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Story Hour
DM Brainiac's Prison of the Firebringer (Updated 12/21/05)
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<blockquote data-quote="ltclnlbrain" data-source="post: 1489772" data-attributes="member: 12882"><p>Chapter 3</p><p></p><p>The trail wound through the forested hills toward the northwest for about an hour's walk before joining an old stone road that had obviously fallen into disuse. The old road led north between the dark borders of the Lurkwood and the grim, snowy heights of the Frost Hills a few miles to the north.</p><p></p><p>This was to be the road that led to the vale wherein laid the fabled Dungeon of the Ruins. The adventurers followed the road to the north for another two hours as the sun began to sink below the large forest to the west. There had not been much of interest to disturb the journey.</p><p></p><p>Grundar walked along with the others, wondering what they might come across when they caught up with the bandits. The other adventurers had proven intelligent and resourceful so far, and he had a feeling that this mission would be successful. However, the group had yet to be tested in combat, and he wondered how well the others would handle themselves under duress. He hoped they could get to their camp before they did away with their prisoner. He hoped the brigands were not too difficult and that he would be able to take them down fairly easily. But, most of all, he hoped they had a lot of treasure to be taken.</p><p></p><p>In the fading light of the late afternoon, Grundar was distracted from his reverie as his sharp eyes caught a hint of movement up ahead. The road continued straight on a level surface; to the right, it slopes upward, becoming the base of the foothills; to the left, it sloped down into a small valley. Grundar spotted it again; about 100 feet ahead on the uphill slope, a man's upper body looked out from behind a large rock. He wore a red hooded cloak over a breastplate emblazoned with a twin-flame emblem. There seemed to be other people near him, but it was hard to tell from this distance.</p><p></p><p>“Heads up, guys,” the elf whispered. “Looks like trouble up ahead.” He pointed out the sentry on the hill ahead.</p><p></p><p>“Get out of sight,” Gillian whispered quickly to the others. “I bet these are some of the folks we’re after, but I’m going to make double sure. Stay here out of sight while I check things out. I’ll be quiet as a mouse and quick as a rabbit,” she assured her companions.</p><p></p><p>As the rest of the party tried to obscure themselves from view, Gillian silently made her way closer to the group of people nearby. She slinked along the downhill edge of the hill, being careful to keep it between her and her quarry.</p><p></p><p>She moved up to within 40 feet of the group and took a better look at them. In addition to the sentry that Grundar spotted, there were three other men dressed in similar robes and breastplates. Seated near one of them was an incredibly ugly woman: she had wild, unkempt white hair, blocky facial features, and a stocky torso and limbs. Her skin was a dull gray color and she wore a chain shirt. None of these people seemed to hear or see Gil.</p><p></p><p>Unfortunately, something else did. From behind a large rock about 60 feet away from her on the downhill side of a slope, a monstrosity appeared. The creature was tall and skeletally thin with white vestigial wings. Its entire body was wreathed in blue flame, and it clutched a sword of flaming bone in its taloned fists.</p><p></p><p>"Osterel!" it growled, "I heard something approaching!" The ugly woman leapt to her feet and looked around uneasily. The flaming monstrosity looked past Gil (who managed to conceal herself in a bush before it laid eyes on her) and focused on the rest of the group attempting to hide further ahead. "There!" the creature shouted, pointing at the adventurers.</p><p></p><p>“A chaond and a demon!” cried Terenon, cloaking himself with a greater invisibility spell. “Spread out!” The mage sent five magic missiles streaking at the woman's location: they slammed into her, eliciting a shout of pain. Her eyes widened and she yelled, in a croaking voice, "They've got wizards! Remember to spare them!" She then mumbled an arcane phrase and disappeared from sight.</p><p></p><p>“We need to get up there quickly!” shouted Grundar, pointing to the hill where the red-robed men were beginning to nock arrows in their longbows. Drawing his rapier, Grundar began to hustle up the hill. “I’ll draw their fire!”</p><p></p><p>The demon began striding purposefully toward Rhys, leering menacingly at him as it brandished its flaming sword. Seeing his adversary coming nearer, the priest called out, “By the power of Torm, feel the burning light from the Everburning Chalice of Y'Garn!" With that, a blast of searing green-white light shot out from his outstretched hands and caught the demon in the chest. The demon hissed in pain, then let out a shriek of surprise as Gillian's holy spiked chain passed through the flames on its body and left a deep gouge in its back. It wheeled around and focused its attention on her.</p><p></p><p>The archers finished readying their bows and prepared to fire on Grundar, but before they had a chance, Allanon blasted them with chain lightning. The sentry's chest exploded from the immense power of the magical energies, and another archer was fried to death. The two remaining archers were badly hurt, but they still fired on the elf charging up the hill. Grundar gracefully dodged the arrows and continued up.</p><p></p><p>The demon slashed his flaming sword at Gillian, but the halfling knocked one blow aside with her chain and expertly dodged the next one. She then whipped her chain across the demon's chest, leaving a vicious wound behind; its blood boiled as it passed through the flames and it shrieked in rage. “Welcome to your own personal hell, demon,” she snarled savagely. Terenon sent a small ball flying at the demon that quickly blossomed into a sonic explosion. It tore at the demon's flesh, but the creature managed to avoid the brunt of the blast.</p><p></p><p>Grundar smiled as he saw the demon was being handily dealt with, and he turned his attention back to the archers. Suddenly, from further up the hill, a large glowing red ball streaked toward the elf, detonating into a large, fiery blast. Performing an instinctively amazing somersault, Grundar deftly avoided the blast of fire, landing back on the burnt ground with ease. Unfortunately, Allanon had been caught in the blast too and was burnt and hurt from the attack. Angered by the fireball, Allanon responded in kind and lobbed one of his own at the archers. One was almost completely incinerated in the blast; the other fell to the ground, badly burnt and dying.</p><p></p><p>Grundar ran further up the hill and looked around for the invisible spellcaster, his keen senses allowing him to notice her further away. “She somewhere near there!” he shouted, pointing. “Allanon! Don't worry about dropping a fireball on me! I can handle it!"</p><p></p><p>Down below, Gillian was a whirling frenzy of destruction, dodging and parrying the demon’s attacks. She lashed out twice with her blessed spike chain. The first attack struck sparks off the chain shirt the demon wore, but the second scored another vicious strike on its impure flesh. The demon wobbled unsteadily on its feet, blood pouring from numerous puncture wounds, before plunging face first into the dirt. The fires on its body extinguished themselves, sending thick smoke into the air, and the demon’s body crumbled to ash.</p><p></p><p>Grundar noticed some movement from up ahead as the spellcaster attempted to flee, and he called once more for Allanon to launch a fireball. The mage complied, and another brilliant burst of fire lit up the hill. The chaond became visible as she tumbled down the hill, her clothing still smoking and smoldering, and came to a stop on the dirt road.</p><p>--------------------------------------------------------------------------</p><p>Terenon raced toward the fallen woman, hoping that she still lived. In the background, he could hear Grundar congratulating the others on dealing so handily with the brigands, and he could see Allanon dusting soot off of his scorched robes, but his attention was focused on the chaond that lay before him. Upon reaching her, the mage was relieved to see that her chest still rose and fell, albeit sporadically.</p><p></p><p>"She still lives,” he called out. “I need a healer. She is invaluable to our cause." The mage dismissed his invisibility and quickly started another spell. The air around the hag shimmered as the spell went to work. Though she was disabled, he had cast his most powerful charm spell to be sure it would work.</p><p></p><p>Rhys hustled over to the woman and cast a minor healing spell on her. The woman groaned and blinked her eyes open. It was then that Terenon noticed that her eyes slowly swirled and changed colors seemingly at random. She looked around, groggily, her gaze falling on Terenon. A smile came to her lips.</p><p></p><p>"Terenon, my friend," she croaked in a strained voice, "it's so good to see you. Though I'm afraid I'm not quite the healthy specimen I used to be. What happened, by the way? I must have blacked out."</p><p></p><p>Terenon smiled at the ugly woman and kneeled beside her. He put his hand on hers, momentarily repulsed by its slimy consistency, and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "You're not the only one to have blacked out. There are holes in my memory. I do remember that you're my dearest friend, but I cannot remember your name. The last thing I remember is attacking a caravan for some reason. I don't remember why though, just that the mages were to be captured instead of killed." </p><p></p><p>The mage gave a caring look to the woman. "Perhaps together we can fill in the blanks. What do you remember?"</p><p></p><p>The woman blinked up at Terenon, thinking for a bit before responding.</p><p></p><p>"My name is Osterel,” she began. “I'm really not supposed to talk about all of this, though, but since you are my closest friend, I guess it won't hurt to confide in you. I'm a member of a secret society called the Hidden Flame. We serve a powerful chaos lord who is imprisoned somewhere beneath the old wizards' keep in Selskar Vale, a few miles north of here. The leaders of the flame are working to free the chaos lord.</p><p></p><p>"In order to accomplish this goal, however, some kind of rite must be performed that requires the presence of several wizards. I was stationed here with some other soldiers and a palrethee demon to waylay travelers along the Surbrin Way and try to capture anybody with magical talent. Though by the looks of things, it seems my patrol has been wiped out, save for me.</p><p></p><p>"The chaos lord has promised great rewards for our aid in freeing him. There is a fabled horde somewhere within his prison that he will allow us to take if we can free him."</p><p></p><p>Terenon looks at Osterel and smiles. <em>This is going to be almost too easy,</em> he thought. "Yes, that helps. I am starting to remember a little. The leaders of the flame sent me. They said the ritual was ready to begin and wanted me to retrieve you. It's lucky for you that I came along when I did. I was able to drive the attackers off and save you. I am so pleased you're still with us."</p><p></p><p>The mage paused for a moment, pretending to be thinking hard. "My memory still has holes. For the life of me, I can't remember how to get back to old wizards' keep. Do you still possess the knowledge?"</p><p></p><p>"Indeed, I do know the way," replied Osterel. "If you will allow me to go by the camp we have set up close to here to retrieve my spellbooks, I can take you to the ruins. We will stop by the old barracks house on the way so that I can make my report to Flame Lord Moskogg, first. He'll instruct us as to how we should proceed."</p><p></p><p>The mage thought fast upon hearing the news of another threat close by. "Flame Lord Moskogg! That bastard betrayer! He hired the assassins that attacked you. I only know of his treachery because I was able to torture the information out of one of the ones who attacked you." The mage spat on the ground with contempt.</p><p></p><p>"Some one must have bribed him, turned him against us, Terenon continued. “He must be destroyed before all of our secrets are revealed and our work destroyed." The mage turned and began to pace in what seemed like anger. "We will go to your camp site and retrieve what we need. Then we will get you healed and kill that pile of turncoat dung."</p><p></p><p>"Flame Lord Moskogg betrayed me?” asked Osterel incredulously. “It doesn't seem like him to take a bribe, though...perhaps he thinks he'll be able to gain more power within the Hidden Flame by replacing me with one of his patsies," she growled in anger. "Probably that stuck-up bitch Varra. I'll get to the bottom of this, one way or another. If we’re all done here, let’s get moving before more of those assassins show up.”</p><p></p><p>Terenon flashed a mildly amused smile at the rest of the group. "You heard the lady; let's go."</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="ltclnlbrain, post: 1489772, member: 12882"] Chapter 3 The trail wound through the forested hills toward the northwest for about an hour's walk before joining an old stone road that had obviously fallen into disuse. The old road led north between the dark borders of the Lurkwood and the grim, snowy heights of the Frost Hills a few miles to the north. This was to be the road that led to the vale wherein laid the fabled Dungeon of the Ruins. The adventurers followed the road to the north for another two hours as the sun began to sink below the large forest to the west. There had not been much of interest to disturb the journey. Grundar walked along with the others, wondering what they might come across when they caught up with the bandits. The other adventurers had proven intelligent and resourceful so far, and he had a feeling that this mission would be successful. However, the group had yet to be tested in combat, and he wondered how well the others would handle themselves under duress. He hoped they could get to their camp before they did away with their prisoner. He hoped the brigands were not too difficult and that he would be able to take them down fairly easily. But, most of all, he hoped they had a lot of treasure to be taken. In the fading light of the late afternoon, Grundar was distracted from his reverie as his sharp eyes caught a hint of movement up ahead. The road continued straight on a level surface; to the right, it slopes upward, becoming the base of the foothills; to the left, it sloped down into a small valley. Grundar spotted it again; about 100 feet ahead on the uphill slope, a man's upper body looked out from behind a large rock. He wore a red hooded cloak over a breastplate emblazoned with a twin-flame emblem. There seemed to be other people near him, but it was hard to tell from this distance. “Heads up, guys,” the elf whispered. “Looks like trouble up ahead.” He pointed out the sentry on the hill ahead. “Get out of sight,” Gillian whispered quickly to the others. “I bet these are some of the folks we’re after, but I’m going to make double sure. Stay here out of sight while I check things out. I’ll be quiet as a mouse and quick as a rabbit,” she assured her companions. As the rest of the party tried to obscure themselves from view, Gillian silently made her way closer to the group of people nearby. She slinked along the downhill edge of the hill, being careful to keep it between her and her quarry. She moved up to within 40 feet of the group and took a better look at them. In addition to the sentry that Grundar spotted, there were three other men dressed in similar robes and breastplates. Seated near one of them was an incredibly ugly woman: she had wild, unkempt white hair, blocky facial features, and a stocky torso and limbs. Her skin was a dull gray color and she wore a chain shirt. None of these people seemed to hear or see Gil. Unfortunately, something else did. From behind a large rock about 60 feet away from her on the downhill side of a slope, a monstrosity appeared. The creature was tall and skeletally thin with white vestigial wings. Its entire body was wreathed in blue flame, and it clutched a sword of flaming bone in its taloned fists. "Osterel!" it growled, "I heard something approaching!" The ugly woman leapt to her feet and looked around uneasily. The flaming monstrosity looked past Gil (who managed to conceal herself in a bush before it laid eyes on her) and focused on the rest of the group attempting to hide further ahead. "There!" the creature shouted, pointing at the adventurers. “A chaond and a demon!” cried Terenon, cloaking himself with a greater invisibility spell. “Spread out!” The mage sent five magic missiles streaking at the woman's location: they slammed into her, eliciting a shout of pain. Her eyes widened and she yelled, in a croaking voice, "They've got wizards! Remember to spare them!" She then mumbled an arcane phrase and disappeared from sight. “We need to get up there quickly!” shouted Grundar, pointing to the hill where the red-robed men were beginning to nock arrows in their longbows. Drawing his rapier, Grundar began to hustle up the hill. “I’ll draw their fire!” The demon began striding purposefully toward Rhys, leering menacingly at him as it brandished its flaming sword. Seeing his adversary coming nearer, the priest called out, “By the power of Torm, feel the burning light from the Everburning Chalice of Y'Garn!" With that, a blast of searing green-white light shot out from his outstretched hands and caught the demon in the chest. The demon hissed in pain, then let out a shriek of surprise as Gillian's holy spiked chain passed through the flames on its body and left a deep gouge in its back. It wheeled around and focused its attention on her. The archers finished readying their bows and prepared to fire on Grundar, but before they had a chance, Allanon blasted them with chain lightning. The sentry's chest exploded from the immense power of the magical energies, and another archer was fried to death. The two remaining archers were badly hurt, but they still fired on the elf charging up the hill. Grundar gracefully dodged the arrows and continued up. The demon slashed his flaming sword at Gillian, but the halfling knocked one blow aside with her chain and expertly dodged the next one. She then whipped her chain across the demon's chest, leaving a vicious wound behind; its blood boiled as it passed through the flames and it shrieked in rage. “Welcome to your own personal hell, demon,” she snarled savagely. Terenon sent a small ball flying at the demon that quickly blossomed into a sonic explosion. It tore at the demon's flesh, but the creature managed to avoid the brunt of the blast. Grundar smiled as he saw the demon was being handily dealt with, and he turned his attention back to the archers. Suddenly, from further up the hill, a large glowing red ball streaked toward the elf, detonating into a large, fiery blast. Performing an instinctively amazing somersault, Grundar deftly avoided the blast of fire, landing back on the burnt ground with ease. Unfortunately, Allanon had been caught in the blast too and was burnt and hurt from the attack. Angered by the fireball, Allanon responded in kind and lobbed one of his own at the archers. One was almost completely incinerated in the blast; the other fell to the ground, badly burnt and dying. Grundar ran further up the hill and looked around for the invisible spellcaster, his keen senses allowing him to notice her further away. “She somewhere near there!” he shouted, pointing. “Allanon! Don't worry about dropping a fireball on me! I can handle it!" Down below, Gillian was a whirling frenzy of destruction, dodging and parrying the demon’s attacks. She lashed out twice with her blessed spike chain. The first attack struck sparks off the chain shirt the demon wore, but the second scored another vicious strike on its impure flesh. The demon wobbled unsteadily on its feet, blood pouring from numerous puncture wounds, before plunging face first into the dirt. The fires on its body extinguished themselves, sending thick smoke into the air, and the demon’s body crumbled to ash. Grundar noticed some movement from up ahead as the spellcaster attempted to flee, and he called once more for Allanon to launch a fireball. The mage complied, and another brilliant burst of fire lit up the hill. The chaond became visible as she tumbled down the hill, her clothing still smoking and smoldering, and came to a stop on the dirt road. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Terenon raced toward the fallen woman, hoping that she still lived. In the background, he could hear Grundar congratulating the others on dealing so handily with the brigands, and he could see Allanon dusting soot off of his scorched robes, but his attention was focused on the chaond that lay before him. Upon reaching her, the mage was relieved to see that her chest still rose and fell, albeit sporadically. "She still lives,” he called out. “I need a healer. She is invaluable to our cause." The mage dismissed his invisibility and quickly started another spell. The air around the hag shimmered as the spell went to work. Though she was disabled, he had cast his most powerful charm spell to be sure it would work. Rhys hustled over to the woman and cast a minor healing spell on her. The woman groaned and blinked her eyes open. It was then that Terenon noticed that her eyes slowly swirled and changed colors seemingly at random. She looked around, groggily, her gaze falling on Terenon. A smile came to her lips. "Terenon, my friend," she croaked in a strained voice, "it's so good to see you. Though I'm afraid I'm not quite the healthy specimen I used to be. What happened, by the way? I must have blacked out." Terenon smiled at the ugly woman and kneeled beside her. He put his hand on hers, momentarily repulsed by its slimy consistency, and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "You're not the only one to have blacked out. There are holes in my memory. I do remember that you're my dearest friend, but I cannot remember your name. The last thing I remember is attacking a caravan for some reason. I don't remember why though, just that the mages were to be captured instead of killed." The mage gave a caring look to the woman. "Perhaps together we can fill in the blanks. What do you remember?" The woman blinked up at Terenon, thinking for a bit before responding. "My name is Osterel,” she began. “I'm really not supposed to talk about all of this, though, but since you are my closest friend, I guess it won't hurt to confide in you. I'm a member of a secret society called the Hidden Flame. We serve a powerful chaos lord who is imprisoned somewhere beneath the old wizards' keep in Selskar Vale, a few miles north of here. The leaders of the flame are working to free the chaos lord. "In order to accomplish this goal, however, some kind of rite must be performed that requires the presence of several wizards. I was stationed here with some other soldiers and a palrethee demon to waylay travelers along the Surbrin Way and try to capture anybody with magical talent. Though by the looks of things, it seems my patrol has been wiped out, save for me. "The chaos lord has promised great rewards for our aid in freeing him. There is a fabled horde somewhere within his prison that he will allow us to take if we can free him." Terenon looks at Osterel and smiles. [I]This is going to be almost too easy,[/I] he thought. "Yes, that helps. I am starting to remember a little. The leaders of the flame sent me. They said the ritual was ready to begin and wanted me to retrieve you. It's lucky for you that I came along when I did. I was able to drive the attackers off and save you. I am so pleased you're still with us." The mage paused for a moment, pretending to be thinking hard. "My memory still has holes. For the life of me, I can't remember how to get back to old wizards' keep. Do you still possess the knowledge?" "Indeed, I do know the way," replied Osterel. "If you will allow me to go by the camp we have set up close to here to retrieve my spellbooks, I can take you to the ruins. We will stop by the old barracks house on the way so that I can make my report to Flame Lord Moskogg, first. He'll instruct us as to how we should proceed." The mage thought fast upon hearing the news of another threat close by. "Flame Lord Moskogg! That bastard betrayer! He hired the assassins that attacked you. I only know of his treachery because I was able to torture the information out of one of the ones who attacked you." The mage spat on the ground with contempt. "Some one must have bribed him, turned him against us, Terenon continued. “He must be destroyed before all of our secrets are revealed and our work destroyed." The mage turned and began to pace in what seemed like anger. "We will go to your camp site and retrieve what we need. Then we will get you healed and kill that pile of turncoat dung." "Flame Lord Moskogg betrayed me?” asked Osterel incredulously. “It doesn't seem like him to take a bribe, though...perhaps he thinks he'll be able to gain more power within the Hidden Flame by replacing me with one of his patsies," she growled in anger. "Probably that stuck-up bitch Varra. I'll get to the bottom of this, one way or another. If we’re all done here, let’s get moving before more of those assassins show up.” Terenon flashed a mildly amused smile at the rest of the group. "You heard the lady; let's go." [/QUOTE]
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