Reflections

Chapter 21 - Playing at Politics

The group decided to split up. Xej and Kale would go to Arrabar in Chondath and confront King Khidar, while the rest of the party returned to the forgotten temple and read up on the staff and the runes necessary to recombine it. Xej and Kale left immediately.

Xej and Kale boldy approached the royal palace at sunrise that day, having teleported their from the shining plains. The golden city of Arrabar was called thus for a reason, and it's palaces and mighty churches glittered in the red morning sun. They immediately requested to see the king as they approached the lightly guarded front entrance. The guards were amused, but proceeded anyway, sending a messenger ahead of them. They walked across the palace grounds, followed by an invisible flying mage which Xej jovialy waved at, sending him flying off ahead in warning.

The grounds gave way to a huge parade square littered with important people and dignitaries going to and for on important business. Carriages and horses tried to clutter the area, but the main courtyard was just too expansive and made everything else look small. Xej was escorted through past massive marble pillars and into a large foyer. Despite the fact it has seemed like he had come inside, there was no roof within this area, and windows from the second floor looked down upon the open foyer. Trees with birds chirping decorated the beautiful palace that was all worked stone and ornate carved wood.

Left the wait in the foyer for some time, Kale and Xej nervously waited. Xej and Gexbat were all the more nervous for the host of mages that they're magic revealed to them that spied down from above or through bushes and were cloaked invisibly in their magic. A short time later the clank of steel booted feet could be heard and a contingent of royal soldiers, led by a man in beautifully golden tarnished steel armor and a long flowing cloak. He identified himself as General Trivus Meyarch and in formality appraised Xej and Kale and then told them to follow him. The soldiers surrounded the two of them as they followed the General down open roofed passages. Xej appraised the magic of buildings structure around him.

Xej has a significant pause before entering a final doorway that led him into the building, a place that would completely surround him and possibly thwart his escape, but he had come this far and followed, resigned. A long walk through open gardens and long halls full of artwork and painted ceilings finally led to a large ballroom where Emperor Khidar waited with a small enterauge. Doors were closed as the general approached the king, bowed, and moved to the side, announcing Xej, and Kale. Xej and Kale both bowed.

Xej then, respectfully explained the situation and requested the last peice of the staff. Information about Yous and a guard they had slain when they tried to take the staff, an high ranking soldier, a son of another higher ranking soldier. For some reason, this blatant and most insulting and easily punishable by deal act was smoothed over. Perhaps it was Xej's respectful manner, or perhaps Xej's offer of Kory raising him. Whatever it was the Emperor voiced his opinion that he simply wanted the staff gone. As long as they left with it and didn't bring it back, he didn't care what happened to it or them. His only requirement was that some of his people go with them to ensure that they removed the staff from the land, and didn't bring it back. And so it was that a man with a blonde golden hair, muscular and handsome appeared to hand over the staff peice. Xej and Kale were then escorted out with little fanfair and the two returned to Xej's stronghold.

Meanwhile, apparently Lark had instead followed Xej and Kale to keep an eye on them and Gondogal and Kory had gone to the demon alone. Gondogal waited outside in a tree leaving Kory to enter by herself. There she encountered the demons, the pit fiend, and the cleric that was clearly undead when seen from closer. Kory asked questions of them both, rather starkly. The cleric ignored her and the pit fiend finally told her to take the books she needed, as she had already "paid a hefty price.". Ignoring that remark, she took the books and her and Gondogal returned to Xej's stronghold.

A few days passed for them to study the books and copy down the glyphs on each rod peice carefully. Xej also returned to Arrabar and picked up two people, Cannae and Ke'rik. Cannae and Ke'rik both seemed quiet and observant of the party. Then the moment of truth came. Windwalking, they then began to tromp for miles across Cormyr, the mountains, and the desert putting the staff peices together one at a time and then moving quickly to a new location. In the end, Kory was given the entire staff, missing only the seventh peice.

The returned to the portal to Pandemonium and rested a final night before they would go through.

Chapter 22 - Through the Darkness

The party awoke the next morning and after a somber breakfast headed off towards the portal. They reached it only a few hours later. They took a short time to prepare, tying things down, casting a few spells to deafen a couple of themselves to the wind, a few others stuffing their ears with cotton and tying cloths around their heads. As well, goggles were lowered over eyes, and the couple in the group that couldn't see in the dark had magic cast upon them to let them. Finally they were ready, and a few crunching steps through the snow led them into the darkness.

Cannae did not follow, bidding her partner Ke'rik luck. Her job was complete, the staff was gone from Faerun, she was to return to Arrabar and report. Ke'rik nodded his understanding and then stepped into darkness.

What followed was a test of nerves, skills, and endurance.

The party found themselves within a blowing tunnel over a hundred feet wide. It was roughly circular but apparently had strange gravity. They quickly realized that they could walk any which way and that gravity was subjective. The stream that ran the length of the tunnel seemed to run down the wall, while dead leafless trees hung from the walls or ceiling. Fungus grew everywhere. The wind was loud and shrieking, but no untolerably so. There was no light anywhere, only their vision that allowed them to see the dark world in black and white gave them any sense of their surroundings.

They used the staff and began following it's path. They would wonder through these tunnels for almost two weeks. Apparently they had entered in one of the calmer tunnels becuase over the next few days they came upon tunnels with wind that made their head and ears ache from the constant howling. Dust and grit would fly in the eyes of those without goggles, and a couple times the wind had threatened to nearly blow them away. Spending the sleeping hours in a magical hut summoned by Gondogal, they party stumbled their way across the hostile plane following the staff. The never ending wind chaffed the skin raw and the temperature wandered from merely chilling to icey and frigid. They encountered very little, and those they did encounter all seemed crazed in some way or another, as they journeyed about the caves. The party found passages so big that it would take them hours to walk all the way around, but they steadily followed the staff. Rumors of a city somewhere were told by crazed denizins and the party were often treated as children by the insane people here who called themselves "Petitioners".

It was two weeks of unpleasant surroundings, but their magic and equipment made the ordeal possible and even tolerable.Though those that refused to be temporarily deafened each day by Xej had constantly ringing ears, even through the cotton.

The party did find out that Kory had changed somewhat. First off she seemed rather ill, constantly throwing up. Second, she had apparently had a disagreement with her god on some manner, for she was no longer being granted spells by him. Lathander was a rather kind and forgiving god, so it must have been something serious. Kory kept her secrets, though several suspected the staff of law's influence.

Despite this, the group eventually found their way to a tunnel that exited into a crater whose size could only exist upon another plane of existance. It was perhaps twenty miles wide, and the cliffs that marked it's edges were easily eight miles high. Within the center on a near vertical column of rock about a half dozen miles high, stood a castle of again mythic proportions. It looked like it was only a few hundred feet away, but when they started to walk around it they realized it was in fact about a mile wide itself. The windows and parapets must be fit for giants of a gargantuan size. The castle was surrounded in a faint shimmering field that surrounded to about a mile out...this was the cocoon of law. Above all of this was the sky of pandemonium, dark and spotted with odd looking lights that only slightly resembled stars.

Scaling the six mile high column became a problem with the wind blowing ever more fiercly here. Using magic boots and spells however Xej spent two days scaling the thing himself, Ke'rik, displaying his abilities also went with him by turning himself into a drider and walking up beside him. Near where the bottom of the cocoon of law met the pillar of stone Xej formed a small stone pocket and the next day the party teleported up to it and then together began scaling the last mile of the pillar. Kory, with the staff, formed a rip in the cocoon that tore like it was a thin sheet of silk. The ends flapped and wailed in the wind. Inside the cocoon, the air was calm and peaceful, and the air was comfortably warm.

They found their way up to the massive castle and then cloaked themselves in magic. They enterd through the unguarded entrance and walked across the massive open courtyard for half a mile until they reached the central keep. The keep itself must have extended up at least a mile....it was, like everything else here, massive.

The group carefully wound their way for several hours through the massive deserted keep always following the staff. They finally came upon an set of rooms that were normal sized and used even more caution here. Within here they found what they were looking for, a room holding the final staff peice, unguarded.

Before they could stop her Kory strode forward to take it. Two hidden doors swung open and a couple wolf-spider demons and a man with black eyes and two wicked scimitars leapt forward to the attack. Immediatly darkness cloaked everything and a chaotic battle ensued. People yelled from the darkness as fighting erupted. People ran from place to place fighting. The three initial enemies had been slain, but another massive and deadly opponent had joined the fray in the darkness and it persued Kory who had grabbed the staff piece. The battle was going badly, the group unable to deal with this massive new threat shrouded in darkness. Kory seemed to be getting some help somehow though because her wounds were rapidly healing and she was shrouded in malevolent darkness, an unholy aura. Xej, Lark and Kory finally managed to protect Kory within a field of force, leaving no space for the supposed General to teleport into, while Kale, Ke'rik (who had become a wil-o-whisp, a large monkey, and now a huge creature), and Gondgoal fought the enemy within the darkness....

Chapter 23 - That seemed too easy.

While Xej, Kory, and Lark hid within the force field, and Kale stood away healing his grevious wounds, Gondogal was made short work of by Miska. Kale and Ke'rik retreated with Miska in pursuit. They managed to flee into the safety of the force field as they ran in a large circle. Miska then appeared to leave the party alone.

Gondogal's mutilated and destroyed body lay on the ground.

A few minutes later the staff was complete, and Miska suddenly appeared again and grasped the staff. The party was blown off of their feet as Miska's visage became even more powerful. In darkness the battle began again, but before it even got going, an energized Xej leapt forward and smashed the staff through Miska's chest. Again a powerful blast knocked everyone off their feet....this one was followed by yet a third blast however of a hideous screaming smoke that left the words, "Thou are cursed, cursed, cursed.." ringing in their thoughts, and "Your fate will evermore be tied to the staff of law." echoing in their minds.

As it turns out, they were cursed. Ke'rik was blinded..and when Kory tried to heal him, she was likewise blinded. Xej felt uncomfortably random energy fluxating through his body (though it didn't seem to affect his light spell), and Lark was...unhappy. Gondogal, being dead, was not cursed, and Kale didn't seem affected. Kory's curse appeared to be the expulsion of a possessing Pit Fiend. The fiend, an "ally" of the PC's simply gave Kory the "buck up" finger under her chin before scampering off.....mere moments before the stunned paladin could figure out why people weren't killing it. Xej had been the only one to respond, grabbing the staff of law and then realizing that he didn't feel like killing the lawful pit fiend.

Ke'rik was able to cast a blind-sight spell to enable himself to see, and Lark gave his robe of eyes to Kory so that she could see.

Kory, her powers regained, brought Gondogal back to life. Then there was some shuffling of items and a brief but jarring arguement about Xej wanting to destroy a chaotic magical sword and Gondogal trying to stop him, followed by Xej responding to Gondogal's statement that he was chaotic by trying to kill him. Kale managed to convince Gondogal not to leave and desert Xej even though he was affected by the staff. The powerful sword was destroyed.

The party left, were stopped by a wind duke, were escorted back to his home land on Arborea, a wonderul calm lightly forested valley. Here there curse was assessed and they found they had to destroy the rod to break their curse. One of the wind dukes went with them to hold the staff for them as he led them to Mechanus in search of the staff's creator. There, in a strange city where people seemed to speak only through subtle body signals, they determined the petition whose soul was the staff creator had been abducted several months ago.

Chapter 24 - Metal Cubed

The party went to his place where Kory located a personal item of the missing metal worker. With this item, she summoned powerful magic and asked for the location of the blacksmith from her god. Lathander granted her the information, "The Iron Fortress, upon the cube of Koloryla, in the void of Acheron." To the void the party went.

They rested one night, being interrupted at one point by a group of knights that arrived to arrest Kale the blackguard. The party moved to a point of safety and continued resting. Then Kory planeshifted the party to Koloryal. She then used her magic again to windwalk the party and allow them to fly to the keep. The party encountered a few things on their way...a battlefield with wraiths (which they flew around), a deep chasm (which they flew over), and two steel lion like creatures, which they battled.

The battle against the two creatures was quite difficult, and Xej and Kale almost fell, but in the end the party defeated them, healed each other, and continued on their way. They reached the iron fortress and snuck around back. Then Ke'rik turned into a gray mold and melted a tunnel through to a basement wall so the party could take a peak. They saw a great forge room with blistering heat and loud noises, with nearly fifty smiths working various sections of metal and seemingly working on something. There were some guards, a golden dragon like creature, two dwarves with flame covered heads and faces, and a spikey metal person with a short sword.

Deciding to rest before performing the rescue, the party flew 30 miles away to the edge of the cube, and setup camp in a cave.

Chapter 24.5 - Black Dreams

Xej, you are on a blasted landscape of steel that stretches off in every direction. A still lake of red tinged, milky water lays within a massive crater to your right, and it stretches off into the murky darkness of Acheron. You are following the shadow. You have been following it for some time and you are out of breath and sweaty. It hops like lightening from one rocky outcropping to the next, wherever it can find darkness to hide in. You see it jump again and run after it. You know you want this shadow. You run towards the outcropping stumbling on your way. You are expecting to get within 15 feet of it and have the shadow jump again to another further shadow, but instead you see that the steel rocks hide within their shadow a passage that descends down. Light from somewhere casts a blue shimmer upon the sharp metal that lines the inside of the cave. You see the shadow deep within jump again. You descend without another thought. Scrambling from out foothold to the next, you crawl practically straight down in pursuit. You aren�t looking down for the next step and you lose a hand hold. You fall. Instead of bouncing off of sharp edges, the tunnel seems to just open beneath you and you have a short but pleasant fall that ends abruptly. You land upon hard rock, but it�s tilted, and you begin sliding. You are on a ships deck, but the deck panels are petrified to stone. The deck is slanted and you are sliding towards the edge which is missing it�s railings. You slide off of it despite your attempts to not. As you fall, you look around. The landscape beneath you is simply one of refuse. It is refuse of every war machine you have ever, or will ever see. Weapons, ships, catapults, siege towers, spears, zepplins. All lay in destroyed remnants covering the land for as far as you can see. You look down and see spears, axes, and spike covered machinery below you. Somehow you land between then, your cloak and robe ripping as they catch on sharp protrusions, and you slam to the ground, quickly raising to your feet.

And you still see the shadow. You continue to chase it. As you pick your way through the ruined, petrified garbage, you pass by creatures. Some you don�t know, but some you do. Kory looks up from picking through the garbage, and smiles and nods as you pass by. Lark stands menacingly and cross armed before you, but you walk by him as he turns to stone, like all of the petrified stuff in this place. Soon you come to the remnants of a huge ship that the shadow hops into. You give chase and find yourself within a great galleon, mostly intact and even upright, except for gapping holes here and there. A large hallway leads to a large room with a well within it�s center. The shadow jumps into it. You run forward and look into the well but see nothing but inky darkness. You jump in.

It�s like you are seeing yourself from the outside now. You are wearing tightly wrapped clothes beneath your shredded cloak that ripples along behind you. Your eyes look dark, shadowed so much that you can not see them. You face is dark and serious. You are falling, your arms stretched above your head and your legs out straight. All is darkness, but somehow you see, and what you see is the air around your body is simply filled shards of metal and ice that slice through the darkness at deadly speed, criss-crossing and colliding and shattering each other into more needle like shards that fire off into the darkness. A few rip into your body as you fall, but you begin to twist and flip and roll in the air somehow avoiding a majority of the damage. And then you straighten out again as you see the ground beneath you approaching quickly, a massive black, jagged surface on which you land with a crunch, falling into a roll and avoiding yet more shards that shatter across the ground. You see the shadow ahead, now moving freely in this dark place, running through this death rain of ice and steel needles. You follow and magic begins to flow from your hands, raising shields of magic to protect you from the shards as you run forward, and then you see the shadow leap into a deep pit. You run forth deflecting death with your magic, and leap into the pit. A short fall and you land at the bottom, only a few feet down. Both hands raise to form a shield above you and protect the bottom of the pit from more shards of death.

Then you are within your body again, looking down out of your own eyes, at the dark surface. It is ice, black ice, and your breath plumes from your mouth in this cold place. The cold does not bother you. Looking down at the black ice beneath you, you suddenly realize you are looking at a face. A woman, her pale face with eyes open are locked in the ice beneath you, staring up at you. Her jet black hair is floating about her head, as if she were floating in water, instead of locked in ice. Her eyes speak of deep sorrow, a sadness born of great love, and it pierces your heart. He voice is in your mind, "Bring me back, take me from this dark place, help me from this icy prison in which I lie, help me, please". You place your hands upon the ice and will your magic forth, the ice begins to melt, turning straight into a white gas that fills the air around you. The gas seems to take forms of faces of beings that circle around you and whisper to you, a plethora of voices speaking at once, "Do you remember? The house on the hill, my family lived there. Who am I? Please help me find myself? And then I kissed him, and it was exciting. Where am I? It was my first big deal, 12 horses to the champlain, my 12 finest." You press on, feeling sad for the voices, but knowing that they are only shadows. Then the edge of the ice melts away from her forehead and she seems to move like liquid through that small hole and appears before you, somehow bigger than you, her hair waving in the air as if a perpetual wind were sweeping it up. "Thank you my love, my Xej." Her sadness tinged eyes seem happy for a moment as she smiles. "Let us leave this place, I have stayed locked in this darkness long enough," and she takes your hand in hers and you feel the most intense love and admiration for her that you have ever felt.

You wake within the iron cave, Kale sleeps nearby while others read. A feeling of love still flows through your body and you laugh out loud for no reason. The others glance at you, worried.

Chapter 25 - A Hot Time

The party's rest was disturbed by an ambush. A group of half a dozen hell hounds and four fire giants ambushed the party. Xej and Kale were particularly mauled (again), but with a MASSive healing effort by Kory, the party came out victorious. They then quickly plane shifted to Arborea to be safe from further harassment.

After seventeen hours of resting (and identifying items), the party planeshifted back to Acheron, and then teleported to their cave in the iron fortress. It had apparently been filled in with melted iron, and so they made a new hole. As they were making a longer, larger hole down to the floor of the basement (rather than 20 feet up), they were spotted by a steel lion creature who ran for assistance. The party quickly breached the wall 20 feet up and attacked into the forge room.

Even though the forge room had burning hot steel floors and walls and intense heat, the party had protected itself with magic and leapt into the fray, powered up with powerful magic. They made very quick work of the two Azers and two Dragonnes, and quickly chased after the fleeing spikey iron warrior. A symbol of hopelessness had dehabilitated Kory and Kale so it was only Gondogal and Xej who chased the creature up the stairs where it opened a double door revealing two more symbols, and two large iron gaurdians. It then turned to face it's attackers. Gondogal was wracked in pain by one of the symbols, and his three summoned Howlers began to bicker and fight with each other.

With Kale and Kory doing nothing, whimpering in despair, lances of hot pain ripping through Gondogal, his three howlers bickering and yelping at those around them, Xej, a battle machine with spells of rock and stone on him, and Ke'rik and Lark guarding the entrance, we left the party, breath held.

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