Finally got around to writing the next part...
The party
Galion – Elf ranger lvl. 9
Shaith – Fire elf fire domain wizard lvl. 5 / Incantatrix 4
Killian – Human priest of Heironious lvl. 3 / Church Inquisitor 1 / Ordained champion 5
NPC
Deena Rogue llv.5 / Fighter lvl. 4
April 17
Lord Gallo introduced the players to one of his operatives, who at the moment had some spare time, and would love to join the fight against the Ragesians. Her name was Deena the Hyena, she was not known for fighting fair but she got the job done.
DM note: I decided that she should be a Ragesian spy, but at that time I was unsure is she was going to be Leeskas creature, or loyal to the opposing Ragesian faction. It would be an easy way for me to remove her, if it turned out that they did not need her. After chapter 6 she will be gone, they are strong enough as it is.
After a short interview they decide to take her on, and start the journey back to Seaquen
April 22
The Journey is uneventful and they arrive in Seaquen. They notice that the town has been hit by fires again, this time at the prison, but they didn’t pay any attention to it.
DM note: They thought it was just another fire among those that plagued the town last time they were there, even though they did take care of the rats at that time.
Upon arriving they are summoned to Lyceum for a meeting with the leaders of the rebellion. Here they are informed of the latest news of the war. Present at the meeting are of course Katrina and Haddin.
Katrina informs them that they have been investigating the attack on Seaquen, and one of the leads led to the Monastery of the two Winds. They sent a group to investigate, but they have stopped reporting
DM Note: Upon describing them, the players realize that they met them outside the headmaster’s office last time they were here.
The last message they sent was a very strange one, and combined with the sudden silence, the leaders have decided to send another party to investigate; the players.
Here she turns to Three-weeping-Ravens and asks him to be a guide for the players as he knows the way there.
DM Note: Three-Weeping-Ravens (Just denoted Ravens from this point) was known to the players as the Spokesmonk, as he was the only monk speaking to them when they wandered about Seaquen. Since the monks hail from Ycengled Phuurst, I had to make sure that the information was ready at hand about the area. Galion is a Taranesti, so he had a lot of information in his backstory, that he might have thought was pure flavor information, but he will find out later that it has a lot of value. But since Shaith has a lot of knowledge skills and the backstory of Three-weeping-ravens would probably be a part of the travel, I had prepared some knowledge tables to inform the other players of what they knew. Things they won’t need yet, but would add a lot of flavor to the travelling.
Katrina informs them that she has made a deal with the guildmistress of the wayfarers to teleport the party to Yen-Ching, the closest place she knows intimately. From there it is about 110 miles through the mountains.
DM Note: To make sure that the players were not killed for being red dragons or felt too powerful to be apprehended, I had Kiernan invent a mass polymorph with duration of rounds. It will expire just as they arrive, but seconds after the damage hits.
They are to meet at midnight the following day to teleport.
April 23
At midnight the party meets with the leaders again somewhere outside town, and prepare to teleport. They had to be far enough away from the teleportation pillar not to be caught. Kiernan then transform them and then they are away.
Something is clearly wrong; however, as the teleportation seems to be stretching out in time.Finally they arrive at a pillar looking just like the one in Seaquen. They are surrounded by armed soldiers and are forced to surrender their arms after a short discussion with a very adamant woman.
DM Note: Somewhere along the way I decided that Ostalin would have a strong flavor of North Korea in their attitude and their views. This meant they had a very no-nonsense attitude to strangers and a complete and utter faith in their leader and his perfection.
The Khagan is a very charming and pleasant man, and the meeting puts the players at easy. They are a bit annoyed at not being allowed to leave for 1½ days, but that would be an insult to honored guests if they were not shown the Khagans magnificient hospitality.
While they protest to begin with, they end up enjoying the hospitality with the free use of the harem as one of the benefits.
DM note: I had the girls and men at the harem impart some rumors about the khagan and did my best to make sure that they did not really see Ostalin as a threat. I think it worked.
April 27
After a two days as guests and a two days travelling they finally arrive at the foot of the mountains. They spend the night in a barn in a tiny hamlet and prepare to climb the next morning.
April 29
The first day of climbing goes without incidents and they spend the night being both cold and tired.
DM note: As with the towers I had them play out the first lift/slope to establish a method for their movements, so when the enemy strikes it will be on a common understanding of where the players are and what they are doing.
On the second day, as they arrive at the final lift, they notice that the stairs are all turned to rubble. Ravens inform them that it was like this when he was here last time, which put the players at easy. A few moments later the ease is dispelled, as they are attacked by Ragesians.Even if they are surprised, the players win an easy victory.
Some hours later they arrive at the valey where Eresh lies. To their surprise they see a division of the Ragesian army camped outside the town. The way the soldiers are deployed it looks like a siege but there are no defenders or siege engines in sight. Nor can they see any real activity among the Ragesians. They are quite sure that the lookout has spotted them, as they round the last corner, but no cry goes out, and no one seems to be reacting.
They debate for a while how to go about the situation, before finally coming to the conclusion that they have no other option than to go through the siege. As they come near to the soldiers they are dispassionately asked to go away but no one seems to really care and no one try to stop them.
Quite bewildered they enter Eresh and realize that the citizens don’t really give a damn either. In the town they see both soldiers and citizens walking around ignoring each other.
DM Note: My hope of creating an eerie mood and getting under the skin of the players worked marvelously. They wanted nothing more than to get away from the town, and I wouldn’t let them
Ravens lead them to an inn, The Peak Shadow, at the foot of the peak in the center of town. The inn is halfway filled with both soldiers and citizens, who seem to be just sitting and drinking, not really talking nor caring. The Innkeeper is also rather uncaring, but slightly less than others. He tells them that there are some free rooms, as the last travelers have not returned or paid their bill. He tells the players that the group was a bit like themselves. They arrived full of questions and were headed towards the monastery. They have been gone for a while now.
Ravens tell the players that while he is here he wants to honor the balance of the world through the elements and will go and pray at the four shrines. The players decide to join him
DM Note: Sometimes I am nice; giving away the little secret of the bonus spells like that.
As they make their rounds in the town it starts snowing a lot, and the winds start blowing with more force. Even if the party really wanted to leave Eresh, it would not be safe walking up the mountains in a blizzard, so they had to stay the night…
April 30
The next morning the winds still blow hard. Galion makes an educated guess that the storm will be done around midday. At some point during breakfast he realises that he and Ravens are the only two seeming to be unaffected by the town. Both Shaith and Killian act strangely indifferent to everything.
DM note: Quite fun actually that the two players with the high will scores failed, while the ranger made his saving throw.
When the storm passes, they head out towards the monastery. On the way out of town they are waved over to a little house by a woman. As they enter she speaks to them from inside, and suddenly a male voice outside finishes the sentence. They are given a warning by a creature they believe is a trillith.
DM Note: At this point they are pretty sure that the town is cursed, and that the trillith is behind it. They are a bit surprised by the fact that it did not try to kill them.
Galion leads them out of town and up the path.
DM note: I decided that the monastery would be a bit further away than in the adventure, so it will take about 2 hours getting there.
Some way outside town the affected players snap out of their trance by reacting extremely emotional.
DM note: I had decided that short exposure would result in some emotional reaction, while longer term exposure would cause effects like being affected by different spells. In this case I had the players roll randomly on a little table I had made. Deena rolled being fearful of everything. Shaith rolled being depressed and Killian rolled being angry. It gave quite a fun scene with Galion standing in the middle of this chaotic scene on a snowy mountainside.
About 2/3 of the way they are attacked by some air elementals that really put some respect in the players. They could have killed at least one or two of the players if they really wanted, but they had orders to retreat when wounded past a certain point, and they did.
Upon arriving at the front door, they are turned away rather impolite. After a few moments of talking they are informed that no one is allowed to enter as long as Eresh is in the current state. The monk (Caela) also tells them that the monastery is not behind whatever is happening, and that is why no one is allowed to enter.
The party move someway off from the front door and discuss the situation. They decide that they need to confront Balance and have it remove its curse. And if that does not work, they will kill Balance. They go back to Eresh and search for Balance without luck. They then decide that they will have to provoke balance to show, by pushing its curse to the limits.
DM Note: And thus the prophecy that Balance made came to happen – their actions would tip the scales.
They have a long discussion whether killing the Ragesians would be murder as they were not reacting to anything or acts of war as they were soldiers and part of the enemy army. In the end they decided to take all the weapons they could to make the army useless, and to force the Lieutenant to make the army leave. Of course that did not work as he did not care about anything, but told them that orders were given to stay. In the end Deena killed him just because she could.
DM note: She did not want the orders given to leave after all, did she now ?
Since the violent approach did not work, Deena convince Killian to give passion a go, and they end up sleeping together, which did not help either. With a bad feeling in their guts they go to sleep once more in the eerie town of Eresh.
May 1
The next morning no one in the party is affected by the curse
DM Note: Balance is weakened, but they do not know this yet.
Outside the inn they witness a scene that makes them wonder what has happened. First they hear sounds of violence and when they run out to see what is happening. In the middle of the street a group of five Ragesians caught up in extreme emotions and seemingly had decided to rape an old man. The party would not stand for this and killed them.
After the fight they are contacted by a monk who leads them to the hospital where Balance is lying. It tells them that it is about to die and it tells them a bit more about the Trillith. The party is surprised to learn that Balance has been in Eresh for many years. It also tells them that it might have been misguided in trying to stop the fighting by keeping all emotions suppressed.
The party decides that they cannot do more here and plan on heading to the valley. At that moment they hear the trumpets of the Ragesian army. The general is back, and his arrival is the final straw that pushes Balance over the edge and it dies.
The party runs out trying to rally the citizens to defend the town, and after rounding up some help they head out towards the army. They fight through several waves and finally meet the general. In a short but epic fight Killian dispatches the general. Just as they believe that the battle is won, a couple of air elementals swoop in and kidnap Deena. They try to prevent them getting away, but their attempts fail.
Winds start blowing hard and soon a blizzard has Eresh covered forcing the players to spend the night before heading towards the valley to free Deena and find what is hidden there
DM Note: I gave them too much help from the townspeople. I had not noticed that the eastern monks had scrolls of lightning bolt that decimated the Ragesians too much and too fast. It meant that the battle with the enhanced General ended up being quite anticlimactic. At least he got in a good round on Killian, who only remained upright due to the Diehard feat, before he was slain.
End of session.