Right, to clear up a little confusion that may have happened last session:
There were four main courts of eladrin, predictably named after the four seasons. Each of the courts fulfilled several different functions, but if you want to find out what exactly, ping me and I’ll ask you to roll.
The heads and higher-ups of the four courts formed a council of sorts in order to govern the eladrin as a whole. This court advised a fifth, neutral party (The Arbiter) who would then make decisions which were voted upon by the full council of 500 members. (125 per court)
A good three to five thousand years before the current day, there was a disagreement on how the upcoming threat of the drow should be handled. The Winter Court felt that a policy of preemptive annihilation was the only way to proceed and, despite losing a landslide vote, they proceeded to attack drow settlements.
Naturally, the drow took exception to being murdered and declared war on the eladrin. After a period of skirmishes, the Winter Court felt not enough was being done by the council to eliminate the threat and decided to attempt a coup.
The coup d’etat succeeded in its primary objective of assassinating the Arbiter, but in doing so, revealed their treachery. What followed is, to date, the single most bloody civil war in eladrin history.
When the dust settled, the Winter court was slain to the last, though the Summer court was greatly weakened by this, The drow, sensing an opportunity, wiped out the survivors of the Summer court before retreating to the Underdark, calling the matter settled. Needless to say, diplomatic relations have been cool ever since.
Most of this is not particularly well known outside of the Feywild, but information was recorded by scholars of the time. One such scholar, a human by the name of Argus Silkspun, recorded as much information as possible. Unfortunately, he was rather fond of puns, and coined the term “Cold War” to describe the conflict. The autumn leaves and spider silk found by his thoroughly beheaded body were not thought to be linked to this at all.
In the morning, the party awakens to find the Captain still with them. The kidnapping appears to have improved his common sense somewhat, and he’d thought better of heading back at night alone. As he leaves, the party eagerly fails to discuss the Drow-filled events of the night before.
Heading down the road, Torven cheerily mentions to a disbelieving Allharyc that according to the map, there will be no signs of civilisation along this main road for another six days solid. Sure enough, after six hours of travel, the party finds a spot with no animals or people whatsoever. They decide this is a problem because they are standing in the middle of a recently-inhabited farming village.
The landmark of this particular village is apparently its historical burial mounds, something Chaurix notes aloud as the party head down the deserted main street. On inspection, the village shows no signs of great destruction. Still, sensing an air of oppressive danger about the place, the party immediately heads for the pub, but find the tavern door pitted with bloodless fist-shaped dents. They deduce that this is bad, and try assuring the people inside that they are not actually a fleet of the villagers’ undead ancestors here to kill and convert them. Listening to the party attempt to reason, the villagers mistakenly deduce that the party must’ve gotten intelligent. They study the party from a high window - the drow, the tree, the Patagorian, the Absolute Human - and decide that these people could all realistically be their ancestors, and douse them in holy water. The party fails to be in any way sanctified by this experience.
The party discusses how wise it might be to charge into a hole full of unknown numbers of door-crackingly strong Undead, given their nausea-inducing experiences at Greenbower and their perfect excuse to just walk away, but with the encouragement of the more religious members of the group they ultimately resolve - helped by Torven haring off ahead - to leave no monsters unpunched.
Before the party can break out their elite combat skills against these sharp-witted undead, however, they must first face down six tenacious resurrected squirrels. Chaurix and Torven are the quickest to meet the squirrels face to face, and Robyn and Allharyc both assist Chaurix in removing his squirrel, at the cost of several gouges to his face. Torven, whose natural smarts alerted her to the possibility of this outcome, made the sharp tactical manoeuvre of leaving the squirrel where it was and setting her own face on fire. This did not help. Eventually, with the vicious rodents defeated, the party are given a brief moment to regroup before it is time to defeat the vicious rodents. Discovering that nothing short of hot or holy light will put these beasts down, the party calculate that they will need Torven and Vester to make the finishing blow against each enemy. Robyn, Chaurix and Kyrellan skilfully accelerate this by making a series of squirrel kebabs, which Torven and Vester happily barbecue.
After a short rest to recover, the party walk onwards for an hour, eventually finding themselves flanked by small grassed-over barrows. The largest barrow, straight ahead, has its door hanging open into blackness. Torven eagerly leads the way down into the barrow, followed by the party members who actually know anything about stealth or the potential for a dangerous location to contain traps. Stepping onto a pressure plate, Torven learns this danger the pointy way.
As the party wait in the first chamber, surrounded by urns of the long-dead, Chaurix discovers the party’s narrow escape from being sealed into the tomb upon entry. He disables the mechanism for that trap while Robyn ensures that nobody else is shot by darts.
Continuing down the sloping corridor, the party eventually reach a room containing corpses instead of ash urns. Perhaps surprisingly, they aren’t animate, so the most striking remaining feature of the room is the large door at the opposite end.
The door is harshly carved with a pentagram, a differently-coloured gem set at each point of the star. The party recognises the runes on each gem as identifying a different major good god, forming a simple alert system for whatever lies beyond - any worshipper of the aforementioned gods, or individual considering themselves to be similarly Good, will trigger an alarm when attempting to cross the threshold. Having ushered the rest of the party a safe distance away, Kyrelan cracks the door open without difficulty.
The floor of the darkened room beyond is marked with three concentric rings, in the centre of which stands a cloaked figure, chanting in the direction of some two dozen prisoners held in a cage of bone. It isn’t hard to pick up a general ambiance of necromancy, but only the resident Patagorian is able to pick up the finer details of the ritual taking place.
A ritual to create a dread zombie, Vester explains, is less than ideal at the best of times, as it creates a highly-powered and obedient servant who is free to use the wits and personality they had in life to do their new master’s bidding. Thing is, the wizard before us now is almost certainly doing that same ritual to around twenty innocent people simultaneously, which is unheard of in necromancy society, which Vester is definitely too innocent to know anything about at all. As things stand, the spread of undead followers of this wizard would be one problem, but the potential spread of the upgraded ritual itself would be catastrophic.
Kyrellan listens closely to Vester explaining the immense power and danger of the ritual, and flings insanity-inducing mushroom powder straight at the wizard casting it. Alarmingly, this has a beneficial effect, and the innermost containment circle around the wizard is disrupted and flickers out.
Throwing odd things to see the effect they have upon impact seems to be working out well for the deathly serious assassin, so he whips out a discount “health” potion next and flings it at the wizard, splashing the liquid across his robes and face.
This does succeed in distracting the wizard.
With the ritual disrupted, and the energy flow cancelled, the magical power the wizard has been channelling for hours turns back on him in a single instant. Predictably, this results in fire. Less predictably, it then results in the wizard melting, turning into a rabbit, bursting back into flames, freezing, floating, phasing in and out of visibility, sounding strange, smelling strange, sounding strange and freezing again just in time to get hit by one of those indoor underground flaming meteors.
He does not survive.
Kyrellan, whose trust and passion for magic has in no way been strengthened by this spectacle, is not even allowed the permanence of death for reassurance. The astrally-roasted rabbit, now more of a thick black paste reminiscent of the Great Wizard Malarath, heads for the prisoners’ cage but evaporates into black mist en route.
Unfortunately, the party did not realise the potential futility of handing a necromancer his first death. The original wizard finishes dissipating as the party step into the room, and plumes of black smoke burst out of a strung vial of blood set on a small table off to one side. The table is promptly crushed beneath the emergent lich.
Torven is the first to notice that the Lich’s off switch is logically the necklace it emerged from, and begins pounding the necklace with little to no thought about the large undead spirit protecting it. This largely works well for her, as Robyn and Allharyc engage the Lich while Chaurix joins Torven on the necklace. Vester and Kyrellan provide support from afar, and the Lich is dispatched before it can quite come to terms with its new existence.
Once Robyn has finished freeing the terrified prisoners, the party is left to rattle around the now properly lifeless dungeon. Figuring there’ll be nothing but more holy showers waiting for them back at the pub, the party attempt to scrounge payment. They succeed, finding a handful of strengthened weapons the dead will have no further use for, and prying godstones from the door before any other necromancer decides to set up shop and use them against the party’s assorted deities. Vester, meanwhile, finds an ornate scroll in the colours of his homeland. He pockets it.
On the way out, the party runs into eight fully-resurrected members of the undead. Rather than looking murderous, they have the pissed-off, exhausted look of final-years about them, and calmly climb back into their alcoves to await eternal death. The party can’t guarantee them eternity, but Torven takes sympathy and rewards their good manners with a ritual preventing further resurrection for the next half a year.
The party arrives back at the village by early afternoon. Some of the freed prisoners seem to have been allowed back indoors, but no stores will be open any time soon, so it seems logical that the party keep walking while it’s light. The villagers outside reveal that the next village on the path to Rushwood is just two days’ walk away.
The party get up after their eye-opening night under the statue to discover that Robyn has returned from her seemingly-eventful night at a diplomatic dinner. Whilst she isn’t very forthcoming with her own details, Torven fills her in with full gusto about what happened last night. Vester occasionally provides some clarification.
After all has been said for now, the trio decide to go and find the others so they can make their way from Hammerfast and on their way towards the Library of Ioun. They find Alharyc at morning prayers in the temple. They find Chaurix is nowhere to be seen. No one cares to try and find Kyrellan. Which is fine, because he sneaks up on the party shortly afterwards, making them all jump. Everybody assembled, they go to see the Captain of the Town Guard, as requested.
Captain Varek, deciding the party must surely be sensible and trustworthy individuals, offer them a simple job for a less than simple wage. They must deliver a letter to Captain Varek’s equal in Rushwood. Their wages come in the form of six pouches, each as mysterious as the workings of this world’s economy. Each turns out to contain the equivalent of 20 gold pieces. However one pouch contains precious stones to that amount and another has a calligraphy set. Lovely.
So the party make their merry way out of Hammerfast. Just like the land surrounding Redport, they find the territory ends at a river, which has a handy bridge beside it. Also, an even handier fortification, useful not to us, but to a troop of archers who were expecting the arrival of Robyn. Out of the fort, with an entourage of harmonious bards, comes a nobleman with a rose and a burning desire for Robyn. Robyn flails. Vester makes scathing comments. Chaurix decides to go and actually fix this mess.
With a very convincing degree of eloquence, he manages to persuade the nobleman that we are all Robyn’s entourage. Not only that, we have official business from the Captain of the Town Guard that must not be disturbed. He’ll just have to woo Robyn another day. The nobleman concedes, Vester makes a few waspish comments, and everyone moves on with their lives.
After a long journey in absolute silence with no party interaction at all, they arrive at the familiar town of Fallcrest. They go the tavern, not the shady one with the 50 feet of rope, the other one, and find another Captain of the Town Guard. This one is off his face and boasting about everything from Malarath to the Exarchs of Evil. If anyone takes offence to this, they do not say at this moment in time.
The party take up residence in the tavern. Vester, reminded that he has a mysterious book in Draconic, studies it again to find that is both mysterious and in Draconic. Chaurix however gets curious and makes a lot more sense out of it because he actually speaks the language. It turns out to be a book made by Totally-Humans like Chaurix, detailing ways to incapacitate, fight and generally hinder dragons. Impressed by the fact Chaurix can read the text and he can’t, Vester allows him to keep the text in exchange for any knowledge from it Chaurix deems useful.
Two guards drag the Captain out and the party stay the night before setting off once more for Rushford. When night falls they make a camp, assign watches, and generally do as adventurers do on a peaceful night such as this – squint suspiciously into the darkness.
It is on Kyrellan’s watch that things take a turn for the unexpected. As he sits amongst the trees, he spots three Drow passing through the woods, a certain Captain bound and gagged between them. Kyrellan makes swift work of them, clothes-lining them with a clever placed rope in the dark. One drow snaps his neck, the other is stabbed to death and the last is taken as a prisoner. The Captain is taken back to the camp to explain his sorry state.
His tale is this: Recently a whole herd of cattle was stolen from land nearby to Hammerfast. The town guard, called to investigate, discovered they had been stolen by Drow and led into a cave that led to the Underdark. The town guard slew the Drow and got an earth mage to fill the hole with pieces of mountain – as one does in trying times such as these. However these Drow must have been survivors who wished to take revenge for their fallen kin and sudden acquisition of mountain.
Kyrellan scolds the Captain for his drinking before dragging his prisoner off to conduct his own interrogation. The Drow, who is a magic user as evidenced by his wand, realises he’s due a trip past the Raven Queen very soon. He explains everything. The cattle were stolen to feed the spider farms below and a whole herd was needed to maintain their food stock. When the pieces of mountain were acquired, he managed to slip through just before the cave was closed. Upon the suggestion that other passages could exist nearby, the interrogation is concluded in the traditional Drow fashion – throat-slitting.
Doing nothing to stop the burning of a perfectly good magical wand, the party let the Captain go merrily on his way. Heading off in the direction of Rushwood, they remain oblivious to the presence of dead drow and clearly do not care that they’ve let the Captain go ambling across the land defenceless. Such is the price for drunken stupidity it seems.
Upon returning to Varrick’s office with the newly resurrected ambassadors, the party are paid for their efforts in combating the mighty wizard who was controlling them.
The main ambassador, an Elven woman with long red hair, introduces herself as Ariel and thanks the party once again, leaving with a notice that Haven (a neutral Elven city which vanishes twice yearly due to its proximity to a Feywild portal) is indebted to them. Should they wish to seek sanctuary, they are most welcome. She then leaves, without eating or shooting.
Diplomacy over, Varrick leafs through the diary that was found near “Mytherax”. Whilst most of it is in perfectly sensible Dwarven stating that he was a simple cook at a bandit camp, the entries from about three weeks ago are written in some strange, slightly off script that no-one can decipher. Immediately before this is an entry describing a dream in which he met with some kind of malevolent entity (introducing itself as Mytherax), which offered him power in exchange for his service.
Enlisting the lot in front of him to actually do some work, he sends them to the temple to get the diary translated.
Upon entry to the temple, the party note that the building is mostly devoted to Erathis and Kord, with a third[, almost completely faded carving of a] deity who appears to have fallen out of favour. Allharyc seems to think these carvings are representations of Moradin, who in recent times - some 30,000 years ago, to be precise - has been eclipsed in popularity by Erathis.
Fortunately, there is an exceptionally aged, blind dwarf named Luther who can decipher the language, and writes out what it said. In Common, thankfully. Reading the note reveals a rather troubling message.
YOU WHO HAVE SOUGHT OUR INTELLIGENCE OUT
OUR MIND SHALL BECOME ONE WITH YOURS.
KNOW THAT YOU SHALL KNOW NO SANCTUARY, NO REDOUBT
INTO YOUR SOUL THE KNOWLEDGE BORES
ALL YOU ARE, ALL YOU HAVE EVER BEEN, ALL THAT YOU WILL EVER BE
IS NOW OURS TO MOLD AND PLAY WITH TO OUR DESIRE
BREACH THE GATES, SET US FREE
AND CLEANSE THE WORLD WITH BLACKEST FIRE.
SHARDS OF VIOLET THAT BURN AND HURT
THAT LOCKS AND TEARS AND CLAWS AND BINDS
OUR POWER THAT THEY DARE SUBVERT
A GREAT MONSTROSITY OF METAL AND MINDS
THE GREAT CRYSTAL AND SIX SMALLER WILL BE DESTROYED
AND RETURN EXISTENCE TO BLESSED VOID.
It appears that reading this message is not without a price, as Luther’s pupils look noticeably bloodshot. Returning to Varrick with the transcription and a letter from the temple, the party are left to their own devices for a while.
Robyn is invited to the Duke’s for a diplomatic dinner as her position in Redport requires. She spends the night there, having told the party not to expect her back before morning.
Kyrellan goes to the local black market, where he helps out Max, an aspiring alchemist who has taking to selling bootleg healing potions to fund his studies. After telling him which ones are poisonous, he leaves with a few freebies.
Alharyc goes shopping for new clothing. Later, at Avandra’s behest, he returns to where Bryan’s head is and places two coins on its eyes, allowing Avandra to gain a better perspective of events. A paladin of The Raven Queen comes in and burns the head with holy fire not long after. He also suggests burning anything that came into prolonged contact with the head. Allharyc eventually concedes, burning his gloves after the paladin leaves.
After Torven shows Vester the stone that she liberated from Bryan, the two head to the nearby Wizard’s Academy. They discover that, when charged with primal energy, the stone should allow one to summon [bear spirits EDIT: I think they were originally generic fae spirits, which happened to be bear shaped because of some stipulation of the stone/ritual?]. The druid giving Torven this information, after succeeding on a DC -20 Perception check, suggests that near her tree is the best place to do so, as that area would naturally be saturated with her own primal energies.
Vester goes off to study in the temple library. Torven, after getting bored at the local park, joins him sneakily. Unfortunately for Torven, she does this just as he’s learning about the wonderful world of Abyssal. A quick course in how to identify Abyssal and one raging headache later, she stops reading over his shoulder. As a result of studying the compendium of languages with slightly more tenacity, Vester can now recognise Elven, Dwarven, Draconic, Goblin, Giant, Primoridal and Abyssal written languages, but not understand them.
Torven, meanwhile, decides to do a little research on the Library of Ioun. It is noted that there are several exceptionally large cherry trees nearby (along with lots of smaller ones) with the tallest piercing the clouds themselves. Thinking about it, Torven decides that the tallest tree is possibly a Wilden, as that tree appears to have a specific name - Haruno.
Meanwhile, Chaurix has been studying the statue of Iorek in the town square, after he noticed its similarities to the one of Erik the Red in Redport. Magical analysis reveals a subtle bit of magic on the statue, probably what is keeping them in such good shape for their age. The magic is questions shifts them slightly out of phase with the prime material plane, ensuring their continued safety.
During the night, the party feel a pulse of energy from the statue. Kyrellan ignores it and returns to trancing. Everyone else heads outside to investigate.
Alharyc uses his modified coin, to see if any divine magics are at play. He notices six spectral hammers beating at the decorative anvils outside the crafthall where Iorek’s hammer is pointing. The sound of the hammers fades strangely, seeming to head west and downwards. Kneeling in the centre of the anvils, Alharyc manages to establish a connection with an entity.
Finally sensing this connection, Vester and Torven both pale. Having previously been possessed by a primordial and a god respectively, suddenly sensing an entity far larger than both is a little worrying. In panic, Torven prays to Melora, who reassures her cub by stating that “The Steel Crown is what she is. She does not mean harm.” Torven promptly stops worrying about the size and nature of reality and relays the good news to Vester, who seems a little less reassured.
Alharyc ends his mental conversation with Omega, as she has revealed herself to be named. At a question from Torven, he explains some of his discoveries, saying that “There are things beyond the Elemental Chaos, things beyond the Astral Sea. And there is an entity which keeps these out. She calls herself Omega. Before assuming her current role, she had six companions who accompanied her. They continue to feed her power in order to keep the world safe. Each of these heroes has a statue commemorating them. This is one of them, as is the one in Redport.”
Vester, remembering Mytherax’ writings, considers the facts and helps the party connect Omega and her six companions to the Steel Crown of seven jewels. This solved, the party head in for the rest of the night, resolving to head to the Library of Ioun, to learn things further.
The party is met by Varrick, Hammerfast's Captain of the Guard. After Varrick has been debriefed by the dwarf “crossbowman” he sets off to find a troupe of clerics and a few wizards, with which to unkill the diplomats and get the party inside Mytherax’s sanctum.
Upon further inspection, the clerics in question are naturally, Raven Queen devotees, but not ones that the party recognise (thank goodness)
Upon arrival at the crossroads, the wizards breach the wards and the clerics start chanting a lot.
Moving closer to the wizard’s sanctum, the party are beset by a most horrific encounter. 6 terrible, great, deadly house spiders drop upon the party’s heads. After narrowly surviving such a harrowing encounter, the party choose to take a short break to regain their strength.
Moving further on down the road, they catch sight of the wizard’s mighty sanctum. In a former life, not too long ago, it was clearly a pub. In fact, the sign is still above the door, though it has been covered over with orange paint declaring its new status.
After having a quick chat with the bouncers (no shirt, no shoes, no Kyrellan) the party are definitely not told the best way in and defintiely not told that the wizard is currently making potions in a former pub kitchen.
After bidding the bouncers good day, who respond with “Don’t smash his head in!” the party sneak round to the kitchen. Upon stacking up at the window, the entire party unleash a large quantity of pain upon the inept wizard, who during his dramatic speech, reveals that his name is actually Brian. Needless to say, he does not get the chance to complete his speech, as Alharyc gives him an impromptu haircut, below the neck.
Nicking the wizard’s notebook (in both dwarven and something else) and stcking the wizard’s head in a bag of flour knocked over during the scuffle, the party report back to Hammerfast, with their spoils in tow.
After arriving, the party are told by the red haired elven diplomat lady [Whose name I have forgotten] that, if needed, the nearby elf city of Haven is open to them.
With this, the party return to Hammerfast for an afternoon of rest and relaxation.
(WIP)
The party wakes up in the middle of the night to investigate Samuel's garden. It turns out Selene's last act was to shift the ritual chamber into the Shadowfell, the equivalent lump of Shadowfell into the Feywild, and finally the chunk of Feywild into Samuel's garden, where it will serve as excellent fertiliser for years to come.
The next morning, we set off once more along the road to Hammerfast. Four hours from our destination, Allharyc disappears into the trees, and the rest of us stop to examine his absence. What we find instead is some loud shouting about the glory of the Great Crimson Wizard Mytherax, and the straightforward fact that all imposters must be slain.
Unfortunately, exactly half of the party are dressed head to toe in red.
We defeat our more-than-slightly-possessed foes, revive one and embalm the rest. The revived crossbowman reveals himself to be a city guard from Hammerfast, and the slain Elf woman to be a foreign dignitary. He's heard of some twat in the forest calling himself a mighty wizard, but isn't actually the type to shout about the glory of random wizards. What's more, the crossbowman doesn't even fight with a crossbow. Allharyc shares with the party that he has seen some kind of a high-visibility bear wizard recently, but that the wizard was wearing vibrant orange.
Robyn and Allharyc take a long hard look at their outfits, and then decide that they'd be the best candidates to scout up the path ahead. Due to a ward that bans anything red - a poorly-made perversion of the wards on the Redcloak hideout - they mysteriously fail. They head back, relay this to the rest of the group, and we head to Hammerfast along with the wounded guard. He leaves us in order to take an utter bollocking from his boss, and recommends we rest up at an inn near the military district, the Hammer and Flask.
As it's still only early afternooon, the party sits around and discusses this new vibrant orange and/or red threat, which Robyn cleverly dubs the High Vizard.
Many hundreds of years ago, the Dwarves of Hammerfast and the Elves of the forest warred for this land. The Dwarves tunnelled beneath the forest and its many small Elven villages, but beneath what would become the Malnumo house, they stumbled upon a well of residual energy left undiscovered since the division of the planes. That network of rooms was then purchased by necromancers, politely referred to in Dwarven society as Men of Black Books. This taking place under a location blessed by Corellon, the necromancers were chased out by the Autumnal Lady, a spectral Elf woman who would go on to stop the war and influence the founding of Greenbower by one Tirana Malnumo. Many hundreds of years later, the space would be found by Samuel Malnumo's uncle Iz, an initiate warlock. Much as he tried to stay away, his pact entity would send him back there whenever he tried to sleep. His eventual fate is unknown.
Having been slightly helped through the puzzle room by Samuel, the party stumbles into a dark room with a glowing green light in one corner. As we cast our own lights into the room, we discover the green light has skeleton friends. This level of necromancy is finally enough to disturb the cleric, who runs at it screaming with a stick. She does make time to heal Selene, however, who repays her by surrounding her in writhing shadows. Torven seems to quite enjoy this. After defeating the skeletons and wraith, we head down an empty corridor to a room with a familiar-looking set of tables. There is a large visible box, out of which Vester gets gloves, and a small invisible box, out of which Robyn gets a small, unenchanted silver rod.
While the party are doing this, Samuel is perplexed by another Common note. He explains that it's the writing of his strange uncle, Iz, who went to Patagoria and came back stranger. After a brief struggle with a completely unlocked door, the party are confronted by another seemingly empty corridor. It proves a little less empty when giant swinging blades cross our path. Selene and Robyn take a look at the blades' control box, which could be carefully disabled. They then smash it, and we bludgeon the blades to a halt with magic.
In the next room, a wide, empty hall, the party find two statues: one of a one-armed warrior standing on an unfamiliar globe, and the other of a hooded figure kneeling with one hand outstretched towards the centre of the room. The globed warrior rolls to block the way we came in, leaving the party to confront their greatest fear: simple logic puzzles. We eventually discover the answer to be alcoholism, and pouring wine onto the outstretched hand clears our path to continue.
In the penultimate room, we find yet more tables, set before a gate so ominous that several party members immediately start praying. To our surprise, Selene the conspicuously undead-averse devout of Corellon prays to the Raven Queen. She mentions having shared a particular dream with us, and Torven and Robyn identify her as Tindomerel not long after. Kyrelan takes this information and attempts to make a blood sacrifice of her face. This fails, as it turns out the door only wanted the silver rod we'd retrieved earlier.
The final chamber is a round, ice-strewn cavern lit by fake moonlight. Before the party can make out what's on the tableau at the back of the room, we are beset by zombies. Robyn is grabbed from behind by one, at which Kyrelan throws a bola with such force that it finds itself on the floor. It then finds itself slid away by Samuel, and Robyn sworded it to death as it fell away. Meanwhile, Vester comes face to unsettling lack of face with a wraith, which Torven kindly disintegrates.
After the fight, we approach the altar, empty now with an unenchanted hook-bladed snake dagger left atop it. Torven's overwhelming nausea leads her to a drawer in the bottom of the altar, within which is a fancy gold scrollcase with its gems pried out. Unfortunately for the party, despite it reeking of necrotic energy, it's completely empty. Selene takes a sketch of the tableau, and makes several more notes around the room before we leave.
Later that night, after we come out of the hole, the hole goes away with a loud enough crunching noise to wake the party sleeping in the tavern across town.
Many hundreds of years ago, the Dwarves of Hammerfast and the Elves of the forest warred for this land. The Dwarves tunnelled beneath the forest and its many small Elven villages, but beneath what would become the Malnumo house, they stumbled upon a well of residual energy left undiscovered since the division of the planes. That network of rooms was then purchased by necromancers, politely referred to in Dwarven society as Men of Black Books. This taking place under a location blessed by Corellon, the necromancers were chased out by the Autumnal Lady, a spectral Elf woman who would go on to stop the war and influence the founding of Greenbower by one Tirana Malnumo. Many hundreds of years later, the space would be found by Samuel Malnumo's uncle Iz, an initiate warlock. Much as he tried to stay away, his pact entity would send him back there whenever he tried to sleep. His eventual fate is unknown.
The fog clears, and the High Vizard appears to have been cleared with it. We continue towards Hammerfast, but as a storm hits, we discover a sign pointing to the little forest village of Greenbower. In the warm and dry tavern of Greenbower, we meet the man of our dreams, who offers us the exciting chance to go down a hole. We take that chance. Before we leave, a local elven ranger called Selene introduces herself by way of flicking an acorn at Samuel. He takes offence.
Down the end of Samuel’s garden, we are ushered through a trapdoor to a series of dark rooms below. We learn from a receipt that they were purchased, many years ago, by the Men of Black Books, along with 30 dogs and a large amount of black marble. Nothing too suspicious, and Robyn and Selene even try to head straight back out. Unfortunately, we discover they were being coerced into this by a brain in a jar, which the party freaks out about and smashes efficiently. We surmise that the Men have been reading some very particular Black Books.
This is proven in the second room, which contains the last few of those 30 dogs, surprisingly fresh for their 700 years, but still a little less fresh than would have been ideal. We wipe them, Selene burns the ashes, and Robyn gets poisoned by a door. The third room contains tripwires. Torven jumps past all fifteen feet of these, with outstanding grace, even missing the hidden pressure plates. The rest of the party help find the plates, which cause fresh hands to fall out of the walls. Not being attached to anything does not dissuade the hands from swarming wherever they please, including onto a pressure plate which shatters the bridge over THE BIG PIT stretching down the corridor up ahead. Fortunately, only three of the party fall into the 10-foot pit, and all of them manage to leave it again.
At last, we reach a room full of suspended crates. The party thinks very hard about what to do with the evidence before them, and ends up smacking it with magic ineffectually. This does dislodge a note in Common, written in an obviously Dwarven hand. Maybe these Men of Black Books were Dwarves?
The party sets off from Redport, back along the road to Hammerfast. Chaurix has rigged up a harness for Torven to carry the cherry tree, so it doesn't matter that we're on foot. Also on foot is a single leaf-painted man with a massive beard, keeping pace with us through the trees. We examine him closely, but he says nothing and disappears. Vester introduces us to his new cat, Yuli, and we spend a pleasant night in a campsite a little way from Hammerfast. The next day, Kyrelan is again the first to spot a leafy bearded dwarf following us through the trees. He considers giving Allharyc time to point it out again, and then throws a bola with such force that the dwarf is completely trussed to the tree. Torven's beautiful and skilled tree-climbing loosens the bola enough for the dwarf to reveal that he is merely a postman, and be on his way.
After this we are accosted by fog, and then bears. Half the party fail to notice these bears, and the rest of us get out of the way. Robyn arrives late, to great effect, while Allharyc climbs a big rock and does nothing, and Chaurix proves his competence with a shortbow. Torven dodges a charging bear. Kyrelan uses a bola on a bear, which then uses a bear on a bola. Meanwhile, Allharyc scopes out the fog, and spots a wizard in high-visibility orange robes lurking in the distance.
The newly-freed bear trots over to Vester. In the nick of time, Allharyc swoops down from the big rock and slices the bear threefold as he does so, landing next to Vester. He then slips up and lands on his arse, but successfully teleports out from under the bear while in the sitting position.
Kyrelan comes up to a bear, inks everywhere, then stabs it in the arse. Allharyc shifts back over to Kyrelan's bear, constantly fountaining leaves from beneath his skirts, and thankfully deads it. Meanwhile, Torven gets pissed, thrusts her staff into the air and holy light blasts the remaining bear off the normal plane.
The party visits the beautiful Fey city of Heligan, where they are met by many Eladrin and a single familiar barman. Nothing explodes. Vester is surprised to learn that Torven is a princess, and Robyn is surprised to learn that Torven is a tree. They have a typical party: there's dancing, there's blue fire, a major god is there... By the end of the ceremony, Torven and her bonsai are taller - one more intensely so than the other. Kyrelan also gets his groove on, but privately and separately. Allharyc stays home, and opts to spend a quiet night under the stars with Eric the Red.
The party potters around Redport for a week, banqueting, shopping, reading and hardly having any disasters at all. This ends as Allharyc gets into an altercation with a Paladin of Pelor, Chaurix meets Cloudsong's good friend Wargleam and Kyrelan sits alone with an object. Vester begins training as a barista, and Torven gets an invite to a special party. She decides to try and invite her own special party to come along, with varying degrees of success.
The party is dropped just outside Redport by six gryphons, who fly away with Cloudsong. We come across a broken cart bearing a fancy eladrin, an absolute human and an angry trader. We put the wheel back on and head into town, where Vester, Torven and Allharyc are accosted by Suzanna and One, proprietors of 500 Shades of Blue, the market stall with an alarming passion for fashion.
Duly clothed, we head to Michael's tavern, and help with the installation of a much-needed hangover cure. We spend the night sharing stories of our own recent exploits in exchange for tales of Allharyc's own relatively mundane exploits with a drow, a pack of cards and a fresh cabbage. Our new friend Chaurix listens for a while, before heading off to actually notice the large statue right in the middle of the city.
One of the subdued devotees tells us about the large primordial tied up on the roof. It can't be killed, he says, only re-imprisoned, a task which unfortunately has a thirty-mile blast radius. Vester and Cloudsong make our final arrangements before continuing. Upstairs, we find a floor of mages guarding a floor of alchemist. The alchemist appears to only speak in inhuman growls, and to our surprise, Vester reciprocates. We edge around the two of them, and escape to the next floor, which is full of valuables and three animate suits of armour. Torven suggests sneaking round the edge, and falls over loudly. Robyn charges straight down the middle, and falls over loudly. Kyrelan's despair is silent but palpable, and he drags Cloudsong away from danger when the going gets tough. Torven gets a nice tiara, and the party heals up before proceeding to the generator floor.
The generator floor is filled with electrical energy, which starts turning into lightning elementals as Vester, Cloudsong, Robyn and Torven take their places in the magic circle which will deactivate the generator. Kyrelan, apparently the only one with qualms about jumping into a magic circle, opts to defend from the outside. With the lightning elementals neutralised, Vester is able to deactivate the generator and open the door to the roof. While the party heals up, Cloudsong takes Vester's place in the magic circle and prays to Bahamut. It is effective.
On the roof, the party is confronted by an angel, which forbids us from passing. Torven attemps to explain that we don't actuallywantto get up close and personal with the raging primordial of flame, given thechoice, and would the angel help us? The angel, having just been swiftly crushed by the primordial, does not respond.
Cloudsong takes its place, not intimidating the primordial with her new functional wings of holy light, but definitely intimidating and alarming the party. She issues a challenge which Robyn backs up. Meanwhile, Vester instead chooses to be intimidated and alarmed by the large primordial, who goes by the familiar name of Mycerax. He has a special deal to offer Vester: Survival, for the low, low price of murdering Cloudsong.
While Vester trembles and cries, Cloudsong and Robyn charge Mycerax and stick sharp objects into the magical being of fire, which somehow works. Kyrelan contributes sharp objects directly to Mycerax' eyes, but from a safer distance. Torven runs round charging stone pillars with magic, which each channel a healthy dose of Kord's lightning into the already bruised primordial.
Mycerax decides Vester has dithered long enough, and withdraws his influence from his long-time possessee. This surprises the largely busy party, who honestly weren't expecting the small crying mage to rise up in the air and wrench an evil-looking crystal shard from his chest using magic alone. When Mycerax attempts to reclaim the shard, Vester lets it go - straight into Mycerax's side, where it impales him and serves as the perfect crystal conduit for the final blow.
The final blow is an unhealthy dose of Vester's magic, channeled through another of the great stone pillars lining the arena. Sure enough, it hits and Mycerax makes a brand new elevator shaft to the lowest level of the basement. Three angels greet him, and so with their help Vester indefinitely subdues Mycerax by snookering him into the death portal.
Cloudsong rises to watch the dawn, and catches Sir Stuart's ascension to the astral plane. Kyrelan and Torven settle their differences. The party reaches a vast stone tower with an eternal wreath of live thunderclouds, and decide it looks inviting. Sure enough, the doors are wide open and a fresh, delicious breakfast is laid out inside. Unfortunately, there are precisely zero devotees of Kord in sight, only a light smattering of blood around the cellar steps. The party decides that this too looks inviting, and heads down.
Down below, there are plenty of people available, all but one of whom have been savaged to death by many rats. The party don't consider the untouched wizard as the possible source of the rats for even a moment, which in hindsight seems strange. The wizard urges the party to Do, or to Do Not; they choose to Postpone, which irks him somewhat. Further down, the party finds a series of locked doors. Behind the first is a chamber of horrors, containing items of immense necrotic power and Sir Stuart's bedroom. Shaken by this experience, the party chooses not to open the lower doors, especially one which they deduce will probably summon an angel.
On the way back up, the party finds open doors and a complete lack of wizard, so they head up past the ground floor to find Kord's true centre of worship, and further up, the temple. Five devotees of Kord are knelt helpless before a fiery orb, which the party deduces is probably bad. We skilfully subdue four, and Torven indefinitely subdues the fifth by snookering him into the death orb.
The party sets off for the Tower of Storms, and encounters a single angry bear. Torven hits the bear across the ass, ineffectually; Robyn hits it across the face, to great effect. Kyrelan hides in a shrub, just like the good old days.
We find our exit from Redport hindered by bridge goblins. Kyrelan grapples a tree to cross the chasm fast, but this causes the tree to send a blast of holy energy directly at his face, knocking him unconscious. He swears a blood feud on the way down, which may prove difficult as trees do not have family. Despite the rest of our efforts to placate him, he splits from the party, leaving the five remaining adventurers to fall asleep uneasily in a small village tavern.
