The fog of the battle with Ilthane is still wearing off as the party has regrouped in the Whispering Cairn. Andan having entered a quieter space, shares with the group that he sussed a message from the final breaths of Ilthane and they plummeted to her death. In Common interspersed with an unintelligible draconic, she had gurgled a hateful, spiteful message that “Dragotha was not thwarted in his plans to bring on the age of worms by Andan’s friends’. Just because they stopped the coming of the age of worms in the free city does not change anything. Dragotha will destroy you all and the age of worms will come!” Vasco and Naboros puzzled over what it was they may have stopped, but Andan realizes, having read the Apostolistic Scrolls in becoming a Wormhunter, that a mass sacrifice was the intent of the creation of the Apostle of Kyuss. Vasco had heard the name Dragotha, but only a kids story, a simple myth, of an ancient undead dragon from way beyond the legendary White Plume Mountain. Vasco never had an inkling that there was any literal truth to those kinds of stories. Ilthane puts this into considerable doubt.
Having chatted about kids fables and, the party decides to rest before they proceed, giving Vasco a chance to recover his spells. They hear wolves and the sounds of creatures outside, but are not disturbed until late in the rest when another swarm of acid beetles arrives in the room. They are exactly the same type encountered in the Whispering Cairn months ago when they had first visited it, but were much more insignificant a problem for the 11th level party. When the resting was done, Andan looks at the gelatinous portal through which what they presume are Allustan’s tracks proceed, and walks through himself. Those left in the room see a terrible flashing of his body, his lifeforce blinking in and out four times. Andan makes it through the portal, but collapses on the other side, having suffered 4 levels of energy drain. Yldar examines the portal, realizes it is trapped and manages to disable it, a blue glow blinking briefly, coalescing in the a bright magic blue sphere of energy before snuffing out. The others move through the portal without harm and help Andan to his feet.
They arrive an a room thick with smoke, noisy air holes hissing the smoke around in the room. Suddenly, as the party moves forward, the smoke takes form and six demon-like creatures take shape from the smoke, clawing and biting at the party. All engage a vigorous battle, slashing and piercing these forms until they take gaseous form. Vasco lights a fireball at the back of the room, sucking several of them into its dark, smoky heat. Andan ingests part of one which had taken gaseous form and it rips and claws at him from inside his lungs. Persistent slashing by Yldar and Naboros dissipates the creatures, which in Auran were calling out ‘hungry, hungry, the Wind Dukes never feed us!” before their demise.
Moving out the noisy gallery into a great hall with pillers and frescos, Yldar is struck with awe in this chamber which, according to the runes he deciphers, marks the great general Icosiol, who had led the wind duke armies to defeat the Queen of Choas at the Battle of Pesh. As he reads these ruins, ‘Icosiol’ appears to be a magic word that disables several magic traps that flash off in a similar blue magic glow as the portal had. The Battle of Pesh was a pyrrhic one, where many great generals were lost, including the great Wind Duke General Icosiol, but not before he had beaten the Queen of Choas and her lackey Miska the Wolf spider with the Rod of Law. Vasco recalls his history from the other area of the tomb, and this rod had broken in the seven parts during this battle.
They follow Allustan’s tracks through another set of doors, Yldar carefully moving along to check for traps. He finds and disables one magic trap, but is unsuccessful on another. His ghostly, Chaotic life-aura dissipates from his body as he is instantly killed, crumpling on the floor. Andan, the paladin, enters the trapped area to pick-up his slain friend, but does not trigger the trap. They look in the gallery at a fine, massage granite statue of a Wind Duke in the centre of the hall, but Vasco detects magic and suggests that it has the same aura as a number of trapped areas. The Wind Duke is holding a very fine looking sword in one hand and a balance of justice in the other. The party is fascinated by the statue, but avoid it. The shadow walk back to the free city and seek to bring Yldar back from the dead and restore the level he lost in the process. This is costly and needs the help of the church. Andan convinces his colleagues at the church of Heironeous to perform the rights after making them interested in the story of how the champions of the free city games managed to help avoid a mass sacrifice (though many in the church hold doubts, as his stories sound too familiar of those of a few of the mad men in the streets of the free city). To acquire additional help to finance the cost of raising the dead, they find some of the Seekers in the free city, who offer the cash for the spells on the conditions that the equivalent value of artifacts be brought to them from the Cairn where Yldar had died. Andan and Nabiros agree, though Vasco, who didn’t join them at the seekers, felt extremely hesitant about this deal when they explained it to him, having the emotional memory of the package from Rancick still fresh in his mind. The party replaces their potions from those spoiled by the dragon, and a few simple wands, add some potions of undetectable alignment before deciding to quickly return.
The party shadow walks back to the cairn, and after defeating more acid beetles and disabling the trap that had re-set itself on the portal and uttering the power word “Icosiol” in the Gallery, return to the area of the statue. Yldar tries to disable the trap again, but unfortunately is killed again, instantly! Vasco, not wanting any more deals, puts up half the GP to bring Yldar back, shadow-walking to the free city with the corpse, and wiping out the stored wealth of Yldar for the other half. Shadow walking again to the cairn. They enter unmolested, deciding this time to simply follow Allustan’s tracks and avoid any traps.
Opening the door to the next room reveals a large gallery, illuminated by wonderfully decorated chandeliers, with wall frescos all around, and black on the floor of the room and a large black sphere hanging from the ceiling. Yldar is curious about the frescos and chandeliers and examines them closely. They depict scenes from the Battle of Pesh and evoke images of the talisman of the sphere that Vasco has from the Zosiel’s tomb, battles with a horned, eye-covered demon, beholders, vrocks, ghouls and others Yldar is able to interpret some of the ruins as command words to handle the Seal of Law which is depicted in scenes in this and the pillar gallery room. Just before stepping into the middle of the room, Yldar realizes that the surface of the floor is slightly off, and that it is actually the body of a massive ooze! Vasco now sees it too, and proclaims that it must be a lord of oozes, a gargantuan 20x20 elder ooze that would be a relentless and ruthless foe to disturb. The party decides to avoid the now-calm ooze and continue to follow Allustan’s tracks through the next doors.
