Paths to Immortality
This adventure, "Paths to Immortality", marks the most recent adventure in our Aelfenn campaign, played on October 20th and 27th of this year. Why do I mention this? Because after posting this adventure (this post, and the second half next week), you, dear reader, will officially be experiencing this campaign in 'real time' - in other words, the updates will probably not be weekly as they have been. Though we schedule for every week, there are times when we play my Mutants and Masterminds game instead of D&D, and of course the days where game just doesn't work out (as you might imagine, we'll be seeing a lot of downtime through the holidays). I just wanted to mention this so that people following this Story Hour don't think I've vanished if I don't post anything for a couple of weeks.
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Autumn rubbed sleep from her eyes, then glanced over at the pile of documents on her desk, hoping that this might have somehow made it look smaller. She sighed when she realized it hadn’t.
It had been nearly two weeks since the Legacy had returned from the Dark Hills to Noxolt. They’d gone their separate ways for a while – Kyle had taken Tolly and Crystal to Miracle so that Tolly could visit his ward Iria (and so that Kyle could talk to Crystal and get to know her, although Autumn was doing her best not to think about that part), while Osborn was off doing… whatever it was he did these days. Both Lanara and Arrie were staying in the Imperial Palace proper, while she had remained in her ducal apartments within the palace complex. Tolly and Kyle had returned a few days ago, and they were both now staying with her in her suites (Tolly in his own rooms, of course; and Autumn had even offered a room to Crystal, though she’d decided to remain at the local Ardaran church). The Inquisitor and his apprentice were frequently away on church business, which had given Autumn several deliciously private days with her husband.
Then, two days ago, Auror arrived. Her mother had asked to remain in Vargas to help out after her wedding, which Autumn had agreed to. She suspected that initially it was just an excuse to avoid returning to her home in Merlion and the dark memories that lay in wait for her there. But as time passed, the sentinel had come to realize her mother’s gifts in the management of an estate were easily adaptable to her own much larger domain. Though of course Autumn couldn’t have appointed Auror as her steward, given her position in another kingdom, she did allow her to work behind the scenes, assisting Togusa in many of the administrative tasks of the duchy, which freed up the samurai to attend to issues of security and public safety, and when the Taurics invaded, to lead the armies of Vargex to war.
But no matter how skilled a ruler’s assistants may be, there were always matters that required the Duchesses’ personal attention. Auror was now delivering several crates full of these matters. Most only required the ducal seal, but a few required a more thorough inspection and response. It was these documents that had occupied Autumn for the majority of the evening.
The aasimar stretched, and heard the tiny pops and cracks as her spine straightened. She then felt the itching again, and began rubbing her shoulder blades against the back of the chair for a few seconds before regaining control and stopping herself. Scratching didn’t help – nothing had, and the itch was getting steadily worse. Kyle had told her he couldn’t see any marks on her skin (other than the red lines left when she gave in to the temptation to scratch), so the cause was a mystery to her. The only thing she could think was that her armor was slightly misaligned along the spine, causing the irritation. She would have to ask Tolly if he would adjust it for her.
She looked again at the parchment in front of her, but she almost immediately went cross-eyed, and leaned back, realizing she needed a break. As if on cue, there was a knock at her door.
A servant poked their head through the doorway. “A messenger for you, Your Grace.”
“At this hour?” Autumn frowned. “I’m in no mood for more bad news. Can it wait until morning?”
“The messenger states that it’s urgent, Your Grace,” the servant replied.
Autumn sighed. “Very well, show them in.”
A moment later an orc-touched wearing the livery of an Imperial Messenger stepped into her office. Autumn didn’t recognize the man, but there were hundreds of Messengers throughout the Tlaxan Empire.
“Please, just deliver your message and be on your way. I’m so tired I can’t think straight.”
A strange smile crept across the messenger’s face. “I know.”
* * *
Tolly was about to head out the door to meet with the commanders of a levy of Ardaran troops camped near the outer walls of the city, when he saw Kyle walking toward him. The wizard looked perturbed.
“Have you seen Autumn?” he asked.
“Not since yesterday,” the priest replied. “Why?”
“No one’s seen her since yesterday,” he said. “She didn’t come down for breakfast, and she’s not in her office.”
Tolly glanced up at the sun. It was just past mid-day. “Where else could she be today? Have you checked with Auror? Did any of the servants bring her meals to her this morning?”
“I don’t know,” Kyle said testily. “I just asked if they’d seen her, and everyone I asked said no.”
Tolly resisted the urge to shake his head. For all his talents, Kyle had no skill in getting information from others. “Let me see what I can find out,” he said. “Have you tried contacting her magically?”
“Not yet,” he said, “I wanted to try the old-fashioned method first.”
Tolly returned inside, and after sending a page to deliver a message to the Ardaran army camp, began questioning the servants in the ducal household. An hour later, he tracked down Kyle again.
“This is odd,” he said. “There is no sign of Autumn anywhere. I’ve interviewed most of the house staff, although I have yet to speak to those servants who were on duty last night.”
“Okay, enough mystery,” Kyle said. He stepped back and closed his eyes, issuing a
sending.
Autumn, where are you? No one knows where you went.
A moment later, Kyle’s eyes opened. “No answer,” he said, looking alarmed.
“Get your things,” Tolly said. “We’ll go to the Imperial Palace and check with Arrie, and Osborn if he’s around.”
“Little chance of that,” Kyle said, “Osborn’s been away for days.”
“We should get Lanara to assist us as well,” Tolly said. “Her capacity for obtaining information is far more impressive than my own.”
They arrived at the palace within minutes. They were told that Lanara was still in her room, so they went there first, after sending a servant to go find Arrie.
Kyle knocked gently on Lanara’s door, and heard a slight sound from behind it, an indistinct muttering.
“Allow me,” Tolly said, and pounded on the door with his armored fist.
“Go away, Tolly,” came Lanara’s voice, still slightly sleepy.
“Tell whoever you’re with to make themselves decent, and open the door,” Tolly said.
“I’m alone, you a$$!” she shouted. A moment later, a robe-clad Lanara cracked open the door. “What?”
“We can’t find Autumn anywhere,” Kyle said. “Have you seen her?”
“Well, she’s not in here,” Lanara scowled, throwing open the door fully so they could see inside, “so I don’t see how I could have seen her.”
“Lanara, seriously,” Kyle said. “Nobody has seen her since last night, and I can’t reach her with a
sending.”
Lanara blinked. “All right, all right. Let me get something decent on, and I’ll ask around.”
“I can go to the servant’s quarters,” Tolly said, “and wake up some of the people who were working last night.”
Arrie came down the hallway toward them, a slight smile on her face. “Hi guys, what’s up?”
Lanara looked Arrie up and down. “Well, finally! Congratulations, Arrie.”
“For what?” Arrie said innocently, still grinning.
“Obviously you and Herion have overcome whatever hang-ups were preventing you from getting in some serious bedroom time,” the cansin replied with a wink. “Glad to see he’s good for more than just expensive gifts.”
There was a long moment where everyone just exchanged glances. Then Lanara piped up again. “Well, glad we worked through that. You guys want to fill in Arrie while I get dressed?” With that, she closed the door.
It was another hour before Lanara tracked down the rest of the party, meeting them in an open courtyard near Autumn’s apartments. “Well, I have good news and bad news,” she said. “The good news is that someone did see Autumn leaving last night.”
“Without telling anyone?” Tolly said. “I know that Autumn is flighty, but that’s a bit much even for her.”
“Don’t go there,” warned Arrie.
“Arrie? I’m Tolly. I go there.”
“She was seen walking out of the ducal manor at about two bells,” Lanara continued. “She was armed and armored, and walking in the company of a female elven servant. No one I spoke to knew her, and she seemed pretty nondescript. The last anyone knew, she was walking out of the palace complex toward the mercantile district.”
“Did she take her horse with her?” Arrie asked.
Kyle shook his head. “Defiance is still in the stables.”
“Then she wasn’t planning on going far,” Arrie said.
“Assuming she was going under her own free will,” Kyle said. “What else did you learn?”
“Just prior to leaving, there was an Imperial Messenger that arrived to speak to Autumn. He was described as an orc-touched, not much more than that. Problem is that no one remembers seeing him leave after meeting the Duchess.”
Tolly scowled, and waved over a commander of the city watch. “There was an Imperial Messenger that came her last night, an orc-touched. Find him. And find the Duchess.”
“I can put a few men on this sir,” the commander said, “until the Imperial Guard can be briefed and put on the task. This is their jurisdiction, not ours.”
Meanwhile, Kyle had pulled a small mirror from his belt, and with a word caused it to grow until it was as tall as himself. Leaning it against a nearby tree, he began casting a spell. A short while later, Kyle cursed and kicked the mirror over, sending it clattering on the hard paving stones under their feet.
“Nothing,” he said. “My scrying was blocked by something.”
“All right,” Arrie said, “Lanara, you said she was seen heading toward the mercantile district?”
“That’s what the guard I spoke to said,” the bard replied.
“Good,” Kyle said, “then let’s go down there and start burning things until we get some answers.”
“Or we could just ask questions,” Arrie said. “But let’s go.”
Fortune was with them as they started their search. They caught many of the city’s drunks just as they were waking up for the afternoon, and several of them remembered seeing Autumn walking through the city the night before. Their questions led them all the way through the mercantile district, and into the slums. Before long, they came upon an old tenement building where a greasy elf-touched had informed them that Autumn had gone. The building looked as if it was once quite respectable, but now was marked by broken plaster, smashed windows, and graffiti. The four-story building housed several dwellings, all facing an inner courtyard dominated by a crumbling, algae-infested fountain. Tolly started pounding on the outer gate with his mailed fist; on the second blow the gate fell over.
“I’m assuming Autumn wasn’t here looking for a new summer home,” Lanara said.
“Stay together,” Arrie said. “Look, you can see some movement here in the dust toward those stairs.”
“Too bad Osborn’s not around,” Lanara said. “I can see someone leaving something not friendly on those steps.”
“Well, we could send a summoned creature up first,” suggested Kyle. “I didn’t prepare any summonings, but don’t you have a couple of wands that’ll do the trick, Lanara?”
“I don’t think they’ll stick around long enough,” Lanara argued.
“Will you two hurry up?” Tolly called from the top of the stairs. Arrie had already gone up, followed by the Ardaran.
The four adventurers climbed up to the second floor, wary for any signs of life. They spotted more scuff marks in the thick dust, leading them further up to the topmost floor. The trail seemed to lead to one of the corner dwellings.
As they moved down the hallway, Arrie suddenly jerked back as two energy bolts flew from across the courtyard and embedded themselves in a crumbling wooden beam. After quivering there for a moment, the bolts melted away.
“Mindblades,” said Kyle.
The party looked across the courtyard to see two figures standing at the balcony railing on the second floor below them. Scowling, the pair turned and began running toward the far end of the tenement.
Arrie launched herself over the railing immediately, even as the other two did the same. She bolstered her own body with psionic energy to help cushion the fall as she landed hard in the courtyard. She was about to give chase, when she felt the ground start to shake. Looking up, she saw Tolly standing at the balcony on the fourth floor, invoking an
earthquake.
“Brace yourselves,” was all he said. Lanara replied with a string of curses involving Qin-Chu’s nether regions.
Kyle looked at Tolly, wide-eyed, and then as the building around them began to creak and groan, he grabbed Lanara by the waist and leapt off the side, invoking the
feather fall magic in his cloak to bring them both safely to the ground. Tolly also leapt clear a few moments later as the building collapsed, and the Ardaran seemed to ride down on a cascade of splintered wood and plaster. The tenement’s ground floor, which was built from stone, appeared to weather the spell much better than the others, and was mostly intact. The same could not be said for several of the adjacent buildings, which also collapsed or were heavily damaged. Cries of fear and pain could be heard rising above the noise of the settling debris.
The party looked around. One of the two people fleeing from them had been caught by the falling debris, and was trapped under a pile of rubble, not moving. The second was racing toward one of the ground floor doorways, and was joined by a third person, who had apparently been waiting for the other two on the ground floor out of sight of the party. Lanara pulled out one of her instruments and used it to cast a
hold person spell on one of the remaining two, freezing him in place. The other one fled through the doorway, with Arrie hot on his heels, a bolas in her hands. Tolly saw the last one touch the stones of the doorway in an odd pattern as he walked through, and then the man vanished into the tenement. Arrie’s bolas flew in after him, followed a split second later by the warrior.
Meanwhile, Kyle had bent down next to the man under the rubble. His back was clearly broken, and he did not have long to live. Kyle grabbed him by the hair and pulled his head up with a jerk.
“You can die quickly, or slowly and in pain,” Kyle hissed. “Talk.”
“Oblivion awaits… either way…” the psion coughed, and then spit a glob of bloody phlegm in Kyle’s face.
“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Kyle said, “but not for you.” The wizard then began smashing the psion’s skull into the paving stones until he stopped twitching.
Arrie came out of the tenement. “The bastard’s gone, and he stole my bolas!”
“Let me see,” Tolly said, and walked into the apartment himself. Arrie stepped out, and could hear the cries of nearby residents, some calling for help, others cursing the gods, some screaming in panic that the Taurics were attacking the city.
The Ardaran emerged a minute later. “He was never in the tenement,” Tolly said. “There is no disturbance in the dust other than what you and I have done. There are no signs of where your bolas landed inside. I think he must have activated some sort of teleportation gateway.”
“A psionic portal,” Kyle said, examining the doorway through his staff.
“The man did something when he ran through,” Tolly said, “He touched the doorway in a certain way, probably some sort of activation key.” Tolly attempted to walk through, repeating the same sequence he saw, but nothing happened.
“I’m going to go talk to him,” Tolly said, jutting his chin out at the held psion near Lanara . He walked over and dispelled the effects of her instrument, grabbing the mindblade by his shirt.
“You saw your friend die,” Tolly growled. “I will not be so swift. Who, where, and how do we find them? NOW!”
The psion smirked. “You saw how it worked. All your answers are through there.”
“Why don’t we double-check them with your answers?” Lanara said.
Suddenly, Arrie shouted at Tolly and Lanara. “Come on!” she shouted, “Now now now!” The doorway was suffused with a greenish glow, and Kyle was nowhere to be seen.
“Aw,” Lanara said, “I was going to dominate him.”
“Save it for the next one,” Tolly said, and brought his hammer around in a wide arc into the psion’s skull.
* * *
Moments later, they were all standing in a pitch-black cave, waiting as light sources were procured. “So, how’d you get it to work?” Lanara asked.
“You needed to feed the portal a little bit of psionic energy,” Arrie said. “I tried that touching sequence after Tolly, and pulled Kyle through to here. The portal was still open, so I went back through to get you two.”
“That’s great,” the cansin said, blinking as Kyle’s light globes flared to life, “but where is here?”
Kyle looked around. “Judging by this rock, I’d say the Deep Underdark.”
“The where now?” Lanara asked.
“Far below the surface of Aelfenn,” he explained. “You see the stone all around us, this strange iridescent volcanic looking stuff? It’s emanating a strange, shifting magical aura. It’s known that in the deepest parts of the earth, magic is fused into the rock itself. Unfortunately, these auras make any sort of divination or teleportation impossible unless you have line of sight to your target.”
“So we’re not teleporting out of here, right?” Arrie asked.
Kyle shook his head. “Even if I had the spell prepared, I couldn’t get us out of here.”
“I assume that this is equally applicable to divine magic,” Tolly asked.
“True.”
“Well, we know the portal’s here,” Arrie said, “and I got it to work before, so there’s our way out. I’m more interested in what’s beyond this cave.”
They began to make their way through the cavern. A half-hour later, they saw a faint light up ahead. Kyle sent out
prying eyes, which came back shortly afterward to feed him what they had observed.
“It’s a very large cavern,” he said, his voice shaking. “I’d guess big enough to fit a couple of city blocks. There are some torches, and some glowing crystals providing light. There are a few passages leading out. There’s a large dais toward the back of the cavern, unadorned. There’s a woman standing there, human, tall with long red hair. Autumn is on the table next to her. She’s not in her armor, and she’s bound, gagged, and unconscious.”
“Did she notice the eyes?” Arrie asked. Kyle shook his head.
“Then I think we should go talk to her,” Tolly said. They started to walk into the cavern, Lanara turning invisible as they walked.
The red-haired woman looked up as they approached, and smiled. She casually pulled out a dagger, and walked behind the table upon which Autumn lay. The woman rested her hands on Autumn’s torso, the dagger clasped in one of them.
“Oh, good!” she said. “You’re all here… oh, except for the hin. Well, I suppose I can find him later.”
“So,” said Lanara from behind her invisibility, “what are you doing here that requires an audience?”
“Audience?” the woman repeated. “No, no, you’re not my audience.” She smiled. “My name is Meeranda. I am a servant of Kristyan, whose name I know you know.”
“Indeed,” Tolly said.
“Now, Kristyan bestows certain favors on those who have done remarkable things for him,” Meeranda continued. As she spoke, Tolly began to hear a low rumbling, which he could tell was not caused by the movement of earth or stone.
“You see, you’ve been giving the Tauric forces quite a bit of trouble topside, and Kristyan has been… perturbed by this. So, now you’re down here in my domain with my servants. Now I’m going to bring you to Kristyan, and he will give me immortality.”
Arrie and Lanara couldn’t help but snort derisively.
“You will be coming along quietly,” Meeranda continued, ignoring them and looking at Kyle, “because there will be a knife at your wife’s throat the whole time.”
“You know what?” Arrie said. “You’re forgetting one thing.” She pointed at Tolly. “He’s a priest. In fact, we know lots of priests. Autumn isn’t psionic.” It was a huge bluff; Arrie wasn’t about to risk her sister’s life, even if she could be resurrected. She hoped the distance between Meeranda and the party would help conceal the slight quiver in her voice.
“The fact of the matter is,” Tolly continued, “you could kill her now, and we’ll bring her back.”
Meeranda smiled. “Did I mention that we craft disintegration daggers?” The blade in her hand wiggled a little. At the same time, the rumbling grew louder, and suddenly dozens of Tauric troops began pouring out of the side caverns. At the same time, two humanoid forms rose up out of the ground next to Meeranda, glowing with psionic power.
“Meeranda,” said Tolly, hefting his maul, “you didn’t bring enough.”
Her smile hardened. “I have everything I need.”
