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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ealli" data-source="post: 3551335" data-attributes="member: 804">Chapter 1:  Reformation“Damn it, where did all my money go?”  Thundina swore.  “I’m broke!”Talor chuckled, “Oh, I don’t know.  Possibly the lavish feasting, the fancy clothes, or the unwise gambling.”“I didn’t gamble.  Much.”  Thundina declared.  “At least I’m not in debt.  I guess I shouldn’t say broke, really.  I have more in cash then when I first left home, but after that rich Lightbringer’s reward, it doesn’t feel like much.”“It has been a fun time, but this isn’t exactly why I followed you out of Ravenloft you know.”“Excellent then.  We shall find a new job.  That’ll solve my money problem and you can get more great piles of stuff.  I think I heard that the Karrnath Royal Swords were looking for experienced adventurers for a scouting mission in the Nightwood.”Thundina and Talor took a boat across the Scions Sound towards Korth.  Thundina thought just how far she had come since the last time she was watching Thronehold fall away behind her.  She was now an accomplished undead hunter, and had once been considered a possible lord of Ravenloft.  When it came to moving around a combat zone, she was now so confident in her own abilities that practically nothing could obstruct her.  She had befriended the paladin Ashlyn and when she fell in darkness, Thundina took up the paladin’s holy symbol even though she really couldn’t use it, but there had been times when it felt like it was doing something.At the Karrnath Royal Swords headquarters, Thundina and Talor found the lieutenant in charge of hiring.  Lieutenant Thomas asked Thundina and Talor to demonstrate some skill to prove they were experienced adventurers before he laid out the mission.  “There have been unusual dark elves spotted in the Nightwood.  These aren’t like the ones from Xen’Drik.  What little we know is that they worship some spider goddess and absolutely hate the sun and the sky.  They have been raiding out from the wood and poaching the king’s bounty.  Disperse the raids, and find the source.  Seal it if possible, report back if it is not possible to seal.  Understand, that this will primarily be a speculative job.  Any spoils you capture will be yours to keep in its entirety; we will have the appropriate paperwork drawn up shortly.  Their poaching has reached an unacceptable point and this needs to be put to a finish immediately, so we are sending you out as soon as tomorrow.  There is one other person whom we will be sending with you, the juggernaut Scyther.”The lieutenant took Thundina and Talor to a scribe who handed them the papers for the spoils and signed them onto a contract for the expectations of associates of the Karrnath Royal Swords.  They were told to report to the headquarters an hour after dawn the next morning to begin the mission.[sblock=Ravenloft spoilers]As the sun set, Thundina felt a strong pull from Ravenloft.  Someone was holding the vigil of the Mountain Fane; the vigil which Thundina had held and which had made her a candidate to be the Lord of Ravenloft.  Now, she was losing her connection to the land; she was losing the protection of the land.  She needed to get to the fane to defend it, but she was far from it and did not know how to return there anyway.  She pulled her legs to her chest and sat up all night long, feeling the connection ebb away until at dawn the connection totally snapped and she could no longer feel Ravenloft anymore.When she met Talor the next morning, he commented, “Thundina, you look terrible.  What happened to you last night?”“I couldn’t sleep at all.  My connection to the Mountain Fane was broken,” Thundina replied.  “I do not feel the land like I used to.  Something happened there, but I do not know what.”[/sblock]The third member of their scouting group was waiting for them at the Karrnath Royal Swords headquarters.  The juggernaut Scyther hulked around the courtyard, a war-forged made of adamantium.  He stood six feet tall and rumbled as the introductions were made.  “Salutations,” Scyther said.  “It is a pleasure to meet you.”“Really?  How nice!”  Thundina gushed, “It’s great to meet you too.”“No.  I am incapable of feeling pleasure, only the duty to bring justice,” Scyther rumbled.  “It is simply a phrase I have learned is appropriate upon first contact.”The newly formed party set out north from Korth, along the Orien trade road.  The plan was to take the road north for a couple days to near the northern edge of the Nightwood and then work to the southeast from there.  Each night the party stopped at a House Orien travel house to spend the night.For the first two nights, the travel houses were devoid of any other travelers, but the third night a tall human already occupied the house.  Though not muscular, the man was beautiful with bouncy golden hair parted in the middle.  He had blue eyes and gleaming, pearly white teeth.  He had a strong jaw line and his lips shined with a hint of glitter.  Thundina nearly swooned at the sight.The man seemed to breathe a sigh of relief as he saw who was entering the house.  Scyther spoke while Thundina continued to simply look on, “Salutations.  We intend to be staying the night here as well.  It is a pleasure to meet you.  I am referred to as Scyther.”The man nervously spoke, “Hello.  I am Boris.  Did you happen to see any drow in the on your way in?  They were chasing me before I took refuge here.”“Negative,” Scyther rumbled.  “It is our mission to find the elves who are trespassing in these woods and eliminate the threat they pose.  Please describe what you know of their movements.”“They’re out to the east, and then I ran into here.  That’s all I know.”Thundina approached the resident and gave him a great smile, “Hello.  If you don’t want to talk to the golem, you could talk to me.  My name is Thundina.  What are you doing out here?”“My name is Boris, and my business is my own,” he responded.  “However, I would be interested in getting some revenge on the drow.  Can I be a part of your party?”“Absolutely.  Just so long as you can be a contributing member.”  Thundina said.  “I’ve had a dead-weight in a party before, that’s not going to happen again.”Boris made a small set of Dancing Lights and Thundina said, “That’ll do.  Welcome to our little party.  Just see Scyther over there for a contract.”Once Boris was signed on to the expedition, Scyther began looking intently at Boris.  Thundina asked, “Scyther, what are you doing?”Scyther replied, “Confirming the absence of a poisonous heart.  Negative.”  Scyther then turned towards Thundina and Talor and added, “Negative.  Negative.  There is none here with a poisonous heart.”Thundina sighed exasperatedly, “Why does everyone assume I’m some sort of evil outsider?”Talor had a better insight, “Shouldn’t you have scanned for a poisonous heart before signing Boris to the contract?”Boris had a response to the detecting as well, “Of course I don’t have a poisonous heart.  I may be a bit self-absorbed, but I have a heart of gold.”Thundina’s ears perked up at the mention of a golden heart and she thought to herself, “Say a pound for the average human heart, that’s worth about 50 gold pieces from the raw weight.  Something to keep in mind if something happens to him, but not worth killing over.  Ah, but Scyther would have a heart of adamantium and that’s worth a lot more per pound.  I must determine how much adamantium makes up a war-forged heart.”Night fell and Scyther sat near a door, blocking it with his mass.  Thundina and the others were getting ready to turn in for the night when a thin high elven voice floated through the night, crying in elven, “Prepare to be burned sun-loving fools.”  Lightning rumbled ominously in the night.When Thundina looked out a window of the Orien travel house she saw four large ogre zombies shambling through the woods opposite the house.  Boris obviously saw them too because he began chanting and then a line of fire sprang up along the road, next to the zombie ogres.  The thin elven voice ordered the zombies, “My pets, withdraw from the fire.  It’s time for you all to die.”  The elven voice, quieter, began chanting a spell of her own.Thundina, Talor, and Scyther moved out of the travel house and into the garden.  Talor poured flights of arrows into one of the zombie ogres standing back from the fire’s range.  Thundina and Scyther waited with weapons at the ready for something to brave the fire to attack.  A large fiendish spider sprang into existence near them as the elven chanting died down.  Thundina lashed the spider and Scyther smashed the spider and it vanished in a puff of blue smoke.Thundina looked into the darkness, past the fire.  She could not see who was summoning the horrors, all she could see were the zombie ogres keeping back from the fire.  The elven chanting culminated again and a hell hound appeared near Thundina and Scyther.  It poured fire with black smoke curling up from its mouth.  The fire washed over Scyther but Thundina nimbly danced away.  The pair leveled their full attack routines on the hell hound turning it into blue smoke as well.With covering fire of Magic Missiles from Boris and magical missiles from Talor’s bow, Scyther resolved to take the fight to the enemies in the dark rather than wait for the Wall of Fire to burn out or for more magic from the elf to be sent across the line.  Scyther charged through the Wall of Fire heating up to a bright red glow before slamming into the closest zombie ogre.  Scyther’s scythe, augmented by the force of the charge, cut the zombie in half in a single blow.Talor began drifting further from the travel house to find the best shot.  He glanced over his shoulder and spotted a drow hiding in the shadows behind the house.  He shot a flurry of arrows into the dark elf which then screamed in pain and stumbled from its hiding place.  Thundina was then able to see it as well and moved to engage it.  It was so distracted from having been shot by Talor that Thundina was able to line up devastating blows.  A second drow came out of hiding to flank Thundina, both drow raging, hammering blows on Thundina.  She dodged most, but a few slipped past her defenses.Scyther continued his rampage through the zombie ogres.  The hidden elf summoned another minion, a medium sized spider which on its own could not bite through the thick adamantium skin of the juggernaut.  In frustration at being unable to blast the war-forged with spells, the drow attacked Scyther with a dagger.  Scyther quickly locked onto the spell caster and cut her down; a dagger being no match for a scythe.  The Magic Missile fire from Boris then finished off the last of the zombies.Thundina downed one of the drow fighters facing her and then began the duel with the second.  She cautiously circled it to avoid the wild swings, before ripping its footing out from beneath it.  She then drove the tip of her guisarme into the chest of the dark elf, pinning it to the ground while it bled out its life blood.A search of the defeated elves did not turn up much in coinage, but much of their equipment glowed when Boris looked with Detect Magic.  More interesting than the valuable spoils, which Thundina were certainly interested in, was a diary and a note found on the female drow among the zombies.The diary of Lithara described the worship of Lolth and the political and social life of the drow.  The goddess Lolth was on the move.  Lithara was investigating the Rule of Three of Sigil.  Thundina had never heard of a place called Sigil and most certainly had never heard of a Rule of Three, but if it was important to this raider, it would probably be important to her as well.  Thundina resolved to learn more of the Rule of Three of Sigil.  The note on Lithara described a portal to the Prime Material Plane and that it would connect Sigil’s market place to a set of caverns.  The party followed the broken tree limbs marking the zombie ogres’ path back through the woods and to a cavern.The party entered the cavern and saw three pillars in the middle of the room.  Two reached all the way up to the ceiling forty feet about while the third was broken off to form a plateau halfway up.  A thin elven voice called from the darkness, “Foolish light-lovers will perish now.  Charge!”  Two drow riding giant lizards rounded the pillars.Thundina charged at one of the drow on a giant lizard.  Talor provided some fire, injuring the drow before concentrating on the other.  The drow dropped its bow once Thundina had engaged it in melee and drew a spiked chain.  In a shocking turn about, the drow’s chain wrapped around Thundina’s leg, tripping her.  Thundina was able to return to her feet, but not before she took a blow from the chain.  She tried to yank the drow off his mount, but could not get a firm hook into the drow.  Frustrated by that difficulty, Thundina jumped up to the drow and simply drove the guisarme through the drow.On the other side of the room, the other drow was tripping Scyther and lashing him.  Scyther took the blows stoically and continued his advance, eventually connecting a solid blow on the drow, snapping its spine.With the battle completed and the drow looted, Thundina climbed the broken pillar to look around.  As she reached the top, two flashes of light resolved into large, winged, feathery, demons.  The two vrock circled around the pillars.  One engaged Scyther while the other reached the undefended back line of Boris and Talor.  Shrieks from the vrock delayed Thundina’s entry into the battle from above.  Spores from the vrock landed on Scyther and Boris, burrowing their way into the skin.Boris and Talor slowly retreated from the vrock in front of them throwing everything they had at it on their way back.  An intense blossom of fire buffeted the vrock, caused by Boris calling upon his strongest magics.  The vrock vanished in a puff of blue smoke from the magical assault.Thundina leapt from the pillar, falling in behind the vrock.  Scyther cut great swaths from the vrock from its front while Thundina precisely jabbed vital spots from behind.  Thundina then drove her guisarme into the vrock’s back, into the spot between its wings, the guisarme biting deep into the demon.  The creature fell to the ground, lifeless and motionless, and most importantly, not blue smoke.Boris complained that the spores continued to burn, even after the demons were dead.  Talor’s expertise regarding evil outsiders such as demons made him think that the spores could be cured, but would need a divine spell.  The spores sprouted into vines which covered both Scyther and Boris, but no longer pained them.  Each ripped the vines out as best as possible, cleaning themselves up as they could.Deeper in the cavern, a set of carved steps led down to a small altar with a pair of pillars.  Activating the altar took the party away from the cavern into the middle of a bustling urban marketplace.  Thundina caught sight of Talor and exclaimed, “Talor, what happened to your left eye?  It’s all red!”</blockquote>

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