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

Out of the Underdark into the near dark.

1489
Year of the Warrior Princess
Uktar 4

After a few days of little resistance, the group figures to run into some bigger and badder patrols as they near the top of the Underdark. The Justicar tells them at breakfast they should plan to meet up in a few hours at the Chasm of Lost Hope. This is a very large, well known, natural landmark in the Underdark (think of the Grand Canyon). At one of its more narrow points there is an ancient bridge that spans the chasm. Since this is a natural point of entry to the upper world, it is guarded by a Fearunian group called the Harpers. After a few combats (Riddick seems to make a popular target), they approach the bridge. Across from it they see the Justicar not only caught, but being tortured by Drow! There are bodies of Harpers strewn about as well. They rush past a patrol of guards, Jax keeping them occupied, and sprint toward the Drow encampment. Among the Drow they see a pair of dreaded Driders. A fierce and deadly battle ensues with several bodies going over the bridge to their death. The party wins, and rescues the Justicar just before he was about to die. (A healing spell by the Shaman Leif came in at the right time.) Weary and wounded the party takes back off, surely the guards that escaped will alert their main forces and will be chasing them soon! On to the surface!

EXP - 1500

Through the mages tower

1489

Year of the Warrior Princess

Marpenoth 30

Our group wounded and weary finally find the long abandoned mage's keep they were told to head for to meet up with the Justicar, Diovanni, and Brother Krux. They managed to maneuver past most of the odd and sometimes deadly ancient magic; sometimes having to navigate though living magic! They ran into an old animal pen filled with exotic creatures the mage must have experimented on in the past. At the far end of the pen was an undead Beholder! After moving past this encounter they head through a lab, Jax brave enough to loot unknown powders and magical dusts along the way. One final encounter has them fighting living flames and spheres of darkness! Hannibal seems to be on death's door. Is it his new armor driving him to rash actions or his he always been like this? They escaped the tower and found a secure cave where they take a long rest!

Exp - 2060

Hannibal's Journal - Marpenoth 28

Never has there been a fouler sub-race than the Drow. Their cowardly treachery, vile cruelty, and utter lack of honor would make Tiamat blush....

On the eve of the culmination of our work in Skullport, the city was besieged by the dark elves. Using treachery and vile magic (for the Drow would never fight an honorable battle), the city and our group were taken completely by surprise. After an explosion rocked our barracks, Brother Krux, Riddick and I were separated from the rest of our group and in desperate hand to hand combat with hordes of Drow "warriors". Despite our best efforts, we were overcome by their craven poisonous bolts.

The following days were a blur (was it only nine days?). We were force marched to be sacrificed to their demon-bitch Lolth. They took particular delight in torture, causing excruciating pain, but asking no questions. Krux bore the brunt of their cruelty; either they had never encountered a Githzerai before or they wanted to test the limits of his monastic training. Eventually the Drow grew bored and the torture subsided.

Several days into our journey, our Drow captors were themselves attacked and slaughtered by another group of Drow. These new dark elves were even crueler than our original captors and they seemed to have exceptional hatred for Riddick. These Drow employed demon-spawned magic in their torture; the worst among them being described later by Jax as "Demonologists".

I swore then that when I escaped, I would whet my blade with the dark blood of as many Demonologists as I could find.

Bahamut’s Grace shined upon us days later when the rest of our group caught up with our new captors and freed us. They are amazingly more resourceful than I gave them credit for. With the help of this mysterious "Justicar" fellow, they tracked us through the Underdark, somehow travelled ahead of our highly trained Drow captors, and set up a very effective ambush. I am both humbled and honored to call them friends. Because of their ability, I am free and the house signet pin of our "Demonologist acquaintance" is in my pouch.

The days following our escape were harrowing. This part of the Underdark is a hornets’ nest of Drow. We've been harried and ambushed constantly, but we've finally gained refuge in an ancient Dwarven temple after vanquishing its unnatural undead dragon guardian.

When times seem darkest, Lendys (dragon god of balance and justice) will sometimes tip the scales to your favor. In the guardian's horde, we found an item of renown that will help us in our struggle against the Drow. My friends honored me by allowing me to wear this item:

The Invulnerable Coat of Arnd.

I felt the honor and valor of famous warriors of history ignite in me when I donned the armor: The stand of thirty at the gates of Myth Drannor, the charge of Warlord Kieth that broke the Granitefang orcs in the Battle of Brokenfang, the breaking of the Drow siege of Mithril Hall…

Yes, I am eager to take the fight back to the Drow.

Run Hannibal run!

1489
Year of the Warrior Princess
Marpenoth 28 - 30

The group moves forward and finds itself in an immense treasure room! Unfortunately the creature guarding the treasure is stirs... It is a large undead dragon, awaken to protect its master's trove! The group spreads out to attack, out of concern for his friend, Leif tackles brother Krux to keep him out of the fight. After the battle, a well deserved rest happens, along with picking through the coins and items. They also use this time to crack the cypher found amongst the Drow bodies that were mysteriously killed. After several hours Riddick, Leif and Jax manage to make out a note from a very high level Drow leader called Emerate Qushae. It details plans to find the few remaining survivors of a fallen house called Faen Tlabbar to power some type of Epic artifact for revenge against an Elf named Elladon. Piecing together local knowledge, history, and Riddick's own back story along with the cypher, you come up with the following:

Some time ago before the Spellscar plague, an adventurer named Elladon along with his friends sacked a Drow temple deep in the underdark to recover an Elven artifact called the 'Blade of Rulers'. The artifact along with further work from that group (this group spawned no other than the god to be Singe, and the classical musical legend Zecks among several other legends) to reclaim the lost Myth Drannor from the Drow and their demon allies. The house that failed to protect the temple is named Faen Tlabar. Loth came down mightily hard on them and their descendants. They were shunned and ritually sacrificed. Several of the house managed to escape in the early years to parts across the multiverse. A large group found solice working for Graz'zt, the Ebon Lord of the Abat-Dolor, a race of demons who all look more or less like him. His realm is in the Abyss, far from the Underdark, but not far enough, even this place was attacked by the dark elves, and all members of that house taken back to be killed for nefarious purposes. The Drow now desperate for the blood of House Faen Tlabbar to power some type of unholy relic, is seeking all surviving members. The final notes from the cypher indicate they have almost completed rebuilding the relic and need just a small amount of blood, say one or two more individuals should suffice. Named in the cypher are Riddick and his father Malaggar are the next targets. The Emerate has certain rituals that tell him where members of this house are. The last know location for Riddick is said to be Skullport; his father, Neverwinter.

Still sinking in this information, the group is roused by the Justicar. It is time to move on once more! The old Dwarven ruins that have been their home for two days is now no longer safe.

On the morning of the 30th, he and Brother Krux left to lay false trails and lead the Drow away from the group's true path. The hither and dithering your paths have taken lead to virtually no where but up, misdirecting the Drow on your final destination. This may make travel safer, but it also certainly makes it longer as well.

Several Drow patrols are met and dispatched over the next few days, no major combat thankfully. The 30th however the groups luck runs low. Given directions by the Justicar they enter a strange area of the Underdark, the Justicar says this was once the lands of an insane wizard long dead, but his creations can still be found down here. Over the course of many years, most everything has been cleared out by Drow, or the odd adventuring company looking for lost treasure. Just before lunch they come across a room with floating islands as what appears the be the safest way to the other side. A fierce battle ensues with long forgotten undead, but the group manages to cross to the other side. As a footnote, Brolgar discovers a very old Dwarven corpse decked out in holy armor of the church of Moradin. He plans on studying it on the return trip out of the Underdark.

Exp - 1475

A bloody reunion

1489

Year of the Warrior Princess

Marpenoth 26 - 27

The sundered party is made whole at last, thanks to the Justicar. Finally tracked to a Drow camp the free members of the group: Diovanni, Leif, Jax and Brolgar assault the dark elves after the Justicar draws off most of them in a fake ambush. The fight the remainder of the guards, and then quickly leave. Most odd is that these Drow are not the elves that first captured Riddick, Hannibal, and Brother Krux. Those elves are dead by these same Drow that were holding the group captive. The party found a strange cypher, taken from the first set of Drow that might hold some answers, but there is no time now to try and crack it.

The three members that were captured find themselves cramped, starved, and fairly well beaten after 9 days in a slave pen, it looks like the toll of that experience has affected all of them, with Brother Krux being the worse off. After freeing themselves, the group is on the run for a few hours before they rendezvous with the Justicar. He gives them directions to an old ruined Dwarven holy city, over run by the Drow many centuries ago. They are to make for that while he throws off the pursuit. According to him there are hundreds if not thousands of Drow after them, but why?

After getting caught in an ambush, which almost cost the lives of Jax and Krux, they party finally finds the entrance to the holy area, in looking around they spot a false wall that has been revealed by a recent earthquake, one that has not been accessed for many, many years. Upon by passing the wall and dropping down to a smaller room, they are amazed by mounds of treasure! Before they can take it all in a large monster stirs at the far wall and approaches: An undead dragon guardian!

EXP - 1250