A week after Hans begins work, the party is in the Wandering Minstrel trying to decide how to pass the time when Lady Pine enters and makes a beeline for Croom. She is introduced to the others and begs to hear their tales of their 2 years away from Althofen. They tell a bit, such as Croom being killed by demons for much of that time. She seems interested in John Frie particularly. Each, in fact, gets a little speech from her. They arrange for a more private conversation in 2 weeks for lunch and a dinner banquet.
They move into an apartment and John visits Master Kol to identify and buy potions and materials for a familiar. Osric visits the Temple of Hysor and offers his services there for the winter. Osric sends messages up north to Arhus via Franklin, the septicant priest who leads the Temple.
A couple of days later, Hans summons the party. He has been working on their items but has also taken some time to study the strange metal fragment that was discovered in the dragon's skull. He is certain that it is a piece of something very old, and it is remarkable that it still has magical emanations while broken. His only suggestion is to go find the other linnorm dragon remains in the Black Forest. Perhaps there is another clue there. Naturally, it is not lost on the party that Hans' own interest in having them recover more dragon remains coincides with this suggestion.
The evening of the dinner banquet with Lady Pine arrives and it is a bit more strained than their earlier meeting. Lady Pine is clearly fishing for information about what the party is up to, but their own suspicions of her secrets cause them to exert caution. Relatively speaking, she learns very little about what the party knows and is up to. However, at one point during their talking, John Frie pulls out the Cursed Book of Travel and the list of names from the Lemegeton. He offhandedly remarks that he is looking for Master Garanus' name on the list (the wizard whose tower they had died in). Lady Pine is quick to pounce on this information and hasty backpeddling occurs. However, the damage is done and the Lady clearly knows they are hiding information. To change the subject, Count Ebron and the book of golem creation is brought up. The Lady promises to look into him. The party, suspicious as always about the Lady, ask about her and Lord Natas' past. She tells them they are from Akryn, and that they had to flee Brynmawr when it invaded Akryn years ago. She and Lord Natas are not related, but their families were very close and escaped together.
Horadi requests to see the old underground temple that Lord Natas and Lady Pine are now in charge of. This is the temple that the Purple Rose gang was using back when Luke the bard hired some adventurers to find his stolen recorder. She says that it is not possible since they are doing experiments there. This disturbs some of the party, who believe that it should be destroyed not studied.
They take leave of the Lady and as they are walking back to the apartment, Horadi is bound and determined to scout out this temple to see if anything can be discovered about these "experiments." The party splits up. Horadi, Eldrin, and John go the old temple. They find that the site has been walled up and guarded. Eldrin and John are satisfied that it is secured, but Horadi is not. He sneaks up and climbs the wall. The voices of the guards become silent as if he was heard. He knows that nothing human could have heard him, but to play it safe, he doesn't cross the wall and returns.
Meanwhile, Croom goes to the Temple of Baldrin and tries to scry Count Ebron and succeeds. He sees that the Count is clearly some kind of martial man, though he wears some sort of divine device that he doesn't recognize. Croom goes back to Lady Pine alone to tell her that their conversation about the Count is private. However, this is really a ruse because he had cast true seeing upon himself. He just wanted another look at the Lady while this is up. However, he sees nothing different about her.
They all meet back at the house and Croom tells them of what he saw of the Count, including the shield device. They decide to confront him right that moment. In the middle of the evening, they cross the town to the house that Croom saw, asking the guards for directions when needed. When they knock on the door, a servant appears and Osric immediately detects evil, but they play along when the servant requests that they wait while he sees if the Count is ready. They are then led back into a chapel within the house where the evil grows stronger. The Count has clearly prepared for them, perhaps being warned by detecting the scrying sensor. They are on unhallowed ground where the Count, a priest, is stronger, but battle they must. Despite this advantage, the battle is mostly one-sided. The undead that the Count had summoned were no threat, and though Osric is wounded, the Count is slain. Before he dies, Ebron lets slip some important information: He is there to watch an evil greater evil: Lord Natas, though he has no proof of it. They are about to take him prisoner when the Count kills himself with an area spell.
They search the house, finding all the notes already burned, a chest of gold and gems, and raw materials for making the golem. They find his holy symbol: Loghi, and a lot of digging tools. They talk about what they learned. Is Lord Natas, the savior of Althofen, the Chancellor of the Coaltion's right hand man, really a horribly evil devil lord? (Could the DM really have been so obvious as to name the arch enemy Natas; Satan spelled backwards?)
Leaving such discussions for later, they turn to the problem of the evil hammer of Count Ebron and the evil temple in this house. Naturally, they turn to the Temple of Hysor for their solutions. Franklin dispatches priests to destroy the hammer and starts proceedings to take ownership of the house so the grounds can be consecrated.
More time passes as the party occupies itself working at various small tasks in the city. John Frie happens to be at the docks one of these days when 2 boats pulls up and off comes a whole contingent of paladins. He runs ahead into the city to find Osric. Who then comes to meet the paladins. It is Master-Lieutenant Eberulf, leading a contingent of 25 paladins, 20 Tinagellian cavalry, and 20 Wellefyn archers. They have traveled for many weeks from Arhus, having left the same time as Duke Ulrich and Master Wolfram. He tells Osric and the party, whom he was looking to find, that they are there unofficially to make a presence known, and unobtrusively as possible to look into the matters that they and Septicant Franklin have been reporting. Other similar contingents, he tells them, have been sent to other major southern cities: Briv, Bern, Ettling, Interlaken, Namyr, and Gatow. Also, one even larger contingent was dispatched to Autun where the High Temple of Lugh is at the edges of Darkwood Deep.
They are there by the direct order of the council of the Alliance at the direct recommendation of Chancellor Butard. They are to assist the investigations of the Coalition Guard as necessary in partnership, though they must report to the local governing authority of the sovereign nation. Eberulf requests that the party report to him as much as possible about their findings. Osric has noticed that Eberulf has the symbol of the Righteous Order of the Iron Dragon on his shield and makes a personal request to Eberulf to be considered for membership, like his father Roderick.
A couple of weeks later, the party is in their apartment when an attempt is made to rob them. It is the notorious Gray Lily, who has successfully taken a bunch of items from the party including the Cursed Book of Travel and the important lists of the Lemegeton. Fortunately, despite the fact that the Gray Lily was surrounded by an antimagic field, he is prevented from escaping and is turned over to the guard. Unfortunately, during the encounter, the Gray Lily had John held hostage powerless within the antimagic, and both Osric and Eldrin seemed unconcerned that John might die. They were only concerned with then killing the thief as soon as his hostage was gone. This causes a schism in the party: John goes off on his own to find new living arrangements, changing them and his appearance as much as possible while the rest just move to a new inn. They hear the next day that the Gray Lily has escaped and is still at large.
Lord Natas has a spring celebration that the party is invited to. But everyone except Croom declines. Their suspicions of Lord Natas and Lady Pine are high. Croom goes and rubs elbows with Master Hengist of the caravans, Eberulf, and finally meets Lord Natas himself. The Lord thanks Crooms for his efforts and suggests that he go see Count Plutho in Briv, Deir es Mal who can perhaps help further. Plutho is an expert on ancient Reym history and also devils and demons. The Lady Pine will provide a letter of introduction for Croom.
Hans finally finishes work on the magic items and the weather is again nice. He delivers them to the party and then announces that because of all the work on creating items, he must finally venture forth and adventure on his own. He again makes his bid for the party to go get the other dragon skull from the Black Forest before he departs. He promises to use this time out of Althofen to pursue the leads of the magical artifact fragment and dragons.
The party now must decide what they will do. They talk about storming the gate in Darkwood Deep, but discretion wins out. They briefly entertain the idea of meeting with this Count Plutho but dismiss it. Finally, they decide that the best course at the moment would be to go ahead and follow Hans' suggestion and go the Black Forest in search of the dead dread linnorm.
They gain passage on a boat, the Silver Spray bound for Wolfsberg, Croy, hoping to do most of their traveling by river. When they reach Speyer, Lignia, they hope to stop off at the Wizard School of Transmutation. However, they are met with open hostility. Croom in fact is almost polymorphed by the hostile wizards, but cooler heads finally let them meet with Master Devol and to use a scry-proof room to discuss their problems. They learn that the school has had open altercations with peasants and bluecloaks and even had to defend themselves from attack. The part had noticed that the grounds of the School had a large number of fluffy bunnies and frogs.
Once in the room, John tells the party that he has noticed that he or they are being scried repeatedly. He is convinced that it is Lady Pine. There is little they can do at this point.
After several more days of travel, they reach Hartberg and the High Temple of Epolde. They want to make a stop here for some research, they split up to pursue different avenues of questioning: Reym, the Lemegeton, the Gates, the War of Maaluk, Octavius, where Ulrich fought the dread linnorm.
Croom uses the scrying pool in the temple of Baldrin and locates the Gray Lily, who is still in Althofen and not pursuing them.
John Frie learns that the priests are still investigating the phenomenon of sorcerers. They have a young lad named Enis who can levitate and turn things other colors by will. Some questioning and John makes an association: perhaps sorcerers were created by some divine agent for some reason.
Osric goes to the Ducal registry and looks up Lord Natas from Akryn. As far as he can tell, the story checks out fine.
Osric also learns of a vague location 40 miles northeast of Shadow Lake in the Black Forest for a small settlement that was established to capitalize on the ancient hardwoods, but they were all destroyed at about the time Duke Ulrich went there. Osric sends a message to his mother to make inquires about Lord Natas' family.
They decide to make several fakes of the Cursed Book of Travel and to start shuffling it amongst them randomly to confound the scryers.
Once the research is complete, several divinations are cast and this is what they learn:
On the Lemegeton:
Seek the prize that is not a prize,
Held by the claw that is not a claw.
The dragon holds, the dragon hides.
The lost is hidden, but is not lost.
Crystalia holds, Crystalia points,
False lords probe and holy anoints,
Seek, and sift, buried under myriad foot,
Hidden pearls conceal negociant persecute.
On Octavius:
The Eight, like the root, nurses and nurtures, planning and growing.
The skies are its garden.
On the Gates:
Once, striven by the five.
Twice, rent by the deranged
Thrice, a thread held by the banner of the white.
The earth weeps.
They are intrigued about the name Crystalia and some logical deduction has them suddenly realizing that it might be under a city. They decide to finish their job in the Black Forest first and head out once again. They have several random encounters with hill giants and bullettes before they reach the edge of the Black Forest.
There is a village at the edge and they see it at sunset at the edge of their vision. They are unsure about reaching it, but as night settles in they see a great fog moving out of the forest and engulfing the village. Thinking the village is in trouble, they approach, however cautiously. They are correct and incorrect. There is indeed undead, but they are already all over the village. Unfortunately, John Frie scouts too far ahead while flying and is attacked by 4 greater shadows. He is instantly slain, and it looks like he might rise as an undead. Fortunately, Croom arrives juts in the nick of time to raise him. The rest of the battles with the undead go much more favorably, and the party succeeds in cleansing the village.
They find a small path leading deeper into the forest, which they follow the next day. It leads directly to a large evil-looking temple. The outside is decorated with symbols of the Daemoi, which the party isn't quite too familiar with. But it is evil enough, and radiates such, that they cautiously enter. They are attacked by five strangely powerful creatures that exhibit abilities that mimic the five aspects of the Daemoi. They defeat these undead creatures in a very difficult fight which leaves Croom and John nearly dead again.
The rewards are worth it. The altar is piled with gold and other valuables. But their most valuable find is the Bible of the Blessed Ones. This book provides extremely useful information, despite the fact that much of it was destroyed by age. They found a passage that described the building of this shrine where they found the book, and in the same passages they found out that a larger temple might have been built further in the forest. It also seemed that Taal, or Tuoo, was seeking other things in the forest. Their most pressing revelation, however, was in the Book of Emperors where a being named High Princess Proserpine and Satan were mentioned. Could these be Lady Pine Proser and Lord Natas?
The next day they finally venture into the forest. They have several random encounters with the dangerous creatures of the Black Forest. But it isn't the kind of all encompassing evil that they had encountered in Darkwood Deep. However, all the history and knowledge they had gathered about the Black Forest suggested that it was far more deadly than the Deep. One of the strangest things they began encountering were strange cubes that seemed to be the embodiment of wizard spells. They encountered these things that seemed to be living fireballs, lightning bolts, and worst of all flesh to stone. These are defeated, however, and John gives them the moniker "Spell Gel". Their worst encounter in the forest so far took place at Shadow Lake where they fight and defeat an undead lake monster.
They start seeing more ghosts, and these ghosts turn out to be patrols of dead devils in military regalia. One encounter with these ghosts badly hurts John.
They see some trees with old carvings of a name: Smythe Bloodstone. Osric recognizes him as a minor Croyan noble who died 17 years ago. At about this time they spot a black unicorn watching them, but it escapes. Naturally it returns later that night with a whole herd of evil black unicorns. They press on after defeating them, and reach an old glade and a mushroom circle. John Frie stands in the circle for a long time thinking about something. Perhaps being tempted. Pushing on they have further encounters with the denizens of the Black Forest, sometimes escaping narrowly.
One night, they are awakened by a ghostly army of elves marching right over them. The ghosts seem oblivious to the party. Above the army fly a number of dragons with riders. Horadi looks closely at the commander and notices the battle standard is an oak leaf with a crown over it. No one recognizes it, however. The next night they are awakened by an army of dwarves marching from an easterly direction heading northwest. At the rear of the army they see hundreds of stone giants pulling supply wagons. No one recognizes the banners on this army either.
Finally the next day they arrive at the dragon cave entrance, and the skeleton of the dragon that is now overgrown with weeds. They send lights down into the cave, but unfortunately they disturb a swarm of ants. The party is unable to fight the hive mind of the millions of ants and have to retreat. Horadi is nearly killed, and his companion horse is slain. The sleep the night outside the cave after the ants have moved on.
The next morning they receive a strange visitor. The party was about to enter the cave when out from a tree hopped a fancy-dressed bard named Kanelin. He had been sent there by his jilted ex-lover, Elmeirda. Knowing that they can't leave an innocent man alone in the Black Forest, they agree to let him come along. At the same time Horadi declares that he must leave to do penance for letting his companion horse be slain. The party tries to talk him out of it, but he is determined. John agrees to teleport him to Althofen and return. Meanwhile, the scryings on the party have continued. This morning alone there were two different scry attempts but John can't discover who it is either time.
At last they enter and thoroughly search the dragon cave. It is John, while flying, who finds another fragment piece hidden up near the top of the cave. They translate the writing on it: Storm below water, Draconia, dragon home. It is definitely part of the same whole that the previous came from. The two pieces mate perfect on one edge. They can also surmise that the completed piece would be a dragon-sized neck amulet. Kanelin names all the dragons that Ulrich has killed and they speculate about going to the other sites to find more pieces.
Returning to Althofen with the dragon skull is much easier this time. John just ferries everyone with teleport. However, Hans is still out of town. They find a new inn to stay in for the night. That night the Gray Lily makes a second attempt on the books. He almost succeeds, but they at last chase him down and kill him. They recover the books as well as 4 antimagic field scrolls. They report his death to the guards and claim any rewards. The party is not happy that the thief found them so quickly after returning. There must be a connection with the scrying.
They spend a couple of days resting in Althofen and trying to decide their plan of action. Then they remember from the Bible of the Blessed Ones that there was mention of a temple in the Black Forest, artifacts, and there was the curiosity of the ghostly armies. They decide that they are not finished with the Black Forest and return with magic and pick a random direction to travel in.
They begin to have more encounters with ghosts. The more difficult encounters are the ghosts of devils and demons. One time a ghost succeeds in possessing Eldrin for a short time. It moved to Kanelin before an antimagic field scroll is used to keep it out of the poor heroes. The next day they have their worst encounter with the Spell Gels: the flesh to stone one explodes when destroyed and turns everyone but Osric to stone. He is suddenly all alone in the hostile Black Forest. He spends a lonely night, and manages to survive. The next morning, two scrolls of break enchantment appear with a note from Elmeirda demanding that he use one to free Kanelin. It is obvious that she has been keeping tabs on Kanelin. Osric successfully frees Croom, and then goes to sleep having stayed up all night. While Osric is asleep, a beautiful woman appears and charms Croom. She and Croom have a picnic and he shows off his gold lame robes. She quietly asks for the Cursed Book of Travel and Croom is happy to comply except that it is petrified in Eldrin's possessions. She uses the second scroll to free Eldrin who fortunately manages to resist her enchanting presence. He wakes Osric up and they manage to defeat her and the books remains safe with the party.
The next day Croom frees John and Kanelin. They discuss Elmeirda and who she might really be and then decide they should carry on into the Forest. From the types of encounters they are having, they surmise that they must be getting close to the center of the forest. They fight more undead and demon ghosts. At about midday, Eldrin's pet hawk spots a building peeking out of the forest in a shallow valley. They stop and start to scout it. The best they can do is press on after a few failed scouting attempts. Night falls and they hear the sounds of battle. John and Kanelin fly up above the trees and look down into the valley. What they see is this:
Ancient armies of hundreds of thousands of ghosts are re-enacting a massive battle exactly on the spot where the temple is. They guess this to be a decisive battle in the War of Maaluk. They observe hundreds of pit fiends swarming over legions of gold dragons. Behemeth leaders that indicate where Maaluk must be. What disturbs them most is that around the spire of the temple they see the ghostly spirits being sucked in. They believe that the spiritual energy must be powering something in the temple. But what after these 20 years could it be doing?
Considering what they saw of the power of the temple, they decide that it is beyond them. They decide that they should leave the forest and the possibility of ancient artifacts behind. But not without at least taking one glance at the temple during the daylight. They sneak up under the cover of a hide from undead spell. They pass contingents of 50-60 ghouls, organized patrols of wights led by slaughter wights. They see the door of the temple guarded by vilewights and see more spectres and other incorporeal undead providing protection from aerial assaults. They feel the thrumming of power and Osric detects massive evil that stuns him. They turn back and away from the temple.
But then, a priest appears before them and speaks, "Welcome, living begins. You have traveled where few have come before, and I expect your journey was long and arduous. We at the temple will gladly offer you solace and rest from your weary travels. Come forward, dear friends. Come and see the wonders that we protect." The party is far too skeptical and turns away saying sorry, we're leaving. Then the priest flings off his cloak revealing a lich form and says, "Fools! The forest shall consume you, my minions shall find you, and you shall be ours!" The priest then casts a spell and his hand glows. Kanelin tries to fascinate the priest with his bard powers, breaking their hide from undead spell, but fails. Then the priest flies towards them with hands outstretched and suddenly they disbelieve and it turns out to have been illusion. But the damage hsa been done. Their invisibility is gone and someone inside knows they are there. They hurry on.
They are spotted by patrols and must fight several times before night falls. During first watch, a deathshrieker enters the party and uses its special power. Eldrin was paralyzed with fear and couldn't stop it. Suddenly, the shrieking causes everyone to go insane. Melee erupts and the party fights each other. During the melee, Eldrin slays Kanelin. Finally the deathshrieker is killed and everyone but Eldrin shakes off the insanity. He has to be subdued by the party before he can be cured.
When morning arrives, Croom tries and fails to resurrect Kanelin. A short time later, Elmeirda teleports in with 10 Brynmawr guards and Captain Starkad. She imperiously demands Kanelin's body. She throws insults at the party, calling them fools and incompetents for getting him killed twice since she sent him to the foest. The party refuses to give her Kanelin's body. Unfortunately for Elmeirda, the moment she orders Captain Starkad to kill the party his long-time charm spell breaks and he finds himself coming out of a long fog. He refuses her order, and the party attacks her. Croom fails to use destruction on her and Osric's smite evil ability fails to hurt her: she isn't evil. She casually casts time stop and reappears in a prismatic sphere casting such spells as horrid wilting until the party has to agree to parley. Starkad meanwhile, fights alongside the party against his former squad who were unable to resist following her orders to kill the party.
She demands that they leave the body and go, or she will kill them. Osric and Eldrin are ready to refuse her at all costs but Croom and John are not so sure. Finally, knowing that Croom and John wouldn't be able to survive without them, Osric and Eldrin very reluctantly agree. They know in their hearts that Elmeirda will probably raise Kanelin as some undead puppet or worse, but there is nothing they can do about it. They swear to deal with her another day. They leave her behind and push on into the forest.
They have more encounters with Spell Gels and finally a strange creature identified as a ragewalker that causes the warriors to fall into a killing rage, turning on each other. This fight is quite bad as only Croom and John are left conscious when the creature is destroyed. They decide that now is the time to leave via teleport and John ferries them all back Althofen after a few trips.