Episode 7 (part 6): The Harbinger of the Age of Worms

Zeek briefly considers smashing the foul worm fountain while Yldar mulls over the possibility of packing it away for its museological value, when Maeron picks herself up tells them all that it is time to go and face what is behind these other doors.  Down the hall again, they are half distracted by their quiet discussion of how they might work to bring to an end the Overworm that nearly devoured them.  Carefully working their way past the two entrances that lead to the Overworm’s writhing green sea, they find the last double door in the hall closed but not evidently locked or trapped.  Lining up battle ready behind Yldar, the party prompts him to throw the doors open.

There, amid a massive nest of books, scrolls and papers, a large green naga looks up from his reading and raises an eyebrow at his guests.  “Hello?” he says, an engages Yldar in cautious but curious banter.  Looking at Vasco who has come down the hall, Sruggut, as he introduces himself, raises his eyebrow higher, could this learned elf help him get out he wonders, and proceeds to engage in a negotiation with Vasco over the potential use of teleport to get him out, anywhere out, beyond the obsidian ring.  Zeek and Jorel join in the polite conversation in the room while Maeron and Nadroc stay just outside.  The naga has no clear explanation for why he is unable to get beyond the obsidian wall himself, but does offer a curious view of his being another interloper in this ziggurat, avoiding the fate of an undead worm while spending extended time studying the vestiges of the powerful necromancy that Kyuss’ birthplace has to offer.  Zeek, sensing that Vasco is extremely uncomfortable with the teleport request decides to end the conversation with a blow from his hooked hammer.  The naga had expected such treachery and lets forth his sorcerous ways, nearly destroying Yldar with a spell that for Yldar luckily only grazed him.  Suffering a few more hits and realizing that this may be his only way out, Sruggut moves over to Vasco and grapples his whole body around him with a fully charged Harm spell readied to course through him.  Teleport me out or you die.  Vasco agrees and the aggressive party carefully backs away and lowers their weapons.  With Vasco just free enough of the naga’s grasp to cast the spell, Zeek recognizes that the spell Vasco is putting together is not the same teleport that they have done together before.  He lets unleash a furious blow against the naga, who succumbs and is left dead.   The battle has left the naga’s library of arcane and religious tombs smouldering with at least a quarter of the books in ruin.

Zeek, disrespectfully mocking the dead corpse of the naga he had just killed, asks for a further conference out in the hall and away from the smells of the burnt literary nest, to make further strategic plans for getting past the Overworm.  While the conversation drags on the party’s minds are filled with an alien and unrecognizable voice.  It soon clarifies into one that asks each of them to reveal how many of the prophecies of the Age of Worms have come to pass.  Most other than Vasco don’t seem to actually know, and Vasco wisely suppresses the reply in his mind.  The alien voice leaves and the strategy resumes.

And goes on for some half and hour.

During which time Jorel is standing just outside the group, watching suspiciously down the hall that leads to sea of worms and the Overworm that lurks beneath.  A sound catches his ears – the sound of well armoured soldiers marching through the shallows of a lake.  He raises the alarm with the group who turn to find three Kyuss Knights, armoured in heavy magic full plate male and great unholy bastard swords drawn for battle.  Marching relentlessly forward, the lead Knight uttering something nearly unintelligible in ancient Flan but surely relating to the proficies of Kyuss, they blast the party with vile visions of Kyuss’ wormy armies defiling their moral bodies, visions so wretched they leave Zeek stunned and pushed aside.  The Knights push in and engage the group in immediate melee combat, seemingly shrugging off the previously effective blasts of heat and fire, and attacking with sword and bites from the huge Kyuss worms that extrude from their eye sockets at every opportunity.  Within 20 seconds both Yldar and Jorel are collapsed on the ground, breaths away from death.  Nadroc using a kind of wind-form strikes over and over and stays on the move.  Vasco backs away, frustrated by the seeming ineffectiveness of his spells.  Maeron evokes her holy smite again and again, but the Knights respond with impressive force.  Zeek his best hammer dropped in the confusion, feels hardly effective.

Maeron, seeing her fallen comrades and the battle that has clearly been fought entirely on the Kyuss Knights terms, decides that powerful gifts are sometimes too long kept back, summons the Solar angel who committed to watching over her at Manzorian’s Fountain.  The angel appears moments later and time appears to stop.  The Solar immediately understands the situation, assessing the wretched evil these former Generals of Kyuss represent, and the precariousness between death (and subsequent undeath) and the goodness of life that this party may represent.  Maeron humbly requests aid in destroying these evil Knights, and the Overworm that lurks in the room just behind them.  Holy Words are uttered and the Knights are immediately destroyed.  Time moves forward and the party sees their foes crumbling to the floor as the Solar walks over to the shore of the sea of worms.  The worms part around him, not entering anywhere near his holy aura.  The Overworm senses his presence and lunges up to smash and pulverize the new intruder.  Again, time appears to slow down for Maeron and then arrow after glowing arrow is let loose into the Overworm.  The party sees in one instant a whole slew of arrows bleeding out the Overworms’ festering unlife force, as it crashes into the sea of worms and is gone from the world forever.  The Solar walks out and with a glace at Maeron, she knows that there is one final evil in this place, but which is for them to overcome.

The party heals, rests, regroups, and sits with new respect for Maeron and her connections with the gods (and their angels).

Eight hours later – the time of day or night now completely lost – debate over tactics is quite.  Nadroc quietly suggests building a wall-of-force bridge to carefully walk over the sea of worms and see what is beyond the last two doors.  Silence is exhausted consensus.  Yldar walks over and sees the open door of the Generals quarters.  They are once-luxurious rooms that reflect a now spartan eternity of undead brooding.  Leaving that place, the party crosses the final span of the bridge over the sea of worms to the final double doors, listening for what might lay beyond.

Listening, their minds are filled again with the alien voice, again probing the question as to how many of the prophecies have already been fulfilled, and fades away.  Yldar opens the door and sees sitting in an elaborately foreign room, arranged in unfamiliar ways for this world, and with a tall six-armed creature standing mutely in his metative space.  Yldar asks who he is and it explains it is Mak’ar, an ancient spell weaver who has long ago come to favour undeath.  Maeron realizes she has seen here her first lich.  He continues to explain, mutely, through his thoughts, that he is the architect of the Ago of Worms, that he wanted to bring on the End Times for this world to draw on the vast necromantic power that would come of it.  Vasco remembers more about the prophecies he had learned had not yet passed: “A tripartite spirit once again becomes one, and at its advice are the mighty undone,” and “On the eve of the Age of Worms, a hero of the pit shall use his fame to gift a city to the dead.”  Mak’ar is listening to these thoughts and is pleased to know how far along the Age of Worms has come.  He says that if he is finally destroyed here, then these may indeed be the people who bring the End Times on, while if he defeats them, then they are nothing but more bodies for Kyuss’ undead army.

At that Yldar has no more patience and lets fly a volley of arrows.  Zeek’s lamp of true seeing had revealed that the Mak’ar was standing invisible in the corner of the room, while his mute mirror image played the role of alien host.  The arrows flew true, but bounced against a powerful force wall Mak’ar had cast around himself, and in moments when he is ready, he drops this wall and unleashes Confusion amongst several, and blasting with multiple magic missiles.  His ability to cast so many spells simultaniously is impressive, but so is the party’s ability to respond.  Nadroc quickly locks Mak’ar in his own wall of force, giving the party time to regroup and get strategically around the spell weaver for an intense melee.  Vasco recognizes from his old teachers the outlines of a powerful (but limited) wish spell, and suddenly an entire swarm of Kyuss worms flow out of the lake and into the room, coming near Vasco and attempting to engulf and burrow into Maeron.  Pausing from their attack on Mak’ar long enough to destroy the Kyuss worm swarm without any infections, the party readies for Nadroc to bring down his force wall.  Mak’ar hits Nadroc with a Maze, causing him to vanish to another plane, while Vasco succeeds in dispelling much of the magic that the spell weaver had cast.  After this, it is mere moments until the advanced spell weaver lich is destroyed alltogether, leaving the party in the room to experience their final vision.

The room melts away into darkness as the air fills with strange and frightening whis pers. It sounds as if a hundred different voices speak in a hundred different languages, but an instant later, the voices have joined into one and the language resolves into familiar words. These words speak of the prophecies of the Age of Worms, and as they speak, visions of the prophecies coming true manifest before you, allowing you to observe the events as if you were a god looking down upon a troubled world. The visions are violent and horrific. Legions of worm-eaten dead rise from soggy graves. An immense and demonic tree explodes into destructive life from the heart of an unfamiliar city. A burning comet lances down from the heavens to strike the earth in a tremendous, mushroom-shaped cloud of devastation. Another city, its town square wreathed in a cloud of black smoke filled with eyes, is held in the grip of shadows that move independently from their source. A cackling man attaches a clawed and withered hand to the bleeding stump of his arm, and the hand writhes into unholy life. A city built in the heart of a volcano suffers tragedy during a partial eruption that sees the collapse of its southeastern quadrant. As each of these scenes flash by, they are accompanied by a crushing sense of certainty—these events have already come to pass. Yet finally, the whispering voices speak of two more prophecies, and these are accompanied by blackness. “A tripartite spirit once again becomes one, and at its advice are the mighty undone,” the voices whisper. And then, “On the eve of the Age of Worms, a hero of the pit shall use his fame to gift a city to the dead.” After this, there is only silence.

They come out of this vision in time to feel the ground shake, knocking Jorel right to the ground.  The massive spire has fallen down and crushed the obsidian ring outside and destroying much of the ziggurat above.  None of Kyuss’ magic is left in tact within these inner chambers. It will not be long now before the creatures of the jungle around Kuluth-mar will become the new denizens of the ruined city.

Taking an hour to pick through the few treasures and valuables left in the now ruined ziggarut of Kyuss, the party loads up and teleports back to Magepoint to rest, recover, re-equip and debrief with the archmage Manzorian and his advisors who by now, they hope, have finished their research on the Ebon Triad and its links to Kyuss, whom they feel now they are much more knowledgeable about.

Episode 7 (part 5) - The Worms’ Bite

Coming down the hallway out of the rooms where the dead are reposed, Jorel and Zeek reminisce a bit about their past.  Jorel was laughing over how he had followed Zeek since he had seen the little guy battle a band of Kira Tahlah slavers, who almost got the last laugh on Zeek until Jorel rescued him from a slow-acting poison collapsed Zeek into the sands of the Dry Hills.  Jorel’s laugh stopped abruptly as a sound behind him caught his ears.  Most of the others in the party had crept around a corner and were approaching another entrance to the Worm Sea cavern.  Jorel let out a short expletive (he had been with Zeek now for even his language to be wearing off) as two stooped, armoured undead floated down the hallway, led by the very same plate-mail encrusted warrior who they had destroyed in the pit hours before, pointed their worm-writing, boney hands at the group and uttered terrible evocations in an ancient language that Jorel could make out a single word: the name of their deity Kyuss.

Nadroc and Yldar, being held firmly into place through blindingly fast hold person spells, were left out for important seconds.  Jorel and Zeek, spring into battle while calling their companions attentions.  Jorel manages to spring past the undead trio who push forward to close the party in on the Worm Sea behind them.  Zeek swats away falling Kyuss worms in strategically jumping under one of the floating divine minions, taunting and thwarting him from behind.  Conventional attacks and arrows seem to be doing little good, when Vasco, Maeron unleash their full power against them, first thoroughly destroying the undead warrior before dropping one of the spell casters who had unsuccessfully been trying to control their minds.  The third undead floats up and past the party, disappearing around the corner into the cavernous room.

Broken free of their holds, Nadroc and Yldar press with the others up to the shore of the huge cavern whose floor undulates with the sickening green worms.  Vasco sees the escaped Kyuss priest lower himself into the sea and tries to pin him to the wall with a web.  Unsuccessful, the party watches, noses wrinked and eyes squinting, as the worms suffuse his blasted and scourged body, seeming to recharge his the essence of his very-unlife.  Then the surface of the water nears them begins to briefly rumble and with a horrible splash a gargantuan green worm, its dual-rows of razor teeth shocks out of the water and lunges its massive 40' mass at the party, biting hard and fast on Vasco who through writing in tremendous pain from the hit, manages to elude being swallowed whole.  When the spray from the worm sea covers the party, and seemingly between the moments of reality, the next vision falls over them:

The immediate surroundings waver and fade, replaced by a bird’s-eye view of the city of Kuluth-Mar at its height. The streets are empty, as the thousands of citizens seem to have gathered in a mass in the central plaza surrounding the Spire of Long Shadows. Suddenly, a foul energy wells from the spire at the center of the city, sweeping outward and felling the living as it passes. For each creature that falls, you feel a silent but potent sense of wrongness, as some indescribable part of the creature, perhaps its soul, is drawn back toward the Spire of Long Shadows to be absorbed by the strange black monolith of stone balanced at its peak. As the energy builds around the peak, a shimmering image of a colossal humanoid figure, its body composed of a million writhing worms, takes form around the Spire of Long Shadows, its arms raised in triumph. Yet in another moment, that triumphant pose seems to change to one of rage, and a soul-wrenching cry of fury tears from the undulant face. The image shrinks, pulled into the stone monolith at the Spire’s peak, imploding with a horrific wet burst. In an instant, the city is quiet again, yet as the vision fades, the first signs of unlife spread through the thousands of dead bodies strewn around the ziggurat’s base as bodies, now festering with green worms rise from death. 

With the massive worm withdrawing in the real world, and his wounds nearly crippling him, Vasco weakly calls out that he is teleporting out right now. One by one the party steels their will and lay hands on Vasco who, not before a slashing force of necromantic darkness lunges out of the worm-priest’s boney fingers, blinks his colleagues back to the safety of their inn-room at Magepoint.

After taking healing and recovering time, the party sets out to restock.  They contact Celeste for more of those 15th-level caster greater teleport spells to get them to and from Kulleth-Mar, and take some time to become more liquid, with some of the treasure recovered from the worm nagas and various armour and weapons picked up and stashed in bags of holding along the way.  Zeek works on Celeste and other of Manzorian’s officials to attempt to secure a loan of more powerful weapons, but these sources respond with dry denial.  Sluthing around the adventurers and merchants in town, Zeek realizes that they have all seen his type before – a massive risk that is nearly certainly not worth even the greatest return with little or no security on offer.  This town has seen far too many adventurers come and never return.  Yldar, meanwhile, finds time to complete some of his studies of arcane archery and levels up.  Nadroc, Maeron and Vasco medidate and study on their spells.  Soon, they are ready for return.

Standing in Vasco’s inn room at the agreed upon time, Zeek asks again, why is it they are all so convinced that they should go back and get pounded relentlessly again.  Reminded of the importance of his role in this move grave threat to the living, Zeek returns to a conversation of strategy, debating Vasco, Maeron and Nadroc on the best places to teleport to and re-engage battle.  Against his better judgement, Vasco agrees on Zeek’s strategy to attempt to draw the Overworm, as they have dubbed him, into the 10' wide corridors that to his massive bulk, should be narrow enough to give the party the advantage.  Nadroc wonders what exactly is going to be the bait as their bodies dematerilize...

... and reappear in the hallway where Jorel had several days before alerted the party to the Sword of Kyuss.  Ever alert and standing more ready than they have for over 1000 years, two of the worm gods’ priests stand at the entrance of the cavern and unleash again powerful blasts against the wills of the party.  This time, rested and buffed, the party resists their spells.  Nadroc and Vasco establish walls of flame which dispatch one quickly and sends the other badly scorched out of view into the worm sea.

The party heads back down the hall to the rooms where the ancient bodies lie, when Yldar notices at the far end of the hall, the double doors that had once been closed are now open, and two more worm priests advance upon them.  The third, tatterd robes gone and armour scorched, joins them from behind.  Again with godly smite from Maeron, and flames from Vasco’s skilled hands, these three are utterly destroyed before they pose much of a challenge to the group.

Wary of the Overworm who they imagine has returned to the unknown depths of the nearby worm sea, the party moves towards the now open doors at the end of the hall.  Yldar, invisible and stealthy, enters and finds a large but spartan chamber whose only remarkable feature is a black fountain, built as an alter of burbling water to Kyuss.  Having heard Yldar’s all clear, Maeron joins beside him at the fountain alter, and is taken with an insatiable desire to have a drink.  Moments after she ingests Yldar looks at her in puzzlement as she clutches at her head with an intense and incredible pain.  Nadroc comes beside her and pulls her out of the room, looking suspiciously at the fountain, while Zeek, Vasco and Jorel look worried but continued stand cautiously on guard for any other disturbance.  Maeron screams again, hear body in sharp agony from some fast and deadly intrusion.  Realizing that it must be some worm-related disease, Yldar pours a potion down Maeron’s throat.  Maeron sputters and coughs, and a blackened and lifeless worm drops out of her nose.   Maeron is left standing, blood dripping from her face, having extremely narrowly avoided death, and the certain undeath that would follow.

Episode 7 (part 4) – Return to Kyuss’s Evil Blast Pit

Before teleporting back to Kuluth-Mar, Zeek spreads the word around Magepoint that he is the killer of Kelvos the fallen Ghaele Eladrin, and is looking for followers.  Outside the ring, they return to the inner temple, proceeding with heightened caution.  They find the temple much as they left if, the days away now only feeling like moments since the grizzly battle.  Bracing themselves for the intensity of the encounter they know is coming, they throw open the doors of the other room off the main chamber in in the Ziggurat hall.  Inside, three warriors, armoured head to toe, stand battle ready, and a crouched, armoured fragment of a man lurks behind them.  All children of Kyuss, worms writhing and crackling with its necromantic powers, these four engage an intense battle.  The hunched figure is something of a powerful cleric, healing his warrior friends, and thwarting the party with hold person.  The warriors are intelligently engage, but the four are not strong enough to defeat the group, who finally succeed blasting and smashing them all, Zeek dropping the last of the warriors down, down, down into the pit below.  Following the defeat of the temples guardians, the party encounters another of their visions of Kyuss.  The chamber wavers and shimmers, and suddenly a human man appears at one of the desks nearby. A strange gray-skinned humanoid creature with six arms stands at his shoulder. The man studies a collection of worn and pitted bronze disks arrayed on the desk before him. Faint etchings adorn the plates, and it seems as if the alien figures and symbols writhe together at the behest of some sinister wilt. The gray creature points to one of the plates, and a look of sudden comprehension blooms on the man’s face. The man, the creature, and the plates then fade away, and are gone.

Exhausted again from battle, but not nearly as savaged as their previous encounter, the party decides to barricade themselves in the room to recover and explore its contents.  The room is a kind of Hall of Knowledge, covered in books on topics of the planes, arcana, religion, and history.  The most intriguing feature of the room, however, are 12 illuminated jars, each carrying tiny, writhing worms, inscribed with runes.  With the guidance of one of the books and the clever deciphering by the Seekers in the party, it is determined that these worms, if they manage to reach the brain, may impart knowledge, the runes on the worms corresponding to something of the domain of knowledge learned.  None in the party decide to try it, not knowing if the worms might kill or stupefy them before the knowledge is imparted, they decide that these are best taken back to Magepoint for a more controlled exercise.  While the magic users rest and meditate, Zeek and Jorel fashion crates out of furniture in the room to haul the jars containing the worms safely out.  The Seekers pick 20% of the best books for sale or storage in the Seeker library.

Their rest is uninterrupted.

After much discussion and some brief excursions around the rest of the Ziggarut where frescos of Kyuss the man and Kyuss the god ruining a city with armies of undead dominate entrance rooms’ walls, they decide to brave the descent into the hole revealed by the ancient, evil blast pit.  Nadroc with his lightning sword of Aaqa, and Yldar flying with the cloak of the bat, see that the pit is riddled with side-tunnels and ledges, and Yldar, in bat form, blind senses that at least one of those side tunnels has an occupant.  He also determines that some 500 feet below, the plunging tunnel ends by opening into a room with an undulating, writing, green floor, illuminated slightly by the everburning torch thrown down a week earlier by Zeek.   

Warned of what might be to come and equipped with feather-falling Maeron, Vasco, Zeek and Jorel  simply leap off the edge of the pit into the darkness below.  About 120 feet into their plunge down the hole, the heads of three worm nagas, familiar from having emerged from the same pit early in their exploration of the Ziggarut, emerge into the light.  They are writhing up, twisting and spinning around each other in a motion which makes them appear to be riding on the air.  Over the next 12 seconds of falling, both the party and the nagas unleash their respectively impressive power and engage each other.  By the end of the 12 seconds, the three worm nagas corpses are falling to the chamber below, and the party has managed to catch hold of a ledge of the side-tunnel these nagas emerged from to catch their breath before proceeding.  The Seekers in the group decide to look down these tunnels before proceeding further, and follow them basically horizontally for over 10 minutes, checking all the while they are not getting lost.  Finally, a correct turn is taken and the group finds themselves in the worm nagas’ nest, and in possession of their collective treasures of gold, platinum, and few magic items.  They divide and pocket the loot before returning to their vertical drop to the depths below.   

Somewhere before the end of the tunnel drop, the party members other than Nadroc feather fall into a ledge that holds them while Nadroc goes below and looks at the extent of the wormy threat.  Below, hundreds and hundreds of Kyuss worms of all sides writhe in a massive pool on the floor.  Nadroc manages his flying expertly, and hovers just beyond the ceiling of the chamber below, unleashing fireballs and a particularly deadly wall of fire, leaving a smoking, smouldering and stinking ground of charred worms.  Giving the all-clear signal, the rest of the party finishes their drop and enters the chamber of smouldering wormhusks.

They walk around this new area for a few minutes.  To the south, they see a massive, dark chamber with a sea of worms in its sunken floor.  To the east is a closed door.  To the west, a passage to a new room, which the party follows, observing hundreds of seemingly freshly dead corpses which Maeron correctly identifies as being in a kind of mass gentle repose, somehow triggered by some of the runes on stones in the room.  The next adjacent room is similar to this one in most respects, except that none of the human and humanoid bodies are in repose, they have completely decomposed.  Maeron speaks with dead to find that one man, at least, was ritually murdered to aid Kyuss in building an army of undead in his ascent to deity-hood.  Other than this, he knows little and Maeron and the others leave him in peace.

Episode 7 (part 3) - Into the Ziggurat of Kyuss

Searching around the summit of the temple, the party finds secret doors around the temple and decide to descend the small access stairs found on the other side.  Huddling on the stairs on the inside of the secret doors, Nadroc takes a moment to buff himself.  Yldar wraps himself in his cloak of the bat and flaps around in bat form into the chambre below.  He weaves erratically around a large room with grand 30' ceiling supported by stone pillars.  In the rooms’ centre, however, is a chilling evil, that the bat instinctively avoid.  Bat-Yldar senses nothing living or moving around in the room, so on his report, the whole group descend cautiously into the main hall.  They discover that the palpably evil in the centre of the room is the vestige of some kind of enormous blast that blew several pillars down and opened a massive and deep pit.  The group quietly, cautiously exploring around the edges of the pit, trying to figure out how deep it might be and what created it. That it was some kind of blast created at the floor of the room itself was sussed by Zeek, who starts tossing things down the pit.  The bottom is not clearly discerned.  The noise of the falling ever-burning torches and stone rubble attracts something that was floating below.  Walking on wind, three large green nagas – not undead, but terrible aberrations whose faces and bodies twisted by Kyuss’s power – float out of the pit casting powerful enervation and scorching rays, their gaze tearing at the minds of the party, nearly enfeebling them on several occasions.  A swift and powerful response by the party brings silence to the chamber again.

 The party, buffs not entirely faded from battling the nagas, move to the door at the north side of the chambre.  Zeek opens the door and the party sets eyes on a man they will not soon forget.  The room is glowing a sickly green, illuminated from behind what appears to be a glass wall containing thousands of writhing and active green Kyuss worms.  Standing ready in front of the wall, a spell cracking at his fingertips, is a elvish looking Outsider.  Clearly delighted at the site of these newcomers to the long empty ziggurat, he announces himself as Kelvos the Wormtouched, a ghaele eladrin who had come to Kuluth-Mar before Kyuss had ascended to godhood.  He could not defeat the great Kyuss even as a mortal, but he will delight in dispatching the group.  Then a destructive wave blasts forth from his readied hands.  In a flash, Nadroc, who had been standing back from the door, but in Kelvos’ sight, is completely obliterated.  His gear crumples to the ground and no other trace remains of the wind duke relic.

The party is stunned and shocked, but doesn’t have time to grieve, as two fallen angels, sword archons with flaming blades forearms, fly out of the room.  They separate the party by a nearly impenetrable wall of blades, and then work to destroy them.

Kelvos teleports out of the room, and appears right in front of Vasco.  Spell after destructive spell cast by Kelvos against Vasco absorbed by the scarab of protection Manzorian gave him in exchange for the Rod of Law fragment.  Kelvos attention turns also to Zeek and Maeron, who are the victims of a prismatic spray that causes Zeek to be poisoned, and Maeron to completely loose her mind.  One of the archons manages to commands Yldar, who had been paralyzed (along with Zeeks’ companion) for most of the battle, to go and break the glass ‘worm wall’.  Yldar walks forward into Kelvos’ room to do the archon’s bidding. By some miracle, with Yldar, Maeron, Zeek’s companion, and Nadroc all out of commission, Vasco and Zeek manage to deal the final fateful blow to Kelvos and the angels (a cone of cold and a lightning bolt).  With mere seconds before the butt of Yldars bow would smash through the wall, the command is broken by the archon’s defeat.  As they collapse from exhaustion of a battle that destroyed Nadroc, permanently made Maeron insane, and very nearly killed the others, a third vision is had.

A handsome man dressed in flowing robes, and a strange, six-armed, alien-like creature stand in front of victims chained terrible devices.  A deep light from within the hollow eye sockets of the creature illuminate a jeweled gold box that he presents the man.  From it, the man extracts a writhing green worm, whose sight brings him a look of exaltation.

They collect Kelvos’ weapons, and decide to teleport back with the scroll given to them by Manzorian, resurrect Nadroc, restore Maeron’s sanity.  Arriving back in Magepoint, they seek out Agath of Thurnch, the cleric scholar ally of Manzorian and Celeste, who is the caretaker of the library-temple, who had also returned Eligos to life.  Maeron is restored by Greater restoration (7th lvl cleric) and Nadroc has the benefit of true resurrection (9th lvl cleric), for which he charges 5,000 gp and 25,000 gp respectively.  The party sells the powerful weapons and treasure found in the temple to pay for these services.  They take time to reflect on their encounter and build their skills, as all but Yldar (who is catching up from a previous death) and Nadroc (whose premature death precluded his gaining certain experience) advance to level 13.  They must pay 2,275gp for each of two scrolls of greater teleport they need to return to the Spire at Kuluth-Mar.

Episode 7 (part 2): The Spire at Kuluth-Mar

Manzorian left his assistant with two tasks.  The first was to facilitate the party having access to the magical Fountain of Fortunes’ Folly – a powerful artifact that can give and take power and abilities.  While having a drink is rebuffed by Nadroc and Vasco, the others decide to take a chance on its magic.  Zeek and his companions, and Yldar gain minor abilities and treasures in exchange for a few permanently lost hit points.   Maeron, however, has a amazingly unlikely and fortunate contact with a powerful outsider from another plane.  The potently magic drink momentarily links Maeron with a powerful Solar on another plane.  Taking notice of her, and seeing the world-shaping importance of her future, the Solar offers to intervene in her affairs one time, on her request.  She is left inspired and empowered by the encounter, knowing that quite literally a powerful angel is watching her.


The other task of Manzorian’s assistant was to facilitate payment of the requested magic items in exchange for the Rod of Law fragment that the party is willing to give Manzorian.  Each member takes their requested treasure, gratefully adding it to their arsenal, hoping that it along with the blessing of the Wind Dukes, will aid them in their trip to the far off Kuluth Mar.  They know that magic and blessings alone will got get them through, but that research is needed.  Doing geographic research for the area, the find that the valley of Kuluth-Mar as been abandoned by humanoids, and that aberrations and other horrors have taken over the valley.  Something or someone named Balaxuus and a band of trolls that work with it, are known to be threats living in the outskirts of the ruined city.  So few have survived brief sojourns to the valley, and so little else is known.  However, their research on the Kyuss worm itself does prove fruitful.  They find that if the Kyuss worm touches the skin, within moments it will burrow in to the body, work its way to the brain, and consume the living into an undead Kyuss spawn.  It may be neutralized by Remove Curse or Remove Disease.  It can be slowed by dispel evil or neutralize poison.  These facts were learned from the singularly depressing yet morbidly intriguing journals of the cleric Anadan the Reader.

After a week of studies, shopping and other preparations, they party is led to the picture room by Manzorian’s assistant Cymria.  There Manzorian gives them a scroll of mass teleport to return home.  A blue glowing field connects them with the photo on the wall, and the last image they see is of Manzorian still completing the spell, casually turning and walking out of the room.  A moment later, an they are all standing in the sweaty, humid, thick air of the far away jungle valley of the ancient ruined city of Kuluth-Mar.

 After a few minutes of typical discussion and banter standing in the lush jungle, they decide to proceed cautiously towards the city, which they can see not far off.  The ruined buildings of the city are surrounded by a massive black stone ring wall, and inside the spire rises up into the sky.  The jungle is eerily alive with an unfamiliar hum of life, and inside the rings – though a place of Kyuss’s terrible history, seems somehow safer.  Yldar moves forward and scales the 30' tall wall, which he finds is made of an impossibly black, glossy obsidian.  At the top of the wall, and circling all around it is a Draconic inscription “Kyuss Forever Bound”.  On entering the ruined city, the entire party experiences a powerful vision of a young Kyuss, seated on a throne at the apex of the ziggurat at the centre of the city and in the shadow of a large spire that towers above it.  Thousands of supporters surround him in the vibrant city chanting and crying their patronage, and then the vision fades.  It leaves the party with the feeling of having had a very significant experience.

Yldar scales down the other side of the wall, and finds that the entire ground is writing with tiny, slow-moving Kyuss worms.  The party follows him in, and being careful not lingering for any length of time, should the worms work their way through their boots, they make their way from the north towards Kuluth-Mar’s ziggurat; the large, central temple below the towering spire.

 They approach the north face of the temple and ascend towards the spire.  Soon, a maddenly loud ‘skittering’ fills the air, and two enormous, rotten, worm-invested beetles, each larger than several men, come around from the other sides of the temple and flank them.  The beetles’ sound is maddening and their mandibles have a hard bite.  As the party forms to defend themselves one notices a heavily armoured knight, walking confidently and slowly into the battle.  The beetles, his dogs of war, continue to attack while the knight closes in to engage.  The party is well organized, rested and resourceful dispatch the knight, whose eyes are massive Kyuss worms, stretching out to bite while his unholy bastard sword clangs violently against the party’s defenses.  No worms manage to infect them and the party collect themselves after the battle to discuss how to proceed.

Up.

Up into the sky is the towering spire, and Nardoc draws on the wind dukes power to fly up towards the top where they party had seen a glint.  As he is rising higher and higher, the party encounters another powerful vision.  They see the spire restored, at the glint at the speak is a 15' tall 3' thick trapezoidal monolith of black rock.  Something is seen writhing inside when an enormous red dragon rips the monolith away from the spire and flies north.  The vision fades, and Nadroc finds only the crumbling ruins of the spire that had held it.

Episode 7 (part 1): The Devils in the Details

Zeek and his cohort come to the party and announce that they will not be joining them on their trip to the Free City, but will meet up with them in Magepoint in just over a week.  There are details to resolve in terms of business and political relations in Diamond Lake before they are all prepared to pull out of town, after Zeek’s last two remaining cohort had dug in through the long year and the dragon siege.  Vasco, Nabiros, Yldar, Maeron, and their new Wind Duke relic companion Nadroc have decided to delay their trip to see the archmage Manzorian (also known as Tensor) for a week, so they can return to the Free City to repay Yldar’s debt with the Seeker society, and so Nabiros and Vasco can check up on old contacts from their time during the Champion Games.  Vasco and the others have spent a short time with Allustan, meditating and studying new magic, skills and feats, while Allustan and Ubu have been consumed with rebuilding their lives and their town from damage done by Ilthane’s attacks.  Vasco’s eyes begin to glow blue as he permanently casts detect magic on himself, and begins a new morning ritual of detecting scrying.  On the first day of casting the later, he almost immediately finds himself the target of the prying scry of a barbed demon, who is at a very distant locale.  Armed with this chilling information, Allustan urges them to make haste to meet his and the late Eligos’ former master, so that these events can be shared with him.

The party mounts up, Vasco with a warhorse, the others with riding horses they were able to buy in Diamond Lake.  Into day two of their travel, far from any settlement, but on one of the lesser travelled roads to the Free City, four green rays suddenly stream out of the air basting Vasco, and narrowly missing others in the party.  In two other locations, two barbed devils pop onto the road, stopped the frightened horses dead in their tracks.  With a deafening telepathy the devils each demand that the party hand over the fragment of the Rod of Law.  Four flying bone devils pop in and out of visibility from their flying positions, peppering the party with their devilish spell-like powers, and quickly forming a series of thick, high and long ice walls that separates Vasco, the bearer of the Rod of Seven Parts from the rest of the party.  The two devils teleport into Vasco’s isolated space slaughtering his horse and demanding the rod.  Vasco manages to turn invisible and fly away undetected before the devils are quite able to apprehend him and the rod. Outside, the party is chilled by the presence of another devil – a huge Pit Fiend, who appears intimidatingly hot, smelling of hell right beside them.  In a chilling booming voice, he also demands that the rod be handed over to one of the barbed devils.  The party tries in vein to lay into the invisible devils, but they are outmatched and out-gunned.  Only Maeron’s Holy Smite does any damage of significance, the rest being shrugged off by the all the devils as meagre problems.  Having realized that Vasco has eluded their grip (Vasco, who flown back and turned a true seeing Maeron invisible) the devils being their assault on the party, threatening to slaughter them all like the horses.  Yldar, Vasco and Maeron, invisible and stealthy, manage to make off several hundred feet away undetected, while Nadroc and Nabiros are left surrounded by the devils.  Nadroc makes his body into elemental form, eluding several of the devils’ deadly blows and spells. He is eventually encased in several thick hemispheres of ice, which he takes several turns of fire elemental form to burst out of.  The burst of steam that comes when be burst out attracts another devil who merely encases him in another icy hemisphere.  Nabiros fares less well.  The subject of the cruel demons, he is repeatedly slammed and slashed by their bones and barbs.  Demand after demand of the fragment of the Rod of Law is left answered only by Nabiros’ raging axe, and then only for a short time.  Nabiros is brought to unconsciousness, his rage ends and his body falls lifeless.  Maeron see this from a distance and casts a spell to stabilize him, but it is too late.  She rushes invisible to his size, and is remarkably undetected by the devils, who have now walked away to scry for Vasco (who continues to elude them).  Seeing that they likely have little hope than this moment to escape, Vasco makes the difficult decision to leave the Wind Duke wizard/fighter creation behind, folding the corpse of Nabiros, Maeron, Yldar and himself into the plane of Shadow and making their escape to the Free City.

Nadroc escapes again from his icy cage and find the devils and his party gone.  He knows why they had to make this difficult decision, and flipping up his blue cowl, sets out in a new direction to meet back up with his battle fatigued colleagues, Zeek and his men in Magepoint the following week.

When they arrive at the Free City, the Nabiros, wearer of the Champion Belt and Vasco, the famously flying elf are immediately recognized by the City Guards.  They are mortified to see their Champion slain and immediately take up his corpse and give him a full military escort to the temple of Kord where Redgar’s now famous funeral was held.  Crowds form along the street, throngs gather to see their fallen Champion paraded through the city to the temple.  Back arm bands spontaneously crop up all over the city, with stitched likenesses of the Champion Belt marking some of them.  City officials, nobles, other Champions begin gathering, paying tribute, and paying for funerary expenses, all wanting to be seen in the company of the great Champion of the games.  Swept up by all this attention, Maeron chooses a quiet moment to Speak with Dead to see what Nabiros’ wishes are – should they proceed with the funeral or resurrect him?  Nabiros is taken by all this glory and says that he would rather choose to end life like this than die in a cave on some mad mans quest about the coming apocalypse.  Vasco and Maeron allow the funeral to proceed and the city is caught in the grip of a major public spectacle, the kind of which they have not seen for some time.

While the debate over the funeral happened inside, out on the street mad man apprehends Yldar by the shoulders, with frightened and crazed looks in his eyes and says ““Have you not heard the dead dragon roar?!  Oh, the dragons of the rift and the sins they proclaim!”.  Yldar is unable to sensibly communicate with him further, and he walks away into the crowd. 

At the Seekers’ lodge, Yldar offers them the Seal of Law in payment for his debts owed in Wind Duke treasure.  His fellow Seekers see this Major Artifact as far above and beyond the debts owed and realize the potential and seriousness of these three Seekers. They allow them to have access to the highly secure Seeker’s vaults to store their treasure, and send word to the Seekers group in Magepoint that these are important and serious Seekers to be welcomed and recognized.  Maeron and Yldar know, this is a significant new development, akin to delving deeper into a thieves guild, and will surely be a most welcome resource now and in the future.  A payment investment very well made.

Worrying to their safety, knowing that the devils have scryed on them again but having resisted revealing their current location, Vasco decides to make the trip to Magepoint as swift as possible.  They arrive in short order in at the marvellous small seaside town, whose centre-point is the castle of the archmage himself, a pale blue castle surrounding a tower capped with a vast glittering blue faceted dome, connected to the village by a stone causeway that runs out to a small Island on the Lake of Unknown Depths.  On arriving in the town of only 500 people, they find that they are already expected, and are hosted free of charge at the Inn of the All-Seeing Eye.  At the Inn, Celeste a beautiful young elvish-looking woman who had originally connected Vasco and his old group with Eligos prior to the Champion games is there, as is, much to Vasco’s surprise, Eligos himself.  Eligos explains that he was brought back to life by one of Manzorian’s powerful cleric allies Agath of Thrunch.  Eligos has not much more to say other than that he is relieved that at least Vasco made it with a new group to deliver all the important information to the archmage so that these issues be dealt with.  Celeste is similarly supportive.  Also there is Cymria, Manzorian’s assistant.  She asks for the details of their adventure so far and says that she will arrange a meeting as soon as Manzorian is back in town. Meanwhile, the party has time to rest and shop with the towns’ excellent magic and adventuring suppliers.

Later that week, the party is reunited, with Nadroc, Zeek and his cohort arriving in the town.  Each day during their wait, Vasco feels he is being scryed but each day he successfully resists being discovered.  The party also discover that the town sits on a reservoir of arcane power, and any spell cast, taking 10x the usual length of time, is cast as if empowered by metamagic, but with no extra resources being used. Several days later, Manzorian summons the party to his study, on whose walls hang remarkably accurate pictures of many different places throughout the land. 


Manzorian is an impressive figure and gets right to business.  After hearing again the party’s story, he then is available for questions.  First, about the devils and the fragment of the Rod of Law, he says that it is a very potentially a very powerful artifact.  He is pleased that the party has been able to resist giving it to the devils, but is concerned that they will not let up.  He offers the party something remarkable: if they give him the Rod to keep in his vaults, he will award each member of the party a single magic item of their choice, each of which being worth up to 40,000 GP.  He offers to cast polymorph any object on whatever they choose so it can take the form of their choice.  Vasco and the others discuss this, and feel that the danger the Rod fragment poses is too grate and so accept Manzorian’s offer.  Their minds are racing as they think of what they are going to choose.

Manzorian then explains what he knows about the Age of Worms. 

“The Age of Worms is foretold in a prophecy that speaks of a coming apocalypse, an age of death and writhing doom. Normally such rumours should be dismissed—doomsday prophecies are typically the product of nothing more sinister than madness. This prophecy is different. It can be traced back, through various incarnations in books, tablets, and carvings on walls, for over two thousand years. It does not change in content during this time—it has not evolved through clumsy attempts of fanatics desperate to reword its predictions to support their agendas. “This alone would be enough for it to merit further study. But even more interesting is the fact that in the last few years several of its predictions have actually come true. In one prophecy, it predicts the ‘ruin by fire of a city built in a bowl in the spire’s shadow.’ Just last year, far to the south, the city of Cauldron—built in the caldera of a dormant volcano only a few miles from Kyuss’ one-time home, the Spire of Long Shadows—was nearly destroyed by a volcanic eruption. Other prophecies speak of the recrudescence of the worm-eaten dead, the recovery of potent artificts from ancient tombs, the destructive manifestation of an immense demonic tree in a distant city across the sea, the arrival of a ‘Fane of Scales’ amid a storm of wind and fire, and the cleansing of an evil taint from a city besieged in the past by giants. “These events have all come to pass, and quite recently. In fact, there are only two prophecies remaining to be fulfilled. The first of these mentions the reunification of a tripartite spirit—I assume this is a nod to the goals of the Ebon Triad. The second remaining prophecy reads: ‘And on the eve of the Age of Worms, a hero of the pit shall use his fame to gift a city to the dead.’ I believe this last line may have been speaking of Loris Raknian (certainly a hero from the gladiator’s pit) and his recent attempt to sacrifice thousands at the end of the Champion’s Games. Yes, I’ve heard of this, and I know you played a role in its prevention. It remains to be seen if your actions actually made a difference or not, but it would be foolhardy to assume that those who are trying to fulfil the prophecies will abate their efforts.” 

He goes on to discuss the Ebon Triad: “The Ebon Triad seems to be involved, at least on some level, with most of the events associated with these prophecies. Their involvement merits further investigation, although I believe that they may in fact themselves be little more than agents for a larger power—perhaps Kyuss himself Certainly, their goal of unifying Hextor, Erythnul, and Vecna into one overgod seems ridiculous, although as far as the Age of Worms prophecies about this tripartite spirit are concerned, it seems that the actual manifestation of an Overgod is not what is being predicted as much as it is predicting the heretical beliefs of the cultists themselves.” 

On Kyuss: “Kyuss is an enigma—what we know of him is sparse. We know that he was once a mortal, a powerful priest who ascended to godhood. He ruled a city named Kuluth-Mar far to the south, and was famed for the creation of undead. A former companion of mine, a wizard named Balakarde, made an extensive study of Kyuss and his ways. You might even say he was obsessed with Kyuss” 

On Balakarde: “When Balakarde learned Kuluth-Mar was the likely location of Kyuss’ divine apotheosis, he could barely restrain himself. I cautioned him against going to investigate the ruins. One does not simply teleport into an unknown region without doing some research. Yet Balakarde wouldn’t listen. He left immediately, returning two weeks later with a wild look in his eye. He wouldn’t say much of what he’d found there, and before he moved on he asked me to hold on to some of his notes. He promised to return later and tell me more, but that time was short and he had to head north to follow a new lead. He vanished without a trace not long thereafter I intended to try to track him down, but unfortunately, other events con spired to take my attention away. I suspect he is dead now. Or worse:’ 

On Kuluth-Mar: “The notes Balakarde left with me are unfortunately rather sparse. They confirm that Kuluth-Mar is located in the Arnedio Jungle, far to the south, and estimate that Kyuss ruled the city more than two thousand years ago from a fortress called the Spire of Long Shadows. Balakarde believed that this spire was the site of Kyuss’ ascension to god hood. Kyuss built a ziggurat to serve as the foundation of the Spire of Long Shadows. Balakarde writes how the ziggurat was a powerful magical focus for the ritual that propelled him to divinity. Much of Kyuss’ might has since left the city of Kuluth Mar, but powerful undead servants and lingering touches of Kyuss’ own miasma make the ziggurat a fell and dangerous place. Balakarde visited the ruined city several times, but never penetrated the spire itself I never found the journal pages that described his earlier visits.” 

Mazorian concludes that what remains now is for the party to follow in Balakarde’s foot steps and travel to Kuluth-Mar to learn for themselves how Kyuss came to be. Manzorian points out that the best way to know an enemy is to know what made him—and what better place to learn of Kyuss’ history than an expedition to the site of his divine apotheosis? While the party explores the ancient city, Manzorian intends to lead Agath, Eligos, and Celeste in a session of intense research on the Ebon Triad, Kyuss, and the cause of Balakarde’s disappearance. The findings from this research combined with what the party can discover in Kuluth-Mar will show them what steps to take next.

Episode 6 (part 6): Moretto and the True Tomb

With his hands outstretched, Moretto offers everyone a welcome to his star chamber.  A freaky green light shimmers from a lantern behind the Marquis. Moretto seems genuinely pleased to see these fellow explorers and his old aide Tout.  With a casual gesture which is recognized by Vacso as prestidigitation, Moretto tidies up tiny Tout from the tumble down the river.  Zeek, recognizing that this must be the Ghoul that both the giant shadow spider and the dread wraith guardian had talked about, asked immediately for the Seal of Law.  Moretto gestures back casually to the back the cave that he has made his study, and disparagingly says that he has studied the old relic, and it is worthless.  He offers to trade it to the party for assistance is getting out of the tomb, whose guardians have to date proved a bit too much for Moretto alone.  He is accompanied here by two horrific Morg, who he gestures between the Seal of Law and the party.

Come, he says, lets work together. Vasco is reluctant to bargain for anything.  Moretto tries his charms of Maeron, unwelcomely trying to prestidigitate her unkempt state, but she evades the spell and rejects Morettos false charms.  Yldar, as an act of good faith, agrees to draw Moretto a map of how to get out of the tomb (a map that does not reveal the Elder Ooze who awaits).  This brings Moretto and Zeek eventually agree to have Moretto and the Seal of Law accompany them to the giant adamantium doors beyond which they believe lies the true tomb of Icosiol.  After that, they will go with Moretto out of the tomb.  Vasco decides to see what Moretto is made of and starts to cast detect magic. Moretto, clearly on his guard, counter-spells and wonders aloud about the state of their good company. Finally the tension is broken by a quick exchange between Zeek and Yldar, the later whom takes several precise and definitive shots with his bow.  The battle ensues, the Morg quickly grappling both Zeek and Nabiros and Vasco letting loose an impressive but largely ineffective Yvard's black tentacles. Bursts of energy from Maeron disrupt the unlife, and the party manages to make effective and swift attacks before Moretto can himself effectively retreat or make an offence.  Moretto is again slain, but his writhing soul turns into an incorporeal spectre of himself.  Vasco contains the now made spectre of Moretto in a magic sphere, which allows them enough time to defeat the Morg and equip themselves with Moretto's excellent arsenal.  They all ready for a final battle to Moretto, who when finally let out of Vasco's sphere savagely attacks Tout, bringing him into unlife.  Finally the undead are all dispatched, and disgusted, Nabiros throws the ghouls' chillingly green lantern into the river of blood, Vasco pushing it along with a mage hand.  Hungry for treasure, Zeek protests and tries to go retrieve the lantern, but not before it is swept away into the underdark below.

The party, newly outfitted with Tout's unique amulet of feather falling and Moretto's substantial magic aids, ascends again to the true tomb, resting for another night before entering..  Yldar studies the Seal that night and finds that the words of entry come clearly to his mind.  Eight hours later, he holds the Seal up to the door, speaking the words Aaqa, Icosiol, Pesh, aloud and the mammoth doors swing open.  The room beyond appears bottomless.  Eight huge pillars seemingly float in place.  Clouds of stormy weather crackle and howl below.  Yldar ties a rope to himself and designs to leap from one pillar to the next.  Zeek and Nabiros holding the other end of the rope, the follow Yldar along all the way to the final pillar which, upon landing, ignites a hurricane of wind and lightning upon himself.  Knocked down, Yldar swings like a pendulum, crashing back into the other side.  Dusting himself off, Yldar decides to fly across the room. The flight attracts the chamber's guardians, two hurricane-force air elementals.  The party is thoroughly buffeted by these powerful elementals, but Yldar manages to speak the Seals words again, sealing himself and his friends in the entrance way to the wind elemental's hall.  The rest again, waiting to see if the elementals will be there on their return.  Opening the doors, the elementals have subsided to the storm below, and Yldar resumes his leaps across the pillars to discover how to enter the tomb.  After numerous failed searches, he finally discovers a subtle area of one pillar that the Seal of Law fits perfectly in.  That pillar raises taking Yldar beyond an illusionary ceiling into Icosiol's mausoleum above.  There, three rays burst instantly out of the corner of one room, draining energy, sickening and panicking Yldar, who manages to remove the Seal and letting the pillar down out of the room, where he again is attended to by his friends and recoveres.

Icosiols' tomb guardian Augerric, a demon tied to this room for eternity, stands invisible, mirror imaged and alert for the party to return.  They all devise a means of ropes to guide them to the rising pillar and ready an offensive against whatever guards the tomb above.  Rising again into the chamber, the three beams disable three members, but Zeek manages to charge forward with his cold iron gnome hooked hammer.  Stunningly, stout Zeek confirms a critical hit in the demon, squelching out over half of his chaotic evil lifeforce in Zeek's single blow.  Yldar lets arrows fly, which the demon merely tears out.  Maeron calls her deity for the blinding power of her Holy Smite.  The demon is drained, blinded and crippled, trying to blast away at the party with its paralytic gaze, eyebolts, unholy longsword and claws.  However, with another Smite of Maeron and second confirmed critical from Zeek, the wicked guardian is forever banished back to the outsiders' realms.  Zeek the demon slayer is born.

Chilled from the fight with the demon, but buoyed with the sight of the tomb, Yldar places the Seal of Law into the hands of an engraving of Icosiol on a floating sarcophagus.  The sarcophagus descends gently to the ground and reveals it's treasures, including a Ring of the Wind Dukes, two crossed sword a lighting Sword and a Sword of Aaqa, and the infamous Rod of Seven Parts.  Icosiol's blessings fall over the party, for his spirit percieves the importance of their position in history, with the struggle to prevent the coming of the Age of Worms.  The blessing is felt perhaps nowhere more than with Vasco, who still carrying the Talisman of the Sphere and Zosiel's silver diadem.  These major artifacts, he knows, are restored to their full capacity.

Knowing that they have the Wind Duke's blessing to acquire these treasures to aid them in preventing the Age of Worms, the party sets about the rest of the tomb to secure anything else that may help them. They find all of the Tomb's traps to not affect them, and all of its guardians, including the Ooze lord, and a a Noble Salamander, the Earl of Coalchester, to be friendly and respectful towards them.  There is not much treasure remaining, however.  Back at the Word of Law trap, the great statue (which weighs over 3 tonnes) is holding a masterwork mithral greatsword, which can be removed with ease.  The statue in the relief golem chamber also weighs over 2,500 lbs, but would be worth 9,500gp to a collector of ancient art.  Back in the ooze lord’s chambre, the four levetating lanterns carved with intricate iconography of Icosiol’s battles weigh 100 lbs each, and worth 800 gp each.

In another small antichamber, they find a crumbled wall with the remains of a Wind Duke talbard, some chain and and what looks like some form of legs sticking out.  Uncovering some of the rubble and the party finds while looks like a kind of machine man, wrapped in chain and clutching a wand.  Zeek recognizes this as an ancient warforged minion, one no doubt created during the ancient battle with the Queen of Chaos.  With uncharactistic curiosity, Nabiros urges Maeron to activate the wand and restore the ancient machine, convinced that like the other tomb's guardians, that this one will recognize Icosiol's blessing.  The ancient creature lurches and finally rises, dusting himself off and presenting himself humbly but nobally to them as Nadroc, an ancient Vaati name that Yldar recognzies as the great Wind Duke architect that is said to have brought these tombs into being.  Nadroc denies being the architect himself, but was indeed one of his amazing creations, given to Icosiol during the final battle.  He came to the tomb on Icosiol's death and lived here for centuries along with the other guardians before getting ambushed by an intruder from the Underdark who collapsed the wall upon him before he could heal himself with his wand.  The intruder, it appears, did not survive the other guardians, and Nadroc doubts his utility here in the tomb.  He asks to accompany the party to the surface world, and unlike the evil Moretto, this request seems genuine.  If the Wind Duke's blessing has been given to the party, the Nadroc wants to aid them in any way possible in their quest.

The party finally takes leave of the tomb through the black seal portal.  Back at the entrance to the Whispering Cairn, they survey the damage left by the battle with the dragon in the landscape around the tomb.  First Zeek and Maeron want to check up on the followers that they had left there some indeterminant time ago.  Tney find them outside of town, near one of the mine operations.  It has been three seaons (nearly a year) since Zeek and Maeron became trapped in the tomb, and all but the two most loyal of Zeek's men have left Diamond Lake.  The two men remaining have been making a small business of Zeek's assets, having set up a business relationship with one of the new mine managers who had taken up where Balabar Smenk left off.  They seem only slightly pleased to see you and feel that there are prospects here, particularly in rebuilding the town, providing fortification and defence service.  They seem to have been doing quite well without you in your absence.


The party enters Diamond Lake itself to discuss the next moves with Allustan, who has been home attempting to recover from the Ilthane's savage attack.  Allustan is understandably morose and depressed about the turn of events. The recovery of the Rod of Seven Parts fragment and the other Wind Duke treasures brightens his mood a bit, but even these mighty treasures can’t fix his ruined home, the lives lost to llthane’s attack, or the seemingly unstoppable advance of the Age of Worms.  There is only one more thing he can do to aid the party. He can show them the way to his one-time mentor, the archmage Manzorian, as Eligos had suggested in his final note. Allustan encourages to take what they know to Manzorian’s home to the north in the coastal village of Magepoint.  Allustan himselfretreats into his studies, in search of further information, and begins to strengthen his home with wardings and magical fortifications. A great darkness is close at hand, and the wizard fears what is to come.

Episode 6 (part 5): Plummeting down the River of Blood

Harnessing himself up to a rope, Zeek peers down the precipice, raising one eyebrow and smiling.  Fingering his ring of feather-falling he says “Just lower me down so I can have a look, two tugs and you can pull me back up”.   Down he goes getting soaked by the mist and then grazing into the swift waterfall as he manoeuvers himself around a slight bend.  Down, down, down, 175 feet before he sees the waterfall pooling into a small underground lake.  He holds his lantern towards the water and his gaze is returned by a hundred small white crabs, attracted by the light of his lantern.  Hearing a second waterfall, the river descends here further than Zeek is willing to go, and shortly after two short tugs, Zeek strips naked and warms himself by a small fire that the party had built in the antechamber of the Inevitable’s room.  “Time to rest and prepare our magic,” Vasco wisely and quietly leads the group, “we need not rush down the river quite yet”.

Hours later, the party is ready to descend again.  During the rest Nabiros and Zeek had spliced 300 feet of rope together to aid the descent, securing it to a piton at the crest of the waterfall.  Vasco flying, Maeron and Zeek with rings of feather falling, Nabiros and Yldar on the rope, the party descends down the 175 feet to where Zeek had been eyed by the crabs.  Vasco flies around the subterranean caverns for a moment to scout out passages other than through the lake or down the second waterfall, and is brushed by a familiar wind and then rattled to the bone by an even more familiar sound.  Three magnificent Wind Warriors magnetically float out of one of the passages and clang their twin ancient longswords together with a sonic blast.  Shortly, three more appear from below, precisely firing a crossbow, the others joining their brothers-in-arms with sonic blasts.  Yldar and Zeek take the plunge into the lake to put themselves in more defensible position, while Maeron and Nabiros wrap themselves tightly to the rope with hopes to do battle suspended above the blood red waters. 

The underground chamber fills with the deafening force of the ancient Wind Warriors otherwise silent defence of their general burial complex.  Crackling and searing magic from Maeron and Vasco reply in their defence, Yldar letting precise arrows piece through the timeless Wind Warrior armour.  Nabiros and Maeron are soon engaged at close range by the Wind Warrors who deftly work to dislodge and dispatch them from their rope perch. With Maeron, they nearly succeed, after plummeting into the lake, they bring her to her knees on a rocky precipice of the lake below.  Zeek and Yldar step forward while Maeron recovers, while Nabiros now flanked by two floating tomb defenders, remarkably withstands an extended parley.  Finally, after a long battle, the elemental force that animates the Wind Warriors is dispatched, their armour and fantastic swords crumbling to an ancient dust lost to the rushing waters of the lake below.  The party had taken a lot of damage, and was weary from the battle.

Vasco, invisible and flying, continues to scout down the waterfall.  He sees held up in a small outcrop a halfling adventurer, stranded but sustained by ioun stones buzzing around his head.  Vasco reports this and the overall contour of the waterfall below to the party, who agree to meet with the halfling.  As it turns out, Tout is an 8th level bard who had been captured by a noble but terrible ghoul named Moreto some months ago. He was adventuring with his party in the underdark when he was taken captive by some plotting, well spoken, charming, lantern carrying ghouls.  The rest of his party was brutally dispatched but he was dragged along with them through various horrors of the underdark. He was surprised that they spoke occasionally of their deity the Lord of Rot and Shadow and their nation deep within the underdark called the White Kingdom.  Perhaps he was meant to learn this special lore and pass on his bardic knowledge another day.  There was gossip being passed around by one of the ghouls Moreto, about the arrogance and irrelevance of some other noble ghoul from the White Kingdom.  He was clearly planning something big.  Moreto had recently been travelling with only a small entourage of terrible, commanded undead, and was moving quickly with the halfling bard through the underdark.  Moreto had stranded him here, flippantly promising to return but had not in quite some time.  Tout and Moreto had been travelling up the River of Blood when Tout tumbled and amulet of feather-falling which unluckily tore off his neck.  The only reason he is alive is that his ioun stones keep him nourished, but he has been unable to pass through the water below and winds above.  He has healed him self and is, other than being amulet-less, was fully charged.  He was more than happy to help the party find Moreto and ultimately escape his extended tour of the underdark back to the surface world.

The party explores a side tunnel before descending the river much further.  The channel leads to a set of stairs and a secret door.  The door, which is unlocked and un-trapped, lead to another set of 50' tall, adamantine plated stone doors which are inscribed with ancient Wind Duke runes indicating this is the final resting place of General Icosiol, who is best not disturbed, and his enemies best left sleeping.  Not being able to open the door by any conventional means, the party continues down the River of Blood, seeking Moreto and the Seal of Law that he has stolen. Perhaps this is an element of the key.

Arranging ropes and rings, and recovering Tout’s amulet of feather falling from a basin of water below, the party continues down.  Battered by the rushing waters, drenched by the spray and mist, the rope gets slippery and several of the party loose their grip and tumble down.  Maeron falls nearly 200 feet and barely survives with her life.  Yldar and Nabiros also fall, but with less life threatening consequences.  The River of Blood finally levels out in chamber glowing with an odd, green, almost starry light.  There they find the noble Moreto, with arms open, welcoming and greeting them, thanking them for having rescued Tout from his awkward perch.