The Age of Worms - Morrus' Campaign - Finished 6th August!!
killjoy68116
First Post
Uhm, you guys Ok? I'm jonsing over here...
Eccles
Ragged idiot in a trilby.
Yeah, sorry. I'm working on it at the moment.
Slightly slower than usual as we *just* got our new puppy, and she just chewed her way through the USB cable I rather carelessly left on the floor. Give me an hour or so and I should be done. Just got to the 'plot revelation' stage...
Slightly slower than usual as we *just* got our new puppy, and she just chewed her way through the USB cable I rather carelessly left on the floor. Give me an hour or so and I should be done. Just got to the 'plot revelation' stage...
Eccles
Ragged idiot in a trilby.
Following the party, we returned to the DeLuxury, and the others stepped from my suite through the portal into a Magnificent Mansion summoned up by Endo. The following morning there was a polite knock at the suite door, and one of the waiting staff passed me a carefully sealed sheet of parchment fastened by a complex red wax crest.
Waking the others I joined them for a tremendous and highly enchanted breakfast summoned up by Janga (and augmented by some excellent kippers from the DeLuxury’s kitchens) after which I tore open the wax seal and read the letter.
“It’s from Lashonna,” I announced to my comrades. “An invitation to speak to her at her house tonight – at midnight. She says that she’ll send a carriage to pick us up and take us there.”
And that was why, at 11.30 we were waiting outside the playhouse where we were collected by Kelgorn, Lashonna’s gaunt limping half orc servant who drove us in an extremely comfortable carriage across the city to Misthall Manor; Lashonna’s mansion house. The property was only dwarfed by the unfinished ziggurat and Prince Zeech’s own massive palace.
The carriage glided to a gentle halt and Kelgorn dismounted and opened the door for us before leading us up through several generously appointed rooms into a book-lined study. Wearing a gold trimmed gown and sipping demurely from a large stone pint pot, Lashonna sat behind a vast desk. She placed her drink down on a low table concealed behind the desk, and dismissed Kelgorn before turning to us.
“Please sit,” she invited us before continuing. “I apologise for the lateness of the hour, but I thought it best not to call too much attention to your visiting me. I understand that you have some interest in a mage named ‘Balakard’?”
I nodded my agreement, and she continued.
“Balakard also came to speak to me some years ago, asking many questions and writing notes in his little book. I wondered what had come of him and his ventures to the Wormcrawl Fissure, and therefore took it upon myself to locate him. The spells I had to hand failed to locate Balakard himself, but I was able to locate his notebook. It appears that the book was recovered by Ilthane, the black dragon slain by… yourselves, I believe.
“Ilthane made her lair under Traitor’s Grave within the city some short distance to the east. If you were able to recover the book and return with it, I may be able to assist you further It will not, however, be a simple question of going to fetch a book – Ilthane had children which may still be lairing in her old nest.”
Not even taking the time to locate Fez (who had not been interested in coming to the playhouse with the rest of us), we headed straight to the cemetery. At the dead of night, the cemetery was wreathed deeply in mist and a series of open graves leaked an awful stench into the night air.
Janga cast a spell and laid his tiny hand on Flynne’s eyes. There was a slight glow which faded as the elf blinked around him before looking purposefully into the cemetery.
“This way,” he announced with certainty. As the first light of dawn etched across the horizon, we reached the cemetary’s very heart, where a wide bush concealed a 10 foot wide stone trapdoor. We felt our way around the edges and were just starting to pull at it when Flynne, and then Janga looked up in different directions.
“Wingbeats,” they said one after the other. Scanning the horizon, we could see four sets of massive dark wings beating at the lightening sky. Each of the creatures had a wingspan of an easy 30 feet, and all four were converging on us as we stood by the trapdoor.
Amidst a rustle of action, Flynne leapt for cover, Endo swigged a potion and faded from sight, and I chanted briefly before also disappearing. Janga looked around with a look of increasing panic on his face. Four long streams of acid lanced down from the dragons as they flew over our heads, and Janga leapt to one side. His heavy armour clanked heavily as he rolled across the floor and came up to one knee having completely avoided most of the acid and only been struck by one of the caustic sprays.
The dragons continued their flight, but were far lower and closer now, and Flynne broke cover shooting a series of arrows into the closest dragon. An appalling series of bloody wounds erupted in the creature’s belly. The tips of the remaining arrows in Flynne’s quiver then erupted in flames at Endo’s invisible chanting.
Janga turned and swung an arm towards the sky whilst calling on the powers of Fahrlanghan. A massive pillar of flame appeared in the air, wreathing the already wounded dragon, and with a high-pitched wailing scream it collapsed to the ground, still burning.
Having already cast a spell of hastening, I dashed across to give Flynne complete invisibility to his foes whatever he might choose to do and then, as Endo cast some spell of tremendous potency which stopped two of the dragons approaching, the third swooped downwards to begin its toothy assault on Janga. Abruptly, at a snarled spell from one of the other dragons, everything went dark for me, but I could still hear Flynne leap up from the branches of a low tree he had been concealed in and swoop away, his cloak rustling slightly as he flew upwards plying his bow as he went.
I crept out towards where I could hear Janga struggling against the closest dragon, chanting a song of encouragement, and left the edge of the darkness effect to the sight of a large black dragon clawing and biting at Janga’s comparatively tiny armoured body. Two more lines of acid stabbed out over the darkness sphere, spattering around the gnome’s already acid pitted armour, but once again he ducked and weaved away from the worst of them.
Overhead, I could see Flynne blinking in and out of sight, releasing an arrow from his bow every time I could see him, and each shaft slammed home into the body of the dragon fighting Janga, until eventually the great beast could take no more. With a last gurgled exhalation, the beast rolled onto its side, defeated.
Appearing from his invisibility spell, Endo gestured, and despite the distance I could see that one of the two dragons had been struck blind, before it and its sibling took to the skies in flight. Flynne fired shot after shot at their retreating hindquarters, whilst Endo swept towards the floor beneath him with his Rod of Quickening, creating a black chasm from which rose a large smoke-wreathed horse which snorted fire from its nostrils. The creature rose from the depths beneath him and took off, the wizard on its back chanting all the while. Such was the phenomenal speed of the phantasmal steed that he was underneath the two dragons in an instant, firing up towards them with a lancing green beam which turned the one with sight into a cloud of dust in a heartbeat.
The last dragon, still completely blind, flapped unsteadily away as Endo wheeled his steed around and trotted back towards us, slapping dust off his cloak whilst beaming towards us with a toothy half-orc grin.
.oOo.
After a great deal of effort, eventually Flynne managed to wrench the trapdoor open, and we crept through it into the earth-walled crumbling passageway beyond. Roots hung through the ceiling and the flickering light from the enchanted torch I held added to the dripping noise and the rank acidic smell to create a thoroughly hostile environment.
Dropped a short distance, we found ourselves in a craggy chamber, with several piles of smashed glass, broken containers, damaged crates and shattered alchemical equipment. Acid had dripped from the shattered flasks and beakers, scorched the earth beneath and formed into puddles (and in one case a large pool) of wretched fuming liquids.
My throat began to itch, and Endo sounded raw as he stepped forward chanting the words of a spell of mending to repair the broken glassware, at which point the bubbling pool erupted upwards, spraying acid in all directions. A terrible abomination rose from the bubbling pool dripping foul green liquids from its ‘flesh’, the creature was easily the size of the four dragons which had attacked us outside, perhaps larger, and writhing almost living streams of acid hung from its sides wreathing and cracking. The end of the creature’s long sinuous neck was tipped with five or six skulls, some human, one clearly a dragon, and one a curious amalgam of the two.
Fixing us with a stare from its empty eye sockets, each of the jawbones opened to send a massive stream of bubbling noxious vapours pouring over us all. The burning was terrible, and each of us (except Flynne who had flung himself over the top of the stream) screamed in pain as the acids seeped through gaps in armour. Worse, the fumes from the acidic spray somehow etched into our bones in an instant, leaving us all shivering and feeling cold. My knees suddenly sagged under the weight of my armour and equipment, and I could see all of the others suffering in the same way.
Chanting a spell, Janga dashed towards the pale green creature and tried to deliver the powerful spell which was stored in his outstretched fingers. His hand, however, simply pushed through the creature as though pushing at a hanging curtain. Flynne’s series of arrows either passed through it or bounced off the creature’s many skulls.
I danced backwards and fired a large blast from the staff I still carried with me, and whilst Endo cast a spell of his own which magically transported him to the corner of the room and out of trouble, the creature lashed out again and again at Janga, leaving long acid-burned welts across his face and arms. The diminutive cleric responded by reaching for it once again, and this time made contact.
The acidic undead squealed in half a dozen voices as bright light blazed from sudden cracks in its ethereal hide; then Flynne’s bowshots slammed into its skulls, shattering two of them and the thing fell back into the acid pool with a tremendous splash.
.oOo.
The treasure hoard came in the form of several bottles and a sheaf of scraps of paper. Balakard’s diary had been here, but had clearly been shredded by one or more of the younger dragons. Much of the text had fallen in one or other of the acid pools and we could salvage only a few of the scraps of paper.
As I collected these, Endo, Flynne and Janga examined the three small flasks.
“This one’s designed to give you the toughness of a dragon,” announced Endo. “And this one to make someone more charismatic, whilst the third…”
There was a faint popping noise, and we all turned to see Flynne guzzling the first of the philtres.
“Hang on!” Endo’s cries were too late. Flynne’s pale elven skin darkened abruptly. A faint scraping noise came from under his armour, and as I moved the perpetual torch close to him we realised that his entire skin had been covered with tiny reflective glittering black dragon scales.
.oOo.
After we had settled down and I had gingerly drunk the second phial of liquid, we took the scraps of paper and tried to arrange them into some sort of order.
It is as I suspected. The ancient undead dragon Dragotha is the Herald of Kyuss. He was granted his unlife by the Wormgod well over 15 centuries ago, after he stole the monolith from Kulith-Mar and brought it to his lair in the Rift Canyon. When Dragotha was slain by Tiamat, Kyuss repaid him with the gift on undeath, and in so doing bound him eternally to his will.
-
Dragotha’s presence in the world has been quiet for the last several Ages. The loss of his phylactery 1,500 years ago left him wary. Yet my research proves he stirs from his long sleep, that he now intends to waken Kyuss after all this time. Why now? What has changed? I fear a journey to the Wormcrawl Fissure to confront the dracolich is my only remaining option.
-
A king without his commander is powerless. It has taken Dragotha nearly 1,500 years to reach this point. If I can remove him now it will certainly be centuries before anything has a chance to release the Wormgod again. I shall leave immediately for the Wormcrawl Fissure and attempt to find Dragotha.
-
The Age of Worms and Kyuss’ resurrection were stopped fifteen centuries ago by the Order of the Storm. Historians believe that the Order died out not long after this victory, hunted down and destroyed by the last surviving members of the cult of Kyuss. These records are incorrect. The Order instead retreated to their stronghold on a secret island called Tilagos. Nobody knows where Tilagos is!
-
The Rite they performed obscured Dragotha’s phylactery from thought, history and sight… as if it never existed at all. But the Order of the Storm were no fools. They suspected Kyuss would one day rise again, that his worms would walk once more.
-
My research continued… It seems that on Tilagos is a library of sorts, a repository of the Order’s lore. It has been sought for centuries by wizards, scholars and explorers, for it is said to be filled with hundreds of years of history, memories, dreams, and of course, secrets. If a written account of what happened to Dragotha’s phylactery exists, it must certainly be there.
-
Tilagos Island… I have found it! It is located in the northern reaches of the Nyr Dyv. It doesn’t appear on any maps.
-
Worse. I’m afraid others are close to learning this as well, in part as an unfortunate result of my own research. My enemies are always quick to nip at my heels! I speak in particular of a simpering dog of a man named Heskin who once served Lashonna. I’m afraid Heskin has been wooed from her side with promises of wealth and power, and has taken word of this discovery to a disreputable man indeed, a powerful priest of Vecna named Darl Zuethos.
-
Complications… Before they built the library, the Order of the Storm drove a lasting bargain with primal elemental forces. They sacrificed their lives to whisk the island’s interior away from the Material Plane. In its place is a barren rock surrounded by an ever-raging storm of such intensity that ships which approach are invariably lost. The island itself appears on no maps, but the stories hint that the druids left a way for those in need to reach their secrets while at the same time warding the place away from the prying eyes of Kyuss’ undead fanatics.
.oOo.
We returned to Misthall Manor, where Lashonna was waiting to receive us. We passed the few scraps of paper to her. After she had taken a while to read through them all, she breathed Heskin’s name and reached into a deep drawer on her desk. Producing a scroll with a lock of hair attached, she announced, “I can help you there. I am rather concerned about ex-employees divulging my secrets, and am therefore in the habit of obtaining scraps of personal matter so that I can keep tabs on them. If you would like, I can scry upon him now.”
We had a brief chat before agreeing to take up her generous offer, and found ourselves sitting around a shallow silver scrying pool. The waters rippled, and we were suddenly looking down on the deck of a swaying ship. An ocean in full tempest was howling around the man who was lashed to the mast with coil after coil of rope. Orc sailors bellowed instructions to one another and dashed frantically from place to place across the ship.
Almost silently amidst the chaos, two subtly-horned lithe figures dressed in dark silks dropped from the mast above to stand near the man. They clanked back at him contemptuously before being confronted by a heavy-set red skinned humanoid, whose hair seemed to blaze and we could see the rain sizzle as it landed on his hot skin.
As we watched, two more figures approached. One was a shifty looking bird-like man which wore a dark cloak under which he shielded a repeating crossbow from the rain.
The last was the only true human in the group, clad in blue robes with a repeated eye motif on them. He addressed the man tied to the mast with a sneer in his voice.
“Only a few hours more, Heskin, and we shall see if you shall live or die.”
He cut off abruptly, and then looked up at the very centre of the scrying pool.
“We have guests, Heskin,” he told the man in a mocking voice. “Your journey comes to an early end.”
Saying something I couldn’t quite make out, he drew back his robes from a dark clawed rotting hand and touched Heskin’s cheek. From the point of the touch, a dark stain spread across the man’s face. The stain became darker, and they greyed like coals on a hot fire. The man’s face then cracked and tore as he, screaming silently all the while, collapsed and sagged. His suddenly dry flesh was torn away by the driving wind and the coils of rope fell loose around the base of the mast.
The water in the scrying pool bubbled and hissed, boiling away in an instant and Lashonna looked around at us, appalled and frightened by what she had seen.
“You must hurry,” she whispered to us urgently.
We turned to Janga, but he was already casting the words to the spell which would whisk us away to Mage Point on the edge of the Nyr Dyv’s deep waters.
.oOo.
A few brief words with Manzorian’s assistant Cymria told us that Manzorian himself was ‘in one of the lower planes, dealing with an unruly Demon Lord’, and he would not be in a position to help us. We headed to the dock, and a few minutes conversation with a sullen and mutilated sailor showed us that an area a dozen leagues to the north was covered in storm.
Endo cast a couple of spells, and we headed off in haste and style.
Waking the others I joined them for a tremendous and highly enchanted breakfast summoned up by Janga (and augmented by some excellent kippers from the DeLuxury’s kitchens) after which I tore open the wax seal and read the letter.
“It’s from Lashonna,” I announced to my comrades. “An invitation to speak to her at her house tonight – at midnight. She says that she’ll send a carriage to pick us up and take us there.”
And that was why, at 11.30 we were waiting outside the playhouse where we were collected by Kelgorn, Lashonna’s gaunt limping half orc servant who drove us in an extremely comfortable carriage across the city to Misthall Manor; Lashonna’s mansion house. The property was only dwarfed by the unfinished ziggurat and Prince Zeech’s own massive palace.
The carriage glided to a gentle halt and Kelgorn dismounted and opened the door for us before leading us up through several generously appointed rooms into a book-lined study. Wearing a gold trimmed gown and sipping demurely from a large stone pint pot, Lashonna sat behind a vast desk. She placed her drink down on a low table concealed behind the desk, and dismissed Kelgorn before turning to us.
“Please sit,” she invited us before continuing. “I apologise for the lateness of the hour, but I thought it best not to call too much attention to your visiting me. I understand that you have some interest in a mage named ‘Balakard’?”
I nodded my agreement, and she continued.
“Balakard also came to speak to me some years ago, asking many questions and writing notes in his little book. I wondered what had come of him and his ventures to the Wormcrawl Fissure, and therefore took it upon myself to locate him. The spells I had to hand failed to locate Balakard himself, but I was able to locate his notebook. It appears that the book was recovered by Ilthane, the black dragon slain by… yourselves, I believe.
“Ilthane made her lair under Traitor’s Grave within the city some short distance to the east. If you were able to recover the book and return with it, I may be able to assist you further It will not, however, be a simple question of going to fetch a book – Ilthane had children which may still be lairing in her old nest.”
Not even taking the time to locate Fez (who had not been interested in coming to the playhouse with the rest of us), we headed straight to the cemetery. At the dead of night, the cemetery was wreathed deeply in mist and a series of open graves leaked an awful stench into the night air.
Janga cast a spell and laid his tiny hand on Flynne’s eyes. There was a slight glow which faded as the elf blinked around him before looking purposefully into the cemetery.
“This way,” he announced with certainty. As the first light of dawn etched across the horizon, we reached the cemetary’s very heart, where a wide bush concealed a 10 foot wide stone trapdoor. We felt our way around the edges and were just starting to pull at it when Flynne, and then Janga looked up in different directions.
“Wingbeats,” they said one after the other. Scanning the horizon, we could see four sets of massive dark wings beating at the lightening sky. Each of the creatures had a wingspan of an easy 30 feet, and all four were converging on us as we stood by the trapdoor.
Amidst a rustle of action, Flynne leapt for cover, Endo swigged a potion and faded from sight, and I chanted briefly before also disappearing. Janga looked around with a look of increasing panic on his face. Four long streams of acid lanced down from the dragons as they flew over our heads, and Janga leapt to one side. His heavy armour clanked heavily as he rolled across the floor and came up to one knee having completely avoided most of the acid and only been struck by one of the caustic sprays.
The dragons continued their flight, but were far lower and closer now, and Flynne broke cover shooting a series of arrows into the closest dragon. An appalling series of bloody wounds erupted in the creature’s belly. The tips of the remaining arrows in Flynne’s quiver then erupted in flames at Endo’s invisible chanting.
Janga turned and swung an arm towards the sky whilst calling on the powers of Fahrlanghan. A massive pillar of flame appeared in the air, wreathing the already wounded dragon, and with a high-pitched wailing scream it collapsed to the ground, still burning.
Having already cast a spell of hastening, I dashed across to give Flynne complete invisibility to his foes whatever he might choose to do and then, as Endo cast some spell of tremendous potency which stopped two of the dragons approaching, the third swooped downwards to begin its toothy assault on Janga. Abruptly, at a snarled spell from one of the other dragons, everything went dark for me, but I could still hear Flynne leap up from the branches of a low tree he had been concealed in and swoop away, his cloak rustling slightly as he flew upwards plying his bow as he went.
I crept out towards where I could hear Janga struggling against the closest dragon, chanting a song of encouragement, and left the edge of the darkness effect to the sight of a large black dragon clawing and biting at Janga’s comparatively tiny armoured body. Two more lines of acid stabbed out over the darkness sphere, spattering around the gnome’s already acid pitted armour, but once again he ducked and weaved away from the worst of them.
Overhead, I could see Flynne blinking in and out of sight, releasing an arrow from his bow every time I could see him, and each shaft slammed home into the body of the dragon fighting Janga, until eventually the great beast could take no more. With a last gurgled exhalation, the beast rolled onto its side, defeated.
Appearing from his invisibility spell, Endo gestured, and despite the distance I could see that one of the two dragons had been struck blind, before it and its sibling took to the skies in flight. Flynne fired shot after shot at their retreating hindquarters, whilst Endo swept towards the floor beneath him with his Rod of Quickening, creating a black chasm from which rose a large smoke-wreathed horse which snorted fire from its nostrils. The creature rose from the depths beneath him and took off, the wizard on its back chanting all the while. Such was the phenomenal speed of the phantasmal steed that he was underneath the two dragons in an instant, firing up towards them with a lancing green beam which turned the one with sight into a cloud of dust in a heartbeat.
The last dragon, still completely blind, flapped unsteadily away as Endo wheeled his steed around and trotted back towards us, slapping dust off his cloak whilst beaming towards us with a toothy half-orc grin.
.oOo.
After a great deal of effort, eventually Flynne managed to wrench the trapdoor open, and we crept through it into the earth-walled crumbling passageway beyond. Roots hung through the ceiling and the flickering light from the enchanted torch I held added to the dripping noise and the rank acidic smell to create a thoroughly hostile environment.
Dropped a short distance, we found ourselves in a craggy chamber, with several piles of smashed glass, broken containers, damaged crates and shattered alchemical equipment. Acid had dripped from the shattered flasks and beakers, scorched the earth beneath and formed into puddles (and in one case a large pool) of wretched fuming liquids.
My throat began to itch, and Endo sounded raw as he stepped forward chanting the words of a spell of mending to repair the broken glassware, at which point the bubbling pool erupted upwards, spraying acid in all directions. A terrible abomination rose from the bubbling pool dripping foul green liquids from its ‘flesh’, the creature was easily the size of the four dragons which had attacked us outside, perhaps larger, and writhing almost living streams of acid hung from its sides wreathing and cracking. The end of the creature’s long sinuous neck was tipped with five or six skulls, some human, one clearly a dragon, and one a curious amalgam of the two.
Fixing us with a stare from its empty eye sockets, each of the jawbones opened to send a massive stream of bubbling noxious vapours pouring over us all. The burning was terrible, and each of us (except Flynne who had flung himself over the top of the stream) screamed in pain as the acids seeped through gaps in armour. Worse, the fumes from the acidic spray somehow etched into our bones in an instant, leaving us all shivering and feeling cold. My knees suddenly sagged under the weight of my armour and equipment, and I could see all of the others suffering in the same way.
Chanting a spell, Janga dashed towards the pale green creature and tried to deliver the powerful spell which was stored in his outstretched fingers. His hand, however, simply pushed through the creature as though pushing at a hanging curtain. Flynne’s series of arrows either passed through it or bounced off the creature’s many skulls.
I danced backwards and fired a large blast from the staff I still carried with me, and whilst Endo cast a spell of his own which magically transported him to the corner of the room and out of trouble, the creature lashed out again and again at Janga, leaving long acid-burned welts across his face and arms. The diminutive cleric responded by reaching for it once again, and this time made contact.
The acidic undead squealed in half a dozen voices as bright light blazed from sudden cracks in its ethereal hide; then Flynne’s bowshots slammed into its skulls, shattering two of them and the thing fell back into the acid pool with a tremendous splash.
.oOo.
The treasure hoard came in the form of several bottles and a sheaf of scraps of paper. Balakard’s diary had been here, but had clearly been shredded by one or more of the younger dragons. Much of the text had fallen in one or other of the acid pools and we could salvage only a few of the scraps of paper.
As I collected these, Endo, Flynne and Janga examined the three small flasks.
“This one’s designed to give you the toughness of a dragon,” announced Endo. “And this one to make someone more charismatic, whilst the third…”
There was a faint popping noise, and we all turned to see Flynne guzzling the first of the philtres.
“Hang on!” Endo’s cries were too late. Flynne’s pale elven skin darkened abruptly. A faint scraping noise came from under his armour, and as I moved the perpetual torch close to him we realised that his entire skin had been covered with tiny reflective glittering black dragon scales.
.oOo.
After we had settled down and I had gingerly drunk the second phial of liquid, we took the scraps of paper and tried to arrange them into some sort of order.
It is as I suspected. The ancient undead dragon Dragotha is the Herald of Kyuss. He was granted his unlife by the Wormgod well over 15 centuries ago, after he stole the monolith from Kulith-Mar and brought it to his lair in the Rift Canyon. When Dragotha was slain by Tiamat, Kyuss repaid him with the gift on undeath, and in so doing bound him eternally to his will.
-
Dragotha’s presence in the world has been quiet for the last several Ages. The loss of his phylactery 1,500 years ago left him wary. Yet my research proves he stirs from his long sleep, that he now intends to waken Kyuss after all this time. Why now? What has changed? I fear a journey to the Wormcrawl Fissure to confront the dracolich is my only remaining option.
-
A king without his commander is powerless. It has taken Dragotha nearly 1,500 years to reach this point. If I can remove him now it will certainly be centuries before anything has a chance to release the Wormgod again. I shall leave immediately for the Wormcrawl Fissure and attempt to find Dragotha.
-
The Age of Worms and Kyuss’ resurrection were stopped fifteen centuries ago by the Order of the Storm. Historians believe that the Order died out not long after this victory, hunted down and destroyed by the last surviving members of the cult of Kyuss. These records are incorrect. The Order instead retreated to their stronghold on a secret island called Tilagos. Nobody knows where Tilagos is!
-
The Rite they performed obscured Dragotha’s phylactery from thought, history and sight… as if it never existed at all. But the Order of the Storm were no fools. They suspected Kyuss would one day rise again, that his worms would walk once more.
-
My research continued… It seems that on Tilagos is a library of sorts, a repository of the Order’s lore. It has been sought for centuries by wizards, scholars and explorers, for it is said to be filled with hundreds of years of history, memories, dreams, and of course, secrets. If a written account of what happened to Dragotha’s phylactery exists, it must certainly be there.
-
Tilagos Island… I have found it! It is located in the northern reaches of the Nyr Dyv. It doesn’t appear on any maps.
-
Worse. I’m afraid others are close to learning this as well, in part as an unfortunate result of my own research. My enemies are always quick to nip at my heels! I speak in particular of a simpering dog of a man named Heskin who once served Lashonna. I’m afraid Heskin has been wooed from her side with promises of wealth and power, and has taken word of this discovery to a disreputable man indeed, a powerful priest of Vecna named Darl Zuethos.
-
Complications… Before they built the library, the Order of the Storm drove a lasting bargain with primal elemental forces. They sacrificed their lives to whisk the island’s interior away from the Material Plane. In its place is a barren rock surrounded by an ever-raging storm of such intensity that ships which approach are invariably lost. The island itself appears on no maps, but the stories hint that the druids left a way for those in need to reach their secrets while at the same time warding the place away from the prying eyes of Kyuss’ undead fanatics.
.oOo.
We returned to Misthall Manor, where Lashonna was waiting to receive us. We passed the few scraps of paper to her. After she had taken a while to read through them all, she breathed Heskin’s name and reached into a deep drawer on her desk. Producing a scroll with a lock of hair attached, she announced, “I can help you there. I am rather concerned about ex-employees divulging my secrets, and am therefore in the habit of obtaining scraps of personal matter so that I can keep tabs on them. If you would like, I can scry upon him now.”
We had a brief chat before agreeing to take up her generous offer, and found ourselves sitting around a shallow silver scrying pool. The waters rippled, and we were suddenly looking down on the deck of a swaying ship. An ocean in full tempest was howling around the man who was lashed to the mast with coil after coil of rope. Orc sailors bellowed instructions to one another and dashed frantically from place to place across the ship.
Almost silently amidst the chaos, two subtly-horned lithe figures dressed in dark silks dropped from the mast above to stand near the man. They clanked back at him contemptuously before being confronted by a heavy-set red skinned humanoid, whose hair seemed to blaze and we could see the rain sizzle as it landed on his hot skin.
As we watched, two more figures approached. One was a shifty looking bird-like man which wore a dark cloak under which he shielded a repeating crossbow from the rain.
The last was the only true human in the group, clad in blue robes with a repeated eye motif on them. He addressed the man tied to the mast with a sneer in his voice.
“Only a few hours more, Heskin, and we shall see if you shall live or die.”
He cut off abruptly, and then looked up at the very centre of the scrying pool.
“We have guests, Heskin,” he told the man in a mocking voice. “Your journey comes to an early end.”
Saying something I couldn’t quite make out, he drew back his robes from a dark clawed rotting hand and touched Heskin’s cheek. From the point of the touch, a dark stain spread across the man’s face. The stain became darker, and they greyed like coals on a hot fire. The man’s face then cracked and tore as he, screaming silently all the while, collapsed and sagged. His suddenly dry flesh was torn away by the driving wind and the coils of rope fell loose around the base of the mast.
The water in the scrying pool bubbled and hissed, boiling away in an instant and Lashonna looked around at us, appalled and frightened by what she had seen.
“You must hurry,” she whispered to us urgently.
We turned to Janga, but he was already casting the words to the spell which would whisk us away to Mage Point on the edge of the Nyr Dyv’s deep waters.
.oOo.
A few brief words with Manzorian’s assistant Cymria told us that Manzorian himself was ‘in one of the lower planes, dealing with an unruly Demon Lord’, and he would not be in a position to help us. We headed to the dock, and a few minutes conversation with a sullen and mutilated sailor showed us that an area a dozen leagues to the north was covered in storm.
Endo cast a couple of spells, and we headed off in haste and style.
killjoy68116
First Post
Well worth the wait! If only my players had half the talent for write-ups that you have!
Eccles
Ragged idiot in a trilby.
Picture the scene...
The beach is wide and shallow, and between the sand and the whirling storm stands a series of jagged tall rocks rising from the wild surf. The tremendous storm rises from the seas, whipping the water high into the air and it falls as a fine salty spray. The rocks, and the beach beyond, are littered with worn pieces of wood from the many dozens of ships which have been smashed against this most hostile of shorelines.
One of the vessels, clearly recently grounded, has shattered and split almost into two pieces at the very edge of the water. Its mast has been shattered and sails split by the driving wind and the impact, and of the crew there is no sign.
Suddenly, with a tremendous gout of water bursting from its spout, a massive black whale crests the surf. For a moment, it coasts neatly on the waves between the jagged rocks to settle on the edge of the beach. Yawning widely, the leviathan opens its huge mouth to reveal an intricate oaken door banded with burnished copper.
As the whale's chest heaves, the doors swing open on a most peculiar scene. Beyond the doors, impossibly, there is a vast room with a tall domed ceiling through which shines beautiful sunlight. At the centre of the room is a long table covered with silverware and crystal decanters, and the food being served looks like it has been drawn from the very heavens.
A small group of disparate people turn to face the scene of the beach. A lithe dark-skinned elfin figure saunters towards the doorway as a spectral figure glides smoothly towards the portal lowering a set of steps into place. As he steps onto the sand his scaled skin glistens in the mist.
He is followed by a gnome whose platemail has clearly been burnished until it gleams by the unseen servants beyond, and after him comes a man - not a man, but something of human size. Its dark skin, feral aspect and filed teeth marks it out as a savage. Hefting an axe over its shoulder, the man moves slightly awkwardly as though he has not yet adjusted to some strange changes which have recently come over his body.
Finally, fastening his boots which have just been polished and handed to him by another of the small army of invisible and spectral waiters, a fourth man places a crystal goblet onto a tray being held to his right, then leaps down onto the beach carrying a lute over his shoulder and saunters up the beach to join them.
Behind them, striding out of the surf where the whale had been an instant before, a gaunt half orc moves to join them, the words of a spell on his lips which is already removing the salt and water from his robes whilst simultaneously warding off the spray. Ghosts and skeletal figures seem to dance in the bubbling surf at his heels.
Together, the five adventurers turn to face inland.
The beach is wide and shallow, and between the sand and the whirling storm stands a series of jagged tall rocks rising from the wild surf. The tremendous storm rises from the seas, whipping the water high into the air and it falls as a fine salty spray. The rocks, and the beach beyond, are littered with worn pieces of wood from the many dozens of ships which have been smashed against this most hostile of shorelines.
One of the vessels, clearly recently grounded, has shattered and split almost into two pieces at the very edge of the water. Its mast has been shattered and sails split by the driving wind and the impact, and of the crew there is no sign.
Suddenly, with a tremendous gout of water bursting from its spout, a massive black whale crests the surf. For a moment, it coasts neatly on the waves between the jagged rocks to settle on the edge of the beach. Yawning widely, the leviathan opens its huge mouth to reveal an intricate oaken door banded with burnished copper.
As the whale's chest heaves, the doors swing open on a most peculiar scene. Beyond the doors, impossibly, there is a vast room with a tall domed ceiling through which shines beautiful sunlight. At the centre of the room is a long table covered with silverware and crystal decanters, and the food being served looks like it has been drawn from the very heavens.
A small group of disparate people turn to face the scene of the beach. A lithe dark-skinned elfin figure saunters towards the doorway as a spectral figure glides smoothly towards the portal lowering a set of steps into place. As he steps onto the sand his scaled skin glistens in the mist.
He is followed by a gnome whose platemail has clearly been burnished until it gleams by the unseen servants beyond, and after him comes a man - not a man, but something of human size. Its dark skin, feral aspect and filed teeth marks it out as a savage. Hefting an axe over its shoulder, the man moves slightly awkwardly as though he has not yet adjusted to some strange changes which have recently come over his body.
Finally, fastening his boots which have just been polished and handed to him by another of the small army of invisible and spectral waiters, a fourth man places a crystal goblet onto a tray being held to his right, then leaps down onto the beach carrying a lute over his shoulder and saunters up the beach to join them.
Behind them, striding out of the surf where the whale had been an instant before, a gaunt half orc moves to join them, the words of a spell on his lips which is already removing the salt and water from his robes whilst simultaneously warding off the spray. Ghosts and skeletal figures seem to dance in the bubbling surf at his heels.
Together, the five adventurers turn to face inland.
Last edited:
Eccles
Ragged idiot in a trilby.
Once we had taken in the beach we had landed on, we headed towards the broken boat, but Flynne and Fez were both distracted by movement on the bluff above us. I didn’t realise what was going on initially, as Fez’s exaggerated movements were still alien to me. Since drinking the third of the potions which we had found in Ilthane’s lair he had grown to over six feet in height, and the Halfling (usually so dextrous and nimble in his movements) was struggling with limbs which had stretched to twice their previous length and he was frequently treading on his immense feet.
Eventually, however, I realised that he was looking up at movement on the rocks above us, and peering in the same direction I could see a group of ten hulking orcs clutching weapons and looking back down at us. We hesitated before launching an attack, and I shouted a greeting to the orcs in their own language.
“Me Grogriss Spliteye,” yelled their bow armed leader. “We bring others here, and they leave us alone. We try to follow them inland, but we were stopped by rocks with ropes.”
“It is possible we could get you to safety,” I yelled back. “My companions have considerable spells and they might be able to use them for you if you can give us what we need. Tell us of the people you brought here.”
The orc considered for a moment, then called back down. “Agreed. We brought a human here, with others. A strange bird woman with a knife and a clever crossbow, two… what is your word… monks named Dalagar and Sabir Sinfire. There was also the Flaming One.” His description of a tall winged Horned Devil filled us all (except Fez) with concern.
Having told the orcs that we would be back in a few hours and secreted them all in a small portal summoned up by Endo awaiting our return. We then headed up the beach, where we saw a series of badly weather beaten and crumbling walls, which still reached some 20 to 30 feet over our heads in places. Looking left to right, we could see that the maze of walls reached from one side of the small island to the other.
Having cast a carefully chosen array of spells, we picked our way inland, and towards the very centre of the ‘maze’, we found a sudden array of stalagmites dotted around the rocky floor. Many of them had complex runes carvesd into them, and crystals sprouting from their sides. The runes were written in druidic, the only language for which I had been unable to find a teacher, and so Janga cast a spell to allow him to read them.
He bent to look at the runes, whilst I stood looking at the sky trying to figure out how so many stalagmites had formed in the middle of nowhere. Fez was off to one side, Flynne was hiding somewhere whilst Endo was clinging to a wall taking advantage of his new cloak of the spiders.
Suddenly, several of the stalagmites burst into action. Massive flailing tendrils burst forth and began to lash at us. I could see some substance on the writhing limbs, which seemed to lash out at each of us intending to grab and draw us towards the crystalline maws which had opened on 6 of the stalagmites. The air was filled with the flailing ropes, and they slapped down madly onto myself and my colleagues.
And slid straight off again, thanks to the layer of protective warding which Janga had carefully placed onto us before we headed inland. Drawing my crossbow from the recesses of a very deep bag, I began firing shot after shot into the creatures, whilst Fez smashed at them with his heavy axe. Within the space of a minute or two, the air was still and the ground was covered in a thick layer of crystalline rubble and ichor.
.oOo.
We pushed on through the maze, and after walking for a minute or two I stopped abruptly – Janga clattered into my back and demanded to know why I’d halted. Pointing at a wall directly in front of me as I peered through my glasses, I announced, “That wall there – it’s loaded with powerful magic, illusionary unless I miss my guess.”
We all concentrated hard on the wall, trying to figure out the trick before stepping reluctantly through the solid-seeming surface. Beyond was a still-warm campfire and a single bedroll in which Flynne found a couple of small dark feathers. We immediately drew weapons and started looking around for a hidden kenku attacker.
Seeing nothing, our march continued with more caution. Flynne crept forwards, and within a few moments we could see his arm (which blended almost perfectly with a bush) indicating that he had heard something. We moved up to join him but could hear nothing as Flynne leapt off into the undergrowth to his right, firing arrows as he went. From beyond a wall I could hear the thump of one of his arrows striking flesh as Flynne shouted “it’s invisible!”
The rogue then dashed towards the unseen foe, his arms outstretched as a series of small bolts whipped past him. As he grunted once, I crumpled a scroll between my hands and flung it towards the foe and it transformed into a glowing mass of dust which settled around the invisible form of the crossbow armed kenku woman.
Clearly visible, she croaked a short few words and disappeared from sight once again.
“Teleported,” grunted Endo in frustration, and we all stood back to back with our weapons raised for several seconds before breaking into a jog through the maze away from our previous position.
.oOo.
We emerged from the high stone walls without further incident, where we could see a black stone circular pedestal shaped like a disk set into the floor. Around the lip of this obsidian were three deep eye-shaped pits whose centre were missing. Janga squatted to read the words which entwined these symbols, announcing that they said “Return my eyes to me and I shall gaze through the storm”.
Endo and I took turns to examine the pedestal, and I started to tickle the enchantments around it; my clair de lunettes helping me identify where to inject tiny slivers of mystical power and where to draw the item’s focus. Within the space of a minute or so I had it, and the entire pedestal suddenly thrummed with potency. The centre of the disk was suddenly filled with a door-shaped portal.
Behind me, Fez suddenly looked deeply uncomfortable and started to edge away.
“What’s wrong,” I asked him and he continued to back away from the portal as he replied. “Dunno. I just don’t wanna be here any more. Need to get back to the beach.”
I smiled at the recently resized pygmy as I told him, “If you absolutely can’t stay here, there is another option.” As he nodded, I carried on. “I could cast a spell to get you straight back to the beach in a heartbeat, if you’re content to go that way.”
He agreed in a heartbeat, and I cast the spell to whisk us both away from the spot we were standing, and as we went through my glittering door there was a tiny instant where Fez realised that my dimension door opened a quarter of an inch away from the dark portal and we both passed through it in turn.
.oOo.
On the other side, Fez was pale and screaming in agony, clutching his stomach as pain wracked him. Janga and I produced curative wands and helped him recover before we looked to our surroundings.
We stood on the edge of a dense forest, from which came a cacophony of noise from insects, birds and a strange green glow which faded in and out of sight as it went behind trees. Away in the opposite direction lay a range of mountains, with lightning crashing down towards the peaks.
From the forest four tall armoured figures stepped out towards us. Each of them had a long pole thrusting skywards from its back, and at the top of each pole flapped a banner. Each banner was a different colour; one the red of fire, the second the brown and grey of rock and earth. The third was a pale sky blue patterned with lines of wind whilst the last was the deeper blue/green of water.
One stepped slightly ahead of the others and spoke.
“I am Tylanthros, guardian of this realm. We protect the secrets of this island from all trespassers. You have mastered the portal of storms, and therefore must be brave, but it remains to be seen if you belong here at all. Why have you come to Last Resort?”
“We have come to your realm to thwart the plans of Darl Zuethos and prevent the second coming of the Age of Worms,” I answered, and there was a short pause before Tilagos spoke again.
“You seek the Fountain,” he told us. If the waters are consumed, the secrets of this place will be undone. The powers kept from the world will be released, and the great creatures of legend imprisoned here on this isle shall be unleashed upon the Material Plane once more. You say you are heroes? This remains to be seen. Accomplish four tasks and prove yourselves to be the heroes of old returned.
“The Fountain of Dreams shall know those destined for its gifts in but one way. It will know them by the Trials of Tilagos. Survive these trials, and you may slake your thirst on what you seek. Fail, and Last Resort shall be your grave. I am Tylanthros, and the first trial is the Claiming of Krathanos’ Golden Belt.”
“I am Beskawahn,”, said the next figure, “and the second trial is the Silence of the Doomshroud’s Mournful Song.”
The third spoke, “I am Thadimar, and the third trial is the Death of the Thorn Vale Nightmare.”
Finally, the last creature spoke, “I am Sayren-Lei, and the final trial is the Harvest of the Living Feather of the Roc King.”
“Return here once the trials are complete,” said Tylanthros, and the four figures faded back into the edge of the thick woods.
“Wait,” I cried after them. “Will you not aid us in thwarting the one who claimed the arm of Vecna? Do you fear nothing of handing such knowledge to a cleric of evil?”
The tall figures turned, and Tylanthos intoned, “We are not interested in such concerns. We are neutral.” And with that, they were gone.
.oOo.
After a short discussion, we looked around for a clue as to where to head, and eventually decided to head North on the trail of footprints which Fez had discovered in the lush grasses. Ensuring our weapons were loose in their sheathes, we headed after Darl Zuethos’ band.
.oOo.
We headed away from the forests across a vast plain and up into the highlands, with Fez, our tracker, telling us that we were perhaps 6 hours behind those we were pursuing. The land became craggier, and eventually the tracks stopped amidst thick vegetation which rose around us as the ground plunged into a deep valley. The far end of the valley rose sharply into cliffs, but the intervening two and a half miles were covered with phenomenally thick and lush vegetation and from every plant protruded hundreds of vicious barbed thorns. Experimentally, Fez pushed at the closest of the thorn bushes. He pulled his arm away covered in scratches and lacerations.
We decided to bypass the thorns completely, and Endo cast another of his transfiguration spells, transforming both himself and his familiar into large green coloured dragons, and we mounted them before they took to the air, hurtling over the spike-filled valley.
.oOo.
On the other side, we could see a single cave some 30 feet above the thorns, from which rose a thick fugue of steam. The two dragons landed within the cave before transforming back into the half orc and his raven familiar. Once settled, we looked around to see that the cave was deep and wide, with three deep crevasses tearing through the floor from side to side as we looked deeper.
From each of these chasms poured vast quantities of incredibly hot steam, soaking us all through immediately. We discussed how to cross these three chasms to reach whatever might be in the darkness beyond – Flynne could make out a tremendously large creature which loomed in the darkness waiting for us – our challenge.
Janga cast a spell, and tones of stone suddenly formed across the first chasm making a perfect bridge over the sweltering heat of the steam. As Endo prepared a spell of his own, Flynne took sight with his bow and fired a single shot. Immediately, we all heard a low rumbling growl which echoed through the cave, and a cloud of fire-flecked smoke surrounded us all. Yelling in surprise, we scattered, and then Endo completed the words for his spell.
Peering through the steam and the smoke, we could see that the steam was parted on either sides of an unseen platform.
Ignoring the smoke, Flynne stood within it all and found the range of the creature, firing arrow after arrow towards it, and the Fez hurtled across the three magical bridges, yelling in fury as he went.
Through the fumes, I could see Fez running in with his axe raised, and the vast creature lowered its head, practically spitting the savage on one of a pair of massive pale tusks. Fez struck the creature once with a tremendous overhead blow, before it responded with a positive frenzy of tusks, claws and bites. Fez was torn limb from limb by the rending tearing creature in a riot of gore.
Aghast, we paused before leaping into action, fighting for our very survival. Endo cast a spell to try and blind it, but it shook the spell off. A second spell from the half orc brought Fez’s body flying back to our feet.
In a blur of motion, the creature leapt across the crevasses, covering the distance between us in a matter of seconds, pouncing on Flynne.
Under the effects of a potion of flight, Janga swooped down and dragged the scaled elf away, before Endo launched a dark ray of enfeeblement at it – the huge form sagged under the magics. The half orc then cast a second spell, and a crashing bolt of lightning blasted between the monstrous abomination and my necromancer friend. He had targeted himself with his own magics to ensure that the bolt would focus onto his intended target.
As it roared in annoyance at the lightning bolt, Flynne continued to pepper it with arrows from a short distance. I stood near it whilst chanting encouragement, and the beast charged at Endo, stabbing him deeply with one of its massive tusks. To my left, Janga cast a powerful spell of restoration on Flynne, and brought him back towards me and the creature.
Face to face with the creature, Endo hesitated, giving me a second to cast a powerful spell of invisibility on Flynne; and flickering in and out of sight he fired a series of arrows deeply into the monster’s flanks.
Endo pointed, and his outstretched finger turned skeletal for an instant – the green ray shattered on the beast’s mystical protections. Turning, he dashed away to join the rest of us, and as he went his side was torn open by one of the razor sharp tusks.
The beast then leapt high into the air, landing amidst us and sending us sprawling to the floor. Janga cast a curative spell on the mage, whilst I sang a final song of encouragement, and with massive preparation lavished on him he fired four more arrows which sank to their fletchings into the beast.
With a towering crash, it collapsed to the floor.
Eventually, however, I realised that he was looking up at movement on the rocks above us, and peering in the same direction I could see a group of ten hulking orcs clutching weapons and looking back down at us. We hesitated before launching an attack, and I shouted a greeting to the orcs in their own language.
“Me Grogriss Spliteye,” yelled their bow armed leader. “We bring others here, and they leave us alone. We try to follow them inland, but we were stopped by rocks with ropes.”
“It is possible we could get you to safety,” I yelled back. “My companions have considerable spells and they might be able to use them for you if you can give us what we need. Tell us of the people you brought here.”
The orc considered for a moment, then called back down. “Agreed. We brought a human here, with others. A strange bird woman with a knife and a clever crossbow, two… what is your word… monks named Dalagar and Sabir Sinfire. There was also the Flaming One.” His description of a tall winged Horned Devil filled us all (except Fez) with concern.
Having told the orcs that we would be back in a few hours and secreted them all in a small portal summoned up by Endo awaiting our return. We then headed up the beach, where we saw a series of badly weather beaten and crumbling walls, which still reached some 20 to 30 feet over our heads in places. Looking left to right, we could see that the maze of walls reached from one side of the small island to the other.
Having cast a carefully chosen array of spells, we picked our way inland, and towards the very centre of the ‘maze’, we found a sudden array of stalagmites dotted around the rocky floor. Many of them had complex runes carvesd into them, and crystals sprouting from their sides. The runes were written in druidic, the only language for which I had been unable to find a teacher, and so Janga cast a spell to allow him to read them.
He bent to look at the runes, whilst I stood looking at the sky trying to figure out how so many stalagmites had formed in the middle of nowhere. Fez was off to one side, Flynne was hiding somewhere whilst Endo was clinging to a wall taking advantage of his new cloak of the spiders.
Suddenly, several of the stalagmites burst into action. Massive flailing tendrils burst forth and began to lash at us. I could see some substance on the writhing limbs, which seemed to lash out at each of us intending to grab and draw us towards the crystalline maws which had opened on 6 of the stalagmites. The air was filled with the flailing ropes, and they slapped down madly onto myself and my colleagues.
And slid straight off again, thanks to the layer of protective warding which Janga had carefully placed onto us before we headed inland. Drawing my crossbow from the recesses of a very deep bag, I began firing shot after shot into the creatures, whilst Fez smashed at them with his heavy axe. Within the space of a minute or two, the air was still and the ground was covered in a thick layer of crystalline rubble and ichor.
.oOo.
We pushed on through the maze, and after walking for a minute or two I stopped abruptly – Janga clattered into my back and demanded to know why I’d halted. Pointing at a wall directly in front of me as I peered through my glasses, I announced, “That wall there – it’s loaded with powerful magic, illusionary unless I miss my guess.”
We all concentrated hard on the wall, trying to figure out the trick before stepping reluctantly through the solid-seeming surface. Beyond was a still-warm campfire and a single bedroll in which Flynne found a couple of small dark feathers. We immediately drew weapons and started looking around for a hidden kenku attacker.
Seeing nothing, our march continued with more caution. Flynne crept forwards, and within a few moments we could see his arm (which blended almost perfectly with a bush) indicating that he had heard something. We moved up to join him but could hear nothing as Flynne leapt off into the undergrowth to his right, firing arrows as he went. From beyond a wall I could hear the thump of one of his arrows striking flesh as Flynne shouted “it’s invisible!”
The rogue then dashed towards the unseen foe, his arms outstretched as a series of small bolts whipped past him. As he grunted once, I crumpled a scroll between my hands and flung it towards the foe and it transformed into a glowing mass of dust which settled around the invisible form of the crossbow armed kenku woman.
Clearly visible, she croaked a short few words and disappeared from sight once again.
“Teleported,” grunted Endo in frustration, and we all stood back to back with our weapons raised for several seconds before breaking into a jog through the maze away from our previous position.
.oOo.
We emerged from the high stone walls without further incident, where we could see a black stone circular pedestal shaped like a disk set into the floor. Around the lip of this obsidian were three deep eye-shaped pits whose centre were missing. Janga squatted to read the words which entwined these symbols, announcing that they said “Return my eyes to me and I shall gaze through the storm”.
Endo and I took turns to examine the pedestal, and I started to tickle the enchantments around it; my clair de lunettes helping me identify where to inject tiny slivers of mystical power and where to draw the item’s focus. Within the space of a minute or so I had it, and the entire pedestal suddenly thrummed with potency. The centre of the disk was suddenly filled with a door-shaped portal.
Behind me, Fez suddenly looked deeply uncomfortable and started to edge away.
“What’s wrong,” I asked him and he continued to back away from the portal as he replied. “Dunno. I just don’t wanna be here any more. Need to get back to the beach.”
I smiled at the recently resized pygmy as I told him, “If you absolutely can’t stay here, there is another option.” As he nodded, I carried on. “I could cast a spell to get you straight back to the beach in a heartbeat, if you’re content to go that way.”
He agreed in a heartbeat, and I cast the spell to whisk us both away from the spot we were standing, and as we went through my glittering door there was a tiny instant where Fez realised that my dimension door opened a quarter of an inch away from the dark portal and we both passed through it in turn.
.oOo.
On the other side, Fez was pale and screaming in agony, clutching his stomach as pain wracked him. Janga and I produced curative wands and helped him recover before we looked to our surroundings.
We stood on the edge of a dense forest, from which came a cacophony of noise from insects, birds and a strange green glow which faded in and out of sight as it went behind trees. Away in the opposite direction lay a range of mountains, with lightning crashing down towards the peaks.
From the forest four tall armoured figures stepped out towards us. Each of them had a long pole thrusting skywards from its back, and at the top of each pole flapped a banner. Each banner was a different colour; one the red of fire, the second the brown and grey of rock and earth. The third was a pale sky blue patterned with lines of wind whilst the last was the deeper blue/green of water.
One stepped slightly ahead of the others and spoke.
“I am Tylanthros, guardian of this realm. We protect the secrets of this island from all trespassers. You have mastered the portal of storms, and therefore must be brave, but it remains to be seen if you belong here at all. Why have you come to Last Resort?”
“We have come to your realm to thwart the plans of Darl Zuethos and prevent the second coming of the Age of Worms,” I answered, and there was a short pause before Tilagos spoke again.
“You seek the Fountain,” he told us. If the waters are consumed, the secrets of this place will be undone. The powers kept from the world will be released, and the great creatures of legend imprisoned here on this isle shall be unleashed upon the Material Plane once more. You say you are heroes? This remains to be seen. Accomplish four tasks and prove yourselves to be the heroes of old returned.
“The Fountain of Dreams shall know those destined for its gifts in but one way. It will know them by the Trials of Tilagos. Survive these trials, and you may slake your thirst on what you seek. Fail, and Last Resort shall be your grave. I am Tylanthros, and the first trial is the Claiming of Krathanos’ Golden Belt.”
“I am Beskawahn,”, said the next figure, “and the second trial is the Silence of the Doomshroud’s Mournful Song.”
The third spoke, “I am Thadimar, and the third trial is the Death of the Thorn Vale Nightmare.”
Finally, the last creature spoke, “I am Sayren-Lei, and the final trial is the Harvest of the Living Feather of the Roc King.”
“Return here once the trials are complete,” said Tylanthros, and the four figures faded back into the edge of the thick woods.
“Wait,” I cried after them. “Will you not aid us in thwarting the one who claimed the arm of Vecna? Do you fear nothing of handing such knowledge to a cleric of evil?”
The tall figures turned, and Tylanthos intoned, “We are not interested in such concerns. We are neutral.” And with that, they were gone.
.oOo.
After a short discussion, we looked around for a clue as to where to head, and eventually decided to head North on the trail of footprints which Fez had discovered in the lush grasses. Ensuring our weapons were loose in their sheathes, we headed after Darl Zuethos’ band.
.oOo.
We headed away from the forests across a vast plain and up into the highlands, with Fez, our tracker, telling us that we were perhaps 6 hours behind those we were pursuing. The land became craggier, and eventually the tracks stopped amidst thick vegetation which rose around us as the ground plunged into a deep valley. The far end of the valley rose sharply into cliffs, but the intervening two and a half miles were covered with phenomenally thick and lush vegetation and from every plant protruded hundreds of vicious barbed thorns. Experimentally, Fez pushed at the closest of the thorn bushes. He pulled his arm away covered in scratches and lacerations.
We decided to bypass the thorns completely, and Endo cast another of his transfiguration spells, transforming both himself and his familiar into large green coloured dragons, and we mounted them before they took to the air, hurtling over the spike-filled valley.
.oOo.
On the other side, we could see a single cave some 30 feet above the thorns, from which rose a thick fugue of steam. The two dragons landed within the cave before transforming back into the half orc and his raven familiar. Once settled, we looked around to see that the cave was deep and wide, with three deep crevasses tearing through the floor from side to side as we looked deeper.
From each of these chasms poured vast quantities of incredibly hot steam, soaking us all through immediately. We discussed how to cross these three chasms to reach whatever might be in the darkness beyond – Flynne could make out a tremendously large creature which loomed in the darkness waiting for us – our challenge.
Janga cast a spell, and tones of stone suddenly formed across the first chasm making a perfect bridge over the sweltering heat of the steam. As Endo prepared a spell of his own, Flynne took sight with his bow and fired a single shot. Immediately, we all heard a low rumbling growl which echoed through the cave, and a cloud of fire-flecked smoke surrounded us all. Yelling in surprise, we scattered, and then Endo completed the words for his spell.
Peering through the steam and the smoke, we could see that the steam was parted on either sides of an unseen platform.
Ignoring the smoke, Flynne stood within it all and found the range of the creature, firing arrow after arrow towards it, and the Fez hurtled across the three magical bridges, yelling in fury as he went.
Through the fumes, I could see Fez running in with his axe raised, and the vast creature lowered its head, practically spitting the savage on one of a pair of massive pale tusks. Fez struck the creature once with a tremendous overhead blow, before it responded with a positive frenzy of tusks, claws and bites. Fez was torn limb from limb by the rending tearing creature in a riot of gore.
Aghast, we paused before leaping into action, fighting for our very survival. Endo cast a spell to try and blind it, but it shook the spell off. A second spell from the half orc brought Fez’s body flying back to our feet.
In a blur of motion, the creature leapt across the crevasses, covering the distance between us in a matter of seconds, pouncing on Flynne.
Under the effects of a potion of flight, Janga swooped down and dragged the scaled elf away, before Endo launched a dark ray of enfeeblement at it – the huge form sagged under the magics. The half orc then cast a second spell, and a crashing bolt of lightning blasted between the monstrous abomination and my necromancer friend. He had targeted himself with his own magics to ensure that the bolt would focus onto his intended target.
As it roared in annoyance at the lightning bolt, Flynne continued to pepper it with arrows from a short distance. I stood near it whilst chanting encouragement, and the beast charged at Endo, stabbing him deeply with one of its massive tusks. To my left, Janga cast a powerful spell of restoration on Flynne, and brought him back towards me and the creature.
Face to face with the creature, Endo hesitated, giving me a second to cast a powerful spell of invisibility on Flynne; and flickering in and out of sight he fired a series of arrows deeply into the monster’s flanks.
Endo pointed, and his outstretched finger turned skeletal for an instant – the green ray shattered on the beast’s mystical protections. Turning, he dashed away to join the rest of us, and as he went his side was torn open by one of the razor sharp tusks.
The beast then leapt high into the air, landing amidst us and sending us sprawling to the floor. Janga cast a curative spell on the mage, whilst I sang a final song of encouragement, and with massive preparation lavished on him he fired four more arrows which sank to their fletchings into the beast.
With a towering crash, it collapsed to the floor.
Inconsequenti-AL
Breaks Games
A fine write up again there Mr Nik!
Did feel sorry for the ropers - we'd stuck Freedom of Movement on to avoid something else we were expecting - it really did them no favours. Awww.
Bah - the damn cave dwelling thing ripped Fez to bits in a single round - close to 200Hp dealt, I think.... meaning I got to sit there for 2 hours watching everyone stay alive and kill it - with great creativity I'll add.
Unfortunately feel this will have to knock some caution into Fez. And might teach me not to underestimate things. Or play whilst unfocused.
Some combination of those things at least.
Oh - and somehow missed this bit:
Hehe - that kitten/worm situation was awesome! Thanks for providing us with that one.
Did feel sorry for the ropers - we'd stuck Freedom of Movement on to avoid something else we were expecting - it really did them no favours. Awww.
Bah - the damn cave dwelling thing ripped Fez to bits in a single round - close to 200Hp dealt, I think.... meaning I got to sit there for 2 hours watching everyone stay alive and kill it - with great creativity I'll add.
Unfortunately feel this will have to knock some caution into Fez. And might teach me not to underestimate things. Or play whilst unfocused.
Some combination of those things at least.
Oh - and somehow missed this bit:
Piratecat said:
Hehe - that kitten/worm situation was awesome! Thanks for providing us with that one.
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