Goals:

The Deck of Many Things, book 2 p. 5

Wjizzo’s ancient ivory cards, “Ruin” and “Donjon” come from a larger deck. There is a strange power in each card, and the magic of the Deck is surely greater than the sum of the individual powers.

Priest of the Eye, book 2 p. 6

Quoth High-priest Grundelmar in Fallcrest to Fosden: “Years ago, adventurers destroyed a cult of the Elder Elemental Eye but the leader, Vadin Cartwright, escaped. The Sun Lord has spoken in my dreams to warn that Cartwright is still a danger. He dabbles with forces beyond mortal understanding that could be disastrous, and must be sought among the dead in old Gardmore Abbey.”
Quoth Pelor Sun-father: “The Temple is too high above you few.”

Peace with the Fey, book 2 p. 9

Lord Padraig of Winterhaven said: “Thanks for scouting the Abbey. Here’s 600 gp.
“The fey you describe living in these woods might be useful allies against the orcs and the best way to stop the raids. Find their leader and make peace with them, securing their cooperation.”
He had his scrivener draw up a document recognising Velfarren’s claim to the Feygrove, to be given to the Elf-knight if his claim is proven.

Establish a Claim, book 2 p. 13

The High Elf knight, Sir Berrian Velfarren, said: “My father had a hand in the establishment of this grove, and your Lord Padraig will recognise our rightful claim here if the proof of it can be demonstrated.”

‘Icon Relationship’ Benefits pending

Cram, Thwarter of Orcus, Bearer of the Mark of Orcus: A benefit with complications.
Cram, Chosen of the Spirits, restorer of nature to the Tower: A benefit with complications.
*It would be great if we could tie a Cram benefit to The Winterbole Codex *
Wjizzo, Something enigmatic in the Feywild: A clear benefit
Eric Bloodhammer, Conflicted of Bahamut: A clear benefit and a benefit with complications.
Fosden, chosen of Pelor: A benefit with complications.

The Tale of Hrom

Wjizzo sifted through Valdomar’s notes and papers, looking for anything dealing with magical theory, practical magic, or the nature of the Far Realm. He discarded reams of self-pitying cant about the tragic loss of Elaida and his misguided ritual to preserve her against death, which crazed motive they now knew to have led only to Valdomar himself falling into undeath, whilst achieving no more than imposing a travesty upon the mortal remains of his dead love. He discarded also some sentimental scribblings about the two other Paladins whom Valdomar had subsequently locked in ice.
Though separated from them by a century and more, Eric Bloodhammer nevertheless identified with these Paladins of Bahamut as though they were his shield-brother and -sister, and was offended at their treatment. Seeking to stand witness to their memory through the only obituary that remained, however inadequate, he reverently read through every word from Valdomar’s pen.

One of the Paladins, who had come to the Order as one Hrom of Winterbole, had risen to stand as a hero among their ranks and had been one of four knights tasked with a sacred duty in the height of the Siege of Gardmore Abbey. They were to be the four Swordsmen, and bear an arc containing a holy brazier into the midst of the foe, there to unleash its mighty power. But at the appointed time Hrom could not come to his brothers’ side. Vandomar directed the three to defend themselves in the Garrison until Hrom might come, and cast a protection of Abjuratio magic over the portal. When Vandomar, already driven to distraction by the death of Elaida, finally found Hrom’s body slain by spiders he incoherently locked it in ice to stay the venomous corruption within it.
Eric read this out to his companions. “And now I have cut this knight’s body free to show him the respect of a decent burial.” He drew the dead man’s sword from its scabbard, a heavy single-edged falchion, and its balance felt perfect in his hand. “Best way to honour the chap would be to discover the end of his unfulfilled mission. Find an end to his tale, what?”
Cram was unconvinced. “He was killed by spiders, was the end of his tale, a hundred years ago! And you’re not even a Paladin”
Eric glowered, one hand knotting absently in his great beard. “I was an innocent party in the whole business. You have to trust me on that. All I can say is that there was a reason for it. And the consequence was that I am currently classed as a deserter.”
Wjizzo looked up. “Nothing. Not a single mention of the Deck of Many Things in any of this dross! It looks as though only having a single dormant card, he had no idea what it was. But…” He flourished the scroll that had lain upon the shroud over the flesh golem. “If you want to go where your Hrom was supposed to be, I think we’ll need this ritual.”
“It’ll be dead easy!” exclaimed Eric. “Simple as pie. Get in there, jiggle the sword about and get the dish.”

The Haunted Garrison

“Follow me, boys. This way!”
Eric, Wjizzo, Cram and Fosden filed purposefully out of the door and around the back of the tower. Fosden stole a glance about, that he hoped wouldn’t look too furtive. There were only a few orcs in sight and none of them paying them any attention.
The orc Ramposh still waited dejectedly in the wagon. He half rose, scrabbling for his warflail, but subsided when he saw his friend Wjizzo, and visibly brightened when the elf tossed him an exotic-looking heavy bronze paperweight.
“I’m not doing this in full sight of any orcs that might happen round a corner,” Wjizzo said, holding up the scroll. “We need to back the wagon towards the doors on that garrison building over there, and I’ll read the incantation out from under the canopy.” And mostly through the main force of Cram and Eric, with Fosden soothing the backing nags, they rolled it to within a few yards. Wjizzo began enunciating the arcane syllables of the formulised ritual.
“We don’t have to do this, you know,” Cram commented sourly. “This is not why we came. The orcs don’t come anywhere near this miserable-looking building, the ravens even avoid the sky above it. There’s probably a damned good reason to have nothing to do with it.”
Ice-blue light began to glimmer across the great doors of the garrison as Wjizzo recited on, spreading until a fine tracery stood out all across their surfaces. And a couple of minutes later when he reached the end it was abruptly extinguished.
“A Glyph of Warding,” explained Wjizzo. “Could have been nasty.”

Eric Bloodhammer drew the sword of Hrom that he had slung on a baldric at his shoulder and stepped up to the massive wooden portals with twin reliefs of rampant dragons each bearing two swords, one held aloft and the other pointing downward. “Over the door,” he said, pointing his sword at a carved inscription. “It says, ‘Ever vigilant the dragon’.”
 
Even as he spoke, a black shadow emerged from the stone of the wall beside the left-hand portal, and a blast of cold knifed right through the adventurers, though no blade of grass stirred. They could make out no detail of its blackness but it had the outline of an armoured man in a silently fluttering cloak, with shadow-stuff streaming off it and vanishing into the air.
Ramposh uttered an orcish curse and dove into the back of the wagon, tugging at Wjizzo to follow suit.
“What the fuck is that?” shuddered Cram.
“Silas, I am,” came the breathy reply, “Sir Silas. Or so I was,” it added, almost to itself.
“Looks like there’s a lot of blackguarding going on around here, Eric.” Cram unsheathed his great fullblade.
“Except this one should have died of old age a century ago,” warned Fosden.
“Only the bearer of the lonely sword passes this way unharmed,” it said.
“You mean this?” asked Eric.
“Vandomar must open the seal.”
“He’s stuck in the past,” whispered Wjizzo, shrugging the orc off. “I just used Vandomar’s scroll to open it.”
“Gather round, chaps! Everyone take a hold of this sword so we’re all the bearers of it.” Everyone took hold rather than face whatever the alternative might be.
The wraith-knight continued in the same whispering tone. “Must reach the garrison,
“The garrison, Vandomar? Why there?
“Defensible. Until we are all assembled and can bring it forth to carry the battle unto the Undead.”
“Is he actually talking to us, or just reliving something? Reliving it – you know – as a dead person.”
“Seal us in till Hrom can come?
“There are demons already in here with us!”
“Whoa, what demons?”
“Vile, unspeakable demon of the nether orange waste.”
“Looks like he’s talking to us all right.”
“Yes,” agreed Cram. “But he’s not telling us anything good. He means Barlgura, like that one Vandomar has on ice, and the one that the gnoll cultists had in Thunderspire. They’re fast, they can run straight up walls faster than a man can run, they’re incredibly strong, and they go completely ape when they get seriously wounded. And they’re a wizard’s worst nightmare.”
“Eh?” asked Wjizzo in alarm.
“Well I was once telling the tale in the Blue Moon Alehouse, how we smacked down that one in Thunderspire, and a Tiefling lightning mage told me they hail from the nether orange waste in whatever level of the Abyss it was. And he told me that after he lightning-bolted one of them, it earthed his attacks away for the rest of the battle so they hardly touched it.
“I make that six clear warnings that it’s a bad idea to have anything to do with this pla—”
Eric Bloodhammer did not need to hear any more. He took one last step and pushed open the great portals.

Madness Falls

Wjizzo sensed the Shuffling, but before he could give a warning the whispers of the black shade of Sir Silas suddenly rose to an insane shriek and he hurled himself at Eric. He bore no weapon but grasped out before Eric could raise his guard and assailed his senses with a shaking horror.
Next to Wjizzo, the shadow of the Donjon card appeared in the very spot the shade had just left.
Through the doors Eric could see another two wraith-knight figures, and through an archway beyond came a furious demonic howl.

Eric tried to strike the wraith away with his falchion, but the thing was inside his guard and seemingly insubstantial. His blows were all but useless against it, but he felt something of strength through the sword-hilt in his hand and regained somewhat of his composure.
Wjizzo stepped over to claim the zone of the Donjon’s power, but for the moment simply shot a Ray of Frost from Vandomar’s Staff of Winter. The wraith-knight spasmed as it was struck, for all that the Ray continued through it, past Eric, and into the right-hand door.
A great blur of orange rounded a corner within the building by bouncing off a wall with a massive thump and hurtled into the fray, swinging left and right at Eric and Cram.
Cram span right around, following the weight of his mighty blade, and striking the Barlgura and the wraith.
Fosden placed a hand on Eric’s shoulder. “Pelor aid this righteous warrior,” he said, and Eric felt much-needed strength flow back into him, as Fosden half turned, and continued, “And smite the abominable with thy light!” A shaft of light sprang from the gauntlet gripping his spear and lanced into the wraith, breaking it into tatters of darkness that melted away into the air.
The other two wraiths swept up behind the Barlgura and into the attack, the first one shaking Eric yet further with the insane horror of its whispers whilst the other made for Wjizzo. “We must gain the garrison,” it hissed uncertainly, with no effect upon the wizard.

Eric, beset by demon and wraith, struck out at the latter. His falchion passed through it, but the wraith bucked and shreds of shadow-stuff were ripped away in the wake of his blade.
Wjizzo used the power offered by the shadow of the Donjon card beneath his feet, and with an eldritch churning of the air, the Barlgura demon was simply gone. Wjizzo himself was thrown clear of the shadowed spot, reeling across several yards to come up ungently against a corner of ruined wall.
A scant moment later the demon was back in the room, but too disoriented to attack.
Cram span his fullblade on and on, striking perfect shadow-ripping blows through the two remaining wraiths, and ending by burying his edge in the Barlgura ape-demon. The monster gave vent to a massive howl of fury, which must have spoiled Fosden’s aim as his Javelin of Faith shot high of its mark. And unaffected by it, one wraith seized the advantage and forced itself upon the off-balance Cram, incoherent whispers filling him with nightmare dread. Wjizzo having hurtled away, the second wraith fell upon Fosden and inflicted similar horrors upon him.

Goals:

The Deck of Many Things, book 2 p. 5

Wjizzo’s ancient ivory card named “Ruin” comes from a larger deck. There’s certainly a strange power in the card, and the magic of the Deck is surely greater than the magic of the individual cards.

Priest of the Eye, book 2 p. 6

Quoth Grundelmar in Fallcrest to Fosden: “Years ago, adventurers destroyed a cult of the Elder Elemental Eye but the leader, Vadin Cartwright, escaped. Well, the Sun Lord has spoken in my dreams to let me know that Cartwright is still a danger. He is dabbling with forces beyond mortal understanding that could be disastrous, and must be sought among the dead in old Gardmore Abbey.”
Quoth Pelor Sun-father: “The Temple is too high above you few.”

Peace with the Fey, book 2 p. 9

Lord Padraig of Winterhaven said: “Thanks for scouting the Abbey. Here’s 600 gp.
“The fey you describe living in these woods might be useful allies against the orcs and the best way to stop the raids. Find their leader and make peace with them, securing their cooperation.”
He had his scrivener draw up a document recognising Velfarren’s claim to the Feygrove, to be given to the Elf-knight if his claim is proven.

Establish a Claim, book 2 p. 13

The High Elf knight, Sir Berrian Velfarren, said: “My father had a hand in the establishment of this grove, and your Lord Padraig will recognise our rightful claim here if the proof of it can be demonstrated.”

Tower of the Archmage, book 2 p. 5

Valthrun the lorekeeper told you there is a tower in the village below the abbey, which he believes to be the location of The Winterbole Codex, a tome bound in white dragon scales, which he would very much like to get to read.

‘Icon Relationship’ Benefits pending

Cram: Re-roll Relationship dice again!
It would be great if we could tie a Cram benefit to The Winterbole Codex
Wjizzo, Something enigmatic in the Feywild: A clear benefit
Eric Bloodhammer, Conflicted of Bahamut: A clear benefit and a benefit with complications.
Fosden, chosen of Pelor: A benefit with complications.

Something on the Cards

Wjizzo heard a sound uncannily like the shuffling of playing cards. “Did you hear that?” he asked, receiving only curious looks from his companions, and then realised recognised it for an arcane manifestation.
And then he saw a strange formation of sourceless shadows in a corner of the chamber between two of Vandomar’s great blocks of ice, which he recognised for the projection of a card of the Deck of Many Things just as Vandomar saw it too and glared accusingly at his visitors.
“No!” shrieked the frozen archmage. “That’s different! Nothing is allowed to become different, I say!”

“We’re on,” Wjizzo muttered to the others, beginning to edge forward.
“What wizardry is this?” puzzled Eric, sizing up the situation.
Cram stepped forward to occupy the frozen archmage-creature’s attention, allowing Wjizzo to advance behind him. “Vandomar, Vandomar, we mean you no harm. But we are people of the living world, and we do mean to rejoin it.”
Vandomar peered at him. “You have the mark of Orcus upon you,” he croaked wonderingly, ignoring all else to focused his arcane senses on the barbarian before him. ”You must not die at any other hand—”
Cram talked on. “We have all had experiences with the Demon Prince of the Undead. We all care deeply about the people of the Abbey and would like to see them returned.”
“Yes! Oh yes,” agreed Vandomar, suddenly wistful. “But you must be preserved, that Orcus himself may gather you unto him!”
“Bahamut preserve us all,” said Fosden from behind the others.
And then Eric seemed to have figured it out. “Do it now!” he hollered to Wjizzo. “(The boy’s a genius.) CHARGE!”

Wjizzo disappeared from sight.
“Take them, my friends,” cried Vandomar, stretching out his arms and the globe-topped staff in his right hand. “Stop them!”
A moment later Wjizzo reappeared in the far corner of the chamber, standing upon the manifestation of the Donjon card, his gaze fixed upon the frozen Archmage.
“Fuck you, Vandomar,” spat Cram, raising his fullblade.
And Wjizzo wielded the power of the Donjon card. In a sharp percussion Vandomar disappeared and Wjizzo was hurled bodily forward, colliding with Cram and tumbling to the floor. Where he had been standing, the area around the manifestation of the Donjon card was filled with an ominous low-howling wind.
“What the fuck? Where’s he gone?”
“I’ve sent him back where he deserves to be,” gasped Wjizzo.

The Cold of the Grave

Icy vapours began to billow massively from the inert snow-shrouded forms upon Vandomar’s four tables in the centre of the chamber, plunging to the floor and wreathing Wjizzo, and everyone else’s feet and legs, in intense cold. The four things began to lurch upright.
“NYEARGHHH!” yelled Cram, giving vent to his fury as he hacked into the snowy figure rising before him. Heedless of the injury to itself, the thing lurched on into him with hands grabbing and grasping, leaching the living warmth from the barbarian and holding him within the floor-hugging vapour that sapped the power of movement from his legs.
Eric took aim and sank the point of his warhammer into the skull of another rising figure, right between its eyes. But the thing continued to rise and its pooling vapours struck his legs numb, and the horrified Eric recoiled into a back-stance, shield presented at full guard.
“By the power of the Sun vested in me,” Fosden intoned behind him, with rising intensity, “Abominations, I give ye back to death!” Holy golden sunlight burst blindingly from his medallion and utterly destroyed two of the four ice-mummified things, frost flashing away to wisps of steam, unliving flesh searing to smoke, and blackened bones tumbling to the floor.

Wjizzo leapt to his feet out of the freezing vapours hugging the floor and drew his longsword to join against Cram’s assailant, but failed to wound it as the chill still bit into his feet and legs. Cram himself paid no heed to the rising cold, eschewing the use of his feet and legs to concentrate on hewing strokes of his sword-arms. The mummified thing fell upon Wjizzo, bearing down through his guard and grasping him close to pour its eldritch chillth into his living flesh, even as Cram’s sword came down and crunched through several ribs.

Eric fared no better, finding no opening to add more than a graze to his already skull-punctured adversary. With a thrust of his shield he bought a moment in which to fall back and stand shoulder to shoulder with Fosden.
But the frozen corpse-thing used the moment to answer Fosden’s holy energy with a curse of its own, all but rooting the cleric to the spot before lurching in to clutch icily at Eric more viciously than ever. The cold conducted right through the steel plates of his armour, but Eric quick-thinkingly shrugged the creature’s grasp from his arm and neck to his chest where the padded arming-coat beneath his breastplate blocked half the chill.

Wjizzo thrust his casting orb right into the face of the mummy upon him, the bursting colours of his “_Imbre colorem!_” leaving it weakened and reeling. Cram seized the advantage to smite down on the undead thing, cleaving it from shoulder to waist, and was revitalised by his victory.
“Well done, over there!” cheered Eric, showing a war-leader’s encouragement of his troops. “Now get over here to our aid. Fosdick’s suffering – it’s a right saga.” He followed his words with a trenchant blow staggering the mummy before him.
Fosden sought to finish the thing, but his spear was ill-suited to such close quarters and tangled between his own ankles, causing him to pitch to the floor beneath the mummy’s billows of icy vapour.
“Man down! Man down! On me!” cried Eric.
But it was the mummy that fell upon him, inflicting its freezing power through both hands locked about his helm. Only the warmth of the quilted arming cap beneath it spared Eric from sinking into frigid unconsciousness.
With Cram still hollering his victory, Wjizzo span away across the chamber, grabbing up the Winterbole Codex with a magical thought and floating it along behind him as he stabbed at the mummy locked upon Eric.
Eric seized the moment of its distraction and felled it with a hammer-blow that broke its pierced skull into bony fragments. The headless corpse collapsed at his feet.
“By the power of Bloodhammer!” he crowed.

The chamber was theirs. Eric moved to one of the great blocks of ice encasing a Paladin. “For Bahamut!” he cried, and dealt the block a mighty blow of his warhammer that sent cracks crazing though the ice.
“Vandomar may yet make a way back into this world,” cautioned Wjizzo. “Cram, stand ready for him. Hold your sword right there in the space where he was when I banished him.”
Cram moved as Wjizzo directed. “Come on back, you bastard,” he snarled, keeping the rage pulsing through him.
Eric continued to lay into the block of ice as the others awaited Vandomar’s return, and in short order he shattered the Paladin free. Fosden came up as Eric hastened onward to the next block, but within moments pronounced the Paladin preserved in death, rather than preserved in life.
Wjizzo moved to search the Paladin’s body.
“He’s a Paladin!” Eric protested to him. And then:“Fosden, you’re the padre. Do the rite thing!”
“Take the tithe!” urged Wjizzo in reply.

Time dragged on with Vandomar failing to reappear. Wjizzo even began to think his sense of the Donjon card’s power must have been wrong, and that Vandomar might be banished to the extraplanar pocket-dimension forever. But then, with a second percussive report, Vandomar was back in the chamber, just alongside Cram’s waiting fullblade.
Wjizzo threw his full force into a massively-empowered Acid Arrow. Cram recoiled from the path of the very attack that had slain Varris, and Vandomar reacted just as fast, raising his staff to punch up a desperate shield of force. To Wjizzo’s shocked surprise it deflected the spell just wide, and Vandomar suffered no more than a few sizzling spatters of eldritch acid, whilst the main force of the spell burst a hole clear through the stone wall of the tower.
Cram had a new object for his unsubsided rage. “Welcome back,” he leered as he drew back his sword. “And give Orcus my love.” And with a ferocious howl he struck Vandomar’s upper chest, spraying up shattered icicles and sending him crashing back against the great block of ice behind him.
With a last glance at the Paladin killed by Vandomar’s twisted attempt at preservation, Eric turned to charge down the mage. “You bastard!” he spat plummily, with uncustomary profanity, battering his Vandomar’s staff aside with his shield and landing his warhammer in the creature’s side.
Staggered and harried by the intensity of the assaults upon him, the frozen mage raised a shimmering white halo of cold magic about his staff, thrusting it at Cram, but the barbarian did not give an inch.
And then before their eyes the air around Vandomar burst with a riot of dystopic colour as Wjizzo focused a perfect Colour Spray to bludgeon the senses of the undead thing and drop it lifeless to the floor.

Sweet Victory

”Did you feel it?” Wjizzo asked the others excitedly. “Two cards of The Deck brought into close proximity, and when Vandomar became hostile there was a ‘shuffling’ and one of them manifested its power! And the elements of chance were heightened all through the battle, and fell out in our favour!”
Cram’s rage subsided into jubilation at having battled through unnatural minions, climbed the tower of an evil wizard and slain him in the topmost chamber. It was a barbarian’s dream come true, blunted only slightly by the fact that a High Elf’s magic had struck the final knell.
“Well we had better luck here than before,” he growled, “when that Card of Ruin was more like a curse upon us that cost Varris his life. I still will not trust in these fickle magicks!”
“He’s right,” exclaimed Eric. “In case you missed it, your elements of chance fell steeply in favour of that cold-preserved thing attacking me as well and it damn’ well nearly did for me twice over!”
“Let’s grab anything that’s valuable, and get the hell out of this cold,” Cram said.
“Not yet,” said Eric. “We must extricate these worthy knights so that we can give them a decent burial.”
And the card,” added Wjizzo. Inches from where its manifestation has appeared upon the floor of the chamber, the Donjon card of the Deck of Many Things lay encased in the block of ice containing the apprentice whom Valdomar had named Rubor.

After hacking the ice away from the dead Paladins and wizard’s apprentices, they departed the icy chamber with bodies to bury, a second card of the Deck of Many Things, a Staff of Winter, a locket from about Vandomar’s neck, the Winterbole Codex, and a bundle of books and scrolls.

In the room at the foot of the stairwell, the elemental magics had dissipated upon Vandomar’s death. “Warped magic,” spat Cram. “The spirits will be glad that this place is back to being a normal part of the world.” And he went to guard the door.
The others sank onto the chairs and benches about the room, all except Eric who climbed back up the stairs to bring more bodies back down.
Fosden opened Vandomar’s locket and found within it a miniature painting of one “Elaida”, a raven-haired beauty in plate armour with the features of the incongruous female head that had been ‘preserved’ upon the torso of the flesh golem. “He sought to preserve his dead love,” Fosden mused, “but oh so misguided. And everything else here came of that. Vandomar fell because of love.”
“The past is passed,” snorted Eric. “The man was a fool, and paid the price more than a century ago.”
Wjizzo perused the Winterbole Codex. “This discusses magical lines of power running between this world and the Feywild, which relate in various ways to ‘the World Tree’ and something called ‘Whisperer’. And it discusses how the shamans of the Tigerclaw barbarians, followers of ‘Hunter of Winter’, have some way of channelling that power.”

The ‘Southern Artefact’ and the Watchtower

Amongst the scrolled papers of abstract notes on arcane formulae and magical rituals, one unbound manuscript stood out, containing Vandomar’s reflections on the events at fall of Gardmore Abbey. He recorded his conclusion, if not his reasons for reaching it, that a “Southern Artefact” in the Paladins’ possession was responsible for the Chaos unleashed on that fateful day.

Having survived the downfall of the Abbey, Vandomar was driven by duty to focus his attentions on one particular phenomenon, despite bemoaning the fact that he had all but lost his reason through an overwhelming loss that to him outweighed all the destruction of so many lives. Amongst his duties to the community of Gardmore had been the operation of various magical scrying devices in the lofty watchtower at the southern end of the site. He found himself no longer able to access the tower, which he reported to have been sequestered from the world in which it stood. He conjectured that, in marked contrast to its effects anywhere else in the Abbey, the Artefact had caused energies and paradigms of the ‘Far Realm’ to project into the tower through the arcane channels that lay open in the scrying devices located there.

His further researches concluded that the tower stood abstracted from the normal world by a ‘dimensional rift’, and locked in a bizarre condition of stasis. His notes continued beyond this point, but in a series of fevered tangents obsessed with attempting to create a retrospective stasis “in which she never died.”

Mission Accomplished. All take an Incremental Advance.

Rules Clarification

I looked this up after Fosden did his Invocation of the Sun while locked in combat with Frankie.

Casting a spell (that’s not a ‘Close-quarters’ one) incurs Attacks of Opportunity from engaged opponents. But those are reactions, not interrupts, and being hit does not prevent you casting your spell.
But I AM going to house rule that if they knock you out, you have to make a normal save (11+, i.e. 50/50) to get the spell off before you go down.

Goals:

The Deck of Many Things, book 2 p. 5

Wjizzo’s ancient ivory card named “Ruin” comes from a larger deck. There’s certainly a strange power in the card, and the magic of the Deck is surely greater than the magic of the individual cards.

Priest of the Eye, book 2 p. 6

Quoth Grundelmar in Fallcrest to Fosden: “Years ago, adventurers destroyed a cult of the Elder Elemental Eye but the leader, Vadin Cartwright, escaped. Well, the Sun Lord has spoken in my dreams to let me know that Cartwright is still a danger. He is dabbling with forces beyond mortal understanding that could be disastrous, and must be sought among the dead in old Gardmore Abbey.”
Quoth Pelor Sun-father: “The Temple is too high above you few.”

Peace with the Fey, book 2 p. 9

Lord Padraig of Winterhaven said: “Thanks for scouting the Abbey. Here’s 600 gp.
“The fey you describe living in these woods might be useful allies against the orcs and the best way to stop the raids. Find their leader and make peace with them, securing their cooperation.”
He had his scrivener draw up a document recognising Velfarren’s claim to the Feygrove, to be given to the Elf-knight if his claim is proven.

Establish a Claim, book 2 p. 13

The High Elf knight, Sir Berrian Velfarren, said: “My father had a hand in the establishment of this grove, and your Lord Padraig will recognise our rightful claim here if the proof of it can be demonstrated.”

Tower of the Archmage, book 2 p. 5

Valthrun the lorekeeper told you there is a tower in the village below the abbey, which he believes to be the location of The Winterbole Codex, a tome bound in white dragon scales, which he would very much like to get to read.

‘Icon Relationship’ Benefits pending

Cram and Fosden: Relationships to re-roll.
It would be great if we could give Cram a benefit from The Winterbole Codex
Wjizzo, Something enigmatic in the Feywild: A clear benefit
Eric Bloodhammer, Conflicted of Bahamut: A clear benefit and a benefit with complications.

Original Ringers: Cram and Wjizzo, roll immediately on your Relationship with Orcus, Demon Prince of the Undead, for what impact it might have in this encounter with Valdemar.

Into the Tower

Taking great care to target the dragonman-shaped gargoyles and not Eric, Cram or Fosden, Wjizzo essayed a new spell for the first time, extending his index and little fingers and punched the air. Twin waves of force smacked out, one striking dust from the tower wall just where the airborne gargoyle had been, and the other pounding into the one on the ground with a grate of straining stone and driving it back against Cram’s boots.
Eric Bloodhammer put his whole weight behind a downward blow and, with the battle just starting to turn in their favour, his pickaxe-like weapon struck the grounded gargoyle in the pinion, making a fault line and shearing the whole wing off the monster. Cracks spread outwards with a loud splintering noise, and a moment later the gargoyle literally fell apart into dozen chunks of rubble.

The gargoyles’ preternatural senses having detected only a single prey, they had been alarmed to find no fewer than three opponents before them when they sprang round the corner, and now one of them had been destroyed. The survivor threw caution to the wind and span away, taking a solid blow from Eric on its trailing leg rather than give battle to them all. It folded its wings and banked to fly in through the doorway of the tower with familiar ease, Cram in hot pursuit but unable to match its winged speed. The gargoyle touched down behind a great fallen obelisk in the middle of the tower’s ground floor room, turning and poised to spring away again, but Cram drew up short.

The chill interior of the tower coursed with unfettered magic, flickers of fire and sparking power glimmering over the floor, the air alive with the reek of acid and the sense of a storm about to break. At the centre was a large fallen obelisk of stone, with a large recumbent form lying upon it, draped in a huge shroud.

Fosden twisted in through the doorway and shot his crossbow, forcing the gargoyle to duck. And when his bolt thudded into the bookcase beyond, the shrouded creature sat up and with one huge arm literally swatted Cram to the ground. As the sheet fell away, a scroll that had lain upon its breast falling to the floor, the group beheld a monstrous creation of flesh easily a head and a half taller than Cram, clad only in a thin shift, and with the incongruously small head of a once-beautiful woman stitched onto the shoulders of its patchwork muscular body.
“That scroll could be the means of controlling it!” cried Wjizzo as he joined the others in the doorway, and a beckoning gesture brought the scroll flying into his hand. Hastily unrolling it and glancing over its contents, he frowned. No, this is something else, some rite of cancellation too long to be relevant here."
“Never mind, then,” boomed Eric right in his ear. He shouldered through between Wjizzo and Fosden and stood over Cram. He held his great shield upraised and put his left foot back to brace for impact… and from the spot where his foot touched erupted a spout of lurid green acid that splashed over him, eliciting hissing sizzles from the steel of his armour and a grievous cry from Eric himself as several splashes burned into his skin. But here in Gardmore Abbey, he remembered the vision he had had from the goddess Ioun, of the steadfast endurance of the Paladins of Bahamut, and he resolved not to succumb.
Slinging his crossbow on its lanyard back over his shoulder, Fosden cried, “Back, foul creation!” and brandished his medallion of Pelor in his gauntleted hand. Beams of light lanced forth, but more shot past the monster than struck it, and those that did seemed to do it little harm. But those that fell upon Cram wrapped him in a glow of protection.
As the gargoyle hopped around the obelisk and up onto a desk-cum-workbench, Cram surged to his feet, giving no thought to his own defence as he hacked out in a great swinging arc. A shallow score across the chest of the woman-headed monstrosity seemed to give it — or her? — little pause, but the swing followed on to land in the ribs of the gargoyle, knocking it from its perch on the workbench to stagger against the wall.
And then, her face still slackly expressionless, the flesh golem lurched up off the obelisk and stormed right into Eric and Cram. Eric gave ground and leaned back to avoid a flailing arm, but Cram was still off-balance and took a huge knee right in the face that felled him on the spot. The thing now towered right in the midst of the three adventurers still standing.
The warped magic erupted in a burst of thunder that shuddered a number of mouldering books and papers off the shelves in the far corner, and boomed around the whole chamber. “That’ll have woken some orcs up,” said Wjizzo dourly. “But for right now, Imbre Colorem!” Despite being at close quarters with the construct-monstrosity that now loomed right over him, his own magic flashed out in a dizzying burst of coloured light around its head, making the thing give out an unnatural groan of angered pain.

Tactically, Eric Bloodhammer saw the need to finish the gargoyle, lest it fall upon the unconscious Cram. He stepped past the flesh golem’s back with his warhammer raised for a swing but just as he closed there was a detonation in the air around him as a second focus-point of the warped magic brought crushing pressures in upon him from all sides. The gargoyle laughed in Eric’s face as his hammer-blow fell harmlessly past it, but as it sprang into the air again he had the last laugh, his back-swing shattering away half of its tail before it could get away. The injured thing flapped off up to drop out of sight onto the staircase up the tower.

Fosden crouched away from the flailing arms of the flesh golem, sidling over to Cram and holding his golden gauntlet over his slumped form. A ray like shining sunlight illuminated the barbarian’s face, and Cram awoke muttering something about how it couldn’t be morning yet…
And gripping his spear in both hands, Fosden pushed upwards, stabbing the golem in the side.
“YOU should definitely never have woken up!” yelled Cram, springing to his feet and dealing the flesh golem a mighty blow, and taking heart to see that the monster could be hurt by good cold steel.
The monster continued to lay about her. One fist hammered down on Wjizzo, powering through his desperate Shield spell with enough force to batter him to the ground, at the same time as the other delivered Cram a great open-handed slap sending him reeling backwards.
Like a force of chaos, magical fire suddenly blossomed in the air around Eric, frazzling his great red beard. And the flesh golem cringed away from it in obvious fear.
“It’s a pentacle!” exclaimed Wjizzo. “Those three points where the elemental magic has erupted are no mere triangle, but three points of a five-pointed circle! Keep your distance!” And then, “It’s just a pity I didn’t learn any fire spells today,” he muttered under his breath, using a cantrip instead to wrap the fallen shroud around the golem’s head and face.

The gargoyle driven off if not destroyed, Eric returned to the fray and planted his warhammer with a sickening crunch right in the spine of the golem. No response registered on the fine features of the dead woman’s face, the head looking round to regard Eric matter-of-factly, though the sudden awkwardness of the monster’s movements was more than compensated for by the increased ferocity with which it now laid about itself.
“Pelor, I invoke thy dominion of the Sun above!” cried Fosden, and he took a stance, presenting his medallion, sunlight suddenly streaming from his whole body. “Sorcerous creation, ye are judged, and found monstrous in the sight of the Sun Lord!” The golem swept an arm around that failed to land a blow upon Fosden, whose light seared into it, raising wisps of smoke where it struck.
Cram gave vent to his Rage and wailed upon the monster with his fullblade but for the moment seemed always a step behind its spinning moves, the great blade failing to strike with any weight. As the monster came about, leaving Fosden in its wake, it punched out left at Eric who just managed to fend off most of the shock with his shield, and right at Cram who was again driven bodily off his feet.
The warped magic in the chamber erupted yet again, this time in an ice-cold blast right at Eric’s back, that made the knight groan with the chill. And “Imbre Colorem!” incanted Wjizzo a second time, his pulsing globes of colour further assaulting the monster’s senses.
Eric’s next blow struck only feebly, Fosden thrust his spear into the monster’s back, and Cram rebounded from his insulting slap-down with a blood-curdling scream of fury, hewing with such force that his sword cleft diagonally right through the monster’s chest. “That’s done it!” he crowed. The top half of its torso was sheared right off, and the unnatural life animating the golem’s members was suddenly extinguished. Stitches gave out, and the womans head rolled to Cram’s feet, looking up with sightless eyes but remarkably well-preserved.

Up to the Top Chamber

“Get away from the circle!” exhorted Wjizzo, as the same thing just began to dawn on everyone, even Eric. They backed away to the walls and then began to edge up onto the staircase climbing the tower, gathering their breath and steeling themselves for the next challenge.
Eric cautiously rounded the first corner. The direly wounded dragon-man gargoyle still cowered behind the parapet a few steps above, and now launched into the air. With furious beats of its wings it angled down and shot out of the tower before anyone could bring an attack to bear upon it.
The four carried on upwards as the stair spiralled tighter into the waist of the tower, Fosden coming up behind Eric’s shield, holding a torch aloft in his glittering gauntlet and his spear in the other, to probe each stone step before Eric’s feet.
“I’m just wary that where there are no guardians or protective magics, there might be nefarious traps of a simpler, mechanical nature,” he explained.
As they advanced upwards, and the chill of the tower grew ever more intense, Eric regaled everyone with the tale of one Roger who ceased to be known as ‘the dodger’ after losing a particularly unfortunate part of his anatomy in the jaws of a mechanical trap.
At length, Wjizzo looked up from perusing the golem’s scroll by a light conjured within his wizard’s orb. “This describes a way for a wizard to apply a ritual of Counter-magic to undo some spell of Abjuratio warding magic erected by whoever wrote the scroll. It appears the spell was performed to protect some paladins and a thing of great power in their keeping, amid the chaos of the Abbey’s last stand.”

“Here, do you think?” asked Eric, gesturing up the last flight of stairs to where they ended before an impressive pair of doors.
Wjizzo essayed the first clause, and discerned immediately that this wasn’t the place where the Abjuratio warding had been set.
Eric pressed an ear to the chill timbers of one door, hearing nothing, and pulling away before his ear might freeze in place. He tried the doors, and felt a resistance to his push.
With a “Stand back!” he took two paces and threw his shoulder into the door, which burst open with a splintering of the ice that coated their reverse. A freezing gust of air billowed over them, and Wjizzo shuddered at something else. He told the others that a spell had just been triggered, communicating down the centre of the stairwell, probably to the obelisk below. Peering over the parapet he neither saw nor sensed any cause for alarm. But Eric and Fosden were already into the room.

Meeting the Archmage

The top of what Valthrun had termed ‘The Tower of the Archmage’ was one great square chamber. The light from narrow slit windows high above their heads lanced down to sparkle upon the frost that coated every surface.
“Visitors, after all this time!” came a husky exclamation from a figure at the far side of the chamber. A stooping human form straightened and turned towards them in a crackle of frost that broke and re-froze at its every movement. Its withered face and the hands that cradled a staff topped with a globe of swirling white motes were a deathly pale blue, and its beard and Bahamut-emblazoned white robe bristled with tiny icicles. “Let us remember this moment for ever,” it spake.
Seeing the emblem of the Platinum Dragon, Eric took a step forward and bowed to one knee. “Bahamut be praised,” he said reverently. “Might a humble soldier enquire as to whom he has the honour to address?”
The others filed in behind him, peering cautiously around the eery chamber. Immediately before them reared a block of ice ten feet on a side, in which a huge ape-like demon was frozen in frenzied anger — a ‘Barlgura’ like the one the Fairy Ring had narrowly bested in the Thunderspire Labyrinth. Half a dozen other blocks imprisoned diverse beings at various points about the walls and long tables in the middle of the chamber held four further bodies, shrouded in thick layers of rime spiked into fronds of delicate frost-crystal, from which billows of freezing vapour streamed silently to the floor.
“I am Vandomar, master of this tower and keeper of all within it.” Fosden didn’t like the way the creature stressed the word “keeper”.
“O Vandomar, generator of great power,” continued Eric, his breath steaming in the frigid air, “what can you tell us of Gardrin the Hammer?” Wjizzo and Fosden exchanged quizzical glances, but held their tongues.
“Gardrin, you say?” rasped the icy mage. “Gardrin was the founder of Gardmore Abbey, long before I came here to study under Archmage Dasticus. My Elaida spoke of Gardrin as a saint of Bahamut, and boasted that he was interred in pride of place in the Catacombs of her Order, beneath the Temple upon the mount they call the Dragon’s Roost. I hope his mortal remains lie there undisturbed since when his Order gave him burial.” He spoke without any wisp of steam, his breath as warmthless as the air of the chamber.
“Let me introduce you to those I have kept here, friends and foes unspoilt by time,” he went on…
“Well that seems to have broken the ice,” murmured Cram, as the ice-mage warmed to his subject. The foes in two ice cubes were an orc general from the original siege of Gardmore Village and the barlgura demon that bounded down from the Dragon’s Roost plateau when something terrible happened up there that turned the siege into a mad slaughter. The friends in the other four ice cubes were two paladins and two of Vandomar’s apprentices, Talen and Rubor, all of whom he said he had saved, never to suffer a wrong death.
Fosden whispered to Wjizzo, “Preservation, that’s what he’s obsessed with.” And louder, to the frozen undead: “Is there any service we might perform for you? Do you go to the Font of Ioun?”
“Ioun… The Lady of Lore is patron of all that is known. I cannot partake of the waters, but I go there betimes to reflect upon the past, and how things were, before.”

“We came here in search of the ‘Winterbole Codex’,” said Fosden of the Cliffs,
“Well here it lies, indeed,” the figure replied,
He gestured with his left hand at an enormous book, cased in the scales of a white dragon, that lay beside the head of one of the bodies on the tables. “The Winterbole Codex of Dasticus.”*
“Do you have need of it? Might we be able to take it to Valthrun the sage in Winterhaven?”
“It is mine, and I will not part with it,” he replied matter-of-factly. “But you may read here what is written within. You have all the time in the world after all. But it may not leave this chamber. Nothing may leave this chamber, for all must be preserved exactly as it is, to capture the exquisite ephemerality. The first visitors to my chamber in a century and a half. Stay awhile… Stay for ever!”
At that there was a shifting of the light in the corner of the room. Dark shadows lay upon the floor in sharp contrast to the chamber’s white glitter, forming a grid shape, though there was nothing there to cast any such shadow. Wjizzo experienced a flicker of familiarity. But when he saw it, Vandomar recoiled. “No!” he shrieked. “That’s different! Nothing is allowed to become different, I say!”

Goals:

The Deck of Many Things, book 2 p. 5

Wjizzo’s ancient ivory card named “Ruin” comes from a larger deck. There’s certainly a strange power in the card, and the magic of the Deck is surely greater than the magic of the individual cards.

Priest of the Eye, book 2 p. 6

Quoth Grundelmar in Fallcrest to Fosden: “Years ago, adventurers destroyed a cult of the Elder Elemental Eye but the leader, Vadin Cartwright, escaped. Well, the Sun Lord has spoken in my dreams to let me know that Cartwright is still a danger. He is dabbling with forces beyond mortal understanding that could be disastrous, and must be sought among the dead in old Gardmore Abbey.”
Quoth Pelor Sun-father: “The Temple is too high above you few.”

Peace with the Fey, book 2 p. 9

Lord Padraig of Winterhaven said: “Thanks for scouting the Abbey. Here’s 600 gp.
“The fey you describe living in these woods might be useful allies against the orcs and the best way to stop the raids. Find their leader and make peace with them, securing their cooperation.”
He had his scrivener draw up a document recognising Velfarren’s claim to the Feygrove, to be given to the Elf-knight if his claim is proven.

Establish a Claim, book 2 p. 13

The High Elf knight, Sir Berrian Velfarren, said: “My father had a hand in the establishment of this grove, and your Lord Padraig will recognise our rightful claim here if the proof of it can be demonstrated.”

Tower of the Archmage, book 2 p. 5

Valthrun the lorekeeper told you there is a tower in the village below the abbey, which he believes to be the location of The Winterbole Codex, a tome bound in white dragon scales, which he would very much like to get to read.

‘Icon Relationship’ Benefits pending

Cram and Fosden: Relationships to re-roll.
_Wjizzo, ___________________ : A clear benefit_
Eric Bloodhammer, Conflicted of Bahamut: A clear benefit and a benefit with complications.

Ramposh Vile Rune

Wjizzo and Lonnow emerged from the wagon to see Cram of the Thumpers pacing frenetically round the orc corpses on every side, his dripping fullblade still in his hands. “Six o’ them’re mine!” he boasted. “Come on! That’s the Rage of the Great Rabbit for you. I could do it again, you know.” He was the only one wounded in the encounter, but clearly there was nothing like red slaughter for helping one to shrug off one’s hurts.
Fosden was also in good spirits. “We’ve got a wagon we can call plunder, we’ve got nine dead orcs and their gear, and we’ve got ‘Gappy’ over there. Let’s turn this into a plan, so we can steal through Orc Town in broad daylight.”
Wjizzo cast his Charm Person spell on ‘Gappy’, who promptly gave him his name. “I’m Ramposh of the Vile Rune.” He explained that the Vile Rune orcs are the tribe that make up most of the orcs in Gardmore, the rest being reinforcements from other tribes of the Stonemarch mountains’ Bloodspear orc ‘nation’).
Ramposh remained hostile towards the group that just slaughtered his companions, Pumog and most of his ‘crew’, but wasn’t so much aggressive as he was fearful of them, especially Cram who hacked him up and Fosden who smacked him down. His one friend amongst these enemies, Wjizzo, explained that he has business in the wizard’s tower in the midst of the orc camps in the ruined Gardmore Village, and asked if he could help.
“All right, my friend, I’ll help you get there, if your crew don’t kill no one else who don’t ask for it. That place is a fucking blight.”
Once he was convinced that the spell had taken, Wjizzo took Ramposh aside and questioned him at some length while the others went about heaping the corpses of the orc slain into the back of the wagon, knowing that it had been the orcs’ practice to leave no sign of battle in any of their previous raids.
After a little while Wjizzo related to them that the orc chief, Bagrosh, held court with his ‘squeeze’, and his storm-shaman and warg-rider bodyguards, in the keep just inside the gatehouse, though apparently the door was guarded by an Ettin whose two heads never both slept at the same time. The rest of the force was divided into the ‘crews’ or ‘gangs’ who each kept their own watch-fire and were primarily loyal to their own leader, even if all they in turn owned Bagrosh to be the overall war-chief. The gatehouse was manned by a rotation of four of the tougher crews that each included an ogre, and they expected to get a cut of anything coming in through the gate that wasn’t from a major raid led by Bagrosh himself.
Lonnow Grent took his leave of them with hearty farewells on both sides, as he set out on the unenviable hike back up the King’s Road and home to Winterhaven. But the adventurers had an altogether different discomfort ahead of them. They organised themselves with Ramposh taking the reins of the wagon, Wjizzo just behind the canvas door-flap at his back, ready to whisper instructions or use a ‘Disguise Self’ magic if need be, and Cram – who spoke the Giantish tongue used by all the orcs of the Nentir Vale, including the Stonemarch – next to him in Pumog’s scale armour and the full-face helm of one of the other flail-warrior orcs. Should they be challenged, ‘Eric Bloodhammer’ was already known to some of the orcs in the camp as a mercenary, and Fosden was prepared with an identity as an amoral mercenary chaplain of Kord.
Wjizzo wondered aloud how they might avoid hostility with any orcs they might meet, and Ramposh and Fosden advised on what bribes of ale or coin might be appropriate in various circumstances.
And so, choosing to approach at daybreak when they knew the level of activity in the camp to subside, they approached the gatehouse into Gardmore Village.

In Through the Front Gate

They drove up under the watchful eyes of orcish archers on the towers to either side, and passed under the raised wooden portcullis into the gatehouse. The second portcullis on the way through into Gardmore was also up, as Ramposh had assured them it would be. But the battleaxe-wielding leader of the crew stepped in front of the horses and challenged in the Giantish tongue. “Who the fuck goes there?!”
“Yeah?!” echoed the ogre.
Ramposh was well-briefed. “It’s us, isn’t it? Pumog’s crew, with a captured wagonful o’ plunder,” Cram/Pumog tossed out an aleskin and two fistfuls of mixed coin without even lowering the tankard from which he was convincingly guzzling, accompanied by a chorus of supposedly orcish belches, drunken hiccups and guffaws from inside the wagon.
The orc-guards hesitated, somehow unconvinced.
“There yer go,” added Cram, but was still met only with a frosty glare.
A second orc at the leader’s shoulder muttered, “How do we know what they got back there?”

Eric felt the stand-off could only get worse. “What’s the hold up?” he called out in irritated tones., before thrusting his head out through the door flaps. “We’re on important business. Ah. I see you’re wondering about the eyepatch. Got it in the last scrap.”
“’Ere, Ginzle, it’s that dickhead mercenary!”
“In with Pumog? When did that happen? Your business sure as fuck ain’t more important than mine, Bloodhammer!” he snarled, putting a foot on the wagon, about to launch himself up there and have a go right away.
“Let us through, Ginzle,” growled Cram. “We’re exhausted. You boys’ve got your whack and you’ve got a skin of ale, and we’re getting back to our camp.” And he extended one booted foot to push the crew-leader back to sprawl on the floor amongst the coins.
Ramposh flicked the reins and the wagon rolled past as Ginzle just spat curses up at it. ‘Pumog’ seemed to escape his ire, but his cries followed the wagon as it progressed up the village road. “Eric fuckin’ Bloodhammer! You’d better stick like shit on the shoe of your new orc mates! ’Cos if we get you on yer own, we’ll put yer other fuckin’ eye out for yer!”
Eric yelled his own chorus of swearing as he stomped through to the back of the wagon, features contorted insanely as he bit a splintered chunk of wood from the tailgate and spat it in their direction as they continued with their hail of invective.
But they made no move to follow, and when more cries were voiced from the nearest camp to shut the bloody noise, the shouting match essentially faded away.
“It’s madness at Gardmore Abbey,” said Fosden to the others, looking askance at the big red-bearded fighter. “And it’s us who have brought the madness with us.”

Ramposh drove the wagon northwards up the road through the camps in the ruined village, reassuring Wjizzo that it was all right not to report in to Bagrosh in his Keep right away, as everyone knew he wouldn’t want to be woken at this time of day. Various orcs or their hangers-on cast incurious glances at the wagon passing through their midst, and the adventurers were painfully aware of just how many orcs there were on every side, if anything should go awry. They held their breaths when a pair of great warg-wolves came up to sniff the trundling wagon and snarl their distaste at its scent. But whether it was the orcish dead or the living elf and men that offended they never learned, as the wargs let the wagon pass on its way.

The Tower of the Archmage

And at length the unmolested wagon turned down a side-street and came to a rest around the back of the wizard’s tower. Wjizzo told Ramposh that if he stayed with the wagon and guarded it for them, he could expect to receive a portion of the ‘loot’ they would secure from the tower. Wjizzo’s companions were impressed with his grasp of the concepts most dear to mercenaries, raiders and orcs.
Ramposh whispered to the high-elf wizard, “Watch out, Wjizzo. Those two dragon-man statues outside the door to the tower are Gargoyle monsters. Any idiot who goes too close to them on his own, he gets grabbed and hauled inside. And none of them ever make it back out again.”
Gargoyles! Wjizzo had read of these. Though it was not widely known, gargoyles were creations of stone that possessed an acute affinity with the earth, and though blind when at rest in statue form, they could nevertheless sense the faintest movement through the ground.

The wizard’s tower brooded above the murky fog like a grey giant, the raucous calls of the ravens roosting in its spire echoing down to those on the ground. Wjizzo, giving it a wide berth, went around the front to survey the entrance and saw, between a pair of bird-dropping-covered statues of dragons, one door hanging from its hinges and the other a crumpled wreck.
The chill interior of the tower glowed with a flickering radiance. Faint tongues of fire glided along the stone floor and walls, crossing paths with webs of silver lightning that sparked and vanished; puddles of water formed on the floor to suddenly harden into ice and just as suddenly melt into stinking pools of acid. Several orcish carcases lay in sight within, ravaged by the elemental carnage.

Wjizzo proposed the plan that Cram, Fosden and Eric should approach as light-footedly as they might, to a point close by the entrance to the tower. Then he would show himself and draw the gargoyles forth, such that everyone else could gain the interior of the tower unharmed. He himself would Fey-step past the gargoyles and join his companions inside.

And this they did. But though Fosden and Cram kept their tread light, even they could feel Eric’s stomping footfalls through the ground.
The nearer of the gargoyles awoke, a red light coming into its stony eyes. It stomped one foot hard against the ground, and the eyes of the other lit up too.
“Hi! Over here!” cried Wjizzo valiantly.
The gargoyles scarcely paused, spreading their wings and launching towards the corner.
But when Eric Bloodhammer heard Wjizzo’s cry he joined it with his own familiar reaction to stealth situations. “Chaaarge!” Warhammer and stone beast clashed head-on, the head of the warhammer proving the harder, knocking the first gargoyle tumbling to the dirt. The second gargoyle plunged down upon him, Eric just managing to turn his thick shoulder-pauldrons into the path of its taloned feet. Cram dashed up to hack the tumbled one before it could rise, but the tortured scrape of steel on stone seemed to have done the monster little harm.
Wjizzo took a moment, calculating whether this was the moment to try a new spell technique that creates separate precisely-targeted bursts of force…

Goals:

The Deck of Many Things, book 2 p. 5

Wjizzo’s ancient ivory card named “Ruin” comes from a larger deck. There’s certainly a strange power in the card, and the magic of the Deck is surely greater than the magic of the individual cards.

Priest of the Eye, book 2 p. 6

Quoth Grundelmar in Fallcrest to Fosden: “Years ago, adventurers destroyed a cult of the Elder Elemental Eye but the leader, Vadin Cartwight, escaped. Well, the Sun Lord has spoken in my dreams to let me know that Cartwright is still a danger. He is dabbling with forces beyond mortal understanding that could be disastrous, and must be sought among the dead in old Gardmore Abbey.”
Quoth Pelor Sun-father: “The Temple is too high above you few.”

Peace with the Fey, book 2 p. 9

Lord Padraig of Winterhaven said: “Thanks for scouting the Abbey. Here’s 600 gp.
“The fey you describe living in these woods might be useful allies against the orcs and the best way to stop the raids. Find their leader and make peace with them, securing their cooperation.”
He had his scrivener draw up a document recognising Velfarren’s claim to the Feygrove, to be given to the Elf-knight if his claim is proven.

Establish a Claim, book 2 p. 13

The High Elf knight, Sir Berrian Velfarren, said: “My father had a hand in the establishment of this grove, and your Lord Padraig will recognise our rightful claim here if the proof of it can be demonstrated.”

Tower of the Archmage, book 2 p. 5

Valthrun told you there is a tower in the village below the abbey, which he believes to be the location of The Winterbole Codex, a tome bound in white dragon scales, which he would very much like to get to read.

‘Icon Relationship’ Benefits pending

Cram, Hero of the Spirits: A benefit with strings attached
Wjizzo, ___________________ : A clear benefit
Eric Bloodhammer, Conflicted of Bahamut: A clear benefit and a benefit with strings attached.

A Return to Winterhaven

Fosden on foot led his winded steed back to Winterhaven, and was reunited with Elana Lee-Chearda in Wrafton’s Inn.
Cram, Eric and Wjizzo arrived just half a watch later.
Elana intercepted Wjizzo at the door and guided him away for a private conversation.
“Something about those damned cards, no doubt,” grumbled Cram.
But Fosden said Elana had told him she needed to speak with Wjizzo alone regarding a wizardess who had recently been here in Winterhaven. Lenna, a student of Nimozaran the Green in Fallcrest and a confidante of Wjizzo’s in his researches into the Deck of Many Things, had joined with Tam and her companions: the dwarf with Tiamat’s emblem on his paunce-plate, the half orc barbarian and possibly a fifth of whom Elana could learn nothing. Tam’s Band of adventurers had left Winterhaven two days earlier, boasting that they would walk right into the ruins of Gardmore Abbey, even if the place was the lair of an orcish warband.
“But I notice you’re admiring my gauntlet…” said Fosden with a note of pride. “I rode hard, following the directions I received in a ray of sunlight from Pelor himself, until I gained a remote Chapel guarded by the Holy Order of the Returning Dawn. After many lifetimes of service, this order now included just one remaining elderly priest and the acolyte who must succeed him. They told me that my arrival fulfilled a prophecy and the priest offered up The Golden Gauntlet, the keeping of which had been their sacred charge.”
“Fill it with beer!” roared Eric Bloodhammer. “Let’s christen it. Hold on, I’m getting a strange waking vision… Cram, the gods are telling me it’s your round!”

Elana and brow-furrowed Wjizzo joined them at their table.
“I have further news,” said Elana. “A Bahamut paladin named ‘Sir Oakley’ is expected here in Winterhaven in the next few days.”
“Ahem. The name’s Walter!” exclaimed Eric abruptly. " I never heard of that ex-paladin ‘Eric Bloodhammer’ in my life, unless he’s my long lost twin, the one who still has both his eyes… Yes that’s it, I’m not him, I’m his twin brother."
Elana continued, “Having spent some weeks here in the Nentir Vale researching the history of Gardmore Abbey, Sir Oakley will be coming to Winterhaven before venturing into the ruin seeking to reconsecrate it to the Platinum Dragon. Perhaps if you can join forces with him you will have the strength to assail the Temple on the Mount.” This was met with sober nods from all but ‘Walter’.
Cram turned to him and asked, “What did you do, to get yourself black-balled out of the Paladins?”
“Nothing! I chose to leave of my own accord. I was getting all the rubbish chores, dishmaid’s hands and all that, and felt it was time to make a break. Or Eric did — I expect, since I don’t know him.”
“Hmm. Maybe I do begin to see why they did it.”

Having Scouted the Abbey for Lord Padraig

The group made their way Into the inner ward of Winterhaven, to the manorhouse of Lord Padraig. They indulged the scrawny-necked lad standing guard at the doorway when he bade them wait while he called for Lord Padraig’s butler, who very soon invited them to ascend to the Audience Hall. As they topped the stair to the first floor a man emerged from a connecting door with an elaborate twist of the hips to get his high-slung long duelling sword to clear the doorframe.
“Are you any good with that double-handed knitting needle?” quipped Cram.
Sizing up the barbarian’s fullblade that practically scraped the floor even in its shoulder-baldricked scabbard, the man replied diffidently, “There have been thothe who have found me tho. Good day to you.”

In his hall, Lord Padraig elaborated upon his plans more than on their first visit. He explained that they were his spearhead, but that he knew he needed greater strength in arms before he could do anything about so large a force of orcs, and was recruiting hireswords of every complexion in anticipation of the success of the spearhead mission.
He said he was glad to see that Fosden of the Cliffs had joined with the others as he had suggested, and enquired after the missing members of the group that had latterly set forth. They related the disappearance of Percival and the tragic death of Varris the Scarred, to which Lord Padraig responded with genuine concern.
“But we recruited a mercenary knight in their place, and completed the task you charged us with,” said Wjizzo.
“Yes, I’m a trained expert at reconnaissance. There were 157 orcs, 12 of them left-handed, and 3 with squints. And a giant of some sort. And a minotaur,” said Eric.
“Aren’t you forgetting something large and scaly?” added Cram.
“Yes,” said Wjizzo. “We also sighted a red dragon on the wing directly over the Abbey.”
“A dragon?!” exclaimed Lord Padraig. “In an orc camp? Come now, you try my credulity.”
“And gnolls, and land-sharks,” added Fosden. “The whole of Gardmore Abbey is a boiling pit of chaotic madness. But they’re not necessarily all working together, thank goodness.”
“You have my thanks for this information, and my commiserations for your losses. And I’ll make no bones about my earnest need for you to return to the Abbey. I hope this purse can convince you.” Padraig produced the sum of 600 gold, and charged them with a further request, “The fey you describe might be useful allies. Make peace with their leader and secure their cooperation.”
“That’s easily sorted — Ernest,” said Cram. “The nonce who was in charge said something about his father setting up the Abbey when it was founded, giving him a claim to the fey woods. If he’s allowed to call the woods his own, he won’t be against us.”
Padraig had his scrivener draw up a document in advance recognising Velfarren’s claim to the Feygrove, to be given to the Elf-knight if his claim proves justified. “If it is as you say, then the next requirement will be to establish a defensible fortified position I can use as a bridgehead for a move against the orcs.”

The group told Lord Padraig that if they were going back in there, they would need a covered wagon and a stout driver.
As he only required them to return to Berrian Velfarren the same way as they had left, he was initially reluctant about this. But they repeated Cram’s statement that they were confident of Velfarren’s cooperation, and they needed to push onwards into the orcish camp itself, like they believed another band of adventurers were doing. Given a lone wagon upon the King’s Road, they could expect a small attacking force to be despatched, which they could defeat, and then enter the orcish camp as mercenary recruits with a plundered wagon demonstrating their allegiance better than they could achieve with mere bravado.
Lord Padraig said he thought the watchtower at the southern limit of Gardmore village’s defensive wall would offer the best prospect for a base of operations against the orcs. But he was prepared to trust the judgment of those with the best sense of how the land lay. A wagon would be provided, and he would ask captain Kelfem (Rond Kelfem, leader of the Winterhaven Guard) if he might find a volunteer for such a mission.

A Night with the Spirits

Everyone returned to Wrafton’s, and many ales were sunk. Cram led the festivities, buying several rounds of a strong liquor brewed in the Winterbole Forest, called “Master Hunter”, to chase down everyone’s ales. In truth, Cram of the Thumpers was far more into the spirits than his companions.
That night, too drunk to pursue the affections of Elana or of the innkeeper Salvana Wrafton, Cram dreamt.
In a chaotic tumult, he ran through an endless forest of faerie delight. With his elven sword-brother, Varris, he stepped into an ancient ruin and relived the horror of Varris’ flesh melting before his very eyes.
High among the leaves of the trees he looked out over a landscape blighted by smoking fires, and saw ravens circling the spire of a tower. Varris would have seen omens in the flight of the ravens, said a voice he thought his own.
The ravens’ croaks echoed back to his ears as they ranged the whole sky as far as the eye could see beneath impossibly speeding clouds. But they never flew nigh to the garrison block nor alighted upon it.
And with a sourceless certainty he knew that the raven-spirits’ allegiance with the Raven Queen goddess of death gave them the wisdom to eschew an unholy deathlessness bound in that place by the power of the wizard whose tower had been their roost for generations.
In that tower The Land itself was in an anguish of magical forces gone awry. The tortured elements writhed and lashed, earth, wind and fire endlessly evoked by an undying wizardry but given no outlet by any guiding will.
Cram awoke the next morning with the sure sense that the spirits had charged him with putting an end to the rogue magic’s tyranny over the natural existence of the Land in that place.

The Battle of the Wagon

“Your chariot awaits,” the old boy said in greeting outside Wrafton’s Inn the following morning. “I’m Lonnow Grent, and if you need someone to drive a wagon, I reck’n it’s better an ol’ widower like me than me nephew or any of Rond Kelfem’s other young ’uns. I was a Winterhaven regular for 30 year, and even retired I still just about managed to squeeze into this.” He peeled back the collar of his shirt to reveal the dull glint of a serviceable mailshirt beneath.
The wagon he sat upon was a sorry affair, with woodworm-ridden timbers and a moth-eaten canvas awning over the back of it, but it was sufficient for their purposes.

The pair of broken-down nags in the traces drew them achingy slowly down the leagues of the King’s Road, till they passed into the Gardbury Downs in the late afternoon. Everyone assumed their stations concealed in the back of the wagon between the casks of ale that Wjizzo and Cram had conspired to bring along.
Though they saw no sign of any orcish scout as they peeked out of the convenient moth-holes, at sunset their plan came to fruition.

“Looks like this ain’t your lucky day, old man” called a growling orcish voice up ahead. Beit by luck or good judgment, the force that accosted the single wagon numbered only ten orcs, half of them hefting axes ready to throw from atop a low ridge on the left, and half sauntering with menacingly brandished weapons down the slope towards the wagon.
“Sweet Avandra!” exclaimed Lonnow in unfeigned terror and for a long drawn-out moment it seemed the orcs were willing him to abandon the wagon and flee back down the road. But his discipline held, and he dived through the canvas door-flaps into the back.
The scale-mailed orc leader laughed cruelly, his great stone maul staying at rest on his shoulder. “Lessee what this stupid frighty fuck’s brung us.”
Orcs moved down either side of the wagon, the pair on the right arriving first, one of them reaching out to pull the canvas awning aside…
At which Cram gave silent vent to his rage. He lent out of the back of the wagon, thrusting his fullblade past the first grunt to take the fiercer-looking orc at his shoulder right in the mouth. Ripping sideways despite the weight of the dead orc impaled on his blade, he brought its edge biting into the side of the first one’s neck. Eric forsook his hammer and reached out, hauling the two corpses bodily into the back of the wagon before they could hit the ground.
Fosden thrust his spear right out though the canvas in the direction of the leader’s voice, but his spearpoint met only air.
“You stab like a woman!” crowed the orc at the unseen attacker.
“Come and get it, boys. Line up!” came Eric Bloodhammer’s utterly unconvincing falsetto, followed by a deeper “Fuckit” as he leapt out of the wagon and brained the first of the orcs coming up the left side. “Next!”
The berserking Cram bulled his way right over Wjizzo and Lonnow to get to the front of the wagon and deliver another double-handed thrust through the canvas, stabbing another axe-wielding orc down.
A thrown axe missed him, and then the orcs joined battle. One swung a great spiked flail ineffectually at Eric, and another with an axe struck sparks from his plate armour. But the leader showed more skill with his stone maul, striking Cram almost in mid-air, battering him down off the front of the wagon to fall in the dust of the road. Another orc swung an axe down at him, but too slow to hit the barbarian who rolled out of its path.
Fosden stood forth on the driving-bench of the wagon with his golden gauntlet pointing right at the orcs’ leader. “Feel the Righteous Wrath of the Sun!” he cried, and brilliant spirits seared from his sun-medallion and his gauntlet into the orc who was driven screaming backwards.
Eric’s warhammer beat the flail-wielder about the shoulders and chest, though his victim had the strength to endure the assault.
Cram surged to his feet in a rising whirlwind spiral of berserk steel. The Fullblade of Krand sheared through both legs of the first orc, felling it instantly, across the belly of a second who howled his pain, and into the side of the sun-blinded leader’s helm. With a crunch of bone the helm tilted at an impossible angle, Cram swept a full circle and struck the belly-slashed orc a second blow in the shoulder. And behind him the corpse of the leader collapsed to the ground.
Even reeling from Cram’s double strike, the orc brought his spiked flail around to hit Cram glancingly in the face before lurching away along the side of the wagon to join his two remaining companions and bring the flail down on Eric’s stoutly-presented shield. Trusting to his armour, Eric shrugged off the attacks of the other two, sweeping his hammer out in a counter-attack that forced one of them back.
Leaping down from the driving-bench, Fosden called upon Pelor and shot a javelin of sunlight at the wounded orc, bringing him down.
Eric seized the moment and sank the spike of his hammer in the chest of a second and Cram hurtled into the breach with a mighty blow that battered the last one to his knees.
“Good god!” barked Eric at his companion’s sheer ferocity.
“Surrender and we let you live!” called Fosden.
The orc defied him by slipping one hand to his belt and flinging an ill-aimed axe in Fosden’s direction.
The priest of Pelor bore down upon him, forsaking his spear to strike a perfect uppercut with his golden gauntlet, knocking the orc back twenty feet to fall unconscious on the grassy bank.

And silence fell on the scene of bloodshed, broken only by heaving breaths as Cram regained his composure.

Possible Goals:

The Deck of Many Things, book 2 p. 5

Wjizzo’s ancient ivory card named “Ruin” comes from a larger deck. There’s certainly a strange power in the card, and the magic of the Deck is surely greater than the magic of the individual cards.

Scout the Abbey, book 2 p. 8

Lord Padraig of Winterhaven said: “I suspect that the orc raiders preying upon the King’s Road lair in the ruins of Gardmore Abbey. To start with, find out whether they are on that site and if they are, give me as complete a picture of their lair and defences as you can.”

Tower of the Archmage, book 2 p. 5

Valthrun told you there is a tower in the village below the abbey, which he believes to be the location of The Winterbole Codex, a tome bound in white dragon scales, which he would much like to get to read.

Priest of the Eye, book 2 p. 6

Quoth Grundelmar in Fallcrest to Fosden: “Years ago, adventurers destroyed a cult of the Elder Elemental Eye but the leader, Vadin Cartwight, escaped. Well, the Sun Lord has spoken in my dreams to let me know that Cartwright is still a danger. He is dabbling with forces beyond mortal understanding that could be disastrous, and must be sought among the dead in old Gardmore Abbey.”

Establish a Claim, book 2 p. 13

The High Elf knight, Sir Berrian Velfarren, said: “My father had a hand in the establishment of this grove, and your Lord Padraig will recognise our rightful claim here if the proof of it can be demonstrated.”

‘Icon Relationship’ Benefits pending

Cram, Hero of the Spirits: A benefit with strings attached
_Wjizzo, ___________________ : A clear benefit_
Fosden, Favoured of Pelor: A clear benefit
Eric Bloodhammer, Conflicted of Bahamut: A clear benefit and a benefit with strings attached.

No Lingering near the Gnolls

Wjizzo‘s spell of holding had bought them a few minutes, and no one hesitated in using them for a few minutes’ lead in getting right out of there. Even Fosden did not feel that now was the time to redress the defilement of the chamber dedicated to Pelor, his sworn deity.
They laboured up the long, over-steep stair, and without debate left the hilltop and headed straight down the winding path into the Feygrove. As they regained their breath, it soon became clear that the members of the group who remained were still in good condition, though Wjizzo had spent his most potent magics. But they had intended to investigate a cellar, and had no cause to battle a pack of psychotic yet intelligently organised gnolls.
A short way below the Belltower the path ahead was unfamiliar and therefore perhaps perilous. Wjizzo turned aside through the dense otherwordly undergrowth. Within moments the others were all hopelessly disoriented, but a very little later they were pleasantly surprised that Wjizzo led them unerringly to emerge into the clearing with the ruined shrine and the camp of the Elf-knights.
After Wjizzo introduced the chance-met ‘Eric Bloodhammer’, the still stand-offish Sir Berrian consented for them to make themselves a camp a short distance from his own and the pavilion where his sister still slept.

A Touch of Sun

As soon as they had chosen a spot and downed packs, Fosden declared that though the dawn was some time past, he would now spend a moment in reverence to the Sun Lord, and would be glad to include anyone who wished to join him. Wjizzo, Eric and Cram were all glad to do so. In a spot where the light of the sun lanced through the trees, Fosden made a brief and tactful reference to absent friends, and then incanted his prayer. After a traumatic night without sleep, the rhythm of his words slowly brought a strange weariness upon them. Their awareness of the fey-touched forest slipped away, their full attention focusing upon the sunlight coming through the trees, and the next thing they knew they somehow beheld the sun unobstructed, and then it became the bronze-skinned, mane-haired face of Pelor himself.
Cram had a notion that he might have been drugged, but kept it to himself. If this was how the gods granted boons to their followers they were welcome to them, this son of the Great Rabbit was going to buck the trend. But he didn’t say so.
“All right, Sun!” he said, with a trace of a smirk.
Fosden held his peace, as the light from Pelor’s face bathed that of the barbarian, and with immense and knowing patience, the sun god beamed radiantly, smiling a modicum of appreciation of the humour.
“Fosden, my son,” said the face of Pelor, “it is good that you have answered the call that I sent to the faithful in this land.” The cleric’s heart swole to receive the approval of his deity so directly. “It is good that all of you are here, where forces threaten to rise and challenge the order of the world. But you are fewer than when you first set out, and the Temple is now too high above you. Fosden, leave that task until you may prevail in it, and seek instead that which may give strength to your hand.”
And with that the sense of the world about them returned, the birdsong echoed around them, and the sun was again half-hidden by the canopy of the forest. A breeze stirred the leaves and one sunbeam struck through, touching Fosden upon the brow. He blinked and started and announced to the others that he must go, for a hard ride lay ahead of him even after he hiked the two leagues back to the horses.

Reflections

“What exactly are we here for?” mused Cram out loud. “I mean, that twat elf sitting on his arse wants something or other, but he can whistle for it as far as I’m concerned.
“Wjizzo, you and Elana were wanting to pursue these cards, though owning that one — called ‘Ruin’ of all things — seems to have got Varris killed by your hand and seen you put down at Fosden’s spear.”
“It hasn’t exactly proved to be a blessing!” growled Eric in agreement.
Anguish at the loss of Varris was written all over Wjizzo’s face. “The cards of the Deck have very diverse natures,” he replied. “If we can acquire others of more positive aspect, perhaps we can improve our fortunes. But apart from reports of these various cards centring around Gardmore Abbey, we do not as yet have any specific knowledge as to how to seek them out….”
“I am here for Bahamut!” asserted Eric. “If your necromancer is ‘amongst the dead’ of the Abbey, I would expect that to mean he’s in the Catacombs that would traditionally have been delved beneath the main Temple. But unless it was some illusionist or something messing with our minds, we have the word of a god that we should not attempt that right now.”
Wjizzo said, “So is our next best move to find out what we can about the orcs for the lord in Winterhaven?”
“Yeah,” said Cram. “I can’t believe your elf mate really knows nothing at all about them.” He sat back against a tree and gestured in the direction of the high elves’ camp in the ruined font-shrine.

A Long Watch

Berrian Velfarren embodied the risk-averse nature of the high elves, for whom conflict can so often be avoided by the simple patience of a race that live forever. He knew full well that the orcs and their sundry allies numbered well over a hundred, and the lives of his party depended upon their giving the orcs no cause to reconsider their reluctance to brave the Feygrove.
“Had we not opted to investigate the stair beneath the ruined barracks,” Wjizzo told him, “our next intention was to survey the orcs’ camp from atop the mount. Do the upper reaches of this grove offer a similar vantage point?”
Berrian and one of his knights led the trio back up the slopes by a route as bewildering as ever, though they said they were passing directly northward. They crossed the path to the Belltower, and Berrian told them that in the other direction the path led down to a former garden at the rear of the keep beside the main gatehouse, the garden now returning to nature and shrouded by the webs of deathjump spiders the size of a man. It seemed to Wjizzo that the knight might have spoken more, but stood on his dignity and held his tongue before the impetuous human adventurers.

“My sister, Analastra, often watches from here,” said Berrian at length, indicating the branches of a great and ancient-seeming tree with a trunk two yards thick and festooned with sturdy creepers.
Wjizzo, Cram and Eric hauled themselves aloft and found places on the tree’s great broad branches that offered a perfect view of the northwestern aspect of Mount Gardmore. Within the Abbey’s mighty outer wall, long-ruined dwellings lined both sides of a roadway that skirted round the lower slopes. At the limit of the adventurers’ view were two more significant structures, a large building of uncompromising military design built into the outer wall, and a tall square-spired tower. The orcs had upward of a dozen separate camps spaced throughout the village, sometimes inside a blackened shell of a building, but many in the open outside the buildings altogether. Though the force consisted mostly of orcs, there were a handful of wargs, ogres, and bandits or mercenaries of various races. None of them put any sort of a watch up on the outer walls.
“They appear to be organised in crude squads of roughly equal strength,” stated Eric. “If we say there’s approaching ten to a camp, that makes something around 150 of them in total.” Cram said he could only see ten camps, and Eric replied that there were more of them out of sight from here, further around the northern end of the hill.
“And you know this because…?”
“How do you think I got up to the plateau where I met all of you? It might be possible to make one’s way through the sleeping camp by day: muffled drums, what? Or you can do it bold as brass.”
“Walk through there just letting them assume you’re a mercenary?” asked Wjizzo.
“Quite so! (Not so far from the truth in my case, as it happens.) Might have to discourage the odd one or two of them from picking an argument, if you know what I mean. But in such numbers they hardly feel threatened by an unfamiliar face. Come on, just follow my lead!” And with that he leapt to the ground and began to stride down the slope. Cram and Wjizzo had some difficulty persuading him not to take such a risk simply to prove a point, until they knew what they wanted to achieve down there.

In the end, the three opted to take watches for the whole day, hoping to learn something about the leadership of the orcish force. The long watch went without incident.
Cram had a sighting of a huge figure, larger than any ogre, which he judged to be a hill giant. On Eric’s shift a pack of half a dozen orcs and a warg came in through the gatehouse, crossed the conspicuously unoccupied low-walled courtyard just inside it and went into the keep-like building for a short space before emerging again to go and return to their campsite at one of the great bonfires the orcs all seemed so keen to keep burning.
“Reporting in,” judged Wjizzo without needing to be told, as Eric related this when they changed shifts.
And by the end of Wjizzo’s shift, when the three of them conferred, none had seen any sign of the gnolls, the minotaur or the red dragon that they knew to be in the vicinity, nor anything else especial significance to Lord Padraig. But all agreed that the orcs seemed to consistently shun both the military building in the wall and the square tower. “I’m sure that will prove to be the wizard’s tower of which Valthrun spoke,” said Wjizzo.
“Where ‘The Winterbole Codex’ is supposed to be,” nodded Cram, who added sourly, “whyever the feck someone would want to write a book about the place instead of actually going there .”
“More importantly, a wizard’s tower is the most probable place to find the rest of the Deck of Many Things,” said Wjizzo. “But as I watched, I remembered that Sir Berrian had spoken of a white apparition, and I saw no sign of that.”

They returned to the elves at the Font of Ioun, and asked Berrian about the white appariition.
“A frozen thing in white robes, it is,” he replied, “in the shape of a man, but lacking the warmth of life. We thought better than to approach it when it came to look into the waters of the Font, but we watched when it left and saw it return to the tall tower in the village, the orcs keeping well out of its path as it went.”
They asked why it would look into the Font, and Berrian replied that Ioun is the goddess of lore, and the Font of Ioun is said to grant knowledge to those who partake of its waters without avarice.
Eric partook. In the space of scant moments he experienced a vision of events in the history of Gardmore Abbey that surely spanned whole centuries, the Abbey standing ever fast in the face of all threats. “It was amazing,” he said, filled with inspiration as he described what he felt he had witnessed.
“And then it was fecked right up.” said Cram.
“But their will to endure,” said Eric. “It was a marvel to behold.”

Wjizzo followed suit, and was also judged by the Font of the Goddess of knowledge to be without avarice. Visions of monks about their tasks showed that the brothers of the Abbey had included master craftsfolk of many diverse callings from beekeeping to mithral-smelting.

Wjizzo said, “So if what Eric said before is true, we can just march through the orc camp, to the door of the wizard’s tower. If any orc challenges us, Eric can ‘persuade’ it to think again, like he did when he passed through before, and failing that I can Charm Person… And we get to the wizard’s tower…”
“And then the three of us get fucked up by whatever that undead thing is, or whatever your magic card does next,” exclaimed Cram. “Whatever might be in that tower, the orcs are having none of it, so it’s nothing to do with what Lord Padraig hired us to find out.”
They opted to return to Winterhaven to bring Padraig the news of what they had learned.

Possible Goals:

The Deck of Many Things, book 2 p. 5

Wjizzo’s ancient ivory card named “Ruin” comes from a larger deck. There’s certainly a strange power in the card, and the magic of the Deck is surely greater than the magic of the individual cards.

Scout the Abbey, book 2 p. 8

Lord Padraig of Winterhaven said: “I suspect that the orc raiders preying upon the King’s Road lair in the ruins of Gardmore Abbey. To start with, find out whether they are on that site and if they are, give me as complete a picture of their lair and defences as you can.”

Tower of the Archmage, book 2 p. 5

Valthrun told you there is a tower in the village below the abbey, which believes to be the location of The Winterbole Codex, a tome bound in white dragon scales, which he would much like to get to read.

Priest of the Eye, book 2 p. 6

Quoth Grundelmar in Fallcrest to Fosden: “Years ago, adventurers destroyed a cult of the Elder Elemental Eye but the leader, Vadin Cartwight, escaped. Well, the Sun Lord has spoken in my dreams to let me know that Cartwright is still a danger. He is dabbling with forces beyond mortal understanding that could be disastrous, and must be sought among the dead in old Gardmore Abbey.”

Establish a Claim, book 2 p. 13

Sir Berrian Velfarren said: “My ancestors had a hand in the the establishment of this grove, and your Lord Padraig will recognise our rightful claim here if the proof of it can be demonstrated.”

‘Icon Relationship’ Benefits pending

Cram, Hero of the Spirits: A benefit with strings attached
Wjizzo, ___________________ : A clear benefit
Fosden, Favoured of Pelor: A clear benefit
Eric Bloodhammer, ____________ : Still to roll

In the Ruin of the Barracks

Eric Bloodhammer, whose explanation for being here was that he “used to be a religious bod,” had scouted the building. He identified that it had originally been a barracks block and mess hall for the knights of Bahamut. “Used to work in these places, what.”
“Used to?”
“Fell from grace, don’t you know? I was terribly, terribly drunk. All I remember is someone crying, ‘The gorgon’s alive!’ Might even have been me…”

The rubble didn’t lie where it had fallen, but had been piled, in the absence of any better material, into makeshift fortifications for the defence of the surviving parts of the building, and especially the head of the staircase Wjizzo had previously spotted. Though Valthrun had told them, back in Winterhaven, that the Siege of Gardmore Abbey had failed when the paladins suffered a terrible attack from within, these defences were not arranged against enemies emerging from below, but for a step by step retreat defending whatever was below from incoming attack. Cram vividly imagined civilians and wounded packed into the cellars for cover from dragon-fire, protected by the heroic but doomed efforts of a last few brave knights.
Still stricken by the double loss of Varris the Scarred (killed in action) and Percival (missing in action), the shrunken group plus Eric Bloodhammer were wary of exposing their rear to any peril. Before committing to anything further, they opted to gauge the locale, and Fosden resolved to survey the area from a position of watch on an intact part of the barracks roof. His first attempt pulled loose a section of wall in a clattering tumble, but after a few moments with everyone’s hearts in their throats, they realised this had not brought any more carrion crawlers, land-sharks or anything else upon them.

The hour passed quietly, and dawn broke in the east. The distant hubbub from the orcs in the ruined village on the north-easterly aspect of the hill subsided, and the dozen or more plumes of campfire smoke dwindled. It seemed like the start of a pleasant day, marred only by two discoveries.
“F— spiders!” exclaimed Cram, to everyone’s alarm. But it was a favourite exclamation of his, and the two spiders in question were no more than an inch across, and a good couple of feet away from Wjizzo’s elegant shoes. Wjizzo recognised them to be of a species called the bloodweb spider, common to both the Feywild and this world, and harmless enough individually but aggressive when massed in a swarm. The adventurers were right to stick close together, and to remain cautious in their further scouting of the ruins.
And the great doors on the colonnaded building on the west of the plateau were burst open by a minotaur soldier who stomped his way off north towards the gatehouse-looking building before passing out of sight from Fosden’s vantage point.
But Dragon’s Roost, though full of threat, offered no immediate dangers and the party judged it safe to venture down the stairs beneath the barracks.

Below the Barracks

Wjizzo’s wizard-light revealed a flight of steps leading down at a steep pitch, the staircase fully ten feet across and the steps too deep to be comfortable for a human gait. They descended a long way round frequent left-hand turns, beyond the depth of any normal cellar. Some way down the party discovered deposits of excrement, fresh enough to be giving off an unwholesome stink, but located tactfully against the walls.
“These are sentient turds,” opined Wjizzo, to quizzical looks from the others. “If that means there might be listeners…” The hint was all it took to have everyone soften their step.
But after only a few steep stairs more, the clanking Eric incisively identified the best tactic. “Charge!” he yelled (just like his poor deceased father before him).
Everyone surged forward in his wake and they rounded the last corner in reasonable order, to see a great gangling gnoll step to the foot of the stairs.
“Go see what the f— that is!” came a snarled command from somewhere beyond.
The gnoll was armoured in leather adorned with gruesome fetishes but unarmed, flexing its great long arms as to attack with nothing more than its own claws.
Fosden shot his bolt desperately awry but, with his instinct for safety, managed not to shoot his companions. Eric bore down with his hammer to strike the gnoll a mighty blow, Cram’s fullblade attack a heartbeat later staggered it yelping back, but Wjizzo’s sword-strike failed to connect.
“Take one alive!” called Fosden, somewhat distracted by the bull-and-sun murals and the reflective pool that suggested this to have been built as a rare subterranean shrine to his own god, Pelor.

“We don’t know how many of the f—ers there are. Fall back to the others!” came a barked command from a gnoll away to the right.
“Mind your language!” demanded Eric.
The leader and the other two gnolls backed up to a doorway, the one with a bow loosing an ill-aimed arrow in the vague direction of the intruders. The gnoll beset by the three attackers tried to feint fowards and bound away, but found a weapon in his path at every attempt.
“Come on then, you filth, I’ll take youse all!” he howled. “Nebrix, get out of here!” And with that he lurched around in a wild arc, claws flashing out almost impossibly fast, buffeting and raking Cram, Eric and Wjizzo.
“Pelor preserve you,” intoned Fosden, extending a degree of the Sun Father’s protection to his comrades, before raising his voice louder. “AND SPIRITS STRIKE DOWN THE DEFILER OF THIS TEMPLE!” Beams of pure sunlight lanced forth from his medallion to strike Nebrix the gnoll pack lord, who recoiled shrieking in pain.
Neither Eric nor Cram could strike properly against the ravening gnoll between them, but a lunge from Wjizzo drew blood from its furry flank.

Nebrix shook off his pain and backed off through the door at the same time as retaliating with a focus of some strange force of insanity upon Fosden. Wjizzo’s instinct was to raise an arcane counter, giving Nebrix some alarm and forcing him to snarlingly redouble his will. Fosden succumbed and a canine howl escaped his throat as he drove his spear first at Eric’s back, glancing off his armour, and then at Wjizzo. The elf’s Shield spell failed to deflect the attack, and Fosden’s spear stabbed into his belly. Wjizzo crumpled to the floor and Fosden was left in a state of shock. The magelight upon Wjizzo’s casting orb winked out to leave the room lit only by a flickering flame-like glow from a sacred circle opposite the pool.
Just barely regaining mastery of his own limbs, Fosden bestrode Wjizzo’s body deny it to the frenzied claw-attacker but found himself scarcely able to wield his spear effectively.
“Radiant One, shine the light of your mercy upon this fallen one,” he prayed, and gentle light broke upon the benighted elf’s form as though he lay in a sunlit glade.

The bloodsoaked gnoll goaded Cram and Eric, dancing just beyond reach of everyone’s weapons and drawing them after him as he bounded backwards into the defiled pool of Pelor. Cram halted at the brink, resisting the urge, but Eric steamed in. An unwholesome power in the water shuddered him, but he purposefully struck the cur down with his hammer.

“You sons of cows!” came Nebrix’ improbable curse at the death of his packmate, as Eric lost no time in heaving himself back out and onto the stone floor.
“I can deal with this,” said Wjizzo from a half-sitting position. “Cram! Close the door on them!”
The Son of the Thumpers shot forward. He noted at least another three gnolls in the room beyond answering Nebrix’ calls, then crowed “No more walkies for you!” and slammed the door upon them.
Two arrows struck the timber right where Cram stood, and then Wjizzo’s spell of holding wrapped the door in force. Several heavier thumps failed to make the door so much as quiver.
“We have time,” said Wjizzo. “Not long, but enough to get safely away from here.”

Possible Goals:

The Deck of Many Things, book 2 p. 5

Wjizzo’s ancient ivory card named “Ruin” comes from a larger deck. There’s certainly a strange power in the card, and the magic of the Deck is surely greater than the magic of the individual cards.

Scout the Abbey, book 2 p. 8

Lord Padraig of Winterhaven said: “I suspect that the orc raiders preying upon the King’s Road lair in the ruins of Gardmore Abbey. To start with, find out whether they are on that site and if they are, give me as complete a picture of their lair and defences as you can.”

Tower of the Archmage, book 2 p. 5

Valthrun told you there is a tower in the village below the abbey, which believes to be the location of The Winterbole Codex, a tome bound in white dragon scales, which he would much like to get to read.

Priest of the Eye, book 2 p. 6

Quoth Grundelmar in Fallcrest to Fosden: “Years ago, adventurers destroyed a cult of the Elder Elemental Eye but the leader, Vadin Cartwight, escaped. Well, the Sun Lord has spoken in my dreams to let me know that Cartwright is still a danger. He is dabbling with forces beyond mortal understanding that could be disastrous, and must be sought among the dead in old Gardmore Abbey.”

Establish a Claim, book 2 p. 13

Sir Berrian Velfarren said: “My ancestors had a hand in the the establishment of this grove, and your Lord Padraig will recognise our rightful claim here if the proof of it can be demonstrated.”

‘Icon Relationship’ Benefits pending

Cram, Hero of the Spirits: A benefit with strings attached
Wjizzo, ___________________ : A clear benefit
Fosden, Favoured of Pelor: A clear benefit
Eric Bloodhammer, ____________ : Still to roll

Tragedy upon the Dragon’s Roost hilltop

Harrowed by the destructive sorcery of Wjizzo’s acid arrow, the monstrous Carrion Crawler responded with an outraged attack upon the first person in its path. Cram ducked and twisted and his used his fullblade to beat aside the mouth-tentacles that darted at him, but one glancing contact sent fire through his nerves.
Fosden demonstrated a cool aim with his crossbow, shooting assuredly past Cram to strike the monster squarely on its chitinous head. “Varris, strike with the power of Pelor!” he exhorted.
Varris the Scarred set his sights on the thing, and sprang up to alight momentarily atop the pile of rubble and then launch himself with a shower of masonry in his wake clear past the Carrion Crawler, striking it a glancing blow as he passed.
The enraged beast half-turned to follow the wood-elf’s baffling move, and Cram struck out, hacking diagonally down through its head. Instantly dead, the creature’s long body thrashed and twisted, but its tentacles hung lifeless and it was no longer any threat.

But before the dread thing had ceased to move, a second one barreled out from round a corner behind Varris and closed half a dozen tentacles around his head and face. The elf screamed out as the venom of that contact seemed to set his body afire.
As the odds rose with this second arrival and Varris’ sudden plight, Wjizzo sought to redouble his efforts and spent a moment to summon even more power than he had put into his first spell. When he had mustered all that he could sustain he unleashed it again. “Milf’s Acid Arrow!” he shrilled, launching a doubly intense bolt of sorcerous acid from his wand.
But, tragedy of tragedies, even as the Arrow arced out and over, the monster drew back and Varris half fell a staggering step backward, right into the Arrow’s path! The magic of Wjizzo, bearer of the card of Ruin, struck the hapless Varris squarely in the head, neck and breast, the eldritch acid searing through his elven leathers and killing him instantly. The links of the chain about his throat sizzled apart and the great glowing pearl, the Orb of Light, fell to the ground. The raven’s head image upon it, token of the bond between the Raven Queen and her living servant, faded and was gone.

With all in a stunned silence save the Carrion Crawler that clicked and hissed at being deprived of its prey, Fosden had the greatest presence of mind. “Fly forth, o righteous spirits!” The living sunbeams that spiralled out from his symbol of Pelor put a protective shimmer of gold about Cram before searing forth and ravaging the clicking beast.

And the very ground shuddered beneath their feet. But the cause proved to be something of great strength beneath the floor. In the darkness, something upheaved the ground, making straight for the adventurers. Faster than they could evade it, the thing passed under Cram, tilting the paving stones every which way, making it a marvel that he kept his feet (especially with his legs not working properly as something from the first crawler was still washing through him).
The line passed like an enormous mole’s run under the threshold of the ruin and a great armoured monster erupted in a shower of earth right under Fosden and Wjizzo, spilling them both onto their backs.
“A landshark!” cried Fosden.
Wjizzo frowned, and then brightened. “Oh, a bulette,” he said.
Cram drove himself to a violent frenzy of urgency, laying into the sun-smitten Carrion Crawler, driving it back half-battered, its half-hearted tentacle-lashing reply seeming warded off by the golden glow, and failing even to touch him.
Wjizzo half rose and levelled his wand to shoot forth a spray of light in disturbingly clashing colours, and the monster gave a strangled cry, subsiding backwards and seeking to hide its alien eyes from the insult.
“Mighty Pelor, shield this virtuous foe of your enemies,” called Fosden, as he sprang to his feet and backed away from the great tunnelling beast, reinvigorating Cram even as the golden sun-glow upon him faded. And holding his medallion in both hands he caused it to strike a lancing beam against his own attacker, though it seemed to have little effect. For all that, though the monster bore down upon him, he managed to evade the massive scaled snout.
Cram, his legs still betraying him, was unable to get away from the second crawler, and just battled furiosly on against it.
To his surprise Wjizzo came up behind him with a cry of “It’s nearly done. I’ll take it!”, drew his elven longsword and stepped up. But the High Elves’ fabled skill with that weapon was not in Wjizzo this day, and it was all he could do to keep control of his weapon and avoid striking Cram or falling on the blade himself.
“Take that, you f—!” yelled Fosden, scoring his spearpoint along the flank of the landshark’s muzzle. The brute snapped back at him, but again Fosden was able to keep away from those jaws.
The rage was upon Cram, and whatever he might have felt about Wjizzo’s competence right now, he sought to pull away and turn his sword against the greater beast. Giving a little of himself to his dark armour, he felt its power wax about him… But the carrion crawler was not to be denied and whipped a tentacle against his side. Cram laughed callously as he barely felt a thing, then groaned as venom locked up his stride, and finally voiced a foul curse as he span back around and swung his fullblade into the persistent monster, chopping it into two lifeless halves.

Wjizzo lost no time in twisting about and shooting his cone of disconcertingly shifting colours at the head of the bulette. The monster bellowed in frustration, and Fosden’s spear struck well for the second time, and then a third, as the thing abandoned its attack upon him to haul itself about and avenge itself upon the wizard.
Striking masonry aside, it plunged in upon Wjizzo and with open jaws so wide that a Shield spell could not avail him. Even diving back from the closing maw with graceful elvish speed, Wjizzo was gashed across his hind parts by a row of wicked fangs.
But though Cram, suffering from crawler poison, could not have closed the distance the land shark’s own rampage had brought it within reach of his fullblade. The Thumper barbarian struck with the full weight of his rage, heedless of the armour plating his target, and striking clean through it!

Wjizzo, still anguished by Varris’ death and flabbergasted at his further ineptitude with the sword, had much to prove and tried harder… And lost his grip on his sword, sending it sailing over the head of the bulette looming over him.
“No!” he shrieked, and all but covering his face in shame, stepped out of this grim world and into its Feywild counterpart. Verdant turf gave spring to his step and bright blue butterflies the size of dinnerplates fluttered aside as he ran forwards— and crashed back into the grim world just past Varris’ mortal remains. The Orb of Light lay there glowing but ravenless, and Varris’ steel mask had fallen aside. The facial burns that Varris had sustained yet never allowed to be seen even by his closest allies was a horror to behold; the epithet “Varris the Scarred” fell far short of honouring the torment that he must have endured in life. With a flicker of his Mage-hand, Wjizzo set the mask back in place and folded Varris’ cloak and hood about his remains.

Then a big armoured man with a great red beard stepped around the corner of the ruin, nothing about him suggesting any connection with the orcs in the camp below.
“Whatever is all the— Daisy! I told you! Back! Stand back you people, she’s only a baby—” And he administered a blow of his enormous hammer to the snout of the land shark like it was a rolled up parchment. The beast’s head was struck flat onto the ground, and its whole body slumped inert.
“Sorry about that, ladies and gentlemen!” he bellowed. “The pet’s a bit feisty. Stand aside, stand aside… I say, do any of you know the kiss of life? She was only halfway through training. Still didn’t like to be mounted… But where are my manners? Eric Bloodhammer’s the name.”

‘Icon Relationship’ Benefits pending:

Percival, Thwarter of Orcus: Benefit
Varris, Thwarter of Orcus: Benefit with complications
Cram, Hero of the Spirits: Benefit with complications
Wjizzo, Correllon-connection in Mithrendain OR ‘other’: Benefit with complications

The Bell Tower, continued

A wounded displacer beast marauding through the mêlée, and stirges locked onto Cram and the fallen elf-maid, Fosden, Wjizzo, Percival, Varris and Cram fought on.

Fosden called a second time upon the Sun Lord to give him the strength to endure, and immediately the pain of his wounds left him. Stepping forward, he stabbed hard at the stirge feeding upon the blood of Analastra, and then the air around them was filled with the shimmer of Wjizzo’s magic. Fosden’s target slumped lifeless upon Analastra, and Cram’s tormentor let out an anguished shriek.

The displacer beast leaped back into the fray, its glamour of elusion defying all attempts to swing out at it, and its tentacles flying. Varris brought up a twin-sworded guard to fend off one attack but Cram, suffering from loss of blood was not so lucky and a raking strike sank him to his knees. Percival doggedly pursued it and as it struck, so too did he, Stanley the Knife crippling one of its hind legs. It recoiled in pain, and Varris mercilessly slashed down across the back of its neck to fell the monster. With two steps he brought his other sword down to strike dead the stirge upon Cram’s back, and with elven grace he struck yet again at a third stirge even as it swooped in upon Analastra, grievously wounding it.

Fosden impaled the injured stirge upon his spear and lofted the lifeless corpse clear of its victim, and in the moment that he looked around for any other attackers, he was poised like a knight raising a grisly standard. But there were no other threats, beyond a flurry of smaller stirges around the tower, that had more sense than to venture anywhere near the victorious adventurers on the ground.

Fosden inspected the extent of Analastra’s wounds, and declared that she should not be moved. Wjizzo doubted her plight could be so grave, and even as Varris was proposing to go for the assistance of the High Elf knights, Analastra came round.

Analastra Velfarren

Blinking, she awoke.
“Thank you,” she said in a voice bright as silver. “You have saved my life, and I am deeply in your debt. Come, if you return with me to my brother here in the grove, he too will be grateful for your heroism.”

After regaining their breath and bandaging their wounds, they allowed Analastra to lead the way back to the High Elves’ camp. She took them by a different route, which she said was the most direct, but which nevertheless took them several whole minutes to traverse. She explained that she had been ranging the Feygrove to ensure a quick death for any orc that might enter beneath the trees when she had stumbled upon the displacer beasts, and inadvertently drawn their ire where normally she and her companions left them alone, since they were every bit as effective at slaying orcs as she.
At Varris’ query she explained that the other, larger, fey beast of which he had seen sign would have been an owlbear. At least one of the ferocious predators hunted the Feygrove, and she suspected there might be a mated pair. Wjizzo was tactfully silent on this, but Varris said that his clan had known of owlbears in the Harken Forest and knew them for aggressive brutes with enormous claws that grab and bite their prey, and are possessed of a screeching cry that can stun a person in their tracks.

Sir Berrian retained his prideful manner, but expressed his sincere gratitude for the adventurers’ saving his sister’s life. The beverage that had conspicuously not been shared in their first confrontation was now served up to one and all.

With only a little prompting from his sister, and with Wjizzo this time properly engaging in conversation, he was a little more forthcoming about his group’s purpose in the Feygrove. He did not know what mystery his father, Zandrian Velfarren, had pursued when he left the two children with their mother, centuries ago. But his trail led here, where it promptly grew confused, as some force in the Abbey Mount defied, and continued to defy, their attempts at divination. Berrian’s suspicion was that his father had been involved in husbanding the force of the Feywild that so filled this place, and he would very much like to find some sort of evidence of this.
“The plants that thrive in this grove, and the creatures attracted to it — they are not of this world. My ancestors had a hand in taming a wild force here, and we therefore have some measure of a claim to it. If there were more certain proof specifically of our father’s hand in this, perhaps amongst the written records of the humans, we would very much like to know of it. "

The Fairy Ring acknowledged the charge that the fey knight placed, ever so lightly, upon them and promised to share with him anything they learned. But their goal now was atop the mount on the ’Dragon’s Roost’. Analastra looked keen to accompany them, but Berrian remained firm that she must remain in the camp to fully recover from her injuries.

“Can she not be availed of the powers of the healing waters in this pool?” challenged Wjizzo. “I did not speak sooner, because I was studying the runes upon the tessera of the mosaic. But I believe there is a potent force of healing here.”
“Indeed,” replied Berrian, inclining his head in respect for Wjizzo’s learning. “But whilst the power of the font can be invoked to remove many afflictions, it has no magical power over common wounds.”

Onwards and Upwards

The Fairy Ring took their leave of the Velfarrens, and followed their directions to the path that wound through the grove to the Bell Tower where they had saved Analastra, and beyond, towards the top of the mount.

At the last bend in the steeply climbing path a couple of them heard the strains of an enchanting music, which Wjizzo identified as being sung by Autumn Nymphs — the tantalising “gossiping nymphs” mentioned by Berrian. He knew they would command many secrets that it might be gainful to know, but that the cost might be too high, particularly if Cram , Percival or Fosden might unwittingly become ensnared in the nymphs’ games.
“Pay no heed!” he directed. “Wood nymphs are perilous to those unaccustomed to their ways.”

The path led them next to emerge from the Feygrove, and onto the treeless hilltop dominated by the fire-blackened shell of a great temple. All seemed ruined and desolate, but Fosden said to the others, “There is an enemy here. I sought to come to Gardmore Abbey because Grundelmar the priest of Pelor in Fallcrest was visited by dreams from Pelor in which the Sun Lord told of a man named Vadin Cartwright, pledged to the Mad God, dabbling with forces beyond mortal understanding among the dead in Gardmore Abbey.”

All were wary of the temple itself, in some way that was unspoken but shared by all but Cram. Their first dilatory investigations were therefore made into a mostly ruined building to the left of it, at the southern end of the hilltop. Within one gaping entrance to the low structure they saw ruined and blackened features suggestive of a barracks and mess-block. But the walls and roof were mostly collapsed, and there was a mass of broken masonry and roof tiles immediately inside the entrance.
“Stairs down,” said Wjizzo authoritatively.
But before he could elaborate, they heard a slithering, scuttling noise from just beyond the .
“Milf’s Acid Arrow!” barked Wjizzo, unleashing one of his more powerful spells. A great bolt of lurid green energy gouted forth from his casting-orb and arced over the rubble to strike a sizzling impact. There came the shriek of an angered beast and an acrid steam rose, followed by the rearing form of a carrion crawler.

Wjizzo was already behind Cram and Varris before anyone noticed. And no one was surprised that Percival seemed to have disappeared…

‘Icon Relationship’ Benefits pending:
Percival, Thwarter of Orcus: Benefit
Varris, Thwarter of Orcus: Benefit with complications
Cram, Hero of the Spirits: Benefit with complications
Wjizzo still to roll

Fosden of the Cliffs

2 miles off the King’s Road, with the last light of the day, a rider came up on the trail of the Fairy Ring, having pushed his steed hard all the way from Winterhaven. Dismounting, the chainmailed spearman introduced himself as Fosden, a priest of Pelor the Sun Lord.
“‘Fosden of the Cliffs’,” Cram greeted him. “I know you from Fallcrest. First man ever to scale the Drachensgrab Cliffs (or first civilised one), and now a priest. Have you come to join my party?”
“Not if it’s a the sort party you hold in the Blue Moon Alehouse,” he smiled. “But I’m glad to have caught up with you.” Fosden told that he had accepted the charge of the voluble dwarven High Priest, Grundelmar, to investigate Gardmore Abbey.

[ Gary, did Fosden give more details about what’s supposed to be there, or about the paladin who’s expected up from the old capital in a few days’ time? ]

Though they had different goals, all agreed that they should approach the ruined abbey together.
“When good is divided, evil prospers,” quoted the priest.

Varris picked them a cautious route over the Gardbury Downs, clear as day to his elven sight, and by the light of a moon just past the full, the night gave none of them any difficulty.
By midnight they beheld the ruins of Gardmore Abbey on the next hilltop, a dark outline against the moonlit clouds. On the eastern flank of the hill flickered a number of fires, and at its base a mighty defensive wall reared up five times the height of a man. Cram favoured approaching the gatehouse, but the wall did not encircle the whole hill. It ended with a last watchtower at a point beyond which the steepness of the hill itself protected against any military assault. Percival pointed out that though an army could not launch an attack that way, a group such as themselves should be able to negotiate it. Fosden too was keen to make the climb, but Varris pointed to a place where the wall had been breached and never repaired, beyond which the slope of the hill was covered in forest.

The Fey-knight

With Varris leading again, they made their way through the wide breach and into the forest., unobserved by any watcher, and finding no sign of any others passing this way with any frequency. In low tones the ranger declared that this was more than a natural forest. It was denser and more vibrant with life not all of it just what was normal for these climes. He believed it touched by the Feywild. They stole forward through the heavy undergrowth beneath the trees, until they heard movement just ahead, and saw several figures moving to cover behind the trees around a glade.
“Hold, brothers. We do not know their intent,” came a whispered command in refined tones of the elven tongue.
Varris stepped forth, and promptly found the strangers to be High Elves of Wjizzo’s folk. But though he looked to Wjizzo to speak, the wizard was intent on divining the nature of this place’s connection to the Feywild, and simply shook his head.
“What is your business here?” demanded the leader, stepping forth. “Speak quickly or fall where you stand.” His long straight hair, his hauberk of fine chainmail and the naked edge of his longsword glimmered like quicksilver in the moonlight.
Varris introduced himself in elvish, but when the haughty ones failed to be impressed by his unpolished silvan accent he switched to the common tongue.
They were bidden forth out of the trees, and found themselves before the ruined shell of what must once have been some manner of shrine. At its centre bubbled a font, with a mosaic encircling its base, depicting a platinum dragon and a silver stag in eternal chase, all marked out with exquisitely tiny magical runes.

Varris explained their mission for Lord Padraig to the half-dozen high-elven knights.

The fey knight leader gazed upon the clear waters of the font as he contemplated a moment, and then gave his own introduction.
“I am called Sir Berrian, and my house is Velfarren. For a century I have searched the wide world over in a quest to discover the mystery of my father’s fate and pay a son’s proper tribute to his memory.
“All roads have led me here, to this human ruin. But once again they diverge and lose themselves in the fog of time, and though I near their ends I cannot see them clearly even now. Do they lead to dishonour? Vengeance? Death? It is impossible to see.”
(“Varris could help you with two of those,” Percival muttered, soft enough for only Cram to hear.)
“The dark abbey crawls with perils, and orcs and giants infest the grounds. A frozen thing in white robes sometimes lingers near the font, staring into the memories its waters contain. And in the shadow of yonder doorless evil tower, this place confounds us with its mysteries and dangers.” A nod indicated the watchtower back through the trees behind them.
“The grove is vibrant with the life of the Feywild… of home. But the closer we come, the farther we fall away. Fey beasts lair in the ruins. Gossiping nymphs tantalise us with secrets. And now my sister, Analastra, too has vanished, thus halting our sacred quest until she can be found.”

The Feygrove

Learning that Analastra had been gone only a few hours, and perceiving that the seemingly capable high elves were nonetheless for some reason unable or unwilling to seek her themselves, and inclined however reluctantly to be grateful if they received help, the adventurers vouched their assistance.
The superior demeanour of the high elves dropped for a moment of surprise and respect when Varris identified the direction that the elf-maid had taken, clad in stout armour and bearing a shield, he added.

The wood elf followed a trail imperceivable to his companions, up and down the steep forested hillside, through a thick, riotous tangle of trees, bushes, vines and ferns that had a wild and ancient feel belied by an occasional fragment of tiled pathway beneath the moss or an ivy-clad stone bench. They followed a seemingly purposeless route for half an hour, during which time it seemed impossible that they never emerged from this small stand of forest. Squirrels and birds chattered and chirped in the branches, bees and iridescent butterflies drifted amid blossoms, and the tracks of larger creatures crisscrossed the wood. “The knight mentioned fey beasts,” said Varris at one point. He toed aside some scratched earth to reveal shallow-buried droppings. “This looks like the work of a great cat, a really large one. And there has been more than one sign of something else larger still, but I have no idea what.”

The Bell Tower

And then, “There!” he hissed excitedly.
They saw a pale, slender figure with long silver hair speeding towards them through the dark grove, footfalls making hardly a whisper. She dared a glance over her shoulder, gasped in alarm, and veered sharply aside towards the curving wall of a tower.

Two feline monsters drew close upon her heels, black forms that somehow defied the eye, but seemed possessed of too many legs. Then a pair of spiny tentacles lashed forward from the back of the lead beast and dropped the fleeing figure with an agonised shriek.

Fosden charged past him to thrust at the flank of the beast looming over the fallen elf, but his spear inexplicably seemed to pass through nothing but the air. The black panther-like thing hissed at bay, straddling its fallen prey with no fewer than six legs and baring its fangs, as the nearer of its tentacles flashed out and struck Fosden a nasty blow.

A dark shape dropped out of the sky from somewhere up at the eaves of the ruined bell tower, pulling up to skim the ground and punch into the fallen elf-maid. Four bat-like wings folded away to reveal a dog-sized monster that seemed a mass of grasping pincers.
“A dire stirge!” cried Wjizzo. “Watch out for more of the pernicious vermin!” His unerring magic missile elicited a shriek from the thing, but did nothing to loose its hold on the fallen elf.

Varris followed the sun-priest, invoking the Orb of Light and slashing out. He too failed to draw blood, but a white flash cowed the beast. With vein-popping anger, Cram threw himself forward between both panther-beasts, swinging his fullblade around a full arc which missed the other beast, but struck the cowed one true and staggered it back.
Fosden dared a moment forsaking his spear and raising the golden sun-medallion on its chain around his neck. “Aid us, Spirits of Righteous Pelor!” he cried, undaunted as a barbed tentacle grazed over the links of his chainmail. A succession of searing golden rays curved out of the medallion and struck his attacker with burning force, making it recoil with an anguished yowl and then slump lifeless to the ground.
“We give thanks, Sun Lord, but give us also the strength to endure.” The prayer buoyed Fosden up, and probably saved his life as the dead beast’s mate flashed between the adventurers, heedless of all the drawn steel, tentacles lashing left and right. One spiny tentacle raked across Fosden’s neck and chin. Cram grunted in pain as he was struck along the hip, and then the stirge sprang up from Analastra and drove its pointed beak-snout into his back, pincers locking it tight up against his body.

Percival seemed to have anticipated the displacer beast’s move, and appeared out of nowhere to strike with his wicked dagger, but his target’s innate glamour of blurring thwarted his aim.

A second stirge shot down onto the exposed target of Analastra, but Varris was there and struck it a swingeing blow.

Cram whirled his fullblade about in a great circle that did nothing to the monstrosity on his back, spinning around with him and sucking the very blood out of him, but the weapon striking through such an arc was not to be confounded by any trick of fey magic and he dealt a great blow to the second displacer-beast.