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Worlds End
- Now joined by the Wein Caradoc, the group races deeper into the sewer beneath Dariad town. Hearing the sounds of the pursuing wolves behind them, the group lines up along the blind turn of the tunnel and throws their torch down the passage so that only Gorunn is visible to them. As the wolves turn the corner, Gorunn acts as if he had been left behind by the longer legged humans and had now tripped. The wolves are spurred into a race to be the first one to jump and rip into the chubby Kordan, their own blood thirst only moments away from leaving them strung out in front of the line of armed men waiting for the signal to strike at their unguarded flanks. Then Caradoc chops into the second wolf to pass him causing all the wolves to stop and concentrate on the first four people in the line, one of the wolves even having the chance to catch all four with a swirling spray of icy breath.
After finishing the Winter wolves the group continues ahead to another flood control chamber. In the middle of these ice filled tunnels the group is surprised to sea a pool of glistening water in the chamber before them, they are even more surprised by the pool clinging to the ceiling above them.
Both pool have floating within them dimly visible skeletons with patches of flesh still clinging to them. With this horrid sight before their eyes the group proceeds to circle around the pools with caution. Their concerns are verified as the pool above begins to emit its animated corpses like some strange act of birth, while the pool below lashed out at Delvin with a fist of ooze in a attempt to drag him within.
Gorunn rushes across the room and flings open the door that stands between the tear and himself only to find a large scarred troll holding a board with a nail in it patiently awaiting him. The group quickly began to fire arrows into its warty brown hide while Gorunn stepped back to allow Caradoc to close on it.
With a single disgusted snort of it wide flaring nostrils the troll snapped the arrow off in its flesh, and pressed one side of the door shut with its knee while preparing it board in both hands to knock the first man through the door out into the pool of ooze.
Gorunn attempted to dash through the door, although clipped hard by the edge of the board he allowed Caradoc the chance to close on the troll. Although wounded near death the trolls quickly showed signs of regeneration, causing Gorunn to suggest flinging its body into the pool of ooze so that is could be digested by the horror.
The tear was located in the center of the Wyrmgate, a device that manifested the teat in the planer barrier into a true hole allowing passage into another plane. While Kordan set to rededicating the gate a alarm rang above. By listening to the stairway to the floor above, the group learned that the garrison of Castle Dariad has blocked off their escape by the sewers and that the man in charge above had decided to fill the two stairways with a barricade and trap the group below.
Shots and spells were exchanged before the denizens above decided to block the stairwell at the top, meanwhile Phildan had carved a spy hole in the door way and reported that the troll had arisen from the pool and that lights were visible in the distant ends of the tunnel.
With all exits guarded and blocked, the group turned almost against its will to the to the Wyrmgate now showing a starry filled night sky. With a shrug each member the group leaped into the hole leading to the home plane of the God Lorna.
I myself took the task of speaking to the Kordan, his prayers of regret for not helping his people has touched my heart, I tried to explain to him that the Higher gods had given him the task of stopping the final winter to make up for the Kordan’s failing in their charge to isolate the Tower of Ages, but the miserable little bugger just shrugged and wallowed in his angst. I think I could grow to hate him.
Some of the others met with member of the Court of light, the elves that had journeyed to serve the goddess Lorna when they had wearied of living. They were told o the bow of Dragonbone called Wyrmdriller and the Gauntlet of Shar. The Wein Caradoc was spoken to by Wolf, the avatar of all those who travel in packs and sniff each other bungholes in greetings, Wolf mutter on about some mysticism that must have meant something to the barbarian. Of all the Sensitives only the wood elf Lazurus was spurned, the Court of light had nothing to say to the descendant of rebels.
Finding themselves set down at the edge of Crannai territory with vague warning of a invasion from the east, the group set out to find the gauntlet of Shar before it was lost by the mysterious invasion of the Black ships.
Brother Zalistor Armand - I stand on the flood control tower of the town of Dariad, beside me is James Owenson, a young member of the Tury Clan. His job is to watch over the bog below the town so that no one can enter or exit through the open gate to sewer below. Every time some poor soul tries to escape the town he has sounded the alarm and watched them be ran down and dragged away to be given as gifts to the unnatural terrors which his duke has aligned him self with. James himself would prefer to allow the refuges to escape, but other guards have told him of the wolves that let loss each morning to chase down those who make it pass the watches. As James’s eyes turn to watch Delvin’s slowly circling owl, a small group of men dash out of a ditch to the open gate below him, a hour later the owl returns and as James tries to get a shot at what is more food then has seen in weeks, another group makes a slow march from ditch to gate.
In the sewer tunnels below Delvin, Gorunn and the two archers slowly explore. They find a passage to a dead end chamber below the deepest cellars of the castle above, and discover the presence of the wolves that lair above.
Now joined by Captain Kormac they find the escape tunnel to the castle left wide open and the chamber beyond it filled with a unnatural snow. The snow stirs as if touched by a non-existent wind, when Delvin presses a torch against it, it blow away to avoid the flames. Slowly they clear a path through the snow to reach a room with a closed door between themselves and the wolves and a wall of hand polished ice with a dimly seen figure mocking them from behind it.
With no other path available they smash down the wall and quickly dispatch the ice covered undead behind it, they find them selves in a group of small cramped cellars decorated in a mockery of the Imperial mid winter festival, complete with the animated corpses of children who sing festival sons in haunting voices that chill the blood of all those who hear them.
Gorunn slides across the icy floor and dashes up the stairs to the chamber holding the massive tear above, the others follow in turn.
The Tear here is visible as a gigantic snowflake made of light, Gorunn who has taken to tuning his body to the Planer Barrier leaps into the tear in a attempt to disrupt its influence on the world around, succeeding only to severing his attunement to the Barrier.
A battle ensued between the band of heroes and the ice coated dead men with their gaily dressed dead children allies which now threw snow balls that coated and clung to those struck by them.
Soon the enemy forces were joined by their lead, a masked Ice priest who named himself after the winter spirit of death by freezing, Father Frost, and his pet polar bear, Snuggles. Seeing that the only target worthy of his spells was the priest Kormac, a target which his spells would be unlikely to effect, Father Frost choose to fill the room with a blinding cloud of freezing miss and swirling snow.
Seeing his bear and other servants falling in battle, Frost choose to flee to release his wolves, only to be thrown to the ground by Gorunn, then pelted repeatedly by the spell guided arrows of Delvin.
Hearing the Tury troops from the castle above sounding the alarm, Kormac quickly rededicated the tear to the Imperial pantheon. The band then fled into the sewers heading in the direction of the second tear with the sound of howling wolves at their heels.
Brother Zalistor Armand - I stand at the edge of the Blackmoor and watch the Magewyrm Quicksilver draw glyphs the size of villages in the fresh snow. With a howl the rising wind swirls and tremor in the foundations of the earth 3 figures made of carved ice and swirling snowfall from elsewhere to do the dragon’s bidding. Quicksilver’s stretches forth a transparent claw and commands “follow”.
Miles away and half a day away a lone figure struggles thought the snow, ahead he can see the smoke of a blazing fire in the town ahead. The man has journeyed far since he deserted the Hag Mormu, only to find himself engulfed in the swirling blizzard that envelopes the Sleet devils at all times.
I stand at the back of a room crowded with the leaders of the six against the north, the priest Kormac gaze into a moonlit bowl and ask the help of his god, as his confused eyes turn to gaze in my direction I realized that my reflection is visible in the bowl.
Unwilling to end his spell to investigate my presence the six ask questions to plan their next move.
The six decide to go forth and cleanse the tears below castle Darad.
On their journey to the castle the sleet devils catch up them and a battle begins, the devils bleed the six but finally fall, their ice bones exploding at their deaths surprising the Kordan who had fought them before.
They journey to the trader’s town of Sheep dip and find it full of refugees from Darad, they learn that the howling men in service to the Necromancer Carrion had taken to raiding private homes to provide their master with fresh bodies.
Wishing to enter the barrows below the Caster with out fighting through hordes of guardsmen, the six find a former Barrowmaster called Weevil for his habit of raiding the raw grain stored for the livestock of Sheep dip.
As I stand on the roof of the Inn of the Lost lamb I can see the six begin their journey to the north.
Brother Zalistor Armand
- I watch our intrepid band march across the countryside, joined on they way by a Lurus tribesman, they find the frozen remains of 3 elderly Weins. Following their trail to the nearest village, the Keir Dar Duroan, they find a band of Imperial troops who had taken over the town. The sergeant in charge claims that the local headwoman killed their captain after they fortified the village and that he and his men were forced to take over to protect themselves. At first the sergeant claims that the 3 elder folk had left voluntarily, later when the sergeant had left to prepare for the bands single officer to arrive, they learn that the sergeant had ordered that the elders be given no food or firewood and that the elders had ran away to try to make it to the next nearest town. After learning that the sergeant had cut the tongue from the headwoman after he claimed that she had killed the captain, and that the sergeant was making a effort to hide a trapdoor in the floor of the headman’s house, the newly arrived Wein tribesman quickly cut him down.
The truth was that after giving the imperials 3 days as guests, the headwoman decided that she wanted the former criminals of the lost patrol to leave while welcoming most of the others, the captain honored her wishes to leave but would not abandon the men under his command. When the captain called in the sergeant to prepare the men to leave the sergeant quickly drove a knife under his captain breastplate and then cut out the tongue of the headwoman, claiming it was her punishment for killing the captain.
The surviving villages had been placed under guard in the cellar below and after questioning them, the band decided to leave behind the two former militiamen at the headwoman’s request and take the others under their command.
The band continued to the east finding the tracks of the Ice priestess Ember’s band of undead. Trailed by the druidess wood elf kolina who had also found the trail, they followed her trail just in time to witness her confrontation at Blackmore keep with Connell, a clan less Wein mercenary hired by the Hag Mormu to organized her goblin servants to repel invaders. After a exchange of threats and taunts a Grey Render that had taken to lairing in the cellars below the keep awoke and lumber out to defend it territory.
The forces of Ember were no match for the render but the render was force to kill only a few walking corpses as a time as Ember and Lord Necrotic began to lay into it with spells.
At this time the band began to fire flaming arrows into the portable hut of driving Lord Necrotic into their view, while the Druidess pelted Ember with near hits of her sling stones. After taking a arrow in the back, Lord Necrotic used his magic to take on a transformation to a thick stinking gas to make his escape, while Ember ordered the bulk of her troops to march on the band to cover her escape.
Using a spell of invisibility Ember made her escape, while the Druidess locked down fully half of the marching group of skeletons, the rest of the Imperial forces arrived in time to put down the undead in a loud display of firearms, melee, and archery, just loud enough to attract the Render.
The battle was brief but bloody, taken dozens of shots on it approach and already wounded by Ember’s servant the Render still carves out it pound of flesh from Caradoc’s the Weins flesh.
Deciding that the Swamp hag was as good a defender as any for the tear, the band followed the trail of Ember. Learning that she has performed a ritual and was waiting for rescue from a dragon they chased her down and fell victim to a color spray spell, those now effected engaged her in combat, finally putting her down with a blind shot from Devlin. The band made great distance and finally went to ground before the dragon could arrive. Now they question their prisoner and plot what to do next.
Brother Zalistor Armand - I walk along the ice coated balcony above the courtyard of the Draug barrow as the chosen ones fight against the wolves of Vorn the Beastmaster, I step through stone passing by the now fleeing Beastmaster to watch the necromancer Lord Necrotic attempt to bring down the priest Kormac with wand and spell. The Howling men drive a group of walking dead men down the passage that connects the necromancers chambers with the room in which the chosen ones now run and hide from the magic hand that tries to drive its way into Kormac’s steel covered head.
A moment later I watch in amusement as Vorn runs face first into the advancing corpses, then turn and flee to the shelter of Ungrateful son’s personal room. Devlin, reinforced by the scout and acolytes climbs down a room, dropping the last 15 feet as the Dragonkin Grayscale hurls a axe into his back from the shelter of the standing stones.
The chosen assemble a ram and carry it across the courtyard to begin to batter down the doors to the necromancer’s chamber, only to be met with the derisive laughter of the howling men. As they finally batter the door open they are met by a line of dead men being herded down a narrow passage by the howling men, During a brief exchange of taunts it is learned that they are protecting the Necromancer Lord Necrotic, whom they call “flaky” in reference to his burned and flaking skin. On hearing his hated title, flaky exposed his head to scream at his erstwhile guards only to take a arrow in the neck from Devlin, a moment later the dead men are put down by Kormac while Flaky chooses to escape by way of a Gaseous form spell rather then face a alert and dangerous group of warriors.
Abandoned by their charge and with no where to run, the high spirited Howling men seem to be willing to chat and bargain until the sight of a hated and despised Imperial in the form of Kormac entered the room. They died trying to destroy the representative of the force that had enslaved their order.
Unseen by the chosen, the beastmaster Vorn emerged to find Ungrateful son and his men’s bodies unlooted, within moment Vorn emerged into the courtyard laden with treasure and under fire by the scouts waiting above, wounded and trapped Vorn once again takes to hiding.
Greyscale sets his remaining forces on guard, the Priest called overseer sends a call for help to the Great Wyrm Blizzard, Greyscale know that the warriors who took down Ungrateful son would not hesitate to hurl themselves into fight against prepared and unseen opponents. Setting up the hatching and priest in a crossfire and setting the ogers to guard one of the doors.
Moments after a spell cast to obscuring the doors fade away the chosen ones rush into the room, the priest kormas shuts and holds fast the door that lead to the dragon while Grayscale and Kedrin cut each other to ribbons, the ogers are wounded and bleeding but finish off the Kordan, the archer and finally the Wein.
As the soul of Kedrin arises from his mortal shell I take advantage of the very magic raised by temple of world’s end, I cannot give Kedrin life, but I can give him a chance to avenge his own death.
Kormac is battered and beaten under the clubs of the oger, but he is able to send the undead Priest fleeing out of the battle while the scouts arrive to distract the hatchling dragon.
As the now dead Kedric awakens and rises from the ground the last oger falls and the chosen are left with the conundrum of what to do with a animate self-willed corpse.
They gather the food remaining in the barrow and plan to take it to the nearby village, pausing only to chase down the fleeing Vorn, then the Great Wyrm Blizzard finally arrives. After digging at the barrow trying to get to the chosen and lurking in the sky invisible for a time, the Wyrm finally leave the chosen alone to rededicate the tear, eliminating all the walking dead raised by its magic, and returning the nearby lands to a cold but mundane weather.
Brother Zalistor Armand - I stand in a small ornate room facing a crowd of Generals, Speakers, Senators and members of the Imperial family. The gray haired general Servano briefs the grave faced young Emperor on the current standing of the empire. The sudden reinforcement of the Morians held Southern Marches has caught the Empire by surprise, the Morians had already taken most of the remaining south right up to the ancient border forts of the Naredal ridge. With the Cinnibar mines cut off by the unnatural winter the Empire was left with a supply of Firepowder that would last a maximum of 2 months. The conventional forces of the empire would be pressed into service defending the south leaving only a token force to defend the empire from the raids of the barbarian tribes of the uplands of the spine of the world. With no knowledge of status of the north the Empire would be left with a undefended flake if forces in the north were to gathered and mobilized to crossover the spine.
I stand on a tall spire of magnetized stone and watch the small band of the chosen heroes stalk and capture a Ice Memphit in order to close on the inhabitants of this ancient barrow. I watch in amazement as the heroes look into the 3 story deep courtyard, note that all the chamber of the complex open into it, allowing all of it inhabitants to close all together at once on any foe that occupies it, then leap right into the middle of it.
These are the champions who are the only hope to stop the end of the world?
To be Continued,
Brother Zalistor Armand - I stand at the mouth of the old high pass and watch the approaching figure of a horned Yeti walking across the snow, it wide feet holding it weight above the deep cold snow.
The creature lops to a stop near a man with rage filled eyes in full armor, he turns to regard the yeti with a cold look “Report”. The Yeti breaths deep “Men escape, Wein men, Imp men, Elf men, they hole up in man cave, kill life sucker, kill yeti, go north.”
The man turns to regard the assembled forces gathered to harry and destroy the retreating Legion, “I’ve already set forces to destroy any survivors who fled to the north, if they are insufficient to destroy them it will give me their measure.”
I stand at the top of a vast well like depression at the heart of a great hill, 8 stones tall as towers and as old as nations line the sides of the hole making a circle of stone. A man dressed in snow white robes strides from a door in the side of the hill, he breathes but his breath does not steam in the wintry cold air. The man sets a faceted clear stone at the center of the stone circle while undead steeds, murmuring warriors and the brooding draconic warrior look on. With a chant in legend not spoken in ages the man begins a ritual of dedication to the cold of the grave, the silence of the dead, and the end of the world. As he sings the air grows cold, the sun rises over the course of his ceremony but it warms nothing, a few bodies left to freeze by the side of the circle begin to stir. The dead legionnaires, survivors of the expeditionary force made it out of the pass only to die under the arrows of unseen foes. The dead walk in this unnatural winter, and they hunger for warmth.
I wait at the end of the old high pass, a slow train of survivors approach me. They leave a trail in the snow that I can see even from here, the Ice Memphits notice the trail but not the men, instead they flit about arguing weather to follow this trail or that of the other survivors. The band I watch can feel the presence of the Memphits and quicken their pace to the cover of the tree line behind me.
Three groups passed over the mountains, each one with the potential to the final winter, one has already fallen. If this is the last age what will happen to me, each witness lives to see the start and end of their age, if this age is the last, will it ever end, or will I see the last living thing slip into death and then be alone forever.
Brother Zalistor Armand - As I stand in the freezing tundra at the top of the world, I realize that the great stone structure that towers up miles into the sky is a barrier between the world and the place where the gods stopped and left there work unfinished when they made the world.
The wind blows snow against the ornate black robes I now find my self attired in, but I feel nothing.
As I stand before a door large enough to admit an entire cathedral should one find its sell in need of entrance, I become aware that I am not alone. They number in the thousands, a vast host of short burly men with great white manes of hair and beard, they eyes shine like sapphires as the entire Kordan people stand and regard me in silence.
With the sound of like the breaking of a mountain the door behind me surges open the merest crack of a thousand feet, dark shards of ice cascade down and shatter into the ground with the sound of thunder.
A Single pale hand, large enough to hold my head in its palm, reaches forth from the darkness with a great black sword gripped within it. I walk forward take the Sword of Ages from my god, its edges are so sharp that I can not see the edge except where it presses into my robe as I lean it against my shoulder.
I turn to face the now bowing Kordan, their leader steps forward to drop to both knees, “Forgive holy man in black, they got pass us by air where we could not chase them. We have failed the gods, but I would plead for the lives of our children”
I shake my head in confusion, “I am sure you did all you could, if the gods wished to punish you they would have already struck you down.” The knowledge suddenly comes to me, “A messenger will come, he will tell you what deed you must do to redeem your honor”.
With that said, I begin to walk across the world, each step covering miles at a time leading me to my next task. A name spoken into the ear of a disgruntled father will lead a guide back to his home, a toss of the dice and a suddenly broke warrior thinks of home, a whispered comment sends a slave on a journey back to the north. With these other innocent seeming tasks done I begin the march to the north beside the unorganized rabble of a legion.
I stand on a high ridge and the great worm called Winter, freed from his former prison he flies over the legion far below him, a magic storm trailing from his wings. His children gathered from across the north and a array of yeti descend from all sides under the cover of the storm and charge into the scattered and Dragonfeared legionnaires.
Some of the chosen few sense the presence of the nearby tear and escape the battleground to it doubtful safety.
A engineer named Taber Lamont straps a collection of demolition charges onto the imperial Phalanx’s ammunition behemoth and sends it charging into the path of the beast Frostfang. With a swing of its great sword it cuts into both behemoth and explosives sending a shock wave of noise throughout the entire pass. With this sudden shock the oversensitive hearing of the yeti send them into a state of howling pain, allowing the organized remains of the legion a few moments to break through the Yeti’s lines into a organized retreat.
Brother Zalistor Armand - I have always know of the possibility that I might one day be chosen as a true cleric, a Priest granted true powers in the service of the gods, I never thought that it would be I who would be chosen as the Witness of the end of the world.
I do not know why this burden has been laid upon me. My family has been builders of tomes and vaults for generations, we have always honored Hanos as our patron god, so when I grew up weak of frame and unskilled at stone it was my lot to be my generations living offering to the God.
My new life did not displease me, I was skilled at the arts of the scribe and the young women of the households where often grateful for the counseling I provided for their dieing, and the legal advice that settled their estates.
It was the vineyard master of the Faren estates sudden illness that called me into the city, I attended and recorded his dieing words, and comforted his wife and children before being left alone to prepare the body for burial.
When I turned from the door, the corpses eyes were opened into two lightless pits, all warmth was gone from the room and I knew I stood before the presence of my God.
From my knees I heard his words whispering from between dead lips, “Rise my good and faithful servant. You are needed, to the end of this age and beyond you will bear witness to the words and deeds that will decide the fate of this world. No blade will harm you, no fire will warm you, time itself will stand aside for you, and by no act will you have part in the fate of another.”
As I rose from my knees, the old mans family rushed pass me in response to the moans of their patriarch, for service as his messenger Hanos had restored the old mans life, and as I looked down and bore witness to my lack of shadow, I knew that my lord had taken mine.
Brother Zalistor Armand
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