Chapter Sixteen - Night When The Kingdom Was Engulfed By Fire

Session was held 4th of January 2012 at the Altar of Games

Constantly warping darkness and void surrounded Melkor. He had been suspended in this state of nothingness for ages, or so it felt. Actually it had been mere seconds ago when the purple worm of Alzarseth died and sucked everyone into the void in it's death throes. But suddenly Melkor heard a sound, a distant voice,calling..

Lord of Vision

Xul-Molor in his alien cell.

Melkor regained his consciousness and found himself trapped in a small cell with the rest of the fellowship. Old and crazed  man stood in front of him. His clothes were tattered, face unkept, but yet he showed marks of exceptionally high intelligence. Man introduced himself as Xul-Molor, a planar walker and astral traveller, magically trapped into this small cell. As the rest of the party slowly woke up, Xul-Molor explained that they had been lost in time and space, but he saved them from that harsh destiny with his astral beacon. Most of his planar magic had been suppressed by his captor, but he was able to uphold the beacon. The old star traveller told how he was trapped into a astral web and later auctioned to his current captor, Kularqoroth the Seer. Now that he had summoned the heroes from the void, he would finally be able to escape. He explained how they would have to find his belongings as they are needed for planar travel, and firstly they would have to knock the alien-like cell door and call for Yig the Jailer. 


Promise of freedom was enough for our heroes, and they soon began executing Xul-Molor's plan. Yig answered the call and as the mighty off-shoot of a demon and a grimlock opened the cell door, soon-to-be-prince Arius plunged on it. They exchanged some blows and eventually the monstrous guard was dead. With Yigs keyring, our brave heroes searched through the rest of the jail-section and witnessed terrible scenes of torture and forced magical mutations. They found only one captive alive and sane, but he charged towards the exit, only to meet his end in the mandibles of terrible UMBER HULK! Our escapees landed their avenging strikes on the huge monstrosity, but it summoned an ally, an another one, precisely as terrible. These creatures gazed confusion into Arius but luck was on our heroes side, once again.  They continued to push onward, and after short leaps over abyssal chasms they reached their goal, the lair of Kularqoroth the Seer.

Kularqoroth

As they forced themselves to Kularqoroths hidden chamber, they realized that they were facing a beholder! The buoyant aberration proved to be an elusive little bugger as it floated beyond swords reach, firing it's deadly eye rays, targeting everyone.
Even Melkor had to use more advanced tactics with his spells, first running out of the antimagic cone projected by beholders central eye, and then firing his own spells at the monster. Finally the bulb was dead, and Xul-Molor was able to recover his delicate apparatuses of planar travel. But before they could escape from the grande chamber, one urgent case of healing magic had to be applied on Douglas, who had turned to stone by Kularqoroths devilish eye ray.

Douglas, looking like he was meant to look.

 Luck was on their side once again as Xul-Molor proved to be one nifty magician, and he healed Douglas with his amazing spells. This act of gratitude had some intriguing side-effects as our dexterous rogue had his old appearance back, lost almost a year ago in a process of resurrection! No longer did Douglas look like a charismatic Rashemenian swashbuckler, now he was plain old Berduskian scumbag! In an instant they also understood the consequences of this transformation, as they would have a lot's of explanation to do to all their allies and contacts who knew only the old Douglas. The possibilities of anonymity were also acknowledged, as none of their enemies would know the search for him now. Douglas did not reveal whether he was glad to have his old looks back or not, but the others didn't have the time to ask, as Melkor rushed them to travel through the planes once again!

Battle for Asbravn
aka
 How Melkor cleansed the city of Asbravn

Xul-Molor urged everyone to form a circle, and with quick words of arcane meanings he took them to a trip back to Darnon. The strange wizard brought  them to Asbravn, to the chamber where the pair of Soldengraads Rippler had been, where they should have gone upon stepping to the mirror. With swift words of farewell the astral traveller wished luck on their side, and hoped to see them again someday and disappeared, leaving our heroes alone in a closed chamber with half-dozen guards. Well, the guards were nothing that they could not overcome, as within the first seconds of their appearance, Arius launched his sword through the abdomen of one unaware guard sergeant, splitting the poor man in half. As the first blood was drawn, the battle soon escalated into a full scale carnage.

Dacatrin the Sorceress

Lead by Arius and his legendary legacy sword, Ilbrandir,
our liberators slayed their way to the grand hall of the Keep of Asbravn. There they were delayed by volley of arrows, two Asbravnian noblemen Counts Polewright and Gorlund  lead by Brother of the Black Cliff called Anthrop. They were backed by sorceress Dacatrin. Her magicks were almost even with Melkor, as she cast chain lighting and reverse gravity upon our brave party. As the battle ensued and blood was spilled, Lord Protector Gustaf Mornburg, who had been observing the outcome escaped, forcing our heroes after him. The sorceress was eventually defeated by Melkors magic, but she managed to escape. The two poor noblemen serving their lord perished in combat, but brother Anthrop managed to fight off the keen blade of Arius, and proposed an agreement. Thus he was known as Anthrop the Oathbreaker, and he even managed to haggle the title of count for himself by pledging loyalty for his new lords. Well, as the kingdom grows, one needs regents at the time of absence.

Encouraged by their new yet bit shady ally, the freedom fighters began pursuing Lord Protector Mornburg who had escaped to the roofs and walls of the keep. They experienced minor resistance as they purified their way to the rooftop of the keep. There, in the highest watchtower, The Lord Protector of Asbravn, Gustaf Mornburg performed a short obscure ritual with a solid gold pedestal depicting imagery of occult nature. This ritual proved to be a summoning chant, that activated the pedestal (given and instructed to Mornburg by Alzarseth, or so Melkor later reasoned). Flash of light turned the night sky into thunderstorm, and from the maelstrom a huge red dragon descended, puffing it's fiery breath on our heroes. The dragon, Merthoflagrion, began swooping around the keep, performing deadly flyby attacks. Quickly enraged (so quickly that for a blink of an eye he considered the career of barbarian instead of a prince) Arius climbed to the watchtower and slayed Lord Protector Mornburg. Even though  the oppressor of Asbravn was dead, that didn't solve the dragon problem, and the massive creature of immense power had to be vanquished in traditional methods. As even Melkor struggled to do any harm on the glorious archaic being, Arius and Douglas challenged the beast on hand to hand combat.

The red dragon tore horrible open wounds with it's mighty claws, smashed men to ground with it's huge tail, knocked it's opponents down with it's wings. But the bite. The bite almost proved to be too much for Arius. Only by sacrificing his trusty spiked small shield "Pinocchio", he managed to escape his ultimate end in the jaws of Merthoflagrion. The dragon was powerful, but even the strong may fall when they're facing an enemy that is fighting for their freedom. And so did Merthoflagrion, as it tried to escape, a final killing blow was landed, and the dragon plunged down from mid-air, crushing the whole entrance to the keep.

Arius battling Merthoflagrion,
drawn by one of the surviving guardsmen that witnessed the epic battle.

As the soldiers and guards were closing in the keep, Melkor remembered the Standard of the Fallen and ordered Arius to unfold and wield it. So he did, but little did he know what consequences it would have. The power of the banner was even beyond Melkors expectations. It's call was widely heard, and answered, to terror of many. It was so, that as the banner withered into nothingness, the vast armies of the dead answered to it's final call. Summoned by the call of the Fallen King, the occupants of the ancient catacombs under Asbravn, began surfacing, killing and slaying everyone that stood in their way. The living dead didn't attack the one's who cowered in fear, but everyone lifting a weapon against them received a death penalty. Aghast by the terrible mistake they had done, our poor city-conquerors couldn't do anything to prevent the massacre. Jared tried to channel divine energy into the what-was-left of the standard, but his efforts were in vein. Not until the first rays of light reached the streets of the city, the army of the dead was finally put back into the eternal rest. It is said that the cleansing of Asbravn took nearly a fourth of the city's population as casualties, many of them innocent.

Nevertheless, Free Darnon now held two-thirds of the cities of Darnon, although the one that was left, Iriaebor, was nothing like it's two smaller cousins. During the morning as our heroes were inspecting the terrible damages they had done to the city, a messenger arrived with a peculiar note. It had been spotted that the vast mercenary armies camping outside Iriaebor were put on the move, but they weren't coming north towards Asbravn, the armies began their march to west, towards Berdusk. Even Melkor was puzzled by this unexpected turn of events, but more than anything he suspected that the Red Wizard, the One-that-should-not-be-mentioned, Alzarseth, was behind this. 

But before any hasty reasoning's were made, our champions of Free Darnon decided to keep a 

DAY OFF!