What has happened to the Underdark?! There was violent quake that was even able to shake the Ancestral Grove at Dark Haven. Reports of geysers of water at Duanrahel, violent earthquakes in Sorcere and Faerothrond. What condition is Rivenrock in? Has there been any casualties? This quake was NOT felt on the surface. Have our scouts check our adjoining regions, immediately.
The reason I was leaving the grove was to visit the Dragons at Kappa Forest. This was no minor expedition; we were informed the Dragons were going to face an incredibly powerful lich, identified by the mightily intimidating name, Simon. Our interest was piqued when we found out that this Simon had invited them to ancient Elven ruin, further of interest since this ruin is in the correct areas for the Aquilari clans.
To this end, we took a large number of ours with us. Including Solitaire, Kalina and Thariel of House Aryvandaar, Malakai and General Culfich of House Mlezzir and Forr. We subsequently met with Alanna from the Dragons Court of Miracles and headed towards Kappa forest. Whilst this was our primary contingent, we did ally ourselves with a number of the Black hand of the Vipers, as well as Brother Ross of the Harts.
Upon arriving we were harried by a number of Simons underlings. I say harried, because attacked is quite a strong term to describe what they did. They were irritating and slowed as down, and despite a number knowing the arts of High Corruption the fell quickly enough to us.
As the night wore on a number of his minions discovered our location, most were human and living, a number were unliving, and a few were a weird mix of bizarre abominations fuelled by corruption and necromancy. Again very little to worry about individually, although the consistent assault proved to be a drain on our limited resources, as the dragons themselves had very little themselves of power. It turned out many of the human assailants were upset at the Dragons for butchering peasants and families and children… Have to say the Dragons went up a step in my estimation.
Come Saturday the Dragons led a unit to face off against… something. Honestly I wasn’t listening. Simon had some form of lieutenants or generals or something vaguely threatening sounding. Whilst they were being incompetent at stuff, I took Thariel for an amble through the woods to find the elven ruins whilst Kalina and Solitaire worked on a broken elven tablet. Naturally it didn’t take me long to barrel through an appropriate number of bushes and trees to discover the remains of a ruined building, with a tunnel leading into a collapsed passage. The ruins bore banners with the symbol of a yellow sun and a red phoenix. Not being stupid enough to go in alone, we barrelled back through the trees to find out more about this symbol and the ruins, and to send in slightly more agile people.
On revisiting the ruins the Dragons were afraid of the tunnel, so surprisingly, we were the first ones in. I accidentally woke, and angered a den of Wraiths. I quickly delegated that to being a Dragon problem. Inside the tunnels we found a flower and a box containing an amulet. The Wraiths weren’t overly impressed and kept irritating us for some time, whilst none alone were particularly threatening, the large number of pattern effects proved to be a significant drain on our healing resources.
Shortly after the main Dragon contingent returned from murdering ritualists or making children cry... honestly it was a busy weekend, and the Dragons kept on impressing me.
The afternoon led to negotiations with corrupted elves, with an odd name. I really wasn’t paying attention, however they were also known as Dracos Alfar. I’m led to believe they were Dracos worshippers, however since they were led by a creature that is even more powerful than I am, I was forced to stay away from that incident, and I mostly obeyed. This was another big drain on our very limited resources. However, we found he was carrying a second amulet, although this one was an inverted version of the original.
Caspar of the Watchers had found another part of the Elven ruin, remarkably close to our camp. As it didn’t require barrelling through any trees, I couldn’t find it obviously. This set of ruins features a large vault, sealed from time and an obelisk with a panel for two amulets. From the tablet we had found and the legends about the area, our initial estimates suggested that the Vault was from the Second Age and contained a young priestess heir to the local Elven Clan, prior to the cities destruction. Our attempts to open it however failed, as it turned out the inverted amulet was a fake.
Later in the evening we found the correct amulet inside a corpse, inside a den of banshee’s. Naturally not an issue, Malakai retrieved the amulet from the corpse. Apparently that’s his thing.
One of the more entertaining parts of the evening was when a number of Simon’s human allies attacked us, complaining that we murdered their families. Ourarguments that we didn’t kill anyone; we’re just on holiday fell on deaf ears… so we butchered the remainder of their families for being rude. That and I just didn’t like having the moral high ground, it felt uncomfortable.
The part of the weekend that made me really proud of the Dragons, was finding out that they brutally murdered a young girl’s father, in front of her. Then kept her. Then when the unliving remains of the father came to pester them, the dragons killed her father. Again. In front of her. I have never been so proud of the Dragons.
With both amulets now in hand, and other pests dealt with, we returned to open the totally not a prison vault containing a long lost princess.
Malakai, being a royal descendant of Clan Kerithrion along with Devlin of the Dragons, made a blood oath to unseal the prison (Ahem, vault). Out steps their young, fair princess. Who looked an awful lot like a confused male dragon born elf. Despite my protests, that this was blatantly a prison vault, House Aryvanndaar explained the changes in the world, and took up back to Duanrahel to add to their collection of Dragonborn elves. He was also carrying a sapling that was rapidly dying. Much akin to the tree of incantation, however it appeared only elves were able to touch it. His latest memories appear to be pre-sundering, making me even more concerned. Why would an Aquilari Elf have been sealed away pre-sundering, and pre-cataclysm? I truly fear it was a prison vault.
The next day, we faced off against the mighty Simon. The dragons really deserve a better quality of enemy.
Simon was intending to use the ritual circle present to replace the heart of kappa with his own unliving heart, essentially making the entire forest his phylactery. Which is actually pretty clever, points to him there. Instead we planted the tree I believe. Im not sure. Ritual magic was happening and I was pre-emptively healing things, in the face.
I believe Simon eventually died, turned out he had many, many, many phylacteries, but the Dragons won. With a fair amount of help. The dragons lost some people if its of any relevance.
If needed, I’ll be in the grove with the Arc of Lothiriel, Can't leave Lorr unsupervised with it for too long. He'll only try and dedicate it back to Lolth.
The Balance of Ineluki Mistrivven
