#17 - Fiendish Revelations

A Seren village

Here, as the PCs take a much-needed rest in the goblin laboratory, the narrative is picked up by the Seren barbarian, Magnus, Bringer of Fire.

*          *          *

Finally! Some rest!

We woke up, rested and healed. While we slept, another change had come over us, also. It was as if some smoky mist had cleared and we were revealed to be newly made, but more like our true dragon selves.  Each of us had developed into a better version of himself; Doongal’s hammer now glows with powerful forge-light, for instance.

Cyzicus read his letter from the undead wight or ghastling we had killed, now known to be the remains of the ranger called Wolaf. Here it is, as relayed by Cyzicus in the Common tongue:

Koruun,

I am no chronicler. I am ill-suited to this task. But there is no other. Claviger has perished, and I cannot recover his body. Who do I pray to for the soul of a warforged? Onatar? Eberron herself? Does his soul roam Dolurrh or has his story ended? His death is on my conscience. I condemned him to this.

I must write of what I know, but I am dying. My wounds will not close. I must write swiftly.

I have learned what befell Paluur Draal, the City of the South. Once it was the southern bastion of the Dhakaani Empire. But as the Lords of Xoriat overwhelmed the other parts of the empire, the Governor became paranoid and desperate. He knew the horrors of the Daelkyr would soon reach his doorstep. From a deep pit within the mountain, he heard a distant voice. He coaxed it, made sacrifices, and found a way to make direct contact with it. The Governor listened, and formed a pact with it. Something slumbering in the depths, accepting its aid in defending his city from the aberrations of the Daelkyr.

But the cost was greater than the boon. His lieutenants became possessed by demons, and the Governor himself transformed into a creature of death and ravenous hunger. He fed on his own people and publicly executed citizens for the slightest infractions. The dar did their best to resist the Governor and his new regime. At great cost, they succeeded, driving their demon-possessed lords back into the vault of the mountain and sealing it with doors only the Emperor himself would be able to open.

We were wrong about Paluur Draal. The monsters that destroyed this place came from below—but it was not the daelkyr, at least not at first. The armies of Xoriat found a broken populace when they arrived and found it easy to slay or enslave those who remained.

I cannot prove any of this. I have learned this much from the mind of the creature that killed Claviger, that has killed me. It spoke truths in my mind that burn me still. They burrow through my skull like a relentless worm. Through it I have learned the name of the being the Governor came to serve, and I cannot get it out of my head. To think it is to fear it, to speak it is to weaken its bonds. I dare not write it. In turn, I know it knows of me now, where I came from, what I fight for, and the fact that I came here alone. Even without your approval, old friend. I am trapped here.

I do not know how to send this letter to you, Koruun. Warning you of this fiend is the only quest I have left and I am failing even in this. I have prayed that even after my death, someone will bear this message to you. If they succeed, then there may be hope.

Listen to me now. I believe this fiend is one of the rajahs from the Age of Demons, the first children of Khyber. If so, then it is the greatest threat we face now, for there are those abroad who work even now to free him. And he is stirring. They will not stop until they have opened the seals in the Seven Caves. The Draconic Prophecy speaks of several ways to do so.

The enemy knows that the Emperor of Dhakaan himself possessed an object that could open any gate erected by any of his subjects. The loyal, the remote, even the traitorous. All doors would be open to him. This object alone can remove some of the seals, but the rajah's servants do not possess it yet.

Koruun, I know you fear the opening of the Changegate. That day may come, but there are fiends already present we must be concerned with.

they will not sleep

forever

The governor now guards the nexus

he must not be fed

    i must stop

don't feel

the same

    anymore

need   hide

winter coalition must form

         claviger has

                            key

It gets very messy at the end there. Now, I don’t get all of it but it seems this "key" we have was involved in the collapse of this city, long ago.  The letter talks about voices in a pit and a deal with fiends. The fiends—demons?—were bound in seven caves and the key would get them out? This sounds like the lore from the old stories and shaman-legends I grew up with on Seren.  If any of it is true, it explains why all the forces chasing us will stop at nothing to get the key. Some of the others remember seeing “seven caves” on a map, so maybe it is true somehow.

Cyzicus (and his dead friend) thinks all this information needs to go directly to Cyzicus’s mentor. Do we go ourselves or do we go to the gnome city to get some help and transmit the story through some speaking stones? Maybe we go to the gnome city and take the lightning rail? I don't, but I’m along for the ride.

First, we have to get ourselves out of the cave we’re in! 

Halbazar remains manacled and mad, the Halbazar we see  in the mirror has given up. As Doongul smashes up the remains of the mirror (trying to get to the other side?) there is a big boom and clank from the top of the stairs. I grab a lantern to check it out, and a huge wave of (frightened?) rats pours down the stairs and disperses into the room, disappearing. At the top of the stairs there is a (now) open portcullis, I call for the rest of the party.

Xoma and Cypher come up to see about how the gate works, and if there is magic involved.  Whatever it is, it’s open and we can’t operate it.  Rendar and Doongul wrestle Hal up the stairs (he seems happy!) and tie a rope to his manacles and send him down the passage in front of us.  We form up and make our way.

The passage is long, so long that everyone thinks it’s weird. Cypher starts to say it looks familiar (from that flying messenger thing) and so I start making chalk marks on the wall to sort of record our passage. After a while, we come to a collapsed metal figure in the hall. Cypher steps up and identifies the dead thing as the warforged companion of Wolaf, from the letter and the flying thing. Claviger is (was) its name. Then the others loot the corpse. They tear off its arm to take an “arm-bow” and then rip open its body to take out some wand thing. I am amazed at their lust for stuff.

Anyway, we move a few more yards (or miles?) down this hallway and we see it open up into a room or something ahead. Then, we disarm Hal (I take two of his his oil flasks) because we don’t trust him in a fight. We push Hal up into the room and we can see stairs up left and stairs up right.  Rendar asks Hal, “Why are you smiling?”  Hal replies, “I know a secret.”  Weird. 

The party starts to enter the room—

Then, there is a big bump to the right, and suddenly, all the flame lights go out.  Good job Doongal for the glowing hammer!  Off to the right, a door opens and a huge pile of skulls and bones pours down the stairs and into the room, all over the floor, over a foot deep.

Cyzicus, who is up in front and checking the source of the bones, is attacked from above by a rake of super long swords. He whips around and yells out that there is a beastie up on a platform over the doorway we are coming from.

I hop into the room, and whip a spear at the nasty, bony undead up there, miss. Xoma slips in, takes one look and throws up a defense spell.  Doongul scurries in, casts a spell that conjures a magic floating hammer from his god that swipes at the creature, but misses. Cyzicus fires some arrows, which the creature bats aside. Rendar flings a hand ax that sticks in the thing's side, obvious damage but no blood.

The nasty lashes out with his claws, which extend from his hands and grow three or four yards as he swings!  I’m caught by surprise and he pulls my mace away from me up to his ledge—he’ll pay for that. The piles of bones start to rustle and a bunch of skeletons stand up out of the mix and start to attack. 

I chuck another spear up at it, but I can’t nail the thing. Xoma blasts the claw-beast with a huge boom of thunder which pushes it back against the wall of the alcove and the beastie seems hurt.  Xoma and I get back in the tunnel for some cover. Doongal clouts the nasty with his floating, glowing hammer and then holds up his holy symbol and shouts a command at the skeletons.

Cyzicus demolishes a skeleton with one massive slash from his scimitar. Rendar also blows one to pieces with his purplish scimitar, but his second swing hits only air. The undead on the ledge swings twice at Rendar who bobs out of the way—nice moves! Cypher boldly steps up and grabs a skeleton with his bare hand, letting loose some kind of lightening charge (that’s new!), it dies.

One of the skeletons runs directly away from Doongal, I guess his “blessing” worked. As it flees, Rendar takes a swipe and kills it outright!  In the confusion, Halbazar charges into Rendar with his hands still in manacles. Rendar isn’t expecting that and gets knocked over, down in the bones rolling around fighting with Hal, ugh.

I run out from the tunnel and chuck an oil flask at the nasty, splashing all over the place up there. Xoma then strides from the tunnel and casts a spell that covers the whole ledge (and upper part of the room) in darkness. Then Doongal (good man!) chucks a lit torch up on the ledge and we all hear that happy “woomph” noise of oil lighting up—no light though, the darkness spell prevails. That should flush that critter out of there so we can fight him on the ground.

Cyzicus swats at Hal and misses, Rendar hops up, swings at Hal, misses and then gets pushed back down by Halbazar. Tricky fighting for a guy with his hands in manacles! 

The nasty creature jumps down out of the darkness (it's really big, and has to duck down under the darkness spell to see) and slashes at Doongal who just hides behind his heavy shield as the claws clatter. 

The creature then slices Cypher with its long claws and the warforged is badly hurt—out of fighting commission, I think. I hurl one more oil flask at the critter and it hits dead on, soaking him (it?) but I can’t light it up. I then take a running leap, find some easy footholds and climb up the wall into the darkness on the ledge. Luckily my hand lands right on my mace, the darkness and leftover slippery, burning oil in the dark make me want out of the place right away.

Xoma steps up and casts a spell with a cone of fire, and lights the oil soaked creature aflame! Doongal then lets out his own thunderclap; pounding the big nasty again. His floating hammer misses a skeleton but Cyzicus demolishes it with his scimitar. Rendar pops up and pounds Hal; we need to get that situation under control!

The creature starts walking about and Doongal gets in a nice swat with his hammer, breaking some bone. I jump down out of the dark and land looking up at the big beastie. I smash it in the jaw with my mace and it drops, twitching.

“Finish it, Xoma!” I yell. And he does, with more fire from his hands.

It’s still burning when Xoma looks around and asks if any of the bones in the pile are sharp enough to be made into new weapons.  Sheesh, that drow is creepy!

#16 - The Wight Laboratory

After passing through a secret door in the wall—and provoking no more of the foul amorphous humanoids—the PCs descended a stairwell to another bronze door. The Emperor's Key once again opened it with a spoken command—this time by Doongul—and they came to another line of magic symbols carved into the floor. Study of the runes yielded little, but did suggest they were glyphs of warding. Meant to keep something out, or in. They had no trouble passing the runes themselves.

Beyond lay a dusty laboratory, clearly once used by the dar (goblinkind) and therefore these inner chambers were still somehow part of the city of Paluur Draal. It was a room of detritus, rot, shelves, beakers, crumbling scrolls and arcane books. And bodies. Several long dead bodies of human explorers or prospectors. In the center of the chamber, facing those who entered, was another slab of black, polished, mirror-like obsidian. This one was tall, floor to ceiling, and was built into a central column. Halbazar found himself staring into it—but disturbed by it, stepped back out of the room again.

Magnus and Doongul discovered the room's first hazard: hobgoblin skulls resting in alcoves which spewed foul poison when passing in front of them. Despite being sprayed by the deathly mist, Doongul toughed it out, only briefly weakened. Most of these skulls were simply smashed with hammer and morningstar.

Meanwhile, Rendar was the first to discover the first real problem. Halbazar's reflection in the dark mirror appeared to act quite differently than Halbazar himself. The image came forward, looking alarmed, and appeared to bang upon the surface of the obsidian—soundlessly. As if he were trapped in there. Meanwhile, Halbazar in body came forward, behind Rendar, and literally stabbed the half-orc in the back. No longer in possession of his own mind, Halbazar went mad. Rendar was bleeding from the nasty wound, but he turned and wrestled with the human, trying to subdue him!

But by this time the laboratory's chief had occupant appeared, standing on the stairway at the far end of the room.

A wight. Tall, long-nailed, sharp-toothed, ragged, bearded, once-human, in the torn cloak of his former life. Quite undead. He looked upon Cyzicus, and said, "Are you from the Eldeen?" When the shifter answered to the affirmative, the wight ordered "others" to attack, sparing only the shifter—at which point the corpses of the explorers, little more than husks and nails, rose to their feet and attacked.

With some painful hits and the draining touch of the wight himself—who leapt upon the very very walls and to maneuver around them—the creature and his corpse minions finally fell. As his own undead life was expiring, the wight clutched Cyzicus and told him to search beneath the stones, indicating a corner of the room.

Halbazar was eventually subdued and manacled by Rendar, with help. Though calmer now, he was still not himself. And his own silent image in the dark mirror remained despondent. During the fight, it was revealed that Halbazar was no longer able to cross the line of runes that warded the laboratory from the way the PCs had come.

As the party rested, Cyzicus discovered the loose flagstone in the corner of the room, where a folded-up, blood-stained letter had been written. The shifter read it first to himself, seeming deep in thought. His quest of finding a missing member of his order—a ranger named Wolaf—had come to an end.