Not all of this, especially the early part, is going to be perfectly accurate, because, as I said, it was last fall, my memory isn't perfectly in order. The aim of this campaign was to recover 8 coins, the Book of the Dawning of the Light and Darkness, and the Eye of the Light, which had trapped within it the essence of G, the darkest and most powerful of gods. All these things are needed to summon him, and Drake needs to destroy the Eye, and I don't know what with the coins (when I joined, we had 2, now we have 3), or the book, which not long ago, was just opened for us (Drake) to read. The rest of us aren't allowed, as it is the forbidden history of the world, kept by the Clerics of the Light, and sealed.
At the point when I joined the game, the party was in the past, later decided the year 1024. I appeared from the place that I was, into the ruins of the ancient city of Dhamaka. In this time, the city had been destroyed, and partially flooded, as in our time, 1000 years in the future, Dhamaka has been lost, buried under the waves for centuries. Nobody in our time knows where Dhamaka is. When I appeared in a column of light, I was confronted with the party as it was at that time, Drake, Ramko, Lena, and Eldar, charging straight for me. Naturally dismayed, I almost attacked, when they charged right past me, yelling an incomprehensible warning. Then I was being charged by 30 or so very injured and scorched looking Cua tua's (Fish men. I swear.), so at that point, seeing the logic in the fleeing, I joined the party in their mad dash toward the ruins of the city. There, through much sneaking around, we managed to kill the fishmen, and Drake talked me out of setting fire to a church to do it. (I was a Paladin at the time, so I shouldn't have been allowed anyway.) So we got out (some of us being dragged, because at the time, we were very easily Held.), and we moved on down through the floors of the city's temple, where we encountered the white knight, Mckar, and his wifre, Ellisaria the Bladesinger. She kinda glowed with a faint etheral blue light. Both were the last living humans in Dhamaka, and they bestowed upon us a ring, a suit of armor, and a great sword. Ours to use in trust until a time that we would know when it arrived, at this time, there were two of each of these things, one from our time, in the ruins, and one from this time, the ones we'd just had given to us. At some point, they merged, as far as I know. I can't remember exactly when or how. So we left the temple, and meet Dervish, who'd been looting like a good little thief since he appeared in the city in (yet another) column of light (happens a lot in David's world), the stuff he got while doing that would slowly be revealled to us over time, when it served his purpose.
We made our eventual way back to a place that (some of the party) know now is called Heaven's Step, where there was an old man, and an army of undead, headed by a lich. Lena cast reverse gravity on them, though it didn't effect the lich, but the army was killed. Drake tried to turn the lich, but at his level, it was useless. Then, by raccoon, the lich left. So we eventually reached the summit of Heaven's Step, where there was an old man that Drake knew. We spent a few days there with Drake out with the old man a lot. He never told us what they did, or talked about, but Drake learned some great secrets of the past, and the future. At that time, we returned to the city and left the past again, and appeared back in our own time, well, everyone else's time, since I really can't explain what happened to me here. When we returned to our time, we were in the Dwarven underground kingdom of Stonmorden, abandoned now, for some reason, and with Lordon soldiers now in it.
It was early winter at this point, and I, of course, knew nothing of this place, and so stayed with the party, along with the thief, who I was supposed to be watching. I guess I watched too hard, because eventually he started to rub off on me, and my methods in my quest became less noble, and more underhanded, but still for the cause of good. We made our eventual way back from Stonmorden and to Avron City, then to Kwintesh, where in a fight in the sewers with some Wererats, the rats ignited the methane, and blew every manhole in the city 15 feet in the air. Me and Eldar died, I was returned to life with 1 less CON. Eldar had to be wished back, being an elf. The wish was answered by a dark god, and he was inhabitted by some unknown dark symbiote. Still a Paladin, and could detect the power of the evil in him, though it never fully manifested before Drake got rid of it. We then moved on back to Shalebrook, fought some giants in the town, and went to see the wizard of Shalebrook, Caeldon, Drake's ancient friend.
At some point Between Kwintesh and Shalebrook, I forget where, uhm, no, in the Kwintesh underground city to get the Eye of the Light, we met the Bladesinger's daughter, Selille (sp?), another elven bladesinger, accompanied by Caeldon. Unknown to us at that time, she was under a Domination spell, and through her, Domination was cast upon me, since evil hands could not touch the Eye, I was used to carry it, and then left, the party trapped in the underground. When I returned to myself, I was no longer a Paladin, nor was I yet an Avenger, but in a transitionary state as a fighter with noble tendencies now in search of revenge. Then, during the time in Shalebrook, we encountered some people claiming to be fellow adventurers from Avron, fighting the Lordons. There was a Cleric, Kelcos, and a man in silver armor. Lord Silver, Randchar. They turned out both to be evil, Lord Silver actually being a Silver Dragonslayer. At the wizard's tower, now abandoned and trapped, we encountered a lich. Drake, now at a high enough level to turn a lich easily, failed to turn it with an extremely high roll. I think he just about leaped on David, when my face dropped as I remembered a passage in the PH. "One cleric may only attempt to turn one undead creature once in his life." David took this to the letter, and now, a lich who was old in the past, was now 1000 years older, and David was using the Highlevel Campaigns book for his magical capabilities. I was scared, because I threw 3 fish and two rocks out a window, which were instantly disintegrated. He was minimum 25th level now, having (un)lived for more than a thousand years.
We eventually escaped, and now with renewed purpose, to find the Bladesinger's daughter, and Caeldon and find out why they were now working with the Empire.
This path led us back to Shalebrook again, and through it, to the gateway to the Iron Trail. A legendary path inside the mountains north east, to the far side, and the kingdom of Rakshans, which turned out to be not so legendary. 11 days into the trail, after having to kill some wierd fire lizards and several elementals, we arrived at the Valley of the Sonda. Another place of legend. The Sonda are a magically created elven people, created for the sole purpose of guarding this valley, which was magically created to be ever-summer, and the great tree at the center of the valley. Within the heart of the tree lay the Tree of Resna, an ancient being who's life force had been preserved within the tree, though now an evil beyond the Sonda's ability to fight was within the tree, eating it away.
So, who else but us goes in to poke around. And lo, we find, once again, the frigging Lich, the evil Kelcos, and the Silver Dragonslayer, Randchar, AND to our surprise, the green dragon we've been hearing stuff about, AND, which Eldar the ranger has this quirk, he's enraged by green dragons. Especially this one. So, battle ensues, and with his sword, which is magically charged in the presence of the green dragon, Eldar kills the dragon halfway through the second round. Ramko goes toe-to-toe with Randchar, a duel of great warriors, Dervish, Lena and I take the ancient Lich, because Dervish has a sword of speed, making him our official magic-user interrupter, and Lena because she had nothing else to do, because Drake was matching up with the dark cleric Kelcos. Light against Dark. It was a truly great battle, and in the end, the Dragon fell first, followed by the Lich, and then the others all turned to fight Randchar, except Eldar, who went to assist the weakening Drake. Nothing can stand for long against the combined assault of even four members of our party, and quickly Randchar fell, followed by Kelcos moments later.
We then communicated in some fashion with the spirit of Resna, and in return for her opening the Book, we had promised her that we would guide the Sonda into their new life, as Resna, and the tree were dying, and the magical forces that maintained the perpetual summer would die with her. The Sonda had no knowledge of seasons, farming, or hunting, and it was now our duty to protect them. With our promise to aid the Sonda and protect the valley from evil, Resna's spirit passed from the world. I was truly saddened, for Resna was one of the most ancient and good beings in existence. Caeldon made a quick appearance here, back in the valley, just after the book was opened and Drake had read a few pages. He was here long enough to take the book, and vanish again with Selelle. Drake scried for him, and saw him in the Iron Trail, but in a part we hadn't been yet, so he'd continued north.
After a few days with the Sonda, and our promise to return in short order as the magic in the valley seemed to be fading, but not very quickly, we continued north, with plans to return and build a stronghold where it now seems that several of our characters will retire, we set out on the final leg of the Iron Trail. It turned out to be much further than the first section, and we nearly did not make it, but lo, we eventually arrived outside, mid-winter or so, now and light snow covered the ground. We quickly came upon a farm, only to find dead people. Massacred farmers, women, children, and burned homes. Quite naturally, as befitting or characters, this seriously angered Ramko, but nearly enraged me. Among the bodies, we found two soldiers. Lordon soldiers, each with one perfectly round hole in their chest. Everyone assumed arrows or bolts, but knowing David had something planned, I gored open one of them and poked around, and came out with a lead ball, about 3/4" of an inch across. I was quite irked, as David had told me (pretty much every adventure) that there was no gun powder, or guns in this world. He was wrong. We went east, towards what we knew as the closest city, and came upon another farm, this one in the process of being attacked. We watched from nearly a kilometer away as one soldier killed a bound woman. Me and Ramko were off at full run, with the others somewhere behind us. When they caught up, Ramko had killed two, and I'd took on four at once and had injured three of them. Drake and Lena stopped to cast, killing 10 of them between them, Dervish and Eldar closed and fought beside us when out of the wheat fields behind and to the left of us, came a burst of noise and one of the soldiers dropped dead. Everyone was confused except me, who could see this coming. There's a partisan out there, possibly two, with rifles. Next round, a second shot, and a second soldier dropped.
After that we made short work of the remaining troops, and then met up with Kevin, the rifleman, thief, warrior. And his companion and apparently his loader, who's name escapes me, since he left in a few minutes. Kevin came with us to Cultas Port to stir up some trouble against the Lordons. I found him a kindred spirit in our quest against evil, and prompty after arriving in the city, I did my customary thing and found local orphanages to donate to. It's just something I do, because of what I was. In the second one, I found Kevin, and several Lordon soldiers who were rousting the orphanage mistress for a large amount of money. We made short work of them thanks to a quick move on my part that I thought for sure wouldn't work (It hadn't the last six times I tried), I grabbed the leader's shoulder, spun him, and stuck my sword at his throat. We didn't kill any of them, but we seriously made some messes. We scared them enough that I'm pretty sure they'll never come back, and then I left enough money to more than cover what the soldiers were demanding, just in case.
We left only to discover that the party, having split up, had succeeded in getting in even more trouble than I had. Drake had followed a scream and into a house of healing, where he found the Lordon's captain, and a powerful cleric. He almost bought it, but Ramko and Lena came in just in time. Shortly after, we discovered that the Lordon's had burned the city's temple of the Light, and built their own Dark temple. And that Selelle was being held in the lower levels of the temple, and the book was inside there too. Everyone was annoyed at this, especially Drake, obviously. We made a quick decision to visit this favor upon the Dark temple. I, of course, being a former paladin was quite annoyed by the destruction of the Light's temple, but more, I saw this as a chance to spread some mayhem. I talked Kevin into selling me a half pound of his gunpowder, as a flash charge, and then, after a little searching, found some very visious alcohol, almost as volatile as gas, but not quite. 20 gallons of it. So, we took a secret passage into the Dark temple's lower levels. It was truly dark there, and one level even had open gateways into a lower plane, one of fear. It effected everyone who got too close, and it ringed the outside of the whole level. The level was a prison cell, so each cell had on the one side, a gateway into a world that struck utter terror into everyone there. Ramko and I each had 10 gallons of highly flamable alcohol, and the flash charge. One of them we plan on putting right on the altar in the temple upper floor on the way out, the other, I'm working on. I can't wait to see David's face when I tell him just how much fire and explosion will come from 10 gallons of that alcohol. YJ thinks his fireballs are big. Nothing compared to these. ^_^ So in the lowest level, searching for Selelle first, we passed a hall of mirrors, which Drake warned us not to look at, we didn't, and the mirrors stole a reflection of each of us, and in the next room, those reflections manifested. We had the fight of our lives there, none of us having to fight a warrior of Ramko's caliber before.
With good strategy, we gave better than we got and killed the shadows of ourselves, only to have the ceiling open up, and hell drop through. An 8 armed mutant woman, and a dark cleric of the temple. We fought them, and made incredibly short work of them. We ended here, and decided we'd loot next time.
06/04/99
So we're back and we grabbed their stuff, and ducked out of that room while it started filling with white mist. The cleric had a scroll, a manual (the one that brings fighters up 1 full level), and some other thing. I forget. The scroll was a letter to the cleric telling him that some crown of some sort (I didn't read the dang thing) was being guarded by someone, and something named Raven, and a map.
Followed the map, into a swamp, and for the first time, fought a real, full grown, full power dragon. Black dragon. Raven. Well, Eldar went down, almost followed by Dervish. Ramko and I dropped at the same time, and Dervish finished the dragon off with one of the fireballs from his necklace of them. We rested after that, 2 full days until everyone was back up to spec, and had some close calls with Lizard men, who Lena talked us out of.
So we were off on our way again, and just past where the swamp started to rise into rocky hills, we felt a minor quake, and Dervish launched to the side on his kickass boots of springing. Earth Elemental. 2 rounds later, another one. Lena and Drake, at the same time, (the round after being magic missiled in the back from above) get the idea to dispel magic into the air. Lena did it, and broke the shield spell around him, but he's still invisible. At the same instant, Drake's spell went off, but he targetted the wrong area, since they didn't exactly discuss the idea. So the mage is there, and we're pretty sure it's Caeldon (who at this point I'd entirely forgotten that I swore to kill him for what he did to Selelle and to me.)
At this point, we were running late, and decided to record everything and leave it here. It doesn't look like much happened, but after we got out of the room in the temple, we spent about an hour wandering around trying to check the prison cells, but Drake, the only one at this point who can save against the fear, went nuts, and got hit by a level draining creature, but it was absorbed by a scarab he wears, and it took a REALLY long time to fight the dragon, since he attacked us in fairly open ground covered in fog. He could see us, we couldn't see him.
06/11/99
Well, we returned and finished off the Elementals, there were 4 in total, plus the mage. Lena saved our butts and cast a Wall of Force around us and one of the last elementals. It gave Ramko time to finish it off, because me, and Drake were down for the count, and Eldar was down to 5hp, but he was still going. Ramko was down to 10hp, and Dervish, Captain Unhittable and his freaking boots, still had full hp.
When we finally killed Caeldon, we got some bracers, which only Dervish could actually make use of, and lowered his AC to -6, Drake got a Cloak of Prot +2, and a scroll with a few spells.
We rested here for a few days, until we were full hp again, and then walked. We arrived eventually at a large, and oddly, perfectly round lake, about 200 feet across, and it was warm. After some messing about, we all ended up down there, in a building, UNDER the water, yet the building had none in it. Cool enough, until we explored the building. 3 keyholes, 3 keys, 3 rooms, 2 forcefields, one in front of a ring, the other in front of a cloak. Well, Dervish up and walks through the first field, his Ring of Prot +3 vaporizes, and the field disappears, BUT he gets a ring of Air Elemental control. Kick ASS, because it normally functions as a ring of invisibility, his AC is raised by 3, but effectively, it's one point lower, because he's invisible all the time now. SO, Drake, realizing what these fields do, throws this sword we want destroyed through the next field. It goes through. Neat trick. So Eldar, goes and takes off ALL his magical things, and walks through. The field, having no magic to drain, drains him. He went down to 1hp, and lost a point of CON! But he got a Cloak of the Bat. So now having nothing else to do, we worked on the puzzles.
One of them, we walk into the 30x30x20 foot room, the case with the key in it rises up. When we're next to it, it's 30 feet in the air, and, none of our magic functions in this room. We toy around a bit, then go for the next room. 8 steel statues, and a grid of lights, and a text, that says something like, "The floor shall be your door, but touch the walls and death will call." We venture that going into the light is bad, and the statues are steel golems. David gives us a map of the building and the light grid. The light grid is an 18x18 grid, the building is just the layout of the place. The key is in the center of the far wall, past the lights and the golems. The grid looks like that game where you go and connect dots and try and make squares, I said. We quickly make for the last key. Plain 20x30x20 foot room, key in a case (indestructable, we find out) on a pedestal. No clues, no markings. Nothing. Eventually, Drake casts True Seeing from the scroll from Caeldon, one of the four spells there. There's a riddle on the wall. Good. Then he RUNS to the other two rooms. The golem room is the same, the other room, there's a doorway 10 feet in the air, right above the door that comes in. So, we toss Dervish up there, and he walks 30 feet down, and there's nothing, BUT, the key drops back to the floor. Dervish starts to come back, the key starts to rise. We tell him to stay at the back, and the key stays. We walk up and get it. One down.
Back to the empty room. On the wall, it said, "Always coming, never here." Old riddle that I knew, but Drake got it first, and yells out "Tomorrow!" the case pops open. Simple, neh? Two down.
Last one, well, we find a keystone in the floor and push it, "floor be the door" and all, and a grid matching the layout of the light grid in the room pops up on the floor. We push a button that stands out. Golem goes active. Just one. We kill it. Not hard. Well, so we push the one NEXT to the first button. 3 Golems go active!! We kill them, but Ramko takes it hard, and Drake is forced to cast Heal from the spell scroll. Drake gets inspiration. The floor in this room, isn't the floor, it's the wall, because we touch buttons on the floor, Golems come. Death calls. So we start looking on the walls for stuff, and then Dervish just goes and touches a wall. Nothing happens. Oh. So we go around examining walls, floors, ceilings, stuff like that, and David gives a few subtle clues, then a last one, I forget the wording and I think only me and Hong were actually listening at that point, but it was something about grids and I couldn't help but think of that old game where you connect dots to fill squares again, when I realize, the grid is 18 by 18. Then I look at the map of the building. Frag. 18 by 18 almost perfectly, with the ring of elemental control, in the exact spot, when viewed overhead, as the key beyond the golems. I pick them up, and place the grid over the map, and now it's SOOO obvious, so I swear and ask David if he's serious. He just grins evilly, and I throw the maps down on top of each other, Hong, who looked up when I swore, looks down and he gets it too.
End of all that, we walk the same path as the halls in the building and grab the key, no prob. So we go and shove all the keys in the locks, and a door opens and stairs go down. We decided to break here, since it's 12:40. :) The elementals took a long time.
06/25/99
Well, we go on to the next level of the dungeon, more rooms, more keys, more magical stuff. Ramko got hit by some wierd magic that knocked him out for almost a full hour, and gained a Cloak of the Arachnid, which he passed to Drake, and then something Drake's been asking for for a LONG time, a +1 Mace. (which confused everyone totally, because he has a +3 mace already...) But this one, is a Mace 'o Disruption! (Like he couldn't turn undead like God himself already!)
We then proceeded to get the keys, most passed without real incident, a teleporting key, which Drake and Ramko got, and another riddle, which opened box when I suddenly blurted out the answer (it was WAY easier than the other one. The more you take, the bigger it is.), and then we went to the big room, and 4 wierd freaking summoned elementalish things that were created from three metaplanar elementals put together into one form. Freak-ISH things. The fight to kill them took damn near 2 hours. Killed THEM and got the last key, going down to the last level (I HOPE) of the dungeon. Two more things behind forcefields, one Staff of Power, for Lena, who got ALL of her memorized spells drained going through the field, so she HAD to use the staff, momentarily. And I got turned to stone going for my new +4 Defender (kickASS. Though an Avenger would have been nicer.....) And then we proceeded down the last hall, where we found this crown (the one we're going for!!) sitting on a throne. And then the wall moves. And the WALL moved! 8 figured started to emergy from the wall, but not all the way, and then the wall moved FORWARDS.
Ick. Living walls. Holy frag, Batman. Well, a good many charged from Lena's staff, and pretty much everyone down to less than 15hp, we DID kill the stupid thing (588hp, as David told us afterwards). Unfortunately (or, rather unfortunately, as Hong is looking at it.), Dervish did die, he was Reincarnated by Drake, fortunately as a human. BUT, he's a different class, different sex, different stats, different whole person, with Dervish's memories. Female Paladin, magical 18/00 strength, 18 charisma (oooh boy, someone who FINALLY has a higher charisma than me. ^_^ Well, I _was_ a paladin once too...), and the second shoe drops, she's level 1.
Found some cool stuff in the bookshelves in this room. (Ironically) a book for leveling up a Thief, and a second one for Fighters, so Eldar and I both have one to read, and a scroll (the one that resurrected Dervish. ^_^) And of course, the crown.
Lots of fighting today, and we got the experience for the last few weeks. Total group experience was _just_ shy of 500k, which ended up as a touch over 108k for each of us, plus story awards (yay!) about 12k more, and I'm level 9, at which point, I get to sit down and do some reading..... :D
Soon after this, about a month from now, the party, or the majority of it is going to retire somewhere, those that don't, I'm not sure what they're going to do because everyone's starting anew, so they'll probably settle in the Valley of the Sonda, where Drake is going to build his new temple of the Light, to live and fulfill his promise to the spirit of Resna to protect and teach the Sonda who are now without benefit of her protection. What Rhet will do, I am not truly sure, as this is my first character in D&D, a character who I've grown to like in his own wierd way, and I've never retired a character I really liked before, I'm not truly sure what he will do.
Well, we eventually, to my surprise, got to leave the fortress under the water, and made our way back to the town and found most of it abandoned. The dark clerics were ALL gone, and so was the entire thieves' guild. So we went back to the basement, and pulled Sellele out, leaving, and FINALLY, we got to blow up that fragging place.
We spent the night, and in the morning, someone showed up and told us that we had to get back to the valley of the Sonda -now-, because a certain elf and a dragon were there now, and were in dire need of our help.
Lei manifested spirit horses for us to ride each day, and it took us an eventful 5 days to reach the valley. We had to fight 5 Gith-kin on flying snakes, and then encountered a stone cliff, at the bottom was a stone door with a 4 hole key system. It open in a fairly obvious pattern (well, in hindsight at least), and into it a symetrical catacomb. The second top floor was a room with a perfectly smooth floor, and a ceiling full of holes, it was filled with a shifting green glow. The room above that was an odd inverse dome thing, with a summoning circle in the center.
Drake asked the rocks about this place, since we got sealed in, and we eventually discovered that the summoning circle brought things from the Abyss to this plane, and that the green light was the summoner, shifted form. (I forget how we made him shift back, but he did.) We made very short work of him, but not before he opened the gates, and a black oozing liquid started to come forth. We hid. In a side passage that was elevated slightly, for a long, long time we waited. The ooze kept coming forth from the Abyss and eventually filled the whole place, and it started to back up into the summoning room. Forced to do it, Drake communed with Sol Ameron, who, vaguely, showed us the way, with the help of Lei.
The exit gate had to be opened, and it was on the lowest level, now full of ooze, which had showed intelligence, and burned off part of Lena's arm. With what I can only call a great leap of faith in Drake, Lena cast a spell from a scroll on the summoner that would teleport her into the exit gate. But nothing happened. Until the ooze started to recede. The spell was set to trigger the opening of the exit gate.
We got out. Barely.
And so we went on the last leg of our journey, and came out into the Iron Trail, a few hours away from the Valley, and encountered a returning scout party from Avron, who told us quickly that the King of Avron had gone mad in some sort, and that Selena and Bromagon were awating us in the valley, along with a contingent of troops there with the commander in chief, against the king's orders.
We arrived in the valley with several days to prepare for a siege of Lordon troops. A heavy night of combat, preceeded by a rather gory example of what priests can do with Blade Barrier. Halfway through the night, more Githyanki came and kidnapped several important people, and so off we trekked to find their stronghold in the mountains around the valley
A day into the journey we encountered an ambush by a dozen Frost Giants. Sounds like a lot, but we also had 9 paladins of Avron with us. After the fight we sent off again another day and a half where we came to a large avalanche we needed to scale.
As Drake tried to scale it, he was ambushed by an invisible person, and several of us set off in pursuit, catching them after a few minutes, turning back in time to see a uhm, much more dangerous stuff coming after the ones who didn't give chase.
Some 100 or so various Githyanki, along with 6 knights, and one champion.
Once again Drake's power had chance to shine with his newfound ability to cast Emminence. Scary spell. :) The Gith were slowly worn down in a long drawn out battle, and I went down again... arg. But I didn't die! I was actually poisoned, though at yet, we don't know this. (shhhh!)
From the Gith champion we recovered a suit of armor, and a silver twohanded sword, and ring.
..... I can't even begin to fill in what was forgotten. We went to Domain, the continent across the sea and in our hunt for one of the last three coins, temporarily allied with the mirror party which had matched our steps since the beginning, fell against the coin's guardian. To the last, only Ramko remained alive, trapped within the crater, under the lava of a volcano.
.....
If there's on thing life has taught me, it's that troubling chaos follows me everywhere I go.
