Chapter 3 Arrival’s Wars
3.1 Chapter 21 Underground Travel
- As the party camps for the first night of travel, Brilhorte wakes up. But this time the robot is different - stronger, larger and darker. A few minutes later a swarm of Evourec’s attack the Glasrath Champions. The fight is easy, unlike comprehending how and why these creatures of water are moving around in the desert.
- On the next day the group walks fast, and reach the broken statue of The Void again. This time Guilf shows little excitement with it.
- Just before dawn, Amyria pretends to guard while reading the book of knowledge. A sneaky elf, Filarion, gets close and calls Amyria. The group is told that Filarions and the remainder of their friends are living in a crevasse nearby, and had picked up a fight with the wrong foe.
- What appeared to be a dirty hermit turned out to be a powerful angel, and the group is now being hunted by it for trying to steal its sword.
- The Glasrath Champions were not excited with the proposition and instead, convinced 3 out of the 5 friends to continue travelling with them, instead of living in the crevasse. Amyria ends up being cursed by one that is staying behind - but that did not last long.
- The champions and their 3 new travel companions now travel underground, in the maze of ruins and tunnels beneath the desert. Thirteen, the scout of Filarion’s group is a skilful traveller through the tunnels.
- As Amyria continues to read the book of knowledge, she gets seduced by it, and start to loose herself in it. In one of the evenings she seems to have waken up a nightmare, which turned out to be powerful and attacked the group.
- In a hard fight, one of the new companions died of fear, while the other one run away. Amyria cast a godlike figure protecting Thirteen and Galiera from the nightmare. Thirteen holdfast and stayed, proving his new acquired loyalty to the Champions, and a devotion to Guilf.
- The group regathers their strength and continue for a few more days, when they meet Mustroc Heavymace - one of the survivors of the Battle for Ammuinoth. Mustroc explains that Ghuse has, over the last decades, set an industrious economy of mining and weapon building, that supplies both sides of the ongoing war.
- The group ponders again, and decide that their travel will not end in Mystra’s Temple, but will go further. And they will meet Ghuse again.
3.2 Chapter 22: Mystra’s Temple
Parley with Prompt - Prompt and his turnskull ice constructs unit find themselves in the desert after a tremor. - The Glasrath Champions speak with them and learn that Prompt has lived for millions of years. - Prompt was around millions of years ago, and fought and defeated Mr Void - It was because of Mr Void that humanity went to the Ammoinouth - Prompt was also in the war in heaven - Prompt has battled outsiders and was one of heavens invaders. - The Turnskull follow Loquiroth - They have their advanced post in the Forge, to the west
Enter the temple - The BookOfKnowledge cannot enter templeMystra - Inside the temple a hundred humans live in famine - When the Champions entered, a stampede was caused - the survivors in panic - > Dolman: “Just eat the butt” - The priests lost trust in amyria
**The nightmare Balhannoth** - The BookOfKnowledge is lost to the ruined desert, but found by Amyria in a deep underground corridor - Dolman and Guilf are tricked by a Nightmare, who showed itself as a gargantuan brown dragon. Dolman asked the dragon to cure Gaelira - Amyria sees the creature for what it is - The nightmare takes Gaelira with it
Dolman speaks to the Celestial shard - The shard was part of celestial engines, which were destroyed by human invasion of the heavens - Celestial engines run control on Terra - The destruction of heaven caused havoc on Terra, but powerful Sorcerers quicky learned how to use the celestial shards to build Terra Engines, which maintained the human reality. Called the Legacy.
Meeting dwarves - For the second time, a group of dwarfs is travelling, fleeing khathadzig and going to durnum
Amyria speaks with Mystra - Mystra is still unaware of her role in the war and has no clear alliance.
Meeting Ghuse - Ghuse welcomes the Champions
3.3 Chapter 23: Ghuse
Parlay with Ghuse (aivridyt) - Ghuse explains that he has killed the champions’ friends: Miraak, Kethra, Gulthas and Weldon. And they work as mindless machines in his industry. - Ghuse appreciates the champions changed. More mature, less dreaming of fairy tales. - Guilf suggest that Ghuse revises his strategy and the support he is given to the Angels, if he is to continue seeing cycles of Life and Death on Earth. - Guilf also approximates himself to whursock, who becomes very loyal to the bard. Whursock reinforces the opinion that Ghuse might want to abandon the contract with the Angels.
Parlay with Fuko - Fuko is the Trade Minister of Ghuse, operating from the intermine - She knows when and when every piece of manufacture is or must be - She administer the entire weapons trade for glasrath
Visiting khathadzig - Where people who lives, live. Schools, churches, etc. Peaceful and mostly unbeknownst of the mining business that enriches the city. - Amyria’s father has his office here, as Minister of Internal Affairs. Amyria’s mother owns a small hotel. - Population see the PCs as cursed. Hardly any magic is practiced in Khathadzig now. They are a “peaceful” arms dealers, ignorant to the outside on the last decades.
Dinner with Amyria’s parents - The dinner turned out to be conflictuous - Amyria’s father was impolite with her mother, and Amyria picked up something in the air: they were hiding some history. - After confronting both in different moments during the dinner, Amyria learns she was “sold” to Ghuse during the trade agreement decades ago. - Amyria’s father mentions that the people in the city thinks the champions are cursed because of their rings. The group notice the rings are creating some dark and hard carapace on their fingers. Dolman, bravely, takes out his ring, bleeding the entire table.
Reading the book of Knowledge - Amyria continues to read the book of knowledge. - She learns that the Heaves, when destroyed, became a set of collapsed pocket dimensions, with uncreation between them - impossible to navigate. - She also learns that the celestial engines were used to keep these pocket dimensions as one single “heaven” - Amyria starts to hallucinating looking at the book, and sees again the Nightmare (Balhannoth) that took Gaelira - it just observes Amyria.
Ambushed delivery - A group of 7 dwarves were delivering the left leg of the Mercian Made God, but were ambushed by FFKA. - The leg was destroyed, and the dwarves were harassed: “You fucking dwarves and elves”. - The group carried a “wanted” poster, with a dark image of the Glasrath champions carrying Gaelira
3.4 Chapter 24: Arriving at The Forge
Meet Bravhar, the annealing dragon - Bravhar, the wyrmling golden dragon that perished in the Battle from the Ammouinoth three decades ago, is now ressurected. - Bravhar has an agreement with Ghuse (aivridyt) and will work as the annealing process for the mines for 145 year. This is the payback price to be brought back. - Bravhar wants to spend time thinking on the process so that he can inject a systematic failure on each metal part at its molecular level. This can be Glasrath’s backup plan in case they find themselves in war with their customers. - Ghuse is convinced by guilf to allow the dragon the required time.
Ghostly convoy - dolman puts his ring again, and feels complete. - The champions start travelling towards TheForge, using Dolman’s earth ring, travelling through soil. - On the end of the first week, during a resting period, guilf sees a group of 4 smoke creatures take form from his pipe week smoke - These ghostly nightmares explain they came from Earth, that was shattered and lost its smoke construction. As Earth broke, it started to be re-made in matter. - The nightmares start to take shape of the champions. - The conversation feel like a nightmare, and the convoy goes their way after a while. - Thirteen, at the same time, wakes up from a nightmare where he sees his little sister die again.
Hurt angel and sand warriors - A few days later, as the champions progress their journey, amyria sees through stone an angel, inside a large ruined atrium, laying on the floor. The Angel seems hurt. - In a neighbour atrium, a group of 20 sand warriors come to meet the angel - they seem allied. Sand warriors are Dust Elven mercenaries, not always welcomed amongst their own people. - The Glasrath champions decide to go through the last wall that separates them from the angel and sand warriors. - They are met with caution, and the angel speak with them. The angel in clearly hurt, limping. - amyria mentions she knows about the never ending war of angels and humanity, and that she learned this from the BookOfKnowledge. After mentioning the book, the angel becomes interested. - dolman acts fast and pull all his companions through the rocks again. The angel is incredibly fast, and is almost able to reach to Amyria, but for a few centimetres it does not happen, and the champions find themselves safe inside the walls of the ruins.
Arriving at TheForge - Surroundings (and their underground) are camps and villages of Anaks and humans allied. - The location terrible place, with a terrible smell. - The champions are offered twice dead sandwich, which they learn is made of the bodies of undead they hunt in the ruins. More tasty, and also less frequent, is the once dead sandwich, made with the bodies of dead friends and enemies. - An anak sergeant finds it wrong that the champions are so deep into the camp, without being part of their army. He suggest he will have to deal with the situation but guilf, using his command ring, convinces him to bring the champions to Prompt. - The Inner Forge is the technology city where the commanding Anaks live amongst constructs. - Prompt explains that for the champions to be trusted and speak with Loquiroth, they will need to complete one mission. They walk together to the mission backlog in a screen and see - Retrieve the Supraxae found by Anaks and bring it here - Retrieve the Supraxae detector, found in gimorkoc - Kill an Angel - Find a way to get the Mercians and their Made God to formally enter the war, allied with Turnskull
The Glasrath champions decide to retrieve the Supraxae.
3.5 Chapter 25: The Night Road
Removing Rings - The Glasrath Champions visit the factory levels of the Forge. - They meet the dwarf forge master and Dolman decides to remove his ring for the second time. This time Dolman looses his entire finger - stuck into the ring. - They decide to camp close to the Anaks, and Amyria uses a ritual to remove the curse of the ring attached to her finger. She is able to remove the ring without hurting herself.
The Night Road - As the Champions travel to the location of the fallen Supraxae, Amyria reads the Book of Knowledge. She learns that destroyed realities might be recoverable if they haven’t crossed a destruction threshold. - Amyria also knows that realities that are not recoverable can still have its broken pocket dimensions connected to each other, with what is called Night Roads. No further explanation on what these Roads are was found at that moment. - During one of the nights, Thirteen talks through another dream, where he seems to be playing with the words Forgetfulness and Forgiveness. - On this same night, during Amyria’s watch, she sees a dark corridor where there was only a wall before. - Dolman and Guilf initially do not see the corridor, but eventually was able to also see it. - The group decides to walk into the dark corridor, which seems to be a dark bridge across a chasm of nothing. As they walk in, for about a day, they start to become anxious that it is not leading anywhere. As they move back, they walk back further than they thought they walked forward. They feel lost. - Guilf screams, calling the Ngar’tho to show themselves. As he does it a storm of screams engulfs the party, filled with the anguished screams of those who died here. Navigating for hours through the storm tests the party’s endurance and sanity. - On a next attempt, Guilf decides to drink the tea, they still had with them, which previously showed them truth in Holzander’s Castle. As he does it, he starts seen Mr. Void again, and in a heated conversation with his patron god, he untangles himself from Mr. Void - throwing his dark mask in the chasm’s void. - The party has been in the bridge for weeks now, their resolve is tested. Their sanity on knife edge. - As they slowly continue they meet a man, a nightmare man, from Thirteen’s dreams, Balhannoth. - The nightmare man explain they are lost in a Night Road now. Thirteen runs for the man, who has promised him forgetfulness and forgiveness in his dreams. Dolman holds Thirteen, but suddenly sees Gaelira lying on the floor, close to his feet. Dolman immediately let go of Thirteen, who now runs for Balhannoth. - Guilf, still wearing his ring, shouts a command to Thirteen “Stop!”. Thirteen falls unconscious on the floor. - It is unclear how it starts, but the Champions find themselves engulfed in a fight with Balhannoth and his tentacles. In a fast series of blows Balhannoth is destroyed.
The end of a Nightmare - After Balhannoth is gone, the champions continue to walk through the night. The BookOfKnowledge lost its powers. - Dolman puts the stone he inherited from his mother, on Gaelira’s hands. A few minutes later she miraculously wakes up. In the next days she explains all that she has been through - the multiple tortures in Holzander’s Castle, her lost Paragon Force and falling on the mind torment by Ngar’tho, Imortra and the Mercians. - Amyria, praying for Mystra everynight, is listened to. It is Mystra who opens a door in the Night Road for the champions to get back to the ruins.
3.6 Chapter 26: The Drakvarden
Mystra opened a door to templeMystra - New cleric lead the temple: Nimro - Gaelira will be treated by the clerics of Mystra - Scouts relate that a force of 12 tents of FFKA is coming in the temple’s direction (100 knights) - The champions prepare a dozen of people in the temple who can potentially fight in a battle, if necessary.
5 FFKA tents arrive, lead by Sir ElricVaelor - The other 8 tents are not seen. - The champions meet with Sir Elric, and learn that the FFKA has partnered with the Angels. Then Angels are led by Golab. - Sir Elric is here to investigate how this temple has survived the battles in the region, and wants access. The champions are not giving them passage, and a battle is expected on the next morning. - As they leave the meeting location, the champions hear a loud grunt of suffering from within the camp.
The Gate - In general, the clerics in the temple are bullish that the protective barrier will continue to protect them. They do make some arrangements to protect the ones who can not fight, and devise a escape route. - In the next morning, as the FFKA advances, a dark-painted and gold-adorned dwarf comes in front, pulling chains and ropes. - This dwarf painfully transmutes into a black dragon just in front of the protection barrier, and with its hands it is able to break the barrier. - A fight starts between the Champions and their fighters against the sole dragon. The FFKA still waits where they were. The chains continue to be laid between the dragon and the FFKA, in catenary while the dragon flies. - The dragon quickly kill all the fighters in the temple, while Guilf is tossed by Dolman with a Congealed Paradox. He crushes the stone, and the dragon’s gold adorns and chains immediately fall and break. - For a split second, it seemed that the dragon would stop his carnage, but it does not.
The Retreat - The champions guide the survivors, with the help of Thirteen to walk the ruined tunnels towards Glasrath. - With Dolma’s ring, they go through earth and investigate where the chains connected to, and it seems to be some kind of catapult basket. - The champions meet the survivors again en route to Glasrath and they continue.
3.7 Chapter 27: Finale
- The Glasrath Heroes (as they call themselves now) arrive in Glasrath, bringing the survivors from the Drakvarden attack to Mystra’s temple.
- As they speak with Ghuse, they learn that the host of the FFKA is coming to the mountains. They explain to Ghuse that the FFKA has been using dwarves as draconic weapons. Ghuse now becomes afraid, as he knows many dwarves were captured in the last 6 months.
- Dolman meets his father again, who has been able to arrive in Glasrath because of the messengers of Guilf.
- The heroes discuss what their options are, and how to stop the war. Amyria consults Mystra, who manifests again. Mystra is now weak, but has chosen a side - she asks Amyria to support Golab, and pledges for Mr. Void to not be awakened.
- Khatadzig is evacuated, and everyone retreats to the forge through the mountains.
- The heroes decide to go to the Acrisae war camp, and are able to meet one of Golab’s commanders. The commander explains that the war would not be necessary, if the Sorcerer-King Loquiroth is finally captured or destroyed.
- The heroes then travel to the Forge, and using they’s powers break into the Kernel. Inside lies Loquiroth.
- A battle ensues and Loquiroth is spent, but still able to loose his form and vanishes
- The heroes destroy as much as they can of the Kernel, before Turnskull forces arrive. They then jump from the Kernel and softly land below. It is easy to leave the Forge.
- They travel back to meet the caravan with all the people from Glasrath. How will them protect their families that are accompanying Ghuse?
- With Ghuse, they consider their alternatives: the Acrisae, partnered with the FFKA, is not one, while the Turnskull are now too weak and disorganised.
- Guilf’s opinion is that Mr. Void is the only remaining alternative. After heated discussions the group agrees to go to the Holzander Castle.
- Upon arrival, they are received by the Ngar’tho, who have been chanting since they last left, preparing for the ritual.
- Conversing with the shared mind of the Ngar’tho, they take the boat on the river under the castle, and reach the ritual room.
- The maimed body of Mr Void lay on the bottom of a ritualistic pool.
- Guilf follows his heart, and starts the ritual by proposing to Amyria.