Our party consists of three members. There is Tarrok, the elf with sticky fingers. Tarrok is a man who tries to get to know his surroundings before acting. That way, he’ll know the quickest path to the treasury and the exit. Even though he’ll say his mind is set on gold, he’s been looking out for his new friends these past few missions and would be sad to see them die before looting their bodies. Next there is Lozano, human by race and cleric by trade. He is a devout follower of Gorum, the god of battle. Just like his favoured deity, Lozano values his own liberty but doesn’t actively strive to protect freedom. In his eyes, everyone has to fight for their own right to be free. Lozano isn’t shy to talk things out with his silver tongue, but if that doesn’t work he’ll gladly take his hammer to bash some sense into his enemies. And finally there is Meow the Wizard. A small man with a big heart, this bearded dwarf has seen a lot in his life. Now, he just wants to do some good. These three mercenaries have taken on some missions together. One morning, after a night of celebrating their streak of successes, all of their gold was gone. Either stolen or spent, the party had little dime left to pay their breakfast with. On the road the party saw a notice board with a call to all heroes by the council of Arcadian Concord. For further details, interested heroes needed to speak with the mayor of the village of Cliffside, Vex’alia. Once the party arrived in Cliffside it became clear that something was off. The miners district is poor, even more so than one would expect. In order to get some information, booze and money, the party went to the local dwarven tavern, “Mor’du’s cabin”. While Meow went to speak with the owner behind the bar, Lozano and Tarrok started to inquire about local news with some drunken patrons. Turns out there are some rumours about this door in the mines that, after it was found, has been killing off innocent miners. Also, while there is a clear and present danger, the mining company Acquisitions Incorporated kept on sending poor miners in to make some money. With their head full of information and pockets full of stolen gold, the two reconvene with their ally. Soon after some exploration at the shipyard, going around for some shopping and meeting with the Mayor, three conclusions can be drawn:
Something something Lord and Lady Briarwoord
Something Something dungeon and Agadûl. Two necromancers/zombies
The last session ended with the gang (Meow, Tarrok and Lozano) facing a large flaming hound which was summoned by the devilish balrog named Agadûl. They decided to fight the hound, in this battle Meow was seriously injured but could be revived by Lozano’s healing capabilities. In the end, the three heroes defeated the hound and decided to take it’s skull as proof for their accomplishment. Afterwards they scanned the room for extra loot. Tarrok found a lever mechanism next to the throne, after inspection he proclaimed it to be safe and pulled it. The throne moved sideways and opened a niche in the floor which contained a voodoo doll head. After scanning the area for more of value they came to the conclusion that their task in these caves was completed. They took some rest to regain strength and made their way back to Cliffside. Soon they realized that something was wrong, out of the mountain an enormous amount of lava erupted. The whole town was burning in flames and the most recognizable buildings (town hall, the pub and the market) were not recognizable anymore. The only part of the town that remained untouched was the port where around 50 people assembled in chaos. The three heroes made their way to the port and seeing the chaos a devilish plan was created. They decided to use the chaos in their favor and wanted to try to rob the shed they tried to rob earlier. Unfortunately, the shed was already opened and a lot of people were busy transporting all sorts of crates to the floating ships in the docks. To still make a chance of stealing the possible treasure contained in the chest the three heroes decided to bluff their way into “help” with loading the ships. They made their way to one of the flying ships where they were trusted to load the crates, which contained food and jewels, in the storage room of the ships. In the meantime, Lozano and Tarrok filled their bags with 14 jewels each. Meow stood guard. In the process they attracted the attention of the guard who entered the room. This ended in a fight which was eventually won by the heroes. The bodies were thrown through the windows on the side of the ship and the heroes entered the transport ship to Arcadia, with their bags full of jewels.
Volgt…
After settling in to their new occupation as investigators in the Ouroboros investigation our three heroes started with a clean slate. Tarrok, now Tarrok Wolfsbrother, changed into a half-orc, still being a master of stealth and diplomacy. Meow, now Meow, changed into a halfing, being very charismatic and owner of a staff with slingshot capabilities. And last but not least, Lozano stayed Lozano, but became an elf and changed faith. His new God is now Ketephys, elf God of farming and animals, his main weapon is now a longbow. From Wilhelm Brightrun, the leader of their investigation group, gave them their first task: investigate the evacuees of Cliffside, to find out if they know more about what happened during and after the volcano eruption. Our heroes, together named ‘The Ringkeepers’ decided to visit the apex to inquire a list of all the evacuees. After bluffing their way to Fildro, director of Network Affairs they learned that many people died in cliffside, and that there were multiple cases of dislocated body parts. The mayor of Cliffside had the same faith, showing signs of claw marks over his separated body. For more information they could try to contact Grindewald, the captain of the Cliffside investigation. While leaving the apex they received a call from Wilhelm: ‘Report to the tavern within an hour, we have urgent stuff to do’. After this news the party split up, Meow and Lozano went to see Penny, she was quite in shock and told our heroes dat almost only nice people were killed in Cliffside. But it was something different that she said that struck our heroes: ‘No one who was found in the cave showed any signs of claw marks’. In their knowledge, no one who entered the cave was ever found. They instructed a guard to keep an eye on Penny to see if she acts strange. In the meantime Tarok bought multiple potions to prepare for a quest. Wilhelm told them that keep of Lady Fightmount, Fightmount keep, was being attacked by demons. Lady Jaina Fightmount, who they met before and reports directly to the council of Arcadian Concord, is to become the 5th member of the council. Directly after this move hit the news the castle was attacked. By ship they made their way to the keep. After a short inquiry and some preparation the heroes made their way into the castle. At the same time Wilhelm and Hakim Clianta, captain of the guard of Fightmound Keep, took care of a distraction of the demons by shooting fireworks up in the air. The Ringkeepers made their way down to the dungeons, of which they heard that the summoning circle (origin and lifeline of the demons) was situated. After Meow failed to jump on Tarok’s back, Lozano used his magic to create darkness giving the heroes the initiative in the fight with the remaining demon. After Tarok distracted the demon by throwing his keyring Lozano sprinted past the demon and used positive energy to diminish the summoning circle. By doing this the demons vanished. The Ringkeepers were rewarded with a lordship and the owning of Fightmount keep, now the Ringkeep! After making plans to offer the evacuees of Cliffside a new home in their keep the heroes met their employees, after which this session ended.
Something something bandits on the north road, hunting in the forest and hearing about the Tardok bandit camp
After being rewarded with the ownership of the Ringkeep our heroes gave Hobbs the order to get a prospector to come to the region and start a research on what mining there is possible in the area. After Hobbs accepted he told the heroes that they have to know about a secret deal the previous owner, Lady Fightmount, had with the Tardok criminal camp. This deal stated that Lady Fightmount provided food to the Tardok criminal camp and to return the favor they did not attack the keep. This deal was not that certain anymore because Hobbs found a chopped of Cow’s head in the castle front porch. A clear message from the bandits that a new situation demanded new agreements. The severity of the situation was very clear for the heroes and they decided that they needed to be a step ahead. They made a plan to infiltrate the Tardok bandit camp while hiding in the food cart. After making a deal with the the Dimsport ranch, the son Milo always rides the foodcart, they hid in the cart and were on their way. Lozano decided to use his awesome bow skills to keep the situation under control and hid in a tree close to the camp. The cart was allowed in and the tension heated. Meow and Tarok lost their cover quite quickly and a tough conversation started. In this conversation a new deal was struck, the Tarok camp would defeat the bandits and in return the heroes would provide them with money for weapons. The heroes were allowed to return to their keep and made some key plans for the future:
The morning was still fresh when Hobbs greeted the heroes with two messages, firstly he heard rumors that the bandits on the west road were defeated which indicated that the Tardok bandits kept their end of the deal. Secondly an official invitation of Lord Eric Rumford from Broadcrack arrived. It was a reaction on the request our heroes asked Hobbs about: try to find buyers for the crops they had spare. The Dimport estate found possibilities to expand their farming and could provide for a possible food-for-money deal. The heroes set way to the Arseway, the castle of lord Rumford. On the road they calculated a normal price for the food they could offer and found a price of a thousand GP per 400 people per season reasonable. They were “greeted” by Tybalt, the elf steward. A very unpleasant discussion followed, Tibolt wanted to struck a deal but our heroes demanded to speak to Lord Rumford personally. This angered Tibolt but he accepted. He descended down the stairs and the heroes hurried to follow him. When they came down they could just see Tibolt entering another set of stairs on the other side of the room. After some discussion they decided to follow. They took the stairs and entered a pitch black darkness. After a moment of absolute silence torches were lit all around them and they found themselves in a fighting arena. Lord Rumford greeted them while mocking them and the whole audience laughed. He told them that in return for their brutality they had to fight in his pit. The heroes had to fight two frog-like creatures. Tarok decided to put down some spears in the ground in defence. The heroes fought bravely and managed to kill the first monster. The second one seemed more tough. Lozano thought to be smart and made the room dark to enhance the night vision skills of Tarok. Unfortunately Meow decided to cast a light spell directly afterward. In the end they killed the second enemy as well and lord Rumford was willing to talk with them. They struck a deal for a 1000 GP per 400 people per season and went home. At home they heard from Hobbs that lord Rumfor was always a kind man and could understand his sudden move to the evil side. Suddenly the heroes received an alert mission: “The Heroes of Time are on a mission to save the world, good chance that Arcadia falls if we don’t aid them.” The Arcadia guard leave form the Ringkeep leaving our Heroes behind. Arcadia flies away to enemy turf and flies to the city of Axis, fighting reality itself.
Arcadia won the EPIC battle against reality itself. Many races and classes fought together and could prevent Praalòr from opening the final gate and attain eternal power. Arcadia partied harder than ever before and the Ringkeepers decided to fire up the party even further. The next day, the ringkeepers earned their nicknames ‘the drinkkeepers’ and the ‘keepdrinkers’. Unfortunately, the next morning or afternoon?? They all had to pay the price. Tardok was the first to wake up. After a short gathering of all his strength, he managed to open at least one eye. He found himself on a unknown roof and decided to sleep until he could find the strength to contact his friends. Next up was Meow, who woke up in the Ringkeep, on his golden throne. Not knowing what happened, he yelled hopps. Hobbs, showing a little frustration, answered that Meow brought home 40 people to party, which they did. Hobbs, kicked everybody out when Meow was passed out, drunk on his throne. Lozano woke up the last, and realised he was nearby the ringkeep. He disguised himself and came to the ringkeep. He informed what had happened last night and accidentally shit himself in a moment of weakness. Unfortunately, no spell was strong enough to clean his clothes or retain his dignity. Tardok became alive, sort of, and asked the Ouroboros investigators to meet him on the roof of a bar in arcadia. After a short talk with Wilhelm, he informed the ringkeepers to go to Tiressea, where information is on Ouroboros. The ringkeepers teleported to Plaveya in theressea to find Argentus bladley A short spectacle and strange, unknown action of tardok later. They entered a burned house. On the walls there were inscriptions in demonish? And they opened a door with (a book?) on the floor was a triangle or something.
DM Quick Notes:
We moved to a town of sea elves called Val’Lorei to fullfill a Guild Mission to kill some local the wargs. Wargs are smart large wolves. In the town Lozano visited a local bowyer and had his bow enhanced. During negotiations he also received some arrows. Tardok crafted a smokebomb. We went to the wargs and found their nest. After some debate on what would be the best strategy to defeat the wolves, the freaking best thing to do was feeding meow with an unknown blue potion. Changing him in a shadow drake*. Without hesitation the attack began. The resulting fight was brief yet fierce, 11 dead wargs later, lozano stood eye to eye with the leader of the pack. with little HP The situation was dire, Lozano was covered in wounds, meow close to death and Tarrok** nowhere to bee seen. Tarrok drank the other potion of unknown potency, changing him into a bee. Although this action seemed to only worsen the already hopeless situation, Tarrok managed to turn the tides, by stinging the warg inside his throat, returning into his previously enlarged self (by ingesting a potion of bulls trength) and destroying the warg from the inside out. Once again the Ringkeepers succeeded in the mission. Recieving 500 gp and lifelong tickets for the ferry to Val’Lorei’s twin city Val’Sara *DM note, big difference. Dragons are big intelligent beings with the knowledge of humans (or even smarter). Drakes are smaller creatures and animalistic. ** Tarrok is the player, Tardok is the half orc that protects the Ringkeep during your absence.
Our heroes start the session at the docks of Va’Lorei. After freeing the town of devious wargs they were rewarded with life time boarding passes for the boat from Va’Lorei tot Val’Sara. Our heroes boarded the One Leaved Clover towards Val’Sara. On board they hear about a storage room on the ship and that once in a while it contains valuable loot. They start planning on how to rob it. First they have to do some scouting so Lozano pretends to fall down the stairs towards the storage room. Tarrok and Mio chase him and the three of them take the little time they have to scout the lowest floor. They see heavily fortified door with 5 locks on it. Within a few seconds the guards from the ship reach them and escort the group back up. They transport Lozano towards the infirmary where doctor Kil’dreth greets them. He immediately sees through the act of the group and they decide to trust him with their plan on robbing the storage area. He gives them additional information: the five locks are opened by five keys, the keys are held by the captain, the helmsman, the second helmsman and the harbormaster. The location of the fifth key is unknown. The heroes trust Kil’dreth so much that they offer him a job in the Ringkeep. According to the doctor the ship carries a magical sword at the moment. Lozano calls DIBS.
The heroes approach Tiressea. It consists of 2 hills: a golden hill (Golden district) and a hill on which a giant castle is situated (King’s district). They are seperated by a big slum district. The heroes talk to Hawk and he tells them that Argentus Blakely was a man who was fond of women of the night. The city is surrounded by a giant ass wall with a giant ass gate. The heroes apporoach the gate, the Voodoo head is taken. Lozano and Tarrok intimidate the guard to gain more information about the destination of the armored cart. He flinches but he does not have the information they need. The heroes decide that they want to stretch their legs, Tardok know the city well since he grew up here. They head to one of the shady streets to fight in a fighting pit where only fighting with bare hands is allowed. Tarrok gets into a fight with a drunk orc. He wins the fight a gains 10 GP, the orc drunkely asks for a rematch for 200 GP. Lozano says it must be a trap, Tarrok accepts it. The orc gets up and seems so much fitter and stronger than before. He beats up Tarrok completely until he has 1HP left. In this moment Lozano graps the sachet with 200GP and sprints away with it. This triggers the 2 friend from the tough orc and they grab their daggers. The strong orc hits Tarrok again, this time with some brass knucles. It bring Tarrok on the verge of death, Lozano throws the gold pieces back to this guy. He leaves 50 GP to the losers and he and his friends walk away. Tarrok literally almost dies, but Meow saves him. The heroes look for a bar to get some rest and heal up. They enter the Crusty Crow where they order cold beers and some food. They get some rest and Lozano restores Tarrok his health. With his health regained Tarrok really feels the need for revenge, in a scam in the ally type of way. They decide this is very dangerous and so they change their plan. Back to the orouborous investigation: our heroes want to enter the Golden district to visit a high class brother (1: because they think Argentus Blakeley was last seen in a brothel and 2: because maybe a high official would sneak into a brothel and could possibly know more about the magically enchanted weapon). The heroes go to the most silent part of town to enter te sewers. End of session.
The heroes are now in de sewers, there are two pavements with water in between. Right above the water is a small opening, so our heroes have to climb up diagonally against the stream to enter the next part of the sewer. Tarrok decides to give Meow a notch in the right direction, it fails. Meow falls in the water and gets poured out into the lake. Lozano and Tarrok get him up with the rope, he is covered in shit. He can think clearly now the shit is gone and he uses mage hand to tie the rope to a pole situated next to the opening. Lozano is the first one to get trough the opening and gets the others up. They are now in the next room where all the water comes together in a big vortex. There is a clear path to a staircase on the right, the heroes approach the staircase and Meow’s dancing lights up first. The get on the balustrade and see a slimy blob, Lozano recognizes it as 2 Gelatinous Cubes. Extremely dangerous acid burning creatures and they block the total bridge. He knows they are attracted by sound zo Meow uses his Cast Sound spell next to one of the Cubes, it reacts to it and moves towards the side of the bridge en moves over the edges but stays stuck to the bridge. It does not fall down into the vortex as intended by the heroes. He moves the sound further from the bridge and the Cube, the cube thinnens and loses it’s grip and falls down. 1 Cube remains, Lozano Commands it to stay put for one moment by using his Command spell. He and Tarrok use the time wisely to get the hell out of here and make it to the end of the bridge. Meow however make too much sound and is engulfed by the creature and now remains without oxygen inside the creature. Lozano and Tarrok see this and decide to act. Tarrok moves stealthily towards the creature and signals Lozano that he wants to flank him. Lozano decides to stay put en cast water into the creature. This creates a water bubble inside the creature which gives Meow a bigger chance of getting out, he fails to. Then Lozano indeed flanks the creature and the creature reacts by pushing him of the edge. Falling towards a certain death his life passes away in front of him but then Meow uses his entanglement spell to create many vines and Lozano can hold on and now hangs on a vine above the vortex. Tarrok moves stealthily around the creature and pulls Meow out of the creature before he dies. He is unconscious and water comes out of his lungs but he seems stable. The pulling out of Meow resulted in a attack of the creature in Tarrok his direction. His defence failed and he got engulfed by the creature. Lozano climbs up and attacks the creature with his bow. His defence also fails and he and Tarrok are now both inside the creature. Together they do damage to kill the creature from the inside until Tarrok strikes the final blow with both his rapier and dagger and gives the creature a final blow. It leaves behind a leather mask. The heroes enter the next room. They enter a tunnel with 3 statues (Lord Droskar lord of greed, Lady Nocticula lady of lust and Lord Jubulex lord of sloth) (which each represent a lord of the Abyss (one of the types of hell). In a room adjacent to this tunnel there is another statute (Orcus, Abyssal lord of wroth) which rotates. Lozano knows that they all had to do with the war for Feva, a war in the Abyss. Tarrok and Lozano turn the statue and it lowers in to the ground opening a tomb. Before opening the sarcophagus they rest up. Tarrok opens the coffin and he finds a flat bag. It seems to be a bag of holding.
After taking some rest the enter the next room, there are 9 holes with a big inscription: “XV”. The 9 holes are marked I up and until IX. On the bottoms of the holes there is a lock system, multiple lines which are individually pushable. They find rocks with a key mechanism on the floor. The heroes don’t get the puzzle at all. Tarrok listens tot the sound of the clicking when a rock is inserted and they find 3 right keys in their right fit. They solve the puzzle and enter the next room, in this room there is a giant Roc. It is fast asleep, their whispers echo through the whole room but the bird doesn’t wake up. They decide to retreat to the previous room but Tarok trips over a rock and the bird wakes up. It gets into full rage but is attached to the wall by a chain. It damages Tarok, Lozano heals him. Tarok throws in some of his rations which Meow poisons with acid. The creature eats it directly and directly feels the acid burn and bounces back. In this moment Tarok thinks of a way to scare the creature and directs his teammates to make a hellish bird god sound. Lozano gives him the Mask of the Krenshar which should give him a bone and flesh face, even scarier to the Roc. The three of them scare away the bird and it falls down breaking every bone in its body. Tarrok skins the bird and retrieves one square meter of very tough skinMeow finds a nest containing some eggs, Lozano feels a directive of his God that this is the animal companion that he prayed for and puts the egg, warm and safe in his bag.
We find a big door and hear voice behind it, 2 other adventurers called Hilda and Vaas are behind it. They came to the sewers to find the Deepstone. An area in the catacombes below Theresia filled with artifacts. On one of the walls there is a big stone slab with a a logo on it: it is the snake biting its own tail. The stone slab seems to be a door with a mechanism to open it. Lozano senses a lot of magic behind it, compared to the hellhound they met before. Tarrok senses that Hilda isn’t just the jittery halfling she seems to be. She seems to be skilled in the arts of magic herself and has been trying to open the door. She recalls some red drugs in glass vials, the party gets out the empty vial they have and the door opens. What they see is a big hallway in which all the torches are automatically lit. What they see is a big crystal which is connected to a mechanism in the floor, behind the crystal is a hallway up ahead. Hilda has a teleporting scroll with her as fail safe. Tarrok is able the disable the mechnism so they can move toward the hallway, the magical part hasn’t been disabled though. The moment Tarrok his feet touches the floor the torches die out an the crystal lights up but the light dims as well again. They fail to activate the crystal and move on towards the hallway, they find a new room. At the end of the room is a giant stone door, left and right of it are two arches with a room behind it. They enter the room on the right. Tarrok goes first and almost gets blasted away by a gust of wind, he almost finds in the black chasm below them but het keeps his ground. Lozano joins him and they tigh themselves together with the rope. Together they pass the bridge, they fail 2 times though. However instead of falling into darknes the wind takes them back to the start and at the third try they succeed. At the end of the bridge there are two pressure plates. They jump on it and the wind dies, also a fence opens and they see a semilunar room with two big hay-like stacks at the end of it. They seem to be two very big spider nests, on the ceiling they see a lot of big webs. No spiders though… Then they hear Hilda screaming on the other side of the fence something is coming. A big black spider drops into the hall. Due to Tarrok his rage, Meow his acid vs acid resistance and Lozano’s final blow with his arrow they kill the spider. It leaves behind a crystal from the light of Endor. The moment Meow touches it, the whole party is transported to the big crystal in the beginning. Infusing the smaller crystal in the bigger crystal, the light of Endor flows right into it and the torches shine brighter. The big crystal shines a little brighter too but furthermore nothing happens. It needs to be charged even more. The heroes decide to go to the arch on the left. They find a room filled with runes and pressure plates, by trial and error (and a lot of transportation) they find the answer to the puzzle. Still this only allows for three people to pass to the fence on the other side of the room. Meow uses his entanglement spell to Harry Potter like create a bridge over the rune tiles. All 5 of them can pass the tile floor now and enter the next room. Except for Hilda, she is a coward. When they enter the room the fence closes behind them and an Air Elemental arrises. This is living air, fast as Usain bolt on steroids. The heroes attack it making it less in volume but still fast and strong. It almost blows Lozano of the edge into in chasm. Just at the moment they thought they defeated it, there is an explosion gust of wind and Lozano is not fast enough and get knocked of. But, Meow his entanglement saves him. Someone almost died, AGAIN! Another light of Endor small crystal appears and they get transported back. Tarok and Meow touch the crystal and they feel a tinteling sensation in their hand. Hilda and Lozano touch it too, it does something but they don’t know how. Then Hilda snaps her fingers and a giant burst of light appears and vanishes within half a second. They find out they can use it every 12 seconds. The big stone door is all that’s left. End of session.
After some rest the heroes enter the room with the big stone door and see a big pulsating shape in front of them, it looks like a minotaur. The minotaur sneaks up on them and seeing Tarrok is up front he is his first aim. After a quick battle in which Tarrok snaps it’s fingers (this changes the shadow minotaur into a normal minotaur) and all the heroes do damage. Tarrok decapitates the minotaur which falls to the ground. After the looted its corpse (great axe and golden nose ring) they see that the big door changed. It is now decorated by two big statues which light up and open. There is a pressure plate in the next room, it is on a floating platform, beneath it is great dark chasm. The party decides to share there information on Ouroboros. Agadûhl (the demon we saw in the volcano seems to have a brother Agathor. Both sons of Gruge (leader of the land of Wrath). When these two brothers unite the can free Gruge and other warlord from their eternal inprisonment. So they have to make sure that when they face Agathor that they should contain them here. The floating platform goes down and down until it comes to a hold. They enter a room with a platform on their side and on the opposite side. In between there is great darkness. By stepping onto the two pressure plates that are on their platform a step apears in the darkness. By snapping their fingers more platforms appear, as Meow makes his way snapping his fingers and reaches the middle a Will o Wisp appears. When it steps on one of the plates that Meow created the plate disappears. Lozano hits it with his bow and Meow hits it with his acid splash. The Will o Wisp disappears and the heroes start making their way forward. Meow, Tarrok and Vance are now on the platforms, about 2/3rd to the opposite platform when 2 more Will o Wisps appear. The first one is killed by Meow using its acid splash after Tarrok and Vance hit is befor, the second is weakened by Lozano and Meow but they are were not able to kill it. The creature almost kills Tarrok when it makes sure that the platform that he stands on disapears but Tarroks jumps away in time. Tarrok kills the beast afterwards. They get close to the opposite platform, Tarrok decides to jump but hits an invisible wall and falls down. Luckily he is attached to a rope together with Vance and Meow. He falls down, takes them with them down to the black chasm. The rope however is still hanging over the platform and holds them mid air hanging. In the process Vance breaks his back. When they defeated the Willow Whisps all the tiles returned and the way to the next door is open.
They see a bright light coming from beneath this door, and in the light they see shadows moving. Tarrok peaks through the door and sees a stair to a giant throneroom. It consists of the same tiles as before and on both long edges they find the same chasm. At the end of the hall they see a shadow monster which gives Lozano the shivers. A very direct message that danger is upon them, but also a challenge. The heroes decide to take a quick nap first and recharge their spells. They decide the diplomatic approach would be the best approach to start with so Tarrok enters. Agathor starts speaking to them telling them they are fools to enter the Dungeon of Agathor. They try to trick him into lettting them join his movement. He duplicates himself twice do three Agathors are now facing the heroes. Tarrok in the middle of the room and Meow and Lozano at the stairs. Agathor gives them a choice: join them or die. The heroes all decide they are not joining him. However, Tarrok standing in the middle of the room senses that they won’t just run away from this so he hits Agathor as a distraction and runs back to his companions. The moment he reaches them the big stone door closes behind them. A hell of a battle starts in which the heroes work together amazingly. Agathor throws everything against them: thunderstrikes, magic missiles and Willow Wisps recharging his health. Their power combined: Lozano’s Agonizing Arrow, Tarrok his Raging Rapier and Meow with the final blow: his Targeted Thunder. They killed Agathor, well, that’s what they think that happened. They hear a voice screaming: YOU FREED ME! And the shadowlike figure of Agathor diminishes to a black orb. This orb dashes out of the room, through the big stone door destroying a lot in his path, scorching the place. They hear the scream of Hilda and then complete silence. They decide to loot the room first. They find 6432 GP and a lockbox which contains a keen rapier. 4 decapitated heads and 500GP worth of gems. We find another lockbox in a secret compartment behind the throne, a small one this time. Inside it they find 2 pairs of wands (2x cure light wounds (second caster level, 30 charges each), 2x Wand of True Strike, caster level 2, each 30 charges). When they exit the room they find a charcoaled Hilda, she is nearly dead but just breathing very little. Tarrok uses one of the cure light wound wands on her. The burn wounds disappear and Hilda starts breathing heavily claiming a red giant monster with great horns in flames passed through her while holding an axe. She thinks it is Agadûhl! She proclaims that her gold is inside the Crusty Flagon. They make contact with Hawk via the earpiece, it works to their shock. This must mean the anti-magic field has disappeared. They There is total chaos in Tiressea, everyone is running around. Guards are shooting at people with crossbows, they seem to target people with robes and those that are wearing crystals. They definitely destroyed the anti-magic field of Tiressea. Hilda teleports them out of the chaotic city towards Arcadia. Hilda gets herself some medical aid and says that they can find her at the archeological department of the library when they need her.
Before they return to Wilhelm they do some shopping first, Tarrok buys a whip and a small crossbow. Both Lozano and Meow make inquiries for improved magic armor. They tell Wilhelm and Leena the whole story, they tell them about the laypoints (intersections of magical highways). By attacking Agathor they destroyed the magical network, this will need a lot of time to repair. Leena tells them they can make up for their mistakes to go to the north to the Elves Temple in Fellbrook. When they exit Leena her office they enter the Fellbrook Forest and directly see the gigantic statue which contains the temple. They meet 3 people: Ally (representative of the network), a dwarf called Furst Wrongcaller and an Elf (the Hierofant, leader of the Elves). They start their investigation inside the temple, it does not reward them with anything interesting until they find a wooden wall. This wall has a perception filter which puts a spell upon them to not notice the wall. Tarrok breaks through using his potion op Bull’s strength and they find a stair going up and they enter it. On their way up the engine room explodes which initiates a rising water level inside the statue. They have to make their way up and up. On the way they defeat a naga, a snake like creature. They meet Tesh, a Nixie who tells us that we killed her friend (the Naga). She is the last on living of her kind, they all lived in the lake. The rest of her kind has been turned into statues and she has been living in the lake beneath the statue. She tells the heroes that the statue has is 8 locations on which it can stand and is moving as we speak. Normally the statue stands on the bottom of the ocean and Tesh is in shock when she hears it is above ground right now, still the water is getting up and up telling the heroes the statue is sinking again. They move on up and enter a room with 4 statues, 2 black ones and 2 white ones. White demon: From fire I was born, in fire I shall perish. Release me from my bonds to end my suffering. Black staggering horse: I am the messenger of all that ends, the reaper of souls. Give me suffering, show me death. Black mermaid: Air suffocates me, water drowns me, food chokes me and stone holds me. Give me the right to breathe to end my suffering. Black humanoid: No identity holds me, no life envelops me, no feelings entrap me and no hurt ails me. Give me suffering, give me life. Tarrok cuts himself and touches the humanoid, it comes to life and they kill it. The moment they kill it the staggering horse evaporates. This combination makes the stairs ascend halfway. Out of the mouth of the mermaid they retrieve a Pearl of Breathing and the mermaid evaporates. After adding water to the demon statue it evaporates as well and the staircase elevates to the ceiling. They enter the staircase and see a large room with a creature siting in a velvet chair. This creature is Argentus Blakely! Argentus starts telling: The Heroes of Time used the research of Argentus to use the Elf Gate (used for travelling to other domains). The Heroes and Argentus stored themselves into a cube which would open after the sun would return but something entered the cube with them and it (shade of Hogar) killed Argentus. He came back as a demon (no alignment change and with all his memory). Ouruborous found him first and kept him as a prisoner. In the end they did not need him as a prisoner anymore and he struck a deal with the Mailman. However the Mailman cheated on his deal and stole all of his powers while putting him in a safe space. They come to the conclusion that Umbra must have started the sinking of the statue because only she would be powerful enough. The climb through a hatchet in the ceiling and swim to the shore dragging Argentus with them. They finally get in contact with Wilhelm who tells them that he lost his legs but he is alive, he asks them to join them inside the biggest hut. They will perform a ritual to try and make him into a druid, Tarrok borrows his dagger. Meow says he wants to help with the ritual and hears that he might be needed when it goes wrong
They extract the earpiece from Wilhelm’s body, the highrofant tells them that they should NEVER teleport with a demon (Argentus) because teleportation gives a demon the chance to planeshift into the Abyss. The highrofant calls three women, treetenders. Half elven, half tree like women who are one with nature. They create a carrige of magial branches in which they lock Argentus. It is a 2 day ride to Arcadia with a pit stop at the ring keep. On the road Argentus tells them the following. Lesson 1: The Mailman is smarter than you. Lesson 2: he doesn’t cheat, he tricks you. Lesson 3: stay away from him. Rumours are that he had something to do with they killing of Lord Eldor a 1000 year before nightfall and he had a hand in returning the sun to the world. He is in possesion of demonic powers (Argentus his powers). They also get in contact with Lady Fightmount via the earpieces, they tell her about the great loss of Wilhelm his legs and make an appointment to meet each other at the Ringkeep. They get the sense that they are being follows, Tesh works her magic and reveals the three creatures that are following the cart, 2 small ones and 1 big one. Meow uses his magical power and speeds up the cart, this makes Tarrok fall off but he is capable to hold on to the speeding cart. Meow retrieves Tarrok back onto the cart using his magical vines. Lozano recognizes the creatures as Fairy Dragons, bird like creatures with butterfly wings, capable of a breath attack and very intelligent. It is joined by the bigger creature, a Garooda. An avian guard of nature, they are not known to attack strangers and sometimes do align with Kethephys. Lozano kneels down and addresses the Garooda, explaining they are carrying a very dangerous man. The Garooda explains to them that they have no idea what the effect is of what they are carrying. Shadows have been following the heroes already for weeks, the Garooda has experienced lot in his life but NEVER has he felt “his forrest tremble”. In his forrest is a darkness spreading in which he feels that our heroes are the epicentre. He says they are fools to think that a cart from branches will keep them safe and tells them to get out of his forrest as soon as possible. He induces the cart with more magic speeding it up even more. By this speed they will make the Ringkeep within the hour, they contact Counsilwoman Fightmount telling her this all. She seems very stressed about the exact words op the Garooda telling the heroes that the forrest trembled. She tells them to get to the keep as soon as possible and prepare: the upcoming night is going to be a terrible fightscene.
There are 5 challenges to come, 5 days of darkness. We had just finished one, this was de siege of the Ringkeep. Lozano feels his holy symbol tremble, in contradiction to the energy that it gives off normally, this is different. He senses magic through the whole castle. Then suddenly, screams from the courtyard, people are screaming for their lives followed by complete silence. They sneak towards the couryard, Meow and Lozano get upon the walls, Tarrok to the courtyard itself. There is pitchblack darkness, mist is flowing over the ground and all the guards are dead hanging by the rope of their bows, their eyes empty sockets. They decide to regroup in the main hall where they see a lot of books, Jeena Fightmount brought these with her. They enter the staircase down to the prison of Argentus, he tells them this looks like they have been transported into the shadow plane. It seems like te castle and the surrounding grounds are a located in the shadow plane. It works like this: there is always someone who hold this tranportation together. Sometimes it is the spellcaster itself, sometimes it is a random person holding an object which hold the spell. Before deciding what to do they hear a screech from upstairs. The heroes take Argentus with them and head upstairs, thinking that the monster who made the screech must be the spellcaster. They enter the courtyard and meet a woman cloacked in black, it is UMBRA. After a short and unpleasant dialogue in which there is no room for negotiation. She sends 4 ghouls towards our heroes saying that they are much stronger in their natural habitat. They kill the ghouls quite easily and Umbra sends in another 8 after really urging them to take a deal. The heroes are not in for a deal and Lozano kills these in one blast using positive energy. She urges them again to take a deal, Argentus and the vial with red substance for their lives. In an attempt to empty the vial in his bag Lozano burns himself and a red burning pattern appears on his left arm it takes the shape of a flower. Tarrok threatens to kill Argentus is Umbra doesn’t stop this nonsense. Umbra laughs and sends another 20 ghouls, 3 badass ghouls, 3 demons and last but not least Agadûl towards them. Agadûl does not look like he looks normally. He wears a black collar which produces black mist. The heroes recognize it as the source of their transportation to the shadow plane. While battling the ghouls they kill a few but it does not break that much ground. Agadûl gets closer and closer and deals a fine deal of damage. At that moment the orcs, Tardok up front, break through the front gate with a battling ram and join the fight. The heroes get the sense that they have to target the collar and shoot their magic missiles and arrows towards. They manage to break the collar, this frees Agaduhr making him, the ghouls and the demons vanish. The heroes managed to survive this day of darkness.
The heroes decide to read the books left by lady Fightmount. One book out of a series of 5 on Prophecys: The prophecys are made by the God of Perfection. The 5 great dark storms are mentioned continously being a sign of the god Ve to return to the world. Stone tablet in druidic: We can’t read this. Black leather tome made of human skin on Abyssal culture: It speaks of the old Ringgates, dwarves and the foracious viper. The heroes pay for the restoration of the tavern which got damaged in the fight. The inn changes it’s name to the Fishing Halforc Next to that they decide to make a trade negotiation with the dwarves of Duk Badir to sell the crystals that the can mine in their mines. The dwarves could also train the Cliffside people. Argentus tells about the Ringgates, there was a first and a second generation. During darkfall the dwarves left the world via the Elven Ringgates (very big gates via which whole fleet of ships could sail to another world), but not al dwarves. The dwarves that stayed built other ringgates (these were smaller and could transport to other planes and worlds as well. The heroes together with Tesh and Argentus transport to Arcadia and make way to the Arcadian Council. They enter the room of the Arcadian Council and find multiple stone thrones with each a symbol (1 with a book, 1 with a star, 1 with a grand cathedral, 1 with the Apex). All representatives sit on their throne, chairman Harold Wintergreen in the middle. Lady Fightmount is not present. The heroes tell the story to the Chairmen, and he tells them that Lozano is bound by his tattoo to a demon, we don’t know which demon. He tells Lozano to get to the Grand Cathedral as soon as possible and clense the egg so it does not become a demon as well. Argentus shares with the council that the Mailman is alive, not sure if he is planning on something good or bad. But it can’t be a coincidence that he returns and all this events happening. The Chairman is really stressed about the story that lady Fightmount disappeared and that so much is happening at the same time. We now report directly to the Chairman or to Hink Tinkerton. We should speak in the earpiece starting with: chairman. Then the message lands directly on his desk. The suggestion of the Chairman is that the investigates the Abyssal text, he also mentioned that in a previous life Argentus was a magician specialized in Elven Ringgates. They make earpieces for Tesh and Argentus, the earpiece for Argentus is specially designed and cursed. It disables him to planeshift, if he would he would shatter in 1000 pieces. The chariman tells them to take a pause and visit loved ones and go home because it is going to be a tough year. The heroes enter the great Cathedral, the egg is now almost bursting. It has a red tint, that disappears after the priest chanting. The egg is bursting and the priests start panicing, but they luckily finish their song before the egg hatches. There is a sigh of relief and the priest says that Lozano should be the first one that the bird sees. Lozano touches te egg with his tattooed arm, that is the moment that the egg hatches and a big red flaming Roc comes from the egg. The priest tells him that the demon the Chairman mentioned is likely this Roc, Lozano is bound to this creature. The heroes plan to go to Plaveya, Lozano wants his bow upgraded there. Nefas the demonhunter was also capable of clensing the egg but he was not there at the time, he is important though.
Session 25 Three seperate prophecys predict 5 days of darkness. The heroes share a room in an inn, a hawk lands at their window delivering a note targetting Tarrok. He does not want to share the info in the letter but tells his party that he wants to go to Thieves End. A town close to the Lotaari Jungle, also the place where Lozano wants to improve his armor. Meow buys a shitload of scrolls before they make their way to the teleportation pad. The teleportation guard warns them not to go to the jungle because the Heroes of Time defeated a poison dragon there lately. The heroes arrive at the center fountain of Thieves End and ask direction of the Elven Smith. A local inhabitant points them towards the other part of town and says they have to find Alion. Alion tells them he is not in business anymore since a year of five. At that time his tools were stolen and his daughter (Ilmendil) kidnapped, he hasn’t heard of any since. It was during a time that two parties in the jungle were at war at the time: the Guardians of the Forest vs. the Nightmare Court. Alion did not want to choose sides and made his magnum opus armorpiece for both of them. That’s when his tragedy happened. The heroes seal a deal that when the find the tools and any information about his daughter, the smith will forge his magnum opus for them for free. Arall was the protector of the town before the Arcadian guards, he might know more about this dissapearance. The heroes go up the stairs and meet a hooded figure named Brandir (the Branded). He once stopped Tarrok from doing something foolish. He has been his teacher, mentor and companion on many adventures. Tarrok owns his life to him. Tarrok lived with his sister Scarra (the Scarab), she was also adepted a stealing an burglary. She decided to steal from a merchant called Ra’dok. He decapitated her, Tarrok (the Kid) went into a frenzy and wanted to storm the camp of Ra’dok (the Merchant) before Brandir stopped him. He told him that he would give Tarrok the skills to eventually avenge her. The letter told Tarrok that is sister is actually alive, and she is the bodyguard of Ra’dok! Tarrok was part of a guild in the past: the Nightshade guild lead by the Mailman! Brandir thinks the Mailman died but Argentus tells him that is not true, and that he struck a deal with this Mailman. Scarra was last seen in the Lotaari Jungle, the heroes decide to move towards her last location the day after. They leave the food, Tesh and Argentus behind. Brandir warns them that the forest is something they have never seen before. He tells them to follow the paths, do not stray, and do not change levels inside the forest, you will know when this happens. They enter the forest and decide to follow the path, the heroes now see what Brandir meant with levels: the tree branches form platforms connected to each other forming multiple levels. These levels also spread down into a tunnel system. The floor seems to be made by the roots of all the trees. This forest is that big that the trees breath magic and with that comes a totally unique flora and fauna full of magical plants and beasts. On their way through the forest they suddenly hear some sound behind the trees. The heroes meet 2 lesser Owlbears and use their skill to beat them. Tarrok uses his insane flanking+sneaking damage, Meow first electrocutes Lozano but then strikes swiftely and Lozano tries to teach his Roc some battle tactics. They succeed and are ready for the next part of their journey.
The heroes are shocked when they see Tesh emerge form the forest, she says Argentus should already have passed. It seems that Argentus ran into the forest because he heard snake-eyed bastards and he switched levels. It is not possible to communicate via the earpiece because Argentus tells the heroes that he is in a penile situation. The heroes continue on the path and hear a flute. This flute belongs to a faunt name Gretwick. He tells them the following story: the nightmare Court thinks that the forest is in a continuous cycle of death and rebirth. The Guardians think that the dragon is an Evil entity that has to die. The Guardians lately, a few years ago, layed siege on the dragon. The stopped the trees from performing their magic which put the dragon sleeps. So after 700-800 years of sleeping the dragon woke up, killed a few people, and left. When they ask about the lost tools he answers that everybody who enters the forest and leaves, will leave with the one thing that he is looking for. He wants to help the heroes in their direction through the forest and gives them 3 riddles. What runs around a city but never moves?Answer: A WallWhat is it-That we love more than life,Fear more than death,The rich want it,The poor have it,The hoarder spends it,And the spend-rift saves it?Answer: NothingAnd the spend-rift saves it?So eternal, the ground underneath usSo old is the turmoil that may never sussSo do we protect it, the waking world of yore,So do we fight, for the dream that haunts us to our coreSo tell me I promise not to get furiousThe Court or the Guardians, who will be victorious?Answer: no right or wrong answer but the answer the heroes gave would decide in which direction Gretwick will point them to. They decide to answer that the forest will be victorious over all sorts of politics and wars. Gretwick points them towards 2 places in the woods. When they continue the path they find a crossroad:- It splits to the left: The Grove (city filled with all sorts of species, home of the Guardians)
The heroes decide to take the path to the left towards The Grove, home of the Guardians. They find an open temple with pillars en three pedestals, also empty. There are two clodes, stone doors. They also find the following pattern in a 3 by 3 grid on the wall. No traps or mechanisms were found.
First row: Rhino - Pelican - Monkey Second row: Elephant - Tiger - Leopard Third row: Sloth - Flamingo - Giraffe
The left door is locked, the door to the right is unlocked. They enter the unlocked door and move into a tunnel, it ends with a statuette of a monkey covering it’s eyes. Behind it are runes stating the following: “The truth weighs something down, but the lies cause something.” They retrieve the golden statuette of the monkey with mage hand, the pedestal it was standing on sinks into the ground. They place the stauette on the left pedestal outside, close to the grid with animals. It clicks showing that the statuette is placed right. They have to look for two other statuettes. 1 they find beneath the monkey tile, and one in a tree in which Tarrok saw a monkey. They get into the tunnel and see 3 troll-like, insect monsters. They defeat 2 of them pretty easily. One of the two is actually killed by the Roc, now called Aloy. But then a chimera appears, it bites the third monster in half. The heroes decide to go for a diplomatic approach first but it does not succeed completely. They fight the chimera vigorously and then suddenly Tarrok realises that Tesh speaks all languages. He uses sign language to instruct her and she managed to send the chimera away explaining that the heroes are not here to cause any harm.
The heroes continue trough the tunnel and after some hours they get into contact with Argentus, he has been taking captive by the Three Tenders, leaders of the Guardians. They are keeping him in a farm, being protected by 40 guards. Therefore, he tells the heroes to not make a fuss, but taking this the diplomatic way. Before exit the tunnel Tarroks smuggles his thieving kit and a dagger inside his boot. When the exit the tunnel they find an open space with some traps on the ground, when they are in the middle of the traps an elf (Taegen Torzeiro the Ardent), two ratkin and two molekin stop them. They are alarmed by Aloy and ask the heroes if they are here to free their friend. They are told that they may pass after they put their weapons in a bag. They enter the grove, a big area full of trees with an enormous lake with a tortoise swimming in it, and at the end a big white tree with blue roots entering the ground. Taegen tells them that the Guardians of the forest is a treaty of collaboration between all the races in the forest. Taegen brings them to 2 elderly people: Vafir and Farmaer. They tell them that the Nightmare court has capture the third of the elderly, also the third of the Three Tenders: his name is Qibalar. The Nightmare Court infiltrated the Grove and took him to the tower in the NorthWest. Inside the tower they find Qibalar, reading a book, however he does not react to anything that the heroes say or do. Lozano senses some magical force from the fireplace creating an illusion of Qibalar reading the book. He is not there physically. Tarrok throws all the books inside the bookcase inside the fire and suffers a hell of a lot fire damage. Lozano, Tesh and Meow heal him. Throwing the books howerver solved the puzzle of the illusion and it stands up and starts talking to the heroes. The illusion of Qibalar tells them that he is dead, and that he created this illusion to warn the person that finds him. He magically locked the tower, the monsters are still inside, when the illusion stops talking this lock opens and they will have to fight the monsters inside. Qibalar thinks that he has been killed for his knowledge: he was busy formulation a theorum binding the Nightmare Court and the Guardians together. The illusion tells them that the knowledge from the books will help them in their journey, then disappears, leaving a ladder behind towards the upper level.
When the heroes enter the top level they see a door, Tarrok stealthily moves towards the door and sees one small ogre standing that. Confident that it will be an easy kill he moves in realizing that there are 2 more small ogres. Still they are no match to our heroes, the 5 wolves and the ghost sounds that Meow makes. 3 bigger ogres enter the battle field but they are no match either. The heroes climb the stairs. When the heroes enter the next level they find themselves in a room with a lot of stone pillars and a Huge Earth Elemental monster at the end. This hulking, roughly humanoid creature of dirt and stone explodes up from the earth, faceless save for two glowing gemstone eyes. It is sleeping and guarding a dwarven (second generation) ringgate. This ringgate seems inactive with two golden shields filled with gemstones. These two shields are there to protect safe passage. Of both shields only 4 out of 5 gem sockets are filled. 2 more gems are needed. The heroes call Argentus and he tells them that the ringgates are matched to a dwarven God, in this case a dwarven God of Greed. So they will need protection if they want to enter the portal. For this the heroes take out the gemstone eyes of the Huge elemental which immediately collapses. Argentus warns them to not enter the portal when the ring turns red. The heroes enter the white gemstone eyes in the empty sockets of the shields. It clicks, like a safe is opening and the portal activated turning blue. Tarrok peeks his head through the portal and sees the Mother Tree and the Tree Tenders. Tarrok steps trough completely and returns with Farmaer. Farmaer explains that only a few minutes after the heroes entered the tower, multiple hooded figures entered the mother tree, possibly through this same portal. Farmaer says that this requires quick action, he snaps his finger and become a much younger, much quicker form of himself. They already sent the Ardent into the Mother Tree but he did not return yet. The heroes are asked if they will go after him and chase the hooded figures. First they will have to perform a ritual so the heroes are accepted by the Tree.
The ceremony begins and the three heroes + Tesh and Argentus plant a seed in the ground to check if they are accepted by the Mother Tree. Only the three heroes are accepted as their seed sprouts and produces a berry. The heroes enter the tree, the bark rips open and a cold wind comes from the inside. When they enter the tree it seems like they are outside in beautiful park with water and colored frogs, there is a staircase at the end of the park. In the meantime, just after almost being paralyzed by 1 frog Meow befriend a whole family of colorful frogs that join him. When they enter the next level they see a rapid river which leads to a waterfall. Meow makes a bridge using his entangle spell and all heroes pass, however Lozano needed his blinking dagger to make this leap after he almost fell into the water. When they reach the next level they see a big hallway on the right leading out of the tree, on the left there is an island with some hedges and behind that a patch of grass with 3 bush elephants guarding a chest. Tarrok finds a trap in the chest wich may activate the bush elephants. The heroes start to communicate with the bush elephants, after some questions the elephants indicate that they want the heroes to make the water stop falling from the waterfall above them. When they succeed they may open the chest. Lozano senses that this water was initiated by a very powerful create water spell and that they have to go to the source of this spell but the source is located at a higher level in the tree. So the hero’s make their way towards the big hallway on the right leading outside the tree upwards. They enter a two-lobbed, breast-like looking room filled with skeletons carrying weapons. The skeletons closely resemble the Ardent and his gang, but what is odd is that it looks like the skeletons died hundreds of years ago. Lozano senses that they are subjects of magic, undergoing a mind-altering effect. They decide to take the stairs down because they are now on level six and they never saw level four and five. On level five they find an abandoned camp and a diary, probably of the Ardent group stating that they have been attacked by a monster. There is no way further down so they make their way back to level six, where a giant yellow frog now appeared, it does not seem to see them right now. When they make their way towards the stairs Meow steps on a branch. The yellow frog turns towards them and sends out a fearful feeling towards the heroes which, this enrages Tarrok making him target Meow trying to cast him down the stairs. They end up in a feud eventually leading to Meow throwing an explosive orange frog towards Tarrok his face exploding and also dealing damage to Meow himself. in the meantime Lozano uses Hold Animal on the frog and paralyzes it. The heroes throw everything at the frog, arrows, raging rapiers, a demon roc, crossbow bolts, magic missiles and at last a flare. Eventually the acid damage kills it. They make their way up and end up in a room with an opening in the wall, on the opposite side they see another room but the bridge they saw from the outside seems to be gone. There is a lever but it doesn’t do anything. They hear a sound however at the western wall. Tarrok destroys the Western wall by throwing two orange frogs at it revealing a green meadow and an altar with the name: Mohik Saria. Meow puts his hands inside the altar, his eyes turn black and he hears a message. A message that he has heard before in a dream. With mage hand Meow pulls the lever on the other side revealing the bridge, on the other side of the room they find another altar which gives Lozano a sick-ass bow. Afterwards they make their way up towards the top level. At the top level they see an Elf and a Dryad. They try to sneak up to them but then Tarrok his hayfever makes them notice the heroes. The Elf and the Dryad introduce themselves as Valendron Oparal and Galeth of the Nightmare Court. They admit to be behind the killing of the Treetender and say that their goal is to kill the Mother Tree. Tarrok decides to disguise himself as the Mother Tree intimidating the enemies but they won’t budge. Tarrok quickly fires his crossbow at Valendron, immediately followed by an arrow from Lozano his new bow. The battle is on, Valendron attacks Tarrok with a lightning bolt and afterwards magically raises a magic hand in the air. The battle gets intense but the heroes defeat Valendron. But then Galeth almost gives Tarrok the decisive blow, however he heroically kills it with the big stab of its rapier. Tarrok finds a skeleton key, a key that can open most locks that are not ment to be opened and by using it obtains a Ring of Counterspells, he gives it to Meow.
Farmaer tells the heroes that Raddock (the Scarab) is inside the forest and plans to leave tommorow. Farmaer adds that the Scarab holds the magical armor the heroes are looking for. He asks them to retrieve it to him to end this war. Next to that he warns the heroes not to fight the Scarab and Raddock and never to look in to the gem that the Scarab is wearing. The heroes make their way back to Greshwick and meet up with Brandir there. They start making plans for the ambush of the cart of Raddock, they plan an Arcadian Horse: a big chest full of gold and jewels with a double bottom containing Meow and Tesh. When they are finishing up their preparations their targets decide to set up camp directly under the tree house. Quickly Greshwick casts a spell so the people in the camp don’t see them and can’t hear them. Tarrok directly spots his sister. The heroes come up with a plan: Brandir, Lozano and Tarrok will dress up as Cleric traders with the chest and will offer Ra’ddock the money and their keep in return for protection. In the meantime Meow will blink himself with the blinking dagger into the treasury and blink out with the magic armor. As means of escape Meow will light the firework cart situated inside the encampment. Before that the plan is to drug the Scarab with a bluff that the heroes can regenerate her lost eye in order to steal her necklace. But do things always go according to plan with our heroes? NO. The following happened: Brandir, Lozano and Tarrok, all disguised as Clerics following Kethephys enter the encampment. They bluff their way into trade negotiations with Ra’ddock with Brandir eventually taking the lead. Lozano and Tarrok move away from the negotiations and try to bribe her into letting them heal her eye. She does not budge even a little. In the meantime the heroes recognised the armor Ra’ddock is wearing as being the magical armor they need. Meow changes the plan and blinks into the treasury as a rescue mission for Tesh who is still in the double bottomed chest. His does this in quite a stange way: first blinking into the treasury, then into the chest while being invisible and than blinking out with Tesh. Tesh is so shocked that she get pushed against the side of the chest in one instance by an invisible Meow that she shrieks loud. The guards hear this and find an empty chest and raise the alarm. The Scarab takes the heroes out of the Northern gate and ties Lozano and Tarrok to a tree. They are messing with her plans sees Tarrok. This plan seems to involve blowing up the fireworks as Meow hears the hissing sound of them being lit already. A giant explosion takes out many of the guards in the encampent but Ra’ddock is unharmed. Tarrok confronts his sister, she tells him that he should not have come to protect her, gives him the necklace and runs of into the woods. Brandir hushes after her. At that moment Ra’ddock sees the heroes and asks what the hell they think they are doing. Tarrok answers his question with a rapier to the face. Ra’ddock is up to the fight and the rapier does no damage. He summons a magical lion out of one of the lion-like shoulder patches. It bites Lozano doing some damage. As reaction Lozano uses his new spell called Aboleth’s lung giving the lion gills in stead of lungs. It falls down gasping for air, Tarrok is up for a plan but what it is we see next time!
So we continue where we left off, Tarrok’s plan involves grappling Ra’ddock and he wants to throw him up in the air using his potion of bull’s strength. He grapples him but is not able to throw him in the air. An epic fight follows including Meows fire sneeze, 5 wolves and a lot of flanking. The heroes decide not to kill Ra’ddock, however this almost fails because Tarrok crits on his final blow. But Ra’ddock survives and they tie him up very tight and undermine him with several questions. Ra’ddock starts telling: Saw Vancasterkin (code name Key) is one of five including Ra’ddock. Five warlords that try to undo whatever the Nightshade guild plans to do. They are referred to as the five …. (prongstar). Scarra is now on her way to take the seat of Ra’ddock to seize power as one of the five. Ra’ddock does not want to tell about the shoulderpiece of the armor but he asks them to put the piece back because otherwise he will die. Whoever puts on the armor, has to feed the lions blood everyday, otherwise it takes it mind. Taking it off means it will take his soul, he won’t be living but he won’t be dead either. Ra’ddock explain that Scarra joined his group all those years ago, out of free will. The heroes strip him of his armour and all his belongings but decide to keep him alive to bring him to the elven smith. He is the only one who understands the armour, Ra’ddock tells them that he knows who the soul inside is which controls it but he only want to tell to the smith himself. The heroes decide to head back to Thief’s End. They knock on Alion’s door and show him Ra’ddock and the armour. What the heroes expected is true: the soul inside is Alion’s daughter. Alion says he needs to inspect the armor but that Ra’ddock does not have to be alive for it. Tarrok decapitates him and gives the head to Alion who will make a shrunkend head of it. Next to that he promises to improve their armor and they can retrieve it the next day. They meet up with Brandir who lost track of Scarra inside the forrest. An interesting conversation follows in which both Tarrok and Brandir keep their cards very tight to their chest. Both parties have the feeling they are not sharing all information. The heroes feel that Brandir is hoping to profit from the situation but they are not sure how. After a good night’s sleep they are woken by a knock on the door, saying that the Mayor, mrs. Hordin wants to see the Ringkeepers. He tells the heroes that Alion has passed away and that het left the pouldrons for the heroes together with the shrunken head. Alion put on the armor to bring rest to the soul of it’s daughter. The mayor also tells them that the forrest has closed, the trees have grown together and the forrest is closed. The heroes find a seed with the prophecy to heal ‘a Hawk’.
The heroes take the teleportation pad towards Fellbrook, where Wilhelm is still being treated. They split up with Argentus and Tesh who head towards Arcadia, Argentus will intensify his study for the Orobouros investigation, he agrees to be accompanied by Tesh and he will give the heroes a daily check-in via the earpiece. They meet a man called Caressing Bear, he tells the heroes that Wilhelm is not dead but he is not doing very well either. They succeeded in transforming him into a tree but he did not come out of it yet. The Caressing Bear thinks that the ember seed might kick-start him out of the tree. The Highroffant will come back in a few hours, in the mean time they head for the nearby Inn. Tarrok hits on the barmaid called Lurrah who tells the heroes that she would love to experience a more adventurous life. The Highroffant returns, takes the seed and starts the proces, it will take three days. In the meantime the heroes accept a quest by one of the locals called Stinging Bee. First thing next morning they will explore the shipwreck outside of the bay, it might contain gold. The heroes decide to explore the mine up north, they follow the rail track deep inside the mountain. The floors and walls are filled with glowing crystals, Tarrok explains that these are exploding crystals. Even with this knowledge Meow enters the hallway with crystals almost letting them explode. At the end of the hallway he finds a chest, when he attepmts to open this chest it seems to be a Mimic. The three heroes defeat the Mimic with Lozano finally detaching it’s tongue killing the beast.
The heroes make it safely outside the exploding crystal hallway, Tarrok harvests a big exploding crystal and at that moment the heroes hear a sound. They head further into the cave when they see a big slimy blob hanging from the ceiling. They identify it as an uvula, they are inside a giant monster and decide to stealthily head out. They make preperations for their quest and head to bed. They get a shitty boat from Stinging Bee and head towards the shipwreck, when they get close they see 2 sharks circling the boat of which one of them is a Great White. Meow enters the ship first with the use of a rope ladder that hangs from the ship. Tarrok follows and starts exploring. He smells a rotting fish smell coming from lower in the ship. He tells the others that it is safe to approach while he walks deeper into the ship. When Lozano and Meow walk towards Tarrok the ship tilts and the water breaks trough the doors making the ship sink deep to the bottom of the ocean. It lands on the bottom with a part of the ship hovering over a large trench. When the heroes are oriented on their surroundings again a big white shark appears behind Lozano and attacks him. A massive battle starts with the white shark killing Tarrok multiple times, however Lozano his life pact keeps saving him so he can deal massive damage with his weapons. While suffocating after his breathing pearl stopped working he finally charges the final blow splicing the great white shark open form head to tail. They find a chest of 1500 GP in a chest. After 2 attempts with octopuses to get the money back up they decide to just swim upwards. In the end Lozano uses water walk to drag his 2 companions to the docks. They start bluffing the money down so that they have to pay less to Stinging Bee only finding out later that the money would go to an orphanage. Afterwards they had to the inn to celebrate their victory. This celebration moves in the right direction for Tarrok, his flirting with Lurrah might pay off. Lozano and Meow find his bed empty.
The session starts with Tarrok being blindfolded and gagged, he is kept in room 13 of the Willow Wisp. He is being held by a half fox-half man who identifies himself as one of the hooded figures called Toshio the heroes saw at the tavern yesterday evening. Toshio explains he kidnapped Tarrok for his own good because he wanted to protect him against one of his friends, the orc called Ashur. When Ashur could not find Tarrok he went to the Pendelgast Peaks with his axe in hand, his companion Warbis went with him. Lurrah wakes up Meow and Tarrok and tells them Tarrok was pretty hammered and at the end of the evening went up with Toshio, Meow and Lozano start eating. Toshio and Tarrok get in the room and explain the situation. He asks the heroes to get to the Pendelgast Peaks and retrieve his friend Ashur, he has been acting really strange because of the upcoming storm. The heroes see the storm hanging in the bay, it looks magical as it is not moving. The heroes speculate about it possibly being the second dark day. This thought is strengthened when Toshio tells them that he met a woman just a few days before, she called herself the dark lady and she showed a big flame to Ashur. The heroes think that that might be Tindar. The head towards the trail to the Pendelgast Peaks, the wind is tough but they start their ascend. Suddenly a gust of wind throws Meow and Toshio off the cliff, they drop down 50 meters but because of Toshio’s quick magic thinking they land softly. They continue their way up when they find a blood trail, it comes from a totally ravaged Warbis tied up in a tree. When they gently lower him down (they drop him), he dies instantly. Toshio changes the deal: fuck Ashur, he did this and he will pay for it, we are ordered to kill him. They heroes continue their path upwards and find Ashur in the middle of an open field, acocompanied by Umbra. The moment she sees the heroes she disappears and a voice enters their head with Umbra telling the heroes that they missed all the clues that she was coming for them: the statue, Wilhelm dying, the storm. She wishes the heroes good luck with the appetizer before their big battle: Ashur is up first. Quite easily the heroes defeat Ashur, but they don’t kill him. He now lies unconcious on the floor tied up. Lozano senses that he was cursed but that curse is gone now. The storm is getting closer…
We learn that Umbra and Tindar are the same person, the second night of darkness is quickly approaching. The cold wind sends a shiver down their spine and they hastily make their descent towards Fellbrook. Toshio tells the heroes about the Black Flame, deeply cursed and deeply powerful. It would give extreme power to the person that is able to wield it, this is what Toshio saw when he met the women the other day. Toshio warns them: when she shows the black flame, close your eyes and run away, no one is a match to this kind of power. When they reach Fellbrook they see a completely dark town, no lights, no people. They see a tree with someone in front of it, behind it are three creatures. When they approach 2 giant ogres with battleaxes are heading their way. The heroes find out that they are extremely powerful when they see 1 ogre kill the other with 2 mighty blows after Lozano enchants them to kill its ally. While fearing an instakill the heroes manage to kill the second ogre after Tarrok sliced it up and Lozano shooting an arrow through it’s guts. After the battle they find Toshio and Ashur lying fast asleep, they are cursed and whatever they try the heroes can’t wake them up. They lockpick the door of the Inn and put Toshio and Ashur next to the whole sleeping inn. A big black orb hangs in the sky, purple lights are shooting upwards from where the druids tent used to be. When the purple light gets to the black orb two giant black hands absorb the light, and the black mass grows bigger. The heroes see that purple light comes from the soul of cursed inhabitants of the town and they die when the light leaves their body. Lozano recognised the black mass as a Soul eater, assassins of the underworld, anyone with bad intentions can summon them. We have never seen a soul eater of this size, taking multiple lives of a whole village. When they approach the tree they see that a hag is in front of it making arm gestures which make the black mass absorb the purple lights. They now see that a purple light shoots from one of the branches of Wilhelm’s tree and a branch turning black. Tarroks decides to go for the diplomatic approach, as a result the hag touches one of the ogres who wakes up and looks angrily at Tarrok. The hag uses magic to summon a throne, Tarrok can’t resist her magic and moves towards the throne. Meow sees this and shoots his magic missiles towards her head and the fight begins. Immediately after his missiles he uses a magic scroll and a big wall of fire appears and the hag is engulfed by fire. The heroes try to damage the hag but she is resistant to many kinds of damage. When they finally get her to her knees one of the ogres that stand behind her commits harakiri and all his life drains back to her. It seems that she is playing a game with our heroes and she changes Lozano in a chicken locked up in an invisible cage. After doing this she tells the others that they have to stop fighting or else she will kill the chicken. Meow backs of but Tarrok decides to go for the final blow, however he misses. The hag throws magic missiles towards the chicken killing it, however the life pact drains life from both Tarrok and Meow and the chicken remains alive. It is clear that the hag could have used a much more devastating attack and agains she says: stop fighting now or he is really dead. At that moment Meow charges away from Lozano towards the hag not realising that he won’t be able to support him via life pact this way. To prevent a permanent death of the chicken Lozano, Tarrok sprints back shooting his crossbow towards the hag. The hag is furious and fires, killing both Lozano and Tarrok if it wasn’t for life pact and the Orc Ferocity of Tarrok. Heavily damaged the party’s life depends on Meow his final attack, and he succeeds. Firing up 3 magic missiles he takes of her both hands and shoots the last on in her nose. The hag is defeated, the Soul eater diminishes and turns away. Soul eaters hun down their casters if they do not complete their task, and a hag never casts spells alone so the Soul eater is about to hunt her teammates. Wilhelm’s tree turns green again, bursts open and a fully healthy, fully human sized Wilhelm falls out.
The heroes make for safe haven in the Whillow Wisp, securing Wilhelm’s safety. From Lurah they hear that Ashur is one of the casualties. They make way to the main hall, this hall is filled with people and the Highroffant welcomes them. The council of Fellbrook starts, a total of 4 people died. The Highroffant gives a speech that Fellbrook is a great, tough and fierce town. A big party starts to celebrate their victory. While Meow and Tarrok talk to the Highroffant, Wild Boar challenges Tarrok for a drinking game. Both are doing shots 1 by 1 and Tarrok wins the bet and gets her double handed warhammer. The heroes, including a totally wasted Tarrok make their way to Stinging Bee. Stinging Bee has a deck of harrow cards and predicts the past, present and future. Harrow of Meow: Meow asks her why he is cursed and how he can lift it. The cards tell him the following: your flaws of the past, the people in your surroundings that have been murdered will guide you to lifting the curse in the future. And help will present itself in the future by someone of his past. Harrow of Lozano: Lozano asks her why his alignment with Ketephys is so strong that he can feel it in his blood and veins. The cards tell him that he broke from tradition but now he has a choice, keep breaking from tradition or get back to it. Both will give you wisdom but not the same information. Second harrow of Meow: Meow asks who killed the family he grew up with. The cards tell him that someone within his family was corrupted, soon Meow will get a deal to find out who this was but the consequences of his desire to know will be severe. One of the 2 choices to this deal will lead him to the release of its inner untamed strength, the other will make the monsters that follow him consume him. In the morning Lozano teaches Aloy some combat manoeuvres, afterwards the heroes get back to get some breakfast at the Whillow Wisp as they see Wilhelm coming down the stairs. Wilhelm tells them that he remembers everything up to the point that he got cut in half. At that moment everything turned to black until yesterday when the light shone bright and got back to life. The heroes tell him about the prophecy (five dark nights afterwards either Groomsh would be back or the heroes would have won). They share the identity of Umbra and the disappearance of Lady Fightmount. Wilhelms tells the heroes that they should find a patter in the dark nights, to predict the upcoming dark night, not to be caught of guard again. He asks us to look for any clues in the keep to investigate Lady Fightmount missing.
The heroes plan to go to their ringkeep and take the teleportation pad towards Arcadia. Before their next trip they report to Hink Tinkerton on their updates. She is very pleased to hear that Wilhelm is alive and has an update for the heroes as well: Tesh and Argentus have been aiding an investigation on the disappearance of Lady Fightmount. A report of this will be sent to the heroes in a few days. For now it seems that the ringgates have a much bigger role then previously thought of, it seems that our plane is not the only material plane an the ringgates are gates between the planes. The team is now finishing the last details of the investigation inside Deepstone. Our heroes then make their way to the Ringkeep, they meet with Hobbs and both the heroes and Hobbs give the other party an update. The heroes investigate the stairway where Lady Fightmount disappeared and also the courtyard where she was taken over. Hakim points them towards the archway on top of the castle, there the find a magical residue, old magic. On the archway they also find purple cloak dust of which they know that Umbra used it to fly trough the air and talk to people. Afterwards the heroes head for the old working shed of Tindar/Umbra. Inside the shed they find a chest with some golden pieces, when Tarrok enters the fake bottom of the chest it cracks an purple smoke comes out forming face of Umbra. It speaks to them and tells them that she knows the past, present and future of the heroes. She also hints that the Third Night will take place whenever the heroes least expect it and it will take place there where the heroes are at that moment. Afterwards Hakim tells the heroes a shocking detail: Hobbs and Tindar were romantically involved and have a daughter together. Tindar left the Ringkeep with the baby, Hobbs has only seen her for 1 hour, then Tindar disappeared. Hobbs and Tindar had no secrets for each other. The heroes pack their bags, give Hink Tinkerton a latest update an head to Baltica. Meow is in such a hurry that he pays the stable master 2600GP to rent two horses (Marcus and Sheddy) to head to Baltica as soon as possible. Tarrok confronts Meow that he is not going anywhere before he knows what’s happening. Meow tells his comrades that he lost his magic, and that his connection with the Faye, of which he drains his magical powers is gone. Meow thinks it has something to do with a deal he struck with Agadûl, he told him that he want to control all the elements to save his family. This is why he wants to go to Baltica, his hometown. They head towards the town when a thunderstorm starts, the thunder rapidly hits the heroes. The session ends with Meow being hit by the lightning.
Lozano and Tarrok wake up in a tower with a glass ceiling, they see a moon in the form of a skull. They are floating, no air exits their lungs as they try to speak or breathe. Meow is in the middle of the room and hears several voices talking to him, telling him that he finally came back to his ancestors. They want to grant him some powers but he has to choose an element, he choses air. Then they wake up again on the road, Meow knows he gained some power but he does not know what. Meow tells his companions that the voices are of his siblings. Meow remembers the last sentence his brother told him: spread your wings before returning to us. And Meow spreads his wings and jumps up 5 meters in the air and stays afloat in the air. He is now able to fly. They continue their travels as they reach a bridge, the bridge is locked on two sides. Lozano and Tarrok stealthily make their way to the first lock. At that moment Meow, still learning to fly, flies trough the gate and several trolls appear telling them that they have to pay money to pass the bridge. Tarrok dares them to drink with him and he poisons whiskey and gin and hand it to them. They chug the alcohol free willingly, one of the 2 falls asleep immediately. The other one is still standing. He gives the heroes 3 riddles which they quickly solve, they are now free to pass the bridge and they continue their journey. They set up camp and find out that the head of Ra’dock can say whatever you want him to say on any condition that you give him. They meet a man and a woman travelling from the desert lands, he tells them a lot of stories:
Meow explained that they went to Baltica for him to regain his powers, but due to a premature ejaculation of thunder he regained them already. Now he wants to use these powers to slaughter the people that killed his family. They meet a farmer who reveals that the real name of Meow is actually Mohic Saria. They head towards the market square where they find the son of the farmer: Beltran. Meow decides that it would be fun to scare him which results in Beltran peeing his pants. The heroes follow him home where he changes his pants. The heroes head to the inn and get a room, they order 3 ales and start talking to a red haired girl. She tells them that before it all happened Meow’s father and his sister were making a deal with outsiders form the Free Cities. The deal concerned building more water mills in Baltica and the inhabitants of Baltica were opposed to this idea. She does not think that this deal had anything to do with the massacre but it is stranges that the majority of victims were gnomes. The heroes make their way towards Meow his old treehouse up north when they start hearing strange voices. When they walk further north a ghost attacks them. The heroes seem to hit the ghost quite hard but don’t do this much damage against an undead creature. In a swift attack the ghost frightens both Tarrok and Lozano, the flee behind the remains of the treehouse. While the duo is in hiding the ghost takes over Meow his body and plants his soul inside a pearl. Meow screams to his companions but they only hear shards of the sentence but still it helps them to figure out that the ghost is now inside Meow his body. The ghost tells that she is scared of the moors and that the peace is disturbed. Meow has no clue what this lost piece is but he knows that it was the ghost of Marion Geller and she told him that he caused the flood that day and Meow is the cause of the massacre. Afterwards the ghost disappears and the wailing sound stops. The heroes make way to town again en decide to visit Hinto, she is the elder woman of the town and might know more of the mystery of the Moors.
The heroes make their way towards the inn first where Tarrok flirts with Dorabella. He uses the head of Ra’dock for the first time and commands it to scream: Stop looking at my ass when she eye gazes him. It turns into a flirtation disaster. Afterwards they head to Hinto’s watermill, Mohic knocks on the door and Hinto screams that he is a ghost and may not enter. Still the heroes make their way in and Mohic fires questions to her about what happened 2 years ago. She explains ther are 2 major disturbances of the peace right now. First: a supernatural force in the Moors, the second: grief for what happened 2 years ago. The supernatural force was first present 40 years ago, P’thumora are a old tribe of gnomes, way before Darkfall, they were in charge of the peace in the moors. At some point the peace was disturbed by a family of halflings called the Druma. This resulted in a bloody war and in the end a pact between those two tribes/families and a third party: somebody up North. In this pact it states that there always has to be a watcher, one of both families to watch the Moors. Hinto is the last P’thumora descendent, we will have to find the Druma one to fix the peace in the Moors. It might be possible that Mohic is the last Druma descendent. With the 2 descendents present the heroes think that they need to head op North to try and meet the third party of the pact to restore the peace and to reinstate the pact. Hinto says it will be dangerous but has a plan: they head into the basement. Hinto pulls out a few of Mohic’s hairs and put them in a couldron. It starts to glow and they start to hear ghost voices: ‘two beast, one angry on loving but both runing away from something’. Hinto explains: this are the voices of the people that are moving from one life to the next. But to enter this gate towards the afterlife there has to be peace. The souls now wander in pain, due to something that Mohic has done. There are 2 spirits that are bound to the moors, the water of the couldron forms into a frog like creature. This creature, bound by the contract is the origin of the flood 2 years ago. It is hiding somewhere in the moors. Then a second creature emerges, a wolf, this is the beast of love. Mohic touches this spirit and the water melts down and takes the form of his childhood dog: Woof. The heroes recognise the frog like creature as a hydrodaemon: a creature of chaos. They are know to make contracts with others, it might be the third party of the pact. Tarrok gets a few potions form Hinto: 2 cure moderate wounds and 1 breathe water potions. Meow leaves a message to Kendra that he can find him at the Ringkeep. Tarrok orders an upgrade to his whip in the local smithy.
Meow decides he wants to visit the grave of his parents before the heroes leave, meanwhile Tarrok gets the upgraded whip from the smithy. They head up north deep into the Moors when they come across a river, it’s not glowing as much as it did last time. Tarrok decides to jump in and the light of the water moves towards him. When it reaches him he starts hearing a lot of voices crying for help, it takes over his brain and its maddening. Meow decides to pull him out. In the meantime Lozano graceously walks to the other side. Tarrok decides he wants to go again and this time he makes it. They find a path and decide to follow it, it leads to an open pit surrounded by hills. Inside the pit a lot of great boulders are placed in a Stone Henge kind of vibe. The heroes make their way towards the pit and Lozano feels a strong magical presence on the other side of the pit, probably a creature. Also there is a metal frame in the middle which is also magical, this metal frame appears to be a crib emmitting a very peaceful feeling through the pit. The heroes are in a yoga vibe until Meow touches the crib and all peace dissapears en a howling sound emerges from the edge of the pit. Three howlers appear on the side and make their way towards the heroes. After they kill the first howler a giant creature enters the pit, it is a skinless wolf like creature with three heads with a very distinctive howl. Meow could tell that it is Woof, just a little less sweet compared to earlier times. The heroes manage to kill the 3 howlers when another 3 emerge. Meow first tries to command Woof to sit down but this doesn’t work so he decides to attack it’s old comrade. The infuriates the dog in which he focusses his anger towards Tarrok who just shot a poisonous quill towards his head. He bites Tarrok with 2 of his heads and almost kills him. Tarrok is still standing due to his Orc Ferocity but is left with only 1 HP. https://shmeppy.com/game/1993728810
When Tarrok his Orc Ferocity ends he falls to the ground unconscious. Meow decides to use his charisma to calm Woof, he manages to ease one of the 3 heads of the monster that used to be his good pall. The 2 other heads are still angry though and they snap at Tarrok. Even though life pact is initiated he still dies, permanently. Meow and Lozano take some time to mourn their friend after Woof fled the scene with his body in one of the beaks. Suddenly they see many ghosts surrounding the pit they just fought in, one of them, a bearded halfling moves towards them and brings his condolences. He says he is Meow his Druma predecessor, Meow has been stripped of this title by the water spirits (hydrodaemon) because he attacked Woof and he brought evil in the Moors. He tells the heroes that we have failed, the moors, originally a location for safe passage for lost souls towards another realm remains closed. He tells the heroes to look for the hydrodaemon, the only force in this forest that can tame Woof. However he warns them, the hydrodaemon is probably very angry at them and will attack. The halfling spirit does present them a gift: until sunrise they will be accompanied by a spirit version of Tarrok to help them on their quest. The Druma hints them to go to the remains of the Tree Hut to find the water spirits, they could reinstate Meow as the Druma, probably they will give him a quest which can bring peace back to the Moors. The heroes go to the tree hut where the find a secret passage going down via a ladder in the ground. They enter a room with a central pillar with a strong water vortex surrounded it. There are 4 openings in the walls closed by hatches, all the hatches are opened for only 5% with water gushing out of them. On the platform they land on using the ladder are 4 levers, probably to move the latches. On each latch a rune symbol is written translated to the following 4 words: Maelstrom, Vortex, Whirlwind, Tornado. Closing the latches makes the water level surrounding the pillar go down and opening them makes the level go up. The heroes accept their faith and open all levers full throtle, the water goes up and up and destroys the platform and the levers in the process. They hear a click and the water goes down again and opens way to continue further. They enter a next room with 4 pillars, there are 15 stone slabs in the room and 4 sockets. They find the 15 stone slabs with the following runes: Vortex, Rain, Torrent, Hail, Winds, Shiver, Maelstrom, Gust, Current, Wave, Whirlwind, Snow, Blizzard, Frost, Tornado. A mastermind puzzle emerges and the heroes get some stones smacked in the face but solve it. They hear a clicking sound and the floor falls down under their feet with Lozano dropping down and disappearing. They fall down with Tarrok breaking Lozano his fall and see the Tree Hut standing on an island. Meow enters the hut, he just fits in. From the distance a blue light emerges and Lozano and Tarrok see 2 figures forming: Hinto and de Druma decendant who also has some facial characteristics of Meow. A third party emerges, a form of water who says: You dare enter the home of the water spirit! It accuses Meow of causing the vortex of lost souls who can’t make their amends. He can make it all right, by handing Tarrok over to the water spirits. After an emotional goodbye Tarrok leaves this world saying: Goodbye friends, it was a hell of a ride. Hinto tells Meow that Woof is outside the tree waiting for him and that he has to find several birds which are bound to his siblings and parents, every bird is a cause of disturbance to the Moors. Hinto transports the heroes outside the tree and they see eye to eye to Woof. Meow quickly pets him and he shrinks to normal size. Peace is restored in the Moors. Lozano and Tarrok visit the open pit and set up a memorial site for Tarrok with the Shrunken Head on top with the following construct: any time any person visits the memorial site it recites a a line paying respects towards the valiant hero: TARROK WOLFSBROTHER.
Lozano and Meow make their way to the Ringkeep and give poor Hobbs the bad news of Tarrok’s passing. Hobbs takes his time to recover from this message and tells the heroes there is another pressing matter: there is a man incarcerated for poaching boars, next to that Milo is missing and he have a role in that too. Hakim is guarding this man at the Dimport Estate, Lozano and Meow talk to the Dimports and Hakim. The Dimports think that the orcs have taken Milo, his cart was found on the road towards the encampment in the forest. First they talk to the man that is taken captive, Thaddeus Nightheart, a human with black hair and tattooed black stripes over his body. He turns out to be a shapeshifter, he can take the form of any animal but he lives by a certain set of rules that he has to follow strictly. Lozano asks if he wants to join their cause to find Milo and Thaddeus accepts. They make their way towards the abandoned cart where they find dead horses with a black mass coming out of it, rotting black stuff. Thaddeus thinks it must be caused by a creature, Lozano can tell that it looks like the work of a demi-God which uses dark magic to deteriorate flesh. The heroes follow some tracks that leave the card towards a door with bloody marks on it. Meow tries to open the door with his aeromancy but it does not budge, something is behind it. Thaddeus recognizes it is locked with blood magic and drops some of his blood on the door, it opens immediately. The heroes make their way into the tunnel behind the door and they hear a female voice talking about one that died and that they are after them. The woman flees after they hear the heroes approaching but the heroes chase her and see her. She is wearing chainmail adorned with ruffled animal pelts and bones. You see her applying a certain white powder to the bloodsoaked scythe that she is holding. To her right, you see a hooded figure, darkness enveloping their face. It’s not bright so you can’t quite make it out, but the shape of their head underneath the hood is making strange, squirmy movements. The heroes attack the woman with the scythe first, Thaddeus destroys her completely in his first turn by attacking her as a tiger. Afterwards both Lozano and Meow almost destroy the hooded figure which is formed by a liquid substance, it flees further into the tunnel. The heroes follow the figure to a next room where they find him and he attacks them with green magical chains. When they kill the figure its soul is retracted into a green magical circle in the room and the heroes are harmed by a ritual. A green flash blinds them and they find themselves in a new room, on a stone table in the middle they find Milo bound with his legs and arms. Next to the table are two creatures, one that looks like flying organs and one that looks like a red crawling demon. The heroes defeat both of the creatures, Thaddeus even barfs a hairball into the face of one of them. Lozano recovers Essential Salt from the dead body of the Unrisen (one of the creatures), is is an essential component to revive dead people. On the body of Milo some runes are drawn in blood which are linked to the Curdled One. When they exit the cave they see the Dimports, Hakim and Hobbs. Hobbs hand a lettter to the two Ringkeepers which states an invitation from Hirm Graham who says he knows more about Lady Fightmount. Meow asks Hobbs: Do you know who this Hirm Graham is? End of session.
The heroes are on road to Ulfgrim Castle, before they left they heard quite concerning stories about its Lord, both locals en foreigners don’t like to go there. Hakim who is driving their cart leans in and tells the heroes that they are being followed by another cart, driven by a green creature in black armor. Thaddeus changes into a bird and flies towards the cart en lands on de roof. Confronting the driver it seems to be Wilhelm, their long lost tree-hugging friend. In his cart he carries Argentus Blakely and Tesh.Wilhelm decides he trusts Thaddeus and gets him up to speed on the Ouroboros case. They gang up and head towards the gate of Ulfgrim Castle. Tesh will impersonate Amy the housekeeper and Thaddeus will be Sir Byron. The cart stops in front of the Sultry Hopgoblin, a tavern in the small town in front of the castle, in the tavern Wilhelm opens his bag and finds a broken flask en dust falls out. He turns pale and tells the heroes to act normal and don’t talk business in here. They order a room en head up. When Lozano takes guard duty he suddenly hears a screaming sound from outside, 3 armed dwarves just killed a man and state they will kill a lot more people and start stabbing arround. Lozano runs down the stairs, Thaddeus jumps out the window and changes to his tiger form mid air, Meow head towards Wilhelm to guard him. A fight starts between the heroes and the 3 dwarves. During the fight is looks like the 3 dwarves are frenzied, Lozano uses detect magic and finds out they are cursed and that killing one of them highers te level of frenzy of the other two. In the end the heroes kill two of them and grapple the other for studying purposes.
The fight is over and the owner of the bar Donovan is afraid of the heroes and grabs his gun, he accuses the heroes of the chaos that happened this night and the dead people. He runs to the bar and grabs a gun which he points towards Thaddeus. In a move to disarm the owner while being in tiger-form the gun goes off and only nearly misses Meow. They decide to interrogate the remaining dwarf, during the interrogation the dwarf starts to disintegrate and his jaw melts off. Lozano stabilises him, when this happens the disintegration stops and the eyes of the dwarf turn from red to blue. They start to interrogate him further and find out that he and 4 of his brothers were cursed by a hooded figure outside the town. This curse ordered them to go to the town and murder vampires, which is interesting because the hooded figure was a vampire as well. The heroes decide that they have to hide the dwarf and they want to help him so they try to get him upstairs, however, there are no stairs anymore due to Meow. At that moment guards from Lord Ulfgrim come in and see a butt naked man pushing a dwarf upstairs while Meow is flying pulling him higher while Lozano took a table cloth to protect the children’s eyes from Thaddeus his penis. The heroes are all shackled and together with Donovan and the jawless dwarf are taken to Ulfring Castle for questioning. They are brought into the great banket hall of the castle. In the hall on the big throne resides Hirm Graham, Lord of the castle. He is flanked by human lady, an elf, a halfling and a dwarven lady. The moment they enter the hall Lozano, Meow and the dwarf feel the urge to eat from the banquet. They can just resist eating it but the urge gets stronger and stronger. The Lord starts talking, he is a very chatty person and he finds it rude that the heroes won’t eat from his banquet. Finally he offers a deal: he would trade the location of Lady Fightmount for a favor, the favor being that when he asks the heroes wait on reacting to Hawks call for help for an hour. The heroes don’t accept this offer and are banished from the premises. When they are escorted out the castle the guard tells them that probably tommorow they heroes will receive a new letter with a better offer, that is usually how the Lord works. When they exit the castle Donovan snaps out of a spell and asks himself what happened. The heroes tell him that he was really drunk, endend up in the Lord’s Castle after he had wrecked his own bar. They return to the bar and the heroes talk to the other bar-owner Forsha, she tells them that she accepted an offer from the Lord in the past: it gave her this bar and his counteroffer was that she had to take Donovan on as co-owner. Forsha then talks about a niece of Donovan who went missing in the forest, the heroes make the connection that this niece could possibly be the hooded figure who cursed the dwarf. When the heroes tell a recap to Hawk he tells them the right-hand man of the Lord, the elf is called Viresh. He tells them to steer clear of this guy. When the heroes tell Hawk that the Lord admitted to being a vampire, Hawk tells them that he knows that Arcadia has deals with vampires and he will definitely look into that tommorow.
The heroes discuss their next move, they come to the conclusion that the Lord is not a light opponent. The best thing would be to wait for his renewed offer. The moment that Thaddeus says he could also change into a bird and fly to the castle they hear a knock on the cart. When they open it a raven flies to the castle, thinking it might be a spy Lozano shoots the bird and it explodes into fireworks. The heroes think the Lord might be able to hear them and talk loudly and say they will leave the city. A guard approaches them in quite some haste to tell them the Lord urgently awaits their return, this probably is the better offer that the heroes are waiting for. When the heroes enter the castle a dwarf named Remus is making music and a lot of dancers are dancing. The elf named Varresh who they saw earlier escorts them to the Lord. The Lord tells them he will give them a better offer: the information about Lady Fightmount in return for a quest (killing all the cultists in a lake nearby) and a visit on his next birthday. When they agree to the deal the Lord tells them the cult is Ouroboros and Lady Fightmount is held captive in the temple at the lake nearby. He also tells them that not only he could hear them he could also see them. The heroes go to the bar and meet with Wilhelm again. Wilhelm uses a spell so that the Lord can only hear jibberish, they use a piece of cloth in front of their mouths so the Lord can not lip read them. The heroes decide they will go to the lake, they take Wilhelm with them. It will be a search, rescue and recon mission.
The heroes head for the lake where they find an old worn down pier and a small house next to it, when they get to the pier a halfling gets out of the house. His name is Frigo, fisherman of the Ulflog. He accepts to ferry them over to the island in the lake. Thaddeus makes a deal to gather 4 fish to make it a free endeavour. During his time in the water he sees a path down on the bottom to the lake which leads to the island, it is called Dead Man’s Pass. They reach the island and check the inside of the well in the centre, it is 6 metres deep and has an human size opening in the south side. On the north side of the well there are 6 granite orbs with a horizontal line on it. Meow flies down to check out the entrance, at some moment Thaddeus shouts something to him and at that moment the 6 granite orbs open and big yellow eyes open up.
Meow flees upward and joins the heroes at the top op the well, Thaddeus decides to poke the closest eye with a stick and it explodes with vitrious fluid coming out. Thaddeus catches a tuna to throw in the water on the bottom of the well. They name him Tony Montuna and tie a rope to the tail, slowly they lower Tony to the bottom of the well. The moment the tuna is in the water it gets sucked in the deep depths pulling Thaddeus over the edge, Lozano tries to save him but tumbles over as well. In an attempt to save them both Meow cuts the rope and tries to hold them but even though Lozano and Thaddeus fall in the deep waters and have a fight on their hands. They are attacked by something in the water, and also by Tony Montuna, now an undead skeleton fish with vile green poisonous teeth. Thaddeus grapples Lozano and moves him towards the exit on the south wall of the well. Lozano kills Tony Montuna by channeling negative energy to the undead fish. It also damages the other creature in the water: Bloody Bones. However it does not seem to be hurt as much as the fish. The heroes get in to a big fight with a dysmorphic bloody skeleton, and get some good damage in. However the creature does quite some bleeding damage to the heroes as well. At one moment the bloody skeleton disappears and the heroes make way to the exit and enter a tunnel with 6 mirrors. Meow sees movement in the second mirror on the right, Thaddeus decides to investigate in stealth form and sees blood on the floor in front of this mirror. At this moment the bloody skeleton jumps out of the mirror and attacks Meow and Thaddeus. In the end Lozano kills him by shooting 2 arrows through is eyes and 1 in the groin.
The heroes find themselves in a new room with three swinging giant axes. Meow immediately flies into one luring 2 undead creatures towards Thaddeus. When they kill the first creature it turns into a magnetic pile changing the course of the swinging axes. There are also 2 statues at the end of the hall which then burst open and 4 more of the same undead creatures jump out. Lozano uses positive energy channeling to wipe out the rest of them. After this they find a lever in one of the exploded statues, it might open the 2 big iron doors at the end of the room, however they don’t trust is. Instead the decide to swing one of the giant axes toward the door. This breaks the door mechanisme and bursts open the door. They enter the next room which is huge, the room is filled with square pillars with words on it. At the end of the room is a dead body that still has seizures, a headless ghost floats around slowly. The pillars together form a tragedy about wizards, they sought out immortality. The wizards were deeply in love with each other, one day they found a dark ritual which could only be done once every 1000 years. The wife performed it on her husband making him immortal and then she went into 1000 years of sleep. In this 1000 years the body of the man was immortal but his mind lingered down. After a 1000 years of sleep the woman wakes up finding her husband alive but not reacting. However he had already finished the ritual she she too will lose her mind in time. After reading the words on the pillars the words start glowing and a cabinet door opens. In the cabinet the heroes find a head, the head is cursed and belongs to the decapitated body they found in the same room. It claims to be the architect of the whole dungeon and agrees to help the heroes to destroy the defilers that entered his domain. The deal they struck would reward him to be united again with his body. The Architect tells Hogar (the demon lord of wrath who bound his soul to Groomsh and who stole his powers and locked them with 4 defensive seals) defiled this place. The Architect tells that the 4 defensive seals are locked in the city of Axis, it lies in another plane. From this room they can go East (the copper priest) or South (the laboratory, the room of graves). In between the two lies the changing pits. The heroes decide to attach the head to its decapitated body again. The ghost enters the body and the heroes hear: fare thee well Ringkeepers in your fight against Umbra and remember the story of the wizards and the curse of loneliness.
The heroes decide to head to the Troth, Thaddeus goes first and enters a room with a turntable to grab a torch. At that moment he hears 12 undead creatures behind him. They make a plan in which they lure the enemies with light towards a trap which then explodes. Afterwards Lozano uses positive energy which wipes out almost al of them. Meow finishes it of in style with a gusting blast. They find the turning table to be locked so they can’t open the door adjacent to it. Meow turns into gasseous form and infiltrates te room behind where he finds a statue of a copper pries with two candles. In front of it there is a pond with floating eyes like the found before in the well. He breaks gasseous form and opens the door from the inside. The moment he does this all the eyes starts moving up forming a large creature of mouths and eyes. It sends out a noise that confuses Aloy, Lozano and Meow causing them to attack each other. At one moment the creature eats Thaddeus whole and he kills it from te inside causing al the eyes to pop and explode. The creature is killed and the heroes now stand in the Troth in front of the Copper Priest statue. Meow lights both candles, and nothing happens. Then Thaddeus finds out that the candle fits inside a socket and the statue moves back and opens a pit with a ladder in it. The heroes descend into a storage area where the find a Staff of Healing, a transmutational ring of necromancy and a book with as title: ULIGOR. They head into the next hallway and enter pitchblack darkness. Lozano finds out it is caused by a darkness spell which comes from a lantern hanging from the ceiling. The heroes steal the lantern and put it in the bag of holding. Afterwards they head towards the pit where a lot of undead creatures are torturing humanoids into becoming undead. They strike and kill the enemies and at the mean time they “saved” the people by healing them out of existence. In a imbecile move Lozano decides to head in to the pit which leads to him automatically being grappled by a horde of undead people. He tries to crawl out without succes, Thaddeus jumps in as a tiger and grapples the pile of undead dealing blistering damage again and again. The heroes fire everything they have, Lozano would have been dead two times if it wasn’t for life pact. In they end they barely scrape through. After a good night’s rest the heroes make way towards the Laboratory, in this room they find a stone altar, bisected skulls, several empty vials. Next to that they find a not describing a formula on how to modify an already existing potion to make sure it can control intelligent demons. They make sure to grab the notes and the potion next to it which is still brewing. Then they make way to the Room of Graves, a room filled with 8 skeletons stuck to their position behind bars. There seems to be not much of interest and head down te stairs to level 2.
Session 052: Defender loses, you killed a baby They walk down the stairs and enter a small room with a big metal door a looking hole with metal bars in front of it, the room is well lit however there is no source of light. When Lozano picks out the lantern of Darkness it gives of light. Trough the looking hole they see a room with a pit in the middle, green fog comes out of it. At the end of the room there is an altar with Umbra in front of it. She wears a cloth with something wrapped inside, it looks like it is moving. Agadûl is nowhere to be seen. Hanging from chains in the ceiling is an unconscious but still living Lady Fightmount, behind her a floating skull is in the air. The heroes want to go back and make a plan when they see Lady Fightmount being lowered into the pit. At this moment the heroes try to move trough the door, Lozano uses Stone Shape but uses too much force so achieves the opposite effect. In this room there seems to be a spell which makes everything work the opposite way. Meow uses a slight breeze of wind and the door BLASTS open. When they enter Umbra shoots fireballs to them which quickly turn in to pitchblack dark balls of ice. Umbra give a speech about wanting to …… , at the end she says that it is time to finish the job and kill the rest of the Ringkeepers. The heroes see that there is a baby locked inside Umbra her body. A big fight starts in which Lozano magically gets turned into a rabbit. In the end it Thaddeus who bites the neck of Umbra and rips open her body with his claws to gain acces to the baby through her opened chest, at this moment he extends his claw and pushes it through the baby’s face breaking Umbra’s spine and killing them both in action. Both Umbra and the baby dissapear. Somewhere in this world a baby is born silently, it does not cry. Thaddeus then feeds Lozano a vial of holy water but nothing happens, he looks revitalized but still is a baby rabbit.
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Lady Fightmount is weak but alive, she is still held in cold metal chains, Thaddeus decides to destroy the chains while still in his tiger form. Afterwards he heads to the book that is still on the altar, the text is written with blood and the cover is made from human skin from someones face. Thaddeus takes the book and puts Lozano in its satchel, then Lady Fightmount telports them towards outside the Ulflog. The heroes tell her what deal they made for the information of Lady Fightmount’s whereabouts. They will have to organize a birthday party for him later and the “promised him to be good hosts”. Lady Fightmount tells them that it is never a good thing to owe something to someone who is immortal. The 4 return to town where they see the cart in which they came and immediately see Captain Wilhelm who is shocked by the state Lady Fightmount is in. They enter the cart and Wilhelm takes Lozano and drops the rabbit inside a big cooking pot which he claims to be an anti-magic pot but fails to turn him into his human form again. Lady Fightmount says Umbra was cursed herself, one of her main goals was to free herself from that curse. She explains about a Lych (this is a form of a horcrux where the mind/soul of someone is transfered to an item like a vase to achieve immortality. This Lych takes the form of a crystal skull like the one the heroes saw in the cavern with Umbra. The heroes freed it by killing Umbra and therefore the Lych turned invisible and disappears. The heroes become scared by the thought that Agadûl now might have the full power of Groomsh and Hogar without the controlling power that Umbra was. Captain Wilhelm says he will need to dive into the books in Arcadia to puzzle everything together and also find a cure for rabbit Lozano which is really old magic. The magic they feel is that the essence of Lozano’s being is transformed to a rabbit, and if they will not change Lozano quick enough the mind will also become that of a rabbit. For this they might have only days to weeks. Thaddeus recalls that a herb exists that broadens the minds which might be able to enhance the connection to the God of a cleric. Strenghtening the bond to Kethephys might be able to reverse the rabbit curse. Their best chance would be to go the the clerics in Fellbrook, they might be able to help them. But first Meow and Lozano had to Hirm Graham to return the ring and try to get out of the party-deal in return. This fails since Graham pretends to not know the ring and the heroes decide to play bluff and walk away. In the meantime Thaddeus made a cape for Lozano, now he is a rabbit with a cape. The heroes ask Wilhelm if he has a way of communication towards Fellbrook, he walks towards a tree and conveys a message through the roots to send a message to the clerics that the heroes are coming and they need their help. The cart including the heroes, Wilhelm, Tesh and Argentus made their way towards Fellbrook. During the drive they all agree that their main goal after lifting the curse will still be to find out more about the means and goal of Ouroboros. During their ride Thaddeus takes his falcon form because he wants to contemplate about the horrible murder he committed in the dungeon, at that moment he sees they are being followed by multiple crows. They are spies from Hirm Graham, they hear the voice of Graham explaining that he wants to keep an eye on the heroes because they are his investment. They ride into Fellbrook and see familiar faces like Toshio the kitsune. They head to the Hierophant hut, they tell the whole story and the Hierophant can name the herb, it is called: Prayer’s Acumen. They have the herb in their stores and will start preparing, this will cost a day. The heroes head to the Willow Whisp Inn where they stayed before. Inside they meet up with Lura, the red headed old flame of Tarrok. The heroes remember her talks of going on an adventure but probably she never left Fellbrook. The heroes get way too drunk, in which Thaddeus starts drunk flying and afterwards deciding to change to human form while being 3 meters up in the air, fortunately Meow saves him. The next morning they make their way out and many people are busy around the great stone slab with inscriptions where the heroes fought the hags. The plan is to try to force a connection between Lozano and his God. This will have to be done somewhere between the planes. When it fails Thaddeus and Meow will be there to protect Lozano. The heroes take place on the stone slab, then Lozano takes a sip of the prepared herb. After drinking Lozano feels lighter and lighter getting the feeling to tumble forward, everything is green for a moment, then Meow and Thaddeus see Lozano in human form again however wearing rabbit ears and a white tail. At this moment a giant roc as tall as a building stomps towards them, it is Aloy in gigantic form. She has baskets next to here neck, the heroes get in en she flies off with the heroes. They land close to the Free Cities in a large brown crater, which spans kilometers wide. Inside the middel of the crater there is a small wooden box with golden inscription: it spells “Chucky Town, Lozano”. Lozano is shocked reading it and tells his teammates about his background, that the town that once stood there is now gone, and the last time anything stood here it was a wooden cabinet in which his father’s bow once was kept: Lysanthir. Then the worlds turns black and white and red blood pours down from the heaven and they hear the voice of Agadûl talking to them: “There is so much to be done…”
The heroes stand in a crater and hear a rumbling sound beneath them, tangles come up from under their feet entangling Aloy. A rumbling sound appears and two monsters appear: a tree-like one and a mushroom-mutant one. Both the monsters start attacking and hurt Meow and Thaddeus. After this Lozano uses versatile channeling to channel negative energy for the first time, also he initiates life pact. Meow flies towards Aloy who is entangled by al the branches and wants to free her but can’t find a dagger. The mushroom-mutant uses a form of self -healing restoring some health after which he vomits out 2 giant toads. Thaddeus does a shit load of damage to the tree but also this monster uses some self-healing. Aloy frees herself after which Meow uses a big magnetic thunderblast. The fight rages on and Lozano is grapples by one of the poisonous toads. He escapes by the blinking dagger, in the mean time Meow identifies the mushroom-mutant as a Tendriculos, a not so intelligent creature that uses foul means of magic and it’s inside being a giant bag of holding. The tree monster is identified by Thaddeus as a Quickwood, which is a monster with huge range and strong magical powers. Thaddeus tries to negotiate with the Quickwood but does not agree to lay down his weapons. The Quickwood attacks him in response. In the mean time the Tendriculous tries to swallow Meow whole, which would always succeed but the DM rolls a critical one. At that moment a giant mosquito appears that stings Lozano giving him Malaria and makes him bleed. Meow uses a cylcone attack which he never used before in which he kills one of the toads. Lozano is again grapples by the other toad but get’s saved by Thaddeus using a stunning fist killing the toad. Lozano is almost killed by the Quickwood triggering the Life Pact draining the party. Thaddeus puts away his weapons and Lozano follows ending the fight for now. They now enter parlay and the session is ended.
Thaddeus is entangled by the roots and decides not to resist and lay down his arms. When he notices that the grip of the roots grow stronger and stronger he decides to awake the bodybuilder in him to resist against the growing outside force. Lozano and Meow also lay down their weapons and get entangled, however Lozano holds the blinking dagger inside the bag of holding. Before the roots grow too strong the heroes enter conversation with their opponent. Lozano tells them that they don’t want to find and are only looking for answers about his past and what happened to Chucky Town. The Quickwood responds that Lozano is to blame for all that happened. In the conversation both sides find out that someone shot an demonic arrow from the bow Lysanthir and that that cause the end of Chucky Town, what Lozano calls the day of Fire and Magic. The Quickwood believes Lozano not being the one that shot the arrow but does not trust him, Lozano tells him that he only wants to know what happened and intends to break any demonic item that caused the dissapearance of his parents and his old town. The Quickwood is supportive of that idea and sends the heroes back to Fellbrook via a huge sandstorm and one final message: “hold to your oath, I leave you a reminder of your pledge”. This reminder is the fact that Lozano still has 2 bunny ears and a bunny tail. When Thaddeus sees this he decides to grab the tail causing Lozano to blink into rabbit form, another grab and he is back in human form again. The heroes share their story with the Highroffant and Wilhelm in a secret chamber in the Willow Wisp. Lozano shares almost every detail including his personal interest in Ouroboros which causes Wilhelm to be angry because it compromises the investigation party but he trusts Lozano enough for him to continue. Wilhelm shares that Argentus in the mean time found something of interest in the University of Arcadia, he found information that the demilynch the heroes saw named Boris is actually Lord Boris Esseaux who lived way before Darkfall. The fact that Umbra found him and the fact that the heroes stumble upon traces of very old magic again and again hints towards Umbra her soul being older than Darkfall. At the end of the conversation Wilhelm tells the heroes about project ‘Travel Budget’ in which the people that Lozano, Meow and Tarrok saved from cliffside built an airship as mean of transportation for the heroes when they want to travel to the Free Cities, where Chucky Town once stood. They head towards Arcadia and go to a hangar where they meet Chip the shipmaker. He shows them an airship build from ancient wood infused with obsidian. It has two rings with purple crystals inside, the same floating crystals that keep Arcadia afloat. The ship itself has a magic distortion field, which makes performing magic harder and performing spells on the ship might also hamper it’s functionality and stealthliness. The heroes name the ship the Flying Orc, as a reference to their old friend Tarrok. Meow is named ship captain with his natural ability to fly being the main selection criteria. The heroes head towards Arcadia and go to a hangar where they meet Chip the shipmaker. He shows them an airship build from ancient wood infused with obsidian. It has two rings with purple crystals inside, the same floating crystals that keep Arcadia afloat. The ship itself has a magic distortion field, which makes performing magic harder and performing spells on the ship might also hamper it’s functionality and stealthliness. The heroes name the ship the Flying Orc, as a reference to their old friend Tarrok. Meow is named ship captain with his natural ability to fly being the main selection criteria. Finally they meet Argentus who shows Lozano a map in very old writing from before Darfall showing Chucky Town on the map. This could mean 2 things: or Lozano is older than 1000 years old or the the vanishing of the town happened twice. Next to that he poses a theory that Umbra might be the late wife of Lord Boris Deseaux, namely Maria Deseaux. The heroes then enter town to go shopping before the big trip.
The heroes all did their shopping however Meow got distracted by the festivities and got nothing. In the meantime Aloy has grown to large size, Lozano thinks it might be because the link with his past has grown stronger. Argentus thinks it might be because her link with Umbra might have grown stronger. Argentus sent a scout in advance, captain Hakim, to the city of Nebebat: “The Jewel of the West”. It is the only city that works with Arcadia, they have a trading contract. The heroes and Aloy head to the airship and fly upwards and make way towards the Eternal Amberlands. Thaddeus and Lozano head towards the front of the ship and have a conversation. Thaddeus asks Lozano about lying about not knowing the map that Argentus showed him. Lozano tells him that his mind is conflicted, he could read the map but not graps why and how he would know about it, because in his mind he is not that old. Lozano promises Thaddeus that he will tell Meow too. In the meantime Meow decides to test out the ship’s capabilities and flies it as fast as possible, this results in extreme nausea with Thaddheus but he and Lozano hold on. After a full night of flying they land at the end of the forest close to Plaveya, the plan is that they tack a short night of sleep aided by nap stack, Thaddeus goes hunting, Lozano stays behind to guard the ship with Aloy and Meow heads into the city to stock up on rations and a compass.
Lozano learns Aloy a new trick, she can now intercept him falling from height to save his live. In the meantime Thaddeus goes into tigerform and hunts voor food in the forest. In the mean time Meow, with the bag of holding and shopping list in hand goes to Plaveya to get rations and a compass. Due to a long queue entering the city takes too much time he uses gaseous form to fly over the walls undetected. However he lands into a dark alley where he meets 2 rogues who almost kill him after he mentions the Children of Desna. After total panic he makes the right decision to turn into gaseous form again and fly upwards to flee. The heroes are now stocked up and decide to take a flying route directly south-east of their current location. When they fly into the Eternal Emberlands they see a large delta with thousands of houses and 4 huge mansions, those mansions all have a pillar with a predator bird on top. In the beaks of those birds there are many mirrors which reflect the light coming form wooden piles which are lit. This way there is a permanent light source which lights up Nebebat during the night. When they get close to the city Meow decides to dock on top of an appartement building however Thaddeus interferes in time. When they land in the harbor a guard wearing a pin with a golden sword and shield approaches them, Adnan of the house of Ashraf. The heroes pretend to be artists to enter the city, Lozano tells his full name and the guard flinches for a moment. He explains that the family of Ashraf is one of the 4 remaining families that survived Darkfall and saved Nebebat. Thaddeus is not at ease seeing that the dock workers are not fed and treated properly. The heroes head into the city center and make way to the Inn that Adnan tipped them, it should have elephant stables in which Aloy can take a rest. In the streets Lozano gets robbed by a half-elf and the whole crew chases her. When they catch up to her they find out she is called Kresis and belongs to the Ashraf family. They head to the inn called the Bloody Trunk. The heroes see two more sigils; A radiant sunrise (Ossa family) and an orb (Ishara family). They get a room and shelter for Aloy and head into the city. They get to a square where a general with a flaming sword leads 6 slaves to the gallows, one of them being Hakim. Thaddeus who already felt fed up by the slavery in the town enrages seeing this and charges forward in tiger-form. Lozano grabs his bow and shoots the rope that connects Hakim to the gallows and breaks it, freeing Hakim. The general called Zara blinds Thaddeus, who is affected in sight but not in scent so he can still attack her. A tremendous fight starts in which Meow does tons of damage, Thaddeus grapples and directs enemies to different spots, Lozano binds everyone in Life Pact including the slaves. Guards arrive and Zara summons a Glass Golem who almost kills Thaddeus with his fist blows. The creature is strong but stupid and with 1 step he ends the live of his master. But he was summoned with one reason only, to annihilate Thaddeus. He is one step away of killing him, Lozano tries the last thing he can think of to stop the Golem. He builds a stone wall between Thaddeus and the Golem trying to topple the giant but fails. At this moment Meow takes a desperate move trying to end the fight, he throws an exploding crystal at the Golem which hits him hard causing the Glass Golem to explode in a thousand pieces piercing all the heroes, Hakim and the remaining slaves critically. All being bound to life pact they drain HP form each other however the total amount of damage is far too much for them and the whole party dies. The heroes however are able to open their eyes, they hear the voice of Agadûl laughing “finally you’re mine now”. They have entered the Abyss…
Meow and Lozano wake up in dark cells, barred, they both feel a burning sensation. The place where their Children of Desna tattoo once was is now gone. In return they both have a black forked tattoo on their hands which Lozano recognizes as the logo of Agadûl. There are 4 other cells, all empty, also there is a white light peaking in each individual cells like it is patrolling. Meow calls out to check if someone is there, Deputy Gordon responds. He tells the heroes that they are in the abyss, which is normal for slaves that tried to flee. They will be here until they are picked up by their master which is Agadûl. They are in Oph, close to the capital Uligor in the Realm of Wrath, once the realm of Groomsh, now currently ruled by Orcus (who stole the plane from Groomsh). A moment later the heroes are magically forced to leave their cell and walk up the stairs and to enter a room where their attorney Bane stands. A tall hooded figure with tusks. He tells the heroes that he is freeing them, his intention behind this will remain unknown for now. He threatens captain Gordon, intimidates him with bringing Blackhammer to this realm which clearly shocks him. Bane barges into the next room while holding Meow and Lozano at their scruffs. In the next room there are multiple creatures (an Incubus, a Kalauakus, an inductee), all wearing police outfits. The captain begins a conversation with Bane, warning him that this action will be his downfall. Bane continues with his plan and the captain let’s them go. Stepping outside rain is pouring and every drop gives a sense of hopelessness, rain in the abyss is evaporated water from the river Styx. Bane proves to be Tarrok, only much older, having a long gray beard. The side of his skull shaved bold and wearing black plate armor. He orders Meow to hump on Lozano his back and puts the grey coat around them. They make way to the Foul Cathedral, Tarrok his safe space. The place feels wrong, any town in the Abyss should not have any structure to it, however this city tries to enforce just that. The city of Oph looks like 1920’s New York. They enter the Foul Cathedral, an old roman church, which seems to be a bar. All sorts of creatures are waiting tables. Behind the bar is a skinny man wearing a bowtie, his entire skin is bloody red, he is called Tlaaxu. Tlaaxu says that he sent Tarrok the letter that his old pals were in prison. To make even for this information he asks Tarrok to intercept a shipment carrying two big kegs of human wine which was taken by police as contraband. They have to be there in 5 hours, 2 blocks from here. They accept the deal and enter Tarrok is room, it is small and simple, in the corner is a detective board. There is a huge stained glass window and by peeking through it they see the river Styx flowing, a mountain range behind it, and in the middle of town a huge castle, the castle of Orcus. Tarrok tells the story of what happened to him after he died, he was floating in nothingness when he got pulled out by the Blackhammer, one of the heroes of time who was working for the Goddess of Death, Pharasma. There is a prophecy in Oph that Agadûl is trying to gain enough power to overthrow the rule of Orcus. He probably thought that gaining the power of Agathor was enough but he did not show his face in the plane in the past decade. Tarrok is some kind of detective, ordered by Pharasma and Blackhammer. He get’s cases of lost souls who have been directed to the wrong plane after death. To do this he pierces the heart of his target with his scyte turning their soul into a ring in his scythe which he then gives back to the Goddess to reallocate. The heroes start preparing for the keg retrieval.
The 2 kegs of wine are kept in a police depot close to the harbor, the heroes disguise themselves and make plans. Lozano goes into meditation to switch some spells and Meow cuts down one of the curtains to make a nice outfit for himself but fails miserably. Meow and Tarrok decide to use the meditation time to scout ahead and walk past the police depot where they see that a closed down antique shop is directly on the other side of the street. Meow decides to use gaseous form to enter the police depot to look for the contraband they are looking for. At the moment he wants to cast the spell a low ranked police officer walks outside. He still casts the spell and feels a burning sensation around his ankle and turns back into his original form. They head back to pick up Lozano in the Foul Cathedral and make way to the police department. Lozano and Tarrok decide to use a command spell to halt the driver and the cop outside. Lozano fails and only the cop outside is halted by Tarrok. This results in the driver knowing something is off and uses the horn to alarm his companions. Meow uses the chaos to try and pickpocket the key ring from the halted guard but fails. Tarrok jumps in and changes into large size, slams through the glass window of the truck, grabbing the driver. He intimidates the fuck out of him and his companion ordering him to drive. The driver hits the gas pedal full on, driving over Tarrok his toes and hitting Lozano in the process. The truck now being away from the cargo hold reveals the inside of the police department and the female demon inside. This demon gets a direct look at Tarrok his face. The moment the battle is about to light up Meow decides to try the diplomatic approach. He bluffs that he will blow up the whole depot if the demon does not allow the heroes to leave. Due to his offer and the intimidating appearance of Tarrok the demon binds in and allows the heroes to leave with 2 kegs of wine and a satchel full of soul stones. Tarrok finds out that the heroes hurting her men caused her to yield. Tarrok screams loudly that they were sent by F’arklor a pitfiend runt which is Tarrok his enemy. They drive off, drop the kegs into the cellar of the Foul Cathedral. Tlaaxu is amazed by the yield and tells Tarrok his debt is payed and he will contact his friend who could relieve the heroes from their chains. The plan arrives to drive the truck into F’arklor his neighborhood to drop the truck over there strengthening the story that this raid was planned by him.
The heroes are speeding over the roads on their way to the neighborhood of F’arklor while they are being chased by two hot rods which are gaining fast. Tarrok grabs Meow by the scruff and places him outside of the window next to the car and he intends to touch the asphalt to cast a explosive rune on the road. It hits one of the cars causing a electric blast causing the fuel tank to explode. The other car is now angry and pops off the hoods of the wheels. Two giant pins come out of the side of the wheels and the hot rod driver steers into the car driven by Tarrok. The other car gets disabled by Tarrok his scythe. However, the 2 demons inside the car survive. Tarrok decides to drive backwards and hits the first. But his driving skills are not great to the car tumbles and Meow gets shot like a trebuchet from the hands of Tarrok. He flies over the other demon and casts a tornado blast which surges the flames towards the demon. Tarrok uses his transformation to big size to halt the car from spinning and both him and Lozano survive. When they look ahead they see a trail of blood and flame heading into an alley. They sprint towards the alley and only see ptichblack darkness. Tarrok feels the incomprihensible urge to flee and starts running away from the alley. Lozano however defies this feeling and stares into the alley: As you look you immediately get the sensation you’re seeing something you absolutely should not see. The face of a divinity you do not worship. The smile of a devil you never believed in. Something horrifying shows before you, it is in silhouette as the lightning strikes behind it. The frayed edges of the being follows a shape you do not comprehend, nor do you wish to. In it you see no being, no entity. You see the bloodied remains of Tesh, of Scara, of Wilhelm. You see not their entrails spilling out them, but the implication of their death, with Tesh, the loss that comes with the death of the last of her kind. With Scara, the last chance to save the innocence you held in a time now permanently lost. With Wilhelm, the sensation of a nosedive that comes with losing that support that you considered would never leave you. An age passes in the snap of a lightningbolt, as the room goes dark. Power returns to the building and the entity is gone. Lozano is now heavily shaken, not being able to comprehend what happens around him, not being able to cast spells normally. The heroes ask what happened by Lozano is not able to respond. Tarrok shares with the heroes that he got a new assignement which states that the target was last seen in the Foul Cathedral on the second floor. That place is not safe anymore. Second to that he also shows another assignment, he is to return Woof N’one, Meow his old dog… For now they find a safe place first, in the city where Lozano tries to make a connection to Ketephys which succeeds, his God is there however does not respond when Lozano asks him what creature it was he saw. This gives Lozano an ominous feeling. Tarrok meets with Tlaaxu warning him of the entity he just felt. Lozano wakes up and they share their confrontation. For now they decide that they have to do anything to avoid this entity and the first task at hand is releasing the ankle bracelet. Tlaaxu brought the friend that could help them with that. He is not able to remove the ankle bracelet but he can relieve it of his power, he does this to both Meow and Lozano. There is one difference however, the sigil of Agadûl remains with Meow but changes into the sigil of a scythe for Lozano.
Lozano uses greater detect magic on his anklet, it is still Abyssal in nature but he gets greater understanding of it. The ownership of the anklet has now been split by three parties: Agadûl, Bane and a third unknown party. All of equal share, it would require a majority of votes to gain control of the wearer. Lozano thinks that the unknown party would by Mortar, since he is the one who tampered with the ankle bracelet. The third one is not the entity, the only thing Lozano knows is that it is someone from down here. With Meow the ownership is also shared by three parties: Agadûl (49%), Bane and himself, so as long as they stay close together they have majority. Tarrok describes that he might know a way to get the heroes back to the material plane. It is a gladiator arena called the Blood Bowl, the slaves that win there win back their freedom, Tarrok however needs to find another way to get back. The heroes make way for the dog pound to save Woof, they head towards Wall Street. They enter the animal pound, the place is fully ransacked quite a long time ago. The heroes get an ominous feeling. The whole place is in shambles except for 5 drawers, Lozano and Tarrok urge caution to Meow. Meow uses caution on the first drawer which contains a bunch of paper. This makes Meow less cautious and he bluntly opens the second drawer causing an explosion which burns Meow. Tarrok tries to extinguish the fire by casting create water on him, however at the same time Meow decides to try and use a tornado blast to blast away the fire. This only causes a fire tornado and electrocution doing even more damage to Meow. After the heroes restored his health they read about Woof in the papers, it states he is on fire and has been placed in the back room. Next to that Tarrok reads that the dog pound has secretively been owned by the Bratva (Russian Mob) but they deemed it too dangerous and pulled out. They head through the barred door into the first dungeon of the Abyss: The Dog Pound. They enter a room with several cell blocks, which are abandoned. The back wall contains three sigils: an alpaca, an impala and an ant. They seem to be pressing buttons, after many tries the heroes use the combination Ant-Impala-Alpaca which opens the door to the back room. They hear a hissing sound coming from that same room. They enter the same kind of room however these cells are filled with all kinds of animals: velociraptors and dire wolverines. At the end of the room again are three sigils: Tiger, Bald Eagle, Camel the heroes don’t know what the right answer is and incidentely trigger a cell to open freeing velociraptors.
The velociraptors run out of the cage and are immediately hit by the trap set by Meow killing the majority of them. Lozano flees up in the air with his bow out while Bane kills three more with one swing of his scythe. In the mean time 3 velociraptor run into the stone sigils freeing 4 wolverines. They are quickly killed by both Lozano and Meow. They enter the next room, here they are standing on a stone slab which is filled with old blood and organs. Next to that the following tekst is written in Abyssal: Break the circle or break the binding, the howling one shall return, To those brave enough: First traverse each room and decipher its flaws before unleashing the howling one or die as fools. It can not see, it can not hear, it can not leave. Connected to the stone platform is a huge stone circle which has a pentagram on it with 5 burning candles. Connected to the stone circle by drawbridges are three floating rooms. These 3 floating rooms each wear a symbol: 1st room symbol: 2 crying theater masks
The heroes plan to make way for the proscutors office, this lies in Alsscappale. You need to either take the subway or know someone that can smuggle you into Wall Street. The plan is to find Alan Farting and find a mutually beneficial goal. Maybe he would be tempted to find his freedom in the Blood Bowl too. If he pays the entrance fee the heroes can fight for his freedom. The heroes decide that they want to discuss the best route with Tlaaxu first, Tarrok goes down but finds the bar completely empty which he has never seen before. He tries to find Tlaaxu in his room where he saw him a few minutes ago but the room is completely empty, all the furniture is gone and no people are in it. Tarrok warns his companions and they make way down into the bar, they find empty glasses and the whole bar is knocked over. Tarrok finds that there are traces to be found of illusion magic, not active right now. The heroes suspect that Tlaaxu is some kind of spy and that this bar was a ruse. The beautifully stained glasses now are forming the shape of a ripped open Mortar. The heroes think that it is an open invitation form Alan Farting to find him and decide that they have to take the subway. Lozano gets an eerie feeling that the eyes of the Mortar stained glass acted as a vacuum drawing his soul towards it. He shakes it off and directs the heroes that they have to leave! Tarrok thinks that Lozano believes what he saw but he thinks his insanity takes over and grabs him and casts calm emotion on him, Meow can’t prevent it from happening. Lozano has a temporary boost in sanity but still thinks that the enity has a grasp on him and tells the same story about the stained window. Tarrok has a feeling that maybe some shady figure in the underground has a way to heal Lozano his insanity. They had into the nearest underground station and buy 3 one way tickets to Alsscappale. The metro is empty at first but slowly people are getting in. The heroes take a look and it are demons dressed in motorcycle jackets yelling: WE GOT THEM BOYS, LET’S GET THEM! 20 red-skin orcs run at them with weapons drawn, Lozano summons 2 hyenas who rip apart an orc at the first moment. Tarrok slices down 4 orcs with his scythe en most of the others start running back to their lieutenant. At this moment one remaining orc tries to decouple the carts, Meow acts and tries to blow the orc away. To act as a counterweight Tarrok decides to enlarge himself by touching his pouldrons. However he gets so big that he splits the cart in half causing Lozano at the back to be decoupled, Lozano to crash on the railway en Meow having no counterweight blows himself away. The train derails and we will find out next session if we are still alive.
The heroes fly out of the metro hitting poisoned walls en electric tracks finally landing on the B-track. They face an Orc punk band called the Noise Boys! An insane fight starts which is heavily influenced by metros that rush by every six seconds. The heroes use every mode of transport they know to evade the passing metros en try to hack down the orcs in the mean time. In this they are helped by the stupidity of the orcs who remain standing on track resulting in them being squashed. After a time they get the hang of it, Lozano uses negative energy to kill 3 summoned wolves and Tarrok evaporizes an orc while being in is giant form. An interesting note about Tarrok touching his pouldrons and getting bigger or smaller: when returning to small size he feels an entity leaving his body, when growing large he feels an entity entering his body. Meow uses gusts of wind to try to hold orcs onto the track. In the end they only have one opponent left: Caleb, the drummer of the band. Caleb takes out a torch form his belt and lights it with a Zippo. He threatens to drop the torch on his drum kit of which Tarrok sees that it is filled with black powder and a black gooey substance. Tarrok decides to hack down the arm of Caleb, he succeeds but fails at the same time. The arm and torch fall down on the drum kit and it explodes. This kills Caleb and knocks down Tarrok. Tarrok gets completely covered up in the gooey stuff pinning him down to the ground making him helpless on the ground. With the metro now coming their way Lozano and Meow have to save Tarrok from the track. Lozano uses create water trying to dilute the gooey stuff but it only creates a pocket of water inside the gooey stuff. It does stretches the gooey stuff but doesn’t break it. Tarrok now having a little more movement casts create water as well stretching the gooey stuff even more. The metro is now really closing in as Tarrok thinks of a brilliant move: he summons his scythe just before he loses consciousness. The scythe flies towards him piercing the bubble and the water flushes all 3 heroes towards the other track just in time for the metro to pass. Now fully drenched in water the heroes lie on a track that is about to be electrified. Meow uses gust of wind to blow away all the water and the heroes evade the upcoming metros. At this moment the hear a voice saying: “The Rat King applauds you and invites you in”. At this moment a tunnel opens to their side and the metros stop going. The path is now open to head towards The Rat King. The walk through the tunnel until the find a small opening on the side where the see a golden rope going into the ceiling. It leads to a magical space in which a magical bonfire is lit and a tent is set up. They rest here for a short while. Tarrok explains the other 2 heroes that they are in the undersump, a sewer system connected to the river Styx. The demon lord of Sloth rules here called Jubelex. It does not feel like the Rat King is connected to Jubelex, probably he is ruling his own portion of the undersump. The heroes find out that the golden rope is a Rope of Fantastical Treehouse. Creating a magical campsite wherever they want.
The heroes make their way through the tunnel, at the end they are stopped by a stacked pile of old train carts. Meow flies over, scouting ahead and sees a large room behind circled by old train carts. In the middel of the room is a pit, he summons the heroes. Lozano uses air walk to get over, Tarrok uses a rope but falls in the cart and finally makes his way through. Lozano and Meow see that the ground contains a lot of scorch marks around the crater and few humanoid skeletons. A huge magical fire bomb has erupted here. The humanoid skeletons are of 2 angels and 1 celestial (creature from Nirvana). Furthermore they find remains of a campsite. By touching the skeletos they hear their last thoughts: The angels: “We held on for too long” The celestial: “We came so far, and we lost due to a random mistake”. The heroes make way to a locomotive that’s in really bad shape, it is in really bad shape. They find a nirvanic ritual symbol on a socket that resembles the sun or light. After a few tries Meow electrocutes the socket doing nothing to the train. In the end they find a satchel hanging on the ceiling, it contains very powerful magic. Because the heroes are terrified of the contains they hide in the pocket dimension treehouse and Meow uses mage hand to open the bag. In the bag is a stone slab with a single nirvanic symbol, the same as the socket in the locomotive. Tarrok puts the slab in the socket and fires up the engine of the locomotive. The first time he holds it nearly too long and the energy spikes. Probably the angels hold it for too long and got scorched. They pace through the tunnel traced by rats and end in a new room. Tarrok gets the locomotive to an halt at exactly the right moment, it halts on a circular stone slab. It is a rotation stone which is connected to 10 train tracks al leading to a door. The most left door has the same sun symbol as before. A circular staircase circles down below the tracks and goes to 10 rat statues (the rat king itself). All the rat statues have a socket, one of them clearly has the sun symbol. They put in the stone and the circular stone with the locomotive on it turns and the track aligns with the Sun door. They find out the mechanic of the stone: Runic fireball (X is seconds held): When the stone is activated by running a finger along the rune, it wil charge until the finger is removed from the stone. A fireblast will appear in a X*5 feet cone, doing Xd6 damage. Reflex save 20 halves damage. Tarrok opens the Sun door with the sun stone but by removing it the door closes again. They have to find out a way to and open the door and light up the locomotive.
The heroes make their way into the tunnel behind the open door. They head into an arctic room filled with ice, in front of them lies another stone slab lodged into a brick of ice. A stone slab like the fireball rune stone. In this area gravity is altered, heavier. Meow is still able to fly but it became a lot harder. Bane decides to try and excavate the stone slab out of the ice with his scythe. After this Meow retrieves the stone slab. Lozano uses detect magic and finds out the stone slabs works as the previous one but then creating an ice beam. They create a ice bridge and pass the hall without any damage. They head into the next room, a blue light shines, the ray shines in a perfect line through the chamber. There are sentences engraved on either side of the room:
Meow touches the light with his hand and it behaves like normal light. They use a mirror to reflact the light. The angle acts normally but by mirroring it the light changes to purple. By adding a second mirror the light becomes yellow. The heroes make another ice pillar to function as another mirror. This way they can now make green light. After several tries and after planning to shoot the ice wall with fireball they crack the code after Bane realizes that the light has to follow the sign of the sun. The ice wall crumbles and the way is free to enter the next room.
The heroes enter the next room and immediately a fierce cold chills them. They hear a growl in the distance, some light emits from the next room. The room is huge and consists of multiple ice slabs with significant height difference. In the middle of the room stands a yeti-like figure with a dark ape-like face: a Saumen Kar. They hear the rat king screaming inside their heads: “Prove yourselves worthy, survive the storm”. The Saumen Kar’s body is covered with glowing runes which are not attaches to his body but float an inch from his body. The Saumen Kar wears boots of speed and he has a tattooed arrow on his forehead which starts glowing up. The ceiling hangs full of icicles which rumbles when he moves. When they enter Tarrok immediately falls prone and the Saumen Kar summons a polar bear and a slab of ice to block the way of the heroes. The Saumen Kar can create a whirlwind using his axe, destroying everything flying in his path and causing the icicles to fall on the heroes, causing severe damage to all involved. Tarrok finds out that there are 3 pedestals in which the ice rune fits, these seem to be linked to the runic cloak of the Saumen Kar. The spell seems to soak up a lot of the damage that the heroes do to him. The Saumen Kar turns angrier, and launches a full round attack on Meow, causing grave damage to him as he loses his right thumb. With the luck in the world the subsequent falling icicles all miss him. Tarrok takes a full sprint with the ice rune towards the pedestal and Meow follows him, putting it in the socket. The moment he does, 1/3 of the glowing runes of the Saumen Kar die out making him more vulnerable. In the mean time both Tarrok and Lozano are brutely forced into the ice wall at 80 miles an hour causing massive damage. The heroes are in dire need of a turning point in this fight against such a skilled warrior. They keep focussing on the hunt for the pedestals. In the meantime Lozano receives an offer from within his soul and makes a decision that the group will have to live with…
Meow takes the rune from the second pedestal and flies towards the third. Tarrok taunts the Saumen Kar and exactly at that moment Lozano launches a perfect arrow into his right eye. The Saumen Kar stumbles and is really angry now. He jumps towards Meow while remaining single eye contact with Lozano. Meow sprints towards the last pedestal and launches the ice rune on it causing the defensive glowing runes on the Saumen Kar to disappear. He however, is insanely angry and jumps next to Lozano giving him the opportunity to attack launching a second arrow towards him causing massive damage. Alas, it’s not enough as the Saumen Kar swings his axe not once, not twice but the times chopping of his arm and eventually splitting him in half. Lozano is gone, indefinitely. His friends are only seconds too late, Meow pushes the Saumen Kar into the deadly water by lodging the ice rune into the wall and shooting the ice towards him. He falls back and disappears in deadly silence. At that moment gruelsome black, dead hands start crawling from the ground where the two halves of Lozano lie still. They start glueing the two halves of his body together creating a monstrosity that is not Lozano, taken over by the soul of the Saumen Kar he launches his attack towards Meow. Tarrok, seeing his friend die, falls on the icey floor the moment Lozano’s air walk spell is disrupted. Meow his enveloping wind saves him from 2 out of 3 of Lozano’s arrows. Lozano, now angry, decides the use Aboleth’s Lungs on Meow, however Meow his will saves him from becoming a fish-like figure. On the second try Tarrok succesfully launches his scythe towards Lozano knocking him back towards Tarrok. Lozano takes some damage and channels negative energy towards Tarrok followed by shooting arrows which causes Woof turning him towards the dark side. Meow draws all the power he has from within, burning himself down to death. Bane now being the only one that remains, gathers his last strength and takes down Meow with one final blow with is scythe. The only thing left is silence.