WotBS Bill T's Second War of the Burning Sky [Spoilers, spoilers everywhere]

Dramatis Personae

• Basel, an Innenotdaran (aka grey) elf evoker who has been attending Gabal's school and previously made his living as a baker.
• Gusle, a seela bard who recently escaped captivity from a circus. This player has been through the first few chapters already, so she's aware of the seela and can fill Torrent's role as guide.
• Jesús Tillamook, a half-elf cloistered cleric of a sect of the Stormchaser Eagle that is dedicated to finding its heart so that they can revive the Eagle.
• Leeta, a woodswoman that looks like a human but with sharper edges. She was born in Gate Pass on New Year's Day.

Tavern at the Start, but the End of the Tavern

“Gate Pass is in trouble," says Gusle. "The Ragesian army is marching on it....get far away from here before the idiot city council lets the Ragesian inquisitors in." Then the building shakes, and a deafening boom sounds overhead.

The heroes start working their way towards the exit, until Jesús decides to race up the stairs to see who's been thumping around up there. He gets severely thumped for his effort and ends up in an unconscious heap at the bottom of the stairs. Gusle leaps over the bar, Leeta leaps the flames on the bar, and Basel carefully walks around the flames and the bar, to heal Jesús and help him out of the building. The heroes dispatch the thugs trying to beat down the door easily enough (and their little dog, too!) before encountering the Brooding Man on Horseback. In response to questions, the brooding man turns his horse to walk off.

Getting Through Town

The party passes a family in the streets.... The heroes give the man a little help but then decide to keep moving.

...a woman smashes out a window on the fourth floor and cries for help. Basel grins smugly and shouts, "Jump!" The crowd gasps in dismay, then notice his red robe under his winter cloak and all start shouting "Jump, jump!". She does so, and, with a quick word from Basel, floats gently to the ground.

The Depository

Wow, Rivereye really is that ugly. "Hi, Peppin! Got the password?"

"Sure!" says Gusle. Peppin leads them towards the third level. "Wait, isn't the locker on the second floor?" asks Gusle. "Yes, I'm sure it was."

Rivereye disagrees and continues up the stairs.
Gusle, meanwhile, pulls her allies aside and tells them she suspects a trap. They hear a door close upstairs and cautiously work their way up, but there's no one there. They peek outside, and see the Gate Pass cavalry fly by...and also notice a glowing ball of light flying off into the distance, as well as Rivereye fleeing down the street.

Ragesian Cavalry Down!

The glowing ball reminds Basel of the glowing ball familiar of one of his fellow students, so the heroes head east to The Citadel. On the way, Jesús(?) gets beaned in the head by falling bits of a lance broken as aerial cavalry joust in the sky -- and they look up to see a bat-winged mount crash into the roof of a nearby building. When the heroes reach the building they see a rope off dangling from its side. A little further on they encounter the remains of a couple bodies, freshly murdered. After deciding that the fallen cavalier might have Military Intelligence of his own, they follow his tracks in the snow into a ground-level apartment. Peeking inside, they see a Ragesian wyvern rider trying to get changed. The rider holds his axe to the throat of a boy who apparently lived in the apartment. "Leave, or the boy dies!" Gusle tries to distract the wyvern rider with ghost sound out the window, which only makes him twitchier, but Basel greases the axe, causing it to slip out of the rider's hand as he tries to murder the boy. Leeta then dashes in and gives him a sharp jab with his sword. Amazingly, the rider remains standing. Gusle rushes in, pulls the rider's arm off the boy...and the rider collapses, unconscious!
The heroes tie up the rider and heal him slightly in order to question him. The rider answers the heroes questions condescendingly and sarcastically, unimpressed by the men's threats of torture. It's only when Gusle offers to turn him over so that he can be exchanged as a prisoner that he becomes reasonably forthcoming. That said, he's aerial cavalry -- elite (as he's happy to point out) and uninterested in the details of what the rest of the army is doing.

Gabal's School

Diogenes is here and friendly. Gabal is neither. After conversing Diogenes, the heroes decide to talk to Shealis. She grudgingly decides to let them see what's in the case. She gives them a location in one of the elven ghettos. She seems willing to share this information so that they could take it to the Lyceum and Shealis can take it to the Shahalesti.
Safe House

As soon as Gusle understands how Mulysa's angsty music is affecting the people huddled in the temple of the Order of the Aquiline Cross, she joins in her in a duet -- and then drags the tune back to the upbeat melody it's supposed to be, causing Mulysa to give up dramatically and curl up to sleep.
Looking for Intelligence

The city is very subdued this New Year's morning, with few people on the streets. The rumor is that the city council is preparing to accede to the Ragesian demands to let the inquisitors enter the city.

The four heroes head east to the elven ghetto Shealis directed them to. After several long orbits around the ghetto, both Basel and Leeta(?) manage to find a door into the ghetto. They promptly make their way to the shop Shealis directed them to, only to discover that the door and windows on the front are fake. They make their way to the back alley, discover the concealed door with the three levers marked by planar symbols and, after a brief discussion trying to figure out their significance, hear an invisible voice. "Hey, friend, I can help you get in if you help me."

After some amount of confusion by the fact that it's not just Jesús hearing voices, the heroes and the voice quickly come to an agreement.

Voice: "I need the case that holds the military intelligence."

Gusle: "The case? Oh, sure, you can have the case!"

Voice: "Just to be clear we understand each other, the case is what I need."

Gusle: "Yes, exactly, you get us in and we can give you the case."

Voice: "Ah, yes, we do understand each other!"
So, the voice (identifying itself as Kurychek) shoos the party out of the alley and to an elven coffee shop across the way. Shortly they see a little elven girl walk into the alley and suddenly scream in pain. Gusle and Leeta race off to see what happened. The girl, quietly sobbing, explains that the wall bit her when she push on it and shows the bloody spot on he hand. Leeta casts a minor healing spell on the wound, which makes the wound go away without relieving the girl's pain. Jesús and Basel belatedly join them. Basel uses detect poison to determine that the girl's wounds were, in fact, poisoned, and Jesús tries to treat the poisoning the old-fashioned way. Sadly, sucking the poison out of a wound that was just healed doesn't work so well, and the girl passes out. The heroes rush the girl off to the coffee shop and ask someone to find a healer and the girl's parents.
Fortunately, Kurychek is more than just a pretty voice. He manages to hold the door in the alley open while the heroes are tending to the girl. Leeta leads the way in. The room looks like it was decorated by a carpenter with a door fetish -- doors of every shape and size populate the otherwise-open first floor. Behind a pair of the nearby doors, she can hear something snarling. After trying to decide if it's a bear, a boar, a badger, or a barracuda snarling, the heroes manage to distribute themselves on either side of the doors and start to advance around it.

The snarlies pounce! Jesús gets bitten by one, and Leeta is attacked by the other. Basel notices that these are celestial badgers. "Hey guys, should we be attacking..." Leeta quickly carves up the badger attacking her. Jesús, not to be outdone, knocks the badger unconscious with a single deft blow to the top of its head. "...these creatures? They're celestial, after all."

No one seems to understand Basel's concern, so he gives up and they make their way up the stairs, except for Jesús, who decides to keep an eye on the street. They find two elven soldiers are sitting on a sleeping mat. "Oh, hello, who are you?"

"We're here to see the intelligence. You knew we were coming, right?"

The soldiers smirk. "Oh, yeah, Daria said something about people coming."

"Uhm, didn't you hear us fighting the badgers?"

The smirks get wider. "Nope, didn't hear a thing."
Meanwhile, Jesús hears someone coming down the alley. He peeks around the corner and comes face-to-face with Shealis. He leads her in. She's rather dismayed by the badger bodies (celestial badger bodies!!) lying in the Hall of Doors. After a brief discussion with her soldiers, she decides that a suitable punishment for their troublesome ways is to clean up the badger bodies. "I want the floor downstairs spotless!" (Don't make Shealis angry!)

Shealis shows them the case. Gusle tries a password ("I wanted to make sure they'd changed it" -- uh...?), and Shealis determines that there is indeed some sort of spell on the case. Basel is worried that the magic is designed to destroy the contents of the case if it's opened improperly ("that's what I would do"), so they give up on opening the case and instead give contact information to Shealis so that she can send them a message once her allies get into it.

Then there's just the little problem of Kurychek and the case he's expecting in return for his assistance. "Hey, what about that chest? It's a case of sorts!" So, in a flurry of creativity,

• Basel writes up a smidge of military intelligence.
• Gusle writes up a smidge of military intelligence ''in Ignan'' (how prescient!). Shealis and Jesús judge Gusle's attempt to be more convincing, although Leeta disagrees.
• Jesús uses Mage's Magic Aura to make the chest appear to be magically trapped.
• Gusle and Jesús take the chest outside. "Hey, Curry! Was this the case you wanted?"

Kurychek is angered by this apparent attempt to renege on the deal and flits into the building. Fortunately, Basel had cast Message on Jesús earlier, so he had fair warning. Basel, thinking quickly, decided he could disappear with the real case in hand, but Shealis grabs the case and says, "I've got this" -- and promptly turns invisible. (Good thing, Shealis's invisibility lasts much longer than disappear). Basel invites Kurychek to help him find the case.

Where Is This Dodge You Speak Of?

After briefly pondering the 50' city wall with its array of spikes and guards, the heroes heroically try to come up with another way out of the city. "Hey, Torrent mentioned this Councilor Erdan Menash guy, living near the big statue of Coaltongue," says Gusle. So, our heroes traipse off to the next district to the east to his garish building.

The heroes arrive shortly before the councilor gets home from, er, counciling. He takes the four on a grand tour of his home, pointing out all the wondrous equipment (you really do have to wonder why someone would make things that look that way). In the meantime, he tells the heroes about the darings-do of the people of Gate Pass during last night's attack.
Eventually, he gets to the point, realizes they're working with Torrent, and offers them a way out of the city -- and some spiffy equipment to go with it!

• Before Erdan finishes making his offer, Basel starts pleading with Erdan for the masterwork longbow shaped like a stretched-out croissant.
• He gives Leeta a "rose with thorns" (masterwork studded leather armor with armor spikes), rose-pink on the top and brown for the rest. He says he had it specially made for a druid, but the druid refused it because the spikes contained metal.
• For Jesús he digs out a masterwork quarterstaff painted in a red-and-white spiral.
• He gives Gusle the yellow smiley-face masterwork buckler.

Erdan then sends the heroes east to meet with Captain Herreman. On the way, the heroes notice they're being followed by some obviously fake city watch. The heroes duck into a bar and the watchlings start harassing Gusle. She steps outside with them, but refuses to go any further. It's then that she(?) notices a dashing rogue has been following them as well. He steps up and introduces himself, elbowing the obviously fake watchmen out into the street and on their way. The dashing rogue introduces himself to Gusle as Rantle (everyone else recognized him by the goatee). As they walk on to Captain Herreman's office, he explains that he's heard what the party is up to and asks them to take a scroll case to his fire-sorceress sister Katrina, who headed for Seaquen as soon as she heard the Inquisition was expected. Gusle quickly takes the scroll case and tucks it away.
Herreman dresses the heroes up like guardsmen (leather armor and cheap swords for those not already so equipped) and tells them The Plan: They are to take one of the tunnels out to a guard tower on the south side of the city. The towers are designed to be inaccessible expect through the tunnel, but there is an escape clause: If desperate, the guards in the tower can hack out the supporting beams at the top of the tower, causing the tower to collapse into the tunnel and letting the guards escape. So that's what the heroes do. Only Jesús gets beaned on the toe by chunks of following tower, which he recovers from after a good night's sleep in another abandoned tower a few hours' walk from the city.
Walking The Gauntlet

After a few long, frigid days of walking through the snow,
the heroes enter a ravine and notice a couple of heads pop out of sight behind some rubble. Everyone gets ready to dance (with Gusle providing the dance music, of course). Leeta casts entangle right above where she saw the two heads, causing the owners of those heads to cry out in dismay as the underbrush tries to grab their legs. They nonetheless fling a couple of thunderstones at the heroes and manage to deafen Leeta and Basel with one. They then launch their attack, two at a time, to get their beatin'. The first two do some somewhat serious damage with their bows before their entangled allies remind them that the heroes are to be kept alive.


When one of the riders realize how badly they're outnumbered, he tries to gallop off back towards Gate Pass, but Jesús grabs the horse and pulls onto the horses rump, then awkwardly reaches out, grabs the rider, and drags him to the ground. Basel gives the rider a quick chop with his longsword to ensure he doesn't get back up. Once all the bounty hunters have been rendered unconscious or driver off, the heroes heroically loot the bodies of the dead.

The Battle of Haddin's Farm

Dramatis Personae

• Basel, an Innenotdaran (aka grey) elf evoker who has been attending Gabal's school and previously made his living as a baker.
• Gusle, a seela bard who recently escaped captivity from a circus. This player has been through the first few chapters already, so she's aware of the seela and can fill Torrent's role as guide.
• Jesús Tillamook, a half-elf cloistered cleric of the Stormbringer Phoenix, a sect of the Stormchaser Eagle that is dedicated to finding the Aquiline Heart so that they can reincarnate the Eagle.
• Leeta, a woodswoman that looks like a human but with sharper edges. She was born in Gate Pass on New Year's Day.

Aftermath Of The Gauntlet

After much careful investigation of the tracks on the road and the trail adjoining itthe heroes decide to see what they might find up the trail. They reach a small grotto with tents ("I should have gotten us a tent", muses Gusle), horses (woo hoo!), and a few locked tunnels -- one containing a man wrapped in a shroud with a cat curled up beside him. Gusle eventually manages to pick the lock, and they carefully approach the two lying on the floor of the tunnel and eventually convince themselves he and his cat are both stone-cold dead. They inspect the contents of the jar he holds and discover the prayer it contains, "Don't let my death be in vain."

On that cheery note, they loot the tents, quickly finding the chest full of gold, rubies, and promissory notes redeemable at any Ragesian fort. They do a thorough search and find the key Renard had lost in his pants pocket.

"Hey, shouldn't we bury the dead wizard in the cave or something?" asks Basel.

"Sorry, busy loading the horses," responds Leeta.

Dismissive, Gusle asks, "What, you going to try to dig a hole in this cold? We don't even have a shovel."

"We don't need a shovel," responds Jesús. "We revenants cremate our dead with glorious fire! All hail the Stormbringer Phoenix!"
So, Basel and Jesús build a little funeral pyre for the man and his cat. Just as they're about to set the pyre on fire, the shroud glows, and the two suddenly realize that the corpse is wrapped in a dream shroud, which lets the wearer use the following powers

1. With a moment's thought, determine if an action will negatively impact his alignment or relationship with his deity.
2. Use it to cast align weapon once per day.

They quickly put out the tinder they were using to start the fire and remove the shroud from the wizard's remains.

The House Haddin Bui...Forged By Magic

They travel most of the day and start to see the effects of the fire forest -- a red sky, flowers blooming out of season, and a grove a banana trees surrounding a stone house. A young fragile-looking woman stands on a small hill. When the heroes gets close, she says, "The Scourge comes, and the skulls of the dragon pursue you. I saw it in a dream." She then apologizes, introduces herself as Crystin, and makes her pitch -- she knows the inquisitors are coming for her father (and her?), and she knows that the heroes can lead her to safety.

Anyhow, after they all stable the horses, Crystin leads them into the house. Her father, Haddin, immediately starts barking at Crystin, annoyed that she brought visitors and ordering them all to various tasks related to making dinner. Gusle tries to sweet-talk him but doesn't get very far. Jesús would like to try but can't imagine what tack he should take to persuade him.
After dinner, Haddin tells everyone where they're to sleep and then makes his way to bed. "Hey, wait, I thought he was too old and feeble to get around on his own!"
The Inquisitor Comes A'knocking

As Leeta is finishing up packing up in the morning, she asks Haddin, "Are you sure you don't want to come...."

"Haddin!" shouts a menacing, feral voice outside the house. "Come out and surrender or die!"

"Haddin, do you know who that is?" asks Basel.

"Haddin, what would you like us to do" inquires Gusle.

"Must be the inquisitors. Bah! I can deal with them."

Mysteriously, the front door opens all on its own, and in rush a half-dozen walking skeletons. "Eep, er...see ya!" says Haddin.

So, the heroes start battling the skeletons, Crystin shrieks in terror and scurries up into the attic, and Haddin runs out the back door -- only to be immediately brought down by a crossbow bolt.

Meanwhile, Leeta skewers a skeleton right between the ribs with her sword, as does Gusle. "Where's the guy with the stick?" they ask -- only the world has strangely fallen silent around them.

The guy with the stick, Jesús, calls out from the back door, "Hey, looks like Haddin's been shot!"

"Daddy's been shot??" exclaims Crystin as she races down the ladder and heads for the back door. "I've got to help him!"

Jesús steps in her way and tells her, "I'll go out and help him, but you have to promise to stay in the house, out of danger."Jesús goes out to grab Haddin, who is now sporting at least two crossbow bolts and slowly starts dragging Haddin back into the house -- and gets rewarded for his efforts with a crossbow bolt of his own in the shoulder. Crystin manages to drag them both into the house and bar the back door while Jesús uses a wand to help Haddin recover from being shot.

Meanwhile, the other three heroes continue to battle the skeletons in silence, until Jesús comes back into the room and says, "Shoo!" The skeletons that made it into the house don't flee -- rather, they shatter on the spot.

Then, suddenly, a halfling appears out of nowhere and stabs Gusle -- hard! Some more dancing ensues, but the halfing tumbles out of the house just as Basel draws his sword to stab him in the head. Hey, everyone can hear again!

Jesús shoos the rest of the skeletons into oblivion, which gives the orcs an opportunity to step up in front of the house -- one with a big silvery axe who guzzles a potion labeled "Eat me" and becomes nine feet tall, two human soldiers with armor, shields, and swords, and a half-orc wearing little more than a mask and bear skins.

Jesús leaps out the front door and bashes Mr. Big in the leg with his candy-strip quarterstaff -- which Mr. Big takes as an opportunity to return the favor with his Large-sized shiny axe. Leeta works her way outside to help Jesús while Basel casts a spell to send an orb of fire at the orc in the mask.
"You shall not cast!" shouts the masked man while waving a small scourge in the air. The orb flickers briefly before splashing, rather harmfully, on the masked man's chest.

"Hocus pocus!" says Gusle, and a flaming log floats out of the fire, out of the door, and drops on the head of one of the armored men, who yelps as he gets burned.
At this point, Haddin suddenly decides to participate. "Abraca-cough-hack-pocus! Kill the inquisitor!" Mr. Big blinks in confusion -- so Haddin scurries up into the attic himself!

At this point, the battle devolves into a slugfest -- Jesús and Leeta are forced to withdraw back into the house. Basel magically splashes the inquisitor with acid, provoking him to again shout "You shall not cast!" to no apparent effect. The two armored men rush into the house and start hacking at Leeta and Gusle, who in turn return the favor. Several times, one of the heroes go down, so another has to step up to heal them.

An odd "BRAAPP" emits from near Crystin a couple times, and a crystalline shard strikes Mr. Big in the forehead each time. Basel, having set his sights on the inquisitor, starts firing arrows out the door and beneath Mr. Big's crotch until the inquisitor goes down in a heap. Mr. Big seems confused, unable to decide whether he should enter the house or turn towards what's left of the inquisitor, until he eventually starts beating on the doorway in frustration. Jesús tries to Cause Fear in one of the soldiers, but the soldier is not afraid of his magic. Haddin joins the action as well -- he dominates one of the armored men and orders him to attack his peer. After much poking and shooting, Mr. Big and one armored guy goes down, so the second surrenders.
Aftermath

The heroes quiz the surviving armored guy about the disposition of the Ragesian army around Gate Pass. He snarkily points to the stripes on his shoulder -- all zero of them -- and explains that his responsibilities end at the tip of his sword. Basel is eager to step outside and slice the inquisitor's throat, but is intelligent enough to realize that maybe it'd be more useful to interrogate someone who might know something.
It turns out that the inquisitor didn't bleed out after being brought unconscious by Basel's blistering bow barrage.
so they strip everything of value from him. The examine the contents of the scroll case and discover his orders:
They then bind him, gag him, and heal him. They also invite Crystin to participate in the interrogation. Suddenly, a light seems to come on in Crystin's head, and she says in a whisper, "My father. By the gods, he's been.... You've got to get me out of here."
"Sure thing!" "You got it!"
So, the inquisitor spills what beans he knows, including that Ragesian Empire will hunt them down no matter where they go, and he rattles off the names of his superiors in his chain of command. He readily explains the the functioning of the magic items he carries, much to Gusle's surprise.
The heroes then hold a big brainstorming session -- how to get Crystin away from Haddin without Haddin interfering? They didn't understand why Crystin suddenly decided she needed to get away, and they were worried that Haddin might dominate one of them to prevent it. Eventually, they realize that Gusle is not a "person" and therefore isn't susceptible to being dominated. Gusle makes up a story about how they need Crystin's help cleaning up the bodies, pilfers the picture of Crystin and her mother, gives Haddin one last chance to come with them (for show), and wanders off. Oh, and to make sure Haddin doesn't suffer, they leave the inquisitor and the soldier who surrendered in Haddin's care, so they can help defend Haddin when the Ragesians send another kill team.

Dramatis Personae

• Basel, an Innenotdaran (aka grey) elf evoker who has been attending Gabal's school and previously made his living as a baker.
• Gusle, a seela bard who recently escaped captivity from a circus.
• Jesús Tillamook, a half-elf cloistered cleric of the Stormbringer Phoenix, a sect of the Stormchaser Eagle that is dedicated to finding the Aquiline Heart so that they can reincarnate the Eagle.
• Leeta, a woodswoman that looks like a human but with sharper edges. She was born in Gate Pass on New Year's Day.

Follow the Flaming Brick Road

Well, to be precise, the flames were beside the road, and the Elfroad is made of stone, not brick, but the heroes nonetheless follow it into the fire forest. The run across a body and fragments of at least another one lying in the road. As they inspect the bodies, the whole one grabs Leeta and cries out, "Kill me, please!"


"Hey, I know him!" exclaims Basel. "That's Durval, one of the married students from Gabal's school. Bit of a slimebag, too, if you ask me."

After a great deal of discussion, attempts by Gusle to slip Durval a dagger, and more discussion, the heroes finally decide to put him out of his misery. But then he stands up again and keeps begging for them to kill him! They eventually do so, again, and this time he stays dead.

A mile or so later, a small winged creature comes screeching out of the trees and takes cover behind the heroes as a flaming bat chases it down. The heroes have a wild time trying to beat off the bat as the winged creature (a "mephit", per Professor Basel) hides behind whoever is nearest.

Bridge Over Troubled Fires

The heroes reach a stone bridge crossing a deep gorge. One side of the bridge has a big chunk of railing knocked out near the middle.

"Hey, I wonder what knocked out the side of the bridge." says Gusle. Maybe we should look down through the hole in the side." The rest of the heroes are willing to entertain Gusle's idea, and Leeta stands guard at the railing across from the break. "Huh, I can't see anything down there."

"Oh well, let's keep going," responds Leeta. "Everyone, let's head AIIEEEEEEE!" A section of bridge collapses under Leeta's feet and she plummets to the bottom of the gorge!


Gusle makes it safely to the far side, so everyone else follows the path she took, one by one, but for Crystin, who wants nothing of this whole collapsing-bridge nonsense. They manage to string a couple of ropes together so that they can lower Gusle to the gorge to help Leeta. Leeta, of course, is unconscious but, despite the sixty-foot fall and the fire, still breathing. Gusle isn't in any position to haul Leeta up, so she lassos Leeta and signals the men to haul her up. The men, it turns out, aren't sufficiently manly, so Crystin, in a huff ("Elves!"), crosses the bridge and hauls Leeta up with a little help from the men. They then do the same for Gusle, since she doesn't seem to have much of a talent for climbing rock walls. "Well, I guess it's pretty clear there isn't anything down there, huh?"


Given the beating everyone took, the heroes decide to spend the "night" near the falling bridge before continuing deeper into the fire forest.

Hell Of A...No, A Dog Of Hell

As the heroes proceed down the road, they suddenly notice a burst of flame among the flames. "Odd, that was some sort of teleportation magic," Basel point out. After a bit of discussion, they continue anyhow, eyes peeled.

"Hey, look, there's a large dog at the side of the road with a bone in its mouth," observes Leeta.

"That's not just a dog, that's a hellhound, Leeta." The dog paws out onto the road with an air of cordial ferocity, drops the bone, and backs away.


"Eww," says Jesús. "That's a thigh bone from a person. It's got writing on it: 'Leave the case containing the intelligence. Cooperate, and we might find an arrangement to spare your lives. Carry this with you if you wish to bargain.'"

The hellhound licks its chops.

"Well, no case. Do we take the thigh bone?"

The hellhound smacks its lips.

"May as well, maybe we can talk some sense into whoever this is."

The Devil, You Say

In a burst of flame similar to what the heroes saw earlier in the morning, a devil appears fifty feet down the road. "Ah, so you don't want to bargain, then!" It stares at them, as if in concentration, and then horrifying, twisted-looking creatures form from flames surrounding Gusle. They immediately claw out at her, and she goes down.


"She's been attacked by the damned!" proclaims Basel.

Battle ensues, but the the heroes are hard pressed to do any damage. One of the damned monsterlets is dispatched, but the devil charges forward, clobbering Basel (Crystin?) and slashing Jesús in a single smooth slash with his glaive. Jesús flees down the road, as the devil continues his assault. Finally, having injured everyone, and getting more than a little of his own medicine from Leeta, he pantomimes tipping his hat and disappears in yet another chrysanthemum of flame.


The party once again heals their wounded and proceed down the Elfroad.


Oh deer -- flaming deer!

Flaming trees go "kablooie" and fall, blocking the path ahead.

Crystin yells at Basel, "Look out! Move move!" Basel looks puzzled until he sees a spear of smoke appear right above his head, whereupon he takes a large step backwards. Crystin, on the other hand, appears to have been dazed by her vision.

As a wall of fire advances, the heroes battle the miniature fire stags formed from the smoke cloud that resulted when the smokey spear attacked. Several of the heroes go down, only to be dragged back from the wall and/or healed.


Eventually, they defeat the stags, and a voices booms out from the fallen trees:

A fiery vision of a dragon's head with antlers appears and roars "Come! Follow the river. Set me free!"

"Erm, we've got wounded here, can we discuss this later?"

"Rest your flesh now in the ruins beyond the bridge. Then you must follow the river down to the singing lake. I lie trapped beneath its surface. Set me free!" replies the voice.

"Yeah, sure, whatever."


A tower on the river

Leeta searches the door for traps -- and finds one! The whole door appears to be trapped.

"Should we heal ourselves before we go in?"

"Mr. 'Free me now!' said we should rest here."


"Yes, but what if there is someone inside waiting to attack us?"

"The door's locked, and no one answered when we knocked."

"What, you think they stopped to lock the place as they fled the burning forest?"

Eventually, Gusle takes courage (and tools) in hand and, with tremendous difficulty, opens the door.


Basel seems most eager to see what the flaming stone is just inside the door. He reads it, says "friend", and enters. As he gives the room a thorough scan for unwelcome surprises, Crystin hops in and starts up the ladder, but Basel chastises her and so she meekly waits for everyone else.

Gusle then enters and uses detect magic in an attempt to, you know, detect anything magical. She makes her way to the top of the tower to discover that, like Zen, the only magic in the tower is the magic they brought with them. On the other hand, they do find a locked pantry in the upper floor. After an exhausting but futile attempt to unlock it, they decide to open the pantry "the half-orc way" to discover nothing but a seed packet with goblin writing on the front. No one speaks goblin, and no one recognizes the seeds, so they go back downstairs.

The heroes briefly admire the wooden map of the city. Jesús recognizes the holy symbol on the desk as a holy symbol of an elven diety, but he must have slept through those lessons at cloister. The symbol, however, seems to be a stylized representation of the sun on the horizon.

They look through the journal of Bhurisrava and develop a variety of wild theories.

Dream seeds

Gusle decides to tempt fate: "Ah, heck, healing is overrated, I want one of those dream seeds. What's the worst that could happen?"

So, Gusle quickly falls into a deep slumber and shortly thereafter yelps as a little blue dracoloid (Basel declares it to be a dream elemental) appears above the table at the center of the room. It blasts Crystin with an icy ray. Rather than refreshing her, the ray knocks her unconscious. Leeta responds with a well-placed swing to the creature's throat -- only to have the blade warp around the creature's neck and slice through her own neck!


Realizing how desperate a situation they're in, and that the dream elemental needs a dreamer to exist in this world, Basel says, "Grab Leeta!" as he grabs Crystin and jumps downstairs, using feather fall to break their fall. Jesús takes a quick but good look at Leeta, determines she's unlikely to be alive, and jumps down without her, much to Basel's dismay.


The dream elemental, obligingly, stays upstairs, although it does manage to chuck another icy ray in Jesús's general direction while he tends to Crystin's wounds. None of them have any good idea of how they might recover Leeta -- she's about as hard to get to as is possible given the layout of the second floor. Crystin, though, gets the clever(?) idea of banging swords together in hopes of waking Gusle.

After about ten minutes, Gusle wakes up with the sensation of banging in her head. Her first sight upon waking is of Leeta, with a huge pool of blood around her head and shoulders. Her second sight is of a wildly frantic blue dracoloid, which attempts some sort of mind-affecting magic before vanishing.

Someone knocks at the door to the tower and shouts, "Gusle, are you in there?" Basel, upon hearing Gusle's name mentioned, cautiously opens the door to see a woman wearing a chain shirt and a greatsword. "Hi, I'm Dämmek. Torrent gives her regards. She sent me to help you guys. Know anything about the voice demanding to be set free?"


The heroes, afraid to cremate someone in the fire forest, instead decide to fill Leeta's pockets with rocks and throw her body into the river.

Gusle's dream

[Harp music signals a flashback]

She soars above the tower on her strong wings, hearing strange singing in Sylvan. She sees a devil on the road as she heads back the way she came from Gate Pass. Upon reaching Haddin's place, she sees the inquisitor and a couple guards talking to the devil. The devil is carrying a sack. The inquisitor looks into it -- as does Gusle -- and they both see that the sack contains Haddin's head, crudely sawed off.

On that cheery note, Gusle flies on again towards Gate Pass. She encounters Brooding Guy in a ravine where they battled a bunch of the Murderers. Strangely, he seems to have some notion that someone is nearby. Finally, she reaches Gate Pass. The western end of the city has been breached and is a total shambles. She continues out of the city to see that the Ragesians are attacking the west gate of the city, which stands firm, for the moment, against their assault. Then she notices a red-robed spellcaster flinging fireballs and other spells through the Ragesian camp, wreaking mayhem, until a red dragon lands on him, chews him up, and spits him out.

[Harp music signals end of flashback]

"Arrogant bastard," declares Basel. "That's the one thing Gabal and I vehemently disagreed on. I told him he should never go into an invading army's camp without back-up."

"Yes, but, didn't they want to capture spellcasters alive?"

Basel smirks and says, "You tell the dragon that!"

How Ghastly!

The heroes easily find the stone willow tree that they believe conceals the Shrine of Anyariel. Jesús and/or Gusle notice a couple of bodies hanging from the tree. Uninterested, they proceed to the tree's trunk to search for an entrance -- and the hanging bodies leap down to attack! Gusle starts singing a cheery song as one bites Basel, who promptly stands stock still. Jesús attempts to rebuke them -- and instead of affecting the ghastly things, a door opens in the trunk of the tree!


Dämmek gives one of the slavering undead-enders a slice to the cheek and steps back; it responds by stepping forward and biting her, rendering her immobile as well! Things aren't looking good for our heroes, but Jesús's next attempt to rebuke them is wildly successful, and the two critters cower while everyone beats them to pieces.


The Shrine of Anyariel

Basel peers through the opening in the tree trunk and sees a beautiful glowing ball of eldritch magic -- and, curiously, he steps back quietly to confer with the other heroes. "Psst, hey guys, that's a ghaele, a chaotic good whatsit from the outer planes."

"Ooh, like an angel! Let's go see if it lets us in!" responds Gusle.

"No, no, you see, it's chaotic good!"

"Yeah, so?" says Gusle. "It's good! We'll be fine."

"Yeah, but it's chaotic! It might declare us all evil and destroy us on a whim!"


"Meh." Gusle walks up to the ghaele, with Crystin trailing eagerly behind. "Hi, wise and wonderful glowing ghaele! We want to pay our respects to the shrine and and I remember the tales of Anayriel from my youth. I have been a long time away and have not had the chance to visit before."

"Sure, come on in. By the way, my name's Hubert. You look sort of beat up. A quick touch and -- presto!, you're all better."


So, everyone parades into the tree, and Hubert heals all their wounds. They work their way down the spiral staircase to see a strange scene -- a statue of an elf woman with a wood-n-viney sword dominates the center of the room. Behind it is a broken display case. Two elves lie on the floor, one wearing a Shahalesti uniform and the other, a redhead in simple robes, lies face-down. He's been clawed up and there is a simple mace lying just out of his reach.


The heroes ask Hubert about this and that, and learn that he was placed here by a god of healing, in answer to the prayers of an unknown priest. He doesn't know about anything outside the shrine -- he's to protect the shrine until those responsible for the destruction of Innenotdar are brought to justice.

Gusle cast Detect Magic several items glow with magic in the temple basement, but surprisingly the body of the Shalalesti soldier glows the brightest.

Basel attempts to search the body of the Shalalesti elf, but discovers that both the elf and the uniform are petrified, making a thorough search impossible, as even the pockets on the uniform won't flex to let Basel put his hand in them.

The group decides to the mouth of the White River (northeast of the elf village), where Bhurisrava said he would "deliver the despairing" in his final journal entry.

Dramatis Personae

• Basel, an Innenotdaran (aka grey) elf evoker who has been attending Gabal's school and previously made his living as a baker.
• Dämmek, a human who can do some really shocking things with her greatsword.
• Gusle, a seela bard who recently escaped captivity from a circus.
• Jesús Tillamook, a half-elf cloistered cleric of the Stormbringer Phoenix, a sect of the Stormchaser Eagle that is dedicated to finding the Aquiline Heart so that they can reincarnate the Eagle.

Up The River (Paddle Optional)

As the group leaves the temple under the stone tree, Basel recalls that the little blue dracoloid has Ego Whip effect on the dreamer, namely Gusle, which, according to Crystin, explains the damage to Gusle's charisma. After a long and difficult negotiation where Gusle agrees to spread the word of what happened to Innenotdar, Hubert treats her reduced charisma. Gusle also asks Hubert why he didn't use speak with dead to ask the red-headed elf what happened.


Heading away from the ruined village up the side of the river. Gusle sees the temple from her dream, it has an organic shape, like much of the local architecture, but the roof and ground floor have collapsed into the basement. As Gusle climbs the steps to the temple's entrance she spots four small fire creatures, one of whom rushes up the stone steps (up from the basement). The group presume this is an attack and respond accordingly. A brief battle ensues, but the fire creatures quickly figure out that they're just going to get hurt if they keep attacking one at a time.

Gusle figures out that the fire creatures are speaking Ignan and are responding to the group's presence.

Gusle chats with the fire creatures (which aren't particularly smart [if you'll pardon the elvish understatement]), but persuades them to let her enter the basement. Once in the basement Gusle casts Detect Magic at Basel's suggestion, which lets her detect some magical items buried inside the side wall of the temple. As she leaves the temple to rejoin her allies, she strikes up a stirring fiery song (still in Ignan) that leaves the fire creatures dancing.


The group now has 3 pairs feather gloves of Entras (founder of the modern Knights of the Aquiline Cross, a religious order committed to healing) and 3 wands. The gloves of Entras allow the wearer to heal wounds once a short prayer is recited. The wands have 16 charges of cure light wounds each.


The group leaves the temple and start walking to the mouth of the White River. Due to the forest fire and the occasional thick cloud of smoke and cinders that covers the whole river like a tsunami of flame and can cause members of the group to catch fire, they decide walk through the edge of the river. That way they can immerse themselves in the water if they catch fire.

Suddenly what appears to be a flying goblin's head with no wings and several legs appears out of the smoke. It attacks Jesús after he jumps into the water in an attempt to escape a cinder cloud. Basel, due to a senior moment, (which is odd as he wasn't a senior at Gabal's School of Magic) fails to identify the creature and fails to land a single blow on it with his longsword.

Dämmek cleaves the goblin head creature in half, much to the chagrin of Basel.

As they continue to walk up river, Basel spots a quartz crystal pop up in the river and zoom towards the party. "Everyone out of the river!", he yells. People start to respond, except Crystin who kneels down in the shallow water and cups her hands. The rock creature jumps into her hands and folds its multiple legs away. Crystin places the rock creature on her shoulder, both she and the rock creature seem happy with the situation. After some puzzled looks and discussion about an appropriate name (which is now called "Crystal") the party proceeds up the river. The party reaches a waterfall with a temple/shrine at the top of it. Basel spots what looks like a unicorn peering around the edge of the temple, so he calls out "Hello" and waves, because why not, it is a unicorn, right?



The unicorn responds with "Hello", comes out, and introduces herself as "Nelle". The party talks to Nelle about what they have seen and found at the ruined village, including Bhurisrava's final journal entry. Nelle takes them to a cave behind the waterfall to see the Despairing who are on fire and have been for fifty years since the Burning Forest started burning.

Nelle talks about "a child of Trilla" and something about "trillith" which possess(es) the forest and has taken it over as its body. Nelle mentions that she occasionally hears the song of the Seela coming up the river -- the song has healing properties.


Nelle takes the party into the shrine (the aforementioned Mouth of the White River) and inside there is a large sculpture of a dragon & eagle chasing each other. Nelle invites them to pull some feathers and scales from the sculpture. Gusle, reticent to touch anything, stands aside as Jesús steps forward and does just that. The party now has a some bird feathers and dragon scales with magical properties:


Down The River

Traveling back down the river a chrysanthemum of flame appears about 100 feet in front of the party. The glaive-bearing devil creature the party encountered before has reappeared and proceeds to attack them.

Basel cast Ray of frost and the devil resists it and even licks at it as it goes past. The devil does some damage to Dämmek with the glaive and until Basel gets past his senior moment and casts Grease on the devil's glaive which promptly slips out of the devil's hands and into the river. The devil teleports out of the river to the edge of the burning forest.

The devil starts chatting and negotiation with the party, in the same way an attorney chats when they are negotiating a contract. He explains that he is bound to the burning forest to prevent anyone leaving the forest and to retrieve the box of military intelligence. Gusle clearly states that we don't have the military intelligence.

The discussion changes to the Seela, how they have gone mad over the years, and how their singing is keeping the fire creature in/under the Singing Lake. The devil suggests that if the party can get them to stop singing the fire stag will be released and the burning forest would stop burning. The favorable outcome of this for the devil is that it would no longer be bound to the forest. After some discussion Basel agrees with the devil that the party will try to release the fire stag -- there is some unease in the party about making deals with a devil.

Basel tries to use the gloves of Entras to heal Dämmek but fails. Gusle does a better job and heals Dämmek.


The rest of the journey back to the tower on the bridge is uneventful. Though, when everyone is settling down for the night, Crystin touches the bag of dream seeds gets a distant and dreamy look in her eyes and speaks draconic in a very deep voice "Return to the mother; captive in freedom; wake up! wake up!". The dream seeds are quickly removed from Crystin's grasp as no one wants a repeat performance with the dracoloid. Basel is puzzled by this event especially as Crystin denies knowing how to speak draconic and questions out loud to the group if this was related to the fire stag.

Dramatis Personae

• Basel, an Innenotdaran (aka grey) elf evoker who has been attending Gabal's school and previously made his living as a baker.
• Crystin and her pet rock Crystal. Crystin was played by a friend visiting from out of town in our last session.
• Dämmek, a human swordswoman with keen senses and a great sword.
• Gusle, a seela bard who recently escaped captivity from a circus. This player has been through the first few chapters already, so she's aware of the seela and can fill Torrent's role as guide.
• Jesús Tillamook, a half-elf cloistered cleric of the Stormbringer Phoenix, a sect of the Stormchaser Eagle that is dedicated to finding the Aquiline Heart so that they can reincarnate the Eagle.

This is a summary of our sessions over Christmas break, getting the heroes out of the fire forest. The players have been writing notes, but they've been heavy on the action and light on what was learned, so I'm a bit concerned that the notes won't be particularly useful in the long run.

For the most part, the heroes followed Tiljann's path as expected.

The heroes have a hard time following Gwenvere's meandering conversation when they reach her, but eventually convince her to part with the lock of Anyariel's hair. Jesús ends up being the victim of the magic mirror's curse. Despite this, in a passionate speech worthy of a Shakespearean play, he tells Kazyk when the devil confronts them on their way back to the seela village that they intend to inflict a slow, painful death on all the seela! Gusle pretends to be outraged (she saw through the bluff), but Kazyk is totally fooled and asks how he's expected to help. He's amused when they ultimately set Indomitabilty free with no loss of seela life. Bearded devil defeated in a free action!

After speaking with Timbre (without learning who was really responsible for setting the forest on fire, sadly), the heroes decide to use Crystin's pet rock to scout out the area around Indomitability. Alas, this gets the attention of a merrow, who notices Dämmek and gives pursuit. Between Gusle's illusion of another swimmer and my botching of the swim rules, Dämmek manages to escape.

(Session break here. Crystin gains a level and becomes a PC for the session)

Thanks to Gusle's overly-informed planning, the heroes arrange to set Indomitability free, have the seela stop singing, and wait for Indomitability to wander off. The diplomacy goes well enough, although Papuvin is insistent that they get Indomitability to agree before he will agree to stop singing. They then use the swan feather token as a platform from which to battle the merrow, carefully casting a good handful of buff spells before the action begins. Yay, planning!

The battle is somewhat chaotic, as battles tend to be, but this one more so because Basel seems intent on keeping the boat too far from the action for Crystin to use her magic. Once they get that sorted out, Crystin skillfully uses mental disruption to keep the one merrow from poking big holes in Dämmek (the second merrow joined later), although there were miscues like Gusle accidentally giving the merrow its weapon back with mage hand. Jesús abandons the effort to defeat the merrow first and tries to set Indomitability free -- and succeeds at freeing the sword from the lake bed, which is enough for Gusle to signal the seela to stop singing. The trillith leave, Kazyk leaves, everyone is happy.

Before leaving, Crystin uses clairsetience to see what happened up at the Mouth of the White River, saving the heroes the trip, and Hubert the Ghaele removes Jesús' curse.

There is much confusion about who should get the living blade, but eventually Jesús hands it off to Dämmek. I don't understand why this was so confusing -- it's not like Jesús has any talent with a greatsword!

On the way out of Innenotdar the heroes encounter a gnome woman limping as fast as she can onto the road (I added this encounter to give Jesús a chance to do some spelldueling). She uses some scary magic and a sleet storm to split the party up, turns into a giant spider, and, after biting Jesús severely a couple times, manages to get the heroes to break off. However, they catch up with her again, and then Crystin takes over: Two castings of ego whip on the gnome make the gnome incapable of casting anything but cantrips. Encounter over! The gnome, Rosemarie, grovels for her life, so the heroes tie her up and drag her out of Innenotdar, only for the gnome to meet swift justice at the blade of a Dasseni dwarf's axe. The dwarves were hunting her down for her murderous banditry -- she had a fur cloak of stand the heat that let her use the fire forest as a safe haven.

(So much for the spelldueling, but the H'andreas are next, and there's always Katrina...)

Following Lylrandra's lead, I had the dwarves help the heroes get to Lady Timor's castle, where they discussed their adventures. Of particular note: the heroes are terrified of the dream seeds (hard to blame them, since Leeta died thanks to the dream elemental attracted by the seeds the first time they tried them); they share Timor's concern that the Ragesians can now come to Dassen from Gate Pass; they wonder who set Innonotdar aflame; and they wonder who summoned Indomitability.

I like that last question -- it's a bit off, but the underlying concern is appropriate, and Basel did realize that this is not the first time the broader area has been visited by strange incorporeal creatures. I'm really happy with how Crystin has grown. This is about the time for her to come into her own anyhow, and it worked out great -- and this from a first-time D&D player!

Next session is this Monday. I expect they'll reach Seaquen. I figure I should start another thread for that, rather than continuing this one.

Edits: Remove an event that was actually described in my previous post; minor clarification.