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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mahiro Satsu" data-source="post: 304792" data-attributes="member: 4970">Episode X Ooltugula’s Portal part 2from the journal of Velm TrueforgerEleint 30We attempted to leave the throne room of Yss-Fara, and found tons of rock and earth blocking our way. Where the cellar of Cindarm’s proud Hall had been was now completely choked with rubble. The wizard set his toad free to wriggle upward through the rockfall, and we soon learned that the Hall was no more. Some force had utterly annihilated it, and all that remained was a smoking waste of shattered masonry and stone.Quickly we devised a plan to be free of this place. Caramip would play the drum’s stone-cracking rhythm and, under the direction of Bronn and myself, pulverize the correct slabs of rock to open a way to freedom. One by one the jagged remains of hewn blocks became great boulders and these boulders in turn were reduced to flying gravel and dust by the power of the drum. Soon enough we had opened a way to the surface.Saeita sprung ahead with preternatural quickness.But our detonation of the stones had drawn curious observers: a large warband of goblins and fierce worgs. No sooner had Saeita clambered up onto the rubble than she was pelted with whining arrows. She grunted and fell on one shoulder, the other pierced by a shaft that, had it not been off-target by mere inches, would have ended her life instantly.They swarmed in, faster than we could climb up, and pinned us down. We were ready to fight, but seriously outnumbered by a score of goblins and nearly that many wolves. Snarling worgs, with ropy drool dangling from their fanged mouths, circled and pounced and hungered for our still-warm hearts. Stinging black-fletched arrows fell like death-rain. Soon we had no choice but to flee, by means of Saeita’s moon bracers and Bronn’s spellwork, to the base of Iolar’s Pillar.We secured ourselves within the stone doors we had passed by twelve days ago, in the wake of our disastrous battle at Arglarllur Bridge. Then we had fled from Nightscale’s dark and serpentine form; now we longed to face her again, even if that longing was born equally of honor and terror. “Cindarm’s Hall was razed by invocation magic,” Bronn told us wearily, “and only Ruathgrym could summon such spells.” He glanced at Van. “He has the bones of his dead lover, and now he is free.” Corpsecoil…free once again? If only the paladin Temuel Khiv were here with us.A long staircase led upward into the Pillar, accessing two levels of chambers and a forgotten throne room, where Bronn had heard strangely-accented voices speaking in Undercommon twelve days before, as we approached the Arglarllur Bridge. It seems that so much time has passed since then, until I recalled that in the intervening ride my soul had traveled to Clangeddin’s side and returned by Selûne’s grace.It was also long enough for whomever had spoken those words to have vacated this hiding place. We found only the remains of a brief inhabitation. From the throne room we could look out round twin windows, which were the pupils in the eyes of Iolar’s huge carved face, and if the ruins of Aerunedar were lit up we could have viewed it in all its fallen splendor.Another staircase led upward into the arm that supported the cavern roof, and at its peak we found a portal to the Underroad, that avenue mentioned in Hathos’ most cryptic verses. But now we surmised that the straight and high-ceilinged passage through the earth might have its other end beneath the village of Eveningstar, in the former cellars of the tower of Redhand, where that famous dwarf had lived and shared ale with Temuel Khiv so long ago. We decided then that if any of us survived the following day, we would leave Aerunedar by this route.None of us slept very well that night.</blockquote>

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