The Rest of the Story

Thoradin here with news

We get back to the future and this time things seem to be going alright. Riana shows up and we let her in. We ask her about the current situation in world, she says that the three opposing groups can be brought together under an agreement with Haarlem as the seat of power but there is a slight problem. A group of raksasha is in opposition to the current governments and need to be dealt with. They are currently headquartered at the guardian’s guild. We go purchase some things to get ready for the fight. Derrick opens a portal in the front doorway and Luna opens one into their teleportation circle. This effectively blocks them in for a few rounds. We step through, Luna going through Derrick’s portal and Derrick going through Luna’s and battle commences.

Battle lasted quite awhile Luna having some difficulty at the door and needed healing a couple of times. We were able to deal with them and no escaped as Derrick made traps for there souls so they would not just be reborn later to cause additional trouble.

After this things settled down for the Azure Sentinels.

Loof after leading the revolution settled down and lived his life out as a farmer.

Derrick raised his family before becoming one with the book, which as they say is another story.

Luna raised trouble with the gods for a long time.

Tharek satisfied with his academy looked for different kinds of adventure.

Az got married no extra wives this time.

I finally got to finish courting Atrid we got married and raised a family. I continued leading a congregation of the Church of Moradin.

Derrick’s Date and other events

Thoradin here with news

With the worshiper of the Hell Toad dead and the necromantic portal shut down Hank’s should be safe for awhile. We go get some rest and are awakened by Derrick talking about needing to go on his date now or it would not happen. I really wanted him to get his date but I really wonder about time travel and what problems that will cause but at this point I am more worried about what he will do if he does not get his date, so here we go. Derrick’s date goes well and the rest of us spend a quiet night at the inn having a few drinks. Luna and Tharek arm wrestle to pass the time. In the morning we are awakened by the noise of the townspeople talking about an invasion of orcs destroying the farmlands around Rockt. Someone wakes Derrick asking for help and he come to get us.

I am worried about the consequences of interfering in the past again but here goes. We head out to the reported problem area and sight a bunch of orcs burning, looting and pillaging. We wade into battle and these orcs explode when they die so ranged attacks are called for now. We start getting things under control and then a gargantuan black dragon appears and attempts to frighten us. One of us was stunned as a dark black zone settled over the field blinding me. When the dark zone lifted I took a might swing and missed then came back with a critical hit. The battle raged then the dragon tried its breath weapon and failed and swallowed its own acid causing it a great amount of distress and damage. The battle for awhile and we were finally able to defeat the dragon. We go back to own and Derricks girlfriend wants to come back to the future with us. Oh the potential problems; Derrick consults his book and this is indeed the black dragon who ruled Rockt in our current future and things will probably be better. At this point I am relieved that we met the dragon when he started the fight. I still need to talk to Riana and hope she is still friendly and does not see us as a threat to her.

Dealing with the worshiper of the Hell toad

Thoradin here with news

The Cyclops comes out of the necromantic field as a skeleton and battle continues. The necromancer calls additional skeletal knights and zombies whenever he can battle continues and eventually we are able to overcome the necromancer and his allies. The necromantic field drops to reveal a statue of Walter the hell toad in a top hat. A little research and deduction indicates that Walter’s cult now worships him as a god. That is more that a little frightening. The statue is not magical, the staff is magical and his robe of woven silver is valuable but not magical, other than that the papers about the cult were important to Derrick.

Back to the Present yeh

Thoradin here with news

With things supposedly settled in the past. We go to a shrine to Erathis and get the stone for Derrick’s book which helps me feel better about the trip to the future, present or whatever. We arrive in a field outside of what appears to be Haarlem’s walls. It is time to investigate the city and see if things are a way that is acceptable to us. There is a long line of people waiting to get in the city we get in line. We get to the front of the line and are asked to declare for the queen, dragon or desert kingdom. We ask for some help understanding the situation and we are led of into another room and a city official comes in to talk to us. We find out the current situation is that the city is surrounded by three powers the queen the old Shearneth empire and the peninsula, the dragon old Rockt and the southern continent with the old desert sea all wanting control of Haarlem. The city now ruled by a merchant’s council has had the people to declare for one of the parties which so far are preventing and attacks, but if one of the groups gets a majority the city will surrender to them and hopefully will avoid loss of life. The Azure Sentinels of this time line left the city two weeks ago to avoid influencing the outcome.

The current situation is that the Azure Sentinels declaring as a block for one group would cause a majority to declare for that group. We needed more information about the several parties to determine if we have a preference. We find out that Erathis and Pelor are no longer gods in this universe. That the god of the sun from the southern continent is the most powerful along with Saint Rufus they have the most worshipers. There is a large contingent of Moradin worshipers in the city. About one hundred years ago a half-giant lead a rebellion that got rid of the throne and allow the establishment of the merchant council. We send word to Nadia currently our patroness, after awhile she arrives and we explain our situation she asks if we have been time traveling again. We find out the inventor is dead. We left two weeks ago with Raja to go up north. Nadia is able to give us overnight passes into the city without having to declare. So I do a sending to Riana and after a few minutes I am able to communicate with her and set up a meeting with her tomorrow we need to stay within a 100 miles and she will find us. That done I go to the Azure Fortress and talk to the staff they were excited to see me and asked if I had declared. I said that I was on a day pass. I ask for an accounting and they said that the staff had been taking turns for awhile being steward and that they would have the accounting in the morning. Peaches asks us to go to Hank’s Tavern for drinks.

After awhile I hear scratching coming from below and a group of zombies have broken through the floor we start fighting. We are able to defeat the zombies but the needed to be killed twice before they turned to dust. We jump down into the hole and follow the tracks to an underground chamber where we run into some magic wards we are able to get by them. Then we encounter some more zombies and a Cyclops who teleports after Derrick when he moves and I charge him and am able to kill him, but the wizard teleports him into a necromantic field we will see what happens next time.

Finding Saint Cuthbert in the past

Thoradin here with news

We look around the church and any damage that was done had been repaired. We walk out into the muggy hot humid air. I perform the endure elements ritual and we can deal with the inconveniences. We find a trail and start following it with Walter in the lead. We go for some distance and then Walter gets squashed by something large that turns out to be large and gray and called elephant Luna and Derrick are able to inform me. There turns out to be quite a few of them ridden by young boys and girls some in the livery of the church we were in. We wait until they have past by and a group come by us. In the center of the group was a cleric of the church talking to several other adults. We step out of the bushes me no succeeding in looking non-threatening their hands go to their weapons and I raise my empty hands. They ask, “What do you want?” Luna says “We are looking for a certain paladin.” They tell us the parade will soon be over and to come to the temple to talk further but identify someone who is possibly the paladin we are looking for and send a young girl to guide us to the beach. Following a obvious but wandering trail we find ourselves at the beach and further down the beach she points to a man sitting. That is Rufus the paladin she indicates and refusing any compensation she runs off down a different trail.

Luna uses the orb and this is the person for whom we are looking. We discuss methods of telling him we thing he is the reincarnation of Saint Cuthbert without him thinking we are completely crazy. Since this is Luna’s quest she will do the talking always a risk as she is rather tactless. We decide to approach him with some information he might be interested in knowing. We head on down the beach the man is seated in lotus position floating about a foot off of the ground. He makes no remarks as we attempt to greet him. Making no hostile we wait several hours until sundown and he floats closer to the ground touching down as the sun sets. He then speaks saying his name was Rufus and he understands that we were looking for him, and then asks what he can do for us.

Luna indicates that we have some information he may be interested in and tells him about shard of the dead god she has and that he may be the current incarnation of this dead god Saint Cuthbert. He laughs for sometime. “Let me get this straight you believe in reincarnation and that a Saint who died in the dawn war has been reincarnated and that current incarnation is me. You can not be serious.” I am surprised that he does not just walk off. We talk to him for awhile about gods and saints, his beliefs about them. He finally agrees to pray about it. I suggest that I think that is a very good idea he indicates that a prayer of this magnitude requires light. Luna offers to start a fire, he indicates that it would require the burning of the whole forest I say we should wait until dawn before Walter’s incendiary tenancies cause something we will regret. He invites us to stay and converse until dawn. We talk of more things. At dawn we leave him to pray he indicates he will have an answer by that evening.

Here I am in the middle of the southern continent waiting for a decision to be made by a paladin of another faith whether or not he is a saint or god. This is a little bit crazy based on the explanations of angels this is the most advantageous course we can take but I am really nervous. The day passes and I spend part of it in meditation and prayer, not expecting a direct answer as Moradin has told me I know enough to handle this situation. I have made my choices and support Luna I her attempt to raise the old god. We go back to the beach and Rufus is floating much higher than yesterday and says that he has come to an understanding with his god and she has also given him one of her domains so he now has two. It comforts me greatly that he and his god have come to terms I feel less apprehensive because based on last nights discussions there is a certain amount of discord between the gods already and we are just the spark not the complete cause of the discord.

Next step to see if the ritual to reincarnate the god works, for that daylight would be desirable. I suggest we set watches and stay with Rufus. He agrees to stand watch also. Nothing happens during the night. In the morning the ritual go without a hitch. Derrick tests his divinity by throwing Walter at Saint Cuthbert Rufus and put up a hand and Walter explodes. Rufus talks to us briefly and then disappears.

Derrick has been working on something I am suspicious about what. When confronted he simply said ‘Plan B’ that makes me nervous at this point all I can do is try to keep him grounded.

I did not help when Luna was able to go on a date with Ezekiel. We wonder about the stone that was promised to Derrick upon completion of our quest. Marshall says we can probably get it at any temple of Erathis. I suggest we do so before trying to go anywhere in time.

In pursuit of Saint Cuthbert in the past

Thoradin here with news

We arrive back at Marshall’s home and he is writing a letter apparently to his younger self which he burns upon finishing. Strange behavior he seems to also be a time traveler. Luna shows him the orb and he comments that it is a very dangerous thing for Luna to have. Luna is a little indignant, but I think the comment is valid. Luna uses the orb to locate the shard of Saint Cuthbert finding it in a paladin somewhere in the southern continent. Marshall tells us we need to get some rest. Before resting I go to the market and sell the magic equipment that we took from Calandern netting us 500,000 gold each. I am able to upgrade my armor and weapon.

Derrick spends the time studying something and writing in his book. I am a little nervous whenever he does that. Luna goes out drinking and we do not see her until the next morning and she does not remember much except she woke up at Ezekiel’s house and had had a night with him. Derrick and Walter were exceptionally happy this morning which causes us all to be suspicious and worry that something is up. I need to talk to Derrick.

Now for the southern continent, we need to find out what we can about it and also see if we can find a portal address. For that we need to go visit a friend of Marshall’s Michael a scribe and book binder. We find some books that refer to the 11 dimensions and will help Derrick and so we purchase them for 500 gold and a map of the southern continent for 100 gold. He indicates that there is a company that has done business with the southern continent that might have a portal address to the southern continent. We go over to the warehouse and the person we need to talk to turns out to be Ezekiel we get the information and open a portal. We step through to find ourselves in an empty church.

I speak out; “Is anybody there?” and five angels appear on the dais telling us that we have reached a crossroads. That our meddling in time has provided three possible outcomes: one we get killed by the angels and our time stream ends, two we go back to our own time and thing remain messed up but we are provided for, three we go on and raise the lawful god and there is a war between the god and no mater which of our two choices we make we have to fight the angels and win to move forward, but first we must make the decision. We choose to raise the dead god. He asks us not to destroy the chapel as it belongs to another god. We agree not to.

Battle begins and after a short while we are victorious. I wonder at what cost.

In the past in Calandern’s Arena

Thoradin here with news

The dice do not roll in our favor and the crowd chooses our opponents two winged devils. I make short work of one killing it with one throw of my axe. The others killed the other one fairly quickly. The dice roll a seven and we get to choose our opponents. We challenge the Mistress and she comes down to the arena floor to join us. She says it is unusual for her to be challenged but not unheard of in Calandern. She asks us if we want a boon from her if she is still alive after the contest. We ask for an audience. She asks if we want to challenge her as an individual or have her select a group. We choose to fight as a group.

In a fierce battle we knock her and her group unconscious. The dice roll doubles and we get to choose whether they live or die. Derrick consults his book and it reveals that we will be more likely to succeed if we kill her. Derrick and Tharek have a debate over whether or not to kill her. Luna proceeds to attack her. Derrick convinces Tharek that she is evil so they decide to leave it up to me. I act as Derrick conscience most of the time. Meanwhile as Luna continues to attack the downed mistress, the crowd leaves the stands as if afraid of us. The mistress and her party dead we cast “the speak with dead” ritual and get to ask seven questions. We find out that she keeps the orb and her treasure in her office and directions to get there. In answer to the question how to cleanse the realm she answers turning a high level elemental would be effective and we also find that Asmodeus rules the devils and some other information we already knew. After the rituals ended we go in search of her office and treasure.

In her office we find the book on her desk with the code to her and store room. Derrick and Luna end up unconscious from the gas trap in the room. We then figure out the combinations of the statues on the desk and find an antidote to the poison. Luna finds the orb she is looking for and takes it. We find twenty astral diamonds and some gold and platinum pieces. There is a map on the wall that updates in real time showing where people are and such. We find a passage way from her store room back to the arena stands. We notice on the map that people are coming so we reset the traps leave Walter to set off the traps they were very successful and we leave through the portal.

Still in past finding Saint Cuthbert

Thoradin here with news

If the Maruts find in our favor we will have to reclaim Calandern and that will not be possible without Saint Cuthbert as a deity. I am reluctant to go to Calandern without him. The others want to go. We start by going back to see Marshall to find out what he knows about Saint Cuthbert’s reincarnation as a paladin it turns out after some study that there is a seeing stone called the avatar orb that allows you to see the location and current status of the shards of deity, something that Luna really needs, that will help us find Saint Cuthbert. It turns out that it is in the possession of a group of chaos driven people in how convenient Calandern.

So we are off to Calandern to watch the fights. There are several fights after the fights the mistress of the arena rolls dice three times. Walter wins some money betting. Then the dice turn up seven and I am challenged to fight by the demon who just won in the arena. With no way out I step down into the ring and proceed to fight the demon. It is a fairly short fight I knock him unconscious and the crowd lets him live. Then as is custom I can chose others to fight with me and everyone except Raja comes down into the ring we fight a equal number of others chosen by the mistress of the ring who happens to be the person we need to talk to and the only way we will be able to talk to her is to challenge her in the arena. While we are fighting, Raja tries to overhear what the mistress is saying. We are able to defeat the challengers and await the roll of the dice to see if we can challenge the Mistress.

Attempting to Fix the Present Part 6 Judges

Thoradin here with news

We are in Marcellus’s headquarters with him in two pieces and several of his associates newly destroyed what to do now. A search finds no treasure. We decide to leave and report to Michael and Lady Alejandra. I drag Marcellus’s body out into the sunlight and it turns to powder. Luna places the head in a bag and puts it in his haversack to take to Michael. We go back to the tavern and Michael is still there drinking. Luna plops the bag with the head in it on the bar Michael looks at it and gives us a bag with astral diamonds in it two for each of us then rolls the head out into the sunlight. I am much more content that he has been destroyed as thoroughly as we can so he should not come back to bother us. As long as we do not travel in time and cause him to comeback. Past experience with Lord Garrett tells me that no one is ever permanently dead. We tell Michael that we are going to see if we can get his job back and report to Lady Alejandra.

We report to Lady Alejandra she agrees to meet with Michael and was somewhat surprised that we had solved the Marcellus problem. She had received a message from Marshall requesting that we visit. He lived in a luxurious estate near the fourth tree. The door opened automatically some form of mechanical contraption and candles lighted along the hallway. We enter in and get to a formal sitting room with all kinds of animal and monster trophies around. An elderly gentleman was seated at a desk. He greeted us each by name but talked specifically to Luna after that point saying that he had a gift for her but she would have to get it from downstairs. It turned out to be a case of chaos berry wine from her vineyard from three years in our future so maybe there is hope we may have fixed things if we do not do something stupid. He also talked some about the dead god Saint Cuthbert, the one that Luna has a shard of in her chest. Saint Cuthbert’s realm Calandern has been overrun by devils and demons and is being used for a coliseum to stage fights and gambling. There is a female deity that wants to reclaim the realm for her own purposes. Apparently we need judges to decide who will have the privilege of reclaiming the realm. Marshall gives us a portal addresses to a place where we can find judges, the coliseum in Calandern and his own home.

Luna opens a portal and we step through and arrive on a demi-plane after some checking it is indeed where we wanted to go. We are greeted by several Maruts who inquire as to our business we explain the situation and he says that that could be arranged but there would need to be payment for the judges and we would need to determine how many judges 3,5,7 they always work in odd numbers. I suggest that three would be sufficient the others agree. Now for the payment astral diamonds, magic items, favors it ended up being 5 astral diamonds, my immurement, and some chaos berry wine. It turned out after some study that it was Erathis who wants to reclaim the realm. So what is now going to happen is the Maruts will gather evidence and make a ruling in favor of us or Erathis. If they rule in favor of us we will need to find the reincarnation of Saint Cuthbert who is said to be a paladin somewhere in order to clear the demons and devils out of Calandern and reclaim it.

Attempting to Fix the Present Part 5 Marcellus

Thoradin here with news

We report to Lady Alejandra about the cook who is robbing her, the cousin the gossip, the messenger who is the spy, the stable boy who is a girl, the priest who was her lover, and Michael the night watchmen who was a vampire who attacked us. She knew about the cook who was in chains, the Lady in Waiting her cousin she could not do much about, the spy well we wanted to leave him in place to feed misinformation, she said she would have hired a stable girl, to keep the news of the priest to ourselves. Michael however she wanted us to find and find out if he was loyal and if he still had obligations to his sire and who his sire was.

It took us a lot of checking and Luna quite a few drinks to finally find him. He was in a seedy bar having a drink. We approach him blocking his exit and greet him telling him that we needed to talk and the fact that we were not attacking him should be a sign of our good will. He agreed. We told him that is employer had sent us to contact him and find out some information from him. If he was loyal to his employer and who his sire was and if he was still obligated to him. He said he was loyal, but that he was obligated to his sire who had just found out that he worked for Lady Alejandra and his name was Marcellus the underboss who thought he had hired us to deal with Lady Alejandra. Speaking to Raja he said he probably would not have done as well if she had been there as he practically glowed with the power of Pelor.

Michael was willing to give us the location of Marcellus’s hideout and tell us about the layout when we told him we wanted to deal with him. He also offered us a ransom for Marcellus’s head to prove he was no longer obligated to him. He wanted us to spare a new female vampire who would be at the hideout who would defend Marcellus. So we got his information said we would do what we could and returned to Lady Alejandra’s estate and talked to Riana asking about dealing with a vampire. She indicated that he was probably vulnerable to fire and radiant and only stopped regenerating when exposed to direct sunlight. Luna and I put enough money together to purchase 5 vials of holy water to use against the vampire. Then we took and extended rest so we would go against him at full power.

We arrive at his headquarters the next morning. It appears to be a small shack however after we enter it becomes apparent that the headquarters encompasses the surrounding buildings as well. We are greeted by a male undead who asks us to state our business. We tell him we have come to talk to Marcellus; he takes us to him and leaves. Derrick and Luna have rigged Walter with holy water and alchemist’s fire. As we are talking he approaches Marcellus. Marcellus asks us about Lady Alejandra we state that she has found out about his spy and that he also had another person who worked for her. At this point Marcellus notices Walter and that he is unusually dressed Derrick says he is wearing a hat and that seems to calm Marcellus. Marcellus says that it is unfortunate that he only found out about Michael being employed after he was no longer employed. We respond that we know of a way to get him his job back. At that moment Walter explodes and the fight is on.

It takes about 2 rounds for us to bloody him the first time and he did not stay that way long. He summons a group of undead minions and we are in for a real fight. Raja rebukes undead and that did some serious damage as well as Derrick’s attack. Marcellus ends up dazed and immobilized so we have a little better chance at him. Another few rounds and Luna manages to cut off his head. I will report more next time.

Attempting to Fix the Present Part 4 Lady Alejandra

Thoradin here with news

It has been awhile since I last posted and finally there is something to report. Having offered our help to the Lady Alejandra she asked us to solve the problem of the spy and some other problems she had with her staff. In order to do so we must interrogate some members of the staff and determine their race, their job, and the crime they committed. The room that we will interrogate them in is magical and no lies can be spoken in it but direct questions about the person need not be answered and the race of the person will be concealed. So this will be a test of our abilities and ingenuity.

The interviews were interesting of the ten we interrogated five were guilty of something five were not guilty and one not guilty ones tried to kill us. One of the night watchmen turned out to be a vampire and when he recognized that we knew, he attacked charming me into hitting Tharek. It was a critical hit so I did a lot of damage. I was very unhappy with myself for that. A few more blows were traded then he left phasing through the wall. We finished the interrogations and we were able to identify, the members of the staff their crimes and their race. It is now time to report to Lady Alejandra.

Attempting to Fix the Present Part 3 Seventrees

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I say to the soldiers that we want to talk to Lady Alejandra and they seemed to get less belligerent and asked us where we would like to stay in the city while we wait for an audience with her. We refer to ourselves as the “Safire Defenders”. We find out the name of the city is Seventrees. Luna tries a ritual sending to Riana and finds that she is in this time and plane and asleep as it is daytime.

We go to the inn the Golden Blades it is a very nice establishment, unusual in it is eight stories high. The tallest building we have ever seen with a great oak tree growing out of the center of the roof one of the seven trees of the city. We rent two suites to accommodate the party. Derrick asks where he might find a library. The in has a few volumes and Derrick is directed to them. Luna and I go to the bank to exchange astral diamonds for local currency in order not to create any problems with our foreign money.

Our trip to the Not to Important tavern was relatively uneventful. We talked to the barmaid who was the only one there, I had ale and Luna had mead, ale and wine she is getting to be a little bit of a lush. She told us to come back at sundown and more people would be there. She also told about some information about the political situation in the city. The Lady Alejandra was the leader of a populist group and was seen as a joke by the barmaid. Since this is the person we have come back to support we have our work cut out for us. I pay for the drinks and tip the barmaid and we leave going back to the inn.

We find Derrick busy studying the books in a not to small library and assist him. In while we have the information more organized. Shortly after sundown we hear a knock and it is Riana saying she was glad we found her hotel. She had been there about a week and some of the assumptions she had made about the place were wrong. It is governed by a king instead of a council of elders. They did have and underboss Marcellus who held the same position as Riana albeit not as formal.

A page dressed in black arrives with a message from Marcellus to meet him in a tavern later tonight.

We go to Not to Important tavern again and the place is really full a lot of folks appear to be drinking and having a good time. We notice that a lot of drink is being spilled on the floor and not many of the tavern patrons are actually drinking. Marcellus appears and the crowd seems to tense he comes over to our table asks us if we are looking for work and says he may have a job for us. He wants us to deal with Lady Alejandra convince her to stop her campaign as it is bothering both the merchant and the noble classes if she is not convinced to use stronger methods. Derrick does the talking and I get nervous as the crowd grows silent they are obviously Marcellus supporters. Quite the predicament we either agree to deal with the person we have come to support or fight a bunch of peasants in a bar. Derrick asks how much it pays 10 astral diamonds with additional for expenses.
A lot of money, Derrick answers in the affirmative and I do not disagree. Better than killing a bunch of peasants I guess. I remain silent at least this gets us an audience with the Lady. Tomorrow at noon, a page will stop by in the morning informing us of this.

We go to the estate of Lady Alejandra it is a large urban estate and we are invited to wait in the drawing room, there are light refreshments as Luna is concerned that there be food. After a short while Lady Alejandra joins us. I explain the circumstances of our arrival an employ by Marcellus to deal with her. We explain that we are there to help her and used Marcellus to get and interview with her. She indicated that Marcellus had lied to us as she had decided to meet with us yesterday and had not been contacted by Marcellus. This means that she has a spy in her household. She asks how she can trust us it being that we have a vampire in our employ. Derrick explain that she is not evil just her dietary habits prevent her from being good. That seems to satisfy her and we move on to the problem of the spy and what we wanted for pay. Derrick says we would do it “pro bono” but had to explain that means free.

I wondered if it would have been better to ask for pay rather than have her thinking about our motivations. It is to late now.

Attempting to Fix the Present Part 2 “The Cube”

Thoradin here with news

We step through and find ourselves on what appears to be flat stone plane with a robed humanoid standing on it. He confronts us and asks what we are doing. I step forward and tell him we are going to the past in hopes of making the future better. He also tells us that it would be an ineffectual ban if people could circumvent it by simply going back far enough in time. We notice in the center of the plane a circle with some writing. The robe humanoid indicated it was a riddle and if we could solve the riddle of the cube we would be allowed to go to the time and place we had chosen. If we did not solve the riddle we would be trapped and die. Yes it turns out we are not on a plane floating in chaos but on a surface of a cube. Part of the group starts working on the riddle and the other explore the cube’s surface finding out that we can leave a surface only as a group. We find the following other surfaces: the fey princess, the ice cube with alchemist potions, the eldritch titan, the viper tree, and the cold plain with a house.

The Viper Tree

There are several trees on this side. We notice that a pattern has been carved into one of the trees, also that the tree has vipers in its branches. One of us knows that we can attack the tree and be able to see the pattern as long as we do not use fire attacks. We attack and are able to see the pattern and it is another riddle.

The Fey Princess

First visit: This side of the cube has a shallow lake and a fey princess sitting on a rock combing her hair, she was very obviously a woman because she was naked. Not Derrick’s naked girl but a girl none the less. She has a tattoo; she uses her hair to cover herself up including the tattoo. We ask her if we can see the tattoo she refuses. Luna attacks then Raja offers a peace offering of her magic ring. We talk for awhile and find out she is bored and wants to leave she says she will help us if we make and oath to free her from the cube. Luna and Derrick still want to kill her. Finally we all make the oath. She shows us the tattoo and then she indicates a side and says to go to that side after we visit all the others. So we go to a different side.

Second visit: “Back so quickly”, No need to attack the titan again.

Third visit: On our way through to the final side.

The Eldritch Titan

First visit: We move onto this side and see an eldritch titan swinging a hammer at us. We attack and notice a satchel around his neck after a short battle he explodes taking the satchel with him. We hope that he will come back if we go to another side and come back. We move to another side.

Second visit: We move onto this side again and see the titan swinging his hammer at us. I say there is no reason to try to kill each other. He says there is enough time to kill us all and continues his attack. Luna runs forward and distracts him and Raja runs in and steals the satchel and we all run back to the side we came from. There surprise is a riddle in the satchel.

The Ice Cube with Alchemist Potions

This side is a grass plain with an ice cube in the middle with four potion bottles on it. Upon examining the bottles we notice that there are magical papers in each of the bottles that can only be open if the bottles are broken. The bottles contain alchemist frost, fire, acid, and dragonfire tar. We also find that the only way to open the papers is to do damage to someone with the item. Luna hits Raja with one, Raja hits Luna with another, Tharek drops dragonfire tar on his own head, and somebody hits someone with the other one. The four papers give us another riddle.

The Cold Plain with a House

We go over the edge to find ourselves on a frozen plain with a small tent house. We go into the house and it is bigger on the inside than the outside. The inside is an adorned lodge with a great banquet table in the middle. The robed humanoid is standing by the table and says that we have achieved our goal and will be allowed to go to the time and place we desired and that we would also be granted a wish. Raja wants to wish for the freedom of those on the die, the fey princess and the eldritch titan. Luna wants something else. The rest of us side with Raja she wishes the persons on the die free including the fey princess and the titan, the fey princess shows up in the lodge and says she owes us a favor. She then exits through one of the doors in the kitchen. We solve the next puzzle and the final riddle. “Entrance is death unless your blades are clean and your hearts are truly pure” I kneel down to pray about the meaning of the riddles and life and get the feeling that I should make a decision and get out of there. The fey princess comes back and comments on the length of my praying then goes out the other kitchen door comes back and says she thinks this is where we want to go. We exit through the door and come to a great wall with soldiers pointing crossbows at us and asking us what we want.

The riddles:

The fire ends in the bitter cold frozen land

Walk the path to freedom quickly or be enslaved forever

The fire burns longest for those without direction

Death isn’t your exit and sleeping fails the weak

Life here is woven upon the turning die

Entrance is death unless your blades are clean and your hearts are truly pure

Attempting to Fix the Present Part 1

Thoradin here with news

We wake up the next morning early so we can talk to Riana. She says that before the peninsula was closed there were two factions; one wanting to close the peninsula and prevent others from making changes, the other felt that they should make the whole continent better. The first group won out and exiled the other group. Some of the leaders in the second group were a mother and daughter. She indicates that the probable way to get the result we want is to lend support to the mother and daughter. She also indicated that the information was old some of it little more than myth and legend. She gives us a time and place.

We decide to go and Derrick opens up a portal and we step through. We arrive in a large room with no visible doors. Warforged statues adorn the corners of the room along with a teleportation circle and a summoning square. Luna studies the circle for awhile and determines two things; one the circle will only teleport to a certain place, second it is broken and can only be fixed at the other location. Luna performs the portal ritual and the arcane energy flows immediately to the summoning square and Warforged statues, then an eldritch titan appears and we attack. Two rounds later the titan is dead and the arcane energy switches and goes to the portal. We step through, to what we will find out next week.

Derrick’s simple date

Thoradin here with news

After last times catastrophic attempt to go back in time Derrick wants to study out what happened and how to avoid it in the future. He, Nadia and Luna go into the study to confer and study the problem. I use the time to talk to Riana about what she was not telling me. I said to her that she had explained why we should take her back in time with us but not why she wanted to go. What was in it for her? She replied that she has always tried to create order around her and apparently she is pretty good at it since she was a leader in several different time lines. It would be a challenge to try and bring about a better situation for the people of Haarlem and the continent and she would like to be a part of that. I am convinced. She goes into her history and genealogy and explains that her sire the vampire who made her a vampire was very evil and she was forced to kill him. She does want order and while she is not good due to a vampire’s dietary requirements nether is she evil.

Raja figures out that the love that must get together is Derrick and the naked girl, the “Lord of Chaos” and the “Lady of Dragons”. Raja decides to consult an oracle and is able to ask 5 questions. What is love in the poem? Who do we need to hook up? What is the name of the Lady of Dragons? What are the names of the three cities in the peninsula? The oracle confirms that we are dealing with Derrick and the naked girl. We find out that the Dragon Lady is named Alyssa and is Derrick’s naked girl. We also find out what the names of the Three Cities in the peninsula are.

After a few hours Derrick, Nadia and Luna come back with the following conclusions. The chaos storms or whatever is an inherent risk of the way Derrick travels in time. The more dimensions he travels through the higher the risk of problems happening. So, if he does not try to travel in space and time things should be better. The further in time he travels the more likely he is to encounter problems. More restrictions on what he can do reduce the likelihood of problems. If he opens a small portal first unwanted things will be less likely to come through. Derrick makes the changes to his time portal spell. Also they find that the foe stone in the front of the book is causing an imbalance in the power of the book so he needs to find a stone to balance it out in the back of the book. He is looking for a gem of auditory recollection and the Lady of Dragons happens to have one.

We determine that we want to travel back in time on the outskirts of Haarlem the Derrick can portal to Rockt on his own. (He did not want chaperons). We travel back with no problems. Derrick creates a portal to Rockt and steps through Rockt has changed it is a little larger has more stone buildings and the palace is almost completed. The city is having some sort of celebration lots of partying and drinking. Derrick uses his new mage hand spell to steal a couple of drinks. He arrives at the Alyssa’s apartment and it is now three stories and made out of stone. A young girl sits juggling a dagger on the porch. Derrick is confused. He consults the book yes he has arrived at the correct time. She notices him and runs up and hugs him and calls him daddy and then slashes his face with the dagger as she runs off. More confused he goes into the house and meets a 16 year old boy Jason his son. They talk he tells him that she will forgive him eventually. Derrick says “But I haven’t been on a date yet.” Jason says “You’re not supposed to be here.” They talk for awhile talking about the situation with Alyssa that he may be able to fix the situation since Derrick is here and should not be. Jason asks to see Derrick’s book Derrick reluctantly hands it over. Jason makes some corrections in the book and hands it back. He then tells Derrick that he needs to see Captain Miles Standish and gives him a portal address. Derrick is more confused and now getting angry, all he wanted was a simple date a chance to get laid; now he has two children, one hates him and he still has not had a date or any of the other perks of being married and a father. Jason suggests that he take his friends with him to see Miles.

He creates a portal back to where we are and steps through. The portal address turns out to be somewhere in the Shearneth Empire. We step through the portal to find a somewhat rundown keep with guards on the walls. At the mention of Jason name we the guards stand down and we are escorted to see Captain Standish. It turns out that Captain Standish, Miles if you wish was exiled because of the offer he made to us. There are a group of exiles from the peninsula gathered here with limited time travel capability. Lead by Miles because he is the highest ranked exile. Miles tried to meet Derrick at the date but arrived early and Alyssa was able to learn how to travel in time. Not happy with the situation in Rockt see traveled back in time and improved Rockt’s situation. This started her on the road to becoming the Lady of Dragons and turning her evil.

Miles admits that his meeting with Alyssa was the problem. Upon hearing this Derrick goes out into the courtyard and creates effigies of Miles and proceeds to blow them up until he runs out of new and creative ways to go about it. Derrick comes back in after a period of time looking disheveled but a little less angry. Miles offers two possible solutions to the problem. One hunt down and kill the Lich that she became and live with the consequences or the more difficult path to go back in time change the situation in the peninsula so that Miles would not be exiled. The group selects the latter and Miles gives us a history of the peninsula we turn that over to our political expert Riana. We ask her to help us fix the situation after we go back far enough in time to be able to affect the situation in the peninsula.

Risks of Time Travel

Thoradin here with news

Through for now with the agents of the Three Cities we leave Hank’s Tavern and head home to the Azure Fortress for a rest. We meet the next day to try and figure out what to do so that we can fix the present. We discover that Haarlem did not become as much of a trade center due to pirates in the great sand sea and that the change to the dragons’ intelligence was imposed by magic. These problems centered on a large ray swimming in the sea. A young pirate started a band of pirates who took over the ray island using it for a base which caused the trade routes to move away from Haarlem. The girl who would figure out how to make the changes to the dragons to make them less intelligent lived on the ray.

I went to visit the orphanage and my mother, and it was smaller than I remembered but nicer. It seemed like the same amount of gold went into it but there were fewer orphans so it was nicer. My visit to the Temple of Moradin was rather uneventful. Some of the faithful were confused by my new rank insignia.

We conferred over what to do and decided to go back in time to the edge of the sea then transfer via portal to the ray as Luna had a portal address to the ray. We moved out to the portal circle in the garden and Derrick opened is time portal and a bunch of things happened at once. Derrick got a very sick feeling in his stomach. Some rocks burst out of the portal. The door from the keep opened with two women in the doorway. Luna jumped up and attacked one of the stones it exploded damaging all of us at the teleportation circle. Someone discovered that these were chaos stones and were very dangerous. Later we found out that they explode after a random period of time and the blast radius is the distance they have traveled. Tharek jumped up on top of one and was able to push it down into the earth and that seemed to quiet it. Raja’s book started glowing like something was magical about it.

The two women in the doorway start coming toward us, it was Nadia and Riana. Nadia runs toward Luna and Riana comes toward me. I am not sure what to do about the rocks so I move toward Riana to find out what she wants. Nadia gets to Luna and asks where she is going and why. Apparently in this timeline they have been a couple. Awkward! “You do not remember us” Luna makes several inane comments. And apes with weapons for arms start coming through the portal. I talk to Riana and she wants to come with us. Riana explains how she can help us in the past and she really wants to go with us very bad she is telling the truth but holding back something. It is now time to fight. Tharek continues jumping around on the chaos rocks getting them to move down into the earth. In between fighting the apes coming through I try to catch a rock and fail falling to the ground. More apes and rocks come out of the portal.

Derrick starts closing the portal. Before it closes more rocks come out one explodes. Tharek is able to get most of them moving down including a spectacular example of flying where he catches Luna and me before we fall and take damage because we had jumped up on two of the chaos rocks.

Raja looks in her book and finds some new writing there a series of cryptic sentences, which we apparently need to figure out in order to fix the present. We try to analyze the words without much success.

We decide to take Riana with us as she offered ten astral diamonds each to take her. I had no objections before so that just sweetened the deal. Derrick agreed because she was wearing pants and she looks really good in pants. I do need to inquire what else she wants.

Meeting with the Boss

Thoradin here with News

Lord Garrett’s doppelganger is dead destined to be a problem in the future. Derrick takes his head, yes that is rather gruesome. We go back to the Azure Fortress for baths and changes of clothes. We take a long rest and in the morning find a note from Riana the boss of the city. She wants to meet us at a neutral location “Hank’s Tavern”.

We arrive at a somewhat run down tavern the name is Hank’s Tavern but the place is run down and not at all like our Hank’s, another reason to attempt a fix. Riana awaits us at a table we sit down and she buys us a drink. Luna brings out some of her chaos berry wine; I have a small glass I want to keep my wits about me. Tharek and Riana both decline. Riana being a vampire has a glass of blood. I wonder to who or what it belongs. I get no indication that she is a rakshasa or that she has any ill intentions toward us so the conversation begins. She indicates to us that she knows that we are from another time line, but refuses to reveal the source of her information. Derrick and Luna seem to trust her and information about the other time line flows. She asks questions about her circumstance in the other time line is she a vampire and is she still the boss. When our turn comes she is a font of knowledge about the current state of this timeline. Derrick writes franticly in his book. I take a careful look around the tavern at the various groups. There are three groups: two downstairs and one upstairs. The groups downstairs appear to be a non-descript solders, one-group playing cards, and the other a drinking game. The group upstairs appears to be scholars. As I look closer I notice on one of the soldiers in the drinking game an insignia that appears to be the same one as the soldiers out of time. I immediately get nervous the others seem to have seen it also. Riana notices our discomfort and ask if anything is wrong. I indicate the tavern patrons may not be, as they seem, she excuses herself and leaves. I thank her for her information and call over the bar keep and buy the drinking game group a round of drinks.

One of the soldiers introduces himself and thanks us for the drinks. He is Captain Standish representative of “The Three Cities” and he hopes we can keep this civil. We explain that we have no idea who the three cities are and the other group never presented us with warrant. “Oh”, he said and asks our leave to retrieve the warrant he comes and officially serves the warrant. He also says that if we promise not to interfere in time anymore he can leave us alone this could potentially save our lives or the lives of his men. He explains the three cities are on the peninsula and have a desire that things be left alone the way they are even if things are worse for the rest of the world. He says we can have a short time to think about it, but hat if he notices any rituals or spell preparation he will attack.

I decide that it is time to pray I tell Moradin that I am inclined to take the offer and work with the current circumstances he says that the church is not as strong as it was, so he advises going back to fix the present. My decision is made I am not going to accept the offer. The others had decided also. Captain Standish forms his no longer rag tag troops into ranks and starts to move toward us. The scholars have changed into a group of archers. Derrick attacks sliding a group including Captain Standish into the pit in the middle of the floor. I charge and attack one of the remaining soldiers. Several blast attacks later the troops are decimated and Standish having jumped up out of the pit exits commenting that he will see us again. Here is to new enemies. Next time we are the ones that will likely be surprised.

Dealing with Lord Garrett 2.0

Thoradin here with News

We go down into the sewers and find ourselves in a small empty room. Raja and Tharek manage to get secret doors open and we observe Lord Garrett chanting at an arcane circle. We notice that there is an opening in the room he is in on the other side of the sewer. The stench is terrible. We try to sneak around to the opening but he hears us. “This will be your death”, he says and some rot harbingers appear in our path. Raja attacks them and Luna tries to teleport into the room and is rejected and injured by some kind of warding magic. More rot harbingers appear and some rot slingers further baring the way. I move forward and critically hit the group of rot harbingers. Tharek attacks teleporting them into the warding magic and they are destroyed, and then he flies over to the slingers. Tharek is attacked by the slingers and weakened. Derrick attacks the slingers doing damage to some of them. Raja tries rebuke undead with much less spectacular results than last week. Derrick is flanked by rot harbingers because he moved to the spawn location. Loof charges one of the slingers and really connects doing 181 hp of damage turning it into dust.

Tharek and Loof move to attack Lord Garrett who is moving to reinforce his undead. Luna and Derrick follow they are able to finish him off. While Raja and I finish of the remaining undead.

Back to the Present?

Thoradin here with news

We run out of the marketplace. I give the foe stone to Derrick because it is the most useful to him and it takes me awhile to be able to use it in a fight. We then decide to find out what has happened to the present. So Derrick punches a hole in reality and we step through arriving in the gardens of the Azure Fortress. There is a familiar yet strange lady in the garden who turns out to be Nadia. We find out that Miharo is there and I breathe a sigh of relief, some things are back to normal. Derrick is mumbling about going back in time and blowing up everything so I follow him to the library trying to convince him that would be a very bad idea. We study current history and find that Haarlem is not as powerful as it was before, the king has only one wife and Nadia had never heard of the “Rule of Nine.” Luna does a sending to her father asking what is different he says the rakshasa problem is now bigger. So Luna and Derrick are all gung ho about figuring what to do in Haarlem in the past to improve things in the future. They find out that the inventor is in the basement along with Derrick’s aide. I however am not convinced that tampering again would be a good idea. Luna goes over to the Arcane College and finds it to be much the same except she has some men’s clothing in her room the man obviously living with her.

Loof runs to see Miharo and she is a little cold he finds out that the other Loof has been seeing a goliath lady and he did not want to see her for awhile. He said that was the other Loof and that seems to satisfy Miharo they go make up.

Peaches the cook who can now read minds fixes each of us our favorite for dinner and asks us what we are going to do about the rakshasa masquerading as Lord Garrett. Nadia is able to give us a likely location where he can be found. We take off anxious to get to the fighting. We get to the location and hear something coming out of the sewers. Luna acts first going around the corner to charge the rot harbingers. Loof gets hit by one of the harbingers and my tattoo of shared vengeance glows and I am able to throw my hammer and hit it. The party moves to the corner where they could see the rot harbingers coming out of the sewer. I charged and hit the harbinger again. He missed me on his next attack and I finished him of with my hammer. Meanwhile the others managed to destroy the others with Raja having a magnificent result from her turn undead power rendering several to dust. Now for the sewers and I hope Lord Garrett, however I wonder are we going to get arrested for his murder again.

Fixing the Present Continued

Thoradin here with news

We rescued the Empress and according to Derrick that was all we needed to do here. She gave a party honoring us and also gave us a pouch with 10 astral diamonds pretty nice reward.

Raja looks at her book and it says beware the soldiers. Now what does that mean?

Two days later after the group recovered from the party, we were down in the marketplace doing some shopping when some soldiers obviously looking for us came in to the market from north and south. Derrick does not find them in his book and gets really nervous wanting to kill them all. Luna attacks one group and Derrick attacks the other in the process of Derrick’s attack I trade places with the last guy in line so I do not have to move to be able to attack them. I wonder about whether or not we should have attacked or talked first. Well it is too late for that so I attack hitting all the persons in a burst. I attack them again hitting everyone in a burst. I then get attacked and they bloody, blind and deafen me. So I attack the healer and kill him throwing my hammer. The group was pretty impressed that a blind and deaf guy could hit someone and do them in.

Loof comes in a little later and runs to help Luna. I run to help and heal Luna as she has been bloodied. The others finish off the rest the soldiers and we discover some papers written in supernal that give descriptions of all the Azure Sentinels and instructions to bring us in alive. Now it is probably a god or gods who are after us. We really need to move slower on some things. Raja refers to her book which now just says run. I wonder what trouble our actions have caused now?

Fixing the Present

Thoradin here with news

We need to find out information about what is different in order to figure out what to do about it. In spite of the probability that Derrick is somehow responsible we will need his help to fix this. So we head down to the main library to do some research on the last few years. Loof asks if Miharo is there and she is on the forth floor Loof runs to the stairs Luna teleports to stop him at Derricks request. He thinks it would be bad for Loof to meet a Miharo who did not know him. On with the research, we find out that Lord Garrett never came back so the Azure Sentinels were never formed and so were not able to defend the city when Rockt attacked, also that the Rockt imperial line had not been broken so that they were more powerful than our Rockt. They had masterwork weapons I was worried that helping the smith in Rockt would bite me, it has big time. I am really going to be careful with time travel in the future.

As we are researching, the inventor walks up and says “Don’t I know you” and works with Derrick to determine we need to go back in time to rescue a empress in the Shearneth Empire so they can meet Rockt and prevent Haarlem from falling. That should improve our situation but not completely fix it. I worry about that. Well I do not see any other way to proceed. So Derrick punches another hole in reality and we are off. Arriving in a pastoral field we wonder if we are in the right place. Derrick confirms that we are at the right time but about a mile off from the city. So we walk to the city and start the process of learning about the place. Luna does some shopping for alchemist’s fire. After awhile the local people stop what they are doing and bow to Raja. This makes her uncomfortable. A captain of the guard approaches her and asks how he can serve her highness. She replies by asking how he knows her he replies that she is the empress’s sister Raja. He says he will escort her and her friends to the palace. He is a kalashtar so he overhears our conversation about needing to save the empress.

We are taken to the empress and she greets Raja as her sister and we discuss the prophecy of Raja’s birth and that she has come early and the fact that a dragon is going to be a problem for the empress. Derrick needs the name of the dragon to confirm whether or not it is the one. They go through a list of dragons and find out the dragon’s name is Finch. I question whether or not she can try her based on the word of someone from the future. She says that this dragon had committed significant crimes and that the trial would start tomorrow. The trial last a week and is extremely boring. The dragon is found guilty and sentenced to be executed.

The execution takes place in the arena and we are seated with the empress. When the execution is to take place the executioner strikes off the chains instead of the head and runs off. The now freed dragon moves toward the empress and uses her breath weapon and some of the party is forced to attack allies or flee. Several rounds of battle occur and the dragon summons different monsters that we have to fight. Finally the dragon and her summoned allies are defeated.

Getting back to the Present?

Thoradin here with news

Finished with the mind flayers we go back to town. Derrick consults his book and he must study a portal to get us back. I find a shrine to Moradin and help improve the forge hope this does not come back to bite me back in the future.

Ruse finds out her apprentice now is her worshipper because he was praying at the foot of her bed. This disturbs her very much.

Derrick finishes his studies and goes to talk to the naked girl about what is going on he rambles on about this and that, and then ends up with a date for seven days time.

We meet up with Derrick at the site of his new portal circle. He states that he has created a portal back to our time and that we may end up back in our own time or dead. I walk through. I emerge at what should be the Azure Fortress but it is in ruins and there are men flying around the place. Derrick comes through the portal and confirms this is the right time and place. Loof goes running around looking for Miharo and asks one of the flying guys where she was and he said she was dead and Loof fainted. The flyer drops down and starts to drag Loof off. Battle begins. We fight with them for a short while and a blue dragon shows up and things get real interesting the dragon stuns most of the party. After that we are able to kill him in a few rounds his body then dissolves and a small hammer and a knife are found. I recognize that the hammer is a holy relic of Moradin held by his chosen. The knife is a holy relic of Ruse that she needs to give to a chosen person.

Now how to fix the changed timeline?

Rockt Reign of Chaos II

Thoradin here with news

Derrick is consulting his book again that always leaves me a little nervous. I do not know what he is going to come up with next. He seems to get good information sometimes. He came to me afterward and tells me there is someone we need to kill or we can not get back to our proper time. I hope that it is not someone nice. He refers to his book again and indicates that we can find this person in some ruins outside of town. We decide to take off after him. We head out to the ruins and notice an ogre keeping watch on the road we are on. I approach him and ask him in giant what is going on. He asks me if I have the pass. I ask him what pass then he leaves to ask the boss. We follow he notices us and speeds up until we are running when we arrive at the ruins. He goes in and we follow notice that the ruins have been projected as an illusion and they are not in as bad of shape as things appeared.

The ogre reports to another bigger ogre that we are here. Raja is reading their thoughts and finds out that they are going to attack us. Loof charges and I throw my hammer the others attack and battle begins. Tharek and Raja attack and I have difficulty following what happens next. Tharek jumps into the center of the room and Loof gets dazed. I move over to put myself between Raja and an ogre and he is killed before he can attack again. As a response to Tharek or the alarm set of by the larger ogre, two mind flayers appear. Next thing I notice is Derrick teleporting forward and attacking the mind flayers, then I notice mind flayer goo on the dais and Derrick yelling “I am the mad prophet of the book, I killed your masters fear me.” The remaining ogres run off. I am a little frightened of Derrick he seems to be losing what sanity he had. He is my companion and I will stick by him. It turns out that mind flayers were what we had to kill. That is a relief. I hope we can get back to our own time now.

Rockt Reign of Chaos

Thoradin here with news

After finishing up with the demons in the apartment and giving the girl a couple of gold pieces to pay to fix the fireplace we left and went back to the Grateful Dead Inn and spent the night.

In the morning we were awakened by Ruse who had been awakened by her student saying we needed to get out of there because the Reign of Chaos was coming. The warning came a little late as a series of explosions rocked Rockt and a portal opened in the inn along with several others outside. The portals came from the elemental chaos and several demons came through the ones outside. They started attacking people and setting fires. We wade into the battle Loof first with him charging one of the demons however the party gets split up on two sides of the inn. Ruse, Loof and I are on one side of the inn with Derrick and Tharek on the other side of the inn. One group of demons pulls their arms off set them on fire and throws them at Loof doing a lot of damage. Derrick figures out that there are five portals and that we need to close them all at the same time or there will be problems. We identify one of the demons who is chanting and figure that is the one holding open the portals so we decide to try and concentrate on him, but we have a little difficulty with that as he is on the another side of the inn and there are demons in-between him and the rest of us.

Derrick comes out of the inn on the side with Tharek and is trying to attack the chanter and the demons seem to be out to get him. We are able to defeat the chanter and the portals close but not before he curses us with a disease mummy fever which Loof and I contract. Derrick goes down and Loof coughs up a six foot tall Walter in a top hat who proceeds to dump alchemist’s fire on Derrick seemingly killing him confusing us all as to whether or not he is on our side. Walter then picks up Derrick’s Head and begins to dance the end of which Derrick appears alive under the hat. We defeat the remaining demons and now have to figure what is going on with Derrick.

Trapped in Rockt

Thoradin again with news

We open the door and go through and find ourselves in Rockt however we are between time nodes so we are stuck until we can figure out another way to move through time. Derrick owns up to the probability that it was him who caused us to end up in a different place and time. Loof was relieved that it was not him. I realize that we may not make it back to Haarlem in our own time. So we must make the best of the situation.

We ask directions to an inn and are directed to the Iron Maiden we decide that the accommodations are a little gruesome so we go to the Grateful Dead Inn. Then start looking for something to do. We find an individual that is willing to deed us some property if we find the Blue Guardians and find out what is going on. He seems sincere so I will trust him. He tells us to meet him back here in two weeks. It seems that maybe not all the citizens of Rockt think we are outlaws.

Loof wants something a little more specific so he goes bar hopping, we follow and when he is out in the alley pissing he hears a woman scream. So he yells and runs to the source. I hear him yell and gather the others to follow. Once outside we hear the screams and head after Loof. We arrive at a house that has had its door knocked down and the sounds of battle coming from within.

I head in to fight one of the demons who have come out of the fireplace where a magical fire is now burning. The screaming girl is in the bath and three demons have come out of the fireplace, now a gateway to the demons plane. We fight the demons with some difficulty and realize that we need to destroy the fireplace to close the gateway so no more demons can come through. Tharek pushes one of the demons back through the fireplace and Loof attacks the fireplace with his axe to little success. Loof is knocked prone when the demon comes back through the fireplace. Loof then attacks the fireplace with a crowbar having a little more success. We are able to defeat the demons in the apartment and the girl finishes destroying the fireplace. She appreciates us killing the demons but is worried about paying for the fireplace. We determine that it was just an entrance of opportunity and not anything that she or her landlord had done. That however is troubling in that a gateway should not be able to open like that.

Back in time to Rockt

Thoradin again with news

Ruse manages to slip off unnoticed by the guards when we were arrested she goes to see Nadia. Nadia tells her to find a certain person who can help to get us out of the tower. She travels to another city to get an anti-negation device she is successful but must now teach Joseph the art of the assassin. She arrives back to see Derrick in the bushes and us coming out of the tower. She joins us. After interrogating the dead we decide to head over to the inventor’s place, his house has changed and he now has a butler. We go in the house and he asks us weren’t you arrested we say yes but we got away. He and Derrick have quite the conversation about time travel and Derrick’s book. They seem to understand each other.

The inventor says we need to go in time to Rockt or there will be problems. Loof says Miharo did not want him to go back in time but that was 6 days ago.

The machine starts and a portal opens we have about 20 seconds we go through and end up in what turns out to be a demi-plane with artificial darkness. Loof’s sun globe sheds a light on the subject but then is destroyed. “Somebody owes me a sun globe” says Loof to no answer. I figure out that it is a demi-plane and we must kill the guardians of the plane before we can move on, also that it is a problem and should be destroyed. After a short time the darkness concentrates around three figures and we have a Shadow Walker and two aberrant treants. Combat begins and the shadow walker starts hitting us with an area attack doing damage to me and missing just about everything else. I hit the shadow with rune of rust and tide of iron attacks on my turn doing quite a bit of damage Loof gets knocked prone and immobilized by one of the treants. When we kill the shadow walker part of the demi-plane disintegrates leaving a rock floor. The treants are pushed of the edge and fall taking damage. A few more rounds and the treants are killed. The rest of plane disintegrates leaving a stone floor and a small door.

Loof was here.

So after defeating the fake Merlin. We left to go tell Az of what had happened and meet Dagon Itt the Celestial Chief Captain of Something or other. He is really important and powerful. He gave us our arrest warrant for the murders of Lord Garrett and Merlin! Which didn’t make any sense because when it was written we hadn’t even killed the fake Merlin yet. It smelled fishy to me. Not the warrant paper the situation. The paper did smell a little musty. Any way we didn’t fight Dagon and he took us to a tower where magic doesn’t work. I was scared my bag of holding would vomit out all my weapons. It didn’t. Dagon left us and said he would tell the Prince we wanted to see him. I don’t think the Prince is a nice guy anymore. To pass the time I played stones with Walter.I want to be friends with him. I lost to him 7 times in a row! He is a toad with no mercy. He would let me think I was doing well and then crush me beneath a smothering cloud of cigar smoke. (I think Walter can do magic and create cigars and fire at will!) I think Walter and I are better friends now. We went to bed. I woke up in the morning with a Walter on my chest! I knew he was there to gloat about winning last night. We I got the point. Then I saw his real message in those small dark loathing eyes: You amuse me and I thought about burning you in your sleep. Walter terrifies me! Breakfast was good and not poisoned. Then Dagon visited, While he was giving bad news and Az was not being friendly I saw Derrick raise his knife over Walter. Yeah! My sleep tonight won’t be haunted my Walter he’ll be after Derrick! Then I woke up on the floor. Dagon and Az left. Then Derrick found the back stairs. Then Miharu took out four guard to come and save me!There was some talking then Dagon came back. Then we left to the Azure Fortress. We then had Nadia speak to the dead. And we were cleared of who we didn’t kill by those we killed. The also told us about more Raksasha in town. We now have to run away from Harlem for a time. It is becoming a bad place. I hope the Prince gets less power hungry and Az gets more friendly. I didn’t like her thinking we killed her dad. Well we off to visit the inventor and give away the cudgel.

Arrest and Escape

Thoradin again with news

Here we are in the presence of another rakshasa corpse with questions unanswered and a potential mess. I do a sending to Az asking her to meet, she indicates that we should meet at her offices soon, as some things are happening.

Now to the questions, I perform the “Speak with the Dead” ritual and we can ask three questions.
First: who is in your pride? 200 members Lord Garrett was the leader, one of the princesses, Lord Garrett’s son, lord Merlin’s son.
Second: What does your pride want in Haarlem? What we have always wanted.
Third: Where is Lord Merlin’s body? South and east in the desert.

What books did Lord Merlin have? Book on two competing cults through history, Derrick takes that book, another on a cult of assassins, a series of papers about the doings of the Azure Sentinels. On the way out of the Guardian’s Guild house Derrick hires the secretary and leaves the books with her.

We leave the Guardian’s Guild to be met by the Chief Captain of the Royal Guard with warrants for our arrest for the murders of Lord Garrett and Lord Merlin. This is unusual as the corpse of the rakshasa masquerading as Lord Merlin is not even cold. We are reluctant to follow these orders but if we refuse our lands will be taken by the crown. We surrender but determine not to surrender our weapons and are taken to a magic suppressing tower and held there. Loof requests an audience with the prince with Derrick as legal advisor and Thoradin as religious advisor. The Chief Captain who’s name is Dagon leaves indicating he will report to the Prince and present our requests.

Derrick is extremely agitated because he cannot reference his book. Finally Loof knocks him out as a friend. I pray not knowing what to think because from one point of view we committed the crimes, not without good reason but we did kill the rakshasa masquerading as Lord Garrett and Lord Merlin. Maybe we should not have been so quick to fight and should have sought more legal ways of dealing with the imposters. Haarlem has a infestation of rakshasa and that is a major problem who they are impersonating makes dealing with them tricky.

We go to sleep for the night and in the morning Loof is awakened by the weight of Walter on his chest smoking a cigar and blowing smoke in his face I do not know what Loof was thinking but he seemed to be afraid of the Toad. Walter gets off his chest and goes back to Derrick.

Breakfast is brought in by servants and Tharek refuses to eat. Loof eats his and Tharek’s portion. The rest of us eat. After awhile Dagon the Chief Captain returns with news from the prince that he will see us as soon as he has time but with the upcoming coronation and the election of a new judge it will probably be a week. He also brings us ballots for the election of the new judge.

We ask if he can ask Az if she will come and see us. He says he will convey the message.

Derrick starts to work on something. He does not tell us what.

Az shows up and I tell her about her father’s death and being replaced by a rakshasa which we fought and killed at the Guardian’s Guild house. She asked if we could prove that we did not kill her father. I said that the rakshasa said that some of his underling had taken the body out to the south east desert. About that time Derrick finishes what he was working on and places Walter over it and stabs him with a dagger and we are all knocked unconscious for a few minutes.

We find out latter that Derrick had constructed an anti-negation device and had been able to reference his book. He found out that at least two of candidates were rakshasa. The last two on the ballot were rakshasa. This is very worrisome.

After a few minutes we come to and the Chief Captain Dagon looks at the device that Derrick appears to have burned then escorts Az out of the room. That meeting did not go well now Az is also suspicious of us.

Some time latter Derrick references the room in his book and finds a book on the shelf that is not a book but a storage device. Opening the book he finds a device and instructions in deep speech. Tharek is able to read the instructions and we activate the device. This opens a passageway and Derrick heads down the passageway. At this time we here two things slam against the door and the door opens to reveal Miharo and she says we need to get out of here that the arrest was contrived and the trial will be rigged.

Dagon chooses this time to return he asks where the guy with the book is. Miharo does some fast talking and convinces Dagon to take us to the Azure Fortress where she has proof of what we were talking about. Arriving at the fortress Miharo directs us to the dungeon. Where there are four corpses two rakshasa and two human lying on tables she indicates that a court arcane specialist could allow us to question the dead. Dagon agrees that he and his guard will be witnesses and set one of the guards as scribe.

A few minute later Nadia arrives and performs a ritual and says you have three questions you can ask each corpse and an hour to do it in.

We ask the two human corpses who they were, one was Lord Garrett and the other Lord Merlin. How did you die? Tortured for information and killed by about 30 rakshasa. he tells Raja to accept her destiny.

We ask the two rakshasa who they were and how they were killed. We find out that one was impersonating Lord Garrett and the other was impersonating Lord Merlin and they were both killed by the Azure Sentinels. We ask about the candidates for Judge if they were rakshasa and three of the candidates were and the fourth should be by sundown. The Chief Captain sends one of his guards to protect the vintner.

The final question was what would be the most effective way of stopping their plans. After and elaborate description of Lord Garrett’s methods with Haarlem which would be impossible for us also indicates that Derrick should contact the inventor.

The guards arrive back with the vintner in tow. They said they had found two rakshasa in the house. They had taken one into custody which had changed into a little girl so that it seemed that they were being cruel as they walked through the streets. Was there a place in the Azure Fortress to house a prisoner? Yes Miharo mumbles something under her breath as she leaves.

What to do and where to go now? We need to lie low for awhile Raja’s book says “Rockt.” We need to locate Ruse and let her know what happened. Derrick looks up Riana in his book she has a long life of trying to maintain a reasonable course in Haarlem. I wonder if we should give Riana the cudgel. Going to Rockt is a reasonable course of action as we now have property and contacts there.

Lord Merlin Conclusion – Part One

Thoradin here with news

Picking up as the party confronts Lord Merlin ‘the rakshasa’. We attack. Merlin activates a portal to access his minions. Loof misses on his power attacks and is hit by Merlin and dazed. Tharek attacks and does some damage. I attack with Rune of Rust and reduce his armor class and doing some damage. For the rest of the battle we trade being dazed with Merlin and we are able to keep the minions at bay. Once the battle was over, we found two chests, when we opened one the portal closed. In the other we found a book and a bag. The book only Derrick and Raja could open and for them only to the first page would open. When Raja looked at the book could Raja and Derrick read the word “destiny” on the page. The bag was full of astral diamonds. Three for each of us.

Dealing with the Artifacts – Lord Merlin – Continued

Thoradin here with news

We went to the Guardian’s Guild to talk to Lord Merlin and see if he is a rakshasa. The entry of the building has no one in it, so we enter and see people in some offices and some people in a dining room. None of them are identified as rakshasa. We talk to a few people and find out that there is a secret passage of the secretary’s office controlled by levers in the offices. We manage to activate the levers which rotate the rooms and exposed the secret passage at the end of the passageway we found a chamber that was down 20 feet. We get down by various means and find nothing at first. Then I notice the rakshasa who ran off, hiding up against the wall and combat begins. She attacked me first doing quite a bit of damage also poisoning me.

After that we are able to defeat her this time, but it took awhile. Then we find a note “Three centered in six.” There were six columns in the chamber with a space for one person in between three of us stood in the spaces and the passage began to rotate. The three of us between the columns jump up on the ramp as it rotates away. The other end opens into a large room as we go in we find Lord Merlin at a table in the corner. He says “I wonder what was taking you so long.” Examination shows him to be a rakshasa. I ask, “When did you replace Lord Merlin?” He says “Since before he became the Judge.” “Is he dead?” I ask. “Yes.” He replies.

Dealing with the Artifacts – Discussions

Thoradin here with news

We are at Lord Merlin’s house when the city guard arrives in response to the escaped researcher. We show them the body of the rakshasa and tell them that the other Lady was a rakshasa also. They leave us and say they will look out for her. We now have two prominent people who one was a rakshasa and the other who probably is one. What we should do with the artifacts is at stake here. I am confused as to what to do and feel it is time for divine guidance. The options are give the items to the emperor of Rockt, give the items to the leaders of Haarlem, or give the items to the Shearneth Empire people. The others wanted to consider going back in time and starting our own city. I think that is a really bad idea. After identifying the options I seclude myself to pray. While praying I think carefully on each option when I thought about Rockt I got the feeling there would be great bloodshed if given to the current regime. Thinking about Haarlem there is bad feeling about the king a somewhat good feeling about the prince, real question about the judge and a bad feeling about the Shearneth Empire. Derek is consulting his book, which is how he determines practically everything.

As we are discussing our options on what to do now, the bells toll indicating that the king is dead. We decide to go to the palace. When we arrive they will not let us in. I do a sending to Az to see if there is anything we can do for her. She responds help me choose new wives for the King.

We then decide to go back to the Azure Fortress wait and see. When we arrive Miharo is waiting nervously, we have a guest. The guest turns out to be Riana of Stiletto. The others check her out she is not a rakshasa. Derek looks her up in his book and she is one of the good guys. I ask her what we can do for her she talks about the recent cat problem indicating the rakshasa problem. She talks about Lord Garrett, Lord Merlin’s assistants. She provides information indicating that Lord Merlin is hold up at the Guardian’s Guild. Derek suggested that we give her the cudgel now I suggest that it was premature. We decide to check out Lord Merlin at the Guardian’s Guild.

Dealing with the Artifacts – Lord Merlin

Thoradin again with news

As we were trying to figure out how to get back to our own time I was contacted by Emanuel with instructions on how to get back to the present. We follow the instructions and arrive back in the workshop with Loof’s mother Alaria. Emanuel seems a little taken back by that fact but does not express any cause for concern. We go to the Azure Fortress and talk to Miharo and determine we need to do something about the Artifacts I am carrying around in my bag of holding.

The options considered were taking them back in time, taking them to Rockt, giving them to the officials in Haarlem, or giving them to Raja. We rejected taking them back in time because we still would have to deal with them in the present. We felt Rockt was too repressive a government. Raja does not want them. Giving them to the officials in Haarlem seems to be the most reasonable course. However we needed to determine that the recipients were who we thought them to be and not rakshasa.

We decide to check on Lord Merlin first, and find that he has not been to the courthouse in five days. When we go to his home we find two young women a secretary and a researcher. They indicate he has not been home in about a week but they did a sending and he was alright.

I did a sending and he replied that he was busy meditating and could not come and see us. At that point Raja went downstairs and did a discern lies ritual as we were talking to the women. Derek asked the researcher for her name and she refused to say her name I calm him down and he goes over to the secretary and asks her what her name is she says Eleanor. At this time Raja comes back up the stairs and recognizes Eleanor as a rakshasa. While at the same time Derek consults his book that says Eleanor = Kitty he then starts yelling kitty and Eleanor reveals herself as a rakshasa. We notice the backward hands on the researcher.

Battle begins and we do not have very good luck with the researcher and she runs off phasing through the wall and falling downstairs. We are able to kill Eleanor but the researcher escapes yelling for the guard then she had been attacked in her home. So she gets away and we may have to deal with her later. Here we are again with a rakshasa body in a prominent person’s house.

Back to the Past – Loof’s Mother

Thoradin here with news

We decide to go back to the past to see what had happened at Rockt. We get back to the smell of smoke and burning buildings, there are two groups of solders one near the city and the other group in tents further away. Ruse went scouting and discovered that the ones near the city were primarily goliath and the others were eladrin. The eladrin were bragging about how they had set the city on fire and captured some prisoners and some bravado about what they would do in the next encounter.

We decide to sneak into the city and see if anyone is still there. We find no-one but discover tracks leading from the palace to the woods. We follow those and find the remainder of the queen’s court. Herself and 7 guards they are relieved to find the blue guardians and they take us to queen Alaria. She is pregnant and very ill and asks us to convey her to a safe place so she can have her child and die. The nearest place in her time was 20 miles away through enemy territory, another possibility is to take her to the future and then take her somewhere else in the past. That is what we decide to do.

We did not plan on the eladrin being there to stop us. We ask them if they will let us past, they ask if we will permit our throats to be slit. Battle starts the eladrin go first and get in some pretty heavy damage. We have some trouble hitting them so it goes badly for awhile, Raja gets pretty beat up and the others get damaged. I stay by Alaria and protect her luckily no one attempts to attack her. After a couple of rounds we started doing some damage and the one I was fighting decided to flee. I then threw my hammer at one of the ranged eladrin and got a critical, doing 71 damage. We were able to kill 3 and the rest fled. The arcane circle we needed to use to get back had some problems that I tried to fix.

I thought I had been successful but we did not get back to Haarlem to the time machine. I must have done something wrong. We are outside of Haarlem but not the one we remembered there were some differences. We contacted the guard and asked them to call a healer or midwife for Alaria. A midwife comes and we are allowed into the city at her insistence. While Alaria gives birth we wander about the city discovering that the Azure Fortress is still broken down and it is about 23 years before we intended to be or before our present, so we have got a problem. It should be interesting solving this one.

While we were exploring Alaria had a healthy baby boy, we then find rooms at an inn that Loof recognizes from his youth.

Cleaning up the mess

Thoradin here with news

Lord Garrett is dead, he is a rakshasa we are in a room with dead bodies what do we do now? Loof puts a shroud on Lord Garrett’s body we decide to take Lord Garrett’s body back to Nadia and tell her about what happened. We arrive and see Nadia in the garden ready to defend her home from invaders coming through. For a second or two it seems that we are in for a fight. When she recognizes us she waves off the guards. As far as we can tell Nadia is who she is. I explain that the meeting with Lord Garrett did not go as planned, that when Lord Garrett insisted on seeing the artifacts I noticed that his hands were on backwards that he was a rakshasa; I then conveyed the information to the others and Lord Garrett stepped back and told his guards to attack. At that moment Loof decides to dump the body in front of Nadia. His timing could not have been more unfortunate. I explained that he could have been replaced. She performed a ritual on the body and told us it was indeed the Lord Garrett she had married and that he had always treated her well. We had no complaints until he ordered his minions to attack. So with Nadia’s help we decide to keep Lord Garrett’s death a secret. Telling people that he has been kidnapped and that we were unable to follow and apprehend the kidnappers due to my weakness with portals. I miss Luna.

Now back to Gateway to Rockt to deal with the Princess Candice. We cannot portal back into the palace so I open a portal back to the camp outside. We meet the same guard who escorted us to the palace Loof blurts out the story we are going to tell saying it was a story the guard says “yeah right” so we now have a suspicious guard. We arrive at the palace, the Candice is confused by our appearance outside the throne room, she is still confused as Derrick tells her the story about how Lord Garrett was kidnapped by rakshasa and we went in pursuit and lost them because my skill with arcane is not great. She is suspicious that we are not telling her everything and I feel guilty for lying. She indicates that she can handle the situation and that her husband will probably send another advisor. We leave to go talk to Az.

We let Az know what was happening, but she was busy so we portal to the palace and meet with the prince and tell him what has happened with Lord Garrett, he is surprised and asks who knows. We tell him Az and Nadia, he wondered why Az and not his other wife we said she was a Azure Sentinel and it was early in the process. He said ok that he would tell her at some point and he would inform Taria, the Princess of Breakwall. We take our leave of the prince and head home to discuss the items of antiquity and what we should do with them. Derrick asks if we have a vault we do not. One thing we need to do is check on Lord Merlin, Az’s father he has been acting strangely and could have been replaced.

We talk briefly about who would get the items and that there would be some kind of bloodshed as a result of the items. On the other hand there will be bloodshed without them. We agreed that Rockt was too restrictive. Raja at this time is not interested. We decide to keep them for awhile and then make the determination.

Something is up with Lord Garrett

Thoradin here with news

We arrive back in Haarlem me still wondering what to do with the artifacts. Loof wants to try on the crown I do not think that is a good idea. We now have to decide what to do. I receive a sending from Nadia indicating that Lord Garrett wants to see us in Gateway to Rockt. So we open a portal there. The governor’s tent is not where it was before and we find out that they have taken up residence in the palace. We get directions. Walking to the palace we meet an old friend Ester a white minotaur with one horn she joins us. One of the guards recognizes us and we are led into the thrown room to meet the princess and Lord Garrett. We exchange greetings with the princess and then she leaves.

Lord Garrett asks to see the artifacts and I am feeling uneasy about showing them to him with Loof wanting to try on the crown so I refuse, he asks again and I notice that his hands are reversed that he is a rakshasa and a battle commences with Garrett and his guard. Ester charges Lord Garrett knocking him prone. A human male teleports into the room says “The book says you are the good guys” and attacks the guards with a spell. One of the guards dies. They are minions. I decide to concentrate on Lord Garrett hitting him with a Rune of Rust which lowers his armor class. I then hit him with Tide of Iron which causes additional damage with each hit. A few more rounds went by and we finally defeated him and his guards.

Our new ally asked “who are you?” I replied “Thoradin a Runepriest of Moradin we are known as the Azure Sentinels or the blue guardians.” “The book knows you, you’re in here twice that makes you a point of reference I’m sticking with you guys.”

Luna’s tasks continued

Thoradin here with news

Luna contacts Daisuke Miharo’s brother to find out about the items of the Eldritch Panoply that he had and he requested that we meet him in Rockt. We find him in a broken down inn that it turns out was one of the properties that our deeds identified. He had good news, better news and bad news. Tharek and I asked for the bad news first, Loof wanted just the good news. The bad news was some of the properties had other claimants, the properties had been re-deeded because no owners were found. Other properties had clear title and rents had been paid into an account. So we may have money coming. He showed us the place Luna’s items had been hidden but refused to manage the properties. Hidden with the items were letters from Raja to Raja, Miharo to Loof and Luna to Luna. Raja’s letter instructed her embrace her destiny and that she could trust the Azure Sentinels that we would protect her. Miharo’s letter told him to be careful that he needed to go back in time but be careful because of his children. Luna’s letter told her not to go back in time again but to send this letter. We left Rockt went back to Haarlem and prepared to go to Luna’s ceremony in the elemental chaos now that she has all the items in the Eldritch Panoply.

The portal opened on a field in Luna’s village and the elders were there waiting along with Apollo. Apollo stood forward and was questioned by the elders he presented them with the crown, sword and cudgel. Then a portal opened and he stepped through. One hour later he stepped out having completed his quest and proved himself worthy.

Luna’s turn, she stepped forward into the circle to be questioned a series of what have you learned questions. At the end the elders mentioned that the answers seemed tailored to please. During this one of the elders explained that we could join her on his quest but that she must primary mover and decision maker. We could only assist. If she failed we would be trapped with her. The portal opened and she stepped through followed by us, Ruse stepping first and Loof being last he appeared to be thinking about Miharo’s letter.

The portal opened on a white field that seemed to respond to what Luna was thinking first we saw small animals drawing marks on the floor an arrow and a message that told us to wait here. Apollo then appeared and refused to spar with Luna and eventually tells a story about a follower of the god Saint Cuthbert who sought to keep the gods just and true. This follower had a shard of Saint Cuthbert that remained after the god was killed. Luna needed to find this shard that was in the keeping of a servant of the Raven Queen who did not think she was reasonable this turned out to be Ruse who was really surprised but she managed to share the shard with Luna using a ceremony she found written in gold letters in the tome talking about the follower of Saint Cuthbert. Luna and Ruse ended up with a spiritual connection with had some emotional and communication properties. Then the whole field became a portal and we arrived back in front of the elders twenty-three hours latter.

The elders return the items of the Eldritch Panoply to Luna having enchanted them to return to the city when keeper dies, similar to the crown, the sword, and cudgel. Apollo entrusts these items to me. So now we need to decide what to do with the items, entrust them to Haarlem, Rockt or the monastery of Pelor and Raja.

Luna’s tasks

Thoradin again with news

Loof had gone for awhile and needed to explain to him last week’s goings on. Luna explained it from her point of view leaving Loof confused. I explained the bit about the monastery and the girls of the prophecy, but left out a few key items like Miharo has a brother and the flying island. After awhile Loof was filled in on the important details, so we could proceed to trying to convince Raja to go back to the monastery she had run away from to be tested by the crown. She refused. Arguments about avoiding destiny and such were raised; she still refused but suggested that we find the other girl and have her tested. She further suggested that we wait for her here at the Azure fortress.

We decided to do just that. Luna did a sending to Nykia and found out she was just outside the city waiting in a long customs line. In the meantime a man came to the Azure fortress wanting to see our friend. Loof asked him to leave and shut the door He walked through the closed door. Loof asks him to leave a little more forcefully and he does Loof tries to walk through the door it is solid. We come to find out that this was one of the Agents of Dal Quor “the Dreaming Dark” that hunt all kalashtar when we talk to Raja afterward. We are acquiring more powerful enemies. Such are the hazards of what we do and who we befriend.

We contact Az about arranging an escort for Nykia we decided to meet at the Arcane College because it was safer and people could not phase through walls there. So we meet her a few minutes later she has a couple of personal guards that she leaves at the door. We talk and she agrees to go back and be tested if we can find her a relatively safe place to work. We tell her about the island and she says that will be satisfactory. She was surprised to learn that they now had the crown. As we are going to talk Apollo on the flying island, an alarm sounds and Nykia indicates they are getting ready to march. Luna does a sending ritual to Az and lets her know. After climbing up to the top of the island someone suggests to Apollo that they should get an elevator.

We make arrangements with Apollo for Nykia’s boarding and talk to him about the sword and the eldritch panoply he gives the sword to Luna. He says that someone has acquired the belt and bracers in Rockt it turns out to have been Miharo’s brother. Luna indicates that the boots are on the island after some accusations of incompetence from Luna toward Apollo we figure out that Nykia has the boots. So Luna goes to Nykia’s quarters and demands the boots which does not go over well with the rest of us. We convince her to try and trade for the boots. Nykia gives us a list of items including a kalashtar maiden to experiment on, she suggested Ruse would work her being expendable; at that point the discussion got heated about what would be done to her. Nykia said she might not survive and called in her guards who turned out to be agents of the Dreaming Dark. So battle commenced with them getting the upper hand at first being able to put us to sleep and dominate us causing us to attack each other for awhile, we were finally able to turn the tides on her and her guards and defeat them. Well we need to apologize to Apollo and the residents of the island about our recommending of Nykia to reside on their island.

So Luna now has four of the six items in the eldritch panoply with the other two identified so she should be happy. What to do about the crown?

With Adar rising up to march after Raja and competing prophecies about empires and crowns what is a Runepriest to do? I will pray for guidance. Moradin help me.

Back to Haarlem and on to other things

Thoradin here with news

We finish looking around the cavern and find no indication of where Tasselhoff and the crown might be. So we decide to go back to Haarlem and do some things there. We go to the fortress. Luna wants to check with Miharo to see if she can find out about the deeds. Our cook Peaches is a little put out with us over the number of times we miss dinners she has prepared something special for dinner and requests our presence. We decide to stick around for dinner. Turns out that Miharo has an agent that can help us with the deeds but she is keeping something from us, she arranges for us to meet this person at dinner. I give her five astral diamonds to invest. She also indicates that the estate of the weapons manufacturer had been settled but that we did not have a controlling interest. Our contract had been renegotiated and we would get more money. This was a good thing because our expenses were also rising.

Luna went to the Arcane College and found out the dracolich had reformed in the girls quarters and caused quite a stir they were not to happy with Luna on her oversight of not destroying the dracolich’s phylactery before sending the lich to them.

I went to the orphanage to find that they had expanded. Sadly there were more orphans because of the war. I was glad there was someplace for them.

Ruse went and made her usual rounds with the Raven Queens list. I worry about what she is going to do.

We arrive back at the fortress for dinner and it is wonderful Peaches has outdone herself even making her signature peach desert.

The agent is there for dinner after dinner Luna begins to interrogate him about his honesty. I place my hand on Luna’s shoulder to calm her down. It would not serve our purposes to antagonize this person who turns out to be Miharo’s brother. He though the problem with the deeds would be to get the occupants of the land to pay the rent due, also that they could be used to stop the war if we wanted. We give him the deeds.

Miharo has information that the flying island that Apollo was on was stuck in the north near a monastery of Pelor. She had a portal address and so Luna opened a portal and we went through. Luna then did a sending to Apollo who was very surprised that she was so close. He said that he would send someone down to get us. A while later we see two people coming down off the island a normal sized female and a male halfling, we recognize the female as Brin who adventured with us awhile back. We find out the name of the halfling is Tasselhoff. They invite us up to the island and we climb up a rope ladder on top of the island is a community of about 300 including a fortified keep mostly new construction. We ask to be taken to Apollo they take us to the keep which is guarded by two people one in the Raven Queen livery and one wearing another. Ruse becomes interested at this point. Apollo confirms that he has the sword Luna seeks and that this is the Tasselhoff of the crown note but that the crown is in use and not available and that she will have to complete some task in order to get the sword. Luna immediately assumes that she is going to have to fight him. Apollo says, ‘Fight the first thing you think of. Well you are going to have to accomplish this without fighting, without hurting anyone. It would be good if companions did not hurt anyone in accomplishing it either. You ought to make amends to your father; also the person who has the crown has some people he needs to find.’

We head out to go to the monastery we find out from the leader that our new companion Raja is one of the people they are looking for and the kalashtar that we killed fighting the giants was one also. We inform him of this and he was sad that he had fallen that far. They want to find them because of a prophecy that says that a girl born at a certain time will be queen and lead the reuniting of the empire. There were nine girls born at the time of the prophecy and with the help of the crown they have determined that the seven who are still here are not the queen and they want to test the other two so they will know who to follow. So they are asking us to find them and bring them back.

Luna decides that she wants to go see her father and make amends so she opens the portal to the elemental chaos that we visited before that is by her city and we make our way to the city. As Luna walks into town people stop and stare. One takes of running toward her house, we follow and Luna apologizes to her father and he accepts and gives her the amulet from the Eldritch Panoply that she has been seeking. Her sister makes us a wonderful chaos berry pie and another to take. We go back to see Apollo at the island and he still wants us to find the girls for the monastery.

Called to the present

Thoradin here with news

We went back and reported to the Queen and she gave us tracks of land as a reward for our help. We now may own land in Rockt with who we are at war in the present. Luna receives a sending from Nadia indicating that Lord Garrett is near to death and she needs our help. So we say fair well to the Queen and head off to our pick up point. We get back without incident and head to talk to Lady Garrett. She provides a portal address and we arrive to find that Lord Garrett has been poisoned and is dehydrated and has and infection and that is why healing was not helping him. Luna and Loof are able to make a salve from chaos berry wine and herbs that helps him with the infection and allows him to be healed.

Luna finds out that a lieutenant vizier from Rockt is currently in their custody he is interrogated rather forcefully. She finds out that the deeds look genuine and are for tracks of land that are occupied, but if they are valid the rents would have been held in reserve in a bank. Luna tries to help get him released but is unsuccessful.

Lord Garrett suggests that we go to the other location to look for the crown. Luna opens a portal and we arrive in a wasteland the volcano where the volcano had erupted, but there was an entrance to a cave up the volcano a ways. Luna and Tharek sneak up to the entrance and find zombies. They call Loof and I to come up and when we get there the battle starts. We are happily knocking over zombies and throwing them into the lava, when a dracolich comes wandering out from the back of the cavern breaths and stuns most of us. The battle goes back and forth for awhile until Tharek dazes the lich and allows us some breathing room to attack. The lich is almost dead stuns all except Tharek and he is able to finish it off.

We find a place where the crown had been with a note from someone called Tasselhoff. We keep the note hoping to use it to scrye for his location.

Back in time Gnome Bar in Rockt downstairs

Thoradin again with news

We go downstairs and find the three gnomes from upstairs, who we try to intimidate and are not successful they open the portal. We attack them I missed on both a charge and follow-up attack. Some more gnomes come through and a purple mirage dragon. The dragon attacks stunning most of the party, he then attacks with a breath weapon that caused the some of the party to have to run away or attack another party member. Tharek managed to knock the dragon prone and attack the gnomes on his way away from the dragon. Most of the rest of us were stunned. So the gnomes got extra attacks. The dragon moved away and waited for his breath weapon to recharge. He moved back in attacked Ruse, Trots, and Raja, and then tried to intimidate us Luna and I resisted and intimidated him. He said that we would meet again and went through the portal. We killed the

Back in time Gnome Bar in Rockt

Thoradin again with news

We proceed on to the palace and find a place of new construction with tapestries depicting I assume scenes from recent history many of them depict goliaths male and female fighting. After a short time the queen shows up and introduces herself as Lady then Queen we find out that she also had been attacked by gnomes this morning. She was a goliath and obviously not merely ornamental. We talk about jobs she might have for us. Dealing with the gnomes who are centered in a bar outside of town was number one. Without directly asking for the items we were looking for we found out she did not have them. She offered gold and land.

We head out for the bar. We find the bar easily and go in and talk to some of the gnomes around and find out that the Eladrin woman at the bar is in charge. Luna tries to intimidate her but that backfires and she threatens to start with us and continue until the eladrin have control of the city. The gnome that Loof was talking to runs upstairs. Battle commences Luna attacks the eladrin behind the bar and eladrin from upstairs comes down and attacks Loof. I move and attack the eladrin from upstairs then Loof attacks killing her in a single critical stroke. (note: 113 points)

Tharek dazes the eladrin from behind the bar who then teleports into a room behind the bar and closes the door. He then pulls the gnomes into center of the room and drops two of them into the latrine killing one, the other swims off. The rest of the gnomes disappear into the stonework. Luna opens the door and the eladrin woman surrenders. We find out there is a portal downstairs with guards and wards.

Back in Time Rockt

Thoradin again with news

Next morning, we do some research about what to wear when we go back to Rockt. We find out that the city was ruled by a warrior woman at the time. We then gather at Emanuel the inventor’s to get sent back in time.

We arrive in a field outside the city near a relatively new wooden fortified city. As we approach the city the guards seem to be reluctant to let us past, but finally do.

We find a tavern. One of the patrons approaches and starts flirting with Luna she explains that she is an adventurer and comes from a town near the elemental chaos and he loses interest. He does however have a friend who could get us an audience with the ruler for a price Luna gives him a platinum piece. He leaves and comes back later with a half-orc who will lead us to the ruler. He did comment that the found the coin unusual but accepted it anyway.

We start our travels through the city and are ambushed by some gnomes who rose up out of the cobblestones. They surprise us and the battle goes their way for awhile. We then manage to kill several of them and the others disappear back into the cobblestones. Our guide thanked us for the help explaining they were a group who regularly attack persons from the town. Tharek wants to know why so he can broker a peace settlement.

Back in Haarlem various

Thoradin here with News

Luna decides not to go into town at this time she did not know how she would be received being and exile. So we set the rock we were on down near the city and opened a portal home.

Luna talks to Miharo about the Eldritch Panoply items they where last recorded as being in Rockt 200 years ago. The sword is on a flying island in the hands of her brother.

I had my meeting with Adrik, Diesa and Morgran most thing are progressing acceptably our nearby mines are playing out so we have to go further afield for resources. We are watching the city states at war in the old Shearneth Empire for new developments in technology.. We agree to have a monthly security council meeting and that the prince will be invited to future meetings.

Trots calls a council meeting and they discuss the situation in Haarlem, his upcoming parenthood and a place for him to move to.

Ruse receives instructions from the Raven Queen.

Raja writes one of her sisters.

Loof goes to meet Miharo and is asked to gather us for a meeting with Emanuel an inventor who has been bugging her to meet with us. We meet with him and see his invention a portal machine that apparently can open portals in different time periods. He demonstrates retrieving a chest full of astral diamonds. Loof grabs all but one and takes them to Miharo. We discuss the ramifications of this type of obtaining goods and decide since it comes from Rockt 200 years ago so it was alright. I am still a little dubious. Luna finds out that it can take us back in time so she wants to go back to get the item from the Eldritch Panoply both Trots and I think going back in time is risky.

Miharo gives us each 10 of the astral diamonds for equipment and expenses. We decide to go back in time to get the items for Luna.

Into the Elemental Chaos

Thoradin again with news

The next morning the genasi arrives and leads us to house near the noble district. We go in another genasi is preparing a portal. He finishes and starts calling the other an idiot for bringing the Azure Sentinels they argue for awhile. They decide to let us go through the one who brought us stays and the other walks through the portal. Luna follows, Trots asks if anyone thinks this is a bad idea. We agree but we came to put down the cult and prevent them raising a primordial. So we follow and arrive at a relatively stable part of the elemental chaos.

Luna and I understand primordial so I translated for the others there were two air archons, two ice archons and an earth archon. The earth archon seemed to be in charge so we talked to him. Luna and some of the others went along with the ceremony until the earth archon asked them to kill Loof and me, they then attacked. It is tricky fighting in a place where gravity is what you think it is and land just floats around.

The fight was interesting with people falling into each other and Luna falling of the island and jumping around. The islands crashed into each other and knocked people down. Tharek flew around and pulled people to him, then missed with his attack. We finally manage to kill of the archons and a storm starts in the lightning. Luna manages to fly the island piece we move to and get out of range of the storm. She then notices that we are near to her home town. She swears in primordial.

Haarlem and the Harmonious Hobgoblin

Thoradin again with news

We step through the portal to find Nadia waiting for us. She informs Loof that he has the wrong crown and chides the rest of us for not doing an arcana check on the item to figure out what it was. It turns out to be a Leader’s Helm and item only usable by someone with healing powers so the others give it to me. Nadia asks Raja how she did and if she wants to join the Azure Sentinels. Raja replies yes but I do not know if they want me. Nadia says good, I will inform Lord Guy. She then informs us also that a cult is trying to raise a primordial and we need to address this. As she leaves she tells us the treaty with Rockt fell through. Wonderful, I wonder what happened.

Miharo asks us to have a meeting so we go up to the meeting hall. Household budget was doing fine except for one of our former employees stealing from us. Miharo gives us a bag with 3 platinum in it our share of investment income less expenses for the new vineyard. Luna gets extra for the income from the temple property. Miharo has information about the group that is trying to raise a primordial, meet at a seedy tavern called the “Harmonious Hobgoblin.” Several of us know where it is.

We arrive at the Harmonious Hobgoblin to find it is no longer a seedy tavern but has been recently remodeled. We walk in; walk out check the address and location in town because it is not what we expected. We walk back in have the waitress seat us at a table and we order drinks, while Ruse investigates, she finds a couple of genasi in a back room and a few other patrons of the tavern. Luna goes to talk to them finds out that they have met her brother on a flying island and say he was a real jerk called them brainwashed minions. They then come out to meet the rest of us. Then he says we will have to fight and kill his companion in order to prove we deserve to join the group in the elemental chaos.

They attack first whirling through us making three attacks at us then we attack most of us missing and the fight goes on another round. After three in the party get bloodied we are able to kill the one genasi and the other sheaths his swords and tells us to meet him tomorrow. We discover that the bartender is Lord Guy’s brother Gordon and he is not very happy about us having killed someone in his bar.

Confrontation in the tower – Continued

Thoradin again with news

As the wall came slowly up, Luna started interrogating Raja about her past. She was not very forthcoming except that they wanted her to be something she did not want to be. Enough for now. There was a frost giant and 8 statues of Queens of the Shearneth Empire. Raja could hear the thoughts of the giant ”they will never solve the puzzle of the queens and then I will get to kill them”. Raja tells us we have to move the queens into a certain formation in order to open the door. If we solve it the door opens and we go on if not then the giant attacks. We spend about an hour with no solution when the giant offers some help if we will take him with us because his boss was not very generous and there were not many women. After a discussion with Trots we decide to take him up on his offer, he gives us a clue the queens do not like each other we are able to solve the riddle with Raja’s help and the giant goes off up the stairs to break the windows depicting dwarves being tortured.

The door opens to reveal a large set of stairs we go up the stairs to find a sturdy wooden bridge some platforms surrounded by a chasm on which there are two frost giants, a frost titan and two medium sized females all appearing hostile. Battle begins; Luna charges one of the frost giants and teleports him into the chasm, Raja attacks and teleports the titan into the chasm he catches himself by driving his axe into the wall and climbing back up and jumping into the middle of us and kicks Trots. Loof critically wounds one of the females and we manage to kill her first round. We other female manages to magically retrieve the falling giant and the battle begins. I get pushed off the platform and take falling damage Loof uses his wallwalkers to great advantage. The cold resistance from my ring really helps minimize the damage but I still end up with only 30 hp. Most of us end up bloodied except Luna and Trots and we finally manage to take out the titan, frost giants and the other caster. The crown on the head of the titan falls of and shrinks down to human size and Loof wins the race to grab it. He places it on his head and feels funny. Then he receives a sending from Nadia asking if we had the crown he sends information about the crown, the frost giant and the dead. Trots receives a sending questioning Loof’s sanity with a request that we head home immediately.

Confrontation in the tower

Thoradin again with news

After a short rest, Ruse shows up and notices Raja and that they appear to be related. They talk for awhile then; Ruse enters the tower and heads down the stairs and finds a male kalashtar meditating below a crystal in a room filled with mirrors. The rest of us follow Ruse down the stairs trying to be stealthy we do not succeed very well. Raja recognizes the fellow and they have a silent conversation. Luna figures out that the crystal is defensive and the mirrors need to be destroyed in order to shut down the arcane machine in front of us. She whispers this to us. She hears a masculine voice telling her it would be a very bad idea. Trots wonders if we should leave being that the machine is defensive. Raja asks the kalashtar Litith why he was not with his love and what he was doing. He said he was making the world a better place. That during the reign of the giants there was one thousand years of order. He then tells Raja that she should be back at the monastery. Interesting questions surfacing about Raja’s past.

Luna says we might as well fight and Litith says yes. Luna gets dominated by the crystal and kalashtar. Loof breaks one of the mirrors taking minor damage. Luna hits Trots. I decided to attack Litith with my action point so I hit him with “Call of Iron” which allows my allies to do extra damage to him then I used “Word of Healing Assault” which allows two of my allies to attack Raja hits, Trots missed. Trots action his turn allowed Luna to save against being dominated good one Trots. Luna uses “Dual Lightning Strike” to attack and kill Litith and destroy a mirror, then uses an action point to go critical and destroy two mirrors and ends up taking a lot of damage and getting bloodied. The mirrors are doing more damage as more of them are destroyed. By the time my next action came around Litith was dead. As he died he said to Raja that she was a worse traitor to the cause than he was. More questions about Raja. I threw my hammer at one of the mirrors breaking it. We finish destroying the mirrors the crystal falls and shatters

And the walls start to move upward.

We take several short rests to get back up to full strength.

Awakening from the Dream and Heading North.

Thoradin with News

Luna comes into breakfast saying that she had had a dream and the gods were jerks and she was not going to worship them anymore. Apparently last week’s confrontation at the temple did not happen, however I did get visited by an angel who said I was doing a good job and did point out a flaw in the armor that I was forging. Trots noted that he and his wife were visited and now his wife will be on the Erathren Counsel. Ruse was not at breakfast but apparently there was a visitation there as well. There was not much conversation about the dream we had but it seemed to be the same for all of us. Sadly Az has retired from the Azure Sentinels and is about her new job as the governor. I received a neck item +4 Healer’s Brooch for services rendered to deity.

Loof was out looking for a vender to purchase his loot when he ran into a Kalashtar named Raja that looked a lot like Ruse. He talked to her and invited her to breakfast and to stay in the Azure Fortress. At the table Loof introduced her as Rickshaw I asked her if he had gotten the name right. He had not. Her name was Raja. She was not forthcoming with more information or reasons why she had left her home and come to Haarlem. Miharo said she was welcome but that she must work or pay. She said that she did not have much. It seemed to me that was some reason for her leaving. I said she looked like she needed some time to think and sort things out and that I would pay her rent for a month. Miharo was pleased. I need to talk to her and see if she has enough to run the fortress. As is her custom Nadia showed up for breakfast and talked to Raja and hired her to guide us north. (A not so subtle hint that we need to go and to be about finding the crown.) Luna said we were leaving tomorrow.

This time when we stepped through the portal it was indeed snowing. Our winter gear was indeed necessary. Maybe we are in the right place. I perform the Endure Elements Ritual to help us deal with the cold. There was a trail that let to a tower that had various sizes of footprints. As we approached a frost giant stepped out of the tower and started walking toward us. Another one followed and a humanoid woman. The Frost Giants attacked doing damage to Loof and Luna. We attacked doing damage to the giants. The lady attacked and did damage and knocked most of us prone. We trade several more rounds and several of us got bloodied. I expended my Runes of Mending. Trots commented that he should have purchased more potions. Alas none are available in the middle of nowhere. We do need to plan better as far as potions are concerned. We also should have met with the Prince to see about rewards for defending Haarlem and getting a treaty signed.

Confrontation at the Temple of Selûne

Thoradin with news

As I was working at the forge and angel of Moradin appeared to me telling me that there was going to be some trouble at the Temple of Selûne and that I was to defend the worshipers and temple. After that I went to the Temple of Moradin for a conformation ceremony where I thought I was to be advanced to High Priest. It was a surprise to me I was made the Primate over Marshall Development. I went to Hanks with the other Azure Sentinels to celebrate. As we were having a few drinks one of the worshipers of Selûne came in to say their portals defenses had been breached and an attack was eminent. We ran over to the temple and the worshipers welcomed us and fled.

A group of Githyanki had come through the portal. Loof attacked first and killed a minion. Luna attacked killing a minion. The minions attacked Luna doing some damage. I threw a hammer at one killing her. Then all hell broke loose when Trots attacked Luna doing damage. Why are you attacking yelled Luna. Loof was confused and so was I. then Ruse attacked Luna setting me on Luna’s side against Trots Ruse and the Githyanki. I healed Luna. Trots asked for healing also I said nothing and attacked Ruse, Trots and the githyanki. Ruse explained that they had been instructed by their gods and had to follow instructions. I said I had received instructions also, and I healed Luna and attacked them again. At that point Luna pulled the Sword of Justice and calls upon it to pass judgment. It then disappears saying this can easily be resolved. Ruse, Trots and Luna make a tentative peace accepting that Luna will no longer fund Selûne and will let the githyanki destroy the temple. I am torn and continue to defend the temple until I am overrun.

Apparently Trots, Ruse and I had received visitations from angels.

Haarlem and the War with the Empire continued

Thoradin here with more of the story.

Trots teleports over to the dragon and attacks him doing some damage in his weakened state. Ruse attacks and misses. I charge and miss, but hit with a rune attack that allows people additional damage to their attacks until my next turn I also hit with another attack doing damage. The following attacks subdue and kill the dragon with it breathing fire and clawing at Az and I. After the dragon falls the others flee and our troops follow after them and what was a close battle before we came turns into a rout. We discuss what to do with the gold dragon corpse, whether or not to barbeque, and can not decide whether or not gold dragon is edible and finally settle on letting the arcane college have it for study.

The Elder Iron Dragon revives and we try to find out what compelled him to fight against us. He wants a book from the Haarlem Library that discusses the life after death. In return he will negotiate a treaty with Rockt. He makes a promise to return the book which Luna finds his intentions to be questionable. The dragon suggests a 20 year term Trots suggests a longer term like the dragon’s lifetime. The dragon tells us that the longer term would invite the princess make war on us as soon as she came to power. We finally agree on the following terms. He gets the book, we get a twenty five year peace with a negotiation at the end of twenty, and we get the city the Gateway to Rockt.

We take the proposal to the Prince and on our way notice that people are crying and acting strangely. Loof picks up a small girl and scares her so badly she soils herself then runs off. An older maid is not so scared by Loof and tells us that one of the royals has been shot, but does not know who it was.

We go into see the Prince and he is alright and says to Az that her fool of a father-in-law has been shot by a stray arrow from the battlefield. That the king will survive. We relay to him the details of the agreement we made with the dragon. He accepts the terms and has a treaty drawn up. He sends Loof to have Miharo put some misleading information in the book. He tells Trots that the Erathrine Dwarves are to gear up for war providing arms and babies.

We take the treaty to the Dragon and he returns with it signed. We are no longer at war with Rockt.

Back to Haarlem and the War with the Empire.

Thoradin again with news

We decide to go back to Haarlem to drop off Luna’s equipment and new workers. Miharo is waiting for us with a message to go see the Prince. We find out that the war is not going well and the enemy is outside the city. The largest and most difficult antagonist is an Elder Iron Dragon that is in pretty rough shape at this time. The battlefield is obscured and it is difficult to tell who our allies and who are our enemies are causing a great deal of confusion and friendly fire injuries.

We move in and are able to engage the dragon in combat and Trots is able to knock him out which brought up a conversation about reviving him and seeing if we can make it our friend. This conversation occurs with help from ruse telepathy. One of the enemies suddenly jumps up in the air and come down as an Adult Gold Dragon and the battle takes a different turn. As the dragon produces a fear effect that stuns most of our party. Luna weakened critically hits the dragon doing damage and Tharek knocks it prone.

More next time.

More from the Isle of Hidden Mist II

Thoradin here again with news

Ruse explores the corridors leading off the room and finds a part of the corridor that is a thin membrane so we cut through and find a small chamber. There are two corridors leading off this chamber the wider one covered by a membrane When Ruse cuts through it attracts the attention of the sand ray and it attacks us psychically doing damage to us all. On the other side there is a variation of the gelatinous cube we have been fighting. This one has a mouth and arms. Ruse backs off and calls for help we come through the membrane and take psychic damage as we pass through.

We attack the cube it is able to engulf one of us and the next switches places so we end up fighting three cubes and the genasi wine maker who turns out to be a demon worshiper. Highlights: All of us end up dominated and attacking each other at one time or another except Az who manages to escape the cubes when attacked. All of us end up bloodied. Az gets hit by one off the dominated players. We finally manage to escape domination long enough to finish of the cubes

We end up with 4 astral diamonds, wine making equipment seeds and recipes for making different kinds of wine including the chaos berry. The slaves of the genasi wine maker were very pleased with the news of his demise. We raid the wine cellar and get some nice vintages. Two of the slaves wanted to come with us and were willing to work on Luna’s vineyard we take them.

Level to 17.

More from the Isle of Hidden Mist

Thoradin here again with news

We go to the other end of the corridor and there is a room that I could hear some more gelatinous cubes moving around. Loof cautiously spreads the curtain alerting them to our presence. We move through the curtain into a square room with a large 8 sided crystal pulsing colors suspended from the ceiling. Two additional passageways lead out of the room. A raised platform stands in the middle of the floor under it and two cubes moving toward us. Each cube had a small grapefruit sized crystal embedded in them.

We roll initiative, Loof complains about his low roll so Az allows him to reroll and he gets to go second after Luna. Luna attacks and does damage Loof misses on his charge. I throw my hammer hitting both cubes. Az and Tharek attack. The cubes attack engulfing Luna and me. The next round of attacks finishes off the cubes and two more appear down the corridors. Az tries to fey step down the hall and ends up in the crystal by the ceiling. Tharek pick up one off the crystals and it does damage to him and stops changing colors he puts it in his pocket.

I charge one of the other cubes doing damage then get engulfed by it. One of the crystals regenerates into another cube, so I signal to Loof to try and smash the crystal he tries and misses, then Loof charges the cube I am in and the cube uses me as a shield so I take the damage. The next round of attacks leave me dominated by the cube, Loof attempts to teleport me out of the cube and I end up in the crystal unable to do anything because everyone else was out of range. I save against being dominated. Tharek picks up the crystals and the one I am in changes into a huge cube and throws me out against the wall and it engulfs Loof. The next round see Loof dominated and Az engulfed, then Luna attacks with a critical hit and Az takes the damage pissing her off. So she teleports Luna the cube kicks both of them out after damaging them. We are them able to kill the huge cube and the crystals turn into astral diamond one for each of us.

Rerouted to the Island of Mist

Thoradin again more news

We get together and decide to go to the far north portal to look for the crown. So we go and purchase arctic gear from the caravan supply people. Luna opens a portal it looks like snow on the other side so I step through and find myself in the desert somewhat confused. The rest of the Azure Sentinels step through the portal and are surprised by the weather or lack of cold weather.

We notice some smoke rising above a hill a ways away. We head for the smoke and find a small village on the other side of the hill. There is a two-story building in the center of town. We head there. A female genasi greets us with an “oh you’re here” which prompts Az to say “You were expecting us. Who do you think we are?” “Aren’t you the blue guardians?” This led to discussion of how she new that we were coming since we were headed somewhere else. She apparently managed to hijack our portal in some manner. Now we were on the mythical Isle of Hidden Mist, a magical giant sand ray that travels through the Desert Sea.

She wants us to deal with a portal problem; they have got gelatinous cubes that are killing the natives. The leader of the island does not know we are here and does not want outsiders on the island. After some discussion we head off to the wine makers to discuss payment. He introduces us to a very fine chaos berry wine that tastes different every time you taste it. One bottle now another when we return also seeds and wine recipes.

We follow the map she gave us and find a hole in the ground with a ladder in it. This must be the place. We go down to find a corridor that leads further in fortified by old stonework and wood. We are now inside the sand ray. Ruse scouts ahead she sees a puddle of water on the floor which then attacks her. She yells and the rest of us come running. Ruse is grabbed by the gelatinous cube and when Loof attacks she takes the damage so Loof stopped his attack. We have some difficulty but are finally able to kill the creature. Ruse vows never to check out another puddle.

We move on down the corridor until it separates into two corridors with curtains about 20 feet down we take the corridor to the right and come through to a semicircular room with three chests the first two have gold in them upon opening the third four gelatinous cubes come up out of small holes in the floor. On with the fighting we did a lot of teleporting out of cubes and are finally able to defeat three of them and the forth went packing. The chests had 360 gold and six magic rings.

Domestic Troubles

Thoradin again with news

We arrive at Lord Garrett’s to find the gardens torn apart and the statues broken by swords and arcane magic. We find Nadia in what was left of the drawing room floating above the floor meditating. We announce ourselves and she answers explaining that Guy had gone crazy accusing her of being a rakshasa, a spy for Rockt and being unfaithful. She asks us if we can try to straighten things out. Lord Garrett was last seen headed for the palace. We open a portal to the palace; upon our arrival ask the guards if they have seen Lord Garrett. They say there was some kind of disturbance at the gates a few minutes ago. We find Lord Garrett on his way to see the prince.

“Garrett what seems to be the trouble?” asks Luna. “I trusted her and she lied to me she is a rakshasa and she tried to kill me and I barely got out with my life” replied Lord Garrett.

We talk with Lord Garrett for awhile and come up with having Tharek do a “Rebuke Undead” which targets immortals and rakshasa are immortal. We then go back to Nadia explain the situation and test her, she passes and so does Loof. We go back and talk to Lord Garrett and find out the Prince was the source of the information about her being a spy for Rockt. Turns out she had been sending messages to Rockt, we let him know about the fact she was sending messages to us, that we were in Rockt searching for something. We ask him to talk to Lord Garrett, but he has court. Az takes court for him and he talks to Lord Garrett.

Now for the rumors about her infidelity, we go talk to the opera lady and she tells us about another woman who lives a couple of blocks over who tends to spread false rumors. Ruse and Luna pay her a visit and find out she thinks she got the story from Lady Garrett at a party at the palace last week. Off to the palace to question the staff. It takes awhile but we find someone who observed Lady Garrett talking to the woman in question. With some encouragement from Luna and Loof the waiter said he overheard Lady Garrett telling her about Lord Garrett, and her misunderstanding and thinking it was about someone else. We relay the information to Lord Garrett and he is taken back and says he needs to do something for her, like getting her a new house.

He asks what he can do for us and Luna asks about some vineyard land. He tells her to talk to the vizier to make arrangements.

I need about three days to complete my masterwork so I do that making some Dwarven chain mail. Loof spends the time with Miharo, Ruse works for the Raven Queen (we here of the early demise of the gossip lady), Az spends time with the Prince and Luna does various things. Lord Garrett sends us a reward of about 50,000 gold.

Portal to Chaos Anyone

Thoradin with news

The warforged are dead and we appear to be in a room with only one door. The one we came in. Luna and Az check for magic, nothing. Then I look very carefully and find a small circular depression in a square plate. I do not see any obvious traps so I press my finger in the depression and twist it. A mechanism pops out which can be turned. I turn it to the left and the door moves to another wall. When opened it reveals a dark passage. I turn the latch to the right, the door moves back to the original place. The latch turns no further. Turning it to the left moves the door to the next wall and no further. The corridor leads to stairs going down and then to another flight of stairs going down with a hole in the center. We get around the hole using a combination of teleporting and Loof wall walker shoes. We find a room made of metal and a statue that turns out to be magical. There is a inscription on the statue in primordial Luna was able to read it. It said something like find yourself and open the passage. The magic is concentrated in four areas the helm, the sword, the hands, and the shoes. We eventually concentrate on the helm and the statue splits open revealing a portal to the plane of Chaos and three iron archons emerge two crescent blades and an interceptor.

Loof charges one of the crescent blades doing damage. Luna hits the interceptor doing damage. The crescent blades flank Luna attack hurting her and then shift to flank me. I attack one of the crescent blades blooding it. I dazed it throwing my hammer and knocked the interceptor prone. Az and Tharek both attack and do damage. We are able to defeat them and we find a book of brass plates outlining what they had done to find the crown. Also outline were three likely places the crown would appear.

We go to the market to sell the items we acquired from the Rockt Rogue we are able to sell them to Raven’s Arms for 30,000 gold. We also sell two books for 25 platinum.

Then Tharek receives a sending from Nadia showing lots of blood and Lord Garrett getting a sword, asking us to come home immediately.

Knocking on the warforged’s door

Thoradin again with news.

We find the warforged lair, Luna is able to pick the lock and let us in the first door. I then notice an opening in the ceiling containing a trap. Again Luna is able to disarm it. So we move on. We are then confronted by two columns that are arcing lighting in front of an iron door. Luna takes point at this and tries to disarm them causing one to explode. The door is charged by the explosion.

We have a discussion on how to get by the door. Loof suggests that Luna open it since she is resistant to lighting. Luna remembers that Loof has an onyx dog which prompts a cruelty to animals’ discussion with Tharek (a new person in the party) as well as how badly we need a rogue. We decide that the dog is just magical energy so Loof sends it running into the door, zap missing magical energy. I notice a small needle below the door handle that the door key disables. We look around for a door key finding a small compartment in the base of the column that was destroyed. We try to knock the other column over unsuccessfully. Tharek then summons an angel that opens the door.

On the other side of the door were four warforged, we give battle Loof charging and almost killing one of them. The rest of us missed on our first attacks. Tharek uses a power that gives some of us bonuses to hit and Az hits on an attack that allowed everyone to make an attack to knock enemies prone. We are able to defeat the warforged.

To be continued next week.

Breakfast with the Imperial family

Thoradin again with news

We arrive at the dining room to find several circular tables set out Loof, Az and Ruse sit at the emperor’s table. Loof asked questions about how he have imperial blood and apparently goliaths once ruled the empire for a short period and some of his ancestors must have been from that group.

Loof spent some unproductive time trying to end the attack on Haarlem. We find out that plate mail and warforged are both outlawed in the city, lucky none of us wears plate.

We go dig the bodies of the warforged out of the dead to be cremated pile and find an address in town on one of them. It is an opium den in the seedier part of town. Luna is able to get some information from the proprietor using some of his wine stash (it is illegal here) we get another address where the warforged go and we can follow them.

Something strange is a foot.

Thoradin here with news.

We spent the night in a local inn, then go back to the library to find no trace of our informant. The library staff has no recollection of him and his office was bricked in and not recently. Also the staff informed us that there were in fact three ways to skin a salamander as proved 100 years ago by a group called the Azure Sentinels the information was in a book by our informant that was about 100 years old. At that point the curator of the library give us the ok to knock down the wall, Loof wants to use his axe the curator talks him out of that and suggests using a hammer, which I happily supply. We found out that there were some books on the artifacts of antiquity that we could look at if we took monastic vows or have an imperial decree.

We go talk to the mage and he remembers things from yesterday so it appears to have affected only the library and staff. So we did not travel in time but our informant apparently did. We are informed of a celebration where those with imperial blood are allowed a audience with a member of the imperial family. It turns out that Loof is half and Ruse is one quarter. Loof and Ruse go to the palace for their audiences with royalty and the rest of us find a restaurant. They visit with the empress first and she signs the decree to allow us access to the books. Loof talks to the emperor and gets us all invited to the palace for the duration of our stay. We also get invited to breakfast with the imperial family. They talk to the princess and she adds the mage to the invitation.

We go to the library to research the books and find the door ajar, and Ruse finds the lower floor ransacked she invites us in and we hear someone continuing the process upstairs. We try and sneak upstairs and find a group of warforged ransacking the upper floor. Luna and Ruse surprise them and the battle begins they miss on their first attacks but Luna marks all the warforged. Loof runs up the stairs and charges one. Az teleports up the stairs. I trudge up the stairs an daze one of them with my hammer. Luna end up unconscious because everyone attacks her, Ruse also. The rest of us end up bloodied and knocked prone. Az used a power that allowed me to stand up so I was able to charge and use a power to grant my party healing surges and call forth purging fire that knocked two of them prone, they attacked and Loof was able to charge 3 of them and finish them off.

There is more than one way to skin a salamander.

Thoradin again with news of the Azure Sentinels.

After our friend the mage stopped laughing, he was able to open another portal to the chaos plane. A salamander lancer came through first stepping out right in front of me. Luna hits him from behind and we have him bloodied before a salamander swordbearer steps through I do not remember the blow by blow but Az, Luna and Loof all got knocked down at different points. I missed on a charge and follow-up. Luna and Loof scored critical hits (that should make our sponsor very happy) that helped to take out the war troll and other swordbearer that came through. Now to the skinning, Luna attempts and fails on the first salamander which brings gales of laughter from the mage. Luna then remembers some anatomy she learned in her youth and is able to start at the tail and skin it. She starts at the ears on the other one for the simplest method yet.

We take the skins back to the librarian and he is extremely pleased. Said he would get them cured. He told us to come back in the morning and he would have our information.

Maybe there is only one way to skin a salamander.

Thoradin here again with further news of the Azure Sentinels

Ruse had stepped out from last week’s session so a recap of what happened was needed. The short sightedness of this dwarf was demonstrated by the lack of description of the engagement ring. It was pretty that is what I remember; I do not pay attention to these things.

We exhaust the possibility of information from the librarian about salamanders. I ask where the mages guild might be found and we head off to a building with many towers that looks like it is being held up by magic. The mage at the door has the information we seek and will help if we find out what is a girl’s favorite flower. The girl turns out to be the Emperor’s daughter. Oh for simple tasks like slaying a storm giant.

We go in search of a flower vendor and find one near the palace. Loof’s discussion with the vendor somebody “The Great” was very interesting Loof buys some flowers and talks long enough to get the vender to call for the guard. We leave in a hurry. We find our way around to the back of the palace. Loof asks the guards what flowers they like one says the red ones, another says the basket. We get into the palace under the ruse of looking for jobs. Loof talks to the guards in the guard house. The rest of us head to the kitchen and are put to work. Ruse as a waitress, Az as a lady in waiting, and I as a meat carver.

Az gets sent up to the third floor and finds out that the princess wants 10,000 red roses from a suitor and is fed up with her father. She fakes being sick and gathers us together Loof having lost 30 gold at dice.

We head back to the mage and take a portal out into the wasteland where he opens a portal and a salamander comes through. Az teleports next to it and hits doing damage, I am next and throw my hammer at it doing damage and dazing it, Loof freezes the pond with Az in it and charges the salamander doing damage. I do not remember whether or not Ruse hit. Az hits again and I charge and knock the salamander out. Loof tries to skin the salamander from the back slips and pierces the heart and the salamander explodes in fire. The mage laughs. Maybe there is only one way to skin a salamander.

Mission to Rockt

Thoradin here again.

We were sitting at breakfast when a messenger arrived with a note for Lady Garrett, Loof takes the message up. It was news about the crown. Someone in the Rockt library has information about the whereabouts of the crown. Haarlem is currently at war with Rockt. We will need costumes that match current fashions in Rockt. Lady Garrett gives us the address of her tailor. We go to the tailors and order clothes they will be ready in 43 hours. Loof and Luna go to purchase a ring for Miharo. Luna sends Loof off to take Miharo on a wonderful night so he can ask her to marry him. He takes her to a wonderful garden in the center of town and on a bridge in the middle of the garden he gives her the box with the ring in it. She has to ask for the key to the box to open it and see the ring. He asks her. She accepts and Loof is walking on clouds.

The next day we need to get a portal address in Rockt to make our mission possible. Lord Garrett shows up with some troops to escort his wife back home. Our steward did not recognize him so we went down to greet him with weapons drawn. He does have our portal address in Rockt. We give him the address for the portal in our fortress. We get news of the war things seem to be going alright so far.

We contact the smith to fix the advertisements on our weapons so we can turn them off. He changes the weapons so that they will send him pictures of critical hits and so we can turn off the advertisements.

We then head to Rockt by way of the portal where Lurg sent us. We arrive without incident and are able to get to the library and find our contact. He gives us a history of the artifacts as well as a description of the powers. We find out that the empire claims the artifacts as well. He knows where the crown is and will tell us providing that we prove to his boss that there is more than one way to skin a salamander.

Loof and Miharo, Lady Garrett

Thoradin again, further news of the Azure Sentinels.

Loof goes to meet Miharo’s father at his estate outside of town. It is a much larger estate than he had been led to believe, so he was very nervous going up to the door. He knocked and no one answered. He waited awhile and then went around the house and found Miharo’s father in the pool in back. They talked about his intentions toward Miharo. He made mention that the Azure Sentinels should distance ourselves from Lord Garrett because of some rumors floating about him. He also mentioned that he should acquire some land for income purposes. Loof then took his leave and received a scroll to take to Miharo.

After Loof returned we went and talked to Riana of Stiletto about Lord Garrett and there was a rumor about him being a baby killer.

After we returned Miharo asked to meet with us about some things. Number one on the agenda was the household budget. We determined to take one platinum piece from each of our income from the advertising with the smith to pay the expenses. She said that she would use it wisely and save money up to buy land. Second on the agenda was the budget for the wedding. Loof did not understand and so the matter was tabled.

We heard a commotion out in the streets; we went to the walls to discover a Lady being set on by a mob of peasants. I noticed that it was Lady Garrett. So we proceeded to mount a rescue. Az sent her hippogriff to carry her out of the way. The hippogriff is attacked. Luna and Ruse jump down into the crowd. Loof runs down the side of the fortress. Az heals Lady Garrett and I heal the hippogriff. Everyone is able to get back inside the fortress. Lady Garrett said that the crowd had come to her home for Lord Garrett and decided that Lady Garrett would due since Lord Garrett was not in. She ran for our fortress for friends and protection. The rumor had started because Lord Garrett indulges in a self flagellation ritual and he went out on his balcony covered in his own blood. So the rumor started, the mob raged and was out for blood.

We offer Lady Garrett the hospitality of our house.

Rockt Rogue

Thoradin here again, with my latest tale of the Azure Sentinels.

We are approached in our fortress by a Roguish fellow from Rockt seeking information about Riana of Stiletto. This individual’s name was too long to remember. I thought it was a good idea to learn more about Stiletto because we did not know much about the organization. So we took the job and went to work, me having a certain amount of reservation about the fellows motives.

We take him to a tavern frequented by the Stiletto and we are taken to see Riana. We find her sleeping in a coffin when she arises, the rogue attacks surprising us. Az attacks also making some comment about the extra wives. The attacks render her unconscious and near dead. I use a power to bring her back. We attack the rogue rendering him unconscious. Riana told us to take him to the King for execution

We put him in Loof’s haversack, Loof sneaks out and lets him go at the gate. When he gets back we hear a call to arms because an army from Rockt is coming.

After the Cudgel of Ordered Chaos II

We go to the address and find a stone building with a wooden door. Checking the door for traps and finding none. Loof puts the key in the door and turns, we then hear some kind of gas escaping so we scatter. Loof goes back and opens the door. A series of lamps comes on so much for paranoia. We go in and find the possessor of the Cudgel. We make small talk ask him to give us the Cudgel he offers us money to leave. The fighting starts and we have a fairly easy time hitting him but he has a lot of hitpoints so it takes awhile to defeat him. He uses the Cudgel to summon aide which disappears when he dies.

After the Cudgel of Ordered Chaos

Thoradin here with an update. Luna and I started a ritual to restore Ruse’s sight that takes ten rounds. I notice two people on the roof of the building.

Loof charges the door and breaks it down and notices that there is only one floor in the building. As we continue with the ritual Loof runs around the building and finds another assassin who attacks him. Az goes to his aide. She ends up blinded by an attack and retreats on her hippogriff. Also a young boy and an old woman come by to see what is happening.

About this time I see an angel of Moradin who offers help and a mission. The help is to cause the ritual to help both my companions in exchange for watching over the activities of my companions in relation to their respective gods except for Loof. I agree.

About this time Loof is attacked by another assassin but is able to move away and attack them singly. The ritual finishes and I am able to attack one of the assassins killing them.

The old woman and the young boy turn out to be raksahsa they say that we will have to kill them to get to their master. They attack and Ruse is knocked unconscious. I heal Ruse and attack the raksahsa. We defeat them and find a key and an address.

Level to 14

Arrangement for New Headquarters, the Cudgel of Ordered Chaos.

Hi Thoradin here again with greeting from Haarlem. We started our day making arrangements with the gardener and the dragonborn. The gardener was a strange fellow but seemed to know his dirt, just ask Loof who got a face full of it. The dragonborn were happy to have a way to repay us for the land we arranged for them. Then we needed to make arrangements with the Arcane Collage and the Guardian’s Guild for guards. Those made we separated to do other things.

I went to the quartermaster of the Temple of Moradin to make arrangements for income for the orphanage I was able to double the support for them for the next two years. I then went to my mother Riswynn with the good news.

Trots went to see his father and asked him to visit the father of the girl he is courting to further his plans for matrimony.

Az went to see the prince to spend some time with him. Enough said. She received a request from her father that she come and see him. So she went to see him he was drunk and he does not normally drink. He asked where the rest of us were and asked if she could get us there.

Loof went to find someone who would purchase his stuff at more than 20% of value, he ran into a smith who was willing to sponsor him and the Azure Sentinels but did not sell any of his stuff.

Ruse followed Az around.

We met at the Boar’s Head afterward and decided to go see what Az’s father the Judge wanted.

When we arrived he had had about six pots of coffee so was speaking really fast. A group of outlaws were causing problems for the Boss and thereby the Judge and he wanted us to look into it as Paralee had had the Cudgel. We were thinking about leaving someone with the Judge when he passed out.

Now to Lord Garrett’s to find out what he knows about Paralee , the Cudgel and the new outlaw group. He thought Paralee was probably dead, that the new gang had the cudgel and that the address we had was where they were hold up.

Off to deal with the new group. We arrive at a four story building and Ruse makes an attempt to climb the wall. At which time the party is attacked by assassins. We are able to defeat them but Ruse is blinded by poison.

Going Home, New Headquarters, Hank’s

Thoradin here, we managed to get the sword and we made it home to Haarlem. We stopped for a short time in Derhelm so Trots could court his girl telling her stories of his exploits.

We were at the Boar’s Head tavern having a few drinks and talking to some bards who wanted to know what happened, when one of Lord Garrett’s men walked in indicating that he wanted to see us.

We went to his home and found out that his home had been harassed by people seeking us, and he wanted us to get a headquarters that was manned 24 hours a day. He gave us an astral diamond to help with the expenses.

We went back to the Boar’s Head to talk about how to set up a headquarters. I noticed a girl talking to a gnome about Hanks the old bar that disappeared she was the waitress and cook at Hanks, Apricot being interested in what happened to Hank’s we asked her about what the gnome had said. She was to meet him at midnight and he could arrange for her to get back to Hank’s. She said she couldn’t find a job, so we said she could be the cook at our new headquarters as she needed a job. Off to find a headquarters for the Azure Sentinels (the name Luna picked), we talked to the owner of the Boar’s Head he did not want to sell us the tavern, but he did recommend Joffrey who found it for him. We went down to Joffrey’s stand and he was an amiable sort would said he had a couple of places to show us. Loof said it should be made of stone so there was only one, the city house of a former king.

We followed him to what turned out to be a small keep by the city wall. The garden had been neglected for 15 years and was over run and the keep needed some stonework repaired. We went inside it was immaculate (there is a spell keeping it from degrading.) It had suites, an armory, a library, kitchen, dining hall everything we need. We bought it. Now to get it repaired and hire a staff.

The group thought that Loof’s former girlfriend Miharo would be perfect for the job of steward of the headquarters but Loof would not ask her. We went and asked her she accepted for a 50% increase in pay, but she would select her own staff.

To get the keep repaired we thought about the dragonborn who had built some good stonework in the mine before we arranged for other land on which they could live. They were excited to see us. We made arrangements for them to come see the keep and give us an estimate on the stonework.

We went back to the tavern to wait to meet the gnome. The tavern closed and the gnome was in the alley. The gnome opened a portal into the feywild once we stepped through we could see Hank’s. Hank was there, complained about having no customers offered us a drink of some very fine ale said it was the best he ever brewed. As we were talking a group of eladrin demanding tribute from Hank, turned out to be who brought the tavern here to the feywild. We exchanged words then weapons, they were defeated and one ran off. We now need to get Hank’s Tavern back to Haarlem.

Going after the Sword V

Thoradin here, now for the Arcane Circle, someone fired an arrow at the circle it comes back and hits them. Trots and Loof go out and fill his rowboat full of snow. Loof throws a snowball and ducks and is missed when it comes back out. Trots goes around to the front door and it is open.

Loof then steps into the circle; he begins talking as if someone is there. The sword disappears from the circle. We all step into the circle and see an evil looking dwarf holding the sword and talking to Loof. The dwarf asks us to sit down so we can talk about whether or not the current leaders were worthy of having the sword, also if we were capable of making that decision. He tells us the story of Haarlem and the Shearneth Empire and how the Artifacts of Antiquity were lost in the past by unjust leaders. Losing the Artifacts probably caused the down fall of the Empire. He said he had been hired to retrieve the sword by someone who we would probably consider unworthy. Loof tells them of the dragonborn we helped get some land as an example they were good. He asked if we knew how they had been treated since then, if we had visited them. We had not and it seemed to me that he had some valid points and I was wondering if we should recover the sword at this time.

Trots then fires a crossbow bolt at him and the fighting starts. Loof attacks. Trots attacks and misses. The dwarf attacks Trots a wicked hit with the sword. I hold my first attack healing Trots. We find out he is vulnerable to divine, radiant and stances. He attacks Trots a couple of more times before we are able to knock him out he stabs the sword into the ground and mysteriously disappears. Loof pulls the sword out and discovers that it is amazingly sharp going through stone like sand. He tries it on Trots to see if it still cuts him. It does. Loof cuts the door hinges before we can convince him to put the sword in his haversack.

Level up to 13

Going after the Sword IV

The party arrives at the tower. It is about twelve squares high having a door to the front and a boulder filled opening to the rear.

Thoradin hands Luna a throwing hammer as she does not have a distance weapon. They move forward and throw their hammers at the archers on the tower. Scrappy the bard climbs into Loof’s haversack and Loof proceeds to run up the side of the tower. Az flies up to the tower on her hippogriff. Trots proceeds toward the opening with the boulder. Battle commences in earnest at the top of the tower. Scrappy a changeling had turned into something scary so the enemies kept attacking him and he is the first bloodied. They then fought and killed the leader.

Scrappy turned into the leader and bluffed two of the four remaining archers so they believed that he was their boss.

Loof, Az and Scrappy eliminated three of the archers and headed downstairs. The remaining archer was headed downstairs and then realized that he had been fooled and attacked Loof. Loof fought and killed him and headed downstairs. The door downstairs was trapped and turned into a plane of magic. Az and Scrappy teleported by it, Loof was left on the other side.

Meanwhile Luna and Thoradin joined with Trots at the boulder. After some difficulty were able to move the boulder. They were faced by four Azurs and a priest. A fight commenced, after Az and Scrappy joined the fight the enemies were defeated. The sword was in a arcane circle trap by the front door.

Session ended.

Level up to 12.

Going after the Sword III

We headed toward the tower in the distance. We ran into a low level cloud and a duregar black guard. Paralee attempted to bluff our way past him with no success. After that battle commenced and the cloud trap was sprung doing thunder damage to the party. After the cloud dazed the black guard a couple of times he tried to run away and was killed by opportunity attacks. Paralee was then able to run over the ice and disarm the ice column that blocked our way getting close enough to the tower for the guards to try and shoot at her. They missed.

Going after the Sword II

After the galeb duhr escaped the party decided to use the portal address to beat it to the tower. Stepping through the portal we arrived on a mountain with no tower in sight. Paralee heard noises and went with Luna to investigate and were spotted by a group of duregar, azur and galeb duhr. Then the battle commenced. We were able to defeat them.

We spotted the tower in the distance.

Going After the Sword.

We met with the Archprelate he informed us that the sword had not been stolen. The dwarf who had the sword had gone after some brigand dwarves and had been killed and lost the sword. He told us the location of the brigands including a portal address.

We got cold weather gear and set out by foot so we could sneak in and possibly surprise them. We ran into a canyon with the bridge out. The bard tried to jump and teleport across but did not quite make it. Luna was able to make it across, Paralee scampered across and secured ropes for a bridge. The first night was cold but uneventful. The second day was colder but uneventful.

During third watch Luna is grabbed by a stone hand controlled by a Galeb Duhr she yelled she was being attacked and that started a battle. We rendered the monster unconscious. Trots revived him to question him. Paralee was able to get some information about the sword being in a tower An argument started between Luna and Trots about weather or not we kill it or let it go and follow it. The Galeb Duhr escaped by burrowing away.

North to Derhelm

Kaminoshi had some business to discuss about exp and homework. He will no longer be giving out experience just tell us when to level. Homework will be rewarded by in-game benefits such as treasure, title, magic items or land.

Thoradin was asked to deliver some metal to Derhelm.

Loof got dumped by Miharo because of her father and was reminded to head north by the gods. He also worked out that he needs some land and a manor house to be acceptable to Miharo’s father.

Az started a new trend of wearing pants and set up a meeting with Lord Garrett.

Luna got the temple of Selûne a building permit.

The changeling bard ran into a very pretty girl Rose wanting transport to the north.

Per got promoted.

Trots was told to watch the rhetoric and pursue marriage with the girl he took to the wedding who lives in Derhelm.

We meet that evening at the Boar’s Head tavern to and discuss the day. Rose met us there we decided to help her after discussing it with Lord Garrett. Lord Garrett shows up and lets us know the sword has been stolen from Derhelm and we need to go get it back. We agree to meet at the Temple of Moradin in the morning to travel by portal to Derhelm.

We find out that the sword had been stolen from the Archprelate of the Church of Moradin. So we are able to get an audience with him in the morning.

Holy War

The wedding is over we all leveled up to 10.

We were summoned to Lord Garrett’s. He greeted us in a red kilt and sash signifying there was a Holy war against someone. He informed us that he had found out who was making the attempts on the Prince, our old friends “the Black Knives”. They had regrouped and decided that they could bring us out in the open by attempts on the Prince. Lord Garrett said he wanted the leader of the “Black Knives” head on a pike in the city square and he would be wearing red until that happened.

We went to talk to the Prince, he said that he had no information but would look into it. Luna then took us to the temple of Selûne. The trail then got hot as the temple had been burned down because they had been looking into the situation and one of there members had information about the location of the Black Knives. Seventeen taverns later we had information and found her. We took her to Lord Garrett’s for save keeping. We found out that the Black Knifes were at the cathedral of Ioun desecrating the place. We went via portal to the cathedral there found the Black Knives in the process of trying to sacrifice someone. With some difficulty we dispatched the outlaws mounted the head upon a pole and got it to the city square.

Exp: Level up to 11. Rebuild character if desired. Treasure: Redo magic items with 80000 gold.

Adrick the patriarch of Moradin spoke and put most of the congregation asleep with his mumbled address. The Priestess of Ioun was still inebriated when she performed the marriage. The room seemed to be getting darker and then the guards attacked in dark shadows. We were armed this time at the request of Lord Garrett and the Prince. There were four of the knights of shadow. They were able to attack the Prince, Per, and Luna before we could respond. We were finally able to kill one of them and the rest took the body and left.

Exp 475