#11 - Into the Vault

Reunited with the others, the PCs spoke again with Kyress and her group. They were deciding exactly who would go where—the gnomes, Wenrick, the disturbed Aundairian would go with the professor—when the sentries called out that winged shapes appeared in the sky. Indeed, rounding the corner of the mountain was a wyvern.

It had only been a matter of time. The PCs had declined the offer of the cloaked stranger who visited them aboard the Sky Talon—the offer to take the Emperor's Key off their hands and end all pursuit. Now, the man-who-was-not-a-man and his allies, had probably come for it. Whoever they were. A shapechanger, an exoriate half-orc, cultists of the Dragon Below. And apparently a whole Host-damned flight of wyverns.

There was no more time for discussion. The groups said their terse farewells and spread out. Rendar, Cyzicus, Cypher, Xoma, Magnus, Doongul, and Halbazar set out toward the site of the crashed Talon in order to draw the attention of the approaching wyverns, while Kyress, the hobgoblins, and the gnomes set out down toward the bottom of the ruined city. Before separating, the professor reluctantly gave them a map she had of the Governor's Vault: the inner fortress of the palace that once sat atop the top tier of Paluur Draal when the city was part of the old Dhakaani Empire.

Two wyverns shot out over the city. As they neared, one turned back and flew the way it had come. The other descended and engaged, and a battle soon ensued. The rider, a human who wielded a lightning-spewing wand, seemed unafraid of the greater numbers. Lashing with electricity, he wounded the PCs but slew none of them. In turn, slowly, they brought him down by killing the wyvern with a series of attacks. Once downed, the rider tried to flee, but he was swiftly cut down.

The rider was human with elvish blood, that was clear, and in searching his body the PCs discovered that he bore the Mark of Storm! House Lyrandar bore that mark. Another dragonmarked heir—allied with the Dragon Below? Not a good sign. When attempting to pry the wand from the dead man's hand, Xoma found himself shocked by its power. While Cypher had a quick look at the defensive matrix infused in the wand, seeing a dragonshard was set into its base, Xoma simply set to work cutting off the dead man's arm so he could still take the wand with him.

Xoma is like that.

On their way back up the city, something much more than wyverns appeared in the sky from the north: a whole new airship. This one was sculpted like a kraken—denoting as a vessel belonging to, or at least commissioned for, House Lyrandar. The kraken was their symbol. Flanking the airship were two wyverns.

The PCs reached the entrance to the Governor's Vaults and went in, seeking shelter from the eyes of the airship. They waited and consulted the map, wary of the trap indicated in its first junction. When the airship came into view from the entrance corridor, they followed Cypher and Xoma, who searched the darkness of the hallways for further danger. They needed to find a secure place to rest, not quite ready for another fight.

When they discovered an illusory secret door, they soon found a guard chamber and made camp. Hours passed and they lingered in the dark, waiting, quiet. Magnus slept while Cypher examined the dragonshard wand in the dimmed light of a hooded lantern. The others dozed or just kept still. Or, like Cyzicus and Doongul, took up a sentry position.

But before they could get sufficient rest, they were disturbed by the sound of intruders to the vault. Distant, shouted voices near the entrance. Then, from the sounds of it, the triggering of a trap—the loud, banging, metal-on-stone of heavy weights hitting solid ground. Angry shouts and metallic barks followed.

A short while later, Doongul and Cyzicus spotted a pair of iron defenders stalking by the illusionary wall, clearly searching for someone.

#10 - Dragonshard Retrieval

In the morning, Cypher, Cyzicus, Rendar, Magnus, and Xoma set out with the warforged Keystone to investigate the crash site of Sky Talon. Cypher, in particular, was hoping to recover the Khyber dragonshard that had been used to bind the elemental. Meanwhile, Halbazar and Doongul remained with the gnomes and other charges, along with Kyress and the hobgoblins of Clan Jar'aram.

It didn't take long to find the fallen ship where it had slammed into the edge of the city on the third tier.  In fact, the Sky Talon has clearly cracked open and half had fallen over the cliff's edge on that side, down hundreds of feet to the valley floor. What remained had been scorched but not burned, though smoke continued to fume out from the missing bow and smashed underside—it seemed the fire elemental had burned up everything inside the ship.

Though the elemental itself was nowhere to be found.

Investigation did, however, yield something: a nine-foot, spiked-club-wielding ogre, who'd been rooting around inside the wreckage, and his kobold allies who lurked in the nearby cracks of the city wall. Cypher's attempt to warn the creature off hadn't quite worked. So the ogre attacked.

To make matters more interesting, the ogre was carrying around a cage of stirges—bloodsucking bird-insects that have been known to drain men to death in seconds. Hurling the cage at the nearby stairs, where Cyzicus and Rendar had taken their stances, the ogre unleashed them. The stirges harried and sucked at the half-orc and shifter alike, though they seemed particularly keen on Rendar's blood. Because Rendar never quite gets a break.

Keystone held his own, took several hits from the ogre. Xoma used color spray to dazzle and distract the ogre, and it paid off well. Despite a few injuries and ugly stirge bites, the PCs won the battle and the kobolds, ogre, and stirges were all slain—though it seemed more kobolds lurked within warrens beyond the wall. they shunned the daylight and didn't press their attack. The last couple of the draconic humanoids were impaled on a pair of thorny pads that lashed at them from shifting shadows of a nearby wall....

Indeed, one of the displacer beasts from the hold was loose!


But it didn't attack, it merely approached, growled low, warning them, then climbed into the smoking wreckage. Aware that the creature wasn't interested in attacking the whole of them, the PCs yet dared to sneak back into the remains of the ship to pilfer the large purple dragonshard. Between Magnus and Xoma, they succeeded—and the displacer beast merely struck Xoma once on the way out with one of its pad-spiked tentacles.

Also, Xoma found and pocketed a magic ring (mostly a loop of leather) that had been worn by an armored kobold.

#9 - Old Flames and New Friends

The first thing the PCs did once the two attacking gargoyles had been dealt with was to split up—of course. Paluur Draal was a ruined city, but it was still large, full of crumbled structures, weeds, and rubble—and more gargoyles were still flitting about. And it was still dark enough to warrant caution, despite the bright glow of six full moons!

As the party gathered together with the gnomes, two search parties roved out among the ruins in search of a new direction. Xoma, a drow of Xen'drik who grew up amidst ruins and dark places, went north, toward the firelight they'd seen. Cypher, with Dursha, wandered west. Unlike the warforged, the old goblin woman could see in the dark just fine.

While Xoma found a bank of stairs leading up to the city's highest tier, Cypher was the first to find trouble. A gargoyle leapt upon him from a stony perch and disabled him in short order. Had he been edible, this might have been his end. But even stony-skinned gargoyles seem to have no taste for composite metal, stone, and wood. Yet Dursha's scream alerted the others, and both Magnus and Cyzicus followed the sound—only to discover she'd been taken by the predatory monster. They carried Cypher's weighty form back to the rest of the group.

But by then a new problem had presented itself. The great fire elemental, freed from the Sky Talon, had come for them. Moving slow like a wandering bonfire, the creature burned all brush in its path, gliding steady toward the PCs between the broken buildings of the city. They kept it at bay without attacking it, throwing various objects—tents, torches, bedrolls—aside for it to consume. It accepted these but never strayed from its path. But in turn, the elemental never attacked them directly, though its heat was overpowering and it proved quick when it wanted to be. When another gargoyle dared swoop in, the living inferno rolled over and immolated the creature in an instant.

Eventually, the PCs moved away from it, retreating slowly...though it continued to follow them. When Doongul reached Cypher, he awoke him with a healing spell.

Hobgoblins of Darguun.

At the top of the stairs leading to the next tier of the city, they encountered a squad of well-armed hobgoblins from Darguun—with bows already drawn on them. Xoma spoke for the group, and soon the others joined him. Halbazar, Magnus, and Doongul brought up the rear, coaxing the fire elemental with flasks of oil. One of the hobgoblin commanders gruffly ordered them to surrender their weapons and reluctantly, most of them complied. The situation was tense, and though the PCs were battered and in need of rest (and the gnomes in need of safety), Halbazar nearly instigated a fight. There were only five hobgoblins—though they had the upper hand and did not appear injured, they were outnumbered.

However, the arrival of a woman—human, middle-aged, white-haired, and attractive—set tensions aside and she hastily welcomed the PCs and their charges to join them at their camp further in on the city's upper tier. She introduced herself as Kyress, a professor of archaeology from Morgrave University, and her companion/bodyguard was Keystone, a tall, axe-favoring warforged. The hobgoblins of Clan Ja'aram and their leader, Gershak, that her department in Morgrave had arrangements with—so long as they served as escorts, they were free to explore these ancient Dhakaani ruins. 

Byeshk, a rare metal prized by smiths
for use in jewelry and weapons.

Kyress explained that she was in Paluur Draal on a scholar's expedition—seeking byeshk, a rare, violet metal normally found only in the depths of the Byeshk or Graywall Mountais. Evidently, she'd heard a rumor of byeshk objects discovered near Paluur Draal and had come to investigate. (Cyzicus alone had heard of this precious metal and knew that it had been mined and used by the Dhakaani goblins ages ago in their war against the monsters of Xoriat. Byeshk is said to be able to cut easily through aberrant flesh whether other blades cannot.)


She also explained that Paluur Draal had already been thoroughly explored and "picked clean" by many expeditions in the past—especially by the Zil, given its proximity to Korranberg. Nevertheless, from time to time some still come here on archaeological investigations.


Like herself. However, the gargoyles were new. Kyress said that monsters did lair in the ruins from time to time, but inevitably they're slain or driven off again by the adventurers who inevitably explore the city. This latest colony (or "wing") of gargoyles only recently appeared, and have been harrassing Kyress and Clan Ja'aram since their arrival a few days before. The creatures seemed to be lairing somewhere up on the mountain high above the city, making it difficult to root them out.


In turn, the PCs gave Kyress a truncated version of events leading up to their arrival.

The PCs spoke with Kyress a bit more, and came up with a plan: In the morning, everyone would venture down to the airship crash site together to see what could be learned or salvaged. From there, Kyress would begin her journey back to Korranberg (a three- or four-day journey by horse and wagon, which she has) and would take the gnomes with her. Along with Wenrick, who was eager to return to his "superiors," and the Brelish magewright and his family.


Under the assumption that their enemies would keep pursuing them so long as the PCs carried the Dhakaani amulet, the Emperor's Key, the gnomes would be safest going their own way. So much as any assumptions can be made.

#8 - Elemental Elevation

The wounded were revived, and the situation assessed: the Sky Talon wasn't going to stay in "control" for long. The explosive warforged, now in pieces in the ship's hold, had successfully sabotaged it; the large Khyber dragonshard in the elemental binding room had been almost broken from its cradle and the machinery interfacing it it torn apart.

Cypher, upon examining the device with his artificer skills, believed the binding would last only about 8 hours...and when the magic failed, the fire elemental bound to the airship would be loose.

The party talked about jumping ship with Xoma's feather fall spells, but Halbazar's attempt to communicate with the fire element only seemed to make things worse. The ship rose even higher and drifted closer to the mountains without smashing into them. Steering the ship to a safer place—such as the open plain—clearly wasn't in the cards. Instead, a straight drop down would touch even feather falling jumpers down on a precarious, icy slope halfway up the Seawall Mountains.

Wenrick, still tongueless but soldiering on, made gestures, pointed at maps, and wrote out his opinion on paper: He believed the Sky Talon, which seemed mostly under the control of the fire elemental at this point, was heading somewhere specific, following the contours of the mountain wall southward....and he thought that somewhere was Paluur Draal.

Paluur Draal is just one of the named ruins from the Dhakaani Empire, the goblin civilization that once ruled Khorvaire before the arrival of humanity. It was only noteworthy because it was one of the ruins on known maps. Its close proximity to the Zil city of  Korranberg meant that it had probably already been explored numerous times. But perhaps there were still some mysteries to it.

So the PCs were content to wait and find out. Better that than jumping overboard early to a more certain slippery slope.

On the way, however, they had a visitor. A large, black, and decidedly unnatural eagle lit upon the stern of the ship. When the PCs went to approach it, it shapechanged into the form of a middle-aged human with an unpleasant expression in a rust-red cloak. He spoke calmly, and clearly identified himself as an ally of the cultists, though he did not give his name.

The man said that he wasn't there to fight, that the time for swinging blades and slinging spells had passed. His window for using the Emperor's Key had passed—the PCs had successfully "foiled" him in this—but that he might yet have other opportunities in the future. He hoped they would hand over the Dhakaani talisman peacefully. This, he explained, would allow him to keep his allies—presumably the cultists and Drazul d'Tharashk, the half-orc—from bothering them any further, from pursuing them. He was sad to see this offer declined.


Then Cyzicus had enough of parley and attacked the man with his scimitar. With a flourish of magic, he turned invisible, accepted quite a few hits, and flew off into the night. According to Reltran ir'Harran, the Aundairian nobleman who owned the Sky Talon, this man was Avashad, his "mentor." But Reltran was still mentally absent for the most part and could not say more than a few vagaries.


A few hours later, the ruined city of Paluur Draal indeed came into view as the airship rounded the corner of one of southern mountains. Beneath the glow of six full moons, the city was fairly visible even in the dark of night. It had been built upon massive stone shelves in the side of the mountain, forming a series of tiers.


The Sky Talon descended swiftly, and the time had come to jump ship. With the use of three feather fall spells, and with most human-sized people holding onto gnomes, they managed, one by one, to leap overboard and descend swiftly, if magically, safe to the ground.


But not everyone landed on the weed-choked ground. Some, like Magnus, Cyzicus, and Rendar, landed upon twenty-foot columns sheered at the top like tall plinths. Worse: Dark winged shapes swooped down, taking advantage of their descent: gargoyles!


A battle ensued, and one of the gnomes was gored through the chest and flung from a column by one of the stony creatures. The two gargoyles were quickly slain with the combined efforts of the PCs, but there were clearly more of the monsters about. As bright as the moon-lit sky was, the ruins of Paluur Draal were still very dark, full of crumbled stones and thick foliage, and there were many places the creatures could be hiding.


Meanwhile, the PCs also spied torch lights somewhere along the edge of topmost tiers of the city. The airship itself fell out of sight, presumably crashing down somewhere in the next tier down. They could hear the smashing of rock and the flare of fire. But was the elemental still bound? Was the ship intact? What of the displacer beasts in the hold?

#7 - Changing Course

The PCs opted not to try to jump ship and reach the Deep Mine. Despite Xoma's preparation of several feather fall spells, it just wouldn't be a direct drop down. They'd have harsh, cold weather, and more than a handful of frail gnomes (and gnome children) ill-equipped for the hazards of the mountain.

But...Halbazar tried his hand at the helm and was able to coerce the ship's bound elemental into some level of cooperation. Steering the ship gradually around, the Sky Talon was now on a course southward again.

Meanwhile, Doongul used his clerical touch to rouse the Aundairian nobleman and Halbazar coaxed him to speak some more. He gave his name, Reltran ir'Harran, and spoke with a little more lucidity. He referred to his "mentor," a man named Lord Avashad. And also of an aquaintance of his who Reltran didn't like, someone named Drazul d'Tharashk. Both men were allegedly affiliated with the PCs' new enemies, and Rendar even recognized the latter name and knew the infamous half-orc to be bad news.

A short while later, another winged form appeared in the northern horizon, tailing the airship. The mid-day, early Vult sky unleashed a steady, cold rain, and it wasn't long before enemies presented themselves once again. Several wyverns were spotted this time, and a trio of big wooden crates were dropped to the deck from above. When the crates ruptured, two iron defenders (metal, bladed, artificer-made dogs) and a warforged arose. While the mechanical hounds attacked, the warforged hurried belowdeck.


One of the wyverns dived down to attack, riderless, taking on Doongul, Rendar, Halbazar, and Xoma. Xoma narrowly dodged a strike from the wyvern's deadly tail, and even managed to temporarily blind the creature with a spitting venom spell of his own. Rendar took advantage of the wyvern's situation and drove his blades repeatedly into its scaly hide....until at last he delivered a killing blow. The winged beast dropped heavily, spewing its life fluids upon the rain-slicked deck.

In the ship's hold, Cypher, Cyzicus, and Magnus pursued and battle the lone enemy warforged. Cypher used infusions to disrupt the other construct's lifeforce, while Magnus did what Magnus always did best: smash things with his two-handed morningstar. Cyzicus lingered behind, using arrows even in close quarters. The warforged countered with the massive metal claw that replaced its right arm, clamping it down upon both Magnus and Cypher. When the construct's body was sufficiently battered, it fled them again—just after triggering some magical effect with the ghulra on its forehead.

When it reached the elemental binding chamber—the door for which had been sealed with some sort of warding glyph—the warforged turned to fight again. A blow from Cyzicus sent the construct crashing to the floor....

...at which point it exploded, blasting open the warded door and sending Cypher, Magnus, and Cyzicus reeling. Both the artificer and the barbarian were rendered unconscious, while the shifter managed to keep his feet. Cyzicus lifted Magnus into his arms and called for a healer.

And then the airship began to wobble.

#6 - Marksman Diplomacy

The PCs had the ship. It was theirs.

Problem was, they still had no way to control it. Sure, all opposition had been slain, and at least one opponent had evidently jumped ship somehow. And with the next day dawning, control of the ship was a problem yet to be solved. For the time being, the Sky Talon didn't look like it would fly into a mountain face, but one never knew....

To appease the restless displacer beasts trapped in the hold, Xoma chopped up one of the dead cultists and Halbazar, dangling fearlessly from a rope, pushed limbs through one of the portholes in the stern-side hull. This seemed to appease them for now.

A thorough search of the airship yielded a hidden chest which contained, aside from some coins and potions, a canister similar to the one that had incapacitated them the night before in the Bookmark Inn (courtesy of Jag, the bardic gnome). Which gave them a new plan: gas the displacer beasts with the same "knock-out juice." In another daring feat, Halbazar was dangled over the edge with a series of ropes and managed to first close the open hatch and squeeze the canister  through the cargo hull porthole.

It worked. The displacer cats were out cold, along with the caged Aundairian nobleman who was believed to be the owner of the Sky Talon. Before succumbing to the vapors, he called out, "Please do not harm the beasts!"

But by this time a new visitor had appeared on the horizon, and he shortly closed the distance: A heavily-armored half-orc riding a wyvern. Older and more grizzled-looking than Rendar, he also looked competent and dangerous with both his composite bow, sword, and wicked-looking maul. The wyvern perched above the wheelhouse and the half-orc parleyed with Rendar and Cyzicus. Seeming amused by their success in taking the ship, he then demanded "the emperor's key" and said that if they gave it up, there would be no more trouble.

Above, Cyzicus, shifter of the Eldeen, seemed not to accept this trade and decided on a new diplomatic tact: an arrow. It sank into the shoulder of the man's banded mail, but the half-orc only let out a sigh. "I guess this does have to get messy," he growled and attacked.

The fight was brief, and was largely one-sided. The wyvern failed to grasp Cyzicus in its claws and the half-orc himself didn't manage to feather anyone with his own bow. The wyvern was worn down with crossbow bolts, arrows, and spells, and so the rider and his beast retreated. But not before the "Infernal" Halbazar used a grease spell and made the half-orc drop his bow to the ground hundreds of feet below.


In the hold, Cypher and Doongul pushed into the cargo hold and dragged the loose but unconscious displacer beast back into its cage. Sealing up the door would be another matter to deal with.


Wenrick, still in the wheelhouse, pointed the PCs out to what appeared to be a worked cave entrance jutting out on a wide rocky shelf in the the mountain, just to the north. According to the maps, it was the Deep Mine, some sort of permanent mining operation affiliated with House Kundarak.

#5 - Melee Amidships (Part 2)

The struggle to take the Sky Talon on the upper deck was brutal. Both Halbazar and Magnus were knocked out early in the fight, both done in with the thrashing tentacles of the pale eyeless horror known as a dolgaunt. Efforts to simply shove the creature over the side, to plummet into the darkness, proved fruitless—it was much too nimble and had an advantageous number of limbs.

The bald cult leader, with his scabrous armor and disturbing necklace of tongues, appeared and used magic to keep his enemies from attacking him—a trick that seriously irked Rendar d'Tharashk. Calling blessings upon his allies, and even healing the dolgaunt at one point, he proved to be a nuisance. Meanwhile, two crossbow-wielding cult warriors continued to harry the PCs.

With the constant help of Xoma, the drow making good use of his Xen'drik boomerang, they eventually outlasted their foes. Cypher occupied one warrior, while Doongul allowed his armor (and sometimes his flesh) to be pin-cushioned with crossbow bolts. Rendar, Cyzicus, and Doongul stormed into the wheelhouse to take out the cult leader once and for all. The half-elf from the Bookmark Inn was there, at the helm, but he soon fled and left the Dragon Below priest to fend for himself.

In short order, (1) the cultist was slain, (2) the PCs' weapons were recovered, (3) some new treasure was found, (4) Doongul revived his two fallen comrades, and (5) the Lyrandar half-elf pilot, after initially escaping elsewhere on the ship, was found dead with his throat stabbed. Evidently, there was yet one more enemy lurking about the ship. Or perhaps not. There was evidence that something had been removed from a storage room and this missing crewman had managed to free one of the displacer beasts in the hold.

But the PCs now had "control," such as it was, of the Sky Talon. Their captors were slain. But weren't there supposed to be more of them? Xoma was fairly sure he'd seen more soldiers than this handful when the airship first descended from the docking tower in Korranberg.

Meanwhile, Cyzicus attempted to communicate with the bound fire elemental by taking the wheel, seeing if he could direct the ship in a more favorable direction (it was still northbound). He managed some minimal success—but only enough to ensure the airship wouldn't crash into the mountain before morning.

Regardless, it was time to rest up and see about dealing with the displacer beasts, which the gnome captives managed to barricade into the cargo.