Post Goetherall Mansion wrap up:
Sylus is now aware of the existance of Justina Goetherall, learned when he found a discarded family portrait naming her. She is Sylus’ true mother. How much he tells the party is up to him.

The dark mage, Orton Belos (pictured above), hired by Sylus’ surrogate mother (pictured below) to deal with his real parents (Justina and Johan) created the teleportation system in the mansion so the family would have privacy during the pregnancy. The house was also warded to keep the mansion invisible to the denizens of the Shadowfell, but whatever was breaking the crystal ball was also breaking the wards. When the wards were breached by undead, the dark mage fled and left his servants to continue work.

His work consisted of keeping track of 1) a specific celestial event through the orrery (the device used to track the complicated dance of the cosmos, reflected in miniature like an illusion above you), 2) keeping tabs on a small number of people, 3) very recently trying to figure out who was breaking the wards.

The dark ones the party faced were servants of the Belos in charge of the mansion. From a log Belos kept, it became apparent that maddening wraiths had been driving the servants insane and turning them against the Dark Mage. The only dark ones to resist were the ones in the final fight and Nadir the butler. Nadir died to one of the corrupted dark ones. He was later raised as a zombie to continue serving the house. Nadir was the zombie that was throwing the contents of random shelves at the party and talking to you guys a bit.

After the fight with Nadir, the party found 6 potions that could not be identified during a short rest. After an extended rest the party can figure out that they are:
1 Attack: Area burst 1 within 10 (creatures in the burst); +9 vs. Reflex
2 Fire Burst: Ongoing 10 fire damage (save ends).
1 Cold Burst: 2d6 cold damage, and the target is immobilized (save ends).
2 Blinding Burst: 2d6 radiant damage, and the target is blinded (save ends).
1 Stunning Burst: The target gains 5 temporary hit points and is dazed (save ends).

Sylus has a dream during your next extended rest. He is lost in a house full of shadow and fog. As he searches the rooms, each appears empy, barren even of furniture. Suddenly he hears a children crying. Running upstairs, he enters a room he feels is his own, though it clearly is not. On the floor of the room sit three figures. Two small boys are crying, kneeling before the third figure as if having just been scolded. They are Sylus and his brother Malthus. The woman has her back to Sylus, but he knows it is his stepmother. She turns with a hideous laugh and from her hands, eyes, and mouth sprout thick black tentacles that wrap around Sylus’ body and paralyze him. Trapped, the tentacles tighten their grip. Sylus wants to shout, but he can get no air to speak. Feeling no hope for breath and death imminent, he wakes up, gasping, sweating, and hearing his mother’s voice whisper in his head, “I’m gonna get you sucka!”

Moving deeper into the wooded park in the dreamlike realm they seemed to have entered after Redra cast her ritual, the party sees a blue light hovering amidst tombstones. Upon closer inspection of the light, skeletal creatures raised themselves up from the cemetary ground and attacked. Following them was a large demonic humanoid with a large flaming sword, a nightmare, a devil creature from a nether plane. It became apparent that he appeared from an extra dimension. Other servants of his ran into the battle from the seams ripped between realms.

“You aren’t who I am looking for. No matter, I will kill you anyway.”

The party circled the wagons, protecting Redra. The demonic creature went invisible, making it difficult to keep track of him. Federin and Varis focused their fire on the demon, searching the air with their blades. The rest of the party contained the skeletal minions, slowly dispatching them. Federin and Varis finally pinned down the demon. Ultimately, the heroes won it, destroying the demon and his helpers, setting free Redra from from her curse.

Redra was obviously releaved and thankful to Sylus after the battle. She hung on his arm all the way to her place, where they were expecting to say goodbye. Redra, in passing, made note of strange lights appearing in the old estate house of Sylus’ family. The party decided to risk one last diversion on their way out of Dodge.

At the entrance to the old manor house, the party ran into two wraiths as a welcome back to the psionics ancestral home. The wraiths rose from the floors of the building, taking reduced damage from attacks and becoming invisible upon being hit. At one point they dominated Andxor and had him attack Sylus, wounding the psionic as he’d not been in quite a long time. The heroes turned the tables on the undead, and Andxor was released from their control. They dominated the wraiths with their might and destroyed the creatures once and for all.

Deeper into the house, the party entered the central courtyard, a place that had become wild and overgrown. Ghouls were snacking on bodies and turned to make a meal of the party. They rushed through the opened doors, and the party waited in the hall, surrounding them as they emerged, senidng them to their ultimate doom.

Once inside the room, small thorn sprites began to attack the party, remaining unseen amidst the difficult terrain. Federin used his fey origin to teleport behind the attacking sprites as the rest of the party moved in. The sprites were found and put down. Some minor treasure was found and pocketed.

The party investigated a door connected to the courtyard. A man with gaunt, boney features greeted them worriedly. After a brief, tense exchange, he stepped back from the door, to allow the party entrance. Once inside, it was clear to the party that things were amiss. Those gathered inside seemed to up to something suspicious. A glowing blue crystal was set in a statue atop a small table. The crystal glowed and a mist hung about the object. All of a sudden, the woman seeming to lead the group broke the tension and attacked the party. Her men followed suit. The party focused fire and bloodied the woman before she could act, shaking her composure, in fact, driving her quite insane with rage. This shifted battle as their leader was taken strategically out of the battle. Those seeking to exploit the break between realms whose ground zero was in Sylus ancestral home quickly lost their cause to the heroes.

After the battle, the party took a quick rest. The party examined the crystal and found that the Shadowfell was creeping in. They activated the crystal to travel to the Shadowfell, but thick black tentacles burst out of thin air and grabbed the party. Federin was knocked unconscious by the shock of traveling between realms so suddenly. Brandis and Varis were put down by the tentacles, but Andxor and Sylus oversaw the victory over the tentacles of black magical energy.

Our heroes didn’t go too far before they decided to double back a bit to see what the Aeristhyde might do. In the wilderness plains, the group was confronted by the infamous White Cloaks, who Noddyl explains are an Aeristhyde special forces corps. They were able to fend off the small scouting party, but it was clear more would come if they remained. They headed will all speed in an indirect route to Roen. Once there, Noddyl left them …

The city was like a waking dream, where the seemingly world-shaking events of the past few weeks were erased. The busy commercial trade and traffic of horse carts and people distracted them from the terrible unease that had almost become their new normal. They were questioned by guards at the gate, but it was routine. They found a nice inn and tavern to rest their weary souls, The Purple Worm, and talked a bit with the owner, Skohl, a barkeep with a stump for a left hand and a large black moustache. He was of medium height and ably built. His missing member seemed to cause him no disability as he went about his job.

After securing rooms, the party went out to check in with one of Sylus’ old friends from magic school, Redra, or Red for short, to get the scoop on local happenings. She reported that the city announced a plague had erupted in the plains and taken over the city of Laranyss. That all who came from there were subject to paranoid delusions, a first sign of the impending sickness and death they would suffer. If the person was considered delusional, they were to be considered contagious and should be reported to the city guard or self-report to one of a few medical stations set up around the city. When the party told Redra that they had come from Laranyss, she grew frightened. They quickly assuaged her fears of the plague but replaced them with the horror of their own story and the eladrin army that had chased them here.

The party decided to chance a return to The Purple Worm only to find a pair of guards standing curiously near the door, and it became clear their escape from trouble was, to say the least, short-lived. Sylus asked Redra to go ahead and find out if the guards were their for them. Redra agreed, and she was able to find out that the party was indeed the target of the guards inquiry. They were seeking primarily Sylus, but they were also interested in those he traveled with. It was known that they were from Laranyss, and apparently that was of some concern to the guards. The party discreetly made their way back to Redra’s place, where she agreed to let them hide out for the night.

Unbeknownst to them, however, they had a trail. Federin Illiwynd, an eladrin praetorian of the Roen ambassador of the Winter Court (read Aeristhyde), Szerathin Elondorith, had them marked and followed the group to Redra’s home. Only a few moments after they had settled themselves inside her place, there was a knock on their door. Redra opened it and did a poor job of hiding the fact that they heroes were inside. Federin pushed past her and threw back his hood.

Brandis was about to hurl a vase he had poised above his head, when, surprisingly, the Aeristhyde knelt before the party, introduced himself formally and laid his broad sword at their feet. “Please allow me to join you in fighting the Aeristhyde.”

“Why should we believe you?”

“Because I have information you need. Your friend, Immeral, the half-elf, has been taken into custody. He sits in the dungeon of Roen to rot on behalf of the Aeristhyde’s lie. The plague is a cover for their murder of all the denizens of Laranyss.”

The shock of the news unsettled the party, but they could not be too surprised given their enemy.

“Why did you defect?”

“The Aeristhyde have committed a heinous atrocity. Their once noble aims have become defiled by the deaths of all who once lived in the town of Laranyss and the ridiculous lie they spread in Roen. I spoil my family name if I continue to serve such an ugly cause. I now see the true objective of this war we have been waiting centuries to wage once again, to dominate by any and all means. I can’t be a part of it any longer. Let me join you in opposing the Aeristhyde, for they aim to rule all this land with an iron hand and crush it into oblivion if the people of this realm refuse.”

Distrust hung in the air, and Brandis nearly let slip the vase.

“Keep my sword as a token of the truth I speak. Check me for magics. There is no divination cast on me or my belongings.”

Varis picked up the eladrin’s sword. “I trust him.” The others soon agreed, except for Brandis, who harbored an obviously justified suspicion. “I’ll be keeping this,” Varis said, smiling at the eladrin.

“We cannot stay here,” Federin stood. “In a few short hours, my superiors will wonder why I haven’t reported back. We should flee the city.” As the party discussed this possibility, Redra spoke up.

“Sylus, please don’t leave. I’ve been having dreams, nightmares. Ever since I was a girl, after my mother died. My mother had this very same nightmare, night after night. It was of a girl, sick and pale, coughing alone in the darkness. Her coughing became violent, racking her body until a vapor escaped her lips and formed into a spiked fiendish looking being. The being claimed the girls soul and destroyed her body. Every night my mother had this dream and for a while kept the terror of it at bay, but after years of suffering she began to give in to the terrible dream. Her body and mind began to waste away until she was no longer the mother I loved. One night, she ran deep into the city park and there she was attacked by terrible, large insectlike creatures with spiny jointed plates that cover the head, back and limbs, but have reptile like skin covering the neck, sides and tails. Kruthiks, they’re called. They surrounded her, tore her to pieces, and fled underground. Ever since that day, I’ve been having the same nightmare as my mother. I can’t help but worry that this might be some kind of sign that I will suffer the same fate. This is why I studied magic. I have found a ritual that I can perform to help me undo the curse that was on my mother and now haunts me. Will you please stay in the city with me?” Redra grabbed Sylus close. “Just long enough to help me rid myself of this nightmare?”

Sylus was too much the gentleman to refuse, and, as Federin chimed in, “You guys are heroes after all.” So, the party accompanied Redra to the city park with the intention of fleeing Roen once Redra had performed her ritual. She led them to the very spot where her mother had been murdered, near a crossing over a small ravine that was filled with briarbrush. She prepared the ritual, drawing a 50 foot circle on the ground decorated with arcane markings. After the performance of the ritual, Varis and Federin noticed a shift in the air. Something had happened, but they weren’t sure what.

“Did you feel that?” Redra said. “Something went wrong. The ritual didn’t take.”

At that moment, a gang of Kruthiks burst from the ground and attacked the party. Varis returned Federin’s sword and together, Shalanwode and Aeristhyde, they held off the frontal assault of the creatures, giving time for those in the rear to secure their position on the other side of the crossing. The insectoids proved formidable foes, but with the growing strength and numbers of the party, they were soundly defeated.

What had happened when Redra performed the ritual? Were they still in the Prime Realm? If the magic didn’t work to remove the curse, how might the heroes help save Redra from her nightmare? Should Sylus bag this babe, put her to bed and leave with the party in the middle of the night? All important questions that will be answered in the next installment.

With snow falling in the late summer woods and an Aeristhyde airship having descended from the storm clouds, the Ihniko people were hurriedly packing, preparing to leave their homeland. All were, on some level, terrified by the threat of attack from an Aeristhyde army that hadn’t been seen in this realm for hundreds of years when the Ihniko people nearly suffered a complete and total genocide. Some were already leaving, determined to escape the snow and what it surely meant, death.

Our heroes were called into a meeting with the High Mage and First Council to the King, Falisar, the Queen Sharonaur, the Regent Coranyl, and Tenebron, the Keeper of (the Record of) the Hate. Noddyl, Pilindor of the Ihniko, also joined the meeting. All were trying to determine what exactly was going on and what should be done to help the Ihniko confront whatever threat was approaching. Brandis asked Falisar to divine whether they were entering the Feywild as had been suggested. Falisar obliged and determined that there was no great tear between the realms. Soon after, Noddyl’s scouts reported the snow fall was occurring in a 2-3 mile radius. Then came news that something was descending from the airship, a drake and rider. Andxor, Varis, and BGA went to meet the rider with Noddyl and six of his men. Meanwhile, Brandis decided to employ his experience as a leader of men and harangued (read intimidated) the elven masses with orders which kept their panic at bay. Sylus assisted by magically echoing his commands.

The messenger was a proud, pale skinned eladrin with hair so blonde it was nearly platinum. He wore a fine suit of chain with a white coat of arms that displayed the blue and black insignia of the Aeristhyde. He casually issued the terms of Ihniko surrender. “All Ihniko, the crown, the queen, the high wizard Falizar, and those mercenaries who were hired to penetrate the palace shall give themselves up to the New Aeristhyde Empire.” The messenger was snide enough to thank those who found a way to penetrate the magic sphere protecting the palace as they allowed the Aeristhyde to raid it. It was in this way the party found out the palace was now firmly in the Feywild.

Unkind words were exchanged, and tensions increased until BGA approached the messenger with violent intent, but the messenger directed his drake to take flight. BGA wanted him stopped and said so. Noddyl needed no more encouragement. He ordered his men to “Take down the drake!” The messenger was shocked that the party would act so poorly in their own interest. Without his drake, the rider could not return. This would surely mean their deaths (and his own). Things had been going so well, he thought. BGA quickly grabbed the messenger in a choke hold. In what he thought was a last ditch attempt to save his life, he blurted out, “The Ihniko people are lost, but you mercenaries might be able to save yourselves.” This got no play with the party, and he was knocked out then dragged to the Ihniko settlement where plans to evacuate to the town of Larenyss were in full swing.

With the party together again, they and the Ihniko bigwigs led the Ihniko east. As they fled, they heard intermittent rumbles of thunder. The snow, which had accumulated to nearly a foot began to taper off at two miles and stopped completely at three. While they admired the effect of transitioning from woods that were cold and snowy to woods that were more seasonably warm and snowfree they were confronted by the wintermad dryad who had left them in the cave of a cyclops. She demanded an explanation as to the cause of the disturbance in her woods. Though she was of winter, nothing enraged her more than the cold and snow, as it was a sign of the Aeristhyde who destroyed the forest of her people so long ago. The party explained that the Aeristhyde had returned and described the airship that, as they spoke, hovered menacingly above the abondoned Ihniko settlement. They also introduced her to the unconscious messenger they had in tow. Upon hearing the name of the Aeristhyde and seeing one of their kind, she screamed in agony and rage. She demanded the eladrin, but the party wanted to question him more specifically about the fate of the king before letting him go. The Queen Sharonaur and Falisar had expressed extreme concern that he’d been taken. She agreed to let them take him as long as the party left him at the edge of the wood for her. They agreed happily. The conversation with the dryad had certainly impressed those within earshot. Falisar himself was rather curious about how the heroes relationship with the dryad had developed and asked about this on the remainder of their journey out of the woods.

At the bottom of the depressed old Ihniko wood, the party members woke unconscious messenger and questioned him about the king. He agreed to talk if they would let him speak from 20 paces out. He answered that the king was alive, but they could discern that he was hiding the truth. They pressed him aggressively for information. Rather than give up details, he explained that the group could find favor with the Aersthyde leadership. “Breaching the palace was no small feat. We’ve been trying to do it for 500 years. Surely your exploits and talents would earn you your lives and perhaps a place at the table when this realm is again in the hands of the Empire.” This time the idea took more tangible shape in the minds of the party, enough to give them pause, but still they pressed the messenger to speak further about what happened in the palace. Instead of answering he ran. Varis promptly lifted his bow and let two arrows fly. The second one found a home in the messenger’s thigh, putting him face down in the dirt.

“You bastards, I told you what I know.” He was then forced to reveal the following: 1) no one was found in the palace, and 2) the Aeristhyde looted it and now occupy it, considering it a trophy that took too long to acquire, though in their eyes the timing couldn’t be better. Finally satisfied with the information provided, the party let the messenger go.

“She can have her fun with him now,” remarked Sylus. The messenger didn’t know what he meant by that, but he knew it couldn’t mean anything worse than what would happen to him upon his return to his airship, if he ever made it back.

As the whole group left the depressed Ihniko wood, great rumblings far off in the direction of the abandoned Ihniko settlement created tremors underfoot. Scouts were sent into the trees. They reported an unnatural and terrifying display of lightening crashing down upon the elves former home. The airship could not be seen but all presumed it hovered above the maelstrom. When the thunder and lightening stopped, an eerie quiet consumed the forest. The point had been made most clear, there was now no turning back.

Besides the howling of a few far off wolves, the rest of the journey to Larenyss was gratefully uneventful. There the Ihniko rested a mile outside of town while the party entered Larenyss and asked for a meeting with the Four Pillars of the town: Kelich, the very large blacksmith of the town, Druga, the dwarven armorer, Sognia, Inn and tavernkeeper, and Immeral, the half-elven scholar. The Pillars agreed and the meeting was held at the Golden Bough Inn & Tavern. Derrick the Reeve and Brother Rothsby, advisor to the Four Pillars also attended. Falisar, the Queen Sharonaur, Regent Coranyl, Tenebron, Noddyl, and Noddyl’s sister (at Brandis’ request) accompanied the party. Concerns for the threat brought to the town, for the people of Larenyss and for the fate of the once thought lost Ihniko people were the focus of the meeting. Kelich was unhappy about the sudden elven visitation and Derrick was upset about having to face an army he couldn’t fight. The party, however, was able to appeal to the humanity of the group by having Immeral explain the history of the long conflict that had seemingly jumped out of time to present itself at Larenyss’ doorstep. Sognia was first to support this move, and Derrick was able to see a way to defend the town, for a night. It was finally agreed that the Ihniko could find comfort and shelter in the barracks of the town for a night, but they would have to leave the next day. The Queen assured the Pillars, they wanted nothing more. She noted, “To stay longer would be far too dangerous to the people of Larenyss, entangle them needlessly in the vines that, for now, strangle only our branches.” Derrick’s men would watch the borderlands, and all families of Larenyss would be alerted of the potential threat. The Ihniko leaders were effusive in their thanks and sorry they had no gifts to offer. The irony that this small collective of human farming communities were now playing protector to the once great Ihniko people against a threat from which the Ihniko themselves had protected the all the other races of light so long ago was not lost on any of the Ihniko leaders present. The party decided they would go back from whence they came the next day to see if the Aeristhyde were still where they had left them.

As the meeting adjourned, Noddyl asked the party if he could go with them. Varis warmly welcomed him, saying he had already become one of them. Sylus asked if he could muster some of his men to join him, but Noddyl was doubtful. “Don’t they want to fight the Aeristhyde?”

“Of course, but they have their families to protect. Each man that leaves is like another plate of armor removed from the rusty suit the Ihniko people already wear.” [I don’t we didn’t have a poetic exchange like this, but I just can’t help but embellish at times. : )]

Sylus persisted, and Noddyl assured him he would ask again if any would join them. Noddyl then informed Varis that Evrayn Euskadi requested a meeting with him. “I’m leaving here tonight,” the old seer informed him. “And I’m not going with the other Ihniko. Those that cling to my words will help me in the journey. I will find you when the time is right. Stay focused and remember, ultimately, it is you who bear the burden of freeing Ursa Major from the storm walls and finally ending the arrogant power of the Aeristhyde.”

The party regrouped at the Golden Bough where they were spending the night. If they were able to fall asleep at all, their rest was quickly interrupted by Noddyl and news that snow was falling on the borderlands near the edge of the Bone Forest. The roughly 240 refugee elves were already leaving town. They headed in a northeasterly direction on the one road out of town for a destination unknown to any of the party or the people of Larenyss. Falisar, who had considered going with the party as a protector of the crown, decided instead to aid his people and protect the Queen. He left the crown with Noddyl for safekeeping, improving the chances that the Aeristhyde would leave the Ihniko alone.

The pillars were called together to decide what the people of Larenyss should do. They decide, upon the heroes suggestion, to go north a days travel and stay there. That would be far enough from the elves path for the Aeristhyde to leave them alone if they were serious in their pursuit but no so far north that they would be at serious risk of the attack from gnoll bands. Presumably, the Aeristhyde are after 1) the Ihniko, 2) the crown, 3) the heroes themselves, so the hope is that this move by the townsfolk will result in a successful dodge.

Some from Larenyss decided to head south through the storm wall and enter Roen. They were merchant types who could afford the rituals and necessary residuum to cast them.

The party decided to leave in a southeasterly direction on their own, so as not to present a risk to any traveling the trade route south. Immeral (and his library) and Durga are among these. Before they left, Durga provided the party with the necessary rituals and enough residuum to cast them twice. As the party left town, small flecks of snow began to drift softly down from clouds that had crept in and covered the stars and the moonlight above.

What had happened to the king now that his throne was taken from him? A look out the windows showed the palace still standing, looking eerily abandoned in the moonlight. It was the first time the party was able to gaze at the walls of the palace from the outside. Would it and the king return to the Feywild with the sunrise? Or had their removal of the crown from the head of the king and from the walls of the castle been enough to dispel the weird magical effects that protected and imprisoned those within between the 3 realms (i.e., Prime, Fey, and Shadowfell)?

Unable to know the answers to those questions the party gathered the spoils from the lich’s chambers with special attention to those materials that could aid Falisar in figuring out how to free the king from the magic he presumably was still trapped/protected by. They also took all of the Thizeroth’s scholarship that was created in his attempt to figure out how to recreate the destruction of the city of Ihniko. With all of that piled onto two floating discs, the group descended a spiral staircase to a lower level where there was a large room with high ceilings, benches askew, and broken remnants of statues that venerated the Raven Queen. Among the benches were coffins. There was a dais and an altar at the far end of the room. Clearly, this was a place of worship for the ShadarKai who had inhabited the city before Thizeroth came with his undead army and redecorated.

As soon as the adventurers began looking around the place a whisp of shadow that flew above them warned, “Go no further for those who have tried before you have died and remain here forever!” The mad wraith did not get the memo that Thizeroth was killed and adventurers were actually on their way out.

Skeletons emerged from the coffins and a battle ensued. The party dispatched with the various undead rather handily. Just as they were feeling the unusual joy that comes from a victory easily won, a vampire (once a ShadarKai) rose from within the dais. He addressed the party, “I am one who sought fortune and fame by attacking Thizeroth and stealing his wealth. Now you will join me in my eternal home, as my slaves!”

Thanks to some minor bruising from the previous battle, the vampire put the party back on its heels before they were able to pin the beastie down and dispatch him for good.

The party exited the old church and were considering their next steps when Noddyl appeared seemingly out of nowhere. He bowed deeply to whom he thought was the king and to the queen. Introductions were made and Noddyl was informed of the party’s exploits, of which he was terribly disappointed not to have been a part. He explained that he had been captured by Dhalglish, the ShadarKai who took them through the sewers. He was tortured and questioned before being given a break by his captors and left alone a brief while. He hid unseen on the ceiling. When his interrogators returned, Noddyl dropped down and took the weapons off of one guard, killing him and the other guard within seconds. He then closed the cell door, trapping his interrogator before running him through with his sword when the ShadarKai rushed the cell door to protest. Thanks to his miniadventure, Noddyl didn’t fall behind the party in level.

With no reason to remain in the fouled city, they all returned to the Ihniko settlement. There, they were received as heroes, though the celebratory mood was slightly overshadowed by everyone’s concern for the king and the potential for a war between the Thizeroth and the Ihniko. They would worry about that tomorrow though, as that night was spent honoring the successful return of the queen and Falisar, as well as the adventurers. A concert of elven song and a feast of elven wine, food, and even women (or men, depending on your tastes (wink, wink BGA)) was enjoyed by all who had a taste for it.

The next morning, amidst the slow recovery from a night spent awash in fermenting beverages, saw the temperature drop sharply and clouds begin to gather in the west. By noon, snow was falling, though autumn had not yet begun. It was a strange sight to see, snow landing on trees with green leaves. There was confusion and panic as the Ihniko began to discuss the possibility that Thizeroth was approaching with an army. He was a high level wizard after all and such an unnatural display was not beyond his capability they guessed, but a more likely scenario, proposed Tenebron, is the approach of an army of Aeristhyde, the eladrin empire of the Winter Court. “That,” Falisar adds, “or the magics of the crown have ripped the divide between the Prime Realm and Feywild further and we are actually entering the Winter Realm in the Fey.”

Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do? Watcha gonna do when they come for you?…

The adventurers were separately questioned by Falisar, First Mage and Council to the Ihniko King. Each was asked to stand within a chalk circle and be the subject of a ritual that Falisar cast to discern the truthfulness of the adventurers statements. He asked each in turn their origins, their relationships to eachother, their relationship to any Aeristhyde or eladrin, and what brought them to the Palace of the Ihniko King.

The heroes told of where and whence they’d come, they told of their chance meeting in Laranyss and their first joint mission there in riding the countryside of a small goblin threat. Some included the groups battle with the wereboar that became your sleeping bard. Some also retold of your encounters in the deep Ihiniko woods, where you were tricked, betrayed, by a forest nymph, where you killed a cyclops and won the “cyclops eye”, where you met the Ihniko people and learned of their part in the history of the Prime Realm. The party even reported on their meeting with the Lich. Though they used him to get into the Palace, non pretended to be willing to fulfill the Lich’s wish of handing him the Ihniko king.

Collectively you gained the trust of Falisar with your honest answers. He was surprised, particularly by the cleric of Kord, in your willingness to submit to the ritual to prove your earnestness. He assured you, however, that your testimony, even coupled with his, would not convince the king. What’s worse was that Idranyl, the king’s son, would follow his mad father fanatically to the end. Furthermore, Idranyl inspired in his men the same level of devotion he felt for his father. There was hope, however; Falisar had the ear of the Queen and the two nephews, First Knights in the King’s Court. Last to the party was an Acolyte cleric of Corellon Lorethian, spiritual prodigy of the High Priest Elliodan, who died in the War of Three Forests.

Though under guard by Idranyl’s men, the party enjoyed the company of Falisar, the young priest, and the queen. In the final two minutes of their last hour before the Ihniko King’s execution decree was to be carried out, they decided Falisar should put the guards to sleep, while the queen separates the king from his crown, which contains the magical seed of the protective shell surrounding the palace, an artifact imbued with all of the magic and a piece of the soul of Uridan, King of the Ihniko elves.

Falisar knocked the gaurds out, and the Queen (rolling a 20 on her Bluff against the King) left the royal bed chamber, artifact crown in hand. Everything was going according to plan until Idranyl came rushing down the hall with Tildanyl and Rilyn, the officer nephews. The nephews were quickly snatched up to the side of the party, and Idranyl, reduced to a side of one could only try to tackle down his mother as everyone ran past him, british bull dog style.

Idranyl was successful and held his prey down, a Hamlet straddling his Gertrude, but then BGA, the brutish goliath, separated the Oedipal youth from his mother, and the party fled whole. They fled directly toward the portal, hoping the Lich would take their “king”, Falisar with the artifact crown on his head, with the queen at his side and a low level priest as manservant. The armored and armed nephews, they figured would pushing it. Those two agreed to stay behind and keep Idranyl at bay. They agreed to pay whatever penalty to pay for the others freedom. It was a very weepy moment.

You all huddled into the portal, electric blue energy snapped, crackled, and popped around you and through you, then suddenly you appeared in a different space, back in the Lich’s quarters. he bought your Bluff. Well done!

“I see you brought my gift. Please hand it over and proceed toward the exit. It’s been nice doing business with you.” The Lich was, in his mind, a man of class and manners.

Almost immediately, however, the party attacked. They faced a line of gravehounds, being directed by a skeleton legionnaire. As the party moved in, and Falisar rushed to the side to engage and lock down Thizeroth, a shadowy mad wight emerged through the table and launched itself at those in the front. As everyone held down a solid defense, hounds began to fall at the counterattack. Two mummies then emerged from crypts alongside a far wall. They entered battle and did some serious damage to the Ihniko priest. Before he could escape into a more strategic spot, he was put down, his spirit returned to his gods. Varis nearly joined the Ihniko elf, but isn’t it the story of these two elves communities, that the Shallanwode survive when the Ihniko die.

All foes were destroyed just as Falisar overpowered and slew the form that was Thizeroth for the time being. You could almost see the spirit leave the corpseform and fly back to its phylactery. Have you seen the last of Thizeroth, you wonder?

In his palace you discover some good loot, a fine ring (250 gp) on Thizeroth’s hand, a fine goblet (250 gp) on on the table. 6 gems, each worth 100 gp. 300 gp. … of shielding +2, an orb of …, and something else. Can anyone fill in the blanks in the comments? THere are also some rituals that pertain to protections, teleportation, and portals.

You look out the windows and see the palace firmly planted back on the hill. Some among you have not had the privelege of seeing the palace from this angle for 67 years, though they’ve lived in it that long. The queen is tearfilled, having left her husband, duped him into parting with his crown. What ill effects might occur when such a measure is taken? It is an artifact linked with his life spirit. She reaches into her robes and produces a finely made bow. She presents it to Varis.

“This is one of Idranyl’s bows. Take it as a token of thanks for freeing us and for bringing hope that there may be peace between our peoples.” She embraces Varis in a warm hug.

You feel like champs, you’ve just gained a level, but you remember, you are in a city full of undead, whose leader you just killed, but whose undead enough to come back and try to kill you again before you leave the city walls.

Andexor launches into a narrative about the times he has heard from long ago when elves were the guides of men. Idranyl and the guards are stonefaced, but the robed man, Falisar nods at you and smiles, saying, “It is heartening to hear you recall the times when the elves stewarded the Races of Light in the Prime Realm. You know your history.” He seems to want to say more but stops himself and looks over at Idranyl.

Then, remembering etiquette, Andexor introduces himself and the party.
Falisar responds with a nod, saying, “We shall see how well met we are in just a short while. Until that time, I am Falisar, Primary Advisor and First Mage to the Ihniko King Uridan. This,” he gestures to the longbowman with the icy glare, “is Prince Idranyl, the only surviving heir-”

“That’s enough, Falisar,” Idranyl interrupts. “You don’t need to tell them any more than they need to know.”

“It will take some time to prepare.” Falisar goes off into a far corner of the room, while the rest of you wait. He will take Varis first, not because Andexor, but because he is of the Shalanwode. He will than go in the following order: Andexor, BGA, Brandis, Sylus.

Falisar beckons each you separately over to a corner of the room away from the rest of the party and Idranyl and his guards, so your conversation with him is not entirely private, but cannot be heard by the others. He motions for you to step within a small chalk circle he has drawn on the ground. Four magical runes mark the outside of the circle, each in one of the four primary directions. After your take your place in the circle, Falisar begins to chant and throws a handful of what seems like pollen dust over you. Falisar’s chanting becomes more intense and the specks of dust begin to glow with a golden light as they fall on and about you. You feel nothing from the sparks on your clothes and skin, but you can trust Falisar’s magic has taken effect as his chanting stops and he begins to question you.

Falisar questions each of you [AND YOU MUST SEND ME A SEPARATE E-MAIL WITH YOUR RESPONSES] about: 1) where you come from, 2) your relationship to the other members of your group, 3) your relationship with any Aeristhyde or eladrin, and 4) how you got to the Palace of the Ihniko King. Falisar remains stoic no matter your responses until the end of his questioning, when he says…[I’LL PROVIDE THIS TEXT FOR EACH OF YOU IN AN E-MAIL at the conclusion of your questioning. I’ll also post a follow up to this after everyone is questioned, so everyone PLEASE write to me ASAP, otherwise this stuff will eat into our time on Friday.]

Okay, so you are all in the throne room of the Ihniko king. From the last post…

“The party were cautiously let into Uridan’s many columned throne room. Eight elite archers stood next to columns. Two soldiers in fine elven plate, ornately decorated with a vine and floral design as well as the symbol of the Ihniko, stood in front of the king. A young elf, his greatbow in hand, stood proudly on the dais at the king’s side. A robed elf with a long crooked staff stood on the other side. The king, hunched in his throne, wearing silks of various greens with platinum threading and a tall golden crown, looked, from under darkened brows, at the party. Though the party had won entrance into the room, the feeling they got was clear, they had not fully overturned the suspicion of those within it.”

The guards are watching you. The two in fine elven plate are whispering to each other; one, with thin features, even for an elf, and a long sword in hand, gestures toward you as he talks, the other broader with a thin, two-handed sword hanging loosely in hand, shakes his head in apparent disagreement. The robed elf with the crooked staff is eyeing you and the king, seeming to see who will betray more with their words and expressions. The king, and the young elf whose bow is still being held tightly in his grip, an arrow in the fingertips of his firing hand, are both eyeing you with seeming contempt. This young elf you realize is wearing a thin crown of silver vines. His leather armor is very finely made and ornately decorated with the symbol of the Ihniko.

Your words seem to only make those around you pause, though what you’re saying in all true of course.

“My lord,” says one of the elves in plate, a tall elf with a severe look and long blonde hair, a long sword in hand, “What these men speak of explains the sights seen from the balconies of the palace. We have all witnessed the invasion by the Shadarkai and the war that then ensued with the undead army of the lich general. It all appeared to occur in far too fast to be real. Their explanation gives reason to believe it was real and not an Aeristhyde spell to contain us in a prison of confusion.”

“Knave, you know nothing of the magic of the cruel Aeristhyde, and you know nothing of these men. Do not try to council me in this manner.”

“My lord,” interrupts the robed figure. “Permit me to cast a ritual that will discern the truth of their words.”

“The Aeristhyde have ways around such magics. You know this, Falisar. Why do you suggest this?”

“My lord, we have encountered their deceptions before, and I am sure I can determine whether the Aeristhyde have interfered with the minds of these men.”

“Very well, but you will not taint my hall with their lies. Take them to a lower chamber. Idranyl and his men will go with you as protection. If there is trouble, dispatch them immediately and return here and I will do it myself.”

You are then escorted out by the young elf bowman and the eight archers with Falisar at the lead. You are taken down a spiraling staircase to a lower hall. The room is large 60 × 40. The ceilling is 30 feet up. There is cushioned seating with endtables gathered in various places around the room. There are a few bookshelves along the two long walls. There are tapestries hung on either end of the room on the short walls. One depicts elves at play in a forest scene, nakes amidst trees and lakes. The other end shows a great battle, elves clad in armore and fighting alongside humans against giantkin, gnolls, orc and goblinkind. The purpose of the room seems to be one of casual entertainment.
-—————————————————————————————————————
Now, your arcana rolls tell you (I assume those who rolled share their information with the group): There is a way to enlarge the portal on your end, but there are two problems with this: 1) you can’t enlarge the portal on the other end, so you would end up with a funnel effect, where you could stuff all you wanted through the larger end, but it would all still have to squeeze out of the small end, and 2) you don’t have the ritual, and if you did it’s beyond your capabilities.
-——————————————————————————————————————
So, whatayado?

At once the hag lifted the skirt of her tattered dress and a poisonous vapor exploded into the air, searing the lungs of BGA and Varis. As she retreated, however, Varis led the party in a swarming movement toward the wretched fey, and BGA kept his eye on her, chopping into her with his enormous axe when she lashed out at a nearby ally.

The hag proved somewhat slippery, though, as she escaped being pinned down by teleporting a short distance away after an unexpected sonic blast, a scream of horrific sadness and pain, that erupted from her throat and tore through those that attacked her at close quarters. She was lucky as well, redeploying her poisonous vapors twice more, a feat unheard of for those studied in the combatant ways of the fey witches. The party was nearly overcome as they surrounded the hag and she released her toxin for a final time, with all the party having to escape the vicinity or continue to suffer harm. Brandis himself was rooted to his spot, seemingly destined to die (once more) in battle, a heroic martyr emersed in the sacred act of battle. Kord blessed his faithful servant as his swift strike crumpled the hag into a pile, and her poisonous cloud disappeared.

All that while, back on the roof of the store house, Noddyl was keeping the hulking zombie at bay. When the hag fell, the zombie fell upon the heroes. Where had Noddyl gone? Was he eaten by the zombie in one swallow? Did he hide? Or run away? Dhalglish still hasn’t turned up…

The zombie was dispatched as an afterthought and the party gathered on the roof of the storehouse to look for Noddyl. He was nowhere in sight. As the group discussed their next step, undead of different types, skeletons, zombies, ghouls, and some dark, shadowy wisp of a figure, emerged from the streets and alleys connected to the marketplace. An instant later, a cyclops skeleton with a blue-glowing eye and a large undead doglike creature emerged from the battlement, atop which the Lich King Thizeroth stood perched, vulturously eyeing all of you.

Expecting to be threatened or squashed, Thizeroth surprised them with an invitation to tea. Seeing no other option, the party, escorted by the Lich King’s guards (i.e., the skeletal cyclops and his dog), entered the chapel, the foyer of which contained nothing but a glowing blue teleportation circle. Immediately, the whole group appeared in Thizeroth’s chambers and were welcomed at a long table, ornately set, and served tea by an unseen magical hand.

Though the tea proved bitter, according to Brandis’ brave report, the deal the Lich King proposed was even moreso. In his gravelly voice, Thizeroth explained that he knew the parties intentions, as he had studied the stars and knew the myths of the Ihniko from those he had captured, interrogated and tortured. He had also studied the magics that created the original destruction of the city of Ihniko and caused the tear in the three planes: the Prime Realm, the Feywild, and the Shadowfell. He was close to backwards engineering exactly how it happened and would soon be capable of replicating the terrible effect, but he needed more knowledge, knowledge that only one who was there and understood better the magics that were at play on that day. For this reason, Thizeroth stated, he needed the party to bring back the Ihniko King, Uridan. Uridan is mad, Thizeroth assured them, but he holds the key.

“Bring him back alive and I will spare your lives,” Thizeroth promised.

“But what will you do with this power?”

“Destroy the world,” replied the Lich King, “This one, and the next one, and the next one, and the next one, until they are all nothing but an ashen void.”

“How will you get us into the palace?”

“Magic, my dear boy. I told you, I have studied these magics for 500 years. You don’t do such a thing without learning quite a lot about something.”

“Well, why don’t you go yourself?”

“Because there are protective magics much more destructive regarding necrotic energy. If I were to pass through the portal I would be disintegrated instantly. For you, I can provide some protection, and as long as you don’t retune the portal, you will be able to return here unharmed. I cannot promise that you will remain unharmed, however, that is, unless you have the King safely bound and ready to be handed over to me.”

In all, a wholly fair bargain in the mind of a 500 year old, undead, egomaniacal wizard, but somehow gaining a pass on their immediate deaths as trade for the ultimate weapon of mass destruction and planar dismemberment didn’t seem right to the party. But without a moment to rest, think about it, or even resist, Thizeroth had the party agreeing to go along with his plan, as, at the very least, it promised to place them inside the palace of the Ihniko King, where they wanted to go.

The party gathered in the teleportation circle and were teleported into a large, empty hall. Statues of Ihniko elders and heroes were set into the walls of this room and seemed to watch the party. Before the party could move, the grand double doors at the other end opened slightly. They were hailed in an archaic form of Elven, the dialect of the Ihniko. Varis spoke up, introducing himself and his purpose, but before he could finish, arrows flew across the space. One zipped by him, but the other slammed into his shoulder. The grand doors were opened only to an arrow slit. The party tried to calm the Ihniko guards, but their efforts only seemed to heighten the tension between the groups, and the grand doors were shut.

After a time, the doors opened again, and with more measured and thoughful responses, the party explained their purpose, to help the Ihniko and free their King. They explained that they were not aligned with the eladrin, that they had, in fact, been sent by the only remaining Ihniko in the Prime Realm. They mentioned the Ihniko’s Record of Hate as proof of their contact with their people.

The party were cautiously let into Uridan’s many columned throne room. Eight elite archers stood next to columns. Two soldiers in fine elven plate, ornately decorated with a vine and floral design as well as the symbol of the Ihniko, stood in front of the king. A young elf, his greatbow in hand, stood proudly on the dais at the king’s side. A robed elf with a long crooked staff stood on the other side. The king, old, hunched in his throne, wearing silks of various greens and a tall crown with a large amber gem in its middle, looked, from under darkened brows, at the party. Though the party had won entrance into the room, the feeling they got was clear, they had not fully overturned the suspicion of those within it.

They explained the passage of time, the occupation of the Lich and his army, the crossing of planes, and the faces of a few in the room betrayed their belief in what the party said. The king stolidly stared at the group awaiting something to convince him he wasn’t still fighting a war he had to win.

The adventurers had fought off a pack of ghouls and chased a creature down an alley to a sewer grate. It became clear that creature was most likely a Shadar-kai, one of the people from the Shadowfell, a race devoted to the Raven Queen, Goddess of Death. The adventurers decided to return to the house from which the ghouls emerged, but on their way saw a six-legged, panther-like fey beast with two wickedly barbed tentacles stalking toward them.

Varis ran for the protection of the house, while Bie Gae stepped up to buffer the party from the shifty displacer beast. As Varis entered the house, he saw two ghouls, too enamored with the feast of what turned out to be Shadar-kai remains to have attacked the party earlier. The ghouls descended on Varis, one acrobatically leaping over a table in its desperate attempt to get to him.

The displacer beast was backed off and ran away near dead due to attacks from most of the party, but then another emerged from a side street and pounced upon Noddyl. In the house, with the help of party members who had rushed in to the house having been outside fighting the first displacer beast, the battle was turned against the ghouls and the ghouls were destroyed. Then everyone was free to focus fire on the second displacer beast, dispatching it, from unbloodied to dead, in one round. Go team!

The victorious adventurers boarded up the house from the inside and searched through what remained of the ghoul’s meal. On the body parts of the decimated Shadar-kai that were strewn about the sitting parlor, 100s of years into its final decay, the adventurers were rewarded with the following pickings: a suit of leather, 2 suits of studded leather, 3 daggers, 2 long swords, a scimitar (which turned out to be a +1 Luck Blade(what luck! but no wishes…ah, 4th ed.)), and 60 gold.

The adventurers decided to hold up in the second floor bedroom furthest from the stairs. While they slept, a Shadar-Kai party crept up the stairs and began searching rooms. The adventurers awoke and stood ready for a fight, but prepared to parlay. When they opened the door, Brandis boldly hailed them and began to negotiate a partnership.

The Shadar-Kai were a strange lot, with tattoos, scarification, and punk hair styles. This group of Shadowfallen was captained by Baylin Tor, a tall, muscular man with a pointed black-beard and a severe face. Upon his bald head, his neck and face, were scars, both from war and by design. He wore a suit of fine mail, clearly magical. All of his soldiers wore leather or studded leather armor with black coats of arms displaying the insignia of the Raven Queen, a raven’s feather.

In the discussion, the adventurers revealed their affiliation with the Ihniko elves and admitted their two aims: 1) finding the Lich’s phylactery and, 2) ultimately, entering the ancient Ihniko King’s Palace. Brandis’ diplomatic speech, wherein he detailed the successes of the party, most recent of which was the dispatchment of a group of ghouls who had dispatched a small platoon of Tor’s own men, compelled Baylin to accept the partnership, though he still placed one of his men with their group as a failsafe against the liability the party represented to his own agenda.

Dhalglish, Baylin’s man, was of average height, but very slender, giving him the appearance of greater height. He wore leather armor and wielded a short sword in his right hand, a dagger in his left. A light crossbow swung at his side, and a shoulder bag hung round his back. He was always almost totally silent, and often he would simply disappear into the shadows and reappear out of thin air.

It was Dhalglish who navigated the sewer passageways for the party, so that they could find the Hag in the southeast part of the city. The Green Hag notoriously roamed the old market place, right outside the palace walls that protected the Thizeroth’s chapel home, and the party thought they could maybe pump her information? The motive was vague, but the aim clear, “Find the hag.”

Dhalglish disarmed and reset traps as everyone entered and exited the sewers. “I’m glad we didn’t try to head down into the sewers ourselves,” Andxor quipped as they climbed below the city. Varis, ever watchful, caught a good look at what Dhalglish was doing on the way back up, giving him a +5 Thievery check when attempting to disarm or set these traps in the future.

The party came up in the southeasternmost corner of the city. Having heard the group surfacing, four skeletons, who were roaming aimlessly beforehand, found a purpose. Varis and Noddyl took to the roof of a small store house and began picking them off as they approached, while other party members supported at range. Just as the skeletons were getting finished off, a 12 foot tall, hulking zombie ran-shambled out from the northeast and a woman’s cry for help was heard from the west. With the choice of engaging one of the following-

-they chose the potentially hot damsel in distress, despite the fact that she was probably the hag they had come to threaten/kill/negotiate with/all of the above. How would fate repay their potential chivalry? Once they arrived in front of her, her clothes tattered to nearly revealing her sexy bits, the beautiful woman’s frown turned into a hideous, wrinkled grin. The magic facade of her beauty melted away to reveal a twisted, old face. The saddening sob of a victim perverted into the insane cackle of a killer as the hag came to the glorious conclusion that her trap encouraged you all to position yourselves perfectly in her blast radius! Oh yeah, and there’s a hulking zombie on your asses! Wait, where did Dhalglish go?

[Above is a picture of King Uridan’s palace as you see it through the Eye of the Planes (or the “cyclop’s eye” as you guys have been calling it.]

(From the tales told by Noddyl Talowyn, an Ihniko elf, once a pilindor of the tribe, then a legend in Ursa Major as one of its heroes (maybe), as he relayed them to his children in a Time of Peace after The Planes War:

“We, the other heroes and I, met in council with the regent, Coranil, and Tenebron, the Keeper of the Hate. We showed them a map of the old city, told them about our history with the Shadarkai and the Lich King, Thizeroth. My sister kept her eye on Varis even then.

“We gathered our things without much of a plan besides entering the city through Bells Gate. At the entrance, King Uridan’s Head Wizard, Cyderel, greeted us. He was dubious of the nositi orso’s chances. I was too at the time.

“Cyderel told us that he existed between the planes, trapped as a ghost on the magical fringe of what happened the day of the World Storm. He didn’t know what magic caused the protective shell around Ihniko to shrink and strengthen to seeming impenetrability around the palace. He told us that the magics on the Ihniko side were of the strongest wards and protections against all types of harm, except perhaps psychic. He also told us that there had been talk at the time of a new kind of residuum bomb the Aeristhyde were supposedly working on. Perhaps the Aeristhyde had finally created this device, but his best guess was that there was some kind of godly magic at work – either a high level sacrificial/pact like spell or direct imposition of at least one diety’s hand.

“Cyderel also revealed that the lich Thizeroth took up residence in Ihniko specifically to study the effects of that day to try to discover the elements that caused them, to backward engineer the destructive magics employed so he could wield their awesome power some day. [DM’s HINT: If there is someone who might know more about the shell and how to pass through it, it might be this lich.] Cyderel warned us not to fight the lich for he obviously was too much a match for us. He said if we faced him, the only thing that would keep him from killing us would be our usefulness to him and his maniacal schemes.

“Cyderel wondered if we might be able to bargain with the lich if we had his phylactery to use as leverage against him. The Shadarkai are back in the city looking for the lich’s phylactery, which is said to be a fist-sized sapphire that the Eternal King had hidden in the city somewhere. Supposedly one of Thizeroth’s minions moved the gem about every so often. Maybe the Shadarkai knew where to find it? Maybe they knew something else about the lich that you could use against him? Maybe we could sell out the Shadarkai to curry favor with the lich? Cyderel wondered all of this for our benefit, but he reiterated his caution about approaching the lich quite sternly, ‘Whenever you deal with powerful, evil undead, you must make sure they have good reason to keep you alive or you have a good way to kill them.’

“We thought the Shadarkai would know nothing of a way into the palace, though they did have their tunnels, city sewers which were fortified and expanded in order to fight Thizeroth’s army. [Streetwise/History] I wondered, did tunnels exist that went below the palace, providing a way into the underbelly of it? Cyderel did say the protection around the palace was a sphere though…

“So, we entered the city, unclear about how to gain entrance to the palace, but with a good deal of knowledge and certain to find undead eager to kill us. Right as we crossed the plane into the Shadowfell, and that awful miserable chilling feel of the place grabs you, we had to walk over the Ring of Bones that lines the city walls. Grasping skeletal hands and skeleton warriors sprang up to impede our progress and take our lives. We fought them back to death only to be charged by a herd of zombies. We mowed through them with little harm done to our party, until a flesh-crazed ghoul and a giant-sized zombie joined the fray. These two put some fear into us before we put them down for good.

“We rested a short while, finding no loot on the bodies. There never was on Thizeroth’s ‘subjects.’ We then moved on to Hill Street, past the statue of the Raven Queen, Shadarkai goddess of the Dead Realm and the Shadowfell. There, like she summoned them, a pack of ghouls, gnawing on some recent acquired meal emerged from a nearby house and came at us with what looked like a desperately insatiable hunger. They had a gruesome attack: once one of us was dazed by a strike of its claws, it would chomp its jagged teeth on us doing terrible harm. We were never too close to death, however, and the ghouls were eventually defeated.

“In the short rest that followed the battle, a few of us saw movement down an alley. We went to investigate that movement and wound up trailing someone, probably a Shadarkai, to a sewer grate. We then had a choice: 1) Follow/track the voyeur through the grate and into the sewers, or 2) go back to the house from which the ghouls emerged, or 3) embark on a new, as of yet undefined path.”

[Ihniko’s symbol, which adorns many Ihniko items, but most obviously their banners and clothing.]

So, we’re going to have to rewind a little from last adventure, because, since so much time has passed since we got in a real session, I juiced up what you are heading into.

If you recall (don’t worry, I know you don’t), the last post ended with this…
“In the morning, you are given a heroes’ feast. Gifts of food, fresh clothes, and equipment are given to you. Noddyl is presented with heirloom (read “legacy”) items from his people. You can sense the divide in the people’s belief in your ability to succeed in helping their situation or their king’s situation in any way. It is up to you whether you take heart in those who believe in the prophecy and see Varis (and, by association, you) as a savior type, or whether you are more pragmatic and think, even though you don’t like the way some of those elves are looking at you, they’re right, you guys are just a bunch of adventurers lookin’ for loot to collect and asses to kick, but you wouldn’t want it any other way.”

Two things need to be added: 1) Important information from the Record of Hate that Tenebron chanted to you that evening you were partying with hot elven chicks, and 2) a pre-mission meeting that is convened by the regent, Coranil, before the party leaves for the city.

1) As a reminder, The Record of Hate is the book of the wrongs committed against the Ihniko people, which provides details of their history from their arrival in Ursa Major to now. What Tenebron chants is an abbreviate version, but he gladly sits down with any and all who desire to know a richer version of the history of the land as he knows it. Where the narrative veers from perceived wrongs committed against the Ihniko, this is Tenebron filling in with anticipated follow up from the party. If you want to know more, ask.

The Record begins with the establishment of the Elves in Ursa Major through the wars they fought with the giant folk, the gnolls, and the orcs, while acting as a guardian civilization for the humans and Halflings and helping these races develop more advanced cultures.

Then there was the Call to Return Home by Lord Eladrin and the Great Schism between those who stayed (and were thereafter called Elves) and those who heeded the call (and were thereafter called Eladrin). [I encourage you guys to revisit (or visit) the wiki page and check out some of the history of the world (the top three links) to gain some clarity about all this stuff].

Fast forward about a thousand years – the Eladrin returned to Ursa Major and, over time, established an empire, the Aeristhyde Empire, under the rule of one High Lordess Ultenna. Their reign was rather shortlived, from an Elf’s perspective, that is. It ran for about 300 years but ended due to a combination of a transition of ruler’s, with Ultenna’s nephew, Aliszar, taking the throne, and the general rejection of the empire by so many.

Wars broke out at the collapse of the empire. The most notable of these, in the Record of Hate and from the perspective of the Ihniko atleast, is the War of Three Forests. This war lasted for over 100 years and included the Ihniko, the Shallanwode, and the Aeristhyde Eladrin (whose forest is the Hiverlynds of the Feywild, home to the Winter Court Eladrin, from whence they originated). Those from the Shallanwode sided with their Ihniko brothers for a long time, until their allegiance was somehow won over to the Aeristhyde and the Ihniko were confined to their tree-walled city.

The War of the Three Forests lasted over 100 years and culminated in the World Storm and the disappearance of the Aeristhyde Empire from Ursa Major for good. (However, Varis knows that noble winterkin eladrin dressed all in white, the color of the Aeristhyde empire, do infrequently visit the leaders of the Wode. While these visits aren’t official, they have the feeling of being so and for the purpose of state business. Those clad in the white of the Aeristhyde don’t bear the crest of the Empire, but that of The Winter Court. Below are pictures of the crest of The Winter Court and a signet ring bearing the symbol of the Aeristhyde Empire.)

The destruction that caused the World Storm is believed to have started at Ihniko in a singular cataclysmic event that spread globally. The Ihniko believe the Aeristhyde are responsible for it, and they harbor a deep enmity toward the Shallanwode for their betrayal. If asked about how the World Storm was generated, they offer nothing but guesses about the kinds of magic involved as ultimately the power of it was easily beyond any of their understandings. Perhaps those in the King’s court know, as some of them are more knowledgable about such things. All the Ihniko you are with know is that the cataclysmic event devastated their city, killing 80% of their people instantly, and threw it into the Shadowfell. Another 15% of their people died in the storm and suffering after. Somehow their king and his palace survived, though it was sucked into the Feywild, where it was surrounded by a battalion of Aeristhyde who sit there to this day. It is believed that the protective magics that were placed around the city were somehow condensed, shrunken, or pushed in by the cataclysm and made stronger, in fact completely impenetrable. Weirdly, the
Palace and the hill on which it sits returns by the light of each full moon. It was only through divination magic of the Ihniko skadi (who, thankfully, was among the 5% to survive) that they knew what had happened to their king and his situation in the Fey.

The Ihniko who survived created a new camp for themselves outside of the city, just as the Shadarkai began to inhabit this place that had fallen into their realm. They came in great numbers and it did not take too long for them to become organize and begin building.

The Ihniko were two small in number to help what was happening. They were grateful when they realized the Shadarkai had no intention of spilling into the Prime Realm. Decades passed with the Ihniko keeping a sharp eye on the Shadarkai in their ruined home and helplessly watching the reappearance of their Lord’s palace every full moon. The Shadarkai renamed the city Wedburgh, rebuilt the city in typical urban fashion and gave their streets names that ironically mocked the relationship with the natural world the elves who used to live there had.

Roughly 100 years after the great cataclysm of the World Storm, a Lich Lord known as Thizeroth marched on the Shadarkai city with his legion of undead. He drove the Shadarkai out in a matter of a few years and established himself in the southeastern keep on the hill, which he had magically transplanted there from some other place. He took to calling himself the Eternal King, though the Shadarkai call him the Whispering Death, because of the whispered commands he gave his undead soldiers that were heard everywhere upon the battle field.

It has been almost 400 years since the Lich king, Thizeroth, took up residence in the city ruins, but he still resides there, according to the Ihniko. Thizeroth’s undead still roam the city, which is now a second ruin, freely. The Shadarkai had not been seen in the city for hundreds of years, but have been seen recently scurrying around the northern edges of the city. That’s the situation as it stand today.

Your party is now charged with the following mission. Try to enter the palace for two reasons: 1) to save the king, who is surrounded by a battalion of eladrin soldiers (They most certainly are winterkin eladrin, but are they Aeristhyde, meaning the empire still exists? If they are not Aeristhyde, are they part of the Winter Court of the fey?), and 2) to discover what else you can about what caused the World Storm with the hope that you may figure out enough about it to someday take down the storm walls and restore the natural order to Ursa Major. Of course, some of you are just in it to explore, kill undead, loot some treasure, and generally find adventure within the wooded walls of the once great city of Ihniko.

2) The Pre-mission meeting: Noddyl, as pilindor, or lead arrow of the tribe’s warriors is there, of course, as is Coranil, the regent, and Tenebron, the Keeper of the Record of Hate. A few other of Noddyl’s best are there, including his sister, Hillowyn, who is kind of staring at Varis, but not in a bloodlusty hatefilled glaring way like that other chic. (For a reminder of what Hillowyn looks like, see below.) These elves with Noddyl are the ones who will accompany you into what was the city of Ihniko.

They show you the following map:

To view this close up, right click on the picture and save it to your desktop.

Bell and Market Gates are still usable. Old gate is fallen in. You could also enter the city from the far east where there is a break in the wall. Remember, some Shadarkai have been seen in the northern sections of the city. The lich king, Thizeroth, resides in the keep in the southeastern corner (it is labeled “old church”). His loyal “subjects” roam the city freely. A hag is known to wander the eastern part of the city and even to escape into the forest now and then. Her cries can sometimes be heard for miles away, sending a chill in the spine of all who hear it.

This is where you guys ask questions and/formulate a plan.

As told by Evrayn, elven skadi of the Ihniko people.

“The one of prophecy has come to our village, though he did not come with any pomp or honors due one who is said to correct the centuries old crime of the Aeristhyde. He came in the custody of Noddyl, our pilindor, the one the stars say shall accompany ‘he who carries the bear on his back’. I am ever thankful for the washer girl who noticed the mark, the constellation of Ursa Major, for we did not know how to interpret the words of our ancestor spirits until she saw the sign. There are many who do not believe, the regent for one. He even had our shameful Record of Hate performed for the nosit’i orso. The regent is so shortsighted, believing the war and its horrors to be so important. Just as our mad king. They would rather embrace death, though it is hard to blame them. We are surrounded with it, death, just as our king is surrounded by a battalion of Aeristhyde soldiers and has been for five centuries, ever since the Aeristhyde broke the world with their terrible magic. And all for what? For ‘the lost’, as they called us, to return. But the war is a far gone thing. The world turned after the World Storm, and it is ready to be turned again.

“It shall be turned by the nosit’i orso named Varis. He is from the Shallanwode. How fitting that those who betrayed us in our final hours should produce a son to rectify the evils of the Aeristhyde? And he does not travel alone. No, he came with three humans: an avenger of Ioun, a fitting companion considering the Aeristhyde’s hatred for knowledge; a cleric of Kord, for he comes ready for battle; a wizard, I think, as he must undo the magics of the evil empire; and a goliath, one of the old world, perhaps to remind the destroyers of the world as it was, before they turned it upside down with their lust for power, but this is true only in form. In the end, that one will not be with the nosit’i orso. The spirits have told me, his race prevents it. I have told the nosit’i orso as much. The spirits cannot be wrong.

“Oh, yes, I almost forgot the sleeping bard, another meaningful member of the company, full of portent, for this is the story of the sleepers who will awaken and remember the dawn. This is the story of the seasons that change though the stars are stuck in winter and how renewal, spring, is now, in these times, at this very moment, being painted onto the heavens. This is the story of how small men will grow to squash the giants who enslaved them. We will defeat the Aeristhyde and restore the integrity of this realm. Perhaps we will help restore balance to the Feywild as well. But these are far off aims. For now, let us hope they can help our king.

“How will they do this, you ask? That is a good question. The nosit orso even asked me. I was hoping he would have come with some kind of plan. Maybe the gods have yet to reveal it to him, or maybe he will come to it himself, or maybe the answer lies with one of those who go with him. Not the goliath, of course, but maybe one of the others.

“Tomorrow morning they set out for Ihniko city, our old home, a ruin of memory, a wasteland of fallen branches, a pit of lost civilization, now the home to the undead and a few stray Fey. The palace awaits them, though it appears again in three weeks time. The nosit’i orso must find a way to the king and then, he will know, if not in his mind, in his heart, in his soul then, what he must do. May the gods be with them. May Sehanine light the way in their darkest hours. May Corellon cast the grace of all Fey upon what they have undertaken to do.”

In the morning, you are given a heroes feast. Gifts of food, fresh clothes, and equipment are given to you. Noddyl is presented with heirloom (read “legacy”) items from his people. You can sense the divide in the people’s belief in your ability to succeed in helping their situation or their king’s situation in any way. It is up to you whether you take heart in those who believe in the prophecy and see Varis (and, by association, you) as a savior type, or whether you are more pragmatic and think, even though you don’t like the way some of those elves are looking at you, they’re right, you guys are just a bunch of adventurers lookin’ for loot to collect and asses to kick, but you wouldn’t want it any other way.

The continued tale of the Heroes of Laranyss and their adventures in the deep Bone Forest, as told and later set down for the ages by Jan Weaversson Feys’kin.

“We were deep in the Bone Forest, walking alongside a stream on rocky, moss-covered terrain, to a city ruined in hatred and magic fire over 500 years ago. We began to hear a kind of music, put on by children’s voices, a sweet melodic humming, and then the splashing of water and a girl giggling. We were drawn to the honeyed scene of a forest nymph, rarest of beauties in the most secluded of wood, bathing in a swimming hole along the streampath, faeries attending her gayly and flying around her head like dragonflies or hummingbirds.

“The voyeuristic affair lasted a bittersweet moment, as the noise of our bold approach made her regain her modesty and cover her bountiful display. Her faerie court took positions like guards at the castle gate.

“My companions assured the nymph that we were noble in purpose and innocent of offense, indeed we hinted that we friends of the forest. She seemed to think we could help the forest heal itself if we helped her sister. Of what that help consisted we knew not and thought not to ask. Simple-minded heroes that we are, we only thought to serve. She was smokin’ hot after all. Her faeries excitedly cast their glamour upon us, and we took the shapes of eladrin nobles. She only said we would present better to her sister in the guise of the fey, and we, again, obliged unsuspiciously, because we are men with more trust than gold.

“When we met her sister, we found this winter mad nymph, or dryad witch, whatever, walking with a gang of wood woads, the most brutish of treecreatures. She instantly became incensed at our presence, seeing through the fairy glamour and being most displeased that we were not the eladring we were pretended to be. She and the woads beat us into unconscious submission, stripped us of our goods, and gave us into bondage, and you will never imagine who with… Why the very cyclops we were looking to find. We were a little worse for wear, chained to a wall on the inside of the cyclop’s cave and without our goods, but the nymph, Sylvestra, was there to unlock our shackles. Now tell me honestly, could there be any surer sign that Avandra was overseeing our every step.

“Some of us were stark mad at the girl for her earlier betrayal, but she was pleading to have our forgiveness. She honestly thought that sacrificing some eladrin nobles, AKA the Imperial Court of the Winterkin, to her wintermad sister would somehow free her of her magical insanity, and if it didn’t work, what were the lives of a few common mortals to the first offspring of Nature? She was also freeing us with the cyclops keys while her sister said goodbye to the damned creature. Plus, she was still smokin’ hot, and somehow she smelled like a field of wildflowers on a soft summer wind. I don’t know about the others, but I forgave her.

As she let us go, she explained that her sister had given us as a gift to the cyclops in order to get his help luring the real Imperial Court of the Winterkin to where they were. I don’t understand it all myself. Maybe one day I will.

“Well, we were in a dry cave, the floor was littered in the bones of animals and humanoids. Before she’d left, Sylestra told us where our belongings were, stashed behind a boulder along with the cyclops’ eye. Apparently, it wasn’t the cyclops actual eye we were after but an item. When we rolled back the boulder and retrieved our equipment, we found the giant’s treasure and his “eye”, a clear cut diamond lens in a leather headpiece with a patch for the other eye. It was clearly sized and designed for a two-eyed individual. We found out this must’ve been an item the cyclops made himself, as he had a whole workroom set up in that cave for the crafting of magical gems.

“No sooner had we found all this out then big baddy came storming in. He wielded a spiked club, big as our goliath friend. Twice he smashed that greatclub onto the earth and felled us all. His strikes were crushing, and we very nearly became more bones for the cavefloor. At the most dire point in the battle, the cyclops saw the eye on Sylus’ treasure disk and snatched it back, but only temporarily mind you. Our combined assault overwhelmed the giant at last and he collapsed in a heap.

“We were relieved for having escaped the nymph’s trap at last and to have the eye of the cyclops. We knew we were only a days travel south-southwest from the city of Ihniko. The question was, should we try to track the wintermad dryad and get our revenge, or track down Sylestra to see if she can answer our questions, or skip all that and head straight for the ruined city of Ihniko where surely legions of undead, and perhaps even more fey like the cyclops gemworker, await us.”

As recorded by the Valorous Bard of Laranyss, Jan Weaverson Feys’Kin, after it’s first telling by the fireside of an encampment on the night concluding this narrative:

“The moontusk fever I had contracted in the Shallanwode infected me completely. My skin was sweating fire, and my muscles contracted in fits. Hair began to sprout in dense patches from my body, and bestial grunts and snorts forced themselves from my throat. I felt my bone structure changing in a matter of minutes. It was excruciating. At the same time, I was filled with this angry hunger, a rage that possessed my mind and drove me up in my twisted body, half man-half boar, out of my mother’s front door and toward the Bone Forest.

“I don’t remember much while I was in my animal form. My thoughts were simple. I recall brief images of the forest floor, the underbrush, other boar, and finally the battle that broke me from that madness, the battle that changed my fate forever, for it was in this battle I met a band of peerless adventurers.

“Among them was an alert and doubly-deadly elf from the Shallanwode, Varis, who I knew not before that day despite my time in the wode; a goliath warrior, Bie Gae-Al, a frighteningly tall and muscled warrior from far away in the High Peaks, wielded a greataxe with two giant hands that seemed capable of crushing rocks, or an enemy’s head, like rotten fruit; an avenger of Ioun, Andxor, who hailed from the Twin Cities and swung his greatsword each time with swift and fatal consequence. Sylus, the Roen wizard drew magical fire from thin air to strike down my bestial allies. Brandis, the battle-hardened cleric of Kord, from the Pennincula, lead the group, commanding the battle through his faith in his god and his steel.

“The group defeated my mad boar’s charge and the attacks made by the pigfriends I’d scruffed up from the forest and into a party in my hungry haste. They knocked me mercifully unconscious.

“I knew immediately my path lay with this new bold band of heroes. Their exploits, at best, could be the very record of legends, at least, a source of good humor and practice in the craft of tales-telling. I pleaded for entry into their circle, and they, having heard the recount of my own brave exploits in the Shallanwode, accepted me forthwith.

“Together we hiked back to my house, where I fetched my equipment, clothes,” he says aside with a wink, "as I was nearly as naked as the day of my birth, and other necessities.

“My mother, domestic goddess that she is and ever shall be, treated my new friends to all the good hospitality and country cooking that can be afforded on a weaver’s salary in these parts. She was ever grateful for the group’s saving me, and promised away my prized gauntlets. Alas, all loves end, and I parted gratefully with them.

“Before we all headed, glorybound, back into the Bone Forest, there was the matter of curing the fever from myself and Kord’s hand, whom I’d infected. Avandra was clearly overlooking the matter, as a high priestess of Sehanine, emissary to the Shallanwode’s sister convent in Roen, was staying at the Golden Bough. Varis (now going by the southern inflected, Var-ees), secured her assistance, but nothing more.

“Once freed from the bond of were-disease, Brandis and I recouped at my place. During this time, Derrick the Reeve, Captain of the Guard, paid a visit and presented the party with medals of commendation for their superior bravery in service of the town. These I became aware then were the very men who stamped back the most recent goblin incursions. Another sure sign of destiny unfolding, as my talents have not been paired with local-yokel, pie-in-the-sky types. These lads were heroes in earnest.”

“Yes, heroes we were to tread back into the Bone Forest and enter it’s deep heart. There, the plants themselves were alive with a kind of anger over a war long fought, won and lost, done. We fought off carnivorous vines and plant-man chokers who scaled up trees in fear of us like spiders. The only proper greeting we got was from a giant treeman, a treant so-called, Maplethorn, self-proclaimed keeper of the wood. He was in chase of a rebellious few trees who tried to drive us from even entering the woods, who cursed us as a pollutatant in the Elven tongue. He pointed us in the direction of the Cyclops Lair, where we would presumably find the Cyclops Eye, with which we will be able to see the palace of the Ihniko King. May fortune remain on our side, fair Avandra.”

Bivouacked at the edge of the Bone Forest, the party smelled the moisture in the air and knew that rain was on its way. Varis led the others in creating a makeshift shelter from branches of the oak trees around them. In the middle of the night, the rain came, steady and even.

In the wet morning they set out, the rain falling under the canopy as if the clouds had nestled under the roof of leaves. The party walked west in a straight path across the forest, hoping that Jan, the weaver’s sick son, had done the same. There were few noises in the forest, as the animals remained sheltered and dry, but those that were heard sounded like medium sized creatures. Were they deer? Boar? Wolves? Their tracks were hard to find, as any depression became a muddy puddle, and there were plenty of those on the forest floor.

The traveled for two days in the rain. At the end of the second day, they reached a hill, the side of which seemed to extend as far north and as far south as they could see. It provided treacherous footing, but with some rope secured to the trunks of trees tied by their champion climber Al, they all made it to the top. Al climbed a tall maple, and through a hole in its branches, he was able to see the land was depressed on the other side into a foggy, dense, dark green forest. The grey Dwarfmoors lay far, far beyond it, the very edge of the horizon.

As the party was deciding where to camp, a charge of hooves sounded. Dire boars rushed out of the underbrush, their sharp tusks dripping with the frothy spit of an angry hunger. Leading the boars, was a giant boar with a strange and frightening intelligence in its eyes. Jan!

The boars pinched the party together, running the adventurers through and knocking them to the ground. The group was put on the defensive and nearly all felt the reaper’s closeness. Varis and Al were even exposed to the Moontusk fever, Jan’s disease. It looked like the end of the heroes’ campaign when Brandis, the leader and healer of the group, collapsed, nearly lifeless, on the wet earth.

But fortune smiles on the brave and player controlled. The turn in the battle came when Andxor guarded Sylus’ revival of the party leader. With Brandis up, the healing began in earnest and the boar party fell to the consistent fight put in by the heroes. Jan, however, had fallen. Brandis turned his healer’s touch to the diseased young man, and not a moment too soon. He was revived but feeling weak from hunger, the fight, and his illness.

What will the party do now? Jan is in their care, and the dense and dangerous remnants of the legendary Ihniko stretch out to the west.

The party climbed back up the steep cave wall to the surface of the Bone Forest with their slaves, er, I mean, the freed prisoners in tow. Once they found their own tracks, they followed them away from the cave. Varis marked the trees, so a way back could be seen.

Camp was eventually set up, and the watches figured out, while from somewhere deep in the woods wolves howled, sounding a desperate call for the party’s blood. On the fourth hour of the watch, the sound of many feet padding over the forest floor signaled the arrival of a hungry canine pack. As they rushed in, the party rose to meet them. Out of oversight or neglect, an opening was found in the party’s defense of the families they guarded and a wolf attacked and killed one of the children. The mother shrieked in surprise and heartache, as the man stood stunned. The party successfully engaged and killed off the pack before it could cause any more casualties.

That battle seemed to be the last bite from a formerly embittered forest. The whole next day and night in the forest seemed more relaxed, as if the woods itself were grateful for having the goblin taint cleansed from beneath its branches. The third day brought the party out of the forest and into Larenyss. The families thanked the party, though it, like their time together, was colored by a somber sense of trauma and loss suffered by those who were the goblinoid’s prisoners.

In Derrick’s office, the party debriefed. Derrick promised them a ceremony in two day’s time wherein they would receive medals noting their heroism on behalf of the town. As they were wrapping up, a woman’s hearty sobs could be heard in the hall.

Upon investigating, they found that this woman, Hilda Bricker, a clothe maker in the northern part of town, has had her sick son, Jan, go missing. He had been sick with a fever and at times belligerent, aggressive. She said, on top of his illness, he had been drinking. Just last night, she’d gone to bed as usual. In the middle of the night, she heard some noises, but left Jan alone, mostly because of how rude, and even threatening, he’d been to her recently. When she awoke, however, he was gone. He’d taken none of his belongings, no gear, not even the bracers he’d brought back as prized loot he’d acquired in the Shalanwode. See, Jan had always fancied himself an adventurer, could use a sword and bow with the best in town, though he had no interest in the military. He was a part of the skirmishing militia, but it never held his interest in finding out what was really out there in the wide, wild world. So, one day he decided he would head out to find the adventure he’d been looking for in his life. He had to go no further than the Shalanwode, where he met a group of elves, a community who settled in the western part of the wood. While there, he joined them on a long hike- a long scouting mission that young elves go on to keep eyes on the boundaries of the territories they roamed. On their walk, Jan and his elf companions were ambushed by a group of boar monsters, something between men and dire boars. The elves and Jan put the boarmen down. Some of the elves mentioned a curse put on men who long ago lived in the forest and raped a druid. By the turn of autumn the men became boars spelled to roam the wild forest eternally. For his comradery and courage, Jan was given a pair of bracers. They were of fine elven make and lend strength to the wearer in close combat. Jan’s mother offers these as a reward for Jan’s safe return. (Her generosity in offering them to the party pre-questfullment was checked by Derrick’s caution to her).

Half the party took Urthrak’s body to the temple, where Urhtrak’s clansman, Theodin, was helping keep up the place. He was sullen at the sight of the dead beserker, but right away began preparations for a proper ritual burial, cremation in a ceremonially constructed forge. The party helped with this. Urthrak’s belongings were now Theodin’s to return to his clan. He agreed to do so, taking on what amounted to little more than a one way trip into Moradin’s Forge.

Varis and Al stopped by Wynne Daluth’s. Wynne remembered importantly that the wizard of Ihniko had told him he needed the cyclop’s eye in his possession to look upon the palace and find the king. Not much else but excited babble was gotten from the old man before the two adventurer’s decided to leave.

Reconstituted, the party went to the house of Hilda Bricker, found the tracks of Jan, and followed them to the edge of the forest where they camped the night (the very night they were originally slated to receive honors for their most recent heroics), preparing to delve back into the Bone Forest and prove their heroism once again.

Oh yeah, and at at one point, while enjoying an ale and a meal at the Golden Bough, Al put on his charms for Sognia in hopes of scoring with one of her beautiful young serving wenches. Unfortunately, Al is a goliath of little experience in wooing human women and failed to realize how uncomplimentary the suggestion that they could be bought would be. Sognia was put off to the point of getting some townwatch to remind Al of his manners and her prominent position in the town. Sognia now looks upon the party, especially Al, with a bit more uncertainty than she did before. Chanti, however, is looking to write a hit song about your victory over the hobgoblin slaverunners.

Grak is Dead

After a thorough debate about the pros and cons of carting off all, some, or none of the corpses they made, the party decided to move far away from the cavemouth and spend the rest of the day nursing wounds from the battles fought. All but Al were floated to their campsite on Sylus and Brandis’ magical discs. The big man, nearly as comfortable in the forest as he is on the mountainsides of the Shieldwall, covered his own enormous tracks.

After a good night’s rest, the group was back at the cave. Varis snuck quietly into the cave and found a precipice. The sunlight that flooded into the doorway cast his shadow on the sloping ceiling. Darkness gathered below. Al joined him and the two heard noises. A shuffling of feet. The air became restless. Are those goblin voices? they thought to themselves, as javelins flew past and into the goliath and the elf.

A goblin party was lying in wait, engulfed in a hexhurler’s cloud on the cave floor. Two deathjump spiders clung to the wall ready to poison anyone brave enough to climb down their webs. A range battle ensued from the cliff’s edge with arrows, blots, and spells raining down on the goblins and javelins being shot back up. The spiders pounced on Andxor and after a few violent exchanges, the avenger went down, poison coursing through his veins. The party enacted a tactical retreat to the steps of the cave, drawing the spiders to them, and the spiders were more than happy to advance.

The goblins below were falling asleep and then dying under Sylus’ spells, while Brandis called on Kord to honor the raw courage of his comrades by healing them all, bringing Andxor back from the threshold of death only for him to fall down the cliff face, trigger the pit trap and land, unconscious again, in a shallow layer of slime. 35 feet above, the spiders were slain. Al showed everybody how to climb down and not fall off of spiderwebs, those things designed by nature to keep you stuck to them, and continued the killing down below. Brandis heroically fell beside the pit and threw his arm over the edge to cast a healing prayer that saved Andxor again.

The hexhurler, who had failed to engage the opposing controller with any luck, literally none, finally died.

In the furious few minutes after the party had recomposed themselves. They rested and healed, experiencing a Highlanderesque power-up that puts steroids to shame. Wondering whether more monsters lurked down one of the four tunnels that burrowed eastward, the more perceptive of the group heard what was likely a hobgoblin barking orders down a distant tunnel, then all heard a bestial bellow that said, “I’m hungry, and you smell like good cookin’.”

After a tense quiet, the monstrous enemies burst forth from the tunnel in a collective charge. The party was suddenly faced with a bugbear strangler, a hobgoblin gang leader, two goblin blackblades, and a feyspitter spider… ouch. The melee combatants pounded on each other, while the spider threw its acidic spittle on Brandis and Sylus who hung back. There was a point when the party was thinking, Are we in for a spanking the likes of which we just endured? The strangler had Al by the throat, prepared to make a meat shield of his limp body, but the adventurers turned the tide quickly and soon the spider was all alone, fleeing down a corridor to find the place where she would die.

They had done it; Grak the slavetrader and all his gang were dead!

As the party rested again, hoping anxiously that nothing else bent on destroying them would appear, cries from a woman and a man could be heard. The true freelancers they are, loot was gathered from the dead before they turned their attention to the living. A cloak (of Chirurgeon) and a pair of (parrying) gloves were lifted off of Grak. The party then followed the cries to a cavern about 60 feet in diameter. In the center was another web, this one covering a 20×20 pit in the floor where the prisoners were kept. The party cut through webs and freed the prisoners from the hole. The prisoners were, in total, a couple with their two children, Anix (9) and Lisle (6), and a woman with her son, Jarvis (7), all of whom were taken from Larenyss recently. The couple, Dan and Rebie, are in their thirties, and their happy you are there, but they are somber and exhausted, having feared for their lives for days. The woman, mid-twenties, doesn’t speak. All the children are quiet too.

The party’s spirits weren’t dulled, though. A boon of coins and two large gems were stashed in a chest in a corner behind the goblinoid comforts of home, ragpile beds. The whole glittering heap of coins looked all the more seductive in the soft yellow light of the magical floating lantern that hovered nearby.

“Oh, darling treasure, be my bride./ We’ll lay down in the place where the goblins hide./ Between us there can be no divisioner,/ no woman, no monster, and no living prisoner.”

Part I

The Ballad of Urthrak, Beserker-at-your-service

The band of adventurers, rested and healed after their battle with the wolves in the middle of the night, continued to follow the tracks of the goblinoid raiders. They were confronted by a patrol who heard the noise of the party (i..e., Al) from a considerable distance and set up ambush. 2 Goblin skullcleavers attacked the party head-on, 2 wolfriders charged into the fray, and 3 goblin snipers appeared from behind trees. One lone hero struck out deep into the goblin party. He was left alone, locking down a wolfrider and an archer.

The party beat down the goblins, causing one to flee. The mighty Urthrak had fallen. With the 1 goblin fleeing, the whole party took chase, leaving poor Urthrak to die during the vital tracking attempts. The tracking proved for naught however, as it was clear the single goblin had evaded the party, and Urthrak was, indeed, dead forever.

Part II

The Allegory at the Cave

Noticing the tracks were leading them astray of the path to the slavers’ cave, the intrepid adventurers backtracked and looted the body of their fallen comrade. They pushed their way onward through the dense flora toward the cave, the burden of returning Urthrak’s belongings to his family set firmly on their shoulders.

After a few hours of their forest hike, goblinoid grunting and the rattle of armor could be heard just past the trees. A small clearing presented itself, a large rock jutting out, denying the greenery around it. A hole in the rockface was staunchly gaurded by a platoon of hobgoblin grunts and a bugbear warrior. On the rock itself crouched 3 hobgoblin archers prepared to sink their arrows into the hearts of their enemies. In front of the bugbear lay the dead body of the goblin archer who ran from the bold adventurers.

The battle began with the hobgolin’s lone charge, reminiscent of Urthrak’s fatal attack a combat ago. After exchanging volley’s with the hobgoblin archers, Varis took the bugbear’s assault in the face. Al moved in to help the elf. Andxor jumped in, his full blade hungry for goblinoid blood. Sylus put a hurt on a third of the hobgoblin platoon. The platoon’s subsequent hesitation isolated their bugbear friend, who was eventually put down. Brandis’ healing hand kept the whole party in, as they moved in and eradicated the remaining gaurds and the archers.

After enjoying victory over the second goblin raiding party, the adventurers split the party; Varis and Andxor investigated the neighboring farm, while everyone else stayed behind to interrogate the prisoners.

Varis and Andxor found a barn and house so consumed by fire that it was more prudent to let them burn. They also found the bodies of the patrol and a few of the goblin raiders scatted around the grounds. It was a poorly organized battle, which obviously worked to the goblin’s advantage.

The first goblin prisoner was helped to consciousness by Brandis’ healing hand. Awake, the goblin was then subjected to threats and questions from Brandis and Bie Gae-Al. Sylus played good cop and earned the hope of the prisoner as he pleaded, “You let me go?” The unspoken answer to the question was, “No,” when Urthrak walked up, tipsy on fermented goatsmilk, and clubbed the goblin to death. It was okay though, the party learned what they wanted- that there was a sizable group but not an army of goblinoids in the woods and that they were stationed at two locations, at an encampment a day’s travel away and a cave one additional day’s travel. They woke up the second goblin prisoner and repeated the process of intimidation and torture, confirming what the first goblin had said. The party rested the remainder of the night and in the morning returned to Larenyss to report to Derrick the reeve.

Derrick was pleased to get a report that the party had killed or captured all the goblins they encountered, though the news about the other patrol’s slaughter was disheartening. He supported the party’s decision to pursue the goblins into the Bone Forest and pledge a small army of men if that is what’s needed to defeat whatever threat lie in wait at the cave.

The party caught up with Immeral, who passed a book on the Goblin Wars to Sylus. In it, Sylus learned about the goblin tunnels that held the great goblin armies. There was a map of where the cave was located in the southern Bone Forest and maps of twenty-five miles of tunnels. The tunnels reach into the Dwarfmoors and extend beyond the maps. Sylus also learned that the Goblin’s all marched under a warlord-king named Kazzog. His flag was a blood red background and a golden halfmoon goblin face, a profile of the goblin king himself. Sylus remembered that some of the goblins the party encountered did wear items with Kazzog’s face.

Brandis found out that Brother Rothsby was neither an alchemist nor a storer of potions. Remi, the trader, however, had the potions of healing the party was looking for, at 60, no 53, no 54 gold pieces per.

Varis knocked on Wynne Daluth’s door (despite the boarded windows). Wynne answered, allowing Varis into his home and a look at the treasures foraged from many an exploration (despite the fact that he could only stay for about thirty minutes). In short, Wynne told Varis that in the Bone Forest there is the ruined elven city of Ihniko still ruled by an ancient king who believes he is still in the Three Forest’s War and the king has a servant wizard who appeared to Wynne in ghost form, beseeching Wynne to cure the king’s madness and save the people of Ihniko. Wynne believes that the city exists somehow in the intersection of the Shadowfell and perhaps even the Feywild. He is very sad to see you go (despite his wife’s protestations to his “entertaining fans”. “It’s what you get for being the wife of a legend,” he had assured her).

Finally, the adventurers return to the quest at hand and enter the Bone Forest. Varis expertly tracks the goblins back to their midway encampment, finding the eight + the escaped hobgoblin commander amidst four large tents and an extinguished fire. The commander tried to parlay with the group, but all he got was fightin’ ‘tude in response. It took some doing for the group, who battled as if missing one of their number, but the goblinoids were all killed. Treasure yield was 3 potions of healing and 12 gold. Clearly more had been at this camp, the raiding parties stopped over here, but there are tracks of another kind, of humans here. The village prisoners have been taken this way.

The party continued their pursuit of the goblinoid gang until fatigue bid them stop and camp was made. A watch was determined, and during their second watch, a pack of wolves, hungry for a midnight meal, encircled the group. The lives of two (edit: oh, i’m sorry, three) party members were on the tips of the wolves tongues, but the tide of battle turned and the wolves were killed. No treasure was gained, but some battle experience and some wisdom for Varis about the anger of the Ihniko woods, as the wolves seemed to be filled with a rabidity he had never seen before.

Scozz, EXP total?

Six stalwart adventurers- a human cleric of Kord, a human avenger of Ioun, a human orb wizard, a goliath warden, an elf ranger, and a dwarf beserker –were brought together by fate and with disparate personal agendas to the rural village of Larenyss. There, the party was assembled by the village’s guard captain, Derrick the reeve, for a mission to protect one of the borderland farms from a goblin raid, as the goblins have been burning down barns and farmhouses and killing or kidnapping villagers. In their meeting with Derrick they were informed of the recent goblin attacks and of the villages history with the goblins. Apparently, a large goblin army had amassed itself in the southern reaches of the Bone Forest, prepared to ruin the human village and perhaps threaten towns south. Help was received from Gaunes and Roen. Each city sent a battalion and the humans drove the goblins back to their holes in the southern Bone Forest. The party learned that they were to protect a family by the name of Valorine, characterized as true frontierfolk. To test this characterization, Brandis requested suits of mail and weapons with which to arm the Valorine family for combat.

After the meeting Brandis, Varis, and Sylus went to examine the goblin tracks from the last attack. The clouds that had been threatening all day finally began to spill their rain, much to the displeasure of their guide. They pressed on, however, and arriving at the place where the goblins left the wood, could find nothing, not even the original footprints, as the rain washed all trace of the goblins passage away.

Meanwhile, Andxor visited the home of Immeral Ladrisyl, concerned that the records in the town’s largest library were properly protected. With Andxor’s help, Immeral determined that he would pack his books in preparation for their flight if the town were attacked. As a thank you, he rewarded Andxor with a map of all Ursa Major and the stormwalls that plague the continent.

Returning to town, the party reassembled to visit Jerrell, the lone surviving guard from the last goblin attack. He offered them no new information, until Bie Gae-Al, with Brandis looming beside him, intimidated the guard into admitting he had been a coward and run away at the first sign of the attack.

The party then visited Immeral’s house again. The half-elf, despite being put upon twice in one afternoon, was as gracious a host as ever invited the party in for tea and fruit muffins. The party learned that, when the goblin’s were defeated, a labyrinth of underground tunnels was found that started in the southern Bone Forest and stretched into the Dwarfmoors. The party became a bit distracted with the enjoyable task of getting to know one another, and Immeral promised he would put aside any books related to the goblin wars or the Bone Forest and Ihniko if he found any while he packed.

The party supped at the Golden Bough, listening to the melodic strumming of Chanti, the local bard. He sang with a honey-sweet tenor voice, “What do you do with a lying rogue? Throw him down the goblin hole! What do you do with a damned soul? Throw him down the goblin hole! Oh, the goblin hole, the goblin hole, Hell’s at the bottom of the goblin hole!”

The party then gathered in the town’s square for the military send off. The clouds that were drenching the land had spent all they had and disappeared. The setting sun could be seen clearly in the west. Derrick gave a rousing speech, invoking images of the heroism displayed in the Goblin War, assuring the listeners, both guard and villager, that with courage and hope they will defeat the current goblin incursion into their lands.

The party marched out to the borderlands with other patrols and made their way to the Valorine farm. The Valorines were ready to take on the armor and weapons the party had brought to defend their home. They patiently awaited the party’s plans for their protection, and finally, a defense emerged: The mother, daughter, and youngest son would hide in the tall grass on the north part of the property. Not far from them, Bie Gae-Al, Sylus, and Urthrak stand watch at the northwest corner of the barn. Brandis and the father stand in the third cornrow directly west. Andxor stands with the two oldest sons on the south side of the house. Varis is atop the silo like a hungry hawk.

The goblins rush in, believing themselves to be quiet and unsensed until they emerged from the tall grass on the south part of the property. They gang up on Andxor and the boys. Shortly the two boys lie bleeding to death on the ground, and Andxor is fighting for his life. A hobgoblin commander and fire beetle follow, and another goblin just lurks, unengaging in the tall grass. The rest of the party, with a distressed and raging dad Valorine, rush over and the battle becomes more balanced as total forces converge. In the end, the party killed 5 goblins, a hobgoblin commander, and a fire beetle. They knocked 1 goblin out and another ran for the hills. Father and second son survived, though they had fallen in battle, and Billy, the eldest, died at last.

During combat the party had heard the blare of an alarm horn from a neighboring farm and soon after a distant blaze appeared on the horizon. They sent the family to another neighbor’s and ran through the grassland to investigate. Varis stealthed ahead and sensed the second goblin party not far ahead. He struck a sunrod and dropped it, deftly running to the other side of the light before the goblins could get a shot off. The party looked into the burst of light and wondered, “Were the goblins lingering at the far end of the light, or are they sneaking around it in the darkness?”

The more perceptive partymembers heard the approaching goblin party and combat ensued. Among the goblin’s numbers was the one that got away from the last battle. Very quickly the party, now attacking from a more concentrated formation, put down the goblin party. One hobgoblin commander, however, got away. In all the party killed another 3 goblins and knocked another out, bringing their goblin captive count to 2.

I assume you are taking a five? What will you do with your captives? (I hope it’s evil.)

TOTAL PARTY EXP: 1200; yup, that’s 200 each.

Treasure: The one commander you killed had 1 potion of healing and 10 gold

OOG: We play again on Friday, Aug. 13th. Try to be there at 7:30pm, so we can start 8pm sharp.