# Kid Charlemagne's Story Hour, Pt II



## Kid Charlemagne (Jan 15, 2002)

This is a continuation of the Story Hour from the old boards.  If those boards look like they will not be retained, I will post an archived version here...

This is the link to Part I.


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Jan 15, 2002)

*Previously, in The World of Crystalmarch*

Our heroes are investigating the cause of a breakdown in communications between the underground dwarven town of Kazathun, deep beneath the Vokal Mountains.  In so doing they are about to travel to the town of Shadow Springs, where they have heard there is an access point to the Underdark, and a guide who can help them find Kazathun.

They are recently come from the city of Mahanaim, where they participated in defending the city from a mercenary army led by Elros Ekozius, a former Count of Ghithor who was exiled after a long Civil War in which he took the losing side.

They are also investigating the provenance of a magical Egg, which has caused Aris to have visions, apparently of people who previously possessed it.  The meaning of these visions is not clear, and Aris is trying to learn more about the Egg, and about its previous owners.  He is having difficulty doing so, as the Egg’s history appears to be remarkably lean, as if those owning it have been trying to keep it as far under wraps for the past two millenia as they could – and succeeding.  The Egg radiates warding magic, and evil; it is as if the evil is contained inside the Egg, and held back by the wards cast upon it.   The Egg was last seen when the party returned it to Lord Masato, a Ralt Gaitherese priest of Ameterasu, who planned on returning it to its rightful place in the Song-Ling Monastery, a holy place under the protection of the Emperor of Ralt Gaither.

*Reana Stormblade (Half-elf, Ranger 7)* – Reanna is a local girl, born and raised in Oakendell, a small village in the Doriath Forest. She comes from a tradition of rangers, beginning with her half-elven grandfather, Erethel Mileki, who was a reknowned ranger in his time, but is now quite old and a little bit senile. There is enough elven blood from various sources running through Reanna’s family that she still retains the half-elven attributes, even after a couple generations. Reanna is related to many of the families in Oakendell and Sickle Creek, as Grandpa Erethel was quite a wanderer in his day, and is currently on his 4th wife. Reanna has something along the lines of 80 cousins. Her father was a mercenary in the southern part of Ghithor, and Reanna spent a large portion of her early days as an adventurer attempting to locate other members of her father’s family. Since the party seperated after their last series of adventures, Reanna has been living the life of a ranger on patrol in the the forests and mountains of northern Ghithor. 

*Batista (half-elf, Ranger 6)* – Batista loves the forests, and seems to sometimes actually fear big cities. He’s a little uncivilized in some ways. His mentor, Vershanion, saved him from death (details will come out in the course of the story) at an early age, and then trained him to be a ranger. Batista has been living the life of ranger on patrol for many years, rarely returning to civilization. Like Reanna, he receives his orders primarily from Ryla, a Druidess based in Sylvan Fields, the northern most town in Ghithor. The Rangers receive orders from a council of three, ordinarily made up of a Ranger, a Druid (or priest of Leonus), and an Elf. This has been the traditional makeup of the Rangers command for centuries. There are 6 Ranger territories in Ghithor and Ambardor, and each has between 18 and 30 rangers. The Rangers follow three Strictures: Own no more than you can carry; Owe no alliegance greater than that to the Rangers; and never operate in groups of greater than three. 

*Jalea (High Elf, thief 9) * – Jalea is from the Marquisate of Ulfang, in the southwest of Ambardor. He was active in that city’s Thieves’ Guild, but left town most recently after an unspecified incident that he hints has made him unwelcome at home. Early in his career, he served in the Army of Ulfang as a scout, and has since used that euphemism to describe his talents. For the past several years, he has been working his way up the ranks in the Thieves’ Guild of Fencig, a large northern city. Previous to their recent “vacation” the party had inadvertently aided the Guild by wiping out a group of wererats (known as the “Lumpers”) who were working to take over the Guild. The Lumpers were being aided by the Priesthood of Tyaa, who were enemies of the party, and who were financing the takeover through money earned through their gambling operations at “The Falcon’s Club,” an upscale casino in a very nice section of Fencig. The casino fell into disrepair, only to eventually be bought and reopened by the party’s Priest, a gnomish priest of Bes (God of Luck) named Jovah. Jalea has been keeping the Guild off Jovah’s back in regards to protection money, with the aid of Morris, a Guild Lieutenant who was their primary contact during the Lumper incident. 

*Brennan D’Loxor (Human, Sword of Kelanen 7) * – Brennan is a worshipper of the demigod Kelanen, the Prince of Swords. Kelanen is one of those rare individuals who transcends mortal status through great deeds. In his case, he was the catalyst behind the overthrow of Vecna and Kas some 2,000 years ago. He was the only man to ever defeat Kas in single combat, although Kas used treachery to then capture Kelanen. Kelanen’s chief followers are known as “Swords” and practice a windmilling, twin-longsword style that is heavy on offense and light on defense. They also can cast spells in a manner somewhat similar to a Paladin. Brennan fought for King Yarzhen’s forces during the Civil War of 412-416, and for his heroic efforts in previous adventures, has recently learned he is to be knighted by King Dengar of Ghithor, who is the nephew of Yarzhen, and whose accension to the throne effectively ended the Civil War. Brennan is also from Oakendell, and is the son of a local landowner-farmer. 

_--->These stories are from a 2nd Edition campaign, which we just (in 2001) converted to 3rd Edition. The Swords of Kelanen is a homebrewed class for 2nd edition, which has been converted into a Prestige Class for 3rd Edition. _

*Aris (High Elf, Bladesinger, Fighter 6/Mage 7) * – Aris joined up with the party during an expedition to recover an Elven artifact from a group of pirates, and continued with them in order to gain more knowledge of the humans, as well as learn more about the increasing sightings of Drow in the wilderness of Ghithor and Ambardor. The Drow had been laying low for over a century, and Aris was the second Elf to lay eyes on a Drow in over 100 years (the first was Jalea, but he went unconscious shortly afterwards). For the past year or so, during the party’s “vacation,” Aris has been travelling the northern lands, visiting Elven cities that are forbidden to any humans. He has just recently returned to Cape Varna, his hometown, in order to catch up with his mentor, Tolaro Telegar, an elderly Grey Elf, and former Dean of the Mage’s College at the University of Cape Varna. The University is considered by many to be the foremost academic institution in the area, although there are some fine universitys and mage’s schools in Ghithor and Ambardor. Cape Varna is the chief city of the Princedom of Krone, a nation of elves and humans. The elves constitute the upper class, and the major nobility are all Grey Elves. There are only 3,000 or so Grey Elves left in the Princedom, and their numbers are slowly declining. 

*Shyne Jovah Rockbrite (Gnome, Priest 8)* – Jovah is a priest of Bes; one of a very few priests, as a matter of fact.  Bes belongs to the Murkraal Pantheon, one of the gods of a long-lost civilization that disappeared into the sands east of the Ar-Ainadorian Empire more than a thousand years ago.  Jovah’s parents were jewelllers, and Jovah initially left home to investigate a jewel robbery, and later inherited a tower (and its attendant debt) from a roguish favorite uncle.  In the course of paying off the debt, he met and joined up with Brennen, Reana, and Jalea.  They have travelled together for nearly four years, and have made quite a name for themselves.  Jovah now owns the Fox Club, a swank casino and restaurant in Fencig.  He helps out those down on their luck, and uses the casino as his base of operations.  He is constantly keeping tabs on the Church of Reksus, which is also powerful in Fencig; Reksus is the most powerful remaining God of the Murkraal Pantheon, and has spread the story that Reksus is the Chief Diety of that pantheon in order to boost his credibility.  In fact, this is not true, and Jovah has a set of scrolls dating back to Murkraal’s peak that reveal the truth that Reksus was actually a trickster god, God of Magic and of Power.  (And Public Relations, as Jovah likes to say).  The Church of Reksus does not want these scrolls to reach wide distribution, but Jovah has been hiring scribes to copy them and send them to scholars across the land to spread the truth.

*Gavin, (Human Fighter 8)* - Gavin hails from near the mountain town of Cardell.  He served as a cavalryman in the Rebel Army during the Ghithor Civil War, and was involved in the campaign in the North, including the Occupation of Fencig.  After the war ended, and the Rebels lost, he made a living as a mercenary working the Copper Pass connecting Carandor and Ghithor, picking up a working knowledge of Caradinian and Orcish.  He joined up with the party after his friend Koth was kidnapped and turned into a strange sort of ghoul by Virenzo Staris, the necromancer.  Since joining the party, Gavin has earned more money than he ever could have dreamed of as a mercenary, and come closer to death as well.  His rallying of the cavalry in Mahanaim to fight off Elros Ekozius is frequently credited as the turning point in that battle, and along with his adventurous exploits with the party, seems likely to earn him a knighthood.  Gavin is an excellent horseman, and likes the trappings of money and nobility.  His more mercenary nature has been tempered over time by exposure to the more altruistic and idealistic members of the party.


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Jan 15, 2002)

*Belluin, Ghithor, December 10th, AE 419*

“Do you know what I really like about Jovah’s Dimensional Folding spell?” Aris asks Jalea.

“The way we can be snowed in, in a blizzard in Mahanaim, and be sitting by the beach in Belluin by noon, drinking expensive fruity drinks out of glasses with little paper umbrellas?” Jalea conjectures, doing just that.

Aris scowls at his fellow elf.  “No, the way we can accomplish anything we want to without regard for distances, or the time it would take to merely arrive at the source of a problem.  Fruity drinks, indeed.”

Jalea shrugs.  “I’m kind of partial to the paper umbrellas, myself.”

The weeks after the Battle of Mahanaim have been a blur.  The party convinced Count Graymalkin to let them deliver the news of the victory to The Duke of Belluin and the King of Ghithor, and they _folded_ out of the snowbound city and into the mid-70’s tropical warmth of Belluin.  They have just delivered the news to the Duke, and plan on delivering the news to King Rolan the following day.

“Bes’s message service,” Jovah grumbles.  “Not exactly the reason one normally petitions one’s God.”

“Cheer up,” Sir Brennen says.  “You could be stuck in Mahanaim for weeks, watching three feet of snow melt.”

“You have a point,” Jovah concedes.

They _fold_ to Gujo, the capitol, the following day, and are quickly ushered into the King’s Court.  News delivered, they decide to take a breather.  Aris contacts Gerika at the Ralt Gaitherese embassy, and arranges for the party to have dinner with the Ambassador.  He wants to try and dig a little deeper for information about the Egg, now that he has had yet another vision, this one during waking hours. After dinner, Aris asks Gerika and the Ambassador if they know if the Egg had ever been lost at sea.  Perhaps the Egg was stolen once before?

“Our knowledge of the Egg begins with the first Emperor placing it in the Monastery of Song-Ling,” Gerika replies.  “As far as I know, it has remained there ever since up until the thief stole it to deliver to Virenzo Staris.  It had been long forgotten.  We have no knowledge of it ever being lost at sea.”

Aris is dejected, but thanks them for their help.  The next day the party _folds_ to Fencig.  Everyone goes their separate ways, taking care of individual business.  Jovah is in his office at the Fox Club when an old friend pokes his head in the door to say hello.

“Hello, Hildebrecht!” Jovah says.  “What are you up to?  A journey, from the looks of things…”

_Hildebrecht is a dwarven friend that Jovah made during a short, separate adventure involving a pilgrimage to Karnof, a vampire, and the Caradian secret police._

Hildebrecht adjusts the pack slung over his back and nods.

“I’m off back home.  Trouble brewing, I hear.  There hasn’t been any word from Kazathun for a couple of months.  There has been a call put out for any dwarves to assemble in Shadow Springs in order to try and find out what has happened.”

“Kazathun…” Jovah wracks his memory, trying to recall what he knows of Hildebrecht’s home.  “That’s under the Vokal Mountains, right?  Actually part of Carandor, technically?”

“Technically, I suppose,” Hildebrecht answers.  “Carandor controls the only usable access to the Underdark trade route from Kazathun and the rest of the Lake of a Thousand Waterfalls.  We’ve been forced to pay tribute to the Caradinian King for the last two hundred years.  It’s a pretty uncomfortable situation.  Lots of dwarven insurrections, lots of Caradinian reprisals.  We’re fearing the worst.  It could be that, or the Duergar from Druga.”

“Well, maybe we can help,” Jovah says.  “None of us are very fond of Carandor, and if we can tweak the King of Carandor’s nose, I think we would.”  _And the Church of Reksus_, Jovah thinks to himself.

“Wait a minute.  Did you say _Druga_? That’s the place Batista was going to be taken to…”

The party decides to see if they can help out.  They stop off in Sylvan Fields to pick up Batista to see if this has anything to do with his disappearance, and for some added frontline fighting skill, and  _fold_ to Oakendell.  The rest of the way, they will have to go on foot, since Jovah is not familiar with any area closer to Shadow Springs.  The dwarven buildup is slow; the encroaching winter weather is slowing travel down considerably.  One of the dwarves in Oakendell suggests a guide for their travels in the Underdark, a dwarf named Vekkoth.  They thank him for the advice.

“We should just take the winter off, relax, spend some time in Belluin, maybe hit the casinos,” Jalea offers hopefully, not exactly looking forward to a wintertime expedition into the Vokal Mountains and then _under_ them.

“Maybe after this, Jalea,” Brennen says.  “We need to check this out.”

Batista is a little nervous about all of this.  “Are we sure this is a good idea?  I’m a bit concerned about going intentionally to a place that my kidnappers were originally going to take me.  Kind of the opposite of what I’d want to do, actually.”

Aris trys to reassure the half-elven Ranger.  “You do want to find out more about the Ranger disappearances, don’t you?  This may all be related in some way.”

Batista nods.  He knows it’s the thing to do, but that doesn’t make him like it any more.  The party leaves the next day.  They pass through Hawk’s Roost, and within days are making their way up the winding road to Shadow Springs.  The weather is brutally cold, and they are well-bundled up.  As they continue up the road, it occurs to them that they haven’t seen anyone coming down the road the other way.  It is mid-December, but _some_ traffic would be expected from the mining town.

“Let’s keep our eyes open,” Reanna says, but everyone is thinking the same thoughts.

Finally, after four days, they arrive at the outskirts of Shadow Springs.  A stone wall blocks any view into town, but the vultures circling above do not bode well.  The roofs of some buildings can be seen, a number of them burnt severely.  They listen closely, but can hear nothing.

Shadow Springs appears to be a ghost town.


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Jan 15, 2002)

*Shadow Springs, Vokal Mountains, December 22nd, AE 419*

The party digs in a little way from the town walls and watches.  The gates facing the south road are open and  intact, but some of the buildings inside the walls appear badly burnt.  A few wisps of smoke rise from various spots inside the town.

Aris casts _invisibility_ on himself, and goes to check things out.  He climbs over the wall and makes his way towards what appears to be the town hall, and sees only signs of scavenging wolves.  There are dead dwarves.  He is just about to report back when a large, hulking figure steps out of an abandoned tavern, and walks over to the town hall.

“An ogre,” Aris notes.  He tries to get up to the door and slip in before it closes, but can’t quite make it; he catches the door before it latches, and tries to open it slowly, betting that anyone inside would think it was the stiff, cold wind.  Just as he is about to slip inside, though, a large, strong hand reaches out and grabs the door handle, slamming the door shut.  

“Watch the door you idiot!  It’s freezing out there!”  a gruff voice yells.

The door latches.  Aris decides to get back to the party before anyone notices the footsteps appearing in the snow where he walks.  He explains to the others what he saw.

The party approaches town, and sneaks over the wall, approaching the tavern cautiously.  They hit the Tavern and the Town Hall at the same time, facing ogres in each place.  The ogres go down fairly quickly, but when Reanna steps out from the Town Hall, she is hit by an arrow that explodes on contact into a small fireball!

“That’s MY bow!” Batista yelps.

_Batista’s main magic item before he was kidnapped was a magical bow.  With the bow came three arrows; one was red-fletched and would make a 6d6 fireball once per day; another was white fletched and cast faerie fire on its target; and the third was black fletched, and created a sphere of darkness that only the bow-wielder could see in.  Each arrow was usable once per day, and would reappear in the quiver of he who held the bow at dawn the next day._

They quickly pinpoint the area the arrows are coming from; the bell tower on the Town Hall.  Reanna and Batista start making their way up inside the building, Jalea starts climbing up the outside.  More arrows rain down on them before they get under cover.  Just as Jalea gets up to the top of the belltower, the unknown archer (who appears human) jumps down to the roof of the Town Hall.  He slips part way down the icy roof, but catches himself before falling into the street.

“Those are my boots!”  The half-elven Ranger screams.  “You b#stard!”

The chase is on; the archer appears to have no place to go, and is now being pursued by the whole party.  He runs towards a grove of trees, drawing his sword as he runs.  He runs into the grove, and directly _into_ an oak tree there!  Reanna checks the tracks to make sure she saw what she thinks she just saw; the tracks lead up to the tree and stop.  She sticks a dagger into the tree half-heartedly, but just manages to get tree sap all over her dagger.

“Nice trick,” she says.  The party spreads out and starts looking for other people.  Other than a few hungry wolves that avoid the group, they see no one.

The party surveys the town.  There are dozens of dead humans and dwarves in town, and most of them have been pretty thoroughly gnawed on by the wolves.  Identification of the dead, or even of the cause of death, seems a pipe dream.  Luckily, however, there is some other evidence to point to a cause of the destruction.  There is a long swath of burned ground, nearly 100 feet long down the center of the main street.  Many horribly burned dwarves lie in its path.  This, and the other burnt buildings, seem to suggest the attack of a Dragon, probably a Red Dragon.

“I’m not so certain about that,” Jovah says.  “You’d think that _someone_ would have managed to survive the attack, and run off to tell the tale.”

“And besides,” Aris says.  “That guy had Batista’s bow.  That means that this has something to do with the Ranger kidnappings.  Considering that, I’m guessing this Dragon thing is misdirection to fool the casual observer.”

They keep searching the town till night fall, hoping to find more clues.  As day turns to night, and the temperature plummets, they take refuge in the tavern where they fought the ogres.  The open gates allowing access to the town are closed, blocking the wolves’ access to the town.  Watches are divied up, and on the middle watch, Aris is awakened by Jalea.

“Hey,” the elf-scout whispers.  “I found something.  Come check this out!”

“Can’t it wait till morning, Jalea?”

“No, this might be important.”

Jalea takes Aris down to the first floor, where he had been searching the premises to pass time while watching for activity.  Behind the bar, under a woven-straw mat, is a trap door.  Jalea opens it up and shows Aris the dug out passageway underneath.

“It looks like this goes a long ways east.  Maybe under the town walls.  Someone might have escaped this way. And check _this_ out.”  Jalea lowers his lantern into the hole.

There are dwarven runes inscribed on the stone wall of the passageway.  They are painted on, and appear to be relatively new, compared to the dusty passageway.

“I don’t read dwarvish,” Aris says.  “But Jovah might.  If not he can cast a spell to figure it out.”  He closes the trapdoor, and puts the mat back in place.

“Keep it closed.  Keep watch down here, and _don’t_ go down there until morning!”

The next morning they check it out.  Jovah casts _tongues_ and reads the inscription:

_To any survivors: we will assemble at the Sky Temple.  Meet us there._

“Ok, so what’s a Sky Temple?” Batista asks.

Reanna starts walking down the corridor. “They left some tracks.  I can follow them, at least for now.”

They follow Reanna down the long, dank passage. It is about five feet by five feet, and runs almost a quarter of a mile.  It emerges outside of the town walls, and Reanna follows the tracks until they come out from cover of trees.  Then, the snow obscures the tracks.

“I can extrapolate where they were headed from what I’ve seen so far,”  the Ranger says.  “I might not be right, but it’s the best we can do.  Let’s go.”

The party begins to climb up into the mountains.  Soon, the Rangers find a narrow path, leading up even higher.   As they continue up the narrow path, Jalea pauses.

“Do you see that?” he says, peering through the sunlight glinting off the snow.  

Up ahead, and heading towards them, is a group of 6 large figures, and one smaller one.  The small one stops, draws back a bow and fires an arrow, high into the sky.  At this distance it is nearly impossible to hit a target, and the arrow lands a good sixty foot uphill from the party

And explodes.

This causes a small avalanche, and the party is covered up to their armpits.  They have to spend all their effort just getting out, and the large figures, which turn out to be more ogres, are upon them!

The smaller, human figure (who turns out to be the archer again!) arrives in the midst of the party, leaping into action with a prodigious jump, and slicing into Batista.

Brennen, Gavin, and Reanna are making extremely fast work of the Ogres.  The archer soon realizes that he’s in trouble, and begins angling for an escape route.  Two of the ogres try to break for it, and are punctured by crossbow bolts from further uphill!  Gavin looks up to see three dwarves emerging from a small cave, already reloading their crossbows.  Gavin gives the dwarves a thumbs-up.

The archer makes a break for it, jumping down the mountainside, losing his balance and tumbling, with the only thing to stop him a gnarled old tree.

“You’re not getting away again!”  Aris yells, and levels a _lightning bolt_ at the fleeing archer.  It catches him about 10 feet away from the tree, and knocks him clear away from it, sending him plummeting over a cliff in addition to the electrical damage.  Batista rushes over to make sure he’s not getting up, and he isn’t.

The dwarves come rushing down the path towards the party.

We saw you fighting the ogres, and we figured we had to help!” one yells out. “They were searching for us, but we thought that with two groups, we could take them on!”

Jovah dusts off the remaining snow from the avalanche, and turns to greet them.

“We’ve been looking for you, or anyone else from Shadow Springs,” he says.

“Well, then you’ve found us,” the dwarf replies.  “Welcome to the Sky Temple.  My name is Vekkoth.”


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Jan 15, 2002)

*Shadow Springs, Vokal Mountains, December 23rd, AE 419*

“Vekkoth?” Sir Brennen asks.  “We were given your name by a dwarf in Oakendell.  We may need your help…

“What’s going on here?  What happened to the town?”

Vekkoth and the other two dwarves lead the party up and into the Sky Temple itself, which is a low lying structure at the top of a rocky precipice.  A low door leads into the structure.

Vekkoth introduces the party to several other dwarves who escaped the fall of Shadow Springs.  They include an elderly priest of Moradin named Valarin, who is helped along his rather rickety way by two priestly aides; Vekkoth’s son, Dumas; and Blyndras, a blacksmith from Shadow Springs.  Valarin and his two aides are from Kazathun, and Dumas led them here by the underground route the party hopes Vekkoth will be able to show them.

“So what happened to Shadow Springs?”  Brennen asks again.

Vekkoth explains, “The town was attacked about a week ago by a combined force of Orcs and Drow, about 200 in all.  We were vastly outnumbered, and the Drow went around making sure that all the townsfolk were dead.  They kept the orcs from cannibilizing the dead..”

“Well, that’s a plus, anyway,” Jalea says.

“It wasn’t for that reason,” Vekkoth goes on.  “They went around randomly setting fire to buildings, and burning various bodies.  It wasn’t until they cast a _wall of fire_ down the central street that we understood what it was they were doing.  They were trying to make sure the attack looked like a dragon attack.  When they left, they opened the gates so that wolves could come in and feed off the bodies, obscuring any evidence of the sword blows that killed them.”

The party takes this news in solemnly, and then Reanna speaks up.

“What about Kazathun, and the Lake of a Thousand Waterfalls?”

Kassaroth, one of Valarin’s aides, responds, “We were attacked with no notice at all.  The first warning signs were a series of minor tremors in the center of town, then a large force of Drow and Orcs burst through the cavern walls.  The holes had apparently been made by Umber Hulks, which were also used in the fighting.  Maybe two hundred orcs, and around sixty Drow.”

Aris whistles.  He’s been tracking the Drow activity for a while now, and the previous largest group seen in the past hundred years was around a dozen.

“We were overwhelmed.  Kazathun was taken, and the dwarves who weren’t killed in the fighting are being forced to do the Drow’s bidding.  We escaped about three weeks ago, and made it this far.  But maybe the Drow didn’t want us escaping any further.”

“Well, we can get you out of here no problem.  Jovah here will have you presenting this information in front of the King in… what is it Jovah?”  Brennen stops mid sentence as the luck-priest tugs on his cloak.

“That might not be a great idea,” Jovah whispers.  “That Valarin guy has got to be the oldest dwarf I’ve ever, and that trip through the mountains didn’t do him any good.  I’d hate to have this one jump be the one that gives an old dwarf the one year’s worth of aging that kills him.”

“Yeah,” Brennen replies.  “That wouldn’t exactly endear us to the dwarven community, huh?”

“Not really,” Jovah agrees.

“Okay, then,” Brennen says.  “We’ll get you guys out of here on foot, to Oakendell.  Count Rovan can help you out as well as anyone can.”

The dwarves begin to make preparations to leave, and the party gets Vekkoth to agree to take them to Kazathun once the Dwarf-Priest is safe in Oakendell.

Batista searches out Harak, the younger of Valarin’s aides.

“I have a question,” he says.  “I’ve always thought of dwarves being an underground kind of people, but then there’s this Sky Temple thing.  What’s this place all about.”

Harak grins.  “Let me show you.”

He leads Batista to a stair leading up to a trapdoor, and throws it open.  The dwarf and the half-elf step out on to a flat platform, completely open to the freezing air and the cobalt-blue sky.  Shadow Springs sits between three immense peaks in the Vokal range, and the view is spectacular. 

“This is a place of reflection,” Harak says.  “And of facing one’s fears.  Dwarves are commonly agoraphobic by nature.  Decades and centuries spent in close, underground mines, and small workshops make us fearful of open spaces.  This is a place for a Dwarf to come and face those fears, and lessen them, perhaps overcome them completely.”

“Great view,” Batista says appreciatively.

“For some dwarves, it’s a terrifying view.  Once we can overcome the fear and appreciate the beauty, we have passed the test.”


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Jan 15, 2002)

*Shadow Springs, Vokal Mountains, December 24th, AE 419*

Some identification of items takes place the next day.  Aris has finally managed to learn the _identify_ spell, and is eager to try it out.  The party recovers Batista’s bow and boots from the dead human, as well as a ring with a white and black spiral design, and a sword with a leafy motif.

Aris _identifies_ the ring as a _ring of humanoid control_, capable of charming orcs, and ogres and such. The sword appears to be a Goblinslayer blade, with extra powers that Aris can’t discern.  The party saw the sword’s wielder vanish into a tree, so Batista gives it a try.  After some experimentation, he is able to transport himself from Shadow Springs all the way to Belluin!  The sword gets passed around a bit, as no one really seem perfectly suited for it, but eventually Batista gets it, for now.

_The sword’s extra ability is transport via plants.  The sword’s full 3e workup can be found in the ENWorld Rogue’s Gallery forum, along with 3e writeups of several PC’s with more to come.  Batista took the sword initially even though he’s not very good with a longsword._

The party manages to sneak the dwarves out of the Sky Temple the next day, and several days later, they trudge into Oakendell, where they introduce Valarin to Count Rovan.  They _dimensional fold_ to Belluin with Kassaroth, so that he can take the news to the Duke of Belluin and from there to the King.  After that, they _fold_ back (along with Vekkoth) to Shadow Springs to continue on to Kazathun, and the Lake of a Thousand Waterfalls.

_The Lake of a Thousand Waterfalls is so named because it is a massive reservoir of fresh water in the Underdark of the Vokal Mountains.  Fissures in the rock allow melting snow and rain water to seep into the Mountains, and the Lake has hundreds upon hundreds of areas where water is pouring from the ceiling and into the Lake.  The dwarves use tarpaulins to keep the barges that they use on the Lake dry._

Vekkoth explains that it will likely take three or four days to reach Kazathun.  He takes the party to a Iron Smelting factory in town, and into the basement, where a secret door leads into some ancient mines.

“The path from here to Kazathun is not an easy one, and not one suitable for trade, so no improvements were ever made,” Vekkoth tells them.  “The entrance was kept secret.”

They walk through seemingly endless mines, until they reach a depression in the mine floor.

“Interesting,” Vekkoth says.  “This is the entrance, but ordinarily it is hidden by a pool that conceals it.  The water is drained off by pumps whenever someone needs to use it, but it looks like the mechanism has been broken.”

“I’ll go first,” Gavin says, waving off Jalea.

Gavin steps onto the top step at the bottom of the shallow depression, and there is a flash as writing along the edge flares up brightly.  All of a sudden, Gavin is contorting in all sorts of strange ways.

“What’s the matter?” Reana asks.

“Spiders!”  Gavin yells.  “Little, biting, _spiders_!”  He shakes his body trying to get the multitude of tiny spiders infesting his armor off of him.  He begins pulling off his breastplate.

That’s when the Guardian Daemon attacks.

Unfortunately for the Guardian Daemon, the party is ready for a rumble, despite Gavin being essentially hors de combat.  The Daemon’s bite is worse than his ability to absorb bites, and he goes down quickly and noisily.

“Maybe _I_ should go first,” Jalea says, smirking as Gavin shakes the last spiders out of his clothes.

“Yeah, why don’t you do that,” Gavin grumbles.

They are in caverns now, leaving the mines behind.  They climb deeper and deeper, until they find a very deep cavern that they must traverse by climbing down one wall using ropes.  The cavern is partly carved out, apparently used as a burial ground in the distant past, much like the Druidic burial ground under Axehead Peak.  The dead here pose no threat however, and they continue onward and downward.  Jalea takes a quick look, but their possessions must have been plundered long ago.

Not long after that first climb, Vekkoth decides to make camp.  

“We’ll have a long journey tomorrow, and a couple of places where we’ll need to scout very carefully.  The Drow may have set up other traps or defenses to guard against any intruders from the west side of the Vokals.”

They camp in the caverns without incident, and move on the next day.

Early the following day, Vekkoth has the party dim their lights.  He explains that they are coming up on one of the major chokepoints in their journey, and they need to be careful.  The cavern ahead is almost 350 yards long and 20 to 30 yards across, with a constant slope upwards.  It would be a perfect defensible location for the drow and their orc allies.  Jalea moves up ahead to scout it out.

Jalea sneaks along the cavern wall, and about 30 yards in, he sees a lone orc, hiding behind a roughly built ten foot high stone wall.  He pulls back his bow, and prepares to take the orc out with one shot.

He wings him.  The orc drops back behind the wall, although he is not dead.  Jalea hears the sound of a couple of crossbow bolts fring in his direction, and bolts hitting the cavern wall near him.

Back at the end of the cavern, Aris looks at Jovah.

“Does this seem in any way familiar?” the bladesinger asks.  “What part of ‘scout’ does he not get?”

They rush forward to check out the commotion; Jovah takes one of his softball-sized _continual light_ rocks and tosses it up so the humans can see.  With more illumination they can tell that the wall runs the width of the cavern, and has a gate that appears to be made from the shields of dwarves of Kazathun.  Jalea appears near them, coming out of the shadows.

“They fired and fell back further into the cavern.  There were only two.  I thought I could take the one that I saw.  Sorry.”

They take cover behind their side of the near wall as a hail of crossbow bolts falls near them. Vekkoth climbs up the wall, and peers over.

“About 45 feet up a steep slope to another wall.  I can see eight orcs up there.”

They clamber over the wall, and rush the second wall.  Another hail of crossbow bolts lands, with a few hitting their marks.  This wall is taller than the first, and there are stairs built to allow passage through, but only through a very narrow channel.  As Gavin and Brennen reach the channel, the orcs collapse the wall on them!  The orcs get in a few pokes with spears, and fall back further into the darkness.  Aris and Batista _jumped_ over the wall and took down a couple of orcs, but at least six got away.

Vekkoth helps the others dig out the two fighters.  They’re bruised and batteredbut not horribly injured.  “I can’t see anything further down the cavern.  If there are any more fortifications, they’re out of my range of sight.”

Jalea goes down to check it out and comes back this time, having learned a lesson.  

“One more wall, a pretty high one.  Lots more orcs, maybe twenty.  There’s a steep stair going up the center of the wall to a higher area behind it.  Its about two hundred feet over level ground.  We’d have to rush them and take the bowfire.”

“Not necessarily,” Aris says.  “Light an arrow and fire it down there as close to the wall so I can get a line of sight, Jalea.  I’ll take care of them.”

Jalea sneaks a little ways down and sets an arrow on fire, and fires it at the wall.  As soon as Aris sees the arrow hit, and can see the wall, he casts a _fireball_ about fifteen feet behind the top of the wall.   The orcs are screaming, and on fire, and the party charges.  The otherwise occupied orcs don’t get many crossbow shots on them as they rush the wall, and Brennen and Reana hit the stairs at full speed, only to find that it has been _greased_.  They fall back, ignominiously, to the base of the wall, where the few unfried orcs pepper them with rocks and crossbow bolts.  The wall is too high for Aris to merely _jump_ over, but Jovah motions to him.

“I’ve a got a new trick I’ve been waiting to try.  I can get us both up there,” the gnome luck-priests says.

Aris is skeptical, but just then, is hit by a flurry of _magic missiles_.

“Alright, let’s go!”

Jovah casts _etherealness_ and grabs Aris.  The two find themselves in a greyish, insubstantial world, only vaguely reflecting the true world.  Jovah and Aris pass through the wall, and rise up behind the orcs.  Aris is looking for the spellcaster, and soon finds him; stuck securely to the ceiling by virtue of _spider climb_.  He also sees about two dozen bodies fried by his fireball, some large, orcish, some shorter, perhaps goblins, Aris thinks.  He nods to Jovah, who ends the spell.

Aris immediately _lightning bolts_ the unsuspecting _spider climbing_ wizard, who promptly drops like a rock from the ceiling, utterly electrocuted.  He is Drow.

Meanwhile, Batista and Reana have made it up the stairs and are slicing up the few orcs that weren’t taken out by the fireball.  Soon, Vekkoth, Brennen, Gavin make it up to the top.

That’s when Aris realizes who the smaller figureswere who were killed by the fireball he had blindly cast up onto the top of the wall

Dwarves.

Dressed in rags, malnourished and skinny, weak from being used by the orcs as slave labor to build the defenses in the long cavern.  Former citizens of Kazathun. Chained to a pillar so they couldn’t escape.  Twelve in all.

Vekkoth looks at the carnage, and slowly turns his gaze on Aris.  He is shaking in rage.

“You!”  he screams.  “Elf!  Does it ever occur to you to think before you throw your spells around!”

Brennen and Gavin hold the furious dwarf back from the bladesinger, who stands there, shocked.  Aris looks at Jovah.

“I…  I didn’t know they were there,” he stammers.  “How…”

“How could I have known they were there?”


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Jan 15, 2002)

*Somewhere beneath the Vokal Mountains, Feastday of Pendorianus, AE 420*

The Feast of Pendorianus marks the end of the year, and the beginning of the new.  It is an immensely popular holiday, along with the other four major feast days, and is not counted as part of any month.  Festivities are marked by sumptuous meals, bonfires, and good drink.

Our heroes, however, mark the Feastday of Pendorianus, and the dawn of the year 420 by sleeping in a cold, damp cavern, after spending the better part of the day (or is it night? They can no longer tell) building stone cairns for the dwarves killed in Aris’ _fireball_.  Jovah offers a few prayers for the dead, and Vekkoth adds a few dwarven songs of mourning.

Aris has gone through a whole range of emotions, from denial (“How could I have known they were there?”) to transference of guilt (“It was the Drow’s fault.  They put them there!”), finally to acceptance, anger, and resolve.

“Vekkoth,” the bladesinger begins, approaching the dwarf, whose jaw is clenched so tightly that the veins on his head are standing out.

“I am truly sorry for what happened.  I had no idea that any dwarves were in danger; it did not occur to me that they Drow would use their captives in such a way.  I apologize, and I want to let you know that I will make it up to you, to the dwarves of Kazathun, and the dwarven people.”

“I’m not exactly sure how, but I will make it up to you.”

Vekkoth breathes deeply, closes his eyes, and lets the breath out.

“I accept your apology, and your offer of aid.  None of us could have known that this could happen.  But now that we do know that the Drow will not hesitate to place the blameless in harm’s way, we must take care not to let this happen again.”

“Yes,” Aris says, and walks off, lost in thought.

The party divies up the items found, with Reana taking one of the Drow wizard’s shortswords, and Jalea taking the other.  Aris takes his spellbook, which will take some deciphering due to the differences in surface magic and Drow magic.

They begin the third day’s march, and after several miles come into another very tall chamber.  A roaring waterall from an underground stream cascades down from the ceiling.  Narrow steps are carved in the wall, slippery from water.  The party cautiously navigates the misty cavern, and continues on for another several miles, still descending.

After a while, they come to another underground waterfall, this one much more calm.  Jalea catches sight of something, and finds an orc in the water, dead, incredibly battered and bruised.  This is confusing to them at first, but after some further investigation, Jalea removes an arrowhead from the orcs shoulder.  It’s one of his own.

“He must have run out after getting hurt during the fight, slipped in the waterfall cavern, and the water carried him through the mountain to here, where he washed up,” the elven scout says.

“I’m pretty sure only the one got away,” Jovah says.  “If this is him, then the Drow still don’t know we’re here.”

The path now leads more or less level, not climbing back up yet, but not descending any further.  After another few hours, they find themselves in a carved out chamber, now long-deserted.  Vekkoth tells them that this area is occasionally occupied by dangerous creatures, so Jalea goes scouting.  All he finds are spiders, and a statue.  The rest of the party comes up behind the elf as he looks at the statue, a representation of a man with a bird’s head, and avian wings.  The carving appears to be malevolent, even covered in cobwebs.  Investigation reveals that it is neither magical or evil, although it appears to be the representation of something evil.

“It’s Pazuzu,” Jalea remarks matter-of-factly, as the rest of the party speculates.

This burst of scholarly knowledge from Jalea is not terribly common, so Sir Brennen looks at him curiously.  “Who’s that?  And how do _you_ know?”

“He’s a demon prince.  He commands the skies of the Abyss.”  Jalea takes a deep breath, as he’s been avoiding this conversation for years.

“I’ve been doing research into Pazuzu, because there is a cult of his in Ulfang.  That’s why I left town.  The leader of the cult is one of the top nobles in town, and has been getting more and more powerful.  Probably the number two, number three guy there now.  I did a job a couple years back, breaking into this guy’s house.  Lord Arlen Kentfield.  His dad was involved in a demon cult scandal, and killed himself in jail.  Arlen was supposedly clean, but when I cased his house I found a little shrine.”

“There was a statue just like this.”

“In his house?” Reana asks.

“Okay, smaller,” Jalea says.  “The guy I was working with got killed, I got caught.  Kentfield had been made Chief Jailor of Ulfang after the Siege ended, and Ekozius was driven off, back in 416.  He controlled all the war prisoner camps, and he took me to one.  They had another shrine there.  I think they planned on killing me, but I escaped.  I’ve tried very hard to never go back.  I didn’t want to ‘disappear.’”

“Those prison camps were pretty big, Jalea,” Brennen says.  “Wouldn’t the prisoners of war have known that something strange was going on?”

“I’m sure they did,” Jalea says, blankly.  “But I didn’t see any prisoners when I was there.”

“Then how come they didn’t tell anyone?”

“You’re not following me, Brennen.  That camp could hold hundreds of prisoners.  It was _supposed_ to be holding hundreds of prisoners.  But when I was there, it _wasn’t_.”

“They were all gone.”

The others pause, taking in what Jalea has told them.  Jovah finally speaks up.

“Well…  Sounds like we have another portion added to our plate.  We’ll have to look into that; but right now, we have to take care of _this_ business.  Let’s move on.”

The rest of the day is spent in relative quiet.  The path soons begins climbing again, and after a long climb, the party finds its way blocked by a rusting iron door.

“Beyond this door we meet up with the main trade route,” Vekkoth says.  “On the other side is a small side passage that joins up with the major route.  There is a gatehouse that guards the docks along the Long Lake.  That Lake leads all the way to the Caradinian side of the mountains.  The opposite direction is an underground river with a wide path that leads all the way to the Lake of a Thousand Waterfalls.  We’ll go that way.”

“We’ll rest here.  I think we can safely assume that the gatehouse will be held against us.  Be ready for action soon, its less than a mile from here.”

Early the next morning the party finds itself at the gatehouse.  A long cavern ramps up to the gate, which blocks the entire passage.  Two sets of arrow notches flank the gate, like a pair of sniper’s nests.  Near the bottom of the wall are a series of gaps, perhaps six inches tall, and twelve inches wide apiece.

“What are those for, Vekkoth?” Gavin asks, peering at the gatehouse from cover.

“I don’t know.  I never served in the guards here.  Your guess is as good as mine,” the dwarf replies.

“I can cast _etherealness_ again and get some of us in the gatehouse,” Jovah says.

““Hold on,” says Gavin.  “I’ve got this cool _ring of humanoid control_ from that guy in Shadow Springs.  I’ll just command them to open the  door.”

“Are you sure you want to to risk that?”  Reana says.  “You’ll be right out in the open.”

Gavin nods, and starts walking up the ramp, bellowing out in his best orcish for the guards to open the doors.  Aris casts _invisibility_ on Jalea, and the scout sneaks up to give Gavin backup if needed.

Orcish voices yell back at Gavin, who stops and mumbles something, then starts yelling back in orcish again.  A moment later, the unseen Jalea whispers to the party.

“They want a password.”

“Uh oh,” says Jovah, and casts _etherealness_ and grabs Brennen and Reana.  They pass, ghost-like, by Gavin and through the walls of the gatehouse, where a half dozen orcs are gettign ready to pepper Gavin with crossbows.  Jovah cancels the spell, and they fall upon the orcs in a sudden assault.  In moments, its over, and the orcs are dead.  Gavin comes in through the opened gate, and starts pestering Jovah as to why the orcs didn’t do what he told them to.

“I don’t know!” the exasperated gnome says.  “Maybe they were just strong-willed.”

Aris figures out what the gaps at the bottom of the wall were; throwing a lever in the gatehouse lets water from the Lake shoot at high pressure down the ramp, making it very difficult for an attacker to keep their footing.  

“That would have been nice,” Gavin says.  “Getting knocked over by a wall of water.”

A sharp hiss from Reana silences the bickering fighter.  It seems that the gatehouse also looks out over the docks, and some one is approaching.  The rest of the party goes to take a look.  Looking through an arrow slit, they see a wagon being pulled by a large pack-lizard, guarded by about two dozen orcs.  The orcs are led by two Drow, one male, one female.

“Cool,” Batista says. “Let’s get ready to rumble.”


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Jan 15, 2002)

*Somewhere beneath the Vokal Mountains, January 1st, AE 420*

Batista is spoiling for a fight, especially against Drow.  A Drow killed his mother, and almost killed him.  Aris is just as ready to take them on.  As a Bladesinger, he views himself as the pinnacle of Elven civilization, Master of Sword and Spell, and the Drow are his sworn enemies.  Sir Brennen is the only one who has actually fought Drow, facing off against three in a tower north of the Endicott Mountains, and he wonders what the point of being able to deliver crippling blows is if the subject of the potential crippling blow won’t stand in one place long enough to get whacked like a proper warrior.  Jalea’s memories of Drow are fleeting; he found the three Drow that Brennen fought, and had only time enough to yell a warning before being rendered unconscious.

Reana and Gavin wonder what all the fuss is about.  They’re ready to put a hurt on somebody.

“We need to see what’s in that wagon,” Aris states matter of factly.  “Jalea and I can check it out.”

The bladesinger casts _invisibility_ on himself, and rushes up the path with the already _invisible_ Jalea.  They reach the slow-moving wagon, and Jalea knocks a box off the back to make the procession stop.  Then he and Aris rig a wheel to break as soon as they start up again.  In the confusion, they check out one of the crates inside the wagon, finding that is full of…

…Cast iron cooking supplies.

“What the heck is up with this?” Jalea asks.  They look in another box; same result.  Checking any more would drastically increase their already substantial chance of being caught, so they make their escape and report back.

“Interesting,” Vekkoth says.  “That would be a typical kind of shipment to be coming this way under ordinary circumstances…”

The wagon is moving again now, and the party moves out into the docks area to try and ambush them.  There are a number of stone buildings here, some damaged in recent fighting.  As the wagon approaches, Aris sees only the one Drow – the female, who he thinks is a priestess.

“Where’d the other one go?” he wonders.

Reana comes back from checking out the docks.  “There’s some lights down the Lake a ways, maybe a barge coming this way, but they won’t be here for a while.”

“A welcoming party,” Jovah says.  “We’ll give them a welcome.”

The party springs into action.  Aris drops a fireball on the orcs and the priestess; the orcs are fried but the priestess shrugs the fire off without even a singe.  Brennen, Reana, Batista, Gavin, and Vekkoth all charge her, and she responds by casting a spell that cloaks her in an aura of fear.  Batista and Gavin resist the spell, but the others run off in various directions.  The remaining orcs spread out and start trying to pick off the frightened fighters.  Gavin moves to engage the toughest of the orcs, a pair of large and scary creatures who are quite a match for him.  Batista is left to deal with the priestess himself, as Aris slings spell after spell at her, and she at him.

The priestess avoids Batista’s whirling scimitars with an air almost of disdain, slipping under a blow here and casting a spell at Aris, sidestepping another there, and spinning another spell at the bladesinger.  At the same time, arrows are raining down from a skillfully hidden archer on the rooftops.  Things begin to look a little grim.  Jovah casts a spell that grows a small grove of trees around the main fight in hopes that it will provide cover from the unseen archer.  Jalea gets up on the roofs of the buildings and starts trying to track down their assailant.

Finally, Brennen and Reana make it back into the fight, just as Aris finally fails to resist a spell, and is _held_.  The bladesinger goes stiff moments before Brennen and Reana dig into the suddenly vulnerable priestess, who goes down like a sack of potatoes.  Batista just stares at his scimitars in disbelief.  He never laid steel on her once.

Just as Brennen turns to see what can be done about Aris, a burst of lightning crashes down on the party.  They look up for the source, and find it:  A human wizard, flying about thirty foot up in the air, or to be more precise, five identical wizards.

“Mirror Image,” Aris thinks to himself, unable to move, but uninjured.

The wizard tosses two lumps of gold to the ground, and they grow into huge lions and attack the party.  Batista and Jalea return fire with bows but find the wizard a difficult target, even without the images, which they start slowly removing.  Brennen, Reana, and Gavin are having difficulty with the lions, and losing copious amounts of blood.  The wizard tosses a magic missile at Brennen, and follows it with one at Gavin.  Both fighters are severly injured.  The wizard backs off, as his last image is taken away by one of Batista’s arrows, and they turn back towards the frozen Aris.

From the shadows of a building near the elf, a Drow steps forward, and places his cruel looking dagger at Aris’ throat.

“Surrender,” he says in the common tongue.  “Or I will kill the elf.”  Aris is utterly immobile from the _hold person_ spell.

“Hold on!”  Brennen says quickly.  “Do you really expect us to believe you?  How do we know we can trust you to let him go?”

The Drow shrugs.  

“I suppose you can’t,” he replies, and slits Aris’ throat from ear to ear.

The party rushes him, but he creates an area of _darkness_ around himself, and retreats.  They regroup around Aris amongst the grove of trees Jovah created, and the priest tries to staunch the bleeding from the elf’s jugular vein.  Jalea rushes down from the rooftops to join them.

“There are more men on that barge.  They’ll be here in minutes.”  He holds out his yellow ring; the one that will transport its wearer to the interdimensional castle.

“We have one way out, far as I can tell.”

Brennen nods.  The party members all join hands, and Jalea puts on the yellow ring, and they all fade from the cavern into the pocket dimension’s entrance cave.  Brennen casts a _dispel magic_ on Aris.

Jovah starts casting cure spells on the profusely bleeding elf.  Luckily, Aris was uninjured before the Drow cut him open, so he’s held on much longer than he would have had he been seriously hurt.  Finally, Jovah staunches the bleeding, and Aris stabilizes.

“Don’t talk,” Jovah says.  “We don’t want to reopen the injury.”  Aris nods, weakly.

“We lost Vekkoth,” Reana says.  “The priestess drove him off with that fear, and he didn’t make it back by the time we left.”

Gavin grimaces.  “If anyone can find a place to hide down there, it’d be him.  He knows those caverns well.”

The party takes four days to heal up completely in the pocket dimension.  At the end of the fourth day, they prepare to return.

“Can we use _dimensional folding_ from here?” Brennen asks.

“No,” says Jovah. “It can’t cross planar boundaries.”

“We have no idea what we’ll be going back to,” Gavin says.  “They don’t know what happened to us, but there could still be people there.”

“We’ll take a look, and I’ll be ready to cast _dimensional folding_ right away.  We’ll go back to Fencig, and get a couple things there.  Then we’ll come back to the caverns and finish this up.”

Jalea puts on the green ring that transports its wielder back to the place on the Material plane that he came from, and they materialize in the cavern.  The half-dozen trees of the magical grove Jovah created have been cut down, and on each is a spear pointed up.  On the tip of each spear is the head of a dwarf.  A note hangs from one spear:

_For each of us that you injure, 10 of these will be killed._

Very soon after that, bowfire starts raining down on them, and soldiers begin pouring out of the gatehouse into the cavern.  Jovah quickly casts _dimensional folding_ and the party makes its escape to Fencig.

The collapse in exhaustion in Jovah’s drawing room.  After a few minutes, Hendrik, the manager of the Fox Club, comes rushing into the room.  He is carrying a small crate.

“I just heard you got back!” he says.  “Wow.  You guys look awful.”  No one even has the strength to shoot a stern glance his way.

“Anyway, this just came special delivery for you today.”  Hendrik places the crate on the floor by Jovah and leaves.  The gnome watches him run off, and tiredly glances at the label on the box.

He immediately springs alert.

“Aris!”

The elf looks concernedly at the luck-priest, and then goes to take a look at the box.  It has a neatly written label:

_To: Jovah
The Fox Club
Fencig_

The handwriting is identical to that on the notes hanging from the spear in the cavern they just left.

Jovah cautiously opens the crate, looks inside, and then collapses on the floor in despair.

It is Vekkoth’s head.


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Jan 17, 2002)

> Originally posted on the old boards by Sir Brennen:
> *This was bad on so many levels. The Drow knew our (or at least Jovah's) names.  They knew where to find us.
> 
> Aris was devastated because the one person he felt could help him gain absolution was staring up at him from a FedEx box. He did not know how he could possibly explain the death of the dwarves in the caverns to anyone who wasn't there.
> ...




From a DM standpoint, this was all just a confluence of things coming together.  I didn't expect Vekkoth to get seperated from the party, but once it happened and the party was forced to retreat, I saw only one logical path to take, and took it.

From a roleplaying point of view, it worked out beautifully.


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Jan 17, 2002)

*Fencig, January 11th, AE 420*

The party is furious – and a little bit scared.  They’ve just returned from the Underdark of the Vokal Mountains, after having gotten their butts kicked by Drow just a few days ago, and the Drow have twisted the dagger a little bit by capturing and killing their guide, Vekkoth, and delivering his severed head to Jovah’s casino via parcel post.

“They know who we are!” Jovah says.  “And where we live!  Where _I_ live!”

“That does it – we’re going back there and blowing the whole place up!” Aris yells, furious.  Not only did one of the Drow slit his throat – which he barely survived – they killed Vekkoth, whom Aris had promised to make amends to for the deaths of the enslaved dwarves he had accidentally _fireballed_.

“Hold it,” Reana says.  “Hold it!”

“We can’t lose our focus here.  We were going down there to find out information, not to try and retake Kazathun.  We can’t just blow up all the Drow in the Underdark.”

“Yeah,” Gavin adds.  “Vekkoth said there sixty of them there.  And we got our asses kicked by _two_.”

“Okay.”  Aris has regained some of his composure.  “But if anyone had any doubts about whether this was important or not, I think they can cast those doubts aside!”

They calm down, and take stock of their situation and capabilities.  They replenish their stock of arrows and spell components, and Jovah _dimensionally folds_ them back to the long cavern; this time under the cover of a _darkness_ spell.  The guards at the gatehouse never see them as they slip up the path towards Kazathun.

“Luckily, we’re almost there,” Batista says.  “Or we’d never even be able to find it!”

Within a couple of hours, they are in sight of the gatehouse to Kazathun itself.  The town lies along an underground river that is fed by the Lake of a Thousand Waterfalls, and is built around a harbor created by a series of locks that allow river traffic to be raised and lowered from the level of the Lake down to the river, and back.  A spillway blocks most of the passage, and whats left is stopped by a gatehouse.

“This one won’t be easy to take,” Sir Brennen says.

“That’s why we won’t be taking it,” Jovah says.  “I have two _etherealness_ spells that will get us inside.  They don’t last really long, so we’ll have to move fast and find a place in the town to materialize.”

_In second edition there was spell (whose name escapes me at the moment) that allowed short Ethereal journeys.  Sadly, that spell will not be as easy to come by for Jovah in 3e, as Ethereal Jaunt is 5th level and only takes the caster…_

Jovah takes the first group into town, and they find a small storage room to materialize in.  As Jovah goes back to get the rest of the party, Sir Brennen and Jalea take a look around the room, determining that they have popped into a dwarven accounting firm.  The peek into the next room and see a solitary dwarf with a green eyeshade visor working at something.  

By the time Jovah gets back with the rest of the group, Sir Brennen has befriended the dwarf, and begun to get information out of him.  The Drow are using the dwarves as slaves, working them hard but not to the point of death; the Caradinian government seems to be friendly with the Drow (the human Mage they fought in the caverns is a Caradinian ambassador, it turns out); the Drow control the upper levels of the Kazathun’s chiseled-out town, and only venture into the lower areas with heavy orcish bodyguards; and if any Drow is killed, 10 dwarves are killed in retaliation.  

They decide to try and scout around and get some information.  Aris casts _invisibilty_ on himself and Jalea, and they go out to take a look.  

They find that the very upper level of the town is only reachable by heavily guarded gates, and they deem it too risky to try and slip through.  The next-to-top level is also teeming with a fair amount of Drow, however, and Aris and Jalea start tailing them in hopes of overhearing interesting info.  Eventually they follow a few into a bar that the Drow have commandeered.  An enslaved dwarven bartender gloomily serves drinks to the Drow officers, and tries to stay out of trouble.

After a while, Aris tires of all the inane Drowish chit-chat.  He looks around for the apparent highest-ranking Drow, a male in drow chain, bearing two shortswords.

“Jalea,” he whispers to his invisible elf compatriot. “I have an idea.  Go back to the party and get them ready, and then use your ring.”

“My ring?  Which…”  Jalea trails off.

“Yeah.  That ring.  Get there as fast as you can.”

“I’m going to get us a prisoner.”

 Jalea leaves as quickly as he can, and Aris starts looking for some way to create a distraction.  He slips behind the bar, avoiding contact with the bartender, and finds a bottle of elvish wine under the counter.  He wavers for a moment, then sticks the bottle in his backpack and rummages around for something less refined.

He finds a bottle of dwarvish ale, and slips back out near his mark.  After a few minutes have passed, he decides he’s given Jalea enough time, and he tosses the bottle of dwarvish ale against the far wall of the bar.  It explodes into fragments, and everyone in the bar turns to look at what happened.

Aris is already moving, though.  His target is sitting on the ledge of a balcony overlooking the town harbor, and as everyone’s attention is averted, Aris tackles hims over the edge of the balcony, slipping on his yellow ring as he goes.

_Aris has an identical pair of yellow and green rings that access the interdimensional castle to the ones that Jalea has.  For a long time, the party thought that Aris’ rings were the only ones, not knowing that Jalea had palmed the other pair._

The Drow never sees it coming.  The next thing he knows, he and an apparently insane elven bladesinger are in a strange cavern whose opening overlooks a deep chasm, and a rope and wood bridge connecting the cave to a small keep in the center of the chasm.  The Drow slips away from Aris grasp, and draws his two shortswords.  Aris draws his _flameblade_ and activates it.  Flames leap from the sword’s blade, and the two racial enemies square off, alone.

“Where’s Jalea?” Aris begins to wonder, as the fight progresses.

The two opponents begin dueling, and the fight is a drawn out one.  Aris is exceptionally tough to lay a hand on, and the Drow are reknowned for both the quality of their armor and their own innate quickness.  Steel and adamantine alloy blades flash impressively, but very little blood is drawn.

_Aris also has very few HP, as did the Drow, being also multiclassed.  This fight went on for a while, and neither guy seemed to be able to touch the other._

Eventually both begin to wear down.  The few strikes that are landed cut deep, and Aris is about to get worried when the Drow strikes awkwardly, and momentarily loses his grip on his off-hand shortsword.  Aris kicks the blade over the edge of the precipice, and just as that happens, the rest of the party fades into view, with Jalea.

The Drow hesitates for a moment, and then runs for the ledge.  Gavin and Brennen tackle him before he can hurl himself over the side.  They bind him thoroughly and bring him into the castle, tying him to a chair.

Aris pulls up a chair in front of the Drow, and sits in it backwards with his arms crossed over the backrest.

“Alrighty then,” the bladesinger says with a smile.  “What shall we talk about?”


----------



## Dinkeldog (Jan 18, 2002)

Just to show how far behind I am...

Fear of open spaces is agoraphobia.


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Jan 18, 2002)

Dinkeldog said:
			
		

> *Just to show how far behind I am...
> 
> Fear of open spaces is agoraphobia. *




Grrrrr.....  <pounds head against desk>   

Just went back and edited it!  Thanks for pointing it out!



I also went back and added Gavin to the post with the party recaps.


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Jan 18, 2002)

*The Interdimensional Castle, January 12th, AE 420*

The Drow prisoner looks stoically back at the arrayed party.  He does not seem intimidated or afraid.

“Do you speak common?” Jovah asks.  The prisoner does not reply.

“He speaks undercommon, I’d wager,” Aris says, and switches to that language.

“What’s your name, and who are your commanding officers?”

The prisoner raises an eyebrow almost imperceptibly, but does not answer.  Aris cracks a slight smile, and continues.

“Why did you attack Kazathun?”  The Drow looks away.  Aris’ smile vanishes.  The party had tried to use a _charm_ spell on him, but it was a long shot, and apparently failed.  

“Are you working with the Caradinians?  Do you have anything to do with the disappearing Rangers in the Sylvan Fields area?  Do you know anything about a small, jade, Egg?”

The prisoner’s eyes open a little wider at that last question.  He looks at Aris, and then at the rest of the group.

“What do you know about an egg?” he asks in undercommon.

Aris is surprised to have gotten an answer from him, especially since he was just fishing for anything to get a reaction.

“Just that the Drow are interested in it,” he says.  “But you’re the one being interrogated.  What do _you_ know about it?”

The prisoner bites his lip for a moment; the wheels are clearly spinning behind his white, salamander eyes.  Finally he answers.

“I know that it is magical.  And I know that the Loraxites want it.  I do not know why.”

“Loraxites?” Aris leans forward.  “What’s a Loraxite?”

The Drow grins.  “The surface elves are well-known for rewriting history.  Perhaps you should not take the stories of your elders for granted on matters of your own past.  The Loraxites are followers of Loraxus, of course.”

Aris looks back stoically.  In fact, he had generally skipped history class at the University of Cape Varna.

“Never mind that.  Who are they, and why do they want the Egg?”

“The Loraxites are…  shall we say, dissenters.   A rival faction in the underdark.  They do not accept the primacy of Lolth.  As I said, I do not know why they want the Egg.  My superiors have merely indicated to me that their interest in this thing could help us locate them.  They have told me nothing more, if they even know more themselves.”

“Why are you looking for the Loraxites?” Aris asks.

“We seek their destruction.  They are heretics, rebels, traitors to the Drow cause.”

Jovah leans over to catch Aris ear.

“So, are Drow that are the enemies of evil Drow good?”

Aris shakes his head, “I wouldn’t count on it.  I also wouldn’t count on him not understanding common just because he says he can’t.”

“Um, right.  Carry on.”

Aris continues the conversation.  “So why did you attack Kazathun?”

“The Loraxites had a base in a Duergar city near here called Druga.  We needed to wipe them out, and establsih a base near the surface.  The Loraxites have been making inroads near the surface.  We need to be able to counteract them more easily.  We had not intended to re-establsih ourselves so soon.”

Aris fishes a little further.  He describes the Drow girl from his waking vision on the Belluin docks. 

”Does that girl sound familiar to you?”

The Drow’s eyes widen perceptibly.  “You have seen Illyana?  Well done, none of us has seen her in ages.  Where did you see here?”

“I’m the one asking questions.  Who is she?”

“The leader of the Loraxites.”

Batista taps Aris on the shoulder, and the party retires to the far end of the room, leaving Gavin and Reana to watch the prisoner.

“Aris,” Batista says.  “Why is this guy telling us all this?”

“I think he’s trying to figure out what we know about the Loraxites,” Aris offers.  “He’s interrogating us as much as we are him.  He might also think that if he gives us some info on his enemies, we might take care of his problem for him.”

“What are we going to do with him?” Sir Brennen asks.

Jovah replies, “I think we should deliver him to the Duke of Belluin.  The dwarves we dropped off down there can give testimony as to what the Drow have done here, and he can get a trial.  I’m sure it won’t be a very pleasant outcome for him, but it’ll get him out of our hair.”

Everyone agrees on that course of action, and Aris returns to his interrogation.

“How do we know that this information is true?  How are you in a position to know these things?”

“I am a liason,” the prisoner replies.  “I receive information from Thetra, and pass it up the chain of command.”

“Who’s Thetra?”

The Drow grins and points at Batista.

“He knows Thetra.  Quite well, if memory serves.  Thetra certainly remembers him…  he still bears a scar from their last meeting, long ago.”

Batista’s eyes go wide, and his face flushes with anger.  Gavin holds him back before he can rush the Dark Elf.

_Batista’s mother was killed by a Drow about ten years ago in game time – Batista was kidnapped and almost killed before being saved by Vershanion who put an arrow through the Drow’s hand in the fight that ensued.  The full story is here._

Aris is also quite angry; he feels fairly protective (and a little conflicted) towards Batista.

“Watch yourself!” he hisses at the Drow, and gets up to confer with his compatriots.

“Do we need any more from him?” he asks.  The group thinks for a while, then decides that they have gotten all the useful information hey will get from their prisoner.

“Let’s deliver him to Belluin then.  We’ll go back to Kazathun using Jalea’s ring,” Aris says.  “I wouldn’t want to go back to that bar full of Drow.”  _Not without a Fireball memorized_, he thinks to himself.


----------



## Matchstick (Jan 18, 2002)

*A-ha!*

I have arrived!

I was going to make a smart-arse comment about the Loraxites and how they fight for the trees (Dr. Seuss) but I'll hold off.  Oh wait...



It seems like the scope is getting wider here, involving multiple factions in the underdark, dwarves, humans.  And it seems like Aris is somehow finding himself right in the middle.

Glad your're posting Brennan, it's good to see some of this stuff from a players perspective, not to mention you drop intriguing hints!

Didn't the rings have limted uses?  I thought I remembered that, but I didn't look back to check.  If so, they're using them pretty freely here!


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Jan 18, 2002)

*Re: A-ha!*



			
				Matchstick said:
			
		

> *I have arrived!
> 
> I was going to make a smart-arse comment about the Loraxites and how they fight for the trees (Dr. Seuss) but I'll hold off.  Oh wait...
> 
> ...




The line forms behind my players.  Mock my Loraxites will they?   

MWAHAHAHAHAHA.



> *
> Didn't the rings have limted uses? I thought I remembered that, but I didn't look back to check. If so, they're using them pretty freely here!*





Yes, they do have limited uses.  There might be a total of 5 round trips left at this point of the story, in both rings combined.  That kind of accentuates teh danger they felt they were in, and the importance Aris gave the idea of getting a prisoner.


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Jan 18, 2002)

*Belluin, Ghithor, January 13th, AE 420*

The next day the party _folds_ to Belluin and deposits the prisoner in the surprised hands of the Duke’s jailor.  Having taken care of that, they contemplate their next piece of business.

“We need to take care of Ekozius,” Reana says.  “He’ll probably besiege Mahanaim in the spring.”

“Yeah,” Gavin says.  “But in the meantime its mid-January.  All the news from there is that its all quiet for right now.  We’ve got a couple of months to play with.”

“I want to do some more investigation on the Egg,” Aris says.  “If I go to Cape Varna and get some help from Tolaro, I can search the University archives.  If there is any information about the Egg, or about these Loraxites, it would be there.  It’s the best library in the world.”

“Maybe we should split up and take a short vacation,” Jovah says.  “I’ve got some business to attend to at the Fox Club, and Samsen is going to be made Marquis in less than a month.  I’d like to do some work on possible damage control, so that if he starts letting the Reksus people take over right away, I’m ready for it.”

“Alright,” Brennen says.  “We’ve all got individual things to take care of, and no incredibly pressing issues.  I’d like to take care of the Drow in Kazathun, but it will take months to get suitable forces to Shadow Springs to retake the Underdark areas.  That will have to wait till spring, too.  Maybe we’ll just split up for now, and regroup back in Fencig for the Marquis’ coronation?”

They all agree on this course of action.  Then attention turns to Batista.

“The Drow seem to have some interest in you,” Reana says.  “Maybe we should get you somewhere safe for the winter, if we’re not going to be doing much till spring.”

Jovah thinks for a while.  “How about Cristof’s place?  He owes us one, and I can _fold_ us there and back easily enough.  That mountaintop will be as inaccessible to anyone as anyplace we could pick.  We’ll all _fold_ to Fencig, and I’ll _fold_ people to wherever they’re going.”

“Sounds good to me,” Aris says.  “Maybe I can get Cristof to finally give me that reading he promised.”

Batista is not too thrilled at being stashed in a remote corner of the country for the winter months, but agrees to go to Cristof’s home for safe keeping.  The party _folds_ to the Fox Club, but first Aris writes a quick letter to Tolaro indicating that he will be returning to Cape Varna within the week.

As an afterthought, he scribbles a final note after his signature:

_PS: What’s a Loraxite?_

The following day, Jovah _folds_ Aris and Batista to Cristof’s place.  They explain their situation and Cristof agrees to look after the half-elven Ranger.  

“So I’m going to have to come back here to _fold_ you to Cape Varna, huh?” Jovah asks Aris.

“Don’t worry about that,” Cristof says.  “I can cast _dimensional folding_, too.”

Jovah _folds_ back to Fencig, and Aris tells Cristof he’d like to have that reading now, thanks.  

“Certainly.  I will begin my preparations.  What question would you like answered?”

“I want to know what my visions mean.”

_Aris has had three separate visions since he started poking around with the Egg.  The first two were while asleep, and while the Egg was in his possession.  The third was while awake, and after he had returned the Egg to Lord Masato, the Ralt Gaitherese emmissary whose quest it was to recover the Egg for the Emperor.

In the first vision, Aris saw (from the point of view of the owner of the Egg) the Egg being placed in the Song-Ling Monastery; and the subsequent stealing of it by a thief.

In the second, he saw the Egg being handed over to Virenzo Staris by the thief, and the subsequent killing of the thief by Virenzo.  The vision ended with Virenzo’s death, seen by Aris through Virenzo’s eyes, as the necromancer was run through by Gavin.

The third vision involved a sea journey interrupted by a Drow attack, and the owner throwing the Egg overboard to keep it out of the Drow’s hands.

Aris believes that the Egg must have left the monastery at some point and been lost beneath the sea at some point in its history.  That missing bit of history might give an important clue to the Egg’s power, and its value to both Virenzo and the Drow._

Aris enters into Cristof's room in the back of the small house he lives in on the mountain.  Cristof has candles lit, and a fire is roaring in the fireplace.  There is a table with a cloth embroidered with astrological and mathematical symbols (it looks somewhat like a black, silver and gold version fo the map from Time Bandits).

He sets a bowl out on the table, and two decanters.  He pours liquid from one into the bowl, and then from the other he pours a small amount of a different liquid.  To Aris' eyes, it appears merely to be oil and water, as the smaller amount of oil moves over the surface of the water.

"So, you want to know about your visions, and what they mean..." Cristof says in a low voice. "Let's see..." his voice trails off, and he closes his eyes.  Aris watches him intently, but suddenly realize that the water and oil are beginning to bubble, to boil.  Cristof's hands are on the table next to the bowl, face down, and some of the waterbubbles over the edge, scalding him slightly and jarring him from his trance-like state.

There is a sharp intake of breath, then he looks at the water, whose bubbling is subsiding, and says, "Interesting...  I've never seen that happen before.

"I'm sorry, Aris, I don't think I got anything.  Quite unusual."

Aris utters a sigh of dissapointment, and slowly gets up and turns to leave.

"But you do realize that you're seeing things in the order they happened, don't you?"

Aris stops dead in his tracks, still turned away from the Oracle.  Cristof can only see the elf’s hand grasping the stair rail, and his knuckles going white as he grips the rail ever harder.

Aris turns back towards Cristof, his eyes wide as saucers.

“But…  that means…”  He stops in mid-sentence, and turns, running out into the snowy night.

“_Batista!_  Get your things!  We’re leaving!  _NOW!_”


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Jan 20, 2002)

This is a map of the Southern Kingdoms.  It is about 500 miles wide x 700 miles long.  It was created in Photshop 5.5.


----------



## MasterOfHeaven (Jan 21, 2002)

Nice story hour.  How soon will the campaign shift into 3rd Edition, by the way?  I'm looking forward to reading more.


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Jan 21, 2002)

MasterOfHeaven said:
			
		

> *Nice story hour.  How soon will the campaign shift into 3rd Edition, by the way?  I'm looking forward to reading more. *




Thanks!  This entire Story Hour is 2nd Edition, but we've redone all the characters for 3e, and are actually starting play again the second weekend of February.  I hope to have this Story Hour completely posted by that time - at least that s the goal.

Then I will start a new one up with the new adventures.


----------



## Dinkeldog (Jan 21, 2002)

You could always just axe the Loraxites (  ) retroactively using the almighty DM power:  "From now on, the Loraxites will be known as Sneechites."  

It might help.


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Jan 21, 2002)

*Fencig, Ambardor, January 15th, AE 420*

Cristof casts _dimensional folding_ and sends Aris and Batista to the one spot in Fencig that he remembers well:  The Church of Kelloran.  The Sanctuary itself, to be precise.  No services are in progress, but several young priests are frightened near out of their wits as the elven Bladesinger and half-elven Ranger step out through a glowing portal and into their Church.

“Sorry,” Aris says.  “Just passing through.”

Several of the priests run off to tell their masters, but by the time anyone comes to investigate, the two are long gone.  They rush into the plaza in front of the Church, and flag down a passing carriage.

Jovah has just finished settlign in in front of a nice, roaring fire in his residence, wearing his favorite floppy purple hat, and his bunny slippers when Aris bursts in on him.

“Is everyone still here?” the elf demands.

“Yes, I was…”

“Great!  Get everyone together!  I have important information!”

“Well, alright, but…”

“What are you _waiting_ for!?”

Within the hour, the entire group is assembled in Jovah’s drawing room.  Aris retells the story of his visions, and then tells them that he now knows they all represented events in the order that they occurred.

Gavin is non-plussed.  “Okay, so what does that mean?  What’s the big rush?”

Aris tries to compose himself.

“Here’s what it means.  We gave the Egg to Lord Masato so he could return it to the Monastery in Ralt Gaither.  Now we know it never arrived.  The Drow – the Loraxite Drow – attacked Lord Masato and tried to get the Egg from him, and he tossed it into the sea.  It may still be there, with the wreckage of his ship.  The Drow may be looking for it, and who knows who else may be looking for it too.  It’s been a couple of months since Lord Masato left Gujo with the Egg, we don’t exactly when he went down.”

“Does this mean that the Drow hired Virenzo?” Jovah asks.  “When we spoke with dead with him, he said he didn’t have a master…”

“He might not have had a master technically,” Reana says.  “He might have just been working on one job for a price.”

“That could be,” Aris says.  “But that doesn’t really matter. We need to find the Egg.”

“Alright, Mister Genius, how do we do that?” Gavin asks. “It sank with the boat! How do you find a little egg in the middle of the sea?”

“Um,” Aris replies.  “Uh, I haven’t figured that part out yet.”

“Were there any landmarks that you saw in that last vision?” Jovah asks.  “Any coastlines off in the distance?”

“Not that I can recall,” Aris says.  He pauses, thinking for a moment.  “If I remember rightly, the stars would give the impression that the boat was heading west, though.”

Sir Brennen jumps into the conversation.  He is the only person in the party with actual sailing experience.

_Jovah used to refer to Brennen as “Captain Seabucket.”  It was not a term meant to convey Jovah’s confidence in Brennen’s sailing skills._

“That makes sense; Lord Masato would have been heading west to Ralt Gaither.  I’ve travelled that route, there are a number of harbors that a ship like that would typically put in at.  We could follow the route, and see if Lord Masato’s ship docked in each of those places, and that would help us narrow down the search quite a bit.”

The next day, the party _folds_ to Gujo and speaks with Gerika, the Kensai who was Lord Masato’s interpreter.  Gerika takes them to the Ambassador’s ship, and they speak with the captain of that ship.  The Ambassador has two ships; they are quite close in appearance.  The captain explains to the party the route that the ships typically take, and the party prepares to _fold_ the next day to Caer Cuthlin, on the island of Eirval.  Jovah recalls the town from their previous journey to Sander’s Island.  This would have been the first port after Ulfang for Lord Masato’s ship.

_Somewhere in all of this, Jocvah blew a roll for Dimensional Folding, and the entire party aged by a year.  I can’t recall which jump it was, but it was long overdue…!_

The party spreads out on the docks, operating in pairs to reduce the risk of anyone getting jumped; they’re feeling a little paranoid right now.  They find no one on the docks who has seen or remembers seeing a Ralt Gaitherese ship of that description in the past several months.

Jovah and Brennen are working one side of the docks together when Brennen stops and loks in the window of a little curio shop selling knick knacks along the quay.  Jovah rolls his eyes.

“This is not the time to be shopping for souvenirs, Brennen!” he says, but Brennen walks into the shop, ignoring the gnome.

Jovah taps his foot several times, and then follows Brennen in.

“…so where did _he_ get the piece?” Brennen is asking the shop owner.

“Oy. ‘e said it washed up on t’shore, ‘long the nor’ coast,” the wrinkled little shopkeeper replies.  “Twere other stuff wit’ it.  Gravinard sold a bunch o’ the stuff.”

“What’s up, Brennen?” the priest of Bes asks.

“Check this out,” Sir Brennen says.  He holds up a small, black laquered bowl, crafted in the Ralt Gaitherese style, and inlaid with pearl.  “This is a very nice piece, and it washed up on shore here in Eirval just six weeks ago.  And there was more like it.”

“From Lord Masato’s boat?” Jovah asks.

“Who else could it be?  Thanks very much, sir.” Brennen says to the shopkeeper.

“Keep yor thanks, tha’ bowl ‘ll cost ya two score guilders!”  the wizened fellow exclaims.


----------



## Lazybones (Jan 23, 2002)

Glad to see the thread going strong on the new boards... 
Keep it up!  

Lazybones aka Faulpelz


----------



## Dinkeldog (Jan 23, 2002)

Long time without a post, KC.  What's up with that?


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Jan 23, 2002)

Dinkeldog said:
			
		

> *Long time without a post, KC.  What's up with that? *




Jeez!  You guys are spoiled!  

I'll try and get an update posted sometime this morning...


----------



## at work Jovah (Jan 24, 2002)

Bumparino Oh?


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Jan 25, 2002)

*Caer Cuthlin, Eirval, January 17th, AE 420*

Sir Brennen and Jovah gather the group together and show them their discovery.  It appears that a Ralt Gaitherese ship carrying rich passengers must have gone down off the coast of Eirval.  They search out the salvager who found the stuff, a gruff local fisherman named Gravinard.  After plying him with a few gold coins, they manage to get him to divulge the area of the coast where the stuff was found.  They then hire a small cargo vessel to go do some salvaging themselves.

“Nobody has explained to me how we are going to find an egg under the Retic Sea, even if we have narrowed it down to thirty miles of coast line,” Gavin grumbles.  “That’s still a _lot_ of area.”

“Well,” Aris starts, “I’ve been thinking about that.  Since I have a sort of connection with the Egg, I’m kind of hoping that when we get close, I’ll sense it…”

“_That’s_ your big idea?” Gavin replies, unconvinced.

“Um, yeah.”

“Hold on, I’ve got some thoughts on that,” Jovah says.  “I can cast _locate object_ and _water breathing_ multiple times.  We can do that, kind of drag along underwater behind the boat as we sail, and if we get a directional reading off the _locate object_, we stop and explore.”

“Will you be able to do _locate object_ on the Egg?” Reana asks.

“I don’t know,” Jovah replies.

“Try it on ships,” Brennen says.  “This area is known for shipwrecks, so we may get a few false positives, but we should be able to find the ship that way, eventually.”

There is some skepticism as to whether the plan will work, but as it turns out the Retic Sea is not terribly deep at this point (probably one reason that shipwrecks happen so often in the area).  It takes a couple of days of sailing to get to the area, but within a day or so, they find their first shipwreck.  It’s not the one they’re looking for, of course, but it’s a good sign.  

The next day they find another wreck, and Jovah, swimming down amongst the wreckage notices a few shadowy humanoid shapes swimming nearby, although he’s unable to get a good look at them.  They swim away quickly, and don’t return.  Jovah lets the others know, and they keep their eyes open for the unknown creatures.

The following afternoon they spot a ship on the horizon.  As they get closer, they note that it appears to be anchored.  They decide to sail up and see what’s going on, pretending to simply be interested in an exchange of ship-to-ship communications, a fairly common courtesy most captains honor.  The ship appears to be a fairly large cargo vessel named “The Waterbug,” unarmed (as is the party’s ship).  The captain waves them closer after signals are exchanged, but then gets into a heated discussion with a well-dressed man on board who seems to be upset that the party’s ship is approaching.

“What should I do?” asks the party’s hired captain.  

“Keep going in,” Brennen says.  “Ignore any signals telling you to back off.”

The captain reluctantly agrees.  The party sails up to the Waterbug, and Sir Brennen, Jovah, and Reana stand at the rail.  

“We have some messages that need to go to Caer Cuthlin,” Brennen says.  “Permission to come aboard and deliver them?”

“Certainly,” says the other captain.

“We’re not going to Caer Cuthlin,” says the foppish gentleman.  The captain raises an eyebrow but doesn’t say anything to contradict him.

At this point a diver breaks the surface of the water on the far side of the ship and is hauled up on board; a second rope hanging in the water is also also in the process of being hauled up.  Jovah notes that there are two priests on board, they appear to be priests of Velona, the goddess of the sea (priests of Velona frequently hire on to ships as ‘ship’s priests’).

The second rope comes up, and a commotion arises from the people on the other ship.  The other rope is frayed and cut at the end; apparently a second diver is missing!

“Watch them!” the fop yells to the captain.  “This is _their_ doing!”

Brennen shrugs questioningly, and the other captain answers with his own exasperated shrug.

Reana grasps Brennen’s arm, and points to the prow of the other ship.  “Look!” she whispers urgently.

The Sword of Kelanen looks where the Ranger is pointing, and sees a scaly humanoid figure slinking up the anchor rope, followed by another. Each has a trident tied off over his back.  The failing light of an early winter sunset barely outlines them against the ships silhouette.

“Captain!” Brennen yells.  “You are being boarded by Sahuagin!  Look sharp!  Do you require assistance?”

“NO!” yells the fop.  “They’re behind this!”  He then runs off somewhere; the party can’t see where, as the other ship is much larger and its deck is a good eight feet above the party’s deck.

“Do you swear you have nothing to do with this?”  the captain asks.

“We swear!” Jovah replies.

“Then yes!  We have no strong fighters amongst us!”

Brennen climbs up the rope ladder proffered by the Captain, and Reana follows.  Jovah bangs on the hatch to alert Jalea, Batista, Gavin, and Aris (they had not wanted to make the other ship nervous with a large number of well-armed folk on deck) to the situation.  Then he clambers up the ladder too.

As Brennen and Reana reach the top, they see a half-dozen sea devils attacking the crew.  Brennen yells for them to back off so he and Reana can engage them.  The foppish man who had been yelling at them is over at the steep stair leading down, talking urgently to someone, and is surprised to see the party on board, and even more surprised to see them fighting the sahuagin.  He stands, jaw dropped as Brennen lays into one of the creatures and flattens it with two whirling strikes.  Reana engages another one, but  more keep coming up over the sides.  

Jovah climbs up on board, and nearly gets his head taken off by a sahuagin.  He tumbles out of its way, and in the failing last light of day sees a tall, brunette woman coming up from below decks, talking with the foppish man.  She pulls out a small crossbow and plugs a sahuagin, while her foppish companion more or less hides.

Gavin is just about to climb up the ladder when a sahuangin tosses it overboard.

“D*MN!” he yells, and jumps for the Waterbug’s rail.

Aris casts _jump_ and tries to make the leap up to the Waterbug, missing it by just a bit, and crashing over the railing.  Something clicks in his head, and he turns to the starboard side, where the first diver is crouching under the stairs to the aft deck, clutching something in a wet leather bag.  The diver reaches in and pulls something out.

It’s the Egg.


----------



## at work Jovah (Jan 25, 2002)

Kid Charlemagne said:
			
		

> The ship appears to be a fairly large cargo vessel named “The Waterbug,” unarmed (as is the party’s ship).




Yeah nothing BAD could be on an unarmed ship called 
"The Waterbug"


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Jan 26, 2002)

*Aboard the Waterbug, in the Retic Sea, January 24th, AE 420*

Just as Aris notices the Egg, a sahuagin leaps down from the aft deck, and skewers the diver.  The Egg slips from his grasp, and begins rolling across the deck.  Aris scampers to his feet, and rushes after it, but the ship pitches unexpectedly, and he loses his balance, and the Egg slips over the deck and back into the water!

Aris pounds his fist on the deck for a few moments, and then turns to deal with the immediate problem of the sea devils.  The brunette woman from beneath decks is plugging Sahuagin with bolt after bolt from her crossbow, and Brennen, Reana, Batista, and Gavin are fighting off over a dozen of the creatures.  Jalea has made his way to the Waterbug as well, and is picking a few off with bowfire.

Another image comes to Aris’ mind, and he spins to look back in the water.  He sees a four-armed sahuagin, and in a flash his perspective shifts, and he sees himself through the sea devil’s eyes.  The creature then blows a call on his conch shell horn, and sinks beneath the waves.  The other sahuagin break off and dive into the water.

Jovah surreptitiously has cast _detect evil_ and determined that the brunette radiates quite strongly.

She walks up to Brennen, and after casting a distrustful glance at the rest (seeming to linger longer on Aris than the others) addresses him.

“Who are you, and what do you want?  I don’t mean to seem ungrateful for your help, but we could have handled this ourselves.”

“I am Sir Brennen D’Loxor, and these are my companions.  We were just in the area and trying to help.”

The foppish man speaks up.  “My name is Mauricio DeLaGuarde, and I hired this ship.  We’re doing salvage work, and we’ve claimed this area and anything on the sea floor belongs to _us_.”

Jalea calls out from the front of the ship, “you might want to bury the hatchet, guys.  There’s another ship off the port bow, and something is coming this way from it.”

By this time, the sun has completely set, and Aris and Reana strain to see a strange flying creature heading their direction – extremely fast.  The brunette woman curses softly under her breath, and gracefully swings herself down below decks.  Jovah, curious as to what she’s up to, follows.

As the flying shape comes closer, Jalea sees that it ilooks like a huge skeletal vulture with tattered wings.  Aris moves up to zap it with a _lightning bolt_ at his earliest convenience.

Below decks, Jovah sees the woman run back along the length of the ship towards a cabin.  She pauses long enough to pound on a couple of crates near the cabin door.

“Wake up!  Time to move!  We’ve got action!”  She disappears into the cabin, and Jovah stops to watch, joined shortly afterward by Reana.  The woman emerges from her cabin, buckling on a sword belt that hold two shortsword scabbards.  She draws her blades and advance towards the ladder; both blades are blackened steel, and reflect none of the ship’s lanterns light.

Above decks, it is possible to tell that the massive skeletal vulture is bearing mulitple riders. 

“They’re Drow,” Jalea says.

Aris lets loose his _lightning bolt_ and a few of the riders fall into the sea.  The vulture manages to make it the deck before dying, and the party comes face to face with five Drow, including one that Batista immediately recognizes, even after ten years.

It is Thetra, the Drow who killed Batista’s mother and would have killed Batista if Vershanion hadn’t saved his life.

Batista lets his fireball arrow fly; but just before it hits Thetra, it reverses course and impacts on Batista instead.  The Drow laughs mockingly, and fires off a stream of flame at Aris.  Aris returns fire with a magic missile, but it has no effect at all on the Drow.  Batista and Gavin are set upon by several of the other Drow, but some are trying to help their fellows out of the water, so the odds aren’t all that bad.  

The brunette leaps up on decks again, and Reana carefully follows her.  The Drow charge the woman, ignoring Gavin and Batista for the moment.  Thetra lets off a _flame arrow_ at Aris, but the bladesinger avoids the worst of it and returns fire with another _lightning bolt_.  Thetra fares poorly with that one, and looks fairly injured as he retreats behind several of the other Drow.

Spells are flying in all directions now, and various people are affected by _hold person_, _summon insects_, _magic missiles_ and other magics.  Batista tries desperately to get through the line of Drow to get at Thetra, but is rebuffed.  The shortsword-wielding brunette seems to hold her own against her foes.

Suddenly it occurs to Aris, _those aren’t blackened steel, they’re adamantine.  They’re Drow shortswords!_

Below decks, Jovah sees the tops of the two crates pop off, and two graceful, albino skinned, white haired elves slip from over the edge of the crates.

_Drow in my world are albino skinned rather than black-skinned.  In that regard, they can be sometimes mistaken for grey elves._

“Uh, oh,” the luck-priest mutters.

Aris is confused by the apparent contradictions; he’s fighting Drow alongside someone who is wielding Drow weapons.  Perhaps they are a hunter of the Drow like him?  Having not seen the two Drow below decks, he isn’t certain.

The Drow that came from the Vulture are having a bad time of it, and are getting beaten badly.  Thetra tries to make an escape, beginnig to cast a spell, but before he can complete it, he receives another shot from Aris, this time a _wall of fire_ that springs from the deck and cuts the Drow group in two.  Thetra goes down, and the rest of the Drow either are killed or forced into the water.  It turns out they don’t swim very well, and Aris makes no attempt to help them.

Brennen turns once more to the brunette, but she is having none of him now.  She slashes the fighter hard with both short swords, hitting much harder than Brennen thought she would.  She then turns towards Gavin who is also nearby, and throws a crystal orb that breaks at his feet in a flash.  Gavin finds that he is paralyzed.  Mauricio tries to help her, but Batista cuts him down in a whirl of steel.

Then she seems to go into overdrive, and her swords swirl about her even faster than Brennen’s.  She lands three more blows, taking a couple from Brennen in the process, and leaps below decks.

Jovah is hiding from the two Drow below decks, and sees her come down and yell something in a language he does not understand, but believes to be Drow.  The two Drow move to support her.  Both are male, one quite powerfully built and lean muscle, the other more bookish and wielding only a dagger.  Behind them, the shadows appear to deepen, and the lights below decks fade.

Reana and Brennen come below decks, and are met by a _flame arrow_ from the bookish Drow.  Both are now also moving at preternatural speeds, and the warrior-drow draws a longsword and twirls it about him.

Just before Brennen and Reana reach their opponents, they vanish – but not completely.  

“Look out!” Jovah yells.  “They’re still there!”

All that can be seen of the three is a blurry disturbance in the air, as invisible whirling blades cut deep into the two fighters.  Aris and Batista reach the fight, and Brennen and Reana fall back.  The shadows are extraordinarily deep towards the cabin, and the invisible foes fade into the darkness.

Jovah tosses one of his _continual light_ rocks into the shadows and they disperse.  There is no sign of the enemy.

"Those were Drow...? Why were they fighting each other?"  Brennen asks, gamely trying not bleed all over the hold from his multiple shortsword wounds.


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Jan 28, 2002)

A couple of my players pointed out to me somethign that I forgot in the ship-battle:

Just before the enemy below decks retreated into the deepening shadows, an ear splitting roar shook the ship from stem to stern, apparently coming from below decks. Jovah and Reana saw nothing; Above decks Aris, Gavin and Batista all looked at each other and said, "There's no way a noise _that_ loud could come from anything that could fit on _this_ ship!"

But when they got below decks to check it out there was no sign of the enemy or of anything else.


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Jan 28, 2002)

*Aboard the Waterbug, Retic Sea, January 24th, AE 420*

The party starts licking their wounds, and Sir Brennen tries to explain to Captain DiNovo (skipper of the Waterbug) what’s going on, and that DeLaGuarde is working with forces counter to the interests of Ghithor.  DiNovo accepts Brennen’s story, and the atmosphere on the ship gets a little less tense.

But only for a moment; Jalea slips up next to the Sword of Kelanen and whispers in his ear:

“Don’t look now, but there’s another small fishing vessel approaching us!”

“Oh, no,” moans Brennen.

The party gathers to meet this new potential threat.  The light is failing, and the occupants of the ship can barely be seen, although it is sailing with lanterns aglow.  A small figure is standing in the prow of the ship while a couple of sailors man the sails and rudder.

“Aris?  Are you there?  It looked like a battle going on…  Are you alright?”

It is Tolaro Telegar, Aris’ mentor from Cape Varna.

The party breathes a collective sigh of relief, followed by a collective thought that Aris voices.

“Tolaro!  It’s good to see you!  But…  what are _you_ doing here?”  The bladesinger helps the elderly grey elf on board.

“Dear Lord!  Aris…  You should really know better, giving me a scare like that.  I’m fifteen hundred years old, for goodness sake!”

“Uh,” Aris stumbles.  “A scare like what?”

“Near gave me a heart attack!  _PS, What’s a Loraxite?_ Indeed!  I should never have given you a pass on your history exams, it just goes to show the dangers of not paying attention in school…”

Aris is flumoxed.  He tries to regain the upper hand in the conversation.

“How…  how did you _get_ here?  How did you find us?”

“Dear me, Aris, it wasn’t all that difficult.  Time-consuming, but not all that difficult, not for a competent mage…  I _scryed_ you, of course.  And then _teleported_ to as close as I could reasonably get.  And then hired this fine fisherman to bring me out here to your ship, er, ships.”  

The grey elven scholar looks about him at the crew and captain of the Waterbug, who return his quizzical looks.  Tolaro sees the dead Drow bodies on the deck, and walks over to investigate them.

“So, you have found some Drow, I see.”  He bends down and examines them.

“There was another group of them,” Batista says, and Tolaro looks up sharply at the Ranger.

“Really?  And, um, did they seem like the others?”  Tolaro examines Batista for injuries, tilting his head to one side and the other like a barber getting ready to shave a customer.

“They went invisible, and were moving at an extraordinarily high speed,” Reana says.

“Ah.” Tolaro says.  “Loraxites.”

“Did they injure any of you?”

“No, not really,” she replies.  “But what are they?  Another faction of Drow?”

“Well, sort of, but not really,” Tolaro says.  “We’d better sit down, this is a bit of a story.”

“Can we just cut to the chase?” Gavin asks, not hopeful that a 1,500 year old elf will get to the point at anytime in the near future.

“Hmm.”  Tolaro pauses.  “No, I think you need the full story.”

The party finds some chairs and sits down for the full version.  Tolaro tells them the full tale.

“At the most basic level, Loraxites are followers of Loraxus.  Loraxus was a powerful Grey Elf who lived around 4,000 years ago, long before Vecna and the Long Night.  Only the Grey Elves have histories of those times.  The Elves were one people then, united.  There was a distinction between High and Grey, and between them and the Wood Elves, but it was more one of interests than of race.  The Grey Elves were the rulers, more in fact then than now.  The Elven High King lived in his great city in the Witching Woods, far north of here.  The Princes lived in Cape Varna and in Zelligar, as they do now.

“The High King was elderly, and died childless; a common problem among Grey Elves for millenia.  Loraxus was the Chamberlain, a powerful figure in the Elven capitol, and a member of a leading noble family.  She was ambitious, and tried to take the throne for herself.

“She put together a coalition of allies who were more enamored of wealth and power than the average Elf.  She swayed the priesthood of a powerful merchant-goddess, the goddess of weaving and wealth – the weaving of cloth from spider silk has long been the Elves’ chief export to human lands, and a great source of wealth.

“The weaving-goddess’ name was Lolth.”

“Several noble houses joined with Loraxus.  It devolved to the point of civil war, and elven blood was spilled in the streets of the capitol for the first time in its history.

“Loraxus forces were defeated, and retreated to the mountains, where they holed up and tried to regroup.  The were forced ever deeper in the mountains, and eventually found places defensible enough that they could hold off the other Elves.  The Elves forced beneath the surface were Grey Elves, and they took the name ‘Drow’ for themselves, and made Lolth their goddess-protector.

“Loraxus wasn’t finished, though.  Her delusions of power led her to try and defy the priestesses of Lolth, who had taken the mantle of leadership of the Drow.  Loraxus tried to depose Lolth and set herself in her place.  Loraxus was powerful, and Lolth was not yet the hard and vile goddess she is now, but still, Lolth won, and Loraxus was defeated a second time.  

“She was banned from the Drow enclaves as well as from ever returning to the surface.  And for her temerity and for the evil she had done to the Elvish race, she was cursed by the gods themselves, never to see the Sun again.

“This is the part that the Grey Elves aren’t terribly fond of letting out.” Tolaro says, mopping his brow.

“Loraxus was turned into a Vampire.  In fact, the very first Vampire.

“And the Loraxites share her curse.”


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Jan 31, 2002)

*Aboard the Waterbug, Retic Sea, January 24th, AE 420*

“Yikes,” exclaims Jovah.  “Not only are they Drow, they’re _undead_ Drow.”

“Their powers are different from other vampires,” Tolaro says.  “They are able to attack while invisible, and _haste_ themselves.  On the other hand they cannot turn into a gas and escape that way; at least that’s my understanding.”

“Is Loraxus still around?  Has she been destroyed?” Batista asks.

“The last anyone heard of Loraxus was over a millenia ago,” Tolaro says. “She was involved in an attempt to find an entrance to the dwarven kingdom of Arthendain.  You might be more familiar with it as the Lost Kingdom.  Misleading name, really.  Its not lost at all; everyone knows exactly where it is.  They just can’t get in or out of it.  Loraxus supposedly wanted in, and then disappeared.  It’s possible she was forced into a hibernation; vampires, especially really old, powerful ones, can hibernate for centuries.  The Loraxites may feel that they can use the Egg to find her, or waken her.  Unfortunately, I don’t know enough about the Egg to figure out why or how it could be used.”

“We need more info,” Aris states.  “And we need to figure out what the Sahuagin are going to do with the Egg.  The Loraxites may try to deal with them for it.  If they do we need to figure out where.”

Over the next two days Jovah casts several _divinations_.  He learns:


The Sahuagin will most likely take the Egg to their human allies.
This will take place on the night of the new moon (conveniently only a couple of nights off).
He also gets a fairly clear idea where the transfer will take place – along the mainland shore about a day away.
He does not learn any more info about the Egg itself.

The party send the Waterbug on its way, limping back to port.  Tolaro _teleports_ home to Cape Varna to do more research on the Egg.  The party sails along the mainland shore, until they find a waterfall cascading down a shoreline cliff, with a small fortified tower at the top of the cliff.

“This would seem to be the place,” Jovah says.  “The new moon is tonight.  We made it just in time.”

“But where is the handoff going to take place?” Brennen asks.

“We’ve got a couple of hours of daylight left, lets see if we can check out that tower and see if we can get into position to do something,” Gavin suggests.

“But what if it isn’t happening at the tower?” Jalea says.  “Maybe some of us should go up there, and some of us should stay here to see what happens.  We can signal if there’s trouble.”

They agree on this plan, and Sir Brennen, Aris, and Gavin go up top to check out the fortified tower, and Batista, Reana, Jovah, and Jalea stay in the boat to react to any other possible signs of Sahuagin or other activity.

The ship docks at a rickety old pier and lets them off.  It then sails out a bit from the shore, and drops anchor behind a rock formation, keeping it concealed from view.  Jalea goes to the cliff so he can see everything and signal the ship or those onshore if needed.

On the way to the tower, Brennen, Gavin, and Aris are accosted by a small group of undead, who they take out, but not before the creatures severely weaken them.

_They were wights; in 2nd edition, I had level-draining undead drain various stats instead of levels…_

Once inside, they find the tower deserted.  There are signs that someone lived here as recently as a few years ago, but no sign of recent inhabitation.  Aris sees a crest on the back of a few tattered chairs, but it’s not one that he recognizes.  Further searching reveals little on the upper floors, but they do find a concealed door leading to a stair spiralling down.

Outside, Jovah has cast _locate object_ looking for tridents.  “If a sahuagin swims nearby, I’ll be able to tell this way,” he tells the others.

Shortly thereafter, the spell registers something moving, under the water.  It (or perhaps they) appears to be heading for the waterfall.  Jovah signals Jalea, and Jalea heads over to the waterfall to see what he can see.  He finds that there is a cave behind the waterfall (isn’t there always?) and motions for the party members still on the ship to approach.  He then goes inside to scout it out.

Jovah, Reana, and Batista load up into a rowboat and head towards the waterfall, giving orders to their captain to keep out of sight.  They pass through the curtain of water and find a long cave that passesunder the cliff wall until it reaches a small sandy beach.  A wooden dock has been built here – in much better condition than the one outside, and showing signs of more recent use.  Jalea signals to the three from the shadows, and then sneaks closer to tell them what he saw.

“There’s another chamber beyond this one, and a small pool.  A whole bunch of Sahuagin came up out of there and went through a door into a big carved out chamber.  I didn’t follow them any further.”  They move up slowly, exploring the caverns as they go.

Up top, Brennen, Gavin, and Aris are descending deeper and deeper on a narrow spiral stair that eventually ends in a small chamber with a door.  Aris opens the door a crack and looks into a large oval shaped room, with slowly sloping stairs along the long curves of each side of the room leading up to a high platform at one narrow end.  On the platform is an altar, darkish in color.  At the other narrow end is a set of double doors, made of oak and reinforced with iron.  Twenty sahuagin have just entered the chamber in a double file procession.  One is carrying a metal chest, still dripping with seaweed and salt water.  They enter the room, and proceed to seat themselves on the floor, facing the doors.

“Looks like they’re waiting for someone,” Gavin says.

“But who?” Brennen asks.  “Their ‘human allies’ like the _divination_ said, or the Loraxites?”

“I don’t know,” replies Aris.  “All I now is that they’re seated in a nice, tight, _fireball_ pattern.”

“Well, then what are we waiting for?” asks Brennen, unsheathing his swords.

Gavin kicks open the door, and Aris lets the sea devils have it.  The _fireball_ goes off in the middle of them, and the majority crumple; however, the others form into a defensive formation and prepare to repel the three warriors.

Not far from the double doors, Jovah, Reana, Batista, and Jalea see the fireball go off.

“Looks like Aris found them already!” Reana says, and draws her swords and charges in, followed by Batista and Jovah.  Jalea starts to follow them in, but then gets a brainstorm.

“The most important thing is that the Egg doesn’t get away,” the elven rogue thinks to himself.  He then pulls out his lock picks and locks the door from the cavern side, so that he’s on the opposite side from the battle, which seems to be going well for the party.

Inside the chamber, Brennen is fighting the leader of the Sahuagin.  He’s a four-armed monster who reels off a number of heavy blows on the Sword of Kelanen, but finally goes down, dropping the seaweed-covered chest he had been carrying with his second set of arms.  The chest pops open, and the party can see the Egg inside, along with a number of other things seemingly dredge up from lost ships on the bottom of the Retic Sea.

That’s when the Loraxites attack.  They’re invisible again, of course, and hasted from the beginning of the combat.  They begin tearing through the party with a vengeance.  The party members can see blurry outlines of them, but find them difficult to hit, and of course, being vampires, they regenerate.  Luckily, Aris discovers after several spells that they seem to not have the typical Drow resistance to magic.  Small favors, he  thinks to himself.  One of the Loraxites is an especially tough and strong fighter, while the other two seem to have magical skills in addition to their vampiric toughness.

On the other side of the door, Jalea is beginning to wonder if he made the right choice in terms of which side of the door to be on.

“The right side, from the sounds of it,” he thinks.  But then he hears the sounds of someone coming up behind him, and he turns to see a group of armed men approaching, led by a familiar face.

Arlen Kentfield.  The demon-worshipping, political power-grabbing nobleman who chased Jalea out of Ulfang.

“Wrong side, after all,” Jalea mumbles under his breath.

Kentfield see Jalea and recognizes him.  He knows that Jalea has seen his little shrine to Pazuzu once, a long time ago, and has tried to have the elf killed on more than one occasion.

“Baraban, get that door open!”  Kentfield says with a grin.  “The rest of you, get me that elf.  We have some…  reminiscing to do…”

Baraban, Kentfield’s massive bodyguard, moves up to break down the door, but Jalea moves first.  He takes the last remaining smokepowder from Brisco’s stash, and strikes a flint as he throws it at the fighter.  It bursts into a flash of flame and smoke, doing little damage, but offering the elf a chance to dart off into the dark recesses of the cavern as Kentfield’s men avert their eyes.  Jalea hops from rock to rock, avoiding leaving footprints in the sand.  He then huddles in a corner and draws his velvet black cloak around him, blending expertly into the shadows.  Kentfield’s men look but can’t find him.

Meanwhile, Baraban is finding that the door to the chamber is much stronger than anticipated.  Inside the chamber Jovah can hear the pounding.

“That can’t be Jalea,” he thinks to himself.

During the commotion, one of the Loraxites has gotten ahold of the Egg, and apparently tucked under a cloak.  Jovah sees this, and casts a _detect magic_ to try and find the Egg and its bearer.  He looks about, and finally sees a magical form, moving closer and closer to Aris, who is terribly injured.  The radiation of magic is strong, and matches what Jovah has seen from the Egg before.  The form is over forty feet away, though, and Jovah can’t do anything about it.  Then he sees what he can do.

“Batista!”  the gnome yells.  “Fireball arrow, five feet to Aris’ left!  NOW!”

Batista is puzzled, but spins as directed and fires.  The arrow flies and misses its target, but hits the wall right behind it, and explodes into a small fireball.  A smoky, unseen, burning figure drops to the floor, and the jade Egg rolls out of its hand and down the steps.  Aris pounces on it, and then rolls to some unseen corner of the chamber to hide, as he is an eyelash from death.

_Aris had 1 hitpoint at this point._

The two other Loraxites have become visible by now, apparently their _invisibility_ is limited in length.  The bigger of the two looks back and sees the smoking body of his compatriot becoming visible (appearing to be a young teenaged female Drow – the girl from Aris third vision).

“Sharat!”  he yells.  “We need to get out of here!” he adds in Drow, which Aris can understand.

From the back of the room, a billowing cloud of shadow appears.  The bigger Loraxite runs to the young girl, and throws her over his shoulder.  Brennen tries to block his path, but even with the extra baggage he avoids the Sword easily.  The other Loraxite, a bookish looking male, dodge around Gavin and runs into the cloud of shadow.  The roaring sound from the ship is heard again, and shortly thereafter, the shadows lift, and the chamber is empty.

“I think I know what that roaring is, and I don’t think I want to meet the source,” Aris says.

“We got issues,”  Reana says.  “There’s a bunch of people pounding down those doors, and we’re beat up pretty badly.  And Jalea is on that side of the door.”

“Well, Jalea will have to take care of himself for now,” Brennen says.  “We’ll have to leave the way we came in.  If Jalea can’t sneak out, we’ll have to go in and find him once we’ve healed up a bit.”


----------



## Matchstick (Jan 31, 2002)

Whew!  Awesome couple of updates!

It never made much sense that the Drow were dark skinned, I like your change.  And then Drow vampires?  Yikes, I bet the players were looking a little queasy after that announcement!

So you guys start up again pretty soon, how close are we to the starting point of the 3E campaign?  Any thoughts on some of the things that won't translate?

I have to assume your players are really psyched to start again, have the translations to 3E of the characters begun?


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Jan 31, 2002)

Matchstick said:
			
		

> *Whew!  Awesome couple of updates!*




Thanks!  The Loraxites are much accursed in our game.  A definite success in my book o' DM ideas.



> *I have to assume your players are really psyched to start again, have the translations to 3E of the characters begun? *




We're starting up in two weekends (February 10th).  My plan is to have this Story Hour completed so that I can start up immediately with the new stuff.  The characters are converted - several of them had been posted in 3e form on the old Rogue's Gallery forum, and I transferred Gavin there, I think.  When the old forums are brought back up read only (if they ever are) we'll repost Aris and Brennen.  

The others have yet to be converted, but much discussion has gone on about forcing Jalea to take Precise Shot - especially from Brennen  - my position on that is that Jalea has never demonstrated any such ability in 2e, why change now?


----------



## Jovah (Jan 31, 2002)

Matchstick said:
			
		

> And then Drow vampires?  Yikes, I bet the players were looking a little queasy after that announcement!




Oh yeah - we were overjoyed.  We got spanked by 2 regular drow in the first stint of Kid C world (Party was @ 5th level)

In this cave session, The Loraxites (usually we use a non-ENboard-friendly adjective) beat us stupid.  Batista and Aris were near death and Brennen and Gavin were only a notch up from that.
I don't know what would have happened if Batista had not gotten off that lucky shot.



> I have to assume your players are really psyched to start again, have the translations to 3E of the characters begun?




We actually did our first stab at conversion Friday night of Gen Con with our newly purchased PHs.  The characters are just getting their final tweaks.  The Chance Domain is finally done.  I will try to post it this week- in the Rogues Gallery.

Plus we have a new player ( a 40k friend jonesing for some D&D) to add to the mix.
We will finally have a true mage- no offense Aris.
Can you say _Identify_ ?


----------



## Lazybones (Jan 31, 2002)

Great updates!  Very creative bad-guys.  I am also looking forward to see how your group adapts to 3e.

Game on!
Lazybones


----------



## Sir Brennen (Feb 1, 2002)

Matchstick said:
			
		

> *And then Drow vampires?  Yikes, I bet the players were looking a little queasy after that announcement!*



Aris had a whammy just about every game toward the end of this campaign.  First, when he realized his vision of the shipwreck was a recent event. (KC's description of Aris' reaction also accurately reflected this _player's_ wide-eyed dawning of understanding.  For some reason I had it stuck in my head that I was seeing a scene out of ancient history.)

Then the news that Loraxites where vampiric Drow. Eep!  When Aris had already had his throat slit and the rest of the party spanked by a few regular Drow! And then to find out _after_ a brief battle with the Loraxites what they were.  Picture a disbelieving elf to his mentor, "I'm sorry.  For some reason I thought you just said those drow were vampires, too..."

And this recent battle in the cave, we got to see just how bad-ass they were. Of course, they used the Kid Charlemagne's patented Bad Guys Magic'd Away escape route 

Coming up... well, let's just say the Loraxites still want their Egg. After being so close to dead recently (Aris usually got through most battles without a scratch), the Bladesinger didn't think things could get worse.

Boy was he wrong...



> * So you guys start up again pretty soon, how close are we to the starting point of the 3E campaign?  Any thoughts on some of the things that won't translate?*



Aris was changed pretty drastically.  He no longer has any 4th level spells, but his hit points more than doubled.

And Sir Brennen, the Sword of Kelenan... let's just say I really like Fighter Feats 



> * I have to assume your players are really psyched to start again, have the translations to 3E of the characters begun? *



Both of my 3E converted characters were up in the Rogues Gallery on the old boards.  I hope they go up again soon so I can cut and paste them, 'cuz getting all the pseudo-table stuff to line up in the message was a pain!


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Feb 1, 2002)

*Somewhere west of Ulfang on the north shore of the Retic Sea, February 1st, AE 420*

The party rushes up the spiral stair, and makes their way out into the cold winter night.   A surprise awaits them.

“Hey!” Brennen yells.  “Where’s our ship?!”

The ship is no longer anchored where it was supposed to be, and a sleek sixty foot yacht is anchored a couple of hundred yards out from the waterfall.  The search around frantically.

“Look there,” says Aris.  “They’ve moved out into the sea, away from shore.  I can just see them.  They must have had to move out there to keep out of sight of the yacht.”

“We did tell them to make sure not to be spotted,” Reana says.

Just then, Jalea scrambles up over the side of the cliff, and brushes himself off.

“Where have you been?”  Brennen asks.  “And who was that on the other side of the doors with you?”

“Uh, nobody in particular,” Jalea stammers.

Brennen shoots the elf a withering glare, but more important issues are at hand.  They wait to see what the yacht does.  Two rowboats come out from the cavern behind the waterfall and board the yacht, and it sails off.  Shortly thereafter, the party’s ship returns and docks so they can board.

“What now?” Aris asks.  “We’ve got the Egg.  Now what do we do?”

“I say we take it to the Monastery and lock it back up,” Brennen states.

“But will it be safe there?”  Reana asks.

“It was safe there for a long time, it should be again, hopefully,” he answers.

“I have an idea,” says Jovah, provoking a groan from Gavin.

“It’s a long way to Ralt Gaither, and to get permission to go to the Monastery, we’d have to get that from the Emperor.  That’s even further inland from the shore.  It could take weeks if not months.  But, I just thought of something.  It’s risky.  I’ve never been to the City of Clouds, or whatever it is they call their capitol, but I’ve seen pictures, in the embassy in Gujo.

“I can fold to places that I’ve only had descriptions of, but the risk of aging from the spell is pretty high, and the amount of aging is pretty extreme – it could be as much as ten years.  I’m a gnome, we live long, so that’s not that big a deal for me.  I can _fold_ to the capitol by myself, and then open up another _fold_ back here.  The second one will be pretty risk-free, and you guys can come join me.”

“Isn’t it supposed to be illegal for foreigners to enter Ralt Gaither?” Gavin asks.

“Yup, but we’ve got permission from the ambassador, thanks to us helping find the Egg in the first place,”  Jovah replies.

They decide to go through with Jovah’s plan, crazy though it is.  _Fortune favors the bold_, as the gnome likes to say.  Within minutes, the party is standing just outside the Imperial Palace, looking none the worse for wear.  They are soon surrounded by Palace Guards, but Aris explains their presence in halting Ralt Gaitherese (he’s been studying it) and presents their travel documents from the ambassador.  The guards are puzzled and distrustful, but proper paperwork goes a long ways in Ralt Gaither, and they are allowed to go about their business.

They find a nice Inn not far from the Palace, and in the morning send off a message to the Emperor, indicating that they would like an audience.  They drop names like crazy and imply that this has to do with the Egg by mentioning the Song Ling Monastery and Lord Masato, without actually using the word “Egg.”

“Should we say we’d like to meet as soon as possible?” Aris says, as he dicates the message to a scribe.

“No,” says Jovah suddenly.  “Tell them no earlier than this evening.”

“Huh?” Jalea says, perplexed.

“We’ve got things to do,” Jovah explains.  “Aris, what day is it today?”

Aris does the arithmetic in his head since the last time they were in a port.

“Umm, it would be February 2nd,” he says.

“And something important is happening on February 2nd, isn’t it?” Jovah asks, rhetorically.

“Uh, I don’t think… oh my god,” Reana says.  “Samsen is getting crowned Marquis of Fencig today.”

“Right-o!  Noon sharp, or so my invitation says!”  Jovah exclaims.  “So get your things together!  We’re  _folding_ out in ten minutes!  Way I figure it we’ll just have time to wash and change!  But we can back by sunset.”

Three hours later the party is standing in full formal wear (Gavin is wearing his gilded plate armor), in the Marquis’ Palace in Fencig.  There are hundreds of guests, and Regent Cian Bardson places the crown of Fencig on a stone altar, from which Samsen picks it up and places it on his head.

“Samsen didn’t want Cian to ‘crown’ him,” Jovah whispers to Aris.  “Would look bad politically.  They’re not very friendly with each other.”

Aris whispers back, “I almost wish he would start raining fire down on all of us so we could just get this over with.  Reksus-worshipping rulers are bad news.”

Samsen gives a long, well-received speech, speaking of prosperity, self-sufficiency for Fencig, and many other topics. 

“Very bland,” Jovah whispers to Aris again.  “He’s not stepping on any toes, yet.  Hey!  Look there behind him!  That’s Malekos, the High Priest of Reksus here in Fencig.”

Aris grins.  “I wonder what he’d say if he knew I was carrying around an ancient evil artifact in my pocket right now…”

“He’d probably be very interested in talking to you, I’d bet.”


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Feb 1, 2002)

Double post!  Sorry!


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Feb 1, 2002)

*The City of Clouds, Ralt Gaither, February 2nd, AE 420*

Despite Jovah’s concerns, the coronation of Marquis Samsen of Fencig goes smoothly, and without any particular hitches.  No one tries to immediately burn down the Fox Club, and no one tries to arrest the gnomish luck-priest for being anti-Reksus.  Jovah is almost disappointed.

They return to the Inn in Ralt Gaither via _dimensional folding_, and find a message waiting indicating that they will be admitted to the Imperial Palace this very evening, there to see the Emperor himself!  Luckily, they’re all still wearing their finery from Samsen’s coronation, so they don’t even have to change.

The courtiers and hangers-on at the Palace must have been amazed at the site of a half-dozen gaijin being ushered into private audience with the Emperor on such short notice.  The party is shown to a room, where they lounge about on luxurious sofas, and are fed delicacies by members of the Palace staff.  Jovah tries one of the small thimble-full porcelain cups of rice wine, and tosses it back, a bit ill-advisedly.

“Smooooooth…”  the gnome manages to say.

They are soon led to another chamber, where they meet the Emperor himself (who is a young man in his twenties), along with a vizier, and a number of very competent looking samurai.  The samurai all keep their hands on the hilts of their weapons, while the unarmed party speaks with the Light of Heaven.

After some plaisantries, they get down to business.  They explain that they have recovered the Egg (twice), and Aris shows it to the Emperor.  The Emperor moves as if to take it, but the Vizier counsels him against it.

“Even I do not know the nature of this thing,” the elderly man says. “It seems to us that our forebears kept much of this information from us intentionally, to keep us from being tempted by this device.  I know that it has vile powers, and that it contains something evil, but that is all.  It was placed in the Song Ling Monastery by the first Emperor, and a scroll was placed in the archives here, indicating that if anything should happen to it, terrible events could transpire, and great evil could be unleashed.

“It seems that the hope was that this thing would be forgotten by all who might desire it.  Will you take the step of ensuring its safe return to the Monastery?”

Sir Brennen nods.  The other members fo the party also indicate their consent.  After some more formalities, they leave.

The next day, an escort is provided for them on their journey.  The Monastery is high up in the Mountains in the remote east of Ralt Gaither, really just a score or so miles from the far western edges of Ambardor, but the Endicott Mountains there are so sheer and inhospitable that no suitable pass exists for trade purposes, forcing all trade to have to be done via the Retic Sea.

Jovah buys a barrel of sake before leaving the capitol.  “I could start up an import-export company,” he says.  “Small items, just a 15 gp transport fee.”

“And maybe a year or two off your life,” Gavin adds.

The trip up into the mountains is uneventful.  Aris takes the opportunity to improve his Ralt Gaitherese, and they take in the countryside.  After a week’s ride, they are high up in a spectacular valley.

“The monastery is in the village of Hanalin,” the lead Samurai tells Aris.  “The Song-Ling clan is in charge of that area.  However, after the break-in at the monastery, they have lost much face, and some of the other clans have taken advantage of the situation.”

They ride up to the Monastery itself, and are greeted with open arms by the chief monk there.  He is overjoyed to learn that they are returning the Egg, and he hopes that the news that the stolen things are returned will smooth out things in the area.  He offers the party lodging for as long as they wish to stay.  He shows the party to the main storage chamber where the Egg is to be hidden once more, and allows Aris to place the Egg back inits hidden place inside the stone block of an altar.  Aris has a weird sense of deja-vue, having seen this very chamber during his visions.

They eat that evening with the monks, who seem to be partly religious, partly warrior monks.  The Monastery itself is very old, perhaps several thousand years, and although it is not ruined, it has clearly seen better days.  The monks living quarters take up only about a third of the chambers that they could.

After dinner, Jalea knocks on Jovah’s door.

“I’ve got to show you something,” the elf says, and pulls a cloth covered oval shape from his backpack.

“What’s that?” Jovah asks.

Jalea unveils it; it’s a piece of oval rock, the same size and shape as the Egg.

“Oh, no,” Jovah groans.  “Don’t tell me you’re thinking about doing what I know you’re thinking about doing!”  

“Look at this place, Jovah,” Jalea says.  “These monks don’t even remember how to guard what it is they were put here to guard.  And the biggest advantage this place has?  The way no one knows that the Egg is even here?  That’s gone too.  Too many people know; we’ve been talking to people about this for months.  We know; the elves in Cape Varna know; the King of Ghithor knows; the Duke of Belluin knows; and the Loraxites know, or they’d never have hired Virenzo to have it stolen.  And who _knows_ who Virenzo or that thief might have told.

“I say we take it with us, pretend we put it back, and then find someplace better to hide it.”

Jovah sits silently, listening to Jalea talk.

“Maybe. We’ll have to ask…”

Just then a knock comes at Jovah’s door.  Brennen pokes his head in.

“There’s a group of samurai from one of those other clans they were talking about coming up the road this way.  I’m going to take a look, wanna come?”

“Yeah,” Jovah says.  To Jalea he says, “Hold that thought.”

The party assembles by the front gate as the samurai approach.  Aris passes on the information that the samurai are from the Mikaio Clan, a clan that has been particularly troublesome to the Song-Ling Clan.  They apparently would like to offer the Monastery (which is after all an Imperial property) their protection.  This would bring much honor to their Clan.

Aris looks out the arrow slit as they ride up and dismount.  Then he stiffens, startled at something.

“One of those samurai isn’t radiating any heat,” he says.  “He’s undead.”

_Second edition had the old infravision/heat detection system, of course.  I like the 3e way of doing things better, I think._

Batista strings his longbow, and knocks his red-fletched _fireball_ arrow.

“Showtime,” he says.

Jalea turns to Jovah and gives him a questioning look.

“Well?”

Jovah takes a deep breath.

“Do it.”


----------



## Jovah (Feb 1, 2002)

Kid Charlemagne said:
			
		

> *The City of Clouds, Ralt Gaither, February 2nd, AE 420
> 
> Despite Jovah’s concerns, the coronation of Marquis Samsen of Fencig goes smoothly, and without any particular hitches.  No one tries to immediately burn down the Fox Club, and no one tries to arrest the gnomish luck-priest for being anti-Reksus.  Jovah is almost disappointed.
> *



*

I remember some verbal sparring between Jovah and Malekos.  Jovah implies that The Church of Reksus set him up for murder and tried to provole Malekos into doing something rash.  Of course the "Church of Public Relations" knows better.

Can't wait to see Jovah vs Reksus version 3E*


----------



## Gavin (Feb 1, 2002)

Gavin  spent thousands of gold pieces on that suit of plate. Gaudy, tacky, heavy and uncomfortable, but at least it looks expensive, right? He wore it once and now its in a display case at the Fox Club. I'm thinking he'll wish he had that money back at some point.

A little wine, a little dancing, and then its back to saving the world.


----------



## Matchstick (Feb 2, 2002)

Heh, more players are posting up here I think, hopefully all will when you restart.

Were you playing more than one character?  I've always had a lot of trouble doing that.

I was thinking the exact same thing about the location of the egg now being known.  Great idea with the substitute, and the bad guys showing up may be a blessing as a distraction.

How will you be handling folding?  I'm sure I remember you talking about it, but I don't remember what the deal was.


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Feb 2, 2002)

Matchstick said:
			
		

> *Were you playing more than one character?  I've always had a lot of trouble doing that.*




Aris and Brennen were being played by the same player - mostly because the party needed a wizard of some type, and Aris fit the bill.  

Jovah and Batista are played by the same player, but in this case it was more that Batista was important to the story and couldn't be left behind - plus he added extra power to the party which was very helpful, despite his relative helplessness in melee as opposed to ranged combat.

*



			How will you be handling folding?  I'm sure I remember you talking about it, but I don't remember what the deal was.
		
Click to expand...


*
Dimensional Folding is being made a spell in Bes' "Chance" domain, which is a Prestige Domain available to the Luckbringer Prestge Class (whew!).  Jovah will be able to cast it only once per day in 3e, which will limit the "there and back again" jaunts.  Otherwise, its a fairly straight port from Second Edition.


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Feb 4, 2002)

*Song-Ling Monastery, near Hanalin, Ralt Gaither, February 9th, AE 420*

Jalea dashes off towards the secret chamber where the Egg is hidden away.  Brennen, Jovah, Reana, and Gavin retreat to the open courtyard so that they can react to any other threats as well as to anything at the gate.  Aris prepares to cast a _magic missile_ at the non-heat-radiating samurai, but Batista moves to the opposite window, and launches his _fireball_ arrow into the midst of the gathered samurai, frying several of them, including the supposedly undead one.

“Hey!” Aris yelps.  “I said only _one_ of them was undead!”

“Right,” Batista replies coldly.  “Whatever.”

The “samurai” leaps from the stair leading to the gate, and adheres to the wall, apparently _spider climbing_.  Aris unleashes his _magic missile_ and Batista draws another arrow.  Aris runs to the room where the _spider climbing_ enemy is heading – the windows in the Monastery are large enough to crawl through – and arrives just as the “samurai” steps in and changes form to the stronger, warrior Loraxite.  He engages him, hoping to get him before he starts going _invisible_ and _hasted_.

Outside in the courtyard, Reana spies something on the roof of the building as a score or more spidery creatures start crawling over the roof!  The party had heard that there were numerous spider-creatures that used to work for the Drow in this section of the mountains, and those stories seem now to be true.  She, Gavin, and some of the monks fend them off with bowfire for the time being.

Jalea reaches the area where the secret chamber is hidden.  He took special care to memorize the series of steps the Monastery leader had used to open the door, and he repeats them now.  The entryway opens, and he finds himself in the storage chamber.  He closes the door behind him, and moves quickly to the pedestal where the Egg is hidden, and checks it for traps, disarming the one that he finds.  He then opens it up, and does a quick switch of the Egg with the oval stone he had found for this purpose.  

Just as he closes the compartment, he hears a noise from behind him.  The secret door is opening again!  The scout hides in a corner behind a suit of samurai armor, and sees the door open; but nothing comes in.  He looks more closely, and sees a slight blurring – the telltale sign of a Loraxite’s _invisible_ presence.  The compartment opens, and the trap triggers, but with no apparent effect.  Jalea sees the oval stone in its cloth wrapping rise up from the compartment, and the cloth is stripped away.  Then, with a curse from the _invisible_ Loraxite thief, the stone is thrown forcibly away!  Jalea hears footsteps rapidly leaving the area, and he follows out to the courtyard.

Brennen and Batista move to intercept the warrior Loraxite, only to find that Illyana, the Drow-girl Loraxite is there as well, _invisible_!  She lays into Aris pretty well, and the fight is going poorly for him.  The warrior has by now gone _invisible_ as well, and they’re both _hasted_, with blades whirling and slicing through the three fighters.  Jovah tries to help, but big battles are not his strong suit.

Reana and Gavin have been joined by Jalea now, and are doing the best they can to not be overrun by goblin-sized spider creatures.  Both fights have moved into the large courtyard by now, and the mage-Loraxite is throwing spells from a nearby location, but keeps moving so he can’t be found.

Brennen steps back from the fight for a moment, and things look badly if the Sword of Kelanen leaves a battle; but then he begins casting a spell.  A moment later, both Ilyana and the warrior Loraxite return to visibilty, and normal speed!  Brennen _dispelled_ both effects!

Aris lets Illyana have it with a _lightning bolt_, and Batista plugs her with a couple of arrows, and she stumbles, badly hurt.  The still unseen mage is now screaming out for _something_.

“Sharat!  We need your aid!” Aris can tell he is yelling.

Moments later, Aris worst fears are confirmed.  A huge, shadowy form crawls over the top of the Monastery, and the monks begin running in fear.  Its massive claws plant themselves a good thirty feet apart, and its sinewy, reptile neck snakes out towards the party.  It is difficult for them to see it clearly, as its scales seem to deflect the little light that the moon offers.

“Shadow Dragon!” Aris yells.  

The Shadow Dragon inhales sharply, and breathes out a cloud of Shadowy gas in front of it – it looks like the shadowy mists that have allowed the Loraxites to escape twice before.  Batista downs Illyana with one more arrow, and the warrior Loraxite turns sharply towards her with a cry of anger.  He pauses, and is suddenly _hasted_ again.

_The Shadow Dragon’s main breath weapon drains levels, but he couldn’t use it with the groups so interspersed._

He runs over, and slings her over his back, and turns towards the Dragon.

“NO!” Brennen yells.  “_NOT AGAIN!_”

Batista moves closer to the Dragon to get a shot off – too close.  The Dragon smacks the half-elf with a heavy claw, sending him reeling.  Then the Dragon grabs him in his claws.  Reana runs over and tries to distract the Dragon with her attacks.

“Oh no!” Aris thinks.  “I’ve already lost Batista once, if I lose him again, Tolaro will have my head on a platter!”

The Bladesinger reaches into his pouch, pulling out his yellow ring that allows access to the interdimensional castle.  He palms it, and runs to Batista, dodging the Dragon’s other claw.  He grabs his half-elven protégé, and slips the ring on his finger.

Nothing happens.

_Aris had only a general idea of how many charges the rings had left; he knew they had ‘around five’ at one point.  The ring was out of charges._

The Shadow Dragon’s other claw closes around the Bladesinger, pinning his arms to his side.

Brennen runs up to the warrior Loraxite, as he hoists Illyana over his shoulder, and grabs her legs himself.  He exerts every muscle in his body, and tries to wrench her away from the vampire, who is exceptionally strong.  Brennen is pretty strong himself however, and he pulls the small female Loraxite away from her protector.  She falls to the ground nearby.  The warrior moves to pick her up again, but Brennen interposes himself, and draws his third sword (having had to drop his other two to grab Illyana).

This is enough time to allow Jovah to do what he wants.  He runs up, stake in hand, and jumps on Illyana’s prone form, driving the stake through her heart.  The warrior screams in anger, takes a swing at Brennen to voice his frustration, and then double-times it into the mist.

Reana is trying to free Aris, but once the warrior Loraxite is in the mist, the Shadow Dragon starts retreating into the mist himself.  Batista is unconscious, but Aris is still struggling, trying to free himself before being drug off to who knows where.  Brennen, Jovah, and Gavin rush up to help, but the Shadow Dragon moves off and is enveloped completely in mist, and is gone.

“Aris!” Jovah yells.

“Batista!”

There is no answer.


----------



## Jovah (Feb 4, 2002)

I have just posted 

LuckBringer Prestige Class
and
Chance Prestige Domain 

in

Dms Stuff>Rogues Gallery>Kid Charlemagne's Story Hour Characters

Comments Welcome.

Is there a way to better format the columns etc..?


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Feb 4, 2002)

*Song-Ling Monastery, near Hanalin, Ralt Gaither, February 9th, AE 420*

“That thing dragged away Aris and Batista!” Reana yells.  “What are we going to do _now_?”

Brennen looks around feverishly.

“Did they get the Egg?”

Jalea puts his hands in his pockets, and whistles a tune, looking around at no one in particular.

“Jalea?” Jovah asks.  “Did they get the Egg?”

Jalea pats a small bag hanging from his belt, and winks.  Brennen walks over to the elven scout.

“Are you saying you went down there and stole the Egg back from the Monastery without telling us?”

“Well,” Jalea starts, “I told Jovah…”

Brennen slaps Jalea on the shoulder.  “Good job!”

“What now?” he asks Jovah.

“Well, we’re kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place,” Jovah says.  “We kept the Egg safe, but we lost two party members to the enemy.”

“They’re probably dead already,” Gavin says.

“I don’t think so,” Reana replies.  “They want the Egg.  We have it.  We want our friends back.  They have them.  They’ll probably keep them alive if for no other reason than to try and bargain for the Egg.”

“Then we’ll need to find them first,” Brennen says.  “Because if it comes down to that, we won’t give them the Egg. Agreed?”

The others gulp at the thought, but silently nod yes.

They rest up for the rest of the night, and in the morning, Jovah _folds_ them to Fencig.  He then casts _divination_ to try and learn where their friends have been taken.

An hour or so later, Jovah finds the others and tells them what he learned.

“They’re someplace called ‘The Great Graveyard’”, the gnomish priest says.  “I have no idea what that means or how we find it.”

“Wait a minute,” Reana says.  “I’ve heard that name before…  That’s it!  Remember that gate below Virenzo’s hiding place under Axehead Peak?  Erik said that it led to a place called the Great Graveyard.  Some kind of purgatory, just this side of Hell, he said.”

“We can go there, and use that gate to get there,” Brennen says.  “I bet that’s why Virenzo holed up there.  It had easy access to the Loraxites so he could deliver the Egg.  That may mean we won’t have to look too long to find them.”

“Um, I just want to point out something,” Gavin says.  “From what you’ve told me of that place, it was guarded by a very old, very powerful undead guardian, right?  From the sounds of it, we may have more of those to deal with on the other side.”

“One other thing,” Reana says.  “Do we bring the Egg with us?  If we do, and we fail, then they have the Egg, and things are bad.  If we don’t, and they attack here while we’re looking there, they could get the Egg easily, and things are bad.  Pick your poison.”

“Yikes,” Jovah says.  “I don’t like the sounds of any of this.  We also need to figure out what to do with the Egg if we succeed at getting Aris and Batista back.  We need to find a place to hide it forever, or figure out a way to destroy it.”

They look back and forth amongst themselves, but no one has an answer to that.

“Alright,” Jovah says.  “I’ll do a _divination_ in the morning, and we’ll _fold_ to as close to Axehead Peak right after.”

Jovah wakes up very early the next morning, before dawn, and casts his _divination_.  He does everything as he ordinarily would (Bes’ divinations typically involve the casting of dice), but as he waits to receive the expected response, his thoughts are interrupted by the sound of a knock on the front door of the house, downstairs.  As no answer seems forthcoming, he calls out to have someone answer it – but no one in the house stirs.

“Odd,” he says to himself, trotting off to answer the door in his nightshirt, floppy purple hat, and bunny slippers.

As he descends the stairs, he notices that the sounds of the street are noticeably absent.  At this hour before dawn, carts of produce headed for market should be rattling down the street.  There is no sound, however, but the creaking of the steps of the house.  He reaches the front door and pauses.

“The last time I answered my door in my bunny slippers, I was kidnapped by a gladatorial press gang,” he reflects.

_A long and involved story.  He was 3rd level at the time…_

“Ah, what are the odds of _that_ happening again?” and he opens the door.

Standing in the doorway is an elf, someone that Jovah has never seen before.  He is a Grey Elf, tall and thin, with a dark green cloak pulled around him to protect him from the mid-February chill.  A sword hilt pokes through from underneath the cloak.

“Hi.  Who are you?” Jovah asks.

“My name is Janketh,” the elf says with a wry smile.  “You asked for help that Bes could not give, so I was asked to come and speak with you.”

“My _divination_ has never done that before…  This is very unusual,” Jovah says.

“Unusual times, unusual messenger, unusual message,” Janketh replies.  “May I?”

“Uh, sure.  Come in.”

Janketh steps in, and removes his cloak, hanging it on a cloak rack by the door.  He is dressed for fighting, with a suit of elven chain, and a strange looking longsword at his belt.  The hilt has a bat motif to it that unnerves Jovah.  But that isn’t even the strangest thing about the visitor.  His left arm is entirely mechanical, and plated in gold.  

_Janketh is an interesting fellow.  He comes originally from an old game I ran that ended quickly, due to my moving away to Chicago…  The game was very high-level, and set in the far past of this world.  Janketh was a character created by Brennen and Aris’ player, with a really cool backstory.  He never got the chance to really do anything though, but Brennen’s player had been talking about him, asking if he might still be around – Janketh was a great foe of the Drow, and would have made a powerful ally.  Unfortunately, he was long dead, but I decided to use him this way.  The players had heard of him, but not the PC’s, so his appearance here was greeted with a suitably impressed reaction._

He sits in a chair, and Jovah sits down near him.

“You’ll have to forgive me for not being able to answer all your questions,” he says.  “It was decided long ago that the best way to protect the Egg was to eliminate all knowledge of it or what its purpose is, and I cannot break that decision.  It comes from an authority far above mine.

“It is vital that it _not_ be destroyed.  The Egg contains something, something unspeakably evil.  Well, part of something, anyway.  Destroying the Egg would strengthen the evil, and destroying that which it contains would unleash it entirely.  It needs a new hiding place.  The Monastery sufficed for over two millenia, but it is compromised now.  A new spot must be found.”

“How do we find a new spot?” Jovah asks.

“The elven gods are aware of this matter now, ever since you sent word to Tolaro about the Loraxites.  He spoke with a High Priest in Cape Varna, and it went up the chain of command, so to speak.  A place is being prepared.  Find your friends, and then take the Egg to this place.

“You can take it there, so that its precise location remains secret.  This will allow you to do that.”

Janketh produces a small diamond from a pouch, and offers it to Jovah.

“What is it?” he asks.

“A memory,” Janketh answers.


----------



## Lazybones (Feb 4, 2002)

Great twists, enjoying the story! (and appreciate the frequent updates and player input)

Lazybones


----------



## Jovah (Feb 4, 2002)

Kid Charlemagne said:
			
		

> “Well, we’re kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place,” Jovah says.  “We kept the Egg safe, but we lost two party members to the enemy.”
> “They’re probably dead already,” Gavin says.
> [/QUOTE}
> 
> ...


----------



## Matchstick (Feb 5, 2002)

Hah!  Was I on top of that "rings with (or without) charges" thing or what!

Once again I bet that was a sinking feeling when the thought "It's out of charges" first occurred to the player.  Not to mention a Shadow Dragon showing up.  These guys are moving in some SERIOUS power circles!

I guess having one of your characters kidnapped is one way of only having to play a single character!   

It sounds to me like Brennen was tired of getting his butt chewed and wanted to get at least one of those vampires no matter what.

This new NPC reminds me of Nuada Airgetlam.

Good stuff as usual!


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Feb 5, 2002)

Matchstick said:
			
		

> *
> I guess having one of your characters kidnapped is one way of only having to play a single character!   *




Yeah, actually that applies to both!  During this session I was thinking "Wow, should I let them have a little extra chance to get away?"  Then I realized that both characters belonged to players who had two characters, and decided that that did not have to be a concern.

*



			Good stuff as usual!
		
Click to expand...


*
Thanks!  We're building to the climax here; This last post essentially ends at the beginning of the final session of the campaign.


----------



## Matchstick (Feb 5, 2002)

Let's see.  So this is the first post of the last session's activities.  Figure maybe two more posts to get it done...

AND THEN I HAVE TO WAIT TILL NEXT MONDAY TO HEAR MORE???????



It sounds to me like Sunday these guys are going to be starting right in the middle of some major stuff.  Might make it easier to get back into the swing of things.

Was Aris still the primary caster?  Will they have a new arcane caster character in the group?

Oh, and I'd better see some posting on Monday at the latest!


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Feb 5, 2002)

Matchstick said:
			
		

> *Let's see.  So this is the first post of the last session's activities.  Figure maybe two more posts to get it done...
> 
> AND THEN I HAVE TO WAIT TILL NEXT MONDAY TO HEAR MORE???????*




 You guys are spoiled.

*



			It sounds to me like Sunday these guys are going to be starting right in the middle of some major stuff.  Might make it easier to get back into the swing of things.
		
Click to expand...


*
The new game is starting up (in game time) 4 or 5 months after the end of the current story line.  There are plenty of threads to pick up with, but no immediately pressing matters.

*



			Was Aris still the primary caster?  Will they have a new arcane caster character in the group?
		
Click to expand...


*
What makes you so certain Aris lives through this session?  MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

But we have added a new player, whose PC is a pure(er) spellcaster than Aris.

*



			Oh, and I'd better see some posting on Monday at the latest!  

Click to expand...


*
I'll try and get something up here as soon as I can!


----------



## Gavin (Feb 5, 2002)

Jovah said:
			
		

> *
> 
> 
> 
> ...


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Feb 5, 2002)

Gavin said:
			
		

> *Hey, that big N under alignment ain't for "Nice Guy". And at least he's not a Necromancer, eh? *




There is that.  However, Sir Brennen has been talking to Erik Morningstar recently...


----------



## Gavin (Feb 5, 2002)

Kid Charlemagne said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Sir Brennen has been talking to Erik Morningstar recently... *




Oh goody. I'm sure nothing bad could possibly come from that.


----------



## Sir Brennen (Feb 5, 2002)

Matchstick said:
			
		

> *Hah!  Was I on top of that "rings with (or without) charges" thing or what!
> 
> Once again I bet that was a sinking feeling when the thought "It's out of charges" first occurred to the player.  Not to mention a Shadow Dragon showing up.  These guys are moving in some SERIOUS power circles!*




Yeah, Aris figured that the charges would run out eventually, but the primary concern at the time was this... since the party would all travel to the interdimensional space by touching whoever slipped the ring on, would the Shadow Dragon holding Batista be transported along with him?  Aris was hoping there would be a weight limit or something.  Otherwise, it would've been...ummm... basically that same result as having no charges in the ring, apparently. 



> *It sounds to me like Brennen was tired of getting his butt chewed and wanted to get at least one of those vampires no matter what.*




Yes, especially after seeing the girl go down the last time, then having to fight her again this time, he really didn't want to have to face all of the Loraxites in battle anymore if he could help it. Usually KC's bad guys just "POOF" out of the middle of combat, but seeing the vampire drow having to run to his magical portal, Brennen was determined not to let him get away, even if it meant charging straight at a dragon (while in the single digits for hit points, even!)



> This new NPC reminds me of Nuada Airgetlam.




I was reading the Corum series by Michael Moorcock at the time, which inspired the creation of Janketh.  The Corum stories were basically a retelling of the Irish myths that Nuada was central to. The 2E Book of Elves also had some nice bits on artificial limbs, and the backstory was a bit of a twist on "The Fugitive" TV series (don't ask)


----------



## Sir Brennen (Feb 5, 2002)

Gavin said:
			
		

> *
> Oh goody. I'm sure nothing bad could possibly come from that. *



Hey, maybe I just want to re-establish the fact that...

I'm not a paladin!


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Feb 5, 2002)

Sir Brennen said:
			
		

> *Yeah, Aris figured that the charges would run out eventually, but the primary concern at the time was this... since the party would all travel to the interdimensional space by touching whoever slipped the ring on, would the Shadow Dragon holding Batista be transported along with him? Aris was hoping there would be a weight limit or something. Otherwise, it would've been...ummm... basically that same result as having no charges in the ring, apparently. *




The secondary concern, as I remember it was that the Ring always deposited its transportees into the same, relatively small cavern.

The Shadow Dragon was fairly big.  There was a worry that it might end up looking like the Shadow Dragon version of that Bonsai Kitty website...


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Feb 5, 2002)

*Fencig, February 10th, AE 420*

Jovah takes the gemstone, and a vision flashes before his eyes of an island wooded with pine trees, and a beach of sandy gravel.  He smiles, and stashes the diamond in a pouch.  “I think I know what to do with that,” he thinks to himself.

Janketh leaves, walking down the street and vanishing into a eerie bank of mist, and the moment Jovah closes the door, the sounds of the street outside return.  Sir Brennen enters the room, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“So when are you going to do that _divination_?”

“Hoo boy,” Jovah says, and starts explaining what just happened.  As everyone hears the story, they begin asking questions.

“So what is in the Egg?” Gavin asks.  “Elf-boy didn’t want to tell anyone, but what do we think?”

Jovah answers carefully, “He wouldn’t say exactly, but the few things he did say gave away quite a bit.  The Egg was hidden for over two millenia; it contains unspeakable evil; and we know it was hidden away by the first Emperor of Ralt Gaither.”

“The first Emperor of Ralt Gaither was the ruler of that area immediately after Kelanen’s ascension,” Brennen picks up.  “Kelanen died just before Vecna was overthrown.  Just over two millenia ago.”

“I don’t like where this is heading,” Reana says. “Could it be the Eye?”

“No,” Jovah says. “Various people have gotten ahold of that in the past two thousand years.  It must be something else related to Vecna, something unknown.  Maybe even another part of him.  His phylactery maybe?  Janketh said it was only a _part_…”

“It doesn’t really matter what it is,” says Brennen.  “We have to get it secreted away.”

The party makes their preperations and _folds_ to Hawk’s Roost, which is the nearest town to where the entrance to the Druidic Burialgrounds is.  They are prepared for a fight as they enter the caverns, but find their way down to the Portal without incident.  Arriving at the Portal, they find evidence that someone has been here – recently.  A ring of stones for a campfire sits about twenty feet from the Gate itself, but no one is here.  

Brennen steps up to the Gate, which is utterly black.  He sticks his hand through, and it feels like he’s pushing it through a syrupy, black oil.  He holds his breath, and pushes all the way through, followed by Gavin, Reana, Jvah, and Jalea.

They find themselves in a crumbling, old mausoleum, with cobwebs all around, and numerous stone sarcophagi.  As they begin to explore they are set upon by a pack of ghouls, and dispose of them fairly easily, except for one who taunts them from a balcony and flings a couple of _javelins of lighting_ down on them.  Brennen manages to climb up to him and take him out as well, and they begin checking the exit.

Looking out of the Mausoleum, they see what appears to be an immense, old, elaborate cemetary.  They are in a low point between two hills, and when Jalea comes back from scouting out the top of one hill, he reports that the cemetary seems to stretch out in three directions for as far as he can see.  In the fourth direction, apparently west (since the sun appears to have just recently set, leaving a reddish tinge to the clouds in that direction) is a large gate, and beyond it, a town.  From all appearances, an ordinary town, as torches light the streets, and sounds of people can be heard in that direction.

They make for that gate, only to find that their side of it is heaped high with garbage of all sorts.  Foul-smelling, rotting garbage.  The party is wary of nasty creatures that live in filth, so they decide to look around for another way out.  As they make their way to one side of the gate, Jalea stops them.  He scouts up ahead, and reports back.

“There’s a guy up there digging graves.  He’s got three or four bodies that he’s burying.  They’re in canvas bags.”

“Burying people?” Jovah asks. “That sounds positive.”

They move up on that position cautiously.  They watch the gravedigger for a while, as he finishes one grave, dumps a body in, and starts work on the next grave.  Jovah’s eyes go wide suddenly, as he sees a hand reach up out of that first grave, and begin to climb out, reaching towards the gravedigger!  

But before he can yell out in warning, the gravedigger casually turns his head, sees the approaching undead, and whacks it over the head with his shovel, sending it reeling back into the open grave.

“I said stay down, you idiot creature!” he yells, sounding more like he’s scolding a bad puppy than rebuking the undying.

The party isn’t quite sure how to take this.  They decide to make themselves known, in hopes that this fellow isn’t all bad.

The gravedigger takes their approach in stride.  He seems to not be much disturbed by anything.  He introduces himself as Briggs, the caretaker of this section of The Boneyard, as he calls it.

“Umm, those are undead,” Brennen points out, indicating the bodies.

“They’re _all_ undead,” Briggs says, indicating the cemetary with a sweeping gesture.

“Isn’t it dangerous being out here at night?” Gavin asks, getting a uncomprehending look in return.

“Uh Gavin,” Jovah says, “I’ve been watching that sunset.  We’ve been here for around an hour, and the light hasn’t changed at all.”

“S’always like that,” Briggs says, starting his third grave.  “But the dead don’t bother folk much ‘round the gates.  Still, someone needs to come here and bury them, or else they’d overrun the place.”

“What do you mean?” asks Reana.

“This is no place like your world,” Briggs says.  “It’s The Boneyard.  All the dead from the material plane who aren’t buried properly, or left out to die, come here.  If they’re not buried properly here, they rise as walking dead.  New ‘uns show up all the time, and someone’s got to bury them.  Not a great job, but it’s a job.  Good jobs ain’t easy to find ‘round these parts,” he adds with a conspiratorial whisper.

“We need to figure out where a group of people might be, Drow vampires who are working with a Shadow Dragon named Sharat,” Jalea says.  “Do you know?”

Briggs shakes his head. “Sorry, I don’t know much about any of the chiefs in the Boneyard.  There’s a whole bunch of ‘em, this place goes on for miles and miles.  Different folk run different parts of it, maybe you could find something out in Mortimus.”

“Mortimus?” Jalea asks.

“Mortimus is the town yonder,” Briggs says, pointing to the town beyond the gate.  “I’ll be heading that way in a minute, you’ll be wanting to follow me – don’t go by that gate or the otyugh will get you.”

“Otyugh…  I knew it,” Jovah says.  “Ewww.”


----------



## Jovah (Feb 5, 2002)

Kid Charlemagne said:
			
		

> *Fencig, February 10th, AE 420
> 
> Jovah answers carefully, “He wouldn’t say exactly, but the few things he did say gave away quite a bit.  The Egg was hidden for over two millenia; it contains unspeakable evil; and we know it was hidden away by the first Emperor of Ralt Gaither.”
> 
> ...



*

Kid C has an unhealthy obsession with Vecna.  The central point to the last campaign was stopping 2 cults from getting a key to unlock several Gates that Vecna had built.




			As they begin to explore they are set upon by a pack of ghouls, and dispose of them fairly easily, except for one who taunts them from a balcony and flings a couple of javelins of lighting down on them.  Brennen manages to climb up to him and take him out as well, and they begin checking the exit.
		
Click to expand...



We did manage to pick up a few of the Lighting Javelins.
Might be important later in the story.*


----------



## Matchstick (Feb 5, 2002)

> They move up on that position cautiously. They watch the gravedigger for a while, as he finishes one grave, dumps a body in, and starts work on the next grave. Jovah’s eyes go wide suddenly, as he sees a hand reach up out of that first grave, and begin to climb out, reaching towards the gravedigger!
> 
> But before he can yell out in warning, the gravedigger casually turns his head, sees the approaching undead, and whacks it over the head with his shovel, sending it reeling back into the open grave.
> 
> ...




LOL!  What a great place, and a great description!  It's a demiplane, or another plane right?  Is that a +3 Shovel of Undead Subdual?  

With different rulers of different parts of Mortimus (good name BTW) there could be all sorts of politics going on, maybe even wars!  

If there's only one post to go til we're caught up, I don't know how the party could NOT be in the middle of something.  Maybe it was more than one post.  There's gotta be some pretty big stuff in this place.

A Vecna fan eh?  Bet there's some good stories there, especially since it sounds like that was the players' immediate thought.


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Feb 5, 2002)

Matchstick said:
			
		

> *LOL!  What a great place, and a great description!  It's a demiplane, or another plane right?  Is that a +3 Shovel of Undead Subdual *




I use a somewhat different planar cosmology - one which the players really don't have much info on.   The Great Graveyard is a place on the Edge of Hell, as the PC's understand it.  It probably also has some connection to the Plane of Shadow.  Somewhere in that cemetary is likely to be a permanent Gate to Hell itself.  I wouldn't want to go looking for it, though.

And I'm trying to break my Vecna habit, really I am.  ;D


----------



## Grifter86 (Feb 6, 2002)

Hey all,

Let me just say I love this game you run. The plot is very compelling  and I can't get enough of it, man.

With that out of the way: So, you guys game in Chicago, eh?

Do any of you frequent Games Plus in fair Mount Prospect?

Once again, great story hour!


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Feb 6, 2002)

Grifter86 said:
			
		

> *With that out of the way: So, you guys game in Chicago, eh?
> 
> Do any of you frequent Games Plus in fair Mount Prospect?
> *




I buy most of my stuff from Games Plus - its hands down the best store in Chicago, one of the best I've ever been to, anywhere.  Unfortunately, the competition in Chicago is pretty weak.

*



			Once again, great story hour!
		
Click to expand...


*
Thanks!


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Feb 7, 2002)

Jovah said:
			
		

> *
> 
> We did manage to pick up a few of the Lighting Javelins.
> Might be important later in the story. *




Yes; I had forgotten to mention that.  Also, Gavin pointed out that various party members got neat-o gifts from the Ralt Gaitherese to reward them for their help in this.  Gavin got one of those frowny samurai masks...  all the things were quite valuable, but not magical, as I recall.

I'll have the last couple posts up soon!  Things are busier than normal so I haven't had the time to work on it the last couple of days...

[EDIT] I also realized that in the description of the fight at the Song-Ling Monastery, I neglected to point out that the bookish mage-Loraxite was destroyed as well.


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Feb 8, 2002)

*Mortimus, just outside the Great Graveyard, exact location unknown, presumed February 10th, AE 420*

The party follows Briggs back to Mortimus, leaving the Boneyard by a small makeshift gate.  Briggs gives Jalea some pointeres on where to go and who to talk to, and he and Reana take off to gather up some info on Sharat and the Loraxites location.  The others go with Briggs to a tavern to wait, and buy Briggs dinner in thanks for his help.  

Mortimus is a town of several thousand people, of various apparent ethnicities, with the occasional strange standout amongst them.  The chief business of the town appears to be alchemy; specifically the growing, distilling, and packaging of anything related to the dead.  Briggs explains that many wizards find that there are certain items that can only be gotten in a place like Mortimus, where the entire economy is based off of their one main resource:  dead bodies.  Briggs doesn’t like this much; apparently dismembering bodies for parts in this way allows their spirits to escape, and they become insubstantial undead of varying types.

“Can’t very well bury a ghost or a shadow,” he says. 

Jalea and Reana return after a couple of hours, and inform the others that they have a reasonably good idea where Sharat’s lair is.  It’s probably a good day’s travel through the Boneyard.  Briggs wants no part of leading them that far into the land of the dead, and the party thanks him again for his help, and return to the vast cemetary.

They proceed with caution.  They pass endless mausoleums and countless gravesites, occasionally seeing, and for the most part avoiding, packs of ghouls and the occasional zombie or skeleton.  After long travel they locate what appears to be the place described to Jalea and Reana.  It’s a huge structure, of a strange, foreign design.  It measures perhaps three hundred feet on a side, and is three stories tall, with towers that reach higher in places.  It is covered with carvings and decorations, almost entirely of frowning and scowling faces, some  as large as twenty feet tall.  It is surrounded by a wide stone plaza, and has entrances in each of its four sides.

“Let’s try the roof,” Jalea says, and they sneak up closer to the building.  

As they approach near the building Reana spots something moving on the roof, and alerts the group.  She, Jalea, and Gavin all fire on the silhouetted form, and all three connect, some multiple times.  The thing slumps and stops moving.  Jalea climbs up the wall, and lowers a rope for the others.  Once they get up to the top, they see that their target was another ghoul.  They also can see the layout of the builidng much better; it consists of an immense central building, three hundred feet long and one hundred feet wide, with two courtyards on each side of the central building.  The courtyards are surrounded by balconies.  There are a multitude of ways into the place from here.  

“I say we just start with the center, and work our way out if we need to,” Gavin says, and the others agree.  They lower themselves onto a balcony off the main structure…

…Meanwhile…

Time has been difficult for Aris to judge over the past day (or has it been more than that?).  The Shadow Dragon has deposited the proud bladesinger (minus arms and armor, and spell components, of course) in a large gilded birdcage that hangs by a chain from the ceiling of an immense Hall.  Dimly lit lanterns illuminate this Hall, which Aris guesses to be a hundred yard or more in length, lined with tall pillars, and a balcony that stretches all around the second floor.  The lanterns seem set in place not to provide illumination so much as to accentuate the shadows in this place. He’s endured some taunting from the warrior-Loraxite, whose name he has found out is Nagron.  Sharat slinks around the place as well, occasionally coming by to examine his captive, and then slithering down a great, twenty foot wide hole in the center of the floor to some unknown place where he seems to spend his time.

He hasn’t seen Batista since they arrived here.

The cage is strong, and Aris is not a physically powerful elf.  He has tried to force the cage, but had little luck.  For the time being, he has resigned himself to being a hostage, to be traded for the Egg.

“I hope they’re smart enough to know not to do _that_…” he thinks to himself.

“Pssst!”

Aris looks around for the source of the noise, and suddenly looks up to see Jalea, hanging from the chain connecting the cage to the ceiling.

“Jalea!” Aris whispers back excitedly. “I have never been so glad to see you in my life!”

“Fine then,” Jalea says.  “Maybe I’ll just leave you there, if that’s how you feel!”

“Don’t be silly!  Get me out of here!  Have you seen my stuff?”

“One miracle at a time, sheesh!  We just got here.  Where’s Batista?”

“I don’t know…  We were seperated.”

Jalea swiftly picks the lock on the cage, releasing Aris, and they use Jalea’s rope to let themselves down to the floor, thirty feet below.  Brennen, Jovah, Gavin, and Reana are waiting there.  Gavin tosses Aris a javelin.

“A javelin? I don’t think I even know how to throw one of these…”

“Don’t worry,” Gavin says.  “They’re _cool_.”

Jovah signals for quiet.  “There’s something magic over towards that hole over there, coming this way.. oh hell.”

The telltale blur of the Loraxite’s invisibility alerts them to Nagron’s presence just before he lays into Brennen with multiple sword strokes.  They return blows, and the Loraxite retreats after taking several hits.  Aris chucks his javelin at the Loraxite, and connects, discharging a massive bolt of electricity into the vampire’s body.

“See? I told you” Gavin says.

“Be careful!” Aris replies, “Sharat is around here, and he’s practically invisible in all these shadows!”

But its too late.  The Dragon appears out of practically nowhere, unseen and unheard, and a cloud of black chilling smoke issues forth from his maw.  Everyone feels their strength ebbing, although Gavin is far enough back to avoid being in the blast.

_2e Shadow Dragons have a breath weapon that drains levels, even on a made save.  Everyone saved, but they were still weakened._

…Meanwhile…

Batista is stirred from fitful sleep by the sounds of a fight somewhere nearby.  He’s been locked up in a cell with about thirty other folk for the past day or two.  He lightly touches the two bite marks on his neck, and shudders.

“They’ve finally come to save me!” he thinks, and rushes to the cell door.  He’s in a large chamber that stretches out for as far as he can see.  Heavy pillars hold up the ceiling, spaced about fifteen feet apart.  There are a few lanterns here and there, but they don’t give much light.

Batista rattles the cage door.  He has the strength in him for maybe one try at busting it, and he wants to make sure it’s a good try.  He looks around for anything to help him, and his eyes rest on of his fellow captives.

“Hey, you!  Come here!”

The prisoner looks up, and slowly shuffles over to the half-elf.  Batista suddenly grabs him by the collar and drives his head into the cage door!  The cage breaks open, and the prisoner falls to the floor, blood gushing from where his skull hit the lock.

“Sorry about that!” Batista yells, not very sincerely, as he runs out into the low-ceilinged room.

Back upstairs, Brennen and Reana have engaged the Dragon.  Gavin tosses his _javelin of lightning_ at Nagron, and the Loraxite goes down.  With the Dragon at hand though, no one has the chance to stake him.

Gavin fumbles through his backpack, and pulls out a small bottle of greenish liquid.

“I’ve been saving this,” he says, and drinks it down, suddenly growing in size to about sixteen feet tall.  He turns and charges the Dragon, getting a swipe in on the creature.  Sharat does not think much of these odds, and turns and dives into the hole in the floor, slinking quickly away into the shadows.

Brennen, Jalea, and Reana jump down into the hole.  Gavin looks in, and realizes the ceilings down there are only about nine feet tall.

“Aaargghhh!” he yells.

Aris and Jovah leap down into the hole, leaving Gavin upstairs, too large to fit effectively into the downstairs area.

Meanwhile, Batista is making his way around the edges of this huge chamber.  He stops when he hears the sounds of something clinking underfoot.  He grabs a lantern off a nearby pillar, and turns it on the area so he can see.  Gold pieces litter the ground, and a number of very valuable items – pearl necklaces, gems, and so on – are also arranged in an area in the corner of the chamber.  His and Aris’ weapons are here as well.

“Wow…” he says.

Then he hears the sound of something breathing, just behind him. He turns and finds himself face-to-face with Sharat, the Shadow Dragon.  The Dragon smiles, wickedly, and whispers a swift incantation.  Batista find himself unable to look away from the creature’s eyes, it’s hypnotizing, mesmerizing eyes…

Back at the opening into the basement chamber, the party has spread out so that they can’t all get caught in another lifeforce-draining blast from Sharat.  Aris sees light moving, coming his way.  As it gets closer, he sees that it is Batista.  He is running towards the party, and he has Aris’ _flameblade_ in his hand, lit.  He bears one of his own scimitars in the other hand

“Batista!  Thanks god you’re okay!” Aris exclaims, “Uh, Batista?”

Batista makes no signs of stopping.  He readies the _flameblade_ as he charges directly towards Aris.

“Yaaaaahhhh!” the Ranger screams. 

Aris has no time to react.  He is still badly injured from the fight at the Song-Ling Monastery, and he is unarmored and weaponless.  He reacts with the only spell he has that doesn’t require his still unlocated component bag, _burning hands_.

Batista goes down in a heap.  Aris runs over to his side, and checks his pulse.

There is none.

“Oh no,” the elf wails.  Just then, Sharat returns, with a quick hit and run attack on Brennen, on the other side of the area just under the entry hole.  He hits, and retreats into the darkness.  Reana, Brennen, and Jovah move over to join Aris to face off against the beast, staying spread wide enough to avoid his debilitating breath.  Aris recovers his _flameblade_, and hears the Dragon mockingly whispering another incantation.  

“He’s casting a …  _oh no_…”  The Bladesinger’s heart sinks.

“…Aris,”   an emotionless voice intones from behind them.  Aris turns, as Batista pulls himself up to his feet.  He is badly burned, and he shuffles towards his old protector, scimitar in hand.  Aris’ _flameblade_ burns brighter, like it only does when the Bladesinger is facing the undead.

“I’m sorry, Batista,” the elf says, as he strikes down his friend yet again.

Just then, the Dragon charges with a deafening roar.  He starts from the opposite side of the area under the entry hole, and barrels forward towards the weakened party.  Jalea looses an arrow, and Reana and Sir Brennen prepare to face its attack.

Just as it crosses beneath the entry hole, they hear a cry from above them.  Gavin has been waiting for seemingly forever to see what is going on below, and when the Dragon charges under the hole, he takes his sword, holds the point down, and leaps into the hole, and right onto Sharat’s back, plunging his twelve foot long sword into the Dragon’s sinewy neck, pinning it to the floor like a hundred foot long butterfly.

Sharat twitches once, then twice, and then dies.


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Feb 8, 2002)

*Fencig, February 12th, AE 420*

The party recovered Sharat’s treasure, Batista’s body, and Aris and Batista’s equipment, and returned to Fencig without any trouble.  They’re still in shock over Batista’s death, especially Aris.

“Buck up, Aris,” Jovah says.  “We’re not done yet.  We need to get the Egg hidden away.”

He produces the diamond that Janketh gave him, and using the image of the forested island it gives him, casts _dimensional folding_.  A portal opens to the beach of the island.

“Alright,” Aris says.  “Who’s coming with me?”

“No one,” Jovah says.  “Like Janketh said, the fewer who know, the better.  I’ll open another portal tomorrow at ths time.”

Aris gulps, and nods.  He steps through the portal and onto the beach.

The wind is bitingly cold, and Aris pulls his green-dragonskin cloak tightly around him to stay warm.  The island is covered in a light dusting of snow, and is forested in pine trees.  It seems later in the day here than it was in Fencig.  The Bladesinger looks around, and sees that there is no other land in sight of this place.  Then, he notices a lean-to built just at the edge of the trees and beach.  He loosens his sword in its sheath and approaches the lean-to.

A cloaked figure sits in the small shelter, cooking something in a pot over a small fire.

“Care for some stew, Aris?”

“Vershanion?” Aris asks.  “What are you doing here?”

“Janketh came to me in a vision, and asked me to prepare this place for the Egg.  It’s very out of the way; there is a dungeon here that me and some friends of mine cleared out over a hundred years ago.  I thought it would make a good hiding place.  I’ve been here for a while, fixing things, making traps and snares, resetting the traps that exist in the dungeon.”

“Vershanion…  Batista is dead.”

“I know.  Janketh told me.”

“I killed him.  _Twice_.  Tolaro wanted me to protect him, and I killed him."

“There’s nothing else you could have done,” Vershanion replies.  “Batista was able to avenge his mother’s death, with your help.  That’s all he ever really wanted out of life.  He never seemed to fully _fit_, no matter where he went.  I’m certain he’s in a better place now.  He has a place where he truly belongs.  Don’t be sad.”

Aris fights back tears.  Vershanion throws his cloak on, and gets ready to trek into the woods.

“Let’s get going.  I’d like to be back by nightfall.”

“Yeah,” Aris says.  “Wait a minute…”

He rummages through his pack, and pulls out the velvet bag he has been keeping the Egg in. He holds it out to Vershanion.

“Jovah is right.  We need to keep this knowledge in the minds of as few people as possible.  You take it, and hide it, that way no one will be able to make me tell them again.”

“And if I don’t know, then even if the Egg has a hold on me, I won’t be able to find it either,” he thinks to himself.

Vershanion takes the velvet bag, and opens it, looking at the jade Egg, with its beautifully carved gold dragon coiled around it.  He closes the drawstring on the bag, and stuffs into his rucksack, and then jogs away, into the woods.  

Aris sits on the beach, and helps himself to a bit of Vershanion’s stew.  He sits there, silently, for hours, until just as it is getting dark, he hears Vershanion approaching.

“It is done,” the druid-ranger says.

“Jovah will _fold_ us back to civilization in the morning,” Aris replies.  “Thank you for all you’ve done.”

The next morning is clear and bright, with no wind at all.  Just as the sun rises, a portal opens up on the beach, where Vershanion and Aris are waiting.  They step through, into the firelit warmth of Jovah’s drawing room.

“Welcome back,” Reana says.

The portal snaps shut, and the beach is empty again, as seagulls fly above, without any care, without knowing the dangerous evil that is hidden on their anonymous, small island.

*THE END*


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Feb 8, 2002)

....for now!


----------



## Tuerny (Feb 8, 2002)

Cool. 
So what is the next chapter going to be about?


Jesse Dean


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Feb 8, 2002)

Tuerny said:
			
		

> *Cool.
> So what is the next chapter going to be about?
> *




Initially, the party's plan is see if anything can be done about Arlen Kentfield, the demon-worshipping nobleman from Ulfang who ran Jalea out of town, and who has some apparent connection with the Sahuagin, as well as the disappearance of many, many prisoners of war during the 415-416 Siege of Ulfang. 

He's becoming more powerful in Ulfang, and the party doesn't much like the way that Evil forces are gaining footholds in important cities in the area.

Then of course, there is Elros Ekozius, the 800-pound gorilla of Ghithor, who is still running around, very capable of causing a lot of trouble.  I just converted him to 3e not long ago...  

As I told my players, converting him added a lot of hit points to his total.  I described it thus, "He added practically a whole Reana to his hit points."

Reana is a 9th level Ranger with 62 HP.

But really, this next portion is going to be very open-ended.  The players will drive the direction of the game for at least the first several months, and I'll see where things seem headed and work in the directions that the characters point me.

At some point in the future (probably a year off, I'd guess) we're thinking about creating new, 1st level characters, still in the same world.


----------



## Lazybones (Feb 8, 2002)

Great!  Looking forward to the continuation of the story, in 3e (I don't have to wear those funny glasses, right?)

I think I've said it before, but your world seems very well realized, and it's easy for the reader to be drawn into the epic sweep of events that you describe.  Plus your player-DM dynamic is great (with just the perfect touch of wry bitterness on the part of the players  ).  

Game on!


----------



## Matchstick (Feb 9, 2002)

> Gavin fumbles through his backpack, and pulls out a small bottle of greenish liquid.
> 
> “I’ve been saving this,” he says, and drinks it down, suddenly growing in size to about sixteen feet tall. He turns and charges the Dragon, getting a swipe in on the creature. Sharat does not think much of these odds, and turns and dives into the hole in the floor, slinking quickly away into the shadows.
> 
> ...




You know, that was almost cruel.  He had probably been waiting forever for just the right moment!  I'd love to hear what he was thinking at that point!



> Aris has no time to react. He is still badly injured from the fight at the Song-Ling Monastery, and he is unarmored and weaponless. He reacts with the only spell he has that doesn’t require his still unlocated component bag, burning hands.
> 
> Batista goes down in a heap. Aris runs over to his side, and checks his pulse.
> 
> ...




Hello, and welcome to Guilt, IL.  Population: Aris.  Jeez, that guy's got so much guilt I'm surprised he hasn't had a total breakdown!



> Just as it crosses beneath the entry hole, they hear a cry from above them. Gavin has been waiting for seemingly forever to see what is going on below, and when the Dragon charges under the hole, he takes his sword, holds the point down, and leaps into the hole, and right onto Sharat’s back, plunging his twelve foot long sword into the Dragon’s sinewy neck, pinning it to the floor like a hundred foot long butterfly.
> 
> Sharat twitches once, then twice, and then dies.




Oh HELL yeah.  Great idea, great execution, great description here in the story hour (LOVE the butterfly thing), and a great moment.  How did you handle this in game?  There's no wrong answer as far as I'm concerned, as a DM I would have just seen the inherent coolness of the move and let it happen with maybe one roll to hit or something.  Wow wow wow!



> But really, this next portion is going to be very open-ended. The players will drive the direction of the game for at least the first several months, and I'll see where things seem headed and work in the directions that the characters point me.




Most times, I think that's the best way to go, though the players have to be pretty self motivated.

I wish you all the best of times on Sunday.  Don't worry about the Story Hour, just have a good time and post it when you get a chance.  

I'd be interested in hearing from the players whether or not they feel their play style is affected by them knowing they're going to be in a story hour.

Have a great time!


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Feb 9, 2002)

> *Oh HELL yeah. Great idea, great execution, great description here in the story hour (LOVE the butterfly thing), and a great moment. How did you handle this in game? There's no wrong answer as far as I'm concerned, as a DM I would have just seen the inherent coolness of the move and let it happen with maybe one roll to hit or something. Wow wow wow! *





Gavin had been waiting up there for his chance to do ANYTHING, so when Sharat went under him, he just jumped on it, so to speak.  He rolled a good hit (tough in itsefl, as Sharat's AC was -10 in 2e terms), and then near max damage.  I think it was something like 30 or more points.


----------



## Jovah (Feb 9, 2002)

*poer batista...sniff*



			
				Kid Charlemagne said:
			
		

> …Meanwhile…
> 
> Batista is stirred from fitful sleep by the sounds of a fight somewhere nearby.  He’s been locked up in a cell with about thirty other folk for the past day or two.  He lightly touches the two bite marks on his neck, and shudders.
> 
> The prisoner looks up, and slowly shuffles over to the half-elf.  Batista suddenly grabs him by the collar and drives his head into the cage door!  The cage breaks open, and the prisoner falls to the floor, blood gushing from where his skull hit the lock.




Batista was sure he was a "vamp waiting to happen.  He also thought the other prisoners were "unsave-able".



> The Dragon smiles, wickedly, and whispers a swift incantation.  Batista find himself unable to look away from the creature’s eyes, it’s hypnotizing, mesmerizing eyes…
> Batista is running towards the party, and he has Aris’ _flameblade_ in his hand, lit.  “Yaaaaahhhh!”
> 
> Aris has no time to react.  He is still badly injured -_burning hands_.
> ...




I did not know how many hit points Batista had after his incarceration.  When he crumpled there was both agony and relief.

It still was pretty shocking- we had not had a character die in quite a while.  
BTW- in Crystalmarch there are only a two Priesthoods that can cast Raise Dead so Batista is not coming back.  Unless Kid C has some nefarious plan -- Loraxite Batista ... shudder.


----------



## Jovah (Feb 9, 2002)

Just in case the readers did not catch it....

The last Loraxite was not staked.  We zapped him pretty good, but then Sharat came and took all our attention.  We never found the last Loraxite.
Plus Loraxus is still around in her grave somewhere.


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Feb 9, 2002)

Jovah said:
			
		

> *Just in case the readers did not catch it....
> 
> The last Loraxite was not staked.  We zapped him pretty good, but then Sharat came and took all our attention.  We never found the last Loraxite.*




Yikes! I had forgotten that - I just went back and edited the Story to reflect this...  Thats what I get for waiting two years to write this stuff down...!


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Feb 11, 2002)

I've started the new Story Hour on a new thread!  Fell free to keep responding in either one; I'll check them both regularly until this one drops away...

Anyway,here it is.


----------

