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EPISODE FORTY-ONE: Any Port in a Storm (Level 15)

The Players:

Mike Eagar (Sadhai)

Kent Lloyd (Kloric)

Adam Rodger (Arhuzimel)

DM: Kristy Eagar



Sailing away from the scene of the battle and dropping anchor for a while, the crew took a few hours to rest and make makeshift repairs to The Bone Dragon. Nirvani lay deathly ill from the toxic effects of the Aboleth spit on her injured back. She would need whiteroot to counteract the poison, an herb she explained was not in her pack.

Setting sail again, they came across a lone heathfolk woman defending a small rowboat, firing pistols at several Kuo-Tua attackers. A dead man lay bleeding in her boat. Kloric, Arhuzimel, and Sadhai dashed to the rescue and amazed the beautiful heathwoman. Once safe, she introduced herself as Maralash Buth, the captain of The Maiden's Tear. She had been marooned here by her mutinous crew. The crew of the Maiden’s Tear, having run into a string of bad luck of late, mutinied when Maralash refused to stop in the eerie port of Rochorral. She and one loyal crewman were left adrift in Kuo-toa territory without oars for two days.

With an ominous storm brewing on the horizon, Maralash insisted that Rochorral was the only reachable option for safe harbor, despite her misgivings about the place. They were quickly enveloped in the most powerful, deadly storm any of them had ever experienced. Kloric sensed that it was unnatural in origin. Wicked gouts of lightning struck the ship several times.

A bolt of lightning hit Arhuzimel, blasting him from the crow’s nest, plummeting toward the waves. Kloric whipped his primal vines, snagging Arhuzimel enough to steer his fall towards the pitching deck far below. At the same moment, Sadhai ran to catch him in a daring acrobatic stunt.

Kloric and Arhuzimel both went overboard in the raging storm (not before Arhuzimel was struck by lightning a second time), and miraculously got back aboard the ship in time to catch a glimpse of towering cliffs ahead. Recognizing the rock formation from the description Maralash gave him, Sadhai ran to take the helm, straining to steer the ship down a narrow, rocky channel into the safe harbor. In the channel Arhuzimel’s rope snapped, washing him overboard again for a deadly battle against current and cliff. He managed to swim to the surface and follow the ship as it cleared the channel and entered the harbor. Sadhai dropped anchor, sliding The Bone Dragon into the dilapidated shipyard of a worn, strange looking port. Exhilarated by Sadhai’s display of nautical prowess, Maralash kissed him full on the mouth.

They moored the ship next to the apparently abandoned Maiden’s Tear. Though it was difficult to see in the rain, bolts of lightning illuminated the outlines of several other ships berthed on the other side of the harbor. Sadhai, Arhuzimel, and some of the crew disembarked, greeted by a drenched customs man waving formalities and urging them all to batten down the ship and bring everyone to Rochorral’s only lodgings, The Smooth Sailing Inn and Tavern.

First Maralash searched her ship for the missing crew, and Kloric followed her as a ferret. He stealthily snuck onboard and found ample evidence that the lady captain was a pirate. Finding a pile of gold and treasure in the hold, he helped himself to as much loot as his bag of holding could handle. Sadhai, Arhuzimel, Kloric, and Maralash left the rest of the crew with the ship, and headed for the shelter of the inn. Also with them was Fastus, carrying the moaning Nirvani ashore, with Urdrik and Klastina in tow.

XP: 4,067 Each

[Kuo-Toa Encounter: 4,200 XP

Storm on the Deep Skill Challenge: 7,000 XP

Rolling with the Punches and Staying in Character: 200 XP

Rescuing Maralash: 400 XP

Reaching Rochorral: 400 XP

TOTAL: 12,200 XP]

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EPISODE FORTY: In Mount Fayrlin’s Shadow (Level 15)



The Players:

Kristy Eagar (Nirvani)

Mike Eagar (Sadhai)

Adam Rodger (Arhuzimel)

DM: Graham Ward



As the Bone Dragon entered dragonborn territory, the crew could see slithering, semi-aquatic creatures slipping in and out of rocky islands and reefs. They were clad in loin cloths and of various dull colors. Soon they were skirting the coast of a large island, not more than a few miles south of its shore. Mount Fayrlin, the center of dragonborn settlement, reared up from the island’s westernmost beaches.

Two of the crewmen, Black and Bradley, were soiled with a strange mucus that turned them into mindless aggressors. Sadhai had them tied to the main mast. Nirvani examined their state and determined there was no hope of recovery. They had been permanently enslaved by some outside force. Sadhai administered mercy kills.

Without warning a long, tubular canoe rammed the underside of the ship. It breached the surface of the sea and from it crawled several dozen dragonborn raiders with axes of stone and bone. At the same time, large chains rose up from the water, hoisted by more raiders on small stack islands nearby. The chains surrounded the ship and guided it in between the two stack islands.

Kuo-toa appeared to scavenge meat from the raiders’ victims. They were accompanied by a strange psychic sea creature with an array of strange blow-holes belching mucus. The falling mucus covered some of the raiding dragonborn, who were converted into slimy, mindless slaves like the dead crewmen.

The mucus creature, which was identified as an aboleth, dominated Nirvani’s mind with a powerful psychic attack, and disappeared. The others managed to fight the kuo-toa and dragonborn off the ship. In the meantime Nirvani had leaped onto the rock formation and climbed to the top. The aboleth reappeared beside her and began to skin her alive. Nirvani allowed it to happen as a result of the aboleth’s hold on her mind.

She managed to come to her senses and swan dive from the top of the rock island just as a nearly dead Sadhai turned the ship back to retrieve her. Arhuzimel, who had lost consciousness from loss of blood, was revived by a frantic Culathra. The aboleth slithered down into the water, and Sadhai fired a tethered harpoon at it. Arhuzimel dashed down the rope and together the two rangers took the hulking aberration down. They pulled Nirvani aboard, and made their way out of the ambush into the open sea, barely standing.



XP: 6,950 Each



[Mount Fayrlin Encounter: 20,400 XP

Escaping the Raid Alive: 400 XP

Critical Hits: 50 XP

TOTAL: 20,850 XP]

 

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EPISODE THIRTY-EIGHT: The Chorrom’s Mausoleum (Level 14)

 

The Players:

Kristy Eagar (Nirvani)

Mike Eagar (Sadhai)

Kent Lloyd (Kloric)

Adam Rodger (Clarkson)

Steve Lloyd (Evran)

Bethany Talley (Arabella)

DM: Graham Ward

 

The festivities following the retaking of Maricuälatán went on through the night. Fastus wandered off into inebriation, Sadhai and Nirvani had their first kiss (which didn't end well), and Arhuzimel was nowhere to be seen. In the morning, some discussion determined that despite the absence of Arhuzimel and Fastus (neither of whom were on good terms with Nirvani), the remaining adventurers should track down Baden Mirillo.

His trail led north along the high road. Sadhai soon realized they were on the road to the abandoned necropolis Guhrich. Some natural disaster or other had put it into disrepair about 20 years earlier, and the colonies had abandoned the tombs in favor of a more accessible location.

Checking their copy of Fastus’ map, they reasoned that the circle with two bars through it could reasonably be the site of the old necropolis. It was a couple days before they mounted the last slope and saw the domes of white-washed mausoleums.

They wound their way up the streets until they reached a steep flight of stairs. Halfway up, a young girl popped out of thin air and ran smack into Sadhai. They toppled over on the stairs, then scrambled to get up. Before any introductions could be made, the girl cried, “Giant!” A deep groan from the landing above vindicated her claim.

A massive frost giant reared up and came charging down at them, despite Nirvani’s attempts to placate it in its own language. After a frigid fight, they struck the aggressor down. The teenage girl, who introduced herself in Trentsmin as Arabella Thane, was looking for her father Clarkson. Her sorceress step-mother had discovered through vision that he was in Guhrich, and dispatched her pupil-daughter to retrieve him.

At the top of the stairs they found a ragged camp, where swathed in wool lay a frost giant child, no more than two years old. Nirvani swept it up and cradled it while Kloric investigated a corpse in the bushes. The body proved to be that of Clarkson Thane, who with some resuscitation gasped back into life. Sadhai knew at once he was undead.

When confronted, Thane explained that the zombies in Icarasla’s prison had bitten him, but somehow he resisted the full change. For eight months he lived in the necropolis, robbing and scavenging for survival (though he no longer needed to eat, sleep, or breathe). Some time ago the frost giants arrived and beat him almost to death, then left him in a pile of soon-to-be-eaten corpses. Now he and his daughter Arabella shared a moment of reunion.

Sadhai, Kloric, and Evran followed Baden’s tracks along the terraced road. The prints in the snow led them to a long building, which they entered disguised as squirrels. Several armed skeletons prowled the hall they entered. Rounding the corner, they found a long funeral procession that had evidently been interrupted by an attack of undead creatures. As he examined the 20-year-old corpses of priests of Daemoth, Sadhai the squirrel was blasted by a psychic spell. He looked up and saw an Etholchan-priest-turned-ghoul, muttering in Zhoroch.

Kloric’s animal disguise ended, and the mausoleum hall burst into combat. The skeleton warriors charged as Sadhai put his first arrow through the head of the ghoulish priest. Nirvani, Clarkson, and Arabella heard the cries and darted down the road to the large mausoleum, leaving the frost giant baby in the camp behind.

While Arabella blasted skeleton guardians with ice bolts from her dagger and Nirvani drove them back in fear, Sadhai felt an intrusive presence within his body. A tall shadow loomed beside him, flickering in the dim light of the tomb. The double doors at the end of the hall blew open, and the shadow retreated into the larger hall within, followed by the last two straggling skeletons. Evran took one of them down as it tried to run past.

Sadhai blinked in bewilderment and Nirvani stepped up to the shuttered portcullis door. Suddenly the shutters opened and a blast of purple flame hit her. The adventurers circled to the double doors, which still stood open. Clarkson remained stationed with his six-shooter at the portcullis. Arabella heard the word “ghost” and ran.

Within the main hall were half a dozen of the ghoulish priests positioned along a 20-foot-high balcony. Beside a statue monument, at the foot of the stairs to the balcony, was a 12-foot wraith. The tomb’s most prominent feature, however, was a large sculpture of an altar carrying a tablet of Daemoth’s commandments. Above it floated the body of Baden Mirillo, its eyes glowing and right arm shrouded in a twisting drill of shadow.

The fight was grueling. Early on Evran cast a resistance to necrotic damage on most of the adventurers, which proved invaluable. Sadhai and Nirvani were possessed by the invisible shadow and forced to fight to the death while Baden’s reanimated corpse struck at them both with life-sucking shadow. Evran teleported onto the balcony and picked off the ghouls with magic missiles and a wall of fire. Clarkson remained at the far portcullis, taking rapid pot shots at the wraith and skeleton. Kloric struck out with water and lighting.

As the possessed Sadhai dealt a killing blow to the possessed Nirvani, her immortal vitality brought her reeling back to her senses, snatched out of the hands of death. She had escaped the shadow puppeteer. Kloric tore Sadhai from the shadow’s clutches with the Ring of Calling.

Sadhai drew the Nightbringer sword. Immediately the ghouls stiffened and turned on their undead leaders. Again each creature felt the overwhelming jolt of pure evil. Kloric, shouting at Sadhai in disapproval, leaped onto Baden’s shoulders, slashed him across the face, then flipped onto the head of the center statue — just above the reach of Evran’s projectile flame, which sizzled several of Sadhai’s dominated ghouls.

Clarkson was firing round after round at the wraith. As enemies fell dead around him he absorbed the expelled life-force. At last, with a glorious flurry of bullets the wraith dissolved into the dim shadows of the tomb. Sadhai slashed open Baden’s throat, destroying the reaper that was possessing his body.

As they regrouped, Nirvani slapped Sadhai square across the face and left the mausoleum. Evran searched the tomb, finding a pile of valuables and a hidden recess in the stone tablet. Kloric and Sadhai argued while Clarkson frantically asked what the sword was.

Eventually they were able to pry the stone altar and tablet off the tomb, revealing a shallow dirt pit containing the bare skeleton of a young dragon, etched and carved with runes. Evran pried off the head, Kloric and Clarkson snagged a claw, and Sadhai slid a long wing-bone into his pack.

They discovered that the statue marked the grave of Naltaro Coldonia, a former Chorrom (the world leader of the Etholchan sect of Daemoth). Evidently his funeral procession had been massacred by the risen undead, and his spirit in wrath rose again as the oblivion wraith Clarkson had just destroyed. The dragon skeleton was a valuable artifact known to be buried in Coldonia’s tomb.

In a letter found on Baden’s body, they learned of his plan to steal the dragon bones and return with them to his estate in Motta (the address of which was conveniently penned on the letter).

The following loot was found in the tombs:

• Cats Paws (AV, 132)
• Sail of Winds (AV, 176)
• Robe of Defying Storms +3 (AV, 49)
• Safewing Amulet +3 (PH, 251)
• Psalter of Aureon (Eberron, 107)
• Blackgate Rune (Dungeon #162, 72)
• Cloak of Resistance +3 (PH, 250)
• Jacinth (5,000 gp)
• 5 Fire opals (1,000 gp each)
• 2 emerald gems (1,000 gp each)
• 47,180 gp worth of art objects
• The gathered pieces of the dragon skeleton
• An ancient dragon egg

As they gathered the spoils, a deafening rumble sounded from around the mausoleum. Nirvani and Arabella saw thousands of wraiths rise up one by one into the sky, where they formed into ranks. The others came out and watched as the leader gave a battle speech in Zhoroch. They were mustering to launch an assault on a jhareth city in the south, and slowly the legion of shadows drifted out of sight, leaving Guhrich deadly silent.

Nirvani prayed for Ulthoroch, and he appeared, explaining that the location of a Secret City near Motta had been leaked. War was brewing, and they needed every warrior they could muster.

 

XP: 6,290 Each

 

[Awesome In-Character Email: 300 XP

Solving Fastus’ Map: 4,000 XP

Frost Giant Encounter: 2,000 XP

Reviving Clarkson Thane: 200 XP

Saving the Frost Giant Child: 500 XP

Hall of Bones Encounter: 5,000 XP

Killing the Spell Howler on the First Shot: 1,000 XP

The Chorrom’s Tomb Encounter: 6,150 XP

Avenging Sadhai’s Parents: 6,000 XP

Finishing the Norlythe: 6,000 XP

Role-play Over the Sword: 300 XP

TOTAL: 31,450 XP]

 

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EPISODE THIRTY-SEVEN: The Sign of the Panther (Level 14)

 

The Players:

Mike Eagar (Sadhai)

Kent Lloyd (Kloric)

Adam Rodger (Arhuzimel)

Steve Lloyd (Evran)

Graham Ward (Fastus)

DM: Kristy Eagar

 

Nirvani dozed for a moment while tending to Arhuzimel. While sleeping, she felt carried away in a vision.

She stood on the top of an enormous tower made of stone, thousands of miles from the ground. Beside her was a large, black lion. She could see far into the depths of the sky, where stars and planets wheeled in mighty power. In the distance she saw the Shadowfell, an orb of mist and darkness surrounded by cold, black space. Beside the planet, there was a disk of light, swirling and disappearing through some portal. The shadowfell was slowly swallowed into the black hole. Nirvani felt the loss of life as the realm slipped away, leaving a monstrous void in the universe. She felt that Jharus and Ava were grieved by the obliteration of even the most miserable and evil forms of life.

When it was gone, she found herself in a wide valley. Some distance before her there was an enormous tree, wider at its base than a city. Up the trunk, large paths and dwellings were carved. Fey people wandered about, and their singing could be heard rising up the valley toward Nirvani. Arhuzimel was suddenly beside her, but he was enveloped in a dark glory. Shadows and light twirled around him, and his face was stern and powerful. In his hand he held a floating flower that wilted and grew again repeatedly.

The jhareth woman awoke from this dream with a strange impression. She sensed Ava’s will whispering to her soul: Protect Arhuzimel, keep him from evil. One day he will be a god, and we will need him.

Dragor, who had disappeared into the night in search of his missing comrades, returned with the corpse of his second-in-command, which he had found about a mile from the cabin. In the swordmage’s lifeless hands was clutched a Welluskin symbol made to ward off vampires.

Losing his friends had impacted Dragor heavily, and he was now determined to return home and gather refugees from his country. A few hours before dawn, he parted from the adventurers, who now relocated to a cave on the western spur of the Norlythe Forest. There they continued to rest and treat the rangers’ vile infections.

In the afternoon, Nirvani slipped outside (followed by the unseen Halendir). In a tree she found Fastus, who had tracked them to the cave after being summoned to the previous night’s camp by Inaya and Idrys. He told her he had had the same dream about Arhuzimel. Together they agreed, despite the incriminating new information about the shade, that he needed to be protected.

Seeing Halendir (and his Eitharmos apparel), Fastus flew into a rage. Narrowly avoiding a fight, the three of them returned to the cave, where Arhuzimel and Fastus traded threats. The jhareth warrior stayed with an oath to protect Nirvani from the Eithalim, but also with the admitted responsibility of keeping the shade alive.

When they had rested, Arhuzimel, Fastus, Halendir, Kloric, Nirvani, and Sadhai left camp to get Icarasla's body. Fastus landed on the spiked wagon to retrieve Icarasla, while Sadhai charged into the horses with his griffon, nearly knocking them over and then driving the crazed animals pell-mell to stampede over the soldiers behind them. Arhuzimel slipped stealthily through the ranks of mounted guards, sowing havoc and death with his shadow blades. Even as Baden Mirillo climbed out of the governor's carriage and made a run for it, Nirvani climbed into the other side, and rescued the governor's wife, though she left Parridge Eastford alive.

As Kloric shape-shifted into a panther and leaped to tear out the throat of a guard, the group was joined suddenly by a raiding party of Norlythin soldiers. In moments the colonial guard was routed. The tlacat (captain) of the Norlythin soldiers ignominiously slew the governor.

As the remaining colonial cavalry regrouped for a counterattack, lightning bolts tore across the field, striking many of them dead. A blast of flame surged up from their feet. All of them were killed. Fastus flew into the air to find the source of the arcane attack, and saw a lithe heathfolk man conjuring the attacks from the trees beside the road.

When the field was empty of enemies, the native warriors greeted their comrades in arms. They professed that Kloric changing form into a panther was a sign from Sarnoss. They invited all of the foreigners to come and meet the newly self-proclaimed Miztaloya (empress) of the Norlythe in a secluded temple just east of the road. The heathfolk mage approached Kloric, who recognized him as Evran, the son of a desert trader in Chayrshellech who had known his father well. They caught up on news on the way to the temple gathering.

The temple was a simple, open-sided, stone columned structure surrounded by gardens. Walking paths left the grounds through the unspoiled woodlands toward two nearby villages on the western fringes of Maricuälatán. Inside, the Miztaloya’s shaman was about to have a group of “incurable” white pox victims killed and burned on a giant pyre. Nirvani stopped this, offering to treat them with her now extensive knowledge of centipede extraction.

As they approached the throne of the Miztaloya, Nirvani and Sadhai lit up with realization. It was Xoco. She greeted them, and proclaimed that Kloric's transformation into a panther (Xoco’s totem animal) was the sign she had been waiting for. The time was right to retake Maricuälatán.

Kloric and Klastina recieved special treatment and deference from the Miztaloya and her people, who believe they are "Children of Sarnoss" and of nature itself. In a symbolic ceremony, Xoco married the dead Icarasla, cementing her power. Then the wedding became a funeral, and the High Chief’s body was burned. Xoco smeared her face and body with his ashes, and with ritual chanting declared herself a widow.

Believing that Sarnoss had sent these heroes to her for this purpose, Xoco asked them to help her take back Maricuälatán from the colonists, dressed befitting their true role as "panther spirits", and not directly participating in the combat. Their mission would be to convince both sides of the war that Sarnoss was with the Norlythin people, to wipe out zombies, and to capture valuable prisoners who could be traded for those of her people who had been taken as slaves. Fastus, Sadhai, Evran, Arhuzimel, and Halendir all agreed to go along with Kloric on this mission as “panther spirits”.

Mission highlights included lots of dramatic role-playing as "panther spirits", several intense zombie and colonial soldier mini-battles, healing sick locals, rescuing endangered locals from throngs of zombies, convincing some soldiers on the verge of deserting to surrender as captives, and capturing an infected nobleman.  Fastus used all the eloquence in his command to convince person after person of their sacred mission, aided greatly by the supporting actions of the others. Evran struggled for a while with magical backfires, one of which left his hands scorched, but rallied his arcane power to bring down fire and lightning on throngs of zombies. Sadhai, Arhuzimel, Halendir, and Kloric all took down foe after foe with deadly strikes of blade and claw.

In the high fortress, a makeshift temple to Daemoth had been set up in an antechamber off of the main entry. Fastus refused to step over the threshold. Arhuzimel and Halendir knelt before the bloody altar and prayed. Cowering behind the altar, they encountered a terrified and demoralized Etholchan priest, half-mad with the effects of the white pox.

Several more of the devils Torquos had summoned remained in the fortress, and, now that Torquos was dead, the priest was unable to control them. The priest recognized Halendir as an Eithalim, and groveled in relief to his potential savior. Disgusted with the man's weakness, Arhuzimel ran him through with a shadowblade, the white pox reinfecting him as he did so. He found a powerful amulet on the man's body. Together with Sadhai, Kloric, and Fastus, they rid the high fortress of the devils that still infested its main halls.

The army of 500 men and the "panther spirits" both succeeded, retaking the city in the name of Miztaloya Xoco. The locals, soldiers, leaders, and nobles under Xoco's banner celebrated around the royal pavilion within the temple.

 

XP: 1,300 Each

 

[Role-play with Fastus: 200 XP

Spirit Panthers Skill Challenge: 5,000 XP

Retaking Maricuälatán: 1,000 XP

Role-play with Xoco: 100 XP

Role-play with the Etholchan Preist: 100 XP

Welcoming Evran into the Group: 100 XP

TOTAL: 6,500 XP]

 

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EPISODE THIRTY-SIX: Reunion, Part Two (Level 14)

 

The Players:

Kristy Eagar (Nirvani)

Mike Eagar (Sadhai)

Kent Lloyd (Kloric)

Adam Rodger (Arhuzimel)

Steve Lloyd (Dragor)

DM: Graham Ward

 

When at last they reached Dragor’s dojo, they collapsed to the floor for some rest. Sadhai and Arhuzimel were growing feverish from the White Pox infection, so Nirvani laid them down and prepared to treat them. She didn’t get far. Fastus was desperate to talk with her out of sight. He showed her the pictographic map and explained that he had seen the design on the floor of a ceremonial chamber in an ancient jhareth tomb not far from Colfán. He had copied the map on parchment, but had no clue how to interpret it.

Arhuzimel broke off a gloom shard from one of his blades and became invisible, stepping out into the night darkness to spy on the two jhareth. Kloric likewise listened in as a fly, but couldn’t keep from interjecting once the conversation over the map became interesting. Fastus was furious with him for listening in. Kloric responded by throwing blame on Sadhai for using the Nightbringer sword.

At this revelation the discussion escalated, and Fastus firmly condemned the immoral actions of the party. He told Nirvani that it was him or them. She chose Sadhai and Kloric. The jhareth flew off into the night, bewildered and hurt. As the company settled down, Randar and one of Dragor’s students took the watch. Nirvani began to treat Sadhai and Arhuzimel for the White Pox. The others collapsed into a deep sleep.

Dragor awoke in the middle of the night, some vague sound catching his ears. It was like a stifled cry. He looked out the door, and saw that Randar and the other sentry were nowhere in sight. He stormed off the find them. His departure roused Arhuzimel out of a feverish sleep, who turned and found, tied to his pack with black string, a scrap of parchment bearing a hastily inked symbol – the Cuvca, a formal mark of death. He sprang up and looked around suspiciously, but saw only the night and Nirvani looking out the front door after Dragor.

After a few moments of tension, Sadhai also bolted awake. Something in his pack was burning hot. He had rolled over so that it rested against his shoulder, and the thin smoke of his pack’s singed leather was wafting above his bed. He reached in to pull it out, and fumbled. The crystal orb, found in the neogi trove beside the Nightbringer sword and other artifacts, was white hot. It rolled out toward the center of the cabin, where the wooden floor began to smoke and char.

By now, everyone was awake. They scooped the orb into a pewter charger, and Kloric cast a continuous fountain of water over it until it had cooled. Sadhai now grabbed for it again. He winced as the orb in his hand disappeared, followed by his hand, arm, and shoulder. Slowly the ranger seemed to transform into a faint, ghostly personage. Kloric darted to his side and tried to keep a hold of him with Nirvani’s help, but he was soon nothing more than a wispy mist.

Sadhai himself saw the world getting dim. Another panorama was opening up, in which he saw impossibly tall towers all around in every direction. Figures of many different people were floating or walking all around. Just in front of him stood Inaya and a boy that almost looked her twin.

The two children shouted, “Daddy!” and hugged him. They seemed to have been in the middle of ritual, which went wrong when Inaya saw Sadhai and accidentally touched his arm, dragging him into this dream world. All three now held hands and returned to the waking world, to the relief of the rest of the party.

Through the incessant chatter of the two children, the following information was obtained.

• Inaya used the orb to travel through dreamspace to where Sadhai was
• Idrys followed her, intent on getting his body back through a psionic ritual
• The ritual failed when Inaya grabbed Sadhai’s wrist, by some freak chance forcing her and her brother into a state of half-dream, half-reality
• The two children are now insubstantial in a way that cannot be accessed through any known plane

Sadhai looked down and noticed a new arm in place where the old one had been. It was identical to his former arm to the touch, but seemed to be made of some translucent crystal, like the orb. Apparently this new arm was the orb, which in the disturbance of the ritual likewise took a freak turn and latched onto the nearest strong body. Sadhai conferred with the others, and realized the orb might be the Madstone of Raddian Vane, which they briefly read about in their search of Tethaylaer’s office library. With some effort, Sadhai activated the arm’s power to daze enemies and draw them toward it in a dreamlike state. Once the commotion of the children died down, Sadhai sent them on a mission to find Fastus and keep an eye on him. They left.

Kloric flew out into the night for a look at any noticeable activity. He spotted a colonial caravan, traveling along the road that circles the Vale of the Ení. From high pikes hung the banners of Terratorumme, and a dark-skinned human body. It was Icarasla’s corpse.

Arhuzimel stood up, unable to rest any longer. Kloric and Sadhai debated retrieving the High Chief’s body, and when they stepped outside and called the griffons, they were surprised to see a line of soldierly men mounted on black-furred camels. “Stop right there,” said the foremost rider (a Longstrider shifter) in Trenstmin. He called out Arhuzimel in Zhoroch, and insisted he come with them peacefully. Sadhai drew his swords, his crystal arm feeling ready for a test drive.

Nirvani watched in silent horror, recognizing on the strangers the ceremonial garb of the Eitharmos, a military organization whose purpose is to hunt and kill the jhareth or those who worship the Jharric gods. Apparently they were there to punish Arhuzimel for not killing or delivering Nirvani. They knew she was a jhareth. Arhuzimel appealed to one of the Eithalim for support, a human named Halendir. The man seemed verbally to deflect the request, but silently nodded to Arhuzimel.

Halendir drew a throwing axe and hurled it at the shifter’s neck, knocking the leader from his mount. He was stuck in the back by a companion’s javelin, but he wrenched it from the assassin’s hand with a twist of his torso. He reared his camel and spun around, joining the line of heroes against the Eithalim.

A wild battle ensued, with strange eastern weapons appearing right and left among the foreign soldiers. Kloric, Sadhai, and Nirvani fought to keep the enemies dismounted, and Klastina hurled a vicious javelin, mortally wounding one of the Eithalim. After a grueling combat, Halendir decapitated the leader’s jackal-head and the remainder broke into a retreat. Two more fell dead, and one seriously wounded, which Arhuzimel allowed to escape for the sake of a former friendship. Halendir remained, silently cleaning his weapons and soothing his camel with words in Zhoroch.

When pressed by the others, Arhuzimel admitted to being a servant of Daemoth. He had been sent to the Norlythe to discover what the heroes planned to do with the Devil’s Spine and the Tongue of Gauren. He had planted the Nightbringer sword as a means to corrupt Sadhai, and planted himself under the guise of a neogi slave. He assured Nirvani, however, that he did not intend to kill her.

At last overcome by fatigue, they retired into the cabin to finish treating the White Pox and wait for Dragor’s return.

 

XP: 1,840 Each

 

[Role-playing Encounter with Fastus: 800 XP

Identifying the Orb: 500 XP

Finding Icarasla: 1,000 XP

Eithalim Encounter: 6,900 XP

TOTAL: 9,200 XP]

 

--

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EPISODE THIRTY-FIVE: Reunion, Part One (Level 14)

 

The Players:

Kristy Eagar (Nirvani)

Mike Eagar (Sadhai)

Kent Lloyd (Kloric)

Adam Rodger (Arhuzimel)

Steve Lloyd (Dragor)

DM: Graham Ward

 

The spiders crept along the ceiling into the personal quarters of the High Chief, which they found occupied by a sleeping Torquos. As they stepped forward, a trap sprung from a sagging bag of bloody flesh hanging from the ceiling above the bed. It shot a web of gory sinew that wrapped around Sadhai. He managed to pull it off and dice it up on the floor.

A shriek issued from the trap, waking Torquos and sounding the fortress’ alarm. As the attackers pummeled Torquos, he melted into a puddle of blood, and oozed out an arrow slit onto the tiered walls. Kloric flew out above the fortress as a swarm and saw a mass of infected colonials climbing up its walls, evidently the undead victims of the White Pox centipedes.

A grunt and clang from the metal door of the chamber announced the arrival of a new enemy, barely visible through the small holes in the latticed door. Sadhai and Arhuzimel teleported to the outer wall for a shot at Torquos, only to discover the undead plague victims climbing up the pyramid. Each had only a gaping cavity for a face, and their bodies were full to the brim with filthy, burrowing centipedes.

As they each felt a bite, and the shooting pains of the burrowing centipedes ran through their skin, Sadhai drew the black sword from the neogi den and channeled its power as a last resort. All the undead halted in place. He felt them in his power. Quickly he commanded them to descend and fight each other to the death. They did so, and the threat was eliminated.

Everyone nearby sensed a terrifying evil presence. The air was thick with it. Ava’s boon to Nirvani activated, a premonition of evil that made white Ravari marks appear on her body, but it was a moment too late. A shadowblade pierced her back. Turning, she saw that Arhuzimel was not himself – his eyes glowing and misty, a simultaneous rage and glee painted on his face. Nirvani wrested herself from the blade and touched the shade with a soothing prayer. He was released from the mysterious possessive influence and backed away.

Reeling from the sword-wound in her back, Nirvani again felt Ava’s warning – “Find Sadhai.” She flung open the latticed door. On the other side loomed a huge, black chain devil, draped and bound in razor-sharp stretches of chain-link. She cried out “Hayyoth!” in all her winged glory, then darted past into the main hall. There Sadhai dropped from a smoke-hole in the ceiling, and they headed back into the fray.

It wasn’t long until the warriors had struck the chain devil dead, but not before it had possessed Arhuzimel and used him to deal a serious blow to Dragor. As the party quickly escaped, they found Fastus (in True Glory form) carving up the last of the White Pox victims and colonial guards with his falchion in the square in front of the high fortress. He flew into the air beside Nirvani and the griffon-riders, and they all flew out of the city’s sight.

 

XP: 2,440 Each

 

[Infested High Fortress Encounter: 9,700 XP

Role-playing Reactions to the Nightbringer: 500 XP

Killing the Vizier Devil: 1,000 XP

Killing the Gorechain Devil: 1,000 XP

TOTAL: 12,200 XP]

 

--

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EPISODE THIRTY-FOUR: The Forgotten and the Dead (Level 14)

 

The Players:

Kristy Eagar (Inaya/Nirvani)

Mike Eagar (Sadhai)

Kent Lloyd (Kloric)

Adam Rodger (Arhuzimel)

Steve Lloyd (Dragor)

 

Having no time to wait for the construction of five saddles, Sadhai urged the party forward. They rode the griffons bareback, picking a path up the mountainous country surrounding Sundered Valley. In the north pass, just a few hundred yards from the goatherd’s cabin, Nirvani’s corpse started wiggling in its embalming linens. When Sadhai had carefully unwrapped her face, she gasped for air. “Get me out of this!” she said.

“You’re dead!”

With a little bewilderment Sadhai helped her out of the wrappings and introduced her to Inaya. She apparently had been with “The Mother” and didn’t realize how long it had been since she died in the bowels of the subterranean temple. Her wounds and ravari symbols were gone, evidence of Ava’s forgiveness.

They approached the cabin that fronted for the Yollotli enclave. It was dark inside, and no agents came out to speak the code words. A harsh voice told them to stay where they were, and that arrows were aimed at them. Nirvani recognized Acton Bell’s voice, and called to him. Strangely, he seemed not to recognize her. After some gruff words, and aghast looks at Nirvani’s specific mentioning of the enclave and its operatives, Bell insisted on taking her and the others in, bound and blindfolded for questioning.

Everyone at the enclave was extremely suspicious of them, including Father Wittiker. No one remembered Nirvani or Sadhai, and Kloric was gone. What bizarre occurrence caused the loss of memory, they couldn’t tell. Finally, losing patience with the questioning, Nirvani changed into True Glory form. The cavern was lit with bright light, and her auburn wings spread from wall to wall. Wittiker got down on one knee and asked her forgiveness.

Arhuzimel’s reaction was less submissive. The shade formed a shadowblade, cut his bonds, and seized Nirvani with a sword to her throat. The archer pointed their arrows at him and everything was tense. Nirvani calmed him down, and he watched the rest of the discussion intently from a shadowed corner of the cavern.

Father Wittiker agreed to have Sadhai and Arhuzimel escorted back to the Bell cabin (blindfolded of course), while Nirvani tied up loose ends, watched Wittiker perform a Remove Curse ritual for good measure, and saw that Inaya was kept safe with the orphans. When asked about Kloric, the abbot said he could be sent for to vouch for them, but he had gotten restless and gone to Maricuälatán a month ago.

One her way out, she had words with Fastus, who, seeing that she was a jhareth, wanted to know if she had any information about the location of the Secret City in the Norlythe. He revealed that he has a pictographic map copied from a jhareth ruin, but he doesn’t fully understand it. He offered to meet Nirvani in Maricuälatán to further discuss the map, and share information.

Arhuzimel was deeply disturbed by the revelation that Nirvani was a jhareth. Sadhai calmed him down, but something about his demeanor seemed agitated and distracted, as if listening intently. When Nirvani finally emerged from the enclave, they gathered their griffons and headed to Maricuälatán to look for Kloric.

On their path to the city they saw several new towers and forts that had been erected since their last journey south, mostly built of long, thick timbers in the typical colonial fortress style. Clearly Terratorumme had strengthened its hold in the southern Norlythe.

At last they drew near to the cemetery across the river from Colfán. Before it came into view, a clearing emerged in which a long, squat cabin had been built, eastern in its construction. A prominent device near the door reminded Nirvani of Corwyn, the warlord from Wellusk. She rushed toward three men that stood around a fire pit in front of the cabin. One drew a sword and stopped her. The blade blazed with fire.

There were two colonists and a Maricuälatan, but none of them had heard of Corwyn. They called their leader, a tall gruff man who spoke in stilted Trentsmin. After introductions, Sadhai made a delicious corn chowder for them all while they exchanged news.

Maricuälatán was under colonial occupation, but organized crime was the real muscle in town. This swordmage school had been burned down in the winter by a leading mobster who had a specialty in arson. The swordmages had also seen “the scarab witch” around, a little girl dripping in insects and hurling water and lightning. They convinced the swordmage leader to accompany them to find the scarab witch and the arsonist.

They tracked Kloric painstakingly through the woods some distance from the city walls. Sadhai and Arhuzimel took off after his shadow panther, and Nirvani and the tall swordmage attempted to get to Klastina inside the heavily fortified hovel. After struggling with all sorts of animal forms and traps, the adventurers finally fought Kloric to a standstill.

It was the same story. He seemed to have gaps in his memory wherever they were concerned. As Sadhai rattled off the stories of their previous travels, and Kloric realized he didn’t remember exactly who had saved his life, gotten him maimed, and helped him resurrect his wife. His confusion became resignation, and he began to accept all that they told him.

He had been covertly watching the criminal leaders in the city. He posed daily as a native boy, slave of Baden Mirillo, a Mottan thug who did dirty work for anyone with means in the colonies. At the moment, he was knee-deep in the mob activity in occupied Maricuälatán. But he wasn’t the real threat. It seemed that Torquos, the suspicious steward of Icarasla’s high fortress, had revealed himself as the vizier devil sighted outside the Lirandi enclave. He was running things in the city, and it was getting worse and worse every day.

In addition, the White Pox, an affliction originally thought to be brought only to the natives from the colonists, had turned out to be the effect of a parasitic, burrowing centipede that now nested in most areas of the city. Kloric claimed that it burrowed into the brain, turning its victim into a zombie. Most of the infected victims were taken to the fortress before they turned.

It wasn’t long before the plan was hatched: Nirvani, Sadhai, Arhuzimel, and Dragor the swordmage would allow Kloric to shapechange them all into spiders, and they would crawl into Torquos’ personal chambers to kill him.

 

XP: 570 Each

 

[Forgotten Heroes Role-play Encounter: 1,000 XP

Reacting to Nirvani’s Secret: 300 XP

Meeting Dragor: 200 XP

Role-playing Dragor’s Language Barrier: 50 XP

Reuniting with Kloric: 800 XP

Convincing Kloric Role-play Encounter: 500 XP

TOTAL: 2,850 XP]

 

--

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EPISODE THIRTY-THREE: Nahua (Level 13)

 

The Players:

Mike Eagar (Sadhai)

Kent Lloyd (Lirrech)

Adam Rodger (Arhuzimel)

DM: Kristy Eagar

 

Sadhai, Lirrech, and Arhuzimel followed Inaya as she skipped down the path. She led them to a part of the cliff nearby where a waterfall poured into a deep pool with a stream. A firepit and mossy log-seats around it indicated that this campsite was often used by travelers along the nearby trade road leading to Ykhel. The party washed away the filth and blood of Madryth, enjoying the beautiful surroundings and warm morning weather.

Next, they tended to Sadhai's injury. Showing remarkable skill for a one-armed man, Sadhai clenched his flint-stone in his teeth, and lit a fire by striking it with his dagger. He heated a sword in the fire, and asked Arhuzimel to cauterize the stump. Without asking, Inaya ripped Sadhai's best shirt into shreds to use as bandages. Wounds tended to, Arhuzimel climbed the cliff face by the waterfall to get his bearings. He recognized the trail, which he had climbed before he was captured by the Neogi. He knew that some small villages dotted the area, but couldn't see them through the dense forest and the mist that hung over the trees. Climbing back to camp, he quickly bathed and then left to hunt. He found a deer path and set up a blind.

Meanwhile, Lirrech washed his clothing, then put it back on and went for a run in the forest to dry it off, using his psionic senses to dodge trees. Inaya swam and played in the water, and Sadhai made soup. As Lirrech returned to camp, he and Sadhai heard drunken singing in Norlythin from farther down the path. It was an old Norlythin man with long white hair, named Nahua. He was wounded, leaning heavily on a wooden staff, and asked if he could come sit by their fire and die.

Lirrech demonstrated some amazing herbal and medical skills, sewing shut the muscle wall of the deep belly wound with waxed sinew from his kit. Much impressed by the healing skills of the blind man, Nahua told them that his "livestock" had been trapped and stolen by orc raiders. He had been trying to cut the animals from their snares, when the attackers had cut him down and left him for dead. He especially worried for his prize animal, a prize breeding female. He dodged their questions about what sort of animals he kept, only saying that they would bring him a small fortune in Ykhel, if the stodgy dwarves would give him a trading permit. He seemed unfazed that they were carrying a dead body with them, and offered to help them embalm Nirvani's body, so that it would not decompose. He sent Inaya into the woods with a short list of herbal requirements that grew nearby.

Meanwhile, Arhuzimel landed a fine buck, and proceeded to field dress it. A large predator, smelling the blood, approached him through the underbrush. He looked up to see a large black griffon, growling at him, a blend of crow and panther. He backed away slowly, offering the animal the offal from his deer. He hid the deer carcass nearby, and returned to approach the animal slowly with open hands. On closer inspection, he noticed the worn marks in its fur of previous saddle-use. He also saw that it was wounded. Slowly and skillfully, speaking soft baby-talk, he managed to approach the creature and treat its wound. He could tell that the wound was from an edged weapon. He petted the griffon, cooing softly. Suddenly, it began to purr and rub its head and neck on him. He retrieved his deer, and the griffon followed him back to camp, munching on a deer haunch.

The others were incredibly surprised to see Arhuzimel followed into camp by a griffon the size of a small horse, and Sadhai leapt to his feet and drew his sword. "Poppy!" called out Nahua, and ran to greet the creature. His "herd" was actually a small flock of griffons. Poppy had bonded to Arhuzimel, however, and Nahua huffily demanded payment. Lirrech calmly spoke to Nahua, and, remembering his indebtedness to the monk, he told the Shade that he may as well keep the creature, as she had "bonded" to him and was now unsaleable.

Nahua now offered the party a tempting boon. If they could rescue his pride breeding animal, Peony, from the orc bandits, then they could keep last year’s brood, five yearlings. There were four females, all named Poppy, and one male, named Pester. He hated to see his prize animals eaten, and was in no shape to take on a whole camp of orcs alone. As for the griffons, he explained that hand-feeding and then petting and talking softly to a young griffon would "bond" them to an owner, which he had been careful not to do while he trained them. He showed Arhuzimel how to make a griffon whistle from some reeds nearby the stream, and then ran through some simple voice commands the animals knew in Norlythin (come, stay, attack, lie down, fly, land, right, left, slow, fast, and "nest," which would send them to hide in any nearby woods to await the sound of a whistle).

Nahua stayed behind in the camp, grunting in pain from his wounds as he determinedly skinned the deer for Arhuzimel and began to brain-tan it to make a proper saddle to sell him (a determined businessman, he hoped to recover some of his losses).

The party stealthily approached the orc encampment, which was hidden in the trees near the trading road farther down the switchbacks of the pass. Inaya sent her dream-form up into a tree to scout the camp, and reported that there were nearly a hundred orcs, mostly noncombatant women, children, and elderly, but with at least a full dozen warriors brandishing spears, axes, and clubs. The griffons were tied down in nets towards the rear of the camp, and the orcs were gathered around the camp-fires, roasting venison.

The adventurers conceived a bold plan. Sadhai and Lirrech circled the camp stealthily, while Arhuzimel stayed with Inaya, helping her to remain unseen as she concentrated on sending her dream form into the camp itself. At one point, he had to pull the child close and wrap her in his cloak to keep her hidden. She giggled and hugged him, much to his dismay. The ghost-like dream form of the little girl strode boldly into the camp, streaked liberally in mud and with sticks in her hair. Speaking in Norlythin, which some of the orcs understood, she declared that the spirits of nature were angry that the tribe had captured these griffons, who were meant to roam free and wild! She demanded that they release the animals at once, or nature would destroy them all!  They didn't believe her, but they were frightened and wary of the apparition. Women drew children away, and the warriors surrounded her with weapons bristling. In a high-pitched, over-played "ghost" voice, she continued her demands. An orc poked at her with his spear, and her dream-form vanished. The orcs cried out, in full alert now, staring all around them in alarm with weapons drawn.

Hidden in the woods nearby, Arhuzimel groaned. He hid Inaya in the brush, and pulled his hood over his face. He vanished into the shadows, reappearing from the shadow of a startled orc warrior and calling out in a dire voice that they should heed the child of nature, or they would be destroyed." The orcs lunged at him, but he vanished into another one's shadow, shadow-stepping again. Aided by enraged animal sounds from the woods (skillfully rendered by Sadhai and Lirrech), the older orcs were now convinced. A heated argument broke out between the younger, less superstitious and the elders of the tribe. Many were reluctant to give up this excellent raiding position near a trade road, but more were terrified and ready to run.  In the end, the orcs released the griffons into the woods, and frantically began to pack up their camp.

The party approached the griffons, several of whom had cuts, rope-burns, and other injuries. The flock was limping away through the forest, as the mother of the flock had a hurt wing.  With Arhuzimel's now-experienced guidance, they calmed the animals. The griffons seemed willing to follow Poppy and Arhuzimel, and the party led them back towards camp. Sadhai broke away from the group at this point however, and lingered behind to watch the orc's breaking camp. Seeing some unwatched sledges, he boldly snuck back into the chaotic camp, and was able to "liberate" a leather satchel full of dried meat and several small, blood-stained belt-pouches full of valuables the orcs had stolen from travelers.

He rejoined the party and pulled Arhuzimel aside, showing him the spoils, and convincing the reluctant shade that they should pay Nahua a small portion of the coins. Back at the camp, Nahua was delighted to be reunited with his beloved Peony. Sadhai and Arhuzimel tended to the griffons, while Inaya helped the old man finish the messy part of the tanning process, and Lirrech relaxed by the fire. Satisfied, the group then kicked back to enjoy hot venison soup, and some much-needed rest.

XP: 1,766 Each

[Skill Check Criticals: 100 XP
Lirrech Healing Nahua: 200 XP
In-character Diplomacy with Nahua: 100 XP
Arhuzimel Calming the Griffon: 800 XP
Stealth, Bluffing, and Roleplay with the Orcs: 4,000 XP
Rescuing the Griffons: 100 XP
TOTAL: 5,300 XP]

--

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EPISODE THIRTY-TWO: An End to Madryth (Level 13)

 

The Players:

Kristy Eagar (Inaya)

Mike Eagar (Sadhai)

Adam Rodgers (Arhuzimel)

DM: Graham Ward

 

The heroes launched their assault on the tentacles. Inaya attempted to manipulate the aquatic beast from a distance with her psychic power, while the others took pot shots with improvised weapons or their Fist attacks. After some time, Inaya managed to lift the creature out from the water, making it hover just above the surface of the water. It was then they all saw that the tentacles belonged to two thrashing aberrations, not one. She launched the kraken she had lifted back into the water at its partner, damaging both, but sending a tidal wave across the stone bridges that held the heroes aloft. Lirrech was sent into the water, and torpedoed out again with a spinning flip onto the stone.

As the stone structure became more broken under the grueling battle, Arhuzimel felled the first abomination with a vicious shadowblade attack. The second kraken, which Inaya felt instinctively was the priest she had communicated with, was furious and upset. Realizing the horrible changes he had undergone because of his unnatural love for the kraken, the enormous priest presented himself as a sacrifice and asked Sadhai to kill him. Sadhai enacted the gruesome request.

They quickly evacuated the High Fortress, and headed to the far side, where the desert resumed. In the distance, the strange horizon rolled upward. As they got closer, it seemed that the land bowled up in front of them as they walked, like a hamster’s wheel.

After some time they began to see the edge of the desert drawing towards their path, so that its precipice and the rounded horizon came to a bottleneck. There at the choke point an enormous gate made out of flesh colored bones rose up. They passed under it and saw the land beyond, a vast stretch of decomposing corpses. Lirrech immediately recognized the soupy carrion-pile beneath his feet. Again each step brought them a vision of someone being slaughtered by an illithid.

The Illithid Waste stretched for miles. The ground began to harden and rise into a mound of bodies. At the crest there was a cloaked figure with a tall collar, standing at the center of the sunken center of the mound, his back facing the adventurers. Inaya reached out with psychic power and discovered that the illithid which stood before them was once a priest of Senfaer. Believing through the Far Realm’s influence that watching a person die was the only way to truly know them, the brother had transformed into an illithid to hunt men and see their dying breaths.

The attempt at negotiation went awry – the mind flayer shot a dominating glance at Sadhai, then lunged for Arhuzimel, wrapping his tentacles around the shade’s face. It was a quick fight. Several times the transformed priest struck forward and was repelled. When he was cut down at last, they moved beyond the Illithid Waste toward a vast ruined city.

Inaya warned them not to touch the ruins, but Sadhai’s curiosity got the better of him. As he pressed his hand against a tilted archway, a terrifying shriek cut through the sky. He apologized to the girl, and promised he wouldn’t do it again.

After a few long marches, they reached a low wooden wall. On the far side stretched a vast lake, like a mirror under the red heavens. Touching the water, they discovered it was only about a foot deep. Underneath was a huge, perfectly reflective panel of glass. As they touched the water, they saw a vision of a child’s head being shoved through a window by some unseen person.

Inaya led the party across the water, which she called the “Shatterbox.” The glass was so thin, and under so much pressure from the water atop it, that every footfall cracked its surface like brittle ice. They took to the sky to decrease the number of steps needed. After what seemed like hours, they saw a large golden orb appear in the distance. It hovered in the air about forty feet above the Shatterbox.

When they got closer they saw that the globe was quite large – about a hundred feet in diameter. With some tricky vaulting and teleporting, the entire group reached its surface, where upon touching the metal surface they each saw another vision.

Two little boys about seven years old were playing around a ruined stone farmhouse. Their roughhousing escalated into an actual physical conflict, until one of the boys (whom Inaya recognized as the final priest) grabbed the hair of the other and shoved his head through a window, shattering the glass and leaving the child hanging dead in the shards. Inaya cried, and the others were sobered at the vision.

The sphere was apparently made of long, thin strips of flexed metal that were covered in a fine script, which Nirvani identified as an irregular combination of Syriod and a language from the Far Realm. The orb began to open. Each strip uprooted from the top hemisphere and bent outward like a flowering petal. The adventurers floated to the ground in time to see an ornate throne rising from the center of the opened sphere. On it was seated a dark figure, robed in a long, thick frock coat.

Shifting his legs into a relaxed lotus position, the priest hovered above the throne, which descended again. On his forehead they saw a large glyph, like theirs but finely scored with the strange language of Madryth. At once the sphere closed, and the metal strips twisted into a bizarrely compact ball about two inches in diameter. The frock coat opened up, and what seemed to be six rigid belts of fabric flew up like bats, then descended on the party.

They were cloakers – aberrant creatures that bear an unfortunate resemblance to clothing. Their anatomy consisted of a small, bony core with a wide, snub mouth, from each side of which protruded a six-foot, jointed spine. Between the two spines stretched a paper-thin membrane that created the cloaker’s mock-fabric appearance. They hovered just above the glass, twirling and gnashing in preparation for their meal.

The priest mutated into a blast of slime, then disappeared. As the party battled the cloakers, he materialized here and there from slime, striking out psychically against his assailants until they wore him down and killed him. Sadhai sliced a cloaker in half (perhaps incited by remnant memories of the skin kites), which, still alive, reared on him and clamped its vicious jaw on his elbow. In a flash of shock, the cloaker tore Sadhai’s lower arm from the socket. It was dead before it knew what it had done. Rage took over, and Sadhai carved up another cloaker as Arhuzimel took the last couple down himself as Madryth began to collapse, revealing shreds of other worlds or times in the sky.

Without time for more than a moment’s groan, Inaya snatched the head priest’s glyph and opened a portal to a place of her choosing – the mountain path outside the Neogi caverns. When they stepped out into the waking world, they enjoyed the sun for a second before realizing the snow was gone. A warm breeze hit them. What time were they in? What had happened to winter while they tramped through Madryth? Where would Kloric and their other friends be if it was already spring? With a sigh Sadhai and Arhuzimel looked out on the green canyon below, Inaya giggling at the sight of the sun after so many years.

 

XP: 5,300 Each

 

[Kraken Encounter: 2,500 XP

Killing Second Priest: 800 XP

Illithid Encounter: 4,000 XP

Fourth Priest Encounter: 5,600 XP

Conquering Madryth: 3,000 XP

TOTAL: 15,900 XP]

 

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EPISODE THIRTY-ONE: The Sideways City (Level 13)

 

The Players:

Kristy Eagar (Inaya)

Mike Eagar (Sadhai)

Kent Lloyd (Lirrech)

Adam Rodger (Arhuzimel)

DM: Graham Ward

 

A sharp tingling sensation accompanied the group’s entrance into Madryth through the portal. They found themselves on small stones about two feet in diameter, suspended in the air. More stones stretched out in all directions around them, all hovering in a grid-like spread every five or six feet. To the left, the right, forward, backward, upward, and downward, the stepping stones hovered as far as they could see, set against the backdrop of a thick, cloudy, red nebula.

After some time of experimenting with opening portals and the new physics of Madryth, they discovered the following information.

1. With some intellectual focus, they could fly in long strides of about twenty-five feet, or alternate their gravitational alignment in some places.
2. The stones were somehow locked into position, only able to be pushed a few inches, then snapping back into place.
3. No matter how far they moved from the original place where the portal deposited them, they were able to open another portal. It would invariably lead back to the chamber where they had killed the illithid and its companions.
4. Every time they reentered Madryth, they appeared at the same central stone within the grid (a fact which they only realized after Arhuzimel left and returned, finding himself some fifty yards away from the others upon reappearing).
5. Metal remained soft, and wood remained piping hot.

As the party explored this area, they noticed the red clouds billowing and darkening as if in a storm. Soon a strange rain fell – from every direction: up, down, left, right, front, and back. The epicenter of the rainfall was the central stone where they first appeared. As their clothes became damp with the rain, they noticed it was thick and dark. It was blood. Lirrech, not shielding himself from the blood-rain, suddenly disappeared.

Sadhai and Arhuzimel looked around fearfully. They decided to start off in a direction, hoping to get beyond the endless stone grid. Willing themselves to fly upward, they leaped from stone to stone for what seemed like hours. At last, an end to the stones came into sight, and they flew from the final stone to a cliff top of cracked earth. The stony desert went on as far as they could see, until blackness struck like an impossibly massive wall in the distance. The two rangers moved forward.

Lirrech was alone, knee-deep in thick mud. A horrendous odor hung in the air. As he took a step forward he was seized by a disturbing vision – a man desperately clawing to escape as an illithid pressed his face against the floor, tore the back of his head open with its claws, and sucked the contents of his skull into its tentacled mouth. With each step Lirrech saw another vision of illithids brutally harvesting brains from defenseless victims. The visions were oddly emanating up through his legs as they sunk into the thick slop around him. It wasn’t long before he realized the slop was decomposing carrion.

Sadhai and Arhuzimel saw a figure in the distance as they traveled across the cracked flatlands. It was a small girl, about four years old. They neared her, and she rushed to Sadhai, calling him “Daddy” and throwing her arms around him. Sadhai was taken aback, but managed to find out the name of this child that insisted she was his. She was Inaya. She “informed” him that he had died at the hands of an Illithid, but was now obviously reborn in order to bring her home and send the “brothers” back to Senfaer. She claimed that he also had a son named Idrys, pointing to the air and purporting to see him. Despite her young appearance, the two rangers noticed a strange intelligence behind her eyes. Sadhai suggested that Inaya would be safest if she stayed with them, and the three continued toward the black wall.

As Lirrech climbed forward through the mire of decomposing bodies, he began to think they weren’t human. Oily tentacles lay among the bones and guts, combining with the visions to convince him this was a sea of rotten illithid corpses. The consistency was solidifying, their deaths becoming more and more recent. As this occurred, the pile grew higher and higher, until Lirrech passed the lip of the incline and came face to face with a living illithid, stooped down and eating the remains of the most recent illithids corpses. Though it didn’t look up, the illithid besieged his mind, dominated him, and teleported him to Sadhai’s side.

The others looked suspiciously at the monk as he stood dumbly looming behind them. Inaya referred to the enormous wall in the distance as “the City.” When it was close enough to black out all other sights, a terrible groaning scrape came from the black edifice. It sounded like metal or bones grinding against each other. Arhuzimel and Inaya disappeared as Sadhai watched long towers open up from the flat wall ahead.

The young girl and Arhuzimel found themselves in the heart of a strange city. Sharp towers stabbed outward in a sideways skyline toward the direction from which they had walked. They were now standing on the side of one tower, its glass window underneath their feet, and its massive length slowly pivoting back and forth like a clock hand from the wall behind them. Sadhai ran forward to find them, followed by the dominated Lirrech.

Arhuzimel and Inaya looked for a way off the side of the moving tower. She sensed one of “the brothers” (priests of Senfaer that had created Madryth) was nearby. She crept down to the base of the tower and opened the door. As soon as she was inside, her gravity was reoriented so that the building was upright. Despite some initial thoughts of killing or abandoning the girl, Arhuzimel decided it would be better to wait for her.

Inside the tower, Inaya saw an ornate chamber, at the center of which the priest hovered, meditating. His arms and legs had transformed into long tentacles, and several more had sprung out of less customary parts of his torso. When the door opened, he looked up and warned Inaya to stay away. In a flash he was lunging at her through the air. She led him out again on the side of the tower, where Arhuzimel had to reposition for a sneak attack. He shot blue flames at Inaya from his eyes, and she threw every energy field and psychic attack she could muster at him. Arhuzimel made short work of him, cleaving the tentacles from his left side and carving through his core. The priest’s gravity realigned the moment he died, and he fell straight to the right toward the “ground.”

Sadhai and Lirrech entered the city and reached the bottom of the tower just in time to see a tentacled abomination drop to the ground in front of them. They looked up to see Arhuzimel and Inaya standing on the side of the tower, their gravity on a different alignment. Suddenly the towers began to fall downward – the city was closing again like a venus fly trap. They all managed to dodge the tipping buildings and escape the city just before it became a flat wall again.

Inaya pointed out the likely location of the next priest: through the valley of bones toward the High Fortress. She seemed eager to “send them back to Senfaer.” They traveled for miles and miles along a short stone wall that crept up just above the surface of an enormous pile of bones. It stretched as far as they could see in any direction like a gargantuan bowl filled with bones of every size and shape. Once within sight of the High Fortress they camped inside a whale’s skull.

They were woken by a hissing sound and a rumble in the earth underneath them. The skull burst open where Arhuzimel lay as a great rampart of rock cam up from underneath the bones. It twisted and turned as it shot out from the ground like a gigantic, stone worm. Arhuziml found himself caught on top of it, and quickly leaped down with some agile maneuvering. By the time things stopped and became quiet again, there was a large, twisting rock formation similar to the style of the High Fortress that loomed ahead. They moved forward.

At the Fortress, they found a sharp edge to the rocky desert, and a pool of standing water. The High Fortress itself came up out of the water in labyrinthine swirls of rock. They leaped to the rock and began navigating the twisting paths of stone. Arhuzimel and Inaya guided them through to the center, where four columns of stone sloped into the water, and between their worm-like shafts the water was boiling in a thick upheaval of steam.

Inaya felt a psychic connection with the priest of the Fortress, who told her to leave before something bad happened. She saw a vision of the ocean, looking out at a kraken from the shore, and felt a strong love for the creature. She was being allowed to feel the emotions of the priest, who was evidently in love with the kraken in the vision. She came to herself and warned them all to hide in preparation for the priest’s arrival. After some time the boiling water came to a dead halt, and long tentacles burst out of the water.

 

XP: 613 Each

 

[Experimenting with Physics: 200 XP

Escaping the Stone Grid: 200 XP

Crossing the Desert: 200 XP

Saving against the Illithid Domination: 50 XP

Priest in the Sideways City Encounter: 1,200 XP

Escaping the Closing City: 200 XP

Crossing the Valley of Bones: 200 XP

Navigating the High Fortress: 200 XP

TOTAL: 2,450 XP]

 

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