Finally, after a few more days of travel, they spot the forest to the east that, according to their map, contains Mantua. They stop hugging the coast and head straight in. After a day of travel, they spot a snake-like creature stick its head up, spot them, then retreat below the tree line. Hans recognized it as a dread linnorm. The party confers briefly, going over the tales heard from the silver and gold dragons about the race being mostly wiped out with the possible exception of lone stragglers. They have to investigate, and most likely fight it. They spend a few moments casting spells, but this also gives the linnorm time to do the same. As a matter of course, true seeing was one spell cast, so they are able to spot the invisible and ghostformed linnorm when they finally do approach. They make quick work of it when it is evident that the linnorm is hostile, and the only damage really done is a few negative levels on Skilgannon. Hans begs for time to take samples and study the dragon, which the party agrees to. After some searching while he does this, they discover an old hidden cave nearby, which turns out to be its lair. They rest before exploring it. The next day, they venture down into a spiral cave that shows hundreds of tick marks showing the passage of a great long time. They use legend lore and learn this:
Cruxia Galonto was the heir of Caroli and the self-proclaimed king of all of Draconia. Fleeing the war, a pauper by vows, exiled by the destruction of his race, his geas was thwarted by the lich-king of Mantua.
They surmise that this dread linnorm, a ragged exile, was none other than the king of the linnorms who tried to rule the world. He is no longer, and they decide they will report this to the gold dragon king when they next talk with him. They are unsuccessful in learning anything about the lich-king. They summon steeds and continue deeper into the forest. They continue on until in the afternoon they spot a row of dragon carcasses rotting in the sun. The row stretches out to their left and right as far as they can see, so there doesn't seem to be a way around it. What's worse, they perceive that the dead dragons are only the good species: metallic, battle, radiant, song, and so on. They worry about who or what could do this to their bodies. Assuming that there are probably undead there, they fly to within 60 ft at Helbrecht’s request so he can use the runestaff he found earlier to cast detect undead. Unfortunately, that's close enough to trigger them and the dragon carcasses, which are indeed zombies, immediately begin moving and attacking before the party can really buff up; sixty feet was close enough to awaken the zombies to action. When 12 of them take to the air and chase the party around, breathing simultaneously, the fight looks like a party wipe. After the first round John was nearly killed and unconscious, Felgarn and Skilgannon hide in a prismatic sphere, and Hans and Croom are nearly dead. However, the party starts to rally. Hans, however, is shortly knocked unconscious and is out for the second half of the battle. Helbrecht and John fly around invisibly and rain death down around them. Unfortunately, when the dragons breath a second time, Croom is slain and the battle almost turns against the party for good. But in the end they pull it off and kill the 12 zombies. Felgarn casts miracle and summons a magnificent mansion for them to rest in. In the morning, Felgarn casts true resurrection on Croom. They decide to rest a whole day while everyone recovers from the fight.
There is at least a hole in the ring of zombie defenses that the party can fly through now, and they do so carefully so as not to awaken the other zombie dragons. Realizing that they are probably at the outskirts of Mantua and this is some kind of defense, they decide to travel on foot from here. A short time later, they spot ruined buildings amidst the forest. It's been long enough for sizable trees and growth to fill in most of the areas between the buildings, but the structures themselves are mostly intact but definitely abandoned. At least by the living. It seems that undead dragons can be found here. Helbrecht flies above the treeline and spots a good many sizable buildings, including what looks to be an arena, temples, and other structures that show their former magnificence in the sunlight. They head towards the arena, but find it to be mostly uninteresting. However, they find a temple of Nuath nearby set up almost identically to the temples of Nuath back home. This causes them to speculate about the nature of the Aspects for a while.
They decide to head north toward a glittering building that Helbrecht had noticed earlier. As they get closer they spot a temple of Arawn, recognizing it once they get close enough. They detour to it first and go inside, marveling again at the sameness of the construction including the hanging sword. There is an avenue to the glittering building leaving right from the steps of the temple of Arawn so they go there and see that the building is the mausoleum of the dragon kings of Mantua. However, there is a huge pile of dragon zombies covering the entire entrance. After their last experience with a pile of dragon bodies, they back off and decide that now that its nightfall, they will go to the temple of Arawn and summon the magnificent mansion there.
As Skilgannon re-enters the temple first, a vampire dragon now awake once the sun set, dominates him and commands him to kill Felgarn. Meanwhile, as the battle begins, the vampire dragon manages to maze Croom and forcecage Felgarn (after Skilgannon is freed with a mind blank). The vampire dragon doesn’t get much of a chance after its breath weapon nearly kills 3 of the party. Helbrecht unleashes a maximized meteor swarm that takes the vampire down to a few hit points, and it is forced to flee in gaseous form a round later. They heal up, and Hans uses freedom to free Croom, and they follow it across the city to a prison for dragon-sized creatures. They use a sphere of ultimate destruction to blast through the barred walls that the vampire dragon in gaseous form is going through. Unfortunately, they alert the 10 zombie dragons that guard the lair. The fight lasts a long time and takes a large number of mass heals once all the zombies start breathing on the party. The party managed to use the walls, bars, and cells to work out a nice defensive position where the zombies were held at bay by the barred walls, unable to melee and could only breath. Still, it was a tough fight but in the end they prevail and are able to wait to drive a stake through the vampire dragon’s heart the minute it recovers on its hoard. They then sift through the loot and camp.
The next day they leave the magnificent mansion and from there the prison lair of the vampire dragon and decide, after flying up for a moment to scout, to head towards the big building in the middle – the palace of the dragon kings. When they get near it, they find that there were once grounds that have long overgrown, but still show that they were beautiful gardens once. They see that the building has been mostly destroyed but a good portion of it remains. They walk up to the front, having approached from the side, and see statues adorning a stairway leading up to two huge 30x60 ft metal doors (closed). They walk up cautiously, but not cautiously enough when the two statues animate as drakestone golems. The golems breath petrifying gas and Hans is instantly turned to stone. However, Felgarn alters his fortune with the power of Duath and he survives. Helbrecht reluctantly summons his metal monolith towards the end of the fight since his, and all the other caster's spells, are ineffective against the golems. This proves to be a very bad thing as John, in his boredom, decides to fly up to the top of the palace and look around. He finds that the roof has been designed with a hole in it and he can see a skeletal dragon casting spells along with 5 zombie dragons on giant pedestals mere feet away from him. The skeletal dragon commands the zombie dragons (once gold and battle dragons) to attack John. Before he can react, they fly up and breath fire and sonic on him, nearly killing him. His unconscious form falls inside the building just on the other side of the large metal doors where the party is still fighting the drakestone golems.
At this point, the first golem has fallen and the party is working on the second when the zombie dragons fly out of the roof and into the melee. The few rounds that the party and golems have been fighting have given the skeletal dragon (which they will soon learn is the dracolich king) time to buff himself up and give orders to his minions. The fight is on now when 3 of the zombies, 2 battle and a gold dragon attack the party as they fight the last golem. Their breath weapons, as usual, come together a few rounds later and are devastating to the party. At one point Hans uses his time stop to retrieve and drag John’s body outside where he can be healed. Hans doesn’t see the dracolich, who has by this time turned invisible and is now on the pedestal closest to the door – and is thus out of line of sight. When the last zombie dragon is destroyed outside, the party plays a game of buffing and tactical advantage with cover using the doors to carefully send in the metal monolith (which Helbrecht is no longer reluctant about having) to fight the last two zombie dragons. These dragons had readied actions to breathe the minute the door opened. Still, the monolith is certain doom for the zombies. The dracolich, however, fails at first to do much other than buff and avoid Helbrecht’s reaving dispel with spell turning. He uses greater blink to go through walls in the same way that Helbrecht does. John is a running target, going inside with his ghostform and risking being separated from the party. He is nearly taken with blackfire but fortunately he has a buff that makes him immune to its effects. Finally, the dracolich positions itself on the roof and pounces on the party as soon as they are all bunched up by casting a mordenkainen’s disjunction at them. However, 3 members of the party take immediate actions and counter it simultaneously. A couple rounds later, however, being a sorcerer, the dracolich is able to cast it again (his final one, thankfully) and this time gets the entire party except Skilgannon. The monolith is sent home, their main damage dealer and just about all their magic items are completely destroyed. John is completely naked. Realizing the dire situation they are now in, Felgarn expends a 5000xp miracle to restore the magic items, but they are still buffless. When the dracolich breathes everyone is nearly killed again. The lich-king plays with the party, when Skilgannon realizes he can’t get near it with its Large and in Charge feat, he retreats and the dracolich chases him down and kills him with its breath in front of the party and far out of range of healing and revivify spells.
Fortunately, they at last stumble on a combination of spells, now drawing from the bottom of the spell books, that works. The dracolich is held in place with acid fog, then a silence is put on him to prevent his spellcasting, and finally a maw of chaos is cast on him that does continual damage. Other smaller spells such as bigby’s clenched fist also are doing damage. Until at last, it is destroyed. They recover its loot, except for one rod which was destroyed by a mordenkainen’s disjunction from John, and then they search the area. They recover the dragon’s hoard and identify the magic items back inside the magnificent mansion. They also discovered a laboratory for creating zombies, but do nothing about it now. They are in dire need of rest and recovery.
They spend a two days recovering in the mansion, reading some new magical books, scribing new spells, and resurrecting Skilgannon. They divide up the loot and then decide to head south to the buildings there. They find the ruined remains of the dwarven embassy, and strangely enough, the giant embassy not too far away. Also, on the way south they discover an embassy that has crumbling statues of winged, angelic figures. This reminds them of their adventures in Crystalia under Althofen. They search all of these places and find nothing of interest. They at least reach the embassy of Reym itself, which is remarkably well-preserved. When they enter through one of the many doors, John immediately tells the party that there's nothing of interest here and turns around and leaves. Mystified, the party has to work to convince him to re-enter. They detect a slight tinge of magic around the building, and so despite John's reluctance, they search the building carefully. They notice that the building is mostly immaculate. There is no evidence that even small animals have entered and nested here. The building is semi-circular in shape, and most of it is offices. However, there is a large audience chamber at the rounded end which has a fabulous mural of an emperor of Reym seated on his throne. He wears a rainbow crown of woven light and is quite magnificent. Neither of the scholars knows which emperor it is though. After having searched thoroughly, they give up on the building and go outside, to John's relief. They notice, however, that the building is definitely tall enough for a 2nd or even a 3rd floor, yet they found no stairs or ways up. The go inside and John, ever the vandal, uses a sphere of ultimate destruction to create a hole in the ceiling. They fly up and find a new level of rooms. Here are mostly what should be bedrooms and a very large room that bears the evidence of having been a giant wizard's playground for casting magic. It is old and unused now. They still find no way downstairs, so they conclude that the wizards merely teleported in and out.
They leave the Reyman embassy and then decide to head northwest. They pass the elven embassy, obvious from its tree like structure and reach a temple of Elysenika. They have a strange experience here. As they approach the temple, they all feel a sense of impending expectation. They all feel something, yet when they enter the temple, it is empty except for this sense of watchful waiting. They all feel it, but no one can explain it. So they move on until they approach what is clearly the district where the libraries, foundries, and wizard schools are. This gets their attention. They explore old foundries where magic items were obviously crafted, and then finally approach what could only be a draconic university of magic. The building is fashioned of three half-cylinders on end adjoining a triangle in the middle. They walk around it and find no doors whatsoever. So, they use magic to fly to the top and spot an opening there. They enter and are able to work there way down the spiraling ramps in one cylinder to the ground floor, passing through many empty laboratories and classrooms, and there they spot a strange thing.
The whole bottom floor is open. In each of the three half-cylindrical areas is a spirit summoning circle, an elemental summoning circle, and a demon summoning circle. They aren't sure if these circles are active or not. What gets their attention is the large triangular area, in the middle of which is a brilliant blue circle inlaid in the floor. Within it are five huge statues of dragons facing outward, spaced evenly around a column pedestal supporting a large crystal globe of Draconia. Just outside the circle is the skeletal remains of a linnorm. A detect undead spell reveals that the skeleton will not animate, so they cautiously avoid the circles on the outside and head towards the middle. As soon as they step across the blue circle, they discover that the entire area is an antimagic field, and they are stripped of magic. Immediately the five statues animate as golems, unaffected by the antimagic who defend the globe vigorously. The party, without their magic, is no match at all for the golems, and have to retreat. They are fortunate that the drakestone golems cannot leave the circle, yet their breath weapons keep the party further away than just outside the circle. Still, there are no casualties and the party considers how to examine the globe.
The party comes up with a clever plan. The spell wall of force works in an antimagic field, so John creates a corridor with two walls of force going completely through the circle, dividing the golems from the globe. It works beautifully; the drakestone golems cannot get to the party inside the corridor, so Skilgannon and Helbrecht carefully go in and examine the globe closely. They see that the globe is well detailed, but is nothing really special. They take notes on the map, updating their paper copy from the gold dragons, and then decide to leave it alone for now. They camp for the night, getting some more reading in.
The next day they head back to the tomb of the dragon kings. Instead of going in the front and facing the zombies, they come up on the back and simply disintegrate a hole for them to enter. They go from tomb to tomb finding them all looted and empty, the bodies discarded in various corners. Hans is concerned that this ancient dragon kings have been treated so carelessly. After opening the first few forcefully, John uses ghostform to stick his head in through the door rather than have the party try to force all the heavy doors further. In the very center tomb, the grandest of them all, they find Agoras Mithrax I himself awake and sentient, nothing more than a skeleton wearing an iron crown. He is not hostile, so they converse with and and discover that he seems confused as to why his rest has been disturbed. They ask about ancient times and learn the name of the emperor of Reym while Mithrax was alive: Antonius Novanus XIV. They learn nothing else interesting, however, and quietly leave the dragon king skeleton alone. They head back to the magic district of the city to a library they had spotted earlier and encounter a ghostly crystal dragon. John is drained of lifeforce but the rest resist. For a brief moment Skilgannon was dominated and attacked Croom, but a mind blank remedied that. After defeating the ghost, they search the library and recover a spell book. Felgarn miracle’s a mansion and they rest.
They spend the next day exploring building to building. When they return to the temple of Elysenika, they again get thatsense of impending something. It intrigues and worries them, but they have no other insights on it. They set up their mansion in the temple of Hysor after having walked the city from end to end with no clue as to where the ancient elven wizard might have hidden the blue crystal key to Reym.
The next morning finds the party heading back to the wizard school, determined to figure out the mystery of the globe. John Frie uses strategic positioning of wall of force again to create a corridor to the globe and Helbrecht and Skilgannon again go to it. He uses detect magic and analyze dweomer and spellcraft but is unable to determine more than there is abjuration magic present around the globe. Meanwhile, the drakestone golems beat ineffectually against the walls of force. Finally, Helbrecht uses greater blink to phase into the globe and finds an ancient scroll inside. He removes it carefully after reading the first line and realizing that it is something of immense power. After leaving the globe and walking down the corridor, he notices that the golems are following him and the scroll and when he leaves the blue circle, so do they. John stops time and walls the golems all up with wall of force. At that point, the party carefully buffs up with spells and Helbrecht summons a monolith and they carefully fight the golems one by one. Skilgannon is petrified for a moment but is saved by a spell from Felgarn to alter his fate. After a short and concentrated battle, the drakestone golems are destroyed.
They can now examine the scroll at their leisure. They see that bound into the paper are bits of the elements: a sliver of iron, a chip of granite, a drop of rain, a wisp of ash, a splinter of wood, a drop of pitch, a shard of sunstone, a feather, and a drop of blood. They finally determine it to be an epic ritual with a spellcraft DC of 150. They surmise by reading it that it is what seals the plane from all planar travel, created eons ago by the draconic kings and his his noble wizards. They discuss the merits, good and bad, of destroying the scroll. They work over the arguments for several hours, tentatively concluding that they will probably have to destroy it, but only as a last resort. They want to explore more, find the key, and perhaps travel to the desert portal. They decide to return to exploring the Reyman Embassy for the rest of the day. Felgarn elects to summon his mansion and read while they search. They turn up nothing again at the embassy. John had a great plan to search while in ghostform, but when he gets within 100 ft of the building, he gets apathetic again.
They realize that somewhere along the way from Neapolis, they had lost poem the gold dragon king had given them from the elven wizard. They decide that they will have to send a message to the gold dragons asking for the poem again. They read some more inside the mansion until tomorrow. The next day they use sending and ask the gold dragon king for the poem again and he obliges. They pass it around a bit and Helbrecht suddenly hits upon the idea of taking the poem literally: they must go to the rainbow and laugh. They return to the Reyman embassy and go to the audience chamber with the mural of the emperor and laugh. Out pops a blue crystal. They have found the key to Reym at last.
They talk now, about destroying the compact; for Helbrecht has identified that this is the magic that the metallic dragons have told him he must destroy. They talk about warning or conferring with the gold, silver, and battle dragons. Helbrecht also wants to talk to the Elemental Metal dragon lords to confirm that this is what they want him to do. They decide to finish the day reading and cast more spells tomorrow.
Helbrecht casts contact other plane, the next day, and asks 10 questions of the elemental metal dragon lords. The metallic dragon lords eagerly urge him to destroy it. He learns that destroying the scroll will break the compact, that magic will do it and tearing or just merely destroying it physically will not. There are probably a few ways to destroy it. Felgarn sends a message to the gold, silver, and battle dragons about finding the compact and asks their wishes about destroying it or not. Their responses are very forceful:
King Muxenum of the silver dragons, "You desecrate the ancient compat, you fools!"
Battle leader Kilanus of the battle dragons, "Interesting! There shall be new battles! Do what you will!"
And King Rikanis of the gold dragons, "How dare you meddle in the will of the ancients!"
Now the party is very uncertain about destroying the compact. They talk and talk. The gold dragon king sends a message to Felgarn a short time later: "Do nothing rash. We will confer and speak again tomorrow."
They rest the day, talking some more, arguing the pros and cons of destroying the compact. It would allow the party to go home now, but it would also allow an entire plane of dragons to also reach their home. Some might be allies, some are most certain to be quite the opposite. There are after all, whole cities and races of evil dragons here who will also be free.
The gold dragons contact the other metallic dragons through magic and talk. The next day, the following message is sent to Felgarn:
"We have conferred with the others. We will not tell you what to do, as all good dragons believe in the freedom of all creatures, and this act by itself is not an evil act. But consider the consequences: the Great Barrier was erected to not only keep the dragons in, but to keep others out. We will be vulnerable to invasion, and the evil dragons will be free to invade others in return. If you break the barrier, we will not declare war upon your kind. We have heard the words of your emissary Eldrin, and your plight is dire. We understand your need. Some of us will come to help, some will not. Just as some of us are vehement that you do not do this and some of us are eager for you to do it. It is likely that we will be occupied by other matters as a consequence of this. Choose with your heart and choose wisely."
The party has decided to do it. John is naturally paranoid that he will lose all spellcasting ability when he destroys an artifact, so they prepare like crazy with buffs. They also are worried that something big and powerful is going to appear and eat them, so they are full to the gills ready to fight. John succeeds in destroying the scroll in the first casting of mordenkainen’s disjunction, and he makes his will save and is not bereft of his birthright. Something big does appear, but it is not what they expected at all.
The area darkens as if night has fallen instantly, and there are stars around them, one shining brighter than the others.
Elysenika, aspect of the stars, the moon, planes, portals, and gateways steps before the party. She is awesome in her power, as she takes the now-mundane scroll of the dragon compact from the ground before John. The party is practically forced to their knees because she is in her full aspect of power in her black silks decorated with silver stars.
She looks at the scroll, "As Othmina foretold, the herald of a new epoch has called. This is the second sign. And thus, it is dust."
The scroll is totally annihilated, leaving no trace in her dark-skinned palm.
She looks sadly upon the party, "The harbingers have announced their presence. The Great Change will come, the new age looms. I mourn..."
And she fades away.