New Moon
Unfortunately no Chronicle was written for this adventure. Instead a plot summary is provided.
Session 1
Sadie's Letter to Garen
We didn't blow up the second gate
And besides, it turns out that blowing it up was only the _second_-worst thing that could have happened.
Okay, backing up a bit. We had an adventure. It was a bit of a fiasco, unfortunately, worse than our usual. I'll try to fill you in on what's going on, but everything's happening so fast now, I don't know if I've got time...
We're not sure exactly when you went back unconscious again; as soon as Ulweis came with news of the Dalkyr attack on the Flaming Rat you went off to try re-sealing the gate's defenses. I guess you didn't manage it, since they were still open when we reached them, but I certainly can't say it was the wrong call. You were totally right about the attack being a trick. It was just the details we guessed wrong.
After you left, we immediately started getting prepped for a fight. Cora had a spell called "Dimension Door" she'd stolen at some point, so our plan was to spend a few rounds prepping and then just pop straight up to the Flaming Rat to get a drop on whatever was going on up there. But almost immediately after you'd gone, we got hit by a spell. Thaspar and I were paralyzed, I didn't see anything myself, but Cora resisted the spell at first and caught a glimpse of what was going on.
Ulweis. She cast the spell again and caught Cora with it the second time, and then she stole the rod from Cora's pack. We were paralyzed for something like five minutes - it was hard to keep track, you understand. When the spell finally wore off we only had a moment to figure things out; there was no attack, Ulweis had betrayed us for some reason. But then a troop of Gatekeeper druids arrived, and they were _pissed_.
They had apparently realized that something was amiss, that the gate didn't actually need fixing after all and that our story didn't check out. Unfortunately, they didn't give us much of a chance to explain that we'd been tricked too. They figured we were willing accomplices to whatever the hell it was that Ulweis was up to and attacked us after just a little shouting back and forth.
Fortunately, Cora had been ready with dimension door anyway. Before we and the druids could waste too much of our aberration-fighting strength stupidly fighting each other, the three of us dimension-doored straight down to the little room on the far side of the holy water. Ulweis only had a five minute head start on us, we figured perhaps we could cut her off or at the very least catch up. We arrived in tip-top fighting form and turned to the door, now no longer sealed with forbiddance. It was still closed, so we moved to enter.
Thaspar yelled out in pain. You remember how we told you we'd captured another airship from the hags, how it had attacked us but we'd repelled the boarders? During that fight Thaspar was wounded in his shoulder by one of those four-tentacled super-dolgaunts and the wound had been unusually nasty and painful and strange. We'd figured it was just some weird poison or something and we'd got him patched up. But now it seems it was something more than that.
The scar on Thaspar's shoulder flashed with a golden light, and then with an even bigger flash an entire troop of aberrations appeared in the tiny little room along with us. There were dolgaunts, super-dolgaunts, what we later determined was a mind flayer lich (OOC: I rolled a 1 and thought it was a fungoid creature of some kind :), and both #2 _and_ #1 from the Hags' aberration special forces. The aberration with #1 emblazoned on it was a spheroidal creature with empty eyesockets in a ring around its body. #2 was humanoid, but totally black and featureless and swathed in a robe or cloak.
They must have been hiding inside Thaspar's shoulder somehow, or using some magic they'd implanted there to home in on us and teleport in when we reached the gate. We'd been used _twice_ now.
The lich ordered the others to kill us and tried to get past us to go through the door. He grabbed for Cora, and at his touch she fell seemingly lifeless to the floor - paralyzed. (OOC: using every trick in her book, Robyn got a total of two separate do-overs on the saving throw against the lich's touch - the _highest_ of the three rolls was a 4). #1 grabbed for Thaspar. At its touch, Thaspar's eyes exploded.
His _eyes exploded_.
(OOC: Thaspar made two saving throws, IIRC, failing the first and succeeding the second. Jon told us later what would have happened had Thaspar failed the second save, and it would have been _much_ worse).
Then #2 grabbed for me, and _became_ me. I didn't lose all of my skills like Dumont did with that other one, but I could feel part of my life force drawn out of me (OOC: I lost four levels to level drain).
Then the surprise attack was over and we had our chance to actually do something.
Good gravy, what could we do? Thaspar was blind and had taken heavy damage from the dolgaunts that had appeared around him. Cora was out of the fight already. We were crammed in so tight with the monsters that there was barely room to move. We were going to be slaughtered - were half-slaughtered already.
I shouted for Thaspar to dive for the pool of holy water, grabbed Cora, and dove in with him. There was no way I could win this fight on my own, we had to regroup somehow. Anyhow. We immediately got to the business of failing swim rolls and being unable to get away from the aberrations on the shore nearly as quickly as I'd like.
In hindsight, dragging a paralyzed halfling into a pool of water might not have been optimal. But fortunately after just a few rounds I remembered that I had a potion of remove paralysis in my possession. Seriously, I have no idea where I got it from, it's been in my inventory for ages.
Would you believe that actually marked the turn of the battle's tide, at least in the antechamber? Cora promptly attacked #1, doing some weird spell-thief woogie on it, and I decided that now that we had two full-health fighters active again we might have a chance. The mind flayer lich went through the door, leaving the others as a rear guard. I obliged, attacking my doppelganger.
Fortunately, #2 hadn't been able to duplicate my magic items. I turned out to be a bit of a pushover without them. #1 hit me and my eyes nearly exploded too, I could feel them trying to, but I stabbed it with my aberration's-bane-slaying dagger and it dropped instantly dead. (OOC: good saving throw for me bad saving throw for it).
We hurried through the door to the gate room. Thaspar was blind but even blind he was a fearsome foe so he kept a hand on my shoulder so that I could guide him toward things to kill. We got into the gate room.
There was roiling madness inside, of course, but even though I felt strangely detached from it all (OOC: immune to non-magical mind-affecting stuff thanks to leaf-lady's present :) I can't even begin to explain how confusing it was in there.
Ulweis was standing in front of the gate, holding the rod. The gate was open, we could see Xoriat through it, and she was still chanting and such. Around the gate were Nightmare Assassins, most of them bowed down and prostrating themselves before it. Around them were some of the Gatekeeper druids that had tried attacking us earlier on when they'd thought we were in league with Ulweis. Autumn the woodling druid and her pet Battlebriar were also there, and of course so was the lich and his dolgaunt retiune who'd gone in ahead of us just a few seconds earlier.
Everyone was attacking everyone else. The lich was trying to reach Ulweis, but was being fought by a Nightmare Assassin and Autumn. The dolgaunts were fighting with the druids. It was, quite literally, insane.
Autumn was badly hurt and the moment she saw us she used the power of her newly-acquired Armor of Fallen Leaves to assume the form of swirling leaves blowing on the air toward us. We still had that a powerful staff that druids could use, Cora pulled it out of her bag of holding to pass it on to her when she arrived. I shoved Thaspar toward the nearest dolgaunt and moved to stab the second-nearest. The Battlebriar pounded on the lich, and the lich pulled out a Nightmare Assassin's brain.
Someone, I don't know who, fired a lightning bolt at Thaspar but even totally blind he was able to dodge it.
What happened next... hard to describe.
The gate was open, as I mentioned earlier. I was staring into the depths of madness. It was quite familiar, actually - I've seen it before, way back at the theatre in Sharn. But then a featureless black something came rushing out of the depths, toward the gate.
Thaspar was blind and Cora was hidden behind me, so I'm the only one who saw it - who saw it and lived, anyway. So I hope my inexpert opinion is vaguely correct and of some use to you. It was another gate, a gate _inside_ the gate. When it reached the threshold, a storm of black tentacles came surging out and filled the room. They weren't exactly tangible, but they flailed about and tried to attach to everyone they could.
I dodged, Cora dodged, even Thaspar dodged. But then there was some sort of black explosion of... something... and we all fell unconscious, every single one of us. Even the lich.
Yeah, nightmares. We had a lot.
At this point I'm having to rely on second-hand reports myself, since I didn't wake up afterward. Very few of us did. Cora and I were alive but unconscious (OOC: everyone in the room took wisdom drain, Cora and I were below 0).
The Nightmare assassins were charred corpses, barely identifiable as human. You may remember we found some charred corpses outside the first gate? Like that. Most of the Gatekeeper druids were dead, their leader was the only one still alive by this point. One of the dolgaunts was still alive, Autumn was alive but lying on the floor at death's door, Thaspar was still alive but badly hurt, and the lich was... whatever liches are.
Ulweis was missing completely. So was the gate. Sorry about that.
I'm told the lich shouted something along the lines of "you fools! Do you realize what you've done?" Before the Gatekeeper druid turned into a triceratops and flattened him. Thaspar, still blind, got hit by the dolgaunt but somehow managed to pull through despite the grievous wounding and killed it in response. Finally the only three people left standing were Thaspar (blind and with no idea what was going on), Autumn (some idea of what was going on but completely mute on account of being a plant), and the Gatekeeper druid (completely convinced that Thaspar was Evil).
I have no idea how Autumn managed to pull it off, but somehow, some way, she managed to both 'talk' the Gatekeeper druid down from his rage and reassure Thaspar that she wasn't some new attacker in need of punching. (OOC: Since Sadie was down for the count right then, I was playing Autumn. Robyn was playing the Gatekeeper druid. :)
Autumn had a magic item that was able to temporarily revive Cora, (OOC: she loaned her a periapt of wisdom +2), and once Cora got talking we were able to calm things down even more. We got in contact with Captain Reef via talking pebble and discovered that we'd been out for about an hour. And so had everyone on the Flaming Rat. When that black stuff and exploded, or whatever, everyone on board the Rat had fallen into a state of nightmares exactly like what had happened before when we were approaching the first gate.
We found you unconscious in the forbiddance control room. I can only assume that you got hit by it too, while still trying to re-seal the gate room.
I'll digress at this point to give you a bit more information about the implications of the gate being destroyed. As the Gatekeeper druid explained, there were basically three states of affairs we could be in:
*Gate intact and sealed shut, which was ideal, and which had been the case when we arrived. In this state nothing can cross over from the plane of madness even when it's cominterminutousous with Eberron (he used big words I wasn't familiar with and yelled a lot in between).
*Gate intact and wide open. VERY BAD! In this state, beings from Xoriat can cross over into Eberron at will, at any time. We assume this is what the Dalkyr were hoping for.
*Gate blown to smithereens. In this state, small portals can open randomly in the local vicinity whenever Xoriat is cominet... close to Eberron, resulting in lots of random aberrations a appearing and rampaging about, but not a full-scale invasion. Not ideal, but not total
disaster. At least not yet. We've got a few more days before the total disaster comes.
Sorry, still getting ahead of myself. But the story's almost done now anyway...
We started picking up what pieces we could. Our best healer was Merrin and he lacked the ability to heal ability score drain so Cora and I were both comatose whenever we couldn't borrow Autumn's periapt.
I'd thought I'd defeated my nightmares, I really did. But now they were coming back.
On top of all this, Thaspar recieved a _sending_ from his master back in Sharn. It was only 25 words long, so there weren't many details, but apparently something horrible happened back there and we were needed back as fast as possible. The Gatekeepers wanted to arrest us and hold us prisoner until they could figure out what was going on, but we said "no" and took the 'Rat out of there. We made all speed back to Sharn.
Took two days.
The Sword Brothers' monastery had been attacked by dalkyr. They'd driven them off. The Lizard's Mantle had also been attacked by dalkyr. Fortunately the Mantle had become a famous hangout for adventurers, so there had been plenty of adventurers on hand to drive them off too. Cora's uncle Roktok's house had been attacked by Dalkyr. He and Cora's nephews were gone, kidnapped by the Dalkyr.
My father's house had been attacked. My sisters were kidnapped by the Dalkyr. Toddel, my father, had been killed in the attack.
It's taking me a long time to write this and time is what we don't have a lot of right now. We have tons of everything else, but no time. I should just carry on with the facts but I really should say a few words more here about personal things. In case when you finally wake up again in that bag of holding this note is all that's left to explain what happened.
My brother, Pranger, had been there too. He'd tried fighting them off but he wasn't strong enough and just barely managed to keep from getting captured himself. Pranger and I never got along very well, you know. He was more Toddel's proper son than I could ever be his proper daughter, even though we were both adopted. We never really understood each other.
He tried to fight, he wasn't strong enough, and his father died in front of him. He told me he blamed me for what happened. But I understand him now. He blames himself, just like I blamed myself for not being strong enough when my first family was killed. I hope he'll come to understand me too, now, though I guess I wish he didn't have to do it this way. And when this is all over, however it ends, I hope he finds the strength that I apparently still haven't found.
I killed #1 with a single blow. I've defeated assassins while naked and stabbed in the throat, I cut my way out of the belly of a rampaging lizard the size of a house, I fought the entire army of Droaam to a standstill in a basement in Greywall and I killed Gruumut _twice_. But I'm still not strong enough. Maybe I'm doing it wrong.
Anyway. It was the hags who were responsible, of course. They sent word to Sharn that the prisoners would be executed and the execution publicly shown via House Sivis' programmed illusions, if Breland didn't withdraw from the occupied territories of Droaam. The government
of Breland was naturally both confused and unimpressed, since these were just a handful of prisoners of no particular signficance, but they sent word that they wanted to speak to us at Sharn city hall anyway.
First I went 'round to House Sivis, though, and forced an audience with the head of House Sivis in Sharn. I explained to him that displaying the execution of Brelish prisoners in Sharn would not be a good idea. He explained to me that House Sivis wanted to remain "neutral", and so wouldn't reject the Hags' business. I explained to him that by displaying Droaamish propaganda in Sharn he would actually be aligning House Sivis with the hags, not remaining neutral. And then I explained exactly what I, personally, did to the Daask and what I would do again to any other organization that allied itself with the hags.
Cora's not the only one who can be convincing. The public display was canceled.
(OOC: I had circumstance bonuses on my intimidate check, I used _frightful shifting_ to punctuate my logical syllogisms, and I rolled an 18.)
Unfortunately the execution itself was still on the schedule, 48 hours from now. Also, we found out that two days prior when we had that problem with the gate, the momentary "immersed in nightmare" effect had actually been felt throughout the entirety of the continent of Khorvaire. Just like with the nobles at the theatre people have started to disappear, this time everywhere. And in seven days' time there are going to be thirteen full moons in the sky.
We went to city hall to see what Breland's official position on the situation was, and what they wanted to talk to us about.
The government of Breland has upped the bounty on the Hags' heads to one million gold pieces. Each. And when we indicated that we were keen to collect, they offered to give us the entire sum in advance so that we could use it to equip ourselves. We're the heroes of Sharn, after all.
How many gold pieces would I trade for an hour of time? They say you can buy anything in the shops of Sharn. I had more than I could possibly spend but nobody sells hours of time. We've contracted House Orien and hired their best teleporters in Sharn, we'll be able to make it to the Great Crags in time - we only need to take the 'Rat a hundred miles out of Sharn before we can make it there in a pair of staged teleportations. We've ransacking the magic shops for whatever gear we can get our hands on. You'd be appalled I'm sure; none of it's custom-made, I wouldn't even let the shopkeep waste time telling me the history behind some of these near-legendary pieces of gear. All I could take the time to care about was how strong the gear was, how strong it could make me.
We're on our way now. All of our airships are in flight together, fully armed and in formation with the 'Rat - since we're effectively launching a decapitation strike on Droaam we figured an impending military assault on the front lines would both serve as a good diversion and maybe be able to take advantage of the chaos among the hags' forces should we succeed. I feel bad about leaving Merrin on the 'Rat, but we don't have enough teleporters. And I'm probably not strong enough to protect him and I don't want to see him die.
I figured you'd be miffed if I didn't at least give you the opportunity to see _me_ die, though, so we're bringing you along. I don't know if I'll have the chance to write any more letters but you're really smart, I hope this will be enough background to explain whatever you might find when you wake up again and come out. Hope to see you then.
Session 1
Session 1
Session 1
Date Played: September 30, 2007
Session Length: 6 hours
Experience Gained: ~4000/character
Foes Vanquished: Cora, Droaamish Airship, 2 Psions, 1 Soulknife, 1 Psionic Monkey
Session 2
Date Played: October 22, 2007
Session Length: 10 hours
Experience Gained: ~7000/character
Foes Vanquished: 12 Woodling Spiders (kindof), 1 Woodling Bear Mother Just Protecting Her Defenseless Cubs, 8 Tentacled Horrors, Tenacled Mother
Woodling Bears Saved From Death: 1 - Fortunately
Allies: Autumn (Woodling Druid), Battlebriar
Session 3
Date Played: November 3, 2007
Session Length: 13 hours
Experience Gained: ~5000/character
Foes Vanquished: Rukrazyl, Elder Odopi
Foes Put to Sleep: 2 Woodling Bears
Session 4
Date Played: November 17, 2007
Session Length: 9 hours
Experience Gained: ~7000/character
Foes?... Faced: Chief Deepwatcher, 10 Gatekeeper Druids, Xor'chik'lik (a mind-flayer lich), Two, One, 2 4-Tenacled Dolguants, 4 regular dolgaunts, Ulweiss, 12 Nightmare Assassins
PC Loved Ones Killed: 1
Summary
Session 1
- Dumont decides to leave the group (now that they have the rod and just have to "clean up" the rest) and with his greatsword in one hand and the hammer of thunderbolts in the other, heads off to the Mournland on his own
- Remaining group rushes to Eidleret
- Ulweiss spends the night with Thaspar (whatever that means)
- En Route Garen comes under some kind of attack rendering him inert, something weird happens with the bag holding the rod
- Everyone on the ship who dreams passes out and has a nightmare - the non-dreamers are simply overcome with a wave of reasonless terror - like that of a nightmare
- The rod is still ok
- Cora notices the sliver of a 13th moon in the sky
- They reach the gate but the defenses have been bypassed - a tunnel has been carved in the stone and steel, and there are 6-8 charred humanoid corpses surrounding it
- Madness takes Thaspar and Sadie and they attack each other and Cora until Cora can convince them to stop it
- Approaching the gate Cora with the rod does an epic battle with the madness within and manages to finally seal the gate
- There is great rejoicing but Ulweiss fears that the corruption may have spread to other gates
- They return to Eidleret and find her family murdered
- After burying her family Ulweiss does a ritual to determine that the other gates are, in fact, in danger
- The group sets off for the closest one
- They spend 7 days searching for any sign of the gatekeeper druids before meeting a ranger who talks with Ulweiss and gives some direction
- The next day they are attacked by a Droaamish ship with some Daelkyr aboard - the dolgaunts loot the ship, grabbing random bags (which are recovered)
- Four days later they manage to find a druid who takes them to the Gatekeepers in the area - primarily an orc sect
- Ulweiss does the talking and they get directions to the location
- The airship drops them off at a rocky patch with a waterfall
- As they explore they are attacked by 2 psions, a soulknife, and a psionic monkey who teleport in
- They dispatch them, but the soulknife's dying words are "You will pay for your evil deeds," which is somewhat disconcerting
- They decided to investigate an observatory in the valley
- They find some ruined buildings and move to investigate a longhouse
- The longhouse is infested with woodling spiders - spiders made of sticks, plant matter and leaves - the spiders attack...
- Fought woodling spiders and ended up bombarding the forest with alchemist's fire
- Explored under the burnt longhouse and found a library, ancient snuff, and a fungal tunnel
- Explored observatory, looked at the 13th moon, which seems to becoming thicker
- A fey lady gives them cryptic advice and each a new power
- They dig through the fungal tunnel and into a cavern
- In the water of the cavern Sadie dives for a pack which contains some potions, a rainbow colored rod, and a silver key
- They explore and are attacked by a woodling bear
- The bear's keeper, a woodling druid named autumn, confronts them
- They manage to calm her once they explain that the bear is just unconscious, not dead (which is by sheer luck)
- While they are talking three tentacled horrors burst into the room and attack them
- The party and autumn fight together against the aberrations, and Cora steals some cool psionic abilities and supernatural abilities
- After defeating the tentacled horrors autumn shows them her realm, underground gardens lit by tiny suns, and to her pet battlebriar
- They form a plan to attack the tentacled mother (source of the tentacled horrors) in the morning
- The party, along with Autumn and the battlebriar attack and destroy the tentacled mother
- Within its coiling tentacles they find quite a lot of loot from previous victims
- They also try exploring the staircase up, but the area is choked with moss, and they decide to hold off until the next day
- Garen awakens and is shaken by the string of horrifying nightmares he has been laboring under
- The party explores the complex
- They encounter a fungal pit with a rukrazyl at the bottom
- The combat ends promptly as Cora charms the beast, who then tranforms into an attractive halfling
- Further exploration finds a secret door which leads to a pool of holy water
- Despite the discomfort, Garen searches the pool and finds a hidden door, which leads to another door
- This door is sealed and appears impassible for the moment
- The group heads upstairs where they quickly find themselves in the mossy area again
- There they fight 3 giant aberrant centipedes, and burn most of the moss
- Cora casts arcane sight to locate all nearby magical items and they group sets about finding them
- Ultimately this leads them to dig their way out of the covered gulch and explore some outbuildings
- Inside of a small building consumed by tree legs they encountered 2 woodling bears and an amulet
- They also explored a guardhouse precariously perched on the edge of a cliff
- The guardhouse was covered with rot and fungus, but had little of value
- Its lower floor, however, led back into the complex where they managed to locate a magic item they had be unable to reach earlier
- After further exploration they found a room with 3 large sarcophagi and a memorial to the druids who gave their lives against the daelkyr
- They pressed on through this room, using the silver key they had found earlier
- The next room was a huge dome
- Around the outside were carving of orc druids fighting a huge creature of hundreds of orange arms, tipped with eyes
- They party did not notice that the monster was unfaded by time, like the druids were
- The living beast dropped from the ceiling and engulfed Garen
- The party had a hard time defeating the beast, but eventually were victorious
- The room had 4 pillars of stone carved like trees - each contained an object in its branches
- Cora and Garen investigated and found that each was intended to have a certain spell cast on int
- The sickly green gem needed Cure Disease cast on it
- The wooden statuette needed Warp Wood cast on it
- The metal ingot needed Heat Metal cast on it
- The ice blue chrysoberyl need any spell that dealt large amounts of cold damage cast on it
- Fortunately between Cora and Garen they had the spells they needed
- Garen could inherently cast warp wood and head metal, and had earlier found a scroll of ice storm
- Cora was able to "steal" Cure Disease from Autumn
- As each spell was cast the items began to glow
- Once all were glowing there was a loud rumble below them, and suddenly the faint whispers of madness were once again in their minds - they had uncovered the gate!
- They spent some times exploring the area for magic items before heading out
- As they made their way down the hallway, intending to return to the lower level, they were unexpected stopped by Ulweiss
- She was panting and in obvious distress, as she threw herself into Thaspar's arms
- "Daelkyr..." she panted "they're attacking the airship... We need your help!"
- Garen heads to the locking chamber to try to undo the magical opening
- Ulweiss holds the party in place magically and makes off with the rod
- As they are "unfrozen" the party is approached by a group of angry orc gatekeep druids led by Chief Deepwatcher who claim they have come to destroy or open the gate
- Diplomacy soon fails and the druids attack
- Cora uses dimension door (which she stole from the Odopi) to warp to the room just outside the gate room
- The door now opens easily, but just as Cora is opening it Thaspar begins groaning in pain
- His shoulder bursts into agony and with a sickly yellow light Daelkyr appear all around him
- There is a mind-flayer lich, a jet black smooth skinned featureless humanoid with a 2 branded where his face should be, an orb with 4 pairs of eyes sockets and spindly legs with a 1 branded atop it, 2 4-tentacled dolgaunts, and 4 regular dolgaunts
- The mind-flayer's mind is noisy and his thoughts shout in their own "Where is your leader?"
- After a short discussion the he tells some of his minions to stay behind and finish off these ones and goes on ahead
- He paralyses Cora and heads into the gate room
- The eyesocketed monster explodes Thaspar's eyes, blinding him
- The black creature touches Sadie and takes on her form and abilities
- At first the battle goes poorly, but some escapes into Holy Water, and a lucky Remove Paralysis potion turn the tide, and soon the remaining minions are finished off
- Mid combat Thaspar recieves a warning that their friends in Sharn are in danger
- The party heads into the gate room, past a burning tree
- Inside the room is chaos: nightmare assassins, autumn, the gatekeepers, the battlebriar, the lich, the dolgaunts, and Ulweiss at the gate, using the rod
- Everyone is fighting and its hard to tell what the sides are
- A chaotic battle ensues
- Cora attempts to charm person on Ulweiss and suffers 10 wisdom damage for the effort, knocking her unconscious
- Suddenly the gate opens, and everyone gets their first glimpse of madness - luckily all the PCs retain their sanity
- Then within the gate is a second portal of utter blackness
- Writhing tendrils shoot out from it, lighting on each person in the room (though the PCs avoid their influence)
- The black portal moves closer and closer and finally crosses the threshold of the gate
- Suddenly everything is fear and blackness
- Thaspar awakens from horrible nightmares to the scent of burnt flesh
- The lich cries "You fools! You'll pay for what you've done" and attacks him
- With the help of Autumn and Chief Deepwatcher they finish of the lich and his single surviving dolgaunt minion
- Autumn uses a pendant of wisdom to revive Cora
- She realizes that the gate has been destroyed - all that remains in the room are charred corpses, and the few who survived
- Sadie is unconcious due to massive wisdom damage
- There is no sign of Ulweiss
- Cora uses her diplomatic skills to convince Cheif Deepwatcher to not imprison them but let them return to Sharn
- They return to Sharn via the airship as quickly as possible.
- Back at Sharn they find out that at the time of the gate incident the entire continent was knocked out and suffered from nightmares
- The duration of the nightmares seems to be related to the proximity of the gate
- The moons are almost full and all 13 will be full in 7 days
- There have been rampant nightmares and disappearances (just like at the opera house) except across the continent
- They get mostly healed up
- They also set out to find out about their loved ones
- The swordbrother monstary lost some members but held up admirably against a Droaamish attack
- Similar situation with the Shadow Knights
- Cora's uncle Roktok, and one cousin, and also Molly were kidnapped
- 4 of Sadie's adoptive siblings were kidnapped and here father Toddel was killed
- Garens room and carvings were busted up and ruined, just to piss him off
- The Hags sent a notice that their prisoners of war would be executed in 48 hours (which is 36 hours from the current time)
- The party races off to prepare in 36 hours to take on a covey of legendary hags - creatures from children's horror stories - and rescue their family
Sadie's Letter to Garen
We didn't blow up the second gate
And besides, it turns out that blowing it up was only the _second_-worst thing that could have happened.
Okay, backing up a bit. We had an adventure. It was a bit of a fiasco, unfortunately, worse than our usual. I'll try to fill you in on what's going on, but everything's happening so fast now, I don't know if I've got time...
We're not sure exactly when you went back unconscious again; as soon as Ulweis came with news of the Dalkyr attack on the Flaming Rat you went off to try re-sealing the gate's defenses. I guess you didn't manage it, since they were still open when we reached them, but I certainly can't say it was the wrong call. You were totally right about the attack being a trick. It was just the details we guessed wrong.
After you left, we immediately started getting prepped for a fight. Cora had a spell called "Dimension Door" she'd stolen at some point, so our plan was to spend a few rounds prepping and then just pop straight up to the Flaming Rat to get a drop on whatever was going on up there. But almost immediately after you'd gone, we got hit by a spell. Thaspar and I were paralyzed, I didn't see anything myself, but Cora resisted the spell at first and caught a glimpse of what was going on.
Ulweis. She cast the spell again and caught Cora with it the second time, and then she stole the rod from Cora's pack. We were paralyzed for something like five minutes - it was hard to keep track, you understand. When the spell finally wore off we only had a moment to figure things out; there was no attack, Ulweis had betrayed us for some reason. But then a troop of Gatekeeper druids arrived, and they were _pissed_.
They had apparently realized that something was amiss, that the gate didn't actually need fixing after all and that our story didn't check out. Unfortunately, they didn't give us much of a chance to explain that we'd been tricked too. They figured we were willing accomplices to whatever the hell it was that Ulweis was up to and attacked us after just a little shouting back and forth.
Fortunately, Cora had been ready with dimension door anyway. Before we and the druids could waste too much of our aberration-fighting strength stupidly fighting each other, the three of us dimension-doored straight down to the little room on the far side of the holy water. Ulweis only had a five minute head start on us, we figured perhaps we could cut her off or at the very least catch up. We arrived in tip-top fighting form and turned to the door, now no longer sealed with forbiddance. It was still closed, so we moved to enter.
Thaspar yelled out in pain. You remember how we told you we'd captured another airship from the hags, how it had attacked us but we'd repelled the boarders? During that fight Thaspar was wounded in his shoulder by one of those four-tentacled super-dolgaunts and the wound had been unusually nasty and painful and strange. We'd figured it was just some weird poison or something and we'd got him patched up. But now it seems it was something more than that.
The scar on Thaspar's shoulder flashed with a golden light, and then with an even bigger flash an entire troop of aberrations appeared in the tiny little room along with us. There were dolgaunts, super-dolgaunts, what we later determined was a mind flayer lich (OOC: I rolled a 1 and thought it was a fungoid creature of some kind :), and both #2 _and_ #1 from the Hags' aberration special forces. The aberration with #1 emblazoned on it was a spheroidal creature with empty eyesockets in a ring around its body. #2 was humanoid, but totally black and featureless and swathed in a robe or cloak.
They must have been hiding inside Thaspar's shoulder somehow, or using some magic they'd implanted there to home in on us and teleport in when we reached the gate. We'd been used _twice_ now.
The lich ordered the others to kill us and tried to get past us to go through the door. He grabbed for Cora, and at his touch she fell seemingly lifeless to the floor - paralyzed. (OOC: using every trick in her book, Robyn got a total of two separate do-overs on the saving throw against the lich's touch - the _highest_ of the three rolls was a 4). #1 grabbed for Thaspar. At its touch, Thaspar's eyes exploded.
His _eyes exploded_.
(OOC: Thaspar made two saving throws, IIRC, failing the first and succeeding the second. Jon told us later what would have happened had Thaspar failed the second save, and it would have been _much_ worse).
Then #2 grabbed for me, and _became_ me. I didn't lose all of my skills like Dumont did with that other one, but I could feel part of my life force drawn out of me (OOC: I lost four levels to level drain).
Then the surprise attack was over and we had our chance to actually do something.
Good gravy, what could we do? Thaspar was blind and had taken heavy damage from the dolgaunts that had appeared around him. Cora was out of the fight already. We were crammed in so tight with the monsters that there was barely room to move. We were going to be slaughtered - were half-slaughtered already.
I shouted for Thaspar to dive for the pool of holy water, grabbed Cora, and dove in with him. There was no way I could win this fight on my own, we had to regroup somehow. Anyhow. We immediately got to the business of failing swim rolls and being unable to get away from the aberrations on the shore nearly as quickly as I'd like.
In hindsight, dragging a paralyzed halfling into a pool of water might not have been optimal. But fortunately after just a few rounds I remembered that I had a potion of remove paralysis in my possession. Seriously, I have no idea where I got it from, it's been in my inventory for ages.
Would you believe that actually marked the turn of the battle's tide, at least in the antechamber? Cora promptly attacked #1, doing some weird spell-thief woogie on it, and I decided that now that we had two full-health fighters active again we might have a chance. The mind flayer lich went through the door, leaving the others as a rear guard. I obliged, attacking my doppelganger.
Fortunately, #2 hadn't been able to duplicate my magic items. I turned out to be a bit of a pushover without them. #1 hit me and my eyes nearly exploded too, I could feel them trying to, but I stabbed it with my aberration's-bane-slaying dagger and it dropped instantly dead. (OOC: good saving throw for me bad saving throw for it).
We hurried through the door to the gate room. Thaspar was blind but even blind he was a fearsome foe so he kept a hand on my shoulder so that I could guide him toward things to kill. We got into the gate room.
There was roiling madness inside, of course, but even though I felt strangely detached from it all (OOC: immune to non-magical mind-affecting stuff thanks to leaf-lady's present :) I can't even begin to explain how confusing it was in there.
Ulweis was standing in front of the gate, holding the rod. The gate was open, we could see Xoriat through it, and she was still chanting and such. Around the gate were Nightmare Assassins, most of them bowed down and prostrating themselves before it. Around them were some of the Gatekeeper druids that had tried attacking us earlier on when they'd thought we were in league with Ulweis. Autumn the woodling druid and her pet Battlebriar were also there, and of course so was the lich and his dolgaunt retiune who'd gone in ahead of us just a few seconds earlier.
Everyone was attacking everyone else. The lich was trying to reach Ulweis, but was being fought by a Nightmare Assassin and Autumn. The dolgaunts were fighting with the druids. It was, quite literally, insane.
Autumn was badly hurt and the moment she saw us she used the power of her newly-acquired Armor of Fallen Leaves to assume the form of swirling leaves blowing on the air toward us. We still had that a powerful staff that druids could use, Cora pulled it out of her bag of holding to pass it on to her when she arrived. I shoved Thaspar toward the nearest dolgaunt and moved to stab the second-nearest. The Battlebriar pounded on the lich, and the lich pulled out a Nightmare Assassin's brain.
Someone, I don't know who, fired a lightning bolt at Thaspar but even totally blind he was able to dodge it.
What happened next... hard to describe.
The gate was open, as I mentioned earlier. I was staring into the depths of madness. It was quite familiar, actually - I've seen it before, way back at the theatre in Sharn. But then a featureless black something came rushing out of the depths, toward the gate.
Thaspar was blind and Cora was hidden behind me, so I'm the only one who saw it - who saw it and lived, anyway. So I hope my inexpert opinion is vaguely correct and of some use to you. It was another gate, a gate _inside_ the gate. When it reached the threshold, a storm of black tentacles came surging out and filled the room. They weren't exactly tangible, but they flailed about and tried to attach to everyone they could.
I dodged, Cora dodged, even Thaspar dodged. But then there was some sort of black explosion of... something... and we all fell unconscious, every single one of us. Even the lich.
Yeah, nightmares. We had a lot.
At this point I'm having to rely on second-hand reports myself, since I didn't wake up afterward. Very few of us did. Cora and I were alive but unconscious (OOC: everyone in the room took wisdom drain, Cora and I were below 0).
The Nightmare assassins were charred corpses, barely identifiable as human. You may remember we found some charred corpses outside the first gate? Like that. Most of the Gatekeeper druids were dead, their leader was the only one still alive by this point. One of the dolgaunts was still alive, Autumn was alive but lying on the floor at death's door, Thaspar was still alive but badly hurt, and the lich was... whatever liches are.
Ulweis was missing completely. So was the gate. Sorry about that.
I'm told the lich shouted something along the lines of "you fools! Do you realize what you've done?" Before the Gatekeeper druid turned into a triceratops and flattened him. Thaspar, still blind, got hit by the dolgaunt but somehow managed to pull through despite the grievous wounding and killed it in response. Finally the only three people left standing were Thaspar (blind and with no idea what was going on), Autumn (some idea of what was going on but completely mute on account of being a plant), and the Gatekeeper druid (completely convinced that Thaspar was Evil).
I have no idea how Autumn managed to pull it off, but somehow, some way, she managed to both 'talk' the Gatekeeper druid down from his rage and reassure Thaspar that she wasn't some new attacker in need of punching. (OOC: Since Sadie was down for the count right then, I was playing Autumn. Robyn was playing the Gatekeeper druid. :)
Autumn had a magic item that was able to temporarily revive Cora, (OOC: she loaned her a periapt of wisdom +2), and once Cora got talking we were able to calm things down even more. We got in contact with Captain Reef via talking pebble and discovered that we'd been out for about an hour. And so had everyone on the Flaming Rat. When that black stuff and exploded, or whatever, everyone on board the Rat had fallen into a state of nightmares exactly like what had happened before when we were approaching the first gate.
We found you unconscious in the forbiddance control room. I can only assume that you got hit by it too, while still trying to re-seal the gate room.
I'll digress at this point to give you a bit more information about the implications of the gate being destroyed. As the Gatekeeper druid explained, there were basically three states of affairs we could be in:
*Gate intact and sealed shut, which was ideal, and which had been the case when we arrived. In this state nothing can cross over from the plane of madness even when it's cominterminutousous with Eberron (he used big words I wasn't familiar with and yelled a lot in between).
*Gate intact and wide open. VERY BAD! In this state, beings from Xoriat can cross over into Eberron at will, at any time. We assume this is what the Dalkyr were hoping for.
*Gate blown to smithereens. In this state, small portals can open randomly in the local vicinity whenever Xoriat is cominet... close to Eberron, resulting in lots of random aberrations a appearing and rampaging about, but not a full-scale invasion. Not ideal, but not total
disaster. At least not yet. We've got a few more days before the total disaster comes.
Sorry, still getting ahead of myself. But the story's almost done now anyway...
We started picking up what pieces we could. Our best healer was Merrin and he lacked the ability to heal ability score drain so Cora and I were both comatose whenever we couldn't borrow Autumn's periapt.
I'd thought I'd defeated my nightmares, I really did. But now they were coming back.
On top of all this, Thaspar recieved a _sending_ from his master back in Sharn. It was only 25 words long, so there weren't many details, but apparently something horrible happened back there and we were needed back as fast as possible. The Gatekeepers wanted to arrest us and hold us prisoner until they could figure out what was going on, but we said "no" and took the 'Rat out of there. We made all speed back to Sharn.
Took two days.
The Sword Brothers' monastery had been attacked by dalkyr. They'd driven them off. The Lizard's Mantle had also been attacked by dalkyr. Fortunately the Mantle had become a famous hangout for adventurers, so there had been plenty of adventurers on hand to drive them off too. Cora's uncle Roktok's house had been attacked by Dalkyr. He and Cora's nephews were gone, kidnapped by the Dalkyr.
My father's house had been attacked. My sisters were kidnapped by the Dalkyr. Toddel, my father, had been killed in the attack.
It's taking me a long time to write this and time is what we don't have a lot of right now. We have tons of everything else, but no time. I should just carry on with the facts but I really should say a few words more here about personal things. In case when you finally wake up again in that bag of holding this note is all that's left to explain what happened.
My brother, Pranger, had been there too. He'd tried fighting them off but he wasn't strong enough and just barely managed to keep from getting captured himself. Pranger and I never got along very well, you know. He was more Toddel's proper son than I could ever be his proper daughter, even though we were both adopted. We never really understood each other.
He tried to fight, he wasn't strong enough, and his father died in front of him. He told me he blamed me for what happened. But I understand him now. He blames himself, just like I blamed myself for not being strong enough when my first family was killed. I hope he'll come to understand me too, now, though I guess I wish he didn't have to do it this way. And when this is all over, however it ends, I hope he finds the strength that I apparently still haven't found.
I killed #1 with a single blow. I've defeated assassins while naked and stabbed in the throat, I cut my way out of the belly of a rampaging lizard the size of a house, I fought the entire army of Droaam to a standstill in a basement in Greywall and I killed Gruumut _twice_. But I'm still not strong enough. Maybe I'm doing it wrong.
Anyway. It was the hags who were responsible, of course. They sent word to Sharn that the prisoners would be executed and the execution publicly shown via House Sivis' programmed illusions, if Breland didn't withdraw from the occupied territories of Droaam. The government
of Breland was naturally both confused and unimpressed, since these were just a handful of prisoners of no particular signficance, but they sent word that they wanted to speak to us at Sharn city hall anyway.
First I went 'round to House Sivis, though, and forced an audience with the head of House Sivis in Sharn. I explained to him that displaying the execution of Brelish prisoners in Sharn would not be a good idea. He explained to me that House Sivis wanted to remain "neutral", and so wouldn't reject the Hags' business. I explained to him that by displaying Droaamish propaganda in Sharn he would actually be aligning House Sivis with the hags, not remaining neutral. And then I explained exactly what I, personally, did to the Daask and what I would do again to any other organization that allied itself with the hags.
Cora's not the only one who can be convincing. The public display was canceled.
(OOC: I had circumstance bonuses on my intimidate check, I used _frightful shifting_ to punctuate my logical syllogisms, and I rolled an 18.)
Unfortunately the execution itself was still on the schedule, 48 hours from now. Also, we found out that two days prior when we had that problem with the gate, the momentary "immersed in nightmare" effect had actually been felt throughout the entirety of the continent of Khorvaire. Just like with the nobles at the theatre people have started to disappear, this time everywhere. And in seven days' time there are going to be thirteen full moons in the sky.
We went to city hall to see what Breland's official position on the situation was, and what they wanted to talk to us about.
The government of Breland has upped the bounty on the Hags' heads to one million gold pieces. Each. And when we indicated that we were keen to collect, they offered to give us the entire sum in advance so that we could use it to equip ourselves. We're the heroes of Sharn, after all.
How many gold pieces would I trade for an hour of time? They say you can buy anything in the shops of Sharn. I had more than I could possibly spend but nobody sells hours of time. We've contracted House Orien and hired their best teleporters in Sharn, we'll be able to make it to the Great Crags in time - we only need to take the 'Rat a hundred miles out of Sharn before we can make it there in a pair of staged teleportations. We've ransacking the magic shops for whatever gear we can get our hands on. You'd be appalled I'm sure; none of it's custom-made, I wouldn't even let the shopkeep waste time telling me the history behind some of these near-legendary pieces of gear. All I could take the time to care about was how strong the gear was, how strong it could make me.
We're on our way now. All of our airships are in flight together, fully armed and in formation with the 'Rat - since we're effectively launching a decapitation strike on Droaam we figured an impending military assault on the front lines would both serve as a good diversion and maybe be able to take advantage of the chaos among the hags' forces should we succeed. I feel bad about leaving Merrin on the 'Rat, but we don't have enough teleporters. And I'm probably not strong enough to protect him and I don't want to see him die.
I figured you'd be miffed if I didn't at least give you the opportunity to see _me_ die, though, so we're bringing you along. I don't know if I'll have the chance to write any more letters but you're really smart, I hope this will be enough background to explain whatever you might find when you wake up again and come out. Hope to see you then.
Timeline
- Far 13 Dravago - Leaving Sharn on Lighting Rail
- Sar 14 Dravago - Return to Airship and head for Eidleret
- Sul 15 Dravago - Mass Nighmare, Garen Incapacitated, Sliver of 13th Moon Appears
- Mo 16 Dravago - Sealed Xoriat Gate, found Ulweiss' Family Murdered
- Zol 17 Dravago - Begin searching for second gate
- Zor 26 Dravago - Droaamish airship attack
- Sul 1 Nymm - Found Gatekeeper druids, went to gate location, attacked by psions, entered underground complex
- Mol 2 Nymm - Stayed with Autumn and defated Tentacled Mother
- 3-4 Nymm - Futher exploration of complex
- 5 Nymm - Ulweiss (seemingly) betrays party and opens gate within gate, Daelkyr attack
- 7 Nymm - Arrive back in Sharn to fine nightmares rampant, and their loved ones kidnapped by The Hags; also, it will be 7 more days until all 13 moons are full
Heroic Quotes
Session 1
- Jon: "Robert, this is all your fault!"
Robert: "Yay, recognition!" - Robyn: "I'm the one with the 22 charisma, why don't _I_ have a boyfriend?"
- Cora: "Doesn't that have something to do with your destiny?"
Sadie: "I don't know, I just do stuff." - Robert: "After eating all this salsa, I've got to blow my nose."
Bryan: "I don't think you're eating it right."
- Jon: "You spot a squirrel-hole in his armor."
Bryan: "Hit him in the nuts!" - Jon: "Something heroic awoke within you and you found a new reserve."
Robyn: "A small vestigial twin, perhaps?"
- Bryan: "Isn't Number 1 adorable? He has your eyes..."
- Cora: (in reference to Thaspar dating Ulweis) "You don't want to date a
rod-stealer."
Adventure Names
Session 1
- Robert - A Flying Monkey?! We're not in Sharn anymore...
- Robyn - Sharing in the death of a friend
- Bryan - Garen is Silenced and an Airship Fall
- Robert - Everyone is Made of Wood
- Robyn - Worse than Shag Carpeting
- Bryan -Badger, Badger, Badger, Badger
- Robert - Betrayal and Blindness
- Bryan -The Nightmare Returns
Statistics
Session 1
Date Played: September 30, 2007
Session Length: 6 hours
Experience Gained: ~4000/character
Foes Vanquished: Cora, Droaamish Airship, 2 Psions, 1 Soulknife, 1 Psionic Monkey
Session 2
Date Played: October 22, 2007
Session Length: 10 hours
Experience Gained: ~7000/character
Foes Vanquished: 12 Woodling Spiders (kindof), 1 Woodling Bear Mother Just Protecting Her Defenseless Cubs, 8 Tentacled Horrors, Tenacled Mother
Woodling Bears Saved From Death: 1 - Fortunately
Allies: Autumn (Woodling Druid), Battlebriar
Session 3
Date Played: November 3, 2007
Session Length: 13 hours
Experience Gained: ~5000/character
Foes Vanquished: Rukrazyl, Elder Odopi
Foes Put to Sleep: 2 Woodling Bears
Session 4
Date Played: November 17, 2007
Session Length: 9 hours
Experience Gained: ~7000/character
Foes?... Faced: Chief Deepwatcher, 10 Gatekeeper Druids, Xor'chik'lik (a mind-flayer lich), Two, One, 2 4-Tenacled Dolguants, 4 regular dolgaunts, Ulweiss, 12 Nightmare Assassins
PC Loved Ones Killed: 1
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