The hunted and the hunters

1489
Year of the Warrior Princess
Hammer 1

The party barely rested from a tough fight with the Umber Hulks and Mind Flayers push forward into the ancient shrine of Silvanus, now being corrupted by the Squat man and his followers. The next room holds little to surprise the group, some brutes and lurkers. They fight their enemies with precision and take them down with little effort. A long passage is discovered and the party marches down it. Riddick is in front and rounds the corner to see a large room about 30 feet away. He spies some Driders and other creatures. About this time Leif perceives a tremor, very slight, but it feels like a large creature or many small creatures moving underneath him or around him somehow.
They make their into the hall and combat starts! Inside the room at the opposite end is a large portal that leads to what appears to be the Underdark. Also in the room is the Squat man himself! After a few rounds of fighting the group seems at a disadvantage, but Hannibal's rally has them reposition themselves to better take advantage of their numbers. Just a mere moment later all lights in the room go out for an instant and them come back very, very dim. In the portal an image of Loth appears, both beautiful and terrible. The Squat man yells "Mistress! See me here to triumph over thy enemies!" "Yes, my slave", she answers, "but you are both wrong and right. Right that Riddick's blood will be delivered to me, but not by you. Your sloppy work in Waterdeep has jeopardized my emissaries there and now they are in peril. I hear by charge you to escape back to the city and warn my people there. Have everyone rendezvous at the meeting place. Slay these pathetic creatures, they are vermin! Until you do my bidding you will never enter my realms again." The squat man responds "But if I do not carry the day against these enemies who will?" Lolth laughs and says "Fool! My true servants will return carrying my prize, but I will grant you this boon". She points and a fell light leaps from her finger into the Squat man. His head drops for a moment and then he renews the fight with vigor!
They party seems to take the upper hand after several more rounds. With a gasp the bloodied Squat man invokes Lolth's blessing. His skin seems to crack and fall off, he grows to a 12 foot high demon! Using some kind of evil power he draws a web of power surrounding himself and Hannibal, encasing them in a deadly dome! As the rest of the party battles the dwindling forces, a life and death struggle between Hannibal and demon can be seem through the smokey force cage. Back and forth the demon and Hannibal swing their weapons each dealing wounds. Hannibal is bloodied several times only to inspire himself to continue the fight. Finally, Hannibal delivers what must be a mortal wound. The sword pierces the demons heart. The demon not done, grabs Hannibal's wrists which are shoving the weapon into the demon. The fire from the demon's contact burns Hannibal but he continues to hold the blade. What was the Squat man pulls Hannibal closer, even though that means the sword is driven further into it. Once the sword hilt touches the demon's chest Hannibal finds him so close he is almost face to face with the creature. The demon whispers "Oh Mistress, I have failed you. Take my soul and destroy this Dragonborn so he may join me in the Abyss." With that the demon explodes, killing Hannibal in the process.
The group wearied by their fight with the Driders are struck dumb by the fall of their captain and leader. With renewed effort they slay the rest of the enemy and take in their situation. Not much later they realize that the tremors they heard were many footsteps coming down into the temple. Soon the room is flooded with a Drow army! Riddick knowing the odds are very poor invokes the Rod of the Sentinel to send a distress message to Brolgar. The party weakened by many fights and no rest puts up a gallant fight before they are beaten down and captured. They are tied up and tortured by the Drow. A few minutes later when the room is secured, none other than Emerate Qushae enters the room! "Ah you have done well General" he says to a warrior near him. "Take Riddick and be careful he comes to no harm. Slay the rest." With that Riddick is taken and put on a wagon, bound hand and foot, eyes covered as well. The Drow General moves down the line of captives and slits their throats one by one....

Prologue:

Brolgar and Diovanni have entered Waterdeep and are debriefing his father Ellanzo when the distress call comes in. With little time wasted, Ellanzo gathers a force such as he can and has a wizard create a temporary portal to the rod's location. They come upon a rear guard of Drow most of which are looting the dead bodies of our group. Ellanzo has his forces unleash on the Drow in which most are slain. The rest are driven back into the portal where the Drow try to close it on the other side. Ellanzo orders his wizards to hold it open for as long as they can while he brings the bodies back to Waterdeep. Helping him are Brolgar and Diovanni, who are saddened by their friends' death.
Ellanzo has each party member brought back to life in a very fast manner. He explains that he has also been in communication with Elladon, head of the church of the Seldarine in Faerun. Lolth and the Emerate cannot be allowed to complete the ritual. The group is to go back now and chase the Drow and to either hinder them or regain Riddick anyway they can. He will be in contact with them to explain further. As a boon to aid them on this very important mission, he will supply them with either a +3 weapon or armor of the type of their choosing from the armory of the Lords of Waterdeep; each bound and woven with magical spells to aid those that serve this city. Since you are down one member, he will also send a member of his household with you, Lucius Daybreaker. He is known to Leif and Jax. Lucius was an orphan and was brought into Ellanzo's household and raised as a step brother to Diovanni.
Time is running short as Ellanzo leads you back through the portal to the broken temple. As you enter the room where you died, his wizards are working hard to keep the portal open while you were recovered. Breaking a rod of day light Hannibal yells and jumps through the portal followed by the rest of the party. On the other side are a small group of Drow wizards and their Drider guards. The party makes short work of them, and clears out the room. It looks as if the hunted are now the hunters!

Exp. Gained: 3425

No Rest for the Weary

1489
Year of the Warrior Princess
Nightal 30

Our brave band of adventurers are called into Ellanzo's office at Castle Waterdeep sometime after midnight. Still tired from the fight with the demon and the disposal, they are briefed by Sgt. York. York tells them that their intel has the Squat man and his syndicate ready to make a big move tonight on several locations. Our group is given on uptown bar to stake out. The bar is located in the Noble's District and is a very fine establishment. Inside Leif and Hannibal stake out the place, it is filled mostly with college kids throwing around a lot of gold buying drinks and gambling. Outside, Solomon Kong tries to hide behind the beer cart but fails and moves down the block a bit. Also out of the way are Jax, Riddick, and Brother Krux. Krux still appears out of place with his new armor. It is very fancy and has many sigils embedded into it.
Around 2:00 am a party of kidnappers detonate a bomb from inside the bar killing most of the people! They knock out and hog tie two of the wealthy college kids and try to make off with them. Of course our group tries to stop them and does even after a few of the kidnappers appear to be unaffected by immobilization effects. They spare the leader of the bandits (at least most of him that Solomon did not crush), and he tells them that the Squat man has sent out all teams to do a massive score and to cause some instability to Ellanzo's new rule of Waterdeep. They are told some generic details where the camp is, it is at an old temple dedicated to the god of nature, Silvanus. Sgt. York gets some phantom steeps summoned for the party and they are off! Luckily between Jax and Leif they know enough about the surrounding area and especially with Leif making some good nature checks they find the ruined temple with little effort.
At the ruined temple, they see many low level thugs and in the back a leader and his wizard companion. The party attempts to stealth as far into the woods as possible to get close to the temple before the fight starts. About half way there they are finally spotted and the combat starts. Everyone seems to be fairly adapt at killing off the weaker thugs and then they concentrate on the leaders. The enemy wizard makes the fatal mistake of force moving Solomon dropping him down a deep well. Solomon reaches out and lashes onto the wizard dragging him down with him! Needless to say that is the worse day the wizard has ever had. After the combat they search and find that the pool still has a small amount of magic left in it. In the old days, followers of Sivanus would stand in the pool and utter a word of prayer to Silvanus, a traveler's chant. This chant would wash off some of the weariness of the road and leave the pilgrims refreshed. Not only does Leif recall the prayer, but does so well with the chant as the last energies of the pool leave, Silvanus' aspect is summoned by Leif's prayer! At that moment Leif converts to the worship of Silvanus and the aspect presents Leif with a power weapon from his new god. A magical totem woven with spells of protection and nature.
After searching around Riddick discovers a hidden door that leads to a circular stone staircase that does down about 60 feet. At the bottom of this landing is a set of double doors. On the way down Riddick was able to diffuse several nasty traps to the relief of the party.
Peeking through the doors they see a large Umberhulk in an odd shaped chamber. In one end of the chamber an odd well is in the floor and is uncovered. The group rushes in to fight the umberhulk. A few moments later another umberhulk craws out of the old well, and a mindflayer comes out from around the corner! The umberhulk were brutes, and they were able to scare Riddick a bit for part of the fight, but the fight was not in doubt once Jax was able to blow the mindflayer down the old well with a nicely placed Thunder Wave spell. The party is sensing the Squat man is close! They catch their breaths for a few minutes and heal up a bit. At this point they have been up for almost 24 hours, and have been non-stop for the last 12 or so. Onward!


Exp Awarded: 2325


- P.S. ~~ Hannibal ~~

The Invulnerable Coat of Arn is capable of communicating with you with emotions. It feels that is should leave very soon, but is pressuring you to complete this one last task with it. The Coat gives you the sensation that many valiant deeds are in front of you and they you are one of the best wearers to come along in many a lifetimes. Still there are warriors in the multi-verse that need to coat now more than you do, so it must leave you very soon.

The Favorite Sons Return

1489
Year of the Warrior Princess
Nightal 28 to Nightal 29

The party steps out of the Faewild portal and lands near the front gate of Waterdeep just as Tunian promised! The sun is shining on this beautiful but chilly day here on the Sword Coast. Your home coming was not to have happened for several weeks now, as you have come very far via the portal. You suspect you may even be several days ahead of Brolgar and Diovanni even though they left a ten-day before you.
With a substantial amount of gold in your posession and of course some other goods, you head off to the Nobles Ward to aquire a fine hotel to live in for now. You also peruse the local shops in order to sell some jewelry and gems. The group decides to rent out the penthouse at a swank hotel, The Dandy Dragon.
Over the next few days, they catch up with Ellanzo, now the open Lord of Waterdeep. There are 19 other Lords, but they are masked and unknown to all but a few people. While talking to Ellanzo, a coven of Monks from Krux's monastery show up the morning in Waterdeep looking for him. His old friend and master of the monastery, Bishop Sasoroth, has passed away at a very old age. They also have an odd package for him that arrived at the monastery's steps the day after Sasoroth's passing. Ellanzo asks them to speak to Sgt. York about odd goings on in the city and if they can help him out. Since their work at Skullport, slavery has decreased by 90%, but kidnappings have increased greatly. Most of the victims are young and wealthy. There usually is no ransom involved, they just up and disappear. The watch believes that the "squat man" is to blame as he has been spotted outside of Waterdeep with some of the victims, and has killed off several patrols....
Jax comes back to the Wizard's college to see some old teachers and to see if they can help him in trade with some magic items. Luckily they are willing (since he is a member in good standing), and they are able to make some mutually beneficial trades. Jax also does some guest lecturing on the Faewild and answers some questions on the Underdark.
A sweet homecoming is had by Jax and Leif as they meet their mothers in the Merchant's Ward. That night Rose cooks a grand feast and invites the party and many of her neighbors and friends that they have known for years. The Waterdavian members of the party do notice a lot of changes going on in the Merchant's Ward. Many of the older establishments have now been replaced by newer and fancier businesses. Rose explains to everyone that the new master of the ward, Walton Barrue, has driven up taxes on established merchants hoping to get the older and poorer owners to sell and to let new foreign investors in the ward. Rose has complained many times at town hall meetings and loudly at that. Walton's son Billy, now the Sheriff of the ward, has warned Rose to keep quiet or "something bad" might happen to her.
Matron Lilith, Jax's mother, has been looking very frail lately. It seems her burdens of running the mission house is starting to take its toll on her. She is as always has been a voice for those who are silent. An advocate for poor women and an anti-slavery patron she works tirelessly and is still very passionate.
After the dinner is over, Leif asks everyone except Jax to give them some space so that the two men can talk with their mothers about more intimate things and to have some time alone. Hannibal takes the party down to the inn called the Twisted Nut, a place where the group met for the first time and started their adventures. On the way they run into Sheriff Billy Barrue who informs them that they have been evicted from the old apartments near the docks. They also run into an old friend in the constables office that asks them to have a beer and tell him of their tales from the last six months. Hannibal shows off the Invulnerable coat of Arn and wows the locals with some stories. Back at Leif's house, Jax feels that his mother is holding back something. She reveals that she has been busy digging into the past and has discovered that the deaths of Jax's father and Leif's father may be related. She has paid someone to steal some of Ellanzo's files where she found information on past demonic cults. She found arcane details like demon names and rituals too. They pry some more information from her and she finally breaks down and cries as she tells them her story. Her and Rose have been getting deeper and deeper involved in demonic summoning to try and find out how their husbands died and what they need to do to protect their boys. As they found out more information their rituals became more dangerous, finally culminating with an accidential death of one of Lilith's works, a woman named Lizbeth. Before the demon could escape, they trapped it in her basement but it is still there. Jax examines the ritual they used to summon the demon and he finds their work sloppy and dangerous. He knows the holding spell will soon fail and the demon will be released on the city. They speak to the party and everyone agrees to destroy the demon. It is now just past midnight and they descend to the basement. A great battle ensues and they kill the demon! They decide to get rid of the corpse by donating to the Wizard's college. The find some of the teachers playing a game called "Paper and Paychecks" in the large auditorium. A deal is struck and no one outside the college will ever know where the corpse came from.
A sending comes soon after their leave the school... It is from Sgt York! He tells them to hurry to Castle Waterdeep; they have a lead on the kidnappers! Onward!

Exp. Gained: 2595

Escape from the Faewild, or how Leif got his groove back

1489
Year of the Warrior Princess
Nightal 19 to Nightal 27

The group dismantles the final arcane engine in the Garden of Graves and searches around for other creatures in the other buildings just in case... They come upon a pair of Grey Angels which they are at first hostile but Hannibal talks up their more honorable tendencies and they become allies with you against the power(s) that built this horrible place. The Angels are set on tearing it down and putting the graves back together and the party then chooses to leave and try and find a portal home. They notice that the portal that brought them here is now gone, or was a one-way portal as Jax explains some of the inner workings of these magical devices. You spend many days looking for another portal back to Toril and Faerun. There are places in the Faewild that merge with your world, the trick is to find one of them which is not easy. However, life in the Faewild is not all bad. The lands are lush and food and water are plentiful.
After the 7th day here, loud trumpets can be heard in the distance. The sound is both beautiful and terrible at the same time. The large host can be seen coming at a very fast speed. Within an hour or so it over takes the party and they are told to stop by a very beautiful and enchanting Eladrin that calls herself Tunian, Mistress of the Summer Court. She is a very important and high level priestess of the Summer Queen herself!
Tunian asks them many questions about their time here and their actions in the Garden of Graves. It turns out that she is trying to hunt down anyone responsible for the slaying of Fae creatures there. Hannibal confesses to some of the killing but argues that it was justified as they were attacked and the Fae seemed to be under a curse. Tunian communes with the Summer Queen and decides to commute their sentence from immediate death to banishment for 99 years - on the condition they aid the Summer Court by ridding them of a particularly nasty green dragon named Dawn. It seems Dawn has taken to herself to become a god and had gathered followers. The deal is sealed by Leif having a geas put on him by Tunian during "climax", he willingly accepts this and agrees to be part of the ritual. The group is sent to kill off as many followers and slay the dragon if able. The party is mostly successful but Dawn does escape the killing blow. Not without some pity Tunian opens a portal to Faerun very close to Waterdeep; the party leaves the Faewild with several warnings: 1, they are considered banished from the realms of the Summer Queen, with a penalty of death should they enter before 99 years have passed. 2, there is a very powerful death entity that may be searching for them, killing first and asking questions later to get to the bottom of the undead at the Garden of Graves. It seems the powers that be do not like someone intruding upon their portfolio of death.

Exp: 2860

The Fae Wild and some other crazy stuff...

1489
Year of the Warrior Princess
Nightal 19

The party recovers from their tough fight, and goes on to explore the rest of the room. You find an odd brazier that is suspended over an off sun dial. After examining it they move on to the main complex. Inside the first room, an odd puzzle is found along with many murals covering the walls. the puzzle actually is related to the brazier from the previous room so Leif pieces the solution together fairly fast. Riddick on a whim, sticks the key from the whirlpool into the mural with the large doors and everyone hears a far away click! Unfortunately, the path South is blocked by an immovable door so they must venture East. They come upon a weird game room, and manage to beat phantom players at various games. Conjuring advanced moves from past adventurers such as Zecks and Synge certainly help a great deal.
The Eastern most room holds a very interesting combat, enemies enchanted to look like each party member attack the group! Using their insight skills well, they avoid healing the bad clones and hurting their friends by accident, after several bloody rounds the party manage to defeat the room. In the room is a level which Riddick pulls, which lifts the large stone door blocking the South passage.
Inside the South passage is an oddly shaped room, with 3 cairns in one end and an open area to the other side with a lot if ivy growing on the walls. The ivy is some crazed Fae like being! Busting out of the cairns are three undead, one of them a large sized Furbolg. The Ivy spent most of the fight pinning the leaders to her walls while the undead monsters beat on the poor group. There were some close calls but the party killed off the undead and then ranged the ivy to death.
All that seems left to the crazed area is the passage South, will this finally be the end? Can they stop the madness from taking over more of the Fae Wild and help save Cormyr from unneeded bloodshed?

Exp: 2128

So-Ko, Snickerly and the Fae Wild

1489
Year of the Warrior Princess
Nightal 18

Our group is still taking things easy in Cormyr's capital city of Suzai, and they had just said goodbye to Diovanni and Brolgar who left for Waterdeep and their home a fews days prior. Riddick is off on one of his "training" missions which usually finds him coming in as Lathander's orb is rising in the East with a fresh bruise or two and a bulge on his backpack. The rest of our heroes are at their favorite inn, the Naken Siren. A strange man cloaked and hooded approaches. He gives them an option to gain favor of a powerful ally and wealth to go along. He drops his card and disappears in front of them! They decide to at least take the time to hear his offer and follow directions to his hotel room from the card he left. When they get to the room, there are a couple of locals there at the front door making sure that no trouble is caused. The group is shown in, and go into a dark room where the hooded man is sitting at a long table flanked by two foreign looking warriors. He produces a small chest, opens it and turns it to the party; inside are hundreds of identical gems, and he tosses one to Hannibal to keep. It is an astral diamond! The masked man then offers the rest of the chest to the party and also promises favors from the Spider Queen if they bring him Riddick! Hannibal is furious and tosses the table aside! The masked man said the offer is still valid as Leif looks interested for a short while. Everyone leaves the room quickly after the hooded man teleports out with his two guards.
After a few more days the party decides it is time to leave and with much pomp and circumstance they are escorted to the city boundaries by the Purple Dragon Knights. A few easy days of travel pass by and then some odd and disturbing scenes are come across by the group. Most are attacks of merchants and a few attacks look like regular citizens are killed for no reason. About this time the King's wizard Wriser-maa-todus sends Jax a sending asking him to be on the lookout of off Fae incursions, and that other parties friendly to the King are on the look out as well.
The next day they come across a couple of Satyrs attacking a farmer and his two daughters. The party acts to stop the attack, but the Satyrs flee and the group chases them. After a good 10 minutes of flat out sprinting through the woods, they come to a meadow to see the Satyr's flee though a portal to the Faewild! Before they can get to examining the portal, they find at the opposite edge of the lea an oddly dressed Gnome surrounded by some man-sized golems. The Gnome tries and finally success in communicating with the group. He names himself Snickerly Rubble, and states he is here to retrieve some property of his master. The only thing you see is an old statue that must have been here many, many years. As Snickerly recites a complex ritual, the statue comes to life! The statue seems to be some kind of run away slave, but a powerful one at that. Snickerly opens a portal to an odd world called Ebberon, and has some type of control box that is forcing the creature (it names itself Solomon Kong), to go through the portal. The party tries to intercede but Snickerly takes that as a hostile action and attacks! His men-golems attack as well, and it looks like he can control Solomon using his box. A tough fight ensues seeing Snickerly at the end push a button that creates a bright and intense beam from Solomon's chest that slices off the left side of Riddick's face! Solomon smashes the control box and Snickerly escapes jumping through the portal.
Solomon introduces himself and asks to join the group as he is now awaken from a long sleep and appears to be free of his master, at least for now.
Jax manages to reopen the portal to the Faewild, and the party goes though wanting to find the source of these strange incursions. Upon landing in the Faewild, Leif is momentarily stricken with an intense pain which subsides. He feels this pain may be related to the source of his night terrors which have been getting worse. Are the Fae and his terrors related?
The party marches on and comes to an area with several buildings. After some odd combats and doing some searches, they come to an old map room with a large map of this compound. They notice that this area was once a large graveyard with many, many cairns. Most of these cairns have been dug up and used to make those weird buildings. Another odd thing is that some of the Fae that they fought seemed crazed and upon death remained animated enough to fight for a short time after!
Is this placed cursed? Is there some power behind the crazed Fae and the curse of undeath? What have they gotten themselves into?
The last encounter of the day is a doozie. A shapeshifter pretends to be an enslaved Eladrin and attacks the group. She is aided by two beetle swarms and manages to kill Leif, and severely wound most of the others before she is put down! Her treasure is an enchanted ring of wishes! Jax and Riddick decide to burn off all the power of the ring to try and bring back Leif from the underworld.... It works! A long rest is taken by the group, and is well deserved.

EXP: 2140

Going top side

1489
Year of the Warrior Princess
Uktar 11

You and the Drow have begun a hectic race to the surface. Carrying the Justicar slows you down, but with his help you manage to take several lesser traveled paths to go ever closer to the world you know and love. The party stumbles across a couple of moderately wounded Harpers, Lt. Starshot and Sgt. Means. They assess you of the current situation: Smaller crack squads of Drow have been sighted and either they wipe out the Harper forces or if faced with superior numbers, they vanish before much damage can be dealt to them. Now rising to the surface is a very large invading army of Drow as well. They seem to be headed to what the Harpers call the "Last Stand", an old magical outpost of Myth Drannor that the Harpers along with Cormyr staff as an underground outpost. They deem that the Drow cannot take this, since there are magical portals that they could use to move across Faerun. The outpost itself is several miles underground and is near enough that the party could get there in a day or two. The Harpers assist you with your wounded but they can only do so much for the Justicar. After several hours of travel they give you final directions to the Last Stand, and wish you well.
The party does make it to the ancient outpost almost at the same time the Drow invading army does. They take a back way scouted out by Riddick (into a kitchen area), and come across some Purple Dragon Knights! These knights are at first hostile (seeing Riddick sneaking around), but cooler heads prevail after Hannibal presents himself and the group. Hannibal strikes a worthy leader to the Knights, especially showing off in the Coat of Arn that he gained several months ago.
The groups fights hither and dither on their way to the last functioning portal. This portal leads to a topside area in Cormyr, and they are told the King of Cormyr, Foril, has taken the field with his primary army in case the Drow breach the surface. Our party has to hold the portal until the final combat so that everyone else can escape the Drow! A great fight ensues at the portal (some magical repair is needed to the device during the fight that Jax completes) and the captain of the Purple Knights orders the group through while he detonates the portal from the other side killing himself and many Drow.
The party, blinded by the noon day sun are congratulated and questioned by the King and his staff. After several hours they are offered a good deal of hospitality and are deemed heroes by the ruler of Cormyr.

POST Adventure: Many days pass as the party recovers from their adventure in the Underdark. For everyone but Riddick, it takes days to recover your normal sight, and some times your eyes hurt when you are outside in the daylight for too long. However being deemed heroes is a good thing. There is plenty of time for Jax to craft magical items, and for long lost correspondence to your loved ones back in Waterdeep. Leif finds that his night terrors have returned now that he is back on the surface; Brolgar and Diovanni find messages sent to them from their highly placed family members in Waterdeep, calling them home sooner than the rest of you would like to leave. They decide to head home early, taking on work with a merchant caravan headed for the Sword Coast. Before they leave however, the party is gifted with several magic items, one of which is a three part item called the beacon of the guardian. All three parts act in a similar manner, if one is broken, the other two will home in on it giving the owners a very good idea of distance and direction that the broken unit lies. To break a piece is a minor action if the item is located where you can get to it easily, say around the neck or tied to you belt. A six word phase can be recorded when the item is broken. A broken piece can be repaired and used again at cost of 1,000 gold. Brolgar and Diovanni are given one of the pieces your group retains control of the other two to be given to whomever you wish.

EXP: 1356 + 250 for story completion