The Cinder Castle Calamity

The Party: Kona, Dacien, Lagûn, Centurion

Aurora Force prepares for the final battle against the First Flame. As the plan to send a team through the planar portal came together, the party readied themselves for a clash at Cinder Castle.

Dacien used the Old Empire materials he discovered in Lotho’s compound to craft a new set of clockwork armor, more flexible with mechanical features like a spring loaded holster for his pistol. He also communicated with Ord on Lanternwurm to learn that efforts to develop the Academy had been going somewhat poorly. Ord had not been able to find many teaching materials and people on the engine didn’t seem to think much of the Academy’s efforts. Dacien had better luck converting Viktor, his new friend in Orkfal, as the First Flame’s influence in the city had waned.

With the help of the myconids in the Blue Marshes, Kona further attuned himself to the nature of the Underdark, taking on a touch of the Fey energies of the place. Despite this, he looked forward to the time when they could return to the surface.

The plan was quickly coming together. As a ragtag group ventured into the Duskplane to sabotage Cinder Castle’s sanctuary engine, the rest of Aurora Force would amass at the First Flame headquarters here in the Dawnplane, biding their time and waiting for an opening.

Soon, the party found themselves on the edge of a burgeoning battlefield a short distance out from Cinder Castle. The huge fortress was built into a cavern wall and protected by a wall of rock. Along with Tongar and Sister Goldfinch, they stood ready to lead a scrappy, patchwork group of Spindrift rangers, Locks soldiers, and myconid fighters into battle. To an observer, the Aurora Force seemed outnumbered and outmatched.

They could feel their time running out as they waited for a sign that the Duskplane team had succeeded. Already, the First Flame had started responding to the appearance of their army, and skirmishes between their forces had begun. King Aina, leader of the myconids, had himself led a group of his soldiers into the fortress, using siege weapons to fire projectiles that rapidly sprouted fungal vines for scaling the walls. Rangers and other Aurora Force fighters engaged groups of cultists at some of the gates of the fortress.

Then, it happened. A loud crack echoed through the area. Something deep within Cinder Castle flared in a bright light, momentarily blinding everyone. When their vision cleared, they saw a thick golden haze blanketing the entire area around the fortress, making it difficult to see what was happening. The battle had gone oddly quiet, only broken by the occasional scream.

After what felt like ages, a few Aurora Force soldiers began emerging from the haze. They were all thoroughly dazed, some injured. Those that could speak described the moments after the event, when certain First Flame cultists went mad, glowing from within, moving erratically and with unnatural speed, almost in a blur. These supercharged First Flames went berserk, attacking their own forces. The myconids, too, seemed to be affected, and began growing uncontrollably, their bodies transforming into fields of fungal matter.

It was difficult to get a clear picture of what exactly was happening. Based on what they knew, it seemed like the Duskplane operation had succeeded and caused Cinder Castle to become unstable and vulnerable. However, the unexpected effects described by the soldiers was concerning. Sister Goldfinch proposed that the party enter the hazy fortress to investigate while the remaining Aurora Force created a perimeter around the castle in an effort to prevent whatever was happening from spreading farther.

Tongar and Erling, the planar scientist who had helped build the portal, joined the party. They planned to approach an area of the wall that had been attacked by the myconids, where last they had seen, a web of fungal vines would allow them to scale the wall.

The group crept into the golden haze unable to make out much in the distance. Once they arrived at the wall, they found that whatever had affected the myconids had also affected the fungal vines, which had overgrown and torn a section of the wall down into rubble.

They climbed over the rubble and began making their way through the small courtyard that separated the wall from the fortress. Corpses of soldiers from both sides littered the field, though it was unclear whether they had fallen in the initial battle or in the chaos of the golden haze.

As the party collected themselves after the battle, Erling took the opportunity to study the remains of the enhanced cultists. He put forward a theory: when the team in the Duskplane sabotaged the First Flame’s sanctuary engine, surges of chaos energy began flowing into the Dawnplane. This energy caused the chaos at Cinder Castle.

Noting that not all the cultists had undergone the strange transformation, Erling guessed that the berserk cultists were those who had been resurrected by the First Flame’s rituals. The cult had likely been using chaos energy pulled from the Duskplane through their sanctuary engine to bring people back to life (chaos is life, after all). The excess chaos energy could have “supercharged” them, changing their physiology and driving them mad. The myconids, too, were probably affected by the same energy, causing them to grow uncontrollably.

The party roused Lotho in order to question him. Under threat from the party, Lotho described how the First Flame had started tearing each other apart after something happened to the fortress’ sanctuary engine. Already at odds with the cult, Lotho had attempted to escape the chaos, but was attacked by the berserk cultists. Through Dacien’s questioning, Lotho also revealed that Garyx, the fire god at the center of the First Flame, was in fact a lie. No such god existed, rather a small council of leaders had used it as a front for their operations. Their magic was really just chaos energy drawn from the Duskplane, confirming Erling’s theory.

While it seemed like the First Flame was no longer a threat (with the exception of the remaining enhanced cultists), a new mission emerged. They would need to find Cinder Castle’s sanctuary engine in order to stop the bleeding of chaos energy into the Dawnplane. Otherwise, anyone in Orkfal who had been resurrected by the First Flame and the nearby myconid colony in the Blue Marshes would be in grave danger.

Realizing his precarious position, Lotho offered to help them infiltrate Cinder Castle. While the party was mistrustful of the grey dwarf (Dacien in particular), they decided to use him to get to the sanctuary engine as quickly as possible. Dacien made grim threats toward Lotho, warning him of the consequences if he were to betray them.

Lotho explained that the engine was located on the third floor of the compound, near the center. He described it as a large magical flame enclosed in a mechanical cage. Leveraging his recently acquired cloak of the bat, Kona led the way by flying up to one of the open balconies and dropping a rope down for the rest of the party.

The group climbed into the room adjoining the balcony. Fungal growths, similar to those they found at the wall, became more frequent and the golden haze seemed to get thicker as they went deeper into the Castle. This first room was a ritual chamber of some sort, probably used for resurrections, with a dais and stone table located in the center of the room. Two items sat on the stone table.

As Kona and Dacien came closer, they recognized these items as items from their past. One was Kona’s old training sword which he had passed on long ago to a younger student, a sign of his increasing skill. The other was a female talking doll, a companion to the one Dacien carried with him, that he had thought long lost along with their owner.

The pair were shocked to see the items here now. But as soon as they reached out to touch them, the items decayed into fungal matter. Shaken, Dacien investigated the fungus further and came to the conclusion that the fungal growths covering the castle were once the myconid soldiers who had entered the fortress at the start of the battle. Erling surmised that the golden haze was made of spores emitted from the former myconids. The chaos energy must have augmented the telepathic effects of the spores that allowed the myconids to communicate, which might explain the strange encounter with items from their past. The haze and myconid growths were responding to the party’s thoughts and memories.

Going deeper into the compound, the party passed through rooms demolished by the planar chaos and overgrown with the fungus of the former myconids. In one, Dacien had another telepathic encounter. This time, a misshapen myconid embedded in the fungus took on the appearance of one of his past academy teachers, Old Spear. Dacien has learned many old legends from Old Spear, though the old mentor had been relegated to lower-level duties by the academy.

The fungal simulacra of Old Spear reminded Dacien to remember his lessons. It retold the legend of a magnificent beast that nonetheless needed to be put down for the good of the kingdom before melting back into an unrecognizable mass. The experience rattled Dacien even further.

As they moved further into the next corridor, they encountered a metal wolf construct, similar to the creatures they faced earlier in the Underdark War. But this one was rampaging wildly, set ablaze by the excess chaos energy. Some quick footwork allowed the party to avoid the wolf and move on mostly unscathed.

Finally, they arrived at the antechamber to the sanctuary engine hall. Fearing a trap, the party had Centurion force Lotho to lead the way into the hall. One final psychic encounter occurred as echoes of the voice of Old Spear seemed to have an effect on Centurion’s disposition. At the same time, the voice of an old partner-in-crime who Lotho had long ago betrayed haunted him as he walked through the chamber. However, no trap seemed forthcoming, and the rest of the party followed into the sanctuary engine hall.

This central chamber saw the thickest layers of the myconid growths. The walls, floors, and ceiling were covered in it. A glowing energy source stood at the back of the hall, clearly the sanctuary engine at the center of the explosion of chaos energy. But it appeared transformed from Lotho’s description. Rather than a flame in a mechanical cage, the sanctuary engine had shifted into a giant beating heart, cradled in vines of the fungal growth.

Centurion and Tongar quickly rushed ahead to hold off the creature, contending with the dragon’s fierce claw and tail attacks. Before the party could position themselves too far apart, the fungal dragon unleashed a nightmarish breath weapon of spores, damaging most of the party. Focusing on their mission, Dacien focused flames from the pyroconverger onto the sanctuary engine heart. The dragon roared in protest.

Lagûn and Erling offered help from a distance with healing magics. Kona maneuvered his way around the dragon, striking out with a smiting rapier, before nimbly moving out of reach. Dacien continued his focus on the heart, striking it down with his blade. The transformed sanctuary engine shriveled under the blow and the glowing energy within it collapsed. The immediate danger of the leaking chaos energy was stopped, but the party’s victory seemed only to enrage the fungal dragon further.

Another round of the dragon’s spore breath knocked out Centurion, Tongar, and Dacien in one blow. Kona channeled his magic into more smiting blows, puncturing the large fungal sacs along the dragon’s throat. Erling tossed out some more healing balms, helping party members recover. But it was Lagûn, firing a desperate shot from his crossbow, that landed the final deathblow to the fungal beast.

The dragon let out a sorrowful death wail and began decaying immediately. Its body shriveled to a fraction of its size, leaving behind a small glowing fungal pod. Slowly, the golden haze in the area began lifting. Erling examined the fungal seed pod and guessed that all may not be lost for King Aina and the mutated myconids. A fragment of their collective consciousness might have yet survived in the fungal pod left behind.

With the threat taken care of and the First Flame in shambles, the rest of the Aurora Force was able to enter Cinder Castle for clean up. The remaining cultists were either put down or captured. Over the next few days, Aurora Force picked through the rubble of Cinder Castle, emerging with resources that would supply further efforts in protecting the area. For their key role in taking down the cultists, the party were rewarded with a healthy fortune and magic items to take back to Lanternwurm. Erling offered to take the fungal seed pod back to the myconids colony in the Blue Marshes to see what could be recovered from the consciousness of the lost myconids.

And so, after many long months of war in the Underdark, the adventurers were ready to return to the surface and back to Lanternwurm. Dacien, touched by the encounters with his past while in Cinder Castle, decided to begin to treat Centurion more as a partner rather than a servant. Impressed by Lagûn’s killing shot on the fungal dragon and reminded of his own training journey during the adventure, Kona decided it was time for his locanth ward to get his own real sword (or perhaps a finer crossbow).

The rush of fresh air and heat of the afternoon sun were intoxicating as the party set foot on the surface. In the distance, they heard the familiar chugging of Lanternwurm as the sanctuary engine approached, welcoming them home.

Loot:

• Gold and valuables worth 8490 gp

• Cloak of Displacement
  Wondrous item, rare (requires attunement)
  While you wear this cloak, it projects an illusion that makes you appear to be standing in a place near your actual location, causing any creature to have disadvantage on attack rolls against you. If you take damage, the property ceases to function until the start of your next turn. This property is suppressed while you are incapacitated, restrained, or otherwise unable to move.

• Staff of the Adder
  Staff, weapon, uncommon (requires attunement by a cleric, druid, or warlock)
  1d6 bludgeoning - versatile (1d8)
  You can use a bonus action to speak this staff's command word and make the head of the staff become that of an animate poisonous snake for 1 minute. By using another bonus action to speak the command word again, you return the staff to its normal inanimate form.
  You can make a melee attack using the snake head, which has a reach of 5 feet. Your proficiency bonus applies to the attack roll. On a hit, the target takes 1d6 piercing damage and must succeed on a DC 15 Constitution saving throw or take 3d6 poison damage.
  The snake head can be attacked while it is animate. It has an Armor Class of 15 and 20 hit points. If the head drops to 0 hit points, the staff is destroyed. As long as it's not destroyed, the staff regains all lost hit points when it reverts to its inanimate form.

• Ring of Warmth
  Ring, uncommon (requires attunement)
  While wearing this ring, you have resistance to cold damage. In addition, you and everything you wear and carry are unharmed by temperatures as low as -50 degrees Fahrenheit.

• Censer of Controlling Air Elementals
  While incense is burning in this censer, you can use an action to speak the censer's command word and summon an air elemental, as if you had cast the conjure elemental spell. The censer can't be used this way again until the next dawn.
  This 6-inch-wide, 1-foot-high vessel resembles a chalice with a decorated lid. It weighs 1 pound.

-Old Empire materials for improved armor