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| A Seren village |
* * *
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!
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