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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tom Cashel" data-source="post: 55199" data-attributes="member: 321">Episode VI: To Face the Scarlet Flame[from the journal of Velm Trueforger, Blood of Nor]Characters: Bronn Spellforger (shield dwarf Wiz4), Corwyn Black (human Ftr4), Daziel (human Clr4, Selûne), Saeita Neví, “Spooky” (wild elf Mnk4), Van Dyksun, “Snowcap” (human Rgr3/Rog1), Velm Trueforger (shield dwarf Ftr4).Eleint 13-15My hand trembles.  I can barely hold the quill.  See how far I have come from my origin: I write with a quill and ink instead of a good solid chisel and a thick piece of stone.  I left home four months ago to find Bronn and bring him back—instead I have joined him, taken up his ways, and been exiled from my Clan.We are falling to pieces.Our leader, Daziel, called for a vote to see whether we would leave Flamecoil Tower, or stay so that Bronn might improve his wizardly acumen.  The vote was 4-2 for staying.  And yet our leader informed us that we were leaving anyway.  In that tense moment, I thought Bronn might hurl spells, his eyes were filled with such rage.She will not remain leader for long, we must see to that.  She has placed me squarely in the middle, with my cousin’s life and safety at one side and my leader’s commands at the other.  I’ll never forgive her for that.As we departed without Bronn, I was terrified that I’d made the wrong choice.I am worn out.  We found the waterfall, and the won our way to the catacombs beyond.  Our Gods guarded the entrance, all except Sharindlar the Lady of Life.  And why would she stand guard before a tomb?  I prayed at the statue of Clangeddin, my Father of Battles, and tithed gold and mithril.  When I opened my eyes a small battered pair of crossed axes on a mithril chain lay in the Tithing Bowl.  I took it; I don’t think anyone saw.  What can this mean?  Would the Father of Battles mean this holy symbol for me, after all the mistakes I’ve made?And in the tomb?  There were puzzles, and traps, and finally a door we could not decipher without Bronn’s help.  What need have I to revisit these events...my mind was on other things.  The most important discovery we made was twofold, thanks to the tracking skills of Snowcap: a group of four to eight individuals entered this tomb a week ago, and “leather boots” (the Zhent wizard) went in three days ago.  None of them, says Snowcap, have come out yet.Eleint 16Reunited with Bronn.  Today was an eventful day.We set out for the waterfall once again, seeking to solve the first lines of the riddle we found so long ago:I fall forever and not at allI slay fireI guard Hatho’s skull...We are agreed that this must be the great waterfall of Aerunedar, and that the “skull,” or skûl, of Hathos must be his drum.  We mean to find it.Deep within the catacombs we solved the riddle of the Eight Guardians, and by quenching their thirst won through to the caverns beyond.  Down a long natural staircase we could see the flickering of lantern light—something did not feel right.Spooky crept forward, wearing the night lenses, to survey the scene.She returned, describing a huge cavern filled with carved pillars and stalagmites, a massive pair of stone doors on the far side with green copper pull-rings.  But in front of the door, her back to us, sat a bound and gagged woman on a stone, with a lantern flickering beside her.  Spooky heard muttering voices somewhere in the shadows.“A trap,” we agreed.Bronn sent Wolf the Toad to survey the room, and (much later) the tiny creature returned with news: several enemies.  We crept down the stairs and offered a surrender; a voice called back, “The skull is ours!”Once again, Daziel made our decision for us by launching into battle.  This, however, was a decision I could live with...happily.  Bronn stepped into the chamber and filled one end of the cavern with webs, trapping two of their number.  A gnomish fighter—Snort Riprock—and a cloaked human—the dastardly rogue known only as Dust—dived clear of the webs and moved to join the attack.We piled into the room.  Bruugrah, the female bugbear whose battle-rage is known and feared throughout the Stonelands, stepped from behind a curtain of stone and let out a roar.  She became my target.  Snowcap launched arrows from his mighty “Boneflinger,” and Spooky used her fists.The webs suddenly melted away.The sounds of combat filled the chamber: ringing of weapons on shields, grunts of exertion, sudden shouts of pain, Daziel and Bronn calling back and forth, synchronizing their Art and Power to the greatest effect—A chorus to please the ears of Clangeddin.A blonde elf stepped from the hitherto-webbed area and took down Snort Riprock, the gnome, and blinded Corwyn Black with a spray of clashing magical colors.  Then the Cleric of Kelemvor, Arnor, emerged and entered the fray.Snowcap dropped them both with swift arrows.  Clangeddin smiles on you and your bow, young one.Spooky and I stood toe-to-toe with the raging Bruugrah.  She was no match for us...until Daziel took her down with a spell.  Unfortunately, the spell took down myself and Spooky as well!  Merely a stunning effect...but enough to keep me from the battle.The things got worse.  From where had the magic-dampening emanated?  Why, from Hulgoth Hawksbreath, of course, leader of the Company of the Scarlet Flame.  The tall and gaunt wizard appeared just as a streaking flame left his fingertips to explode between Bronny and Daziel, rocking the cavern and bringing down stalagtites from the ceiling.The mysterious prisoner on the stone broke her own bonds (seemingly by magic), and after exhibiting powers I could not understand, faded into the shadows and escaped.Dust, the elf sorceror Lefestis, and the cleric of Kelemvor lay bleeding.  Corwyn put down the gnome with his hammer.  Spooky managed to drop Bruugrah the bugbear.  Only Hawksbreath resisted us with his Art, but we overcame him.  The cowardly Hawksbreath attempted to surrender at the final moment of combat.  Spooky, in no mood for mercy, knocked him out with a haymaker to the jaw.As an act of mercy, we bound their wounds before we bound their wrists.(later)A long debate ensued over whether we should kill them or let them go.  Finally we decided to set them free (without their items of magic), and at least give them a chance to return home in disgrace as fairly defeated combatants.The room lit up with white light, cut in half by a crack of thunder.  Electricity crisped our prisoners in an instant.  “You are pitiful!  Put your enemies out of their misery, lest they come back to fight again!!”  In his black robes, the wizard Faraugar emerged on a ledge above, surrounded by seven exact likenesses of himself.  “The skull is mine,” he said, “you may leave now, or you may stay and die.”“You’ll be the one to die, Zhent,” cried Bronn.The struggle was joined, and we swiftly found ourselves fighting a losing battle.  Faraugar flew about, protected by his mirror beings, while we fired crossbow bolts at him.  We were whittling at his protections while he whittled away at our very lives.Snowcap quaffed a potion of flight, and took the fight to the wizard...Faraugar only smiled and unsheathed a blade of his own: a black longsword marked with Bane’s seal.  No mere wizard, this.But this day did not belong to Faraugar of the Zhentarim.  Though the cut of his blade went to Snowcap’s very soul, it was the young ranger whose scored more hits.  “Don’t dare believe you’ve seen the last of me,” Faraugar muttered hatefully, and vanished in a flash of brilliant Art.Eleint 17There in the chamber, before the huge stone doors marked GRAND PORTAL OF THE DEAD, we slept.Beyond a secret portal, we discovered the tombs of the Kings of Aerunedar, guarded by stone statues of dwarves that sprang to life.  They bull-rushed us, one by one, into the massive pit that spanned the room’s center...in the bottom, among the bones, we faced a swarm of starving dire rats.  We won through...I am still writing, am I not?But Daziel, our leader, was changed.  Her enthusiasm was gone.  Perhaps she knows, I thought, that we will allow her to lead us no more.  I know this, and yet I write it with regret: she was not a bad leader.  She just did not know the difference between us giving our wills to her, and she impressing her will upon us.  Too often the latter ruled the day.We found King Cindarm dead under goblin arrows.  We found the bard Hathos with his skûl on a strap around his shoulders.  We found the dry bones of Shieldcoil, and put them in a sack to return to the lich Flamecoil, unless I can convince them that attack is more prudent.I shall wear the mithril armor we took from Bruugrah, lest she foul it any more with her wretched bugbear existence.  But these weapons—Cindarm’s hammer and Hatho’s sword—and the armor they wear shall stay with them, to aid them in the next world.Only now do I realize: I did not come to Aerunedar to die for Clangeddin.  I came here to lift a curse, and to speak the Word of Clangeddin.  That is what the holy symbol means: I am to take up the life of the Warpriest.  My life for yours, Father of Battles.  I take it willingly.  My axe is ready.</blockquote>

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