(Storm Season to Sacred Time 1615)
The party at this time consisted of Aransar McGae, Orstanor Estavsson and Kulbrast of Lankst. Aransar had three followers and these were Nardan Ingansson, an Orlanthi adventurer, Kastraldan Jaronax, a Humakti mercenary and Silver Running, an Aldryami envoy to Trilus who worked with Aransar in his courier duties.
After several seasons of training and preparation, during which time Aransar had undergone the Sandals of Darkness Heroquest, following Orlanth himself and gaining powers of stealth and Darkness, they decided it was time to return to the ruined tower. Orstanor had settled into the military life within the citadel and had been helping to train King Yalaring’s guardsmen, and Kulbrast had made his own way there after a long journey with the Brown Boar clan of Balazar who now counted him as one of their own.
They journeyed south in short time, for Orstanor and Aransar knew the way. Silver Running, unable to make the journey into the iron-wrought ruins made a secret camp where the horses were grazed, and the other five made the journey to the ruined tower on foot. They arrived in the late hours of morning and took some time to re-familiarise themselves with the location, eventually deciding to enter the complex through the second, higher tunnel after discovering that the lower tunnel was now protected by a warding spell. They descended by rope and found themselves at the base of the cone and above the ancient circling staircase that dropped down into the unknown darkness.
A slow search of the areas they had not previously explored revealed nothing, but cost them a lot of magical power, for they discovered that the wardings which they had previously dispelled had been reactivated. Obviously something was expecting them.
As they prepared to enter the area that they had previously explored, the Humakti felt unease and the group prepared for a fight. Six mostali guards had heard the group and hastily prepared an ambush. It was a short fight, and the party, ever growing in power and ability made short work of the dwarves. Aransar, never the tallest of men, found that the dwarves’ greaves and vambraces fit him, and, detecting them as enchanted he took them for his own.
Orstanor and Aransar then set out to descend the iron staircase, but it was not long before it became a twisted iron wreck that hung precariously from the upper stair which was still attached to the rock wall. When the stair ended, rocking dangerously back and forth, there was still no sign of the bottom. Aransar pried a piece of rock from the wall, and the party estimated that there were still about thirty metres of drop below them.
The water filled cavern was then explored, but beyond discovering that water entered from above, from an unknown source, and drained from a shaft at the rear.
By now the party was desperately short of magic options, and they rightly feared to go further than was absolutely necessary. They took rest for a dark and lonely night in the cold underground cavern, resting as best they could until light began to filter back into the complex through the cone left by the tower’s collapse.
Come morning they heard the sound of approaching mostali, coming through the tunnel. Now it was their turn to set an ambush, and more swiftly than before, the dwarven squad lay dead, slain by sword, spear and javelin. Now they correctly surmised that time was against them. Realising from the makeup of this patrol indicated that they were relief for the group that the party had already slain. The returning patrol would be missed, and the response, when it came, would likely be much larger than a patrol.
Aransar commanded his bound sylph to bear them all to the bottom of the stairwell, and from there the group cautiously descended into the bowels of the tower, ever paranoid about cunning mechanical traps laid by the dwarves. Indeed Kulbrast found himself skewered by several crossbow bolts from a cunningly constructed trap.
Eventually they made their way into the centre of the ruin, and discovered, in a globe shaped room, a terrible sight. An ancient corpse had been crucified upon a large iron cross. It bore, on its desiccated body, the ancient regalia that the group sought, hung upon the body in mock grandeur. The sylph carried Kulbrast across the room where he attempted to remove the items, but was immediately engulfed by a powerful spirit that asked his identity in a curious but nigh-on incoherent way.
The spirit revealed that it was that of Prince Torlane, the Aldryami who had fallen in the assault on the tower all those centuries ago. The spirit asked that the party free him from his terrible bondage. Orstanor released the spirit currently forced into his binding enchantment, and the spirit of the elven prince willingly entered. Kulbrats thought to explore the rest of the complex, certain that there was further treasure to be had, but the others reminded him that they were running out of time, and so back up the shaft they were borne, and back to the elves they rode, where they were received with great rejoicing, for none believed that their prince would ever be returned to them or even that he had survived at all. Whilst outraged at the punishment meted out by the mostali, and swearing sacred oaths that the war would be continued, they rewarded the party richly for the return of their leader who became an allied spirit of the Aldrya cult.
They told the party that five centuries ago, the Elf King Tobosta Greenbow, lord of the Elf Sea and the Empire of the Elder Wilds had taken insult at the reported words of King Alakoring Dragonbreaker, who had arrived in the west taking his war against Dragonkind into the heart of Dragon Pass. Tobosta had recited ancient rituals over a sacred arrow, made from the heart of an ancient oak, and launched the missile from great distance and had slain Alakoring unawares from many miles away.
Alakoring’s mighty sword had been recovered by the elves and taken from the world of Storm, hidden in the depths of a mighty mountain, far to the north, where no Storm God could ever see. It was the last known resting place of the Windsword.
Kulbrast knew of the location of this legendary mountain, for it was hinted at on the map that he had been given by the Balazarings of the Brown Boar clan. The party rode north, across the Elder Wilds where they encountered herds of dinosaurs, and evaded prides of the savage sabre-toothed cats of the plains. North, for days and days and days, in lands where the hand of humankind had rarely, if ever, been known, until eventually they caught sight of a bare faced pinnacle rising directly from the plain. Onward they travelled until they could estimate that it rose some three keymiles from the ground, tall and steep. Large creatures could be seen swooping and flying effortlessly on the thermals that surrounded the mountain.
It became apparent that these winged creatures were descending to investigate, and eventually their form could be made out – Griffin. They huge creatures swooped in, and the characters, who had dismounted as a precaution, found that the creatures made short work of two of their horses. The characters fled toward the mountain while a group of five feasted upon fallen horseflesh.
Aransar assessed the climb and all knew it was all but impossible. They used the sylph to ascend, one at a time, whilst those at the top hid amongst trees, and had a nervous wait whilst their number got ever larger.
They pressed into a huge cave at the summit of Griffin Mountain and were set upon by giant griffins who rose to defend their lair. Power was expended and wounds were taken, but all survived, even when the Griffins who had feasted on their horses below returned and attacked from the rear.
The group searched the cavern and found, hidden cunningly at the rear, down a small fissure, a shaft of magical manufacture, delved out by earth elementals and marked with runes and scripts telling its tale.
Aransar and Kulbrast descended the shaft, and, lying at the bottom, rather unceremoniously, was a mighty and beautiful greatsword, the Windsword of Alakoring Dragonbreaker. Unsure which of them would take it, they both grasped it at once, and were attacked by the spirit of the sword, which bound them to the contest with a searing pain. Eventually it was Kulbrast who defeated the spirit, and it retreated back into the sword, and then the two returned to the others, bearing an artefact of mighty power with a legendary history.
Humbled, in the presence of history and legend, they gathered the treasures that they had found in the Griffin’s lair and descended the mountain upon Aransar’s sylph. They only had three horses between them, and so the going south was slow, but two days later they saw four horse-mounted figures silhouetted against the huge horizon. These individuals matched course with the party and, on foot as they were it was obvious that they could not evade them. As the Sun began its descent, turning the skies red, the leader of these mysterious riders edged his mount forward.
“I am Torath Manover, Wind Lord of Orlanth. I have long quested for that which you now possess. I will now take possession of it, by whatever means you decide.”
Aransar’s exact reply is lost to history...