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The Gate Pass Irregulars: A War of the Burning Sky Campaign
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<blockquote data-quote="Cafu" data-source="post: 6131896" data-attributes="member: 6692807"><p>Both Felix and I, with input from John, carefully discussed what spells we were planning to take and why; once that was decided, we prepared them and then mounted and set out.</p><p> </p><p>As we approached the fire storm, the view became even more spectacular but in an intimidating way. Little dust clouds of ash began to be disturbed by our horses as we rode; the impossible wall of flame became brighter and hotter, reaching high up into the sky; droplets of liquid fire erupted continuously along its length, splashing up, up into the air before raining down. Looking at these, we realised that we would have to be very careful as even one of these small splashes could deliver a bad burn.</p><p> </p><p>Finally, we reached a point where we felt that travelling any further without some sort of protection would entail too much risk. Reverently, I took out the magical orb provided by the Masters of the Monastery of the Two winds and activated it in the manner instructed. Immediately, a glistening, semi transparent sphere, centered on the orb, appeared around us; thus protected, we advanced slowly and the fiery rain began bouncing off this sphere; then, as if from a great distance, we began to hear the roaring of mighty winds rising; so, the monks had really done something. The horses rolled their eyes and looked frightened at both the flames and the winds but we were able to coax them gently forward.</p><p> </p><p>Tentatively, we approached the flaming wall and saw the magical sphere force a gap. We were forming our own personal gateway through the firestorm! The rain of fire was still falling onto the barrier but we began to see the flames abate and be blown backwards by the winds; and these were still rising in strength. Suddenly, Victor, at the front, cursed as his horse stumbled but managed to scramble back as a fissure opened in the path just in front of it; thankfully, the warrior also managed to stay in the saddle rather than taking a swan dive into a pool of lava.</p><p> </p><p>This served to warn us that there were other hazards apart from the flames. Drudge immediately went forward and began to look carefully at the ground in front of us, trying to gauge a safe path. As we advanced, there were several times when the ranger told us to stop and we changed our path as more of these fissures opened and closed around us. This was further complicated by having to avoid puddles of liquid fire which had collected from the fiery rain. All in all, it was certainly not a straight path and much harder going than the Fire Forest. Thankfully, we still had our protection against the heat, providing we did not get touched by the flame directly.</p><p> </p><p>Finally we managed to traverse the section of unsafe ground. Safely past this hazard, we were able to take a closer look at the landscape around us; we could see that amazingly, the flames were being slowly driven away by the unremitting strength of the howling winds from the Orb. They were not only giving us a safer passage but also a view of what was in the distance.</p><p> </p><p>Further forward, another fiery glow became apparent in the far distance; this looked to be the centre of the storm. We could not be sure just what was causing the glow at this point but we moved in that direction. It was an eerie ride; we were still surrounded by the barrier from the Orb, the winds had driven the flames away from our vicinity and there was ash everywhere, also stirred into vast clouds by the winds; there was no sign of life anywhere, the air stank of sulfur despite the wind.</p><p> </p><p>The distance to the glow of the central point shortened as we approached it and soon became even brighter and taller than the perimeter of the storm; it took us several more hours to ride close enough to see just what this phenomenon was, but once we did, we had to stop for a moment just to comprehend what we were staring at:</p><p> </p><p>A huge pillar of flame rose spectacularly hundreds if not thousands of feet into the sky. It looked like something from the elemental plane of fire; I had seen columns similar to this under the steam tunnels of Seaquen, while searching for a mad magician; yet there, I had been looking at the plane as if from a great distance high above; this was far closer. This pillar rose from the top of an outcropping of harsh, gray stone. It was the centre of the firestorm so it was very likely that Castle Korstull was at the top or within this outcropping. Carefully, we moved closer and it was not long before we saw a crevice or crack into the gray rock; well, the term crack was relative; it could easily accommodate two or three horses riding abreast.</p><p> </p><p>When we rode up to the entrance, I looked up in awe; the rock face on each side of the crevice rose up hundreds of feet; it was impossible to see the top.</p><p> </p><p>As I was looking up, I realised that Victor and Longhelim had stopped and were whispering to each other. I rode up behind them:</p><p> </p><p>“…….about as good ambush spots as you’re likely to get.”</p><p> </p><p>Longhelim concentrated for a moment: “I can’t feel any evil inside.”</p><p> </p><p>Victor snorted. “Looking at the size of that place, frankly I would be stunned if you could.”</p><p> </p><p>Longhelim mused: “There can’t be anyone there. They would have been burnt to death by now, surely.”</p><p> </p><p>I joined the conversation at this point: “Remember what Cranston Snord said? About the dead walking the land? Felix will probably confirm this but I am sure that there are undead around who have no fear of fire. I mean, we met several of them in the Fire Forest already.”</p><p> </p><p>The paladin grimaced: “Thanks, Faden; I had hoped to forget that place.”</p><p> </p><p>Victor looked a little pained and gestured to his waist: “Longhelim, I’m carrying the Living Blade of Innenotdar, remember? - That place – as you call it - is always going to be with us.”</p><p> </p><p>John spoke up at this point: “Right, so are we going in there or are we just going stand here and talk about it?”</p><p> </p><p>Victor straightened in the saddle: “Yes, I suppose so. I’ll take point.”</p><p> </p><p>So, we formed up again and began to ride through the crack, slowly, tense and alert. It was a good thing I was used to tunnels as this was the closest thing to a tunnel on the surface I had ever come across. The walls rose on either side of us endlessly and there was no sign of an exit as we travelled on. The entrance was quickly lost from sight.</p><p> </p><p>Fairly quickly, we began to spot arrow slits up on sections of the walls; these were obviously defensive positions. I shuddered to think how an enemy would be able to assault the castle if the only entrance was this winding tunnel with various defensive positions high up on the walls. Unless the enemy would be able to fly, then it would have been impossible; then I remembered the enemy had dragons.</p><p> </p><p>Suddenly, Victor stopped and help up his hand. Immediately, we stopped as well. He took off his helmet and turned his head, as if trying to hear something. The earring that had been a gift of the monks, glistened for a moment. He waited until we rode to his side and then he whispered:</p><p> </p><p>“I think I can hear some moaning; and something scraping on stone.”</p><p> </p><p>We all strained to listen as well but no one else could hear anything. Then Longhelim said:</p><p> </p><p>“I can just about reach the arrow slits with my power, but I can’t sense any evil in there.”</p><p> </p><p>We watched for a few more moments but with nothing appearing, we moved on, taking even more care.</p><p> </p><p>Some time later, in the distance, we saw some figures on the ground. Approaching with great caution, we saw that these figures were skeletons. What was surprising was that they were all well armoured; Felix softly called for us to halt for a moment as he jumped off his horse and approached several of them; we all tensed, expecting some if not all to rise but thankfully that did not happen. Felix returned:</p><p> </p><p>“There are cuts and blows on those skeletons which happened after they were dead; those cuts are also quite recent.”</p><p> </p><p>“Interesting,” murmured Longhelim.</p><p> </p><p>Then we carried on for a short distance until we came to another bend in the path. As we cautiously came around it, several things became apparent. I wasn’t quite sure what to gape at the most.</p><p> </p><p>We had finally arrived in the central space of the huge stone outcropping and faced a large open space; beyond it, in the centre of the far wall was a huge, hideous structure: the skull of a bear carved into the face of the rock; it was enormous; the road upon which we travelled was easily discernible through the open ground and led straight into its maw. Above the sculpture, the wall rose and began to be covered by a curtain of flame. This curtain intensified until it became a fiery column shooting hundreds of feet high into the sky. Bolts of black flame danced around the flame.</p><p> </p><p>This was the titanic column of fire we had seen from the distance.</p><p> </p><p>The flames seemed to dance upon the rock, eddying, moving and changing in shape and structure. At one point, they seemed to part and reveal another structure above the bear’s skull; a black window in the rock face became visible and I felt as if something or someone of great malevolence was watching us from there. A sense of foreboding came upon me.</p><p> </p><p>The whole area surrounding the Bear Skull was obviously a killing field. There was a myriad of bones scattered about, together with weapons, bits of armour, the remains of siege engines and several steel cages. In the middle of this area, we were shocked to see a group of gnomes and halflings with several wagons; they looked just as shocked to see us.</p><p> </p><p>As we were still taking in these sights, a black bolt crashed into the ground sending up a cloud of debris of bones and other remains; as it settled down, however, this was all superseded by the sight of lots and lots of bones assembling and becoming skeletons which immediately arraigned themselves in ranks; two ranks of five to be exact. They were still in their partly ruined armour and armed with swords and crossbows; their eyes bled tears of fire and their jaws clacked together in a way that would have been comical if it hadn’t been so frightening.</p><p> </p><p>One other skeleton formed, some sort of commander. Judging from the tusks he sported, he must have been an orc when live. Now, he was surrounded by a nimbus of flame and, like the others, bled tears of fire from his eyes. He immediately began to act as if he was in charge, pointing his axe at us and emitting a harsh and guttural cry.</p><p> </p><p>Glancing further forward, I could see that several more ranks of skeletons were forming and these immediately began to advance towards the halflings.</p><p> </p><p>We were still on the road between the walls of the escarpment road at this point; one of the steel cages blocked our way into the open ground, but this did not stop the skeletons rushing towards us. They just squeezed through the partly destroyed bars. As we moved forward, I could also feel a strange atmosphere from the field; it was as if the barrier between the prime material plane and two other planes was weak here; the two other planes were the negative plane and the plane of fire; not surprising considering what we were facing; undead who bled tears of flame.</p><p> </p><p>Two of the skeletons assaulted the warriors, rushing towards them and flinging bolts of black flame from their hands. Amazingly, both Victor and Longhelim managed to dodge these quite nimbly considering their armour. The other skeletons were firing the crossbows but thankfully with little success. The commander gave us a very nasty surprise as he cast a spell and a wall of flame appeared behind us. This was problematic as we were in close proximity to it but hemmed in by the skeletons at the same time.</p><p> </p><p>Victor struck one of them several times and the thing crumpled into shattered bones so they were not actually very tough but they were still extremely dangerous, not least because there were ten of them. Several more rushed to the attack. Longhelim and Victor were hewing mightily although their weapons were not affecting them as much as they could have been. Drudge was shooting his arrows into them although he was being overwhelmed by sheer numbers, and to be blunt, arrows were not the most effective of weapons against skeletons. I quickly cast my spell of speed and then watched in dismay as Felix tried to cast a spell but it was disrupted by his cry of pain as he was caught by part of the wall of flame licking out. Unfortunately it set a part of his clothing on fire. The commander then put another wall of flame on top of our front rank of Victor, Longhelim and John, who had rushed forward to form a line against the skeletons.</p><p> </p><p>Quickly, I moved forward and realised what had to be done. The wall of flame seemed to be even more intense than usual and our warriors could not stay there for long. So I stuck my hand into it, concentrating against the pain and put my spell of fire protection on Longhelim, who was closest to me. A few moments later, Felix did the same for Victor. The warriors were now protected against the flames and could stay against in the wall if necessary. Unfortunately, Felix and I were not.</p><p> </p><p>The skeletons then showed another interesting power. They were able to walk on the flame as if it was air; thus they were able to put ranks of warriors above those on the ground to face Victor and Longhelim. This was going to be a very formidable fight.</p><p> </p><p>At this point, it became a little more difficult for me to keep upright; the commander skeleton moved through his wall of flame and cast another parallel to it, but this time through the space where Felix, John and I were standing; that was the last thing I remembered until I found myself waking up next to the roaring wall of flame. Those blasted skeletons were still walking all over it; I couldn’t see Longhelim anywhere although everyone else was around. I could see that Felix had just finished casting a spell, which had brought me back to consciousness although I was still very weak. John skipped next to me and used his wand, which made me feel a little better. The orc skeleton was still visible and Victor charged towards him. He managed one hefty strike even though his weapon did not seem to penetrate as deeply as usual. Annoyingly, the smaller skeletons were also still around. The orc skeleton then disappeared beyond the wall but we could hear sounds of combat beyond it, so we assumed that it must have been fighting with Longhelim. This was the proved as Victor plunged into the flame and managed to drag an unconscious Longhelim back to our side of the wall.</p><p> </p><p>I had to crawl away from the wall of flame to my front, which of course brought me closer to the other one at my rear again and they both burned me. I stood up and gritting my teeth against the burning, I cast spell last remaining spell which protected me from the fire. Aaah, thank the gods! We were still in danger but not being continually burned was a blessed relief. The situation was then improved immensely as Felix summoned his power, brandished his holy symbol and the five remaining skeletons exploded into sherds. It was very impressive. Suddenly, the orc skeleton became visible again, this time looming above us, on top of the wall of flame; I could have sworn he was grinning malevolently at us, although that could have been my imagination. We couldn’t reach him but we could see that many of the nicks and gashes on his bones were closing due to his immersion in the fire. Rapidly, I ran to Victor and cast a spell on him; it allowed him to fly.</p><p> </p><p>Nothing loth, Victor flew up there and began to swing. He missed several times but he also connected and it was one of those unearthly blows which finally shattered that skeleton. Immediately, the walls of flame disappeared.</p><p> </p><p>Drudge was there, unharmed. He had obviously had his own battles. Beyond, was also the cage with the hot steel bars as well as the mysterious group of gnomes and halflings. Now that the battle was over, Drudge and Longhelim joined us and John began to heal everyone with his wand. Once that had been done, Victor took out his hammer, Kiano and smashed the bars. Then, we cautiously approached the other group, who watched us with equal care.</p><p> </p><p>I counted four gnomes and four halflings; several of them were obviously retainers but one of the more interesting figures stepped forward. She was wearing a short hooded cloak and looked at us with bright, curious eyes:</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Cafu, post: 6131896, member: 6692807"] Both Felix and I, with input from John, carefully discussed what spells we were planning to take and why; once that was decided, we prepared them and then mounted and set out. As we approached the fire storm, the view became even more spectacular but in an intimidating way. Little dust clouds of ash began to be disturbed by our horses as we rode; the impossible wall of flame became brighter and hotter, reaching high up into the sky; droplets of liquid fire erupted continuously along its length, splashing up, up into the air before raining down. Looking at these, we realised that we would have to be very careful as even one of these small splashes could deliver a bad burn. Finally, we reached a point where we felt that travelling any further without some sort of protection would entail too much risk. Reverently, I took out the magical orb provided by the Masters of the Monastery of the Two winds and activated it in the manner instructed. Immediately, a glistening, semi transparent sphere, centered on the orb, appeared around us; thus protected, we advanced slowly and the fiery rain began bouncing off this sphere; then, as if from a great distance, we began to hear the roaring of mighty winds rising; so, the monks had really done something. The horses rolled their eyes and looked frightened at both the flames and the winds but we were able to coax them gently forward. Tentatively, we approached the flaming wall and saw the magical sphere force a gap. We were forming our own personal gateway through the firestorm! The rain of fire was still falling onto the barrier but we began to see the flames abate and be blown backwards by the winds; and these were still rising in strength. Suddenly, Victor, at the front, cursed as his horse stumbled but managed to scramble back as a fissure opened in the path just in front of it; thankfully, the warrior also managed to stay in the saddle rather than taking a swan dive into a pool of lava. This served to warn us that there were other hazards apart from the flames. Drudge immediately went forward and began to look carefully at the ground in front of us, trying to gauge a safe path. As we advanced, there were several times when the ranger told us to stop and we changed our path as more of these fissures opened and closed around us. This was further complicated by having to avoid puddles of liquid fire which had collected from the fiery rain. All in all, it was certainly not a straight path and much harder going than the Fire Forest. Thankfully, we still had our protection against the heat, providing we did not get touched by the flame directly. Finally we managed to traverse the section of unsafe ground. Safely past this hazard, we were able to take a closer look at the landscape around us; we could see that amazingly, the flames were being slowly driven away by the unremitting strength of the howling winds from the Orb. They were not only giving us a safer passage but also a view of what was in the distance. Further forward, another fiery glow became apparent in the far distance; this looked to be the centre of the storm. We could not be sure just what was causing the glow at this point but we moved in that direction. It was an eerie ride; we were still surrounded by the barrier from the Orb, the winds had driven the flames away from our vicinity and there was ash everywhere, also stirred into vast clouds by the winds; there was no sign of life anywhere, the air stank of sulfur despite the wind. The distance to the glow of the central point shortened as we approached it and soon became even brighter and taller than the perimeter of the storm; it took us several more hours to ride close enough to see just what this phenomenon was, but once we did, we had to stop for a moment just to comprehend what we were staring at: A huge pillar of flame rose spectacularly hundreds if not thousands of feet into the sky. It looked like something from the elemental plane of fire; I had seen columns similar to this under the steam tunnels of Seaquen, while searching for a mad magician; yet there, I had been looking at the plane as if from a great distance high above; this was far closer. This pillar rose from the top of an outcropping of harsh, gray stone. It was the centre of the firestorm so it was very likely that Castle Korstull was at the top or within this outcropping. Carefully, we moved closer and it was not long before we saw a crevice or crack into the gray rock; well, the term crack was relative; it could easily accommodate two or three horses riding abreast. When we rode up to the entrance, I looked up in awe; the rock face on each side of the crevice rose up hundreds of feet; it was impossible to see the top. As I was looking up, I realised that Victor and Longhelim had stopped and were whispering to each other. I rode up behind them: “…….about as good ambush spots as you’re likely to get.” Longhelim concentrated for a moment: “I can’t feel any evil inside.” Victor snorted. “Looking at the size of that place, frankly I would be stunned if you could.” Longhelim mused: “There can’t be anyone there. They would have been burnt to death by now, surely.” I joined the conversation at this point: “Remember what Cranston Snord said? About the dead walking the land? Felix will probably confirm this but I am sure that there are undead around who have no fear of fire. I mean, we met several of them in the Fire Forest already.” The paladin grimaced: “Thanks, Faden; I had hoped to forget that place.” Victor looked a little pained and gestured to his waist: “Longhelim, I’m carrying the Living Blade of Innenotdar, remember? - That place – as you call it - is always going to be with us.” John spoke up at this point: “Right, so are we going in there or are we just going stand here and talk about it?” Victor straightened in the saddle: “Yes, I suppose so. I’ll take point.” So, we formed up again and began to ride through the crack, slowly, tense and alert. It was a good thing I was used to tunnels as this was the closest thing to a tunnel on the surface I had ever come across. The walls rose on either side of us endlessly and there was no sign of an exit as we travelled on. The entrance was quickly lost from sight. Fairly quickly, we began to spot arrow slits up on sections of the walls; these were obviously defensive positions. I shuddered to think how an enemy would be able to assault the castle if the only entrance was this winding tunnel with various defensive positions high up on the walls. Unless the enemy would be able to fly, then it would have been impossible; then I remembered the enemy had dragons. Suddenly, Victor stopped and help up his hand. Immediately, we stopped as well. He took off his helmet and turned his head, as if trying to hear something. The earring that had been a gift of the monks, glistened for a moment. He waited until we rode to his side and then he whispered: “I think I can hear some moaning; and something scraping on stone.” We all strained to listen as well but no one else could hear anything. Then Longhelim said: “I can just about reach the arrow slits with my power, but I can’t sense any evil in there.” We watched for a few more moments but with nothing appearing, we moved on, taking even more care. Some time later, in the distance, we saw some figures on the ground. Approaching with great caution, we saw that these figures were skeletons. What was surprising was that they were all well armoured; Felix softly called for us to halt for a moment as he jumped off his horse and approached several of them; we all tensed, expecting some if not all to rise but thankfully that did not happen. Felix returned: “There are cuts and blows on those skeletons which happened after they were dead; those cuts are also quite recent.” “Interesting,” murmured Longhelim. Then we carried on for a short distance until we came to another bend in the path. As we cautiously came around it, several things became apparent. I wasn’t quite sure what to gape at the most. We had finally arrived in the central space of the huge stone outcropping and faced a large open space; beyond it, in the centre of the far wall was a huge, hideous structure: the skull of a bear carved into the face of the rock; it was enormous; the road upon which we travelled was easily discernible through the open ground and led straight into its maw. Above the sculpture, the wall rose and began to be covered by a curtain of flame. This curtain intensified until it became a fiery column shooting hundreds of feet high into the sky. Bolts of black flame danced around the flame. This was the titanic column of fire we had seen from the distance. The flames seemed to dance upon the rock, eddying, moving and changing in shape and structure. At one point, they seemed to part and reveal another structure above the bear’s skull; a black window in the rock face became visible and I felt as if something or someone of great malevolence was watching us from there. A sense of foreboding came upon me. The whole area surrounding the Bear Skull was obviously a killing field. There was a myriad of bones scattered about, together with weapons, bits of armour, the remains of siege engines and several steel cages. In the middle of this area, we were shocked to see a group of gnomes and halflings with several wagons; they looked just as shocked to see us. As we were still taking in these sights, a black bolt crashed into the ground sending up a cloud of debris of bones and other remains; as it settled down, however, this was all superseded by the sight of lots and lots of bones assembling and becoming skeletons which immediately arraigned themselves in ranks; two ranks of five to be exact. They were still in their partly ruined armour and armed with swords and crossbows; their eyes bled tears of fire and their jaws clacked together in a way that would have been comical if it hadn’t been so frightening. One other skeleton formed, some sort of commander. Judging from the tusks he sported, he must have been an orc when live. Now, he was surrounded by a nimbus of flame and, like the others, bled tears of fire from his eyes. He immediately began to act as if he was in charge, pointing his axe at us and emitting a harsh and guttural cry. Glancing further forward, I could see that several more ranks of skeletons were forming and these immediately began to advance towards the halflings. We were still on the road between the walls of the escarpment road at this point; one of the steel cages blocked our way into the open ground, but this did not stop the skeletons rushing towards us. They just squeezed through the partly destroyed bars. As we moved forward, I could also feel a strange atmosphere from the field; it was as if the barrier between the prime material plane and two other planes was weak here; the two other planes were the negative plane and the plane of fire; not surprising considering what we were facing; undead who bled tears of flame. Two of the skeletons assaulted the warriors, rushing towards them and flinging bolts of black flame from their hands. Amazingly, both Victor and Longhelim managed to dodge these quite nimbly considering their armour. The other skeletons were firing the crossbows but thankfully with little success. The commander gave us a very nasty surprise as he cast a spell and a wall of flame appeared behind us. This was problematic as we were in close proximity to it but hemmed in by the skeletons at the same time. Victor struck one of them several times and the thing crumpled into shattered bones so they were not actually very tough but they were still extremely dangerous, not least because there were ten of them. Several more rushed to the attack. Longhelim and Victor were hewing mightily although their weapons were not affecting them as much as they could have been. Drudge was shooting his arrows into them although he was being overwhelmed by sheer numbers, and to be blunt, arrows were not the most effective of weapons against skeletons. I quickly cast my spell of speed and then watched in dismay as Felix tried to cast a spell but it was disrupted by his cry of pain as he was caught by part of the wall of flame licking out. Unfortunately it set a part of his clothing on fire. The commander then put another wall of flame on top of our front rank of Victor, Longhelim and John, who had rushed forward to form a line against the skeletons. Quickly, I moved forward and realised what had to be done. The wall of flame seemed to be even more intense than usual and our warriors could not stay there for long. So I stuck my hand into it, concentrating against the pain and put my spell of fire protection on Longhelim, who was closest to me. A few moments later, Felix did the same for Victor. The warriors were now protected against the flames and could stay against in the wall if necessary. Unfortunately, Felix and I were not. The skeletons then showed another interesting power. They were able to walk on the flame as if it was air; thus they were able to put ranks of warriors above those on the ground to face Victor and Longhelim. This was going to be a very formidable fight. At this point, it became a little more difficult for me to keep upright; the commander skeleton moved through his wall of flame and cast another parallel to it, but this time through the space where Felix, John and I were standing; that was the last thing I remembered until I found myself waking up next to the roaring wall of flame. Those blasted skeletons were still walking all over it; I couldn’t see Longhelim anywhere although everyone else was around. I could see that Felix had just finished casting a spell, which had brought me back to consciousness although I was still very weak. John skipped next to me and used his wand, which made me feel a little better. The orc skeleton was still visible and Victor charged towards him. He managed one hefty strike even though his weapon did not seem to penetrate as deeply as usual. Annoyingly, the smaller skeletons were also still around. The orc skeleton then disappeared beyond the wall but we could hear sounds of combat beyond it, so we assumed that it must have been fighting with Longhelim. This was the proved as Victor plunged into the flame and managed to drag an unconscious Longhelim back to our side of the wall. I had to crawl away from the wall of flame to my front, which of course brought me closer to the other one at my rear again and they both burned me. I stood up and gritting my teeth against the burning, I cast spell last remaining spell which protected me from the fire. Aaah, thank the gods! We were still in danger but not being continually burned was a blessed relief. The situation was then improved immensely as Felix summoned his power, brandished his holy symbol and the five remaining skeletons exploded into sherds. It was very impressive. Suddenly, the orc skeleton became visible again, this time looming above us, on top of the wall of flame; I could have sworn he was grinning malevolently at us, although that could have been my imagination. We couldn’t reach him but we could see that many of the nicks and gashes on his bones were closing due to his immersion in the fire. Rapidly, I ran to Victor and cast a spell on him; it allowed him to fly. Nothing loth, Victor flew up there and began to swing. He missed several times but he also connected and it was one of those unearthly blows which finally shattered that skeleton. Immediately, the walls of flame disappeared. Drudge was there, unharmed. He had obviously had his own battles. Beyond, was also the cage with the hot steel bars as well as the mysterious group of gnomes and halflings. Now that the battle was over, Drudge and Longhelim joined us and John began to heal everyone with his wand. Once that had been done, Victor took out his hammer, Kiano and smashed the bars. Then, we cautiously approached the other group, who watched us with equal care. I counted four gnomes and four halflings; several of them were obviously retainers but one of the more interesting figures stepped forward. She was wearing a short hooded cloak and looked at us with bright, curious eyes: [/QUOTE]
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The Gate Pass Irregulars: A War of the Burning Sky Campaign
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