the Kyri Chronicles - last updated 22 Oct

[Plane Sailing]

The figure resolves into the form of an elderly, shaven headed dwarven female.

“What are you?” it asks. “You are not of the people”

Trajan steps forward. “We are humans, we mean no harm”.

“Humans?” It says the word as though it is unfamiliar, rolling the sound of it around.

“I’ve not heard of humans. Do you serve the masters, or are you free?”

“I serve none but Asura my God” Trajan replies.

“asura is not a name I know. Can things have changed so much in 10 thousand summers?”

Dala, Arilyn and the others share startled glances… can this ghost have been waiting since, since the dawn of time?

“Yes, we are a young race” Trajan continues. “Your race yet survives, but they may not climb yon stairwell. A fearful trap holds them back”.

“Ah” breathes the ghost “Some might think it no more than memories which horrify – and my memories are horrible enough”

“Since you are not dwarfs, the curse which binds me to destroy my kinfolk has not laid hold on me. Would you talk with me a while?”

“Ma’am” interjects Anne-Marie, “We go to find the door in the air. Can you tell us of this?”

“Why should you want to follow the paths the masters trod all those years ago, strange tall woman?”

“That’s for us to know” Arilyn says impatiently. She wants to press on towards her goal of finding Arkons ancient documents about the StormLords.

“So, no time to spend in conversation with me? That’s a shame. I do so love conversation, but I mostly have only myself to talk to. But if you will not, you will not. Goodbye, Hoomans”

And with that, the ghost fades from view.

A quick detect magic cantrip from Arilyn reveals that the glowing gem is magical, and so is a hair comb cast to one side of the chamber. The hair comb is unaccountably forgotten. The gem is determined to be the source of the magical trap, and a small amount of satisfaction for the death of the familiars is gained by smashing it.

The party then move to the archway, and find that it leads directly out onto a mountain ledge, with a cliff face falling dizzyingly away below them. About forty feet away they can see a small plateau, no more than a hundred feet across, again with sheer sides.

By edging out onto the narrow ledge, they can just make out the town of Moradins Call in a valley below. They also have a clear view of the mountain Tarn which provides the town with its water – perfectly still and calm, it is like a mirror, containing perfect reflections of the mountains, the clouds and… what’s that? A castle floating high up within the clouds?

Glancing upwards, there is no sign of the floating castle, but it appears very clearly in the reflection. On a whim Arilyn casts her spell which allows her to see the unseen, and she gasps – from the opposite plateau there is a huge transparent walkway, curving up and into the clouds where she can just make out a castle. Huge, four-winged arrowhawks swoop around the structure, but don’t come near the causeway.

Getting across to the plateau doesn’t seem like a problem. Anne-Marie takes a short run up and leaps straight across the 40ft gap. Dala casts his fly spell on Trajan who quickly flies across, then Dala steps out using his new boots of air-walking, to stride easily across the gap. Arilyn hangs back for a moment. Her sensitivity to the wind warns her that something isn’t quite right, there is something in the sound of the air around here that doesn’t quite match up with reality.

Dala is almost half way across the gap when two large air elementals swoop down from above, one of them turning into a fierce tornado of air which plucks Dala up and starts spinning him round mercilessly, the other zooms past Anne-Marie, making a flyby attack on her with impunity because of its reach!

 

[Darklone]

Eeks. Favorite 1st level spell ever: Featherfall!

 

[Plane Sailing]

Dala is being whirled around so fast he cannot concentrate to cast spells, and he can feel his joints being gradually stretched out of his joints. Arilyn casts Magic Missile at the air elemental then ducks further back into the chamber and away from the danger of the narrow ledge. Trajan flies back across the chasm and starts to attack the whirlwind carrying Dala, his magical sword biting into the strange elemental material of the creature.

Meanwhile, Anne-Marie has been frustrated in attempting to strike her air elemental as it swept past her, so she takes another tack – readying an action, the next time the elemental sweeps in she runs a few steps and leaps fifteen foot into the air next to it, cutting it with her rapier before landing nimbly back on the plateau once more. The elemental howls with rage and sweeps round again – two, three, four times before it realises that it is in danger of dying at the hands of this spring-heeled adventuress and plummets away into the gorge.

Arilyns magic missiles and Trajans scimitar play manage to finally free and destroy the elemental which was whirling him to death, and not before time. Dala is in a bad way and needs a lot of rest. They all retreat and regroup back in the marble chamber and look out across at the plateau, and draw up their plans.

They decide that a frontal aerial assault is not a good idea. The arrowhawks diving around the cloud castle could prove very dangerous, and it would alert the inhabitants. The plan, then, is for Dala to enable Trajan to fly once more, so he can ferry everyone across to the plateau, then Dala will make everyone invisible and Arilyn will cast See Invisibility so that she can guide everyone safely up the invisible causeway (the lack of handrails is a matter of some concern for the rest of the party!)

Marching up the steep causeway takes about half an hour, and by mid-afternoon they find themselves in the dreamlike situation of standing ankle-deep in cloud-stuff, and seeing the towers of a castle which is constructed on a gigantic scale rising out of the misty clouds ahead of them.

Passing through a giant archway into an ornamental garden, the visibility is only 10ft because of the ever-present cloud which the castle dwells within. There is the tinkling of a fountain in the middle of the formal gardens, and black castle walls loom up out of the mist.

They make their way to the door, scrambling up steps which are each three foot higher. If the castle is built to the same approximate scale as humans, it must be inhabited by giants who are eighteen feet high! Nervously they check their weapons and spell components.

Anne-Marie and Trajan are able to squeeze the main door open between them, and it leads into a vast hall, still on the giant scale, and with a balcony and mezzanine floor high above them. The cloud castle is eerily silent, and they all make a special effort to creep slowly. A side door leads into a giant kitchen, and a spiral staircase under a tower leads to a series of cellar rooms. One of the storerooms is particularly horrible, as it looks like a huge stone face has been carved so that it appears to be pushing out of the walls of the storeroom, contorted in agony. Apart from the scale it is exactly like the dwarves faces on the stairwell in form and tenor?!?

 

[Plane Sailing]

Goodness me, I've got to add an update *again* to stay on the front page.

Good job I've had a good chance at writing just recently

 

[Plane Sailing]

They decide to investigate the upper floors before going all through the cellars, and so they proceed up through the kitchen, through the main hall and into what appears to be a music room, filled with fine artworks and a beautiful golden harp. In one corner of the room is a spiral stair which must ascend through a tower and lead to the upper levels of the castle. Cautiously they take it, still invisible.

The next floor looks like a giant nursery – it has a huge wooden rocking horse, a giant ball and building blocks. From the stairwell they can just make out ogre-sized feet laying on the floor behind some of the toys. Drawing their weapons, the creep into the room, round the giant blocks – and see a toddler, built to an inhumanly large scale. It is nine foot from the soles of its feet to the crown of its head – or at least it would be if the crown of its head was there… but something has cracked open this giant childs head and feasted upon its brains…

Trying to put the horror of this scene out of their minds, especially the bewildered and frightened expression on what remains of the toddlers face, they retreat back towards the stairwell. Upwards further. One more turn of the spiral staircase and a giant-sized arch leads into a vast chamber with a huge bed in the middle of it, and an appropriately sized giant asleep on the bed. Dala quickly casts fly on himself, as does Arilyn, and the party creep into the room. Arilyn gets a high vantage point in the room, and hisses a warning – it is a giantess on the bed and she too is dead, with her head cracked open.

A hidden door to a study behind them is thrown open and the air in the room ripples crazily as a piercing scream fills all their heads; but they remain strong in spirit and throw off the stunning effect of the mind blast – long enough to hear the creepy mental voice of a mind flayer command the cloud giant that stands in front of it “Don’t forget… strike to subdue”...

 

[Plane Sailing]

A Chill runs down each of their spines. As one they think “We can’t afford to get captured here – it will eat our brains!

Trajan can see the mindflayer standing behind the giant and runs up, tumbling through the giants legs - but 20ft tumble doesn’t get fully past its 15ft reach and it reaches round and tags him as he passes out the other side. Trajan maintains his focus and deals a mighty critical blow to the mindflayer before the giant unleashes a full attack on him. The second blow is a massive critical (61pts) and Trajan is flattened.

DMsnote: the limitation on the distance you can tumble came as a very nasty surprise to Trajan... The huge giant had 15ft reach either side of him, and when Trajan stopped tumbling he was still moving within that threatened area. Whammo!

The giant then takes a step towards Anne-Marie and just misses her with another huge swing. She tries to tumble through it too and fails, falling over and being hit and seriously wounded by the giant. Dala launches a powerful lightning bolt at the giant and then ducks under the bed. Arilyn notices a scar near the illithids tentacles, and realises that this creature could be Ghaerlith, who had been behind all the horrors which she had been told about in Knightsbridge! She casts a spell at the mindflayer which completely fails to penetrate its spell resistance. Ghaerlith hisses with suppressed pleasure and mindblasts her and Arilyn reels, floating in mid air.

Dala casts an empowered magic missile and punches through the illithids spell resistance, eliciting a hiss of anger. Anne-Marie bravely rolls across the floor in front of the giant and up onto one knee, extending her rapier in a lunge and impaling the mindflayer!

Ghaerlith looks down, laughing hideously as its body dissolves into a bubbling mass of goo. There is perhaps a faint twinkle behind it, a line of silver for a moment. Then it is gone. And a giant boot stomps her into unconsciousness.

Dala becomes invisible and hides beneath the bed once more. The giant examines the stunned Arilyn then bats her into the wall, knocking her out. Then it starts sniffing for Dala, and lifts up one end of the bed. Dala flies out and into the study. The giant mis-hears and chases down the stairs.

Everyone is Knocked out! What to do? Dala keeps calm and summons Boswell the Lantern Archon who uses "aid" to bring his companions round, then Trajan calls on the power of Asura to heal each of them a little more.

Anne-Marie casts around, looking for the body of the mindflayer; she doesn’t understand where it can be. Once Arilyn hears her account of what happened she pales a little and explains that Ghaerliths real body wasn’t killed today… he was astrally projecting to this plane of existence from some other plane, and killing his “body” on this plane was just an inconvenience to him. Anne-Marie resolves to travel to the mages of Cadlan, to find out how she can take the fight to this evil enemy in such a way that they stay dead.

The sound of the huge cloud giant searching around downstairs is still loud in their ears, so they quickly take the stairwell up to the rooftop garden of the castle – and are astonished to find themselves looking down the eye of a whirling vortex of air into which the castle is jammed – and through it is a plane of existence comprised of emptiness – and in the near distance a tower standing at a crazy angle on a floating chunk of rock.

This must be the entrance to the elemental plane of air...

 

[Darklone]

Oink!

 

[Plane Sailing]

Oink?!?

 

[Darklone]

Old tradition in my old group... Honouring our first TPK when the whole group but one got slaughtered and the last remaining member was polymorphed into a pig... As the DM asked him what he was going to do, he said: OINK.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Ah, I see now...

Sorry I've been forcing you to wait for the denoument here, but I've been laid low with a fever for a while, and haven't been able to get much writing done.

I can reveal to you that in the adventure following the current one, we have the death of a long-loved character...

Cheers