Reflections

Chapter 6 - Into the Underdark

Scene: a mountain is the cold blasted north. The snow and wind howls in the barren lifeless wastelands that lead up to the frozen jagged mountains that jut out of the earth like giagantic pointed teeth. Deep inside the the heart of the mountain where it is warmed by the nearness of magma and sulphuric fumes, a beast nearly as old as the mountain itself lays dormant. But something has awoken it. Something stirring in the fabric of it's reality has disturbed it's rest. It's eyes open and from it's fiery maw comes a growl so deep and foreboding that the very mountain itself begins to shake.

Scene: deep underground in the pitch blackness of the earth a group of six powerful heroes slowly descend deeper and deeper into the earth through cramped and treacherous tunnels.

The party traveled through the huge doorway to the underdark and found themselves in a markedly different location in respect to the next staff section. They journeyed down the large carved passage and passed a small natural looking tunnel on their right, and went into the next tunnel on their left (the direction of the staff peice). This tunnel slowly descended into the pitch blackness and they had to pick their way slowly and carefully past a miriad of natural formations and obstacles. Using magic and their vast talents, they had no issues with any of these obstacles and continued steadily downwards towards their goal.

Their journey was hindered as they encountered some driders, half drow, half spider abominations cursed by their god. They party easily slew two and continued on. They entered an area of darkness and another had been laying in wait. A battle of magic and swords erupted as the party came against a bunch of very large spider creatures led by two driders. The fight was quick however and the one drider managed to flee, with Elric chasing it.

With the rest of the party unable to determine where Elric and the drider ran to, they struck off down the passage hoping that the drider had been chased the way they were going. In fact, it had fled backwards. Elric followed it for sometime before it finally had to stop from being exausted and he caught up. A rather pathetic battle between two mages occured, Elric slipping in and out of the ethereal plane and both protected by magic, they were unable to hurt each other and eventually the two realized their stalemate and disengaged. Elric returned to the party who eventually stopped and waited for him a couple hours of travel later.

They continued on and encountered some fungus that screeched as they neared them. They left them alone and continued on. They encountered some Skum creatures and killed them easily before any could escape. They continued on deeper into the underdark and encountered some more screacher fungus, but used a silence spell to handle that. They continued on...

Chapter 7 - The Gates of the Dead

Scene: An underground lake smothered in thick fog. Everything is shrouded in complete darkness. As one moves through the lake, part of the fog seems to begin glowing. Moving towards it, the fog actually begins to thin and as you emerge from the fog you are greeted with an impressive sight. Fifty feet from where the fog ends, the lake also ends in a sandy beach that slopes up to a massive carved wall forty feet high. Four massive pillars ten feet around, carved from the stone themselves and wrapped in carvings of massive snakes, flank an engraved stone door twelve feet high and ten feed wide. Covering the beach, which spans over 100 feet across and is fifty feet deep to the back wall, is a horde of skeltal creatures. They stand, unmoving, staring with their vacant eyes, over half with bows all drawn and pointed towards the lake of fog. They stand, a patient, everlasting guardian to the gateway behind them.

The party continued on for some time, and eventually came to a large cave where they spotted some large furry creatures hiding on the far side. Zendrak charged across, his sword drawn, ready for battle. The creatures were fast, large, and skilled. With batlike faces and huge ears they looked rather fearsome. They used staff/cudgel like weapons with grace and skill. The battle was short but very deadly.

The mages unleashed powerful lightening and fire upon the enemy and Zendrak. Somehow they survived but were horribly scorched and wounded. They released screeches of such power that they stunned several party members. Others continued to fight however, and they finished off the strange creatures shortly.

After the battle Zendrak was very angry. He had felt in grave danger during the battle and had the party not been there to keep the beasts from killing him, they might have finished him off very quickly. Angry that he had felt the fear of death after so long, Zendrak refused to continue. They party reasoned with him however and agreed that less gung-ho tactics might be in order,perhaps a little caution. Zendrak cursed the lack of fighters in the party but bitterly agreed to continue and not run directly into battle.

The group then came to an underground lake covered in fog. Elric used a spell and sent forth a dozen tiny floating eyes to spy out the area for them, and when they returned they revealed to him the scene of the gates of the dead. The party decided to rest and they planned for an attack from a boat in the water.

The next day, rested and ready with more magic, they struck out invisibly across the lake. When they reached the far side they unleashed a massive magical attack on the beach of undead. Skeletons were destroyed en-masse as fire and electricity ripped through their ranks. Lark raised a semi-visible field and the arrows began raining down upon it from the shore. Then things started to go bad.

The battle was lengthly. The fog itself attacked the party, tentacles from the water attacked the party, and an undead leader of some sort was dispelling the groups magic. The snakes on the pillars came alive and attacked as well, biting with vicious electricity coursing through their maws. In the end, the party managed to defeat everything with no one getting really badly injured. The closest to come to dying was Kral when the snakes chomped on him.

They moved on through the doors, down the passage, found a mine with some human slaves, rested for a while, found another smaller lake and an aboleth inside which they managed to slay very quickly. Under the water they found another passage, so they moved under the water using magic and after an hour of traveling confronted a gigantic aboleth and a purple worm. The worm was killed very quickly by a hold spell and coup-de-grace, but the aboleth caused more damage before being slain by the group. Several members were diseased by it's hit, but they used magical healing to take care of it.

Inside the aboleth's gut they found the next part of the staff. They took it and left the water. There, after a short discussion, Elric was going to give up his staff part to Zendrak, but when they got too close, the peice they had just found flashed and vanished in an instant. The party, without the staff peice they had just fought so hard to get, then saw the approach of a creature down the dark tunnel.

Chapter 8 - Rather Expected Treachery

The flame licked body of a demon approached from down the hall while the party hid and prepared. Then the demon entered the room, but another invisible demon hiding in the darkness above dropped down and attacked Zendrak. An extended fight took place. The large demon turned out to be an illusion, but the small invisible demon turned out to be very nasty. It fought with wicked poisoned weapons and hurt Zendrak very badly. As well, it powerfully dispelled magic at a glance and used it viciously. It managed to take on the whole party, slaying Elric with poison, before it was finally forced to flee. Lark ran after it, but then it was Demios' turn.

Demios took this moment to betray the party. Masked in powerful magic he attacked the heavily injured Zendrak who immediatly began to withdraw. The party turned to concentrate on him. He seemed to be attacking Zendrak, and demanded the rod part from him, until the dog ran over to Elric and grabbed it from Elric's fallen body. Demios suddenly realized that Zendrak's peice had teleported away and Elric had the peice he wanted. In a blinding flash he appeared next to the dog, knocked the staff piece from it's grasp, then bent over and grabbed it. The dog gave him a nip for his troubles.

Before he could teleport away however, Zendrak charged him and with two massive strikes from his sword Demios fell. As his destroyed body fell to the ground however, his backpack exploded with a mass of 40 kobolds. Lark let lightning rip through a patch of them but couldn't get them all with the bady hurt Zendrak standing amongst them. One of them grabbed the body and used a magic item to teleport away with the body.

The party spent a while trying to teleport or magically follow the kobold but were unable to and eventually used wind walk to speed their way back to Demios' caves. They descended, expecting a demon but not finding one, and instead found the kobolds and Demios's home which had libraries, experimentation rooms, and labs, as well as nicely appointed rooms. They interrogated the kobolds who said that they were instructed to place his dead body, if he ever died, inside a casket with piles and piles of insects, worms, and maggots, and close the box, which then disappeared. The party was confused, but sure that Demios would be back they looted his place and left.

They went further south, following the staff, and ended up in a swamp. Deep in the swamp was a ruin covered island where they were close enough to the rod that they could no longer locate it. As they decided to rest, a massive black dragon rose from the dank water and confronted them. They fled.

Arriving in the Calimshan port of Manshaka, they found an Inn and rested for a day. This enabled Kral, whose magic had been dispelled by the demon, to again speak with the party, as well as others around them. They reenergized, healed, and ate some good food. Then, using teleportation, Zendrak and Lark took Elric's body back to Cormyr to revive Elric. There, they requested the priests to assist them, and Elric was revived. Zendrak also hired an armorer to make some magical dragon scale armor for him. They also checked in with the researchers who said they'd found out how to join together peices of the staff, using Glyphs to prevent them from teleporting away. They also said that with some glyphs, the peices could be removed from this plane.

Armed with this new information, and their ally brought back to life, they sat down to decide what to do next.

Chapter 9 - Of Monks and Men

Zendrak has taken a short detour and left Lark by himself for a couple days. When he returned, it was with several other companions: Kory, Xej, Slade, Brackus, Gondagal and Ferras. Before much else could happen, the bunch of them were summoned by the crown prince Galaghard to the capital of Arabel. Wolanin, Slade and Gondagal all immediatly took their leave to go take care of private business.

They were brought to Arabel by Vandehaur, the 2nd seat of the Mages Council of Cormyr (Xej being the first). They then had a private meeting with the Prince, after he cleared the court of visitors. The prince was distraught and unhappy about the Keepers lack of commitment to Cormyr. He was young, inexperienced, and needed assistance, yet the people his father told him to trust the most were never around! The party apologized and explained they were busy saving the world. The king was unimpressed, imaginging they make some such vague excuse.

Getting right down to business, Galaghard told the party about an army of orcs and goblins laying seige to Castle Crag. Apparently it is lead by some "orc sent by the gods" or something, as well as having an elf woman who is helping him. The strange new put the party a little on edge. As well, apparently Chondath has been spying on the Cormyr in increased and more obvious manners, and finally Sembia is getting rather hostile towards Cormyr. Xej remarked that his seemed similiar to when the Gyshin were invading and causing political mayhem, he urged the king to seek an outside influence to be causing all of this.

Both the prince and Vandehaur seemed a little angry at the pc's for being absent in this time of need, but the party briefly pointed to their quest against the Chaos Queen as their reason. Still, he expected some help, so Zendrak, Brackus, and Ferras all volunteered to go to castle Crag and help take care of this orc army. Xej and Kory both thought this Chaos Queen needed some attention, and of course Lark was with them on that. That left only Elric who told the king he would remain at court to help him make his important decisions and guide him for a while.

With the king temporarily pleased, the party left in all directions, Vandehaur using magic to take the three warriors to the seige. Xej, Kory, and Lark took some time to question the Chondathan spies and then were called back to the throne room. Here, several warriors, the king, and a man in robes were waiting. The man in robes immediatly demanded the staff peice from the party, specifically from Lark. Xej was very flippant and forthright with the man, telling him no, and asking him to leave. The man then leapt forward and, moving at a blinding speed, moved across 60 feet of floor and slammed his fist into Lark chest before anyone could react. Lark felt his heart constrict, as if a fist had closed over it. The man leapt back and shouted, "If you don't give it to me, he dies" (motioning to Lark)

Everyone promptly attacked. Spells seemed to dissolve before this man and he did a bit of fighting before fleeing out the window of the castle. Just before he left, he announced, "If the piece is not delivered to Chondath in 2 weeks, he will die."

The man's name was Yous, an emissary from Chondath apparently. The party, seeking the solution to Lark's constricted heart, asked around. Apparently a Miracle could help him, but Tyr did not grant it to him after the head priest tried to call up the miracle. Looking for another solution, Xej, Kory and Lark headed to the wise dragon Alarra. She suggested taking him to a magic dead area for a couple weeks, where the supernatural monk's "Quivering Palm" would not be able to effect him and eventually dissipate. With that plan, they led Lark to a swamp and left him there, in a small magic dead area. Xej and Kory then traveled far to the south to find out more about this Yous. In Chondath they stopped and asked around. Apparently Yous is an enigmatic, powerful, mercenary type monk who works for those with "Just cause", or some such nonsense. Before the could leave Chondath, they were "invited" to meet with the ruler there.

They met him, and Xej was a little flippant to him. The man, ruler of all the shining sea and one of the most powerful nations on Faerun was...miffed, and informed Xej that they did not trust Cormyr with the peice of the staff, and that Chondath would deal with this matter and expected the staff peice delivered to them.

Xej and Kory then continued on and met up with Kral and Marrienne in Calimshan. The four of them traveled via teleport back north to Lark in the swamp's magic dead area. By now, 8 days had passed since the others had gone to the seige at castle Crag. Xej decided to check up on them.

Eight days previous: Zendrak, Ferras, and Brackus all arrived and learned that early that day the Lord of the castle has been slain on an all out attack to kill the orc's leader. The castle was dangerously low on men because of the offensive. Apparently the elf woman was capable of firing arrows and slaying enemies from extreme distances and even if they are behind cover. She had been targeting mages and leaders. As well, the orc leader was extremely powerful in combat, slaying any who stood before him. The three decided a sneak attack on the camp was in order.

Using two war mages and a war cleric, all of fairly high level, the six flew invisibly around the army and to the main command tents. They teleported into the main one and found some leaders talking, but no elf and king orc. They then explored some nearby tents and found them sleeping. Before they could attack however, they were detected somehow and the battle ensued.

An EPIC *wink wink* battle ensued. The party tried to protect the tent from soldiers with walls of stone, while others went for the elf's bow, and Zendrak went straight for the orc. As the orc and elf were waking, the party chewed into them, though Ferras refused to attack the two unarmed and fought soldiers instead. Then the orc got to his swords. He was still unarmored and missing several of his magical defenses, but he was mad. Meanwhile, the elven woman managed to disarm Brackus and retreive her bow, and have her arrows scattered all over the ground. She was able to pick up a couple a round and start shooting.

The tide of the battle turned here, with the archer unleashing, more soldiers entering the tent, and the mages and cleric being dropped. Zendrak and the orc were just slamming into each other, their huge massive magical weapons dealing out blows that would slay any normal man but that were only heavily wounding each other. Ferras leapt in to help but the orc cut him down, and Brackus leapt into help, but two arrows thudded into his skull and he dropped. With a final bought of deadly swings, just before the orc could do the same to Zendrak, Zendrak cut down the huge warrior. Then, he quickly grabbed the bodies of Ferras and Brackus and called upon his amulet to planeshift him away.

Zendrak appeared on the outlands, an infinite distance from his intended target, Sigil. Heavily injured, he drank a few healing potions and considered his options.

Chapter 10 - Oh, the dragon left, how lucky!

Zendrak used magic to eventually return to Faerun where he appeared in the middle of a desert. Unable to make good headway dragging two bodies, he took Ferras' dragon armor, put them in a tent, and flew off without them. He was far far to the south east, south of even Mulhorand, and sometime later Xej and the others contacted him and came to help. They all returned to the desert and after four days of using magic to search for the bodies, they located the partial remains of Brackus.

They investigated a little more before Xej used powerful magic to seek answers on another plane. This revealed that Ferras was wholly consumed. Gone. Taking the dwarf remains back, they wind walked three days across the surface of Faerun. Here, Marriene had gone, and left a note for Zendrak who also promptly left. Elric was also gone off on some task, but Gondagal had returned and sought to stay with Xej. Abdi, a friend Zendrak has met also stayed with the party.

They checked in with the prince who was fairly brief with them, and then the visited Lark who was thoroughly muddy, wet, cold and depressed. Abdi promised to take care of him, running off to get him food and warm dry supplies on a regular basis. The others meanwhile all went south to try and investigate the dragon. Two days later they arrived in Calimshan.

Using magic to conceal them in every way they could, and traveling as walking mist, they moved about the ruins of the dragons, deep within the great swamp. They could detect no magic but found a large opening into a underground lair. They retreated to consider their options. They decided to sit and wait for the dragon to leave and then investigate his lair. Their familiars all flew off to spy on the entrance while they thought of other options. Seemingly on queue, five minutes later, the dragon left and flew off to the east. Their familiars entered the dragon's cave and surprisingly located the staff peice. There were elementals guarding the lair, but the familiars stole and ran and the PC's fled for a safe area far away from the dragon's cave.

They found a forested area, near a cliff with a waterfall about a hundred and fifty miles away, and sat down so that Xej could perform the magic to make it safe to combine the two peices of the staff they had. They did so with success and Kory took the peice back from him. A ripple shuddered across their camp. They discussed what to do next, their options with Chondath and the orders from the prince to relinquish their part to Yous. Then the attack came.

From the cliff top, the wolf-spider demons came pouring over the edge and attacked the party. A small strike force of 10 lesser demons, two commanders, and a leader charged the party. The party managed to defeat the lesser demons quickly, but the leader, concealed in darkness and using illusions to protect himself, was much more of a threat. He dropped Gondagal at one point, but Kory healed him, and the dodged out of the way as a huge boulder slammed into him. He stood up and went back into battle. The leader, seeing he was outnumbered, took this moment to utter a threat of returning, and then vanished.

Next
Back to the table of Contents