Vasco an elven wizard from across the lake, skilled with boats.
Ubu a half-orc barbarian, local to the town, going no-where.
Arthur a local rogue, tricky but not too experienced.
Rancik, a cleric of Wee-Jas, dark, very serious about the law, lawful neutral in the truest sense
A trio of adventurers from the Free City: Auric, Khellek and Tirra, have spoken openly about their intent to raid the empty Stirgenest Cairn, braggery which has spread throughout the small lakeside mining town of Diamond Lake.
Ubu and Arthur meet and discuss these rumours, and talk about how they are unimpressed with the vein efforts of these braggarts, and dream of exploring some cairns of their own. They meet Rancik, who reluctantly expresses interest and Vasco who is all too interested in getting involved in something more interesting than scrubbing decks.
They agree to met at a small shack outside of town to check out another cairn that one of the group had heard about — the Whispering Cairn – to explore it for unknown adventure. The Whispering Cairn is about 10 minutes east of their little shack, with a wide monolith-lined portal partially obscured by underbrush and boulders framing the entrance. They make their way in and see an unusual arcane glyph about the size of a man’s head carved into the baseplate of a support platform of a shattered arcane apparatus. Vasco figures that the glyphs on this broken mirror are transportation-related and in an ancient language of Vaati, which some unorthodox scholars consider the original written form of Auran, the language of air elemental. The party proceeds down the main hall of the whispering cairn, breaking through a pack of wolves and finding a gallery with seven distinctively coloured lanterns which they learn to operate for going up and down shafts.They enter the lair of the labourers, overcoming a giant beetles and its swarm of acid beetles, an unusual fatigue, a ghoul and water elemental. Find masterwork leather armour emblazoned with an eight-pointed symbol and a similar silver ring on a corpse in the fatiguing room. After resting, the party ascends from the Cairn and heads to Diamond Lake for 2 days. They meet a sage Allustan and ask him to identify the symbol on the armour and the ring, and provide sketches of several of the ancient glyphs and artifacts they encounter, enquiring as to their significance. The party reaches level 2.
They return and explore the lair of the architect, doing a strange battle with a strangling aberration and an earth elemental who the party can not communicate with. They retrieve more treasure from the Cairn and return to the Diamond Lake to see Allustan, who teaches them about the Wind Dukes, and invites them back to share more information. Wind Dukes of Aaqa lived thousands of years ago, long before the rise of human civilization. They lived for centuries in stalemate with the Queen of Chaos and her demon ally Miska the Wolf-Spider. When Miska and legions sieged the Wind Duke’s territory, the Aaqans routed elemental armies to battle them. Seven great Wind Duke warriors withdrew from the conflict and made a plan to destroy Miska. They sought out a great weapon, the fabled Rod of Law. They returned to war on the volcanic fields of Pesh and plunged the Rod of Law into Miska. A great planar rift erupted, shattering the rod into seven pieces, scattering them across the land. Those few Wind Dukes who survived the battle were buried their dead in great tombs. Allustan surmises that the Whispering Cairn may be somehow connected to these ancient Wind Dukes of Aaqa.
The party heads back to the Whispering Cairn to look through the final areas and collect some of the treasure they had not yet recovered. They cleverly work through tiny tunnel with a powerful wind trap and enters an trapped chamber of iron spheres, a grick, and the ghost of Alastair Land, a young boy who has been here for decades, who asks the group to intestate his farmstead, and rebury the bones of his family. In exchange, he will trigger the trap and let the group pass.
The group heads back and finds the farm near their shack. They end up doing battle with a wounded Owlbear who is there and find her baby, which Vasco ends up protecting and keeping in their shack. Rancik, absolutely offended by this desecration strongly wants to know the answers to who has done this to these graves. The party goes to town and bribes Kullen, a bouncer at the bar, to reveal information about necromancer Filge, who they connect to the open graves, and go off to investigate his observatory. They leave the baby owlbear in a stable for 2 days. On the steps of the observatory, expecting to find Filge inside, the party wants to recover the Land family bones and return them to their graves. They sneak inside from the rooftop and engage Filge and his undead minions in a ranged battle, not even talking to him before they overcome and kill him. They find some of Filge’s odd possessions, a note from “S” informing Filge about Green worms and unkillable zombies that cultists in the Dourstone Mine have brought to town, a small green worm suspended in a flask, and most of the Land family bones, which they return and re-bury in the grave.
The party visits Allustan again, where he describes the significance of the glyphs and fescos in the lobby of the cairn as being connected to the Wind Dukes. He also identifies the symbol on the armor and ring as being of The Seekers, an archaeological and scholarly society that operates in the area. Rancik as given Allustan the worm and asks for help to learn about it. Allustan is interested and has said it will take some time to study.
They return to the mine and enter a massive chamber with walls covered with enormous bas-relief vistas. Each vista portrays a scene from the life of the Wind Duke Zosiel, which Allustan had identified for the party from a previous glyph. When a character approaches one of the murals, smoke breaths from valves in the walls in ways that make the images on the walls come alive. The story told is the story of the defeat of the Queen of Chaos by the Wind Dukes, one of them showing the Rod of Law being used, others with rod fragments being presented to Vaati superiors. In this true tomb, when Ubu approaches the central walkway, two tall humanoid creatures step out on a column of air, wielding twin swords and wearing ceremonial armour. The silently attack, their clanging swords piercing sonic attacks, but the party manages to defeat them. After the battle, they enter the final resting place of the Wind Duke Zosiel, recovering from his grave a diadem of wisdom bearing Zosiel’s personal glyph, demonic looking black horns with red tips, and a metal box containing a talisman.Back from the Cairn, Allustan identifies the treasure, particularly the talisman of the sphere, which controls a black globe that was depicted in the cairn that Allustan surmises is a powerful sphere of annihilation that had been used in the Battle of Pesh. Allustan says that these spheres were holes in the continuity of the multiverse, and than anything they touched were destroyed utterly. Allustan urges Vasco to keep this valuable minor artifact, saying with a wink that one must always be prepared.
The party stays at their shack, considering what to do about the Dourstone Mine mentioned in Filge’s note, and the connection to Smenk, the note’s author.
