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: 750344" data-attributes="member: 5675">Miles' JournalPart 4-------------Uktar 16th - We got back to Clearwater at about midday. Not long after that we saw what could only be Gran'Rath Tendathaloth himself fly low over Clearwater, terrifying everything on the ground, myself included. I have only ever glimpsed this dragon from great distance in the past; being this close to him was an incredible experience, one I do not care to repeat. No creature should grow that large, its just not right. He headed towards the Monastery and we gave chase (reluctantly in my case I might add). We arrived to see him attacking the Monastery to no avail, as the monks’ bell was chiming and thus the place was protected from him somehow. Magic no doubt. We went to the Monastery once the dragon had flown off, and were able to find out from the library that the Monastery was built to protect a source of great evil, a vampire lord no less, buried in the nearby cemetery. We headed to the cemetery, and there did battle with the dragon’s undead minions that were guarding the place. The battle was fought along the tops of the cemetery walls, a precarious fight to say the least, and I had a supernatural encounter as a female spirit of some kind possessed my body, though this later fled me. We were able to deduce that the anti-magic area over the cemetery is fading, and that by morning it should have gone entirely. We decided to make camp back at the Monastery and return at dawn. Uktar 17th - We got up early and went to battle the Vampire in the crypt he is entombed in. We didn't want to open the tomb last night lest we had to fight him without the backup of our spell casters. I borrowed Braddoc's magical axe, as my swords would be of no use against the creature. The Vampire, however, was not there, only an animated skeleton, which we easily dispatched. We then returned to Clearwater, gathered supplies and set out towards Dagger Falls as we have been hired by the monks to find a mage capable of creating a portal. With the vampire loose, and the dragon wanting to tear the Monastery apart, they have decided to flee and rebuild elsewhere. Sensible, if somewhat cowardly. Uktar 18th - During the night we were joined by Morgaine, Taeghan's cousin who has sought him out to learn from him. We now have two priests of Corellon Larethian with us, so with any luck we should be better able to recover from the wounds we keep suffering battling the long list of enemies we have. She seems a fairly nervous sort, but her presence is welcome. During the day we regaled her with tales of all the enemies our group has and the few we have managed to defeat. Come nighttime, right on cue, the familiar pack of werewolves who have harried us time and again in the past attacked us as we camped. This time however we were ready for them, and quickly got the upper edge. They paid for their arrogance with their lives, as all four of them fell to our blades and spells. Uktar 19th to 20th - Travelling to Dagger Falls, no significant encounters beyond other travellers on the road. Uktar 21st - We arrive at Dagger Falls having made better time than normal, due to not having to worry about the pack of werewolves stalking us in the tree line. Rand, Tanus & Teaghan headed to Lathander’s temple get themselves cured of the lycanthropic taint, having been wounded by the creatures during the battle a few nights back. The rest of us headed to the Thayan enclave to find a wizard to create a portal that the monks can flee the area. We instead found a wizard capable of contacting the man we need, but he has to spend a day or so preparing to cast the spell, so we have to come back on the 23rd. Retired to the Inn for the duration.. Uktar 22nd - We stay at the Inn, the Red Wizard I presume is meditating or some other such thing. One of these days I will have to spend some time and learn some of this magic that I understand it better, at the moment it does nothing but confuse me. Uktar 23rd - We returned to the Thayan enclave in late morning having had a leisurely breakfast, and some of the others slept in late. I barely slept as usual, and though I do not need to eat, I enjoyed a repast of hot bacon rolls. The Red Wizard was indeed able to contact the portal mage we needed who promptly teleported to our location, surprising more than a few of us. He introduced himself as Klatus Indictus, and we escorted him back to our Inn, as he must wait until tomorrow to teleport us all back to Clearwater, having run low on spells doing something or other, I must admit I was more interested in looking around the Thayan's room rather than paying attention to what was going on the in the scrying window he opened up to contact Klatus through. Klatus retired to his room and then a bizarre creature appeared in the Inn common room that seemed to be after him. We battled it. And took it apart in short order. Klatus later identified it as a Yochlol, a demonic servant of Lolth. I wonder what the spider queen could want with him? Uktar 24th - Klaatus teleported us all to the Old Order's Monastery (and I never want to be teleported anywhere ever again, It felt horrible). As he made preparations to build a suitable portal for the monks to flee through, the dragon’s undead army arrived complete with fire elemental and that strange bronze dwarf-sized golem thing we had heard about. They attempted to storm the Monastery, as it seems that the Monks bell can only protect against so much at one time, and while all its power was being used to fend off Gran'Rath, his minions could have slaughtered the monks in their trance while they were helpless. The vast bulk of his force was skeletons, which Taeghan almost singlehandly wiped out with the strength of his faith, them shattering into shards at his words. The golem and elemental took longer to deal with, but under our combined assault, we took them down, the dragon circling angrily high overhead, unable to assist his forces in any way. During the night, we again came under assault, this time by the Vampire lord and a Ghost (his bride perhaps from ancient days?) who again possessed me for a while. We drove them off too, and the pack of wolves that accompanied them, though this was ironically a much tougher fight then the army had been. Uktar 25th - Klaatus had finished his work by early morning, and the monks abandoned the monastery, taking with them no more than a handful of their wealth each, leaving behind even the great bell. After they had fled through, we followed, jumping into the portal... and arriving on a jungle beach, or more specifically about twenty or so feet above the beach and them smacking down into it. None of us have any idea where we are, I can only surmise that we are a very long way from Daggerdale, and the general consensus seems to be that we are no longer on Toril, and instead in some other place or even time. Quite why Klaatus has sent us here I do not know, though I guess it could have been a mistake. For the duration of our stay here, I will record the days as though we were still on Toril. We headed down the beach and after encountering some strange worm-like creatures in the sand we edged closer to the jungle. We were then immediately attacked by four massive green centipedes, their mandibles laden with poison that afflicted myself and Tanus, slowing us, and making Tanus very unsteady indeed. We continued on, searching for a source of fresh water and encountered a massive lizard beast, roughly twenty feet long, its head adorned with a bony crest from which pointed three horns. The beast charged us, tearing through us, and it took an unbelievable amount of punishment before it went down, nearly killing Taeghan, Rand and Braddoc in the process. We cut steaks from it and filled waterskins at the shallow river it had been drinking from. We then sought shelter, crossing the shallow river and setting up camp in a rocky outcropping. Uktar 13th - During the night we heard what we assumed to be the towers utter collapse, but on checking in the daylight of this morning only one wall had fallen in. Still, as Rand says, time & weather will do for the rest of it. Nothing else of note happened today, even the weather held off and we made reasonable progress back towards the town. Uktar 26th - We spent the day in our camp, while our priests saw to the group’s considerable wounds. It seems that the water here cannot be trusted, I having caught a disease from drinking it. From now on I will stick to relying on my ring to provide for me. Towards evening we noticed some savage looking carnivores ripping at the corpse of the lizard beast we slew yesterday, as well as a gargantuan herbivore with a very long neck that emerged from the sea, and knocked down a tree to eat! I now doubt that we will see much in the way of civilisation in this savage land.</blockquote>

Verification