Level 9 - Into and Out of the Pit

Day 1

Unkown to our characters, we've been pulled into the Planscape game setting

Tux and Cas have been pulled through the rift and into Gehenna. We end up on the side of a steep mountain. Lava flows down towards us, and we quickly make the decision to move upward. Cas climbs the hillside and Tux uses Malik's immovable rods to climb. Before long a harpy comes up on us.

It speaks infernal, and is not understood by Tux or Cas. Luckily the harpy also speaks draconic. Cas takes command and tells it to "take us to your superior." Tux is uneasy with the plan.

"We need to get out of here" Cas insists. We find out that we're headed for a war camp that is part of the Blood War. Awesome. We send the harpy off, it doesn't know we can fly, and fly away as a harpy and a hunting bat. Heading for the mountains, we follow the river up to the top. It seems safest place in this hot and ashen plane. The call Gehenna the Bleak Eternity and The Fires of Perdition, which feels about right. Looking up, the river appears to be falling out of the sky. Nothing left to lose, we follow it up to it's source: a large earthen cone and out of this plane.

The top of the cone is a plane of rubble and desert. We don't know it, but this is Baator, the plane where our friends have been thrown to. Mountains spot the desert and a nexus of rivers that cross the surface of the desert. Many of the rivers go down into pits. Some of the rivers are blood.

We explore the surface from above. Many people-sized ants seem to be below us. Cas tries to speak common at the ants, they are part of a mining colony. In their conversation we learns that they are following THE RIVER STYX! It leads to Acheron. Whatever that is. Cas should have studied more in school, or she'd know more about how to navigate this wretched place. We fly on.

After a few hours of flying over the winding river, still in Baator, we are surprised to see Rick down below us. He waves at us in excitement. Rick lets loose that "someone" is looking for us. He cracks his whip. "They" might be able to see us now. Time to go, and quickly. We fly straight up for an hour, hunting for a way out. There is nothing but smoke and clouds. We get back down in easily 5 minutes. Not escaping that way.

We grab Rick and keep flying up river. After a few hours, we reach a point where the river flows straight up again. Flying creatures can be seen up ahead.

"Halt," one says as we near them.

Cas musters up her best commanding voice, "Good day to you soldier, carry on." They do not let us pass.

"We are under order to stop anyone from going this way and recruit them."

"You are under orders to stop and recruit commoners." Cas continues to push on, "that is not us."

"No, I'm pretty sure you're wrong."

Cas uses diplomacy to get past them, "how dare you question me??" she asks. They become intimidated and let us past. It's now clear that we're wanted, haste becomes even more necessary.

At the top, there is a mountain-sized crystal shard. Many crystals jut out out of its surface, this must be Acheron. An army wages on the plane: devils, ants and undead all fighting each other. We decide to follow the river, and avoid the battle as best we can. Into the mountains, a group of imps comes after us. Fighting seems imminent, but we fly away from them.

Tux finds us a cave to rest in. Our luck holds just enough to keep nighttime monsters at bay.

Day 2

We keep following the river up through the strange crystal plane, still unaware that we are in Acheron, the Eternal Battlefield. At the end of the river, it seems to be flowing out of the side of a large, black... thing, maybe a cliff side. There is a town just below the mouth of the river. We feel to have passed over another planar barrier. We decide to investigate in town. Tux will fly above the town while Cas and Rick go in and try to find a way out.

A huge mountain looms over the town. Cas looks for a merchant's store, to find information. In the curiosities shop we meet Bill, a horrible creature made of many spider legs. He has no apparent body or face, but says hi and offers a leg in greeting. Cas shakes his "hand" and responds with an uncomfortable hello. She asks about the river. He doesn't know where it goes. She asks instead how to get "up." He asks if she means Sigil, but she doesn't know, but that might be what she is looking for. He tells her how to get through the gateway into Sigil. Cas buys three lead coins ("to keep the fairymen at bay") and a "key" to get through the gateway to Sigil. Knowing only that she wants to go up through the planes, they make for the gate.

Sigil turns out to be a large city, full of both demons and celestials and everything in between. We wander through the city, looking for a library or somewhere where we might find out more about why our own realm is breaking. The Hall of Records is near where we ended up. Walking in, a friendly lizard person is at the front desk, he makes us an appointment with Record Keeper Kevin for in three days.

Level 8 - The End of an Era

Our group decides to sneak into the cavern through an alternate entrance. We start canvassing the area for a back door. The hero of our group, Rick, instantly finds the perfect secret entrance, located below what seems to be the main floor of the cave. We all sneak along this thin, deep crack until light begins to spill in through the top. After a quick check, we ascertain that we are, in fact, right under the main floor of the cavern.

Rakshasa (tiger dude)

We are suddenly attacked by 2 Rakshasa, which are giant man-shaped tigers, learning that they are dangerous in close combat. We fight the tiger dudes, and gain:

• 1000 gp
• Strong of small pearls 3500gp
• Black velvet mask 105
• Potion shield of faith
• Scroll of eagles splendor
• +1 short sword
• Potion protection from lawful
• Other mage
• Necklace of fire ball level 7
• +1 bastard sword
• Heavy steel shield
• Scale mail

What began as a fact finding mission, has gotten more and more dangerous. We scout ahead, further down the crevasse, and find that it keeps going. It gets hotter and hotter, indicating that we may be close to the lava chamber where we previously fought the Lord of Blades. Tux casts protection from elements on the rest of the group once again, to protect them from the increasing heat. 

The group tries to decide what to do. Why has an impostor taken over the the Lord of Blades' position? Who is the impostor? What's with the gathering of this army? Everything in the army, the water elementals and the topaz dragons, seems to be from a water plane. Maybe there's a portal, we decide. But rumors indicate that there IS a seal here, somewhere. Could it be deeper underground?

Ki uses a spell to detect where it could be. The only magic she detects is coming from the direction where we believe the lava chamber to be. Cas yells out, "maybe the creation forge is the the seal!" No one listens. Constance thinks hard about where the seal could be. Malik remembers that he could not teleport near the other seals. He tries and cannot teleport here either. Constance has a horrible realization which he announces to the group: the creation forge is the seal.

What do we do with this information? Surely Merrix d'Caneth already knows this. He could have us killed for finding out. Maybe by now the new "Lord of Blades" also knows. There's nothing left for us here. We have to kill the impostor. We have to shore up the seals. We are the only thing standing between all of Eberron and this evil.

We come upon a vertical passage with lava spilling down the side. What now? Malik wants to climb it, but cannot get close enough to the lava. Cas puts on her ring of invisibility (loathe to reveal what she really is) and uses her wings to fly up to the top. They are noisy and everyone (except Tux, of course, because Tux never notices anything) knows they are wings until Ki glibs them all to think that Cas is just farting in the tunnel. Cas flies up to see the "Lord of Blades," two humanoids, and a warforged-looking creature on the creation forge. Without the help of her more intelligent and strategy-savvy group, she comes up with a plan.

We use everything we have to go after the imposter. Cas still has her small bronze griffin, which is helpful for getting the rest of the group up through the lava shaft. We learn early in the battle that the warforged on top of the creation forge is part way between planes, being summoned by the false Lord of Blades. Every member of the team hurdles themselves against this horrible evil, racing against the summoning, and somehow we continue to survive. In a last, ditch effort to keep the warforged out of our realm, Tux throws a desperate spell.

The explosion of the fire balls throws the warforged out of our plane. But the seal is rocked by the blast. It is weakened and groans loudly from the stress. Suddenly everything in the room is ripped through it to another plane. Tux and Cas get warped to Gehenna, the neutral-evil plane of the out realms. A few items follow us through the seal:

• Tongue worm
• Wand of wall of ice
• A +3 heavy crossbow
• Living breastplate (Cas is afraid of this, but Tux decides to put it on)
• All of Malik's items, now spilled into Cas's bag of holding

Ki, Malik and Constance are warped to Baator, the lawful-evil plane also known as the Nine Hells. The plane itself is composed of nine different layers, each of which models a differing but no less inhospitable and dreadful environment, including barren plains of ash and rock to frozen wastes of endless ice. Unknown the them, Rick has also been heroically sent to Baator.

Cas knows that this is a different plane, but does not recognize where they are. Gehenna is unlike any plane she has learned about. She thinks back to the seals and wonders. If her and Tux were sent though together without the others, the rest of the party may have gone to another plane. She wonders what happened to the rest of the seals in Eberron when this crumbled.

Level 7 - Another Seal Cracked!

We learn that the seal to the plane of demons has been cracked by the lich we just dispatched. Sam tries to speak with the lich to find out what has been done, but he is unable to discover much. We decide we need another way to gather information on what is happening to the seals. Our group heads for the Eldeen Reaches, parting ways with Sampson and Dean who will continue to do what they can to keep more seals from breaking.

Tux suggests we go see Oalian, the ancient greatpine tree that is the ruler of the Eldeen Reaches. He is known as the Great Druid, now some 5,000 years old, with memories stretching back to the dawn of the current age. He is likely to know more history of the seals than most living things in this plane. He is not difficult for Tux to find. Upon locating the massive tree, Tux approaches slowly and cautiously, though, he quickly realizes he has no idea which side is his "front."

After several minutes of greetings, Oalian graciously offers us council on the matter of the cracked seal. Ki approaches and describes the events at the seal in the Demon Wastes (and more infomation on the lich) and in the seal in Xen'drik. She neglects to mention that many seals are breaking. Oalian is not pleased and is troubled by the news. He suspects that the liches are being informed by an outside party.

He spends hours recounting the history of the seals and various tangential stories of the past. His speech is slow and meticulous, Tux is the only one able to listen for very long. Cas is disturbed by the very idea of a talking tree and waits further off in the woods. After a while of gathering (way, way more than enough) information on the seals, the party takes leave of Oalian, thanking him for his help.

His most disturbing news is out of the Mounlands. Oalian has told us that a seal used to be located in the city of Sire, now destroyed. But we've already been there: it's where we fought the Lord of Blades. But we also left behind an impostor and an army. The group decides this is the most pressing of the seals, and we head back out to the Mournlands, for the ruined city of Sire. We are going back to attempt to locate the opening of the plane that is in the warforged stronghold. Our search leads us back to the cavern where we fought the Lord of Blades.

Upon entering the main passage, we are surprised to come across a topaz dragon, resting on a hoard of gold and gems. We are hidden under Ki's invisibility and silence, but it seems to see us. Cas, with her ring of invisibility on, approaches a little closer. It calls out for her to stop. She does. It asks what she is doing in this cave. She explains that she is a lone adventurer, exploring this cave. He tells her to leave, and she does while praising his graciousness, because dragons love that. We leave the cave post haste.

topaz dragon

We head up above the cave entrance. Our new plan is to enter from where Tux and Malik had entered when we overthrew the Lord of Blades. While climbing up, Rick remembers that he can still use his ectoplasmic legs to climb despite the fact that he is now a Hobgoblin. It is upsetting in the least.

On top of the cave, now on the flats, we are attacked by a thoqqua. This water elemental does a lot of damage to Malik by crashing down on him. Suddenly we remember the sponge. Maybe it can save us one more time! Ki produces it from her pack, while Constance gets a rope and shapes the rope like a basket around it. The rest of the group continues to attack the creature. When it is ready, Malik takes the sponge-on-a-rope weapon and throws it onto the thoqqua. It does upwards of 50 damage, but the monster has over 150 health, and it takes us several rounds to defeat it.

water elemental (thoqqua)

Now rid of this monster, we move towards the chasm. We peer down through the crack, into the main cavern below. The city is similar to before, but instead of being totally ruined, it looks like it's being re-built. Ki recognizes shifters among the crowds. There are also warforged, like we expected, and more water elementals. We decide that this is a strange army to work together. We also decide that this must be the work of the "new" Lord of Blades we left behind. We should never have left him, this army is our fault (the good aligned characters think). The others are more interested in why this is happening.

Just as we stand around, trying to make a plan, a topaz dragon begins to fly up. He seems like he could be the same one from below. We only have moments. Tux shifts into an animal. Malik has such improved hiding that he finds a place to hide. Constance and Rick do nothing. Cas disguises as a warforged. And Ki shifts into the Lord of Blades. Nothing can go wrong now. She activates glibness.

The dragon comes through the crack and seems surprised by us. "What are you doing here? I just saw you below," it asks us. Ki, in all her powerful glory, responds, "I am the Lord of Blades, and I have returned to you. The impostor you follow is a fake!!" The dragon is clearly confused. "So...," he thinks out loud, "the creature that's been paying me all this time, isn't really the Lord of Blades?" He looks ready to kill, not caring about justice or goodness, only money and gold. "I will pay you more to help me regain my power!" Ki spits out, to stop him. The dragon is placated.

Cas reaches for her backpack, going for the Deck of Transformations in her bag. Ki sees this, pleased with the idea. Cas draws the deck, "as payment for your service the Lord of Blades offers you a prize worthy of your splendor." The dragon pauses for a moment. Cas yells, "what do you say to your Lord??" The dragon perches on the edge of the crack, he agrees to draw. In moments, the topaz dragon is transformed into an Orc. He is furious, but he has no weapons or armor, and our group takes him down easily. They go to leave him, but Tux makes sure to coup d'etat him.

Dragon's Loot:

• (6000) gold
• (10,000) worth of 100 gems
• 6 minor magic items:
• (1000) +1 heavy steel shield  (keep, Rick)
• (300) potion of eagle's splendor (+4 Char)
• (25) scroll of endure elements
• (1500) javelin of lightning (keep, Malik)
• (4500) dorge ("wand") of 2nd level power energy stun (keep, Constance)
• (150) power stone of 2nd level power concealing amorpha (keep, Constance)
• 3616 each

We split the treasure and begin to brainstorm a new idea on how to enter the cavern. Cas remembers now some information about the planes. Both water elementals and gem dragons are from the water plane. It's possible that there is a breaking seal under the cavern, but it's now more likely that someone has opened a portal to the water plane to summon these creatures.

Level 7 - Demon Wastes and a Lich

A seal is slowly crumbling between the demon plane and our plane. Our party is en route through the demon wastes to shore that seal. We continue our new mission of protecting the seals.

Day One

In the demon wastes, we battle a babelith. Tux used a Quicken Flame Strike and a normal Flame Strike and did 14d6 damage for ~50 damage. Sam and Malik took a lot of constitution damage. Since it was storming, Tux used Call Lightning and Quicken Call Lightning to summon.

Day Two

Still traveling through the demon wastes. Our party becomes a little lost at one point. We encounter a small glade in a wooded area. A nymph and two satyrs appear from the water in the center of the clearing. The nymph asks what we a doing. She is tricky with words, but Ki tells her we are adventurers. The nymph would like to offer us something to help on our journey. Ki declines her offer. This greatly offends the nymph.

Battle seems likely to break out. Ki talks the nymph down, and Cas leaves because people that are tricky with words suck. The party gets ready to leave as well. The nymph is again offended by our group leaving, the satyrs attack everyone. Cas decides to return to help in battle, they are a team after all, when an idea occurs to her. The group exchanges a few rounds of combat. Cas returns, pulling out the Deck of Transformations.

Ki instantly realizes what she is doing. Cas begs her to stop this violence. Ki adds that they have a gift worthy of her beauty and greatness. The nymph is intrigued, she loves to make tricky deals. She accepts a draw from the deck as a gift. Upon drawing, she is transformed into a halfling. She is very upset by this. She wants to fight us, but is bereft of her former power. Instead, she retreats into the pool, very, very mad. Our group makes a quick exit.

Day Three

Along our next day's travel, we run into a succubus and two babau. After unsuccessfully trying to hide by climbing up the walls of the canyon, Malik jumps down and attacks all three of them. The two babau summon two more babau, as Tux unsuccessfully uses Arc of Lightning, since babau are immune to electricity damage. Malik takes over thirty damage from one babau! Lareth tried to trip but failed and took 17 damage. Rick tried to trip one of the babau with his whip but failed. The whip took acid damage and was destroyed! No one is sad that Rick will have to stop acting like Indian Jones.

On the next turn, Cas took a lot of damage, and her sword took 7 acid damage from hitting a babau. Tux then used Flame Strike on two of the babau, summoned a Dire Weasel, and the weasel did constitution damage on one of the babau, and it dies. Cas summoned her bronze griffin to battle the babau. The griffin attacks but only does 2 damage. Cas then attacks with her sword, only doing 3 damage. Lareth misses his trip again! These things suck.

On the next round, Malik does a good amount of damage, even though he has very low HP. Lareth turns from the dead Babau, runs ten feet to the Babau threatening Ki and Rick and trips it. On Constance's next turn, he fabricates a 10 cubic foot chunk of the cliff to fall onto the currently prone Babau, which does 55 damage to it, and as a result the next Babau dies. Cas had enough of the babaus' shit, so she uses smite evil to rid it from the world and kills it, and thus concludes the battle.

Time to loot the bodies!

• Gold and gems
• 200 gold, 400 gold, 800 gold, a black pearl worth 500 gold, a carnelian worth 50 gold, and a gem of purple corundum worth 500 gold, 800 gold. Total 3250 gold
• ART!!
• A golden comb worth 1050 gold
• An empty golden bottle with bottle stopper worth 1050 gold
• A silver plated steel longsword worth 550 gold
• A silver comb worth 550 gold
• 3200 gold, but Cas wants to keep the sword, so total 2650 gold
• Minor Magic Items: A magical +1 Kama, which is a mini-scythe worth 2300 gold

Day Four

The party makes it to the seal, which is guarded by 10 zombies and 3 wizards, one is a lich. Constance recognizes that this lich is a very powerful wizard and seals him within a sonic energy wall, effectively disabling him. Tux wild shapes into a Fleshraker dinosaur, pounced on top of and then later kills one of the wizards and two zombies. The lich casts a cone of Cause Fear, making Malik and one of his wizard allies run away. Lareth, Sam, Dean, Cas, all then destroyed the remaining zombies. After this, the party surrounded the lich, readied attacks, and quickly dispatched him.

Loot:

• (7,000) assorted pearls         (sell)
• (16,000) bracers of armor +4 (sell)  
• (750) potion of gaseous form (sell)
• (1,000) cloak of resistances (+1 to saves) (going to Tux)
• (6,750) wand of 9th lvl magic missle (50) (going to Ki)
• (2,000) ring of protection +1   (going to Constance)
• (65,000) staff of necromancy  (sell)  
• (25,000) x-ray vision ring        (keep this in Tux's pack for party)
• (700) scroll of summon monster IV  (sell)
• (24750) staff of alteration (sell)
• Total to sell: 114200gp.

22840gp base to each Malek and Cas
Tux: 22840 - 1000 = 21840
Ki: 22840 - 6750 = 16090
Constance: 22840 - 2000 = 20840

Level 6 - What Next?

We finally arrive in Sharn with the body of the Lord of Blades. We (rolled a 20) are greeted by exuberant pomp and excitement upon our return to the city. Women cried, children yelled, bards followed us through the city singing of our heroics. Cas and Rick especially revel in the celebration.

We settle affairs with House Caneth. Merrix d'Caneth meets with us personally. He takes the Lord of Blades away to a secret chamber (for safe keeping, of course) and rewards us grandly. Constance stays in with House Caneth, while everyone else explores.

Next we had to find a way to turn Ki back from stone. Our first choice was to find someone we knew: Sampson. We find out that he will be arriving back in the city shortly after us, so we wait a day for him. Everyone else sets out to spend their money. That night, Constance holds a large party to celebrate. Our party is all there, and we find that Sam and Dean have returned to the city. Dean makes an awkward advance on Cas. The next day, Sam breaks the enchantment on Ki. There seems to be something strange between them. Cas notes that there is something weird about Sam that she doesn't like.

Ki continues to draw from the Deck of Transformations that night, having learned nothing from her previous attempt. At our inn, she almost kills us all by drawing horrid wilting, but the sponge (that we found on the bugbear) turns out to be an artifact portal to the water plain, and saves everyone.

But what next? We had just defeated the Lord of Blades. Sam and Dean seemed like they could have some adventuring for us, so we followed them back out of the city. According to them, there are several seals starting to crumble to the North of the city. Toward the Demon Wastes.

The Deck of Transformations is causing havoc in our group. Ki is transformed into a kobald. It's pretty funny, and Cas makes her stay like that for a day, withholding the deck. Serves her right, messing with something so dangerous.

As they make camp one night, Cas leaves the group to talk to the brothers. She tells them she needs to tell them something in private. They exchange a look, and Dean goes off with her, away from camp. She doesn't notice their shared glance, she's not so great at understanding people. She tells Dean that if this fight gets difficult, she doesn't want to have to hold back to save anyone. But she knows their mission is to kill unnatural things, and she doesn't want them to kill her. "I'm not really human," she tells him. Dean is taken aback, "you're not another changeling, are you?" Cas doesn't know what he means, "What? No. I have wings." Dean is still confused, so Cas frees a corner of her wings from her cloak. "Oh."

While Cas is away, Rick sneaks into her pack and steals the Deck of Transformations. He is a tiny crystal and is able to slip off into the woods with it. He draws and is changed into a Hobgoblin. This is terrible. He has very little health, he also thinks he is a hero, and he can telepathically speak to us. Now he's going to be able to charge into battle whenever he wants. He flops around for a few minutes, yelling at us all in our heads. Our group quickly realizes with terror what has happened.

Cas is defeated by this, and allows Ki another draw from the deck. Only if she goes far enough away to not kill them all if something bad is drawn. To everyone's surprise, she draws a changeling. Even though that's what she was before, now everyone knows what she is.

Level 5 - The Lord of Blades

Two more warforged come patrolling down the passage. Ki and Cas quickly disguise themselves as warforged. Malik hides behind some pillars of crystals. Tux runs away, back the direction we came from. Constance is at a loss of what to do, and waits with Ki and Cas. The warforged show up and Ki takes the lead talking to them. She convinces them that we are new recruits, and Constance is our prisoner. Ki, Cas, and Constance head further down the passage with the warforged.

map of the cavern

Malik backtracks with Tux and Lareth. The three of them gather the horses and find a safe nook outside the cave entrance for them to stay. They discover that Rick, Constance's ever present crystal buddy, has followed them. Using his telepathic link with Constance, our two groups are able to communicate. Tux and Malik travel above the cave entrance, try to find an alternate entrance from above. Tux uses his survival skills to find a crevasse down to the main room of the cavern.

From above, Tux and Malik see the same cavern that the other three enter with their new mechanical comrades. Constance is put into a jail cell until he can be further interrogated. Ki and Cas, called 73 and 74 by the warforged, are given the new recruits' tour of the camp. A warforged named 24 is going out to search the abandoned city for artifacts, and offers to take 73 and 74 with him.

Tux and Malik climb down to the floor of the abandoned city. They begin to sneak their way through the debris. Malik hears a sound near them, and a warforged appears from the rubble. He asks what they are doing there. Tux is the first to respond, with little charisma, he claims he doesn't know where he is or who he is. The warforged, who calls himself 23, is very confused by Tux. Malik takes charge, and they discover that 23 is trying to overthrow the organization of this camp. He confides in them that he is going to create a distraction soon, if they are really there for a coup, they should plan on doing it soon. They have Rick relay this information to Constance.

While searching the city, 24 along with Ki and Cas, discover a Tome of Wisdom, which 24 keeps. They suffer damage in a collapse of one of the buildings they search. 24 offers to take them for repairs, but Ki convinces him to let them go to Constance, who has some extra health potions. This allows them to find out what is going on with Malik and Tux. The group in the cell decides to wait for the distraction. Cas and Ki sleep for a few hours after planning with Constance.

They wake up to a commotion outside in the warforged camp. 24 comes to gather them up. He says that the Lord of Blades is making a speech, they should come to listen. They tell him they'll be along shortly and take the place of a warforged left on duty. This leaves them alone to free Constance. Just on time, Malik and Tux show up to help. Now re-united, they head back out of the main chamber. Malik has had the time to scout down the extra passage. He has found that it winds downward in a spiral, getting hotter and hotter. Tux uses protection from elements on everyone they reach the lower passage.


We make it to the hall of the Lord of Blades. He has only two constructs there to guard him. We peek in to see him lounging at his throne, reading a book-- the Tome of Wisdom. Off to one side of the room is a large pit with a huge circular stone suspended above it. Constance is in awe. He barely gets out to the group that this is the mythical creation forge. It is exactly what he had hoped they would find here. The other side of the hall has a large forge with lava pouring through it. The room is extremely hot.

Our group waits outside the hall for a few minutes, formulating a plan. We know he has the potential to be very powerful, if he is allowed to charge at us. Tux summons six wolves, in the hopes of trip-locking him. He also transforms himself into a fleshraker. Everyone charges at once, gaining the advantage of surprise. We dispatch the constructs quickly. The wolves keep the Lord of Blades pinned, and we drop him to zero health. Cas goes to coup d'etat him, but Constance yells out not to.

Everyone stops. Constance reminds us that the Lord of Blades cannot heal, and we devise a plan to remove the Lord of Blades from his own stronghold. Constance has a spell to make his body frictionless, allowing Ki and Tux to slide him out of the hall. Malik runs ahead to scout. There is a great amount of commotion coming from the main upper hall, but Cas and Constance stay back. Constance does not want to leave the creation forge behind. He takes several moments to take notes on the strange device. Cas spends their last few moments in the hall searching for items. She finds a strange deck of cards.

our group later discovers the cards are a Deck of Transformations

Malik reports back to Tux and Ki that there are sentries outside the cave entrance. The will have to sneak out. Malik is able to teleport out, Ki casts silence and invisibility on her and Tux. They slip past the sentries and get back to their horses.

Cas pulls Constance from the hall. It's too dangerous to stay much longer. If they are found out, they stand little chance of survival. On their way out, they hear a booming voice coming from the main cavern. Cas stays to listen for a moment. The Lord of Blades is still making his speech... but it cannot be him.

Cas has a fleeting moment of grandeur. Imagining herself bursting into the cavern, disguised as the Lord of Blades. She shakes free of it, and they flee toward the entrance of the cave. Ki helps them out with some invisibility and silence, augmented by Constance's ability to slide. Exhilarated by their battle and escape, the group loads the body of the Lord of Blades onto a horse. Flawlessly, we ride off toward Sharn.

On the way, curiosity overcomes Ki, and she draws a card from Cas's deck. We find out that it is a Deck of Transformations when she is turned flesh into stone. There is nothing we can do for now. She will have to wait until we can remove the enchantment.

Level 5 - Into the Mournlands

Upon returning our new information to House Cannith, we are given the opportunity for a new adventure. Our team is asked to send our next exploration efforts into the Mournlands. This is the previous home of House Cannith, now destroyed and blasted into glassy plains. We are told that we will not be able to heal as effectively here. Constance also knows that there are warforged that live here, and we will have to be careful. Rumors also exist that is the home of the mysterious Lord of Blades.

The Lord of Blades

What used to be called the City of Cyre, until one day when disaster struck. No one knows if the catastrophe was caused by a weapon from an enemy nation or a doomsday device of Cyre’s own design. The cataclysm may have been deliberate; it may have been an accident. In the end, the result was the same. The beautiful city exploded in a blast of arcane power the likes of which hadn’t been seen since the ruin of Xen’drik forty thousand years before. Now called the Mournland, it is quite literally, a vast open grave. Here the wounds of war never heal, vile magical effects linger, and monsters mutate into even more foul and horrible creatures. The borders of the Mournland are easily distinguished by the dead gray mist that lingers across what were once the political borders of the nation. Why the mists hold in such a defined area is unknown.

While crossing the glassy flats, we narrowly avoid an encounter with a group of warforged. Our group gets rather lucky, and we find the entrance to a large, crystal cavern. Being the brave explorers that we are, we set to searching the cave, leading our horses with us.

The surfaces of the cave are hard to look at. Light refracts through the walls and across the floor in distracting patterns. Malik, especially, is uncomfortable with all the light. While creeping down the cave, we hear some noises up ahead. We come upon two warforged, guarding the passage. Cas charges into battle, mounted on her horse Iorek. The rest of the party follows closely behind. Everyone takes some damage. For the first time, Tux transforms into a fleshraker dinosaur. He rips at one of the warforged.

Eventually we dropped them both. One is only incapacitated. Ki convinces him to help us.

Level 4 & 5 - In Xen'drik

Session 1

Fresh off the bugbear hunt, we caught word that House Cannith may be able to provide some adventuring for us. We headed across Sharn to meet our contact, Constance d'Cannith. House Cannith is known for producing mundane fine wares that although were crafted using magic, are not magical items. They create all sorts of items such as watertight barrels, horse shoes and sword hilts. Cannith dominate commerce and industry across Khorvaire. This location is run by Merrix d'Cannith, and is a large collection of forges and laboratories. They are responsible for technological wonders such as the Warforged and the Lightning rail.

All of House Cannith's wares are marked with their Coat of Arms

Upon arrival, we are asked for our credentials, Ki and Malik are the only ones able to produce reasonable papers. Tux pulled an assortment plant matter out of his bag; which according to him was supposed to be official documents. Cas shrugs, but no one seems too concerned with a small girl entering the house unidentified.

We are given a quest to explore, and now with an extra party member, we head out. Onward to Xen'drick!

The mysterious continent of Xen'drik is a massive landmass that exists south of the continent of Khorvaire, beyond Shargon's Teeth and Thunder Sea. Hidden within the wild and untamed land are the desolate ruins of the ancient Giant Civilization. After battling the Quori, the Giant Civilization was destroyed by the Dragon population of Argonnessen when they attempted to use their highly advanced devices to put down a elven slave revolt. Xen'drik is now a continent mostly inhabited by drow, and degenerate Giants. It is a wild and untamed place with fabulous eldritch machines along with unimaginable treasures. It is still largely unexplored. It's not surprising that House Cannith would want to know more about this place.

This island away from mainland Ebberon is largely unexplored. It used to house cities full of giants, but now it is full of ruins. Among these ruins it is said that brave adventurers can find treasure. House Cannith has agreed to fund our expedition provided we turn over any powerfully magic items to them.

We arrive in Stormreach. Some genius in our party decides we should get on a boat (which is never a good choice). Our boat is raided by 3 sahuagin and a shark. Horrible idea. Don't ever get on the boat. Further down the river, a giant leaps from the bank onto our boat. It takes us several rounds to defeat. For some reason this giant was carrying a magic greatsword. Cas carries this as a backup sword. No amount of treasure is worth getting on the boat.

sahuagin

We make it to the ancient giant city. A giant pyramid looms over the ruins. We wonder through the crumbling buildings, and just as we begin to wonder where to begin our search, Cas instantly stumbles upon a loose stone that leads down to the underdark. Our party finds several tunnels. We must be clever to bypass some tricky doors. And at the end of all the tunnels, what is probably under the massive pyramid we saw upon entering the city, we find a massive circular stone... thing. We don't know what it is, but it's about 100' in diameter and set a few feet down into the ground. Ki shifts uncomfortably and announces that it's a powerfully magic object. Large runes are carved into it's sides. We all give it a few feet distance. It's too frightening to sleep near, so we go topside to camp with the horses for the night.

Session 2

The next day, we continue to explore. Nearby to the magic circular stone, there are a few extra rooms in the decrepit town that we neglected to check out the day before. The majority of this day is spent searching the first room for treasure. There is a +3 giant greatsword. Cas keeps this as an addition to her growing collection of swords.

We open the door to the second room next to the stone-room. Malik instantly falls down a cliff edge. His ring of feather fall saves him, but he has to teleport back up to join the rest of the party, revealing to the party his ring and teleportation ability.

Suddenly we are attacked. We defeat the creatures, but to our dismay the large stone makes a loud noise, and cracks apart. Everyone runs.

This seems like a bad thing. We decide to rush back to House Cannith to tell someone what has happened. We don't get on the boat, and instead ride our horses back like the intelligent adventurers that we are.

Session 3

On our second night on the way back to Stormreach, still in Xen'drik, we see something in the distance. It appears to be a temple. Our group decides to investigate: after all, we were sent here by House Cannith to bring back information about Xen'drik, and after getting scared off by the giant stone, we don't have much else for them.

Upon closer inspection, the temple is almost Greek-like. It is large and rectangular, with a tall colonnade surrounding it. a couple hundred yards away we hear a clashing of metal coming from the other side of the temple. Malik decides to investigate, since he is so stealthy (and also a little creepy, Cas decides). He sees a man fighting several creatures: a naga and four sahuagin.

naga

The man seems to jump around quickly, he dodges their every blow deftly. Malik tries to join the battle and help the man. But the naga makes eye contact with him, it forces him to fight the swashbuckler man. The rest of our party joins in the fray, after all Malik is part or our party. No man (or whatever kind of creepy shadow thing he is) left behind. We fight off the sahuagin and kill the naga.

We try to question the swashbuckler, but he is gone before we can talk to him. We have bigger problems to deal with: Malik is still trying to fight us off from the temple. Cas ties him up, but he teleports away and burns through the ropes on his wrists. He becomes very annoying to babysit. Luckily, the persuasion wears off in a few hours with the help of Ki.

Now on our own again, the party explores the temple. Upon entering, we set off several traps. Most of the group is heavily damaged by the fiery explosions. It's not worth it, we decide, and head out to make camp.

The next day, we set out on the road to Stormreach. On the way, we come upon two men, garbed as adventurers. One is tall, wearing full plate armor, with a hawk that looks like his animal companion. The other man is shorter and gruffer. He is hidden under a large hood and has a bundle of arrows on his back. Our group hides off the side of the road, Ki approaches the two men. She's better with words than the rest of us heathens. After a short exchange of words, they do not seem too dangerous, and our parties join to help them.

They claim they have been searching for a quasit our group just saw. The taller one rides with Ki and the other man rides with Tux. We give chase to the quasit, with little question. Lareth, Tux's companion, helps lead us to a small pool of water. The men seem pleased with this result. The quasit is gone, but they dismount and approach the pool. "Okay here you go," the gruff man holds out a scroll to the one in plate armor. "No way, you're doing this one!" They argue for a few moments about who has to jump into the pool. "I saved your life last time, and that counts as double," the gruff man accepts that he's going to have to go, and removes his arrows and cloak. "You're getting the next one," he mumbles.

While he is swimming under, the taller man tells our party what they are up to. The two of them work for the Church of the Silver Flame, he points out their crest embossed on his armor. They have been sent to shore up several cracking seals in the area. He describes the seals to us as large circular stones. They hold back other planes from invading our own. He introduces himself as Sampson and his brother, Dean, is the one diving down to a seal below us.

Symbol for the Church of the Silver Flame

After shoring the seal, using their scroll, we head out. Using Tux's excellent survival skills, the group makes it back to Stormreach without incident. Thanks Tux. Sampson and Dean are also headed back to Sharn, so we decided to share travel costs with them. Dean, as it turns out, is unwilling to travel via airship, so we get on a boat (probably a bad idea) and sail back to the mainland without incident. And after a long time in the wild, we arrive back in Sharn.

Level 3 - Bugbear and Bandits

Our group of adventurers met today in Sharn. This is the most populous city in all of Khorvaire, and arguably all of Eberron. The city literally towers atop a cliff above the mouth of the Dagger River in southern Breland. Sharn is known as The City of Towers.

Map of the City of Sharn

We all crowded around a board of flyers posted by those seeking adventurers. We resolved to set out to hunt down a bugbear hiding out north of the city. Out party was comprised of:

• Malik: He is clearly a shady individual. He is an elf that shadows literally dance around, and he appears to be able to pull a knife out of any fold in his clothing.
• Ki: She is travelling with Malik, although she seems to be very normal elf at first glance. Unknown to everyone but Malik is that she's a Changeling. 
• Tux & Lareth: He is a half-elf druid with a wolf companion. Tux can only be described as the smelliest member of our group.
• Cas: This young, human girl doesn't appear to be an adventurer at all. But she carries a big sword, and seems fairly hardy.

After fighting through some bandits and defeating the bugbear, we haul loot and spoils back to Sharn to claim our reward. Among our loot is a mysterious sponge. Not knowing what to do with this, Ki pockets it and promptly forgets about it.

bugbear