Waves of Destiny Adventure Log 3

Fireday, 27th of Tamara'lor

The Rift

• It was a clear and warm day with distant clouds.
• The party headed towards The Rift, hoping that after all this time they could still find the Hucrele children alive and well there.
• Spotted ruined columns and pillars on the edge of the massive rift, one with ropes tied to it and dropped over the edge to a ledge below that then had rough carved stairs leading downwards.

The Sunless Citadel

• After about three switchbacks leading to the ravine floor, a citadel was seen on the opposite wall. Before it, a paved courtyard leading to a large doorway in one of the citadel towers. Four dead goblins were found in the citadel's entry room. Two other exits led from the room, one open and other closed and locked.
• Todd picked the locked door and we entered to the sounds of tinkling and a glowing blue light. Katar, Lugh and Kaval'lee walked away from the glow for no apparent reason. Darus managed to make it to the glow and picked up an orb, but for some reason he too decided to leave the room and the orb shattered as he passed the doorway.

• Explored further and beyond a trapped corridor and a marble statue of a rearing dragon. The dragon spoke a riddle, which Lugh solved, opening a secret door that led further into the ruins.
• Exploring the next chamber, Lugh found another secret door, hidden behind a statue. Inside the small chamber behind that door, he found what looked like a magical circle.
• The others continued along the main chamber, crossing a small pit. There they found a burial crypt of the dragonborn who followed the red dragon Ashardalon. Warnings on the coffin of the dragonborn leader were heeded and it was left alone.

Dealing with the Kobold King

• Returned to the main entrance and Todd moving ahead found it occupied by four kobolds, two of which he downed before Darus intervened and convinced the survivors that they were there to help recover the new dragon overlord of the kobolds. A dragon they said had been taken from them. A white dragonling called Calcryx, which had been stolen by goblins.
• Darus saved the two wounded kobolds and carried one of them (still unconscious) to meet the kobold king.
• Were taken to the kobolds' king, King Yusdrayl, and Darus managed to convince him that the harming of the kobolds was an accident, the others were his servants and that he was trying to find the missing Hucrele children for his dragon mistress. The king agreed to assist and assigned the former dragon keeper, Meepo, to guide the party to the goblins as Darus swore he would try and return the dragon to them.
• Meepo led the party and helped them avoid a pit trap before encountering a few goblins and slaying them.

Eliminating the Dragonspawn

• Opened a large door into a goblin lair, with many goblins, feasting, playing, carousing, etc
• Not wanting to wait and be overrun, the party leaped into battle determined to slay as many goblins as they could and caught most of the goblins off guard. Lugh cast a sleep spell, dropping several goblins where they stood in the middle of the room. The remaining goblins tried to flee, though some were encouraged to stay and fight by two greyspawn that entered the battle from a doorway across the room.
• Through the same doorway, the party eventually found a pit leading downwards, its inner walls coated with strange looking vines and chains, a crude throne and chest, and a purplespawn (a shapeshifting dragonspawn who over the course of the battle mimicked Katar, Lugh and Darus). The purplespawn also had mind powers, which it used to devastating effect, coming close to slaying several in the party.
• After chasing off or killing most of the goblins and killing the greyspawn and purplespawn the room and surrounding area was searched. Found a bloodied suit of scale mail and a signet ring with a trout jumping over a moon, the symbol of House Hucrele.

• In a nearby trophy room, the party saw a broken chain and collar pinned to the floor in one room. The head of a wyrmling white dragon poked out from an over-turned table within. Meepo was overjoyed.
• Lugh cast a sleep spell as powerful as he could and the dragon and Meepo both fell asleep.
• With great care, so as not to wake the sleeping dragon and kobold, Katar and Todd started to bind them so they could not escape or fight easily. While tying the dragon, a discussion of killing an obviously evil dragon came up. Darus was against this and argued as such but was over-ruled so he walked away in disgust, while Kavae'lee ran back to the goblin lair to retrieve some more bindings….just in case the dragon awoke.
• Todd ran his sword through the dragon. Calcryx somehow survived and woke up, struggling to get free. Due to the restraints on the dragon it was easily dispatched and Meepo was left tied up so as not to warn the other kobolds.
• Meanwhile, Darus had continued to search and came to a room where he found several goblin children hiding in barrels, but could not bring himself to harm the children and instead told them to flee the island…or else.

The Twilight Gardens

• Returned to the purplespawn's throne room to descend down into the pit. The party were worried about disturbing the vines on the chains that hung down into it, so Kavae'lee got everyone to hold hands and step out into the pit, casting feather fall as they did so, so everyone floated safely to the floor about 100 feet below.

• Landed in a fowl-smelling garden with several blights watching on. The floor was coated in the remains of animals to feed the plants within.
• Found a room with an iron sculpture of a dragon with a tray in its mouth. Lugh and Katar pushed over the sculpture after they saw scratches on the floor, but found nothing.
• Different areas in this underground area seemed to be designed to test which medium is best to grow plants in. Many of the plants seemed strange, pale, and almost 'dead' but alive.
• Searched a large rectangular room with lots of doorways leading from it. Most of these led to rooms where goblins were living or conducting experiments on plant cuttings and fungi.
• Eventually found a room with a large marble statue of a red dragon, with an arcane circle before it. Lugh stood in the circle and was attacked by a shadow from behind the statue. The shadow was eventually killed by a blow from Katar, but not before Lugh had been hit and felt his strength sapped by the creature.
• Lugh spoke the words on the arcane circle and suddenly felt better.
• Todd found a secret compartment in the statue. The last part of its tail was hinged. He found some very old coins in there (and other treasures).
• Passed through an old library, where several old books and scrolls were found - most had been destroyed by age though.

The Twilight Grove

• Found a sunken room with sagging ceilings and a fallen wall, leading to a large underground area with well-established plants in it.
• As they entered this room, four goblins ran screaming into the foliage yelling for Bellak.
• A large thorn-covered blight appeared and Katar attacked it. Also attacked by several more blights as the party wandered through the grove, until they came to an some crumbled walls from an even older, buried structure.

The Gulthias Tree

• Within the walls of the citadel was a large and very evil tree (according to Kavae'lee who sensed its vileness). Before it stood an old bearded man with a twisted staff, a middle aged man wielding a sword and wearing armor, and a young woman in fine, but soiled clothing. Both the younger man and woman had lifeless, dark eyes and bark-like skin.

• Whilst in the Twighlight Grove bushes at random animated as blights and attacked the party, seemingly under Bellak's command.
• The party assumed correctly that the armored man was the paladin Sir Bradford and the female, Sharwyn Hucrele.
• Battle ensued, as the party was uninterested in Bellak's monologue. Katar immediately fey stepped into the midst of the enemies, where he was attacked by Sir Bradford. The paladin was intent of destroying Katar's swords with his own, which clearly had some kind of affinity for destroying other weapons. At the same time, a giant frog also leapt from the tree, engulfing Katar's head and dragging him to the ground.
• The others came to Katar's help, killing Sir Bradford, at which point his wooden body crumbled and turned into ash.
• Kavae'lee drew the wrath of Bellak after she began to use fire to attack the Gulthias Tree. Katar and Lugh, seeing the effect this had on Bellak, also began to attack the tree with fire-based spells and it was soon destroyed, burning to the ground.
• Bellak lost the will to fight after tree was destroyed and lost control of the blights as they crumbled into piles of sticks.
• Sharwyn (one of the missing Hucrele children that the party was here for) collapsed to the ground, unresponsive. Darus rushed over and cast several spells on her, removing the bark-like appearance from her and she returned to her former self, though still very weak.
• Gathered Bradford's armor, shield and weapons and continued on, determined to find Talgen, the other Hucrele sibling if he was still alive somewhere.

- continued

• Also in the Gulthias Tree area the party found 2 small vials of Healing and a small twisted wood wand.
• Then worked their way back to a previously unopened doorway and found Bellak's study which contained a lot of notes, especially about the Gulthias Tree and the peculiar nature of the fruits it produced. The fruits turned out to be the same fruit that goblins took to Oakhurst to sell, and which had amazing healing properties. The unknown side effect of this was that the seeds from the fruit, when buried, produced twig blights. So in effect it was the greed of the people of Oakhurst who bought the fruit and then buried its seeds to try and obtain more, that were responsible for the blight infestation in the region.
• The Gulthias Tree was also found to have been created from a stake that was used to kill a vampire (was this the same vampire that Gundren and Nundro killed in their youth?) making it a vampiric tree. The party surmised that this was what also gave it the ability to create thralls, much like a vampire, by tying victims to the tree and letting it absorb them and then expel.

• Other books found in Bellak's study included Treasures of the Fire Lords, Ruins of Ashadelyn, Nature and Enigmas (WOIN #99) and Manuscript of Lost Sorcery - Giant Soul Magic.
• Worked way back towards the pit descent room, exploring any other rooms missed.
• Came around a corner and encountered a black dragonspawn, standing in front of a group of goblins and pointing an arrow at party.
• Katar began to cast a spell and the dragonspawn attacked, but both he and the goblins were no match for the party.
• Found another magical elven fighting sword and some magical arrows on the dragonspawn.
• Kept exploring and ended up moving along the rift that bisected the ruins in search of a way up other than climbing the chains to the top of the pit.
• Were attacked by a lava snake, which was defeated.
• Made way to entrance tower of the ruins and camped using a Leomund's Tiny Hut.

Return to Oakhurst with Sharwyn Hucrele

Starday, 28th of Tamara'lor

• Woke early in the morning and climbed out of the rift, headed to Oakhurst and arrived mid morning.
• On edge of Oakhurst unexpectedly met the kobold Meepo. Darus announced that he would be leaving the party temporarily as after he swore that he would return the dragon to the kobolds he felt honorbound to take Meepo to a dragon he knew. So he made plans to return to the Church of Bahamut in Highpoint on Stormhaven.
• Party returned Sharwyn (and Talgen's signet ring) to House Hucrele and were rewarded. Darus was rewarded with passage to Highpoint along with Meepo (disguised in one of Todd's old cloaks), leaving the rest of the reward to the other members of the party. There was a ship leaving that day and he and Meepo left the group.
• Matron Hucrele told the party of a tavern for sale (after inquiries from Lugh) on the edge of town called The Spinning Knife.

• Party went to check out the tavern. Lugh spent time telling stories.
• Kavae'lee met Lashar'na, an eleadrin of House Ty'avel (well known as shipwreck salvagers) and got on very well with her.
• Lashar'na believed she may have found Carsall in some the salvage that her house was recovering.
• Lashar'na is also a member of the Order of the Bow (see 3E Complete Warrior p141).
• Lugh founds out more about Mount Rolnith, including rumours of people venturing there, that Ashadalon had a hidden lair there, there may be a cult operating out of the Mount and that many fire casters are drawn there.
• Monks from the White Raven Temple told a different story. They said that dwarves made a stronghold there, a sorcerer called Sorana and a warrior called Bezentain. There they crafted magical items, but they crossed an efreet, Amir Amollius and though the efreeti was killed by Bezentain, the warrior was also slain. His soul embedded into a sword by Sorana which was then used to defeat the rest of Amir Amollius' forces. The sword is said to still lay somewhere under the mountain and it is this that draws all the regions flames to itself.
• Todd talked to a couple of sages and learnt that The Order of Ancient Mysteries had sent agents to the island (Shadovar?) as they were concerned with the inroads that the Deeplantern Guild had been making on Singing Skull Island.
• Party stayed overnight in the sub-standard room of The Spinning Knife, except for Kavae'lee who stayed with Lashar'na at The Honorable Archer, a better quality establishment across of House Hucrele's main building.
• Todd received a note from Ariana Nightcloak asking for him to meet her at Phandalin to discuss the running of the Deeplantern Guild guildhall there. It was dated 26th of Tamara'lor.

Downtime in Oakhurst

1st - 7th Chron'lor

• Kavae'lee - Trained to become a member of The Order of the Bow
• Todd - Spent time gathering information (heard that in the same forest where the boars head from The Old Boar Tavern was killed, there are many more boars)
• Todd - Spent time researching orcs - could not find any evidence of orcs entering or leaving the Evernight Forest, but the Lords Alliance would pay to find out if there are any there.
• Lugh - Spent time carousing and gaining business contacts - a female half elf butcher and a male human builder.
• Katar - Spent time researching Mount Rolnith (+2 pieces of lore about it). Specifically, he learned more of the story between Sorana and Bezentain.

Purchase of the Spinning Knife Tavern in Oakhurst

8th - 14th Chron'lor

• Party purchased The Spinning Knife tavern and awaited the deeds transfer.
• Todd - Tried to gather more information, but his contacts dried up.
• Kavae'lee - Spent some time relaxing and some working (playing her flute) around town and earned 25gp which she gave to Katar to help him pay some of his debts.
• Katar - Worked as a cook at The Old Boar Inn.
• Lugh - Worked and spent time making plans/arrangements for The Spinning Knife.

The Dragon's Lament

15th - 19th

• Party settled into The Spinning Knife, which Lugh renamed The Dragon's Lament. He hired Ricardo back as the cook, one of the old servers and Jun Halpet, a 37yo human male manager whose previous inn was destroyed by the Scarlet Corsairs when they raided Oakhurst. Jun knows the Hucreles, and is in good standing with them himself.
• The Dragon's Lament acts as a Level 1 Stronghold for Lugh. (Establishment, page 35 and Bard's Theatre, page 45 of Strongholds & Followers by MCDM Productions).
• The party paid upfront for repairs and upgrades to make it a level 2 Stronghold for Lugh. Estimated completion date - 22nd Asti'lor.

Back to See the Changes at the Deep Lanterns Guildhall in Phandalin

20th Chron'lor

• Travelled to Phandalin
• Met up with Ariana Nightcloak in the Stonehill Inn. She is a Deeplanterns Guild member known to Todd.
• Went to meet Lars Jendar who introduces the party to Tarhun, an innhouse drake that has moved into the old woodcarver's house (now the Deeplantern Guild hall - Also a Stronghold for Todd. Establishment, page 35 and Rogue's Den, page 59 of Strongholds & Followers by MCDM Productions)

21st Chron'lor

• Party saw a crowd dragging a green lizard-man towards the "Goblin Hanging Tree" in Phandalin and went to investigate.
• Lugh tried to talk the crowd out of hanging the creature, but tensions were so high after recent events that even his ample diplomatic skills failed.
• A human (Mathias Darkwater) dressed in chain mail, stepped from the crowd and punched the main offender of the lynch mob in the face, sitting him backwards onto the ground. The rest of the mob seemed reluctant to proceed after this. They backed off and gradually dispersed, leaving the party with the lizard-man and the stranger.
• The lizard-man, started to follow the rescuer, who seemed reluctant to be followed.
• The party escorted the lizard-man back to the Deeplantern Guild hall to recover, the stranger tagging along with them.
• Lugh cast a tongues spell to enable them all to talk freely with the lizard-man. His name was Greenblood. He and his kin were enslaved by a tribe of orcs and brought to Singing Skull Island. The rest of his tribe were slain, but Greenblood escaped into the forest.
• Party talked to Sildar, who agreed to look after Greenblood while he recovered from his long period of torment by the orcs, until the party returned.
• Party stored more spare gear at the Deeplantern Guild hall, having deciding to head to Mount Rolnith via Oakhurst the next morning. Lugh was surprised to discover that the stranger was actually another member of the Deeplantern Guild.
• Heavy rain began to fall.

Phandalin to Oakhurst (again ;))

22nd Chron'lor

• Party set out for Oakhurst, accompanied by Mathias Darkwater, who was also heading to Mount Rolnith for his own purposes, and decided to stopover at The Dragon's Lament.
• Katar decided to read Treasures of the Fire Lords, thinking it might contain some clues to what may lay ahead, however when he opened the book and turned a few pages he set of a glyph which exploded in a burst of cold.
• Mathias raced up stairs after hearing the explosion and found Katar covered in frost and gave him a potion of healing. Although Katar was reluctant to waste such a treasure whilst they were in the relative safety of town, he nevertheless agreed in order to ease his pain.
• Minor scuffle among the patrons at the tavern that night. No damage to goods or personnel.

Trip to Mount Rolnith

23rd Chron'lor

• Party headed to the White Raven Monastery in an effort to get more information about Mount Rolnith.
• They were given directions on how to get to the peak by skirting the eastern side of the mountain.
• Headed to Mt Rolnith and came to a cave entrance, the flame on Mathias' torch leaned horizontally to it.

• The torch was thrown into the cave from outside the entrance and could be seen to burn normally inside.

Inside Mount Rolnith

• Two glowing, intelligent, lobster-like creatures attacked once party entered the cave and were defeated.
• Continued on and were attacked by more of the lobstermen, one of which was clearly a leader and had a ring through one of its antennae.
• After an extensive battle the lobstermen were defeated and Lugh obtained the ring from the leader. (A Ring of the Stormlizard).

cont. 14/4/19 session

• Continued on into the mountain and found a cavern with a large pool of water and a ledge on the far side. There were no obvious exits from this room.
• Continued on and came to area where the walls were smooth and clearly constructed. Killed the kapak draconian guards to this area.
• Entered a large forge area with numerous people of many races who fought in the name of Imix the Fire. These cultists were generally unskilled combatants, though several were spell casters and they were accompanied by three magma men and a red dragonspawn. All were dispatched.
• Returned to a more defensible position and rested for an hour.

• On returning to the forge area, Todd used his stealth to look ahead and saw a chimera and other cultists awaiting the party so returned to warn the others.

• Katar used magic to give himself some resistance to fire and charged ahead of the others. The party found that there more magma men and draconians.
• Lugh banished the chimera to another plane and the other combatants were dealt with by the party before it reappeared and was collectively set upon and killed.
• Continued exploring and found a room with a pool of water which was much cooler than the surrounding areas.
• Found a room with lots of gears, cogs and drive shafts. Katar put a hammer into the gears.
• Found a large stairwell that led down. Lots of talking in a harsh language as well as the sounds of a forge echoed up the stairwell. Party passed it by.
• Found a door and from behind it could hear bestial sounds. Again party passed it by.
• Two rooms with lots of iron and iron ore stores in it (eg. chains, ingots, bars, broken equipment etc).
• Came to a room with four armed and armored cultists in it who could light their weapons afire. Battle ensued during which cultists called out to Ignatia. Through a nearby door came a humanoid who looked as if she had been severely burnt, however her magics were formidable.
• After a long battle, Ignatia and the cultists were defeated, however during the battle, both Mathias and Todd were knocked unconscious, and were only saved by some last minute intervention by the surviving party members.

cont. 18/1/20

• Kavae'lee fed both Mathias and Todd healing potions.
• Lugh looked into the fire cultists bunk room and found a side room with several bookcases. Also found some Goggles of Fire Sight - cultist goggles that give the wearer clear vision when looking into flame lit areas and vey dim vision otherwise.
• Bodies of the slain cultists were dragged into bunk room and party took a short rest.
• Katar used the time to cast a ritual spell Detect Magic but found nothing.
• Headed back towards a large stairwell, hiding in a nearby room, filled with junk, when a flame shrouded woman began to climb the stairs.
• Lugh having previously cast a spell of Comprehend Languages and disguised himself as one of the cultists stayed in the open to engage the woman.
• The woman, Vanifer talked to Lugh, who due to his sublime acting skills, she accepted as a member of the fire cult. She ordered him to get Civak from down the stairs.
• Vanifer headed towards the cultists bunk room.
• Lugh headed down the stairs and saw a large draconian in charge of a large forge, overseeing several Azer and a Salamander.

• Though unable to speak to Civak, Lugh managed to convince him to ascend the stairs.
• Lugh led Civak back to the smaller forge.
• Todd slipped out of the junk room and followed Lugh and the draconian. Todd stabbed Civak in the back and then turned himself invisible. Cival roared in anger and turned to face Lugh, his sword and body shrouded in blue flame.
• Having seen the bodies in the bunk room, Vanifer returned to the room next to the room in which the rest of the party was hiding and started to unlock the door. Loud growls and howls were heard from that room.

• A large battle took place between Vanifer, hells hounds from the kennel room, Civak, some cultists and a couple or azer. Vanifer retreats after several cultists, hell hounds, Civak and several azer. During the battle Kavae'lee and Katar also fall and most of the party was injured. Retreated back to pool room, which is much cooler than rest of complex, and hid away inside a Leomund's Tiny Hut, cast by Lugh.
• The hut was found and azer set to guard over it.

24th Chron'lor

• The hut dropped and were surprised to be invited by the Azer to meet with Vanifer rather than get attacked.
• Agreed and were led to small forge area which had been cleaned from the signs of battle.
• As she talked, Vanifer, leader of the Cult of Imix, indicated that people from New Terath may have been responsible for all that had happened so far.
• Cult serve a young red dragon called Halinaxis
• Vanifer had been meeting with draconians, bargaining with them to supply them with dull iron dragon eggs (iron dragon) from metallic dragons. Letting it be known that draconians are created by using metallic dragon eggs.
• Vanifer wanted to meet the party to get help dealing with Imolius, Lord of the Black Flame, an effretti who is trying to open another portal to the Plane of Fire. Vanifer herself is keeping the Weeping Colossus, an existing portal to the plane of fire, under her control. The Azer had joined her in the battle against Imoliius and his salamanders & fire lobstermen.
• Agreed to help Vanifer remove the threat of Imolius as an all out battle between the two groups should two portals to the plane of fire appear under Mount Rolnith would be catastrophic for the whole island.
• Decided that a trip back to Oakhurst was required to prepare, resupply and hopefully find some defenses against fire, before returning to take on the forces of Imolius.
• One of the azer led the way back to the surface so could return to Oakhurst.
• Attacked by fire lobsterfolk and a salamander as approached surface.
• Camped several hundred yards from cave entrance.

25th Chron'lor

• Returned to Oakhurst
• Mathis got drink at Boarshead Inn before meeting up with everyone at Dragon's Lament.
• Rested overnight.

26th Chron'lor

• Began preparing to take on Imolius.
• After 7 days had acquired 10 Potions of Fire Resistance.

Adv Log 4