even the Warrior Queen underestimated me...she too met her doom in the blowing snow."

Rivior looks at Temuel, as he steps forward with the Blood Point, as though seeing him for the first time. "Ruathgrym...the Corpsecoil...one and same? Then perhaps he did come to Starwater Gorge to join the Sons of the Coil...and you have done me a service, Soldier of Tempus." Rivior grows stern once more. "Go now. We are equal."

And in a hiss that chills your very blood he adds, "Return...and you shall join us. Forever." For just a moment, surrounding you, you see the hazy forms of Rivior's bandit army...a bloody and hateful menagerie of spirits closing in on you...

Abruptly, they are gone. The Haunted Halls are silent and still, except for the soft weeping of Ivellior.


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## Tom Cashel (Jul 5, 2002)

*Mellomir's Journal*

*THE LOST CITY OF DARKFELL*

Being a full and true Exposition of the Journey of the Sage Most Wise
MELLOMIR of ARABEL—
How I Reached It, and What I Found There

Scribed by the Grace of Oghma
in the Year of Wild Magic,
1372 by the Reckoning of the Dales,
by
Mellomir of Arabel

_Preface_
I’ll not burden any who might peruse this slim tome with the details of my studies leading up to this momentous exploration. Suffice to say that without the treatise, On the Significance of Redhand Darkfell in the Northern Marches: Secrets of the Forgotten Keep, by the brilliant sage and scholar Ummattin Tencloak (Oghma protect his soul), I might never have known of the Lost City of the Darkfell Clan, and if I had I may have been so foolish as to begin my search in the dim catacombs of the fey and uninviting Forgotten Keep. To be certain, I would also have met my doom there! Better to know what I do of Hathos, though it be precious little—enough to seek his trail elsewhere. My hope is that the trail will indeed lead me to Iolar’s Deep, and the city he built within its confines.

Flamerule 1
Even the greatest of journeys must begin in the most ignoble of locales.

This is what I receive when I break promises to myself—bitter ale, an uncomfortable bed, and a skull aching from the raucous songs of rowdy locals. ‘Tis unfortunate, to be sure, that I must once again find shelter in the miserable backwater of Eveningstar (which, I might add, has become even worse—if such a thing is possible—since Goodman Dun was forced to sell his fine establishment to the Lady Winter), but even I am surprised to find that my enthusiasm is undimmed. The Lost City of the Darkfell dwarves! By Oghma’s Lore and Deneir’s Quill, this will put me in the palace at Suzail! If Tencloak’s treatise was correct, I dare not seek the Forgotten Keep, not yet. Old Redhand shan’t have the neck of this old scholar so easily! I’m certain the Stone Tooth holds the answers. If those miserable Silversword brats do not arrive by morn I’ll set out on the trail myself, scorpions be damned.

(later) I have outfitted myself for the journey as well as I could at Tethyr’s Hardware. By the lore of the Binder these backwater folk like to pry! A pox upon Arbold Tethyr for his ceaseless questions and unreasonable prices! Perhaps they are only curious—Vilnar, for one, would not give me peace until I let slip that my journey involved a search for mithral. Mayhap he wishes to sell such items in his Adornments Shop—he’ll find himself stymied when I return the treasures to Suzail. Maethlin the alchemist, if also too curious, is at least a fellow scholar. I advised him not to waste his life in such a place as this, and he only smiled—he could have no other customers but Red Thayans in an ignorant sty such as Even’star. I hear they pay well.

Flamerule 2
A company of adventurers arrived today en route to the Haunted Halls. They call themselves the Band of Twilight, showing their charter to anyone who’ll look. Band of Braggarts comes closer to the mark. They’ve a cleric of Tymora among them—I hope the Lady smiles upon them. Not a few of the town’s menfolk are smiling upon the one called Estrel, that’s for sure, and not without reason. She’s cut from a fine cloth, and she shows her midriff without shame. But she seems betrothed to the good cleric, and practices some Art herself, so I’ll not be flirtatious. By my measure, they are far too confident. The Halls will likely be their grave.

Flamerule 3
The Band of Twilight departed this morning. If the brats do not arrive by tomorrow, I’ll blast the ears of those Silverswords, noble blood be damned. This time my promise shall stand—I’ll not return to this mudhole again. Not a morsel of decent food to be had, only tough and stringy sharrada stew with potatoes. Tencloak had better be right about Hathos’ Runes.

Flamerule 4
By Oghma the Binder and all the Gods, it’s about time! The young Geradil and Courana Silversword arrived today, and we shall set out north on the morrow. As I suspected, they are the usual variety of spoiled aristocrat, but their fathers have kept my purse full and my larder stocked, so with me I must allow them to trek. If they are skilled with their blades I’ll forgive them a bad upbringing. The brat of a swordarm keeps calling me Weirdbeard. 

I am scarcely able to close my eyes for excitement, but I must try. The road is long, and the Starwater Gorge holds threats unnamed.

Flamerule 5
We have put behind us fifteen long miles on the eastern shore of Starwater. The Silverswords have set us a camp within a cleft in the rocks—she at least seems to have some bit of sense regarding the wild lands. Her cousin is not so well endowed in the mind as he is in the arm. But I’ll not grudge him. His swordarm put down five yapping kobolds this eve and put the rest to flight.

Flamerule 6
Today we passed the source of the Starwater and scaled a cliff. My boots are filled with stones and the scorpions will not stay out of my bedroll. They are a plague, by the Flowing Script of the Binder! But we’ll reach our destination on the morrow, if I’ve calculated correctly. Old Silversword didn’t lie—his niece is a fine tracker. I’d not find the Stone Tooth without her. But she has an awfully uncivil tongue.

Flamerule 8
Wasn’t able to write yesterday. Difficult to put quill to page in the dark. Young Courana is certain we are being followed, and would not permit a campfire, but by whom none of us can say. We are trapped between the jaws and the stone, and in both directions lies the unknown.

Flamerule 9
Success! Our mistake was to travel north rather than east at the fork of the stream. I’ll wager we lost two days stumbling about shale-coated mountainsides and slipping on pine needles, though Courana claims it was one at most. But no matter! We have found the Stone Tooth! No sign of our pursuers, so perhaps the detour was for the best.

The trail rises through several switchbacks to the Mountain Door, just as Tencloak described. By Kelemvor’s palace of bone, he did not lie. Now we must take care, lest we awaken the ghosts of Darkfell in our search.

(later) I am too old for this sort of activity. As if the massive doors themselves were not enough, we have crossed a chasm and met with the traps left by Clan Darkfell. But these halls seem empty of any inhabitants, save vermin of the monstrous sort. The young Silverswords have displayed considerable acumen in dispatching such pests. They are quite a bit less skillful in avoiding deathtraps, all but ignoring my warnings. Beware the granite statue—Geradil barely escaped with his life.

(later) I can barely write, my hand trembles so. The Lost City of Darkfell was called aerunedar by the Clan...Tencloak was right—Hathos left his Runes and his map...a charcoal rubbing of the map itself should do, but I will have to copy out the Dethek by hand ...much of it has been defaced, the very rock smashed away...Redhand’s Doom must refer to Redhand Pool, where the warrior himself drowned...Geradil hears a clamor in the halls nearby and is going to ascertain the source… Oghma let my quill be swift...there is a poem or riddle here...

(later) Geradil is taken by the enemy...they must have been the ones following...Binder willing, perhaps there is another route by which


----------



## Tom Cashel (Jul 5, 2002)

Episode IV: *Tummarlin’s Wake*

Characters: Bronn Spellforger (shield dwarf Wiz3), Corwin Black (human Ftr3), Daziel (human Clr3, Selûne), Saeita Neví (wild elf Mnk3), Van Dyksun (human Rgr3), Velm Trueforger (shield dwarf Ftr3).


***
“For although Lathander’s shining face—his warming presence—rises into the blue of the sky…so does it also sink into the twilight at the day’s end. And so it is with us, the people who do good works in Lathander’s name. We too must, in our time, descend to the twilight. But we do not go alone.”
***

13 Eleasias, The Year of Wild Magic

Exhausted, the Company of the Wolf has defeated the Corpsecoil and descended from a chilling encounter with the restless spirit of Rivior…and learned that Ruathgrym came to Eveningstar Gorge all those years ago not only to join the Bandit King, but also to “join the Sons of the Coil,” in the enigmatic words of Rivior…

…but for now the Wolf Company is longing for a good meal and warm beds, sickened as morose from their confrontation with the risen filths of the grave.

At the House of Morning, Sir Temuel Khiv returns to Charisbonde Trueservant the Golden Chalice of Lathander. All who take a draught from its rim are made whole once again. With spirits risen somewhat, the Comnpany retires to the Welcoming Hand for victuals and drink.

Selûne, trailing her glimmering Tears, soars upon the sky above the tiny village of Even’star, slumbering heavily in the mouth of the gorge by banks of Starwater. In the midnight woods southwest of town, a host of cloaked figures moves along a little-used trail, little more than an animal track, winding along the crest of a ridge. Most let out snarls or grunts of exertion with the weight of the mining equipment they carry. Others trudge along in menacing silence, reciting to themselves the 23 Oaths of the Tyrant.

The head east and then make steadily north toward the Stonecliff and the Southeast Gatehouse of Aerunedar…

***
“No, people of Even’star…we do not go alone. We go into the night with Lathander at our sides, each and every one. He guides us and guards us unto his celestial realm. And so you must believe the same for the friend we have lost, Deltar Tummarlin.”
***

14-17 Eleasias

Training (Daziel, Corwyn, Velm), spell scribing (Bronn), scroll scribing (Daziel), physical training (Saeita), archery, hunting, meeting with Enina Meliamne, mysterious former member of the Company (Van).

17 Eleasias, evening

Corwyn, Saeita and Van stake out the High Pasture and catch the local tattooist Vilnar Orsborg and his sons, Vilnar and Dirk, trying to poach a sharrada. The hapless Vilnar claims he was hired by a mysterious stranger to steal the cattle. “You don’t understand,” pleads Vilnar.

“Yes,” agrees Van. “We don’t understand.”

There is barely time to ask a few questions when the alrm bells can be heard ringing down in the gorge. The orange glow of flames stains the night sky.

***
“Lathander’s fire warms us in the daylight, and he guides us to its heat when we join him. It warms Deltar Tummarlin right now. He sacrificed himself and his mill to save this woman and these children in the House before me. His nobility will be rewarded. We gather to sing him on his way, not to mourn him. To give him praise on his journey, the one we all someday take.”
***

By the time Daziel, Bronn and Velm reach the crop fields north of the House of Morning, the kobolds of the Crawling Sting have set the fields ablaze in several patches, and corrupted the corn and wheat with green slime…destined to die in the sunlight but able to do catastrophic damage to the crops before that time.

Snuurl Deathwhip, self-proclaimed King of the Kobolds, and his bugbear bodyguard “Crusher” command the field of battle against a full division of Purple Dragons led by Hurvald of Espar—the Crawling Sting is steadily being pounded into the dust by thundering hooves.

The struggle of King is short-lived once the fury of the Priestess of Selûne and Cousins Trueforger falls upon them. But the cost of this battle is high indeed.

18 Eleasias

Deltar Tummarlin’s wake is held today at the Welcoming Hand. The Bard and Herald Tzin Tzummer gathers local musicians and performers to accompany the celebration of Deltar’s life. Members of the Company have an opportunity to speak with Tahgor Ironcrest (War Wizard of Cormyr), Maethlin the alchemist, Lady Winter, Hurvald of Espar, and others.

Tempers fray and snap during the dividing of treasure.

***
“Go peacefully, Deltar Tummarlin. We’ll sing your name before we miss you.”
***

A stakeout of Vilnar Orsborg’s house that night fails to turn up the mysterious benefactor.

19 Eleasias

In the foggy hours after dawn, a quartet of mule-drawn wagons trundles into town and lurches to a halt in the market square. No one of the Wolf Company sees them arrive.

Twenty or more dwarves climb from their perches and begin to assemble tents and shelter, while their leader Dorn Trueforger, the Hammer of Moradin, heads for Eveningstar Hall to speak with Lady Winter about a certain runestone…

Van and Corwyn find Velm speaking to the dwarves at midday, after he has shown them the location of the Gatehouse. Contrary to opinion, the dwarves only want to excavate the lower levels of the Southeast Gatehouse, and gain access to Aerunedar...not take Bronn and Velm into custody.

Fences are mended within the Company, discussions are held regarding the next steps the Company will take…

…while far to the north, the Company of the Scarlet Flame arrives at the Stone Tooth and spies it jutting into the sky from the misty Storm Horns.

20 Eleasias

The trail southwest of town leads by a circuitous route to the Southeast Gatehouse, and there the Wolf Company discovers that one of the dwarves are dead. A wizard and orc servitors were lying in wait within the cave…they hurled fire and lightning before collapsing the cave and sealing it off. One dwarf paid the price, and lies beneath a cairn of stacked stones.

Now Dorn’s Doomslayers and their mining team will have to open the entrance before opening the blocked cave in the depths of the Gatehouse. “Most likely they are in there, excavating it as we speak,” says Dorn. “We’re in a race with them now.”

Uncle Dorn isn’t taking Bronn and Velm back to Thunderstone…but he Exiles them both from Clan Trueforger for False Use of A Name and Aiding a Criminal, respectively. Velm has yet to find out, of course…

21-25 Eleasias

Wolf Company decides to follow the map and Mellomir’s Journal to the Stone Tooth. They march upon a rocky trail into the Gorge, along the eastern banks of the Starwater. On the 22 of Eleasias the Company meets the Scarlet Flame Company on the trail.

The confrontation is tense between the tall and spindly Hurgald “Hawksbreath” and Daziel, but soon the Selûnite’s diplomacy smoothes the situation. The rival adventuring groups pass each other on the trail, trading naught but suspicious glances.

On the 25 of Eleasias, they arrive at the Stone Tooth. They slay four orcs that night on the trail near their camp, to find that they bear the same tribal markings as those slain in the Southeast Gatehouse, and those who hijacked the caravan of Daziel and Corwyn…

*********************************
From the woodland journal of Van Dyksun:
...severely spooked by the ghost I saw in the halls. Considering what I’ve seen only in the last month—rotting corpses still walking, squirrels that turn out to be mages, a man thought dead for over 200 years die and then be resurrected—why, it is no wonder I needed some time alone in the woods to gather my thoughts. Most of the company had things that they needed to do, anyway.

Since no one else would, I agreed to let Temuel Khiv show me around town. He was fascinated how time had affected Eveningstar, and droned on about how when he had been here before that there was only three buildings, including Redhand’s tower. I admit that I found my attention wandering.

I finally was able to escape to the woods. While I was testing the new bow we found, I felt myself being watched. At first I thought myself still jittery from the recent events, but then I noticed a wolf. Looking into the trees, I saw someone. It was the wood elf who had been with us when we captured the slavers, but who had left us suddenly while we were in the caverns. She drew my attention to tracks—I don’t know how I could have missed them before—a large company of men and possibly orcs. So near town, too. I resolved to tell the others, and asked the elf to find out more. I think she will, but who can tell. She is as almost wild as the wolf her companion.

The others were only somewhat interested in my find. I don’t think they trust my skills.

Feeling that we needed to get on with our mission, before Lady Winter had her guards throw us into jail, I organized a trip to watch the sharrada herd by night, so that we could ambush any demon imps that came poaching. Saeita and Corwyn agreed to join me, although once on the high pasture, Saeita kept to herself. Shortly before midnight, I heard approaching footsteps. I gestured to Corwyn to notch the new bow—I’m hoping to teach him something about killing from afar, although it looks like he may not need my help. The footsteps turned out to be one of the villagers--a Vilnar or Veldar or something like that--I can’t keep these villagers names straight--and his two sons (one of which tried to escape, but was brought back bloody and crying by Saeita). He claimed that a man had paid him to poach just a couple of the animals each month, but I’m not sure of his veracity. While we were talking, we noticed a fire burning back in town. As we rushed back, it turned out to be the mill on fire and the guards informed us that the town had been attacked by demon imps. The others in our party had confronted the leader of the attack and bested them in combat, including something that I heard someone call a Bugbear. It looked strangely like the Owlbear that we had encountered near the halls--in some ways, I’m glad I had not had to face it.

While the loss of life had not been high, the demon imps had burnt or defiled with that horrible green slime most of the crops. And the miller, although he had been able to save his wife and daughters by putting them on a raft and sending them downstream, had been unable to save himself. A wake was organized for the next afternoon.

Vilnar’s mysterious employer was due to show up that following evening as well. I resolved to ambush him and discover what he was using the sharrada for. I informed Lady Winter of my plans, but was surprised to discover that she was blaming us for the imps attack on the village, even for their very presence in this area. I tried to get her to see things logically—that the sharrada herd had been in danger long before our impromptu company had arrived in Eveningstar, that the demon imps were likely a manifestation of the new influence of Bane in the area. Then she really surprised me by claiming that we fabricating this Bane fear to cover our inept actions. I told her that if she no longer trusted us, then we could simply leave and begone, but that we wished to get to the heart of the problem. I had to tell her about Vilnar, and she said that if we did not find his employer, he would be arrested in the morning.

All night long I struggled to stay awake, worried by my conversation, and wondering just how long this company could stay together. The constant bickering among the two dwarves has begun to spread, I fear. I’ve found myself short-tempered with both of them as well, and I’ve noticed Daziel has taken to wandering away when the dwarves start in. Corwyn simply counts his money again, and Saeita seems lost in a trance most of the time. When the mysterious employer failed to show, Daziel asked our goddess Selune to help her determine Vilnar’s trustworthiness. What he had told us seemed to be true, but I knew the guards would be there momentarily, and without the employer, they would take Vilnar. I wrote a short note to Lady Winter to reflect what we had discovered with Selune’s assistance, but I doubt the Lady will care. I suspect if we don’t discover something soon, we will be joining Vilnar in the Lady’s dungeon.

As we gathered later that evening--after I had gotten a chance to catch up on my missed sleep--we finished portioning out the loot that we had found in the halls. Unfortunately, the process was marred by greed, and Velm threw his portion back on the table and stormed out. Bronn abruptly left the table, and that’s when Corwyn informed us that a band of dwarves had entered town. I left in search of Velm, finding him talking to the dwarven caravan, then followed him as he led them out of town and showed them the first cavern that we had explored. As they returned to town, I asked to talk to Velm. I thought that he had resolved to leave our company, to take Bronn back to their home as he had originally intended, but I was surprised that instead these dwarves were here to open the passage to Aerundar that Bronn and Velm believed this cavern to be.

I convinced the others to join me in tracking the company of men and orcs that the wood elf had pointed out to me. We started the next morning, ending up circling back around town until in the late afternoon we came right back to the cavern that I had been at with Velm and the new company of dwarves the night before. Except something horrible had occurred--as they had started their mining operation, they had been ambushed by men and orcs--the very group we had been tracking! If only we had been a day earlier! The lead dwarf was furious with Velm. I have a feeling that he thinks Velm did this on purpose. Looking at the map we had from Mellomir, the rest of the party is convinced that the entrance to Aerundar is not in this cavern, but further up the gorge. We decided to follow that map, and Mellomir’s journal, the next morning.

21 Eleisias
Staying on the east side of the river just as Mellomir’s party had done, we began our trek up the Starwater Gorge. When we arrived opposite the cleft in the cliffs that were the halls, I shivered, remembering the final words of the ghost that had driven us from that place before. I discovered the old tracks of a party that we had been following before. We continued up the gorge.

24 Eleisias
We encountered the Company of the Scarlet Flame today. I admit that I nearly let my worst instincts get the better of me. When I first spotted them, I immediately thought the worst. Among their party was a large, unnatural creature that was the mirror of the Bugbear that Velm had brought down during the attack on town. I wanted to immediately attack it. I realize that not all unnatural creatures like that are dangerous, but I have not always been thinking so clearly. Luckily, cooler heads prevailed and Daziel was able to interact with them and prevent a fight. Still, as I passed by this company, I stared at them with the distrust that I feel I am beginning to have for anything I don’t understand.

26 Eleisias
We found the Stonetooth. As it was in the late afternoon, we made camp about 100 yards from the path we had been following. In the mountains, a little stream of smoke could be seen.

Right before dawn I was awoken by Corwyn. He pointed back to the path. As I got up and grabbed two arrows, notching one on my bow, I heard Bronn cursing, then Daziel’s prayer to Selune. Among the trees, I could see two orcs light up with the power of the moon. I instantly let an arrow find its way to strike down one of the unnatural things, while the others take off, running up the path, with the entire company giving chase. The elf caught up with the three of them immediately knocking one unconscious, killing another, but in turn being knocked out by the third. Daziel, following shortly behind, also gets hit before I am able to get close enough to drop the final one with another well placed arrow. We are lucky we dropped this patrol here--if they had been able to warn their fellows, we could have been in severe trouble.

We gathered our things together and climbed the path into the mountains. The smoke turned out to be a constructed chimney--Saeita was able to find this out, although she fell hard off the rocks when she returned from her investigation.

We discovered two orcs guarding the path, and I was able to drop them both before they could raise the alarm. The arrow slits in the cliff around the path indicated that we needed a better plan than simply to continue strolling up the path. Bronn, the dwarven spellcaster, decided to try a subterfuge. He altered his appearance magically so that he looked like an orc. Then he ran up the path, screaming “Help! Elves below. Attacking!” in orcish, or at least that’s what Saeita said he was screaming. It just sounded like grunts to me. We couldn’t hear what happened next, and spent an anxious ten to fifteen minutes trying to decide what to do. Saeita taught me how to scream. “Help! Come quick!” in orcish, but when I did so, the orcs behind the arrow slits simply laughed and said, “we are not so easily fooled.”

Velm pulled out a potion that he had been given by Bronn. He claimed that it would enable someone to climb walls like a spider. Quickly, we formed our plan, feared for what might have befallen Bronn. I removed my boots and gloves as instructed by Velm, and drank the potion, gagging slightly at the little spider contained in the bottom of the vial. Then I took the four vials of alchemist’s fire. Daziel jumped out into the path and taunted the orcs, running across the path to get next to the cliff, out of sight and danger from arrows. At the same time, I rushed across the path, leaped up on the wall and climbed above the arrow slit, throwing one of the alchemist’s fires inside the narrow opening. It broke on the outside and I singed my hair, but I also heard the satisfying screams of a burning orc. The rest of the company rushed to join Daziel as I moved to the next two arrow slits, given each orc his own particular taste of cleansing fire.

Around the next corner, an additional two arrow slits protected the double doors leading to the mountain fortress. Corwyn was trying to force the doors, but having difficulty. I used my last alchemists fire in one arrow slit, then dropped to the ground and attempted to place an arrow through the slit on the opposite side. The others screamed at me to help them force the door, so I put the bow back on my back and threw my weight at the door. On the second try, with all five of us pushing, the metal bands holding the door secure snapped and a dimly lit interior revealed a wide gorge spanned by a rope bridge. Velm rushed onto the bridge, but was slowed by how it was so unstable. I rushed across the wall, as I could still move like a spider, and dropped to the other side, next to one of the six orcs stationed there to guard this entrance. One of the orcs suddenly went up in flames, then Corwyn hit one with an arrow (as I said, he needed no help from me on learning how to use a bow), then Daziel summoned a celestial badger that instantly killed the orc that Corwyn had wounded. I was able to quickly dispatch the orc in front of me with my longsword. One orc tried to rush the rope bridge and cut the tie to the posts on this side, but he was dropped by a well-placed crossbow bolt by Daziel. As I rushed the last orc, it put up its hands and screamed, “It’s Bronn!” From behind me, I heard, “’ware the badger.” I glanced down to see the badger ready itself to leap on Bronn’s throat, and I swung my sword to intercept it. Even though I knew it was but a construct, it sickened me to feel the thud of sword on flesh as I killed the brave thing, it not understanding that this orc was not a foe.

On this side of the gorge were another set of double doors. Bronn warned us that he had been interrogated by a Bane priest and that there was also a Bane wizard beyond. I faded back to a stone pillar to provide cover, while the rest of the party readied themselves. Bronn, as an orc, took hold of Corwyn’s jerkin and grunted something at the doors (“Master Victory! Open up!”). When the doors opened, my heart fell. I did not fear that two orcs that opened the doors to either side, nor the four soldiers in black-lacquered platemail armor, but the ten-foot tall monstrosity holding two large wolves by chains made me slightly weak in the knees. When he chortled and welcomed Bronn with a “The Great Ulfe welcomes victory!” I nearly feared that we had made a terrible mistake. But it was too late to wonder, because Daziel immediately shot and killed one of the orcs with a crossbow bolt, Bronn let Corwyn go and cast two magic missiles at one of the soldiers. As Velm, Corwyn and Saeita rushed into the fray, I tried to save my arrows for where they could do the most good. The Great Ulfe attacked Velm, causing blood to fly, so I concentrated my first flights on him. One of the wolves tried to rush past Velm, but Velm immediately slashed down with his war axe, cleaving the wolf in half. Corwyn dropped one of the soldiers, while one of the others ran away, to likely spread an alarm. Bronn said some magical words and moved up to confront the Great Ulfe. Bronn looked like he was trying to grab the large creature, but The Great Ulfe instead met him with a great waraxe.

Screaming “Traitor,” Ulfe slashed down at Bronn, very nearly splitting him in half as Velm had done to the wolf only seconds before. During this, Saeita had tumbled back out of conflict, with a wolf on her heels that I was able to drop with an arrow before it could attack her again. Corwyn had dropped another one of the soldiers. Saeita gets back to her feet and returned to kill the final orc. Velm, seeing that his cousin had been slaughtered, screams and has his vengenance on the Great Ulfe, while Daziel finished the final soldier. In the silence that followed, Velm dropped his axe and dropped to his knees before his cousin, who had returned to his dwarven form after his death. We listened for rushing footsteps, fearing reinforcements, quickly taking advantage of the lull to use the magical healing that Daziel had traded for from the temple in Evenstar.

[journal excerpt ends here]

********************************************

Bronn Spellforger, spell-altered to resemble an orc, infiltrated the Zhentarim forces guarding the Stonetooth Gatehouse. Although he could not quite make them believe he was sent from “da big temple of Bane,” he was able to narrowly avert disaster by convincing the Zhentarim wizard Faraugar and a Cleric of Bane that he was just a simple and stupid orc, out to plunder and willing to sell his labor. Thankfully, they believed him.

When the Company of the Wolf bravely stormed the gates, Bronn’s machinations allowed a crossing of the chasm without a single casualty. In the meeting with the Great Ulfe, his wolves Vak and Thrak, and the shocktroops of the Zhentarim, Bronn Spellforger was not so lucky. He died well, so that others could live.

Daziel leads the Company through the Gatehouse, seeking the Banite cleric and Zhentarim wizard Bronn mentioned before his fall. The young helpers of Mellomir (mentioned in his journal, above) are found in a miserable cell. The Company finds the Dethek runes partially transcribed by Mellomir, and the original carved stone map from which he made his charcoal rubbing. 

But they find that the place is absolutely empty, deserted by those of the Black Network. But did they flee down the Great Staircase into the darkness below? Or by some other route?

Corwyn is able to decipher the runes:

To enter Aerunedar
Carry the water of the doom of Redhand
1500 paces east to the humble cave
Which enters upon the southeast gatehouse
Quench the Rune of Darkfell
And open the way to the deep stair

_Find you Redhands cellar
Find 5 of ale
Find 5 of death
11 to the Under Road
And to the Great Pillar of Iolar

I fall forever and not at all
I slay fire
I guard Hathos' skull
It holds the key
To rubies 3
Sapphires 3
And crown of fire
But remember Hathos’ curse_

Daziel feels a tugging on her Silver Disk of Selûne, in the direction of the Great Staircase…


----------



## Tom Cashel (Jul 5, 2002)

_an episode from the journey back to Eveningstar_

The party had made camp in a previous spot, the top of a small hillock in a lightly wooded section of the gorge, overlooking the Starwater River. The weather had been cold and grim all day.
After a nice supper of fresh fish, as the party is bedding down for the night after determining the watch, they heard the howling of wolves off to the north, as they had most other nights in the gorge. This night those wolves sounded a bit closer perhaps, but they faded into silence before midnight.

The hours past...until Corwyn and Saeita's watch in the early morning hours.

The two of them hear the keening cry of a sparrowhawk from the north in the gorge. A chorus of angry barking at about the same loudness explodes at the same moment...and fades just as quickly. The keening of the sparrowhawk is continuous in the night sky, growing louder and louder still...seeming to get closer.

Corwyn whispers to Saeita, "I've got a bad feeling about those wolves."

The sparrowhawk's cries become louder still, its harsh voice echoing off the limestone walls of the gorge.

They both are able to see the faint silhouette of the hawk. It circled about them.

Corwyn says, "Hmm, do you think, Saeita, that the hawk might be a familiar?"

"Could be," responds Saeita, "I'm going to wake the ranger, something seems odd here."

At the risk of seeming like a scaredy cat, Corwyn begins to awaken the others as well.

Van wakes up cranky. "What's up? Is it morning already? Damn, I hope it's not going to rain again."

Saeita hears a crunch in the underbrush below the camp. "Shhhh," she says to the ranger. "I'm going to have a look."

As the others wake up, only Corwyn has the presence of mind to put on his armor. Daziel hands Van the magical spectacles so he can see in the dark. Saeita crouches down and peaks over the edge of the camp.

Daziel begins to don her armor, as Van looks around the camp. Saeita sees dark shapes, large shapes, moving through the underbrush down the hillock's side.

Van whispers, "Take cover," as he hears them...approaching from behind...then, with a great snarl, two massive wolves explode into the clearing of the camp, one gray and one black.

Van lets two arrows fly from his bow, the first one causing the gray wolf to howl in agony, but breaking his bowstring as the second arrow misflies.

The two wolves lunge, seemingly at random, attacking Saeita and Velm. The black wolf misses Saeita, its teeth snapping shut in front of her. The wolf is feral, massive, six feet at the shoulder and seven feet long.

The gray wolf clamps its teeth on Velm and flings him to the ground.

The party springs into action, attacking the wolves in their own ways. The two Silverswords, Courana and Geradil, attempt to help as well. The gray wolf, who hunches over Velm, countines to rend him while Saeita is able to continue to dodge the black wolf. She responds by kneeing it in the mouth. Geradil is able to also damage the black wolf, while Corwyn and Daziel's attacks cause it to panic. As it tries to run away, Saeita kicks it in the ribs with her heal as it passes, but Daziel gets the last blow in, crushing its spine with her mace.

Velm slips into unconscious as the grey wolf continues to rend him. Saeita rushes over to the grey wolf, jumping up and coming down hard on its hips (a sensitive area for wolves and dogs). The others, surrounding it, distract it from Velm until Courana impales it with a well-placed arrow.

As everyone breathes hard, looking at the wolves lying dead in front of them, they hear the howling of the rest of the pack rising up around them. Daziel quickly urges Selune to grant healing to Velm, while Van rushes to put his chain shirt on.

The howling gains in volume and ferocity as the beasts being a frenzied chorus...growing closer.

Corwyn yells, "Quick, everyone, form a circle around Velm!"

"Someone start a fire," suggests Van.

Abruptly, a nearby stand of trees and brush ignites in an enormous blast of flames. The whining and other cries of wolves dying is heard.

"Cyrgull?!" cries Corwyn.

The night is torn open by a thunderous roar so massive, so terrifying, the party feels as though their very guts are turning to quivering sour jelly.

Everyone in the party except Daziel panics and runs, most dropping what they had been carrying on the ground. Corwyn cries like a little girl, Van calls out for his goddess. Daziel hears a massive crashing and splintering of trees. Turning to face the sound, she sees an enormous shadow taking wing into the night sky. With a few huge leathery flaps, it's gone.

Twenty minutes later, the rest of the party returns to find Daziel guarding Bronn's body.

"What in the seven regions was that...thing?" asks Van.

Corwyn says, "Glad it came; glad it left."

"I don't know, but very little can make me run off like that," says Saeita, shaking her head.

"Van," instructs Daziel, "go look for the tracks where it was."

Van scouts the area, somewhat gingerly, finding huge clawprings in the earth and crushed undergrowth. "I'm going to make a guess here," Van says, "but...dragon?"

Corwyn says, "That's my first guest...or maybe Cyrgul?"

Geradil and Courana blush. Saeita asks them why. They say, "Sorry we ran."

"Hell, if Daziel hadn't said something, I'd still be running," says Van.

Corwyn aks, "Could this be a gold dragon?"

"Wolves I can handle," Van says. "Orcs? Let me at 'em. I'm not sure about dragons. I thought the last one was dead."

The party packs up their belongings, readying themselves for another day of marching towards Eveningstar.


----------



## Tom Cashel (Jul 5, 2002)

Episode V: *INTO the LOST CITY* 
(a Velm’s-Eye view)

_Characters_: *Bronn Spellforger* (shield dwarf Wiz2), *Corwyn Black* (human Ftr4), *Daziel* (human Clr4, Selûne), *Saeita Neví* (wild elf Mnk4), *Van Dyksun* (human Rgr3/Rog1), *Velm Trueforger* (shield dwarf Ftr4).

_Eleint 1-4_
This is the first time I’ve bothered to keep a journal in my life.  Truth be told, I’m doing it to get rid of a nasty hangover more than anything else.  The scratch of the quill on the parchment is soothing somehow...the dipping into ink a balm for pulsing temples.

Now that I’ve been given the Stone Boot right out of Clan T———, what else is there for me to do but drink?  I’ve chopped enough wood for today, and I’m sick of this backwater town.  There’s always been a lot of talk about how suspicious and provincial dwarves can be, but these Cormyrians are truly a worthless lot.

Except for my companions, of course...they are the exceptions.  And exceptional.  I respect Corwyn for his strength, Snowcap for having the innocence and idealism I’ve lost, Daziel for her puissant skill at war planning, and Saeita for knowing when silence is best.  And also for having the best punch I’ve ever seen from man, dwarf or elf.  Even Cousin Bronny has been different since his Return; older and perhaps wiser.  We shall see...

So tomorrow we set out for the Lost City of Aerunedar.  Which will be good for us: as usual, Bronn and Daziel are at each other’s throats the second there’s a lack of danger pressing in on all sides.  We’ve made Daziel our leader.  A good choice.

Aerunedar, the Goldhome, awaits me.  Journal, you’re the only one I say this to: I’ll go down fighting for Clan Darkfell.  No one else of my kind did, that’s for certain.  I’ll meet my doom in those lightless depths and I hope that I can save my friends or lift Hatho’s Curse in the process.  But I’ve seen it in my dreams, the Axe of Clanggeddin dripping with gore, and I know what it means.  Bereft and without Clan, I’ll welcome it.

Bring me your worst.  I’ll give you Clanggeddin’s best.

_Eleint 5-8_
Trudging back along the same path to Aerunedar, sleeping at the same campsites, staring at the same moon overhead, while Daziel and Snowcap chant prayers to the Goddess.  I’m tired of walking this road.  I know what the Father of Battles has planned for me, and I want to slay as many _wurgym-sargh_ as I can before I am felled.  

Companions, if you are reading this small book taken from my broken corpse: do not pull me back from my Lord and Keeper.  I stand at Clanggeddin’s side.

Met Cyrgul along the road again.  No one’s sure _what_ he is, but we agree he’s probably not human.

Reached Stone Tooth.  No ale and my mouth is dry.

_Eleint 9_
Spent the whole of this day rebuilding a rope bridge across the chasm.  Almost lost Saeita to the depths.

I felt a chill when we passed the spot of Bronny’s doom...I wonder if he felt it too.

We sleep in the Shrine of Selûne beneath the grand staircase.  Someone else passed this way before us—“Leather Boot” is what Snowcap and Daziel are calling him—I think it was the Zhent wizard.  He’ll be waiting for us...I hope he’s ready for my axe.  Bronny and I have a score to settle with that dog.

The Shrine is safe.  It’s good to be within the bosom of the earth again.  I dream of the Axe Father.

_Eleint 10_
We descend into the old mithril mines; damp, moaning, windy caverns bereft of life.  I’m able to find the correct way; you can tell from the reinforcements to the stone that the cave has been worked.  Turns out it’s more of an under-road than a simple cave, burrowing down through the earth toward Aerunedar.

Scrawled on the wall in chalk: MEERSCHAULK.  No one knows what it means.

We walk the miles for hours and hours, until our legs tire and we have to sleep.  A side passage will do.

_(later)_
Hard to get back to sleep now.  I woke to Bronn screaming—and a devil of a deep-lizard stuck to the ceiling, trying to drag Bronny into its jaws with a disgusting sticky tongue.  How it crept up on us undetected I don’t know; neither Bronn nor Corwyn heard it until the tongue flicked out and stuck to Bronny’s shoulder.

We slew it before it could run away.

We are getting close.  There are mine-wagons overturned here and there, and I can feel the ghosts of Darkfell crowding toward the warm life we radiate.  I don’t remember the underground ever being so cold.

_Eleint 11_
Another four hours walking in the mines, and we came upon what we have sought.  The cave opens into a space, a very large dark space, and thundering, rushing water can be heard off to the right.  The waterfall from the map?

We pick our way past old ruins, fields of broken stone walls.  There’s a huge pillar of stone, and beyond a forest of deep fungi—mushroom “trees” fifteen to twenty feet tall, “underbrush” of mushrooms, creepers, vines, phosphor moss.  Looks positively deadly.  We turn left.

Walking along at the front of a row of four enormous pillars.  Between them, we see that the fungus forest is quite extensive.  The fourth pillar is carved into the shape of an enormous booted foot, with a leg stretching up into the gloom.  The Pillar of Iolar?  We can’t be sure in this accursed darkness, but there’s a wide, black river on the other side of it.  Big albino fish in there.  

“Don’t fall in,” advises Bronny.

Again we turn left, following along the shore.  Half of us are blind, hands on the shoulders of their seeing-eye dwarves.  It’s a dangerous way to travel, and it makes me nervous.  Better than advertising ourselves with light, though.

Abruptly we’re surrounded by rank, nauseating vapor.  Gods, the stink!  We get clear of it, and eventually the retching stops.  

“What _was_ that?”  No one can answer.  Bronn thinks it was a spell.  We move on.

Bursts of magic, four of them, pulse from beneath the water.  They strike without error, and they wound, but not deeply.  Something sinuous moves in the dark water...and is gone.

We move on.  Whatever it is, it’s toying with us.

Soon we can see a bridge up ahead, spanning the river.  It’s really a marvel that Clan Darkfell could span a two-hundred-foot wide river with a stone bridge.  Not everyone is as impressed as I am.  Bah.  Rickety wooden supports are enough for humans, I suppose.

The others try to decide where we are on the map.  We cross the bridge, and find at the other side a pair of towers standing sentry in the dark.  The one on the left seems mostly intact, the one on the right crumbling; not all of Clan Darkfell’s engineering marvels have stood the test of years.

A whish in the dark.  Javelins fall around us, wounding some.  Flung from the battlements atop the open portcullis.  We rush forward, out of harm’s way, and burst into the right tower.

They are waiting for us: reptilian creatures that exude a horrible, strength-sapping stench.  Their leader flings spells at us, but to no avail.  We rush through the tower, a killing wind.

After the battle, Snowcap goes outside to check the tower perimeter while we search the bodies.  The inner walls of the tower are covered with primitive scrawls: the word MEERSCHAULK repeated endlessly, along with crude snakelike shapes.  A leader?

A crackling of white light from outside, a roll of thunder.  Snowcap comes screaming into the tower, hair standing on end, scorched and smoking.  “In the water!” he wails, “a human head on a snaky body!  Horror!”

We decide it’s time to leave.  Now.

Straight back across the bridge, straight across a plain of broken stone, past the ruin of a stone building (hoping we’re headed in the right direction, since they’re trusting _me_ to lead them) and Clanggeddin be Praised we reach the side of this massive cataract.  Slip into a cave with a ruined mine wagon in its mouth.  There’s a dwarf skeleton with goblin arrows lodged amongst his ribs.  A reminder to me from the Axe Father?  When the time comes, I will do what you wish, Silverbeard.

_(later)_
They are chanting, chanting in the dark, from the direction of the tower: “_Yss-fara...yss-fara...yss-fara..._”  I roll over and plug my ears.

_Eleint 12_
The others awaken stiff and sore, cramped with chill, but I am just getting back into my old form.  The depths are kind to me.

We break the fast and hold council, and it is decided we will head into the mushroom forest, based mostly on the wisdom of Snowcap: “I’d rather the danger I _don’t_ know, to the danger I _might_ know.”  In other words, _give me poison fungus rather than another encounter with the spell-hurling snake._  Good enough for me.

Back along the cavern wall, past mine entrances and finally past the cave by which we entered, and we reach the forest.

The deep growths are a multitude of colors, bright and dull, but this rainbow signifies only death.  Daziel checks for poisons, and to her chagrin finds too many to categorize. Eventually we decide to press through on foot, rather than using potions and spells to buoy ourselves above.

Soon the forest grows too dense.  Mushroom caps tower overhead.  “I wonder if we could use those as boats in a pinch?” wonders Bronny out loud...for all his faults, he is certainly full of ideas.

We are assaulted by tentacled violet mushrooms.  We encounter a flowing puddle of black ooze that ruins my chain shirt and scars my neck with acid.  I ran away...by the Great Arm of Clanggeddin I fled and stood next to Corwyn...I could hear them fighting it in the darkness, heading it off with torches, screaming when its foul tendrils burned them...and I ran away.

I have proven my true worth: nothing.  A coward, a poltroon.  Great Father of Battles, Silverbeard, will you still take me?  Will I have the courage to go when I am called?

Thanks to Daziel’s quick thinking and ready flame, the seething black ooze slides away hunting easier and tastier prey.  We press on toward the rushing of water, which grows ever louder, and discover a small tower in the depths of the forest, encrusted with algae, moss and mushrooms.

We enter through a trapdoor in the roof.  All the doors radiate magicks (according to Bronny and Daziel), and the inside is lit by globes of light.  But it is still and silent, and filled with dusty (extremely comfortable-looking) furniture.  Bronny warns us that some of it is magical, but we descend the staircase and make ready to sleep here anyway.

A coward like me will sleep anywhere, I suppose.  Where’s that wineskin Bronny gave me?

_(later)_
One thing remains constant on every expedition: there are only two ways you will wake up in the middle of the night.  Either you are shaken awake, or you wake up to someone screaming.  More often the latter.  It doesn’t make for pleasant dreams, I can tell you that much.  Especially not if _you’re_ the one doing the screaming.

This time it is Spooky—Saeita, that is—who wakes me.  “The magical chair,” she hisses, “it _moved._”

We stand ready, blinking away sleep.  The chair, apparently, walked of its own volition to the trapdoor at the tower’s center and knocked hard upon it, ten times.  

Now the wardrobe doors swing open, revealing a huge abomination within, sewn together from the parts of countless bodies, dull cloudy blue-grey eyes staring without sight.

Behind us, Snowcap cries out.  

“Who are you?” whispers a wholly unfamiliar, and wholly unnerving voice in the room.

He is there with us—how I do not know—shrouded in tattered black robes and a cloak, and from beneath his hood eyes peer: a malevolent twinkling pair of white lights.

But he doesn’t want to kill us.  He is more a wasted and pathetic creature, locked away for centuries in his tower, unable to die and unable to truly live.  Journal, I will spare you the details of our talk with him.

He is the Flamecoil, one of the four wizards who brought down Aerunedar in the name of The Coil.  The others were Shieldcoil, Shapecoil, and Corpsecoil.  

One down, three to go, as far I am concerned.  

This coward has dwelt here since the allies of the Coil—all manner of reptile creatures worshiping a god called ‘Meerschaulk’—turned against them and took for themselves the City of Darkfell.  Now the reptiles are the Sons of the Coil, and they follow a king called Yss-fara.  The blood of dragons flows in his veins.

My axe will spill it onto the stone.

Daziel pities him, this thing they call “lich.”  Snowcap wishes to do him a service; perform a quest.  Bronny wishes to learn magic from him.  I drink wine; I am disgusted that they would pollute their own souls by aiding the Doom of Aerunedar, the one who slew the silver dragon Glamerdrung.

But who am I to protest?  A coward...as much a coward as this Flamecoil.  But I will not end up like he, he who has cheated death and hidden away in a dank forest of fungus.  We seek the waterfall, and the bard Hathos, and if Clanggeddin calls me I shall go.  Whenever he calls, I shall hear, and the battle will be glorious ere I am fallen.

They have agreed to retrieve for the Flamecoil the corpse of his lover, the Shieldcoil.  Fools.  They perform services for this demon, yet balk at Bronny’s attempts to learn from him.  Already the lich poisons us.  He is worse than Muxos, worse than the _Fezarch_, worse even than Lady Winter.

Someday, wizard...undying one...Flamecoil...I’ll send your soul to rest beside Shieldcoil.  I don’t pity you, and I don’t admire you.  I’ll hate you with my final breath.

...now where’s that wine?


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## Tom Cashel (Jul 5, 2002)

Episode VI: *To Face the Scarlet Flame*

[_from the journal of_ Velm Trueforger, Blood of Nor]

_Characters_: *Bronn Spellforger* (shield dwarf Wiz4), *Corwyn Black* (human Ftr4), *Daziel* (human Clr4, Selûne), *Saeita Neví*, “Spooky” (wild elf Mnk4), *Van Dyksun*, “Snowcap” (human Rgr3/Rog1), *Velm Trueforger* (shield dwarf Ftr4).

_Eleint 13-15_

My hand trembles.  I can barely hold the quill.  See how far I have come from my origin: I write with a quill and ink instead of a good solid chisel and a thick piece of stone.  I left home four months ago to find Bronn and bring him back—instead I have joined him, taken up his ways, and been exiled from my Clan.

We are falling to pieces.

Our leader, Daziel, called for a vote to see whether we would leave Flamecoil Tower, or stay so that Bronn might improve his wizardly acumen.  The vote was 4-2 for staying.  And yet our leader informed us that we were leaving anyway.  In that tense moment, I thought Bronn might hurl spells, his eyes were filled with such rage.

She will not remain leader for long, we must see to that.  She has placed me squarely in the middle, with my cousin’s life and safety at one side and my leader’s commands at the other.  I’ll never forgive her for that.

As we departed without Bronn, I was terrified that I’d made the wrong choice.

I am worn out.  We found the waterfall, and the won our way to the catacombs beyond.  Our Gods guarded the entrance, all except Sharindlar the Lady of Life.  And why would she stand guard before a tomb?  

I prayed at the statue of Clangeddin, my Father of Battles, and tithed gold and mithril.  When I opened my eyes a small battered pair of crossed axes on a mithril chain lay in the Tithing Bowl.  I took it; I don’t think anyone saw.  

What can this mean?  Would the Father of Battles mean this holy symbol for me, after all the mistakes I’ve made?

And in the tomb?  There were puzzles, and traps, and finally a door we could not decipher without Bronn’s help.  What need have I to revisit these events...my mind was on other things.  The most important discovery we made was twofold, thanks to the tracking skills of Snowcap: a group of four to eight individuals entered this tomb a week ago, and “leather boots” (the Zhent wizard) went in three days ago.  None of them, says Snowcap, have come out yet.

_Eleint 16_

Reunited with Bronn.  Today was an eventful day.

We set out for the waterfall once again, seeking to solve the first lines of the riddle we found so long ago:

_I fall forever and not at all
I slay fire
I guard Hatho’s skull..._

We are agreed that this must be the great waterfall of Aerunedar, and that the “skull,” or skûl, of Hathos must be his drum.  We mean to find it.

Deep within the catacombs we solved the riddle of the Eight Guardians, and by quenching their thirst won through to the caverns beyond.  Down a long natural staircase we could see the flickering of lantern light—something did not feel right.

Spooky crept forward, wearing the _night lenses_, to survey the scene.

She returned, describing a huge cavern filled with carved pillars and stalagmites, a massive pair of stone doors on the far side with green copper pull-rings.  But in front of the door, her back to us, sat a bound and gagged woman on a stone, with a lantern flickering beside her.  Spooky heard muttering voices somewhere in the shadows.

“A trap,” we agreed.

Bronn sent Wolf the Toad to survey the room, and (much later) the tiny creature returned with news: several enemies.  We crept down the stairs and offered a surrender; a voice called back, “The skull is ours!”

Once again, Daziel made our decision for us by launching into battle.  This, however, was a decision I could live with...happily.  Bronn stepped into the chamber and filled one end of the cavern with webs, trapping two of their number.  A gnomish fighter—Snort Riprock—and a cloaked human—the dastardly rogue known only as Dust—dived clear of the webs and moved to join the attack.

We piled into the room.  Bruugrah, the female bugbear whose battle-rage is known and feared throughout the Stonelands, stepped from behind a curtain of stone and let out a roar.  She became my target.  Snowcap launched arrows from his mighty “Boneflinger,” and Spooky used her fists.

The webs suddenly melted away.

The sounds of combat filled the chamber: ringing of weapons on shields, grunts of exertion, sudden shouts of pain, Daziel and Bronn calling back and forth, synchronizing their Art and Power to the greatest effect—A chorus to please the ears of Clangeddin.

A blonde elf stepped from the hitherto-webbed area and took down Snort Riprock, the gnome, and blinded Corwyn Black with a spray of clashing magical colors.  Then the Cleric of Kelemvor, Arnor, emerged and entered the fray.

Snowcap dropped them both with swift arrows.  Clangeddin smiles on you and your bow, young one.

Spooky and I stood toe-to-toe with the raging Bruugrah.  She was no match for us...until Daziel took her down with a spell.  Unfortunately, the spell took down myself and Spooky as well!  Merely a stunning effect...but enough to keep me from the battle.

The things got worse.  From where had the magic-dampening emanated?  Why, from Hulgoth Hawksbreath, of course, leader of the Company of the Scarlet Flame.  The tall and gaunt wizard appeared just as a streaking flame left his fingertips to explode between Bronny and Daziel, rocking the cavern and bringing down stalagtites from the ceiling.

The mysterious prisoner on the stone broke her own bonds (seemingly by magic), and after exhibiting powers I could not understand, faded into the shadows and escaped.

Dust, the elf sorceror Lefestis, and the cleric of Kelemvor lay bleeding.  Corwyn put down the gnome with his hammer.  Spooky managed to drop Bruugrah the bugbear.  Only Hawksbreath resisted us with his Art, but we overcame him.  

The cowardly Hawksbreath attempted to surrender at the final moment of combat.  Spooky, in no mood for mercy, knocked him out with a haymaker to the jaw.

As an act of mercy, we bound their wounds before we bound their wrists.

(_later_)
A long debate ensued over whether we should kill them or let them go.  Finally we decided to set them free (without their items of magic), and at least give them a chance to return home in disgrace as fairly defeated combatants.

The room lit up with white light, cut in half by a crack of thunder.  Electricity crisped our prisoners in an instant.  “You are pitiful!  Put your enemies out of their misery, lest they come back to fight again!!”  

In his black robes, the wizard Faraugar emerged on a ledge above, surrounded by seven exact likenesses of himself.  “The skull is mine,” he said, “you may leave now, or you may stay and die.”

“You’ll be the one to die, Zhent,” cried Bronn.

The struggle was joined, and we swiftly found ourselves fighting a losing battle.  Faraugar flew about, protected by his mirror beings, while we fired crossbow bolts at him.  We were whittling at his protections while he whittled away at our very lives.

Snowcap quaffed a potion of flight, and took the fight to the wizard...Faraugar only smiled and unsheathed a blade of his own: a black longsword marked with Bane’s seal.  No mere wizard, this.

But this day did not belong to Faraugar of the Zhentarim.  Though the cut of his blade went to Snowcap’s very soul, it was the young ranger whose scored more hits.  “Don’t dare believe you’ve seen the last of me,” Faraugar muttered hatefully, and vanished in a flash of brilliant Art.

_Eleint 17_

There in the chamber, before the huge stone doors marked GRAND PORTAL OF THE DEAD, we slept.

Beyond a secret portal, we discovered the tombs of the Kings of Aerunedar, guarded by stone statues of dwarves that sprang to life.  They bull-rushed us, one by one, into the massive pit that spanned the room’s center...in the bottom, among the bones, we faced a swarm of starving dire rats.  We won through...I am still writing, am I not?

But Daziel, our leader, was changed.  Her enthusiasm was gone.  Perhaps she knows, I thought, that we will allow her to lead us no more.  I know this, and yet I write it with regret: she was not a _bad_ leader.  She just did not know the difference between us giving our wills to her, and she impressing her will upon us.  Too often the latter ruled the day.

We found King Cindarm dead under goblin arrows.  We found the bard Hathos with his skûl on a strap around his shoulders.  We found the dry bones of Shieldcoil, and put them in a sack to return to the lich Flamecoil, unless I can convince them that attack is more prudent.

I shall wear the mithril armor we took from Bruugrah, lest she foul it any more with her wretched bugbear existence.  But these weapons—Cindarm’s hammer and Hatho’s sword—and the armor they wear shall stay with them, to aid them in the next world.

Only now do I realize: I did not come to Aerunedar to die for Clangeddin.  I came here to lift a curse, and to speak the Word of Clangeddin.  That is what the holy symbol means: I am to take up the life of the Warpriest.  

My life for yours, Father of Battles.  I take it willingly.  My axe is ready.


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## Tom Cashel (Jul 5, 2002)

Episode VII: *Serpents in Dark Water*

_Characters:_ *Bronn Spellforger* (shield dwarf male Wiz5); *Caramip* (gnome female Brd4); *Corwyn Black* (human male Ftr5); *Daziel* (human female Clr5–Selûne); *Roman Gemlee* (gold elf male Ftr4); *Saeita Neví* (wild elf female Mnk5); *Van Dyksun* (human male Rgr3/Rog2); *Velm Trueforger* (shield dwarf male Ftr4/Clr1–Clangeddin).

*Excerpted from Volume 3 of _Aerunedar: The Rise, Fall and Reconquest of the City of Gold_, by Jungoth Eddletarry of Waymoot, added to the library at Candlekeep in 1423 DR, the Year of the Thundering Hosts:

*Chapter Seven: The Battle of Arglarllur Bridge.*

If one must look back across the years to find the moment that defined what the Company of the Wolf (or Company of the Coin, if the villagers of Eveningstar are to be believed) would become, the curious student of Aerunedar’s tattered history should look no further than the 18th of Eleint, in the Year of Wild Magic (1372 DR).  On this day the members of Wolf Company were to rise above the petty squabbles that had plagued them, and face overwhelming odds.  No name for the bridge upon which they made their stand could be more appropriate that _Arglarllur_.[&sup1]

After the bloody skirmish with the Scarlet Flame, the clash with Zhentarim wizard Faraugar “Leatherboots,” and the discovery of Hathos’ Drum and the dessicated corpse of Shieldcoil, Wolf Company found their food supplies running low.  They foraged for mushrooms outside the Tombs and discussed their options.

But within the tombs, a strange discovery had been made: two goodly-sized boulders of rose quartz with hazy forms trapped at the center.  Velm Trueforger and Corwyn Black set to work dismantling them, hoping that their contents would be akin to the gem that held Sir Temuel Khiv in the past month; in short, they once again hoped to resurrect the history of Aerunedar in the hope that it could aid them.[&sup2] It did.

The quartz yielded the gnomish bard Caramip, and the gold elf warrior Roman Gemlee, both of whom the attentive Reader will recall from previous episodes in this very History[&sup3].  For nearly two hundred years they had slumbered in Shieldcoil’s spellmade prisons, only now emerging to find Aerunedar long fallen.  On the plus side, the longevity of their respective races insured that some of their family members still lived to welcome them home.

Their recollections served to correct a few legendary errors; in short, the Company of the Wolf came to understand that Hathos was no hero to the dwarves of Clan Darkfell–indeed, he had been exiled years earlier[4]–and that the mysterious “Flamecoil” trapped in the fungus forest’s tower was none other than Ruathgrym himself: the Corpsecoil.

Resolute that the bones of Shieldcoil should not be returned to “Flamecoil,” the Company set out for their appointment with destiny at the _Arglarllur_ Bridge.  It is known that they traveled close to, but not beside, the riverbank, due to the fears of Van Dyksun that the naga would return and pelt them with its Art.  “In truth, it terrified me,” wrote young Van of the naga, “in my dreams and waking hours I often wished it dead.  It [was] without a doubt the most frightening abomination I [had] encountered in my young life.”[5]

Before long Wolf Company found themselves surrounded by the ambulatory fungi of the forest: this time they came as a veritable mob of toadstools and mushrooms which encircled them stealthily and released a dusty cloud of spores.  Most of the Company managed to hold their breath, but Caramip and Daziel did not: and so found themselves in mental rapport with the two-foot tall mushroom men.

“We mean you no harm,” said the voices in Cara’s mind. “We bid you welcome,” said the myconids, “battlers of the Consumer.  Strugglers against the Despoiler.”  Young Van Dyksun was quick to realize that they spoke of the black ooze, the horror that so easily devoured all fungus in its path, leaving clean stone in its wake.[6] Though their weapons were readied and all they needed was a single word to launch an attack, the Company managed to quell their bellicose urges and trust the mushroom men.  ‘Twas a wise and lucky choice, for of all the underdark’s denizens, none are more peaceful and philosophical than the Myconids.

Before long they found themselves guests in the court of King Amanita, a toadstool who towered 20 feet above them, surrounded by the many Myconids whom he referred to as his children.  “Welcome you are,” said the King, “partake of potables and comestibles as we talk.”  Only the gnome Cara was happy to find squirming grubs on the menu, but the others were satisfied with edible fungus and a thick drink that Velm claimed “tasted just like mead.”[7]

In the course of their discussion with King Amanita, they were told of the Myconids’ long alliance with Glamerdrung and the dwarves of Clan Darkfell.  Indeed, their tenantship of the Great Cavern predated the dwarves, but they were only too happy to share their domain with the others who arrived later.[8] In addition, it became clear that while Hathos had been exiled to the tower in the fungus forest before Aerunedar was invaded, he later managed to escape and trap Ruathgrym in his stead.[9]

The reverie was short-lived.  An intruder approached.  Myconids scattered in all directions, and after bestowing the boon of eight magic mushrooms upon the Company, King Amanita commanded them to flee.

Their flight was for naught.  The pursuer caught up to them in the forest farther on, and they found it was none other that Ruathgrym’s golem, whom he called _Corpus_.  No one ever accused the Corpsecoil of being especially creative.  In any case, the shambling hulk of sewn-together appendages and flesh angled directly toward Van Dyksun and set in to clubbing the young ranger with its powerful arms, desperate to retrieve the bag which held Shieldcoil’s dry bones.

The battle was short and decisive, with the Wolf Company’s victory mostly attributable to the sure and powerful strikes of Steelwind, the blade wielded by Roman Gemlee.

Further along the river, Wolf Company found themselves at the foot of the Great Pillar of Iolar, which is carved into the titanic likeness of Aerunedar's first king, holding aloft the ceiling of the great cavern.  With spells of levitation, Bronn made his way upward to inspect the pillar.  The inside seemed to be hollow, and within he could hear voices arguing in Undercommon over whether to explore the ruins or bide their time.  Though their names seemed to be "Nimira" and "Snurrevin," the actual identity of the mysterious debaters would remain a mystery, as Bronn decided to descend to the Company once more.

Now the Company made haste toward the bridge.  On the way they met the mysterious prisoner of the Scarlet Flame, who now identified herself as Zandris Winter, daughter of Lady Tessaril Winter of Eveningstar.  The details of this conversation, sadly, are lost to history.  Both Van Dyksun and Velm Trueforger make passing mention of it in their respective journals, and the traveling spellbook of Bronn Spellforger which survives at Candlekeep notes, “Winter family: Traitors!!!” in the Spellforger’s customarily trenchant style.[10]

In any case, the Company of the Wolf came to _Arglarllur_ Bridge expecting a row, and they were not disappointed.

Reconnaissance by Saeita Neví revealed that there were indeed more troglodytes waiting atop the far gatehouse, and that the portcullis–formerly open–was now securely closed.  They advanced slowly, cloaked and nervous.

As they came within range, the trogs sprang up and sent down a hail of javelins.  The shaman who led them loosed a spell that halted Corwyn Black in his tracks.  And sticky webs burst over the group, trapping Daziel and Roman securely while forcing the rest of the party forward: it was clear now that they were trapped.  Daziel called upon the Power of Selûne–a sword of moonlight that sprung from her hand–and used it to cut her way free.

At the shaman’s command, the troglodytes blew long sounding notes on chitinous horns–tones that carried off into the darkness of the cavern.

Things went from bad to worse: the naga rose out of the river to throw spells onto the bridge-bound Wolf Company, and although Bronn Spellforger entangled the gatehouse with answering webs of his own, it was apparent to all that they were in dire straits.

It was Saeita Neví who led the climb onto the gatehouse under the hail of javelins and spells, and Van Dyksun and Bronn Spellforger who followed.  Cara and Roman’s climbing attempts landed them in the dark water of the river, where the naga dove in to attack the helpless pair.  

Atop the gatehouse, Van wondered desperately what his sword could do to help.  “I wanted it to have some effect on these lizards,” wrote Van, “and I wondered what the runes along the blade meant, and for a moment my mind just focused on the sword. ‘What is your wish?’ said a metallic voice in my head.  And of course I just wanted that foul naga to be dead.  ‘WISH,’ it told me, and so I said out loud, ‘I wish the naga was dead.’  If only I'd said 'Nightscale.'”[11]

In the river, as Roman was about to be pulled under, there came a flare of light.  The singed and dead coils of the naga floated to the surface and slid downstream–dead.

Bronn loosed a stroke of lightning that slew all troglodytes except for the shaman, whom Daziel killed with a well-placed crossbow bolt from below.  Though they were sorely wounded, the tide had begun to turn.

Velm and Corwyn took up positions on either side of the portcullis, weapons ready, as Bronn yelled from above in his best Draconic imitation, “We are raising the gate!  Forward and attack!”  The ruse worked.  The throng of troglodytes waiting to rush through and stamp out remaining resistance found only the axe of Velm and Corwyn’s hammer, and they were dispatched with brutal speed.

Silence fell.

Daziel moved forward to heal Corwyn, and Bronn leaned out over the battlements to yell, “Everyone into the tower!”  Everything slowed as a serpentine neck covered with black scales, a skull-like reptilian head festooned with spurs and spikes of bone, rose up out of the river and loosed a smoking blast of acid from its maw over Corwyn, Daziel and Velm.  It was Nightscale herself, answering the summons of the horns.

"Run!" shouted Bronn.  All fled into the tower.  From the vantage point of a second-story arrow slit, Saeita warned them that reinforcements were approaching from the direction of the ruins: ten more troglodytes led by a hideous snake-man.

Though they readied themselves to meet the onslaught, the Company was unprepared for the breath of Nightscale.  The wyrm landed atop the gatehouse and spewed acid into the tower again and again, as below the door burst open in splinters and admitted the serpentine phalanx.

But the serpents' mistake was to mount the staircase en masse.  Bronn Spellforger’s voice formed the bass syllables of a mystical incantation, and a deep thrumming rose in the stairs, followed by a sharp cracking of rock.  The stairs fell inward in a cloud of dust, and all but one of the troglodytes were slain instantly.  Only the abomination–an eight-foot tall snake wielding a falchion in one of its scaly human arms–remained to fight them.

As the snake-thing let out a dying hiss and collapsed in a bloody coil, yet another blast of acidic breath plumed into the tower.  This time Daziel folded to the floor.  Corwyn staggered back, terribly wounded.  Enraged and screaming, “By Clangeddin’s furious axes!” Velm rushed out onto the battlements to face Nightscale.  

“I don’t know what came over me,” Velm later wrote in his journal, “I was terribly injured and exhausted.  But when I saw Daziel fall, the idea that this wyrm thought of us as her playthings just filled me with such wrath as I have never felt before.  I wanted to bury my axe in her skull.”[12]

Cara had crept to the roof of the tower on stealthy gnome feet, to see for herself what had become of the dragon.  As she peeked her head out, she saw the beast from behind, perched on the battlements like a cat about to pounce, its black serpentine tail twitching back and forth in almost feline anticipation.  She gasped to see that it was nearly forty feet long, from head to the tip of its tail.  And before she could call out, Nightscale plunged downward.

“At first I was surprised to see nothing when I emerged,” wrote Velm.  “And as I realized my mistake, the shadow covered me, and doom descended.  It was, without a doubt, the luckiest moment of my life.  That wyrm had me dead to rights.  But I felt her hot stinking breath on my neck as her jaws snapped shut on air; I felt a terrible wind as her claws swept past my back; and then I was slapped silly by the buffeting of her black wings.  It was all I could do to disengage and stagger back into the tower.  ‘Don’t go out there,’ I warned.”[13]

Bronn looked out in time to see the wyrm soaring away, doing a wingover into the darkness.  He ran out onto the battlements and shouted into the shadowy deeps, “_This isn’t over!!_”

But for one, it was.  Corwyn and Saeita stood up slowly from Daziel's unmoving, acid-scarred form.  "She's dead," said Corwyn, and a tear slipped from his eye.

*Notes:*

1. From the Dethek, lit. “Butcher River.”  Sometimes translated as “River of Slaughters.”
2. See _A History of Starwater Gorge,_ by Ummatin Tencloak.
3. See Volume Two, _The Fall of the City of Gold_, pp. 789-825.
4. _Ibid._, pp.221-365.
5. Dyksun, Van. _The Woodland Journal of Van Dyksun_, p. 62.
6. _Ibid._, p. 70.
7. Trueforger, Velm. _My Story_, p. 24.
8. See Volume One, _The Rise of the City of Gold_, pp. 14-23.
9. See Volume Two, _The Fall of the City of Gold_, pp.  445, 523-545.
10. Spellforger, Bronn. _Bronn’s Book of War_, p. 73.
11. Dyksun, Van. _The Woodland Journal of Van Dyksun_, p. 63.
12. Trueforger, Velm. _My Story_, p. 35.
13. _Ibid._


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## Tom Cashel (Jul 5, 2002)

Episode VIII: *The Trials of Enthandas*

_Characters:_ *Bronn Spellforger* (shield dwarf male Wiz5); *Caramip Murnig* (gnome female Brd4); *Roman Gemalee* (gold elf male Ftr4); *Saeita Neví* (wild elf female Mnk5); *Van Dyksun* (human male Rgr4/Rog1); *Velm Trueforger* (shield dwarf male Ftr4/Clr1–Clangeddin).

NIGHTSCALE:

The puling cry of the maggot reaches my ears: _This isn’t over!_ 

You may be assured that it is not, insect.  The chill subterranean air lofts beneath my wings as I swing back toward the crumbling towers at the far end of the bridge.

There: the tiny gnome ducks into the staircase as I approach, a dark shape in shadows, a doom floating on air, a spectre of death personified.  These fools do not realize what easy prey they are.  When will Zandris _show_ herself?

I land atop the bridge, breathing downward, showering the worm (a dwarf who fancies himself a wizard—what a joke!) with scouring acid.  His magic protects him—for now—and he ducks to safety.

I hear them within, shouting that they must flee.  I smell the fear sweat, hear the moans of absolute terror…they are mine.

ZANDRIS WINTER:

Ah, Nightscale...she is beautiful…spurs of bone and glistening black scales.

Nightscale, coiled atop the far tower, striking the fear of the serpent into these heretics who style themselves “Wolf Company.”  They will be slaves of Yss-Fara, fodder for Ooltugula’s experiments, prey of the Coil, food for Meerschaulk the Coiled God.

“Give us the skull!” I shout.  The time is at hand, for me to take what we have desired for so long…the srtifact spoken of in the ancient riddles of Clan Darkfell: Hathos’ Skull.  “I know you have the remains of the Exile…you brought them from behind the waterfall.  Surrender them and you shall live.  It is all you need to do, really quite an easy thing.”  I use the Voice of the Serpent, but it fails to persuade.

One of them—the cowardly fighter called Corwyn Black—tries to flee.  I change him into an asp with a wave of my hand.  Crawl on your belly in the dust, as you deserve.  Tempus cannot help you now.

They pour out of the tower like ants from a sinking log.  They run away toward the ruins of Aerunedar.

And I hear the sound of our Lord approaching, he whose veins hold the blood of dragons, the beat of the drums and the chant of the troglodytes: _Yss-fara, Yss-fara, Yss-fara…_

“The skull of Hathos,” I insist.  “Give it to me and your lives will be spared…for now.”

“Come get it,” says a wavering voice from within.  It sounds like the young white-haired ranger, Van Dyksun.

“No tricks,” I say.

A canvas sack, bones rattling within, is tossed to me.  I look inside.

I smile.  It is the skull.

“Await us at the ziggurat,” I tell Nightscale, and she flies away toward the monument.  I gaze in the direction of the fleeing Wolf Company.  The fools—they will find nothing but death in those ruins.

***
*An Excerpt* from _Bronn’s Spellbook of War_

_Eleint 18_

The war continues. Today I faced down a black dragon and survived. I won’t go into detail about our disaster at the gatehouse after our tremendous victory on the _Arglarllur_ bridge, but once that dragon landed and her dragonfear took the
weak-willed of us (note: research developing anti-dragonfear spell) and Zandris Winter showed her ugly face and demanded “Hathos’ Skull” (Winter family: Traitors!!!), we decided that retreat was our best option. 

Luckily I was protected from the dragon’s breath by the Art, and I was able to take gaseous form. Floating away to join the others, I was surprised to see Van Dyksun, our ranger, cleverly giving Winter the bag of the Shieldcoil’s bones! What a wonderful ruse! Only later did I discover that his cleverness was unintentional (fairly typical for my band). 

Still, I would love to be there when she tries to use his "skull" to get through the traps at Moradin’s Fane. Hah! 

But I was dismayed that the idiot warrior of Tempus was turned into a snake, only minutes after Daziel fell. I certainly won’t miss either of them much, but they were good soldiers. They fought on till the end: and beyond, since it was Daziel’s ghost who led us to the safety of Haela Brightaxe’s shrine. I will rest now and prepare spells soon. (Note: could Combust be used against the dragon? I would love to see it burn. Check Hawksbreath’s notes under Flaming Sphere for possible insights.)

_Eleint 19_

After resting, we were attacked by a huge umber hulk. Luckily, our battle was aided by a svirfneblin (calling himself Hnaef), who has now joined my party–which is better than another dwarf, I suppose. Truth told, my cousin’s scorn is about all I can handle now. Tomorrow, we move. 

_Eleint 20_

Van Dyksun is dead. Rended by a troll. Before I could consider grieving, his ghostly visage appeared. Aerunedar lets no one escape, even the dead. Mystra give me strength to continue the fight! (note: the Troll’s regenerative capabilities were very impressive, a lesser version may be possible under the necromantic sphere. Research later).   We’ve decided to stay here for three nights and two days–until everyone regains their strength.

_Eleint 24_

Today we made for the Lunar Speculum. First, we battled hideous beasts with human bodies and snakes attached to their heads. Shatterfloor was effective against them, but the ranger’s ghost helped us greatly. Roman’s nimble battle tactic of springing, attacking, and springing back angered Velm, who was left alone to face the enemies’ attacks. Heh. Velm’s love for battle won’t let him stay angry for long. 

We passed Iolar’s huge statue, and found a way in through the foot. We must investigate that later. One day, there may be a statue of me in its place. Mystra knows what the war will bring?

The Lunar Speculum. I admire the powerful magics used here to attempt to destroy the moon goddess’ power. A gigantic crater scars the land, leaving only the ruined temple at its center–hanging in midair, a strong yet invisible foundation of godly Power holding it aloft. (note: good design for my own stronghold!) It was lit by a strange light standing at its center. We climbed a rope and grapnel into the temple nave. 

Inside, a shaft of moonlight shone down from the Speculum itself onto this section of the temple floor. Trusting in his goddess, Van Dyksun stepped through. The rest of us followed.

We were transported to a large chamber stewn with the bodies of goblins, serpent-like creatures, and even an illithid! (Note: I took a small sample from the illithid corpse for later study. I don’t think the others noticed.) As expected in Aerunedar, there was another ghost there. (I’m beginning to hate this place). He is the Seneschal–the ghost of the High Priest of the Speculum. It was he who destroyed these creatures who tried to enter the
chambers beyond (which made me look twice at the ghostly visage of our ranger!). 

He invited us to try to get Enthandas (the ring that Daziel spoke of) within, but there would be seven tests to pass. He also told us some history of this place, and of Shelmroun–the other ring that was taken by servants of the Coil. (Note: these rings appear to be powerful artifacts to Selune. Avoid the temptation to put them on). 

Our first challenge was a triple path leading to three doors (Earth, Stars, and Moon) inscribed with the following:

_Choose ye a path, all lead to the goal, 
but heed ye three warnings that ye are now told: 
Follow the foot’s path and be saved by sky’s breath. 
Take the shining path with night’s arsenal at hand.
Walk the way of the Goddess and face the storm’s tongue._

We decided that the earth’s path would involve us flying or require a whirlwind, the moon’s path would involve lightning, and the star’s path would involve light. Light seemed the best choice, which lead us into a room of seven celestial balls of light which were easily dispatched with our magic weapons. (Note: A darkness spell would have been useful here. Consider learning Blacklight spell at next opportunity). Sadly, the door locked behind us, and after passing the next room, a huge stone slab blocked our way. Forward was our only path. 

The next room led into a large stone table with two ornate chairs. On the far wall were three paintings. Carved into the top of the table was the following: 

_I often have leaves, though I’m not a tree, 
Sharp knives all around, I never do flee, 
For though I’m often surrounded, I never feel fear, 
And a good turn in time, makes treasure appear._

We decided that turning the table would bring us one item from one painting. We voted and chose to get the scroll–which was maddeningly blank! (Only later did I discover it was a _moonscroll_ with the power to be scribed with spells and reused over and over again.) 

The next room was huge with a large statue of a griffin upon a stone pedestal. Inlaid upon the pedestal in silver letters is the verse: 

_Relaxed I sit upon my perch 
Till suddenly I give a lurch 
And off I speed on wing-tips three 
Before my prey can think to flee. 
I make its flesh and tendons part 
And claw my way into its heart.

Now only kin can set me free 
So strike the cube with one of me._

We deduced that an arrow needed to be shot at the "cube," but where was it? Only the ghostly ranger could find the keystone in the ceiling, which solved this riddle. We were granted some magic arrows inside the griffin’s mouth. Good, we will need them.

The next area was disturbing. After feeling uneasy, we deduced this was an area of dead magic. My spells would be useless here. My wits and my blade would have to do. A long plinth of stone stood in the midst of bubbling mud. As soon as we set foot on the bridge, a huge slab of granite began sliding down at the other end of the bridge. We ran for it–only to be dragged into the mud by sticky tentacles. Eventually, it was Van’s ghostly telekinetic powers that dragged us from the mud (note: this spell may be useful when I reach the fifth circle of spells). And strength granted to my cousin from Clangeddin kept the door open long enough for most of us to get through. Sadly, my cousin and Hnaef were left behind.

The next door had no latch, lock or handle and it bore the following riddle:

_Housed in crumbling temple, unseen by the eye, 
Eternal and breathless, never to die. 
It is said that I’m lost if your life’s goal is greed,
Treasures that you hoarde–I will never need._

It was the quiet, fearful bard who spoke the true answer: "your soul," which opened the portal. Perhaps she will make a good soldier after all. 

We still had the seventh challenge left, and the last room opened into a treasure vault filled with tall stone shelves holding many tomes, small coffers, scrolls, potion vials, and other items. At the end of the room, was another moonlight portal. The items would do us well in the upcoming war, but the ranger felt that greed was the final test. He moved to investigate the moonlight beam and disappeared. The fearful bard soon followed, leaving the two elves and myself in the room. With our "conscience" gone, we decided to investigate the items. 

Roman went first to look at the magical bracers. I remembered my uncle telling me how elves can strip the magic from items just by touching them. Hogwash, but what if the ranger was right? As Roman touched the bracers, a low keening cry rose from the elf’s chest, and I feared some fell magic might be slaying him. When Roman’s shout reached a crescendo (I was fumbling for spell components) it turned into a cry of glee. "These bracers are excellent!" Roman shouted. All was well and we swept the room clean of its treasure. 

We joined the others in first room with the Seneschal. Luckily one of the scrolls we found was for raising the dead, and the Seneschal himself performed the spell on our ranger, who proceeded to give me a tongue lashing for my "greed." (Funny how useful he was when he was dead). 

We also found a scroll with powerful arcane magics, which we were forced to use to rescue Velm and Hnaef from within the chambers. It could not be helped. 

The items we found were touched by Selune herself and radiate power–the gods are powerful beings deserving of our respect. Although the ranger is a fool, he has a good heart and is certainly skillful. This describes most of the others in my band. The ranger and my cousin sought Aerunedar at the will of their deities, Saeita seeks only physical perfection, Caramip seems to want to flee from here as quickly as possible, and Roman seeks glory and riches. 

We must free Aerunedar from this curse. This place holds the secrets of dwarven magic. Ages past, dwarven battle prowess worked side by side with arcane and divine magics. With Mystra’s help, this age will live again. 

Lady Mystra, thank you for granting me access to the Weave. But the more knowledge I gain, and the more power I accumulate, the clearer the mysteries of the Weave become to me, and the closer I get to my goal. I regret that I was forced to leave behind the dwarven gods when I left Thunderstone. But I had no choice. I know that one day, there will exist a dwarven god of magic on the pantheon of the dwarven gods–and his name will be Bronn. (Note: consider changing name once godhood is achieved).

Now–we rest in the stone cavern guarded by the Seneschal.  There is still one Trial awaiting us, the seventh, and the Seneschal says it is different for everyone.  Indeed–I say bring it, and I will lay low whatever is brought.

(_Thanks to "Bronn" for supplying his journal..._)


----------



## Tom Cashel (Jul 5, 2002)

Episode IX: *Crown of Fire*

_Characters:_ *Bronn Spellforger* (shield dwarf male Wiz6); *Caramip Murnig* (gnome female Brd5); *Roman Gemalee* (gold elf male Ftr5); *Saeita Neví* (wild elf female Mnk6); *Van Dyksun* (human male Rgr4/Rog2); *Velm Trueforger* (shield dwarf male Ftr4/Clr2–Clangeddin).

*The History of the Selûnite Order*
Vol. 12, _From Bane to Boon_

CHAPTER ONE: Bane at Midnight

	IN the decades leading up to the Year of Wild Magic (DR 1372), Faerun believed it had seen the last of Bane, the tyrannical ruler who ascended to the heavens to become a greater God, only to die in the Avatar Crises.  Unfortunately, Bane had prepared for the possibility of deicide.  A half-demon called Iyachtu Xvim, suspected of being his blood, actually carried the seed of his rebirth.  Bane’s followers, branded heretics for not having a deity, reorganized their cult around a few charismatic leaders and waited for Bane’s prophesized return.

In preparation for this event, Banites began gathering together lost artifacts of great power.  So much had been lost between the troubled times, the war between the gods, and the reworking of the Weave that these artifacts were often unguarded (if known) or lost to memory.  While the deities had ceased their battle in heaven, they continued to struggle on this plane through their clerics and other followers.

	The cultists of Bane tended to be humans, seduced by tales of wealth and power conjured for them by an inner circle of semi-powerful prophets.  Most of the followers tended to be down on their luck warriors, who favored the full black armor and large meals offered them by these corrupt priests.  One of these followers was a Red Wizard of Thay named Kizzaf, who sought a way free from the rigid structure of the Thayan trading enclave near Eveningstar in Cormyr.  She had a particular ability for comprehending ancient languages, and in her research stumbled across a reference to the Moonweb, lost to our order nearly 1300 years ago.

	The Moonweb consisted of four silver rings: Amglaer, Enthandas, Shelmroun, and Tilithar.  They were given to our order by the Shards, servitors of the Goddess, in the dark years after the fall of Netheril, to provide hope to our people in that dire time.  Like the Goddess herself, the Moonweb shone out like a shaft of light in the darkness, illuminating the truth and enabling our order to continue when most had lost their way.  Yet, at some point, the rings were separated, and, like the moon when it is only a quarter-full, the rings’ power waned.  Around 616 DR (by all accounts), two of the rings were unwittingly brought together when Selunite clergy met to plan the future of the faith at Manystreams.  That night, Selûne appeared in the dreams of all those assembled, reminding them of the glory of the Moonweb, bidding them to restore the full moon to its ascendancy.  It is from a scroll of this time that we learned the names of the individual rings, although the scribe mentioned that there were no other clues that Selûne could give to aid the faithful in their search.

	The female Red Wizard, either through her study of ancient books unearthed near Eveningstar or through bribery or other nefarious means, discovered what had until the Year of Wild Magic had been secret lore of our faith.  One or two of the rings had been hidden in Aerunedar by the Moonmistress of the Lunar Speculum, after our order had aided the silver wyrm Glamerdrung in the binding of a great evil (see Vol. 6, _To Enter the Darkest Night, A Little Moon Must Fall_).  Ever since Hathos’ curse, and the fall of Aerunedar, our order had organized and funded several expeditions to recover the artifacts that had been stored at the Lunar Speculum.  Unfortunately, none of these expeditions succeeded (See Vol. 9, _The Troubled Years_, and Vol. 10, _Waxing and Waning_).

	In the Year of the Bow (DR 1354), the High Priestess of Selûne at Immersea had a nightmare on the night of the full moon.  She saw an evil power of terrible proportions rising in the northern deserts.  She saw whole villages, even the city of Tilverton, swept from the face of Toril.  And she saw the four silver rings of the Moonweb, glowing white hot, and a black mailed fist about to clench around them.  The symbolism was unmistakable, she said.  The fist of Bane threatened to hold the Moonweb.

	The Selunite order knew that this was a test that they could not fail.  The time had come for Aerunedar to give up its secrets, but we had never been poorer or weaker.  We were in need of a champion.

	A young woman of our order, who received her first blessing from Selûne the night of the high priestess’ dream, was chosen to scout Eveningstar and bring back word of the Banite presence there.  She was also to report if the entrance to Aerunedar was known to the surrounding people.  She was given what preparation we could, although the years had made even our order’s memory of such a place seem like a myth rather than a reality.  Daziel left for Eveningstar with a hired warrior of Tempus in Midwinter of the Year of the Unstrung Harp (DR 1371).  She was never seen again by anyone of our order.

 CHAPTER TWO: A Moony, Moony Lad

	Dyk Gransun and his wife, Maura, were simple folk of Waymoot.  In the Winter of the Year of the Bow (DR 1354) they were expecting the birth of their first child.  What they didn’t expect was the orc attack on the night before the full moon that sent the small village scrambling to find their weapons.  While wandering bards and merchants had brought news of orc attacks, Waymoot had been spared much of the Cormyrian war, and certainly hadn’t expected such a daring raid in strongly guarded human territory.  The courageous villagers, some of whom had fought in previous wars, were able to protect their village from the marauders, but several lives were lost in the battle and many were wounded.  One of these was Maura Gransun, whose arm was nearly severed from her body by a rusty poleaxe.  Before she was found early that morning, she had already lost much blood.  Dyk stayed at her side throughout the next day, waiting for the healer to arrive.  He arrived too late, but the midwife didn’t.  Before she died, Maura gave birth to her only son, Van Dyksun, as Selûne rose high overhead.

	Unfortunately for young Van, losing his mother wasn’t the only difficulty of his youth.  Due either to the poison in his mother’s blood at his birth or the shock her system had taken, from birth his hair was a shocking white, as striking as a moonbeam.  His green eyes and pale skin also were attributed to the circumstances of his birth.  Yet Dyk Gransun harbored other suspicions.  For the most part, Dyk was kind to the boy, and trained him in the ways of the wood.  On the occasions that Dyk drank, though, he would look at the boy (white hair, fair skin, green eyes) and then at himself (dark hair, dark skin, brown eyes) and remember his wife (also dark), and wonder.  If Dyk was less than affectionate in these times, no villagers said anything about it, but the boy learned quickly to avoid his father and would often sleep in the boughs of a tree when his father had once again taken to the drink.

	The children of the village weren’t much better to the strange looking boy and engaged in those small cruelties that children are known for.  Van was alternatively known as ghostboy, moon baby, whitey, and Van Dykmoon.  A sensitive child, he retreated to the only refuge that he knew—the King’s Forest surrounding Waymoot.  From his father’s instruction and the fact that he had no other pastimes, Van learned the ways of the animals, how to track them and how to kill them.  Along with his wood knowledge, he became such an accomplished ranger that he was allowed to join older men from the village to hunt orcs during the Ghazneth War.  Of course, he had a particular grievance against the orcs, which likely aided his arrows in flying true.

	Dyk Gransun forced his son to select a patron deity before allowing him to join the hunt—no son of his was going to be disposed of by the Lord of the Dead because he had failed to choose a faith. Van, remembering the slights of his youth and also the benefit that the moon’s light gave him when hunting at night, chose Selûne.   Rather than ridicule his choice as he had suspected they would, his father and the village elders merely nodded their agreement.

	Following the attainment of his majority, Van asked for his father’s permission to leave Waymoot.  The old man had seen the adventurous spirit grow in the boy and didn’t even attempt to sway his decision.  Instead, he presented Van with a fine dagger, a wedding gift that he and Maura had received, yet never been able to identify the giver.  The masterly crafted weapon, old yet still as sharp as the day it was forged, had a strange design on the hilt that resembled four quarter moons. 

CHAPTER THREE:  Well Met at Shieldmeet

	Van joined a merchant caravan heading to Eveningstar as a scout (due to the increasing number of orc raiding parties).  There he met a taciturn shield dwarf named Velm Trueforger, on a mission to bring his wayward cousin Bronn (known as Spellforger, a name given to him in jest by has family, but one that he embraced).  Their Clanmaster at Thunderstone had decreed Bronn criminal and traitor for continuing to use the Clan name after being cast out, and Velm was determined to uphold the family honor.  Van, looking for any reason not to return to Waymoot, invited himself to join up with Velm.  No one knows exactly why Velm accepted his assistance, no more than anyone knows why everyone loves a puppy.  Young humans must seem that way to the older races at times.

	In Eveningstar, Velm cornered Bronn at the Lonesome Tankard on the night of Shieldmeet, where Bronn sat in the company of Enina Meliamne, a moon elf Druid and Saeita Neví, a wild elf monk.  Bronn nonchalantly dismissed Velm’s contentions of taking him back to Thunderstone and instead invited Velm to drink more ale.  Thus began the legendary Company of the Changing Name.

	The first act of this group garnered them their first name.  Kizzaf, the renegade Red Wizard of Thay, had used the festivities of Shieldmeet to kidnap two local boys and sell them to slavers (to further fund her research activities).  The new group of companions quickly rescued the lads and brought the Thayan slavers back to Eveningstar for justice, to be greeted with the name The Company of the Coin by the grateful mother of one of the boys.

	The local Thayan leader, Fezarch Hinnar, hired the group to locate and bring back Kizzaf, who had vanished from the enclave, giving them a simple clue to go on.  The Nameless Company tracked her down to an abandoned cave beyond the eastern end of town, where they captured her and killed her companion, a priest in black mail wielding a wicked mace.  The company also discovered Daziel and her warrior companion, Corwyn Black, captured while still on their way to Eveningstar.

	Returning to town with their captive, the unchartered company was arrested by the Purple Dragons and taken before Lady Tessaril Winter, who agreed to grant them a charter and forgive them their trespasses as long as they would assist her in dealing with a demon imp infestation in Starwater Gorge.  While most of the company were in favor of this generous offer, both Bronn and Daziel were reluctant, for different reasons: Daziel wished to resume her original mission, yet felt somewhat indebted to this motley crew who rescued her from captivity; Bronn, however, had uncovered news leading to the entrance to Aerunedar, legendary dwarven home of gold.  Both realized that they need assistance before engaging in their separate interests, and they agreed to go along with the company.

	By this time the Company had taken its’ second name, the Company of the Wolf, in honor of the animal companion of Enina Meliamne.  (Later, Bronn Spellforger would christen his toad familiar ‘Wolf’ in his typical sarcastic way of showing the others what he thought of their need to achieve renown.)  During the first tenday of Eleasias in the Year of Wild Magic, the company engaged in rooting out what became known as the Haunted Halls of Starwater Gorge.  The important things for Selûnites to remember from this time are the restoration of the Tempus paladin, Temuel Khiv, missing since the Year of the Prowling Naga (DR 1176); the defeat of the ersatz Corpsecoil, Ruathgrym (a clever imitation designed by the Corpsecoil to keep the undead hand of Rivior from seeking him out); and the final defeat of Kizzaf, who had escaped from captivity at the Thayan Enclave with the assistance of her Banite allies.  During this last battle, the “Claw of Bane” managed to kill Temuel Khiv, but the company persevered over their enemies.  (Khiv was later restored to life at the Temple of Lathander, and rededicated his services to that patron.  For more information about Khiv, and his background, see the companion volume, _History of Allied Orders_, vol. 17.)

	It is no surprise that a company of such strange companions, joined by ill-luck and sometimes with ill-will, fought among themselves as much as they fought their enemies in their early days.  The stress on several members was strong: Daziel had uncovered her worst fears, evidence of the Banite presence right here on the doorstep to Aerunedar; Bronn was afraid that Velm would one day remember his early purpose, and act before Bronn was able to show Velm the true importance of his studies; and the entire group, who had promised to root out the kobold influence in the area, instead were looked on with certain suspicion in town following a raid that ended with the death of a prominent townsman, Deltar Tummarlin.  Worse yet for Velm, his uncle Dorn Trueforger, the Hammer of Moradin, arrived in Eveningstar, working on reestablishing contact with Aerunedar himself, and exiled both dwarves (one for his criminal ways, the other for aiding a criminal).

	Good luck often comes from bad, though.  Dorn's arrival forced Bronn to reveal more about his knowledge of Aerunedar to the company, and his sentence of exile would prove to be a boon rather than a hindrance as Hathos’ curse prevented any dwarf with a clan to enter the city.

	It wasn’t until Eleint 10 that the Company finally entered Aerunedar, and the loss of time to the Banites nearly proved disastrous.  A Zhentarim wizard, nicknamed Leatherboots by Van because of his clear tracks, had entered the mithril mines before them.  In the broken city itself, they encountered a race of troglodytes who worshipped a lord called Yss-Fara, as well as a naga who lived in the underground river the separated the city proper from the rest of the cavern.  They also discovered Flamecoil, one of the four wizards responsible for bringing about the downfall of Aerunedar, now a lich who dwelt in Hathos’ tower.

	Other documents reveal the hurried nature of the party in their race against time to remove Hathos’ curse (and obtain the sacred relics left behind) from Aerunedar.  One battle had to be fought against the Company of the Scarlet Flame, who had been hired by the Thayans to obtain certain items from Aerunedar, followed quickly by another encounter with Leatherboots.  Flamecoil was revealed to actually be the Corpsecoil himself (trapped in Hathos’ tower by a clever trick of the dwarven bard), who needed the bones of his lover, Shieldcoil, to escape his prison.

Here they rescued two additional prisoners of the Coil’s ingenious gem prisons, Caramip, a gnomish bard, and Roman Gemmalee, an elven fighter.  And finally, when the Company of the Wolf thought they had managed to gain some breathing room, they met their greatest enemy up until then: Zandris Winter, the daughter of Lady Tessaril Winter, and her black dragon companion, Nightscale.  It was Nightscale whose searing acid breath took the life of Selûne’s loyal daughter, Daziel, while Zandris shapechanged Daziel’s warrior companion, Corwyn, into a viper.  The only reason the Company of the Wolf survived was due to a last minute bargain made by Van Dyksun— Zandris wanted Hathos’ skull, and Van had a bag of bones which he offered to her.  Little did either of them realize the trick that was being played.  For one, the bones were those of the Shieldcoil, not Hathos (whose bones had been laid to rest by the newly dedicated cleric of Clangeddin, Velm).  Nor was what Zandris wanted really a skull, but a dwarven _skul_, or traditional drum.

CHAPTER FOUR: The Battle of the Lunar Speculum

	Severely weakened by their encounter with Nightscale, the party sought refuge in the ruined city.  Walking through the empty avenues, they were amazed to find the ghostly figure of Daziel pointing them towards a trap door, leading to a shrine where they could rest and recover.

	It was here that Van Dyksun made his fatal mistake.  Still young and naïve, although quickly learning the ways of diplomacy and secrecy, Van knew that the party was getting low on rations.  A hunter and gatherer, he left the safety of the shrine to seek what food he could in the rubble, similar to the mushrooms they had gathered earlier to sustain themselves.  What he didn’t expect was that he wouldn’t be the only hunter about, nor that what the others hunted would be him.  Caught by a troll, the young ranger attempted a ruse, to offer to lead the troll to a spot where he could find dwarves for his supper.  The troll took advantage of the offer, but upon arriving at the trap door, proceeded to eat the poor ranger first as an appetizer.  Van’s cries brought the others of the Company to his aid, but it was too late.  By the time they arrived, he had already been devoured, his mangled hand in the maw of the troll.

	Having lost three companions in the space of 24 hours, the remaining company paused long enough to fully recuperate, making sure that no others went off alone.  When they did emerge once again into the ruined city, they discovered the ghost of Van Dyksun lingering in the spot where he had died.  (Ironically, he who had been ridiculed for his ghostlike appearance had finally become one.)  Hathos’ curse had prevented him from fully joining the ranks of the dead, just like Daziel before him, yet his hold on the world was stronger then hers.  While Daziel could only lead the party to where they needed to go, Van was able to actually assist them in their next encounters.

	When the Company finally arrived at the Lunar Speculum, they discovered Selûne’s temple floating in the air above a huge crater in the cavern floor.  Sometime during the sacking of the city, the goblins or the Coil had attempted to destroy it, yet Selûne’s power held, likely due to the power of the Speculum itself, a disc in which if you gazed into its depths just right, you could see Selûne herself.  From the Speculum, a beam of pure moonlight shown down onto the floor of the temple, instantly transporting the Company to an interior of the temple called the Darkcrypt, inaccessible by any other means.

	Here, the company underwent the seven trials of Enthandas, for the rumors were true, and that segment of the Moonweb had indeed been placed there under the care of the clerics, now as ghostly as the rest of the original Aerunedar inhabitants.  Through the first six trials, the Company performed well, if somewhat without much style—they still had a tendency to rush forward and attack at will rather than working together as a group, although some shimmerings of their future shone through.  The sixth trial, a locked door with a riddle that indicated that you would lose your soul if greedy, proved easy to pass, but made the next room difficult.  For in the library was what they had been seeking: Enthandas itself, as well as a collection of powerful artifacts left here for the worthy by Selûne.  The ghostly Van prevented the party from taking anything, however, by arguing that this was the seventh test, that they had to forgo greed if they were to pass all trials.  Still naïve in death, though, he entered the moonbeam portal, leaving his fellows behind, who all but Cara (who quickly followed Van, believing in his argument) proceeded to collect the items in this place.

	When they rejoined him, the ghostly Seneschal indicated that the seventh test was yet to come.  Using some of the items, Van (understandably upset by the nature of the trials) was restored to life by the Seneschal and certain party members who had been trapped within the trials were restored to the group.  As they nursed their wounds and prepared new spells, they realized that the seventh trial was likely waiting for them outside the Darkcrypt in the temple itself.

	So it was, for while they were celebrating their new possessions, Banites had reshaped the area around the entrance to the Darkcrypt and prepared an ambush for the Company, once again renamed, this time to the Champions of Selûne (for they now carried her artifacts).  While the party had realized that they likely would meet an ambush, they didn’t realize the severity of it.  Upon exiting the portal, Bronn Spellforger surprised one group with a deadly fireball, but the ambushers had stationed themselves all around the portal.  As they were revealed, it looked like the Company had only won Enthandas to quickly lose it, for the Black Hand of Bane demanded that from them if they were to see any mercy.

	The company responded only with their weapons.  Lined up against them were a number of new and old enemies: goblins, orcs, a bugbear named Backbreaker and an orc chieftain named Tonguebiter, an evil elf wizard, the Grand Terror of Bane and his mistress, and several Bane fighters.  In the middle of this battle, the Zhentarim wizard “Leatherboots” arrived, although it was unclear if he had been invited or merely opportunistic.  The party held their own against these overwhelming odds for a half a minute, but Roman was cut down by the orcish chieftain, and Saeita Neví attempted too much at once and fell before the bugbear.  Van attempted to aid her by drawing the bugbear off, and found himself fighting it one-on-one.  Shortly before the bugbear laid him unconscious, Van screamed in frustration, “Selûne, do not let them profane this, your temple!”

	Even as he was able to cleave the Grand Terror of Bane and several of the black-mailed fighters, Velm could note withstand the many enemies surrounding him.  Cara, seeing that all was nearly lost, took up Hathos’ skul, which she had been studying, and played a song of panic.  At the same time, a blinding white light emerged from the speculum, searing with truth the remaining followers of Bane celebrating over Velm’s prostrate body, while Leatherboots and the remaining orcs panicked and ran.  Saeita, although unconscious, had stabilized, and Cara was able to reach Van before he died once again, but it was too late for both Roman and Velm.  The party picked up their fallen comrades and took them through the moonbeam portal to the ghostly Seneschal, who merely shook his head.  He did not have the power to restore them.  He had only been able to restore Van because of the scroll obtained during the trials, but that scroll was now used and gone.

	After Cara restored Saeita and Van to consciousness, the party contemplated their next step.  Bronn and Van, convinced that something could be done for the dead, decide to return to the temple, especially after Van was told of the blessing granted by his appeal to Selûne under the Speculum.  Back in the temple, however, Leatherboots had returned and was busy ransacking the bodies of those left in the temple.  Bronn, Cara and Van try to stop him—Van calling upon the aid of Enthandas for the first time to prevent Leatherboots from flying off—but in their weakened state, they were no match for the Zhentarim wizard and were forced to retreat to the safety of the Darkcrypt.  A few minutes later, they attempted to return to the Speculum again.  Leatherboots was gone, and none of their fallen foes had anything left of value, as the Zhentarim had taken everything.

CHAPTER FIVE: The Conversion of Van Dyksun

	Reports vary about exactly what happened next.  Only two people were present throughout the event, and neither spoke much of it later, although it is clear that both were changed.  The following depiction, although somewhat fictionalized, is based on what could be surmised from examining various sources.

	Bronn looked disgusted at the ransacked bodies in front of him.  Not only had his cousin and the annoying yet useful elf died, but the dirty Zhentarim had stolen what little advantage he had hoped to gain over what had become quite a collection of enemies.  Van, however, was focused on one idea—how to have their friends brought back from the halls of the dead.

	Van looked up at the Speculum, the first time he had ever done so.  Yes, he had walked through the moonbeam portal that shone from it, but he had never cast his gaze into it, seeing how it bypassed all the earth and rock that separated him from the outside.  Through the lens he could see that it was night, that the sky was mostly clear with only a few wispy clouds on the edge of his vision, and the moon shone strong.  It made him long for the woods and to be outside once again and not trapped in this everdark underground.  He fell to his knees and lifted his voice to Selûne.

	“Goddess, I beseech you,” he prayed.  “Have we not passed your seven trials?  Are we not worthy of bearing the name of your champions?  Would you favor us now, the wielders of Enthandas, part of your Moonweb, so that we can continue in our mission to remove the curse from these halls surrounding this your temple?”  Van bowed his head.  While not necessarily a taciturn person, this was an unusual speech from him.  Something about the place, the Speculum, his recent experience as a ghost, the stress of the trials of Enthandas, or the shock of losing his best friend Velm and the courageous elf Roman Gemmalee had changed him  In the years leading up to this moment, his service to Selûne had been mainly lip service—in fact, recorded in Daziel’s personal effects was a note that she had been forced to encourage the young ranger to share in her prayers to the Goddess at times during the company’s trips along the Starwater Gorge.

	Whatever the case, the next event was clear.  A blinding, white-hot light immediately bathed both Van and Bronn in the power of Selûne.  Van’s injuries, both those suffered recently from the bugbear, but also the scars he bore from his death to the Troll, miraculously vanished.  Bronn, either for unbelief or a lack of respect for her eminence, could not withstand the presence of her pure light and fell to the ground in agony.  In Van’s ears, and in those of our priests and priestesses of the highest level who happened to be gazing or worshipping the moon that night, the crystal voice of Selûne herself was clear:

	“Van Dyksun, be not troubled.  You have been found worthy.  You bear my mark.  What is your need?”

	Van stammered, “To remove this curse—both Hathos’ on this city and the spread of Bane’s presence in our lands—I need my companions who fought bravely to get us here to this place but whom Bane has taken from me.  Without them, I am not sure the rest of us can overcome the danger before us.”

	“If I return them to you, your party must do me a further service.  Can you speak for them?”

	“I think—no, I know that I can.  Yes, we will freely accept your geas.”

	“If that is so, bring them here to me, where my light can fill them.”

	Bronn, unable to hear the goddess himself, reacted immediately when Van asked him to retrieve the body of their dead companions.  As Bronn and Saeita emerged from the Darkcrypt with the lifeless bodies of Velm and Roman, both dwarf and elf immediately began to stir with new life.

	Velm, in Bronn’s grasp, immedately seized his cousin’s neck with his strong hands.  “You…have…brought me back from Clangeddin’s side,” he said, filled with rage.

	“Your task isn’t complete, Cousin,” Bronn reminded him.  “Hathos’ curse has not yet been lifted.”

	Velm shook his head free of his recent encounter with paradise.  “Yes, you are right.”

	Roman looked up to Van.  “You brought us back?  My life is yours.  I will do whatever I can for you.”

	Van turned to them both, looking at them, as well as Bronn, Saeita, and Cara, who had just emerged from the Darkcrypt.  “It’s not me that you owe.  We all owe one much greater than me.  All of us.”

CHAPTER SIX: The Coiled King

	The party immediately moved from the Speculum, in case some of the panicked creatures of Bane returned.  It wouldn’t do to have to go through another deadly ambush.  They returned to Haela’s Shrine, where they discovered the missing Svirfneblin cowering in the corner.  Since he had the opportunity to save Roman during the Battle of the Lunar Speculum, and instead decided to administer a coup de grace to a goblin which had surrendered, the party allowed him to stay, but did not seek to have him join them the next morning when they left to find Clangeddin’s Hall.

	One encounter with a pair of “shocker-lizards” and some troglodyte guards later, Selune’s Champions found themselves facing the bleak wall of an intact hall that they suspected was their target.  Unfortunately, the troglodytes had made it their base of operations, and several guards were stationed along the edge of the roof.  One of the trogs saw or heard something below and sent out a scout party.  Instead of waiting for the scouts to raise the alarm, Roman Gemmalee downed the remaining guard with a very well-placed moonmote arrow, then the Champions ran up to the wall, out of sight of any remaining guards, quickly working themselves along the wall until they came to a door.  Along the way, the wizard Bronn, bard Cara, and cleric Velm complained of unusual headaches—precursor to areas in which magic either did not work or the results of which might be unpredictable.  Van’s attempts to pick the lock on the door were unsuccessful, so instead the party put their strength to the test, eventually breaking into the hall and immediately closing the door after them.

	Inside, the Champions focused on finding the stairs downward, being careful not to disturb the gibbering and chanting trogs that they could hear behind certain closed doors.  Upon descending, the party spied a creature chained to the wall.  Through sign language, they confirmed that his guards were just around the corner.  Encouraged through signs to taunt the guard and lead him into their trap, the creature started hissing and spitting until the guard walked into view, to be quickly downed by the weapons against him, which then brought a number of unlucky fellow guards, fried to cinders by a strong lightning bolt cast from the hands of Bronn.

	The released creature, nicknamed Hissenspit, indicated that Yss-Fara and “Winter” were along a thin hallway.  At another door, the party could hear more of their enemies.  But this time, rather than simply rushing in and engaging in battle, Bronn summoned a Celestial Bison on the other side of the door, as a diversion.  After hearing the roars of pain from the trogs, the Champions stormed into the room, focused on removing Winter from this world.  

Instead, they were confronted by two horrible monstrosities: their former companion, Corwyn Black, now changed into half-man, half-serpent; and a tall serpent-like woman like the one they had faced once before in the ruins.  The courageous bison had an entire phalanx of troglodytes armed with spears around it.  Saeita, Roman and Velm rushed into the room, deciding on taking out the female snake-thing first.  Another foul snake-thing poked its head out from among the shadows and Roman instantly transformed into a viper.  

Van called upon the power of Enthandas to return Roman to his natural form.  That is why Yss-Fara, the coiled king, said to bear the blood of dragons, revealed himself.  The Champions slowly overcame their enemies, suffering terrible wounds themselves, but their saving grace, Cara, invisible through the use of a potion, was there to cure them.  During the fighting, another of the snake things was able to change Van into a viper, but Bronn’s use of the moon salve returned him to his natural form.

	Victorious, the party spiked the door to Yss-Fara’s throne room and debated their next move.  The one troglodyte who had surrendered indicated that Winter was down a hidden staircase, which the party believed to be the way to Moradin’s Hall, and the goal of their quest—the way to remove Hathos’ curse from Aerunedar.  They took an hour to refresh and heal, while Bronn scribbled frantically in his spell book, trying to capture the polymorph spell exactly, now that he had heard it three times.

	Among the order, debate rages as to when exactly Van took the cloth.  Some say that it was after the Battle of the Lunar Speculum, considering that was the seventh trial of Enthandas.  Others say it was immediately after being visited by the Goddess.  Still others speculate that it was at this time, when he realized that he needed to reflect his faith in his life.

CHAPTER SEVEN: Moradin’s Hall

	Still fearing Zandris Winter’s power, the party made plans to use Selune’s bracers to instantly dimension door to her side, in the hope that they could surprise or break her concentration before she could cast a spell or call upon some other power.  The two quietest members, Van and Saeita, took the lead as they descended further into the depths.  At one spot, they came upon a hall that was littered with the remains of fungi and slime, with the cracked yet moist shells of eggs in which the young had recently departed.  While wanting to remove this evil, the party was resolved to take Winter now, while she could still be surprised.  The next door they came to was marked with Clangeddin’s symbol, but the lock was not easily picked by Van.  They moved on to a large set of double doors that were unlocked, to a large cavern beyond with a pool of water in its center.  Hugging the wall to the right, the party moved along until they came to another set of doors, this time with the burning eyes of Gorm Gulthyn marked upon them.  Once again, the doors did not yield to Van’s lockpick.  As Velm said, “Clangeddin and the other gods have decreed that we do not need to enter.”

	Staying along the wall, and still traveling to the right, the next set of doors was the largest they had seen yet.  This time, they were marked with the symbol of Moradin.  They had reached their goal.

	Yet the party was much more wary than they had ever been.  Opening the doors in the dark, the ones with darkvision were greeted by a surprising site: the crushed bodies of Zandris Winter and a host of troglodyte escorts.  The feared confrontation had been taken from them, so while some of the party wished they had had a chance to exact their revenge, others prayed happily because no one died in the attempt to do so.

	So as not to suffer the same fate as Winter, whose hand still held what she had thought was Hathos’ skull, the party gathered around Cara, who began playing Hathos’ _skul_.  Advancing forward, they came to the spot where Winter had died and they sensed the force pressure, yet the bard’s drumming matched the rising pitch of the pressure on them perfectly and then it was gone.  Searching Winter’s body, Bronn retrieved a wand and a ring.  Van reflected on the skull in her hand, which seemed to fascinate Hissenspit.  Van told him to take the skull, and the bones in the sack where it came from.  As soon as the bent creature held the bones in its gnarled hands, it stood up straight and in a clear voice so unlike the one it had spoken with before, said, “these are what Ruathgrym wants,” and disappeared.  The party looked stunned, and Van once again cursed his trusting nature before remembering that such is the way of our order.

They had to move on, though, and give thought to Ruathgrym later.  Cara switched to the Song of Fire.  In the hall before them, three large rubies were set in the ceiling.  As they appeared underneath them, tendrils of flame snaked out and tried to whip at them, blocked by the wall of force from the skul.  As they moved on, Cara switched to the Song of Ice, preventing three cones of cold that froze the moist air around them, except for the bubble of force protecting them.

	Selune’s Champions, the defeaters of Yss-Fara, the Coiled King, then stood before the large statue of Moradin, whose eyes burst into flame and whose crown began to emit smoke that began to snake up the walls.  The statue spoke to Cara, who did not understand it, asking if she were a true son or daughter of stone.  As the smoke continued to billow, the party cried out and Bronn took up the skul.  Immediately, the statue’s eyes switched to him, and a hidden door opened.  The statue said, “Restart the forge, true stone son.”

	Velm and Bronn, remembering the days of their youth, shifted the two levers in front of them, and somewhere deep beneath, a shifting occurred and the forge was lit once again.  In a room beyond, the party discovered treasures worth fighting for—suits of armor and weapons of mithral, all radiating the strong aura of magic.  Gathering what they needed, the party returned the way they came, all the way to Clangeddin’s Hall.  Here Bronn used a spell of knock from one of his held scrolls to obtain entry to this hall, where Selune’s Champions found vials of healing and rations that were sorely needed.

	After resting the night, the group decided to leave the hall, but before they could leave, Bronn put forward a suggestion that Van become the leader of the group, quickly seconded by Velm and the others.  His first decision was to investigate the hallway of slime and fungi that they had passed by before, convinced that it hid some evil.  His instincts were correct, as what they discovered in the room at the end of the hall was a vile creature laying eggs that were hatching what looked to be immature troglodytes and other, worse, monstrosities.

	Bronn Spellforger cast a fireball centered directly on the thing, blasting the small crawling things around the pool as well as the unhatched eggs.  Roman, Van, and Velm hit the thing with arrows, and it sank down in the pool out of sight.  Following up to see if it was dead, the thing emerged again—with whiplike appendages holding several different types of weapons or a snakelike maw.  Roman was frozen in place by a foul spell, and all the party did their best to destroy the creature, including Bronn, who summoned an fiendish ape.  The deepspawn panicked once again and dove out of sight.  Velm immediately attacked the ape, recognizing it as a fellow creature of hell.  

While Bronn attempted to dissuade him, and forcing the beast to retreat, the rest of the party pulled Roman back to the wall, out of the way.  Shortly after Bronn dispelled his ape, following the request of both Velm and Van, the deepspawn returned suddenly, its wounds healed.  This time it froze Van, then, after suffering some terrible attacks from Velm, it dove again, this time dragging Van and Roman into the pool with it.  Saeita, recognizing the danger, immediately dove into the pool, found Roman and used the dimension door capabilitity of her moon bracers to spirit him to the safety of the hall.  Velm, fortified by a potion of water breathing from Bronn, took the fight to the deepspawn’s lair, wrenching the ranger from its grasp, and returning him to the surface where the untrained skill of Cara, who kicked the human in the stomach, was enough to cause him to belch forth the foul water.

	Like before, the party had assumed that they had the strength of thousands, and yet one creature had nearly been the death of two of them once again.  They retired to Gorm Gulthyn’s Hall, hiding their tracks from the troglodytes that might be brave enough to see what had happened down in the caverns, to reflect on their greatest challenge yet.  For Aerunedar could not yet again be home to the dwarves as long as Nightscale, the black dragon, survived, nor while Ruathgrym, responsible for the ruin of Aerunedar to begin with, was still free.

[_many thanks to_ Glen _for writing this wonderful summary_]


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## Tom Cashel (Jul 5, 2002)

Episode X: *Ooltugula’s Portal*

_Characters:_ *Bronn Spellforger* (shield dwarf male Wiz7); *Caramip Murnig* (gnome female Brd6); *Roman Gemalee* (gold elf male Ftr6); *Saeita Neví* (wild elf female Mnk7); *Van Dyksun* (human male Rgr4/Rog2/Clr1); *Velm Trueforger* (shield dwarf male Ftr5/Clr2–Clangeddin).

_from the journal of Velm Trueforger_

The crunching _clack-clack_ of wagon wheels on a leaf-strewn autumn road is the most comforting sound I’ve heard in these past two months.  I am headed along this road in the company of a mule named Lars, my destination Thunderstone, village of my birth.  My name is Velm Trueforger, Hatchet of Clangeddin, blood of Nor.

At first glance you’d think me an everyday dwarf, with my simple green hood and battered boots.  My blond beard is as braided as the next dwarf’s.  Hail and well met to you, fellow.  But look a little more closely and you will see the long handle of a waraxe propped beside me.  Is that otherworldly shine the evidence of light glancing off mithril?

Look more closely still, and you will see my scars.  I’m laced with them; they stitch me together.  Aye, my spirit has traveled beyond this world to stand at the side of the Lord of the Twin Axes, and I’ve seen things beneath this world that would turn your hair white and cause you to fall over stone dead.

And when you see the crossed silver axes hanging from my broad neck by a stout chain, you know I speak the truth.  I am headed home to bury my dead.  My wagon’s canvas tarp shrouds the doomed and the lost.  But we saw it through to the end, didn’t we?

*** *** ***
_Eleint 28-29_
After we had put an end to the Spawning Mother, she who had birthed into the darkness score upon score of wretched and stinking troglodytes, we stayed briefly within the Hall of Clangeddin.  But there the water was crusted with an oily foam, and we thought it best to retreat into the corridors of Moradin’s Fane and shelter in the Hall of Gorm Gulthyn, the Fire-Eyes, protector of dwarves.

Our rest was punctuated by mysterious happenings, as well as the bickering that had been welcome among us–a trusted friend–since our humble beginning in Even’star two months earlier.  Best I should stick with the mystery and spare you yet another account of my quick temper, Bronn’s ever-expanding hubris, Saeita’s stubborn and enigmatic silence, the good-natured but irritating braggadocio of the gold elf Roman, Van’s well-meaning but–all praise to the Moonmaiden–increasingly preachy leadership, and Caramip’s growing obsession with the drum of Hathos.  Even though it had fulfilled its purpose, still she persisted in tuning, fine-tuning, devising new rhythmic patterns, insisting that no one else touch it.

More interesting were the rumblings that passed through the very foundations of Cindarm’s Hall above and into the halls below, where we sheltered.  The walls and floor trembled as though shaken by earthquake, or upset by distant concussions in the earth.  We did not dare guess what this could mean, but we all had suspicions.

We healed our hurts, we readied magic and blades, we armed ourselves with the contents of Iolar’s armory.  Clad in gleaming mithril shirts and armed with mithril blades, we were the dwarves of no Clan, the descendants of Selûne’s grace, who would set Aerunedar free of the Coil.  Only a single dragon stood in our way.

Much of our time was spent in planning our confrontation with that fell beast called Nightscale.  If Bronn was a little fatalistic or cynical during those hours of planning and re-planning, I chalked it up to nerves.  I didn’t dwell too much on his request that I lay his body to rest at the Crystal Caverns, if he did not live through the coming battle.  How could I have known that he intended to face Nightscale alone?

We were all wary of this fight; the Curse of Hathos had been lifted, and the power of the Coil was, arguably, broken.  By the yardstick of Hathos’ own verse, we were entitled to pack it in and head for home.  But to do so would have dishonored me in Clangeddin’s eyes, and would have done the same for Van Dyksun in the eyes of his goddess.  According to the map we had taken from the corpse of the sage Mellomir nearly two months before, there was yet one more cavern, downriver, that we had not yet visited.

There we expected to find a ziggurat to the reptile god Meerschaulk, and someone or something called Ooltugula.  We knew nothing of this being but its name, and its habit of piecing together patchwork slaves, soldiers and minions from the still-living remains of its enemies.  We were destined to learn far more.

_Eleint 30_
We attempted to leave the throne room of Yss-Fara, and found tons of rock and earth blocking our way.  Where the cellar of Cindarm’s proud Hall had been was now completely choked with rubble.  The wizard set his toad free to wriggle upward through the rockfall, and we soon learned that the Hall was no more.  Some force had utterly annihilated it, and all that remained was a smoking waste of shattered masonry and stone.

Quickly we devised a plan to be free of this place.  Caramip would play the drum’s stone-cracking rhythm and, under the direction of Bronn and myself, pulverize the correct slabs of rock to open a way to freedom.  One by one the jagged remains of hewn blocks became great boulders and these boulders in turn were reduced to flying gravel and dust by the power of the drum.  Soon enough we had opened a way to the surface.

Saeita sprung ahead with preternatural quickness.

But our detonation of the stones had drawn curious observers: a large warband of goblins and fierce worgs.  No sooner had Saeita clambered up onto the rubble than she was pelted with whining arrows.  She grunted and fell on one shoulder, the other pierced by a shaft that, had it not been off-target by mere inches, would have ended her life instantly.

They swarmed in, faster than we could climb up, and pinned us down.  We were ready to fight, but seriously outnumbered by a score of goblins and nearly that many wolves.  Snarling worgs, with ropy drool dangling from their fanged mouths, circled and pounced and hungered for our still-warm hearts.  Stinging black-fletched arrows fell like death-rain.  Soon we had no choice but to flee, by means of Saeita’s _moon bracers_ and Bronn’s spellwork, to the base of Iolar’s Pillar.

We secured ourselves within the stone doors we had passed by twelve days ago, in the wake of our disastrous battle at Arglarllur Bridge.  Then we had fled from Nightscale’s dark and serpentine form; now we longed to face her again, even if that longing was born equally of honor and terror.  

“Cindarm’s Hall was razed by invocation magic,” Bronn told us wearily, “and only Ruathgrym could summon such spells.”  He glanced at Van.  “He has the bones of his dead lover, and now he is free.”  Corpsecoil…free once again?  If only the paladin Temuel Khiv were here with us.

A long staircase led upward into the Pillar, accessing two levels of chambers and a forgotten throne room, where Bronn had heard strangely-accented voices speaking in Undercommon twelve days before, as we approached the Arglarllur Bridge.  It seems that so much time has passed since then, until I recalled that in the intervening ride my soul had traveled to Clangeddin’s side and returned by Selûne’s grace.

It was also long enough for whomever had spoken those words to have vacated this hiding place.  We found only the remains of a brief inhabitation.  From the throne room we could look out round twin windows, which were the pupils in the eyes of Iolar’s huge carved face, and if the ruins of Aerunedar were lit up we could have viewed it in all its fallen splendor.

Another staircase led upward into the arm that supported the cavern roof, and at its peak we found a portal to the Underroad, that avenue mentioned in Hathos’ most cryptic verses.  But now we surmised that the straight and high-ceilinged passage through the earth might have its other end beneath the village of Eveningstar, in the former cellars of the tower of Redhand, where that famous dwarf had lived and shared ale with Temuel Khiv so long ago.  We decided then that if any of us survived the following day, we would leave Aerunedar by this route.

None of us slept very well that night.
*** *** ***

Not far to go now.  Thunderstone is but a few days beyond the next ridge, and the shadowed and mysterious Hullack Forest lies to the north, where stormclouds line up across the horizon like ranked wispy soldiers.  I smell the fresh tang of rain on the growing breeze.

I am being watched, that much is certain.  But by whom?  They say that wild elves have been attacking travelers, which would explain why I have yet to see another living soul along this rutted track.  

That night I awaken to the furtive noise of my wagon being searched.  I sit up blinking, and in the starlight I see them: six silhouettes crouched and ready, one of them perched upon the wagon, looking steadily at what lies beneath the tarp.  I do not know if they see me.  They look upon my cargo for a long while, while a chill breeze slides along the grassy meadow.  My fingers inch toward _samryn_, the waraxe beside me.  But abruptly they depart in silence, leaving the oilcloth tarp’s unfastened corner to flap sluggishly in the wind.

No longer certain if my visitors were actual or apparition, I stalk toward the wagon with axe in hand.  They are gone into the night, and they have left no trace.  Beneath the tarp lies the form of Saeita, frozen in stone in the act of springing forward, and beside her a single corpse wrapped in its shroud.

I tie the tarp back into place.  Too nervous to sleep, I prod Lars into motion.  He brays at me.

“Quiet, mule,” I chide, “this is no place to make a camp.  Thunderstone is where we’ll rest.”  _Clack-clack_ go the wagon’s wheels on the lonely road.  The night goes dark and drops rain.  Rain is one of those things that used to bother me, used to drive me indoors and bring an inexplicable sadness to my heart.  These days I don’t much notice it; there are so many worse things out there to be worrying about a little shower.  Even if it chills the skin, it washes clean the eyes.

*** *** ***
_Higharvestide_
As it turns out, we reached our final goal on the holiday marking the first day of harvest season.  Although not many would find fighting and dying a worthy way to spend a holy day, I see it another way.  Somewhere above, on the surface, the faithful of Chauntea wielded scythes and cut down row upon row of wheat.  Down here in the dark, we would swing everbright mithril blades and harvest souls for Kelemvor and Clangeddin and Selûne.

We moved east, down the ruined avenues of Aerunedar, past the gatehouse of the Arglarllur Bridge, toward where our map showed the former residence of Glamerdrung.  That silver wyrm had allied with Aerunedar’s dwarves long ago, and had been slain by Ruathgrym’s magic when the power of Clan Darkfell was broken two hundred years earlier.  We imagined that we were here to put things right.

Indeed we were–but we were also there to survive.

A stone jetty protruded into the dark river, and two longboats were moored at its side.  We moved back into the ruins, a good hundred yards from the riverbank, and there we put the reconnaissance phase of our plan into motion.  And there we made our first mistakes.  Again, none of us could have known what Bronn was planning.  I don’t truly believe that even he had any idea of what he was on about.  To his credit, he was only hoping to spare our lives–and hopefully his own–by a heroic act of magic.

Bronn used spells to protect himself and Saeita from Nightscale’s acid breath.  I loaned Saeita my _mooncloak_, so that she could walk upon the river’s surface, and Bronn consumed a live spider to finish the incantation that would allow him to clamber along the walls.  Together they set out, the dwarf and the wild elf, and left the rest of us to wait in uneasy silence.  Before long they returned on foot, claiming that they had heard troglodytes in the tunnel and remembered that they had meant to be _invisible_.

It wasn’t like Bronn to forget a detail like that, especially one that involved a spell.  I studied him closely, but his demeanor showed only annoyance; there was no indication that he’d done it on purpose to warn Nightscale, so that he could face her on his own and spare the rest of our lives.  At that point I should have put a stop to this recon; we should have moved in together, or done our best (as Van would later suggest) to lure her out into the open.

But I didn’t, nor did anyone else.  Again, this time unseen, they departed.

We waited for what seemed like hours, although it was closer to twenty minutes.  Far away in the ruins we could hear the occasional bark or whine of a worg, and the flapping of bats and stirges in the stalactites far above.  But from the direction of the river, we could hear no sound, no cries for help, no calls to join the battle.

Abruptly a drenched Saeita appeared beside us, stepping through the dull flash of a _dimension door_ to collapse upon her knees.  Her clothing was torn, her midsection bleeding from a score of jagged wounds.  “Bronn,” she gasped as water and blood pooled beneath her, “Bronn’s gone.  The _invisibility_ didn’t work.”

Only later did we learn what had happened.  Bronn and Saeita had made their way slowly and surely downriver, past where they had heard the croaking and splashing.  They found a breakwater of flat stones and nothing more than the fading stench of trog.  Uncertain but undaunted, they pressed on until a low and flooded side-cavern beckoned.  Faint bubbling noises could be heard from within.

“Maybe the ziggurat is underwater,” whispered Saeita.

“Could be,” Bronn agreed, “let’s move in a little bit.”  The cavern was utterly empty, and the rock above looked as though it could collapse at any moment.  “Not too far…I don’t like the looks of that ceiling.”

“I don’t like any of this,” Saeita said.  “Maybe your toad could swim down and see what’s there.”

Bronn crawled down the wall to the rippling surface of the dark river.  He held Wolf above the water.  The toad looked at the water dubiously, then back up at Bronn.  To his credit, Bronn placed his tiny familiar back in his pocket.  “Too dangerous.  We should–”

The calm surface exploded in a shower of cold water and at its center was the scaly, skull-like maw of Nightscale, covered with black spines.  The dagger teeth clamped down on Bronn and recoiled, and they were both gone.  Saeita gaped in disbelief.

From where she stood atop the river’s surface, she could see the sudden flare of a spell erupting in the depths, for an instant silhouetting the great serpent.  A second later she had made her decision: she ended the claok’s _water walk_ magic and plunged into the cold river.

She swam downriver as fast as she could manage through the murky water, but there was no sign of Bronn or Nightscale.  Turning a corner, the water cleared and Saeita found herself swimming atop a pool whose depths were strewn with coins, jewels, gems, riches beyond imagining and certainly beyond belief.  _The lair,_ she had time to think, _I’ve found it–_

From the darkness came Nightscale, who unlike the wild elf was completely at home in the water.  Her great jaws clamped down on Saeita, and pain ripped through her.  Claws raked in on either side; her breath clamored at the walls of her lungs.  She could not see any sign whatsoever of Bronn, but she knew that to stay was death, and she made the only choice she had left.  A second later she was with us, soaked and bloody.

She recounted what had happened, and before we could decide what to do next a hissing voice reached our ears from the direction of the river: _“This isn’t over…”_  The very same words Bronn had shouted at her during the battle of Arglarllur Bridge.

“Nightscale,” said Van.

Roman Gemalee drew his bastard sword _Swift_.  “What do we do?”

“We draw her out.  In the river she’ll tear us to pieces.”  Van nocked an arrow and gazed off toward the river in grim determination.

“She’ll tear us to pieces out here,” Cara replied, clutching Hathos’ drum.

“But out here we at least have a chance of doing the same to her,” said Van.  He brought out the sack which still held the head of Yss-Fara, the troglodyte king in whose veins black dragon blood flowed.  “A slight chance.”

We moved closer, and tied the head upon the dock in full view of Nightscale.  Retreating a good fifty feet from the river’s edge, we readied our weapons.

“Nightscale,” Van shouted, “show yourself!  We’ve killed your spawn and we’ll kill you as well!”

The rest of us chimed in, lost for a few moments in the joy of taunting certain death, freed from fretting.  Then Nightscale emerged from the river, inspecting the severed head of her offspring with yellow eyes the size of torch flames.  We fell silent.

“You have chosen death,” she hissed, and charged forward in a storm of buffeting wings and slashing claws.

In a moment Roman was snatched into her maw, the life crushed from him as he struck out with his sword.  Van launched arrows, Saeita and I moved in to land a few blows, and Cara inspired our hearts to battle with the beat of the drum.  But Nightscale flapped her batlike wings and soared back, landing in the river with a great splash, taking Roman with her.

There was no time for plans, only for Van to call out, “Be ready!”  Nightscale emerged once again, this time coming straight toward me.

Everything vanished except for those two yellow eyes and great scaly darkness rushing at me.  I raised _samryn_, ready to strike, but found myself clamped in those jaws of death.  Pain flooded from my every pore.

Arrows soared from Van’s bow and found their mark; a keening cry of pain warbled past me and the dagger teeth embedded in my flesh and grinding against my bones.  Through the haze of my own agony, I realize that now it is Nightscale who gives voice to pain.  She makes her way back toward the river, carrying me with her.  I know that I will die in those dark depths.

I called upon the strength of Clangeddin, and with a shout I pressed upon Nightscale’s jaws, intent on breaking open her deathgrip.  The river’s edge grew closer.  A bellow of pure suffering erupted from my mouth, and in that second the dragon’s grip slackened.  I fell free.

And before she could escape, I swung my axe again and again into her writhing bulk.  Saeita landed fist after fist, and many of Van’s arrows protruded from the scaly hide.  A huge acrid exhalation roiled from her lungs, and there on the banks of the River of Slaughters Nightscale died.

We healed what wounds we could and piled into one of the longboats.  The calm and dark river bore us downstream with cool insistence.  No one spoke; we had discovered the acid-scarred bones of Roman and Bronn in the gullet of the beast.

When I regained some sense of my surroundings, we were slipping quietly into a huge chamber just off the river–the former lair of Glamerdrung.  Submerged at a depth of nearly thirty feet were strewn the riches of Aerunedar, looted by the Coil two hundred years ago.  And perched atop an outcropping of stone was an enormous ziggurat decorated with shiny green mosaics–it was constructed in the shape of a titanic coiled snake, with a fanged maw open and inviting at the apex.

We moored the boat and climbed the steps.  Within the snake’s mouth, a staircase corkscrewed down into the ziggurat, and descended beneath.  Soon we found ourselves in an octagonal chamber inscribed with many runes, six levers upon the walls, and a pewter post at the center.  In the top of the post was a space that seemed designed for the strange disk we had taken with the treasures of Selûne’s temple.

With the bronze disk in place, coruscating energies passed through the walls of the chamber.  Before long we surmised, with Van’s prodding, that the picture on the disk itself was the key to pulling the levers in their correct order.  When we had done so there was a flash of light, and a feeling of emptiness beneath the feet, and the lurch that hits one’s guts when falling from a great height.  But we found ourselves standing in a nearly identical room.  But this one had no pewter post; the disk clanged to the floor.

We moved down a tunnel, and found ourselves in a huge limestone cavern.  A massive stone bridge had once spanned this cataract, but now the center of the span was collapsed into a small stream below.  At the other end stood a forbidding portal carved from white marble.

At that moment we clearly heard Lady Tessaril Winter’s voice.  “Well met,” she said pleasantly, “Meerschaulk will soon be free.  Even if you win through to the end of the path you have begun…you will have lost.  Can’t we talk about this, as we used to?”  Van gave us a warning as he shook off the effects of _charm_ magic.

Then she appeared, across the broken span.  Her face was very much like that of Tessaril Winter, but where she had once had the fair and smooth skin of a Cormyrian noble, she now had grayish-green scales.  Where she once had blonde hair as fine as spun flax, there now writhed and snapped a mass of hissing snakes.  Where once she had a pair of shapely legs, her body now stretched into the form of a massive constrictor snake.

“You knew me as Lady Winter,” she hissed, “but my slaves call me Ooltugula.  I must congratulate you for sparking the liberation of Eveningstar…be sure to hold close that pride as you perish.”  From her snaky shortbow she fired volley after volley of poisoned arrows.

Saeita rushed forward to leap the gap, and with a gravelly crackle turned to solid stone before our eyes.  Only Van, Caramip and myself remained.  I hurled javelins across the gap, and Van’s arrows flew to the mark with stunning precision.  We were no longer novices to be manipulated of disposed of at Lady Winter’s leisure.  We were Selûne’s Champions.

Only now did she realize that it had been a fatal miscalculation to face us like this, even though only half of our number remained.  A warbling cry of despair escaped her, and as she turned to flee through the portal Van felled her with a final shot from _Stonegroan,_ the strongbow we had taken from Moradin’s Fane.

“Let’s go,” Van said, and I saw before me not the white-haired seventeen year-old who had begged to accompany me two months ago, but a hardened warrior.  I knew then that I would follow him into the jaws of ten dragons if he but asked.

We climbed down one side of the fallen bridge, and up the other, and opened the marble portal.

Within was the last chamber, its walls covered with green and scaly mosaics, pillars like trees rising to a ceiling covered with bas relief branches, and carvings of hideous snakes and serpent-like creatures.  A foul stench, like spoiled incense, drifted in the air.  Treasures and objects of art were strewn all about.  Directly across the room stood a huge looking glass.

Cara crept across the silent chamber and peered into the mirror.  The surface rippled like water.  Instead of her own reflection, she saw a huge chamber.  A giant marilith demon, each of her six arms bound by a bronze manacle and heavy chain, glowered at Cara in smoldering rage.  It was Meerschaulk herself, waiting for the freedom the Sons of the Coil had promised long ago.  Freedom that needed our blood to baptize.

In a burst of smoke and stinking brimstone, a hideous creature appeared in our midst, surrounded by _mirror images_ of itself.  It had the squawking head of a twisted and infernal vulture, massive black wings, and puckered skin that gave off a cloud of abyssal spores.  Van and I launched into combat, while Cara crept close enough to bestow healing magics on us if we needed them.

Though the spores hooked into our skin and grew, bringing blinding pain, we fought as scions of Selûne should: with skill and valor.  For the first time in our short careers, the enemy had no good luck, and blow after blow from its hooked claws and beak went astray, while nearly every one of ours struck true.  The demon sank to the floor and dissolved into stinking greenish smoke, and was gone.

Beyond the mirror, Meerschaulk’s face contorted in rage.  She stared at each of us, never to forget the faces of those who denied her freedom.  Van strode forward and drew out the snake-killing rapier he had dubbed _Ssslasher_, and swung it in one titanic blow against the face of the magic portal shaped like a looking glass.

_KA-CRASHHHH!!!_  Van was thrown from his feet.  The surface of the mirror exploded in jagged cracks and fell smashed, and all that was left of _Ssslasher_ was a burned and melted stub.  The cry of Meerschaulk faded away into silence.

Then the room began to tremble.  Cracks ran across the floor.  Scooping up what items of worth we could, we fled through the marble portal.

Out in the limestone cavern, great chunks of rock were falling from the ceiling to smash into the floor below.  Barely keeping our feet, we scaled the other side of the bridge and I hefted the dead weight of Saeita’s petrified form.

“I’ve got her, “ I cried.  “Go!”

Somehow we climbed the staircase to the top of the ziggurat, and as we descended toward the longboat a great lurch went through the steps.  We all tumbled to the bottom, breaking off one of Saeita’s stony arms.  No time to lament.  Cara snatched up the arm and we all piled into the longboat, just in time to witness the ziggurat sinking, sinking, and abruptly plunging into the limestone cavern below with a roar of stone and water.

“Plant the poles!” Van shouted.  The water filling Glamerdrung’s lair swirled into a momentary vortex as it followed the ziggurat down into the depths, sealing forever the portal to Meerschaulk’s other-dimensional prison.  We managed to hold back the longboat as the water level crept steadily down the cavern walls.

Finally the boat came to rest upon the floor of the cavern, propped unsteadily upon tons and tons of treasure and coin.  I looked upon the riches of Aerunedar, the statue in the shape of Saeita, Van and Cara looking pale and stricken.  I thought of Bronn and Roman’s souls speeding toward their rest and wished them well.

And I thanked Clangeddin for guiding us.  And Selûne too.

After two hundred years, Aerunedar was open to the dwarves again.
*** *** ***

Of course, we returned to Eveningstar with what coin and treasure we could manage, and it amounted to quite a fortune.  Not that you’re interested in hearing such boasts.  It was enough, at least, to allow me to build a small keep where the southeast gatehouse enters Aerunedar.  Enough to establish a school of wizardry in Bronn’s honor and memory: the Spellforge.  But first, I’ll lay Bronn Spellforger to rest in the Crystal caverns near our home at Thunderstone, as he wished.  He is with Mystra now.  Once my people have restored Saeita Neví, I’ll see that she returns to you.

And as for me?  There is still work for the dwarves who would see Aerunedar rise to its former glory, and no living dwarf has seen more of that place than me.  So I will return to Eveningstar, and I will join my Uncle Dorn and his Doomslayers for another trek into the reaches below.

To all you Champions of Selûne, I wish you luck.  The rest of the world awaits your swords, and your will, and your wisdom.  Do not forsake their need.  The Eyes of the Moon and the Blade of the Axefather go with you, gladly.

_Velm
Blood of Nor
Clan Trueforger
The Year of Wild Magic
1372 DR_


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