ADVENTURE 27: THE SHATTERED HOURGLASS
PC Roster:
Game Session Date: 9 July 2020
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"This is taking forever," grumbled Khari Hammerslammer from the back of the wagon. "How's anybody all the way out here gonna be able to help us?" It had been four days of travel through the pass around the Desolate Waste, during which time the group had seen a small village or two but not much in the way of neighboring kingdoms they might be able to sway to join the alliance to aid Greenvale.
"The Greenvale drow wouldn't have sent us on a fool's errand," pointed out Marlo. "If they thought it was worth our while to travel this distance, there's got to be potential allies out this way. Plus," she added, "Dracovania was at least this far away from Greenvale, just in the other direction."
"Seems longer," grumbled Khari. Part of the problem might have been the bleakness of the terrain, given they were skirting the edge of a vast wasteland of bare desert.
"Sea!" called Jhasspok suddenly from the back of the wagon, raising his head and opening his reptilian nostrils wide.
"See what?" asked Khari, looking around for what had piqued the lizardfolk's interest this time. Probably some new feature of the surface world that wasn't present in the Underdark, and thus was something the lifelong slave had never seen before. Khari was getting tired of explaining every new plant, animal, and insect they encountered to Jhasspok; plus, the lizardfolk frequently mixed up the stuff they'd already explained to him. Just yesterday, the foolish reptile had tried telling them he'd been stung by a daisy and it had taken Marlo several minutes to get straight in his head which one was a daisy and which one was a bee.
"I can smell the sea!" Jhasspok insisted. "Like the Bioluminescent Sea back home, but a little different."
"I wouldn't call the Overreach 'back home,' Jhasspok," chided Cramer at the front of the wagon. "With any luck, it'll just be your former home and none of us will need to ever see it again." But then the horse-drawn wagon went over a hill and sure enough, there was a sea - or possibly an ocean; Cramer had no maps of the area by which to reference - in the distance up ahead.
As the road brought them closer to the edge of the water, the slaves could see a pair of buildings by a pier stretching out into the water. There was a group of five children playing in the sand, alternately heading towards the water and running back screaming in delight up the beach as they were chased by waves. But when they noticed the horse-drawn wagon and its five inhabitants, their screams changed from delight to terror and they fled into the water.
"Land sahuagin!" one cried out in the Aquan language, grabbing a smaller child and pulling her into the waves with her. Cramer translated to the others what she'd said, having had it deciphered for him by the helm of comprehend languages he wore.
"What's a--" Jhassok began to ask, but Cramer cut him off. "You are," he said. "Or at, least they think you are."
"A sahuagin is kind of like a lizardfolk who lives in the sea," Marlo explained. "They're said to eat people. That's why they're afraid of you." Jhasspok frowned in puzzlement, trying to decide what was so inherently wrong about eating people. Sure, he wouldn't go out of his way to kill someone just because he was hungry, but if a person was already dead and their meat was just lying there not being used....
"Running into th' water like that's not very smart," Utred exclaimed. "Fool kids c'n get themselves hurt, or drowned."
A woman in gray robes exited one of the buildings, having heard the screaming. She turned to face the five strangers and her eyes suddenly went all white, the pupils seeming to fade away to nothing. Cramer recognized the effect; she was likely employing some sort of divination spell to detect whether they were evil, or undead, or perhaps magical in nature. Besides the all-white eyes, the woman's face was quite distinctive, with red, flamelike runes tattooed upon her cheeks and neck.
The woman shook her head as if waking from a trance and called out, "Please - I must speak with you! Come with me into the inn, if you will." Her eyes returned to their normal state, a deep emerald green that contrasted the red of her hair.
"What about them kids?" Utred asked.
The woman smiled. "They will be fine," she assured the dwarf. "The ocean is their natural environment."
"What's an--" began Jhasspok, but Utred cut him off. "An ocean's the same as the sea," he said. Jhasspok just nodded sagely to himself; he'd encountered multiple words meaning the same thing before, like "wolf" and "dog" or "food" and "meat."
Once inside, the woman introduced herself. "My name is Lauren," she said, which prompted the five slaves to each introduce themselves. Then Lauren explained about her tattoos.
"Some 32 years ago - I was but 5 years old at the time - an evil wizard experimented upon me. I come from a sorcerous bloodline, which prompted him to try to transmute my familial power into a source of prophetic visions."
"That's terrible!" commiserated Marlo, herself a sorcerer who drew her arcane power from her family's bloodline - which, she'd recently come to find out, included a red dragon somewhere back in her family tree. "And the tattoos - that was part of the experiment?" She also knew quite well what it was like to be tattooed against her will, as did each of her four companions, for each wore the House Jalamir emblem tattooed upon their backs.
"Yes," Lauren replied. "And the experiment was a success, for what it's worth: I am unable to cast any spells but those of the divination spell school. When I first saw you approach, I had a prophetic vision: I saw you five, quite clearly, freeing the Mithral Mage from a place of molten metal. The two dwarves looked particularly uncomfortable being there, it seemed." she said, indicating Khari and Utred. "Although our reasons for doing so are likely quite different, it seems we all have the same goal in mind. I'd like you to join with the Seekers of Eternity to help us both to achieve that goal."
"Seekers of Eternity?" Cramer asked. He'd never heard of them.
"The group to which I belong," Lauren explained. She pulled back her hair and turned her back to the group, exposing the nape of her neck to them - and the tattoo of a shattered hourglass, laying upon its side.
"We've seen that tattoo before," observed Marlo. "Remember? That fighter helping the mind flayer with his Cult of Eternal Bliss had a tattoo on the back of her neck, just like this one."
"I am unaware of this 'Cult of Eternal Bliss,'" admitted Lauren. "But the Seekers of Eternity have several different factions, all seeking the same goal - to escape the forces of death, so we may live forever. Just think of all the good we could do without the fear of death hanging over our heads our whole lives!"
"How does this Mithral Mage fit into all this?" Cramer asked. The prophecy they'd received about him was he was one way of three the Dying One could be stopped forever; apparently, he knew of some means by which to imprison the Elder God's severed head forever, in such a way even He couldn't escape. Of course, the Mithral Mage was currently imprisoned himself - in Hell no less, apparently. That didn't say much about his qualifications as a good person, although it was entirely possible he hadn't earned himself a place in Hell after death through his actions while living his life so much as having been kidnapped and imprisoned there while still alive.
"He is the founder of the Seekers of Eternity," Lauren replied. "It was his vision that first set us all on this path, to overcome Death forever."
"We're not talking liches or vampires or anything, are we?" Cramer asked warily. He had no use for the undead.
"No, no, of course not - that's not really life," Lauren replied. "Our experiments are of an alchemical nature, trying to recreate the potions of longevity that were apparently once quite common."
"Well, we're on a quest of our own," Marlo said, briefly explaining their own mission to try to gain allies against the Overreach drow army that would rise up to attack Greenvale in less than two months. "Do you think your Seekers of Eternity group could help us?"
"Very possibly," Lauren replied. "My grandfather, Arcturus, is a high-ranking member of the Seekers. We should go to him; he'd be well suited to get you the help you need - and if you're involved in freeing the Mithral Mage, I'm sure the Seekers would aid you in any way they could."
"Does he live far from here?" Khari asked. He was hoping the answer wouldn't involve another half-dozen days in the wagon explaining things to a curious Jhasspok.
"He lives in the Azure Glade," Lauren explained, which was no explanation at all to the five strangers. "It's a kingdom to the east of Durnhill, the kingdom this area - Yondall's Bay - is a part of. But Durnhill is the land of the minions of the evil wizard who cursed me with these tattoos and I fear they are still trying to hunt me down. We'd be best off skirting to Ashfall to the north of Durnhill or Ossirna to the south and heading to the Azure Glade that way. It's probably about three and a half, maybe four days of travel, all told." Khari sighed in weary acceptance.
"Do you think you could sketch us out a map?" asked Cramer.
"Certainly." That set the gnome cleric's mind at ease; he liked having maps to refer to whenever possible.
"So if we escort you to get safely to your grandfather, he'll be able to help us fight off the Overreach drow armies?" Marlo reiterated.
"I'm sure of it," Lauren replied. "The Seekers' ranks are filled with powerful wizards of all types, and quite a few clerics as well. And the Azure Glade is run by a Council of Guilds containing plenty of both." Marlo and Cramer exchanged hopeful looks; perhaps this alliance would be easier than it had seemed at first! And the greater distance would mean little to powerful spellcasters who could likely teleport their allies to Greenvale in no time at all.
At Lauren's suggestion, they decided to head south to Ossirna rather than north to Ashfall. Utred passed over his hat of disguise, suggesting Lauren wear it if she was being hunted by the minions of the evil wizard who had forcibly altered her bloodline powers to become a divinatory source. "I like makin' meself a copy of Cramer," the dwarf admitted, pointing a meaty thumb to the gnomish cleric of Fharlanghn climbing up into the driver's seat of the wagon. The children had advanced cautiously back upon the beach as the five slaves spent time inside the inn talking to Lauren, but once Jhasspok stepped back outside they went screaming back into the ocean.
"What are they, anyway?" asked Khari. "Sea sprites?"
"Merfolk children, actually," replied Lauren.
"What? Impossible!"
"They have magic belts that transform their fishlike tails into legs when on land," Lauren explained, plopping Utred's magic hat on her head and altering her appearance to become Cramer's duplicate. Her offhand comment got Jhasspok's interest, though: fish tails? He liked fish tails! He looked longingly at the children diving into the waves, not seeing any evidence of fish tails at all.
Marlo tied the customary rope around her ankle and used her boots of levitation to rise forty feet into the sky, confident that Utred would keep his end wrapped around his forearm so she wouldn't get left behind. Truffles poked out of a pocket of her robes, apparently enjoying the view. Then Cramer snapped the reins and the horse drew the wagon away from the pier. Jhasspok looked hungrily for any fish-tailed children, but they had vanished once again beneath the waves.
The next half hour passed quietly, interspersed only with the occasional query from Jhasspok. Then Marlo called down from her aerial perch: "Humanoid cloud approaching!"
Everyone looked to where she was pointing, and sure enough, a cloud was drifting down from the sky at a rather rapid pace, its form somewhat humanoid in appearance. "Do clouds normally do that?" Jhasspok asked - he seriously didn't know, as clouds were well outside his normal area of experience. There were no clouds in the Underdark.
"Definitely not!" replied Utred, pulling free his Elderwood flaming longsword and standing up in the cart, ready to leap down or fend off an attack.
The cloud shape lowered itself down to just above the level of the people in the wagon. In a wispy voice, it whispered, "Where is the spy? Hand over the spy!" It held one arm back, ready to strike if anyone tried to attack. Khari couldn't help but notice this cloud-shape was easily twice the height of a human, even a full-sized one (as Marlo was significantly shorter than the norm for her race).
Lifting his earthglide warhammer and activating its power, Khari leaped off the far side of the wagon and disappeared below the surface of the earth. He ran forward, beneath the wagon, beneath the horse, beneath the air elemental hovering before the frightened horse, and rose up behind the floating cloud-mass. He readied his weapon to strike.
Jhasspok tried a different tactic, one that made perfect sense to the lizardfolk: if this cloud person was going to try to get its nebulous hands on this "spy," he'd give it a target to focus upon. He leaped off the other side of the wagon, running away and leaping onto the nearby stump of an old tree, where he spun in place and faced the air elemental. Then, magic battleaxe in hand, he called out, "Here I am! I am the spy!" He had to stifle a hissing laugh at the cleverness of his scheme; no sense in giving away the ruse!
Cramer cast a true seeing spell, figuring the air elemental had probably been summoned by a spellcaster and wanting to ensure said spellcaster wasn't right there among them, hidden behind an invisibility spell. He looked around with his magically-enhanced sight but the only thing he saw that wasn't as it appeared was Lauren, whose true form was revealed behind her "Cramer Appleknocker knock-off" form.
Marlo lowered herself from her aerial vantage point, noting as she did so a bit of movement from further down a clearing between the trees of the forest flanking the road. One was a lithe figure in dark robes, his or her head covered in a hood that obscured any facial features. The other was more easily identifiable: a halfling woman in dark leather armor astride a riding dog. As she had a better view of the halfling, Marlo made her the target of the empowered magic missile spell she hurled and was pleased to see the apparent rogue topple from her canine mount, hitting the ground with a senseless thud. Whether she was dead or merely unconscious Marlo couldn't tell, but either way it looked like she was out of the fight for now. The sorcerer dropped onto the overhanging branch of a tree beside the road on which the group had been traveling, deeming it a suitable perch from which to continue to contribute to the combat at hand.
Khari got a surprise when he swung his warhammer at the air elemental: you can't really sneak up behind something whose "front" and "back" are readily interchangeable! His blow went wide as the air elemental easily dodged away, but so too did its counter-strike with an arm made of whirling winds.
Unseen behind a clump of trees, a water elemental - the same height as the air elemental, although sporting a broader overall build - rose up from a creek and readied itself to dive into combat with any who might approach it. At least it hoped a foe would approach, for otherwise it meant trudging up onto land and fighting from there, where it was at a distinct disadvantage.
Utred charged from the wagon to the air elemental, screaming a battle cry as he brought his flaming blade through the winds making up the elemental's airy form. But at the same time another elemental, this one made of dirt and rocks, rose up from the ground and attacked Khari from behind for the effrontery of trespassing onto its domain; never before in the earth elemental's experience had it seen a dwarf or a member of any other mortal race earth glide in the manner normally reserved for creatures from the Elemental Plane of Earth. Khari was struck on both sides of the head by a pair of massive, boulderlike fists, causing the clanging of his metal helmet to ring in his ears.
Lauren, hampered by her tattoos into only being able to cast divination spells, knew her spellcasting abilities were all but useless in a fight, so she picked up the light crossbow she kept for emergencies and fired a bolt at the air elemental. The bolt hit true, but then swirled around and around inside the elemental's body until it was flung away to the side; it was difficult to see whether the weapon had had any effect at all, for despite their particular element, these creatures didn't bleed. But the air elemental didn't seem fazed at all by the attack, ignoring the bolt completely as it slammed its wind-fists at Utred, battering the dwarven barbarian with the fury of its attacks.
Khari whirled in place and sent his warhammer slamming into the side of the earth elemental, feeling this was a more worthy foe than a creature made up entirely of air. At least he had the satisfaction of seeing clumps of dirt and rocks cascade from the elemental's body at the point of impact of the dwarven fighter's weapon.
Jhasspok, standing upon the tree stump, was puzzled as to why his brilliant scheme hadn't worked and the air elemental hadn't focused its attacks upon him. Giving a mental shrug - after all, there was so much of this surface world that didn't make sense to the lizardfolk - he sprang towards the air elemental, bringing his battleaxe crashing down into its body in an overhead swing. If the silly thing wouldn't come to Jhasspok, then Jhasspok would have to go to it.
Back behind most of the action, Carl whined at his halfling rider's unconscious form and did his best to lick Orion back to wakefulness. The robed figure, Daleth, ran over to her side and pulled two items from his robes. The first of these was a reddish gem, which he tossed to the ground and then pointed at the wagon when a Large fire elemental rose up from the shattered gem, indicating the targets the flame-beast was to attack. The second item was a potion of cure light wounds, which he unstoppered and gently poured down the halfling's throat.
Cramer cast a shield of faith spell upon Utred, firmly believing the ounce of prevention it caused - in making it that much more difficult to deal any damage to the battle-crazed barbarian - was worth the pound of cure after the fact in the form of healing spells. Marlo, in the meantime, saw the fire elemental approaching from behind the trees and realized she had an opportunity to catch both it and the earth elemental in a single lightning bolt spell, as they were so nice as to line up for her. The blast seemed to cause both elementals no small amount of pain. But off to the fire elemental's right, Marlo spotted the water elemental crawling up onto land, muttering to itself in Aquan about the indignity of having to fight on solid ground.
The earth elemental struck at Utred while the barbarian's attention was focused upon the air elemental; with a curse, he brought his Elderwood flaming longsword crashing into the rocky body of this new foe. The fire elemental moved up but was still out of range to join the fracas at once; the crackling of its flames alerted the others to its presence, however. The air elemental continued swinging its fists at Khari, another of Lauren's crossbow bolts hitting its body and being blown off to the side.
Khari took a moment to apprise the situation with the air and earth elementals. It was hard to tell with the air elemental, but the earth elemental's humanoid form was looking fairly damaged, with large divots missing from its arms, legs, and torso where he and Utred had struck it with their weapons. So, judging it to being closer to being destroyed than the air elemental, he brought his warhammer crashing into the earth-beast's side, sending dirt and pebbles flying from the force of his blow. Jhasspok was there to take up any slack in attacking the air elemental, bringing his battleaxe swinging into its body and instinctively snapping at the thing with his sharp teeth; the lizardfolk wasn't really surprised to learn that air elementals don't really taste like anything at all.
Cramer cast a spiritual weapon spell, sending the force-quarterstaff thus formed crashing into the earth elemental's head. Marlo slew the earth elemental and further damaged the fire elemental with a second lightning bolt spell; the fire elemental had taken quite a bit of damage now without having even gotten to land a blow of its own!
By now the water elemental had reached its foes and decided it wasn't going to play the fool's game by fighting these landbound foes in their own element; rather, he'd snatch one up and drag him back to be drowned in the creek. He grabbed at Khari, hoping to snatch him up and cart him away, but the fighter was too fast for him, sending his warhammer crashing into the elemental's hand and splashing it away, to soak the nearby ground. By the time the elemental had redistributed its mass to reform a new hand, the dwarf had shuffled off to the side and was out of reach. Bother!
With another roar of rage, Utred charged into the air elemental, his flaming blade cutting through its airy body to unknown effect. Lauren shot another crossbow bolt at the thing, this time targeting its head, but was unsure if the new target location had had any effect.
Orion sputtered and sat up, coughing. "I thought the spy was supposed to be traveling alone!" she complained. "Who are all those other guys?"
"I'm afraid I have no idea," Daleth replied. "But they seem to be way out of our league; I doubt if there is much more we can add to the fight. Best we report back what we know to Skevros - he may have further thoughts about how to capture this Lauren person." Their decision made, Orion crawled back up onto Carl's saddle and the trio turned about and went back the way they had come, retreating back to the Durnhill capital city.
The fire elemental brought a swinging fist crashing down upon Khari's head, leaving behind wisps of flame burning along his armor. But then the air elemental changed tactics, spinning its body into a virtual whirlwind and flying directly at Utred, Cramer, Jhasspok, and Khari in turn. It tried battering each foe and lifting them up into the air to be flung about, but while it did manage to deal some damage to the little gnome none of the heroes was lifted about as it had intended.
Khari ignored the howling winds suddenly buffeting his body and brought his warhammer swinging into the water elemental's body, causing a splash of water to go spraying out the creature's back and moisten the surrounding dirt, making small puddles of mud. But that wasn't all: there was a fish flopping around on the ground all of a sudden; with sudden amazement, Jhasspok realized the water elemental's liquid body contained a fish or two from the creek-waters in which it had been formed. This immediately made the water elemental the most interesting foe the lizardfolk had ever seen and he refocused his attention accordingly.
Cramer finished off the air elemental with a sound burst spell; he'd known there was little chance of actually stunning an elemental but he was counting on the sonic damage being enough to take it out - and he'd been quite correct. Better yet, the fire elemental was close enough to the spell's target point to likewise take some damage.
From her tree-branch perch, Marlo looked down at the remaining combatants: a fire elemental and a water elemental, each about the same size and neither one giving much of an indication of how much damage it had taken or how weak it was. So she chose her target based upon the spells she had available and cast an empowered scorching ray spell at the water elemental, realizing fire was likely a weakness to it whereas the fire elemental was most likely completely immune. She couldn't help the satisfied smirk from crossing her face when the water elemental, being hit by two separate rays of pure flame, boiled away into nothingness.
Jhasspok, in the meantime, couldn't help the satisfied smirk from crossing his reptilian muzzle when he saw the fish swimming around inside the water elemental's form were not only laying there on the ground waiting to be claimed, but had also apparently been boiled as well. Jhasspok was no purist; he was perfectly fine with eating raw fish but had no qualms against eating fish that had been cooked, as the mammals of his group seemed to prefer.
Utred dropped his longsword, the green flames extinguishing once the weapon left his grip, and pulled the greataxe from his back, realizing it was a more suitable weapon when fighting a fire elemental. His trusty axe-blade went slicing into the blazing elemental's form as the flame-beast swatted at him in turn with a massive arm. Jhasspok was close enough to the elemental to be struck by a flaming limb as well; fortunately, as his scales were engulfed in flames, there was a convenient patch of muddy earth right there to drop into. Jhasspok rolled around in the mud, dousing the flames coating his body, and grabbing up the boiled fish as long as he was right there.
Khari finished the fire elemental off shortly thereafter with a series of blows from his warhammer, the final swing extinguishing the flame-beast like a blown-out candle.
"Anybody need healing?" Cramer offered, now that the battle seemed to be over. Marlo, seeing Jhasspok's muddy form, sent him over to the creek to wash off before she'd allow him back into the wagon; that was perfectly fine with the lizardfolk, who took the opportunity to hunt down an extra fish or two while he was in there getting his scales cleaned.
Then, once Cramer had attended to everyone's wounds, the group gathered back into the wagon and the gnome sent the horse back on its way south, towards the border of Ossirna.
"Do you guys get into scrapes like this very often?" Lauren asked.
"Yeah, fairly often," Utred replied. "But we're all still alive. It'll take more than a bunch of elementals to take us out!"
- - -
This adventure took place during the same span of time where, in the "Durnhill Conscripts" campaign, Galen, Kaspar, and Syngaard were attempting to steal a copy of a book about the Mithral Mage from the Diviners' Library in the Azure Glade. During that Wednesday night session, neither Vicki nor Joey had showed up (they were off doing other things), so neither of their PCs went on that mission. And now we know why: Skevros had sent them on a mission to try to track down Lauren, aided by four one-time-use elemental gems that summoned forth Large elementals.
Incidentally, Logan wasn't pulling any punches with Orion and Daleth; while they were 4th-level at that point in time and our (current campaign) PCs are all 9th level, had we managed to kill either of them their deaths would have been canonical; in Logan's mind, a death during this adventure (and subsequent return to life via raise dead, naturally) would actually help explain why they lagged behind in level from the other three PCs. (The out-of-game explanation, or course, being than neither Dan, Harry, nor I ever missed a session of our Durnhill campaign, while Vicki and Joey were frequent absentees, especially in the beginning months.) But Marlo's empowered magic missile spell dropped Orion immediately to -3 hp, knocking her out but not killing her, and giving Daleth enough time to administer some much-needed healing in potion form.
It's entirely possible we may be seeing either or both of them in upcoming adventures in this campaign.
PC Roster:
Cramer Appleknocker, gnome cleric 9
Jhasspok, lizardman 3/barbarian 2/fighter 4
Khari Hammerslammer, dwarf fighter 9
Marlo Pendragon, human sorcerer 9
Utred "Buckets" Butterflinger, dwarf barbarian 9
Game Session Date: 9 July 2020
- - -
"This is taking forever," grumbled Khari Hammerslammer from the back of the wagon. "How's anybody all the way out here gonna be able to help us?" It had been four days of travel through the pass around the Desolate Waste, during which time the group had seen a small village or two but not much in the way of neighboring kingdoms they might be able to sway to join the alliance to aid Greenvale.
"The Greenvale drow wouldn't have sent us on a fool's errand," pointed out Marlo. "If they thought it was worth our while to travel this distance, there's got to be potential allies out this way. Plus," she added, "Dracovania was at least this far away from Greenvale, just in the other direction."
"Seems longer," grumbled Khari. Part of the problem might have been the bleakness of the terrain, given they were skirting the edge of a vast wasteland of bare desert.
"Sea!" called Jhasspok suddenly from the back of the wagon, raising his head and opening his reptilian nostrils wide.
"See what?" asked Khari, looking around for what had piqued the lizardfolk's interest this time. Probably some new feature of the surface world that wasn't present in the Underdark, and thus was something the lifelong slave had never seen before. Khari was getting tired of explaining every new plant, animal, and insect they encountered to Jhasspok; plus, the lizardfolk frequently mixed up the stuff they'd already explained to him. Just yesterday, the foolish reptile had tried telling them he'd been stung by a daisy and it had taken Marlo several minutes to get straight in his head which one was a daisy and which one was a bee.
"I can smell the sea!" Jhasspok insisted. "Like the Bioluminescent Sea back home, but a little different."
"I wouldn't call the Overreach 'back home,' Jhasspok," chided Cramer at the front of the wagon. "With any luck, it'll just be your former home and none of us will need to ever see it again." But then the horse-drawn wagon went over a hill and sure enough, there was a sea - or possibly an ocean; Cramer had no maps of the area by which to reference - in the distance up ahead.
As the road brought them closer to the edge of the water, the slaves could see a pair of buildings by a pier stretching out into the water. There was a group of five children playing in the sand, alternately heading towards the water and running back screaming in delight up the beach as they were chased by waves. But when they noticed the horse-drawn wagon and its five inhabitants, their screams changed from delight to terror and they fled into the water.
"Land sahuagin!" one cried out in the Aquan language, grabbing a smaller child and pulling her into the waves with her. Cramer translated to the others what she'd said, having had it deciphered for him by the helm of comprehend languages he wore.
"What's a--" Jhassok began to ask, but Cramer cut him off. "You are," he said. "Or at, least they think you are."
"A sahuagin is kind of like a lizardfolk who lives in the sea," Marlo explained. "They're said to eat people. That's why they're afraid of you." Jhasspok frowned in puzzlement, trying to decide what was so inherently wrong about eating people. Sure, he wouldn't go out of his way to kill someone just because he was hungry, but if a person was already dead and their meat was just lying there not being used....
"Running into th' water like that's not very smart," Utred exclaimed. "Fool kids c'n get themselves hurt, or drowned."
A woman in gray robes exited one of the buildings, having heard the screaming. She turned to face the five strangers and her eyes suddenly went all white, the pupils seeming to fade away to nothing. Cramer recognized the effect; she was likely employing some sort of divination spell to detect whether they were evil, or undead, or perhaps magical in nature. Besides the all-white eyes, the woman's face was quite distinctive, with red, flamelike runes tattooed upon her cheeks and neck.
The woman shook her head as if waking from a trance and called out, "Please - I must speak with you! Come with me into the inn, if you will." Her eyes returned to their normal state, a deep emerald green that contrasted the red of her hair.
"What about them kids?" Utred asked.
The woman smiled. "They will be fine," she assured the dwarf. "The ocean is their natural environment."
"What's an--" began Jhasspok, but Utred cut him off. "An ocean's the same as the sea," he said. Jhasspok just nodded sagely to himself; he'd encountered multiple words meaning the same thing before, like "wolf" and "dog" or "food" and "meat."
Once inside, the woman introduced herself. "My name is Lauren," she said, which prompted the five slaves to each introduce themselves. Then Lauren explained about her tattoos.
"Some 32 years ago - I was but 5 years old at the time - an evil wizard experimented upon me. I come from a sorcerous bloodline, which prompted him to try to transmute my familial power into a source of prophetic visions."
"That's terrible!" commiserated Marlo, herself a sorcerer who drew her arcane power from her family's bloodline - which, she'd recently come to find out, included a red dragon somewhere back in her family tree. "And the tattoos - that was part of the experiment?" She also knew quite well what it was like to be tattooed against her will, as did each of her four companions, for each wore the House Jalamir emblem tattooed upon their backs.
"Yes," Lauren replied. "And the experiment was a success, for what it's worth: I am unable to cast any spells but those of the divination spell school. When I first saw you approach, I had a prophetic vision: I saw you five, quite clearly, freeing the Mithral Mage from a place of molten metal. The two dwarves looked particularly uncomfortable being there, it seemed." she said, indicating Khari and Utred. "Although our reasons for doing so are likely quite different, it seems we all have the same goal in mind. I'd like you to join with the Seekers of Eternity to help us both to achieve that goal."
"Seekers of Eternity?" Cramer asked. He'd never heard of them.
"The group to which I belong," Lauren explained. She pulled back her hair and turned her back to the group, exposing the nape of her neck to them - and the tattoo of a shattered hourglass, laying upon its side.
"We've seen that tattoo before," observed Marlo. "Remember? That fighter helping the mind flayer with his Cult of Eternal Bliss had a tattoo on the back of her neck, just like this one."
"I am unaware of this 'Cult of Eternal Bliss,'" admitted Lauren. "But the Seekers of Eternity have several different factions, all seeking the same goal - to escape the forces of death, so we may live forever. Just think of all the good we could do without the fear of death hanging over our heads our whole lives!"
"How does this Mithral Mage fit into all this?" Cramer asked. The prophecy they'd received about him was he was one way of three the Dying One could be stopped forever; apparently, he knew of some means by which to imprison the Elder God's severed head forever, in such a way even He couldn't escape. Of course, the Mithral Mage was currently imprisoned himself - in Hell no less, apparently. That didn't say much about his qualifications as a good person, although it was entirely possible he hadn't earned himself a place in Hell after death through his actions while living his life so much as having been kidnapped and imprisoned there while still alive.
"He is the founder of the Seekers of Eternity," Lauren replied. "It was his vision that first set us all on this path, to overcome Death forever."
"We're not talking liches or vampires or anything, are we?" Cramer asked warily. He had no use for the undead.
"No, no, of course not - that's not really life," Lauren replied. "Our experiments are of an alchemical nature, trying to recreate the potions of longevity that were apparently once quite common."
"Well, we're on a quest of our own," Marlo said, briefly explaining their own mission to try to gain allies against the Overreach drow army that would rise up to attack Greenvale in less than two months. "Do you think your Seekers of Eternity group could help us?"
"Very possibly," Lauren replied. "My grandfather, Arcturus, is a high-ranking member of the Seekers. We should go to him; he'd be well suited to get you the help you need - and if you're involved in freeing the Mithral Mage, I'm sure the Seekers would aid you in any way they could."
"Does he live far from here?" Khari asked. He was hoping the answer wouldn't involve another half-dozen days in the wagon explaining things to a curious Jhasspok.
"He lives in the Azure Glade," Lauren explained, which was no explanation at all to the five strangers. "It's a kingdom to the east of Durnhill, the kingdom this area - Yondall's Bay - is a part of. But Durnhill is the land of the minions of the evil wizard who cursed me with these tattoos and I fear they are still trying to hunt me down. We'd be best off skirting to Ashfall to the north of Durnhill or Ossirna to the south and heading to the Azure Glade that way. It's probably about three and a half, maybe four days of travel, all told." Khari sighed in weary acceptance.
"Do you think you could sketch us out a map?" asked Cramer.
"Certainly." That set the gnome cleric's mind at ease; he liked having maps to refer to whenever possible.
"So if we escort you to get safely to your grandfather, he'll be able to help us fight off the Overreach drow armies?" Marlo reiterated.
"I'm sure of it," Lauren replied. "The Seekers' ranks are filled with powerful wizards of all types, and quite a few clerics as well. And the Azure Glade is run by a Council of Guilds containing plenty of both." Marlo and Cramer exchanged hopeful looks; perhaps this alliance would be easier than it had seemed at first! And the greater distance would mean little to powerful spellcasters who could likely teleport their allies to Greenvale in no time at all.
At Lauren's suggestion, they decided to head south to Ossirna rather than north to Ashfall. Utred passed over his hat of disguise, suggesting Lauren wear it if she was being hunted by the minions of the evil wizard who had forcibly altered her bloodline powers to become a divinatory source. "I like makin' meself a copy of Cramer," the dwarf admitted, pointing a meaty thumb to the gnomish cleric of Fharlanghn climbing up into the driver's seat of the wagon. The children had advanced cautiously back upon the beach as the five slaves spent time inside the inn talking to Lauren, but once Jhasspok stepped back outside they went screaming back into the ocean.
"What are they, anyway?" asked Khari. "Sea sprites?"
"Merfolk children, actually," replied Lauren.
"What? Impossible!"
"They have magic belts that transform their fishlike tails into legs when on land," Lauren explained, plopping Utred's magic hat on her head and altering her appearance to become Cramer's duplicate. Her offhand comment got Jhasspok's interest, though: fish tails? He liked fish tails! He looked longingly at the children diving into the waves, not seeing any evidence of fish tails at all.
Marlo tied the customary rope around her ankle and used her boots of levitation to rise forty feet into the sky, confident that Utred would keep his end wrapped around his forearm so she wouldn't get left behind. Truffles poked out of a pocket of her robes, apparently enjoying the view. Then Cramer snapped the reins and the horse drew the wagon away from the pier. Jhasspok looked hungrily for any fish-tailed children, but they had vanished once again beneath the waves.
The next half hour passed quietly, interspersed only with the occasional query from Jhasspok. Then Marlo called down from her aerial perch: "Humanoid cloud approaching!"
Everyone looked to where she was pointing, and sure enough, a cloud was drifting down from the sky at a rather rapid pace, its form somewhat humanoid in appearance. "Do clouds normally do that?" Jhasspok asked - he seriously didn't know, as clouds were well outside his normal area of experience. There were no clouds in the Underdark.
"Definitely not!" replied Utred, pulling free his Elderwood flaming longsword and standing up in the cart, ready to leap down or fend off an attack.
The cloud shape lowered itself down to just above the level of the people in the wagon. In a wispy voice, it whispered, "Where is the spy? Hand over the spy!" It held one arm back, ready to strike if anyone tried to attack. Khari couldn't help but notice this cloud-shape was easily twice the height of a human, even a full-sized one (as Marlo was significantly shorter than the norm for her race).
Lifting his earthglide warhammer and activating its power, Khari leaped off the far side of the wagon and disappeared below the surface of the earth. He ran forward, beneath the wagon, beneath the horse, beneath the air elemental hovering before the frightened horse, and rose up behind the floating cloud-mass. He readied his weapon to strike.
Jhasspok tried a different tactic, one that made perfect sense to the lizardfolk: if this cloud person was going to try to get its nebulous hands on this "spy," he'd give it a target to focus upon. He leaped off the other side of the wagon, running away and leaping onto the nearby stump of an old tree, where he spun in place and faced the air elemental. Then, magic battleaxe in hand, he called out, "Here I am! I am the spy!" He had to stifle a hissing laugh at the cleverness of his scheme; no sense in giving away the ruse!
Cramer cast a true seeing spell, figuring the air elemental had probably been summoned by a spellcaster and wanting to ensure said spellcaster wasn't right there among them, hidden behind an invisibility spell. He looked around with his magically-enhanced sight but the only thing he saw that wasn't as it appeared was Lauren, whose true form was revealed behind her "Cramer Appleknocker knock-off" form.
Marlo lowered herself from her aerial vantage point, noting as she did so a bit of movement from further down a clearing between the trees of the forest flanking the road. One was a lithe figure in dark robes, his or her head covered in a hood that obscured any facial features. The other was more easily identifiable: a halfling woman in dark leather armor astride a riding dog. As she had a better view of the halfling, Marlo made her the target of the empowered magic missile spell she hurled and was pleased to see the apparent rogue topple from her canine mount, hitting the ground with a senseless thud. Whether she was dead or merely unconscious Marlo couldn't tell, but either way it looked like she was out of the fight for now. The sorcerer dropped onto the overhanging branch of a tree beside the road on which the group had been traveling, deeming it a suitable perch from which to continue to contribute to the combat at hand.
Khari got a surprise when he swung his warhammer at the air elemental: you can't really sneak up behind something whose "front" and "back" are readily interchangeable! His blow went wide as the air elemental easily dodged away, but so too did its counter-strike with an arm made of whirling winds.
Unseen behind a clump of trees, a water elemental - the same height as the air elemental, although sporting a broader overall build - rose up from a creek and readied itself to dive into combat with any who might approach it. At least it hoped a foe would approach, for otherwise it meant trudging up onto land and fighting from there, where it was at a distinct disadvantage.
Utred charged from the wagon to the air elemental, screaming a battle cry as he brought his flaming blade through the winds making up the elemental's airy form. But at the same time another elemental, this one made of dirt and rocks, rose up from the ground and attacked Khari from behind for the effrontery of trespassing onto its domain; never before in the earth elemental's experience had it seen a dwarf or a member of any other mortal race earth glide in the manner normally reserved for creatures from the Elemental Plane of Earth. Khari was struck on both sides of the head by a pair of massive, boulderlike fists, causing the clanging of his metal helmet to ring in his ears.
Lauren, hampered by her tattoos into only being able to cast divination spells, knew her spellcasting abilities were all but useless in a fight, so she picked up the light crossbow she kept for emergencies and fired a bolt at the air elemental. The bolt hit true, but then swirled around and around inside the elemental's body until it was flung away to the side; it was difficult to see whether the weapon had had any effect at all, for despite their particular element, these creatures didn't bleed. But the air elemental didn't seem fazed at all by the attack, ignoring the bolt completely as it slammed its wind-fists at Utred, battering the dwarven barbarian with the fury of its attacks.
Khari whirled in place and sent his warhammer slamming into the side of the earth elemental, feeling this was a more worthy foe than a creature made up entirely of air. At least he had the satisfaction of seeing clumps of dirt and rocks cascade from the elemental's body at the point of impact of the dwarven fighter's weapon.
Jhasspok, standing upon the tree stump, was puzzled as to why his brilliant scheme hadn't worked and the air elemental hadn't focused its attacks upon him. Giving a mental shrug - after all, there was so much of this surface world that didn't make sense to the lizardfolk - he sprang towards the air elemental, bringing his battleaxe crashing down into its body in an overhead swing. If the silly thing wouldn't come to Jhasspok, then Jhasspok would have to go to it.
Back behind most of the action, Carl whined at his halfling rider's unconscious form and did his best to lick Orion back to wakefulness. The robed figure, Daleth, ran over to her side and pulled two items from his robes. The first of these was a reddish gem, which he tossed to the ground and then pointed at the wagon when a Large fire elemental rose up from the shattered gem, indicating the targets the flame-beast was to attack. The second item was a potion of cure light wounds, which he unstoppered and gently poured down the halfling's throat.
Cramer cast a shield of faith spell upon Utred, firmly believing the ounce of prevention it caused - in making it that much more difficult to deal any damage to the battle-crazed barbarian - was worth the pound of cure after the fact in the form of healing spells. Marlo, in the meantime, saw the fire elemental approaching from behind the trees and realized she had an opportunity to catch both it and the earth elemental in a single lightning bolt spell, as they were so nice as to line up for her. The blast seemed to cause both elementals no small amount of pain. But off to the fire elemental's right, Marlo spotted the water elemental crawling up onto land, muttering to itself in Aquan about the indignity of having to fight on solid ground.
The earth elemental struck at Utred while the barbarian's attention was focused upon the air elemental; with a curse, he brought his Elderwood flaming longsword crashing into the rocky body of this new foe. The fire elemental moved up but was still out of range to join the fracas at once; the crackling of its flames alerted the others to its presence, however. The air elemental continued swinging its fists at Khari, another of Lauren's crossbow bolts hitting its body and being blown off to the side.
Khari took a moment to apprise the situation with the air and earth elementals. It was hard to tell with the air elemental, but the earth elemental's humanoid form was looking fairly damaged, with large divots missing from its arms, legs, and torso where he and Utred had struck it with their weapons. So, judging it to being closer to being destroyed than the air elemental, he brought his warhammer crashing into the earth-beast's side, sending dirt and pebbles flying from the force of his blow. Jhasspok was there to take up any slack in attacking the air elemental, bringing his battleaxe swinging into its body and instinctively snapping at the thing with his sharp teeth; the lizardfolk wasn't really surprised to learn that air elementals don't really taste like anything at all.
Cramer cast a spiritual weapon spell, sending the force-quarterstaff thus formed crashing into the earth elemental's head. Marlo slew the earth elemental and further damaged the fire elemental with a second lightning bolt spell; the fire elemental had taken quite a bit of damage now without having even gotten to land a blow of its own!
By now the water elemental had reached its foes and decided it wasn't going to play the fool's game by fighting these landbound foes in their own element; rather, he'd snatch one up and drag him back to be drowned in the creek. He grabbed at Khari, hoping to snatch him up and cart him away, but the fighter was too fast for him, sending his warhammer crashing into the elemental's hand and splashing it away, to soak the nearby ground. By the time the elemental had redistributed its mass to reform a new hand, the dwarf had shuffled off to the side and was out of reach. Bother!
With another roar of rage, Utred charged into the air elemental, his flaming blade cutting through its airy body to unknown effect. Lauren shot another crossbow bolt at the thing, this time targeting its head, but was unsure if the new target location had had any effect.
Orion sputtered and sat up, coughing. "I thought the spy was supposed to be traveling alone!" she complained. "Who are all those other guys?"
"I'm afraid I have no idea," Daleth replied. "But they seem to be way out of our league; I doubt if there is much more we can add to the fight. Best we report back what we know to Skevros - he may have further thoughts about how to capture this Lauren person." Their decision made, Orion crawled back up onto Carl's saddle and the trio turned about and went back the way they had come, retreating back to the Durnhill capital city.
The fire elemental brought a swinging fist crashing down upon Khari's head, leaving behind wisps of flame burning along his armor. But then the air elemental changed tactics, spinning its body into a virtual whirlwind and flying directly at Utred, Cramer, Jhasspok, and Khari in turn. It tried battering each foe and lifting them up into the air to be flung about, but while it did manage to deal some damage to the little gnome none of the heroes was lifted about as it had intended.
Khari ignored the howling winds suddenly buffeting his body and brought his warhammer swinging into the water elemental's body, causing a splash of water to go spraying out the creature's back and moisten the surrounding dirt, making small puddles of mud. But that wasn't all: there was a fish flopping around on the ground all of a sudden; with sudden amazement, Jhasspok realized the water elemental's liquid body contained a fish or two from the creek-waters in which it had been formed. This immediately made the water elemental the most interesting foe the lizardfolk had ever seen and he refocused his attention accordingly.
Cramer finished off the air elemental with a sound burst spell; he'd known there was little chance of actually stunning an elemental but he was counting on the sonic damage being enough to take it out - and he'd been quite correct. Better yet, the fire elemental was close enough to the spell's target point to likewise take some damage.
From her tree-branch perch, Marlo looked down at the remaining combatants: a fire elemental and a water elemental, each about the same size and neither one giving much of an indication of how much damage it had taken or how weak it was. So she chose her target based upon the spells she had available and cast an empowered scorching ray spell at the water elemental, realizing fire was likely a weakness to it whereas the fire elemental was most likely completely immune. She couldn't help the satisfied smirk from crossing her face when the water elemental, being hit by two separate rays of pure flame, boiled away into nothingness.
Jhasspok, in the meantime, couldn't help the satisfied smirk from crossing his reptilian muzzle when he saw the fish swimming around inside the water elemental's form were not only laying there on the ground waiting to be claimed, but had also apparently been boiled as well. Jhasspok was no purist; he was perfectly fine with eating raw fish but had no qualms against eating fish that had been cooked, as the mammals of his group seemed to prefer.
Utred dropped his longsword, the green flames extinguishing once the weapon left his grip, and pulled the greataxe from his back, realizing it was a more suitable weapon when fighting a fire elemental. His trusty axe-blade went slicing into the blazing elemental's form as the flame-beast swatted at him in turn with a massive arm. Jhasspok was close enough to the elemental to be struck by a flaming limb as well; fortunately, as his scales were engulfed in flames, there was a convenient patch of muddy earth right there to drop into. Jhasspok rolled around in the mud, dousing the flames coating his body, and grabbing up the boiled fish as long as he was right there.
Khari finished the fire elemental off shortly thereafter with a series of blows from his warhammer, the final swing extinguishing the flame-beast like a blown-out candle.
"Anybody need healing?" Cramer offered, now that the battle seemed to be over. Marlo, seeing Jhasspok's muddy form, sent him over to the creek to wash off before she'd allow him back into the wagon; that was perfectly fine with the lizardfolk, who took the opportunity to hunt down an extra fish or two while he was in there getting his scales cleaned.
Then, once Cramer had attended to everyone's wounds, the group gathered back into the wagon and the gnome sent the horse back on its way south, towards the border of Ossirna.
"Do you guys get into scrapes like this very often?" Lauren asked.
"Yeah, fairly often," Utred replied. "But we're all still alive. It'll take more than a bunch of elementals to take us out!"
- - -
This adventure took place during the same span of time where, in the "Durnhill Conscripts" campaign, Galen, Kaspar, and Syngaard were attempting to steal a copy of a book about the Mithral Mage from the Diviners' Library in the Azure Glade. During that Wednesday night session, neither Vicki nor Joey had showed up (they were off doing other things), so neither of their PCs went on that mission. And now we know why: Skevros had sent them on a mission to try to track down Lauren, aided by four one-time-use elemental gems that summoned forth Large elementals.
Incidentally, Logan wasn't pulling any punches with Orion and Daleth; while they were 4th-level at that point in time and our (current campaign) PCs are all 9th level, had we managed to kill either of them their deaths would have been canonical; in Logan's mind, a death during this adventure (and subsequent return to life via raise dead, naturally) would actually help explain why they lagged behind in level from the other three PCs. (The out-of-game explanation, or course, being than neither Dan, Harry, nor I ever missed a session of our Durnhill campaign, while Vicki and Joey were frequent absentees, especially in the beginning months.) But Marlo's empowered magic missile spell dropped Orion immediately to -3 hp, knocking her out but not killing her, and giving Daleth enough time to administer some much-needed healing in potion form.
It's entirely possible we may be seeing either or both of them in upcoming adventures in this campaign.
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