Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Eccles" data-source="post: 1139558" data-attributes="member: 5675">Yvgeny's 11th LetterF.A.O. His Eminence Pietr Orik,C/o the Temple of Ilmater,The Triad’s Road,Temple District,Trailsend.Your Grace, It appears the drow problem in Daggerdale is more extensive than at first thought. It seems, your grace, that the Dagger Falls secret service has allowed a major entrance to the Underdark to go overlooked, as judging by the number of drow and their fiendish pets we have encountered, there is a major dark elf outpost less than half a day’s ride from Dagger Falls! We have taxed the magic output of the town to its limit, trying to get weapons built that can penetrate the hides of some of these foul beasts, and the drow themselves just brush off the most potent dweomers that Halbrinn and Adamo can throw at them. I had not realised just how inherently magical these dark elves are, to be able to resist the potent spells of the Crusaders’ two mages, that have until recently brought low all before them. Clearly, we will have to rely on more than just the Weave, if we are to continue pursuing this quest. Speaking of such, your grace, the Crusaders are now in possession of an additional cleric, a representative of the church of Mystra, who styles himself as Aeron. As you may have guessed, your eminence, his chief interest is in magic, but this does not preclude his ability to heal. Having but a single Path to follow, his abilities to ablate, cauterise and suture via prayers to Mystra are pre-eminent in our group, and very impressive! Additionally, he seems to be in possession of one of the most powerful Disruptive maces I have ever witnessed: With but a single blow he has felled at least three of these grisly, acid-dripping drow undead I have previously reported, and swiftly dealt with another. I do declare, I’m a little jealous! So, I will now return to the chronology of my previous reports, your grace, for your own interest in my discourse is obliging me to be less than brief. Ilmater help me, but I’m sure Pavel would describe me in sentences that include tiresome and windbag! When my dialogue last left the Crusaders, we were yet again ensconced in Dagger Falls, so that we might enjoy a small respite before returning to the Crypts to the south, and the drow. We were there some several days, allowing us Miles, Halbrinn and the rest time to requisition magic items, and upgrades to existing equipment. I spent some time at the ‘church’, your grace, developing a liking for the ‘delicious pastries’ that our wonderful alchemists have managed to cook up! However, it was during this time that I managed to get poisoned! Not by the pastries, you understand, but by the dark and mysterious stalker that has dogged the Crusaders for many tendays now. Not content with making my broth a thing of fear, this shadowy assassin then proceeded to ruin my morning devotions by shooting me full of bolts, as soon as I had recovered enough to venture outside. Quite literally, your eminence, I had just stepped outside my front door, when up popped this black-clad sniper and tagged me! He was rather more nimble than I, too, for before I could break down the door of the house on whose roof he had set up a nest, he had sprung across to the roof of my own dwelling. Needless to say that now he had a clear shot he tagged me again. At this point, your eminence, I feel no embarrassment when I say that I ran, fearing that the next snipe would hit me in a spot too tender for me to remain conscious. I hid in an alley some distance down the street, but had just completed a spell for some minor curing when, out of the shadows at the end of the cul-de-sac, the dark assassin appeared again, crossbow twanging and again hitting me in a sensitive area. At the time, my first thought was that this was a powerful mage-spy, and I was as good as by Ilmater’s side. With the benefit of hindsight, however, it occurs to me that he would surely have killed me with magic if that were the case. Additionally, I noticed that his form was coalescing, like he had stepped through a portal, I guess. Now, however, I think it was more like he had stepped out of the shadows, as if his medium of transportation was the shadow itself. Could this be, your eminence, one of those Shadowcloaks that we have heard legends tell? It is either this or, Ilmater forbid, one of those dread Nin-jaa from Kara-Tur! Whatever he was, he was also loading his crossbow for the coup-de-grace, and out of the darkness not more than ten foot from my side, a dusky shape was looming: a shadow familiar! At that point, I ran again, but this time towards the temple district, knowing that the temple of Lathander was nearby, and hoping that the shadow would know this. By the time I had reached Lathander’s temple, I was exhausted, although I had managed to lose my undead pursuer. Being very weak and fatigued, I had the Lathandrian clerics heal me to a point where I could heal myself, then, taking some of the heads of the crossbow bolts I had been shot with, I made my way to our own Ilmateran enclave. After talking to Miles about this shadowy rogue, we came to the conclusion that it was the same assassin that we had met on the outskirts of Clearwater, when we were undertaking our vampire-slaying mission. The pair of us went to Respen to get further advice, but the discussion went mostly nowhere. Getting an inkling that he was rather more familiar with me than even I expected, I informed Respen that I was a member of the Damaran secret service. Indeed, he then revealed that he was fully aware of this, and had been liasing with you regarding my mission for some time! It certainly was a relief to have this confirmed, your grace! Respen then offered to provide me with more information on the shadow rogue, but his quid pro quo was more than I was willing to pay. Your grace, I am convinced that Respen was attempting to recruit me, although there was certainly room for plausible deniability. After politely refusing, I was shown the door, but heard just enough from the waiting room to be certain that Miles was briefed. And that should be sufficient to ensure that we have the measure of this creature. I was obliged, for the remainder of the Crusaders’ stay in Dagger Falls, to request a bodyguard of Sir Dundragon. He could not spare a guardian from his knights, although I believe my request amused him highly! He did, however, manage to find a useful conventionally armoured cleric, which is how the Clearwater Crusaders managed to meet up with Aeron. Aeron Corynian, a priest of Mystra as I have previously mentioned, has been brought in from outside Daggerdale to bolster the domestic magic trade. I am sure this is a political and commercial decision: Respen has made no bones about the fact that he doesn’t trust the Thayans. He certainly doesn’t like the fact that the Crusaders have been pouring gold into the Thayan’s purses, that we might requisition items to aid us in our quest. Respen has even gone so far as to privately request that I make my disapproval of the Thayans more vocal, to curb Miles’ desire to trade his shirt to the Thayans for every more powerful enchantments for his swords. This did amuse me, your eminence, for obvious reasons! Finally, after all the new magical items had been completed, we loaded up with the usual victuals and water, and departed Dagger Falls for the drow crypts again. This time, the tunnels between the crypt entrance and the dropshafts into the Underdark were bristling with traps. I was one of the first to discover just how busy the drow had been whilst we were away: Leading the group past the locked doors of the crypts proper, I was suddenly confronted by a number of skeletons, who burst through diverse of the doors along the main crypt tunnel. Animated purely to set off fire traps, these lowly undead caused more than their fair share of mayhem! Fortunately, there were not a great deal of them, so, although a little singed, we all managed to progress past the doors and into Jergal’s cave once more. We traversed the cave, noting that the roper remained motionless, but passing the corpse with extreme care nonetheless. Our circumspection proved prescient: Although the roper had not been reanimated, Dierdre’s dire lion companion had been! I can safely assure you, your eminence, an undead dire lion is just as little fun to combat as a living one, but we destroyed the thing without too many problems, thank the Triad. Our next travail was versus more of the abovementioned traps: many darkness spells interspersed with arrow traps and other unkindnesses. Halbrinn, fortunately, was the equal of all of these. Indeed, he made such good progress that he did not pause until he was at a new door that had been positioned at the end of the tunnel leading to the first of the dropshafts… This was to be a fatal mistake! Although Halbrinn was in ogre form, he was helpless to stop a pseudopod from slamming out of the wall by the door and attaching itself to him; Miles was similarly afflicted. Then, woe! The ‘door’ and part of the ‘wall’ resolved itself… Into a huge mimic! Halbrinn and Miles were totally helpless, neither being able to remove themselves from the sticky arms of the fell creature, and were being beaten mercilessly by those arms to boot. Adamo, fearless of such otherworldly creatures as only he can be, set about hurting the creature with magic. However, even he blanched when a whirlpool of mana dissipated against the thing with scant effect. Muttering strange words, he tried again, this time conjuring more conventionally, if I can say such, an odd creature from beyond, to help wrench our fellow Crusaders from the beast's glue. I was certain this was not a creature native to the Home Plane, which Adamo confirmed almost on the instant: It was a hellish mimic, in all senses of the word! Straightway, I prayed for protection from evil, that I might get closer to the summoned creature without suffering an attack from it. However, I could not attack the thing myself, or I would break the spell; I saw little point anyway, as we had no strategy to defeat a beast like this. I was limited to throwing a rope to Halbrinn, and beseeching the others to help tug our stuck comrades free in that manner. I could see that Miles’ attempts at hewing the beast were having little effect at best, the wounds closing almost as soon as they were inflicted. Miles seemed to grasp that attack would not be an option; he, too, tried to wriggle free. Pavel changed his form to that of a troll, and strode forwards to aid his government colleague, throwing a punch at the mimic. Alas! His strength was not enough to drag his fist free, and in moments the creature had made good its advantage: Pavel, too, was stuck to the things adhesive hide. Finally, Aeron and I managed to combine to pull Halbrinn free; Miles, too, escaped mere moments later with the indirect aid of the creature summoned by Adamo (it distracted the mimic while Miles performed a miracle of contortion), which left Pavel-troll still mired. Try as we might, however, we could not free him, and the weaker he got, the more thoroughly glued he became, until it was useless. We watched with a sick horror as the body of the troll began to be absorbed into the mimic. We could watch no longer. We were not sure whether Pavel would continue regenerating his troll body or not, but there was nothing we could do to rescue him, so with a prayer for the mage, we retreated. As we found a safe place, Aeron settled down to pray. Knowing now that we were dealing with a creature from the Lower planes, and still having some grace left with Mystra, he set about praying for a Banishment spell. When we returned to the environs of the first dropshaft, however, the mimic had gone, and Pavel with it. Knowing that it had likely shifted its form, we decided to descend the dropshaft before it could react to us, Adamo telling us that it was quite slow moving so we had a little time. Unfortunately, the drow had covered the dropshaft entrance with boards, so we were forced to waste precious seconds whilst we dealt with traps. The need to hurry overcame Halbrinn’s natural steady-handedness, unfortunately. A fireball trap lit up the cavern, and we all ducked for cover… Just in time to see the mimic ooze like Faerun’s largest drop of molasses from the ceiling of the tunnel behind us! Now, we were trapped. Adamo sacrificed a couple of strange flying creatures to hold the mimic at bay. These ‘arrow hawks’ crackled with electricity, which the mimic didn’t like one bit, but they were not robust enough to survive for long… Fortunately, Aeron solved the problem with the last of his three banishments, returning the foul being to its own dimension in a clap of inrushing air. I do not hesitate to admit, your grace, that I offered a prayer to Mystra, as well as to the Triad, for this particular deliverance! At this point, we decided it behove us to rest, to regain our strength, physically, spiritually and magically. We posted double guards as we rested in the cavern by the still-covered dropshaft, and fortunately were not pestered as we slept (hardly surprising considering the ‘guard’ the drow had posted!) When we awoke, Aeron and I performed our devotions, and Halbrinn, Adamo and Miles all pored over their various texts. After eating a morsel, and drinking some water I declared myself ready, and the group returned attention to the dropshaft. With synapses refreshed, Halbrinn made short work of the remaining snares protecting the lid, and it was cautiously lifted. No further hindrances were encountered, save the existing traps that we once again bypassed, and we soon found ourselves in the vicinity of the second dropshaft. More circumspection was now required than last time we were here, and I made sure everyone stayed well back from the pit this time. The bat that was used as an early warning system was dealt with via a silence spell cast on its cage, allowing us to descend the shaft without triggering the alarm. However, at this point, Adamo took it upon himself to scout ahead; methinks he was of a mind to make up for his over-impatience last time we were here. Churlishness was all cast aside, however, when he returned with detailed information on the layout of the cavern before us, and the guards to be found there. Ilmater, but the greatest scout-spy could have done no better! Whilst Adamo was gone, another representative of the Daggerdale government, who had monitored us for some time to ensure we were who he was seeking, approached the rest of the Crusaders. This agent, again known by Miles (who doesn’t he know?), was a drow-hunting specialist. At last, Respen seems to be taking this drow incursion seriously! The drow-hunter is known as Grimm (let’s hope he lives up to his name, at least from a drow-perspective, anyway!) and he does indeed seem to have an uncanny nose for sniffing out drow. By now, Adamo was back. We made short introductions, Adamo explained what was before us, and we made a plan of attack. A swift lightning raid down the dropshaft resulted in all the guards being dealt with swiftly and ruthlessly: Several drow and a pet, and one of the drow undead, which Aeron blasted to dust with a couple of swings of his holy mace. However, there was cause for concern: A huge chasm ran along one edge of the cavern we now found ourselves in. The concern came from the fact that it was filled with webs the strands of which were as thick as my arm, which clearly hinted that this cave could prove to be the larder of the Spider from Hell… Can you guess what happened next, your eminence? Yes, we were attacked, first by a large group of drow, which we beat with some difficulty. Then, the piece de resistance! The Spider from Hell turned up. Your grace, it could easily have spanned the floor of the inner sanctum of the temple of our beloved God, there in Heliogabalus. It was the largest, most evil specimen of spider I have ever had the ill fortune of laying eyes on. Its very existence was an affront, but I was too weak from drow-battle to seriously challenge it. For which I may actually be thankful, for the weapons of my comrades, even as enchanted as they were, were unable to make a telling mark on the creatures hide. We can also thank the Triad that we had prepared ourselves for drow poison. Diverse of the Crusaders were protected from the worse ravages of the spider’s bite by delay poison spells that Aeron and myself had doled out before we attacked. Seeing that the battle was not moving in our favour, we beat a retreat before more drow could pour over the lip of the chasm and overrun us. We decided to protect our position at the top of the drop shaft, it being eminently defensible. Miles would start suffering the effects of spider venom a goodly number of hours after I would, Aeron’s delay poison spell being more powerful than mine. Therefore, it was decided that I would benefit from Aeron’s single spell of poison curing. I examined Miles wound, but was sure that the huge dose of venom delivered to him would quite overwhelm my healing skills. It was therefore decided that we would stay in place and get some rest, allowing Aeron to recast his poison neutralisation spell as soon as Mystra was ready to grant him more prayers. Then a nightmare came upon me, which quite altered our plans. The Crusaders were asleep, myself amongst them, with Miles on watch. Suddenly, an image forms in my mind of a house; in the bedroom a man and woman sleeps. The view of the bedroom then changes, showing the same house, but seen from outside at ground level. Smoke is pouring through the front door, and through the downstairs windows. The door swings open, and out of the flames a young child runs through, hair and clothes burning, skin scorched almost black. Then an arrow flies into his throat and he tumbles like a rag doll to the ground, eyes glazed. The scene switches, and we are back to the Crusaders… Who are now also corpses: bristling with the short, dark arrows, the likes of which we have seen many times too often in the past few months. At this point, the dark figures that had been only shadows on the edge of my vision resolved themselves along with an amorphous white head, which hovered over them, gloatingly it seemed. At the same time, a similar silver head formed over the bodies of the Crusaders, and a grating, hideous laughter, accompanying an overwhelming sense of triumphant evil, drowned out my thoughts. The soulless, taunting mirth became a swirl of white noise and I cried out, waking in that moment, and startling Miles, who was still on watch. With such an overwhelming sense of foreboding, I quickly woke all the Crusaders, and advocated an immediate return to Dagger Falls, informing them of what I had experienced. They took the warning at face value, and we left the crypts of the drow within the hour, and were back in the town by daybreak. Our time back in Dagger Falls has been spent much like the last: The requisitioning of magical aids that would help defeat a massive, evil spider, and other useful items that may stave off the raw number of dark elves that appear to have taken up residence so close to Dagger Falls. Fortunately for us, Halbrinn and Adamo have achieved a gradation in their ability to weave mana into dweomers, and have thus mastered some of the more difficult spells in the grimoires we had recovered on our journeys. I, too, have noticed an enhancement in my abilities, and those of Miles. Truly, his skill with the twin short swords is amazing. A shame that the blades are nearly always buried to the hilt in someone who certainly has no wish to appreciate his swordplay! Finally, I have also received another visitation from my Celestial spirit guide, although I do not recall much of the content of my dream. My Celestial friend called upon me during the night of Ches 20th and I remember two things from this meeting. One, that my guide’s name is Amenhotep, and that I have mastered the rudiments of the Celestial dialects. Two, that I have achieved another step along the path to entering the ranks of the Triad’s footsoldiers: My health is such that I am now immune to common diseases. Clearly, it behoves me to put this to good use: I have agreed to visit the Ilmateran mission in the slums, that I may help the clerics there to ease the suffering of those that are afflicted, but cannot afford the healers of the church of Lathander. I will write again soon, your eminence. Now I hear brother Shadwell knocking at the door. It is time I got back to doing things that the priests of Ilmater do best. At least, for a while. Yvgeny.</blockquote>

Verification