Auborean 3,22CR – 7-9-22CR: The party trains at the Hall of Knowledge for one week, improving their skills and abilities for whatever lies ahead.

  

7-10-22 – 7-13-22CR: The party engages in their 2^nd round of fights in the Falgenburg Battle Arena.

  

 

Battle Arena Records, Round 2

Chyann             2-1 (5-1)                     Hali                  1-2 (4-2)

Kaso                3-0 (6-0)                      Balale               2-1 (4-2)

Thentis             3-0 (6-0)                      Severician         2-1 (4-2)

Delsin               0-3 (3-3)

  

Before the party leaves the Hall of Knowledge, Balale is challenged to a duel by another Malo, a sorcerer called Adjatay.  He is a stern, forbidding and tall (6’9) man, shaved bald and without facial hair, but covered in totemic tattoos.  He fights honorably, defeating Balale rather quickly in a “first blood” duel.  While the duel was going on, a Night Eye thief tried to pickpocket Chyann and a huge, chaotic brawl broke out.  Some odd-looking ruffians with very blocky, muscular builds try to kidnap Chyann, but after a chase through the alleys they are thwarted by the party and the Falgenburg city guard.

The group returns to Lord Ichthien to see if he can offer any further assistance.  He has sent feelers out, but has not received more than rumors.  He knows that Miarch is involved, thanks to the party sharing the letters they found.  Since they have done this, he is able to probe more deeply.  The only hot rumor he has is that a suspicious caravan passed some significant bribes to corrupt gatekeepers at the South Gate two days after Katje was kidnapped.  The stated destination for this caravan, registered with the “Clay Cat Company” (an obvious pseudonym), was Urgor City, but Ichthien suspects they are not going so far south, since they were reportedly traveling light, for a merchant caravan.  His contact Borsk at the South Gate can gave the party a more thorough description (eight men, a caravan driver, two horses and a single covered wagon that was NOT searched or inventoried by the guards on duty that night).

The party spends some hard-earned cash and treasure at the better shops of the Merchant’s District, upgrading their spells, armor, weapons and items for the journey ahead.

Severician’s secret contacts provide more exact information. They tell her Miarch has kidnapped his mark, the girl Katje.  She is a priestess of Jenoic, but only a novice, and she has dabbled in magic.  Miarch and seven of his trusted retainers are traveling south towards the Mossback Mountains, moving mostly at night.  What they intend to do with the girl is unknown, but Severician’s contact assumes that they will blackmail Biotras into leaving them and their associates alone by bargaining with her life. 

Finally a message from Biotras arrives.  He has been forced into hiding south in UrgorCity or thereabouts, and intends to meet the party as they approach the Mossbacks.  The party is a bit skeptical and suspicious of his claims, but they arrive at a consensus to travel and meet him at the rendezvous south and east of Strudoor.  They enlist the help of the Salgeror Dwarf clan, a group of ten stout warriors, whose captain is Atli Salgeror.  Further, a young female mage called Janiver is hired from the Hall of Knowledge.  With these allies gathered, the party heads south. 

 

7-14-22 – 7-17-22CR: The party heads south towards the Mossback Mountains.  The southern road is safer than the road to Jordheim, as long as the party stays on the road or just off it.  The journey takes 2 days due south on the road, at the end of the first day the rests in the township of Strudoor, a farming and fishing satellite town of Falgenburg.  The best inn is Arinna’s Light, run by Sagirah, a retired lady paladin (Thentis knows the place).  They serve Saradhassan cuisine (spicy or mild) and fresh iced drinks.  The décor inside is stucco walls and marble tiled floors, with comfortable beds and a large pub area for food service. 

After 3 days’ travel, the party travels east, just before they come over the final hill before the town of Dolen Downs.  This leads them into the foothills of the Mossbacks, where they are surprised to find Biotras healthy and well, waiting for them.

On the first night’s march up into the Mossbacks, the party takes rest in a small cave.  There, they have a strange dream; likely a prophetic one:  

The group seemed to awaken, wherever it is they fell asleep.  All around them is gray mist.  When someone moves off to investigate, they will find a cobblestone path lined with willow trees, leading to a forest clearing with eight standing stones.

A woman appears to them, parting a nearby oak tree with her hands and stepping out of it.  She is a tall woman of indeterminate racial characteristics and age.  Her skin is light, and her hair is red-brown with purple highlights.  Her lips are full and soft, and her face has fine, pleasing features not unlike a handsome Moridarian woman’s.  She wears a deep purple gem-encrusted gown, and a platinum tiara of amethysts.  Her feet are not visible, and she floats just above the ground, leaving no footprints.  She does not introduce herself.

 

She kisses each party member on the forehead, except for Thentis, who shakes his head “no.”  After this, she a lapis lazuli goblet and crystal decanter, and offers each person a drink from them.  All but Thentis drink from the goblet.

After the drinks, she gesticulates in the air, drawing a large circle of flowing red/purple energy in front of her.  Inside this circle, an image of the Planet from space appears, and it morphs slowly into the face of a beautiful young Malo woman, with short brown hair and shiny cheeks.  Delsin recognizes this face as an actual painting that he saw in Aerendale once, at an art gallery… it is an artist’s interpretation of the Goddess Shandae. 

“The Planet is dreaming.  She is lucid, but not awake.  Her lucidity frightens her, so she takes a flesh shell, but without understanding.  How can one contain a Goddess in so small a body?”

“What will she do when the flesh betrays?”

“What will YOU do?”

She gesticulates some more, and the image of Shandae’s face grows distorted and ugly, as though she is sneering or smelling something distasteful.  The image morphs into an expression of happiness, then of sexual ecstasy.  Finally, it appears sad and hopeless, and tears flow down her cheeks, creating ripples in the flat image that smudge it like a chalk sidewalk drawing.  The smudged colors morph into an image of an eight-point buck deer, and then an arrow flies from behind the party, into the image and strikes the deer in the forehead.  It bleeds profusely, and the energy ring fills with blood-colored light.  Any who took a full drink from the goblet finds that they bleed from their eyes during this, but there is no pain.

The woman in purple produces white silk cloths from her pockets, and offers them to all who are bleeding.

She appears sad, and says “I can show you what was, and much of the old relics and peoples of the world, but NOT what will be.  Here is one whose flesh failed, and yet endured.”  She spins the purple energy into a whip like instrument, then spirals it around quickly and the wind picks up, creating a swirling silver mist.  From this, an image of a tall male emerges:

A Dreamlord with pale white flesh drawn tight against his bones and long, flowing silver hair appears.  He carries a slim, slightly curved blade of five ½ feet in length, with a cylindrical handle and small handguard.  He appears angry, and advances upon the characters; he screams “We are ALL GAIANS, are we not!” as he attacks, drawing with amazing speed and slicing clean through all of them.

The woman drops sparkling green dust from her hand.  As the dust covers the ground, a flowering vine begins to grow at an impossibly rapid pace, until it has twisted gently around the standing stones and the clearing.  She says, “Thoughts and beliefs are like flowers.”

 

The flowers:

1: large green buds, out of which dozens of tiny multicolored five-petal flowers sprout.  They smell sweet and vaguely of honey and apples.

2: red, orange and white carnation-like flowers.  They smell of cinnamon and cardamom.

3: delicate, powder blue to pale bluish/white rose-like flowers with thick petals.  They smell like blueberries and oddly of cucumber.

4: sturdy white sixteen-petal daisy-like flowers, with a stripe of deep, bright blue down their centers towards the middle of the flower.  They smell of sandalwood and maple.

5: drooping, soft black and grey-flecked four-petal “bells” with long, delicate white pistils.  They have a very faint aroma of saffron.

6: small green buds that blossom into a 2-inch round, wine-colored berry.  A small six-petal flower of fuzzy yellow surrounds the berries.  They smell of lemon and raspberry, and taste sweet with a pleasantly tart juiciness.

7: the vine produces fine strands of hundreds of thin green leaves, an herb-like growth that smells of onion, ginger and mint combined.  These strands grow in bunches, and are soft as baby’s hair.

8: indeterminate, this portion of the vine seems rotten and yellowed, with brown spots of smut and rot all over.  A few tiny bits of green bud can be seen, but they clearly will not grow and will be infected with whatever rot this part of the vine has.  Some dried brown eight-petal flowers are collected on the ground where the vine grows.

9: double-size black orchids, so dark they seem to absorb light.  They smell of hickory smoke.

10: indeterminate, the flowers on this portion of the vine have been burned to ash.  The vine is charred and withered where the flowers were burned off.  Seeds can be seen on the ground where the vine grows, and they glow like tiny embers.

Finally, the lady herself begins to shimmer with purple energy, and discorporate.  She slowly morphs into a ghostly purple specter of herself, and brandishes the “whip” of energy.  The willow trees surrounding the clearing whip about and shake like they are shivering from the inside. 

All becomes formless purple-silver mist, and then a loud CRACK of her whip rings out.  Suddenly, the adventurers are all standing on a motionless, apparently endless sea, at dawn.  Then, the sea rises up in a slow, but steadily rising tsunami, and the characters are powerless to move.  As it breaks over them, the water turns to blue stained glass of multiple shades, and millions of tiny facets, and shatters.

The dream ends abruptly and they party is ambushed by a group of Ogre marauders, part of Miarch’s band.  They kill two of the ogres and drive off the rest.  Though certain Miarch now knows they are coming, they agree to continue on the perilous trek into the ravine where Biotras suspects the marauder base is located.

 

7-18-22CR: In the shadows of a deep ravine and with a rushing river 500 feet below on their right, the party bravely assaults Miarch’s fortress.  Using stealth and good pre-planning, they manage to disable many perimeter defenses and even turn some to their own use, including a turrent-mounted rotating slugthrower sentry cannon.  Miarch, desperate to stop their advance, commits the whole of his marauder force to destroying the party.  The Battle of Two Waterfalls is joined (so named for the twin falls that are adjacent to the bridge across the ravine into the marauder fortress), and many casualties are suffered on both sides.  The wizard Janiver is killed by a vicious kru’kaal blade tossed by an ogre skirmisher, and more than half the Salgeror dwarf company falls to the marauders’ defenses in the battle at the canyon.  Though many of the PCs take wounds, none are killed.  Miarch alone retreats back into the fortress, setting up his last stand alone against the party’s might.  The psychotic assassin’s last stand proves deadly, as he defends the main hall with elemental traps and his remaining clockwork beasts.  Several more dwarves, including party favorite Hugan Salgeror, fall to him, but the party surrounds and kills him at the last, with the battle balancing on a knife-edge.  After the battle, only three dwarves remain alive: Atli himself, and Venar and Tonrus, two axemen.

Looting the now uninhabited marauder citadel, they come upon the captive Katje, apparently unharmed.  She has no clue what the marauders intended for her, and the group and Biotras’ worst fears about her treatment proved to be unfounded.  The citadel is thoroughly looted, and many tens of thousands of GP worth of treasure belonging to various temples, guilds and organizations in Falgenburg are recovered.  Further, a fully functional tinker’s workshop and other amenities are discovered.  The party decides to claim the base for themselves as a working headquarters.

 

7-19-22 – 7-20-22CR: The group decides to transport the looted treasures back to Falgenburg.  Their plan is to leave some of the party to guard the citadel (now claimed as their own headquarters) while others return to the city with the recovered goods.  Thentis, Hali, Biotras, Chyann and the three dwarves are to head back to the City and arrange transport up the river, while Delsin, Kaso, Katje, Severician and Balale remain.

Searching further below the main citadel, those who stay behind discover an old stair leading down into a vast hollow spherical cavern, which seems to have been hollowed out many years ago by water.  A clear, cold underground lake of pure spring water dominates the cavern, and the stairs lead down to its pebble-covered shores.  In the center of the lake is an island, with a pile of human, hobgoblin and other skulls arranged in a neat pile.  A strange carved sculpture, sort of a “Y” shape, stands next to the skull pile.  Severician swims out to the island and is nearly killed by an exploding trap when she moves the skulls off the pile; she is saved by Katje, who swims swiftly to her and heals her of burns before she expires.  Under the skull pile is a metal plate with a strange indentation.  Unsure what to make of this, and overcome by a sense of despair and evil that seems to emanate from the island, they return to the surface and prepare to leave.

On the morning of the 20^th, as the city-goers depart over the bridge, the already exhausted group is attacked by a vile nightmare creature, which bursts through the eastern waterfall to block their passage over the bridge.  It is a dragon-like serpent, with a feathered mane of purple and black.  Its primary colorings are red, purple, black and blue.  Its tail is prehensile and can impale & throw victims; its fangs are poisonous with confusion venom, and it uses sorcerous magic.  Poor Atli is impaled and dashed upon the rocks of the deep ravine by this creature killing him instantly; the creature’s claws and fangs severely wound Biotras as well.  In fact, the creature seems highly intelligent and knows of Biotras, even speaking his name in a slithering hiss.  Luckily, the full might of the party plus Biotras and Katje are available to stand against this monster.  Though emotionally and physically exhausted, the party will not yield to this horror, and with a tremendous group effort they smite their foe, with Kaso delivering the final blow from his position astride the creature’s neck, and Chyann having struck it a serious blow by severing its tail-barb. 

Severician eagerly steps forward to drain its essence into her dagger, and accomplishes this, though the beast nearly kills her in its death throes (twice in two days she has almost perished).  The beast’s corpse might have been worth looting in and of itself, but Severician’s dagger causes its body to rot and spill its entrails and liquefy, rendering all but its razor sharp fangs useless.  The 24-inch fangs are taken by Chyann, who believes she may be able to fashion them into a 2-bladed weapon.

The other notable prize from the beast’s body is a strange amulet, attached by sharp studs directly to its forehead scales, which matches the indentations of the odd metal plate in the cavern below the citadel.  The group pries the amulet off the creature’s head for further study. 

 

7-21-22 – 7-24-22CR: On the road back north to Falgenburg, Chyann and the others encounter a strange fellow called Freeman, who speaks to them in an oddly obtuse but threatening way.  He seems to know who they are and what their business is.  Since he makes no hostile move, they part ways with him and return to the city safely to arrange transportation in the form of the House Dragomir merchant fleet.  The boats sail south down the river to Strudoor, where they load the wagons of recovered goods into their holds.  Here the party is returned to full strength, as Biotras had placed spells of warding on their new headquarters (the marauder citadel) and convinced the party to travel upriver together.

All seems to be going well, when two odd occurrences take place.  Then the group arrives at Strudoor they find four odd, confused men wandering around the boats and docks searching for something.  When questioned, these men seem almost as children, not knowing even their own names or the proper names of any nearby places.  They are simpleminded and foolish, but apparently innocent of any wrongdoing.  They even have a good-natured interaction with Kaso, who attempts to teach them the finer points of Bandy.  After a lengthy discussion of what to do about these unexpected by seemingly harmless interlopers, the party agrees to leave them in the care of Sagirah, the priestess of the Temple of Arinna in Strudoor.  With no time to waste, and a sense that their enemies might try to disrupt the return of goods north up the river, the party departs.

The travel upriver is peaceful until the boats are within two miles of the city.  In the afternoon of the 24^th, the river-gates of Falgenburg appeared on the horizon to the north.  Between the party and the city, one final challenge lay.  At the final crossing-bridge, a blockade had been set up by Freeman and two odd-looking men, similar to those who tried to kidnap Chyann back in the City some weeks earlier. 

As the party approaches the bridge, Freeman activates a series of three gems set into odd golden tripods.  One each of these is set across each side of the river, and the other in the center of the bridge.  Once activated, they create a triangular field of darkness across the river, into which the boats are directly sailing.  Unsure of what might occur should the boats pass through this shadowy field, the party disembarks and meets Freeman and the two odd men on the shores of the river near the bridge.  The “men” burst from their skins in a blast of entrails and blood and emerge as “Daegoroth,” called so by Biotras.  They appear as some horrible cross between Slaad (toad-like creatures from the plane of Limbo) and some manner of doglike, clawed demon.  A fierce battle ensues, but the party triumphs and drives Freeman off, (he teleports away when things turn sour for his force).  Unfortunately, during the course of the battle Delsin advanced too close to the melee fighting and has his throat cut by the claws of one daegoroth, killing him instantly. 

Now the party returns triumphant to the city, battered but unbowed by the deadly efforts of their many foes.  Of immediate concern is the resurrection of Delsin and the return of plundered goods to the many temples and guilds, and merchant houses of the city, as well as further investigation into the doings of their allies and enemies:

 

• Why and how was the city infiltrated, and how were travel-gates constructed inside the city without the knowledge of the High Council of Falgenor?
• What of the artifacts recovered by the party in the Warehouse Yard and returned to Biotras?  He now has these in his possession and clearly did not want to part with them, even when threatened with Katje’s murder.
• What is the nature of the four beings the party left behind at the Temple of Arinna in Strudoor? 
• How shall the group discharge its debt of honor to the Salgeror Clan, who lost eight of their number assaulting Miarch’s citadel in the Mossbacks?
• In what way is the Violet Lady (from the dream) related to these events?  She was instrumental in helping the group to victory in the Mossbacks, warning them of danger and boosting their powers just enough to make a difference.
• What remains to be discovered back at the party’s new headquarters, with the recovery of the wyvern-horror’s amulet that seems to fit that odd metal plate?
• Will the return of plundered wealth bring peace between the rival guilds and temples that once stood so strongly united against external threats?
• Is the man called Freeman the driving force behind these events, or is there some Power yet unrevealed that directs him and whatever remaining forces he has at his disposal?
• Will the party’s claim on their newly conquered HQ be accepted by the regional powers, and some portion of the area surround it be granted them as reward for valor?
• Will Biotras and Ichthien reveal any secrets of gate-lore they may have discovered in the course of their research?  Can Volgaren’s inert Gatestone be reactivated and used in some way?

 

"It is a brave act of valor to condemn death, but where life is more terrible than death, it is then the truest valor to dare to live." -- Sir Thomas Browne, Earth

 

7-24-22CR, evening hours: Delsin is resurrected by Archbishop Adalmut of the Cathedral of Jenoic.  The party is given the Crest of Falgenhart and a heroes’ welcome home.  The group is immediately dubbed “the Heroes of Falgenor” by cheering commoners and grateful merchants and nobles alike.  They are invited to a state dinner for the following night by High Chancellor Delken Sorle.  For the rest of the evening of the 24^th, the party rests and considers its strategic options for the immediate and distant future.

 

7-25-22CR: Thentis and Balale formulate a plan to determine if the party is being scryed or otherwise remotely surveyed.  Because they believe that they are being remotely surveyed, they intentionally mislead their quarry (though they do not know who it is) by wandering conspicuously near a tree known to be embedded with a gate crystal in the Riverwall district.  Thentis and Balale hope this will prove once and for all whether their many enemies are remotely spying on them.  In the early afternoon they discreetly meet with Biotras and Katje, who agree that for the good of all both groups should go their separate ways for the moment.  Katje leaves the party and Biotras agrees to act as though there has been a strain or break in the groups’ relations.

That evening, the heroes enjoy a scrumptious state dinner with the Council of Falgenburg, where they are praised and rewarded for their efforts on behalf of the city.  They formally incorporate as the Twin Falls Company and gain the deed to their lands, which reach a quarter mile into the mountains each direction, plus the ravine and all forest lands 3 miles south of the Twin Falls, 1 mile west.  The border of their lands is 100 yards west of the old ogre cave.  They pay 5000gp for the privilege of ownership, and agree to pay yearly taxes of 1000gp in deference to the authority of the Council and the nation of Falgenor.

 

7-26-22 – 8-2-22CR: The heroes return to the Falgenburg Hall of Knowledge for more training.  They experience a week of intense physical, mental and psychic training, and engage in Battle Arena tier fights for tokens:

 

Battle Arena Records, Round 3

Chyann 2-1 (7-2)                      Hali                  3-0 (7-2)

Kaso                3-0 (9-0)                      Balale               3-0 (7-2)

Thentis             3-0 (9-0)                      Severician         2-1 (6-3)

Delsin               2-1 (5-4)                      Katje*              2-1 (2-1)

 

*Katje is not in the party; her records are being kept for posterity while still relevant

 

The Heroes of Falgenor