AERUNEDAR and Beyond

[Tom Cashel]

The DOOR from EVERYWHERE, part 8

Lucius Foxhound: The Nexus of Power, a play by Lucius Foxfound.

Act IV: Outside the Nexus

Narrator: But where to go now? We tried another portal, but it led to a stone wall. Where to go next? What danger lurked behind each door? Better the danger we knew than the unknown we could only imagine–we readied to go back to the Orc forest. But as Artemus Thornwind bravely lead the way, he disappeared! Taken instead, we learned later, to an invisible outcropping high above the middle of the vast ocean!

Woe be to us! We’d lost another member of the band! The children were weeping and Dalabrac and I hung our heads low. What strange portals the Nether had created! How did they work?

To cheer the children, I transformed into a beautiful Pegasus and took them over the Nexus wall. We were on a mountainside inside the ruins of a Netherese fortress. Despite the danger, we rested and slept. We were awakened by the return of our lost druid who’d found his way back!

Reinvigorated, Artemus reincarnated our two lost companions! Van Dyksun was now a mighty bear! And Kaemris was a bald-headed human with golden eyes.

But more danger lurked as a mythical Griffon had decided to make her nest in the Nexus. Luckily, she was no match for my charms and good looks, and she soon became our trusted friend.

Prestidigitation of small fireworks.

So, with our defeats behind us, we begin our plans to take the brave children home! With Tymora’s help, we’ll defeat the evil Zhentarim and reunite the mothers and children. We shall be victorious! For our band is mighty! Yes, for we are…

[Editor’s note: insert band’s name when we finally come up with one].


Faraugar: Seizing the Prize

Faraugar sat down on a crate of supplies and stared hard at the closed portal. The pentagonal shape of it, with Netherese runes running around its dull metal angles. His eyes widened. He stood up and looked closer.

The portal wasn’t built into the wall, as he first believed. It was resting on end in the corner. He approximated its weight at close to 2500 lb., much too heavy to lift or teleport.

“You three,” Faraugar snapped, “Don’t get too comfortable. You’ll soon be hard at work.”

One of the ogres swallowed hard.

Later, Lord Gargdol stomped back into the cave. “Ghiv has failed. She is in their custody. The berserker and the Irritating Minstrel are killed.”

“Well then,” Faraugar said, “I’ll just have to do it myself, won’t I?”

 

[Mahiro Satsu]

Well thats strange. It seems Lucius and I had similar ideas on how to write this. Or is that your work, T.C?

 

[Tom Cashel]

Nope, that was all you guys' doing. He sent me his this morning, too! I think they fit together quite nicely...

By the way, I put a commercial here. Check it out! Give it a bump!

 

[madriel]

This is brilliant, guys. You've always had a unique way of recounting your adventures, but this is the best yet.

 

[Tom Cashel]

Thanks Madriel...it helps to have readers besides us!

(More already written and on the way...)

 

[Broccli_Head]

Thanks for the inspiration T. C. !

You wouldn't happen to have Farrugar's stats would you?

 

[Tom Cashel]

Sure--but I'll e-mail them to you as a Word attachment. My players all read this thread, of course!

 

[Van Dyksun]

Eh, wad's about to die soon, anyway--you coulda posted them here.

 

[Mahiro Satsu]

Heh Heh

 

[Tom Cashel]

The DOOR from EVERYWHERE, part 9

Olaf Rolf: Headed West

Only four hours since his death, and anyone could see that Einil Gallowglar was missing her husband Torg. She loved the way he braided his beard, and his granite gray eyes, and he stumping along beside her on patrol. But now he’d gone to Moradin’s Hall–sent there by the berserker’s cruel axe. Taken away.

The sun was down, and the wind began to blow cold out of the northwest, where they said a Shadow was growing on the silhouettes of distant peaks. As far south as Aerunedar, there were speculative whisperings of Shar’s plots in the Moontemple at Mountain Door.

“We must have an alliance with the great Halls of the north,” decided Dorn Trueforger, and bid his nephew Velm take a chest of mithril. Velm took the mithril and told Torg and Einil Gallowglar to carry it all the way to Citadel Adbar in the Spine of the World–the utter north.

Even though Torg lay cold within his cairn of stones, that was what she intended to do. She longed to deliver the mithral all the way to the gates of Adbar. The sliver of a moon rode scudding clouds.

Crackling and glowing white, ten hovering spheres appeared around her and swarmed in on her. Burning jolts racked her body.

“We’re under attack!” shouted Runold Rolf. “Archers come to bear! Due south!”

Every man and woman picked up a longbow, some a crossbow.

From the south came the flying apparition: Draped in dusty cloaks and bearing the claw of Bane on his sable vestments, wreathed in smoke, drifting in midair above the wagons. In his right hand was the black smoking mace known as Judgement, stolen from the still-warm corpse of a Doomtyrant in the Lost City of Aerunedar.

“Faraugar,” said Einil through blistered lips, and tried to stand up.

“Fire!” A hail of arrows flew up and those that found their mark bounced aside without effect. The terrible apparition laughed then…a leering gloat of a laugh that raised the hackles on Welby Otz’s feet.

The halfling was among the archers, firing true but wondering if it was of any use. The wizard just shrugged off a dozen hits! The crackling spheres of lightning darted like will-o’-the-wisps, and where they went they shocked and burned.

Suddenly three identical images of Quario Seveniss leaped from his wagon, all at once. “Keep firing! Wear down his defenses!” the elf wizard shouted.

But the terrible flying wizard used his lightning to cut down the apparent leader, Runold Rolf, and to freeze Eejol Lenumbrar in his tracks.

We kept firing. The wizard’s sparking will-o’-the-wisps cut down Quario Seveniss.

Stubbornly, we kept firing. The wizard had shrugged off a score and a half of hits. Scowling from above, the Banite threw lightning bolts that jolted the Otz Brothers and Svatt Rolf, and left them all crisped with bowstrings burning.

That was when we broke. I took the baby and Thordis was carrying Lum. The Chakises yelled at us to get into their wagon. Behind me I could see Eejol Lenumbrar still frozen in place, his family unwilling to leave him and huddled around his legs as though he were a statue. People running every which way and babies crying.

The whole Evernight family was piling into a wagon. A streak of orange light fell from the wizard’s outstretched arm and the wagon exploded in a blast of flame.

Then our wagon was jolting away down the road, the orange glow of flames receding into the bleak shadows of the Stonelands. Three other wagons escaped too, but I don’t know who is in them yet. I only know that I, Olaf Rolf, am now the eldest. It is my duty to care for Thordis and the babies. My father and mother are dead.

Farouk Chakis says we are headed west. It’s all we have.