Bleeding. Bruised. Dying. Dante struggled as he watched his friends falling around him. He reached towards consciousness, and failed, falling quickly, too quickly towards death. He knew the fate that waited for him. The Raven Queen would be wrathful in the face of his opposition to her chosen servants. As he became more desperate he sought for some other way, if not life, perhaps he could still escape Her. His mind wandered as his prayers cut through blackness. Suddenly he could see it, bright as the noon-day sun before him, but perfect light that enlivened rather than blinded. He scrabbled for it, reaching out for it.

Labels: dante, tear of pelor, TPK

This evening, as the adventurers chased the shadow bat that was flying away, then encountered two humans in a twist of the cavern. One was reading a book, and the other was standing guard while a black cat wandered about curiously. After a tense first exchange, they agreed to travel with the company to try to find an exit to the caverns.

After some more wandering, they encountered a large underground lake. Igniting a sunrod, they spotted an island with a large treasure chest in the middle of the water. Torrin began running across the water toward it - until a huge purple dragon burst out of the water and bit him! A long, intense battle ensued, with the dragon's psychotropic breath weakening the minds of the adventurers until they turned even on each other. At last, though, the dragon was put down.

That didn't mean the chest was free to get into, however. Ooka tried smashing it with her pick and only succeeded in giving herself a fantastic migraine. Codex, one of the swordmages, remembered seeing a trap like this before and deduced that the key to unlocking it was the dragon's claw. Torrin thought he'd try his claws as a substitute, but met the same fate as Ooka. The others ran back to their downed foe, chopped off a claw, and pressed it to the lock. Voila, the chest opened and revealed fabulous prizes!

Labels: dragon, index and codex, shadowfell fortress

So on the path back up to the zombie field, a middle aged woman came running toward the road yelling for help. She claimed that a cave-in in a mithral mine had trapped her husband and son and they would die without help. The group cautiously agreed to help her dig them out and jogged the 1/4 mile to the mine opening.

The mine shaft went basically straight into the hillside and about 100 yards in, a room opened up and inside was a pile of rubble from the cave in. As the group moved to help her dig at the rubble, the woman stood and said a magic word which released a stone slab that sealed the entrance to the room. Sha-Ashar and the 2 dwarves were trapped on the outside as a battle commenced.

The gnome released his illusion revealing his true form and yelled for his pets to attack. There was a short battle with the gnome arcanist, 2 fey panthers and a spectral panther tearing into the 4 trapped party members. Soon enough, the fey creatures were all dead.

Ooka and Torrin attempted to beat through the door, though the going was very slow (1 inch per hour for a hole large enough for Ooka) and they could not hear their allies on the other side except for faint hammering. They judged the door to be about 4 feet thick. They found arcane markings on the pillar but no indication of how to raise the stone. Ooka and Torrin continued to attack the door while Dante and Calth're continued into the tunnel.

Dante and Calth're quickly found another cavern where the gnome and his pets had obviously been living. There was a pool of clear water that caused them to become nervous. They went back to get their friends and Torrin used his water walking boots and glowing cloak to run across the surface of the pool as bait for anything living in it. When nothing attacked him, Ooka threw in a sunrod to see how deep it was. When they saw that there was nothing in the pool but water, she swam down to get her sunrod back and noticed that the water seemed to be seeping in from the bottom of the pool like a natural spring. They got fresh water and went back to work on the door.

Dante and Calth're continued down the path which was a natural split in the rock with a sandy floor. Eventually, the cave split and they followed the narrower path on a hunch that is might lead to fresh air. As they walked alone through the dark, they were ambushed by 3 Stirges who did a fair amount of damage before they were eventually squashed.

Dante noticed that there was a scent of fresh air again and remembered that stirges live in caves, but generally hunt in the forest and suspected there would be an opening above. He went back and got Ooka who managed to climb up and out of the cave and drop a rope to those below. After they had climbed out, they traveled down the hill to the mine entrance where they reunited with their friends.

Labels: cave

After emerging from the sewers - and taking long hot showers - the party members reported back to the church of Pelor with Soramar's letter. The priests were sobered by the news of Soramar's death, but they were glad that the party had obtained such useful information.

The high priest then wished to speak with the party again. He was concerned about how dangerous this mission was turning out to be before they had even left the city, so he gave them directions to an artifact named the Tear of Pelor, which was rumored to have mighty powers against the undead. According to him, it was somewhere off the coast of Bazsten, on "an island you can't sail to, atop a mountain you can't climb, through a door you can't touch, down a tunnel you can't see, toward a sound you can't hear, behind a sphinx whose riddle you must answer." He offered to teleport the party to Bazsten, but from there they were on their own.

Upon arrival in Bazsten, the party began asking if anyone knew of an island you couldn't sail to. They discovered that there was an area about a hundred miles off shore where the winds were dead and massive patches of seaweed prevented ships from moving. A dwarven captain named Boris was known to have experience there... but unfortunately his experience had driven him a bit mad.

The party found Boris in The Brawny Kobold watching a goliath burlesque show. With a littler persuasion, they were able to hire him. Sha-Ashar and Dante also rented a flatbottom boat for use when the larger ship could go no further. They sailed about a day before the seaweed started showing up. At that point, Ooka put on Torrin's Wavestrider Boots and everyone else got in the flat-bottom boat. Ooka then pulled the boat behind her to the island.

Upon arriving at the island, the party spotted a massive, solid adamantine pillar in the center of it. The sides were completely smooth, preventing climbing, and it was far too high to build ladders for. The party split to try to discover some way up. Eventually, they met a copper dragon who lived on the island, and after some hard bargaining, the dragon agreed to fly them all up to the top of the pillar.

Atop the pillar were several large rock formations. Dante noticed that one was of a slightly different color than the others. Sha-Ashar climbed atop it - and then disappeared! The rocks were an illusion concealing the entrance to a tunnel! Conventional torches wouldn't work in the ash-clogged tunnel, but fortunately Dante had some Cannith goggles that granted him darkvision. He led the party through the tunnel to an intersection of many different paths. At that point, they were attacked by dire wolves!

After only a few moments, though, the wolves began howling towards one passage and then ran off. The group deduced that the tunnel must have had a dog whistle or something, and they ran down its twists and turns until they encountered the sphinx. They easily answered the question and were admitted into the hidden chamber, the resting site of the Tear.

Labels: shadowfell fortress, side quest, tear of pelor

Even though the battle with the shadar-kai and the oni had left them battered and bruised, the party decided that they needed to continue to investigate the sewers - after all, Soramar had said he would have information and items for them, and they found neither in his home. So back into the sewers they went. The corridor where they had fought the shadar-kai was empty, so they opted to investigate the pipe the oni had fled through.

Everyone trudged through the sludge... except for Sha-Ashar. He insisted on building a makeshift boat from the cooper's barrels. While everyone else was able to easily jump from the pipe to the floor, Sha-Ashar got his foot caught in the barrel! Instead of remaining completely clean, as he had hoped, he ended up more submerged in sludge than anyone.

The room seemed completely empty except for some coins scattered near some mushrooms. Dante, however, noticed a snout barely poking out from beneath the sludge. It was a dragon! And to complcate matters, the oni reappeared too. After a long and difficult battle, however, the party emerged victorious.

They found a barrel floating near where the dragon had hidden. Inside was treasure... and also a silver tube that contained a letter from Soramar. It detailed hsi findings from studying the ancient texts and warned the adventurers to watch out for decoy foci as they set forth on their mission.

Labels: jartor, soramar