Chapter Six - Only a madman would ventrue to the mountains at this time

Session was held 9th of October 2010 at the Altar of Games

It had been six long days since Melkor was last seen outside his room at the Whispering Maiden Inn. Arius, Jared and Douglas were utterly bored, as they had churned down pitcher after pitcher at the tavern while waiting the bookworm wizard to re-appear. Altough Jared finally had some private time to carve a new and glorious holy symbol of Lathander, and he was proud of his achievement. Finally the loremaster came out, and proclaimed that they were going the the Bloodmountain to seek out the Witchking and activate the legacy abilities of Ilbrandir, the mighty powersword of Arius! And in awe and wonder did the rest gaze upon the mad wizard.




After preparing up the rest of the day, they met once again in tavern to drink for their upcoming victory and relish good ol' memories. Melkor questioned Jared and Douglas from their pasts, and while Jared told about his past in Cormyrian little village known as Eveningstar and how he went to the temple of Lathander and became a cleric, Douglas was little in his words. Assumption was that Douglas had dark secrets he wanted to hide, most likely criminal activity of some sort and the talk about one's history soon ceased as ale and wine poured down their thirsty throats.

To the mountains!
Early next morning the adventure began as they left the city of Asbravn in their quest to march to northeast, where the Blood Mountain presumably was. Their journey was hampered by rain, but they managed to keep in schedule and reached the point that Melkor had planned, and camped there over the night. Next morning as the trail became more increasingly perilous thus forcing their steeds to struggle with their gait, they continued until afternoon when sudden bellowing and roaring made them to cease their journey. They peeked over a hill and saw few ogres harassing their captives, and Melkor decided to solve the problem with a tactical fireball. Little did he know that a malevolent goblin mage, Skritsnok had casted resist energy-spell on those brutes and threw a fireball on Melkor instead. Battle against the goblin wizard was fierce, but soon the creatures lied dead on the ground. One surviving captive, half-orc called Baltrus the Hothead thanked our heroes and promised to make things even one day.




The journey continued and next morning the fellowship woke up early to see the first glimpses of rising sun, and as a cartographer had told Melkor back in Asbravn, the first rays of sun turned one mountainpeak red as blood, and so they knew where-to continue their voyage. Hills became mountains and while ascending futher and futher, Melkor was alerted by shouts in dwarven tongue. They run towards the noice, and saw group of orcs impaling men with long wooden stakes! They assaulted those brutal green pricks via invisibility sphere-spell and managed to rescue one dwarf who fought against the orcs long enough. And oh the joy as Melkor regonized the dwarf to be Karaz Thronehammer, adventuring dwarf from Baldur's Gate, with whom he had drank three years in a row almost twenty years ago. Karaz thanked the heroes and promised to accompany the party to the Witchkings lair, as he had nothing better to do either. Later that day they reached huge stairs chiselded to the mountainside, and decided to rest the night at their feet.

To the Tower!
Next day they begun climbing the stairs, and after three long hours they reached somewhat flat space in the top of the stone stairs, where they saw a huge metal door. And just as they managed to declare the place as the entrance to Witchkings lair, the door opened, and large giant stepped forth and challenged our heroes. After few cruel rounds of violent battle, the giant who managed to claim to be the Witchking, died a horrible death from our heroes hungry blades. And thus they went in to the lair of the Witchking!

The room behinf the door was a messy habitat of a hill giant, but soon a hollow and otherworldy voice speaked to them and encouraged them to ventrue futher, as it was unable to answer their questions on such low level of it's tower. They walked the marblestairs up, and stepped in to a round room, full of sofas and divans, rich curtains, beautifull green plants,parfumed oils slowly burning in their vessels, generating amazing feel of warmth and comfort. They voice commanded them to sit down and rest as it's maidens would soon bring them some food and drink. And soon four beautiful ladies walked forth behind a curtain, tempting our heroes with their naked curves and tasty meals. So tempted they were that one seduced Douglas who in his lust kissed the perfect-looking maiden and dicovered to his malaise the woman to be a succubus, the demon of seduction! The demoness tried to grapple Douglas, but our ever-cunning thief threw the man-eater away from him, forcing the she-demon to teleport back to it's homeplane Abyss, as it was not a demon of battle and fighting the proud adventurers would have been too much of a task for it. The rest of the beautiful maidens vanished too, as they had been cruel illusions made by the demon. Later it came apparent that Melkor the pervert knew all along that the maidens were trick of a succubus but he enjoyed them too much to alert the rest of the gang!

Even tough the illusory warmness of the chamber was gone, the party decided to rest there still a bit, and later ascend to the upper levels. The voice spoke again and warned that his familiar, Ormom, who lived on the upper floor, had grown large over the years as he, the voice, had forgotten his magical everfullilng saucepitcher to the creatures vicinity. And as our heroes climbed yet again more stairs, and reached a frozen door which opened with a strong kick, they saw a huge toad (advanced Ice Toad from Frostfell), white in color with blue boil-like spots, licking the pitcher with it's ridiculously large tongue. Soon the battle ensued as the behemoth snapped Arius to its jaws and swallowed the poor prince into its guts. But thanks to his powerfull fellows, the toad fell on it's back as it lost the fight and Arius hacked his way trough the giant belly with his spiked shield.

The Voice explained that the creature had swallowed his staff of frost, thus causing the monster to transform into this beign of ice, but no such a thing was found from its gizzard. Our brave posse continued their journey and passed the next level with haste as it was nothing but a empty library. But they were stopped on the one above as they stormed into a alchemical laboratory/study where was the voice as a young wizard, doing his experiments. The man smiled and the voice said "oh how young and eager I was" causing the young wizard to transform into nightmarish shape of pure void. The being sucked the air around it, thus the name Voidwraith (from Libris Mortis), making the battle against it at least suffocating. To crown it all, the creature was incorporeal, making it almost impossible to harm, but look, then came Jared and with his new holy symbol called forth the power of Lathander who turned and destoyed the foul creature of the void.

Oh the glory!

And as they climbed one more set of stairs, they reached small room with a luxurous chair and table, and the voice finally told that it was ready to answer their questions. But it told that it was nothing but mere thoughts of once powerfull wizard, infused into the walls of the tower as side-effect from the wizards might. The wizard was long gone, but the voice still provided them as best as it could. It told everyone else but Melkor, to climb long ladders up in order to invocate the powers of Arius's sword, Ilbrandir the Kingsblade, by showing the sword what kingdom it would reign with it's wielder. Melkor as a wizard would cause harm in the place where the ladders took, so he would need to stay in the room. And so the rest climbed for hours, none of them couldn't keep track how long the ladders actually took, but finally the crawled out from a trapdoor and noticed that they were on the top of the Bloodmountain, gazing the setting sun, and downthere somewhere they saw the kingdom of Darnon. And as Arius raised his sword and showed the kingdom for it, a brilliant bright light flashed and when they could once again see, they saw the sword radiant in its power, and lo...

THE PRINCE NOW WIELDETH THE BLADE OF KINGS!!!