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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cerebral Paladin" data-source="post: 4280171" data-attributes="member: 3448">While we were back on the Tarkenian side of the Shadowline, we procured some supplies that would be helpful in assaulting the Dragonhold.  Twang located a wand of fly, and we sent Alveera to try to procure the wand on the Hastur’s credit.  She bluffed the merchant perfectly, convincing him that she was entirely righteous.  She seemed slightly aggrieved to have failed to completely seduce him, but she did persuade him to sell her the wand on credit at less than she should have paid in cash. Spring also bought a scroll of resist energy.With our preparations completed and having regained the now meaningless phylactery, we dashed back to the Eum army at full speed.  We then traveled steadily towards Dragonhold Ripgut, along with the Eums.  We decided not to fetch our army or this operation—the combination of the risks inherent in delay and the danger that our army would interact poorly with the Eums rendered it too dangerous.  Without much difficulty, we reached the outskirts of the Dragonhold.  It took us five days to get there.  We cast some divinations on the march, partly to confirm some of our suspicions.  The black Eums did not detect as chaos; indeed, about a third of them detected as lawful to varying degrees.  The shaman was particularly lawful, and Zolt shone with the same aura of Law as a paladin would have.  Each night, they opened up a case with every representation of a dragon they had ever managed to find.  I looked carefully and spotted a holy symbol of Vitrix-Henoxi, the great two-headed dragon saint of Lord Paranswarm, in the box.  I asked if I could worship with them, as they venerated a saint that I also know to be holy, and they happily agreed.  I read the holy stories of Vitrix-Henoxi from my Lives of the Saints.  I also sent Alveera to toss a written message across the Shadowline asking for a priest of Vitrix-Henoxi to be sent across to try to convert a group of largely lawful Eum followers of Vitrix-Henoxi who did not serve Paranswarm.  With their natural veneration of Order and their devotion to one of the Lord of Orderly Darkness’s saints, they would make natural converts, and that opportunity was worth quite some risk.We held up about a mile outside the fortress proper, while Spring and a spell cast by Twang scouted the Dragonhold.  [This is inaccurate.  In fact, Twang sent his familiar, Snaggletooth the quasit, forward as a scout.]   Our scouting revealed no sign of the Chaos Champion or her lamias—indeed, we detected no sign of anything alive in there anymore.  The fairly substantial number of living servants and slaves prior to Ripgut’s death now appeared to be missing.  Twang noted that here and there the shadows and wraiths lay interwoven with a piece of physical material.  Lesser undead occupied the scouting positions, facing out from the fortress.  The courtyard showed the signs of sinister activity. A group of banefires—purplish-tinged, pale white illumination sources that consume no fuel, usually powered by a link to the negative material plane-- had been placed around the periphery, and a large vat of a pale white fluid bubbled in the courtyard’s center.  Spring thought that fluid was dilute bone marrow, which is used for various necromantic rituals although neither of us knew what specific ritual this might be.  The vat was about a quarter full.  He did not spot any new undead outside the fortress, but if the vat really contained dilute bone marrow, any undead created from the same people would be incorporeal.  Their bodies would not have survived the rendering process.  Spring flew around the inside of the much less occupied fortress.  A couple of larders had been rehung with deboned goblyns.  He did not see a single living thing.  He did note a slightly larger number of incorporeal undead, mostly shadows and a few wraiths, with a goblynish cast to their features, but the increase was not significant.  Spring approached the command center on the top level of the central keep or tower, a large square room where Ripgut dwelt before.  Drakhl’s room was outside it.  Now, in its center, a humanoid figure stood, or perhaps floated.  The figure was fairly elegant, dressed in evening wear, with a long slender dueling blade hanging at his waist.  Spring recognized him as Sir Irving Totten, a well-known duelist who killed at least twenty men on the dueling circuit.  He had an intense look of concentration as he communed with something-- a much more intense look than Ripgut had ever had, which may have indicated that Sir Irving was having more trouble with whatever he was doing.  Four of the healthiest looking goblyns were chained against the wall.  A flutter of noncorporeal undead came and went while Spring watched, and four doughty looking undead stood by the wall-- with flesh, weapons, armor, but clearly undead.  Periodically, a figure much like the quasi-lich we saw passed in, talked briefly, and then headed out.  Spring identified one of the noncorporeal undead as a ghost, but the rest were wraiths.  He also concluded that some form of abyssal spirits were bound to the structure, giving Sir Irving reports.Spring concluded that most of the quasi-liches were necromancers, but relatively minor ones.  The remaining quasi-liches appeared to be wizards-- Spring searched around trying to find their spellbooks.  Within their private chambers, he actually witnessed the deaths of the last wave of the goblyns.  The quasi-liches ritually slaughtered them, preserving the meat, removing the bones, rendering the bones for the marrow, and then performing a ritual while adding it to the vat.  They had a great book, intelligent and malevolent, open and were following its instructions.  The ritual spontaneously created a few incorporeal undead, but its true intent was clearly to open a temporary gate to the negative material plane to bring forth one of the great beasts that live there.  They sought to bring across a negative material lord—at present, they did not have enough marrow, but even a minor lord would give them clout to counter the loss of power from the destruction of both Ripgut and Drakhl.  The necromancers were discussing luring in a tribe of Goblyns or Trueborn to supplement their prior victims.  Neither Spring nor Twang’s scouting showed any sign of Lord Ripgut’s succubi or other demon types.  The succubi may have been bound to him but then returned to the Abyss when he was destroyed.  In any event, that was one threat that we would likely not need to deal with.Back at the army, Twang told Zolt and the shaman that he could make the strike team able to fly.Zolt was suitably impressed.  “The blessings of the Dragon are with us if you can give the gift of the Dragon for us to fly to them.”Zolt put the casket with the phylactery in a cart, with flag bearers carrying two tattered dragon banners.  He carefully opened the casket, so the phylactery itself was visible inside.  The Eum army drew near and paraded the phylactery.  The undead almost certainly recognized the trap, but they almost had to fall for it.  They fired some boneshard cannons to soften up the army, and then the entire horde sallied forth to meet us, led by the knight with the ghost in tow and his immediate guard with them.</blockquote>

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