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Explorer
75—Joyous and bestial, bloody and free.
The man leads the group back to his encampment. To the party’s horror, his small clan of survivors lives within the hollowed out corpse of a silver dragon, a massive beast now reduced to bone and wisps of silver-scaled skin. He explains that the body shelters them from the biting wind and dust-storms. He tells them further that the wind seems to harbor a special hatred for anything built by the hands of men. No man-made structure can stand for long, no matter how well built.
“This is Isk?” Taran asks, but it is not a question.
Some double-score of humans huddle within the bones of the dragon, their clothes frayed and filthy. The pitiful band of refugees are frightened at first, but soon forget to cower as the party passes out the better part of their rations. One of the refugees recognizes Merkatha’s “Delver Surprise”, and tells her that he has not seen a rat in years. The ravages of disease have tormented the band, and several members have lost eyes or limbs to a withering, wasting plague.
The worst case is a middle-aged man, father to two of the women present. The man can no longer stand or even raise his head. Elgin kneels down next to the man, and invokes Lathander’s light. In an instant, the man is healed of his afflictions, made strong and well by the dawn’s grace.
The refugees fall to their knees and beg Elgin not to kill them. When Thelbar translates this, Elgin asks why they show fear. They explain that their goddess has died, and any cleric of hers must be dead himself. Elgin begins to explain that he worships an outworlder deity, when Taran interrupts him.
“Elign,” do you have any cure disease spells prepared?” Taran asks.
“I have one today, plus another on scroll,” Elgin replies. “But let us go and return with proper equipment and clothing for these folk. I can prepare a mass heal that will serve their need, I think.”
Taran nods and turns toward the prostrate refugees. “I’ve heard enough,” he says in Isenthanian. “Stop begging and get off your knees. Listen close, because I’m telling you the truth. Our Mother Ishlok died, and now she is reborn to the world as Palatin Eremath. We are the harbingers of her new way. In two days time, we will return for you with food and curing for the sick. The goddess will remove your disease, and lift the weariness from your limbs. We will take you through a dark place, but your reward shall be a land of plenty where your bellies will always be full, and the light of the morning will fill you with hope . . .”
Taran turns away from the refugees and says in Faerunian common, “And we call that place Sembia.”
Gorquen clucks at him. “I can’t believe you just said that.”
Taran scowls back at her, his dark mood plain on his face. He leads the group back into Kor’En Eamor and through the dwarven complex without saying a thing. The next morning, Elgin examines the party for signs of disease, and determines to cure Taran and Merkatha as a precaution. They scour Storm’s Rise for supplies—food, water and warm clothing; boots for the feet and weapons to inspire confidence. Fortunately, the former Lord Ilthais kept a large contingent of well-supplied soldiers who were killed before they could flee with their gear. They load the supplies into a pair of mule-pulled handcarts, and Taran gives the silver dragon battle-standard he took from the battle site to the elderly gate guard with instructions to find someone to duplicate this standard onto tabards and a banner.
They are forcing the mules over a stalagmite outcropping in the fungal forest when a deep and velvety voice emerges from the darkness ahead of them. “Where are such fine, bright souls going on a day like this?”
The party pulls their weapons from scabbards, but do not immediately reply, and the voice continues. “I’ll give you a choice—which among you do you like the least?”
Taran steps forward with a smile, his eyes scanning the darkness ahead of him. “That would be me. Nobody likes me, I’m a real bastard. Even my brother can barely stand me.”
“No, that is not what I meant,” the voice purrs. “Turn on someone. Kill them for me.”
Gorquen snorts and lowers her guard. Taran laughs, “If you hope to see our skills, you should just keep your eyes open when we kill you.”
“Do you think this is a jest?” the voice growls.
“It is hard to tell when we cannot see you,” Gorquen says.
Suddenly a huge section of the darkness detaches from the surrounding gloom, and hovers toward them in the shape of a massive bat-winged humanoid. A palpable chill radiates off of the thing, and each member of the party can feel their bile rise up in response to its foul aura. “I guess I’ll just kill the mouthy one,” it intones, all pretext of a mortal voice stripped away from the hideous scratching sound forming words.
“Sucks to be you, Gorquen,” Taran laughs as he brandishes Arunshee’s Kiss and Little Sister. His sun blade hums and glows with a warm yellow light, and he readies himself for a charge.
But Gorquen is faster, and she tears forward into the thing, striking at its legs and hoping to upend it. But it is stronger than even its huge size might indicate, and the night-thing lashes a tentacle-like arm around the haft of the sword, wresting it from Gorquen’s grasp. Merkatha fires an arrow, enchanted through the blessing of Lathander, then flees the area as fast as her feet can take her!
The night-thing seethes its amusement, and the vile sensation curses and sickens the souls of the adventurers, leaving Elgin and Gorquen dizzy and unable to concentrate. The shadow holds Gorquen’s sword above its head, and then snaps the ancient blade of the Ahk-Velar in two.
Taran leaps forward, and lays into the creature, his sun blade and keen sword ripping and slicing the semi-present form of the undead, severing its ties to the physical realm. In an instant, the two halves of Gorquen’s sword clatter to the ground, and the creature is gone.
Gorquen broods about the destruction of her sword, and glares at Taran. “Come adventuring, Gorquen,” she says, imitating Taran in a high-pitched voice. “It’ll be fun.”
-----
The party is as good as their word, and after gathering themselves and finishing their trek through the massive caverns of Kor’En Eamor, they return to Isk with food, water and supplies for the refugees. Since Elgin’s display, the group has swollen to sixty members as word of the miracle spread. Despite their taboo against entering the delve, the refugees become willing to follow the party after watching Elgin Trezler mass heal the diseased. Taran passes out new clothes, footwear, cold weather gear and weapons.
-----
The group is herding the shambling column of refugees across the broken bridge when it happens. Gorquen, Merkatha and Elgin have moved completely across and scouted the forward landing, while Taran and Thelbar remain on the Iskian side of the bridge to usher the long train across. Getting them this far has proved a challenge, with all five adventurers forced to play shepherd, maintaining a nearly constant stream of encouragement, coercion and threats in order to keep the terrified commoners moving.
The bridge crossing is nearly complete when the air pressure suddenly shifts, and the back half of the bridge is pelted by an impossibly dense spray of ice, hail and super-frozen air raining down from the yawning darkness overhead. Refugees fall screaming into the chasm from either end of the bridge, or die where they stand, their bodies torn and their systems shocked. Taran and Thelbar are spared the worst of the blast, but even still they are knocked from their feet, and their equipment and clothing is covered with a layer of ice. Both heroes look up into the darkness, but cannot locate the source of the icy burst.
Merkatha, however, possesses the superior darkvision of her people—she invokes her inborn magical gift and illuminates a massive winged beast with faerie fire. The creature is four-legged, powerfully muscular and long—easily sixty feet from nose to tail, with a wingspan double that length. Once revealed, the dragon abandons its refuge of darkness and swoops toward Taran and Thelbar. It crashes onto the wall of stone bridge with a *whump*, crushing frozen and bloody refugees beneath its weight and sweeping more screaming victims into the chasm with a lash of its tail. The beast is a hoary and ancient frost dragon, its cruel features distorted and shimmering due to the multiple protective spells playing about its body. It opens its mouth and unleashes a monstrous screech—a sound all the more terrible for having been made in this place of sepulchral quiet.
Taran scrambles to his feet, and begins to move forward as Thelbar raises both arms above his head and invokes a greater dispelling. In that instant, the dragon’s protections are whisked away, and the creature shrieks its displeasure. Gorquen unfolds her black wings, and after a few jogging steps, she flies along the length of the tail, striking into the dragon’s haunch with her longspear.
Taran closes his eyes and says a quick prayer to Palatin Ermath for Rex’s soul, then murmurs “Arunshee guide my hand,” as he hastes himself. Elgin Trezler sends a blade barrier whistling into existance, the massive whirring plane of edged steel cutting at the dragon’s flanks in a nearly vertical arc. But the dragon manages to curl up like a snake, and compress itself into the half of the bridge where Taran stands, his swords at the ready.
Thelbar steps up behind his brother, and invokes a time stop. The spell shivers and twists the moment, stretching it into an impossibly long segment that seems to snap back into itself, suddenly producing multiple spell effects. Four huge fireballs explode in a diamond pattern around the creature as a trio of lightning bolts arc past Taran’s head, lighting up the bridge and the dragon as they play up and down its length. The air around the beast seems to cave in for a moment, as every drop of moisture is sucked from the suddenly desiccated wyrm.
Thelbar’s skin turns an ashen grey, and a shimmering globe of energy surrounds him in the same instant. “Damn,” he says to no one in particular. “My confusion spell failed.”
Refugees scream, Gorquen curses, the dragon shudders, and Taran whoops for joy. He braces himself against the charge, but the dragon springs forward, spreads his wings and sails over Taran, pouncing squarely on Thelbar with all four claws, beating at the mage with its wings, and crushing him with its mouth. The dragon’s bulk knocks Taran from his feet as it passes, and one of its wings catches him on the up-stroke, sending him flying across the landing to sprawl in the dust.
Elgin cries, “Lathander! For the Dawn!” and calls down a pillar of flame onto the ice-dragon, as Gorquen chases after the beast with her spear. Merkatha, having recovered from her shock has taken cover behind an outcropping of native stone and is firing enchanted arrows at the dragon as fast as she can.
The dragon’s tail strikes Gorquen, knocking her off course and unconscious. She falls to the ground with a sickening cry, and Elgin dashes forward to assist her. Taran regains his feet and flies blades-first at the creature. He strikes it near the front shoulder-joint, and begins to rip and tear with his magical weapons. The dragon pulls away from Thelbar, giving the mage an opportunity regain his feet. Taran stands up bravely, but is not so well protected by spells as his brother, and the dragon exacts a terrible price. Taran is slashed by claws, buffeted by wings and seized in the dragon’s mouth. The dragon lifts him into the air and exhales pain, its frost breath burning Taran’s skin, and obscuring his form with layers of ice.
Taran cries out, barely alive, and Thelbar responds with a chain lightning that plays around the dragon, piercing its spell resistance, and stunning it momentarily. Taran falls to the ground, and regains his feet. Elgin rushes to Gorquen’s side, where he heals her. The action momentarily distracts the dragon, and Taran is able to finish what he began. He cuts into the shoulder-joint again, opening the same wound further, and eventually reaching the dragon’s vitals. The monstrous beast shudders once, and prepares to spring into the air, but its wounded shoulder fails it, and it collapses onto its side, nearly killing Taran as it does so.
Taran does not quit attacking the creature, and a few seconds later has opened one of the creature’s arteries, and is completely awash in dragon blood, a joyous and bestial expression on his face.
The man leads the group back to his encampment. To the party’s horror, his small clan of survivors lives within the hollowed out corpse of a silver dragon, a massive beast now reduced to bone and wisps of silver-scaled skin. He explains that the body shelters them from the biting wind and dust-storms. He tells them further that the wind seems to harbor a special hatred for anything built by the hands of men. No man-made structure can stand for long, no matter how well built.
“This is Isk?” Taran asks, but it is not a question.
Some double-score of humans huddle within the bones of the dragon, their clothes frayed and filthy. The pitiful band of refugees are frightened at first, but soon forget to cower as the party passes out the better part of their rations. One of the refugees recognizes Merkatha’s “Delver Surprise”, and tells her that he has not seen a rat in years. The ravages of disease have tormented the band, and several members have lost eyes or limbs to a withering, wasting plague.
The worst case is a middle-aged man, father to two of the women present. The man can no longer stand or even raise his head. Elgin kneels down next to the man, and invokes Lathander’s light. In an instant, the man is healed of his afflictions, made strong and well by the dawn’s grace.
The refugees fall to their knees and beg Elgin not to kill them. When Thelbar translates this, Elgin asks why they show fear. They explain that their goddess has died, and any cleric of hers must be dead himself. Elgin begins to explain that he worships an outworlder deity, when Taran interrupts him.
“Elign,” do you have any cure disease spells prepared?” Taran asks.
“I have one today, plus another on scroll,” Elgin replies. “But let us go and return with proper equipment and clothing for these folk. I can prepare a mass heal that will serve their need, I think.”
Taran nods and turns toward the prostrate refugees. “I’ve heard enough,” he says in Isenthanian. “Stop begging and get off your knees. Listen close, because I’m telling you the truth. Our Mother Ishlok died, and now she is reborn to the world as Palatin Eremath. We are the harbingers of her new way. In two days time, we will return for you with food and curing for the sick. The goddess will remove your disease, and lift the weariness from your limbs. We will take you through a dark place, but your reward shall be a land of plenty where your bellies will always be full, and the light of the morning will fill you with hope . . .”
Taran turns away from the refugees and says in Faerunian common, “And we call that place Sembia.”
Gorquen clucks at him. “I can’t believe you just said that.”
Taran scowls back at her, his dark mood plain on his face. He leads the group back into Kor’En Eamor and through the dwarven complex without saying a thing. The next morning, Elgin examines the party for signs of disease, and determines to cure Taran and Merkatha as a precaution. They scour Storm’s Rise for supplies—food, water and warm clothing; boots for the feet and weapons to inspire confidence. Fortunately, the former Lord Ilthais kept a large contingent of well-supplied soldiers who were killed before they could flee with their gear. They load the supplies into a pair of mule-pulled handcarts, and Taran gives the silver dragon battle-standard he took from the battle site to the elderly gate guard with instructions to find someone to duplicate this standard onto tabards and a banner.
They are forcing the mules over a stalagmite outcropping in the fungal forest when a deep and velvety voice emerges from the darkness ahead of them. “Where are such fine, bright souls going on a day like this?”
The party pulls their weapons from scabbards, but do not immediately reply, and the voice continues. “I’ll give you a choice—which among you do you like the least?”
Taran steps forward with a smile, his eyes scanning the darkness ahead of him. “That would be me. Nobody likes me, I’m a real bastard. Even my brother can barely stand me.”
“No, that is not what I meant,” the voice purrs. “Turn on someone. Kill them for me.”
Gorquen snorts and lowers her guard. Taran laughs, “If you hope to see our skills, you should just keep your eyes open when we kill you.”
“Do you think this is a jest?” the voice growls.
“It is hard to tell when we cannot see you,” Gorquen says.
Suddenly a huge section of the darkness detaches from the surrounding gloom, and hovers toward them in the shape of a massive bat-winged humanoid. A palpable chill radiates off of the thing, and each member of the party can feel their bile rise up in response to its foul aura. “I guess I’ll just kill the mouthy one,” it intones, all pretext of a mortal voice stripped away from the hideous scratching sound forming words.
“Sucks to be you, Gorquen,” Taran laughs as he brandishes Arunshee’s Kiss and Little Sister. His sun blade hums and glows with a warm yellow light, and he readies himself for a charge.
But Gorquen is faster, and she tears forward into the thing, striking at its legs and hoping to upend it. But it is stronger than even its huge size might indicate, and the night-thing lashes a tentacle-like arm around the haft of the sword, wresting it from Gorquen’s grasp. Merkatha fires an arrow, enchanted through the blessing of Lathander, then flees the area as fast as her feet can take her!
The night-thing seethes its amusement, and the vile sensation curses and sickens the souls of the adventurers, leaving Elgin and Gorquen dizzy and unable to concentrate. The shadow holds Gorquen’s sword above its head, and then snaps the ancient blade of the Ahk-Velar in two.
Taran leaps forward, and lays into the creature, his sun blade and keen sword ripping and slicing the semi-present form of the undead, severing its ties to the physical realm. In an instant, the two halves of Gorquen’s sword clatter to the ground, and the creature is gone.
Gorquen broods about the destruction of her sword, and glares at Taran. “Come adventuring, Gorquen,” she says, imitating Taran in a high-pitched voice. “It’ll be fun.”
-----
The party is as good as their word, and after gathering themselves and finishing their trek through the massive caverns of Kor’En Eamor, they return to Isk with food, water and supplies for the refugees. Since Elgin’s display, the group has swollen to sixty members as word of the miracle spread. Despite their taboo against entering the delve, the refugees become willing to follow the party after watching Elgin Trezler mass heal the diseased. Taran passes out new clothes, footwear, cold weather gear and weapons.
-----
The group is herding the shambling column of refugees across the broken bridge when it happens. Gorquen, Merkatha and Elgin have moved completely across and scouted the forward landing, while Taran and Thelbar remain on the Iskian side of the bridge to usher the long train across. Getting them this far has proved a challenge, with all five adventurers forced to play shepherd, maintaining a nearly constant stream of encouragement, coercion and threats in order to keep the terrified commoners moving.
The bridge crossing is nearly complete when the air pressure suddenly shifts, and the back half of the bridge is pelted by an impossibly dense spray of ice, hail and super-frozen air raining down from the yawning darkness overhead. Refugees fall screaming into the chasm from either end of the bridge, or die where they stand, their bodies torn and their systems shocked. Taran and Thelbar are spared the worst of the blast, but even still they are knocked from their feet, and their equipment and clothing is covered with a layer of ice. Both heroes look up into the darkness, but cannot locate the source of the icy burst.
Merkatha, however, possesses the superior darkvision of her people—she invokes her inborn magical gift and illuminates a massive winged beast with faerie fire. The creature is four-legged, powerfully muscular and long—easily sixty feet from nose to tail, with a wingspan double that length. Once revealed, the dragon abandons its refuge of darkness and swoops toward Taran and Thelbar. It crashes onto the wall of stone bridge with a *whump*, crushing frozen and bloody refugees beneath its weight and sweeping more screaming victims into the chasm with a lash of its tail. The beast is a hoary and ancient frost dragon, its cruel features distorted and shimmering due to the multiple protective spells playing about its body. It opens its mouth and unleashes a monstrous screech—a sound all the more terrible for having been made in this place of sepulchral quiet.
Taran scrambles to his feet, and begins to move forward as Thelbar raises both arms above his head and invokes a greater dispelling. In that instant, the dragon’s protections are whisked away, and the creature shrieks its displeasure. Gorquen unfolds her black wings, and after a few jogging steps, she flies along the length of the tail, striking into the dragon’s haunch with her longspear.
Taran closes his eyes and says a quick prayer to Palatin Ermath for Rex’s soul, then murmurs “Arunshee guide my hand,” as he hastes himself. Elgin Trezler sends a blade barrier whistling into existance, the massive whirring plane of edged steel cutting at the dragon’s flanks in a nearly vertical arc. But the dragon manages to curl up like a snake, and compress itself into the half of the bridge where Taran stands, his swords at the ready.
Thelbar steps up behind his brother, and invokes a time stop. The spell shivers and twists the moment, stretching it into an impossibly long segment that seems to snap back into itself, suddenly producing multiple spell effects. Four huge fireballs explode in a diamond pattern around the creature as a trio of lightning bolts arc past Taran’s head, lighting up the bridge and the dragon as they play up and down its length. The air around the beast seems to cave in for a moment, as every drop of moisture is sucked from the suddenly desiccated wyrm.
Thelbar’s skin turns an ashen grey, and a shimmering globe of energy surrounds him in the same instant. “Damn,” he says to no one in particular. “My confusion spell failed.”
Refugees scream, Gorquen curses, the dragon shudders, and Taran whoops for joy. He braces himself against the charge, but the dragon springs forward, spreads his wings and sails over Taran, pouncing squarely on Thelbar with all four claws, beating at the mage with its wings, and crushing him with its mouth. The dragon’s bulk knocks Taran from his feet as it passes, and one of its wings catches him on the up-stroke, sending him flying across the landing to sprawl in the dust.
Elgin cries, “Lathander! For the Dawn!” and calls down a pillar of flame onto the ice-dragon, as Gorquen chases after the beast with her spear. Merkatha, having recovered from her shock has taken cover behind an outcropping of native stone and is firing enchanted arrows at the dragon as fast as she can.
The dragon’s tail strikes Gorquen, knocking her off course and unconscious. She falls to the ground with a sickening cry, and Elgin dashes forward to assist her. Taran regains his feet and flies blades-first at the creature. He strikes it near the front shoulder-joint, and begins to rip and tear with his magical weapons. The dragon pulls away from Thelbar, giving the mage an opportunity regain his feet. Taran stands up bravely, but is not so well protected by spells as his brother, and the dragon exacts a terrible price. Taran is slashed by claws, buffeted by wings and seized in the dragon’s mouth. The dragon lifts him into the air and exhales pain, its frost breath burning Taran’s skin, and obscuring his form with layers of ice.
Taran cries out, barely alive, and Thelbar responds with a chain lightning that plays around the dragon, piercing its spell resistance, and stunning it momentarily. Taran falls to the ground, and regains his feet. Elgin rushes to Gorquen’s side, where he heals her. The action momentarily distracts the dragon, and Taran is able to finish what he began. He cuts into the shoulder-joint again, opening the same wound further, and eventually reaching the dragon’s vitals. The monstrous beast shudders once, and prepares to spring into the air, but its wounded shoulder fails it, and it collapses onto its side, nearly killing Taran as it does so.
Taran does not quit attacking the creature, and a few seconds later has opened one of the creature’s arteries, and is completely awash in dragon blood, a joyous and bestial expression on his face.
