# The Boundary Lands: On the Edge of Civilization (Updated 5/9/11)



## hayek (Jan 4, 2011)

This is a homebrew 4e D&D campaign (though I did swipe the general concept of the Empire of Nerath from the 4e DMG). It’s played in old-fashioned real life around a table.

Hope you enjoy it!

...

*Letter of Resignation from Malis Kristolm, Former High Priest of the Temple to the Raven Queen in the city of Fellis*
_Some say I have turned from my faith because my mind has been corrupted by disease, or my heart turned black by desire. Those who do not understand the Queen of Winter may think that her priests are destined for madness, to devote their life to the worship of death. Know that all of these claims are false._

_The truth – I curse the gods for they have cursed me. The end of the world is not a sight for the eyes of any mortal, yet I bear the burden of having seen it... _

_Forged by the gods and born in the depths of shadow, the keystone will unlock the doom of our existence. Unending death will claim every living thing and the land will be shrouded in eternal darkness. Worse than the sight, the sound haunts my dreams – everywhere empty, soulless silence… except for the wailing of the damned._

_I know not if this vision is our destiny, or if we have the power to change our fate. I only know that this vision is real, and that we trudge blindly onward, drawing nearer to the end of all things._​*The Boundary Lands*
Background and Prelude
Map of the Boundary Lands
Map of the known world​*Chapter 1 - Lord Dread*
1.1 A Celebration
1.2 A Dreadful Meeting
1.3 In which the party crawls through a dungeon​*Chapter 2 - Ramshead*
2.1 A Mystery
2.2 Mmmm... Brains...​*Chapter 3 - Calipha*
3.1 Into the Feywild ​*Chapter 4 - The Terrible Wrath of the Arinfax Colossus*
4.1 Captured!
4.2 The Watchtower
4.3 The party is set adrift into the great, wide world​*Chapter 5 - A New Home*
5.1 Fond Farewells
5.2 A Family Reunion (Part 1) (Part 2)
5.3 The Sad, Lonely End of Luwin Istalis (Part 1) (Part 2)​*Chapter 6 - High Finance… and Pirates!*
6.1 Missing Shipments (Part 1)​


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## hayek (Jan 4, 2011)

*Background and Prelude*

If you’d rather jump right into the story you can skip this post (though character introductions are at the end of it). Long story short: the party is a team of ‘special forces’ for the Emperor of Nerath, formerly ruler of the massive Empire of Nerath, now just ruler of the small city of Verind’s Edge on the edge (thus the name!) of the known world.

(Yes, the name ‘Arinfax Colossus’ is a total rip-off of ‘Ventifact Colossus’ from Sagiro’s story hour, but I can assure you only the name is a rip-off… it is not also a giant turtle).

*




*

*Background*

_The Empire of Nerath_

The Empire of Nerath spread over most of the known world for nearly a century, but it began to fall into decay, internal rivalries blossomed into civil war, and eventually the empire fell entirely. As its borders receded, ambitious nobles seized the opportunity to reclaim their past lands and titles, and vicious warlords arose to claim new territory for themselves. The Empire of Nerath was originally founded in the ancient nation of Kasalat, at the northern edge of the civilized world, and its capital remained there, in the city of Korindor. As Nerath’s end became imminent, the current Emperor, Essran, conceded defeat and brokered a deal to preserve himself and the remnants of his empire.

The Emperor took what was left of his army, no more than 3,000 soldiers, and his remaining loyal followers and led them to reclaim the city of Verind’s Edge – an outpost that has been lost for nearly a century to the Goblinoid races of the Torin Plains. The Torin Plains border the nation of Kasalat on the northwest, and throughout all of history, civilization has never spread into the plains. The Torin Plains have always been inhabited solely by a mass of Goblinoid races – orcs, kobolds, goblins, ogres – and other monstrous creatures. The Boundary Lands are the northwest regions of Kasalat that border the Torin Plains. Verind’s Edge is the farthest that civilization has ever ventured into the Torin Plains and for centuries it was the first line of resistance against the Goblinoid races. The nobles and warlords of Kasalat were willing to let the Empire of Nerath live on in a small city on the edge of the world if it would extend the borders of Kasalat and reestablish the nation’s presence further into the unclaimed lands of the Torin Plains. Moreover, Nerath’s enemies thought there was a good chance the Goblinoid races would simply finish off the Empire on their own.

_Verind’s Edge_






Essran arrived roughly seven years ago, and he has successfully revived Verind’s Edge and fended off the attacks of the Goblinoid tribes. The keep is now the center of a bustling city (as much as one can be when it sits on the edge of the known world). Essran married a noblewoman, Larindra of Thersi, from the Boundary Lands to help legitimize his standing within the region. He kept the original name of the city unchanged to gain favor with the peoples of the Boundary Lands who have known Verind’s Edge by no other name for centuries (though Essran still names himself as the Emperor of Nerath).

Some of the existing nobles in the Boundary Lands resent the emergence of Verind’s Edge. There are some precious resources native to the Torin Plains, and by occupying a city further out in the Boundary Lands, Verind’s Edge has taken a hefty share of the trade in such goods. Moreover, the city has become somewhat prestigious for successfully reclaiming lands that had been lost for nearly a century. The nearest fiefdom, Uthrin, led by the noble, Sir Uthrin III, is particularly bitter towards Verind’s Edge. Outright war has not broken out, but some skirmishes do occur, and relations are quite strained to say the least.

_First Knight Thalus_

Some time after reclaiming Verind’s Edge, the Emperor discovered an ancient Goblinoid prophecy, which claimed a great creature known as the Arinfax Colossus was destined to rise up and lead the Goblinoid races to crush the civilized lands. The Emperor sent his most trusted man, First Knight Thalus, to hunt down the Arinfax Colossus and slay it before it could complete this supposed prophecy. Sir Thalus recently returned with good news – after exploring the Torin Plains for some time, he discovered the beast was a great dragon and tracked it to its cave where he slew it. The city of Verind’s Edge now plans to host a grand celebration to honor Sir Thalus and the slaying of the Arinfax Colossus.

*Prelude*

_In the Service of the Emperor_

The party has been in the service of the Empire of Nerath in the city of Verind’s Edge for some time. The party has gravitated toward each other and forged a friendship, not only because they get along with each other well in their own peculiar ways, but also because they have recognized the potential in each other to excel far above the average soldier or officer in the Empire of Nerath.

The party put their exceptional talents to the test recently – the nearby fiefdom of Uthrin has been squabbling with Verind’s Edge and has claimed that some of the new villages that have sprung up to the east of Verind’s Edge (between the city and the rest of the Boundary Lands) lie in Uthrin territory, and hence owe taxes to Sir Uthrin. Uthrin’s soldiers threatened some of these villagers with imprisonment if they did not deliver, and when the soldiers came to make good on that threat the party was there to welcome them, along with a few other soldiers from Verind’s Edge. The party members were the only survivors of the fight, successfully fending off the Uthrin soldiers. Some recognition followed this deed, and as a reward for being the sole survivors of the battle, the party was invited to attend a grand dinner with Emperor Essran himself. The dinner was part of the celebration of First Knight Thalus’s slaying of the Arinfax Colossus.

The party finds themselves back in the city of Verind’s Edge enjoying the celebration, taking in the parades, and knocking back a few drinks before their dinner party.

The party consists of:

*Erik (Human Wizard)* - Erik was raised amongst elves by a wealthy elven merchant in the great forest kingdom of Quinalyn. His brother, Luwin (his father’s son by blood), grew jealous of Erik’s developing arcane talents and their father’s admiration of Erik’s success as a wizard. This jealousy eventually drove a wedge between the family and Erik’s father had to send Erik from his home out into the world.
*The Zaza (Dragonborn Paladin)* - Confident enough in her ability as a warrior to add an article to her official name, The Zaza was raised in a simple village of dragonborn in the Boundary Lands. She had a twin brother, Daza, who dreamed of becoming a hunter for the village one day. However, when they were only thirteen and exploring the wilderness around their village together, The Zaza witnessed her brother being kidnapped by a pack of “short people” – dwarves or gnomes she presumes. The Zaza watched in stunned silence, so scared she couldn’t even scream out for her brother as he was taken away. Afterwards, she was ashamed of her cowardice as she witnessed her brother’s kidnapping, and she pledged to become a hunter for the village in her brother’s place. She found her talents far exceeded those of the village’s best hunter, and also discovered her devoted relationship with the nature goddess Melora was blossoming into a strong source of divine power. Realizing she was destined for something more she left her village, partially in the hopes of finding her long lost twin brother some day.
*Invicto Fizzleflame (Gnome Warlock)* - Invicto was abandoned by his parents and raised by humans. He is somewhat bitter towards the world at large, which has contributed to his occasionally evil tendencies, including forging an infernal pact with demons to gain his arcane powers.
*Fargrim (Dwarven Warlord)* - Fargrim has a checkered past consisting of bouts of showing off military brilliance as well as bouts of ticking off numerous superiors and breaking numerous military codes of conduct. He has followed Emperor Essran to the edge of the known world to get one last chance to revive his career.
Later, the party is joined by:

*Charm (Tiefling Rogue)* - A later addition to the party, Charm has worked as an independent freelancer around the Boundary Lands for some time. She is able to handle a variety of tasks for her employers with discretion, but when necessary, she is fierce in a fight, unafraid to leap into the frontlines to go toe to toe with an enemy. Though her line of work is sometimes legally questionable, she is good at heart, truly embodying the idea of ‘honor among thieves’.
*Aramil (Eladrin Warlord)* - This veteran soldier joins the party later on. He has been a devoted servant of the Empire of Nerath ever since it ruled over Quinalyn, thus he has continued his service to the Emperor in Verind’s Edge. He proves to be a very competent leader in battle and out, constantly recruiting young warriors into the party’s service in hopes to slowly build his own personal army. A quintessential ‘high elf’, Aramil believes in pursuing truth and justice, but also believes that sometimes the pursuit of truth and justice applies mostly to himself.


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## hayek (Jan 4, 2011)

*Chapter 1 - Lord Dread (s. 1)*

*1.1 A Celebration*

Fargrim, The Zaza, Erik, and Invicto are in Verind’s Edge, taking in the celebration festivities for the slaying of the Arinfax Colossus, when they catch a street ruffian, a boy of no more than 10 or 12 years, attempting to pick the pocket of Fargrim. Fargrim grabs the boy and suggests some severe punishments, but in the end shows his graciousness by letting the ruffian go freely if he promises to gather up a round of drinks for the party. He gives the boy a few coppers to purchase the drinks and sends him off. Of course, the boy never returns. The party returns to taking in the festivities, including watching the severed head of the great dragon, the Arinfax Colossus, as it is paraded through the streets.

_Dinner with the Emperor_

The party then attends the grand dinner with Emperor Essran where they are regaled with the full tale from Sir Thalus of his slaying of the great Arinfax Colossus. Fargrim suspects the beast was truly a two-headed dragon and that only one of its heads was removed, leaving the beast alive and well and destined to soon romp through the civilized lands leaving death and destruction in its wake. Sir Thalus embellishes his tale quite thoroughly, describing in great detail all of his magnificent exploits as he battled with the beast, and making little mention of the troop of soldiers who journeyed with him to fight the great dragon.

At the dinner the party also meets a hulking Goliath named Mujeh who is a bard visiting from the Guildhouse of Ellendor from lands far to the south of Kasalat. The Guildhouse of Ellendor is a great guild of bards, whose agents travel all of the known world collecting and sharing information on great leaders and significant events. They convince him to share a few ribald limericks with them, though Mujeh declines to break out his dirtiest material since they are in the presence of the Queen. Queen Larindra, Essran’s wife from a very strategic political marriage, is quite fetching if a bit older. The party senses a somewhat frosty relationship between Larindra and Essran, which they suspect springs from their marriage being one of political expedience. Also attending the dinner, the party meets Court Wizard Davos, an advisor to Emperor Essran.

Eventually Essran introduces the party and thanks them for defending the village against Uthrin’s soldiers. He then asks the party to take on a task for him – he has received word that a group of Uthrin soldiers are in town to partake in the celebration. He expects they are more interested in causing trouble and asks the party to frequent the inns and taverns of the city tonight to keep an eye out for this group and to “take care of them” if they do get out of hand.

_A Night on the Town_

The party heads to the Goosed Liver later that night, one of the largest most popular taverns in all of Verind’s Edge. There they run into the Goliath bard Mujeh and share a drink with him. He asks them to recount their tale of what happened in their battle with Uthrin's soldiers and they are happy to oblige. He mentions travelling through the fiefdom of Uthrin and having a very unpleasant experience as he was accosted by guards asking for a “toll” – behavior more in line with that of bandits rather than royal soldiers. Mujeh shares his most offensive of limericks with the party and they all enjoy some hardy laughs along with their drinks.






The Zaza then approaches the bartender to ask if any Uthrin soldiers have been around tonight causing trouble. The barkeep has not heard of any out tonight, but mentions hearing of a group of Uthrin soldiers at the celebration during the day – the soldiers had a dispute with a merchant that ended in them overturning his display table and throwing a drink in his face. The barkeep assures the Zaza that she’ll have no trouble identifying the group, as they were walking around in full uniform. Just then the group in question enters the Goosed Liver led by a surly looking dwarf.

The dwarf leads his friends, including a few well-armed human soldiers and a slender elf armed only with a wand, to the bar to get a round of drinks and they quickly become a loud, raucous crew. The party suggests that Mujeh improvise a song dedicated to their defending of the village against Uthrin’s soldiers, emphasizing the inept, and ugly, qualities of the Uthrin men.

Mujeh takes the stage. He sings and plays a lute that looks incredibly small in the Goliath’s huge muscled arms and hands:
_There once was a village in the Boundary Lands_
_Grew up strong and vibrant under Lord Essran’s hands_
_But goblins and orcs were a threat quite small_
_Compared to the brutish ogres who were Sir Uthrin’s thralls_
_They showed their ugly faces with warts and knobs_
_Demanding taxes to support their royal snivelling snob_
_But these hideous monsters did not expect_
_A band of four heroes from brave Verind’s Edge_
_They stabbed the beasts in their stinky yellow hides_
_Smashed the crooked teeth, and blackened their eyes_
_The last soldier was so certain that he was facing defeat_
_He soiled himself and ran away with pants ’round his feet_​The patrons of the Goosed Liver enjoy the performance quite thoroughly, but the crew of Uthrin’s soldiers is quieted. Eventually the dwarf pipes up that the performance was awful and Fargrim quickly challenges him. The dwarf says that Fargrim is not worthy of suckling on his mother’s teat, and only a few more words are exchanged before a fight breaks out. Despite the elf mage quickly running to the 2nd floor of the tavern and raining thunder and lightning down upon The Zaza, Fargrim, and Erik, the party makes quick work of the Uthrin soldiers with no one coming close to falling in the fight. The last blow is delivered by Invicto as he engulfs the elf mage in the Flames of Phlegethos, leaving his body as only a charred black husk.

_A Research Mission_

The next day, the party reports to their commander and gets word that Court Wizard Davos would like to see the party to ask them to take on a special mission for him. The party meets with the wizard and finds him bumbling through some arcane experiments including the use of some foul-smelling components. He pauses to sit down with the party and explains that he would like to conduct some research on the Arinfax Colossus. Though the threat has been dispatched, he is interested in collecting some information on the beast, such as its origins, the history of its prophecy, etc… He believes the enigmatic character Lord Dread, a human who supposedly lives in a great keep far out in the Torin Plains and somehow coexists with the Goblinoid tribes, might have more information on the Arinfax Colossus and would like the party to travel to meet with him. He asks the party to obtain whatever information they can from Lord Dread, and in return he will pay the party 2,000 gold pieces (though he will not reimburse the party for whatever they must hand over to Lord Dread to obtain the information). He assures the party he can look elsewhere for help with this mission, and he cannot order them to take it, but the party is interested and accepts. They commission food, supplies, and horses and undertake the journey to the roughly known whereabouts of Lord Dread’s keep, estimated to be a week’s travel on horseback.

About three days into their journey The Zaza spots a group of kobolds tracking the party’s movements. The party decides to lay an ambush for them, and they catch the kobolds by surprise. The fight begins well, but kobold slingers eventually set Erik on fire, bringing him near to collapsing. At the same time a pair of kobold skirmishers flank Fargrim and succeed in bringing him down. Fortunately, fate is on the side of The Zaza as she dishes out blow after blow while receiving little in return. Invicto delivers inordinate amounts of punishment from afar, and Erik hangs on just long enough to roll his Flaming Sphere around the battlefield to finish off a few of the kobolds, and the party wins the day.


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## hayek (Jan 4, 2011)

*Chapter 1 - Lord Dread (s. 2)*

*1.2 A Dreadful Meeting*

The party gathers their spoils from the slain kobolds and proceeds uneventfully to Lord Dread’s keep. A few days later, as the day turns to evening, they break through a treeline onto the rim of a shallow valley where Lord Dread’s keep teeters on the edge of a cliff. A light fog rolls through the valley, obscuring the ground around the keep.






_Welcoming Party_

As the party enters the valley, they come across numerous tombstones scattered about the valley floor. The fog begins to thicken until the party has trouble seeing more than a few feet in any direction. The party hears strange whispers and movement around them. The Zaza and Fargrim pick out at least three humanoid shapes moving towards them from opposite directions. The Zaza calls out that they simply wish to pass through to the keep and a voice asks that they “speak the phrase”. The party has no answer to that request and the creatures emerge from the fog to attack – two skeletal warriors, a zombie, and a wraith. The Zaza moves to engage one of the skeletons and the wraith on one side of the battlefield while Fargrim takes on the other skeleton and the zombie. The wraith proves an intimidating foe as its shadowy touch quickly weakens The Zaza while its ghostly form shrugs off most attacks that strike it. With the skeleton striking her as well, The Zaza is quickly bloodied; though, drawing on her own Divine Mettle, she is able to at least remove the effects of the wraith’s weakening touch.

On the other side of the battlefield, Fargrim delivers a devastating blow that crushes one of the skeletal warriors in one fell swoop. Erik and Invicto pour various amounts of arcane fire onto the wraith, enough to attract its attention their way. Erik is severely injured and weakened, but quickly shrugs it off thanks to Fargrim’s always inspiring leadership. Erik moves out of the wraith’s reach as Invicto takes down the zombie with a devastating critical hit from his Eldritch Blast. The Zaza catches her second wind and delivers some strong blows to the remaining skeletal warrior. With two opponents down, the rout is on. The party focuses fire to take down the wraith and then makes short work of the skeleton.

_Lord Dread’s Proposition_

The party then proceeds to the main doors of Lord Dread’s keep. They find no guards outside of the keep and Fargrim decides to simply knock on the doors with his warhammer. They slowly open and a cadre of undead warriors awaits the party, though they do not appear hostile. They lead the party into the keep where Erik promptly steals a torch from a wall. Fortunately, their undead escort does not seem to care. Fargrim is unimpressed with the rough stone work the keep is comprised of.

Eventually, the party is led to the throne room within the keep, a grand hall with even more undead creatures milling about. Haphazardly throughout the throne room are dark obsidian columns with bodies in various states of decay frozen in them, their faces contorted in pain. The bodies are mostly goblinoids, though the party sees a few humans trapped in the obsidian, including a young boy. A huge black knight in spiked plate armor stands behind Lord Dread’s throne. The throne itself is made entirely of black ebony skulls. Lord Dread wears a skull mask over his face, and black robes are draped over a dark suit of chainmail.

Lord Dread welcomes the party and apologizes for them having to deal with his guardians. He explains that those who do business with him usually know the passphrase to move safely through the valley surrounding his keep. Fargrim is quite impressed with Lord Dread, and the numerous dead goblinoids around his throne room, and proceeds to actually bow before the imposing dark lord. The rest of the party remains standing and eyes Fargrim dubiously. Lord Dread thanks Fargrim for his flattery and asks that they get down to what business the party has arriving at his doorstep.

The party tells Lord Dread that they have been sent by Court Wizard Davos to gather information on the Arinfax Colossus, which was supposedly recently slain. Dread does not recognize the wizard Davos, but assures the party he could gather some information on the Arinfax Colossus from his library, and by speaking with some of his long dead associates. The party inquire as to what he would want in return for this information, and Lord Dread offers the party a proposition:

“A historical artifact was recently stolen from me by a tribe of goblins. The goblins have returned to their dwelling, which is roughly a week’s travel from my lands. I could use assistance in retrieving the relic. The Goblinoid races tolerate my existence, but they would turn aggressive if I, or my agents, roamed from my home here. So, I cannot chase this tribe to its home to retrieve my property. If you could retrieve this artifact for me, I would be happy to provide you with the information you seek.”

The party asks for some time to debate this proposition. The Zaza and Erik are a little unsettled at the thought of working with the enigmatic Lord Dread, though Fargrim insists he would be a unique ally. In the end, Erik concedes that they must obtain the information that Davos sent them for, and the party agrees to take on Lord Dread’s task. However, they believe this artifact might be worth more to Lord Dread than he lets on, so The Zaza steps forth to negotiate the terms of their deal. Thanks to her incredibly adept silver tongue (and aided by the legendary pink die of 20’s) she manages to convince Lord Dread to add 200 gold pieces to their payment terms upon delivery of the item, and furthermore, to provide the party with 200 gold pieces worth of potions and alchemical items to aid them in their journey. Lord Dread sends away one of his undead servants who returns shortly with 2 Potions of Healing, 1 Potion of Clarity, and 1 Gravespawn Potion.

Lord Dread then gives the party more information on what it is they are seeking – a small, black stone statuette of a man lying prone with his chest raised. The figure has the symbol of a crow’s head carved into its chest and back. Erik, a learned student of various religions, recognizes the symbol as that of the Raven Queen, the goddess of death and winter who dwells in the Shadowfell and sends the souls of all creatures to the afterlife upon their passing. Moreover, Erik recalls seeing the actual statuette Lord Dread has described as one of the trappings often found in temples built to the Raven Queen. The statuette is sometimes used in various rituals and celebrations, though he recalls such statues being purely decorative and holding no special magical properties.






Asking Lord Dread about the significance of such a common piece of religious paraphernalia, Dread informs the party that the piece in question is of unique academic value, as it is a rare, old carving that was used in some Goblinoid temples. This makes the piece particularly interesting to a few select scholars, though Lord Dread assures the party any common merchant they approach with the item would find little value in it. The Zaza’s keen insights tell her that Lord Dread is not lying about the resale value of the piece, but that he is hiding something about the piece’s true value. The Zaza is further suspicious of Dread’s answers when the party asks him about how the piece fell into the goblin tribe’s hands.

Dread instructs the party to head northwest for a couple of days until they reach a river, and to follow that river northwest for several more days until they reach a rocky plain leading up to a mountain range. Though he doesn’t know the exact location of the Bone Hand Goblin tribe, he knows they dwell somewhere in the rocky plains, likely in one of the numerous caves dotting the area. Before parting he tells the party the passphrase to bypass his keep’s guardians in the future, “Caratus Sinor”. Erik recognizes the arcane phrase as roughly translating to “Your master commands peace.”

_On the Trail_

The party follows Lord Dread’s instructions and arrive in the area of rocky plains several days later. At this point, the party is running low on food and water, having been in the wilds of the Torin Plains for upwards of two weeks now. On top of that, the area of rocky plains they have reached offers little in the way of wild game or creeks or rivers. The party’s skills are challenged as they attempt to survive in the rugged environment while trying to locate some tracks that might indicate where a large tribe of goblins might have travelled through the area. The party expects that if they do not locate the goblin tribe soon, their physical reserves may begin to dwindle.

The Zaza’s keen eyes help her locate some likely trails that might have been left by a large group of humanoids. She puts her head together with Erik – The Zaza draws on her knowledge of the natural world to narrow down which signs of passage would actually have been left by a tribe of goblins, and Erik draws on his natural insights into the movement of the tracks to determine which set are likely the goblins moving directly towards their home. Bowing out of the more cerebral work, Fargrim draws on his natural reserves of dwarven endurance to keep the party moving and to gather water, food, and firewood at the end of the day when The Zaza and Erik are too drained to lift a helping hand. Invicto simply kicks his feet up and enjoys the scenery during this whole process. With virtually no setbacks, the party finds themselves quickly on the trail of the Bone Hand goblin tribe, and the rigors of the environment do not take a toll upon the party.

After following the goblins’ trail for a day or so, the party sees buzzards circling the sky ahead of them, and they shortly come across the remnants of a gruesome battle scene. Roughly twenty goblins are dead, along with a few large hunting cats the goblins travelled with. Amongst the numerous dead goblins, the party finds five gray-skinned humanoids, who apparently were on the other side of the fight. Drawing on his knowledge of arcane studies, Erik recognizes the humanoids as Shadar-Kai, a race that dwells in the Shadowfell, serves the Raven Queen, and worships death along with the dark goddess.

The party supposes the Shadar-Kai are interested in the artifact they are retrieving for Lord Dread, and spend some time theorizing what they would do if the Shadar-Kai came calling on them when they had the artifact in hand on their way to return it to Lord Dread. Despite his earlier admiration for Dread, Fargrim suggests they ingratiate themselves to the Shadar-Kai. Erik and The Zaza are dubious about allying with the Shadar-Kai in any way, though they are dubious about allying with Lord Dread as well. They figure it’s a bad situation either way and they will cross that bridge when, and if, it comes later. In preparation of getting on the good side of any Shadar-Kai they may meet, Fargrim gives the slain Shadar-Kai a proper burial before moving on.


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## hayek (Jan 6, 2011)

Thanks to the mods!

Oh, and thanks for dropping by Rune, glad you're enjoying it!


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## hayek (Jan 7, 2011)

*Chapter 1 - Lord Dread (s. 3)*

*1.3 In which the party crawls through a dungeon*

_Part the First, In which the party terrifies a group of cowardly goblins_

The party eventually tracks the goblins back to a cave that appears to be their home. They debate how they should approach the cave, considering a stealthy entrance, but then realize that none of them are remotely capable at being stealthy. Nonetheless, the party circles around to approach the cave from the side and gives it their best shot at being quiet. As the party nears the cave entrance a small goblin head pokes out and looks at them. Its eyes widen in surprise and the goblin runs back into the cave. Erik and Invicto try to leap into the cave mouth to blast the goblin with an arcane spell before it gets away but they aren’t quick enough as the goblin disappears around a corner.

The cave entrance is a wide curving corridor that eventually opens into a larger cavern. The party follows the cave around and find a force of goblins awaiting them in the cavern – eight goblin cutters, four goblin javelin throwers, and two vicious-looking hunting cats. The creatures look poised to attack, but Invicto calls out in his most intimidating voice, “Wait! Put down your weapons and you don’t have to die!”

Some of the goblins do actually hesitate at his warning, but one of the goblin sharpshooters in the back of the force, presumably their leader, shouts out some encouraging words and commands the goblins onward to attack. Then The Zaza cries out that the party only wants the statue, and if they get it battle can be avoided. The mention of the statue seems to spread more hesitation throughout the goblin force and one of them actually calls out to the group’s leader. The leader responds, and the goblin force breaks out into an impromptu argument. They are all speaking goblinoid, so the party doesn’t follow, but, eventually, the goblin’s leader turns to the party and speaks in broken common, “You pay for statue! 10,000 gold!”

The party scoffs and insists they will pay nothing, and that if the goblins wish to die, then so be it. At their disdain for his offer, the goblin leader calls out, “5,000 gold!” Tired of wasting time allowing the goblin leader to think he can negotiate a price, Erik calls on his powers of Prestidigitation to brightly burn an illusory symbol of the Raven Queen into the tunic of the nearest goblin cutter, while coolly stating, “If you do not give us the statue you will anger our dark goddess…” The goblins recoil at this display of magic and all begin chattering excitedly in goblinoid.

The leader calls out, “You take statue, no fight!”. The party relaxes as the goblins have finally been sufficiently cowed. The goblin leader steps forth to speak further with the party, explaining, “Tribe priest, Grog, has statue below. He do ritual with statue. Make one zombie dragon already. Today make two, then three… You kill Grog now, take statue. You NOT tell Grog we make peace with you!” Apparently, the goblin leader feels threatened by Grog's newfound power, and the party makes for a convenient way to remove that threat.

The group of goblins then leads the party through a corridor in the back of the cavern and deeper underground. The party eventually passes through a roughly carved hall with six dragon heads carved into the walls, three each on the left and right sides. At the end of the hall a massive dragon head is carved into the rock, its jaw agape. The corridor continues straight into the mouth of the dragon. The party follows the goblins through the dragon’s maw, and they feel a chill passing through the dragon head as the air becomes noticeably cooler on the other side.






Soon, the cavern walls are covered in a thin layer of frost as the air gets colder and colder. Eventually the party reaches an intersection where it appears an adjoining corridor was tunneled into the cave complex the party is in. Here the goblins file into the side passage and the leader turns to tell the party, “This way goblin tribe lands. You no go here! Grog that way.” The goblin points down the icy passage before turning to leave. The party continues down into the frozen cave.

_Part the Second, In which the party is repeatedly pelted by ice darts
_
After traveling for some time, the party comes to another well-carved hall. It seems to mirror the hall they came upon earlier with six dragon heads carved into the walls, three on each side, though the stonework is much more impressive here. There is no large dragon’s head carved into the end of the hall, however. The air is significantly colder in this portion of the cave, and Erik draws upon his arcane knowledge to surmise that there is some overlap with the elemental plane of cold here which is making the area so unnaturally icy. The party sees that the smoothly cut floor before the dragon heads is coated with a thick patch of treacherous ice that would make crossing the area quite difficult.

Nonetheless, they figure they can eventually make their way across, and Invicto carefully steps onto the ice. He is immediately pelted by a dart of ice that shoots out of the mouth of the nearest dragon head carving. He quickly decides to waste no more time on the ice and attempts to rush across the hall. His acrobatic feet are up to the task and he avoids falling on the ice, but the dragon head carvings, which he now notices are offset from each other all along the hall, each take a turn pelting him with an ice dart. He manages to make it past the dragon heads, barely clinging to life, but still in one piece.

Erik now steps up to examine the icy trap more closely. He finds a Scorching Burst spell burns away the ice momentarily, though the elemental magic in the area makes it quickly reform. He figures he could burn away the ice long enough for someone to rush across the area and avoid the chance of falling on their face, but finds no way to avoid the dragon heads’ ice darts. He does see some arcane runes engraved on the floor in front of the dragon heads but has no desire to stand in front of one of the heads and get skewered by ice darts repeatedly while he attempts to decipher the runes.

So, the party decides to just take its chances, and with Erik burning away the ice every few steps, they make their way across the hall. They all get a hefty dose of ice darts, but they do all survive the ordeal. They take a short rest to regain their strength and then continue deeper into the cave complex.

_Part the Third, In which the party’s curiosity leads them into a cave of bats
_
Shortly after leaving the trapped hallway behind, the party comes to a fork. One corridor seems to angle downwards while another stays level. The party argues for a time over which passage to take. Specifically citing the goblin leader’s statement of Grog being “below”, The Zaza feels that any passage going downwards is the best choice, while Erik argues that they’ve been going down for a while now, and they don’t necessarily need to go down even further. The Zaza’s keen ears pick up a skittering sound from the downward sloping passage and no sound from the passage that stays level. Eventually the party agrees to take the downward sloping passage.

The passage quickly expands into a large, rough cavern with stalactites and stalagmites throughout. As the party enters the cavern the skittering sound The Zaza heard ceases. The party sees a few rotting goblin corpses in the middle of the room, and Invicto quickly moves to loot them. As he reaches the middle of the room, a dark shape flies down from the cavern ceiling and attacks him. A huge shadowhunter bat, as large as a man, whizzes by, slashing at Invicto with a long, sword-like tail before flying back up into the dark recesses of the ceiling. The rest of the party rushes into the room, and between their several light sources, they are able to pick out four shadowhunter bats hiding amongst the stalactites on the ceiling.

Battle erupts quickly as Invicto and Erik pelt the bats with magical attacks from afar, and The Zaza and Fargrim wait for the bats to descend to strike before retaliating with their own attacks. The bats prove to be elusive foes, but don’t offer much of a threat. Before long, two bats lie dead on the ground, and the remaining two barely cling to life. They think better of tangling with the party and scurry away to the back of the cavern, hiding amongst the shadows on the ceiling. The party claims the loot from the goblin corpses, which includes some valuable gems but sadly no magical items. Searching the cavern, the party finds no other exits other than some winding chutes and chimneys in the ceiling the party presumes the bats made use of.

_Part the Fourth, In which the party reaches their final destination and Erik is nearly killed by a dragon numerous times
_
They return to the forked passage and continue on, taking the corridor they left unexplored earlier. The corridor eventually expands into a gigantic cavern extending off into the darkness beyond the radius of the party’s light sources. The party’s light does illuminate the skeletal head of what was once a great dragon, now long-dead. They also see that the ceiling above is not stone but thick layers of ice. The party hears rhythmic chanting coming from the back of the cavern. They move through the cave to approach the sound and come across some broken eggs with dragon skeletons inside of them, though they notice one egg is missing a skeleton.

Approaching the back of the cave, the party finds a corridor extending deeper into the rock and head inside. They emerge into a smaller cave that is well lit. Inside they see an undead white dragon standing in the middle of the cave. It is mostly skeletal, though there are some patches of rotting flesh still clinging to the beast. To one side of the cave a goblin hexer, presumably Grog, is in the midst of a ritual. Arcane runes are inscribed in the floor around the corpse of another skeletal dragon. The black Raven Queen statue the party is seeking spins in the air above the dragon corpse. Black tendrils of necrotic energy seep down from the statue into the body of the dragon. As the party enters, Grog looks up from the ritual and the necrotic energy dissipates, though the statue continues spinning in the air. Grog and the zombie white dragon both move to engage the party.






The fight starts out well. Erik summons a Flaming Sphere next to Grog and Fargrim moves to engage him in melee. Before Fargrim arrives, Grog utters a Stinging Hex on the Zaza but fails to affect her. Between Fargrim’s blows and Erik’s Flaming Sphere, Grog is already barely clinging to life. Then the dragon joins the fight and things quickly go south.

The great beast rushes up to the party and lets out a roar of terror which stuns The Zaza and Invicto. Then it breathes out a blast of icy frost that significantly damages The Zaza and immediately drops Erik. Fortunately, Grog is taken down by simply standing next to Erik’s now-stationary Flaming Sphere, and Fargrim moves to engage the dragon. As he does so, he shouts some Inspiring Words to his comrade Erik, who shakes off the cobwebs and comes back to reality. The dragon rakes its claws on Fargrim, but he handles the blow well enough. Erik, now fully conscious, stands up and launches a magic missile at the dragon, missing the beast. He draws on his adventuring reserves to quickly strike again but misses once again.

The Zaza and Invicto, having conquered their fear of the dragon, move to engage. The Zaza approaches the dragon on its right flank, while her three comrades all stand on its left flank. She shouts a Divine Challenge against the beast, daring it to attack her comrades instead of her. The dragon feels its breath weapon replenish and, seeing three nicely packed enemies on one side of it, it dares. The dragon suffers a blast of radiant energy from The Zaza for ignoring her, but is quite satisfied when its icy breath critically strikes Erik and takes him right back down out of the fight again. Fargrim uses the last of his inspiring resources and shouts some encouraging words to Erik to yet again bring him back to the fight. Erik promptly crawls along the floor to get well away from the action.

With Erik a safe distance away, the party starts to make some progress on defeating the dragon. The beast is not out of tricks yet, and it uses its one remaining action point to turn its attention to The Zaza. It breathes a cone of frost at her while tearing at her with both of its claws. Fortunately, The Zaza proves a solid defender as all of the dragon’s attacks are turned away harmlessly. The party leaps to counterattack, pouring on the pain as The Zaza and Fargrim flank the beast to pound at it with their axe and hammer, and Invicto and Erik launch arcane attacks at the beast from afar.

Invicto, having already uttered a curse upon the dragon, truly shines as he delivers two massive blows to the beast. He first launches a Vampiric Embrace that does not critically strike its target but still somehow delivers maximum damage to the dragon. He then sears the dragon with an Eldritch Blast, literally tearing off whatever remaining hunks of flesh that the necrotic beast had left. Thanks to the Gnomish Warlock’s decimating attacks, the tide has finally turned and soon the dragon is defeated as it lets out one last desperate roar before falling to the cave floor.

The party retrieves the obsidian Raven Queen statue and immediately recognizes that it is a powerful magical artifact, not just a historical oddity as Lord Dread described it. They debate for a bit about what to do with this new-found information, considering whether they want to put this powerful magical artifact into Lord Dread’s hands, and whether if they do if they should ask for more money. In the end the party puts those questions aside for future debate as they settle down to take a much needed rest to replenish their strength.


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## hayek (Jan 11, 2011)

*Chapter 2 - Ramshead (s. 4)*

*2.1 A Mystery*

The party makes their way out of the goblin cave complex, with the Raven Queen statue in hand. They debate whether this powerful evil artifact should be handed over to Lord Dread, and consider the possibility that Davos may be more interested in the statue than in information on the Arinfax Colossus. So, they decide to return the statue to Davos and just ask him if he really wants them to hand the statue over to Lord Dread. The party reaches the surface to find their horses have been slaughtered by some wandering beast of the Torin Plains, so they start the long trek home on foot.

_A Charmed Meeting_

Just a day or two into their travels, the party runs into another civilized humanoid out in the wilds of the Torin Plains. Charm, a tiefling blade-for-hire, has been picking up work here and there around the Boundary Lands for several years. She’s often been hired by nobles in the area, and by the Empire of Nerath, to handle… discrete… tasks that require some specialized expertise. Charm has made a comfortable living working independently, but she’s recently begun to grow tired of the lonely freelancer lifestyle. She’s gotten some steady work in Verind’s Edge and has been hanging around the city for some time now. Consequently, she’s had several run-ins with Fargrim, and the two have developed a gruff love-hate relationship.

Most recently, Charm was hired by the Empire to investigate a rash of missing shipments from the Torin Plains. Merchants often venture far out into the Plains to collect valuable unique resources, or to occasionally trade with some of the goblinoid tribes of the plains. Of course, it is quite common for merchant caravans to never return from the Torin Plains, meeting a grizzly fate from the numerous denizens of the untamed wilderness. However, there has recently been a spike in missing shipments, and the Empire has heard rumor that some of the missing caravans may be due to the attacks of organized humans, likely soldiers from the Fiefdom of Uthrin. Charm was sent out into the plains to investigate some of these missing shipments, and she tracked down the remnants of one such caravan. Examining the battle site, she confirmed, to her eye at least, that the attack looked to be perpetrated by trained soldiers with quality weaponry, not the usual brutish assaults of the ill-equipped creatures of the Torin Plains.

Returning from this expedition, Charm came across the party making camp one night, and decided to head back to Verind’s Edge with some company rather than going it alone. Fargrim claimed the rogue was not to be trusted and shouldn’t be allowed in camp, but Charm lived up to her name with respect to the rest of the party, and everyone else took an immediate liking to the tiefling.

_The Statue Causes a Scene_

A couple of nights after Charm has joined the group, Erik is taking his turn at watch when he hears some whispering. He looks about, but quickly realizes the voice is in his own head. The words become clear, “You are superior to the others. Take me and we will escape together. I will bring you so much power…” Erik promptly realizes that he is wasting precious time with this gaggle of buffoons he calls friends, and it would be best if he took the statue and went on his separate way. He attempts to quietly rummage through The Zaza’s pack to retrieve the statue, but the dragonborn’s alert ears waken her before Erik can grab the artifact.

As his friends tackle him, the fog lifts from Erik’s mind and he returns to his senses. The party restrains the wizard and proceeds to question him. He insists he was being influenced by the dark statue to take it and run away, that it whispered into his mind. The party has their doubts about his story and decide it might be best to leave Erik tied up for the remainder of the journey home.

As Erik pleads with the party about the dark whispers he heard, Invicto hears similar whispers. Fortunately, the warlock is able to resist the statue’s dark influence, although, Invicto finds the statue’s suggestions pretty agreeable anyways. He decides to keep his confirmation of Erik’s story to himself, just in case he does decide to run off with the evil artifact later. For now, though, Invicto is enjoying his work with the party, and he decides it isn’t the right time to slaughter them all to further his own dark ambitions. As the party continues their journey back to Verind’s Edge, Erik and Invicto continue to periodically hear whispers in their minds, but now that they are aware of the statue’s influence they find it easy, though a little tiresome, to resist its power.

The party spends some time dodging roving bands of orcs and ogres and scuffles with a couple of goblins and kobolds, but after two weeks of travel, they are eventually able to make it back to Verind’s Edge relatively uneventfully.

The party heads straight to Davos’s tower to report back to him. Davos is pleased to see the party has returned. Since they had been gone for nearly a month, the wizard had started to worry they might never come back. He is immediately intrigued by the statue the party has brought back, confirming that it appears to be a powerful artifact infused with necrotic magic. He restates his concern for obtaining information on the Arinfax Colossus, but agrees that the artifact is worth investigating before handing over to Lord Dread.

The party leaves the artifact in Davos’s hands, and now that the statue is safely far away from the party, they release Erik from his bonds. The party takes in some rest and relaxation after many long weeks on the road, starting with some drinks in their favorite inn where they run into Mujeh, the goliath bard from the Guildhouse of Ellendor. Mujeh fills them in on the happenings in the city and shares a drink with the party. Charm continues to spend time with the party, and late one night, after many drinks, she admits she wants to be part of something more and to have a steady place, and group of friends, to call home. The party is happy to offer her that, and she is officially added as the fifth member of the crew.

Davos calls the party back to his tower a couple of days later. He says he has made limited progress in discovering the statue’s true magical nature, but over the last two days he was attacked by three of his own assistants as well as two acolytes from a nearby temple. All the assailants were under the statue’s magical influence, of course, but the statue’s danger made a quick decision necessary. Davos consulted with the head of the temple whose acolytes were affected by the statue to perform some divination regarding the issue. The priest was assured through his divinations that handing the statue over to Lord Dread was dangerous, but not obtaining information about the Arinfax Colossus was also dangerous. Since it was especially dangerous to even keep the statue in the city for further study, and because Lord Dread has kept to himself for decades out in the Torin Plains, Davos decided it would be best to pay Lord Dread’s price and hand the statue over to him.

_A Dreadful Meeting, Part 2_

The party requisitions some new horses and heads back out into the Torin Plains to the keep of Lord Dread. They make their way through the dense fog surrounding the keep, using the passphrase “Caratus Sinor” to bypass the undead guardians. They enter the keep and find it similarly decorated to their last meeting with Lord Dread – numerous undead servants mill about and twisted screaming faces are frozen in ebony pillars throughout the grand hall.

The party tells Dread they have obtained the statue, but they discovered it was a powerful magical artifact, not a historical oddity. They feel they should be compensated more for obtaining such a valuable item. Lord Dread scoffs at this suggestion, admitting all along there was a very small chance the statue would be magical, and assuring the party that it was simply for that chance that he offered the deal to the party at all. This adds further doubt to Lord Dread’s claim that the party was retrieving an item that was stolen from him, as he did not even know whether the statue was magical or not. Nonetheless, Dread seems very uninterested in renegotiating their deal and he insists the party hand over the statue. The party demands that they get the information about the Arinfax Colossus first. Dread asks to at least see the statue first and the party shows it to him, at which point Lord Dread becomes quite excited… as excited as a dark master of undead minions can be.

Dread hands the party the information he has collected about the Arinfax Colossus. Looking over various scraps of writing and old parchments, a large drawing of the Colossus catches the party’s eye.






“I heard a great knight from your city supposedly slew an ancient dragon that was the Arinfax Colossus. I’m certain the knight was a brave warrior, but I’m afraid he was quite mistaken. The Colossus is no dragon. It is a great creature forged from the elemental chaos of the Abyss by the Titans. Like the Titans, the construct seeks only to destroy the world. The goblinoid races prophesize that the Arinfax Colossus will rise from the earth in the Torin Plains some time in the next few years. It will march through the civilized lands to the east, literally crushing cities beneath its feet. And the goblinoid races will follow in its wake, spreading chaos and death throughout the lands.”

Though it’s no ‘two-headed dragon with one head still remaining’, Fargrim is pleased that his prediction that the Arinfax Colossus had not been dealth with yet was accurate. The party asks Lord Dread if the goblinoid prophecies spoke of how the Colossus could be stopped or destroyed. Unfortunately, Dread assures the party that the goblinoid prophecies are quite optimistic about the Colossus being totally unstoppable. The party also asks Lord Dread if they know how Sir Thalus was misled into thinking the dragon was the Arinfax Colossus. Dread does not know specifically, but he supposes the knight romped through the Torin Plains torturing any goblinoids he came across until one simply invented the idea to placate the knight’s demands. Sir Thalus was then quick to believe that this was his destiny, to slay a great dragon that threatened the safety of all of the civilized lands.

The party also inquires about the additional payment of 200 gold they were to receive upon delivery of the statue. Lord Dread notes that he gave the party 200 gp worth of potions to aid them in retrieving the statue, stating, “If those potions were not used for that purpose, it seems they should be returned to me. However, since I owe you 200 gold, why don’t we simply call it even.” This does not sound like the terms the party had agreed to, but they become acutely aware of the fact that they are surrounded by a host of Lord Dread’s undead minions deep inside his black keep. They decide the 200 gold is not worth arguing over since they have the information they came for and the party agrees to take their leave. Lord Dread assures them it was a pleasure doing business with them and that if they ever need to strike a deal in the future they know where to find him.

_Spending Some Time in the City_

The party brings the information they have gathered on the Arinfax Colossus to Davos who is very interested in the revelations the party has uncovered. He immediately starts studying the writings the party has brought and waves them out of his room. The party reminds Davos of the 2,000 gold pieces he owes them. Davos scrounges around, mentioning that he doesn’t have too much gold on hand. He offers them a magical suit of stanching cloth armor along with 1,320 gold, and the party accepts. The party departs to get in some rest and relaxation once again. With the help of Mujeh’s developing network of contacts, they spend some of their newly-acquired wealth to obtain additional magical arms and armor.

While strolling through a marketplace within the city one day, Erik runs into an old acquaintance, Gregor – a man in the service of Erik’s adoptive father. Gregor is excited to run into Erik and spends some time catching up with him. Gregor has built up some savings over the years and has recently struck out on his own, coming to Verind’s Edge to try and make a living as a merchant. He is using his contacts within Quinalyn to carry out some trade between the elven lands and Verind’s Edge and is doing well for himself so far.

Gregor tells Erik that his adoptive brother, Luwin, has “bought himself a lordship”. Luwin found a debt-ridden noble ruling over a small farming village and was able to buy up the noble’s lands and place himself in charge of the village. Luwin hasn’t been satisfied with ruling over a small farming village, though, and rumors are that he has started venturing into the depths of the Feywild to collect scarce, valuable resources for trade. Gregor tells Erik that, believe it or not, his adoptive father, Varna, feels bad about the way Erik left, and that Varna wishes to extend an open invitation for Erik to come back and visit him at any time. Erik is a little dubious about his adoptive father’s newfound guilt, but considers it a possibility to pay a visit to Varna at some point in the future.

Davos calls the party back to his tower a few days later to update them on his findings. The wizard has looked through the writings the party brought him and is very concerned about the threat the Arinfax Colossus poses, but he did not find any information about how to stop the creature. Davos has spoken with Emperor Essran about the threat, but the Emperor maintains faith that the threat was handled by Sir Thalus. Despite the evidence Davos has collected, the Emperor is certain the Arinfax Colossus has been dealt with. Davos intends to pursue the matter further on his own and plans to travel east to Korindor, the capital of Kasalat (by way of a Teleportation Circle in Thersi). There he will procure more powerful divination services to attempt to discover a way to stop the Arinfax Colossus.

Two situations have recently arisen that command the wizard’s attention, however. Davos will handle one on his way to Korindor, but he needs the party to investigate the other matter for him. Davos doesn’t care which task the party wants to take on, he is happy to handle the one they do not choose.

The first issue concerns strange reports from the small village of Ramshead. The reports are fairly confusing, but Davos has received word that the village has been attacked by strange bands of assorted creatures – a wolf, deer, a bear, a giant beetle, and giant spiders. Davos has no idea why these creatures would be working together, or even why they would be attacking villagers, but the matter certainly needs investigating. 

The second issue is an offer from a minor noble within the Fiefdom of Uthrin to pledge allegiance to Emperor Essran. The noble, Count Meric, has secretly reached out to the Emperor to seek his help in breaking some kind of curse that has been plaguing his family for generations now. The Count offered no specific details on this curse, but assured the Emperor that if he could end the curse on his family Meric would join the Empire of Nerath. The party debates briefly and decides that giant beetles sound more enticing than strange, dark curses, so they head out to the village of Ramshead.

_Ramshead_

After a couple days of travel to the southeast, the party comes across the village of Ramshead as dusk is falling. The village seems to be mostly deserted, though lights are on in a few houses. As the party enters the village they see that some of the houses appear to have been attacked, with doors battered in and windows shattered. The streets have debris and trash scattered throughout. Despite the general state of disrepair, there seems to be some people still in the village. As the party proceeds down the main street the door of one house is slammed shut and curtains are pulled across the windows.






The party heads to the center of the village where there is a large two-story inn, Ramshead Tavern. Charm uses her stealth to quietly enter the structure while the party waits outside in the village square. She finds the inn currently empty, though there are signs that it has been recently inhabited. Looking in the kitchen she finds the back door left open, through which she can see a small girl sitting in the street, crying. Charm approaches the girl and as she gets closer, she can tell that the girl appears to be in shock. The child barely acknowledges Charm’s approach. Charm attempts to console the girl and ask her what has happened. After some coaxing, the girl says her name is Lucinda and she tells Charm that the villagers took her mom away to the lake south of town. Charm takes the girl into the inn and gets her to rest in one of the beds, then the party heads down to the lake.

As they crest a ridge, the party sees a crowd of villagers angrily shouting. There is a small pier built out onto the 'lake', which is really more of a pond. On the pier, a hulking man with dark eyes holds a woman with her hands tied shouting something to the crowd about the gods’ justice. The woman is crying and pleading to the mob of townspeople. Some townsfolk seem to be shouting to throw the woman into the water, while a small minority cries their opposition to the idea.

When the townsfolk see the party cross the ridge, someone calls out “Strangers!” and the villagers immediately switch their attention to them and become very tense. Many men brandish some crudely improvised weapons, others start stepping away from the party. The party calls out that they were sent by the Emperor. This causes a stir amongst the mob and some seem interested in hearing the party out while others still eye the party suspiciously.

Fargrim calls out to let the woman go, and the hulking man responds that they are only delivering the gods’ justice. As the party moves to approach the pond some villagers call out “Don’t trust them!” and “Run back to the village, we can defend ourselves there!” The hulking man tosses the woman into the water as the crowd disperses and the villagers flee into the surrounding woods. Most of the party heads to the pond to rescue the now drowning woman, while Fargrim attempts to tackle the dark-eyed man who tossed the woman off the pier. He gets close enough to lunge at him as he runs around the edge of the pond, but Fargrim misses and the man beats a swift retreat into the dark woods, leaving Fargrim behind.

The woman thanks the party for saving her and, almost in disbelief, asks the party if they really are from the Emperor. She is ecstatic that help may have finally arrived. The party calms her down and asks her what is going on in the village. The woman assures the party that she has done nothing wrong, and that the villagers singled her out as bringing the attacks upon the village simply because she is an unmarried woman with a child. The hulking man leading the mob, Raver, claimed she was a woman of ‘loose morals’, and the gods were punishing the village for her actions.

_Strange Happenings_

The woman, Igris, goes on to explain the history of the attacks. They started some time ago quite unexpectedly. Some villagers went missing in the woods surrounding the village, and when their bodies were found they were missing their heads. A few days later an assortment of creatures simply wandered into the village and attacked some of the townsfolk. The creatures removed the heads of their victims and retreated into the woods. The villagers then organized some defenses and were ready for the creatures when they returned. They were able to fight off the creatures, though a few more villagers were killed in the fight. The creatures again removed the heads of their victims as they fled back into the woods. 

Then, some of the villagers themselves started turning on each other. One woman’s husband attacked her in their home, beheading her and running off into the woods with her severed head. Now, most of the village is holed up in the inn in the middle of town waiting to fend off the next round of attacks and suspicious of anyone or anything that comes into town. No one seems to know why the attacks are occurring, though most villagers believe the gods themselves have forsaken them and damned them for some reason.

The party suggests heading back to the inn to talk with the townsfolk – Fargrim is especially excited about running into Raver again. Igris is not at all interested in putting herself in danger again and would rather leave town, but she admits she must find her daughter before doing anything else, and Charm assures her Lucinda is in the inn. The party heads back into the village and as they start down the street heading towards the inn an odd pack of creatures emerges from the woods and approaches the village. The party turns to face the monsters while Igris flees to the inn.

Two Deathjump Spiders, a Cave Bear, an Ankheg, and a Bullywug Mud Lord move to engage the party. Fargrim, Charm, and The Zaza form a strong front line that engages most of the creatures while Erik and Invicto stand behind them. However, the Bullywug hangs back behind the creatures’ front line and uses his Fiery Croak to launch attacks on Erik and Invicto from afar. Meanwhile, one of the Deathjump Spiders is able to leap behind the party’s front line and it begins chasing Invicto around the back of the battlefield.

Fargrim and Charm may have a love-hate relationship off the battlefield, but in the heat of the fight they work well together, with Fargrim helping to setup Charm for several effective attacks. Fargrim, however, finds that fate is not on his side as he misses time and time again himself. The Ankheg quickly snatches The Zaza in its mandibles and drags her off to the side of the fight, removing her from the battle as it continues to chew on her. The Zaza is able to hack away at the beast while caught in its mandibles, however, and soon the Ankheg is near death. Fargrim runs to The Zaza’s aid and uses a Brash Assault on the Ankheg to make an opening for her to finally deliver the killing blow.

Charm, somehow left behind as the remaining front line of the party, is taken down by the Cave Bear and one of the Deathjump Spiders as Fargrim and The Zaza rush back to the fight. Meanwhile, the Bullywug unleashes a devastating blast with his Fiery Croak, critically striking both Erik and Invicto in one hit. The two magic-users are now both on the brink of death, and one of the Deathjump Spiders continues to harass Invicto. 

Fargrim and The Zaza rejoin the fight just in time. Fargrim shouts an Inspiring Word to Charm to get her back on her feet, and The Zaza engages the spider harassing Invicto while placing herself between the Cave Bear and the rest of the party. Invicto unleashes his vengeance in the form of the Flames of Phlegethos and brings one of the spiders to death’s doorstep. Erik uses his newly acquired Stanching magical armor to quickly stitch his wounds and continues to harass his enemies with his Flaming Sphere. Fargrim misses yet again with a Brash Assault, but his move creates an opening for The Zaza to drop another enemy. The tables seem to have turned and Fargrim finally lands his first hit of the fight on the Cave Bear. Though Charm may be a little worse for wear, and Erik and Invicto look thoroughly singed, the party is able to finish off the strange band of creatures as they stoically, and somewhat surprisingly, fight to the death.


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## B_Ryan (Jan 13, 2011)

hey, just wanted to say i'm enjoying this thread very much! keep'em coming!


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## hayek (Jan 17, 2011)

Thanks for stopping by and posting B_Ryan! Let me know if you have any questions about the game!


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## hayek (Jan 18, 2011)

*Chapter 2 - Ramshead (s. 5)*

*2.2 Mmmm... Brains...*

The party heads back to the inn where they can hear the villagers have regrouped. They burst inside to find Igris dead. Raver stands over her body with a bloody knife in hand, shouting about how “this was necessary”. The party decides they have their own “necessary” murder to undertake now and immediately moves to chop Raver into numerous small bits, led by an exceptionally angry Fargrim. Unfortunately, the villagers aren’t eager for more bloodshed and a mob intervenes between the party and Raver. Rather than chop down innocent villagers to get to Raver, the party puts off their vengeance for now. An older man gets onto a table and commands silence. The villagers seem to defer to him and the party hears a few cries of “let the Elder speak!”. The Elder calls for order and insists that the village cannot lose its sanity in such trying times. He claims he will stand in as the voice of the town while Mayor York is away.

The Elder gives the floor to the party for them to present themselves as representatives of the Emperor. The party confirms that they were indeed sent by the Emperor, and that they are there to help the village. They also insist that Raver has just committed murder and should be punished accordingly. Raver speaks up to defend his actions, again claiming that everyone in the village knows the woman, Igris, was of ‘loose morals’ and it is her actions that have brought this terror upon the village. Through a combination of diplomacy and a little intimidation, the party cows the villagers into accepting their authority to some degree. The Elder will not allow further bloodshed, but he agrees to hold Raver in prison until the Mayor returns to decide what to do with him. The party grudgingly accepts the Elder’s decision, and some burly young villagers escort Raver out of the inn.

The party seeks out the Elder to speak with him about the attacks on the village. His story is very similar to Igris’s, and he is equally clueless as to what is behind the attacks. He surprisingly confirms that the woman Igris was known in the village for offering certain discrete services of… questionable morality. Of course, he doesn’t believe she should have died for her actions, and he assures the party Raver will face justice once the Mayor returns. Apparently, Mayor York left a couple days ago to personally seek out help from Verind’s Edge since no help had yet arrived.

_Late Night Surprise_

With no real leads to pursue, the party decides to get some rest for the night in the inn. They are awakened in the middle of the night from screams below, though. They rush downstairs to the first floor. A woman comes running out of a store room that has been converted into a bedroom to accomodate all of the villagers staying in the inn. She is initially somewhat incoherent, screaming in terror, but the party eventually gets out of her that some kind of worm was attacking her husband in the store room. The party enters and finds the woman’s husband in a groggy, dazed state of mind, but no creatures seem to be threatening him. They calm the woman down further and ask her to tell them what happened.

“I woke up and saw some kind of worm crawling into my husband’s ear. He looked awake, but he was totally unaware of what was going on. I managed to knock the worm off of his head onto the table next to him, where I put a mason jar over it.”

As Erik’s curiosity is peaked at the chance to inspect this strange worm creature, Fargrim promptly turns around and smashes the mason jar on the table in the store room. He then kindly offers the squished, flattened worm goo on the end of his warhammer for Erik and the party to inspect.

Surprisingly, the rest of the party doesn’t make much of it, but Fargrim himself actually recognizes the creature from its mutilated remnants. The creature looks like a small worm, but with a massive flayer of numerous tiny, thin tentacles protruding from its mouth. Fargrim’s dwarven heritage brought him into contact with many creatures of the Underdark that dwell in the caves beneath the world. Drawing on his knowledge of Dungeoneering, Fargrim actually recognizes the worm as the brood of a Tentacle Flayer. A distant cousin of a Mind Flayer, Tentacle Flayers are somewhat intelligent worms that have mind-controlling powers. A Tentacle Flayer can birth numerous small Brain Worms to spread out and look for subjects to dominate in the area. Tentacle Flayers are more animalistic than Mind Flayers, having no grand ambitions for power, and not forming societies. The worms dominate innocent subjects to simply put them to work scrounging up food for their masters. Fargrim recalls that the Tentacle Flayer’s food of choice… is brains.






_Brain Bait
_
The rash of beheadings suddenly makes sense to the party and they are pleased to at least know what they are dealing with. Unfortunately, they are not sure how to track down the Tentacle Flayer responsible for the attacks. They debate some ideas and settle on creating a “brain bait” trap. They requisition some hunters from the village and in the early morning hours head out to hunt down a wild animal to use. The hunters take down a boar and the party removes the animal’s head.

They trek a few hours south of the village and place the head in an open field, with the neck side up so the brainy scents can waft up into the air. The party hides in a nearby treeline and waits. Unfortunately, a full day passes without event and by the next morning the head is starting to turn a little gamy. The party doesn’t give up on their plan yet, and thankfully around mid-afternoon a lone wolf approaches the head, gives it a sniff, and picks it up in its jaws. The wolf lopes away to the south, and the party quickly follows. They debate their concerns that this wolf is not under the control of a Brain Worm, and may just be a hungry wolf. Nonetheless, they stick to the plan, and as the wolf continues to travel for several hours without taking a bite out of the head, they are confident that the wolf is headed to the lair of the Tentacle Flayer.

The wolf eventually leaves the forested area around Ramshead and begins to enter the rocky plains that comprise the Dwarven Ruins south of the Boundary Lands. The party spies a large pile of severed heads. The wolf drops the boar’s head onto the pile, then turns to head back to the north. The party moves to the side and hides amongst some rocks as the wolf passes. They peak out at the pile of heads again, waiting for movement. After some time, they see a Tentacle Flayer burrow up out of the rock itself by the pile of severed heads. Its long tentacles reach out and pick up one of the heads from the pile, bringing it to its mouth. It slurps out the brains, tosses the head aside, and picks up another severed head with its tentacles.

_Tentacles of Despair – Reach Out and Touch Someone
_
The party has seen enough, and they move to engage the beast. It turns at their approach and quickly meets them in battle. As the party begins to move into position to attack the Tentacle Flayer, they realize the creature is not alone. Another Tentacle Flayer burrows out of the ground, along with several large Brain Worms which begin dazing the party with psychic blasts of mental energy. Last, but certainly not least, the party discovers that the two Tentacle Flayers they are facing are actually younger broodlings. The clear mother of the brood burrows out of the ground, dwarfing the other Tentacle Flayers at twice their size.

The party discovers the fully grown, adult Tentacle Flayer does not need a Brain Worm burrowed into someone’s head to control them, as it simply reaches out with its Tentacles of Despair and delivers a psychic attack to The Zaza, dominating her and commanding her to turn and strike Invicto. Fortunately, The Zaza quickly shakes off the dominating effect and begins hacking away at the adult Tentacle Flayer. Erik begins clearing out the small Brain Worms by rolling his Flaming Sphere around the battle field. Despite being caught by surprise at the number of combatants, fate seems to be on the party’s side and they make short work of the Tentacle Flayers and Brain Worms.

The party returns to the village of Ramshead triumphant, assuring the villagers that their problems have been taken care of. Unfortunately, the party learns that while they were hunting down the Tentacle Flayers, Raver escaped from prison and fled the village. Nonetheless, the party tries not to let the news dampen their spirits, as Ramshead has been freed from the terrible threat of the Tentacle Flayers. The village plans a grand celebration, and the party stays the night to partake in drink and revelry with the villagers. Invicto finds a buxom young farm girl who is able to see past his Gnomish features to the true adventuring hero within (thanks to numerous cups of mead, of course).

_A Look Into the Future
_
The next day the party leaves the village of Ramshead to return to Verind’s Edge. Expecting an uneventful journey, they are surprised to spy massive discharges of arcane energy in the distance. They proceed to investigate, though it takes them a couple of hours to reach the source of the displays of magical power.

They find the remnants of a strange, gruesome battle scene. A massive armored carriage is tipped over and ripped open. The carcasses of many small imps and devils lay splayed about the field, winged beasts with foot-long, narrow claws protruding from the ends of their scaly fingers. Most notably, a giant winged devil lies slain in the middle of the battlefield, its face contorted in a scream that displays massive black fangs. Invicto promptly climbs atop the beast and pries out its two long canine teeth, believing them to be a valuable find. The party also finds the bodies of what appear to be three angelic-like creatures surrounding the carriage, regal winged humanoids with glassy eyes and silvery skin. Amidst the carnage are also the bodies of several armored eladrin, most of which appear to have been literally ripped to pieces by the devils. The eladrin appear to have been armed, though some of their weapons and armor have been removed.

The party hears screams from some distance away and decides there may still be survivors from the battle. They head in the direction of the screams and find that someone else has apparently beat them to the remnants of the battle. A band of orcs has collected some loot from the battlefield and is now tormenting what appears to be the sole survivor, a defenseless humanoid woman. The orcs have brought her to a nearby river to “clean her up” and are toying with her and abusing her.






The party quickly moves to give the creatures someone their own size to pick on. An Orc Witch Doctor utters a curse upon Erik and Invicto to strike them blind, though they are eventually able to shake off the effects. Meanwhile, The Zaza and Fargrim engage two Orc Berserkers while two Orc Crescent Hurlers use their chained axes to strike the warriors from afar. The Hurlers use their weapons to pull The Zaza and Fargrim into the river, sweeping their feet out from under them. An annoying tactic, but one The Zaza and Fargrim are eventually able to overcome by pounding their foes into obilivion.

After the battle, the party recovers the loot the orcs had plucked from the battlefield, including several magical items, and tends to the humanoid woman. They now notice that the woman appears similar to the angelic creatures the party saw on the battlefield, with silvery skin and elongated features. They do not see her eyes, however, as she keeps them closed. In fact, she asks the party to retrieve an embroidered cloth for her to wrap around her eyes, to be sure they remain closed. She thanks the party for saving her life and introduces herself as Missyus. She explains that she is an avatar of the god Ioun, god of knowledge, skill, and prophecy. Erik pieces together that, as an avatar of Ioun, she is likely a seer of some sort. She admits that she is a ‘True Seer’, blessed with the power of foresight. In return for saving her life, she offers to provide each party member with a vision of their future.

Missyus explains that anything she lays eyes on provides her with a vision of the future. In broad daylight, she sees so much that she is simply bombarded with visions and her senses are overloaded, thus she must travel with the blindfold. Once the party makes camp at night, she sets up a single candle inside a tent so that she can be wrapped in relative darkness. She asks each party member to enter the tent, one at a time, so that she can open her eyes for a brief moment and gaze upon them to capture a vision of their future. Missyus’s visions are often cryptic, and she does not always understand the context of what she sees as she puts it into words. Nonetheless, she assures the party that her visions will be important to their future, and may even save their lives. She also insists that the visions cannot be shared with others until they come to pass. Revealing the information to others may taint the future and make the vision meaningless.

Each party member enters the tent alone and receives a prophecy of their future…

*Fargrim *- 371-529-144
*Invicto Fizzleflame* - ...
*Erik *- If you pay the Queen’s price, she will tell you of your true parents
*The Zaza *- Drink from the mouth of the Silver Dragon and you will learn of your brother’s fate
*Charm *- The key to your prison will be in the lock


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## B_Ryan (Jan 20, 2011)

lol. love the pithy section titles! why did one character not get their fortune told? did a player just miss the session?


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## hayek (Jan 21, 2011)

B_Ryan said:


> lol. love the pithy section titles! why did one character not get their fortune told? did a player just miss the session?




No, the game is ahead of the story hour - I only posted the fortunes that have come to pass already. Invicto has a fortune, but I can't reveal it to the other players yet.

Glad you enjoyed the titles! I can't help myself when I see an opportunity for cheesy puns...


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## hayek (Jan 25, 2011)

*Chapter 3 - Calipha (s. 6)*

*3.1 Into the Feywild
*
The party makes their way safely back to Verind’s Edge, where Missyus thanks the party again for their help and departs for a temple within the city to arrange transport for herself. Word begins to spread throughout the city of the party’s exploits in saving the village of Ramshead, and the party’s popularity grows. They are now regularly recognized in the streets and strangers seem to know their names. Thanks to their growing popularity, Emperor Essran invites them to attend a dinner party he is throwing for visiting nobles and merchants. The party cleans themselves up a bit and attends the fancy bash at the Emperor’s palace.

_Erik’s Infamous Exploits
_
The party enjoys themselves at the dinner party, partaking in the free mead, wine, and food with reckless abandon. They run into Mujeh, the Goliath bard, at the party who updates them on a task they had given him. He followed up with sages in the city of Arastur in Quinalyn about the Arinfax Colossus. The sages could find very little in their libraries, but did pass along one reference to the legendary creature they found in a centuries old text:
_...relations and trade between humans and dwarves improving after the dwarves helped the humans construct a huge magical machine to defend against the attack of the ‘Arinfax Colossus’._​The scrap of information doesn’t offer much, but it does suggest that there may be a means to defend against the elemental titan that is supposedly destined to crush the civilized lands, so the party takes it as good news. They continue to enjoy the party and Emperor Essran and Queen Larindra begin making their rounds amongst the dinner guests. Just as at the celebratory dinner the party attended some time ago, the party gets the sense that there is little love between the Emperor and the Queen, as they keep their distance from one another throughout the night.

Later in the night Charm is approached by a bald, dark-skinned man in fine dress. He introduces himself as Hak’apoor, a merchant of the House of Indixis from the Jeweled Cities. He mentions that he has heard of the party’s exploits and offers that the party could find well-paying work if they ever wished to visit the Jeweled Cities. Charm asks what kind of work he is referring to. Hak’apoor responds, “I cannot offer the pomp and circumstance of working for an Emperor. Working for the merchant houses of the Jeweled Cities often involves more discrete work, though I assure you the pay is much better… I know it is a far journey, but if you are ever inclined to make it, please, do keep me in mind.” The Jeweled Cities are a good distance from the Boundary Lands, lying along the coast and islands southwest of the forest nation of Quinalyn. The party has no plans to visit anytime soon, but they do file it away as a possible future destination.

The hours tick by, and the party continues to enjoy themselves. Eventually the Emperor and Queen retire from the party, but shortly afterwards a messenger approaches Erik to inform him that he is summoned by Queen Larindra. He proceeds with the messenger up to the royal apartments where he enters what appears to be the Queen’s royal bedchambers. After the messenger departs, Queen Larindra emerges from an adjoining room and greets Erik. She is still garbed in the fine dress she attended the dinner party in, but she has let her hair down and holds a goblet of wine. All in all, she seemes to be making herself quite… comfortable.

Queen Larindra sizes up Erik and speaks, “I did some checking up on my husband’s new team of gifted adventurers, and I became particularly interested in you. You were raised by an elven merchant in Quinalyn, no?”

Erik nods.

“And you’re father was a man named Varna?”

“Yes,” Erik confirms.

“Oh, how deliciously ironic! What were you told of your birth parents?”

Erik is quite confused, but answers the Queen’s questions. “Just that they died when I was very young and I was left in an orphanage.”

“Oh, my dear Erik. I’m afraid there is much more to the story of your birth. I would tell you what I know, but I hesitate to share secrets with someone that I do not know well… Perhaps if we… get to know each other better, became closer… I could feel comfortable telling you what I know. The Emperor and I do not get along well. He sees our marriage only as a political tool. I think he has forgotten that I am still a woman, and I am a very lonely one at that. I long for some companionship…” The Queen’s attempt at seduction continues and Erik is reminded of the prophecy he received from Missyus,
_If you pay the Queen’s price, she will tell you of your true parents…_​Although a bit older, the Queen is still an attractive woman, and Erik doesn’t feel it’s too high a price to pay to learn of his birth parents. He acquiesces to Larindra’s advances and shares her bed for a time. Afterwards, the Queen holds true to her end of the bargain and tells Erik of his true parents.

_The True Story of Erik’s Birth
_
“When I was a young woman in Thersi, your mother was one of my dearest friends. She was a noble woman, Milicin. Your father, Varna, expanded his business into the Boundary Lands and began doing some trading in Thersi. Though he was already married, while in Thersi, he met Milicin, fell in love with her, and had an affair. Milicin became pregnant, though she was only 16 at the time. Unfortunately, she had already been pledged to marry into another royal family on her 18th birthday. Her family was, needless to say, quite upset at the situation. Varna offered to take Milicin back to Quinalyn to bear the bastard child, and then take it into his family. Though Milicin’s absence would be somewhat suspicious, the family accepted it as the best alternative and Milicin returned to Quinalyn with Varna.”

At this point, Erik grows somewhat confused, as he knows full well that he is not half-elven, and that Varna is only his adoptive father.

“When you were born, Varna was quite surprised to find that you were entirely human. Apparently, Milicin had had more than one affair. Varna was astonished, betrayed, and ashamed, but he felt he should not take out his rage on you. He kept his promise and took you into his family to raise. Unfortunately, Milicin refused to tell me who your father was, though I begged her to reveal the identity of her other affairs. So, I’m afraid I cannot tell you who your true father is. I can tell you that your mother, Milicin, was married on her 18th birthday as planned – to Sir Uthrin.”

Erik is quite taken aback at these revelations. He is especially creeped out that the notorious Sir Uthrin is apparently his step-father, but is glad to know the identity of his birth mother. He is unsure how much his adoptive mother, Varna’s wife, knows of the story, but he suspects she knows a good deal. It would certainly explain her thinly veiled hatred of him, if he were a constant reminder of her husband’s infidelity. Erik awkwardly thanks the Queen for her… time… and for sharing what she knows of his parents, and he takes his leave.

He rejoins the dinner party to find Fargrim standing on a table leading the remaining patrons in a round of dwarven drinking songs. The Zaza and Charm are joining in heartily, while Invicto is trying to catch the eye of some of the serving maids. Erik thinks about telling his friends what has just happened, but finds himself wracked with a wave of emotions, including guilt. He was starting to see the Emperor as somewhat of a father figure, and has now shattered that image quite thoroughly. He’s not sure what to make of his strange new-found connection to Sir Uthrin, or whether he should try to seek out his birth mother. In the end, he decides to keep this incident to himself for now as he sorts things out in his mind.

_The Fabled City of Calipha
_
A few days later, Davos returns from his expedition to Korindor and summons the party to his tower. His trip was productive. Though he did not discover much about the Arinfax Colossus specifically, through some powerful, and expensive, divinations, he found that there is a living person that knows of a way to defend against the Arinfax Colossus, and that person is in the fabled city of Calipha. Erik recalls hearing of the city of Calipha in his arcane trainings. Residing in the Feywild, the city exhibits the magical property of ‘traveling’. It is not actually in any specific location, though anyone who enters the Feywild and truly seeks Calipha will find it appear before them. As legend puts it “If you truly want to find it, it will come to you…” Davos asks the party to venture into the Feywild to reach the city of Calipha and to locate this person who knows of a way to defend against the Arinfax Colossus.

Fargrim is immediately disgusted at the suggestion that the party should venture into the Feywild. He insists it is a place of illusion and trickery that robs people of their sanity. Plus, it’s filled with elves and fairies, and no one needs that. The Zaza, on the other hand, is excited about the chance to visit the Feywild. She has always imagined it would offer a glimpse into the very essence of the natural world, and visiting it would be a spiritual experience that would bring her closer to Melora. Invicto is excited about meeting pixies that might actually make him look tall for once, and Charm and Erik are actually concerned with saving the civilized lands from destruction by learning more about the Arinfax Colossus. The party argues with Fargrim for a while, and after Davos mentions an additional sum of ‘hazard pay’, the dwarf agrees to make the journey.

The adventurers know the most direct way to reach the Feywild is to travel into the northwest reaches of the forest kingdom of Quinalyn (which is actually southwest of the party’s current location in the Boundary Lands). The depths of the forests that border the Torin Plains there are known to meld into the Feywild. So, the party requisitions a fresh set of horses and makes the two week journey to the forests of Quinalyn. After a few days of traveling deep into the forests, the natural landscape begins to change and evolve, becoming more wild and untamed. Trees reach gargantuan heights and stand upon massive roots protruding from the earth that the party must literally climb over and around. The party sees strange species of plants and insects that they never imagined could have existed. Soft sunlight drifts down through the canopy of trees above and the world is charged with magical energy that seems to drift through the air in motes. Eventually, the party breaks through a treeline and looks down upon a lake with a glistening city resting in its center. The party somehow knows that they have just discovered the city of Calipha.






_A Warm Welcome
_
The party sees a small pier on the edge of the lake with a boat waiting. They approach the pier and see a strange boatman waiting silently in the small watercraft. The Zaza recognizes the creature as a Black Woods Dryad, a fey creature that is said to be made of tree branches and plants. Unlike more humanoid dryads, which legend often portrays as seductive creatures that manipulate innocent people they may come across, the Black Woods Dryad is known for simply being a stoic and brutish defender of the natural world.






The creature has no mouth that the party can see and does not speak in response to questions. It does nod when asked if this is the boat to the city of Calipha, so the party shrugs and hops in. The boat itself appears to be made of a living tree shaped into a boat. The exterior is coated in a layer of bark and here and there a few small branches extend out from the boat and are sprouting healthy green leaves. Fargrim insists that the rest of the party board the boat first and only when he is happy that they still have their wits about them does he reluctantly step on himself. Once all of the party is on board, the dryad shoves off and steers the boat to the city of Calipha.

A garishly dressed satyr is waiting for the party on the docks of the city and he shouts welcome to the party, “Welcome to the city of Calipha! You have found a true paradise!” As the party disembarks, the satyr greets them all, “I am Donenly, and I will ensure that your every desire is attended to while you are in our fair city!” Several nymphs approach the party, offering them goblets of wine. Fargrim eyes the wine suspiciously and declines, though the rest of the party imbibes happily.

Donenly continues, “If you need anything, do not hesitate to reach out to me. I will show you to the Inn Calipha where rooms will be arranged for you.” The party is pleasantly surprised by the city thus far, but inquire to Donenly what the cost is to stay in the inn and have every desire satisfied. Donenly assures the party that none of the guests of the city of Calipha pay for any goods or services. The city exists purely to please them. He tells the party the city is powered by a magical fey spirit that maintains it and gives it life. He is the representative of the spirit and the administrator of the city. Donenly goes on to assure the party that the city of Calipha is a paradise in the Feywild that truly exists to cater to the whims of its visitors. The party sees a few inhabitants as they move through the streets – a few groups of humanoids, including elves, eladrin, humans, and a few gnomes, are gathered on street corners drinking wine and singing songs. For a city of its size, however, there seems to be very few people out and about in the middle of the day. The party notes that most of the buildings seem to be made of living wood, similar to the boat they traveled in.

The party mentions to Donenly that they are in the city for a specific purpose – they are seeking someone with knowledge of the Arinfax Colossus. Donenly knows nothing of the Arinfax Colossus himself, but he assures the party there are many inhabitants within the city the party can feel free to speak with. Charm offers that they just want to gather the information they seek and then be on their way, to which Donenly insists that they at least spend a few days taking in the beauty and pleasures of the city of Calipha. Knowing there must be a catch to this ‘eternal paradise’, Fargrim grumbles that they must be trapped here and will never be able to escape.

_The Inn Calipha
_
The party reaches the Inn Calipha, a massive structure near the center of the city. The doors stand open, letting sunlight into the enormous common room of the inn, and the party sees where all of the city’s inhabitants are. The inn is a giant celebration, packed from wall to wall with revelers drinking, dancing, and singing. A few patrons are locked in amorous embraces in the middle of the inn, and the party actually spots a few obviously pregnant women partaking in the festivities. Scantily clad nymphs drift throughout the inn with trays of drink and food to offer to patrons.

Donenly leads the party into the inn, but Fargrim insists that he is not entering the inn, worried that by means of some kind of fey magic he will not be able to leave the den of hedonism if he enters it. The rest of the party does not share his concern and is content to leave the dwarf on the steps. They proceed into the inn and Donenly takes them through a side door where another satyr waits behind a counter. The satyr introduces himself as Karic, and says he will set the party up with rooms in the inn. Donenly takes his leave, assuring the party they are in good hands with Karic and reminding them to not hesitate to ask him or anyone else if they need anything at all.

Karic leads the party up a set of stairs into the higher levels of the inn, and the party gets the distinct feeling that the inn is larger on the inside than it appears on the outside as they pass hall after hall of rooms. Karic leads each party member to their own individual room which is richly adorned with an enormous palatial bed, a personal bath, a wardrobe, and other fine accoutrements. After getting settled, Erik, Charm, The Zaza, and Invicto gather to plan what to do next.

Meanwhile, as Fargrim rests on the steps of the inn below, a group of revelers approaches him and asks if he wants to share a drink. Fargrim scoffs at their wine and insists he only drinks dwarven mead. One of the revelers insists that the inn has some excellent dwarven mead on tap and summons a serving nymph over. Fargrim can’t pass up a chance at some dwarven mead and grabs a cup. He finds it’s actually some of the best brew he’s ever had and implores the group to join him in belting out some dwarven drinking songs, and they happily oblige.

_“I’ve been here since I got up this morning!”
_
The rest of the party decides that based on the scrap of information they received from Mujeh (which mentioned dwarves helping humans to build a magical machine to defend against the Arinfax Colossus), they should seek out any dwarves staying at the inn, as they didn’t see many in the city thus far. They head downstairs and follow up with Karic. The satyr informs the party that there are two or three dwarves staying at the Inn Calipha and points out one currently drinking in the common room. The party members approach the dwarf and introduce themselves. The dwarf offers them to join him for a drink, introducing himself as Yirken. The party accepts, but seeing Fargrim still sitting on the front steps of the inn, asks if Yirken will join them out front to meet their dwarven companion. Yirken jumps at the chance to meet another dwarf and share a mug of mead, and he heads outside with the party to meet Fargrim.

The party tries to get to know Yirken, but he seems more interested in talking about the finer points of dwarven mead. They ask if he knows anything of the Arinfax Colossus, and he unfortunately knows nothing of the creature. They ask how long he has been here, to which he responds, “I’ve been here since I got up this morning! Woke up, and came down and started drinking!” The party rephrases the question, asking how long he has been in the city of Calipha. Yirken seems confused by the question, shrugs, and attempts to change the topic. The party presses Yirken on the question, and after thinking about it for a while he estimates he’s been in the city for something like 10 years. The party asks Yirken if he’s ever tried to leave, to which Yirken responds, “Why would I ever want to leave? Endless drink and food! No more work or worries! And have you seen some of those nymphs in the inn? They’re a frisky lot!”

The party asks Yirken where he’s from, and what brought him to the city of Calipha. Yirken has to think very long and hard to remember the answer to these questions, but he does eventually sort through the cobwebs in his brain, exclaiming, “The Red Hand Hold! I was part of the Red Hand Hold!” The party looks to Fargrim, but he does not recognize this dwarven clan at all. Yirken tries to recall what brought him to the city of Calipha, and spies someone in the inn that jars his memory. Another dwarf is just walking into the common room of the inn, and Yirken points to him, exclaiming, “He brought me here! My old friend, Jarrob! We both worked as smithies in the Red Hand Hold, and when we were ready to retire he convinced me to go looking for this ‘mystical, paradise city’ in the Feywild. I thought he was crazy, but here we are!”

Yirken waves Jarrob over, and he joins the group, a cup of mead in hand. The party introduces themselves, and begins pressing Jarrob with questions. They ask Jarrob how long he has been here, to which he responds, “I’ve been here since I got up this morning! Woke up, and came down and started drinking!” The party rolls their eyes collectively and rephrases the question, asking how long he has been in the city of Calipha. Jarrob seems to struggle as Yirken did with questions about his past, but he eventually offers a similar story, recalling being a member of the Red Hand Hold.

_Mission Accomplished
_
When the party ask Jarrob why he came to the city, the dwarf mentions hearing of the city from an eladrin wizard while working on constructing a massive magical machine in the Boundary Lands. Jackpot! The party presses Jarrob on his work on this machine, which he describes as an ‘energy array’, and Jarrob confirms that it was constructed to defend against a massive elemental construct called the Arinfax Colossus. The party asks Jarrob to share all of his stories from working on this machine, and he is initially reluctant to rehash the past. Fargrim insists that from one dwarf to another he needs to hear of the great smithing work Jarrob did on this unique machine over a few cups of mead, and Jarrob gives in and agrees to spend the afternoon telling stories. He heads into the inn to grab a seat at a table, and Fargrim hesitates to enter the inn. Jarrob grows indignant, asking what kind of dwarf would want to stand out in the sunshine all day, and Fargrim finally agrees to enter the inn.

The party plies Jarrob for all the information they can, and makes some interesting discoveries. Most notably, while speaking with Jarrob, the dwarf eventually mentions that the Red Hand Hold is part of the dwarven nation of Arnathon, which is quite disconcerting. Arnathon was a dwarven nation, but it dissolved roughly 1,000 years ago. Where it once stood between the Boundary Lands and Quinalyn, there are now only the Dwarven Ruins. Fargrim grumbles again about how he believes the party is trapped in the city and, due to some devious fey magic, time is passing slowly here while years tick by on the outside. Nonetheless, the party presses Jarrob to tell them what he knows of the Arinfax Colossus, even if his information is thousands of years old.

Jarrob recalls some details of the origin of the Arinfax Colossus. Being a powerful elemental titan, it was almost impossible to destroy. So, during the war with the gods, the creature was trapped in a prison deep beneath the earth. Some time ago, an Ogre Mage was able to plant some kind of magical spike into the Arinfax Colossus’s prison. It did not fully free the creature, but the Colossus was able to project itself out of the prison while its soul was still trapped inside. The Energy Array was constructed to destroy the manifestation of the Colossus, but this only banishes the creature back to its prison. Over time, the Colossus regains strength and is eventually able to project itself out of its prison once again. Thus, the goblinoid races developed a prophecy predicting the creature’s return. Jarrob mentions that all of this is no longer a concern, though, because a troop of famous heros was sent to remove the spike from the Colossus’s prison so that it could never escape again. The party supposes that this band of heroes was none too successful.

Jarrob also mentions that the Energy Array is very difficult to operate. It has a very complicated targeting system that must be calibrated to account for the ‘elemental harmonics’ of the Colossus’s defensive magical energies. Jarrob recalls some fairly accurate directions to the Energy Array. It is located in a watchtower in the mountains north of Verind’s Edge, just a few days travel from the city.

_Trapped
_
Having gathered the information they came for, the party decides to investigate leaving the city, convinced that there will be some catch to this paradise and that they will have trouble getting out. They head back to the docks and pass an odd sight on the way – they see a halfling on the roof of a building with some kind of enormous spy glass set up through which he is gazing into the landscape around the city. The party initially doesn’t stop to investigate, but once they reach the docks they find several unattended boats. They decide they have time for a quick trip back to investigate the spy glass user they saw.

They return to the building they saw him on, but he has apparently gone. They head into the building and up to the roof, but don’t see him. While on the roof, however, they hear a woman screaming and look over the edge of the roof to see a pregnant woman that appears to be in labor being escorted by a pair of nymphs. They take her into a building down the street labeled ‘Nursery’ and eventually the screaming ceases. The party heads into the building to investigate and find it generally uninhabited with a few dusty, unused cribs and no sign of the woman who entered. In the basement of the building, however, they find a large set of solid wooden doors, which they assume the nymphs took the woman through. They try to open or unlock the doors, but find them to be impenetrable.

Deciding there is clearly something creepy going on in this city, the party head back to the docks to quickly take their leave. They hop into one of the unattended boats and shove off, heading for the shore of the lake. This seems all too easy, and they quickly discover that it is. A fog seems to cloud their minds and they suddenly simply awaken in their beds back at the Inn Calipha (Fargrim appears to now have a room of his own).

The party heads downstairs and finds the common room once again packed with revelers. Fargrim is immediately tired of, and angry with, these devious Feywild games, which he knew all along were coming. He simply hops onto the bar in the common room, takes out his warhammer and begins smashing things yelling for Donenly. The patrons move away from this violent display and file out into the street to continue their merry-making. Donenly soon arrives to speak with the party. They demand to leave the island and threaten violence if they cannot. Donenly sees the party is quite serious and foregoes convincing them to simply enjoy all that Calipha has to offer. He informs the party that the fey spirit that powers the city is akin to the essence of childhood innocence – generally happy and carefree, but easily turned spiteful if rejected or ignored. He tells the party that the city of Calipha is a paradise that no one can leave, and the fey spirit that controls the city will brook no exceptions.

The party demand to have their own audience with the spirit, confident they can convince it to make an exception. Donenly assures the party that the spirit will only speak to him and will not grant them an audience, but because he does not want further violence, he agrees to at least ask the spirit if it will meet with the party. The party insists that he go to speak with the spirit right away, and he promises to do so. He asks that in return the party act peacefully until he comes back with an answer from the spirit. The party agree and Donenly leaves the inn. Charm immediately follows stealthily at a distance. She sees a large, well-armed centaur, possibly a bodyguard, join Donenly as he proceeds through the streets of the city. The pair heads into the Nursery building the party entered last night. Charm follows them in, but by the time she enters the building they seem to have disappeared through the large impenetrable doors in the basement.

Charm exits the Nursery and notices the halfling the party saw yesterday once again on the roof of a building peering through a spy glass. She immediately heads up to the roof to investigate. The halfling is caught by surprise at her approach and seems very nervous. Charm innocently asks what the halfling is looking at. He offers that he was just looking at some of the natural landscapes around the city, and immediately begins packing up his spy glass to leave. Charm notes that he doesn’t seem to be partaking in the revelry like the other visitors in the city. The halfling abashedly mentions that wine is not his drink of choice and that he should be going. Charm steps in between the halfling and the stairs heading down from the roof and quickly introduces herself, then asking for the halfling’s name. The halfling says his name is Lock and Charm is reminded of the prophecy she received from Missyus,
_The key to your prison will be in the lock._​Thinking she may have found a way out of Calipha, she drops any pretenses and insists that she and her friends are looking to leave the city and wants to know if Lock can help them. Lock is initially hesitant to talk about such things, mentioning that “the spirit has eyes and ears everywhere”, but eventually he admits that he wants nothing more than to escape Calipha. He is willing to take a chance on trusting the party if they can get him out of the city. Lock tells Charm that he has been trapped in the city for probably six or seven years and in that time he has noticed that Donenly actually leaves the city on occasion. He has seen him travel through an illusionary waterfall in the northwest corner of the lake. However, Lock has tried leaving himself and was unable to do so. He has noticed a magical talisman that Donenly always wears and believes that it is necessary to leave the city. If the party can retrieve the talisman from Donenly, they could head through the waterfall and escape Calipha.

_Breaking Out
_
Charm brings Lock back to the Inn Calipha, introduces him to the party, and updates them on the possible means of exiting the city. Just then Karic approaches the party to tell them that Donenly has sent a message, “The spirit is willing to meet with you. Meet in the Grand Hall within the inn at 7 o’clock.” The party bides their time until 7 o’clock then procedes to the Grand Hall. They enter to find a palatial banquet hall, with a large dinner table set with a variety of food and drink. Two broad, curving sets of stairs on either side of the room lead up to join in a second floor balcony overlooking the banquet hall. Donenly stands on the balcony, with his centaur bodyguard nearby. Three Black Woods Dryads linger near the top of the stairs. The long dinner table has one conspicuous addition – a large, black cauldron sits in the middle of the table with a strange, foul-smelling dark liquid bubbling inside.

Donenly speaks to the party, “I’m afraid the spirit refused to meet with you. It offers you two options. First, you can drink the concoction in this cauldron. It will help you forget your past lives and the time before you came to Calipha, so that you can stay in the city and live happily.” Before even hearing the second option, Fargrim rushes up to the dinner table and kicks the cauldron over, spilling its contents out onto the floor. Donenly says, “That’s a shame. Your other option was to die…”

Battle breaks out. Fargrim and The Zaza begin ascending the stairs where they run into the Black Woods Dryads. The creatures do not offer the most formidable attacks, but the roots and branches that the dryads are made of reach out and coil around the feet of any nearby enemies, holding them in place. The Zaza and Fargrim are caught next to the creatures and begin hacking away at them. Charm takes a bolder approach – she leaps onto the dinner table and launches herself up to the second floor balcony, catching the railing and hoisting herself over it to stand in front of Donenly and the centaur. The centaur moves off to the side of the balcony and begins raining arrows down upon the party members. The creature is very impressive in battle. It is able to unleash rapid fire shots at multiple members of the party with deadly accuracy. Donenly readies his own bow and begins firing at Charm. In short order, the rogue is near death and has to leap back over the balcony railing to safety.

With the dryads rooting party members in place, Donenly and the centaur are able to stand back and continue raining arrows down upon the party. Erik quickly conjures a flaming sphere behind enemy lines and begins harassing Donenly with it, but the satyr is still able to dish out a lot of pain. The party suffers a number of wounds and over the course of the battle multiple party members fall to the ground. The party drains all of their healing resources reviving one another and are just barely able to pull off a victory.

They quickly yank the magical talisman from Donenly’s neck, grab Lock, and head to the docks. The halfling’s predictions hold true, and the party is able to paddle through the waterfall in the northwest corner of the lake and escape from the city of Calipha. They emerge to find their horses have been slaughtered by some wandering creatures of the Feywild.


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## hayek (Jan 27, 2011)

Must give credit to chris heard's AP podcast, Icosahedrophilia, for that last session-  totally lifted the 'hotel california' idea from him


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## Rune (Jan 27, 2011)

hayek said:


> Must give credit to chris heard's AP podcast, Icosahedrophilia, for that last session-  totally lifted the 'hotel california' idea from him




I thought it had a real creepy (in a good way) fey feel to it.


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## hayek (Feb 1, 2011)

Rune said:


> I thought it had a real creepy (in a good way) fey feel to it.




Yeah, I've often struggled with the Feywild concept, and integrating it into campaigns in a cool way. Dancing fairies and sunlight just don't make for good adventure material. But the whole 'Hotel California' theme where there's a blissful, happy place with a dark, sinister underlying reality makes it really cool. The Icosahedrophilia adventure did this in a really cool way and I was (hopefully) able to replicate it pretty well. Unfortunately, the podcast episode got cut off, and the ending is missing, but the creepy feel and atmosphere in the first part of the adventure was enough to make the idea work.


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## hayek (Feb 1, 2011)

*Chapter 4 - The Terrible Wrath of the Arinfax Colossus (s. 7)*

*4.1 Captured!*

The party emerges from the shores of the lake holding the city of Calipha and searches for their horses. Lock thanks the party profusely for helping him escape the Feywild prison. Erik asks Lock if he knows anything about the pregnant women being escorted into the ‘Nursery’ building in Calipha. Lock somberly relates that, in his time in the city, he saw many pregnant women taken away before giving birth. They returned a month or two later, childless, and had no memory of being pregnant. Lock has pieced together that the spirit powering the city requires life energy to survive. He believes any children born in the city are taken to the spirit to be consumed. The mothers are then held for a time until their memories are fully erased. The party shutters at this practice and are thankful they were able to escape the city of Calipha.

Searching through the forest, the party finds the bodies of their horses where they had left them, but they appear to have been dead for a very long time. Rather than fresh corpses, the party only finds skeletons half-buried in the underbrush of the forest. Fargrim confirms again his suspicions of the Feywild, grumbling that hundreds of years have likely passed while the party was in the city. Lock doesn’t know how much time has passed for the party, but he is certain the world that he knew is no more. He pledges his services as a researcher and a scholar to the party, saying he is in their debt and that he will help them in anyway he can in the future.

_The Keystone Mortalis_

The party enters a small clearing in the forest and, suddenly, a female humanoid appears in a swirl of shadows before the party. They recognize her as a Shadar-kai. The party recalls the group of Shadar-kai they found slain by goblins in the Torin Plains when they were searching for the Raven Queen statue for Lord Dread. Fargrim is happy to recall the time he took to give the Shadar-kai a proper burial, certain that action will pay dividends now. With her keen senses, the Zaza spots a number of Shadar-kai chain fighters lurking in the woods around the party.






The female Shadar-kai addresses the party, “Hail, my name is Alszeem. You are?” The party brushes aside her question, saying they are simply travelers. Alszeem chuckles at the response, saying “Very well, let us not play games. You know where the Keystone Mortalis is, and I will have it.” The party members look at each other, puzzled. Erik speaks up that they do not know what the ‘Keystone Mortalis’ is.

Alszeem laughs at this comment, “I am not entertained with whatever lies you are inclined to come up with. You could not come into contact with such an artifact without realizing it’s power. You will tell me everything you know once you are put to the rack!” She motions to the chainfighters in the woods and they rush to attack.

The chainfighters prove capable combatants, but are no match for the party. As Alszeem joins the fray, the party realizes she is a witch, and is a very formidable opponent. She surrounds herself with an aura of writhing shadows and makes herself a very difficult target. However, the party makes short work of the chainfighters, leaving Alszeem as the only remaining enemy. Realizing the battle is lost, Alszeem calls out that she will be seeing the party again, and that they will deliver the Keystone Mortalis to her. She then smashes a glass orb of swirling dark shadows at her feet and disappears in a puff of black smoke.

The party discuss the incident briefly, concluding that their best guess is that the Keystone Mortalis is the black Raven Queen statue they delivered to Lord Dread. Having handily fended off Alszeem’s attack, the party isn’t too concerned with addressing the matter at the time being. They are much more interested in returning to Verind’s Edge and discovering how much time has passed while they were caught in the mists of the Feywild.

Without horses, the going will be a little slower, but the party expects about a three or four week journey back to Verind’s Edge. Along the way, the party notices that the seasons have changed. They entered the city of Calipha at the start of winter, but now it feels more like the end of summer. With the free time, the party also has a chance to inspect some items they picked up a little further. They realize that Donenly’s magic talisman functions as an Amulet of Distortion. Also, one night Invicto is studying the demon fangs he picked up from the creatures that attacked the seer of Io, Missyus, when he is approached by Lock. The halfling mentions that he has some training in ritual magic and alchemy, and he believes he knows how to use the demon fangs to enchant a suit of armor. Invicto lets him go to work, and Lock transforms Invicto’s leather armor into a magical suit of Fire Resistant armor.

_Nine Months…_

The party finally in arrives in Verind’s Edge. The city seems to be in a similar state to what they left it in, if maybe a little busier. They don’t recognize the gate guards, but after entering the city they spy some soldiers they do recognize who greet them with stunned looks. One of them approaches – Old Breddy, a soldier the party knows somewhat well, who has spent a few late nights in a tavern with the party. Old Breddy lives up to his name – he’s an older soldier who likely should have retired years ago, but he still has a very impressive stamina when it comes to ale.

“We thought you were dead for sure!” Old Breddy greets the party. The party assures him they are very much alive. “What kept you away for so long, then? You came back just in time for the war!”

“War?” the party asks in unison.

“Where’ve you been? A goblinoid army and that stone beast, the Arinfax Colossus, are marching through the Torin Plains and will arrive in three or four days…”

From Jarrob’s description, the party would guess the watchtower housing the Energy Array is roughly three or four days travel from the city, giving them no time to waste in reaching the Energy Array to defend against the Arinfax Colossus. The party thanks Old Breddy and rushes to the palace to bring Davos their news.

On their way to the palace, the party runs into numerous other soldiers and townsfolk that recognize them, all giving them shocked looks along with a few awkward hails. The party heads into the palace expecting to find preparations for war, but they come across what appears to be decorations for a party in the main courtyard. Streamers and flowers are arranged throughout, and servants are bustling about preparing tables of food and drink. The party spots Mujeh, the Goliath bard, helping out in the courtyard and they stop to speak with him. He is amazed to see the party, and he echoes the common sentiment of being sure they were dead. The party asks just how long it’s been since they left.

Mujeh ponders for a bit, “I remember last seeing you at the dinner party with the Emperor and the Queen, then you headed out shortly after that. That was about nine months ago now.” Erik feels a tremor run along his spine.

The party asks him what the preparations are for.

“Obviously battle is on its way, but the Emperor wanted to take time to have a small celebration for the new addition to the royal family! Queen Larindra just gave birth to a son.” Mujeh chuckles and lowers his voice, “Most thought that Emperor Essran wasn’t able to sire an heir, since he had been married for seven or eight years with no children, and no rumors of any bastards. But I guess something magical happened nine months ago, ‘cause the Queen has delivered a healthy baby boy.” Erik feels the blood rush from his head, knowing very well where he was nine months ago, but he manages to keep his composure at the revelation that he is apparently a father. The rest of the party simply nods at the news and moves on to asking Mujeh about the goblinoid army approaching the city, and the Arinfax Colossus.

_Dire Straits_

Mujeh confirms that the goblinoid army is due to arrive in a few days. Various goblin and orc tribes have banded together and are marching behind the Arinfax Colossus, which is making its way through the Torin Plains, headed directly towards Verind’s Edge. Scouts’ reports confirm that the Colossus is a terrible monstrosity – a massive stone creature, taller than the city’s walls, that looks quite capable of smashing Verind’s Edge to bits. Nonetheless, preparations are being made to defend the city, and all able-bodied men within the Emperor’s domain have been brought to the city.

“Unfortunately,” Mujeh adds, “there is no aid coming from the rest of the Boundary Lands, thanks to Sir Uthrin. Uthrin has disputed scouting reports of the Arinfax Colossus, and he insists that the goblinoid army is only a small contingent of a few tribes that Verind’s Edge should be able to fend off without aid. He has claimed that Emperor Essran’s request for additional troops is a ploy to gather forces for an assault on Uthrin himself. He’s used all of his political clout to gather support for his view of the situation, and, on top of that, he has pledged to attack any troops moving through his fiefdom to ‘aid’ Verind’s Edge.”

The party realizes there is little hope for the city without reaching the Energy Array, so they bid farewell to Mujeh and seek out Court Wizard Davos. He is busy constructing arcane defenses for the city, but turns from his work when the party arrives. They quickly explain where they have been for the past nine months, and Davos readily grasps the potential time-warping effects of the Feywild. They move past the pleasantries, and share with him their news of the Energy Array, and its potential to defeat the Arinfax Colossus. Davos is ecstatic at the news, and he rushes to speak with the Emperor about the situation.

He returns shortly, and tells the party to quickly make preparations to journey to the watchtower housing the Energy Array. Davos is in the middle of defense preparations, and he regrettably admits that it would be a huge loss to the city for him to leave now. In the event that the party is unsuccessful, or if they cannot reach the Array before the army arrives, Davos feels he must stay by the Emperor’s side to help defend the city as best he can. The party has proved very capable thus far, and it seems the fortunes of the Empire must ride on their shoulders.

Fargrim grumbles about the hazard pay they were to receive, but Davos apologizes that the treasury is frozen due to the coming war and he cannot pay them anything now. However, he assures the party that they will be rewarded beyond their wildest dreams if they can destroy the Arinfax Colossus and save the city.

Before leaving, Erik pays a quick visit to the Queen’s quarters. He is greeted by a servant who asks what business he has with Queen Larindra. Erik insists that the servant simply tell the Queen that ‘Erik’ wishes to speak with her and the she will know who he is. The servant complies, but retuns to tell Erik that the Queen is very busy with preparations for the celebration and that she cannot speak with him right now, perhaps in a few days she can make time. Erik insists that he must leave the city immediately and needs to speak with the Queen before leaving, but his pleas get him nowhere. Erik gets the message and decides to leave the matter be for now.

The party requisitions a fresh batch of horses and heads out of the city. Given the poor fate of every other batch of horses the party has requisitioned, some of the party members feel a more personal connection with their horse might help it survive the trials ahead. They feel that if they simply give them names to make them more memorable their chances for survival will improve. Some party members like this idea, and some don’t, so only three horses get names. The Zaza bestows the name ‘New Breddy’ on her steed. Erik goes with ‘Tim’, and Fargrim names his mount ‘Seabiscuit’. The party quickly crosses the flat plains north of the city and a day and a half later they reach the foothills of the mountains and journey into them to seek out the Energy Array.

_The Dead Hand Bandits_

After another day’s travel up into the mountains, the party is winding their way through a narrow canyon with steep sides, when a figure appears in their path up ahead. He appears to be human and has two long, wicked-looking knives dangling from his belt.

He calls out to the party, “Are you lost?”

The party replies with a curt, “No.”

“You should be careful. You know, you’re in the territory of the Dead Hand Bandits. They are known to be a cruel bunch, and I should know since I’m one of them.”

The party is not impressed and Charm calls out, “We’re just passing through.”

The man replies, “Very well. You just need to pay the toll and you can be on your way. All of the equipment and money you have should do.”

The party scoffs. The bandit motions and several other bandits emerge from hiding places around the canyon. In all, the party sees five bandits armed with swords on the canyon floor with them, in addition to the bandit leader wielding his two long knives. The party also sees five bandit archers along the rim of the canyon above. This appears to be a tough fight, but the party is confident they can handle the bandits and be on their way.

Most interestingly, however, the party recognizes one of the sword-wielding bandits. He is Raver, the brutish villager the party imprisoned in the town of Ramshead for murdering Igris. He escaped imprisonment while the party was away, hunting the Tentacle Flayers that had been attacking the village. Raver recognizes the party as well and calls out to them, “You’re the bastards who ran me out of that village. I’m gonna enjoy taking my vengeance on you!” The party is just as excited at the chance to put Raver to the sword, something they wished they’d done back in Ramshead.

Battle is joined and the party finds the bandits are very adept fighters who work well together. The archers are especially lethal, and the party bristles at their inability to reach them up on the canyon’s rim. Nonetheless, they focus on taking down the sword-wielding bandits on the canyon floor with them. They are able to quickly drop a few of the bandits, but the party is hard-pressed to remain in the fight. Most devastating is the bandit leader. Weaving through the fray with his two long knives, he repeatedly dishes out numerous vicious cuts in a blur of steel. It’s not long before the tide has turned against the party. Charm and Erik are quickly unconscious on the ground, and The Zaza and Fargrim are soon to follow.

Before she falls, however, The Zaza steps up to engage Raver. He bellows for the dragonborn to come to her death, and The Zaza doesn’t bat an eye. His blow glances off her shield, and she responds by bringing her battleaxe down in a vicious overhand chop that crushes through Raver’s skull and splits his head in two like a ripe pumpkin. She feels a grim sense of satisfaction just before a volley of arrows drops her to the earth.

The party is able to take out all but one of the sword-wielding bandits, but Invicto is left with five bandit archers training arrows on him, as well as the bandit leader moving to engage, so he makes the best of the situation and offers surrender. The bandits disarm him and the rest of the party. They do bandage the wounds of the fallen party members, apparently planning to take them prisoner, though to what end Invicto does not know. The bandits bind the hands and feet of each party member, then load them all into a nearby wagon and trek a few hours through the mountains.

As night falls, they reach what appears to be the bandits’ base of operations, though Invicto is the only one conscious to see it. Firelight fills a bustling cave entrance that is packed with many more bandits reveling with food and drink. He waits to see what the Dead Hand Bandits have in store for them, hoping the rest of the party wakes up soon.


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## hayek (Feb 8, 2011)

*Chapter 4 - The Terrible Wrath of the Arinfax Colossus (s. 8)*

*4.2 The Watchtower*

The wagon holding the party is rolled into the Dead Hand Bandits’ hideout, and comes to a rest in the main cave entrance. The bandits escorting the party greet their comrades heartily and they stop to share a drink. Another group of bandits has apparently just returned from a sortie, and Invicto picks up some interesting bits of conversation:

“Drink well tonight boys! We caught a supply shipment heading out of Huntington to Verind’s Edge, and made quick work of it.”

“Uthrin still holding to his offer?”

“Aye, he’s still paying good gold for supply shipments to Verind’s Edge. They’ll be a little hungrier in Verind’s Edge, but it’s more coin for us!”

Invicto makes note of the latest despicable act of Sir Uthrin’s. After the bandits finish their drink, they escort the party deeper into the cave complex. After winding through numerous tunnels and passageways, the party emerges into what appears to be a huge underground amphitheatre. An open arena is surrounded on all sides by rows of stone benches extending upwards. At one end rests a huge stone throne. The entire structure seems very ancient, though it appears to have been put to recent use, as the party notices some discarded mugs scattered throughout the seating areas.

_Let the Games Begin!_

The party is placed in individual steel cages along one wall of the amphitheatre and chained inside. The bandits then leave them be and after a couple of hours, the remaining party members begin to regain consciousness. Invicto fills them in on their current situation, and the party finds they have no choice but to wait and see what happens.

After several more hours pass (the party would guess night has come and gone and it is morning of the next day), bandits start filing into the amphitheatre, filling the seats while drinking, talking, and laughing. A few bandits toss some rotting vegetables at the party in the cages. Eventually, the knife-wielding bandit the party faced in battle the day before enters and takes a seat in the large stone throne in the amphitheatre. He motions for the crowd to quiet and addresses the party.

“Welcome, brave travelers, to the home of the Dead Hand Bandits! I am the leader of this motley crew, Pinzam. I hope you don’t mind, but we like to have a little fun with those we best in battle. You see, a good portion of my men escaped from the life of a gladiator in the slave pens of the Jeweled Cities, so we appreciate quality entertainment. But don’t worry, you have a chance to earn your freedom!”

A chorus of chuckles runs through the gathered crowd.

“We will pair you off and you will fight each other – to the death, of course. But whoever is left standing gets to live!”

The party looks at each other dubiously and the crowd erupts in laughter. Many bandits shout taunts at the party members.

“Or, you can always take a chance with Frixis’s roulette table! Frixis is our resident… alchemist… He really enjoys experimenting with different herbs and concoctions, and tonight he has some new deadly poison he wants to try out on a living subject to make sure he’s got the dosage right. So, this table has about fifty different cups on it.” Pinzam motions to a table that has been wheeled in. It is covered in a wide array of various cups, goblets, and mugs. 

“All of them but one is poisoned and is certain death. You can pick one to drink from, and if you choose the one goblet that is safe we’ll let you live. Hell, I’ll give you my word that if you have the balls and the dumb luck to pick the right cup, we’ll make your whole group honorary members of our little company.”

The crowd boos at this suggestion.

Pinzam motions for the crowd to quiet down, “Now, now… no one ever actually chooses the right cup.” The crowd laughs, and Pinzam turns back to the party. 

“So, what’ll it be? A fight to the death for your freedom, or a gamble with one of the cups?”


Various members of the crowd begin yelling suggestions. Some call out “take a cup, a cup!”, while others yell, “fight ya sissies!”. The party members look over the table and see a variety of cups:

Numerous plain wooden cups
A few square, iron mugs
Several small tin cups
Some unique cups, like:
A jeweled goblet with red and blue gems set across it
An intricately carved wooden cup with a mermaid encircling the top of the cup and the mermaid’s upper half actually poking up over the rim of the cup
A brass cup shaped like a dragon’s claw
A silver cup that’s shaped like the head of a silver dragon, with the dragon's mouth forming the open end of the cup
A thin crystal glass with words etched across it
A large stone mug
A variety of other unique goblets
None of the cups look particularly appealing, nor do any of them belie their contents. The party is baffled as to what to do. However, one of the cups catches the eye of The Zaza – the silver cup shaped like the head of a silver dragon. She is reminded of the prophecy she received from Missyus,
_Drink from the mouth of the Silver Dragon and you will learn of your brother’s fate…_​The Zaza steps forward and says that she will drink from one of the cups. The other party members look shocked and confused, but have no other ideas of what to do. Two bandit guards release The Zaza’s chains and she strides confidently to the table and immediately picks out the silver dragon cup. As she raises the cup to drink, Pinzam hurriedly shouts out, “Wait a minute, are you sure about your choice? Just because you’re a dragonborn doesn’t mean you should choose a dragon cup!” The Zaza ignores Pinzam’s advice and drinks from the cup.

A hushed quiet falls over the crowd as they wait for her to suddenly keel over in pain. After a minute or so Pinzam regretfully speaks, “It seems fortune is truly with you. You have chosen the one cup that did not hold poison.” The crowd erupts in anger and disbelief but Pinzam is unfazed. He announces that there will be no show today and for everyone to take their leave. The crowd tosses a number of cups filled with ale at the party members trapped in their cages, but they do begin to file out of the amphitheatre.

_Daza_

Once the amphitheatre is near empty Pinzam rises and commands the guards to free the party members from their bonds. He assures them their equipment will be returned to them and they can be on their way. He offers to share a meal with them before they depart. The Zaza asks if she can keep the silver dragon cup she drank from. Pinzam shrugs and allows it. The party follows Pinzam back to his quarters where food and drink are served to them. He turns to The Zaza with a look of shocked disbelief, “You are either the bravest person I’ve ever met, or the dumbest. Or maybe both… How did you know which goblet to choose?”

The Zaza shrugs and says, “I just took a chance.”

Pinzam laughs and claps The Zaza on the shoulder, “Well the gods are with you. I thought for sure you would be eager to do battle.” The Zaza assures Pinzam she could not kill her friends. A few gruff-looking bandits bring in the party’s equipment and they begin suiting up. Pinzam says, “Well, unless you have any questions for me, I assume you’ll want to be on your way.”

The Zaza, still dwelling on the prophecy she received from Missyus, speaks up. “Are you familiar with the dragonborn in the area?”

Pinzam responds, “I know there are some villages scattered around the Boundary Lands.”

“Do you know why any of them would be abducted?”

With a curious look, Pinzam asks, “What do you mean?”

The Zaza decides to stop dancing around the subject and simply relates the tale of her twin brother, Daza. She describes the ‘short people’ that abducted him in the woods near her village when they were children, and their means of capture.

Pinzam listens attentively and nods when The Zaza finishes her tale. “Certainly sounds like slavers from the Jeweled Cities. I’ve spent some time there. Enough to know that dragonborn are popular slaves for the gladiator arenas. They are all the more valuable if they are brought into the life of a gladiator at a young age. The younger they are, the easier it is to break their spirit and leave them with no knowledge of any life besides fighting in the arena. A young dragonborn would command a high price in the Jeweled Cities, and there are many halflings populating that area, working for the various merchant houses and thieves’ guilds.”

The Zaza thanks Pinzam for the information and the party quickly takes their leave. Unfortunately, two of the party’s horses were killed in the fighting with the bandits. The other three horses, which happened to be the three that were given names, (New Breddy, Tim, and Seabiscuit) did survive. However, Pinzam insists the bandits will keep the surviving horses as a small spoil from the party’s capture. The party shrugs at the inevitability of losing their horses and continues their journey on foot.

_A Forgettable Entrance_

It has been three days since the party left Verind’s Edge, and the goblinoid army is expected to arrive today or tomorrow. It may already be too late, but the party must hope there is still time to reach the Energy Array before the Arinfax Colossus arrives. Fortunately, Invicto was conscious for the journey to the hideout of the Dead Hand Bandits, and with his memory of the trip they are able to piece together how to get back on the trail to the Energy Array. After a couple of hours of searching they spot the next stone landmark in Jarrob’s directions and quickly take up the trail.

The party continues hiking through the mountains into the afternoon. They are making their way through a curving mountain pass when Invicto gets the sudden striking feeling that he was just thinking about something very important but now can’t remember what it was. It suddenly pops into his head – the party just walked by the watchtower they are seeking. He’s very confused as to why everyone in the party would walk right by it, but he’s certain they just passed it. He shares his feeling with the party and Fargrim suddenly remembers passing the watchtower as well, but the rest of the group has no recollection of it. They head back through the pass they just came through and, sure enough, they see the watchtower extending straight up out of the rock.

Everyone in the party can feel the watchtower trying to slip out of their consciousness. Every few seconds they momentarily forget what they’re looking at, but, with every party member focusing on it, they are able to overcome the effect and make their way to the front door of the tower. The party is impressed with the strange magical ward surrounding the watchtower. If they were not specifically looking for it, they would never have even noticed it was there. At the least, the party is now very confident that the Energy Array inside has remained undisturbed for centuries.

The watchtower extends up several stories out of the surrounding rock, and the party can tell the top of the tower should have an excellent vantage point down into the plains surrounding Verind’s Edge. The stone door is heavy, and somewhat stuck, but with some effort the party is able to force it open. They head into the tower and find an empty and musty first floor. Stairs in the back head up to the second floor and the party quickly ascends. They find a large set of huge doors, which the party pushes open.

_Into the Tower_

The doors open into an expansive hall. In the middle of the room there is a raised dais with a huge metal orb on the far end. The orb rests in a thin metal container with a bar running around its mid-section. Also, on each side of the dais stand two solemn suits of full plate armor holding sword and shield. Behind the dais stands an enormous iron golem, towering at least 10 feet high. The golem and the suits of armor appear completely still and lifeless, but the party has a strong suspicion they may not remain that way. The only exit from the hall is a pair of massive doors on the other side of the room, so the party starts cautiously making their way across the hall.

After moving a short ways in, the large metal orb begins spinning in its container. Bolts of magical energy begin arcing across its surface, and the guardian suits of armor come to life as well as the iron golem in the back of the hall. They immediately move to attack the party.






The guardian armors fan out to lock down every member of the party, and Erik and Invicto try to disengage from the melee. The iron golem approaches with thunderous footsteps and joins the battle with two devastating sword blows delivered to The Zaza and Invicto. The party begins efficiently widdling away at the guardian armors, which only offer mediocre resistance. However, the party discovers that the large magical orb is powering a field of force surrounding the iron golem which completely rebuffs all attacks. The golem seems to be a powerful opponent that has no trouble dealing out damaging blows to the party with its massive iron blade, and the construct is, currently, completely invulnerable.

Invicto and Erik draw upon their arcane training to realize that the orb must be disabled before the golem can be injured. They both quickly rush around the edges of the hall, absorbing some passing blows from the guardian armors engaging them. They reach the large orb and find a series of magical runes inscribed into the orb’s container. The arcanists realize if they carefully scratch out certain runes they’ll be able to disable the device, though a misstep will likely result in a magical shock from the orb. Fortunately, the wizard and the warlock are both well-trained, and they begin making progress on disabling the orb.






Back at the frontlines, The Zaza and Fargrim have worn down most of the guardian armors, though they are unpleasantly surprised to find that the constructs explode in a cloud of noxious gas and shrapnel when they are killed. Nonetheless, in short order, there is only one guardian armor left swinging away at Fargrim. The iron golem, however, turns to the dais as soon as Invicto and Erik begin making progress on disabling the magical orb, sensing the threat to its protective magical shield. It charges the two magic-users and lowers its shoulder as it slams into Invicto, knocking the gnome off of the dais. The Zaza rushes to distract the golem, and Erik and Invicto are able to finish disabling the orb. The Zaza’s battleaxe sweeps into the golem’s midsection and she is pleased to see that it lands a ringing blow. With the golem distracted, both Erik and Invicto take a moment to catch their second wind, as the earlier blows from the guardian armors have taken their toll on the casters.

Locked in battle with the one remaining guardian armor, Fargrim can tell his opponent is vastly inferior in its fighting abilities, but fortune seems to be with it as it continually lands lucky blow after lucky blow while narrowly dodging Fargrim’s attacks. The dwarf is forced to draw on some of his healing resources, but he is finally able to land a solid shot with his warhammer and he takes down the last remaining guardian armor. He then charges the dais to help The Zaza engage the iron golem.

The iron golem proves a very formidable opponent. It is able sweep its huge iron blade in a wide arc that cleaves across one opponent and into another. Thus, the metal construct is able to wear down The Zaza and Fargrim simultaneously. The melee fighters are forced to draw on every ounce of their healing resources. In one particularly devastating sequence, the golem lands two critical hits on The Zaza in a row. Fortunately, she downs a Potion of Healing inbetween the blows and manages to barely stay on her feet. Fargrim, however, falls unconscious from one of the golem’s blows, and the situation begins to look very dire. But, the party can tell by the numerous gashes in the golem’s armor and the variety of liquids and gases spewing out of its wounds, that it is near death, so they press on with the fight. Invicto and Erik continue launching attacks from afar, and though The Zaza is on death’s doorstep, she manages to stay upright until the construct is finally defeated. It explodes in an enormous cloud of noxious gas and shrapnel, but The Zaza manages to deflect the debris with her shield.

The party rouses Fargrim, and they all take a minute to catch their breath and dress their wounds. Every party member suffered significant injuries, and this was only the first floor of the watchtower. They aren’t sure how many more guardians they’ll be able to fight their way through, but the party stoically presses on, as the fate of Verind’s Edge lies in their hands. Through the doors in the back of the hall is another set of stairs leading up to the next floor. The party pushes through the large set of stone doors at the top of the stairs and braces to face their next challenge.

_A Puzzling Encounter_

As soon as the party enters the next room, the doors they came through shut behind them with a resounding boom. The party finds themselves in a small, empty room. Another set of doors stands across from them, and there appears to be five large stone dials built into the doors. The party examines the dials closely and finds that they all bear the same five engraved images. They vaguely recognize some of the images as depicting ancient historical or religious events. After studying the images for a while, the party pieces together that the dials seem to be a type of combination lock for the doors, and that the images must be placed in chronological order to open the doors.







The party initially simply tries a random combination of images and tries to push the doors open. The room suddenly explodes in fire, and the party members suffer more wounds after just recuperating from their fight with the iron golem. The party regathers to study the images further. They include:
A dwarven forgemaster
A battle between elves and goblins
Some kind of fey spirit
A battle between Moradin, god of the dwarves, and Gruumsh, god of the orcs
An army of demons
Drawing on their knowledge of history and religion, they manage to piece together some ideas about the images. They pool their knowledge to come up with a few crucial clues:
*A dwarven forgemaster *– This appears to be the famous dwarven forgemaster, Carmog, who lived thousands of years ago and who crafted some of the most legendary magical arms and armor. Legend holds that he was touched by Moradin as a babe. Most notably, Carmog helped defeat the Vile Army. He worked for 18 days and nights without rest, crafting 50 sets of magical arms and armor to outfit a band of 50 warriors. The warriors were chosen to fight their way to the gateway to the Nine Hells that let the Vile Army into the world and to close it permanently.
*A battle between elves and goblins *– This appears to be a depiction of the legendary Bloodied Champions, a band of famous elven warriors. The Bloodied Champions stood alone against an army of goblins back when the Feywild did not create a buffer between Quinalyn and the Torin Plains and war with goblins was frequent. The Bloodied Champions’ famous stand took place in the ancient elven city of Sunaal – a city that was laid waste by the Vile Army and never rebuilt.
*Some kind of fey spirit *– This appears to be a depiction of the Forest King, a fey spirit that helped a council of Eladrin wizards to bleed the Feywild into the forests in the northwest regions of Quinalyn in order to form a border between the nation and the Torin Plains. The Feywild was bled into Quinalyn sometime after the defeat of the Vile Army.
*A battle between Moradin, god of the dwarves, and Gruumsh, god of the orcs *– This famous battle between Moradin and Gruumsh took place in the early days of the world when the gods walked amongst the people of the world and Gruumsh led an army to try and crush the dwarven civilizations. This is probably the earliest event depicted, as it predates much of recorded history and is closer to mythology than history.
*An army of demons *– This appears to be a depiction of the infamous Vile Army – an army of demons that was unleashed on the world long ago. The Vile Army waged war on the civilized people of the Boundary Lands when a powerful, mad wizard opened a gateway to the Nine Hells and an army of demons poured forth. The civilized races had to band together to defeat the army.
It takes some time for them to finally come up with the full list of clues. Consequently, they try several combinations of images that are unsuccessful, and suffer through the exploding fire trap a few more times. But, eventually, they land on the correct combination: 4, 2, 5, 1, 3. The doors open, and the party takes a brief rest again to dress their fresh burns from the fire trap. Many party members are on their last reserves of energy now, and they don’t expect to be able to recuperate from yet another battle. Nonetheless, the party forges ahead, up another set of stairs to the next floor, hoping they are nearing the top.


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## hayek (Feb 11, 2011)

Added a small intro/teaser write-up to the first post, and put in a Table of Contents to lay out all the session write-ups so far.


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## hayek (Feb 16, 2011)

*Chapter 4 - The Terrible Wrath of the Arinfax Colossus (s. 9)*

4.3 The party is set adrift into the great, wide world

The party heads up to the next level of the watchtower and is relieved to see windows on this floor. Even better, the windows seem to be fairly high off of the ground, giving the party hope that they may be near the top of the tower. This floor consists of a large circular room. Two strange arcane symbols are inscribed in the floor on either side of the room, and a series of columns lines the back of the room. Invicto draws on his arcane training to vaguely identify the inscribed runes as some type of summoning circles.

_Defeat is in the Eye of the Beholder_


The party advances cautiously into the room, ready for the next trap or guardian to spring on them. Shortly after filing through the door, they are not disappointed. Two huge creatures magically appear on the far side of the room, in front of the row of columns – floating heads, each with one large central eye, a gaping maw of sharpened teeth, and several additional eyes on the ends of a number of wriggling eye stalks protruding from the heads. The party immediately recognizes these twisted creatures as beholders, a legendary monster that has spelled the end of many a hero. Fortunately, Erik remembers from his arcane studies that these particular beholders are beholder gauths, the weakest breed of the strange eye creatures. But the weakest of the breed still makes for a formidable opponent.






The beholders seem to have been summoned into the room, but Erik and Invicto did not sense that the inscribed arcane circles on the floor activated in any way. They glance at each other nervously, recognizing that there may be more to this room than it has offered thus far.

The Zaza rushes to engage one of the beholders, landing a solid blow on the beast and calling her divine challenge down upon it. The beholders then each utter an arcane phrase and the inscribed circles on the floor glow as two massive, vicious-looking beetles appear within each summoning circle, making four beetles in all. The giant, twisted insects immediately start emitting a piercing chittering sound. The sound is annoying at a distance, but as the chittering beetles close on the party members, they find that being next to the sound is unavoidably distracting. The high-pitched chittering reverberates in the party members’ skulls when the beetles are near them, causing some of the party’s attacks to miss their mark. The four beetles fan out and strike at The Zaza, Invicto, Fargrim, and Erik. Besides the annoying chittering sounds, they are not too threatening as combatants, but they manage to scratch at a few of the party members successfully.

After summoning the beetles, the beholders turn their eyes towards the party. Each beholder launches a magical ray out of its central eye, as well as two rays from their various eye stalks. Fargrim is immobilized at the far end of the battlefield, unable to engage the second beholder. One beholder attempts to use a telekinetic ray to move The Zaza away from its ally, but the blast sails wide. Invicto is hit with a sleep ray and he feels his feet slow and his eyes grow heavy as he tries to shake off the effect. Erik is simply blasted with a magical jet of flame, and The Zaza is hit with an exhaustion ray – dealing some damage to the dragonborn and weakening her.

Fargrim, rooted to the ground by one of the beholders’ eye rays, hacks at the chittering beetle in front of him but isn’t able to get past the creature’s flailing insectoid limbs. Invicto manages to fight off the effects of the sleep ray and stays conscious. He steps back from the beetle clawing at him and launches a massive blast of arcane energy at one of the beholders, causing it to squeal in pain.

But the worst is yet to come for the watchtower guardians. Erik, the admittedly frail wizard, sees an opportunity and summons every ounce of his courage to capitalize on it. He strides determinedly into the middle of the battlefield, enduring the scratching claws of a chittering beetle as he does so. In the middle of the melee, the wizard is surrounded on all sides by monsters. He recites the incantations for one of his most devastating spells, and a shroud of fire explodes out in all directions from the wizard. It envelopes every enemy on the battlefield, but leaves Erik’s allies unscathed. All four chittering beetles are burned to a crisp by the blast and the beholders are charred by the searing flames as well, though they are still standing (floating actually). They now each turn a number of angry eyes upon the wizard.

Though The Zaza continues hacking away at one of the beholders, the floating heads each turn their attention to Erik, and each launches a jet of flame at the wizard. After unleashing his devastating fire shroud, Erik himself is engulfed in flame, and it is more than the wizard can withstand. He crumples to the ground, his robes smoking. The beholders then each utter an arcane phrase once again, and the summoning circles light up with magical energy as four more chittering beetles appear.

Fargrim refuses to let the tide of battle turn against the party. He shouts some strong words of encouragement at Erik to pull him back to reality and the wizard regains consciousness. He then charges the beholder not engaged by The Zaza and lands a devastating hammer blow on the beast. He delivers a profanity-laden tirade at the monster as he hits it, and the dwarf’s aggressiveness inspires his allies to fight even harder as they find new reserves of energy to draw upon.

The Zaza does her best impression of Erik as she steps back to engulf several enemies in flame with her dragon breath. She steps on the arcane runes of one of the summoning circles as she does and receives a jolt of arcane energy, but the hardy dragonborn shrugs off the pain. A couple more beetles are burned to a crisp and another beholder suffers even more stinging burns. Erik, having regained consciousness thanks to Fargrim’s urging, stands up and continues to heat the battlefield. He summons a flaming sphere to harass the beholders. Invicto piles on with the Flames of Phlegethos and one of the beholders drops lifeless to the floor. The remaining beholder now looks like it has been standing in the center of an inferno for a time, as it is blackened and charred from the party’s numerous fire attacks. It doesn’t take long before the beast is finished, along with the remaining chittering beetles.

The party’s reserves of energy have dwindled even further, and a few of the party members have little strength left for another fight. Nonetheless, the party presses on to the next floor, and, thankfully, they find that they have reached the top of the watchtower.

_Finally on Top_

The party cautiously shuffles into the top room of the watchtower and finds that there seems to be no guardians or traps awaiting them here. Most of the room is large and open, though a good portion of the room is taken up by what the party assumes is the massive Energy Array. The machine is a massive bundle of brass pripes and strange glass chambers with swirling elemental magics. The piping actually extends down into the floor of the room and the party can see that some of the pipes run far down into the earth, likely tapping some source of elemental magic. One final pipe extends out of the roof of the watchtower, angling to the south, which the party assumes is the firing barrel of the device. The huge metal contraption does have a user station with a number of controls and dials.

The top floor features a huge domed ceiling, and most of the southern half of that dome is transparent. Upon further examination, the party finds the section is crafted of thick, heavy crystal that has clearly been magically enchanted. The crystal surface acts as a ‘view screen’ that can be zoomed into great distances to magnify far away places. With the watchtower’s perch in the mountains, it has a clear view of the plains to the south, including Verind’s Edge. The view screen is currently focused in on the city of Verind’s Edge, and the party gets a clear picture of the current situation.

The goblinoid army has arrived and swarms the hills outside the western wall of Verind’s Edge. Orcs, goblins, hobgoblins, ogres, and all other manner of twisted, evil creatures stand outside the gates of the city. The army numbers in the thousands – a horde the likes of which the party has never seen before. Battle has not been engaged yet, as the sprawling army waits for the Arinfax Colossus to assault the walls. The party can see that the massive elemental titan has arrived and is charging the walls of the city. They seem to have arrived just in time as the creature is literally only minutes from smashing into the walls of Verind’s Edge.






The party quickly attempts to figure out how to operate the Energy Array. Erik and Invicto recognize some of the arcane scripts on the control panels of the machine and they are able to power it up. The machine has a simple targeting mechanism that seems to interface with the crystal view screen in the tower. They are able to use the controls to move around the focus of the view screen to target anything they can see. There are also several dials labeled with numbers that Erik and Invicto believe need to be set to adjust the mix of elemental energies being funneled into the magical blast from the Energy Array. Jarrob mentioned having to set the ‘elemental harmonics’ of the machine just right in order to penetrate the defenses of the Arinfax Colossus. As a creature of the Abyss, the Arinfax Colossus embodies elemental chaos and its powerful magical defenses are constantly changing and shifting. The Energy Array must have the mix of elemental magics just right in order to penetrate the Colossus’s defenses, though that mix could change at any moment if the Colossus’s defenses change.

Of course, the correct mix of energies changing is the least of the party’s worries, as Erik and Invicto have no idea how to currently analyze the Colossus’s magical defenses to find the correct mix anyway. If they had hours to study the machine further they might be able to figure it out, but at this point they have only seconds before the elemental behemoth arrives at the city walls. They look down desperately at the controls – three sets of three gold dials, for a total of nine dials. Each one has flowing elven script around the dial indicating the numbers one through nine. The dials are currently set to 111-111-111, but they can’t imagine they are lucky enough for this to be the correct setting.

_A Colossal End_

Fargrim, peeking over the magic-users’ shoulders is struck by the, until now, very confusing prophecy he received from the blind prophet of Io, Missyus,
_371-529-144…_​He shoves the arcane experts aside, insisting that his dwarven know-how has told him how to set the machine’s dials correctly (of course, he doesn’t mention the prophecy he received at all). Erik and Invicto, having no better ideas, let Fargrim take the controls with the Arinfax Colossus only a few steps away from the western wall of Verind’s Edge. As quickly as possible, the grizzled dwarven warlord sets the dials and targets the Colossus in the view screen. He fires a shot just as the elemental titan arrives at the walls of the city with its fists raised.

The party hears the Energy Array hum with elemental magics, and sees energy flowing through some of the glass chambers of the device, but a bright, white bolt of magical energy suddenly fires out into the back of the room. The party looks aghast at where the shot came out and sees that a junction in one of the pipes has become dislodged somehow. No shot is fired out of the tower, so the Arinfax Colossus assaults Verind’s Edge without interference. The elemental creature brings down its huge stone fists and the walls of the city are as sturdy as straw beneath the Arinfax Colossus’s terrible strength. Men and stone crash to the ground in a pile of rubble and death as the goblinoid army hoots and cries with glee. The forces of Verind’s Edge along the remaining walls begin fleeing from the massive stone creature, though the party can see Emperor Essran standing on the wall near the Colossus desperately trying to rally his men. Court Wizard Davos stands near the emperor futilely hurling arcane magics at the elemental terror. All of his attacks are harmlessly rebuffed by the Colossus’s magical defenses.






Erik and Invicto quickly assess the broken junction in the Energy Array. With this one pipe disconnected, any blast of energy that is generated is unable to continue flowing through the machine to make it out of the watchtower to the device’s target. Erik and Invicto’s arcane training suggests to them that the pipe could simply be held together to let the energy flow through the machine correctly. However, when the bolt of energy passes through the junction, whoever is holding the pipe together will get a signficant shock. They don’t think the shock would be lethal, but it certainly wouldn’t be pleasant. With little time to debate, The Zaza rushes to the junction to hold the pipes together.

Fargrim quickly refocuses the view screen to target the Arinfax Colossus again and fires another shot. As the bolt rushes through the machine it passes the junction The Zaza holds together. The dragonborn endures a massive electric shock that throws her across the room, but the bolt of energy passes through the junction successfully and rushes out of the tower. Unfortunately, in his rush to retarget the machine for another shot, Fargrim did not align the view screen accurately and the shot barely misses the Colossus.

He retargets the device as The Zaza picks herself up, shakes off the dizzy feeling humming in her skull, and rushes across the room to hold the pipe together again. The Colossus continues to decimate the walls of Verind’s Edge and the party looks on in horror as the creature brings its fists down on the section of wall where Emperor Essran and the wizard Davos stand. The heart of the Empire of Nerath meets a swift and brutal end as it falls into the mounting pile of rubble, stone, and corpses at the feet of the Arinfax Colossus. Fargrim carefully targets the device for a third time, and The Zaza is again blown across the room as the bolt of energy passes through the junction she holds together. She slumps on the floor, barely hanging on to consciousness.

The party watches through the view screen with their breath held as the shot from the Energy Array arrives. This time it strikes true and the bright, white bolt of energy easily passes through the Arinfax Colossus’s defenses. The creature jerks up and becomes filled with an intense light. Cracks begin appearing all along its stone exterior and bright rays of white light shoot out of every widening crack. The cracks rapidly expand and multiply until the creature is nothing more than a shapeless collection of stones, and suddenly the white light filling the elemental creature disappears and the Colossus falls to the ground as a pile of fine rubble. In the blink of an eye the terrible monstrosity is gone.

_A Hole in the Wall_

However, the damage the Colossus did is not undone. A massive hole stands in the walls of Verind’s Edge, the Emperor is dead, and most of the city’s forces have fled the area where the Colossus stood. The goblinoid army is stunned at the loss of the Arinfax Colossus, but the bloodthirsty creatures quickly realize the opportunity that is presented to them. They rush through the opening in the walls the elemental titan created and begin spreading through the city. The forces of Verind’s Edge rally at the sight of the Colossus’s destruction, but their defenses have been significantly crippled.











The party watches helplessly as the battle rages. Erik and Invicto investigate the Energy Array further to see if they can use the device to target the forces of the goblinoid army, but they find that the magical energy leaving the array is much to uniquely refined to be of any effect. The device can carefully dissipate the chaotic elemental magics holding together a titan of the Abyss, but it has no other effect on anything that is targeted – from living creature to inanimate rock.

Fargrim has seen many battles, and he has no doubt about the outcome of this contest. With well-defended walls to stand behind, Verind’s Edge likely could have held out against a siege from an army of this size for months – probably long enough for the goblinoid army to lose its will and dissipate back into the Torin Plains, defeated. However, with the goblinoid forces running rampant through the city, their numbers will unquestionably overwhelm the forces of Verind’s Edge. The party is desperate to help, but they are several days travel from Verind’s Edge. With the walls breached, Fargrim doesn’t expect the battle to last through the night. A quiet, somber mood comes over the party as they realize their home, and indeed the very life they have known for many years, is totally lost.

_The Last Soldier_

The party is drained from the gauntlet of battles and traps they just fought their way through. The Zaza in particular tends to the scorched wounds on her hands where she held the dislodged pipe of the Energy Array together. The entire party rests for a time in stunned silence, but eventually they pick themselves up to at least look around the rest of the watchtower. Most notably, there is an armored skeleton of a dwarf slumped in one corner of the room. It appears to have been the last soldier stationed in the watchtower, now centuries dead. He was impressively equipped with a magical warhammer, magical plate armor, magical gauntlets, and a magical belt that are all well-preserved. The party also finds some kind of magical key on the soldier’s neck as well as a journal in a satchel nearby.

They flip through the last few entries of the journal and piece together some interesting information. The dwarven soldier appears to have been stationed in the watchtower nearly a thousand years ago. The journal speaks of the recent fall of Verind’s Edge to the goblinoids of the Torin Plains (though between then and now Verind’s Edge was reclaimed by the people of the Boundary Lands before falling to the goblinoid tribes once again roughly a hundred years ago). The journal also speaks of civil war recently breaking out within the dwarven nation of Arnathon, which is how the party is able to place the soldier’s last days as roughly a thousand years ago. The soldier speaks of how the fall of Verind’s Edge and the civil war in Arnathon have resulted in political bickering about who should staff and maintain this watchtower. The other soldiers stationed in the tower left to seek aid from the dwarven clans and from other cities in the Boundary Lands, though the soldier is worried something may have happened to them on their journey as they have not returned for months now. The party assumes the soldier’s fears were confirmed as clearly no aid ever returned to the tower. The soldier writes of being concerned that there will be no one to relieve him if he passes, and it appears he was correct.

The soldier also writes extensively in the journal about his concerns for the dwarven nation of Arnathon. The king of Arnathon died with no heir and no siblings, and civil war broke out as various clans tried to claim the throne. The soldier writes,
_“I fear the only means to resolve the situation is by retrieving the famed Hammer of Tharmak, an ancient dwarven relic gifted from Moradin himself that was used to decide who would receive the kingship when civil war threatened Arnathon some seven centuries ago [now roughly seventeen centuries ago from the party’s time]. Unfortunately, the Hammer was entombed with the dwarven King Maldrug, and was lost when the dwarven clan of Hammer Hand had to flee their homeland when it was overrun by monsters some 300 years ago [now roughly 1,300 years ago from the party’s time]. Since I have nothing but time on my hands, I requested a number of tomes from the sages in the Quinalyn city of Arastur, as well as some dwarven tomes from my homeland. I’ve pieced together what clues I could find about the lost home of the clan of Hammer Hand. Like any great dwarven tomb, King Maldrug’s was well defended, and I can only hope it is still undisturbed.”_​The journal includes many cryptic notes about the location of the Hammer Hand clan and the guards on King Maldrug’s tomb. The Hammer Hand clan appears to have been located in the mountains northeast of the Boundary Lands near the Northern Ice Sheet. Fargrim knows dwarves used to inhabit that area, but they were run out by monsters many centuries ago. Surprisingly, Invicto recognizes the symbol of the Hammer Hand clan. He saw it on the breastplate of one of the Dead Hand Bandits. Of course, the dwarven nation of Arnathon is still not united. While there is no standing civil war, the dwarves of Arnathon exist only as separate, independent clans that occassionally war with one another.

_Exploring the Tower_

The party also finds a small passage leading out of the back of the room to a spiral staircase heading down. The stairs extend back into the watchtower, passing beside the numerous floors the party fought their way through. About halfway down, once the party has travelled back into the rock surrounding the base of the tower, a side passage extends out from the spiral staircase. The party follows it to find the remains of an old barracks. Some of the items have remained well-preserved in the still, underground environment, but mostly the party just finds dusty piles of crumpled sheets and rotting wood.

Passing the barracks, however, the party discovers a few more rooms dug out of the rock. First is what appears to be a supply room. Some decayed sundries are scattered around the floor, but there is also a rotted, broken chest filled with a massive pile of gold pieces. The party also finds a magical Bag of Holding in the room.

Moving on, the party finds a small library that had been maintained for the watchtower. Some of the ancient texts have crumbled to dust on the shelves, but many books and scrolls made of well-crafted, thick papyrus survived just fine. The party finds, belatedly, numerous writings on how to operate the Energy Array, and how to analyze the elemental magics of the Arinfax Colossus’s defenses in order to set the control dials correctly. They also find a number of arcane texts, from which Erik is able to glean instructions on a few magical rituals – Arcane Lock, Knock, and Object Reading. The rest of the books and scrolls seem to just be assorted history books on the dwarven lands of Arnathon, the Boundary Lands, and the nation of Quinalyn.

Invicto, however, comes across an interesting scroll in the library that catches his eye. It appears to be a request for supplies written by a wizard who was stationed in the tower. The wizard writes of discovering a black arts book on an Ogre Mage when a patrol from the watchtower encountered a band of creatures from the Torin Plains. The book apparently included an arcane ‘recipe’ for constructing a magic item without using expensive residuum. The ritual requires a number of very mundane arcane components, as well as the three tongues from the three different heads of a chimera, and the blood of either a demon or a warlock with an infernal pact. Fitting the bill for one of those requirements, Invicto realizes he could craft this item himself if he was simply able to slay a chimera. The wizard speaks of using the arcane recipe to craft a very powerful wand, though Invicto believes he could easily modify the process to produce an arcane rod which he could use. The supply request mentions that chimeras are very rare but can be occasionally found in the Torin Plains, though they are also sometimes captured and used in the gladiator arenas of the Jeweled Cities.

Continuing past the library, the party finds one more room down the passage – an ancient dwarven tomb. The tomb is for the dwarven hero, Kradran, who in his last days volunteered to be stationed at the watchtower and helped defend the tower against an attack by an entire tribe of orcs and ogres. Kradran must have been a dwarven hero of only small reputation in his time, as no party member recognizes the name. They do notice however, that Kradran was buried with a magical battleaxe that is simply brimming with radiant energy. The Zaza picks up the weapon and immediately senses the intelligent will embodied within the weapon. It is a magical artifact, the Axe of Light, and it exists to destroy undead and the dark necrotic energy that empowers them. The Zaza agrees with the aims of the weapon, as she, and her deity Melora, have always loathed the unnatural creation of undead creatures. The Zaza wields the weapon proudly, excited at the chance to use its blade against the undead.

The party continues down the spiral staircase and is able to walk all the way down to the first floor of the watchtower. There they find that the key they found around the neck of the soldier’s corpse unlocks a magically hidden door that opens directly into the main room of the first floor of the watchtower. The party summarily decides that this route would have been much better than the path they took, but can do nothing about it now…

_A Dark Night_

They return to the top of the watchtower and use the view screen to check in on the battle at Verind’s Edge. The party can see some citizens trying to flee out of the city eastward into the country side, pursued by roving bands of orcs and goblins. They decide to find out what else they can see using the magical view screen and begin redirecting it to other areas. They attempt to look in on the hideout of the Dead Hand Bandits, but find that the mountains to the northeast of the watchtower block their view.

They then scroll the view screen to the southwest, attempting to zoom in on the tower of Lord Dread. They find that the crystalline telescope does have a limit as they get several days’ travel southwest of Verind’s Edge and are unable to zoom any farther. However, the party does spy something of interest. As they skim their view in the direction of Lord Dread’s domain they notice there are numerous groups of undead, traveling in packs of thirty of forty, headed from the direction of Lord Dread’s keep towards Verind’s Edge. The closest group is only a couple days’ travel from the city, though they will not arrive before the battle is finished. The party speculates as to whether the undead creatures were intended to arrive in time to join in the battle, or whether they were intended to arrive specifically after the battle to pursue some dark, necrotic goal using the hundreds and thousands of corpses left in the aftermath. Since Lord Dread has never before mettled in the affairs of the Boundary Lands, they settle on the latter.

As night falls, the party settles in for a much needed rest, though they have no idea what tomorrow will bring.

_What Next?_

The party awakens in the morning and gathers together to discuss what to do next. Clearly, their role with the Empire of Nerath is no more, as the Empire itself was crushed before their very eyes yesterday. For many years the party has been told what to do and where to go, but it appears that now they are on their own. Erik is certain that Queen Larindra and his son are dead, and he decides that there is no longer any reason to keep those events to himself. He comes clean to the party and tells them about his encounter with the Queen and his discovery that he was a father. The party is stunned, but quickly offers Erik sympathy for the loss of his son.

The party comes to realize that, while Verind’s Edge offered them a home as well as a chance at fame and adventure, it truly was a small city tucked away in the far corner of the known world. The party takes stock of the great, wide world before them, and considers a variety of options in where to go and what to do next.


The Jeweled Cities
Hak’apoor, a merchant and trader, offered Charm and the rest of the party work in the Jeweled Cities.
The Zaza’s twin brother, Daza, may be alive as a slave in the gladiator arenas of the Jeweled Cities.
Invicto is interested in finding a chimera in order to craft a magical rod, and one may be found in the gladiator arenas in the Jeweled Cities.

Quinalyn
Erik’s adoptive father, Varna, asked him to visit him in Quinalyn.
The party could research the Shadar-kai that attacked them and/or the “Keystone Mortalis” with the famous sages and libraries in the Quinlalyn city of Arastur.

The Fiefdom of Uthrin
Erik could pay a visit to his birth mother, the wife of Sir Uthrin, and/or try to discover the identity of his true father.
The party could seek vengeance on Sir Uthrin and his fiefdom for preventing aid from reaching Verind’s Edge.

Verind’s Edge
The party could look for survivors from the battle at Verind’s Edge.

Other Places
The party could seek vengeance on the Dead Hand Bandits.
Fargrim and the party could seek out the famed dwarven Hammer of Tharmak mentioned in the watchtower soldier’s journal, and use it to try to reunite the dwarven clans of Arnathon.
The party could speak to Lord Dread about and/or try to procure the “Keystone Mortalis” which they handed over to him.

The party debates for a time about what to do next. The Zaza eagerly insists the party should travel to the Jeweled Cities, as she is excited about the chance to possibly discover any clues as to the fate of her twin brother, Daza. Charm and Invicto are both interested in going to the Jeweled Cities as well, Charm to pursue work with the merchant Hak’apoor, and Invicto to possibly seek out a chimera in the gladiator arenas. The entire party expresses interest in paying back Sir Uthrin for his numerous transgressions against Verind’s Edge, but the party’s not too sure what they would do once they arrived in the city of Uthrin.

Fargrim insists that the party pursue the legendary Hammer of Tharmak to unite the dwarven clans of Arnathon, but the rest of the party has their doubts about the accuracy of the journal’s clues since they are now a thousand years old. Erik is interested in returning to Quinalyn to visit his adoptive father, and to consult with the sages in Arastur, and the party would have to journey through Quinalyn on their way to the Jeweled Cities. In fact, the most direct path would actually be to take ship from Arastur. After a long period of arguing, and a promise to pursue the Hammer of Tharmak some time in the future, the party agrees to head through Quinalyn to the Jeweled Cities.

_Survivors_

Everyone begins packing up and preparing to leave, but the party decides to take one last look through the crystal view screen in the top of the tower before leaving. Scanning the foothills leading up to the mountains, the party spies a group of humanoids making their way towards the mountains. Zooming in, the party is surprised to recognize the group. It consists of the goliath bard, Mujeh; the halfing rescued from the Feywild city of Calipha, Lock; a soldier of Verind’s Edge, Old Breddy; the young girl from Ramshead whose mother was killed by Raver, Lucinda; and another figure the party does not recognize. By her appearance, she appears to be a human cleric of Pelor. The group is a surprising collection of some of the party’s closest friends from Verind’s Edge, and they are elated that the group has survived and are headed towards the party’s location.

The party is especially excited to see that Old Breddy survived, as he was the only citizen of Verind’s Edge that the party seemed to be truly concerned about. They do take a moment to express their collective disappointment about the fact that Old Breddy doesn’t spell his name ‘Old Bready’. They really think he would be an immensely more popular person if he would spell his name differently. Nonetheless, they are all ecstatic at the chance to reunite with the surly old veteran soldier.

Unfortunately, in scanning the countryside, the party sees a small group of goblinoids that clearly appears to be trailing the group. Orcs, goblins, and even a couple ogres are closing in on the group of Verind’s Edge survivors. The monsters are an hour or two behind, but the beastial goblinoids are used to the rigors of wilderness travel and are clearly gaining on the small group of humanoids.

The party studies the terrain between the watchtower and the group of their friends, and they quickly depart to intercept them. There are many twists and turns to the rocky hillsides they must traverse to reach the group of survivors, but The Zaza’s wilderness expertise is impressive as she swiftly directs the party along the correct path. After a few hours of travel, the party is able to reach their friends before the goblinoids do.

As excited as the party is to reach their friends, the survivors from Verind’s Edge are ecstatic at the sight of the party members. Mujeh fills the party in on what brought this ragtag group together. He introduces the cleric of Pelor to the party as Janna. Apparently she was a recent addition to the temple in Verind’s Edge. While there, she was caring for the numerous villagers being brought from the surrounding villages into the protection of the city in preparation for war with the goblinoid army. She came across Lucinda, who arrived with the other villagers from Ramshead. The girl had no family of her own, but insisted that she wanted to speak to Charm and The Zaza. Janna asked around for anyone matching the girl’s description, and was eventually led to Old Breddy who knew the adventurers the girl was looking for.

Old Breddy has spent plenty of late nights in a tavern with the party, and thus has gotten to know Mujeh fairly well, as the bard has been perpetually hanging around the party members. He spoke with Mujeh to find out where the party went and Mujeh eventually was able to speak with Court Wizard Davos about the party’s whereabouts. Mujeh was nervous about the city’s ability to withstand an attack from the Arinfax Colossus, and the bard harbors a growing suspicion that if he wants to witness a great story, he should be spending more time with the party on their various quests. So, Mujeh decided to head out of the city the day before the Colossus arrived to journey into the mountains to find the party and the watchtower they were seeking out.

Lock, having been introduced to Mujeh and knowing no one else in the city, has been simply following the goliath around, so he resolved to accompany Mujeh on his journey to find the party. The halfling also insisted he wanted to rejoin the party to fulfill his pledge to serve them in any way he can, since he owes them his life. Old Breddy agreed with Mujeh that the safest place to be might not be in Verind’s Edge, and since the veteran soldier is past the age to be of any good in a battle, he decided to accompany Mujeh to find the party. With no one else to care for her, Old Breddy took pity on Lucinda and offered to bring her along to find the party. Janna was surprisingly excited to join Old Breddy on the journey as well. The cleric was apparently very interested in meeting the party after hearing of their various exploits, so the entire group made its way out of the city towards the mountains to the north.

The party is happy to catch up, but insists that they must get moving as there is a band of goblinoids fast approaching. The party decides to head back up into the mountains. There they should be able to find a good hiding spot for the group of survivors to hole up in while the party takes care of the pursuing goblinoids.

As the party begins travelling, Lucinda is initially shy about greeting the party, but eventually Charm and The Zaza are able to coax her out of her shell. The girl says she feels safe around the party and is very grateful to have found them. Speaking with The Zaza for a while, she mentions that she still has nightmares about the man who killed her mother. Lucinda is still scared that the man will come for her one day. The Zaza proudly assures Lucinda that that isn’t possible because she killed the man herself. Lucinda’s eyes widen in disbelief, and The Zaza assures the girl that Raver is dead and gone and will never be able to harm her. The girl hugs The Zaza gratefully.

True to Mujeh’s introduction, Janna is very interested in hearing about the party’s exploits. As the party hikes through the mountains she accosts the party with a barrage of questions about the various quests and missions the party has been on. The topic of the Keystone Mortalis and Lord Dread comes up, and the cleric seems especially interested to hear the details of this story. She knows nothing of Lord Dread herself, so the party fills her in on what they know of the loner necromancer. Janna is shocked that the party handed over a powerful, dark artifact to an evil master of the undead. She insists that the party should make haste to travel straight to Lord Dread’s keep so that they can retrieve the artifact, but the party regretfully informs her that they are headed to the Jeweled Cities. Janna asks for details about the exact location and layout of Lord Dread’s keep so that she can try to obtain the artifact herself. The party is shocked at the cleric’s ambition, but wish her good luck and provide all the details they can, including the passphrase to get by the guardians in the valley surrounding Lord Dread’s keep.

After travelling further back up into the mountains, the party sends the group of Verind’s Edge survivors on to find a suitable hiding spot while they look for a good ambush spot to do battle with the pursuing group of goblinoids. They ask Old Breddy, Janna, and Mujeh if they want to join in the fight, but they all think it would be best if they stay with the defenseless Lock and Lucinda in case any stragglers from the battle happen upon them. The party accepts the decision and assures the group they will see them in a few hours after they have taken care of their pursuers.


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## hayek (Feb 28, 2011)

*Chapter 5 - A New Home (s. 10)*

5.1 Fond Farewells

As the party searches for a suitable ambush spot, Fargrim begins an incessant stream of grumbling. He eventually brings the party to a halt and declares that he was a fool to ever agree to head south and that he must pursue the ancient dwarven relic, the Hammer of Tharmak, and try to reunite the dwarven clans of Arnathon. In fact, he can’t waste another minute traipsing through these mountains playing hide-and-seek with orcs and goblins. He must strike out to the northeast immediately to seek out the Hammer. The party is slightly taken aback at Fargrim’s announcement, but they must admit they aren’t too surprised. The loss of their home and everything they knew hit the party hard, and affected them each in their own way. The gruff dwarven warlord has decided to find himself a new home amongst the dwarves by forging a legacy of his own with the clans of Arnathon.

Charm, who always had a strong connection with Fargrim that they both tried to deny, speakes up to say she will go with the dwarf, but she must help the party defeat the tribe of goblinoids hunting her friends from Verind’s Edge first. Fargrim insists that goblins and orcs fight like babies and that the party will have no trouble handling them without him. Times-a-wastin’ and he must get busy reuniting the dwarven clans of Arnathon. He utters a gruff goodbye and a “thanks for the killin’”, then hikes off to the northeast. Charm promises to catch up to him and Fargrim shrugs without turning around. Charm chuckles, confident she’ll be able to catch up to the dwarf in no time with his stubby legs.

_Out With the Old, In With the New_

The party is only a few minutes into continuing their search for a suitable ambush spot when they are surprised to find a well-armed elf standing in their path. The stranger sports a penetrating gaze, a bristling quiver of arrows, and an enormous long bow nearly as tall as a man. He hails the party and introduces himself as Perin.

He explains that he is a ranger, recently roaming the wilds of the Boundary Lands, who volunteered to help defend Verind’s Edge against the goblinoid army and the attack of the Arinfax Colossus. He had been doing some scout work in the Torin Plains, stationed along a stretch of wall north of the city. When Verind’s Edge fell, the elf began making his way east and just recently spotted the band of survivors the party intercepted, as well as the pack of goblinoids that were tracking them. He volunteers to help the party in their ambush, and the party is happy for an extra sword, or bow, in the battle.

_Bowling Over the Opposition_

The party eventually picks out what they feel is a very suitable spot for an ambush. They find a narrow canyon with steep walls rising on either side. The Zaza, with some help from Perin, recognizes that the goblinoids should pass through the canyon, as circumventing it would likely delay the creatures’ chase by a few hours. In a narrow portion of the canyon, the party finds a short raised plateau with a gentle slope on the northern end rising to a steep twenty foot cliff on the other end, facing the goblinoids as they enter. To pass by the raised plateau, the goblinoids will have to file through a narrow passage along the canyon wall, bunching the group up nicely for an ambush.

Even better, the party finds a nicely rounded large boulder on the raised plateau which they carefully position to tumble into the goblinoids as they pass. The party debates for some time how best to set the trap, whether to roll the boulder straight out at the goblinoids as they enter the canyon, or to let them come alongside the raised plateau before rolling the boulder into them. The boulder is quite heavy, and the party will need to rely on The Zaza’s strength to push the boulder off the ledge. However, in her squealing plate armor, the paladin may not be the best candidate for surprising the enemy.

They decide to improve the boulder trap in a couple of ways – to create a distraction in the direction opposite from the boulder (along the canyon wall) and to task Erik with devising a launching mechanism to make it easier to send the boulder on its way. The party brainstorms a variety of distractions, including having Invicto use Ghost Sound to throw his intimidating, high-pitched gnome voice onto the canyon wall and to shout various phrases at the goblinoids. The party considers a variety of distracting phrases such as “Look over here!”, “Help me! Help me!”, “Hey want some gold!”, and “Aaaaaahhhhhh!”. “Help me! Help me!” gets the worst review, as the party doubts orcs and goblins have much desire to help innocent gnomes… The party also considers making the sound of a wolf howling, and eerily, just as they mention it, they hear wolves howling in the distance. After all the debate, the party just decides to have Perin throw a backpack filled with pots and pans down the canyon wall.

The party settles on letting the goblinoids come alongside the raised plateau before jumping them, so Erik rigs some rope, a wooden wedge, and some other small rocks to prepare the boulder for the ambush. Perin treks through the canyon and comes up onto the top of the steep canyon walls, on the side opposite from the raised plateau the rest of the party hides on. Perin is a good fifty feet up from the action in his perch on top of the canyon walls, but still well within range with his massive longbow. Perin loads up a pack with a variety of pots, pans, and other clanging metal objects, ties it to the end of about forty feet of rope and waits for the goblinoids to arrive.

The Zaza waits behind the boulder trap, ready to launch the rock into the midst of the goblinoids. On the raised plateau with the dragonborn, Erik lies flat on his belly, peaking over the edge, while Invicto and Charm wait further back, hidden behind a large pile of rocks and brush.

_Orcs, Ogres, and Goblins Oh My!_


The creatures soon file into the canyon. Roughly five orc warriors amble along with five goblin sharpshooters. The party doesn’t make them out to be much of a threat. The real threat is the three huge ogres stomping along in the middle of the pack of creatures. They also note a goblin near the back of the group with the clear trappings of a tribe shaman or hexer. The ogres are clearly the most dangerous opponents. They tower at least 12 feet tall, and their huge, muscled arms carry massive great clubs as thick as a man’s torso. The party realizes this will be no easy fight, but they are confident their ambush will help them grab the advantage.







Unfortunately, the goblinoids are somewhat spread out as they file through the canyon – not ideal for the party’s boulder trap. Perin waits until two of the ogres come alongside the raised plateau then kicks the pack over the edge of the canyon. It reaches the end of the rope with a loud clanging as the pots and pans slam into the canyon wall about ten feet above the canyon floor. The distraction works flawlessly. The entire pack of goblinoids turns toward the canyon wall as The Zaza shoves the boulder off of the raised plateau. It tumbles on to the canyon floor, headed straight for two of the ogres. Unfortunately, the beasts turn at the last second and manage to partially dodge out of the way of the boulder. It clips both of them, but only delivers minor injuries before crashing into the canyon wall.

In all the commotion, Charm quickly skitters down the steep cliff of the raised plateau and darts across the canyon floor. The tiefling draws on all of her rogue training to stay hidden as she moves behind a small pile of rocks, about even with the back line of the goblinoid forces. Erik conjures up a Flaming Sphere in the middle of the enemy’s ranks and immediately begins dropping some of the weak goblin sharpshooters and orc warriors as they collapse in flames.

The ogres are clearly angered at the sudden assault and they rush to the back of the canyon to ascend the slope onto the raised plateau. For such large, lumbering creatures, they are surprisingly quick. In an instant, the front two ogres are able to turn the corner onto the plateau’s slope and charge into battle. Unfortunately, the monsters move so fast, they catch Erik still lying flat on the ground next to The Zaza. As they rush up the slope, the party hears the three ogres’ brutish and inarticulate attempt at intimidation as they clearly state their goal for the battle. The first ogre up the ramp shouts, “Tik smash!”, and brings down his massive club onto Erik, lying on the ground. The wizard weakly brings up his hands to deflect the blow, but he takes a strong hit. The next ogre up the ramp shouts, “Tok smash!”, and swings his club at The Zaza. With an Angry Smash, he is able to connect despite The Zaza’s guarded defenses. The Zaza tries to shake off the hit as the third ogre comes charging up the ramp with the dragonborn in its sights.

As the dragonborn prepares to deal with the onslaught of the ogres, she is suddenly hit with a Stinging Hex from the Goblin Hexer on the canyon floor. The Zaza is caught, unable to move without excruciating pain. Even worse, the ogres’ long arms give them significant reach, so they have stayed just out of range of the paladin’s battleaxe. The Zaza takes the opportunity to Bless her weapon, breathes a gout of flame at the ogres, and then is able to shrug off the effects of the Stinging Hex. Invicto and Perin both join the battle with a couple devastating attacks landed on one of the lead ogres. It is quickly bloodied and near death. Charm continues to skulk around the edge of the battlefield, positioning herself for a devastating strike on the Goblin Hexer. The goblin sharpshooters send out a few crossbow bolts that deal some minor injuries to Invicto and Erik, and bounce harmlessly off The Zaza’s platemail. The orc warriors make their way up the ramp behind the ogres to join the melee.

_Hanging By a Thread_

The party has dealt out a good deal of damage, but The Zaza and Erik are both near collapse and three ogres are still battering away at them. They manage to dodge a few more blows from the massive beasts and then they both catch their second wind, hanging on for a few more precious seconds. Erik stands next to The Zaza with a hulking ogre towering over him, wanting to back away from the creature, but needing to direct his Flaming Sphere around the battlefield. He glances at The Zaza and realizes she might not be able to survive another blow anyways. So, the wizard bravely stands his ground in front of the massive ogre. Erik rolls his Flaming Sphere into a few more goblin sharpshooters, unleashes a blast of arcane fire at the three ogres, and then somehow manages to dodge another of the ogre’s blows. The Zaza considers abandoning the plateau with what little strength she has left, but decides she must hold down the frontline. She takes one last desperate swing at the most injured ogre and is able to bring him down.

Charm finally emerges from hiding to land a devastating blow on the Goblin Hexer. She nearly kills him outright, but the caster manages to stay on his feet. He turns and utters a few arcane words and Charm finds herself suddenly blinded. She is then torn into by a volley of crossbow bolts from the remaining goblin sharpshooters, and the tiefling is quickly bloodied. Fortunately, Perin turns his attention her way and takes down the Hexer with a well-placed arrow. He then starts picking off the remaining goblins as Charm eventually shakes off the effects of the blinding hex. Once the tiefling regains her sight, she heads up the slope to the plateau to join the melee there.

The party has made progress on damaging the two remaining ogres, but The Zaza and Erik are still barely clinging to consciousness. Behind their fading frontline, Invicto continues launching eldritch energy at the ogres. The Zaza makes a desperate attempt to knock one of the ogres over the ledge of the plateau, but her attack misses the mark. Realizing Erik can’t take another hit from an ogre’s great club, she then risks herself by performing an Arc of Vengeance, using divine magic to compel both remaining ogres to attack her. The move pays off, as somehow the dragonborn paladin is able to deflect aside both of the ogres’ attacks.

Erik summons a magma beast on the plateau and it quickly takes out the remaining orc warriors. Though The Zaza and Erik are near death, once Charm arrives and the entire party directs their attacks at the two remaining ogres they are able to make short work of them. Perin continues raining down arrows from above, and Invicto lands a particularly devastating critical blow to one of the ogres. In a few short moments, the party stands alone on the canyon floor with 14 blood-stained corpses strewn around them.

_Goodbyes_

After the battle, Charm bids the party farewell and heads off into the mountains to the northeast to track down Fargrim and help him recover the Hammer of Tharmak. After the rushed goodbyes, the party is quiet for a time as they hike back into the mountains. Though he had a rough exterior, Fargrim was a good friend and a loyal comrade. The party will miss the gruff dwarf, and, though they only knew her for a brief time, Charm was always an amiable companion. The party is sad to see them go, but wishes them the best.

Perin can tell the party handles themselves well in a fight, and the elf decides they might make for decent travelling companions for a while. He asks where they’re headed and is intrigued at the possibility of seeing the great forests of Quinalyn as well as the sand and sea of the Jeweled Cities. He offers to join the party in their travels and the group, having just lost two talented members, graciously accepts.

_Sliced Bread_

The party heads back to the cave where Mujeh, Lock, Old Breddy, Lucinda, and Janna are hiding and are disturbed to see corpses strewn about the entrance to the cave. The blood-stained bodies of a couple of goblins as well as a giant dire wolf litter the ground. The party quickly hurries into the cave and thankfully finds their friends still alive. Mujeh has numerous scratches and bruises, but seems to have fared well. Lucinda and Lock are simply cowering in the corner. Old Breddy clearly got the worst of it. He cradles one viciously mangled arm, the corpse of another dire wolf laying a few feet away from him. Curiously, the party does not see Janna, the cleric of Pelor, anywhere.

Mujeh fills the party in on what happened. A couple goblin wolf riders tracked them to the cave and the ragtag group managed to fend them off, though one of the dire wolves latched on to Old Breddy’s arm and did some serious damage to it. Disturbingly, Janna left the group in the middle of the fight, after taking down one of the wolves that was attacking her. More concerning, however, is Mujeh’s description of the magic she used. As a bard, Mujeh has some training in the arcane arts, and he is certain that the magic Janna used was not divine or radiant magic. It was shadow magic. As she walked away from the fight, Mujeh called out for her to help them, but she simply let out a wicked laugh and left the group to fend for themselves. The party recalls how interested Janna seemed in the party’s information about Lord Dread and the Keystone Mortalis and concludes that she was likely a disguised Shadar-kai. Though she now knows the exact location of Lord Dread’s keep, the party isn’t too concerned. If the Shadar-kai get hold of the Raven Queen statue, it seems to just be a trade of one dark, shady owner for another.

Lucinda rushes to The Zaza and hugs her desparately while the dragonborn attempts to console the young girl. In the meantime, Perin, who has some training in the healing arts, offers to examine Old Breddy’s injured arm. The elf takes one look at it and realizes it will have to be amputated just above the elbow. The party builds a fire, gives Old Breddy several shots of gin, and then holds him down while Perin goes to work. The veteran soldier howls in pain and struggles mightily against his bonds, but eventually the job is done and the arm is bandaged. As Old Breddy fades off into sleep, Erik notes that the stump left over is about the size of a loaf of bread.






_Recruitment_

The party heads out the next day and begins travelling south through the Boundary Lands towards Quinalyn. As night falls they spot a campfire and investigate to discover a small group of soldiers, apparently survivors from Verind’s Edge. The group looks battered and worn down and they are on edge as the party approaches, but some of the soldiers recognize the party members and give them a warm greeting.

The group seems to have slowly grown in size as the soldiers managed to find each other as they fled the battle. Some of the soldiers were stationed in the city itself, one on the wall south of the city, and a few others north. All in all, there’s nine soldiers.

They relate what they know of the aftermath of the battle. They are certain the Emperor and Court Wizard Davos were killed, as some of the men saw them collapse into the pile of rubble from the Arinfax Colossus’s assault. Some of them claim the Empire may live on because they saw Queen Larindra escape with the newborn heir to the empire (of course none of the soldiers know the boy’s father is actually Erik). Others insist they saw the Queen overtaken and killed as she tried to flee. One soldier swears he saw the Queen ride out of the city with Sir Thalus guarding her and that they were ahead of the goblinoid forces, while another says he heard rumors she escaped on a flying griffon. The party doubts they can put much stock in these varied stories, and figures it is most likely the case that the Queen and her son were killed. Still Erik can’t help but think there is a small chance his son may be alive.

The soldier stationed on the wall south of the city relates an eerie tale. He and a group of soldiers headed towards the city when they saw the wall breached, but didn’t arrive until night fall the next day. By then, the battle for the city had been finished for some time. The ground around and inside the city was littered with thousands of corpses, both humanoid and goblinoid. The soldier says in addition to the corpses there were hundreds of undead creatures moving throughout the battlefield, ‘finishing off’ any survivors and loading corpses into wagons. The group of soldiers he was with moved in close to the city and were attacked by a band of skeletons. He was the only survivor, and he assures the party that Verind’s Edge is now no place for the living. The party is certain these undead were the packs they saw heading out from Lord Dread’s keep, and they shudder at what dark plans the necromancer may have for this massive collection of bodies.

At one point during the night, one of the soldiers mentions how thankful he is that Davos was able to destroy the Arinfax Colossus as the wizard was brought down. The party speaks up to say that they actually destroyed the Colossus from an outpost up in the mountains. A few of the soldiers concur, mentioning that they heard the party was sent on a quest to destroy the Colossus. Others insist that they saw Davos complete some kind of magical spell just before he was crushed by the elemental titan.

One particularly grizzled soldier gets angered with the party. “You disappear for 9 months, then come back right before the battle and take off before the army arrives! If you had the power to destroy the thing, why did you wait until it breached the city walls! I bet Sir Uthrin bought your honor with gold…” A couple other soldiers mutter their agreement as he continues. “Uthrin wanted the thing destroyed since it would come his way next, but he wanted to make sure it took out Verind’s Edge first.” The party scoffs at this suggestion. The Zaza speaks up firmly to defend the party’s honor. Insisting that they trekked three days through the mountains and arrived at the outpost just as the Colossus arrived at Verind’s Edge, and that they did everything they could to destroy the massive construct sooner, but time just wasn’t on their side. Her eloquent speech convinces several of the soldiers, but three of them, including the one who initially accused the party of colluding with Uthrin, still don’t trust the party.

Perin suggests that the party could use some new recruits and since these men are clearly out of work and homeless now, he thinks it might be a good idea to put them on the party’s payroll. He discusses it with the rest of the group, and they agree. The party would guess that the average pay for a common soldier is one gold piece per month, so The Zaza steps forth and offers double that to all the men to join them in heading south. Most of the soldiers are honored at the offer and impressed by The Zaza’s commanding presence. Those who have heard of the party’s exploits, and believed the party’s story about destroying the Arinfax Colossus, are humbled at the chance to serve them and insist that they do not need pay to follow them.

The three soldiers who still suspect the party of betraying Verind’s Edge to Uthrin are disgusted at the offer to take the party’s dirty money. They refuse to follow them and storm out of the camp. Perin offers to pay them the two gold pieces as a gesture of goodwill to send them on their way, and they still turn their back on the party’s generosity. One soldier in the camp, though, speaks up to take that offer, and he takes his two gold and scurries off into the night. The party is left with five soldiers ready and willing to follow them.

The next morning, the party continues their journey south. They eventually make their way through the rocky dwarven ruins of Arnathon, into the forests of Quinalyn, and finally after roughly two weeks of travel, they reach Erik’s home town of Trannyth. As the party travels, they get to know their new recruits a little better, and one of them clearly stands out above the rest. Aramil, an eladrin warlord, proves to be very knowledgable when it comes to battle. He is clearly a brilliant strategist and an experienced tactician. With Fargrim’s battle leadership gone, the party welcomes Aramil into their inner circle to fill the void the dwarf left behind. Though Charm and Fargrim were reliable comrades, the party is confident Perin and Aramil will fill their spots quite capably.


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## hayek (Mar 8, 2011)

By the way, if anyone's interested in putting some visualization to the world where the story is taking place, here's a couple of links to some maps - 

Map of the Boundary Lands

Map of the known world

(You can see the Boundary Lands way up in the upper left-hand corner of the world map.)


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## Noctos (Mar 8, 2011)

very detailed so i wonder. do you use some sort of writing program that use speach or do you hand type all this.


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## hayek (Mar 8, 2011)

Noctos said:


> very detailed so i wonder. do you use some sort of writing program that use speach or do you hand type all this.




Hey Noctos, thanks for stopping by! I don't use any speech program, though I see how that could be useful. I'm a pretty fast typer, which helps, but mostly the detail is thanks to sinking a loooot of time into each write-up. I'd say on average I spend about 8 hours typing, editing, and proofreading each post. It's a ludicrous amount of time, but it's a labor of love so I enjoy it...

Lemme know if you have any other questions!


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## hayek (Mar 16, 2011)

I've finally noticed that most of my posts are ridiculously long, so I'll start breaking the write-ups into smaller chunks with the next update


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## hayek (Mar 16, 2011)

*Chapter 5 - A New Home (s. 11)*

*5.2 A Family Reunion (Part 1)*

The party arrives in Erik’s home town of Trannyth so the lone human in the party can pay a visit to his adoptive elven father, Varna. Aramil asks about Erik’s relationship with his parents, and Erik attempts to explain his strained connection to his adoptive parents, and relates the story of what he knows of his birth parents, with his adoptive father having an affair with his birth mother and then taking Erik into his family thinking he was his own bastard son, but then realizing he wasn’t, and how Erik later slept with the Queen of the Empire of Nerath to discover that his birth mother is now married to the vile Sir Uthrin, whose kingdom was somewhat warring with Verind’s Edge and the Empire of Nerath before it was destroyed… Aramil tries to listen attentively, only letting his eyes glaze over a little, and eventually nods with a “So, it’s complicated…”






_A Chilling Reception_

Walking through the town, Perin recognizes some old acquaintances, as he spent some time hunting in the forests of Quinalyn. Invicto and The Zaza, the only two party members who haven’t spent significant time in Quinalyn are quite taken with the raised homes built into and on the trees of the town. The party’s entourage of Verind’s Edge survivors heads into the center of town to find a tavern at which to pass the time. Erik remembers the streets of Trannyth well, and figures he should get straight to what he came for. The party soon turns onto a quaint wooded lane, and Erik is flooded with memories of his childhood. His parents’ home stands in the shadow of several massive trees. A richly adorned house, it is one of several homes in Trannyth that was constructed to stand on its own, rather than built into a tree. Erik strides up and knocks on the front door.

A servant he doesn’t recognize answers the door. The servant is quite taken aback with the motley crew that appears armed to the teeth. He asks them to state their business, and Erik says he would speak with Varna. The servant asks if he has an appointment and Erik replies that he does not, but just to tell Varna that Erik has arrived to see him. The servant informs the party that the master of the house is currently not in, but that he will ask the lady of the house if she will see them. Erik nods begrudgingly and lets out a sigh once the servant closes the door. Erik’s relationship with his adoptive mother, Brenys, was abrasive to say the least. She never really accepted the human as her son, and was glad to see Erik go when he finally struck out on his own.

The door opens and Brenys stands in the entryway with a vitriolic gaze. She is well-dressed and adorned with a variety of gaudy jewelry. Erik offers, “Hello, mother.”

Brenys replies, “Erik, I’m so disappointed to see you again.”

Erik ignores the remark. “I’ve just arrived from the Boundary Lands. We were serving in Verind’s Edge when war broke out with the orcs and goblins of the Torin Plains and the city was destroyed.”

Brenys seems incredibly uninterested in hearing Erik speak. She cuts him off, “I still don’t understand why Varna didn’t just toss you in the river when you were a babe. Get out of my sight and take your human stink with you.” She promptly shuts the door in Erik’s face.

The party is silent for a moment, and Erik says, “Well, let’s go get hammered!” The party heartily agrees and heads back to the center of town to find the nicest pub Trannyth can offer. Erik briefly recalls meeting a former servant of his father, Gregor, in Verind’s Edge some time ago, and wonders if he could track him down, but he has no idea if Gregor made it out of the city before the attack, or even if he would head back to Trannyth after Verind’s Edge was destroyed. He puts it out of his mind, and the party heads into the pub and commences the drowning of sorrows. They are only about thirty minutes in when an older elf walks into the pub that Erik recognizes. The man is Elkas, a servant of Erik’s adoptive father. He scans the room, spots Erik, and heads straight to him.

“Erik, I’m so sorry about Brenys. Your father would have given you a much warmer welcome. These past few years, he has spoken often of how much he regretted how you were treated, and how he wanted to make amends for sending you away. He even spoke to me about making some changes to his will to include you. Unfortunately, he went to visit your brother, Luwin, about two months ago and hasn’t returned. Luwin sent word that your father fell ill, and that he has been caring for him there in his town. If you haven’t heard, Luwin bought up the lands and title of a debt-ridden noble deep in the forests of Quinalyn – a small village named Osteros.” Elkas glances down at the bar and lowers his voice. “I’m worried about Varna.”

“You think he’s in danger?” Erik asks.

Elkas purses his lips. “I shouldn’t say any more. I just wanted to let you know how your father felt. I should get back to the house before Brenys notices my absence.” He nods to Erik and takes his leave.

Asking around the pub, the party discovers that the small village of Osteros is somewhat on the way to Arastur. They decide to pay a visit to Luwin and to check in on Varna. They promptly take their leave of Trannyth and travel southwest for a few days. Osteros is somewhat off the well-travelled roads of Quinalyn, in some of the deeper, more dangerous woods, so the party decides to leave their entourage of Verind’s Edge survivors in a larger city near Osteros while they pay Luwin a visit. They travel for a couple days on their own through thickening forests and wild underbrush and arrive in the small village of Osteros as a noonday sun peaks through the tree canopy.

_Meeting the Locals_

As the party approaches the city, Aramil decides it might be smart to separate himself from the party. Assuming Luwin’s intentions are sinister, the eladrin thinks the party might benefit from having an ally in town that Luwin doesn’t know is connected to them. So, he decides to hang back for a few hours, letting the rest of the party go into the town on their own first. He’ll then follow them into town near sunset, posing as an independent traveler.






As the party enters the small town, they can see a large keep standing on a raised hill in the distance, towering over the village. It actually includes stone construction, though vines cover its walls and towers. The party decides to look around the town before calling on Luwin in the castle. Unfortunately, the village is so small there are really no public areas to be found. They do make their way to the center of the village where there’s a small marketplace with some activity. As the party walks into the market they draw inquisitive looks from the villagers there, some looking concerned and disapproving. The party notices that all of the villagers are elves and eladrin.

A huge, hulking elf emerges from the crowd and approaches the party. Most elves are slender and graceful in their physique, but this elf is thick and brutish, the biggest elf the party has ever seen. His teeth are filed into points and he approaches with a gruesome smile. He addresses Perin in elvish. “What is an elf doing with this trash?”, he asks derisively and indicates the party with his hand.

Perin attempts to play along and responds in elvish, “Sometimes the hunter must walk with the prey.”

This draws a sharp laugh from the villager. The rest of the party isn’t sure what transpired. Erik recalls a little elven from his childhood, and gathers that the villager called them trash and then Perin made some joke about hunting. The hulking elf turns to the rest of the party and speaks in broken common, “You not welcome!”

Erik speaks up and says, “Are you the person in charge here?”

The elf laughs and says, “Yes, Brakkus in charge!” This draws chuckles from the villagers, who have now all stopped to watch the exchange.

Perin interjects to say that Brakkus should stop squabbling with these lesser creatures. He tells Brakkus he looks like he would be an impressive hunter and asks him about the largest kills he’s taken down. Brakkus is flattered and says that maybe he’ll hunt with Perin later, but the elf then turns his attention back to the rest of the party. “You not welcome! You go!”

The party looks at each other, not sure where this will lead. Suddenly a short, thin elf emerges from the crowd, calling out, “Welcome to our fair city, visitors! I apologize for the townsfolk, they aren’t used to visitors. Brakkus, back to work!” The gathered crowd begins to dissipate. The new elf introduces himself as Calwyn and invites the party to follow him up to the keep, explaining that the town doesn’t have an inn, and visitors are welcome to stay in the castle. The party agrees to follow him and heads out of the marketplace.

As they leave, Brakkus calls out, “Enjoy your stay at the castle!” and the comment draws laughs from the villagers. The party notices one young eladrin woman in the marketplace that doesn’t join in the laughs, however. Standing by a vegetable cart with a half-filled woven basket, she instead has a look of concern, and perhaps pity, as she gazes at the party.


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## hayek (Mar 21, 2011)

*Chapter 5 - A New Home (s. 11)*

*5.2 A Family Reunion (Part 2)*

_More Suspicious Behavior_

As the party heads out of the village and up to the castle Calwyn asks the party what they are visiting Osteros for. Erik says that they wish to visit Varna. Calwyn seems a little surprised at the request and thinks for a moment. “Yes, I believe he has fallen ill. I’ll have to check with Master Luwin as to whether you can see him. He might not be in a condition for visitors.”

Erik is a little suspicious of this response, but tells Calwyn to inform Luwin that Erik is here to see Varna. Calwyn leads the party through the massive wooden doors of the castle into a large, open courtyard. Servants bustle about underneath a single massive oak tree in the center of the courtyard. The tree is an impressive sight and its branches extend up above the castle’s walls. Calwyn leads the party to the right through the courtyard, through a side door into a set of wooden buildings constructed along the stone walls of the castle. He shows the party up to a large room on the second floor overlooking the courtyard. It is not finely adorned by any means, really just an open room with six cots arranged throughout and one small wash basin in one corner of the room. Calwyn informs the party that he will speak to Luwin about them and be back shortly.

As soon as Calwyn leaves Perin heads out to go back and speak to the villagers further. He specifically seeks out Brakkus, whom he seemed to actually have a good rapport with, even though the hulking elf was trying to kick his friends out of the village. The ranger finds Brakkus on a street just off the marketplace. He is apparently the town blacksmith as Perin finds him hammering away on an anvil. Perin approaches and strikes up a conversation.

The quiet ranger has little training in the social arts and has never been known as someone with a silver tongue, but for some reason he develops quite a connection with Brakkus and soon has the blacksmith opening up to him. He quickly picks up on the fact that Brakkus is highly intolerant of any races other than elves and eladrin and gets the impression that most of the village feels the same way. He manages to get Brakkus talking about how he feels about his new ruler, Luwin. Brakkus clearly likes Luwin and is excited that he came to power in Osteros. At one point Brakkus mentions that, “Luwin knows how to take care of those who don’t respect nature…” Perin tries to get him to elaborate, but Brakkus clams up after making the lone suspicious comment.

The ranger keeps his eyes peeled as he talks with Brakkus, trying to spot the young eladrin woman from the marketplace who offered the party a concerned look while the rest of the villagers chuckled at Brakkus’s comment about the castle. Perin’s eyes are incredibly sharp, but unfortunately the woman never comes by. After whiling away the afternoon speaking to Brakkus, Perin heads over to a small tavern in the village market to grab a drink.

In the meantime, Calwyn returns to the party’s room and informs Invicto, The Zaza, and Erik that Luwin has brought in a healer from Arastur who is currently performing a lengthy healing ritual on Varna. Unfortunately, the healer cannot be disturbed, so the party will not be able to visit Varna tonight, but Calwyn assures the party they will be able to see him tomorrow morning when the ritual is complete. Calwyn also says that Luwin is honored that his brother has come to visit him and that the party is all invited to attend a dinner with Luwin tonight.

After Calwyn leaves, the group decides to explore the castle a little and see if they can actually find this room where the healing ritual is being performed. They assume Varna would be in the large keep on the north end of the courtyard but they are turned away by guards when they try to enter the keep itself. So, they return to their room and wait for dinner.

_Dinner Time_

As the sun begins to set, Aramil heads into town and finds his way to the central marketplace. He gets some inquisitive looks from the villagers, being an outsider, but as an eladrin he is not accosted at all. He finds the small tavern in the market and heads inside, where he sees Perin and a couple other villagers sitting at the bar. He pretends to not know Perin, and sits down and orders a drink of wine.

He makes some small talk with the bartender, an elf named Gryll. Aramil claims that he has been collecting various rare herbs from the forests in the area. Perin and Aramil both order a plate of food, and as the sun goes down Gryll tells Aramil that this small building offers no room and board. He’ll need to head up to the castle to look for a place to stay for the night. They take in most visitors. He also tells Perin that he’ll probably want to head up there himself. Master Luwin doesn’t take kindly to strangers wandering the village streets after dark.

So, Perin and Aramil head up to the castle. Perin joins the rest of the party in their room just as they’re about to head down for dinner. Aramil speaks to the guards about lodging and Calwyn eventually comes out to greet him and sets up the eladrin with a guest room right next to the party. He also extends Aramil an invite to join the Master of the village for dinner, so the entire party heads to the keep to eat with Luwin.

Luwin actually greets Erik somewhat cordially, though Erik doesn’t believe for a second that Luwin is happy to see him at all. The elf echoes Calwyn’s earlier story about bringing in a healer from Arastur for Varna, and that the party will be able to see him in the morning. Aramil, posing as someone not associated with the party, manages to make a good impression on Luwin. After mostly strained and awkward conversation, the gathering ends, and the party is escorted back to their rooms by guards.

_The Real Dinner_

When the party gets back to their rooms they find a note awaiting them on one of their cots.
_You are in grave danger here. If you want to live, leave Osteros immediately and never return._​The party is now officially done waiting for something to happen and they decide to seek out Varna and get out of this town. Perin plans to climb out a window and use his stealth training to try to slip into the keep and find Varna. The Zaza on the other hand, decides to head out into the castle to try to talk up some of the guards and get some inside information. As Perin opens the window he notices the courtyard is eerily quiet and empty.

Aramil, in the room next door, also notices the courtyard is totally empty, after bustling with activity just an hour or so ago. Disturbingly, he would also swear that the huge oak tree in the middle of the courtyard is closer to the window. Perin notices the closeness of the tree as well, just as The Zaza attempts to leave the room and finds the door is locked from the outside. Perin decides it’s definitely time to get out of the room and climbs out of the window down into the courtyard as The Zaza slams into the door trying to bust it open.

As Perin hits the ground of the courtyard he turns to find the huge oak tree beginning to move and sway. Its branches begin writhing and suddenly a hollow face appears in the trunk of the massive tree. Perin immediately realizes he is dealing with a Treant and readies his bow. The living plant approaches him with a hungry gaze, and the elf attempts to call out to it before battle is joined.






Taking a shot in the dark, Perin asks “Wait, don’t you want to be set free?”

A deep, rumbling laugh rolls out from the trunk of the tree. “I am no prisoner here. My master keeps me well fed.”

“Your master would let you eat a fey creature such as me?”

“My master usually does not let me eat elves, but he has made an exception for you.” The treant’s face breaks into a twisted, hollow smile.

“Well, you should beware of the magical fire the wizards above can wield,” Perin offers.

“I am not concerned with your piddling threats, little elf. Enough talk!” The treant advances but Perin manages to slide away to the south end of the courtyard before it reaches him.

_The Killing Tree_

The treant has caught the eye of the rest of the party and they prepare for battle. The Zaza manages to awkwardly climb out of the window and down into the courtyard, despite her weighty plate mail. Aramil simply fey steps from his window into the courtyard next to the tree and distracts the tree to give The Zaza a solid shot at it with her axe. Perin skitters up a set of stairs on the south end of the courtyard to get a good vantage point with his bow.

Invicto and Erik begin launching magical attacks at the tree from their vantage point up in the room, but the treant has some surprises in store for the party. Several of its long branches stretching above the courtyard begin coming to life and reach down to entwine around the party members. The living branches all sport massive thorns and they tear into several party members, even reaching into the windows of the room to wrap around Invicto and Erik. Perin finds two sets of branches wrapping around his legs and waist. The ranger quickly plants a couple arrows into the branches, point blank, and then shrugs off the dead limbs. He then bolts up the stairs and leaps from one ledge to another across the courtyard. The elf barely makes it across, tumbling onto the other ledge and nimbly leaping to his feet.

Aramil, Invicto, and Erik all take swipes at the branches entwining them and manage to cut, or burn, them off. The Zaza tries to plant her axe into the treant’s trunk but is unable to get through its tough exterior. The treant itself swings a massive wooden fist at The Zaza but misses. It then lashes out with a thorny branch and manages to hit The Zaza and she feels a burning poison seep into the wound. Fortunately, with an encouraging shout from Aramil, The Zaza is able to shrug off the effects of the poison.

With the thorny branches eliminated, the party begins focusing on the treant. Perin takes careful aim, but somehow misses three of his shots in a row, a rarity for the elf. Invicto and Erik manage to pour some arcane fire onto the tree, setting the wooden creature aflame. It howls in pain and rage and extends several more branches into the party’s room to assault Invicto and Erik. As one branch boldly attempts to wriggle behind Erik to get in a better attacking position the wizard sees an obvious opening in the branch’s defenses. Having no melee weapon to speak of, the mage winds up his fist on the end of one long, scrawny arm, and manages to deliver a precise blow to the branch, cracking it down the middle and leaving it lifeless.

The party’s luck doesn’t stop there, as they continue their barrage of attacks on the treant. The creature does manage to at least wrap one thorny branch around The Zaza and drag her out of its way, allowing it to charge up to the edge of the party’s room where Invicto and Erik are hiding. Aramil then positions himself to execute the Myrmidon Formation with The Zaza, making a strong defensive wall against the treant’s attacks. The treant ignores the melee fighters and gets in a few blows on the magic-users in the second floor room, but the damage has been done. Invicto wraps the treant in the Flames of Phlegethos and Erik summons a magma beast to help heap more fiery attacks on to the creature and it is soon defeated.

_Perin the Miracle Worker_

The treant tips over backward and falls into the courtyard. As it does, the creature’s roots rip up out of the ground as its trunk goes horizontal on the earth. The party is horrified to see numerous bodies in various states of decay held within the treant’s roots. Most of them are skeletons, but a few look almost like mummified remains – bodies that have been drained of their life, leaving only a dry, wrinkled husk. The party spies one body tangled in the roots that looks pale and haggard, but possibly still alive. What’s more, Erik recognizes it as Varna.

The wizard rushes to his adoptive father’s side and disentangles him from the treant’s roots. His breathing is shallow, but with prompting he manages to open his eyes and give a weak cough. He is shocked to see Erik above him, but he is immediately grateful for the chance to see his adopted son one more time before passing. Varna is sure he is not long for this world, but motions Erik near.

The old elf speaks in a cracked whisper, “I’m so glad to see you again, my boy. I never should have sent you away, treated you how I did. I’m sorry.”

“What happened?” Erik asks.

“I discovered Luwin’s secret, this dark tree…”

“What was he planning to do with it?” Erik continues

Varna shakes his head slowly. “I don’t know what his plans were, but when I discovered it he gave me over to it to die.” Varna’s voice fades and he coughs weakly. “I don’t have much time, Erik. There’s something I want you to have. In the bottom drawer of my desk at home. It is for you. Do not tell my wife of it. It’s the least I can do for you…” Varna’s eyes close and he drifts into unconsciousness. Erik looks around desperately as his father slips away.

Perin steps up and offers to examine Varna’s wounds. The elder elf seems surely destined for the afterlife, but Perin is confident in his skills as a healer, and his own extraordinary luck. He quickly mixes a batch of rare herbs together and applies the mixture to the numerous jagged cuts the thorny roots of the treant left on Varna’s body. The rest of the party is anxious to leave as they start to hear activity in the castle. Varna is clearly beyond the help of any healer, and Perin has no hope of stabilizing the aged elf.

Nonetheless, Perin simply stays focused on his work and his patient as he grinds several more rare herbs with a few drops of water to make a foul-smelling, thick liquid that he dribbles on to Varna’s lips. After a few moments, the dying elf suddenly draws in a deep breath of air. Perin can feel his hearbeat stabilize and his breathing become regular. The ranger, along with the rest of the party, is amazed at his work, as it appears he has snatched Varna back from the jaws of certain death.

The party has no time to celebrate as more noise can be heard in the castle. The Zaza throws Varna over her shoulder, and the party breaks into a run for the entrance to the castle on the south side of the courtyard. As they throw the massive doors open they see soldiers start pouring onto the castle walls, calling for the party to halt. With Perin’s sharp eyes leading the way, the party beats a swift retreat straight into the thick, wild forests around the village of Osteros. They can sense soldiers close on their tracks for several hours, but they eventually manage to lose them in the wilds of Quinalyn.

_Lands and Titles_

The party gives The Zaza a rest and crafts a makeshift stretcher for Varna. They regroup with their entourage of Verind’s Edge survivors and head back to Trannyth. Varna is still weak and sickly throughout the journey, but he is clearly on the mend and slowly regaining his health. Once they reach Trannyth, Varna returns to his home on his own, opting not to put Erik through another confrontation with Brenys. The party rents a room at one of the nicer inns in town and Varna’s servant, Elkas, soon delivers a package for Erik. A note explains that the package is what Varna spoke of giving to Erik as (he thought) he lay dying in the courtyard of Luwin’s castle.

The package includes a unique golden seal on a short leather strap, and a sheaf of very official-looking legal documents. Erik looks over the numerous pieces of parchment and finds a brief summary at the top of the first page.





*Will and Testament of Varna Ilstalis Concerning Limited Properties and Ownerships, in the city of Arastur, nation of Quinalyn, Held External to the House of Ilstalis*

_The bearer of this seal is holder in full of these titles herein concerning the properties and merchant operations residing in the city of Arastur in the nation of Quinalyn, including the property of the residential Redding House on Wystra Lane; the property of the New Moon Merchant House in the Business District; and the business operations, including all assets, inventories, properties, profits, and debts, of the New Moon Merchant Company functioning therein. Presentation of this seal and these papers provides the bearer all rights, responsibilities, and ownership associated with these titles, with an exceptional right to complete and inviolable anonymity as granted by High Chancellor Silvaras on the date 5-12 in the Year 3215._​The note from Varna explains that he had originally intended to leave the properties to Erik as part of his will, but in return for saving his life, Varna felt he should bequeath the titles to Erik now. The properties are held outside of Varna’s house (the house of Ilstalis), so that Brenys and Luwin can lay no claim to them. Rather than place the properties in someone else’s name, Varna arranged for a rare method of ownership – whoever holds the golden seal included with the package is considered the owner of the properties. Furthermore, the holder of the seal does not need to produce any papers of identification or heritage, as they are entitled to full anonymity. They simply must produce the seal to prove their ownership.

The party is pleased to find that they are now, quite suddenly, businessmen and property owners in the city of Arastur. They look forward to finally reaching the city and enjoying their newfound wealth, and the party decides to share a celebratory drink in the tavern. Aramil joins in the merriment, but he can’t help but think about the fact that a villain like Luwin is still loose in the woods of Quinalyn. As the wine flows, the eladrin dreams up a number of creative ways to dole out justice to Erik’s wicked adoptive brother.


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## hayek (Mar 29, 2011)

*Chapter 5 - A New Home (s. 12-13)*

*5.3 The Sad, Lonely End of Luwin Istalis (Part 1)*

The party debates for a while about what to do next. Aramil insists that Luwin must be ‘taken care of’, as he is a blight on all civilized society. Erik talks with his father about the situation, and Varna has apparently still not given up on his son, even though Luwin attempted to murder him. He insists that Erik leave Luwin be, and that his adoptive brother will somehow come back around one day. Erik is tempted to do as his father wishes, but the rest of the party sides with Aramil, and after further discussion Erik agrees to head back to Osteros to finish off Luwin once and for all.

Perin decides that punishing villainous nobles and constantly risking life and limb is not what he was interested in when he signed up to travel with the party. He is happy to have journeyed with the party back to the forests of Quinalyn, and he decides now would be a good time to take his leave and return to the simple life of a hunter. He bids the party farewell, and The Zaza, Erik, Invicto, and Aramil press on with their task at hand.

_A ‘Hag’gard Village_

The party leaves their posse of Verind’s Edge survivors behind and returns to Osteros. They find the houses and shops of the village deserted, and see some gruesomely strung up corpses. They eventually discover that everyone remaining in the village is holed up in the castle. The party approaches the gates and starts up a conversation with some guards on the wall. They are able to determine that a hag, Galwyth, has been terrorizing the town, killing villagers. Apparently Galwyth gave the treant as a gift to Luwin to help remove the tainted elements that now populate the forest kingdom of Quinalyn, such as the growing population of human merchants and tradesmen, and is now enraged that Luwin let the creature be killed. She is exacting her vengeance on the village and has promised to kill everyone there before she is done.






Later that night, the party tracks Luwin’s advisor, Calwyn, to a meeting with the hag and tries briefly to talk to her, but when Calwyn tells the hag that the party is actually responsible for killing her treant, a fight ensues. The party kills Galwyth (along with her protective pack of shadow wolves), and captures Calwyn. Picking through the hag’s belongings, Erik finds she was wearing a magical set of Bracers of Mental Might, which the wizard claims for himself.

They proceed to interrogate Calwyn, which involves The Zaza punching him a few times and Invicto calmly stating, “I wanna shove this rod where the sun don’t shine and let off an eldritch blast he’ll never forget.” After this bold threat Calwyn reveals that there is a secret underground tunnel that leads into the castle. The party has Calwyn lead them to the tunnel entrance where they see a light approaching – apparently someone is leaving the castle through the tunnel. The party quickly sets up an ambush around the tunnel entrance and The Zaza swings a blow at the first person to poke their head out of the tunnel.

Unfortunately, this person is an innocent child. The Zaza pulls her swing at the last second and manages to just knock the child unconscious. They discover that the group leaving the tunnel is a pack of orphaned children escaping the castle. They are led by the young eladrin woman who gave the party a pitying look in the marketplace when they first arrived in Osteros, knowing they would only be food for the treant. She offers the party little pity now, since they just beat one of the children into unconsciousness.

She says that she is being chased by an angry villager, the hulking elf Brakkus, and the party can hear him calling down the tunnel that he will slaughter her and the children when he catches them. The party sends her on her away, apologizes for hitting the child, and prepares for a fight with Brakkus. Alone, he is no match for the party, and he is quickly taken down, offering one last twisted smirk with his pointed teeth before his face is permanently bashed in.

_Battle Royale_

In the commotion, Calwyn escaped, but the party decides they have no more need of him. They make their way through the tunnel and Erik is glad to have just picked up the magical Bracers of Mental Might, as they help the party shove aside a heavy metal grate at the end of the tunnel. They pile into a small laundry closet and make their way through the castle, up to the throne room. They insist to the guards in front of the throne room doors that they are mercenaries hired to dispatch the hag, and they are here for their audience with Luwin. The guards begrudgingly accept their story, and the party enters the main hall of the castle. Luwin awaits and all pretenses are dropped as battle immediately breaks out.

Luwin proves a capable combatant, unleashing a variety of impressive combat maneuvers such as ‘Run and Hide’ and ‘Cower’. He may offer little offense, but Luwin apparently knows how to stay alive in a fight, and his guards, including an eladrin sorceress, bring plenty of offense to the fight. It is a brutal battle, with a couple of elven archers entering the hall to rain death down upon the party from afar. The party barely survives, though Luwin runs out of the throne room before the battle is done.


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## hayek (Apr 25, 2011)

*Chapter 5 - A New Home (s. 12-13)*

*5.3 The Sad, Lonely End of Luwin Istalis (Part 2)*

_Should I Stay or Should I Go?_

Chasing after the ignoble elf lord, the party bursts into his chambers to find him standing in a circle of arcane runes inscribed on the floor. Luwin begins reciting some arcane phrases as the circle lights up with magical energy. The Zaza rushes into the circle to swing her axe at Luwin while Erik and Invicto target him with arcane blasts. Luwin manages to shrug off the attacks and continues the magic ritual. Erik quickly realizes that the circle is a teleportation circle, and in a few more seconds Luwin, and now The Zaza as well, will disappear. Erik shouts out to the rest of the party, and with only a split second to decide, everyone piles into the circle and are all teleported away with Luwin.

They appear in a dark cavern surrounded by a large group of shady, armed men. Luwin shouts for the men to protect him as the party attempts to finish Luwin off. The observers step in and separate the party from Luwin, escorting him safely out of the room. A leader steps forward from the armed gang and addresses the party. They discover that this group is the Hirantar thieves’ guild, and that Luwin paid the guild to arrange an escape plan with them. The group owes no allegiance to Luwin, but he’s paid good coin so they can’t let the party kill him.

The party asks to speak with the guild leader, Girresh, further in private. They discover they are still in the nation of Quinalyn. Moreover, after offering a very hefty bribe of 600 gold, they convince the leader to tell them the details of Luwin’s arrangement. Apparently, members of the thieves’ guild are to escort him to Arastur, about a week’s travel away. The party pays an additional sum to have the guild send a message to their friends and recruits, telling them to head on to Arastur and that the party will meet them there. The party then immediately sets out for the city of Arastur, fortunately their original destination anyways.

_Two Brothers Enter, One Brother Leave_

After a hurried week of travel, they arrive in the city and begin asking around for someone recently arriving in the city matching Luwin’s description. After some expert legwork by Invicto, along with a few more bribes, they track Luwin to an inn in town, where he is apparently staying with some hired bodyguards. Erik uses a magical potion to change his appearance and waits in the common room to keep an eye on Luwin.

The rest of the party comes up with a convoluted scheme involving hiring some ‘ladies of the evening’ to distract Luwin’s hired thugs. Unfortunately, just after the rest of the party leaves, Luwin comes into the common room, escorted by his bodyguards, and heads out of the inn. Not wanting to lose him, Erik leaves the inn to follow. A short time later, The Zaza, Invicto, and Aramil return to the inn with a quartet of prostitutes, and are left to wonder where everyone went.

Luwin proceeds down to the docks where he appears to purchase passage on a ship about to leave the harbor. Before heading on to the deck, Luwin settles up with his hired bodyguards and they turn to leave, walking back towards the city. Erik decides he cannot let Luwin escape, so he quickly purchases passage on the ship as well and heads down to the cabins as the ship shoves off from the pier. Checking room to room he finally finds Luwin, alone in a cramped cabin, with no guards or hired thugs to defend him.

Erik enters the room, shuts the door, and lets his magically changed appearance fade. Luwin offers a look of terror as he recognizes his adoptive brother, then Erik unleashes blast after blast of arcane fire upon the vile elf. With nowhere to run or hide, Luwin is finally trapped and unable to escape and a few seconds later he is nothing more than a charred, smoking corpse. Erik takes a deep breath and stoically walks out of the cabin.

Some sailors come down to investigate the commotion, but before they realize what has happened Erik is back on deck. The boat has already left the docks, but hasn’t made it far, so Erik jumps over the side and swims back to the city of Arastur. He meets up with his friends at the inn and tells them what happened. It’s a bittersweet moment for Erik, but he’s confident he did the right thing, as Luwin was an evil man who would only have brought more suffering into the world if he lived. The party has a celebratory drink, and looks forward to investigating their new merchant holdings in the city tomorrow.


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## hayek (May 9, 2011)

*Chapter 6 - High Finance… and Pirates! (s. 14-15)*

*6.1 Missing Shipments (Part 1)*

The party wakes up the next day and finds snow falling on the city of Arastur, as winter has fully arrived. They first head to the residential property Erik was given. They find it to be a large, luxurious spread, already equipped with a handsome half-orc butler named Hunrit. Hunrit welcomes the new owners and the party is very pleased, to say the least, with their new home.

Then, they head down to the business district of the city and seek out the New Moon Merchant Company’s offices. They aren’t particularly impressive, but aren’t completely run-down either. The company seems to be a fairly small but successful operation. Entering the establishment they speak to the current manager of the business, an elf named Yinlis. They present the seal and paperwork they received from Varna and Yinlis quickly accepts them as the new owners. He updates them on the merchant house’s current business outlook which is fairly grim.

_Bad Investments_

The business has been doing alright, but a couple of critical ventures have recently gone south. In the near term, the New Moon company had been generating strong, steady profits every year by dealing in a certain type of deep-woods truffle with the small village of Lindithis a few days travel from Arastur. The large fall crop was supposed to arrive a few weeks ago, but Yinlis has been unable to get in touch with anyone from the village, and a couple of messengers sent to investigate have not returned.

More significantly, Yinlis financed a very large shipment of finely crafted elven furniture that was sent to the Jeweled Cities a couple of months ago. It was to be received by a merchant there, Jal’imry, who would escort it on to the great desert city of Ak’Ahana. There is a huge demand for this furniture there, but it is very expensive, and risky, to escort the goods through the deserts to reach the markets of Ak’Ahana. Yinlis is now involved in a dispute with Jal’imry’s merchant house, House Hajal, who insists the goods have yet to arrive in port in the city of Al’Zarqa, where Jal’imry was to accept the goods. Yinlis has it on very good authority from a reliable contact in the city that the shipment did arrive in port. The elven merchant goes on for a while about the specific contract terms that were laid out and when liability for the shipment would transfer between the two parties, and also begins going into detail about all the assets he had to put up to finance the crafting of the furniture in the first place.


The party’s eyes glaze over a bit and they insist on the summary version which is that:

First, the New Moon Merchant Company will go completely bankrupt in a few weeks unless the shipments of deep-woods truffles can be secured from the nearby village of Lindithis.
Second, the New Moon Merchant Company will go completely bankrupt in a few months due to the missing shipment of crafted elven furniture that was sent to the Jeweled Cities.
To avoid going bankrupt from this issue, either:
The missing furniture must be found,
Or the party must prove that Jal’imry received the shipment of furniture and then press their case with a magistrate to make Jal’imry’s merchant house pay for the value of the entire shipment of lost goods.

_Evil Undead Spiders are Bad for Business_

The party assures Yinlis they will take care of both of these concerns and tells him to just continue managing the day-to-day operations of the business. The first issue proves a relatively easy fix. The party makes a quick trip out to the small village where the deep-woods truffles are supposed to be harvested.

They find its inhabitants have all been slain by a massive undead spider, known as a ‘tomb spider’. The creature’s victims arise as undead spawn, and the party is forced to fight a number of zombies and skeletons along with the spider itself, but they are hardened adventurers and are able to finish off the undead monstrosity fairly easily. In particular, The Zaza’s Axe of Light, an artifact she found in the dwarven tomb in the Watchtower near Verind’s Edge that was crafted to destroy undead, is very effective – granting her the ability to rain down radiant power upon her undead enemies. The Zaza senses a feeling of immense satisfaction from the artifact after the battle.






After the fight, the party searches the village and finds numerous crates of the deep-woods truffles waiting to be brought to market. They slowly haul them back to Arastur and Yinlis is overjoyed to, temporarily, have business booming again. With the infusion of cash the truffles will bring, Yinlis is able to pay a dividend to the new owners and the party accepts a generous payment of 2,000 gold.

_Reunion_

A few days later, the group of Verind’s Edge survivors arrives in town – Mujeh the goliath bard, Lock the halfling researcher, Lucinda the young village girl, and Old Breddy the (now one-armed) grizzled veteran soldier, along with the four remaining soldiers that the party recruited after the battle of Verind’s Edge. They are excited to see their friends again and share a round of drinks with Old Breddy and Mujeh. Lock is ecstatic to visit the great libraries of the fabled sages of Arastur, and Lucinda is just excited to be reunited with the party.

The party fills the group in on recent developments and Mujeh offers to help with the operations of the New Moon merchant house, having always wanted to try his hand at business. The party also puts their recruited soldiers in the employ of the merchant house, to help Yinlis with any security needs the company may have. When not working for the merchant company, Aramil puts the recruits through some grueling military training, building them into an elite (or at least a slightly more elite) fighting force.

After hearing the party’s story of the vicious tomb spider that could spawn new undead with its bite, Lock does some research in the city’s libraries. He confirms his initial suspicion – the tomb spider is an incredibly rare creature, and is definitely not a ‘natural’ undead creature, spawned by a common necromancer or twisted into existence from a place of dark necrotic energy. It would have to have been specifically created through some kind of powerful magical artifact that could tap straight into the Shadowfell and the awesome power of death over all living things. The party shrugs at Lock’s spooky discovery, not too concerned about the creature’s origins since the tomb spider has been taken care of.


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