The World of Telvar

Rangorn decided to join the expedition, primarily because he felt that
his adventures, while frightening beyond belief, were not enough to
satisfy his adventuring spirit. Since the Daring Dozen lack a woodsman
of his level, Rangorn fit in smoothly, and acts as the governmental
representative on this mission.

The Daring Dozen:

Laire, 8th level male human fighter. The party leader, Laire wields a
powerful magic bastard sword.

Togull, 8th level female dwarven fighter. Togull is a heavy crossbow
specialist, quite beautiful for a dwarf. She is also dumb as a stone,
and never does anything except under orders from Laire.

Jessica, 8th level female half-orc fighter. Jessica is a hammer and
shield fighter (much in the tradition of Felix from the Defenders). She
is very difficult to hit in combat.

Nara, 8th level female Auroran cleric. Nara is a powerful cleric and
warrior. She provides all the clerical powers for the group.

Nief, 10th level male human thief. Nief has risen to an exceedingly high
level due to his willingness to take risks and scout ahead. He has done well in
the Daring Dozen style of adventuring, which consists of wandering around
and finding monsters to beat up.

Feagle, 7th level druid. Forgot the name. This character
provides supplemental healing, and druidic powers. Unable to take the punishment
that Nara can, the druid is more likely to remain in the back of the
party. The Dozen have not found as much for the druid to do, and so he
has fallen behind in level.

Hildebrandt, 8th level male human mage. Hildebrandt has many spells
observers
will recognize, and he and Eli did quite a bit of trading during their
adventuring heyday. He is quite durable for a wizard.

Rangorn, 6th level male half-elven woodsman. Born in Cromwell but raised
in End, Rangorn was a latecomer to the Stone Soules. He was the last in
a series of mid-level woodsman, and a bow specialist to boot. Rangorn is
very durable and is a good bow specialist and melee fighter, able to
switch between both roles easily. His tracking abilities are valuable to
the Dozen.

***

The Dozen made their preparations and entered the Tunnel in March 2186.
Alegra had received the response from Konrad, and so the pressure doors
and death fields which had plagued the Southern Waste groups caused
little trouble for the Dozen. However, the problem of the all the doors
remaining open at once was enough to coerce the party into anchoring
themselves down each time a door was opened.

If the all the doors in the Tunnel are open at the same time, the huge
pressure difference between the ends will cause horrible winds to rush
down, often blowing hapless adventurers into death fields and such.

The party trooped down the corridor, and discovered that the first door
was completely destroyed. Rangorn tracked about the area, and it is
believed that the behir was responsible for this.

Fortunately, other doors were not destroyed. After slightly more than a
day's travel hampered by fallen debris, the Dozen reached some sort of
central way station with niches cut for campsite and such.

There were a number of bones in the area, which appeared to be creatures
clawed to death, rather than smashed.

Astrologies from the beginning predicted the next encounter. Two
bluish-gray golems came from the darkness and attacked the party.
Fortunately Hildebrandt was able to identify them as flesh golems, and
knew not to attack with lightning.

Hildebrandt threw up a Wall of Fire, which slowed the golems. An
amazingly successful Dispel Magic from Nara stopped one of the golems in
the flames. The other advanced slowly.

Rangorn shot the golem with a +1 arrow, which did affect it. Togull was
also firing magical crossbow quarrels. The golem closed with Laire and
Jessica, wielding twin axes.

Jessica hacked off one of the axes to avoid being held at bay, but was
stunned by the golem. An Aid spell from Nara restored her to normal, and
she and Laire proceeded to beat its head in. Both of them are
devastating fighters, and virtually every member of the Dozen has at
least some +2 weapon. Furthermore, there is a +3 and a +4 weapon among
them as well. The +3 is called Tracker, and it lets the wielder know the
location of the last creature hit until it hits someone else. I forget
what the +4 was.

In any case, after Jessica hacked off the other axe, they finished it
off, and Rangorn, Jessica, and Laire closed with the second golem, which
had recovered and moved out of the fire. Along with a stab from Nief,
they took the creature down without much trouble. One of the creatures
fell back into the fire and was consumed.

The bronzewood axes were recovered, and one of the golems was examined.
It bore no resemblence to the ones seen commonly around Tan-El, which was
interesting. They had been created with a Manual of Golems, rather than
at a lab.

After resting briefly, the Dozen pressed on... and found the behir's less
portable treasure. It consisted of hundreds of thousands of copper and
silver pieces, totalling around 15000 gp. They were dumped in the Castle
Bah-Nareth in Tan-El, along with the magic gargoyles. The gargoyles
turned actually to be the monster, gargoyle, though the triggering
conditions are unknown.

After that pause, the Dozen returned to the Tunnel. We pressed on to the
other half of the Tunnel, which consisted mainly of regular interval
pressure doors. At one point, weird rock creatures emerged from the wall
and attacked Nief, but missed, and Jessica smashed one apart easily. The
others fled into the wall in a bizarre manner.

Up ahead light was visible, so the party set up camp, as it was getting
late, and stood a careful watch. There was a faint sound of a tolling
bell during the night, but nothing else.

In the morning everyone was still there, and we proceeded forward. We
entered a huge room which appeared to be some sort of station and
campsite again. An amazing Read Languages from Nief revealed that the
sign there indicated this was like Customs at an port.

Rangorn noted with unease that there were signs of movement and action
here dating only a few hundred years back, rather than the expected few
thousand.

Light was streaming out of an opening up ahead, and we pressed forward.

There was the City of Gold, or City of the Gods, or City of Spires. It
definitely was the City of the Ancients.

It was a city alien in nature. Up ahead was a wide causeway that led
across a lake, which was blanketed in fog. In the center of the lake was
a large black spire. The city was like half of a pie plate, with a
raised center. The other half of the pie plate was set into the
mountain. The four sections were split up by roads running toward the
center of the mountain. The light was rather dim actually, and it
appeared that daylight was something of a gloomy affair here.

The city itself had NO signs of ruin. It appeared to be just sitting
there, waiting. There was an organization that went beyond that of
Tan-El, which was more of a sprawling metropolis. There was a huge dam
at one end that blocked the lake, and oddly enough, a PORT was located on
the lake, which seemed far too small to support such commerce.

It was not cold, and although we had definitely gained significant
altitude, we were not incredibly high in the mountains.

There was a huge building the center, perhaps twenty stories high and the
size of a large city block. The land area was around 2/3 that of Tan-El,
but with the height of the buildings it could perhaps hold MORE people.

Up above us on the top of this side of the Tunnel, was a sign that
clearly indicated "Tan-El." There was no sign of a name for the city or
anything.

This is where we left off. I hope this information has satiated at least
a little bit of curiosity!

Joel/Rangorn