Warrior's Report
Lost in Washington: Part II
The entirety of the warriors of the eclipse as well as the new recruits all met once again at the fort. Rurik quickly shut up the goblin bard who was attempting to sing something about pointy-ear in goblin. Once he was shut up, the floor was turned over to Seamus who explained to the group the two new missions. Four of them, Rigel, Ryless, Twitch and Leopold were supposed to go assassinate the Pirate Lords. While the other group was to investigate some fiendish ogres which we had received word of. Ummm….
One day out, we encountered three fiendish ogres in the middle of the night. One more day out, we came to the ogre city where we were met by three guards. None of them appeared to be fiendish. One of the ogres disappeared and then promptly appeared immediately behind us, asking if we were one of “his” followers. We were confused, not sure if we should say yes or no, and not knowing who the ogre was referring to. Zip replied nervously that yes, we were “his” minions (this was the wrong answer). Half of the party thought the ogres wanted us to be with one of “his” minions and half of us realized that the ogre was actually testing us to make sure we weren’t “his” minions. Zyress finally tried to take command and asked him who “he” was and that then we could answer his question. He cryptically replied that “his” followers were everywhere, often disguising themselves as non-evildoers. We finally realized that this ogre was trying to make sure we weren’t informants or spies for some evil person who was turning his companions into fiendish creatures. We asked him some questions about this evil person, and where to find his base of operations. We were told to head in a southwest direction; when Zyress asked if the ogre wanted to join us in the defeat, she was met with an incredulous, non-trusting look. He followed up by saying that we were not welcome in his city, pretty much regardless of our success or failure at the compound. (jerk).
Anywho, next morning we sent Ashe (Zyress’ owl) out to find the compound in advance. We discovered it was approximately 1.5 days travel. We waited for night fall without other interruption, and Zyress and Zenian under the help of a camouflage spell from Zipp, worked their way closer to compound to do some reconnaissance. The two of them watched roughly 10 fiendish-looking creatures moving about, then saw one human in robes come out and start yelling orders at them (the creatures). Zyress and Zenian didn’t stay long, just enough to see the small cave overhang, many large bonfires, and some minor skirmishing amongst the evil creatures.
A plan was made to wait until the next nightfall and sneak up on the camp. We intended to draw out a few of the creatures with Zipp’s ghost sound spell, then ambush them and employ Kwarethian’s silence spell to make sure they didn’t get an alarm off. Our ambush was working very well, and we dispatched four ogres quite quickly; however, one of them which was a spellcaster, kept regenerating slowly. We tried pouring acid on them, but Zyress’ flask only did faint damage. Then we finally decided to light a torch, and if that attracted more enemies, we would try to fight them too. The fire didn’t seem to do much, and then we realized it was because of the ogres’ fiendish transformation. We decided instead to move off, away from the spellcasting ogre and use Kwarethian’s flamestrike on the creature. We assumed this would draw more enemies our way and that we would ambush them. This all worked well, until a spiked, non-human scary man approached. We did jump out to ambush him, but even Kwarethian, Hammer and Zyress were having much difficulty striking him. When they did, his long sharp spikes kept injuring them. It was a near stalemate, as the spiked creature caused fear in Hammer, who fled and dropped his hammer.
Everyone returns to the base the warriors convene and decide on the best plan for action. Some dwarves on a caravan barely made it to the fort bruised and battered. Rigel, Kregan, and some others, are to go investigate the kolbolds that are attacking the caravans, while Zyress, Kwarth, Zipp, Smash, and Leo go to close the rift.
They head down south into the mountains. The mountains quickly become much colder than typical. They quickly learned the could not handle the cold well and protected themselves from the extremely figid temperratures. Nealing the location of where the rift is supposed be, the crest a ridge and witness a negative fundamental running from a cave. The entire cave was filled with ice, staliagtites, and stalagmites. The group quickly realize without their magical snowshoes provided by zip, they would have spent their entire time in the cave on the floor sliding from the ice. They encounter an ice elemental, make quick work. They slide down the hall to reach a set of double doors sheathed in ice. Smash broke door in one swipe. They once again they entire a room engulfed in ice.
In the new room, the party rounds a corner, and quickly a cultist flame strikes the party. The flame strike triggered shards of ice fall from the ceiling of the cavern. Kwarth feels the full brunt and doesn’t look good. Two more fundamentals approach to engage. Kwarth protects Zyress against death, while the caster tries to negative energy her. Leo closes the small portal, smash gets cursed and they kill the caster. The cave warms slightly and they dispatch with the last two fundamentals and begin to plan for their assault on the next portal.
Kwarth protects the little ones from cold, protects the whole party from death, and cold. Zipp gave the group more snowshoes. Zryess shadow walks them in to about 200ft and battle ensues. Four fundamentals charge at an amazing rate with four more remaining behind to guard the veil. A cultist is engulfed in the portal snears his greeting. Kwarth flaestrikes the veil and the cultist. Leo attempts to engage with the cultist. The veil reacts to the holy power of the flamestrike. The cultist cures the veil, flamestrikes One by one they dispatch of five of the fundamentals. The cultist comes out to engage, using lightning on smash, mental spells on Zyress. Leo, smash, and Zipp were forced to sit down, Kwarth gathered the small friends in his arms, stood over smash and readied for Zyress. Zyress shadow walked them out and holed themselves up in their snowcave. They spotted a scry in their snowcave and Zyress shadow walked them one more time further away and they began to sleep for the night. Once again they spotted the scry, but were too tired to continue on foot. They discussed their plans to attack
Before dawn, Zipp woke
The next day they woke up, shadow walked in and began their attack. They prepared lots of protections, but unfortunately as they approached, the cultist was able to cancel much of their magic. Some of them began hurting from negative energy, while others began feeling the deathly cold very acutely. As the party moved in, the cultist was without any more constructs, but had raised some dead ogres and skeletons to attack us. We had shadow walked in, but landed about 400 feet from the intended target, so we had lots to do before we were within range of attacking the portal or cultist. We proceeded forward quickly and discovered the skeletons had gone invisible to our vision. Leo made Zyress able to see invisible creatures, but her main goal was on the cultist. As we all approached and the skeletons attacked (becoming invisible), Zyress struggled for a way not to be distracted by the smaller minions. As Hammer and Kwarethian also came forward, Zyress drew her grappling hook to pull the cultist out of his protecting sphere which was the negative energy portal. Shockingly, she was able to wrap him up, and within several seconds, pull him out of the portal’s range. Immediately, Kwarethian came forward at Zyress’ request of “Get him!!!” and joined the grapple to pin the cultist. From there, Hammer slowly worked his way away from the other attackers, not wanting to leave the Halfling True Namer to his doom, and joined the damage dealing. Further, the druid’s summoned dire wolf took several good chunks from the cultist while Zyress and Kwarethian continued to grapple him. Also, instrumental was the halfling’s ability to keep the cultist quiet, as he would’ve been able to escape using a command word. In a climatic finish, all the companions were able to destroy the cultist, then finish off the other smaller undead minions. Between Kwartheian’s positive energy/healing magic and the halfling’s true namer abilities, the large portal was closed. The companions then looted the cultist and returned to the fort to mend their wounds.
Over the last few weeks the warriors pacified port Darrow, learned a great deal about the rifts and were able to successfully deal with a few of them. But something else has come up in the meantime. Allies and warriors are now longer able to safely travel. An old enemy has made his presence known, a very powerful dragon. A few years ago the warriors needed to travel to the old mountains of Darble, where an ancient dragon had made his lair. Rigel convinced the dragon that the two were best friends, in order to steal a very powerful anvil. The dragon has been plotting his revenge ever since. The dragon’s plan successfully assassinated Rigel creating a major situation. So, now the threat must be dealt with. Two separate parties, one to clear the road. Head up clear path, and help fortify and make camp in Glendale.