Session 111

Assault on Dasaraches Part 1

Chapter 1: Council of War

Throughout the long evening, more of the mysterious wanderers drifted into the silent glade, each one cloaked in an air of calm, unshakable purpose. They came from nearly every race of Athas—stern humans, unbending dwarves, swift elves, even the rare muls, halflings, and mantis-like thri-kreen. A few brought allies—warriors with steel in their eyes, preservers with magic at their fingertips—ready to lay down their lives in the battle to come.

The party was treated with unexpected honor, the psionicists pausing often to thank them with quiet dignity. As twilight deepened and shadows stretched across the forest, the gathering of rogues drew together around a small fire, beckoning their allies close. Silence fell—but in the minds of all, a faint tingling stirred, the unmistakable presence of thought shared. They had woven themselves into a seamless net of mindlinks, their words carried without breath or sound, safe from prying ears.

Visions of doom and hope clashed in their silent council.
Tayra, the human clairsentient, spoke first: she had seen the morrow drenched in blood. “Mark my words,” her voice rippled through their minds, “half of us shall not live to see the sun set.”
Chk’tk’cha, the thri-kreen, answered with alien calm. “My people die by the thousands. My life weighs little in that balance. Whatever the cost—we must strike.”
Ariach, the psychokineticist, echoed the resolve, though with dread. “I do not wish to die, yet Athas cannot endure Pharistes’ tyranny. What world would he make, if left unchallenged?”
Ushegara, the dwarven telepath, trembled with unease. “We speak of killing our own brothers. Never has the Order been so divided.”
But then Priath the Old, the Cerebral Master, raised his voice like iron in the mind. “Pharistes has abandoned the Order for his own ambition. By our laws, he is already a renegade. His life is forfeit.”

Their debate burned like the fire between them, but at last it cooled into grim resolve. The choice was made. At dawn they would descend upon Dasaraches in one desperate strike—teleporting and tearing through the fortress walls with dimension doors—until the Psionatrix was found and Pharistes destroyed.

And then the rogues turned their piercing gaze upon their allies. The task of facing the guardians, the obstacles of flesh and steel, would fall to them. The night itself seemed to hold its breath, for dawn would bring blood and destiny.

Chapter 2: Morning Assault

The first frail light of dawn had barely brushed the horizon when the camp came alive. What began as soft murmurs and the quiet clatter of gear soon rose into the determined rhythm of an army girding itself for war—psionicists fastening the straps of their armor, retainers testing the edges of their weapons, and the low, thrumming hum of mental power weaving through the cool morning air like an unseen stormfront.

Through this charged stillness strode Mara and Shardivan, grim and resolute, their footsteps falling in time with their allies. The scent of dust and steel hung heavy, the unmistakable perfume of battle’s approach. It was the quiet before chaos, a silence that quivered with anticipation.

Before the sun’s rim breached the world, shadows were already moving toward the looming bridge to Dasaraches. The larger host spread out into the misty predawn, each group vanishing into its chosen approach. Across the dark lake, the White Fortress awaited, its ancient stones mute and brooding, soon to shudder beneath the storm about to be unleashed.

The keep rose circular and immense, its high walls slanting inward like the jaws of a trap. Concentric barriers encircled its heart, each tier staggered above the last, crowned by a single white spire clawing into the morning sky. Dasaraches sat upon a jungle-choked island in the black waters, its only tether the weathered bridge of low stone arches. Cracked pavement and wiry weeds betrayed its age, yet the structure endured, a stubborn sentinel over the dark waters below.

Then—sudden as a whisper—the feather-touch of a voice brushed through their minds. Good luck, my friends. Commence the attack!

The company pressed forward across the bridge. As they advanced, Mara’s calm, steady voice became their lifeline, narrating the unfolding strike beyond their sight. He glanced skyward, a fleeting satisfaction breaking his grim mask as he reported the first group had slipped through by teleportation, encountering no resistance. A moment later his head tilted, as though listening to some distant echo, and he murmured that the second wave had reached their position along the eastern wall. His hand lifted to point toward the pale fortress itself, eyes narrowing as he revealed that the flying psionicists were now closing in, keeping low to avoid detection.

A faint smile touched his lips when word came that one of the aerial groups had cleared the outer tower without raising alarm. But his expression soon hardened again, his tone sharpening with quiet urgency as he announced that the last teleportation team had landed inside the courtyard. The real battle was about to begin.

The bridge groaned beneath their steps, the lake lay silent around them, and ahead the fortress loomed—white, ancient, and waiting for blood.

Chapter 3: Water Drake

As the party pressed across the bridge, a sudden calamity struck. Every psionicist staggered violently, collapsing as the crystal shards they carried blackened and charred before their eyes. In the distance, cries of dismay mingled with the clash of weapons, a grim chorus heralding the chaos to come.

Before the psionicists could fully regain their footing, a colossal wall of water surged over the party, sweeping them into the churning lake below. Karnos was thrown violently over the bridge’s edge. Shank leapt after him, his unnatural ability to stride across water keeping him afloat as he seized Karnos and pulled him clear. Yet the terror was far from over: a massive water drake erupted from the depths, claws raking and jaws snapping. It swallowed Karnos whole and lashed Zahraan with its tail before vanishing beneath the dark, roiling surface. Shiv stood at the edge, eyes aflame with rage, waiting for the beast to return.

Magic and steel flared in response. Safi called upon blessings to steady their allies, while Fazanna cast haste upon Shank, activating her flying boots and soaring high, bladesong whirling. Shank dove into the water after the drake, his great axe striking deep, then surged again, relentless. The drake retaliated, biting and clawing in a savage frenzy. Across the bridge, Shardivan dashed, Fazanna returned to the fray, and Karnos focused through his crystal, glimpsing the battlefield above before drinking a greater healing potion. Zahraan whisked Mara and Anvar along with a swift step of the wind, and Safi activated his boots of speed, fleeing with Shiv across the bridge. Karnos, combining clairvoyance and mystic nomad power, teleported from the drake’s maw to safety.

Shank struck from within the beast once more, forcing the drake to disgorge him, only to be swallowed again, yet he fought with unyielding fury, finally tearing free to soar away from the water’s wrath. One by one, the party overcame the deluge, the monstrous drake, and the suffocating chaos. When the last foot crossed the far side of the bridge, battered but unbroken, the lake fell silent once more, the water drake left behind, its fury unspent but powerless to follow.

Chapter 4: Gate of Dasaraches

Before them, the White Fortress loomed like an unbroken cliff of pale stone, fifty feet of smooth, sun-bleached surface cracked with age and the relentless heat. Its walls sloped inward ever so slightly, giving the fortress a looming, almost predatory presence as it towered above the party. The dry stone face offered climbing holds for those daring enough, though each step promised peril. Atop the wall, a bare expanse of ten feet of stone stretched flat to the sky, devoid of parapets or crenellations, its emptiness daring intruders to approach. A single gate punctuated the flawless sweep of the outer wall, its position commanding the space before it with silent menace.

Within the outer walls lay a courtyard overrun with small forests and tangled walkways, glimpses of white marble buildings rising faintly through the greenery. Not far ahead, thirty feet along the path, lay the body of a small, wiry elf, dragged to the side in a smear of blood. The stillness of the scene shattered with a low, menacing growl. Beside the corpse crouched a powerful, catlike predator, its jaws stained crimson and eyes aglow with malevolent intelligence.

Anvar knelt quickly, attempting to reanimate the fallen elf, but his efforts failed. Shiv, with grim decisiveness, seized the dagger and crushed the elf’s skull. Shardivan and Mara protested softly, urging respect for the dead even amidst the horror. Safi, drawing upon his knowledge of the kirre, guided the party carefully past the predator, allowing it to feast in peace while they pressed onward through the foreboding courtyard.

Chapter 5: An Ancient Fountain

The paved path that had guided them toward the Citadel suddenly opened into a broad, desolate court. At its center lay the shattered remnants of a once-grand fountain, its glory now lost to time and decay. Four nymph-like figures clung to its perimeter, their faces turned toward the image of some long-forgotten deity, whose central form was marred—its arm broken, its features chipped and worn, the stone scarred with age and violence. The fountain’s basin overflowed with stagnant, weed-choked water, a fetid reminder of neglect and ruin.

Against the northern rim of the fountain slumped a stocky male halfling, clutching a grievous wound in his chest. Mara and Shardivan immediately recognized him as Xaxachtel, a psionicist sworn to Pharistes. The halfling’s strength was ebbing fast, his resolve shattered. After questioning him and hearing his unwillingness to continue the fight, they released him, letting him disappear into the shadows, wounded and abandoned, a small figure swallowed by the ruinous court.

Chapter 6: Guesthouse

Beneath a dense tangle of trees and underbrush, a small cottage crouched in ruin. A narrow stone path led from the main trail to its gaping doorway, the door long gone, windows yawning black and empty. Charred black marks around the frame and window sills bore mute witness to some long-ago blaze that had ravaged the structure.

Inside, four smaller rooms lay in disarray, each littered with the decayed remnants of furniture—tables, chairs, bookshelves, and chests reduced to moldy, crumbling fragments. Scattered among the ruins were shards of pottery and glass, dull and forgotten.

In the large bedroom to the left of the entrance, a few splintered bones rested against the wall, half-hidden beneath an ancient, rusted hauberk of chainmail. A brief search yielded nothing else; the cottage whispered only of long-past lives and the silent weight of decay.

Chapter 7: Servant's Quarters

Along the fortress wall stood a vast stone building, its long facade pockmarked with empty, staring windows. The structure was a ruin, its roof gaping in large, jagged sections, its doors and window frames vanished long ago, leaving only the bare skeleton of stone. Creepers and brambles had claimed the interior, twisting through the floors and walls, their green tendrils asserting dominion over the decay. Safi’s warning of the deadly nature of the overgrown plant life gave pause, and the party chose to abandon the ancient edifice to the relentless grip of the courtyard’s tangled growth.

Chapter 8: Citadel Gates

The path opened onto the gates of the citadel, colossal and foreboding, rising like a sentinel over the party. The gate itself was a massive bronze disk, etched with ancient runes and symbols, recessed two feet into the circular doorway. Time had not been kind—the verdigris of age coated the metal in green, and the grandeur of the hall beyond had long crumbled. Once-proud banners and tapestries hung in tatters, faded and rotten, many fallen to the dusted floor. Opposite the gate, a forty-foot-wide bas-relief depicted robed sages and scholars, their carved faces frozen in eternity. Several doors led out of the room, but none offered refuge from the horrors waiting within.

Five hulking skeletons clad in the remnants of ancient chain mail stood sentinel, weapons raised. Behind them, a squat, formidable dwarf in rasclinn-hide armor brandished a scepter of iron wound with copper wire in one hand and a wicked axe in the other. Beside him, a lithe human woman in leather armor waited, her eyes sharp and calculating. As the party entered, the woman gave a nod to the dwarf, who bellowed, “Slay them!” The skeletons lunged forward, their bones clattering in deadly anticipation.

Chaos erupted. Safi unleashed a cone of cold across the room, activating his halo to bolster his allies. Arrows flew from Shalia, but Safi deflected the second with practiced ease. Shiv and Shank danced in deadly coordination, switching positions before Shiv swung his maul with devastating force, shattering one skeleton, then another, before striking at Thurgar himself. A skeleton counterattacked, only to fall beneath Shiv’s relentless strikes.

Shank surged forward, igniting his great axe with pyrotechnic fire, striking skeletons and landing blow after blow on Thurgar, action surging to drive the dwarf into retreat. Thurgar retaliated, his battle axe cutting deep, yet Shank’s fury proved unstoppable. Zahraan’s flurry of unarmed strikes felled two skeletons before he moved against Shalia, while Fazanna, with a burst of speed, drew her flaming blade, striking Thugarr and attempting to ensnare Shalia with lightning lure, though the archer evaded. Karnos fired his blasting crystal, missing the mark, while Cursy, the coal drake, charged toward Shalia. Anvar conjured a bonfire beneath Thurgar, scorching the dwarf further.

In a final, furious crescendo, Shank struck Thurgar and Shalia with his blazing great axe, leaving the room strewn with shattered bones, charred stone, and the echoes of battle. The citadel’s gates had been breached, but at a terrible, violent cost.

Chapter 9: Ancient Guardroom

The iron-plated door loomed before them, its small slit at eye height hinting at the shadows within. Beyond it, the chamber lay in solemn decay: collapsed bunks sagged under the weight of dust, and a dozen skeletons lay strewn across the floor, their forms rigid with time. The air was thick with mustiness, and every surface bore a heavy layer of neglect.

Among the bones, two spectral figures hovered. One was a fallen warrior, collapsed amidst the skeletons, and the other a beautiful young woman, her form wispy and indistinct, cradling his head in mourning. Her eyes lifted toward the intruders, wide with terror, before she vanished, taking the warrior’s spirit with her, leaving only moldering bones behind.

When the party disturbed the remains, the woman reappeared, her voice imploring. She begged them to lay Morin, the fallen warrior, to rest. Bound by honor, the group gathered the bones, preparing to grant peace to the restless spirits in the silent, dust-choked chamber.

Chapter 10: Psiologist's Quarters

Like many of the chambers they had passed, this room bore signs of recent use. The door had been refinished, its hinges gleaming with newness, and the furnishings inside were intact and free of dust, a stark contrast to the surrounding decay. A small, hard bunk pressed against one wall, and an austere writing desk occupied the other. On the desk lay a handful of old scrolls and scattered pieces of parchment, each covered in meticulous notes. One in particular stood out: “It is apparent that the Psionatrix does not augment psionic power, as Pharistes has informed us, but actually uses the forces of magic. While it is clear that the gem imitates and is controlled by mental powers, it is a magical artifact, and therefore beyond the Order's agenda.” Beyond these observations, the room offered nothing more, a quiet testament to careful study in the midst of ruin.

Chapter 11: Upper Hall

Massive double doors, emblazoned with the sunburst of the ancient wizards’ order, swung open onto a vaulted hall steeped in ruin. Fading paintings and crumbling gilding adorned the high ceiling, remnants of a grandeur long lost. The mahogany floor, once polished and proud, was scarred and dulled by the passage of years, bearing witness to countless forgotten footsteps.

In the center of the hall lay the sprawled forms of the dead: a red-robed mul, an elf, three human men, and a human woman. Swords still clutched in their hands, their bodies marked by violent wounds, they told a grim tale of sudden and brutal demise. Among the corpses, the party discovered a collection of treasures: a silver-and-obsidian scepter hidden within the mul’s robe, a jeweled ring worth thirty silver pieces, 122 silver and 15 gold coins, a steel shortsword, an obsidian axe of hurling +3, a pair of matched bone daggers with silver-wire hilts valued at twenty-five silver pieces each, a scroll bearing a crude map of Dasaraches, and two magical fruits—one of extra healing and one of speed. The hall whispered of sudden violence, ambition, and the silent weight of history.

Chapter 12: Great Hall

Two sweeping staircases ascended to a second-story balcony that encircled the grand chamber, their polished marble gleaming under the light filtering through a magnificent twenty-foot-diameter crystal window. Opposite the window, towering double doors, fifteen feet high, led further into the fortress. The marble floors and staircases had been carefully cleaned and repaired, while the bare stone walls, long stripped of plaster, bore new tapestries hung by the current occupants, a stark contrast of old decay and recent care.

In the chamber’s center lay the crumpled body of Ariach, the rogue psychokineticist, beside a strange heap of shattered black stone. Three silent statues of black obsidian loomed around the room, and as the party entered, the statues stirred and advanced with deadly intent.

Shank activated his boots of flying, soaring over the balcony railing and igniting his great axe with magical flame before striking one of the obsidian golems, landing searing blows. The golem slammed back, striking him twice. Zahraan leapt acrobatically over the railing, delivering a flurry of unarmed strikes, one landing with deadly precision, before suffering two punishing hits in return. Shiv rolled through the air with his own flying boots, landing to flank a golem, striking it with his maul and tripping the massive figure. Shank was slammed again by another golem, the force rattling him. Karnos unleashed his blasting crystal against one of the golems, while Anvar conjured a bonfire behind two of them before leaping into the fray. Safi invoked Toll the Dead, striking a wounded golem. Shiv pressed his attack with precise mace strikes.

A golem smashed its fists into the marble floor, sending a shockwave that battered Shiv, Shank, and Anvar. Shank destroyed one golem before swinging at the last, which retaliated with another crushing smash, wounding the trio. Safi repeated his necromantic strike, while Karnos attempted Mind Thrust, finding it ineffective against the obsidian monstrosity. Zahraan delivered a final flurry of unarmed strikes, toppling the last golem. The chamber fell silent once more, the shattered black stone and broken statues bearing witness to the party’s relentless fury.

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