| Forgotten Realms Campaign 2001 16 July, 2001 |
Player Characters
The morning of 11 Eleasis dawned, and the party headed back to the Polyandrium one last time. Following the instructions of the baelnorn, Molostroi, they headed down in to Lyssic's crypt, sloshed through to the sarcophagus chamber, and took the secret tunnel from there into Myth Drannor.
The tunnel ended in the basement of an old barracks that had house dwarves before the fall of the city. The barracks was across the street from the front entrance of Castle Cormanthor.
In the barracks, Molostroi again appeared to the party. He drew some crude maps for the party, showing them where they needed to go. He advised them to use Orbakh's ivory scepter to destroy the dracolich's phylactery. He also warned them not to touch the pool of radience.
As the party was about to leave the barracks wearing their "Cultist disguises" of hooded half-cloaks, with Sam again riding in his bag of holding carried by Mills, an uproar was heard in the street outside. A patrol of Cultists was running towards the castle, some of them hurt, chased by a flock of gargoyles swooping and attacking them as they ran. Guards and dragonkin ran from the castle to help the patrol fight off the gargoyles.
Seeing their oppurtunity, the party rushed out into the street, and then ran into the castle. Several Cultists passed them, rushing out to see to the battle. Spotting a cleric leading a group of skeletons down to the lower levels, the party followed them down to the basement-barracks of the castle.
Mills joined in the Cultists yelling for troops to head to the street and help with the fight. The cleric and skeletons they had followed down to this level continued on down, so the party again followed them.
Thartok was recruited by the Cultist cleric to assist with manacling the skeletons, adding them to the collection that was already "stored" on this level. While Thartok did that, Mills led the rest of the party around to where Molostroi had indicated there was a secret door. Dropping the bag of holding with Sam in it, Mills turned to chat with the Cultist sentry that was guarding the passage down to the pool of radience. Thartok finished up helping the cleric with the skeletons and offered to sit for the sentry if she wanted to go join the fray upstairs.
It took Sam a few minutes longer than he thought it should to find the secret door, but he did find it and then opened it. As discretely as possible, the party passed through the secret door, pulling it shut behind them.
The tunnel behind the secret door went steadily down and around, eventually ending in another door. Spotting the rusty hinges, Sam used some of his lantern oil to try to lubricate it. When that didn't seem to help much, Mills cast silence on the hinges. Then Sam peaked out to take a look around.
A couple of mages, accompanied by dragonkin guards were standing on the far side of the large pool chamber near to the phylactery. A large undead dragon was standing idly on the other side of the chamber.
The party conferred quickly, deciding to use Mills and Thartok to create a diversion. Then Fraugh would dimension door himself, Sam, and Hoshi over to the phylactery where Hoshi could beat on it with the ivory scepter.
Mills used his crossbow and shot at the more important-looking of the two mages, and scored a hit. Attention turned to the party. The undead dragon began lumbering towards them, so Thartok triggered his barbarian rage and rushed over to attack it. The 2 dragonkin guards began flying towards Mills.
Fraugh surprised Sam and Hoshi, who were expecting to be transported, by instead casting cat's grace on himself first.
Fraugh finally cast dimension door, transporting himself, Sam and Hoshi to be just behind the two Cultist mages (one of whom was actually a cleric) and the phylactery. Hoshi rushed over and slammed the ivory scepter against the phylactery. With a loud crashing noise...nothing happend. Sam rushed to attempt to backstab the Cultist cleric, because he appeared to be the one in charge. The backstab missed. The Cultist mage then stepped back and unloaded a wand of magic missiles into the halfling.
The Cultist cleric cast unholy blight, catching all three of the party members. Already seriously hurt, Sam went unconscious, dying.
Deciding that a change of plans was in order, Fraugh rushed over to stand by the phylactery and the fallen Sam. He used Rothilion's staff of justice to dimension door the halfling and the phylactery to one of the stone bridges that passed over the pool of radience. Hoshi spotted reinforcements coming, and so took the long way round to run over to where Fraugh gone.
Meanwhile, Thartok and the undead dragon beat on each other. Thartok beat harder and the undead dragon went down. He then rushed back to where Mills was dealing with the two dragonkin that had rushed over to attack him. One was dispatched quickly with a hold person (must've been a lucky shot), the other he fought more conventionally.
The Cultist mage cast silence on Fraugh just as the wizard managed to push the phylactery off of the bridge and into the pool of radience. Then the Cultist mage cast grease where the party members were standing, causing Fraugh to slip and fall. The two Cultists guards and two more dragonkin that Hoshi had heard rushing into the chamber earlier, ran and flew, respectively, to attack Fraugh and Hoshi.
Fraugh used Rothilion's staff to dimension door himself and the dying Sam to where Mills and Thartok were. Hoshi stayed behind because he wanted to be sure that the phylactery was destroyed.
The phylactery suddenly burst out of the pool of radience, jittering and jerking around. Hoshi attempted to strike it once more with Orbakh's ivory scepter, but missed, taking out a portion of the bridge instead. The dragonkin closed on Hoshi, seriously wounding him, while across the room Mills tended to Sam.
Still silent, Fraugh used Rothilion's staff once again, this time to rescue the fallen Hoshi. The two dragonkin had left the monk slumped unconscious and flown towards the party across the chamber. Fraugh dumped a potion of cure light wounds on Hoshi and brought him back to consciousness. Hoshi jumped to his feet, but was blown back off of them again when the phylactery exploded.
One last use of the staff's dimension door and the party was altogether again. They rushed back through the secret door, pulling it shut behind them. They didn't even pause at the tunnel entrance. Instead, they stayed close to Fraugh so they would all be silent and rushed out a side passage into the ruins of Myth Drannor. They beat a hasty retreat out of the city and into the forest to the shrine of Mystra where they had first arrived.
Molostroi thanked the party for their help and gave them directions to a portal in the city which would transport them back to where they had come from. Deciding not to brave the dangerous ruins, and the crowd of pissed-off Cultists, the party elected to walk back. Molostroi pointed them west, towards Shadowdale.
The two-day trip through Cormanthor went quickly, though they were attacked by a couple of trolls on the first night. Hoshi was hurt, but otherwise the trolls were dispatched quickly.
After they left the forest, the party spent the night in a small farmhouse bordering on the edge of Cormanthor. Two nights later, they entered Shadowdale and stayed at the Old Skull Inn. Several of the people at the inn were impressed when they heard the party had just come from Myth Drannor, commenting that the party seemed "awful young for that."
The day after their arrival, Lord Mourngrym of Shadowdale took them aside. He had received a note from Elminster that the party was carrying a couple of strong evil, necromantic items. So he offered to take them off of the party's hands. Several powerful magic items were traded to the party as compensation for Orbakh's ivory scepter and bone mantle.
Then the party visited the local temple of Lathander, Morningdawn Hall. They presented the sword of Lyssic, First Light, and the still-incomplete Testament of Jade that they had recovered from Myth Drannor. The temple priests were overjoyed to receive the items, and rewarded the party with some magical items.
The party spent the rest of the day getting rid of the extraneous stuff they had accumulated, and divvying up the proceeds.
Everyone received 4000 XP. Sam and Mills became Level 8. [an error occurred while processing this directive]