5/27/1150 – Head out first thing in the morning. They travel straight east into the words, although Torchon takes them slightly north to avoid a village. Towards late in the afternoon they are far from the city and are traveling down a game trail when they hear groaning ahead. Two trolls have caught their scent and are converging to the attack. Torchon in the lead takes the brunt of their first attacks, then retreats to the back to pepper them with arrows. Sven is there for the next rounds to take the beating that the trolls put down. Then with the concerted effort of the party, the first troll is taken down. However, a moment later its wounds close and it stands back up. Sven is taking a severe beating, as the trolls keep rising again. Only after Lughausen and torchon apply torches to the bodies moment after they fall that they remain dead. They take a short rest and move on.
At dusk they find a good camping spot near a creek. However, a few hours into the first watch Lydya and Torchon hear something large approaching from the other side of the creek. They wake everyone up in time to realize that it is a tree itself that was moving and making the noise. It is gnarly looking, covered in diseased moss, lichen, and fungus. It sways for a bit and then suddenly two trees right next to the party and their campsite animate and attack.
Sven, Baptiste, and Jak deal with these two trees while Torchon, Lydya, and Lughausen try to use range spells and arrows to kill the treant (which is what they realize it must be). The Treant is hurling rocks taken from the creek bed and knocks Torchon unconscious. Lughausen rushes to his rescue and is nearly killed himself by a boulder. Finally, the first animated tree is hacked down by Sven in his rage with his greataxe. Then the treant is killed and the final tree stops moving.
5/28/1150 – Wake up to rain, heavy and steady. They leave the campsite with the treant without a backward glance. They continue to travel eastward through the Drakewind Forest. Sometime in the afternoon, the trees are beginning to thin out, indicating that they are getting close to the open area where Zell is. The rain sounds and haze obscure their senses, so it isn’t until they are almost completely on top of the party that they see two deranged giants running in their direction. They have broken manacles and chains on their wrists and ankles. They are starved and crazed, yet one of them carries a moldy chest. They scream and attack the party. Fortunately, the ranged weapons and spells of Lydya, Torchon, and Brimstone Jak severely damage one so that when it does reach the party, it is nearly dead. However, it is able to swing with its fists and bite and do severe damage to Lughausen who is dropped to the ground. The other one is occupied by Baptiste and Sven. Torchon heals Lughausen and the first giant is taken down. However, the second attacks randomly and manages to target Lughausen a second time and knock him unconscious with power blows. It also bites Sven and steals vitality from him, healing its wounds. However, the party takes him down.
Before he falls, however, in the distance can be heard the baying of dogs or wolves. Shortly after the last crazed giant falls, a hunting party arrives. This time with two dire wolves and four hill giants, yelling in their language at the party. Once again, ranged weapons are brought to bear and the first dire wolf is killed before it even reaches the party. The second gets up close to Sven but is killed before it can attempt to bite anyone. The hill giants pause and take rocks out of satchels at their sides and engage in ranged combat themselves. They take out Torchon who was retreating deeping into the woods. The concealment and cover was not good enough however. The battle gets intense for a few then the tide turns. Torchon manages to stabilize on his own and even wakes up to rejoin the battle. One by one the giants are taken down and in the end the party is victorious but severely wounded.
They are unable to identify the giants. Baptiste is worried about the chest after noticing that it is covered with food stains, mold, and lichen. Torchon, however, just boldly opens it revealing thousands of pieces of gold and platinum. Plus, other valuable items like an idol, bottle stopper and so on. The chest is so filled, in fact, that it would be extremely cumbersome for them to carry (264 lbs). After some debate, they decide that it is too much money to leave behind, so they will return back to Wohlen and leave it with Wodemar. They turn around for the remaining daylight and camp when it gets too dark.
5/29/1150 – They travel whole day back to Wohlen. There is a lightning storm and some snow as they return. After dusk, they reach Wodemar’s and leave the chest. They say they will pay him, of course, for keeping it for them. They tell the story of its origin and Wodemar recalls some lore about hill giants. They have a god named Grolantar. Their priests take hapless giants and imprison them in pits and starve them. When they get crazy and near dead, they believe that their god speaks through these pour souls. These must have escaped and managed to steal the money from the temple. The others were obviously trying to recover the Mouths, money, or both. The party then worries that there will be very angry hill giants after them. They sleep in the inn, and manage to reach level 7.
5/30/1150 – It is a clear day today and they head back out east. Retracing their footprints makes it easy. By the end of the day, they believe they have reached point where their camp was where they fought the treant.
6/1/1150 – They continue east for the full day without event.
6/2/1150 – This day is going to be another rainy one. The woods begin to get sparser and is clearly becoming a plain. As they are walking where there are still a few trees, they are surprised (except for Lydya and Sven) by a couple of four-legged demons with stinging tails. Baptiste is poisoned and paralyzed, but Torchon uses his protection from poison spell to clear his system. The demons are dealt with. They continue on until the trees are but a memory and all ahead of them is plain. They see the remains of farmsteads, broken fence lines, the occasional remains of a hearth and so on. Nothing is intact by any means and it looks like no one has made an attempt to fix anything since the Cataclysm. In the distance, the rain is showing them a strange silvery glow. They find the remains of the road heading northeast and get on it. The ruins are getting a bit more numerous, and in fact eventually they see what looks to be a tower ahead. Beyond it the silvery glow is more pronounced. They get close enough to see movement at the top of the tower.
However, at the same time they see four figures to their left moving in an interception course. They believe they are connected, but then see that the four figures are not human. They are in fact more fiends and demons. Torchon’s favored enemy. They rush to attack. However, they prove to be little challenge to the party. They talk about the tower and speculate that it might be filled with demons too. They worry, but push on. Eventually they get close enough to see the figures more clearly, and when they get within shouting distance, they see that one gestures to the other and applause rings out.
“Well done, my friends, well done! Those things have caused me and my men lots of trouble.”
They are clearly human. There might be a half-elf or half-orc, but no dwarves, gnomes, or halflings. There are six on top and they see that the tower has three levels. The second has arrow slits and they see the occasional movement there as well.
They have a conversation with the man at the top. He wears nice armor, with some fur on the shoulders. His comments, however, are sarcastic and condescending. When he is asked what place this is, he refuses to name it, saying it has no name. He asks them where they come from and what they are doing here, and they answer they are explorers exploring. More caginess, which is definitely what this conversation is about. When they say they are going to Zell, he waves them on, laughing, "If you find a way in, I would be MOST appreciative if you shared it with me. My employer would certainly make it worth your while." Some ask what the reward would be, and he laughs and says that depends on the information, and everything is negotiable.
As they walk by the tower, Baptiste notices that the door isn’t all that reinforced and it might be forced open. They hear the men joking with one another about what will kill the party. They start making claims on the party’s visible equipment like Sven’s axe and Baptiste’s armor. The party clearly doesn’t like these people and are very suspicious. Nothing was learned about why they are here and what they are doing. When they are out of earshot, Torchon suggests that these might very well be Karzhad’s men. He looks for tracks along the road (seeing that this was once a very well-made road) and off of it. He sees demon tracks, similar to the ones they just dispatched. He also sees tracks of many booted feet, very recent, perhaps even earlier today, going in both directions. Some on and some off the road. They go on until they reach the dome.
The silvery light becomes even more pronounced when it is almost dusk when they reach the edge of it. It is indeed a very large dome, perhaps encompassing an entire city. This city, however, would be much, much larger than Wohlen. The dome covers the entire thing from what they can tell. Touching it just reveals an unyielding tingling. They again look for tracks and see the humanoid booted feet, a large number by the way, coming up to the edge and then going in both directions north and south. They also see about fifty feet away a pit dug down about 15 feet right next to the dome. It clearly shows that the silvery light goes below the ground. They can see nothing through the dome of light. It is quite opaque.
They travel left, to the north until it gets too dark and the tower is out of sight. They find a reasonable place to camp and decide that Torchon and Lydya should sneak back and see what they can learn from the tower. They are quite stealthy on their trip to the tower. They crouch in the rubble outside and listen. They see light coming out of the second-floor arrow slits, but no light on the top. There are watchers up there in the darkness. They do hear some conversation between the men:
“I can’t wait until tomorrow’s patrol. I want that armor!”
“No, that’s going to be mine.”
“I’ll put out 20-1 odds that they are already dead.”
“I won’t take that bet.”
“Do you think the dragon will get them?”
“Ha! It might! Serve them right!”
“Nah, that dragon hasn’t been around for a week. It ain’t coming back.”
“My money is on the demons.”
“Yeah! And that sweet axe, did you see that? I claim it!”
Then the leader’s voice comes in: “Ha, cut it out and hit the sack. We’ll find out soon enough tomorrow.” And other similar things. A command clearly getting his men back under control.
They sneak back to the camp and let the others know that there is a dragon in the area.
6/3/1150 – The get up to a clear and early morning. They speculate about what they will encounter along the way. Baptiste wonders if a complete conversion to the faith of Duath might be a way of getting through the barrier. They discuss the dangers here and decide to continue with the transit around the city of Zell and then take the road to Gyswyl. Moving around the dome, when they turn northeasterly and almost north they come across a huge graveyard. The dome appears to cut right through it. All along the edge of the dome through the graveyard is a line of dead bodies and bones. The footprints lead right through it. They don’t get to speculate for too long as they easily spot the walking dead among the graves. And the dead spot the party and shamble towards them. Almost a hundred skeletons and zombies swarm the party. The party is quite fearful at first and contemplates seriously running away. But they can’t think of a good defensive position that they might have passed except for the occupied tower. And they realize that these sorts of mindless undead do not give up the chase once it has started.
However, Lughausen calls upon the power of Epolde to turn the undead and his power has become sufficient that these undead are completely destroyed by his faith. Twice he does this, and the numbers of undead dwindle dramatically. The rest of the party is able to easily dispatch the undead as they ineffectively scrabble at their armor. They suffer only minor wounds. Afterward, they decide to search the graveyard. In particular the mausoleums interest them. Perhaps there is a secret tunnel here that leads into the city within the dome. But they find nothing. They also see that grave robbers have clearly been here before. They take a short . Lughausen tries to cast clairvoyance and attempt to see what is inside the dome. Unfortunately, he has no success and feels blocked. He tries think of arcane reasons why this might be so and is unable to. Baptiste, however, remembers tales from a peasant he knew whose grandfather knew a wizard. There were powerful magics back in times before the Cataclysm that could block scrying and teleportation. As they are leaving the graveyard, Baptiste is certain that they should use a speak with dead spell on one of the corpses to ask it questions about the barrier. Lughausen doesn’t have that spell prepared today. They plan on doing that the next day, but in the meantime, they want to continue their circuit.
After a couple of hours, they see a road leading off to the northeast, which coincides with the road they expected to find from their map. There are a few ruins here, probably houses and the like. From one of these ruins not far from the road, they see a campfire with smoke rising. They also smell cooking meat, but are unable to identify what kind it is. As they approach the ruin they see that there are six figures sitting around the fire. The party approaches cautiously, but not hostilely or in stealth. The figures stand and brandish glaives when the party is a couple of hundred feet away. Then the party notices that the figures have beards that wave and move. Torchon identifies them as fiends and fires his arrows at one. At first the party thinks to stand their ground and let the fiends come to them, but then one and then the rest of the devils disappear below ground in the ruin. The party has no choice but to close. Then, as they approach, one of the fiends pops up to hurl flame at Torchon, burning him. It becomes a serious of sniping attacks as they charge between the barbed devil, for that is what they identify it as when they get close enough, and the party’s ranged combatants. When they reach the ruin, they see that over the campfire is a halfling on a spit, mostly eaten. Then it charges out and is met by Sven and Baptiste. It is seriously wounded by the time the other bearded devils come up out of the hole in the ground. It commands, in infernal which Lydya understands by virtue of having activated her Earrings of Comprehension on the way in, the rest of the devils to attack the archers. They do, forgoing their first attacks for greater movement in an attempt to reach the archers. Both Torchon and Lydya take damage as they skirmish around. Lydya’s wounds bleed constantly. Lughausen is able to banish one of the devils back to its home plane, immediately removing its threat. The rest are soon taken down.
They search the hole in the ground, finding that it was once either a wine or root cellar. Now it is only filled with detritus, trash, and a large pile of bones, recently killed and charred. Many of them are clearly from humanoids, most likely more victims of these devils. This suggests that they have been here a while. Lydya wants to bury the halfling, and they do with solemn words said.
The road looks like it was extremely well-maintained back in the day. Now, it is quite overgrown, but still serviceable. They continue around the dome. As dusk settles around them, they spot a strange flickering glow not far from them. It is on the ground, and as they get closer they see that it is coming from a hole in the ground about 30-40 feet across. When they get within 60 feet of it, they can hear a crackling noise. Also, as they approached they all felt queasy in their stomach. Baptiste and Lughausen remember the feeling they got when they were in Montchartan Mansion, and its tower with the strange planar gate. It feels almost exactly like that. Torchon arcs an arrow into the hole, and that appears to have angered what was in it. Rising up are two strange floating creatures with ten tentacles each and a single eye in its body. They are encased in a corona of lightning, and they float over to attack the party. The tentacles have a 20-ft reach, and the first action is to grapple Baptiste and Sven with them. While grappled, the creatures drain the life from the poor victims with lightning power. This heals the strange creatures. As the combat progresses Lydya, Sven, Jak, and Baptiste are all grappled by the tentacles. Baptiste is knocked unconscious and others are at risk of falling too when the first creature is finally killed, and then the other soon after.
They look in the pit and try to figure out the strange feeling and whether it was truly about a planar gate, but are unable to learn anything. They are exhausted and decide to rest here, figuring it is probably safe because of the presence of these creatures they dispatched.
6/4/1150 – They wake up refreshed. Lughausen prepares spells to cast at the graveyard. They continue on their circuit around the city. They encounter the last major road they expected to find and cross over it. Soon after they reach the first road and their starting point. They can see the watchtower in the distance and discuss their plan of action regarding it. They decide that they will ignore it for now and continue back to the graveyard. At the graveyard, they spread out and search for an undisturbed grave with dates that are before or around the Cataclysm. They remember from their findings in previous adventures (in particular, the notes from the Tower of Salinga Penne) that it occurred in 1082. The dome appears to go right through the graveyard, including several graves, but that doesn’t help. Many of the graves have dates going as far back as 44 G.R. Many are illegible. They do find a good candidate, a gravestone with the year of death being 1016 that has been undisturbed. It has, however, the holy symbols of Duath carved in. They realize it might be a priest of Duath, and reconsider digging it up thinking that the Aspects might not like them doing that. Further searching finally reveals another gravestone that appears to be much finer quality than the rest, with a death year of 1044. They dig and uncover a stone vault. Something unheard of except for the very rich. They use a crowbar on the lid, prepared to fight if an undead is within it. There is a body, clad in what was fine clothing. Strangely, the finger bones are worn, chipped and scratched. A look at the underside of the lid reveals scratch marks. At first, they think he was buried alive but then realize they look much fresher than that. It was animated, but couldn’t get out. And whatever force was animating it had fled. Lughausen prepares to cast his spell. He considers casting zone of truth first, but they realize it won’t work. They just have to hope for the best. The spell is cast, and the body stirs.
Their first question: Was there a barrier around the city of Zell when he lived. His answer, “I know of barrier around Zell.”
The second question: Do you know of any dungeons, or tales of dungeons, in the vicinity of Zell. His answer, “The bards would tell of such places and we would sit around the fire with the family to listen to tales of great heroes and the places they visit, but they were far, far away.”
The third question: Do you know of any place that had a magical barrier. His answer, “The great barrier around our wonderful country of Ap Wys protects us and keeps us safe.”
The fourth question: How did one pass through the barrier. His answer, “By the grace and beneficent power of the priests of Duath and the wizards were we kept safe and permitted to leave.”
The final question: What occurred when the priests let you through. His answer, “Once I had business outside these lands. The priest in his finest regalia laid his hand on my shoulder and walked me through.”
The spirit is again laid to rest and the party has a long discussion about the barrier based on what they learned. They consider it a strong possibility that the barrier around Zell is simply the barrier that was once around the whole country merely shrunken down as the priests lost power. Perhaps they are in their still, living a normal life! Torchon then realizes that the area of the dome that they just walked around is very large. Much larger than Wohlen and Venlo combined. Perhaps that area also includes just enough farmland and fields to sustain the population of the city. It felt right, given the distance that they just walked for the past two days.
They reaffirm that their next course of action must be to venture on to Gyswyl in the southwest corner of the former Ap Wys. The road that led them in will take them there. This means that they will pass by the watchtower again, and the people inside. They turn the discussion to what to do about it. They decide to basically ignore them and just walk by it. They think it will make the watchers worry that they returned from the dome unscathed. They consider trying to bluff them and make them think that they learned something that they would like to know. They decide against it.
Walking down the road, they approach the tower. When they get within 150 feet or so, and having seen that there are still people in it, the voice that yelled at them before yells again.
“You survived Zell! Quite impressive! Unfortunately, my orders have changed.”
Then a volley of arrows launches from all the archers in the tower.
Most of the arrows target Torchon, and find their mark. In moments he is nearly dead and must retreat to heal himself. Sven charges the tower, and is not caught surprised while the others take a moment to recover from the attack. Some of the attackers are in the second level of the tower shooting through arrow slits. These foes must target the party in front, Sven and the well-armored Baptiste. They aren’t so lucky with their arrows. But they are being more careless than their fellows on the top of the tower and can be targeted by the ranged members of the party. The others on top are ducking behind merlons in between their shots to get complete cover.
Sven reaches the target quickly and is able to break down the door in his first attempt. Baptiste, Lughausen, and Lydya approach more slowly while Torchon and Jak stay back. The ranged attacks are devastating, however, and soon Jak and then Torchon are knocked down. Lughausen must sprint back and forth along the road to get to them. He does manage, however, to cast a very effective confusion spell at the top of the tower which takes out most of the archers there, including the leader, for several rounds. This gives them time to recover and most of the party get to the tower. Sven, after having broken down the door encounters three veterans ready for him. Sven is wounded fast before they start falling, and archers from the second level descend to join the fight on the first level. Lydya helps with her sneak attack but is knocked unconscious by the archer fire. Lughausen heals her and then has to dash back out to again save Jak and Torchon. Baptiste, slower of foot than Sven and Lydya finally joins the fight in the tower and the tides turn inside. However by this time the foes on the top have shaken off the confusion and again start raining arrows on the party. Lughausen drinks a potion of invulnerability which keeps him alive as he sprints back and forth healing.
Baptiste finally makes it up to the second floor with Sven and Lydya behind him, kill the last archer there and then he goes first up to the top where the leader is ready for him. In a moment, a near fully healthy Baptiste is all but killed except for his timely parry. Lydya and Sven follow, but they are nearly dead as well. Torchon has been brought back again and has stayed below, shooting to the top of the tower. Only a lieutenant and the leader remain and the party is very worried. Then the last lieutenant goes down, and then the leader is severely wounded. Lughausen attempts to call for the man’s surrender. At first the leader doesn’t appear to be ready to give up his honor that way, but then Lughausen casts calm emotions and the leader becomes very calm and indifferent to the fight. He then sheathes his sword. However, the raging Sven does not stop his attacks and with three powerful swings, he kills the leader and all that he may know is lost.
They search the tower and find the captain’s quarters. There is a chest and a book upon the desk with an open inkpot and quill with wet ink upon the end. After Lydya searches for traps, they read the book. It is a journal, reaching back a few weeks to when this man was sent here but some unnamed boss to watch the city of Zell. It recounts how boring the assignment is, how well it pays, and the dangers he and his men have faced while here. It also is up to date, talking about his encounter with the party and what he thought of them and their chances of surviving at Zell. It also recounts their return from their circuit of the city and his amazement at their survival.
He also received a change of orders shortly after the party arrived. He is ordered to kill anyone who has come from Wohlen, the direction the party came from. He knows that he must kill them, and orders the attack when the party comes up the road.
They aren’t certain who he works for, but they speculate about Karzhad. They open the chest to find many valuables, including a magical hat of disguise, cloak of elvenkind, staff of the adder, and the leaders was using a longbow +1. Torchon naturally takes that, while Lydya gets the cloak and Lughausen gets both the hat and the staff.
Lughausen uses stone shape to close the door and casts animate dead on the leader and has him stay on the top of the tower as a ruse that things are still the same.
They rest here, keeping regular watches as normal.
6/5/1150 – A rainy day spent in the tower resting and recovering. They identify the magical items they found and attune to them. They decide that with all the money they just recovered, that a side-trip back to Wohlen is in order to leave the stuff with Wodemar. Also, they want to give him the journal. They area also tired of Fluffy panicking at each battle, so Torchon and Lydya do their best to start training the dog.
6/6/1150 – 6/7/1150 – Travel back to Wodemar through the forest, again as the arrow flies. Because of their efforts, it appears that no new hostile creatures have had time to move into the area, and travel is swift and easy.
6/8/1150 – Back in Wohlen they report to Wodemar and give him the journal. He naturally and immediately suspects that Karzhad has to be the boss of these people in the tower. Nothing new has happened in the city since they were gone. They decide to go shopping and buy warhorses for everyone, including Lydya. These horses include barding, saddles, and so on. Feed and other necessities must be carried in a wagon that they also purchase. Lydya buys barding for Fluffy too. They reason that they will be on roads now and need the swifter travel speed. The warhorse training will keep the animals from panicking in battle, an all too common theme with Fluffy.