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Dark Shadows Rising
Prelude
At the Crossroads:
"Man will destroy themselves, and the world will be ours again."
"Yes, Kakatal. But will man destroy everything else in the process. I fear that their greed and arrogance will do our kin more harm then good. We must offer them as much help as we can. We must guide them, was that not the purpose of our ancient pacts? Offering man the power of the elements that allowed us to guide them on the right path?"
"You're being niave brother, man has become weak. Their once strong will and hearts will break at the first sign of the hard road. I offered more then enough help when my son aided them with the recovery of the Earth fragment of the Great Ring. A ring that I will not like to see in the hands of man ever again."
"Well I agree with you Asshaasshaassssha. We must must offer man aid, you need to remember Grome that this evil man faces we will also need to face. This evil is more then man, it is even more then us."
"I agree with Straasha, Great Kings of the Elements. You must aid man or Aredel will become blanketed in evil."
Grome looks over at the door, seeing the figure standing there.
"Hrmph. What are you doing here you old fool? We seek not your advice."
"Ha. Well Grome you may not seek it, but you will receive it. Do not count man out yet. Remember it was man who saved Kakatal from his imprisonment, and restored Asshaasshaassssha's son from death. They will prevail here too. However, they will need a little....push so to speak."
"Yes, I agree. Therefore I will offer the aid of my ship."
"NO YOU CAN NOT! THAT IS MY SHIP!"
"Be calm Grome. You know that the ship is now in Straasha's control. You have no say in this. The time for the ship to be in your control has not come yet."
In Astol:
"General the men are ready for the attack."
"Excellent. We attack at nightfall"
On a ship somewhere on the sea:
"We have recovered it. Although those creatures where rather disgusting."
"What was our lose on the mission, Madam?"
"Almost 90% of our forces. It seems those creatures can regenerate, we did not count on that when we attacked."
"Oh well, small price to pay. Set of course for the Motherland"
In Dinasis:
"They are a head. Remember gentlemen, these men are dangerous and act quickly without thinking. Keep your guard up."
Adventure Summary
As the party looked over their kill, preparing to track the wild cats back to their lair Solvay came riding up the road. He looked well travel and as if he hadn't seen a clean set of clothes in the last few weeks he left Bykin Castle on a mission for Nadimus. They noticed a scar running from ear to chin on his left jawline. Salutations where passed over as the party but Solvay straight to the task of tracking their kill to their home. Solvay soon found the right set of tracks and began to follow them back. They tracked the cats for about an hour, the party noticed that the hills became more rocky and that the tops of the rocks were jagged and deadly. The tension of the party was high as they expected an ambush at any moment. After following the tracks for about 40 minutes the party came to a clearing. They could see about four females nursing roughly four cubs each, and five males. The rocky valley was about 80 yards by 80 yards, across from them was the opening of a cave mouth, that they watched one of the males go into. Deciding that the cats weren't worth killing but the cave was worth checking out, Toglard made the group invisible while Morduke made sure they weren't heard. The group moved through the valley and cats as they moved they noticed that one of the males stopped what he was doing and began to sniff the air and move his head in their direction. After a few moments of sniffing the cat snorted and went back to what he was doing, but keeping an eye on the area. The entire party was glad Toglard had taken those three baths because they were certain that the cat would have noticed Toglard's unique ordour.
The party entire the cave mouth and as they made their way towards the back they noticed the remains of humans, and animals that these cats had feasted on. At the back of the cave they found a passage that lead deeper into the hills. They began to follow the passage and the further they went into the passage they began to notice it sloping downward. After walking for a bit they began to hear sounds of banging metal, and the commotion of work ahead of them. When they made it to the end of the passage they were at a cliff that over looked a large cavern that had numerous large fires in it, and little creatures that seem to be a mix between goblins and orcs moving about. The part saw the cavern had three exits, one large one straight a head and two to their left. Using numerous Feather Fall spells the party dropped to the cavern floow below them. They found themselves in a darken corner of the cavern and the creatures had yet to notice them. Turning himself invisible, Olown moved acrossed the cavern and down the large passage way. As he moved down the passage way he was passed by these creatures who where pushing and pulling carts full of rock passed him. He even noticed that they were using these cat cubs to pull their carts, after a little bit Olown can to an opening of a cavern that was deeper then the eye could see. Olown saw the path that spiraled up from the inside of the cavern and began to follow it down.
When Olown reached the bottom he found about twenty of these creatures digging, as he watched one of these creatures struck something and began to yell as this strange gas started to flow from a crack in the ground. The gas envolved the creature and as it fell to the ground convulsing. As the creatures paniced, a leader stepped forth and with some sort of shamanistic wand closed the crack in the ground and shouted something at the rest of the creatures. Moving back the hole, and to the main cavern Olown headed down one of the passage ways to the left, at the end of it he found these creatures making weapons and armor for themselves. Olown decided to head back and report his findings.
While Olown was off scouting Morduke talked with the earth element of the area to find out what was going on. The Elemental explanied that many of his kin are non-intellegent beings and he was just rewarded this domain only a few hundred years ago, so he does not know of anything they would be looking for, and those that do could not answer the simplest of questions. Upon the return and report of Olown he party decided that these creatures were up to no good and they should be dealt with. Morduke had the elemental create cracks in the great pit these things were digging to release the gas, and Toglard released a Cloud Kill into the cavern. As the deadly gases began to fill the chambers, these creatures ran in fear only to have Solvay's arrows find homes in their backs and chests. As a leader type emerged from the large passageway mouth, Solvay slew him sending the creatures into more panic. As they ran in all directions the part was able to catch one of them. The creature gibbered in a dialect they had not heard before. Using his divine powers Morduke began to communicate with the creature.
The creature begged for it's life as it told Morduke that they were digging for the Great Beast of their people. That the Great Beast will lead their people into victory over the surface dwellers like him. The creature also gave the location of their city, two days north from the cave. Morduke let the creature go with a message to his Cheif that Morduke would slay any of his kind if they ever entere his eyesight from this day forth. The group then headed back to their horses, but not before Solvay collected the shaman wand of the leader.
The party debated on what to do next, kill the creatures then head for the halflings home or just head to the halfings home. That's when Toglard asked "With Cutter gone, who is leading us now?" Morduke then said that Toglard should be their leader and after a good laugh was had by all, Urlich was nominated by a majority of the party. Urlich's first order of business was to get to the halflings home and find the fragment of the ring.
The party stopped for the night to make camp and for the first time they noticed (due mostly to the DM not mentioning it early in the night) that there was someone with Solvay when he returned. The man approached Ulrich and introduced himself as Balnor of Kryll, servant of Ulrich's farther Earl Mikalis von Kliptenstien and that he bore news for Ulrich. The news, however, was not good. Balnor informed Ulrich that times have become hard in Kryll over the past few months. Civil unrest and political corruption had plauged Kyrll deeply, the Duke of the Southern Holdings was slain, leaving no heir. With support of the King, the other Earl's voted Ulrich's father as the new Duke of the land. Being the man that he was, Mikalis never believed in sitting in some throne room sending men to spill their blood for him. If they were to spill their blood for him, then he would do the same for them. Mikalis lead a group of men into the marshes of Hysparn and where attacked. All of the group, inlcuding Ulrich's father were slain. And with Ulrich being abroad his cousin, Zavier has become the Duke of the land. Since his rule has begun alliances with ArchDuke von Richterburg, as he as also changed his title to ArchDuke. Zavier's rule is harsh and strict, but strangely he is getting support of many, while the rest who still remain loyal to Mikalis and his principles do what they can to undermind Zavier's rule but tension is growing.
Urlich took the news hard but better then expected. After a few moments of thinking, Ulrich announced that the fragment still held priority over his cousin. His cousin will be around for a while, but the Ithakians could still get the ring. They decided to send Balnor to the nearest town to arrange passage for them. They would be there as soon as they got the ring fragment. The next morning Balnor headed to the town, and Ulrich lead the party straight to Philander's old home. When they got there they noticed the old halfling house, it seem to have a section just for halflings and a section of humans. The house looked to have been abandoned for thousands of years, never disturped until recently. They noticed the foot prints and signs of people being at the house within the last few days. Solvay scouted around and found an old grave that had been dug up, the remains of a halfling laid half in/half out of the casket. Solvay went to work to buring the body and saying a prayer. The rest of the group found a door buried behind a bunch of over-growth, they were able to pop the lock and go inside. They inspected the inside of the house to find that no one's been here for ages. Looking around with a Detect Magic Toglard found a ring and a pair of boots.
While the party was inspecting the house, Farrol to post on the roof of the house and noticed almost two dozen riders on the horizon coming towards them. Signally over to Solvay and letting out an alert, the rest of the party joined him in the field behind the house. As the twenty riders approached they stopped about 800 yards out from the group, using spyglasses looked the party over but stopped when they saw Morduke. After a short debate the riders were identified as servants of Daesious and they insisted on the party turning over Morduke. A few more words were exchanged before the riders charged the party. The riders choice proved to be bad when Toglard let a Chain Lightning loose on the leader and the riders around him, followed by Ulrich releasing another Chain Lightning from his ring. Some riders fell to the ground, and the remaining riders continued the charge, but it wasn't long before they found themselves boxed in by a Wall of Force, Wall of Ice and to Walls of Earth and two Evard's Tentacles with them in the box. The party pulled one of them from the death cube, and shortly threw him right back in for lack of information. After dealing with the remains of the riders, they found they had the following magic items: Long Sword +3, Chain Mail +3, Full Plate +3, Bracers of Archery, Long Bow +2, Heavy Mace +2, and a scroll case and a strange looking gem.
The party headed back to the halfling house to find a halfling sitting at the table with his feet up, smoking a pipe. Uttering something about being born in the barn, Toglard shut the door behind him. The Halfling introduced himself as Philander Groot. After a short conversation he explained that the house and the grave are decoys to through people off. Asking the business of the party Ulrich explain what was going on and that they needed the fragment of the ring. Philander agreed due to Morduke having a piece already and the company the party kept, as he pointed to where Tyrel and KierMan sat in the corner. However there was one condition, and that was they have dinner and a conversation with Philander since it had been so long since he had visitors.