Miles' Journal - Part Twenty Eight
Kythorn 15th - Today I woke up under a strange dome. Apparently Halbrinn had conjured it up over our campsite after I fell asleep, as he was worried about the roof of the ruined house we were camping in, collapsing on top of us. From what I could tell thoughthe dome was partially insubstantial and likely would not stop any debris from falling on us anyway. Still it made him feel better. I'll never understand gnomes!
Aeron cast a spell to divine the password to the forbiddance effect on the castle, and Mystra provided him with another of his (increasingly frequent) visions, that provided the phrase "Isztava Morthaum".
We flew immediately to the castle and landed on the lower of the three bridges between the twin towers. Jason smashed us a way inside with his maul in no time at all and we entered through the breach, heading into the larger tower. We worked our way through the structure, room by room, battling drow and undead. We took a prisoner of a drow wizard and questioned him. In return for teleporting him to Szith Morcane (he was thrilled to know of a drow outpost not under the rule of women, seeing as that town is ruled by the Archmage these days), he divulged that the giants and demons are led by one Kurgoth Hellspawn, to whom a Balor answers!
The Kiaransalee drow are led by an albino drow priestess by the name of Irae T'sarran (she should be easy to identify at least, I mean how many albino drow can there be?). She is the one referred to in the note we found as Mother. He referred to the revenance effect as The Dark Tide. We also learned from him that a vast army of the walking dead has already departed Maerimydra, and is even now likely laying waste to the surface realms! Lastly we learned that an ambassador from the City of Shade is here. We have crossed swords with the Shadovar before, it would seem that before we are done, we shall have to match ourselves against their kind again.
Sending him on his way, we continued our exploration of the castle, opening a door into a trashed library in which were seven strange red ghouls with bizarre tongues. Leading our attack, we quickly found ourselves horribly out of our depth in battling these creatures, and they proved to be incredibly powerful foes. The melee was furious as we fought arguably the toughest battle of our careers. While we felled six of the seven, we lost Aeron in battle and the remaining ghoul fled to give warning to the rest of the castle of our intrusion. We grabbed Aeron's corpse and fled back to our old campsite outside of Maerimydra's cavern. We sensed scrying as we fled, but Halbrinn countered it quickly.
Back at the campsite, Yvgeny used one of the Raise Dead scrolls we bought back when we first began investigating the drow attacks on Daggerdale. He restored life to Aeron, as without our cleric we would have been in dire trouble, especially given how wounded most of us are after our failed assault on the castle.
I can't help but wish that this whole adventure could have ended at Szith Morcane. How many more Crusaders do I have to see die to save my country? Still, the stakes are higher this time. Aeron mentioned a vision when he regained consciousness of his goddess and Elminster. We fight to save the world it seems. Never thought I'd be a hero, strange the ways things turn out.
We rested and healed up. Halbrinn identified most of our recent haul of loot and the items that could be used were divided out. None of it really appealed to me though. Yvgeny alarmed us by relating that something (he presumes it to be demonic, and he is probably right), is speaking to him telepathically, taunting him that he will die if we attack the castle again.
Kythorn 16th - Yvgeny cast some spells to restore Aeron as well as healing up Stedd and Jason of their ailments. I used up a lot of charges from my remaining healing wand to restore myself to full health, but I fear I have maybe only enough charges left to do so once more, after that I will add to the burden of injuries that Yvgeny and Aeron have to deal with after each fight.
None of us are keen to launch another attack on the castle, yet it seems we have little choice. We have to stop the Dark Tide somehow before it engulfs the world entirely. Already Aeron is besieged by visions of the effects of this malign influence on the surface world. By now we estimate the Tide likely blankets the Dalelands completely and is already encroaching on the Moonsea, Cormyr and Sembia. There is already an undead army rampaging through the Dales, and it will be joined by other forces if this is not stopped and soon. For the first time in a long time, I spent some time in prayer this morning. I have rarely asked anything of Mask, but I feel that if there was ever a right time to ask a boon of my god, then it is now.
My prayers were answered with a flash of inspiration and I talked to the others, and persuaded them of a change in our tactics, to attack the forces located outside the castle. The undead platoons that guard the castles approaches from Kurgoth's army of demons, ogres and giants.
When we were ready, we headed back to the city with me scouting ahead of the group. We decided to clear the plateau's where we had camped a couple nights back first, as I had spied some groups of undead up there. By picking them off, we hope to thin the drow's defensive lines and stretch their resources. they are nigh impregnable in their castle, but if their front line of defense is weakened they will have to send forces out from their stronghold, or risk having the demonic army on their doorstep.
We staked out our position at the ruined temple of Lolth whish we battled the Nightshade at. No sooner had we got ourselves into position, than we were assaulted by a pack of eight various undead including two Quth Maren. We have clearly come far and learned much since our last encounter with these creations as we easily wiped out the group.
Halbrinn then went off invisible to attract other undead towards the waiting blades and spells of the rest of the group. While I might never understand the gnomish mind, I do like to think I know how a wizard thinks. They are proud and haughty, a common failing of their type, so convinced are they by their superiority because of the Art they command, that they hate to be stymied. In our battle against the red ghouls yesterday, Halbrinn was all but useless, his magics bounced off the undead. The hells have no fury like a wizard with something to prove! He attracted the undead all right, by using lightning bolts... in a dark cavern. The resulting flashes could likely be seen across the length and breadth of Maerimydra I would wager. We heard the undead coming for us, as Halbrinn retreated back towards our group, blasting their advancing forms with yet more lightning. Too from the ruined city all around we heard the sounds of roars, stomping feet, beating wings and more, as every force that could come to bear down on our position advanced to do so. The drow want armageddon? They can have it!
Addendum:
Sadly, that is the last of it, the campaign ended on that evil cliffhanger, with many many forces of evil closing in on the PC's position, to fight them and each other. Hope you've enjoyed reading about our exploits through Jared's & Miles' perpsectives. I know I've enjoyed writing the journal and will doubtless do something similiar again.
For now though, my turn to DM, so onwards to the
Rise of the Snakemen!
