6/28/1150 – Wake up in the vault the next morning having decided that they will not search the unseen areas of this dungeon. They are ready to leave. Khragg has made up his mind that he must get to the High Temple of Arawn and do whatever it is that he must do to rid himself of her influence. The rest will follow. They go first to retrieve their horses and wagon, hauling up the loot from the Abjuration vault. Kayleth casts a ritual water walking on the horses and they clear the wagon and pull it behind as a float to cross the river. On the other side they pass through the ruins of the city of Dist. Nothing is left of the city except some old foundations. It is eerie here, not a thing is growing in the ruins, no wildlife can be heard. They start up the hill to the High Temple, noticing again the silence.
The building looks the same as it always looked. Dark stone rising in 14 spires ending in wicked looking points. There are no windows at ground level, but only far up along the towers. A massive peaked roof is in the middle of the large building. The grounds outside look neglected, yet not overgrown. The grass is yellowed and matted, perhaps even withered and trampled.
The hill the temple is upon is side and high, affording great views of the surrounding lands. The ruins of Dist can clearly be seen, as can the wall of Ap Wys with the gaping hole at Gyswyl. There is no activity to be seen at any distance. Just wilderness and perhaps to the north the start of another forest. From this vantage the remains of an old road can be seen heading southwest. It doesn't look like it has been used in some time.
The dark stone is weathered, but in good shape. There is a sense of emptiness, but also a sense of waiting and watching. The hairs on the back of their necks stand on end. They approach the entrance and find a statue of an armored man, head shaved, trimmed beard with horrible scars slashing across his face. He is holding an axe aflame with a very stern and haunted visage. They recognize him from their history lessons. It is Lord Yaltan Lunchwicz, Restorer of the Sword and Armor of Nulfid, Slayer of Beragon the Vampire, Destroyer of Alexandr, Lich Servant of Lord Tuoo, Vanquisher of the Dragon of Darkwood Deep, Peer of the Realm of Gwynyth Raius. Legend has it as he battled the besieging army, he was killed time and again, only to be brought back by the High Priest of Arawn and sent out to rejoin the fight. He was aged, drained, and slain over and over in the defense and eventual victory at the High Temple of Arawn.
The tunnel is an open archway in darkness. Their torches do little to extinguish the darkness. Only those with darkvision and a torch can see a bit. Kayleth uses control flames to brighten the torches and that all combined is just enough to allow them to continue. Halfway up they find a blade swinging back and forth and a skeleton on the ground cut in two. They time it and rush past. Only Yannic’s robe is brushed as he goes by, leaving behind a residue of poison. At the end of the tunnel is a pair of double doors that opens by themselves as they approach.
Beyond is a large hall. The hallway is opulently decorated in black marble floors and black velvet drapes on the walls. The place is deathly quiet as a result. The hallway is empty other than that. It leads to two humongous doors. They are 20 ft wide and 50 ft tall. They reach all the way up to the vaulted ceiling. On the doors is a painting of Arawn. She stands with her arms open is welcome to either side. She holds her Sword straight out in her right hand. She is dressed in her pale robes. The painting splits as the doors open, as they approach.
It enters into a very large hall, 200 by 200 ft. It has a vaulted peaked ceiling some 100 ft up also. There are 10 pillars, 5 on either side. They are triangular but twist like liquorice up to the ceiling. On the flat twisting surfaces of the pillars are carved scenes of people dying in every means possible. Some are grotesque and horrifying, others are dignified and beautiful. At the back is altar, on a raised dais 60 X 40 ft. On the wall behind the altar is another picture of Arawn, much like the one on the door but more elaborate, lifelike, and frightening somehow. She looks almost real and alive. The altar is a flat slab of obsidian, that looks marred by many blades over many centuries. Hanging from a chain by the pommel is a pale moon-colored sword that looks just like Arawn's. The point is towards the floor and is just above anyone who kneels before the altar. The walls also have velvet on them, creating that same deathly silence. The whole place is lit by a globe that hangs high above the temple in the center. It looks like the full moon, and casts a similar light. The High Priest waits for the party behind the altar on a raised platform so he towers above them, but is still below the picture of Arawn. There are priests lining the walls with hoods pulled down low to conceal their faces. They appear to have their heads to the floor.
The high priest is an older human with a white beard and mustache. They walk up the dais and only Khragg ascends and deliberately stands beneath the sword. He feels it hanging above his head, mere inches away. The high priest speaks.
"Welcome, pilgrim. Answers you seek while hot fury burns within you. Though it has been over a decade since the last came, the way has been prepared. She has told us of your coming…and your purpose. And the time is right.
To receive the answers you wish, you must submit to Her will. At death's door, much insight may be gained. There you must go of your own free will. They way will be perilous. You or those who choose to accompany you may step through that portal into her embrace and never return. The risk must be undertaken to receive the knowledge you seek, and perhaps knowledge that you do not seek will be gained as well.
Do you wish to do this? To complete the pilgrimage of Arawn?"
They look at each other. They had at first expected the temple to be abandoned but facing this challenge also doesn’t surprise Khragg at all. He only takes a moment to agree to the challenge. The rest discuss it, some being more reluctant than others. In the end, they agree to accompany him. Yannic and Lughausen needed the most convincing.
The High Priest nods then waves his arm to the western wall. The priest there pulls aside the velvet to reveal a ten-foot door which he opens. The party walks toward it and the high priest follows. Beyond is a large hall that goes for hundreds of feet until it opens to a run beneath the westernmost tower. The room is decorated with images of the sunset. Coincidentally, they can see that it is sunset outside through the windows in the upper levels of the tower above them. In the floor is a massive pit. The high priest walks them up to it and steps aside. It is clear what must be done.
Khragg barely hesitates and steps in. Kayleth uses wild shape to become a bat and Lughausen uses his magical instrument to fly. The others jump in also. Those that weren’t flying fall 150-ft to a room below, crashing to the floor and taking great damage. Peril is nearly killed, but the rest survive the fall. The room is filled with bones and the broken bodies of those that were not so fortunate as they. They take a short rest to recover. The room has two exits. They take the northern one.
It leads through a few hallways into a labyrinth. They spend an hour mapping it out, exploring every nook and cranny only to find nothing. Just windy, twisty passages going back in forth. They leave it behind and go to the other door out of the first room. They find straighter passages here. The first room they encounter is filled with refuse. The next room has writing carved into the stone. It says:
“Damn her. She will never let me go. I have been her pawn, fighting her war, defending her temple, and now she makes me do this damn pilgrimage to get free. I was a fool not to go back with Ulrich, but I was so done with that quest.
I died 5 times. After each, She sends me back. Over and over again, fighting and fighting. BUT I WON! The cost... and she makes me do this to give me back my health and my freedom.
If you are here, then you are stuck, too. I haven't found the way down yet. When I do, I will write it here. I pity you.
Yaltan”
Below that, it looks like whole blocks of stone have been chiseled and scarred as if erasing further writing. They conclude that Yaltan did indeed write more but it was excised by someone. As they exit the room, Peril notices something strange about the wall in the hallway opposite. He finds a secret door. Beyond is an empty chamber except for a key on the floor. Khragg picks it up. The next door they find has a lock that matches the key: bronze with filigree. Khragg uses the key, which works, to unlock it. He takes his time, then opens the door.
The room they find has ogre zombies in it. They were ready and the first grabs Khragg and drags him inside. They see two bodies hanging from ropes across a bar set high in the walls. The ogres attempt to wrap a rope around his neck and string him up too. Yannic casts a fireball into the room damaging all the enemies. Kayleth uses a faerie fire, Lughausen turns all but one of them, making them flee and the rest fight the remaining ones until they are all destroyed. There are three doors in this room. The first opens to a room filled with filth and a rotten stench that makes Khragg gag. He closes that door. The next door is a room with piles of equipment. They search it, finding two potions and another key that Khragg keeps. The last room has bodies, likely the owners of the equipment. They had cut down the two bodies but they weren’t sure what to do with them other than to get them down and put them with the rest.
They continue exploring passages. They find a room filled with bones, another room with skulls on spikes. They come to an eight-way intersection and pick a direction to go, now realize that this place is pretty big. After some more exploration, they come to a room with a mural on the wall:
This mural depicts two armies meeting under a cloudy, decrepit looking sky on a rolling hill. The two armies are more shown as faceless, seething masses, bristling with arms and emanating waves of hate. Seen clearly, are the two leaders: one aglow in his armor and holding a white sword up high. The other is cloaked in black robes, astride his black mount, which is not a horse, but a serpent. Opening gates of power from which only tentacles are seen to emerge. They have no idea who this is or what the battle is. They leave.
They find an empty room next and Peril enters and sees something off with the wall. Again, a secret door is revealed. Beyond is a room with a pedestal upon which is a gold chalice. He finds no traps. Yannic picks up the chalice feeling that it is slightly slimy to the touch. He puts it down. Peril picks it, feeling the same thing. He puts water in it, and it changes to a softly glowing blue. They pour a bit out and it stays blue. He risks taking a drink and it tastes good. He feels wonderful afterwards. He pours more water in it, and it remains water this time.
After more exploring, they come to a large room with no door. All along the back are bones that suddenly animate and rise as skeletons with armor and arms. The skeletons start shooting arrows at Khragg who is in the front. He takes many hits and Yannic again uses a fireball spell to deal lots of damage. After that, most of the skeletons are nearly dead. It takes a few rounds of combat and Khragg again takes much damage. After the last skeleton falls, Lughausen heals him a bit and they take another short rest. Yannic recovers some arcane energy. They find a pile of gems and another key that Khragg takes.
Afterwards, they take another passageway which opens up into a room that has a strange substance scattered all over the floor. Khragg thinks he hears rustling. They discuss it and decide to just blast whatever is ahead. Yannic sends a fireball into the room and incinerates half of the swarms of bats that had taken roost in the ceiling. The remaining swarms fly out in a dark cloud that envelopes the party, and they must battle on. Another fireball is necessary, and the last bats are taken out with weapons.
They enter that now has the floor covered with charred bat corpses as well as the thick layer of guano that was noticed before and go to the other door in the room. Beyond that is a room with a thick layer of dust. Footprints are visible leading from this door to the other door in the room. They prepare again, but beyond the next door is an empty room with two other exits. They choose one and circle around to a room that has a large skeleton in it. They identify it as a gargantuan slaad, long dead.
They choose another corridor from the eight-way intersection they had visited before, heading east. A long corridor with pairs of doors on opposite sides all along it. The doors open to small rooms, most empty. A few have mold in them. However, after a door explodes with a lightning trap, they become more cautious and search more carefully with Khragg out ahead opening doors to take the brunt of any trap that was missed. Another room along this corridor is filled with swarms of venomous snakes. They close the door before the snakes can escape then realize that they will need to search the room to find any keys that might be there. So they have to deal with the snake swarms. Which they do somewhat handily. Kayleth’s use of spike growth shines here.
They find another key in one of the empty rooms, then the corridor ends in a fountain with water that has scum growing on it. They search it carefully, finding nothing, inside and out. Lughausen’s Warhammer is covered in muck after he uses it to search the fountain’s water.
They retreat back to the eight-way intersection and realize they need to back track to the room with the footprints to take another corridor. They find themselves in a room with 8 doors. Khragg picks one and opens it. Inside is a crazed woman in common clothes, locked in because the backside of the door has no latch. She screeches and claws at him ineffectually. They try to talk to her, but it is only after Lughausen plays music that she calms down. But even then, she just sways to the music, staring blankly at the ceiling. She eats and drinks when they offer her some, but otherwise is unreachable. They take a short rest and listen at the other doors, hearing movement behind some.
They try hard to reach the woman, but are unable to and so they resort to tying and gagging her. They open the other doors and find two zombies that are dispatched quickly, three dead bodies, and two more commoners. One of these also attacks Khragg, while the other just sits in the corner and weeps inconsolably. They try to reach them, talk to them, but just can’t get these people to respond. They decide that they must rescue them, but must tie and gag them to drag them forcefully with them as they search for the exit.
Back at the eight-way intersection, they take another passage leading southeast. The first room around a corner has no door and is filled with diseased rats. These rats swarm out and attack the party. Worse, the three unfortunate commoners are bound and restrained in the middle of the party. The rats have an easy time biting these commoners and they are killed and eaten during the fray while the party fights for their lives. Berg, Peril, and Yannic are next to them as they watch the commoners die a horrible death screaming, eaten alive by rats. Yannic’s magic is again useful in destroying great swaths of rats, but even then it takes time to kill them all as they scramble around at their feet.
Afterwards, they debate about trying to revivify the commoners. Lughausen casts speak with dead on the woman and learns that her name was Lina and she was given up as a sacrifice by someone she doesn’t know. She came from a village named Halfskregg. Berg casts revivify, but it doesn’t work. Her soul does not wish to return to her wretched life.
They move on and find a room with a fabulous mural at the end of the corridor.
This mural shows a city with a very large town square that is filled with numerous caravans. It is a-bustle with merchants, they appear to be loading goods on the caravans. The party identifies it as Althofen, Krewald, a pre-cataclysm city of great importance for trade.
On a side street, a group of heroes battles some evil looking priests. The heroes consist of a red-robed wizard with a crystal over one eye, another wizard surrounded by earth elementals, a non-descript wizard shimmering with protective magics, a grey-robed wizard firing a rainbow beam, an armored wizard casting a spell and polymorphing a devil into a cat, and a priest in heavy armor bearing a golden spear. They easily identify Duke Ulrich Grimscht, Stormcloak, and also Smythe Bloodstone. They cannot identify the others.
Attacking them is a veritable army of devils and fiends, apparently summoned by the priests. Destruction rages in the neighboring buildings. And off to one side it is shown that these devils are summoning aid in the form of more devils.
In another panel, the heroes have vanished but the devils continue their destruction of the city. Innocent people are being slain by cackling fiends, fires rage, the army is in disarray.
The last panel shows an older gentleman of a scholarly-bent rallying the army, leading the way back to defeat the fiends. He is surrounded by a golden glow. Behind him appear to be 6 other scholars, 5 men (one has a blue fez and a pince-nez, another looks roguish with a rapier) and 1 woman, who also appear to be assisting in rallying the army. They identify this man as Lord Natas, savior of Althofen over an event which this very mural depicts. He saved the town from being destroyed by devils a long time ago. They also identify the lady as Lady Pine, an assistant of his.
They wonder at the meaning of the mural. Why is it here. Khragg explores the corridor out and finds that it leads to a large room with a silver circle in the room. He backs out and they decide to take a long rest before entering that room.
6/29/1150 – They have no trouble in the night, but Khragg again wakes up looking haunted by a nightmare. He is quite taciturn and angry in the morning. In the room with the circle, Yannic learns that it is indeed a magic circle for summoning and keeping beings contained. They leave it alone. In the opposite wall, four identical passageways lead back west. Khragg picks on and they enter. Halfway down, he steps on a plate that triggers a large boulder that falls upon him. After that Peril goes ahead to search slowly for traps. The four corridors join together to a single corridor. The next room they encounter is empty except the floor is covered in fractures and cracks. They don’t even enter it.
After some turns they refer to their map and see that they should join back up with the 8-way intersection and finish exploring all the choices there. But first they find a room with a locked door. One of Khragg’s keys opens it, revealing an empty room with another mural.
This mural shows an army swarming across a desolate land like locusts led by a gleaming white man in armor. The art is more abstract and not well defined. Behind the army, where they have conquered is depicted as green, lush, and healthy. Lughausen remembers a description of such an army in ancient history, in the very beginnings of Gwynyth Raius. Falloryn I, son of Gorek I the founder of Gwynyth Raius a thousand years ago, conquered lands, including the country of Noreia much like this. This is likely a depiction of that event.
They find themselves next, after some turns and choices at branches, at a locked door. Khragg tries the keys he has found and one opens it. A ghostly old woman is there, but she ignores the party. She walks across the room to another door, makes motions as if to open it and enter. They follow the ghost but find that the door it goes to is locked as well. Peril picks the lock and Khragg sees a small room with the decayed body of an old woman. He enters to search it, and the door slams behind him, locking. He sees no latch on this side, only scratches in the wood as if someone tried to get out. Peril again picks it on the other side. They search the body and find a note:
“I came to learn of my beloved, Olaf. Foolish woman, what did I think accepting this pilgrimage. I can't get out of this room. At least I will be with him.
Think kindly of this old woman.”
They leave her body there and move on. Next they find a room filled with rotting cloth. They search it and recover another key. Then they start up the next corridor and stop short. They hear voices ahead. Peril stealthy scouts it out and finds a room with tables and chairs filled with priests of Arawn. They can hear mundane conversation, then an argument. A loud commanding voice gives orders and restores peace in short order. They decide to march up and see how the priests react. When they are spotted however, the commanding voice is revealed to be a commander priest in plate who says, “Well, lads, it seems that we have drawn the interesting shift. Let's show them the way to Our Mistress!”
They party gets the jump on the priests however. Yannic puts up a wall of force and separates 5 of the priests from the other three, including the commander. Khragg, Kayleth, and Berg engage that commander and despite the healing him and his two priests do to keep him alive, they manage to slay him. Meanwhile, the priests on the other side of the wall have been casting spells like sanctuary and spirit guardians readying for battle the moment the wall of force is dropped. The party also prepare for that moment, backing up, readying actions and spells. Yannic retreats down the corridor when he sees that the priests are ready to target him the moment they can. In his new position only four out of six can target him and Lughausen’s body gives him cover. This is a big help because when the wall drops all four of those priests cast guiding bolt. But they all miss. And Yannic casts another fireball that kills them quickly. The last two are no match for the party, despite managing to revivify their leader for a moment.
After the fight is over, they search the bodies and the room and find nothing but personal items, games, books of light reading, and a few coins. They leave it. Down one of the corridors they find a small room where sleeping pallets are laid out. The last corridor rejoins with areas they have already explored. Now, the entire dungeon level has been explored and they have not discovered a way back up. They know that the priests at least must have a way down and up. They have to search for it the hard way.
They return to various rooms of interest and explore further. The room with cracked floors is finally entered, and the floor promptly collapses under Khragg’s weight and he drops down 10 feet, taking small wounds. The rooms with algae and mold growing are burned with Yannic’s firebolts and thoroughly explored and searched. Corridors near areas on the map that show spaces that might hold another room are searched. They look at each of the murals for hidden keyholes, after realizing that two of the keys they have found thus far have not been used in locks yet.
Finally they return to the labyrinth after they notice that the labyrinth was unusual in that there was a way in but no second way out like most mazes. They begin an extensive search and after a lot of time finally find a secret door in the northeast corner. It leads to a corridor that ends in a room with a locked door. One of the remaining keys fits and beyond they find a spiral stairway leading down.
At the bottom is a small round room with three doors. Scrawled on one of the walls is another message:
"I believe they change this place for each pilgrimage. What I'm finding doesn't match with anything Ulrich told me about his trip.
-Yaltan"
They choose the southeast door and this time Peril is asked to carefully search the floors and doors of each corridor and room that they come across. It slows them down considerably. This door leads to a room with no other exits. They take the southwest door and find that it too ends in a door with no exits, but this time their sharp eyes discern a secret door. Through it they find a corridor that leads to a four-way intersection. They choose a corridor that ends with a door. Khragg opens the door after Peril searches and they find a room with a low 4-ft pedestal. Numerous bodies line the floor and rising from them are three spectral shadowy forms. The party must defend themselves from what Lughausen identifies as shadows that have somehow been bolstered and empowered. Khragg finds out soon enough that their touch drains his life-force and his strength to the point where he can barely hold up his greataxe and wear his armor effectively. The combined efforts of the whole party are necessary to take down the shadows one by one.
They must take a short rest, afterwards Khragg luckily regains his strength. Yannic has found an unusual large coin in the corner of the room. One since has the raised image of an open left-hand. The other side the image of a closed right fist. He detects magic on it, but they delay identifying it for now. They spend some time exploring the pedestal but find nothing noteworthy about it. They go to the next corridor, which leads to a room with three other doors. The first opens to another room with piles of cloth on one side. Khragg neglects to ask Peril to search first and as he strolls to the cloth a trap springs, firing spears. Khragg is hit again on the way out despite avoiding the first trigger plate and triggering another plate. The damage is minor so he shakes it off.
Opening the second door reveals a room with a pair of rancid rot trolls in it. They attack, squeezing through the door and the party to engage most of the group at once. They have an aura of necrotic degeneration which affects everyone around it, but the party discovers that hurting the trolls with fire prevents it from working. Peril finishes each troll in the same manner, in the same location, by luck. A deadly-shot crossbow bolt impales the troll through the chest, blowing out the rancid innards against the wall of the room. They carefully search the room, holding their breath, and discover a scroll case and a glass bottle with an ointment in it. After this battle, they decide that they must rest.
Lughausen identifies a number of items while the others are setting up camp. The coin is a Coin of Choices that allows a yes/no question to be answered once per day. The ointment is Keoghtom’s Ointment that heals damage, poison, and disease. Two other potions are identified that they had procured earlier: a healing potion and a necrotic resistance potion. These are items are divvied out and they rest.
6/30/1150 – After the rest, it appears that Khragg has once again had a rough night. They use the last key in his possession that hasn’t fit a lock on the final door in this room. A long corridor ends in a door that has been barred on this side. As if to keep something in the room beyond. The bar is hinged, and a mechanism keeps the bar in place both in the up and in the down position. They search it for traps and then open it. Beyond is a room with a cracked floor, similar yet different than the one on the level above. This one looks like there are scrap marks, and the cracks don’t run nearly as deep as the one above. Peril, Khragg and Berg enter the room to go to the opposite door after determining that the floor is sold and not trapped. Peril looks at the other door, searches it, and then just as he touches it, the first door slams shut dividing the party. A heavy grinding starts up.
Inside the room, the east and west walls begin inexorably closing it. Peril frantically tries to open the other door but fails. Berg and Khragg both try to smash it open and fail as well. Yannic decides to cast knock on the door which immediately unlocks. As the walls draw closer to the middle of the room, he casts it again on the second door at a distance. The party has to one-by-one scurry through the room to the corridor on the other side. Yannic is the last through with only seconds remaining. All are safe on the other side as the two walls collide with a resounding boom.
They follow the corridor, searching for more traps as they go and come to a room with a giant statue of a man in it. He is an authoritative man in priestly robes holding aloft a gleaming silver longsword. He holds a large thick tome in the other hand. Lughausen searches his memory and determines that this is Erle Jharel, the first priest of Arawn in the year 46 G.R. He holds the Book of Death granted to him by Arawn herself and holds aloft the first longsword of the priesthood also bestowed by her.
One other door exits from this room. A search again, and then Khragg opens it. On the other side is a room with dirty pallets and two ready minotaurs. They swing their greataxes and gore Khragg immediately before he can react. They party battles the minotaurs who recklessly swing their axes and horns at Khragg. They are huge and muscular and are able to weather massive damage that the party throws at them over the course of the battle. Flame strikes, storm spheres, scorching rays, sneak attacks, and other spells are thrown into the room while Khragg, with Berg behind him, hold the doorway and the short narrow corridor. Khragg is knocked unconscious by the last minotaur but the healing magics of the party bring him back around while the last minotaur is finished. They take a short rest. Khragg finds another gleaming silver key on the belt of one of the minotaurs.
They search the room for secret doors and then return back to the four-way intersection. Fortunately, during the short rest they heard a booming noise coming from the room with the cracked floor as the trap reset. Yanic must use another knock spell to get them through again but knowing how it works allows them to get through easily and unscathed.
Going down the last corridor of the intersection they come to a room that has nothing but a single lever on the far back wall. Peril searches his way across the floor but this time notices that there is a strange crack where the floor and walls meet. He exits the room and Yannic uses a mage hand to pull the lever while everyone waits outside the door. The floor immediately drops into icy cold water and the door they are standing it slams closed and locks. They realize they have just avoided another nasty trap.
The corridor continues to one more door. They open it to reveal a square room with one other exit. In the room is a huge boulder made of stone that doesn’t match the rest of the stone in this dungeon. It appears to have dropped through the hole they can see in the ceiling. Sticking out from under the boulder is a skeletal hand, and a sleeve of black cloth. Clearly, someone was crushed under that stone.
Peril goes to the other door to search it for traps. Khragg is the only other one to enter the room at first. Then a creature out of nightmare attacks Peril from the shadowy darkness behind and above the boulder. It was hidden well and surprises him. It looks like a floating brain with ten tentacles and a beak. The tentacles all lash out at Peril and in a moment, he is wrapped up, paralyzed, poisoned, and unconscious. Khragg rushes to the attack and must defend himself against all the poisoned tentacle attacks. Fortunately, he has a strong constitution and does not fall victim to the poison. Berg and the others come to assist, and more resources of the party are spent defeating the monster. Peril is healed at the end and brought back to consciousness.
They are unable to figure out who the pour soul under the boulder might be. After taking a short rest to recover from the battle, they enter through the door beyond to the next area. It leads to a single room with a mural painted on the wall. The mural shows a silvery tree with sharpened branches. Dead bodies are impaled upon the branches that bleed down to the ground where the roots appear to be drinking it up in a gruesome cycle.
They leave and believing that they have explored this whole area, return to the central room with the three doors and go southeast again, knowing that they found a secret door in the southwest room. After renewed searching, they find it and enter a corridor that leads to a four-way intersection. They choose the right-hand path and come to a room that is finely furnished with a bed, a couch, a rug, and even plants in the corners. Peril had heard whimpering behind the door at first and once they have entered, they find a beautiful scantily clad woman hiding behind the couch. She asks them to save her, and the party asks who she is.
Berg uses his divine sense and then discerns the presence of a fiend. During those first few moments of talking and divining, the girl had been pleading and turning an imploring look at first Berg, then Yannic, and finally Khragg. As Berg yells that a fiend is present, Khragg suddenly pushes to the front and enters the room saying that they must save her. Berg is now determined to get to the girl to smite her and realizes that something isn’t right with Khragg so gives him a wide berth as Khragg looks ready to strike anyone who gets close.
The girl just cowers as the rest enter the room and scatter around confused and uncertain about what is happening. Berg is unable to take a swing at her because of the distance covered, and this allows Khragg time to get next to the girl. He shoves Berg back away from her, and in gratitude she gives Khragg a kiss. Afterwards he looks weakened.
Berg can now attack with his spear. Peril fires a crossbow but doesn’t do sneak attack damage. Yannic uses magic missiles which have an effect on her. She looks healthier than they first thought, and weapon blows that should hit, don’t. Lughausen attempts to turn undead, but she is not that and nothing happens. She is able to kiss Khragg a couple more times and Khragg in turn starts striking at Berg with his axe doing great damage.
Then the girl shifts form into a fiend with horns, black armor, a whip, and a longsword and she starts also attacking Berg. Fortunately, the rest of the party’s damage takes her down before Khragg slices Berg to bits. Khragg at last shakes off the domination effect. They find that she carried a gold key that they take.
They are tapped, and this room looks quite comfortable. So they take a long rest.
7/1/1150 – In the morning they return to the corridors. At the four-way intersection they see that one way leads to a door that has a lock. They take the other direction. They find a room that has a strange black handprint (left) on the wall. It has left an indentation. Khragg risks putting his hand on it after everyone examines it. Nothing appears to happen. He moves on to the next door and goes through. They find a room with four open sarcophagi, each holding the moldering remains of a priest of Arawn. Lughausen tries to turn undead but finds that nothing happens. When they enter and search, the bodies do not move. For once, the expected doesn’t happen. Khragg pushes on again to the next corridor.
They next encounter a room with another vast mural on the wall.
This mural shows a large walled city under siege by a dark army. The walls are pure white, and white banners fly from the castle in the center of the city. In the topmost tower a window is shown with a green glow emanating from it. Manning the walls are men in white glowing armor plus a number of red-robed wizards.
The surrounding army all wears black armor and appears to have been comprised of slaves. There are also battalions of undead led by black-cowled necromancers. But the leadership of the besieging army are armored in plate that glows with a dull black sinister aura. The army looks like it will overwhelm the city.
But this army is also about to be attacked from behind by 5 separate armies.
The first is primary cavalry with wild looking clansman upon them, identified by the party as Tinagellians with some other countries.
The second is comprised entirely of elves. The grand queen Flacia is upon a magnificent white destrier leading the charge.
The third is an army led by a blue-robed conjurer with a crown upon his head. Other blue-robed conjurers are in command of hundreds of monsters. This is the conjurer-king Butard.
The fourth is a more traditional-looking army wearing various colors and flags of the countries from the northeast island of Taius.
The last is an even more ragtag group of flags and groups that seem to work together but act independently from each other, which they remember as having come from countries from Vaius.
This is the siege of Arhus. They are unable to figure out why there would be a green glow coming from a tower in the castle.
Khragg hangs back this time and Berg takes the lead on the next corridor. At the end is a door and beyond is a room that is totally black. The walls, floor, and ceiling have been coated in a thick black substance. Lights work, but are muted because of the colors and lack of reflections. Yannic bravely steps into the room, followed by Berg. Then the rest of the party except for Khragg who is hanging back.
A moment later, Kayleth suddenly draws her scimitars and attempts to slit her wrists. A quick-thinking Berg is able to get to her and stop her. Yannic, panicking about the room forges ahead through the door on the other side, finding a corridor. He urges everyone to rush through the room. However, Peril, Lughausen, and Khragg all linger behind. Yannic thinks that going forward is the only way, and he follows the corridor and finds that it ends in a locked door. Khragg has the keys, but he has not come up to the front yet.
So Yannic casks knock, and the door unlocks. Berg has caught up by now and he opens the door. It reveals an octagonal room which contains a large tree. The tree appears to be dead; there are no leaves on the branches. Many of the branches have been sharpened to points. Upon the tree are three bodies. The first is dead and appears to have been a wizard. He has robes on. The second is muscular and has many scars and is also dead. The third is also muscular but not so many scars. He is not entirely dead. He is quite handsome. He moans and weakly calls for help.
Berg says he is going forward, but Yannic and also Kayleth are going back to find the rest. As they return, Khragg has finally crossed the room and is in the corridor. However, Peril has suddenly drawn a dagger and slit his own throat. He falls to the ground bleeding to death. Lughausen has pulled out a pen and paper and is writing his last will and testament furiously. Kayleth manages to get to Peril a few moments later and stabilizes him with healing magic. Yannic re-enters the room just as Lughausen pulls out a mug and mixes up some kind of poisonous concoction. Yannic grabs at his arm but Lughausen manages to drink it anyway. He gets violently ill. They drag Peril and Lughausen out of the room. Kayleth recalls suddenly feeling suicidal, as does Peril and Lughausen. But it has passed.
Meanwhile, Berg has rushed into help the impaled man. He manages to get the body off the branch and heals him. The man says his name is Zachary Dennington and he is from Gwynyth Raius. Khragg walks past them and starts opening up two of the doors in the room. These open up to two smaller rooms that have equipment thrown into one corner. He finds a key that he pockets.
Everyone regathers in the tree room to take a short rest. Zachary recovers his lute from the pile of equipment and plays it gently while everyone rests. He also tells them his story.
He tells the party that he is from distant Gwynyth Raius where he served in the court of the King Bannok I. There he fell afoul of court intrigue over the hand of the beautiful princess Daella. A rival, Sir Crispin hired thugs and kidnapped him right after a court dinner where the wine flowed freely. He was making his way to his room to compose a poem he would deliver to the princess the following day when he was attacked by ruffians in the very halls of the palace! Eight dark masked men jumped him. He managed to dispatch five, five!, of them with his wits and his blade, but they finally knocked him unconscious. He awoke here in the High Temple laying upon the altar with the sword of Arawn hanging over him, trussed up. Sir Crispin leaned over him leering and asking the high priest to sacrifice him to Arawn so that Sir Crispin might win the hand of the princess and one day be king! Oh, how Zachary swore his vengeance! Zachary cursed Sir Crispin most eloquently and beseeched the high priest. It looked at first as though it would convince the priest, and then Sir Crispin's lackey, the evil evoker wizard Balrich stepped out of the shadows.
Oh, how much evil that wizard had done! He was said to be responsible for many a torture and disappearance of noble knights over the years. Old and crooked, this wizard is in league with Duke Crispin (Sir? Duke? I'm sure I said Duke before!) and is bent on seeing him on the throne to extend their evil rule! The wizard cast a spell upon the high priest and darkness clouded over my eyes and my sentence was pronounced! I awoke here on this tree in agony until you good people came to rescue me.
Rested and the story told, Yannic is eager to one day visit Gwynyth Raius and see the state of the country. Zachary tells them that Gwynyth Raius is but a shadow of its former glory, comprising only a few cities and towns around Arhus. Yannic searchs the equipment and finds a spellbook that once belonged to Hadrukar Vantroth, the poor soul who is impaled on the tree. He takes the book for later spell scribing.
Certain that they have searched this southeastern area. They head back to the central chamber and then take the north door. It leads to a room with no exits. Knowing that they must have missed something, they start searching anew. After a time, they find a secret door that they had overlooked before in the northern room. Beyond is a corridor. Khragg takes the lead, just going on ahead with little regard to his safety.
They come to a room with four faces carved on the wall and two doors. Peril finds no traps inspecting the northern of the two doors. Khragg touches it to open it and suddenly shrieks emanate from all four heads. Everyone is deafened. A few moments later first Berg and then Khragg shake it off, but the others don’t. They move down the hall to rest a bit. Ten minutes later Lughausen shakes it off. Khragg then suddenly goes ahead down the corridor. He finds that it ends in a room with another mural.
This one shows a robed wizard battling a large serpentine creature with wings. The robes of the wizard are varying shades of red. Around the creature are the smoking bodies of its young. They identify it as a red dragon but are unable to identify the man. They sit in the room to take a short rest. After an hour both Zachary and Kayleth shake off the deafness, but it remains in Peril and Yannic.
Khragg suddenly leaves and starts exploring on his own as they are at the end of their rest. He goes back to the room with the screaming heads and goes to the other door. It has a lock on it, and Khragg must dig through his keyring to find one of the silver keys to open it. One he hadn’t used yet. Beyond is a corridor. He goes up to report his findings, then goes back to explore more. He opens the door at the other end to reveal a room with a small pillar in it with a rounded top. In that room are three priests in pale robes. They yell, “Him! It must have been him!” and get quite hostile. Khragg slams the door and retreats.
Meanwhile, Berg is disturbed that Khragg has gone off on his own and starts getting everyone moving out. Khragg’s retreat, their advance, and the hostile wizards all meet in the room with the screaming heads and the corridor in between. The priests have had some time to cast some spells including spirit guardians. There are a series of readied actions as no one wants to be the first to get the attention of all the enemies at once.
Khragg leans around the corner and magical bolts fly out at him and miss. Then Kayleth moves into position to see down the corridor and is attacked as well. The party returns fire and Yannic’s fireball and Khragg’s thrown axes kill the first priest and wound the other. The war priest in charge is much tougher and he returns fire with a flame strike on Peril, Yannic, and Kayleth. The other regular priest is soon slain and the war priest is seriously hurt by the time Berg and Khragg engage with melee weapons and take him down.
Khragg then goes into the room where the priests were. Lughausen and then the others follow. Both Lughausen and Khragg notice handprints on the top of the column. Khragg suddenly reaches out and touches his hand to it. Then he turns to the party and asks, “Who are you? Where are we? Who am I?”
It appears that his memory is gone. Yannic and Peril are still deaf and a bit in the dark about what is going on. The rest try to talk to Khragg to calm him down and explain what is going on. Lughausen casts a legend lore ritual on the pillar but gets no information. Yannic finally catches on casts a detect magic ritual.
Khragg gets increasingly agitated about these people he apparently doesn’t know. He touches the pillar again, defying their assertion that it has done something bad to him. After the third such touching, he loses his memory again of the last 20 minutes.
They continue to study the pillar and Khragg edges his way to the door that Berg is blocking. He suddenly shoves Berg, and after the second try gets past him and starts running down the hall. Kayleth tries to stop him with entangle, but he shakes the roots off.
Khragg leads the party on a chase through the dungeon. Fortunately, even though he doesn’t remember the way, his random turns take him back to the center where the stairs up are. He doesn’t blunder into any rooms that haven’t been explored yet.
Various attempts have been made to calm Khragg. Even to grab him and keep him from running away. Lughausen resorts to casting fly on himself with the instrument of the bards, and then after a few attempts, manages to land a suggestion on Khragg, suggesting that “his best course of action to escape this dungeon is with his friends (i.e., us).” He stops running and everyone breathes a sigh of relief.
They opt to forge ahead for there are two more doors in this area that haven’t been opened. Khragg opens the first and beyond an antechamber, finds another room in which they find a number of wights surrounding an unconscious elf, preparing to feast. Three of the wights are of a different variety, more sinister and powerful looking. These cast misty step to move outside to attack the party members in the back while Khragg tries to hold the door against the rest. The tactic proves somewhat successful as the other wights are kept at bay. Once Lughausen uses the power of Epolde to turn the undead away, the battle’s tide is turned and they save the unconscious elf.
Her name is Elowynn, they discover once she awakes after Lughausen’s healing. She tells her story of how she found her way down here and offers to join up with the others to make her escape as well. There are no objections.
There is one more door to explore. Beyond, they see an empty room with a sarcophagus against the far wall. Upon the lid is the form of a woman in robes. Khragg, Berg, and Elowyn enter to examine it while Lughausen stands in the doorway with the others behind. As soon as Khragg touches the sarcophagus, the door slams shut and there is utter silence from the room.
Afterwards, when they relate what they experienced, this is what happened. Each of the three in the room saw the other two impaled on spikes that suddenly rose from the floor. The damage was so extensive that they were killed immediately, and it was only lifeless corpses that were suspended on the spikes. The room was also filled with a magical silence, preventing speech. It was an illusion, but for a few moments, it was enough to shock the three of them. Khragg was the first to just ease his way to the door and open it. Lughausen saw the three of them dead on spikes at that point when the door was opened, but then saw the real Khragg after he exited the room. Berg and Elowyn followed a few moments later, but it looked so real. Khragg was so taken by the illusion that he never saw past it to reality until after all three were out and the door was closed. They also determined that there wasn’t anything else interesting in the room.
The party has another short discussion about perhaps leaving right now by reversing their course and attempting to climb or fly out of the pit they jumped into back up a couple of levels. They have, by virtue of their mapping, found all the rooms that they can on this level and there is no way down. They also have the problem of Yannic and Peril still being deaf, and Khragg having no memory. In some ways, they feel like there is no point in continuing if Khragg has no reason too. They decide that they will stay one more night at the least and see if things are better in the morning.
However, it is not quite time to rest yet, so they begin the long meticulous search for secret doors in likely areas. Eventually, they find one in the room with the prisoner lady that turned out to be a fiend. Beyond they find a room and corridors that lead back to a wedge-shaped room in the very center. Inside is a lever against the wall. After some searching and deliberation, they pull it and hear a solid thunk sound of something engaging. They search again to see if something has changed but find nothing anywhere in the dungeon.
They search more rooms and again find another secret door that they missed, this time in the room with the pillar that took Khragg’s memories. This also leads to an identical wedge-shaped room with a lever. Pulling that creates another mechanical sound. They reason that there must be a third room, and more searching finally reveals it in the room with the statue of the old high priest. A third lever is thrown and then an area in the floor opens up revealing a spiral staircase leading down.
Rather than take it right away, they take a long rest and set up camp in the room with the couch.
7/2/1150 – Khragg wakes up from more nightmares, but this time are vague. He asks the party about the strange silver disk that was in his hand when he awoke. They know it is from the pilgrimage but tell him little, so he tosses it away. Elowynn recovers it out of curiosity. Yannic and Peril are still deaf in the morning, and Khragg’s memory has not returned.
Berg casts lesser restoration on Yannic and his hearing is restored. Seeing that, they reason that another must be cast on Peril and perhaps a greater restoration might help Khragg. Kayleth is able to catch this before she prepares her spells, so she prepares them and casts it. Peril’s hearing is restored, and so is Khragg’s memories at last.
Khragg, now that he is restored, realizes that something is still not quite right. He tells them that he feels nothing. No anger, no sadness, happiness, or anything at all. Ever since he put his hand on that handprint on the wall. Lughausen offers to cast remove curse tomorrow since he doesn’t have it prepared today.
They finally descend to another level of the dungeon pilgrimage. More corridors, rooms are ahead. The first room they come to has a locked door. None of Khragg’s keys work, so Peril picks it. Beyond is a series of three rooms. When Khragg opens the door to the third room, the whole group of rooms are plunged in magical darkness, extinguishing all light sources. The door with the lock also slams closed. Something moves in the dark and attacks the party.
Fortunately, it misses on its surprise round. Yannic, quick-thinking, casts dispel magic to remove the darkness. This allows those with darkvision to somewhat see. The others have to wait until light spells can be cast on objects.
The creatures, two of them, are some sort of horrific undead with massively long claws on their hands, with a full 15 ft reach. The first creature grabs Khragg and grapples him, doing massive damage. The second has somehow teleported through the darkness to be behind the party in the first room. It grabs Elowynn from where she was firing her bow.
Berg and Khragg fight the first while the rest of the party goes to Elowynn’s aid on the other creature. Kayleth and Lughausen must spend healing spells keeping her alive while Yannic and Peril do damage. Zachary goes invisible on the first round of combat, much like he had done with the wights.
After Khragg’s and Berg’s attacks, the first creature is nearly destroyed, so it drops Khragg and teleports away back with the other creature, hiding stealthily. It attempts to grab Lughausen when he enters the room to heal Elowynn, but Lughausen kills it. The second creature also teleports away once it is surrounded and wounded, but the party is relentless and at last it is slain.
A search produces a strange crystal hourglass. Lughausen determines it is not an artifact of Epolde. They take a short rest during which Yannic does a ritual detect magic to learn that it is indeed magical. Then Lughausen does a ritual identify to learn that it is a time bomb. The time can be set and a command word will have the hourglass explode in a fireball.
They move down the next corridor and find a door that is hot to the touch. Elowynn hears crackling behind it. They reason that there is fire there. Khragg opens it just as Lughausen is suggesting he cast protection from energy. Inside the room is a lava pit and four salamanders who attack. Khragg fights in the doorway, and the narrow corridor prevents all but three of the party from fighting. Khragg is grappled by the salamander’s tail on two occasions. He breaks free the first time, but the second he is dragged into the room and into the lava pit. The remaining three salamanders surround him and it looks grim indeed as he goes unconscious in the lava.
The rest of the party has to think quick before the lava consumes the unconscious Khragg. Yannic is able to cast a high-powered ice storm spell on the salamanders who are indeed vulnerable to the cold, doing massive damage. Then Elowynn’s arrows, Peril’s crossbow, and Berg’s longspear kill them while Kayleth is able to drag Khragg out in the nick of time for Lughausen to heal him.
After a short rest, Khragg recovers enough to carry on. They go down the corridor to the left after leaving the lava room. This corridor ends in a door and Peril can hear a howling noise behind it, like the wind. Khragg braces himself as best as he can and opens the door. The wind is intense, enough to blast through the hallway and knock several of the party prone. The room is at first empty, with another door on the other side. Peril goes in first, followed by Berg, Khragg, and then Elowynn. However, there are two air elementals flying around in the winds and they attack.
One engulfs Peril Elowynn and Khragg, sending Peril flying into Kayleth. However, two elementals aren’t much of a challenge and it is only a few moments of focused fire, despite having to fight the strong winds that knock the heroes prone periodically, when the two elementals are destroyed. It is difficult to get across with the winds, so they must go carefully and singly into the corridor beyond the second door. However, on the way they notice a wooden box bolted to the ceiling the middle of the room. Khragg throws axes at it, and then Elowynn shoots arrows until the box splits and the contents spill out. Unfortunately, one of those things was a glass bottle containing a potion that smashes on the floor. The other two items are a golden key and a ring, which are picked up the people as they pass through.
Beyond that room the corridor splits in three directions. They take the left corridor first, which ends in a door down a short way. They carefully open the door and find a room whose floor is cracked much like the room upstairs. Khragg spots something glittering in the far corner. Khragg carefully makes his way along the wall towards it. When he gets there, the floor bursts open and a young remorhaz attacks him, glowing with burning heat. Peril, Elowynn, Kayleth and Berg rush in to help Khragg. A moment later, as the young creature is wounded, an adult remorhaz bursts through the ground in the rear, attacking the heroes who had stayed back to use ranged weapons. Tougher and larger than the offspring, it attacks Lughausen, grabbing him in its jaws and then a moment later swallowing him whole. Desperate to save their comrade, the heroes unleash greater power as swiftly as possible, until the creature and its offspring were slain. Berg was able to crawl in and retrieve Lughausen’s unconscious form before the stomach acid killed him.
Another short rest later, and after retrieving the glittering necklace in the corner, they press on. The next corridor leads to an empty room with two doors. The first opens to a room with a mural upon the wall. The mural on these walls depicts a dark blasted landscape outside walls of black stone extending up to the limit of the image. In front of these walls a horde of undead seethes. All manner of horror can be seen.
A handful of priests in moon-colored robes desperately face the enemy, brandishing longswords that emit a moon-colored light. The undead seem somewhat deterred, but it is clear that the priests will be overwhelmed.
The priests stand in a loose circle around a fierce-looking armored man. He wields a flaming battleaxe and is engaged in battle with a horrible looking undead. Withered arms on this being are raised emanating black lightning that is striking down hapless priests and the armored figure as well. The hero seems grievously wounded, but he battles on with his axe.
The enemy's eyes glow with malignant light, but he shows fiery rents in his chest where the axe has struck. Lughausen and Yannic identify the man as Yaltan, easily done because of the notes and the statue outside. His foe is Aleksandr, the lich servant of Tuoo.
The next door holds a room that stinks. Three cyclops have been chained to the wall with manacles about their ankles. They attack. Berg tries to talk to them in the giant language, and they only answer that they must kill them to escape. Some ranged spells and weapons soften them up and then the rest of the party advances into the room to make short work of the enemy. A search through the refuse and bedding of the cyclops yields a magical flute. There are two doors out of this room, and the one they choose leads to another empty chamber after a few twists and turns. There is a door in this room unlike any other door they have seen so far. It is made of stone and it has an intricate golden lock. Above the lock is a gold panel with a tree etched in it. Beside the door is writing carved into the wall:
"Beyond this door is probably something really nasty. Be prepared! I almost wasn't. Fuck this pilgrimage."
-Yaltan
They decide that now would be a good time to take another long rest. Lughausen and Yannic conduct rituals to learn that they have found a ring of glibness, flute of illusion, and necklace of adaptation. These are distributed and they rest.
7/3/1150 – In the morning, Lughausen is able to cast remove curse upon Khragg and restore his emotions. They are ready to see what is behind the stone door. Fortunately, they discover that they have the correct key – one found near the tree upstairs where they rescued Zachary. A short corridor opens up into a circular room with another fabulous mural upon the wall: This one depicts two armies facing each other, one with Arawn at the head and the other with a black-robed wizard surrounded by black power. Lughausen identifies him as Taeddon, the founder of the wizard school of Necromancy. He also remembers reading that Taeddon had at one time stolen Arawn’s sword and wielded it. She got it back somehow, and this mural depicts a confrontation between them.
Across the room is another set of double stone doors. At chest height is a circular indentation just the size as the silver disc that Khragg has been carrying all this time. He inserts it and the doors open. It drops back into his hand and they enter the corridor beyond. It goes on for almost a mile, descending the whole time. It enlarges and gets rough and natural gradually. It ends in a vast cavern in utter darkness and silence with rocky and uneven ground. Dead trees and other fungus are scattered about. How they could ever have been alive is a mystery, but they aren't now. There is a distant sound of water running. Otherwise, all is silent. No glow can be seen. They search for tracks and find some in the dusty ground. Old tracks leading straight out into the darkness. They follow them.
After a time they encounter a nearly dried up stream. It is trivial to step across it. The ground is muddy and smells of decay that clinged to their boots. That same smell and sense of decay persists throughout their journey across the large cavern. How the large cavern is supported is anyone's guess. The ceiling and walls extend beyond any lightsource they create.
They feel an ominous presence out there, in the middle of the cavern. As they got farther into the cavern, they felt like they are being watched. Eyes are upon them, yet they can see nothing the darkness. Nothing moves.
They reach what they feel is the center of the cavern. A hole is in the ground about 15 feet in diameter. It is too deep to see the bottom with conventional light. They search around and find a rock with wear marks as if from rope. They tie together 100 feet of rope and tie it there. Khragg lowers himself into the hole first. It drops 100 feet before leveling off and descending normally for walking. Continuing down this tunnel they enter another cavern, several hundred feet size. Terraces must be traversed to get down into the cavern, but they are only 5-10 feet high. However, before they get far, the walls to either side suddenly sprout spectral tentacles that grab and hold several of the party. There is something here!
Most of the party escape and start going into the cavern to find the foe. Only Elowyn and Zachary the bard are still caught, but then the tentacles fade away. Instead a whole area of ground erupts in tentacles and spectral eyes that is difficult to cross. Then powerful rays shoot out of the darkness striking the heroes. Peril is heavily wounded with necrotic power. Then Khragg is hit with a ray that slowly turns him into stone. Lughausen is hit with a fear ray, then Elowynn is hit with a ray that paralyzes her.
At last, the remaining heroes advance far enough that their light reveals a giant floating skeletal head – a death tyrant! An undead beholder with vast powers, and they have entered its domain. Powerful rays emanate from momentarily appearing spectral eyes. The tyrant fires eye rays constantly, even when the heroes are taking their actions. Berg is nearly petrified too but fights it off. Kayleth gets to Khragg and restores him to life. Lughausen surrounds the creature with a plague of stinging insects, then Yannic encase it in an otiluke’s resilient sphere. This changes the tide of the battle. It allows everyone to get into position and ready their actions in a furious fusillade. In a moment, the creature is destroyed.
They catch their breath, and then search the cavern. They find a vast treasure pile filled with gold and platinum coins, potions, and two more magic items: a deck of cards and a pair of goggles. They also find another tunnel leading out. The collect the treasure and take this tunnel.
The tunnel from the chamber goes down and gets more and more oppressive and dark despite their light. All is silent except a distant dripping sound. At last the chamber levels off and opens almost suddenly into another vast chamber. In the very center, a mere 100 feet away is a massive tree. Its roots break through the stone floor like holding boulders and rocks in a hand. The very wood of the tree has broken through the solid rock. If one were to attempt to climb the tree, one would have to climb the jagged and jumbled boulders first.
These boulders and the entire ground under the tree are stained with dark marks, dry now for the most part. An occasional wet drip can be heard from anywhere under the tree periodically.
The trunk has a diameter of at least 20 feet, as big as any sequoia in our world. It extends beyond the light in height. The bark is a silvery grey, with a very slight shimmer, and it looks thick and craggy. Towards the bottom they note that is scarred, perhaps with old blade marks that the bark has grown over.
The branches extend as any other normal tree, but each branch ends in a sharp spike. There are a multitude of them. Their first look at the branches revealed them to be empty. However, after a moment, out of the corner of one's eyes they almost look like they are blooming with giant red flowers.
The atmosphere here is still and silent, cold and waiting. Their breath mists in front of them. The tree looks completely lifeless yet vibrant and more there than they can put their finger on.
Khragg knows that this is what he was here for. He starts climbing the boulders to reach the tree. He hears another drip of liquid and spots a fresh drop of blood. The drop is seeping into the cracks in the rocks to be absorbed by the tree in some sort of bizarre cycle. He touches the wood and stares off into space for a few moments. When he removes his hand, he falls to his knees and weeps. It is the first time the party has seen him cry.
He says that his mentor Ulfgar is dead. Karzhad has killed him. He knows the truth at last and has gained wisdom. He also swears revenge on Karzhad. Ulfgar will be avenged. He tells his companions that he has also learned that Karzhad has obtained a magical axe that causes wounds that cannot be healed. It is how Ulfgar was slain, with a tiny nick from the axe.
He advises them that they too should touch the wood to gain knowledge. He feels at peace now.
One by one the rest of the party approaches the tree and touches it.
After a few moments, they gather again. No one wants to talk about what they experienced by touching the wood at this time. But each felt or saw something. For now, they decide to take some time for a short rest, then turn their attention to how they are getting out of this place. Khragg feels like he has reached his goal and he is more than ready to find the way out. The trouble is that no one knows where that may be.
They search the perimeter of the room with the tree and find no exits, nor do they see any additional tracks down here going someplace new. They wonder if they must climb the tree to get out but dismiss that idea for now and continue backtracking. In the death tyrant lair, they gather up the treasure and find no other exits. They had left the rope leading down into the hole, so they climb up and search for tracks. They do find a very old set of tracks leading in a different direction out in the darkness of the huge cavern. They follow them.
They again pass over the old dried up stream. The cavern is still dead and silent as they trudge through the dust and remains of this dead underground forest. However, they no longer have that feeling of being watched. Perhaps because the death tyrant had been destroyed. Finally, they reach the cavern wall. Another search for tracks leads them in one direction over another and then they reach another tunnel leading out of the cavern. They follow it and much like the long tunnel that led them down here, this one goes back up. First being a rough wide natural tunnel and then narrowing and becoming more worked by hand until it becomes a 5-foot-wide passageway of stone blocks again just like the previous levels.
They reach a Y-intersection and choose the left passage. Then they come to the first door on the right-hand side. Peril searches it and finds it clear of traps and even locks. This becomes the normal procedure from now on. Khragg opens it and finds a L-shaped room with a low 2-half-foot stone block of a pedestal with a round stone disk carved in the top. He notices scratch-marks on the floor on one side. Everyone but Yannic, Kayleth, and Zachary enter the room. Khragg surmises that the pedestal moves, and he puts his back to it and succeeds in shoving it aside. When that happens a huge 25-foot stone block drops from the ceiling closing the L part of the room and the exit out. Fortunately, no one was standing underneath it when it dropped. Under the pedestal is a small niche that holds a gold key and a wand. Khragg takes them. Then pushes the pedestal back. However, the stone block does not move.
They search for secret doors, mechanisms, and other ways that might allow them to leave the room but find nothing. A sharp-eyed Lughausen notices that the torches aren’t burning as bright as they were when they entered. It appears that there is no new fresh air coming in. Their time is running out. They search the niche, they look everywhere, they push and pull and try to rotate the pedestal in other directions. Lughausen spends an identify spell on the wand and learns that it is a wand of secrets that reveals secret doors and traps. He uses it and learns that the only secret in the room is the pedestal and the niche. More searching and they feel that the niche might be magical in some way, so it is beyond Peril’s ability to manipulate.
Then they have the idea of putting the wand back in the niche and closing the pedestal. Nothing happens. Then they put the key back too and when they push the pedestal back, the stone block finally lifts. Knowing this, they try swapping the key with another key that they have already used and it works. They now have the new key, but the wand is left behind. They gratefully move on from this room.
The pass by a side passage then come to a right-hand turn in the passage they are taking. Another door is to the right and beyond it they find an empty room with a mural on the wall: This mural shows armies of barbarians, dressed in wild looking outfits, attacking a smaller, but more organized army of the Gwynyth Raius. The army looks greatly outnumbered, but as the mural goes from image to image, they can tell that the fierce barbarians are not a match for the organized force of Gwynyth Raius. Their armor protects them, and their mounted knights are practically invincible to the infantry barbarians. Lughausen identifies the time period as being almost 700 years ago when Gwynyth Raius was expanding its borders.
Moving on they pass by another passage to the right and then they take another right-turn. Next is another door to the right. Behind it is a room where the floor is covered in a strange swirling green mist, totally obscuring it. The room has another exit. Oddly, the mist does not flow out of the room through the door or the passage. They do not enter it and continue straight. Another side passage to the right is passed by, then they reach another door. This one leads to a T-shaped room that has a table and some barrels in it. Two more ways out, a passage and a door are skipped for now.
Continuing down the passage they reach another right turn after a time. Then a door that opens into an empty room. Further on, they reach another door on the right-hand side of the passage. This opens into a room with a fireplace, chairs, a rug, and even side tables next to the chairs. A fire burns in the fireplace. It looks cozy and comfortable. They take a closer look and see that the fireplace has no chimney and the fire is an illusion. The feeling of warmth they felt was from their expectations, not anything real. The room has two exits that they ignore for now. They go back to the original passage and push on.
Another door on the right leads to a room with another door in the very far right corner. Before going there, they find that the passage goes for just a bit more and then joins up with the original Y intersection that they started at. The passageway they had followed formed a square with all of the interesting places inside. They had traversed the perimeter clockwise, which is why all the doors and passages were on the right.
They go back to the room with the door in the corner. Beyond it is an L-shaped room. The floor of this room is covered with long, nasty looking spikes. The spikes are very close together and are of differing heights, making it nearly impossible to step in between them. Khragg leans out and looks into the far corner and spots a small sack. Lughausen casts levitation upon him from the lute and they tie a rope to him. He easily gets to the sack by pulling himself along the ceiling and wall. The sack contains a one-inch cube with different colored faces and a potion. Lughausen identifies the cube. It merely sheds light of the chosen color in a 20-ft radius when you press a face of the cube.
Backtracking again, they go to the room with the comfortable chairs and take one of the passages. It leads to another room that is seemingly empty. Khragg strides across and triggers a tripwire. A blade slashes out from corner to corner cutting him deeply. He chastises Peril for failing to search the room. From now on, Peril will be searching the floors more carefully ahead of Khragg. The door that Khragg was going to is different from all the previous doors on this level. This one is reinforced and has a gold lock. Khragg tries the key from the room with the pedestal and it fits.
Beyond is a passage leading to yet another empty room with two ways out. One being a locked door. Khragg finds that they key from the room where they fought the air elementals opens it. Beyond it they find a room with a spiral staircase leading up. They debate for a few minutes and decide that they won’t go up yet. They want to explore the rest of this level and take a long rest before taking the stairs. They continue backtracking now. They confirm that the other way out of the room leads to another locked door to which the key from the pedestal room fits again. This loops around and connects back to the comfortable room. They decide to take the long rest now.
7/4/1150 – Nothing interrupts them and when they awake, they feel refreshed and have achieved level 11. Khragg has his first good nights sleep in weeks with no nightmares. They move on. They return to the T-shaped room with the table and go through the door. It opens to a room with three doors in the far wall. Behind the right-most it a small room. Something shiny glints on the far wall directly ahead. Peril goes in to look at it for traps and unfortunately triggers one. The door slams shut and the room fills with gas. It causes him to fall to the floor laughing hysterically. Khragg breaks the door down and retrieves him. It takes a minute for Peril to recover. The shiny object on the wall turned out to be nothing more than a silver piece nailed to the stone. The next two doors hold similar shiny coins on the wall and probably more traps that the party avoids.
Next, they encounter a round room with a pillar of fire in the center, radiating scorching heat. This one is not an illusion, but moving quickly and hugging the wall, Khragg and then the rest of the party is able to avoid getting burned. Beyond is a room with a mural on the wall:
In this mural, the sky is filled with dragons as far as the eye can see. All manner of dragonkind is represented. They see black, green, red, brass, bronze, silver, and other colors not familiar. How the chromatic and the metallic dragons get along and not fight is a mystery.
The sharp-eyed among the party noticed that a silver dragon appears to be in a position of strength, perhaps leading, and upon its back is a rider. This is the only dragon with a rider. It is an armored man, depicted with a kind of holy aura Lughausen identifies him as Eldrin Dragonfriend. He disappeared shortly after the events of this mural. Where or how the dragons came is unclear, but this was just before the founding of New Draconia.
The dragons are attacking the countryside, ravaging it with all their various breath weapons and sheer numbers. Behind them is a burning city, and ahead lies another. People are shown on the ground scattering in panic before the onslaught.
Peril, Berg, and Khragg know that New Draconia is to the east of the lands that they come from, but little is known of that area.
Pushing on, they come next to a passage that widens to 10-feet and ends in double bronze doors. Upon the double bronze doors is a design of two skeletal horses rearing facing each other. The room is shaped like a cross, creating niches. In each of the niches are piles of bones. Mostly arms and legs including hands and feet. There are a few rib bones, pelvises, and skulls scattered as well but only a few. In the center is a quartering table where it looks like bodies were cut apart and thrown into the corners. They leave the room without searching it further, feeling disquieted about what transpired here.
The last room on this level contains one more mural: This mural depicts a strange scene. A man cloaked all in black robes and veils stands at the gates of a city. He is wearing a strange amulet and he is cackling with glee as he summons shadows from the city, and those shadows fall upon the citizenry, who try to flee in panic. But they cannot flee their own shadows that are attacking them. It is indeed a picture of death and horror. They do not learn anything from this mural.
At last it is time to ascend. They arrive in a round room with a single door. Beyond is a room with curved walls and two doors which each lead to other curved rooms. These curved rooms form a concentrate circle that encloses the first room with the stairs that led them here. Only one of the rooms has a door in the outer wall that leads to another series of chambers that form yet another, larger concentric circle. Here, after a series of empty rooms, they open the door to a room that has a statue in it. The statue is made of metal and is in the form of a lizard-like beast with sharp scales and a spine of blades. The head of the creature has no eyes. No one identifies it, but they are afraid of it animating and attacking. However, as Khragg approaches it and then passes it to get to the next door, it does not move.
Then just as Khragg is reaching for the door handle with Berg at his side, the statue vanishes and reappears at the back of the party where Peril and Lughausen are. Peril gets away and shoots his crossbow at it, Lughausen creates his spiritual weapon, Kayleth attempts to freeze it with frostbite and Yannic attempts to destroy it with his first casting of disintegrate, but it resists. Then it roars which damages everyone badly and also stuns everyone but Elowynn, Khragg, and Peril. Khragg is too far to get there quickly and both Elowynn and Peril try to shoot it again. Berg shakes off the stun after one round.
The steel predator roars again and this time Elowynn and Peril are stunned, leaving only Berg and Khragg free to act. Khragg is finally there and begins swinging his magical greataxe using his action surge for more attacks. Berg casts his spiritual weapon and uses his spear. The steel predator takes wounds but is not destroyed easily. It starts biting and clawing at Khragg. Lughausen shakes free of the stunning effect and heals Khragg. Zachary also breaks free and tries a shatter, but it resists. Then the steel predator regains its roar ability and uses it a third time. Now things are looking very bad. Everyone is heavily wounded, and Peril and Zachary are knocked unconscious. Yannic, Khragg, and Berg are the only three not stunned which is fortunate because they fight desperately until Yannic’s magic missiles destroy the steel predator.
They take a short rest and use up much healing to get everyone up and ready again to proceed. The next room has a mural:
This mural shows a dark cavern that somehow does not look natural even though it is all formed from stone, not blocks or bricks. All the corners and walls are rounded, and there are no supports for the high ceiling. As if perhaps the walls were molded instead of cut.
In the center of the chamber is a pentagram etched with precious metals that throbs with dark power. At each of the points a large metal spike has been placed vertically, rising up over 6 feet. Impaled upon each of the five spikes are five dead wizards each with distinctive yellow robes. In the back of the room near the back wall opposite a pair of double doors (that are opened) is a large archway formed of bone and black metal. Within the arch is a shimmering blackness that sends shivers down your spines.
But that's not the main feature of the mural. A horrible battle is taking place in the room. A group of heroes is battling for their lives against horrible fiends. These fiends are straight from the hells themselves, led by a 9-foot spiked and horned monster wielding a spiked chain. The creature is blasting the heroes with a fireball, and it appears that one has been slain. The other fiends are covered with spikes, wielding halberds, and flying through the air.
The slain hero wears the familiar robes of a priest of Arawn that they cannot identify. His comrades desperately battle on. They include:
A paladin in glowing white armor who turns out to be Osric Blukhorel of the infamous Blukhorel family.
A wizard in red robes, that is identified as Skarn, a student of the famous Duke Ulrich of Gwynyth Raius.
Two men dressed in leathers skulking around in the shadows. They have a nautical look to them but no one knows who they are.
A bard desperate trying to help and fend off devils.
They are unable to learn much more about this mural such as where or when it happened.
After a few more doors in this circle of rooms, they move to the next concentric circle. After a few rooms, they find a room with a sarcophagus. On the lid is the carved image of a woman wearing plate armor and holding a longsword. Khragg, Peril, and Berg leave it alone and proceed back to other rooms. Lughausen and Yannic linger behind, curious. Yannic tries to open it but fails to move the lid. Lughausen tries to figure out who the woman is but remembers nothing. Then he tries to push the lid and it falls off with a thump (which Khragg, Peril, and Berg hear in the distance).
A body is revealed, encased in beautiful black plate armor. Then a moment later, a ghostly form rises up and shrieks. It is a banshee! Yannic, Kayleth, Zachary, and Elowynn fall unconscious because of the terror of the shriek, and Lughausen is wounded. Khragg, Peril, and Berg run back to help. The banshee uses its corrupting touch on Lughausen, then Peril and Berg are there with their attacks. Then Lughausen hits it with a flame strike. It survives long enough to touch Lughausen again and almost kill him, but his death ward saves him. Khragg has pulled a potion of greater healing and feeds it to Kayleth so she can start healing the dying people.
Berg’s holy weapon smites the banshee and Peril’s sneak attacks do enough damage to finally vanquish the entity. The dying are stabilized and healed and another short rest must be taken. After the short rest, Lughausen removes the armor and identifies it as a +1 plate armor of fire resistance. It is decided that Khragg should wear it, but he cannot attune it right away since they just completed the short rest. He gives Elowynn his boots of the winterlands.
Moving on, they traverse a couple more rooms and then find one with a door in the outer wall leading to the next concentric circle. Khragg opens the door revealing a room filled with refuse. Floating above it are three undead beholder zombies…
Khragg enters the room and goes left, coordinating with Berg to go right, and engages the first beholder, swinging his axe. Then Berg, Peril, and Elowynn start their work. Yannic casts an otiluke’s resilient sphere on the enemy furthest to the right, encasing it and eliminating it from the fight until the end. The rest make quick work of the other two beholders before hey can do much damage, then get ready to pounce on the final one in a coordinated effort when Yannic releases it from his spell. It falls and moves no more. They quickly search the refuse, but find nothing of value.
They move through a number of rooms next finding nothing until they come across another mural. This mural shows the death of Hythe III's father at the hands of the treacherous Colonel Myrddin. The scene shown is one of the king dying at the hands of Myrddin's men, dressed in black, already showing their fallen nature. The mural is a dual image. One of the inner chambers with the death of the king is shown, and the evil Colonel Myrddin looking on in grim satisfaction. And the other an outside view of the whole city and especially the castle, as a dark shadow drops across it. The sharp-eyed and witted in the party see that there is one child’s body missing amongst the carnage, which history has revealed to be King Calvin I.
Moving on, they then open a door to reveal a very long room with bones scattered upon the floor. In the middle of the room is a black metal pentagram in the middle of which is seen a pile of gold and gems. Peril carefully makes his way towards it searching for traps but finding none. The others crowd into the room to see. Khragg and Berg are close behind Peril as is Yannic.
Suddenly, there is a muttering and a spell blast of synaptic energy engulfs everyone except for Zachary. It does psychic damage and muddles half of the party so they act sluggishly. On his next opportunity, Yannic casts see invisibility and sees that an invisible Bone Naga is casting spells in the far corner of the room. For the rest of the battle, each time the Naga attempts to cast a spell, Yannic successfully counters it with counterspell. None of the others have a target to fight, so they just ready. Kayleth uses mass cure wounds to heal everyone. On Yannic’s next opportunity, he casts dispel magic and removes the greater invisibility and mirror image spells that were protecting it, enabling the rest of the party to participate in destroying the creature. It takes a few rounds of coordinated activity and the successful counterspelling of Yannic to keep the creature at bay and finally destroy it.
They move on right after the battle, recovering a pile of gems, gold coins, and two potions from the pentagram after determining that it is safe to do so. They continue on through a series of rooms that continue the circular pattern of this level until they finally find a door that leads to a passageway that breaks this pattern. At the end of the corridor is a room with a circular stairway leading up. They decide that before they take it, and also because it is not quite time for a long rest, that they will explore some more of this level first.
They retrace their steps to areas with doors that haven’t been explored and find empty room after empty room twisting and turning about through the circular layers of this level. After a time they then come to a room that has broken weapons scattered all across the floor. Standing in this room are three undead bodaks. Their gaze withers and kills and they have an aura of annihilation around them that sucks the life out of the party just by being near them. The three creatures hardly do anything but gaze at the party, nearly killing them one by one.
The first thing Yannic does is try to catch two of them in a storm sphere spell, but they take no damage whatsoever from the lightning and only a little bludgeoning damage. Elowyn tries her bow on one, but stays too close to all three and takes necrotic damage from their evil aura. Lughausen tries to turn them and succeeds, but then when he takes damage from their aura and rebukes one, he damages it and breaks that turn effect. Shortly after, Yannic drops a fireball spell on all three that removes the last two turned effects and all three can attack again. Khragg and Berg are ineffective with their attacks because they must stay within all three auras and take constant necrotic damage. They start strafing in and out, but then the bodaks start moving out of the room affecting everyone who is trying to hold back at a safe distance from their deadly gazes.
The first to fall from their gazes is Zachary. The first bodak falls and then Elowynn, Lughausen, and finally Peril are stricken by the deadly gaze. It is all the party can do to kill the last two bodaks and then rush to administer healing potions to save people before they die.
No one has been lost, so they decide to take a long rest now. But before they fully camp they search the room, casting a ritual detect magic and noticing a magical longbow amidst the broken weapons. Lughausen uses one of his last pearls to identify it as a knockdown longbow and giving it to Elowynn. They close the doors and rest.
7/5/1150 – Feeling refreshed, and finally attuned to their new equipment that has been shuffled around, they continue on. After more empty rooms, they discover another mural.
This mural shows the meeting of 6 different armies, all under different banners. The different leaders all have the same style of dress, but different crests. The slaughter is grotesque and done in great detail. This is the largest battle of nobles in the country of Cynyr. Here the six armies met, to determine who would be king. The unfortunate part is that none of the men in question survived, either they died in battle or of wounds inflicted during the battle a short time later. The style of dress reminds the party of Fegha, but not quite. They remember that the events here happened 100 years ago or so. The country had been splintered up to the time of the Cataclysm and history lost track of it.
After more empty rooms the next open a door revealing a number of rotting corpses. After Khragg crosses it to the next door, three revenants awake and rise. Each picking a foe, Peril, Berg, and Khragg, to focus their attacks upon. It takes minimum effort by the party to destroy them. The room has an old chest, but the lock as long since broken open and it is empty except for stains.
They push on and explore the rest of this level. It is now time to go up. At the top of the stairs is a small room with two doors. They follow their usual script and go left, searching every door they come across. They find themselves in a maze of passages with many branches and even more dead ends. They search every dead end they come across. All have nothing except for one that has an easy secret door in it. Beyond is more passages. They keep going until they find something different. A side passage from a long one is now ten feet wide and ends in a pair of double doors. Upon them is a mural. It is a nighttime scene of a countryside, but the sky to one side is brightening, as the dawn is soon to arrive.
They find no traps and Khragg pushes the doors open. Both open silently in unison revealing at first a dark room and then a number of braziers whoosh to life. Inside is a cavernous room, with 40 ft ceilings. Four large pillars hold up the ceiling, ornately designed with patterns. At the far end is a large raised dais with stairs on three sides. Large bronze braziers are each corner emitting an eerie blue light. A stone sarcophagus, ornately carved lies upon it in the center. In front of the raised dais are six stone sarcophagi, not as ornately carved as the first but still rather magnificent, arranged in a semi-circle. At the head of each is a brass brazier glowing with orange light.
Behind the large sarcophagus are two more stone doors. Upon these is a mural of two huge pale female hands descending from above, cupped at the middle together. The arms of these hands are shrouded in familiar pale robes.
As soon as Khragg takes his first step into the room, all seven sarcophagi lids shift open and pound to the ground. Undead mummies, including a mummy lord on the dais, come out. The mummy lord is the first to emerge fully and the ranged fighters in the party open up. Elowynn, Peril, hit with their ranged weapons, and Yannic unloads a high-level magic missile. The mummy lord puts up a protective guardian of faith. Zachary goes invisible at his first opportunity.
The other mummies exit their sarcophagi and shuffle towards the party. Lughausen engulfs them all in an insect plague that damages each. Peril shoots again at the mummy lord. He is quite hurt. But when his turn comes up, he casts harm and fully heals himself, then ducks behind the sarcophagi for total cover to foil the ranged attacks. Kayleth tries to cast a spell but is wracked with pain and cannot, taking necrotic damage.
The others turn their fire to the other mummies. Elowynn has time to shoot one, then Yannic unleashes a fireball on them all. They are vulnerable to fire and all are incinerated in an instant. Khragg and Berg advance on the mummy lord. Peril circles around until he can see the mummy lord and fires at him. Then it is the mummy lord’s turn and he casts an insect plague himself engulfing Khragg, Berg, and Lughausen.
Then surprisingly, Elowynn turns and starts shooting her bow at Yannic. Yannic in turn tries to get her in an otiluke’s resilient sphere, but she evades it. Khragg is finally close enough to attack on his next opportunity. Berg also gets close and is able to swing at the mummy lord. Lughausen then also turns on the party and attempts to cast banishment on Kayleth. However, he is wracked with pain and she is not banished.
Peril proves to be a nuisance to the mummy lord and shoots at it more. Suddenly, the mummy lord transforms into a whirlwind of sand and crosses the room instantly to be next to Peril.
Elowynn shoots again at Yannic, scoring a critical hit and triggering the magic of her now bow. Yannic is hurled to the ground prone. Yannic stands up the next moment and casts a high-powered fireball at the mummy lord, engulfing it in flame and incinerating it instantly.
The party thinks the battle must be over, but Lughausen and Elowynn do not immediately snap out of their strange mental malaise. The party is uncertain why that must be, speculating that perhaps the evil of the lair persists. Berg confirms that the lair is unhallowed ground and infused with evil, and they decide that they must leave the room. A moment later, Lughausen and Elowynn shake off the compulsion to turn on their comrades and Elowynn even heals Yannic. A strange thorny crown then appears on Khragg’s head, but nothing comes of it and it disappears a moment later. Everyone gathers one-by-one at the far doors. Peril has noticed that there is a circular depression in the center of the two doors right where the two palms of Arawn meet. Khragg places the disc in it and the doors open, splitting right down the middle of the disc that remains in the door.
Suddenly, they hear the mad voice of Zachary screaming. He is still invisible, but he yells, “No! The Lord Belannon cannot permit this! You cannot leave!” It turns out it was him casting charms and compulsions while under the effect of a greater invisibility spell that has caused trouble. Only Yannic can see him after he casts see invisbility, so the rest of the party is split about what to do with the mad bard. Half proceed onward down the hallway that was revealed when the final double doors were opened, and the rest hang back ready to fight the bard. Zachary does get a number of spells to hurt the party. Shatter, confusion, thunderwave.
Lughausen thinks back on the name Zachary mentioned. That name is probably is High Priest Hadrian Belannon of Arawn who lived 280-342 G.R., over 800 years ago. He was high priest during the time of The Passing, a holy period in Arawn's history. Presumably the Mummy Lord. In fact, the sarcophagus next to Lughausen has designs that help with this conclusion.
Ultimately, Zachary is ineffectual at hurting the party seriously and when his greater invisibility finally wears off, the warriors in the group surround him and cut him down. Khragg gets the final blow and hacks his body to pieces in rage.
After that, they take a breather, and a short rest and decide that they will back track and explore some areas left behind before they go forward. They find lots of twisted corridors and many dead ends. Back towards the stairs that led them to this level was a door, behind which was an empty room with a mural. This mural shows people impaled on poles, surrounding a city at the foot of the mountains. This is Vald's abode in the empire of Yrvil, as it was before Beldyn I and his knights came to conquer it. Strange creatures can be seen devouring on human flesh in the courtyards. The mural is very old with cracked paint.
Now heading west they find a series of rooms, most of them empty, but a few with other murals. The first shows a battle scene, however, the two armies consist of priests. That much they can tell. One army is completely unorganized. The soldiers are just haphazardly scattered, and just killing whatever they can. The other is more organized, but the soldiers are themselves somewhat unorganized. Some of the soldiers are crying. others smiling, some kissing, some are killing in a fury, and so on. It is mass destruction. They don’t learn much about it beyond that, but it seems to be showing concepts of chaos and passion instead of an actual historical event.
The second mural seems to be completely abstract. Jagged lines, blasts of color, mostly in the yellow-to-red spectrum. Explosions super imposed upon explosions of color. It is jarring. It is chaos. Looking upon it, you just get a feeling of destruction and chaos, sudden and explosive.
Yannic tries to see if there is an arcane meaning behind it but finds none. Lughausen thinks it is again just an expression of an idea of destruction and death.
After this mural, they find, at last, the room they had been searching for. This one contains a giant stairway leading up into a large black hole, very similar to the very first room that they jumped into. It is the exit. First, there are two more rooms with murals to explore, which they do.
In the next mural, they see a city aflame. Buildings and trees are all ablaze in a raging fire. The point of view is on a particular street, but they can see in the background that the city is being completely destroyed by fire.
In that street are people fleeing, carrying meager possessions, with wild looks of terror upon their faces.
There are wizards battling. Some fly above the conflagration. Others stride the street behind the fleeing townspeople. They are intent on each other. The artist has put pure madness in their expressions, each and every one. The wizards fight each other with fiery blasts of power. They incinerate crowds of innocents fleeing the scene. They are blasting the buildings, the trees, everything.
It is a scene of pure madness and destruction.
Yannic learns that this is a scene from the Great Cataclysm. There are not enough details to know what city this is, but the destruction can only be one thing. Many have theorized that the madness of the wizards caused the Cataclysm or is at least a major factor. He believes having this scene enshrined as historical fact here is further proof that this theory is correct.
The last mural shows the mountains to the east. They are cloaked in snow, and dark clouds hand overhead. A train of warriors travel the narrow trails, some on horseback. They are obviously warriors of Gwynyth Raius, for they're paladinhood shows. At the lead of the column is a king, but the mural shows his mount rearing and bolting, and he falling out of the saddle to plunge to his death below. The men next to him watch passively, as if under a spell, and can not stop him. Also at the head is a dwarf, clad in armor, too. He also just watches, though his eyes are wide in alarm.
Lughausen remembers a history book talking about Cedryn I who rode to the aid of the dwarves of Dun after they had been invaded by Croy. But his effort was derailed when the king was killed while traveling over the mountains, and Gwynyth Raius was not able to free the dwarves. They remained an occupied country until the time of the Coalition of Peace.
At last, they are ready to leave and ascend the grand stairway. Reaching the top they are in a chamber depicted with a giant mural showing the rising sun. A long, wide corridor leads out. Following it, they reach the large temple chamber. Waiting for them is the high priest behind the altar, the dangling sword remaining along with the giant mural of Arawn upon the wall. Lining the walls of the chamber are at least 50 priests. Khragg goes to the altar and confronts the priest. The high priest says that the pilgrimage unfolded as to the will of Arawn. For a moment, Khragg thinks about attacking him, so great is his anger, but the waiting priests are a good deterrent. He leaves. The others start to follow but both Lughausen and Yannic hesitate. They ask about those that were killed below, and the priest nods, “All things die”
They leave.
Outside they find that it is indeed the dead of winter. It is cold and windy. They discover that a tent has been erected in the lee of the building, lined with furs. Inside they find their wagon and horses, well-rested and tended along with grain, hay, and water. They are grateful, even surprised, that the priests tended to their animals and belongings so well. They mount up and depart.