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Post by Trigor on Jul 9, 2016 1:25:00 GMT
Four centuries, The Portent of Fire Mountain has been used as a story to frighten children into doing what they were supposed to do. “You better eat your vegetables or you’ll bring The Portent upon us,” parents would say to their children. Imagine the reaction of all those kids when the peak of Mount Kayssix in the Stony Mountains to the northwest of Dweomerstar, exploded in a pillar of flame this morning. You hear screaming in the streets and many fully grown adults swearing to their mothers at the top of their lungs that they would never to do wrong again.
The Portent was foretold by the powerful oracle Clavius Plainseer, Magistrate of Ar’Vahl in the Age of Enthronement, 4388 AR. He was a troubled mage, constantly burdened by the weight of his powerful visions. Every foretelling of Plainseer had come to fruition since his death in 4402 AR, save The Portent of Fire Mountain and for 100 years every major and minor event that occurred in the city was attributed to The Portent. After, when it never came to pass, people began to chalk it up to being the one thing Plainseer got wrong in over 180 years of foretelling, but in the 300 years since his death, The Portent is still known to any scholar or wise man in the city who cared to know anything at all about history.
When you awoke this morning, Wealday, the 18th day of Desnus in the year of 4716 Absalom Reckoning, to a boom in the sky like a thunderstone going off in your ear, the first thought that came to mind for you was that Cheliax was finally at the gates. However, when you made your way outside to see the orange flames in the sky and smoke billowing from a broken topped mountain in the northwest, the first verse of The Portent rhymed its way into your head:
Flames lick the sky as tongues
Jagged teeth spew Yamatsumi’s black lungs
Ancient evil from Kayssix erupts
On the city from hence He sups
World's fate and time’s sands
On shoulders of Ar’Vahl , brutally lands.
You stop a random passerby, running in the streets, and inquire where everyone is going.
“It’s an invasion!” she screamed and ripped her sleeve out of your hand, running toward the harbor on the east side of the city with full arms and bare feet. You watch streams of ashen faced people fleeing toward the docks, seeing flames rise higher and higher from the direction of the western gate. As masses of civilians swarm around you, you find yourself strangely drawn toward the western gate, where no one save the guards was heading. As you get closer to the gate, more fires rage around you and some buildings have been completely leveled, by what, you don’t know but the scene surrounding you is carnage and mayhem. Corpses line the streets, some charred, some crushed under rubble and still others that seem to have been flash frozen where they stood, facing the mountain in terror and covered in crusted ash.
You finally get to the western gate to see it completely gone and replaced by an obsidian boulder of the same size, sitting before a mound of rubble and dirt that indicated it ended here in a violent collision. You move closer to the rock, still covered in flames and begin to hear what the guards in front of you are shouting about.
“…for the fire brigade or the city will be consumed before nightfall,” ordered a guard with two red knots of rank at his shoulder, who appeared to be in command as the one he was yelling at ran off.
“Sir,” shouted another guard running up to the commander and saluting with a fist to his chest, “we have reports of creatures all over the city coming from these things,” he said as he pointed to the boulder.
“Take 3 men, go back to the barracks, wake everyone up and each of you take a squad around the city to search for the rest of these rocks.” The soldier and 3 others run back toward the center of the city just as a shout comes from the far side of the boulder.
Moving to investigate, you watch as s a chunk of the rock breaks and lava begins spewing forth from inside. Moments later vicious looking creatures the size of child gnomes hop out of the depths of the mass of obsidian and scurry toward anything that looks alive. You catch the eyes of one looking directly at you as it smiles, sharp teeth glistening in the flames that surround. It raises its arms, hands tipped in sharp, crimson claws and charges directly at you.
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Post by Trigor on Jul 21, 2016 19:27:30 GMT
Session 1
You pull out your meager weapons and prepare to defend yourself along with all of those around you. Someone calls out from within the smoke. “They are fire imps,” you hear, “they are immune to fire and expert little grapplers, though they are relatively weak.”
Armed with knowledge and a few blades, you feel a bit more confident. You watch in horror as the imps shred the guard who is burning in the lava. Not even pausing on the guard’s charred corpse, the imps jump onto the Guard Commander one by one and take him down under their weight. A half elf with an elven curved blade quickly slices at one of the imps on the Commander and cleanly takes of a sliver of spine. A humanoid with horns tears one of the imps up with his claws and bites it’s face clean off! A pale skinned fellow with protruding fangs uses a wooden stake and jams it right into one of the beast’s chest while an armored human with a shield slices another. While dealing with your own imp, you watch as another half elf impressively wields a sword and dagger at the same time, slicing up her own enemy. The short battle ended as the commander flung the last of the imps into the wall and the beastly looking person claws down another one.
As the last of the fire imps fall, everyone who arrived at the gate, one by one moved toward the guard captain and saw his injuries, ready to help. Just then you see 2 more of the creatures emerge from the boulder, glance at the scene, then to each other and laugh. They leap out of the shell of a rock and run northwest toward Kayssix Mountain and along the path the massive boulder created, appearing to be sped along by it.
The guard commander shouts to all, “You mustn’t let them escape. The city is in shambles and you are all she has at the moment. I will live. Chase them down and report back to the city guard barracks when you have more information. Ask for Commander Brisbane.” The commander finishes speaking and begins to concern himself with tending to his wound, not even looking up to confirm that you obey his command. The ragtag assembly seems very concerned with Commander Brisbane but he does not let them worry and urges them greatly to pursue the demons and find their origin.
At that, you look to the others around you. No one says a word but there is a recognition in each of your eyes as every one of you turns to the northwest and begin to pursue the imps. Following the beasts into the wilderness, you see more large trails that appear to have been created by the thing that hit the gate, even seeing some trees in the pathway still burning. From the wilderness you look up toward Kayssix Mountain to the northwest to see a gaping hole in the side and multiple burning trails extending from it. One of the elves attempts to find the tracks but is unable to locate the imps they were chasing.
Appearing to have some time as they track the fire trails across the wilderness, you learn a bit more of the people you are traveling with. The man with the shield is Arés, a paladin from another world. The boy with the fangs and wooden steaks is Alcander, part vampire and learned alchemist. The beastly looking humanoid is Sivaath, a part dragon which fascinates the dual wielding rogue, Halfmooncat as she sheepishly touches Sivaath’s wings. While traveling, you and others begin to notice the other half-elf, Cathil, appears to be talking to herself and is very concerned about the damage nearby to nature. Once again, you see Halfmooncat looking for footprints on the ground. This time she finds two sets, one set follows the trail and the second, crosses the path into the forest.
After some discussion, the party chooses to continue to follow the trail. After about an hour of traveling toward the mountain and getting to know the other people who have been thrust into an awkward situation, you all come to a wide clearing and are able to see much further around the wilderness. To the left, you see a large building in the distance with a boulder trail headed straight for it. To the right, they see another obsidian boulder. Upon further investigation, Alcander uses his knowledge of engineering to notice that the boulders shot from the mountain appear to have random trajectories. You and the others also notice the boulder that was directed at the building seems to have gone directly through the structure.
During their discussions, the half-elves notice a bit of elven accent in Arés’ speech and learn they can communicate with him better in Elven. This helps with the language barrier a bit but Halfmooncat ends up having to translate quite a bit between common and elven.
While discussing their next course of action, Arés and Sivaath feeling they should continue on their mission, the boulder in the distance cracks open and more imps pour out along with an ever increasing pool of lava. You see the imps and they appear to be more concerned with playing in the fire. Arés moves toward the imps and another battle with evil ensues. You watch as more and more imps spring out of the boulder and surround Arés. He takes a critical hit straight away and is eventually taken down right next to the expanding lava pool from the obsidian boulder. Cathil heroically takes 3 failed attacks of opportunity to pull Arés away, while at the same time, Halfmooncat keeps all the other imps busy surrounded by teeth and claws and lava.
Things begin to look more desperate as Halfmooncat is knocked unconscious by the imps along with Arés and Cathil, with her overprotective nature, desperately tries to defend her downed companions. You do not know what you can do to help as you watch the others step up in these desperate times. All at once and before you know what’s happening, the battle is over with the imps all slain and the lava receding as it settled into the ground
Cathil informs the party in a sweet elven voice, “If memory serves, these imps have a special gift. There is a secretion produced in their liver that combines with the high heat of their natural environment that produces diamond dust.”
Upon hearing this, Alcander informs everyone, “We can collect these livers and I can process them in an alchemy lab to obtain this diamond dust.” And with that the party sets themselves to removing 7 imp livers which Alcander neatly packs away in his bag.
From the challenging fight with these little demons and the experience obtained from dissecting them for their livers, you and the others all feel stronger. You witness Arés receives some healing from Cathil which closes all the scratch and bite wounds, allowing him to return to consciousness. Halfmooncat wakes up on her own from her body naturally growing stronger. Everyone else is still awake and resting up a bit, healing some naturally over time.
After collecting yourself along with the rest of the party, you all discuss your mission. The peculiarity of the miraculously untouched building draws the curiosity of enough of us to check it out and we decided to travel away from our intended mission. It was a good idea. You approach the building as Arés head straight for the front door. Alcander scientifically examines the structure of the material close up and finds normal wood. Cathil finds herself walking round the building searching for an entrance when the proprietor inside hears us calling back and forth to each other and invites us in.
Arés opens the front door and we all make our way into the building. One by one, the man behind the bar addresses us by name.
“Welcome to all of you,” he says after he’s done, “I have been expecting you for some time now. I am Dante, proprietor of the wonderful Shady Tavern and one time powerful adventurer such as your selves.” Many in your group scoff at the idea that they are mighty adventurers.
“Maybe they are adventurers,” says Alcander, pointing to the rest of the party as Arés states in broken common, “I am here at the will of the Lady.” Nevertheless, Dante insists that he knew they would all be here one day and that they were chosen by destiny for this purpose.
“When the mountain erupted,” Dante explained, “I sent Morgan and the others here back to Dweomerstar along with most of our supplies, however, I do have these two wands,” and you gape as he deftly pulls a wand from each sleeve of his robe. “I must keep one for myself, for I do not know what dangers lie ahead, but you may take the other. One is a wand of infernal healing with 4 charges left. The other is a wand of cure light wounds with 9 charges. You must choose.”
After some discussion, you and the party choose the wand of cure light wounds and Arés holds it for the group. Dante, knowing Alcander’s dilemma, walks over to him without saying a word and taps him with the wand of infernal healing. Noticing the potions and such on Alcander’s person, he also informs him of the alchemy lab in the back room. Alcander decides to spend some time processing the imp livers and produces 5 gold worth of diamond dust. At this same time, Sivaath learns a spell from Dante, choosing Shocking Grasp.
Once complete with Sivaath, Dante informs the group, “We have tarried too long and I have my own mission to attend to. We shall meet once again, I promise you. Good luck.”
With that, we make our way to the cavern in the side of the mountain. Approaching the mouth of the cave, we see nothing but blackness. Upon getting closer, Sivaath finds a glowing mound of freshly dried lava and we know we are in the right place. With Arés leading the way, we slowly creep deeper into the eerie cavern, finding darkness broken only by pools of glowing lava and still warm lava rock. Deeper into the cave an ominous humming chant echoes from everywhere and Halfmooncat hears some talking from deeper within the cave.
Getting closer, you all hear the speaking. In a slightly raspy voice you here, “Soon…soon we will be able to bathe in the glory of the master.” Closely after you hear two other voices repeating the first, “Soon we will bathe in the glory of the master.” The parroting continues and comes closer to us from deeper within the cave. Cathil states in a deep and voice that sounds unnatural coming from her small, female elven frame, “This sounds like someone who needs to die!”
Without warning, a group of 3, robe clad humans come from around the corner. The one who appears to be in charge hisses as the new arrivals, “What? What are you doing here?”
Cathil responds in the same deep voice, “Nothing that matters to the Dead!”
Without warning, Cathil runs up and slices at one of the robed men with her elven curved blade wounding him gravely. Sivaath, recognizing that these oddly dressed humans had taken no initial hostile actions, attempts to communicate with them, reciting the Portent to them, however, with no time to think as they began defending their lives form Cathil, they do not respond to Sivaath. Alcander attempts to be civil as well, as he sees more imps in the distance.
Alcander asks, “What exactly are you doing here, this is a very dangerous area to be in with explosions and massive boulders and fire imps.”
The robe clad leader responds, “The Lord of Fire shall protect us from all things…good and evil.”
The robed enemy who Cathil struck immediately moves back and heals himself as the other casts a few spells we later learn is Bull’s Strength and Mirror Image. Halfmooncat next attempts to stab at the leader and missed.
“You foul creatures,” states the leader, “we WILL take our revenge on you.” At being called a foul creature, something Arés could understand, he steps up and attacks the underling and wounds him again. At this point, Sivaath continues to try and speak with the mysterious robed men, but readies to cast back if necessary.
The leader, seeing some of our party continue to attack yells, “What is your FUCKING PROBLEM?” as he flies into battle rage and begins swinging at us. Cathil steps in and drops one of the subordinates and Alcander finally decides there is no other option and bombs the strangers and the fight fully ensues. Halfmooncat and Cathil eventually fall to negative energy from the leader before we can kill him off. The leader’s final words were, “The Demon Lord will avenge me!”
After winning the fight, we loot their corpses and find some quality combat gear.
Arés receives a +1 Breastplate
Sivaath receives 2 wands of Burning Hands (CL5) and a Cloak of Resistance +1 and 1 dagger
Alcander receives a chain shirt, a Cloak of Resistance +1, a masterwork club, a dagger, 2 tanglefoot bags and 6 alchemist fire
Halfmooncat receives a chain shirt
Cathil doesn’t claim anything because she is knocked out while the loot is distributed.
To the party: 50gp, 2 Masterwork Scythe, Potion of Cure Moderate Wounds, Scroll of Cure Moderate Wounds
Once we finish distributing the loot, Halfmooncat notices that the chanting is coming from deeper within the cave. Moving deeper, we come to a closed set of double doors where the chanting is the loudest. He checks the door and confirms it is not trapped or locked, so Arés moved up to open the door. He quietly opens it and we find a room with strange symbols drawn on the ground and another group of robe clad men, chanting. In the center of the circle was a man who was concentrating very deeply.
As the door opens, he looks up to see our party and shouts to his companions, “Do not let them disturb the ritual!” and then continues to go about his task. Each of us acts and a couple of the chanters is knocked out, but it is not enough. The leader of the group speaks a word of power and then all at once a purple electricity consumes the room, shooting around to each of the robed men, enveloping them in a purple aura that channels into the man in the center and then shoots into the wall. Purple electricity begins to open what appears to be a portal on the wall. One by one we kill off the robed men and then finally the leader in the middle. With his dying breath, the leader addresses the party. He says, “You…shall…PAY!”
As the chanting leader dies, the last bit of energy leaves his body and drains into the growing purple electricity portal on the wall, now the size of a human torso. With no more energy being channeled into the portal, it shrinks down, smaller and smaller, until it eventually disappears. We talk among ourselves for a moment, trying to identify the portal phenomena or the ritual, but are unable to.
Just then, from everywhere in the room, we hear an ominous laughing voice say, “Hahahaha… you are too late!” as a giant red fist punches through where the portal was on the wall, reopening it.
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