AERUNEDAR [the Definitive thread]

[Tom Cashel]

Prologue
The Story of Temuel Khiv

I have hunted the necromancer Ruathgrym for two long years...

From the Dales in the east I followed his trail, seeking him all through the Year of the Agate Hammer and the Year of the Storm Skeleton, and almost caught him once while crossing the Thunder Peaks. The Necromancer’s Art brought the walls of the canyon in upon my companions of the Ironbell Fellowship—delaying me long enough for the “Corpsecoil” to slip away, but killing the rest. Now I have finally trailed him into the realm of Esparin. He cannot go far in the deep of winter, and I sense that the Necromancer is close...I am a Holy Blade of Tempus. I can never cease my search, until it be done.

1176 DR, Year of the Prowling Naga, 14 Hammer

On the 14th of Hammer I reach Eveningstar, a tiny hamlet swamped by drifts of snow at the stout Starwater Bridge, in the Northern Marches of Esparin.

It is composed of Tower Redhand, the Jagged Jaws Inn, and Tethyr’s Hardware and Sundries. There are a total of three residences as well, but these are outlying farms to the west.
The “Warrior Queen” Enchara is known to be prowling the region with a large detachment of soldiers. The winter has been harsh indeed, and it is said that Enchara’s forces are here to protect a large caravan of food and supplies headed east to the Dales.

I join my old friend Redhand of Clan Darkfell at his tower this night. The wind howls through the tower battlements and flickers the flames in the hearth where I warm my frozen toes. He built this tower with his stubby, callused hands, Redhand did, just as he built the Starwater Bridge. I drink ale with the dwarf.

“Many troubles that have come knocking with hammers upon my Clan's doors,” he groans.

King Under the Gorge Cindarm is still fighting the Splintered Shin, a vile and cruel tribe of goblins (and deep worgs) that have been assailing Aerunedar for over a year. There seems to be no end to the foul goblins, while the dwarves cannot replenish their armies fast enough to replace the fallen.
“ ‘Tis thought some other Power holds the leash of the Splintered Shin—their strategies are too cunning,” says Redhand, “but neither Cindarm nor his bard Hathos have been able to identify the wurgym bastards. Not yet.”

Then there is the “Bandit King” Rivior, who is planning more raids than he should, in Redhand’s opinion—but how can Rivior refuse the hunger of his men? “We dwarves of Clan Darkfell built for Rivior a fine secret Hall—a back-up for his Keep in Starwater Gorge—but what good if its limestone corridors serve merely as a place for Rivior’s men to starve?”

Redhand claims to know for certain that Rivior is planning to ambush the food caravan despite the presence of the “Warrior Queen” in the region.

Abruptly comes a muffled knock upon the tower’s oaken portal…it is Rivior himself, with his men, on his way to a rendezvous with Myrkul, Lord of Bones. He tells Redhand of his plans, and asks that the dwarf watch over a young boy, no more than eleven, named Ummatin Tencloak.

“Rivior, I do not think this raid is a good idea.” My words are firm.

“My dear Temuel,” says the bandit King with a droll curl of his lip, “I’m touched at your concern. You do not need to worry about me; I and my men will be fine.”

He cannot be dissuaded. They depart into the storm.

With the boy settled, I finally get to the point of my visit: my hunt for Ruathgrym, the Corpsecoil.

“Ruathgrym?” cries Redhand in alarm. “A necromancer? He became Rivior’s pet mage only a month ago.”

“I assure you he is no ‘pet.’ He raised an army of vile undead against the Dales not two years ago, and slew my companions at Thunder Gap.”

“Then we must warn Rivior,” Redhand says simply. He pulls a glassy egg-shaped item from the mantle. “Take this, old friend. Break it at the feet of the necromancer, and no matter how mighty he be, the magics will be wiped from his mind in one stroke.”

Hastily grabbing weapons and furred cloaks, we depart into the frigid howling storm.

A streak of light from the haze of snow.

Redhand’s stone Tower vaporizes into a blossom of bright orange flame. Smoking fragments rain all around us, and the ground trembles as the structure folds upon itself.

It is the Corpsecoil, a tattered black apparition drifting a league off the ground. His pale jade eyes glower down upon us. “Temuel,” he hisses. “You should not have come.”

“Ruathgrym,” I say, reaching for the pommel of the Blood Point, “your time is ended.”

Ruathgrym’s answer is a single word that smashes into my brain. My eyes pound with agony. The snow rushes up to meet me with a chill palm.

As Redhand shouts a hoarse battle cry and brings back his axe to throw, the Corpsecoil pulls a leather glove over one pale hand. A great translucent fist appears beside him. Redhand is scooped from the ground and lifted out over the pond. I reel in despair. I can do nothing.

Redhand is dropped a hundred feet onto the frozen pond, with a great clamor of armor, and there is the high glassy squeal of great panes of ice fracturing. But Redhand stands, defiant, and takes a single step…

…and plunges through the ice.

“Give up, Sir Temuel,” breathes the Corpsecoil. “I am not the only one of my Order who has come to Starwater Gorge. Leave this place before you tempt their wrath as well as mine.”

And abruptly, he is gone.

The following hours are a cloudy mess of panic, rousing whatever townsfolk can be found to save Redhand from drowning. But I cannot wait to see the result. I assure that young Ummatin is safe with them, and I set off for the Stronghold of Rivior.

The path rises into the snowy gorge. I trudge for hours, until my leggings are stiff with ice and my legs numb, to find skeletons awaiting me. Awaiting the will of Tempus that turns them back in craven supplication.

The hold is well-decorated with tapestries, warmly lit with torches and braziers. But silent. The stone muffles every sound.

Past the first chamber, a steel portcullis falls behind me with a clang.

Trapped.

In the next room, a pair of great bronze statues greets me, each of them with one arm outstretched to a vault of bronze doors. I open them, releasing the burning lightning of the statues’ hands. It does not stop me.

Nothing will. Not now.

I find him beyond, in the throne room. His pale jade eyes are pitying. “Poor Temuel,” he says. “You should have given up. Your sad devotion to Tempus has cost you your very life.”

I raise the Blood Point. “It is His to do with as he pleases.” In my other hand, I hold the egg…and I hurl it at the Corpsecoil’s feet.

Nothing apparent occurs, but Ruathgrym collapses as though stricken. He holds his head with both hands and screams.

I stride toward him, readying myself to dispense justice.

“Please, Temuel, no! Do not kill me!”

I raise the blade above my shoulder.

“Please! Take the source of my power instead! The thing that allowed me to raise an army of the Risen…” He holds out a yellowish gemstone to me; it is marked with a single rune.

“I will destroy it,” I say, and then you. But as I grasp the stone there is a brilliant flash of light. I am standing within yellow gem walls, close on all sides.

“What is this?” I think. Suddenly the huge and distorted face of Ruathgrym appears upon the gem wall. I hear his muffled voice from the other side.

“You are mine, Sir Temuel of Tempus. I will keep you safe.”

Soon the gem walls go dark. The hours pass. Sometimes I sleep. Or pray.

But I am not hungry, or thirsty. I do not feel my beard growing. Sometimes I am not sure how long I have been daydreaming, or praying, or sleeping. It does not occur to me, for some reason, to mark time. There is no time. Just the darkness.

How long have I been here? I remember who I am. I remember who put me here. I am Temuel Khiv.

Then…light. A face appears upon the walls of the gem, and certainly not Ruathgrym’s. My heart beats eagerly.

Let me free, you fools.

I am Temuel Khiv, and I seek the Corpsecoil.

 

[Tom Cashel]

Cast of Characters

The Company of the Wolf met amongst the revelries and gambols of the Eveningstar Shieldmeet Festival, 1372 DR. Chartered at Eveningstar Hall three days later, they named themselves for Oginali, the moon elf druid’s companion, although the townsfolk had dubbed them the “Company of the Coin,” (for returning an abducted child to his mother and giving her a pouch of gold as well) and still refer to them by this name—much to their chagrin.

Bronn “Spellforger.” He disobeyed his father at Thunderstone to study the Art with the War Wizards of Cormyr, and turned away from Moradin to worship Mystra, and his Clan has not forgiven him. For continuing to use the name that was stripped from him, he has been declared exile and criminal, and when he returns home will face the justice of Clan Trueforger. A joker and a braggart, Bronn is an Invoker with a mission: destroy the enemy with as many explosions as possible. Oh, and insult his cousin Velm every chance he gets. With the discovery of a map that may lead to a lost city of Clan Darkfell, Bronn finds that within his wizard’s breast beats the heart of a true dwarf.

Saeita Neví. Born in Cormanthor, she still remembers the night her tree-village burned and she was spirited away to Shadowtop Monastery (where monks of the Old Order dwell), to begin the training that would last a hundred years. Traveling west to find answers, she was watching from a nearby ridge when Tilverton was eclipsed by shadowy clouds—and looked upon the Black Crater that remained when the sun rose again. Traveling again, she found herself in Eveningstar, and befriended the druid Enina Meliamne just days before Shieldmeet. Silent and enigmatic, Saeita seems to be channeling anger and frustration into her fists and feet.

Enina Meliamne. Born and raised in the King’s Forest, the past of the druid is shrouded in mystery. She is serious in her role as protector, but musical laughter from her mouth is not unknown. It is thought that she trained with the druids of the Knightswood Nine, venerates Rillifane Rallathil, and has adopted Eveningstar as her territory...but why did she vanish into the forests without a trace after a single expedition with the Company of the Wolf?

Van Dyksun. Born and raised in Waymoot, and a devout follower of Selûne, Van Dyksun is a 17-year old among elder dwarves and elves, and he acts like it. White-haired and precocious, he ranged the King’s Forest surrounding Waymoot in his younger days, and learned to hunt orcs during the Ghazneth War. His art became the longbow. But Waymoot proved too small for Van; filled with wanderlust, he set out to the north as a caravan guard. On the way to Eveningstar, he made the acquaintance of a serious and tight-lipped dwarf named Velm.

Velm of Clan Trueforger, Blood of Nor. Blond-haired Velm is descended from great warriors, and he takes the responsibility seriously, worshiping Clangeddin with a dwarven war axe. When the Clanmaster at Thunderstone sent him to hunt down a traitor and criminal at large in Cormyr, he accepted readily, even though the criminal was none other than the bookish cousin he once bullied, young Bronn the “spellforger.” Sure enough, Velm caught up with Bronn at the Shieldmeet Festival—what he didn’t count on was a newfound respect for the dwarven Invoker. Behind the steady stream of insults and jibes they toss at each other, a grudging respect is growing. Will Velm be able to arrest his cousin and return him to Thunderstone?

Daziel. Born in Immersea, Daziel spent her younger days in the study of Selûne’s teachings. With the coming of the Ghazneth War, she turned to books of tactics and strategy, determined to play a part in the protection of her church and of Cormyr. Once she took the silver cloth and joined the clergy, the dreams of the High Moonmistress at Immersea set her a path. The Banites are at work in the north of Cormyr, and Daziel must root out their dark designs and shine the pure pale light of the Moonmaiden upon them. But even more stunning: it is thought that one of the rings of the Moonweb may soon surface again, and the dreams of the High Mistress indicate that Daziel will be the one to find it...

Corwyn Black. Corwyn was born to be a blacksmith. He was raised to be a blacksmith. One problem: he didn’t have any intention of being a blacksmith. He craved adventure, and he craved gold. Period. Greed, more than anything else, motivates this young warrior. He turned down a tour of duty with Cormyr’s army during the Ghazneth War because the pay wasn’t good enough. Instead, he set off toward that famous crypt of hidden riches and magic, the Haunted Halls of Eveningstar. Long on strength but short on common sense, Corwyn puts his hammer to a slightly different use now: the smashing of foes. Or as he puts it, “Bonk-bonk on the head, then take the coins.”

 

[Tom Cashel]

AERUNEDAR
The Curse of Hathos

Table of Contents

i. Prologue
ii. Cast of Characters

I. The Southeast Gatehouse
II. The Haunted Halls
III. The Corpsecoil
IV. Tummarlin’s Wake
V. Into the Lost City
VI. To Face the Scarlet Flame
VII. Serpents in Dark Water
VIII. The Trials of Enthandas
IX. Crown of Fire
X. Ooltugula’s Portal


Episode I: The Southeast Gatehouse

Characters: Bronn “Spellforger” (shield dwarf Wizard), Enina Meliamne (moon elf Druid), Saeita Neví (wild elf Monk), Van Dyksun (human Ranger), Velm Trueforger (shield dwarf Fighter).

The Year of Wild Magic (1372 DR), Eleasias, The northlands of Cormyr

Shieldmeet—The Shieldmeet festival is less mirthful this year than four winters ago, bearing as it does the taint of recent history. In the crowded market square of the forest village of Eveningstar, four travelers meet a wizard and join him for lunch at the Lonesome Tankard. One of the travelers is the wizard’s cousin, intent on returning him to their home so he can face “justice” for his “crimes.” (i.e. continuing to use the Clan name though he was exiled for studying Wizardry).

Despite this fact, the festivities are enjoyed until late in the evening—long after Lady Tessaril Winter and the village folk have renewed their promises of fealty to one another, long after the dancing and music have ceased, long after farmers’ lamps have been dimmed and the tressym have come out to soar amongst the shadowed branches of trees in moonlight.

Eleasias 1—Before any extradition can occur the next morning, word spreads that a local boy and his friend—Elonn and Talf—vanished the night before, in the company of a tall and dark-haired woman. The five agree to put aside their differences (for the moment), and seek out the missing boys.

On the High Road east of Eveningstar, they come upon a wagon with a broken wheel. Enina calls upon the forest trees to enwrap the merchant and his men-at-arms, while Bronn demonstrates his skill with the crossbow. Soon the merchant—in reality a Thayan slaver—is in custody, and Elonn and Talf are found drugged beneath the wagon’s oilcloth tarp. Upon Elonn’s return to his grateful and weeping mother, the woman dubs these new companions, “The Company of the Coin.”

The admissions of the Thayan slaver lead the Company to a Thayan Enclave west of Eveningstar. They speak with the haughty and imperious Fezarch Hinnar about one of the Red Wizards under her command—the diviner Kizzaf. Hinnar agrees to look into this matter; she will not tolerate actions that threaten the “good standing of this Enclave in the community of Eveningstar.”

But that night the evening victuals of the Company are interrupted by the arrival of Fezarch Hinnar herself at the Lonesome Tankard. Kizzaf has vanished from the Enclave without answering any questions, and the Fezarch wants her back in custody. She offers a reward of magic draughts, as well as a cryptic clue: “Doom of Redhand...1500 paces east...the Southeast Gatehouse.”

Eleasias 2—This morn finds the village of Eveningstar cloaked in cold thick fog. The Company sets out early, crossing the River Starwater and following a path toward the Gorge. At the old Thaddath Farm, there is evidence that someone (or something...) has been picking through the rubbish and filth.

Soon the Company spies a recently-exposed and excavated cave in the Stonecliff. Within they discover a pair of sentinels—tusked mouths, feral ears and matted black hair—orcs! A ferocious and bloody battle ensues, with the Company only barely victorious. At Velm’s suggestion, Bronn sneaks further into the cave (which is marked with the Rune of Clan Darkfell) and fells a sorceror with a single bolt. The spellcaster wears an ominous insignia upon his black tunic: a clawed hand, from which greenish beams emanate, on a fiery orange background.

Using ambush tactics, the Company moves swiftly through the dwarven halls of ancient construction, slaying all the orcs they find (yet passing up a few unsavory portals and corridors...). Van displays his deadly accuracy with the bow, while Saeita fells opponents with a single strike of hand or foot. Many of the old halls have collapsed, but a path leads deeper into the ruin.

Below, the Company discovers their quarry—Kizzaf and a malevolent cleric searching a pillared hall. The battle is long and fierce—the priest swinging a vicious mace and Kizzaf levitating above the fray and throwing down fire and frost—but finally the cleric is killed and Kizzaf beaten unconscious and captured.

As the members of the Company thank the Gods for their victory, the Darkfell Rune in the center of the floor fills with the priest’s blood. As the dark fluid flows down each of the eight radiating grooves and under the walls, there is an audible and curious click in the chamber...

 

[Tom Cashel]

episode II: The Haunted Halls

Characters: Bronn Spellforger (shield dwarf Wizard, lvl 2), Corwyn Black (human Fighter, lvl 1), Daziel (human Cleric, Selûne, lvl 1), Saeita Neví (wild elf Monk, lvl 2), Van Dyksun (human Ranger, lvl 2), Velm Trueforger (shield dwarf Fighter--NPC, lvl 2)

Eleasias 2—In the halls of the southeast gatehouse, the members of the Company of the Wolf ready themselves as a secret door slides open...and a dessicated dwarf corpse slides to the floor in a puff of dust, trailing cobwebs. It wears the Star of Darkfell--one of Clan Darkfell’s warriors, or perhaps a leader. The druid Enina Meliamne and her wolf Oginali, disturbed by the stone walls and stench of death, depart immediately for wooded lands and open sky.

In the dust-choked passage beyond the secret door, the Company spies a flickering white glow, and rounding a corner they view its source: the luminous specter of a dwarven warrior, standing before a great fall of rock, an enormous spill of braided beard from beneath his helm. “The city is under siege,” he whispers, “goblins have sundered the gates...the King is in peril...aid us, dwarves,” and turning, vanishes through the rocks. The passage goes dark.

Bronn and Velm realize that the cave-in will take many workers and months to clear. Perhaps the cryptic map labeled with Dethek runes showing a place called "Aerunedar," found tucked into the Red Wizard's arcanabula, bears some relation?

Dragging their prisoner, the Company ascends to the second level.

There they find slain orcs and a locked room, and a hideous tentacled creature (a choker) that nearly gets the best of Saeita Neví before it is perforated by bolts and blades. In the room the company discovers prisoners of the tuskers--a militant priestess of Selûne, Daziel, and a former blacksmith, Corwyn Black--both of whom agree to join the Company of the Wolf.

At Starwater Bridge, the Company confronts a wall of horses and breastplates bearing Purple Dragon: soldiers of the Crown—Purple Dragons under the command of the sneering Hurvald of Espar. It seems the companions have broken a few of Cormyr’s laws, and although their deeds seem noble, they will have to come along for the time being.

They are taken to Eveningstar Hall under guard, and placed in a “waiting room” until Lady Tessaril Winter will see them. Eventually, they are granted audience with the Lady, who explains the position of the Crown and offers a deal: a Charter and all charges dropped, if the Company will put an end to the poaching of sharrada from the High Pasture by “demon imps.”

It is agreed, a certain Thayan arcanabula is returned to the Fezarch Hinnar, the Red Wizard in turn makes good on her payment of potions, and the diviner Kizzaf--now pariah--is returned to the Thayan Enclave in chains.

Eleasias 3, 4, 5—The Company recovers their health and trains in their newfound skills, as Bronn divines the functions of dweomered treasures. A visit is made to Myrkyr at the House of Morning. A runestone letter is sent to Thunderstone, and the members of the Company ready themselves to foray into the Haunted Halls.

Eleasias 6—A sunny morning finds the Company of the Wolf setting off to the north, into Starwater Gorge. The path rises gradually from the trees into the rocky, scorpion-infested gorge, and soon the companions come upon a ruined, double-walled keep—the former fortress of the Bandit King Rivior, now known simply as the “Killing Keep.” A cursory survey turns up nothing but dust, rubble and a murder of startled crows. But Corwyn Black could have told them that...

Further up the gorge (approximately eight miles from Eveningstar), the Company discovers a pair of cracks in the rockface. And high above, Corwyn spies a barrel perched upon a cliff. A perilous climb discovers a rainbarrel and a small cave, and a terrifying fall elicits Bronn Spellforger’s wizardly acumen. Luckily, Corwyn’s death is averted as he settles gently to earth.

After plumbing the depths of an owlbear’s lair, and slaying the furious inhabitant, the Company enters the lightless and bleak Haunted Halls. An exploration of the lichen-encrusted entry halls discovers vermin and filth (monstrous spiders, scorpions and a nasty infestation of green slime) and several trinkets, but none of the malevolent ghosts that give the Halls their name. The Company returns to the owlbear cave for the night to regain their strength.

Eleasias 7—Back in the Halls, the Company adavnces quickly, setting off a triple crossbow trap. A faint gong is heard somewhere ahead. Finally the Company stumbles upon their quarry—a guardroom full of “demon imps”: yapping, chattering kobolds!

A deadly melee leaves the diminutive red dogs hacked to pieces, and the Company intact. Beyond a secret portal, the Company finds a shaft stretching upward into darkness, rusting grabirons affixed to one side. Although Corwyn is eager to scale it, the Company decides to turn back and replenish their strength.

That night they again make camp in the owlbear’s cave, the silent and enigmatic wild elf guarding them in her meditative state.

Eleasias 8—In the wee hours of the morning, Saeita alerts her friends to danger: a war-party of kobolds trekking past the cave mouth. Luckily, they are not discovered, but Daziel has an idea: remain awake until the kobolds return, hidden behind that rusted portcullis just within the Halls...

Once the Selûnite has prayed for the Power, and Bronn has studied his Art, the Company of the Wolf sets their trap in the entry chamber of the Halls. A far-off tapping of stone on stone catches the priest’s ear, but remains a mystery.

Sure enough, half of the kobolds return before dawn, and they are peppered with bolts from Daziel’s crossbows and arrows hurtling from Van's bow, blasted and frozen by Bronn’s icy daggers, crushed by Corwyn’s hammer and Saeita’s fists, and split from nave to chops by the keen axe of Velm. In but a few moments the kobolds are sprawled all about, bleeding.

The discovery of another secret portal leads the Company to a dusty, long-unused hall. They spend a good deal of time breaking through a stubborn, locked panel, to find a black bear rearing up on its hind legs!

Luckily, the bear is stuffed and on a wooden pedestal—but the companions’ luck does not stop there. They discover chests of gold coin, tapestries woven with precious metals, and a steel coffer holding gems. The only question is how they will carry their treasures to the sunlight...

 

[Tom Cashel]

Episode III: The Corpsecoil

Characters: Bronn Spellforger (shield dwarf Wizard, lvl 3), Corwyn Black (human Fighter, lvl 2), Daziel (human Cleric, Selûne, lvl 2), Saeita Neví (wild elf Monk, lvl 3), Van Dyksun (human Ranger, lvl 3), Velm Trueforger (shield dwarf Fighter, lvl 2).

8 Eleasias—Deep within the Haunted Halls, Corwyn Black is breaking open a steel coffer, while the Company of the Wolf distributes small chests of gold coin among the strong arms gathered in the dusty vault.

Spangg!

The coffer bursts open, spilling smoky crystal lenses and a pair of golden yellow gemstones. As Bronn is appraising their worth, he catches sight of something inside one of them: a man dressed in archaic fluted half-plate, with a shield and a longsword. He shows the rest of the Company his find.

“I’m going to let him out,” says Bronn. But he is talked out of it by the others. None of them have any way of knowing why the tiny man is trapped inside the gem; Bronn Spellforger has never heard of such a spell. Booty in hand, they make ready to depart.

Listening at the door, Saeita Neví hears a dragging footstep just beyond the portal, followed by a dry human chuckle. “They’re right outside the door,” she whispers.

Corwyn wrenches open the door and chases the fleeting shadows. No one is there.

But moments later, a hail of bolts pelts them in the adjoining hall. Yapping kobolds flee into the dark. Corwyn and Daziel give chase, only to run headlong into another hail of bolts, fired by another knot of kobolds ready in the passage. They also flee. Into the ambush point they follow, and when they are fired at a third time from a point just below the tall shaft, they slam the secret portal shut and wait for the Company to catch up.

click click click-click click

Daziel of Selûne hears the far-off tapping of stone on stone. The Company gathers in the kobold ambush point, some of them strenuously advocating an immediate retreat.

Daziel looks out through an arrow slit into the passage beyond, pressing the smoky lenses that seem to banish shadows up against her eyes.

Nothing.

She looks through the other one, and finds herself staring into a jaundiced, bloodshot eye nearly three inches across.

She lets out a scream, startling all, and pokes one finger into the goggling orb. An inhuman moan of pain and rage erupts from beyond the arrow slit. When they shine a light into the halls on the other side, there is nothing to be seen but a hall of stone statues.

“Why don’t we get out of here while we still can?” suggests the young ranger, pushing white hair out of his eyes.

They retreat quickly, noting that the slime they burned away still glistens a sickening green in the upper corners of the old barracks. And before their eyes, a flickering apparition walks, turning slowly to fix them with a glowering gaze, before vanishing beyond a corner. The there is only the far-off click click-click of the stones…

In the entry chamber they are again pelted with bolts, and one kobold speaks arcane words and hurls spells, all from behind the safety of the rusted portcullis. A sleep spell takes down half the group, and the rest are mercilessly pounded by bolts, until Velm finally hurls a flask of alchemist’s fire. The explosion startles the yapping dogs, who run off into the Halls.

Outside, a chill fog fills the Starwater Gorge.

“I’m letting him out,” says Bronn.

“You can’t!” says Daziel.

“What if he’s trapped in there for a good reason?” asks Van Dyksun.

Saeita Nevi, still shaken by their encounter with the spirits of the dead, says nothing.

Ignoring all protests, Bronn and Velm (in a rare show of solidarity) smash the yellow gem.

The man in armor is suddenly sprawled upon the ground.

He stands slowly, and introduces himself as Temuel Khiv, a holy warrior of Tempus. As the tread the (now) well-known path back to Eveningstar, Temuel tells them his story (see above), and is horrified to learn that he has been trapped in the yellow gem for almost 200 years.

By midday the fog has burned off.

Headed down the trail, the Company approaches the Killing Keep…

In a grove of spruces just north of the Killing Keep, a gray squirrel chatters and screeches on a branch above Van Dyksun.

“Hey,” Van calls back to the others, “does anyone know if the squirrels are aggressive around here?”

The squirrel seems highly agitated.

Bronn laughs. “Come on, ranger, it’s a squirrel, for Mystra’s sake. Can’t you talk to it?”

Van shrugs. He scans the trail ahead, barely missing a hint of movement along a high ridge...

The Company reaches the wide point of Starwater Gorge, where the ruins of the Killing Keep are huddled against one wall, behind two crumbling walls and gatehouses.

Screechh! Tikka-tee-tikka! Scronch! The squirrel appears again, nearly leaping end over end in an attempt to do...something.

A woman’s voice, hoarse and ragged, echoes from the Killing Keep: “Help!”

The companions are instantly alert. “Someone’s in trouble,” says Temuel Khiv.

“You go investigate,” says Daziel. “I want to see what this squirrel’s problem is.” She and Saeita crouch over the agitated rodent.

The Company—Van Dyksun, Bronn Spellforger, Velm, Corwyn Black and Temuel Khiv—move off toward the forbidding walls of Rivior’s Keep.

The squirrel begins scratching at the dirt. Letters appear.

“What are you trying to tell us?” asks Daziel.

The squirrel manages, with great difficulty, to spell out FIND THE STONE TOOTH.

“Where?”

NORTH.

Just then the clash of metal on metal is heard from the Keep—Velm’s battle cry to Clanggeddin, Temuel Khiv’s bellicose roar, Corwyn Black’s wail: “The dead! They walk!”—with a glance at each other, Saeita Neví and Daziel run toward the Keep.

The Company of the Wolf passes through the first gatehouse to find a pair of tuskers waiting for them, and they charge...only to find that Risen corpses emerge from the inner bailey to hem them in. Add to that the fact that the area into which they have been drawn is tainted somehow: the air tastes flat and stale, somehow oily, and send shivers of despair down their spines. The inspiring presence of Temuel Khiv only partially wards off the fell influence. And worst of all: one of the corpses has a crossbow bolt through its throat—it is the Banite sorceror killed by Bronn at the southeast gatehouse.

Suddenly Kizzaf, the Red Wizard they thought was in custody at the Enclave, springs up from behind the battlements, atop the inner wall. “Time to die,” she gloats, in a ragged and hoarse voice, firing a crossbow down into the melee.

Bronn speaks words of magic, and swallows a live spider.

A swirling cloud of multihued energy emerges from the inner bailey. “Give up the map, and perhaps the Lord Bane will hear your pleas for mercy,” sneers a voice from within the vortex.

The battle continues, as Van Dyksun and Corwyn Black receive terrible wounds. A blue-skinned corpse with one hideously misshapen claw speeds into battle; the risen body of the Cleric slain at the southeast gatehouse, now somehow imbued with the evil of the Black Tyrant. Strikes from his claws elicit despairing curses from Velm—the creature’s blows seem to sap his skills and make him clumsy on his feet, filling him with unnatural cold...

The swirling vortex approaches Temuel Khiv, and a priest of Bane appears within the cloud, in the moment that he brings a heavy black flail over his helm in a deadly arc.

Crack-splush!

The flail sunders Temuel Khiv’s helm and drops him to the ground. From within the lacquered black helmet of the “Claw of Bane” comes a peal of mocking laughter.

Corwyn grabs the near-fallen Van Dyksun and attempts to flee.

Bronn climbs to the top of the wall, and readies his club. He and Kizzaf circle, she firing bolts stubbornly as the club swings close and closer, until finally Bronn is able to stave in her skull.

“We are leaving!” screams Corwyn.

“Cowards!” shouts Velm Trueforger. “My cousin is in there!”

Just then Daziel and Saeita Neví arrive at the gates. “Selûne commands you...begone!!!” The walking dead flee into the Keep with groans of fear and loathing. Only the Clawed Corpse and the Banite cleric remain.

With a few profane words, a red lash of energy extends from one of the Banite’s black gauntlets.

The battle is fierce and bloody. It seems to last until all are struggling for breath, exhausted with parrying and swinging their weapons at the Clawed Corpse, which shrugs off strikes as an oilcloth sheds water. At last, The Claw of Bane and his monstrous ally lie dead between the crumbling towers of the gatehouse.

And alas...so does Temuel Khiv, his noble brow split and spilling his lifeblood upon the soil.

A pyre is built, and Daziel hacks in rage at the corpses of the evil ones. The Claw of Bane, Kizzaf and the Clawed Corpse are piled upon the gathered kindling and set alight. “They’ll not plague us again,” says Daziel through gritted teeth.

Bronn glares at those who attempted to flee, and says almost nothing.

And what of the squirrel? Someone got to it while the battle raged...it has been crushed by a heavy boot. It gives a last twitch, and dies...and instantly ‘morphs into the dead body of an old wrinkled longbeard in dusty and tattered traveling clothes. In his rucksack is a small leather tome, which Bronn snatches away.

“Can’t you even respect the dead?” cries Daziel. “I’m beginning to think Velm was right about you, Spellforger.”

Bronn glares at her, and at all of them. “You’d foolishly give away everything we find, if I wasn’t here to stop you.”

“Let’s not fight,” pleads Van Dyksun. “We need to reach Eveningstar alive, after all.”

Victorious, alive, yet burdened by ill-will and heavy hearts, the Company of the Wolf sets off on the trail to Eveningstar.

9, 10, 11 Eleasias—In Eveningstar, the Company regains their health and hones their skills in training. Bronn uses magicks of Identification to discern what the dweomered items do. At the House of Morning, the legendary Temuel Khiv (known to “Trueservant” and Myrkyr of Lathander only through stories of long ago) is raised before he can enter the Gates to the Final Battlefield where General Tempus awaits: his quest is not yet finished. Bronn goes to the shore of the Starwater and summons a familiar: the toad called Wolf.

12 Eleasias—In the high chamber of Tessaril’s Tower, the Company meets with Lady Winter, and agrees to mount another journey to the Haunted Halls, this time to deal with the kobold threat once and for all. Temuel Khiv agrees to join them. “The Corpsecoil—Ruathgrym—still dwells in the Gorge...I can feel his presence.” They learn that Kizzaf escaped from the Thayan Enclave only a few days earlier...

13 Eleasias—The sun burns hot upon the green fields and bushy hedgerows.

The Gorge is pale gray in the distance, rambling steadily from beyond the treeline to the misty fastnesses of the Stormhorns, their white caps only barely visible in the north. But in town the sun is bright and the apple trees are in full green cloaks studded with red.

The Company—now including the diminutive Wolf in Bronn’s pocket, and a cart drawn by the pony Velm has affectionately named Bronn—sets out early for the Halls, and marches until noon along the scorpion-infested trail.

Inside the musty and lichen-encrusted Halls, the party makes their way to the old barracks. They’ve decided to proceed toward those welcoming statues Daziel saw, but first Van suggests, “Let’s spike shut the doors to the kobolds’ ambush point.”

Corwyn volunteers. Everyone takes up positions around the arched opening as Corwyn scans the barracks. “Nothing in there,” he says.

He takes the spikes, and his hammer, and enters the barracks.

“Aaaiiiiiiieeeeeeeee--!!!” Corwyn staggers back, covered in bright green filth that melts his bloody hands and half of his face, an acrid mist rising from the wounds.

They try to wipe it off—it dissolves the cloth. Daziel is without a Cure disease prayer. Bronn states boldly, “We must use fire.” Grabbing a torch, he ignites the slime and cauterizes the wound…emitting a whimper of agony, Corwyn Black slides the floor. Nothing in his days of smithing weapons at the forge has prepared him for this.

Daziel heals the wounds, but it will be many days until Corwyn truly regains his hale and hearty vigor. An agreement is reached that the green slime will act as a natural safeguard against the kobolds coming or going by that route.

At the welcoming statues, both of bronze and gesturing to the bronze vault, the Company halts, debating the merits of simply opening the doors. “I have been here,” says Temuel Khiv. “The statues hold out bolts of lightning to anyone who opens the portal.”

The party spends a while trying to figure out how to toss two grappling hooks so that they remain hooked onto the huge bronze pull rings, without touching the doors.

After long minutes of this, Daziel cries out, “Enough of this! Fortune favors the bold!” She reaches out to grasp the pull ring—

“Wait!” cries Spellforger. “I have an idea. One needs a mage’s hand for this.”

He speaks an Artful word and moves a hand, and one by one the grappling hooks drift to the pull rings and attach themselves. With a sharp tug they open, blocking the lightning’s path and assuring safe passage.

In the passage beyond they discover a deadly house of traps, the corpse of Estrel (of the Band of Twilight) recently murdered as part of a ritual, and Rivior’s grand throne room with it’s mildewed tapestries, chest upon the throne, and its moving painting upon the southern wall depicting elves and men at war.

The Company does battle with skeletons that appear out of nowhere, and when Daziel turns them away they seem to flee toward a hall of pillars and vanish into thin air. Doors, pillars, rubble strewn about, halls blocked by falls of stone—even the ceiling of the pillared hall seems about to fall in despite Velm and Bronn’s assurances that it will not.

And always that distant click click click-click click from far away, and a deranged chuckle or groan from somewhere in the near darkness.

A six-hundred-pound stone block slides from the ceiling, crushing Daziel nearly to death, and the Company decides that they’ve seen enough of pillars. Besides, the others have opened a chest in the stone cellar, and released a cloud of potent sleep gas, and the sickly Corwyn Black is fully unconscious. No amount of shaking rouses him.

Through a secret door they discover the opposite side of the kobold’s ambush point, and receive a volley of bolts from the yapping “demon imps,” answering with a flask of alchemist’s fire.

They spike the door shut.

Back in the throne room, Saeita investigates the chest—it abruptly sprouts a pseudopod and swings at her. With a yelp she ducks, and the lid of the chest splits open to reveal a wide square red mouth lined with razor-sharp teeth. It uses another tendril to push open a secret panel behind it, and with the sandpaper growl of “Ee-Chutaa,” it slips away.

Through one of the throne room’s doors a scorched black room is found, with a tangle of scorched rags and a stone warhammer at the center. Slimy footprints disappear beyond the southern wall.

When the secret door is open, revealing a slimy staircase descending steeply into the dark, that crawling shiver goes down the neck of Temuel Khiv. “He is here,” says Sir Khiv, “the Corpsecoil is here.”

A trip step halfway down is spotted, averting a nasty fall into rusty sword blades. Corwyn sleeps peacefully in the scorched room.

In the Undercrypt, three dusty stone coffins line the far wall. Skeletons instantly spring to the attack, their bones slithering together and reforming as they are struck. One cloth-wrapped apparition rises from the center coffin, and is taken to pieces by the precise arrows of Van Dyksun and the spells of Bronn.

But from the third coffin rises another cloth-wrapped form, taller, dust sifting through its yellowed wrappings. In its gaunt and dessicated face, a malevolent intelligence seems to rest in its pale jade eyes. “Temuel,” it breathes, “you should not have come.”

“Your time is done, Ruathgrym,” replies Temuel, drawing from its sheath the Blood Point.

The battle rages fiercely, with the Company hammering away at the foul Corpsecoil from all sides. Bronn grants to his toad familiar a spell of combustion, and Wolf hops slowly across the chamber toward the unsuspecting Corpsecoil…

The Corpsecoil moans in fear now, as the blades of the Company wear away his foully-extended life. Gurgling, it hits the floor with a thud.

The Company cheers. At that precise moment, the toad hops through Temuel’s legs and touches the dusty cloth-wrapped corpse.

Whhhhhooooooooosssshhhhhhhhh!!! Ruathgrym bursts into cleansing flame.

Another cheer goes up from the Company.

Nearby the party uncovers a secret treasure vault: a sword, a bow, several tomes, coins, and the sacred Golden Chalice of Lathander. “The task set before me by the Grand Generals of Tempus is complete,” breathes Sir Temuel Khiv. “The Corpsecoil is down, and the Chalice will soon be back in the hands of those at Lathander’s house.”

As they collect the riches of the Undercrypt, the Company of the Wolf debates what their next move will be, and some grudges begin to coil and rear their heads...

"Doomed," whispers a voice in the chamber.

Bronn pulls open the door on the clicking noise.

The tolling bell fades into the distance.

As the door opens, the muffled muttering resolves into "Any moment...any moment...any moment..."

Surrounded by half-eaten rat carcasses and thousands of tiny yellow bones, a dirty male elf with wiry black hair and many tarnished earrings is tapping a stone against the wall and listening carefully...as he mutters "Any moment" over and over again.

He stops when he notices you all in the doorway.

“Do you hear it? Do you?” he demands in a whispery voice. "What took you so long?"

"Crap," mutters Bronn.

Velm Trueforger: By all the orc whelps in Thunder Vale...is that an elf?

Temuel Khiv: Does the elf have a weapon? He may need it on the way out of here. Though we don't yet know if he can be trusted with a blade...I'll help get him to his feet. By the Mailed Fist of Tempus, I am ready for battle!

Bronn: Wait a minute .. are you Quisvan?... no can't be ... better yet, Ivellior?? Let's get him the seven hells out of here!

"It is I," he says, "Ivellior."
The elf has a longsword and dagger in scabbards, a bedroll, a backpack, and a whetstone.

"Ulodrin," he says to Bronn, "Finally you have returned. I knew you would hear the signal, and that it would safekeep your steps."

A look of blissful relief passes over the elf's features as he turns to Daziel. "And the lovely Estrel."

He pricks up his ears. "Wait. Do you hear it?"

...silence...

"It is free. We set it free." He breaks down into hysterical tears.

Bronn Spellforger: You can rest now, Ivellior, you're safe. Tymora smiles upon you. But we must go. Grumbad here will help you.. we must return to Eveningstar. Velm, can you help him out of here? We need to move. NOW.

Daziel: checks over the elf for wounds. Speaks to him quietly for a few moments, makes him sip some water, then gets up and rejoins the group.

"Let's get him out of here. Someone want to search the room and help gather up his stuff. Who is he, Bronn? What is the Band of Twilight? Better yet, who does he think we are? Who or what does he think is in here, and might it have something to do with the sound of the cave in? Temuel, can you tell if he is possessed, or has evil intent?"

Although he is nervous and twitchy, Ivellior allows Velm and Temuel to lead him by the arms.

"Grumbad, I never thought you would have such compassion...I apologize for the things I said." He turns to Temuel. "Ah, yes...Temuel Khiv...the voices speak often of you, the Servant of Tempus, the Paladin of the Gem."

He whimpers and sobs. "The Lockpick...crushed in Rivior's library...it seemed so innocent but we had to go and set it free..we were fools, Grumbad, fools...it's hungry..." Ivellior moans in terror.

Boots crunching on rat bones, it takes all of you only a few moments to reach the Chamber of Welcoming Statues. From there, you travel swiftly down the hall to where you can see the entry door beyond the rusted portcullis.

A quick detour to the north takes you past the slime-infested barracks and down the diagonal hall to the secret door.

You open it and enter the entry chamber. The pile of old shields and weapons still rests at the center of the room, and a stale scent wafts from the lichen-encrusted walls. The room is filled with a pale glow...

...emanating from the transparent form of a tall, broad man in fine clothing that is stained with blood, and a thick winter mantle over his shoulders. His long hair is swept back, his beard well-trimmed, and his eyes...his eyes burn with unholy loathing.

His voice grates like ice over rough stone. "You thought to plunder my Hold and depart unscathed? You are doomed."

Ivellior falls to his knees and shrieks, a jarring sound that sets all your teeth on edge.

The phantom's smile is a grim rictus; there is no humor in it.

Rivior fixes his baleful gaze upon Bronn: "You speak as though I cannot hear you, little one. Like Redhand, you underestimate me. Even the Warrior Queen underestimated me...she too met her doom in the blowing snow."

Rivior looks at Temuel, as he steps forward with the Blood Point, as though seeing him for the first time. "Ruathgrym...the Corpsecoil...one and same? Then perhaps he did come to Starwater Gorge to join the Sons of the Coil...and you have done me a service, Soldier of Tempus." Rivior grows stern once more. "Go now. We are equal."

And in a hiss that chills your very blood he adds, "Return...and you shall join us. Forever." For just a moment, surrounding you, you see the hazy forms of Rivior's bandit army...a bloody and hateful menagerie of spirits closing in on you...

Abruptly, they are gone. The Haunted Halls are silent and still, except for the soft weeping of Ivellior.

 

[Tom Cashel]

Mellomir's Journal

THE LOST CITY OF DARKFELL

Being a full and true Exposition of the Journey of the Sage Most Wise
MELLOMIR of ARABEL—
How I Reached It, and What I Found There

Scribed by the Grace of Oghma
in the Year of Wild Magic,
1372 by the Reckoning of the Dales,
by
Mellomir of Arabel

Preface
I’ll not burden any who might peruse this slim tome with the details of my studies leading up to this momentous exploration. Suffice to say that without the treatise, On the Significance of Redhand Darkfell in the Northern Marches: Secrets of the Forgotten Keep, by the brilliant sage and scholar Ummattin Tencloak (Oghma protect his soul), I might never have known of the Lost City of the Darkfell Clan, and if I had I may have been so foolish as to begin my search in the dim catacombs of the fey and uninviting Forgotten Keep. To be certain, I would also have met my doom there! Better to know what I do of Hathos, though it be precious little—enough to seek his trail elsewhere. My hope is that the trail will indeed lead me to Iolar’s Deep, and the city he built within its confines.

Flamerule 1
Even the greatest of journeys must begin in the most ignoble of locales.

This is what I receive when I break promises to myself—bitter ale, an uncomfortable bed, and a skull aching from the raucous songs of rowdy locals. ‘Tis unfortunate, to be sure, that I must once again find shelter in the miserable backwater of Eveningstar (which, I might add, has become even worse—if such a thing is possible—since Goodman Dun was forced to sell his fine establishment to the Lady Winter), but even I am surprised to find that my enthusiasm is undimmed. The Lost City of the Darkfell dwarves! By Oghma’s Lore and Deneir’s Quill, this will put me in the palace at Suzail! If Tencloak’s treatise was correct, I dare not seek the Forgotten Keep, not yet. Old Redhand shan’t have the neck of this old scholar so easily! I’m certain the Stone Tooth holds the answers. If those miserable Silversword brats do not arrive by morn I’ll set out on the trail myself, scorpions be damned.

(later) I have outfitted myself for the journey as well as I could at Tethyr’s Hardware. By the lore of the Binder these backwater folk like to pry! A pox upon Arbold Tethyr for his ceaseless questions and unreasonable prices! Perhaps they are only curious—Vilnar, for one, would not give me peace until I let slip that my journey involved a search for mithral. Mayhap he wishes to sell such items in his Adornments Shop—he’ll find himself stymied when I return the treasures to Suzail. Maethlin the alchemist, if also too curious, is at least a fellow scholar. I advised him not to waste his life in such a place as this, and he only smiled—he could have no other customers but Red Thayans in an ignorant sty such as Even’star. I hear they pay well.

Flamerule 2
A company of adventurers arrived today en route to the Haunted Halls. They call themselves the Band of Twilight, showing their charter to anyone who’ll look. Band of Braggarts comes closer to the mark. They’ve a cleric of Tymora among them—I hope the Lady smiles upon them. Not a few of the town’s menfolk are smiling upon the one called Estrel, that’s for sure, and not without reason. She’s cut from a fine cloth, and she shows her midriff without shame. But she seems betrothed to the good cleric, and practices some Art herself, so I’ll not be flirtatious. By my measure, they are far too confident. The Halls will likely be their grave.

Flamerule 3
The Band of Twilight departed this morning. If the brats do not arrive by tomorrow, I’ll blast the ears of those Silverswords, noble blood be damned. This time my promise shall stand—I’ll not return to this mudhole again. Not a morsel of decent food to be had, only tough and stringy sharrada stew with potatoes. Tencloak had better be right about Hathos’ Runes.

Flamerule 4
By Oghma the Binder and all the Gods, it’s about time! The young Geradil and Courana Silversword arrived today, and we shall set out north on the morrow. As I suspected, they are the usual variety of spoiled aristocrat, but their fathers have kept my purse full and my larder stocked, so with me I must allow them to trek. If they are skilled with their blades I’ll forgive them a bad upbringing. The brat of a swordarm keeps calling me Weirdbeard.

I am scarcely able to close my eyes for excitement, but I must try. The road is long, and the Starwater Gorge holds threats unnamed.

Flamerule 5
We have put behind us fifteen long miles on the eastern shore of Starwater. The Silverswords have set us a camp within a cleft in the rocks—she at least seems to have some bit of sense regarding the wild lands. Her cousin is not so well endowed in the mind as he is in the arm. But I’ll not grudge him. His swordarm put down five yapping kobolds this eve and put the rest to flight.

Flamerule 6
Today we passed the source of the Starwater and scaled a cliff. My boots are filled with stones and the scorpions will not stay out of my bedroll. They are a plague, by the Flowing Script of the Binder! But we’ll reach our destination on the morrow, if I’ve calculated correctly. Old Silversword didn’t lie—his niece is a fine tracker. I’d not find the Stone Tooth without her. But she has an awfully uncivil tongue.

Flamerule 8
Wasn’t able to write yesterday. Difficult to put quill to page in the dark. Young Courana is certain we are being followed, and would not permit a campfire, but by whom none of us can say. We are trapped between the jaws and the stone, and in both directions lies the unknown.

Flamerule 9
Success! Our mistake was to travel north rather than east at the fork of the stream. I’ll wager we lost two days stumbling about shale-coated mountainsides and slipping on pine needles, though Courana claims it was one at most. But no matter! We have found the Stone Tooth! No sign of our pursuers, so perhaps the detour was for the best.

The trail rises through several switchbacks to the Mountain Door, just as Tencloak described. By Kelemvor’s palace of bone, he did not lie. Now we must take care, lest we awaken the ghosts of Darkfell in our search.

(later) I am too old for this sort of activity. As if the massive doors themselves were not enough, we have crossed a chasm and met with the traps left by Clan Darkfell. But these halls seem empty of any inhabitants, save vermin of the monstrous sort. The young Silverswords have displayed considerable acumen in dispatching such pests. They are quite a bit less skillful in avoiding deathtraps, all but ignoring my warnings. Beware the granite statue—Geradil barely escaped with his life.

(later) I can barely write, my hand trembles so. The Lost City of Darkfell was called aerunedar by the Clan...Tencloak was right—Hathos left his Runes and his map...a charcoal rubbing of the map itself should do, but I will have to copy out the Dethek by hand ...much of it has been defaced, the very rock smashed away...Redhand’s Doom must refer to Redhand Pool, where the warrior himself drowned...Geradil hears a clamor in the halls nearby and is going to ascertain the source… Oghma let my quill be swift...there is a poem or riddle here...

(later) Geradil is taken by the enemy...they must have been the ones following...Binder willing, perhaps there is another route by which

 

[Tom Cashel]

Episode IV: Tummarlin’s Wake

Characters: Bronn Spellforger (shield dwarf Wiz3), Corwin Black (human Ftr3), Daziel (human Clr3, Selûne), Saeita Neví (wild elf Mnk3), Van Dyksun (human Rgr3), Velm Trueforger (shield dwarf Ftr3).


***
“For although Lathander’s shining face—his warming presence—rises into the blue of the sky…so does it also sink into the twilight at the day’s end. And so it is with us, the people who do good works in Lathander’s name. We too must, in our time, descend to the twilight. But we do not go alone.”
***

13 Eleasias, The Year of Wild Magic

Exhausted, the Company of the Wolf has defeated the Corpsecoil and descended from a chilling encounter with the restless spirit of Rivior…and learned that Ruathgrym came to Eveningstar Gorge all those years ago not only to join the Bandit King, but also to “join the Sons of the Coil,” in the enigmatic words of Rivior…

…but for now the Wolf Company is longing for a good meal and warm beds, sickened as morose from their confrontation with the risen filths of the grave.

At the House of Morning, Sir Temuel Khiv returns to Charisbonde Trueservant the Golden Chalice of Lathander. All who take a draught from its rim are made whole once again. With spirits risen somewhat, the Comnpany retires to the Welcoming Hand for victuals and drink.

Selûne, trailing her glimmering Tears, soars upon the sky above the tiny village of Even’star, slumbering heavily in the mouth of the gorge by banks of Starwater. In the midnight woods southwest of town, a host of cloaked figures moves along a little-used trail, little more than an animal track, winding along the crest of a ridge. Most let out snarls or grunts of exertion with the weight of the mining equipment they carry. Others trudge along in menacing silence, reciting to themselves the 23 Oaths of the Tyrant.

The head east and then make steadily north toward the Stonecliff and the Southeast Gatehouse of Aerunedar…

***
“No, people of Even’star…we do not go alone. We go into the night with Lathander at our sides, each and every one. He guides us and guards us unto his celestial realm. And so you must believe the same for the friend we have lost, Deltar Tummarlin.”
***

14-17 Eleasias

Training (Daziel, Corwyn, Velm), spell scribing (Bronn), scroll scribing (Daziel), physical training (Saeita), archery, hunting, meeting with Enina Meliamne, mysterious former member of the Company (Van).

17 Eleasias, evening

Corwyn, Saeita and Van stake out the High Pasture and catch the local tattooist Vilnar Orsborg and his sons, Vilnar and Dirk, trying to poach a sharrada. The hapless Vilnar claims he was hired by a mysterious stranger to steal the cattle. “You don’t understand,” pleads Vilnar.

“Yes,” agrees Van. “We don’t understand.”

There is barely time to ask a few questions when the alrm bells can be heard ringing down in the gorge. The orange glow of flames stains the night sky.

***
“Lathander’s fire warms us in the daylight, and he guides us to its heat when we join him. It warms Deltar Tummarlin right now. He sacrificed himself and his mill to save this woman and these children in the House before me. His nobility will be rewarded. We gather to sing him on his way, not to mourn him. To give him praise on his journey, the one we all someday take.”
***

By the time Daziel, Bronn and Velm reach the crop fields north of the House of Morning, the kobolds of the Crawling Sting have set the fields ablaze in several patches, and corrupted the corn and wheat with green slime…destined to die in the sunlight but able to do catastrophic damage to the crops before that time.

Snuurl Deathwhip, self-proclaimed King of the Kobolds, and his bugbear bodyguard “Crusher” command the field of battle against a full division of Purple Dragons led by Hurvald of Espar—the Crawling Sting is steadily being pounded into the dust by thundering hooves.

The struggle of King is short-lived once the fury of the Priestess of Selûne and Cousins Trueforger falls upon them. But the cost of this battle is high indeed.

18 Eleasias

Deltar Tummarlin’s wake is held today at the Welcoming Hand. The Bard and Herald Tzin Tzummer gathers local musicians and performers to accompany the celebration of Deltar’s life. Members of the Company have an opportunity to speak with Tahgor Ironcrest (War Wizard of Cormyr), Maethlin the alchemist, Lady Winter, Hurvald of Espar, and others.

Tempers fray and snap during the dividing of treasure.

***
“Go peacefully, Deltar Tummarlin. We’ll sing your name before we miss you.”
***

A stakeout of Vilnar Orsborg’s house that night fails to turn up the mysterious benefactor.

19 Eleasias

In the foggy hours after dawn, a quartet of mule-drawn wagons trundles into town and lurches to a halt in the market square. No one of the Wolf Company sees them arrive.

Twenty or more dwarves climb from their perches and begin to assemble tents and shelter, while their leader Dorn Trueforger, the Hammer of Moradin, heads for Eveningstar Hall to speak with Lady Winter about a certain runestone…

Van and Corwyn find Velm speaking to the dwarves at midday, after he has shown them the location of the Gatehouse. Contrary to opinion, the dwarves only want to excavate the lower levels of the Southeast Gatehouse, and gain access to Aerunedar...not take Bronn and Velm into custody.

Fences are mended within the Company, discussions are held regarding the next steps the Company will take…

…while far to the north, the Company of the Scarlet Flame arrives at the Stone Tooth and spies it jutting into the sky from the misty Storm Horns.

20 Eleasias

The trail southwest of town leads by a circuitous route to the Southeast Gatehouse, and there the Wolf Company discovers that one of the dwarves are dead. A wizard and orc servitors were lying in wait within the cave…they hurled fire and lightning before collapsing the cave and sealing it off. One dwarf paid the price, and lies beneath a cairn of stacked stones.

Now Dorn’s Doomslayers and their mining team will have to open the entrance before opening the blocked cave in the depths of the Gatehouse. “Most likely they are in there, excavating it as we speak,” says Dorn. “We’re in a race with them now.”

Uncle Dorn isn’t taking Bronn and Velm back to Thunderstone…but he Exiles them both from Clan Trueforger for False Use of A Name and Aiding a Criminal, respectively. Velm has yet to find out, of course…

21-25 Eleasias

Wolf Company decides to follow the map and Mellomir’s Journal to the Stone Tooth. They march upon a rocky trail into the Gorge, along the eastern banks of the Starwater. On the 22 of Eleasias the Company meets the Scarlet Flame Company on the trail.

The confrontation is tense between the tall and spindly Hurgald “Hawksbreath” and Daziel, but soon the Selûnite’s diplomacy smoothes the situation. The rival adventuring groups pass each other on the trail, trading naught but suspicious glances.

On the 25 of Eleasias, they arrive at the Stone Tooth. They slay four orcs that night on the trail near their camp, to find that they bear the same tribal markings as those slain in the Southeast Gatehouse, and those who hijacked the caravan of Daziel and Corwyn…

*********************************
From the woodland journal of Van Dyksun:
...severely spooked by the ghost I saw in the halls. Considering what I’ve seen only in the last month—rotting corpses still walking, squirrels that turn out to be mages, a man thought dead for over 200 years die and then be resurrected—why, it is no wonder I needed some time alone in the woods to gather my thoughts. Most of the company had things that they needed to do, anyway.

Since no one else would, I agreed to let Temuel Khiv show me around town. He was fascinated how time had affected Eveningstar, and droned on about how when he had been here before that there was only three buildings, including Redhand’s tower. I admit that I found my attention wandering.

I finally was able to escape to the woods. While I was testing the new bow we found, I felt myself being watched. At first I thought myself still jittery from the recent events, but then I noticed a wolf. Looking into the trees, I saw someone. It was the wood elf who had been with us when we captured the slavers, but who had left us suddenly while we were in the caverns. She drew my attention to tracks—I don’t know how I could have missed them before—a large company of men and possibly orcs. So near town, too. I resolved to tell the others, and asked the elf to find out more. I think she will, but who can tell. She is as almost wild as the wolf her companion.

The others were only somewhat interested in my find. I don’t think they trust my skills.

Feeling that we needed to get on with our mission, before Lady Winter had her guards throw us into jail, I organized a trip to watch the sharrada herd by night, so that we could ambush any demon imps that came poaching. Saeita and Corwyn agreed to join me, although once on the high pasture, Saeita kept to herself. Shortly before midnight, I heard approaching footsteps. I gestured to Corwyn to notch the new bow—I’m hoping to teach him something about killing from afar, although it looks like he may not need my help. The footsteps turned out to be one of the villagers--a Vilnar or Veldar or something like that--I can’t keep these villagers names straight--and his two sons (one of which tried to escape, but was brought back bloody and crying by Saeita). He claimed that a man had paid him to poach just a couple of the animals each month, but I’m not sure of his veracity. While we were talking, we noticed a fire burning back in town. As we rushed back, it turned out to be the mill on fire and the guards informed us that the town had been attacked by demon imps. The others in our party had confronted the leader of the attack and bested them in combat, including something that I heard someone call a Bugbear. It looked strangely like the Owlbear that we had encountered near the halls--in some ways, I’m glad I had not had to face it.

While the loss of life had not been high, the demon imps had burnt or defiled with that horrible green slime most of the crops. And the miller, although he had been able to save his wife and daughters by putting them on a raft and sending them downstream, had been unable to save himself. A wake was organized for the next afternoon.

Vilnar’s mysterious employer was due to show up that following evening as well. I resolved to ambush him and discover what he was using the sharrada for. I informed Lady Winter of my plans, but was surprised to discover that she was blaming us for the imps attack on the village, even for their very presence in this area. I tried to get her to see things logically—that the sharrada herd had been in danger long before our impromptu company had arrived in Eveningstar, that the demon imps were likely a manifestation of the new influence of Bane in the area. Then she really surprised me by claiming that we fabricating this Bane fear to cover our inept actions. I told her that if she no longer trusted us, then we could simply leave and begone, but that we wished to get to the heart of the problem. I had to tell her about Vilnar, and she said that if we did not find his employer, he would be arrested in the morning.

All night long I struggled to stay awake, worried by my conversation, and wondering just how long this company could stay together. The constant bickering among the two dwarves has begun to spread, I fear. I’ve found myself short-tempered with both of them as well, and I’ve noticed Daziel has taken to wandering away when the dwarves start in. Corwyn simply counts his money again, and Saeita seems lost in a trance most of the time. When the mysterious employer failed to show, Daziel asked our goddess Selune to help her determine Vilnar’s trustworthiness. What he had told us seemed to be true, but I knew the guards would be there momentarily, and without the employer, they would take Vilnar. I wrote a short note to Lady Winter to reflect what we had discovered with Selune’s assistance, but I doubt the Lady will care. I suspect if we don’t discover something soon, we will be joining Vilnar in the Lady’s dungeon.

As we gathered later that evening--after I had gotten a chance to catch up on my missed sleep--we finished portioning out the loot that we had found in the halls. Unfortunately, the process was marred by greed, and Velm threw his portion back on the table and stormed out. Bronn abruptly left the table, and that’s when Corwyn informed us that a band of dwarves had entered town. I left in search of Velm, finding him talking to the dwarven caravan, then followed him as he led them out of town and showed them the first cavern that we had explored. As they returned to town, I asked to talk to Velm. I thought that he had resolved to leave our company, to take Bronn back to their home as he had originally intended, but I was surprised that instead these dwarves were here to open the passage to Aerundar that Bronn and Velm believed this cavern to be.

I convinced the others to join me in tracking the company of men and orcs that the wood elf had pointed out to me. We started the next morning, ending up circling back around town until in the late afternoon we came right back to the cavern that I had been at with Velm and the new company of dwarves the night before. Except something horrible had occurred--as they had started their mining operation, they had been ambushed by men and orcs--the very group we had been tracking! If only we had been a day earlier! The lead dwarf was furious with Velm. I have a feeling that he thinks Velm did this on purpose. Looking at the map we had from Mellomir, the rest of the party is convinced that the entrance to Aerundar is not in this cavern, but further up the gorge. We decided to follow that map, and Mellomir’s journal, the next morning.

21 Eleisias
Staying on the east side of the river just as Mellomir’s party had done, we began our trek up the Starwater Gorge. When we arrived opposite the cleft in the cliffs that were the halls, I shivered, remembering the final words of the ghost that had driven us from that place before. I discovered the old tracks of a party that we had been following before. We continued up the gorge.

24 Eleisias
We encountered the Company of the Scarlet Flame today. I admit that I nearly let my worst instincts get the better of me. When I first spotted them, I immediately thought the worst. Among their party was a large, unnatural creature that was the mirror of the Bugbear that Velm had brought down during the attack on town. I wanted to immediately attack it. I realize that not all unnatural creatures like that are dangerous, but I have not always been thinking so clearly. Luckily, cooler heads prevailed and Daziel was able to interact with them and prevent a fight. Still, as I passed by this company, I stared at them with the distrust that I feel I am beginning to have for anything I don’t understand.

26 Eleisias
We found the Stonetooth. As it was in the late afternoon, we made camp about 100 yards from the path we had been following. In the mountains, a little stream of smoke could be seen.

Right before dawn I was awoken by Corwyn. He pointed back to the path. As I got up and grabbed two arrows, notching one on my bow, I heard Bronn cursing, then Daziel’s prayer to Selune. Among the trees, I could see two orcs light up with the power of the moon. I instantly let an arrow find its way to strike down one of the unnatural things, while the others take off, running up the path, with the entire company giving chase. The elf caught up with the three of them immediately knocking one unconscious, killing another, but in turn being knocked out by the third. Daziel, following shortly behind, also gets hit before I am able to get close enough to drop the final one with another well placed arrow. We are lucky we dropped this patrol here--if they had been able to warn their fellows, we could have been in severe trouble.

We gathered our things together and climbed the path into the mountains. The smoke turned out to be a constructed chimney--Saeita was able to find this out, although she fell hard off the rocks when she returned from her investigation.

We discovered two orcs guarding the path, and I was able to drop them both before they could raise the alarm. The arrow slits in the cliff around the path indicated that we needed a better plan than simply to continue strolling up the path. Bronn, the dwarven spellcaster, decided to try a subterfuge. He altered his appearance magically so that he looked like an orc. Then he ran up the path, screaming “Help! Elves below. Attacking!” in orcish, or at least that’s what Saeita said he was screaming. It just sounded like grunts to me. We couldn’t hear what happened next, and spent an anxious ten to fifteen minutes trying to decide what to do. Saeita taught me how to scream. “Help! Come quick!” in orcish, but when I did so, the orcs behind the arrow slits simply laughed and said, “we are not so easily fooled.”

Velm pulled out a potion that he had been given by Bronn. He claimed that it would enable someone to climb walls like a spider. Quickly, we formed our plan, feared for what might have befallen Bronn. I removed my boots and gloves as instructed by Velm, and drank the potion, gagging slightly at the little spider contained in the bottom of the vial. Then I took the four vials of alchemist’s fire. Daziel jumped out into the path and taunted the orcs, running across the path to get next to the cliff, out of sight and danger from arrows. At the same time, I rushed across the path, leaped up on the wall and climbed above the arrow slit, throwing one of the alchemist’s fires inside the narrow opening. It broke on the outside and I singed my hair, but I also heard the satisfying screams of a burning orc. The rest of the company rushed to join Daziel as I moved to the next two arrow slits, given each orc his own particular taste of cleansing fire.

Around the next corner, an additional two arrow slits protected the double doors leading to the mountain fortress. Corwyn was trying to force the doors, but having difficulty. I used my last alchemists fire in one arrow slit, then dropped to the ground and attempted to place an arrow through the slit on the opposite side. The others screamed at me to help them force the door, so I put the bow back on my back and threw my weight at the door. On the second try, with all five of us pushing, the metal bands holding the door secure snapped and a dimly lit interior revealed a wide gorge spanned by a rope bridge. Velm rushed onto the bridge, but was slowed by how it was so unstable. I rushed across the wall, as I could still move like a spider, and dropped to the other side, next to one of the six orcs stationed there to guard this entrance. One of the orcs suddenly went up in flames, then Corwyn hit one with an arrow (as I said, he needed no help from me on learning how to use a bow), then Daziel summoned a celestial badger that instantly killed the orc that Corwyn had wounded. I was able to quickly dispatch the orc in front of me with my longsword. One orc tried to rush the rope bridge and cut the tie to the posts on this side, but he was dropped by a well-placed crossbow bolt by Daziel. As I rushed the last orc, it put up its hands and screamed, “It’s Bronn!” From behind me, I heard, “’ware the badger.” I glanced down to see the badger ready itself to leap on Bronn’s throat, and I swung my sword to intercept it. Even though I knew it was but a construct, it sickened me to feel the thud of sword on flesh as I killed the brave thing, it not understanding that this orc was not a foe.

On this side of the gorge were another set of double doors. Bronn warned us that he had been interrogated by a Bane priest and that there was also a Bane wizard beyond. I faded back to a stone pillar to provide cover, while the rest of the party readied themselves. Bronn, as an orc, took hold of Corwyn’s jerkin and grunted something at the doors (“Master Victory! Open up!”). When the doors opened, my heart fell. I did not fear that two orcs that opened the doors to either side, nor the four soldiers in black-lacquered platemail armor, but the ten-foot tall monstrosity holding two large wolves by chains made me slightly weak in the knees. When he chortled and welcomed Bronn with a “The Great Ulfe welcomes victory!” I nearly feared that we had made a terrible mistake. But it was too late to wonder, because Daziel immediately shot and killed one of the orcs with a crossbow bolt, Bronn let Corwyn go and cast two magic missiles at one of the soldiers. As Velm, Corwyn and Saeita rushed into the fray, I tried to save my arrows for where they could do the most good. The Great Ulfe attacked Velm, causing blood to fly, so I concentrated my first flights on him. One of the wolves tried to rush past Velm, but Velm immediately slashed down with his war axe, cleaving the wolf in half. Corwyn dropped one of the soldiers, while one of the others ran away, to likely spread an alarm. Bronn said some magical words and moved up to confront the Great Ulfe. Bronn looked like he was trying to grab the large creature, but The Great Ulfe instead met him with a great waraxe.

Screaming “Traitor,” Ulfe slashed down at Bronn, very nearly splitting him in half as Velm had done to the wolf only seconds before. During this, Saeita had tumbled back out of conflict, with a wolf on her heels that I was able to drop with an arrow before it could attack her again. Corwyn had dropped another one of the soldiers. Saeita gets back to her feet and returned to kill the final orc. Velm, seeing that his cousin had been slaughtered, screams and has his vengenance on the Great Ulfe, while Daziel finished the final soldier. In the silence that followed, Velm dropped his axe and dropped to his knees before his cousin, who had returned to his dwarven form after his death. We listened for rushing footsteps, fearing reinforcements, quickly taking advantage of the lull to use the magical healing that Daziel had traded for from the temple in Evenstar.

[journal excerpt ends here]

********************************************

Bronn Spellforger, spell-altered to resemble an orc, infiltrated the Zhentarim forces guarding the Stonetooth Gatehouse. Although he could not quite make them believe he was sent from “da big temple of Bane,” he was able to narrowly avert disaster by convincing the Zhentarim wizard Faraugar and a Cleric of Bane that he was just a simple and stupid orc, out to plunder and willing to sell his labor. Thankfully, they believed him.

When the Company of the Wolf bravely stormed the gates, Bronn’s machinations allowed a crossing of the chasm without a single casualty. In the meeting with the Great Ulfe, his wolves Vak and Thrak, and the shocktroops of the Zhentarim, Bronn Spellforger was not so lucky. He died well, so that others could live.

Daziel leads the Company through the Gatehouse, seeking the Banite cleric and Zhentarim wizard Bronn mentioned before his fall. The young helpers of Mellomir (mentioned in his journal, above) are found in a miserable cell. The Company finds the Dethek runes partially transcribed by Mellomir, and the original carved stone map from which he made his charcoal rubbing.

But they find that the place is absolutely empty, deserted by those of the Black Network. But did they flee down the Great Staircase into the darkness below? Or by some other route?

Corwyn is able to decipher the runes:

To enter Aerunedar
Carry the water of the doom of Redhand
1500 paces east to the humble cave
Which enters upon the southeast gatehouse
Quench the Rune of Darkfell
And open the way to the deep stair

Find you Redhands cellar
Find 5 of ale
Find 5 of death
11 to the Under Road
And to the Great Pillar of Iolar

I fall forever and not at all
I slay fire
I guard Hathos' skull
It holds the key
To rubies 3
Sapphires 3
And crown of fire
But remember Hathos’ curse

Daziel feels a tugging on her Silver Disk of Selûne, in the direction of the Great Staircase…

 

[Tom Cashel]

an episode from the journey back to Eveningstar

The party had made camp in a previous spot, the top of a small hillock in a lightly wooded section of the gorge, overlooking the Starwater River. The weather had been cold and grim all day.
After a nice supper of fresh fish, as the party is bedding down for the night after determining the watch, they heard the howling of wolves off to the north, as they had most other nights in the gorge. This night those wolves sounded a bit closer perhaps, but they faded into silence before midnight.

The hours past...until Corwyn and Saeita's watch in the early morning hours.

The two of them hear the keening cry of a sparrowhawk from the north in the gorge. A chorus of angry barking at about the same loudness explodes at the same moment...and fades just as quickly. The keening of the sparrowhawk is continuous in the night sky, growing louder and louder still...seeming to get closer.

Corwyn whispers to Saeita, "I've got a bad feeling about those wolves."

The sparrowhawk's cries become louder still, its harsh voice echoing off the limestone walls of the gorge.

They both are able to see the faint silhouette of the hawk. It circled about them.

Corwyn says, "Hmm, do you think, Saeita, that the hawk might be a familiar?"

"Could be," responds Saeita, "I'm going to wake the ranger, something seems odd here."

At the risk of seeming like a scaredy cat, Corwyn begins to awaken the others as well.

Van wakes up cranky. "What's up? Is it morning already? Damn, I hope it's not going to rain again."

Saeita hears a crunch in the underbrush below the camp. "Shhhh," she says to the ranger. "I'm going to have a look."

As the others wake up, only Corwyn has the presence of mind to put on his armor. Daziel hands Van the magical spectacles so he can see in the dark. Saeita crouches down and peaks over the edge of the camp.

Daziel begins to don her armor, as Van looks around the camp. Saeita sees dark shapes, large shapes, moving through the underbrush down the hillock's side.

Van whispers, "Take cover," as he hears them...approaching from behind...then, with a great snarl, two massive wolves explode into the clearing of the camp, one gray and one black.

Van lets two arrows fly from his bow, the first one causing the gray wolf to howl in agony, but breaking his bowstring as the second arrow misflies.

The two wolves lunge, seemingly at random, attacking Saeita and Velm. The black wolf misses Saeita, its teeth snapping shut in front of her. The wolf is feral, massive, six feet at the shoulder and seven feet long.

The gray wolf clamps its teeth on Velm and flings him to the ground.

The party springs into action, attacking the wolves in their own ways. The two Silverswords, Courana and Geradil, attempt to help as well. The gray wolf, who hunches over Velm, countines to rend him while Saeita is able to continue to dodge the black wolf. She responds by kneeing it in the mouth. Geradil is able to also damage the black wolf, while Corwyn and Daziel's attacks cause it to panic. As it tries to run away, Saeita kicks it in the ribs with her heal as it passes, but Daziel gets the last blow in, crushing its spine with her mace.

Velm slips into unconscious as the grey wolf continues to rend him. Saeita rushes over to the grey wolf, jumping up and coming down hard on its hips (a sensitive area for wolves and dogs). The others, surrounding it, distract it from Velm until Courana impales it with a well-placed arrow.

As everyone breathes hard, looking at the wolves lying dead in front of them, they hear the howling of the rest of the pack rising up around them. Daziel quickly urges Selune to grant healing to Velm, while Van rushes to put his chain shirt on.

The howling gains in volume and ferocity as the beasts being a frenzied chorus...growing closer.

Corwyn yells, "Quick, everyone, form a circle around Velm!"

"Someone start a fire," suggests Van.

Abruptly, a nearby stand of trees and brush ignites in an enormous blast of flames. The whining and other cries of wolves dying is heard.

"Cyrgull?!" cries Corwyn.

The night is torn open by a thunderous roar so massive, so terrifying, the party feels as though their very guts are turning to quivering sour jelly.

Everyone in the party except Daziel panics and runs, most dropping what they had been carrying on the ground. Corwyn cries like a little girl, Van calls out for his goddess. Daziel hears a massive crashing and splintering of trees. Turning to face the sound, she sees an enormous shadow taking wing into the night sky. With a few huge leathery flaps, it's gone.

Twenty minutes later, the rest of the party returns to find Daziel guarding Bronn's body.

"What in the seven regions was that...thing?" asks Van.

Corwyn says, "Glad it came; glad it left."

"I don't know, but very little can make me run off like that," says Saeita, shaking her head.

"Van," instructs Daziel, "go look for the tracks where it was."

Van scouts the area, somewhat gingerly, finding huge clawprings in the earth and crushed undergrowth. "I'm going to make a guess here," Van says, "but...dragon?"

Corwyn says, "That's my first guest...or maybe Cyrgul?"

Geradil and Courana blush. Saeita asks them why. They say, "Sorry we ran."

"Hell, if Daziel hadn't said something, I'd still be running," says Van.

Corwyn aks, "Could this be a gold dragon?"

"Wolves I can handle," Van says. "Orcs? Let me at 'em. I'm not sure about dragons. I thought the last one was dead."

The party packs up their belongings, readying themselves for another day of marching towards Eveningstar.

 

[Tom Cashel]

Episode V: INTO the LOST CITY
(a Velm’s-Eye view)

Characters: Bronn Spellforger (shield dwarf Wiz2), Corwyn Black (human Ftr4), Daziel (human Clr4, Selûne), Saeita Neví (wild elf Mnk4), Van Dyksun (human Rgr3/Rog1), Velm Trueforger (shield dwarf Ftr4).

Eleint 1-4
This is the first time I’ve bothered to keep a journal in my life. Truth be told, I’m doing it to get rid of a nasty hangover more than anything else. The scratch of the quill on the parchment is soothing somehow...the dipping into ink a balm for pulsing temples.

Now that I’ve been given the Stone Boot right out of Clan T———, what else is there for me to do but drink? I’ve chopped enough wood for today, and I’m sick of this backwater town. There’s always been a lot of talk about how suspicious and provincial dwarves can be, but these Cormyrians are truly a worthless lot.

Except for my companions, of course...they are the exceptions. And exceptional. I respect Corwyn for his strength, Snowcap for having the innocence and idealism I’ve lost, Daziel for her puissant skill at war planning, and Saeita for knowing when silence is best. And also for having the best punch I’ve ever seen from man, dwarf or elf. Even Cousin Bronny has been different since his Return; older and perhaps wiser. We shall see...

So tomorrow we set out for the Lost City of Aerunedar. Which will be good for us: as usual, Bronn and Daziel are at each other’s throats the second there’s a lack of danger pressing in on all sides. We’ve made Daziel our leader. A good choice.

Aerunedar, the Goldhome, awaits me. Journal, you’re the only one I say this to: I’ll go down fighting for Clan Darkfell. No one else of my kind did, that’s for certain. I’ll meet my doom in those lightless depths and I hope that I can save my friends or lift Hatho’s Curse in the process. But I’ve seen it in my dreams, the Axe of Clanggeddin dripping with gore, and I know what it means. Bereft and without Clan, I’ll welcome it.

Bring me your worst. I’ll give you Clanggeddin’s best.

Eleint 5-8
Trudging back along the same path to Aerunedar, sleeping at the same campsites, staring at the same moon overhead, while Daziel and Snowcap chant prayers to the Goddess. I’m tired of walking this road. I know what the Father of Battles has planned for me, and I want to slay as many wurgym-sargh as I can before I am felled.

Companions, if you are reading this small book taken from my broken corpse: do not pull me back from my Lord and Keeper. I stand at Clanggeddin’s side.

Met Cyrgul along the road again. No one’s sure what he is, but we agree he’s probably not human.

Reached Stone Tooth. No ale and my mouth is dry.

Eleint 9
Spent the whole of this day rebuilding a rope bridge across the chasm. Almost lost Saeita to the depths.

I felt a chill when we passed the spot of Bronny’s doom...I wonder if he felt it too.

We sleep in the Shrine of Selûne beneath the grand staircase. Someone else passed this way before us—“Leather Boot” is what Snowcap and Daziel are calling him—I think it was the Zhent wizard. He’ll be waiting for us...I hope he’s ready for my axe. Bronny and I have a score to settle with that dog.

The Shrine is safe. It’s good to be within the bosom of the earth again. I dream of the Axe Father.

Eleint 10
We descend into the old mithril mines; damp, moaning, windy caverns bereft of life. I’m able to find the correct way; you can tell from the reinforcements to the stone that the cave has been worked. Turns out it’s more of an under-road than a simple cave, burrowing down through the earth toward Aerunedar.

Scrawled on the wall in chalk: MEERSCHAULK. No one knows what it means.

We walk the miles for hours and hours, until our legs tire and we have to sleep. A side passage will do.

(later)
Hard to get back to sleep now. I woke to Bronn screaming—and a devil of a deep-lizard stuck to the ceiling, trying to drag Bronny into its jaws with a disgusting sticky tongue. How it crept up on us undetected I don’t know; neither Bronn nor Corwyn heard it until the tongue flicked out and stuck to Bronny’s shoulder.

We slew it before it could run away.

We are getting close. There are mine-wagons overturned here and there, and I can feel the ghosts of Darkfell crowding toward the warm life we radiate. I don’t remember the underground ever being so cold.

Eleint 11
Another four hours walking in the mines, and we came upon what we have sought. The cave opens into a space, a very large dark space, and thundering, rushing water can be heard off to the right. The waterfall from the map?

We pick our way past old ruins, fields of broken stone walls. There’s a huge pillar of stone, and beyond a forest of deep fungi—mushroom “trees” fifteen to twenty feet tall, “underbrush” of mushrooms, creepers, vines, phosphor moss. Looks positively deadly. We turn left.

Walking along at the front of a row of four enormous pillars. Between them, we see that the fungus forest is quite extensive. The fourth pillar is carved into the shape of an enormous booted foot, with a leg stretching up into the gloom. The Pillar of Iolar? We can’t be sure in this accursed darkness, but there’s a wide, black river on the other side of it. Big albino fish in there.

“Don’t fall in,” advises Bronny.

Again we turn left, following along the shore. Half of us are blind, hands on the shoulders of their seeing-eye dwarves. It’s a dangerous way to travel, and it makes me nervous. Better than advertising ourselves with light, though.

Abruptly we’re surrounded by rank, nauseating vapor. Gods, the stink! We get clear of it, and eventually the retching stops.

“What was that?” No one can answer. Bronn thinks it was a spell. We move on.

Bursts of magic, four of them, pulse from beneath the water. They strike without error, and they wound, but not deeply. Something sinuous moves in the dark water...and is gone.

We move on. Whatever it is, it’s toying with us.

Soon we can see a bridge up ahead, spanning the river. It’s really a marvel that Clan Darkfell could span a two-hundred-foot wide river with a stone bridge. Not everyone is as impressed as I am. Bah. Rickety wooden supports are enough for humans, I suppose.

The others try to decide where we are on the map. We cross the bridge, and find at the other side a pair of towers standing sentry in the dark. The one on the left seems mostly intact, the one on the right crumbling; not all of Clan Darkfell’s engineering marvels have stood the test of years.

A whish in the dark. Javelins fall around us, wounding some. Flung from the battlements atop the open portcullis. We rush forward, out of harm’s way, and burst into the right tower.

They are waiting for us: reptilian creatures that exude a horrible, strength-sapping stench. Their leader flings spells at us, but to no avail. We rush through the tower, a killing wind.

After the battle, Snowcap goes outside to check the tower perimeter while we search the bodies. The inner walls of the tower are covered with primitive scrawls: the word MEERSCHAULK repeated endlessly, along with crude snakelike shapes. A leader?

A crackling of white light from outside, a roll of thunder. Snowcap comes screaming into the tower, hair standing on end, scorched and smoking. “In the water!” he wails, “a human head on a snaky body! Horror!”

We decide it’s time to leave. Now.

Straight back across the bridge, straight across a plain of broken stone, past the ruin of a stone building (hoping we’re headed in the right direction, since they’re trusting me to lead them) and Clanggeddin be Praised we reach the side of this massive cataract. Slip into a cave with a ruined mine wagon in its mouth. There’s a dwarf skeleton with goblin arrows lodged amongst his ribs. A reminder to me from the Axe Father? When the time comes, I will do what you wish, Silverbeard.

(later)
They are chanting, chanting in the dark, from the direction of the tower: “Yss-fara...yss-fara...yss-fara...” I roll over and plug my ears.

Eleint 12
The others awaken stiff and sore, cramped with chill, but I am just getting back into my old form. The depths are kind to me.

We break the fast and hold council, and it is decided we will head into the mushroom forest, based mostly on the wisdom of Snowcap: “I’d rather the danger I don’t know, to the danger I might know.” In other words, give me poison fungus rather than another encounter with the spell-hurling snake. Good enough for me.

Back along the cavern wall, past mine entrances and finally past the cave by which we entered, and we reach the forest.

The deep growths are a multitude of colors, bright and dull, but this rainbow signifies only death. Daziel checks for poisons, and to her chagrin finds too many to categorize. Eventually we decide to press through on foot, rather than using potions and spells to buoy ourselves above.

Soon the forest grows too dense. Mushroom caps tower overhead. “I wonder if we could use those as boats in a pinch?” wonders Bronny out loud...for all his faults, he is certainly full of ideas.

We are assaulted by tentacled violet mushrooms. We encounter a flowing puddle of black ooze that ruins my chain shirt and scars my neck with acid. I ran away...by the Great Arm of Clanggeddin I fled and stood next to Corwyn...I could hear them fighting it in the darkness, heading it off with torches, screaming when its foul tendrils burned them...and I ran away.

I have proven my true worth: nothing. A coward, a poltroon. Great Father of Battles, Silverbeard, will you still take me? Will I have the courage to go when I am called?

Thanks to Daziel’s quick thinking and ready flame, the seething black ooze slides away hunting easier and tastier prey. We press on toward the rushing of water, which grows ever louder, and discover a small tower in the depths of the forest, encrusted with algae, moss and mushrooms.

We enter through a trapdoor in the roof. All the doors radiate magicks (according to Bronny and Daziel), and the inside is lit by globes of light. But it is still and silent, and filled with dusty (extremely comfortable-looking) furniture. Bronny warns us that some of it is magical, but we descend the staircase and make ready to sleep here anyway.

A coward like me will sleep anywhere, I suppose. Where’s that wineskin Bronny gave me?

(later)
One thing remains constant on every expedition: there are only two ways you will wake up in the middle of the night. Either you are shaken awake, or you wake up to someone screaming. More often the latter. It doesn’t make for pleasant dreams, I can tell you that much. Especially not if you’re the one doing the screaming.

This time it is Spooky—Saeita, that is—who wakes me. “The magical chair,” she hisses, “it moved.”

We stand ready, blinking away sleep. The chair, apparently, walked of its own volition to the trapdoor at the tower’s center and knocked hard upon it, ten times.

Now the wardrobe doors swing open, revealing a huge abomination within, sewn together from the parts of countless bodies, dull cloudy blue-grey eyes staring without sight.

Behind us, Snowcap cries out.

“Who are you?” whispers a wholly unfamiliar, and wholly unnerving voice in the room.

He is there with us—how I do not know—shrouded in tattered black robes and a cloak, and from beneath his hood eyes peer: a malevolent twinkling pair of white lights.

But he doesn’t want to kill us. He is more a wasted and pathetic creature, locked away for centuries in his tower, unable to die and unable to truly live. Journal, I will spare you the details of our talk with him.

He is the Flamecoil, one of the four wizards who brought down Aerunedar in the name of The Coil. The others were Shieldcoil, Shapecoil, and Corpsecoil.

One down, three to go, as far I am concerned.

This coward has dwelt here since the allies of the Coil—all manner of reptile creatures worshiping a god called ‘Meerschaulk’—turned against them and took for themselves the City of Darkfell. Now the reptiles are the Sons of the Coil, and they follow a king called Yss-fara. The blood of dragons flows in his veins.

My axe will spill it onto the stone.

Daziel pities him, this thing they call “lich.” Snowcap wishes to do him a service; perform a quest. Bronny wishes to learn magic from him. I drink wine; I am disgusted that they would pollute their own souls by aiding the Doom of Aerunedar, the one who slew the silver dragon Glamerdrung.

But who am I to protest? A coward...as much a coward as this Flamecoil. But I will not end up like he, he who has cheated death and hidden away in a dank forest of fungus. We seek the waterfall, and the bard Hathos, and if Clanggeddin calls me I shall go. Whenever he calls, I shall hear, and the battle will be glorious ere I am fallen.

They have agreed to retrieve for the Flamecoil the corpse of his lover, the Shieldcoil. Fools. They perform services for this demon, yet balk at Bronny’s attempts to learn from him. Already the lich poisons us. He is worse than Muxos, worse than the Fezarch, worse even than Lady Winter.

Someday, wizard...undying one...Flamecoil...I’ll send your soul to rest beside Shieldcoil. I don’t pity you, and I don’t admire you. I’ll hate you with my final breath.

...now where’s that wine?

 

[Tom Cashel]

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 13-15

My 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 16

Reunited 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 all
I slay fire
I 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 17

There 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.