The World of Telvar

Alduin went to scout it out with the bird. There was some howling, and about 15 minutes later the bird returned and said that Alduin had been captured. We headed up there to see what was going on, and suddenly some huge wolves appeared in front of us and dashed away. Then we were confronted by… a bugbear. Balinor ran screaming toward the front of the party, when the bugbear yelled out to halt, or the elf dies.

He demanded a ransom, and when we hesitated, Balinor noticed spoken in bugbear, “then how will we get money from them?” We paid the money in a bag (around 200 gp) and Alduin was on the ground, bleeding in front of us. We brought him to back to health, and plotted an attack the next day, Balinor urging everyone on.

That day we noted with increasing concern that a griffon bearing a rider was headed to bugbear camp. Suddenly the party sentiment swung, and a nearly unanimous decision was made not to mess with a group cooperating with the Blue and the Gray.

Decrying the loss of the bracers, we moved on.

We trekked through the Argo forest. This only went smoothly thanks to Quentin’s expertise in speaking Treant. The forest was willing to let us through, grudgingly, even Kodo with the axes. We emerged from the other side and talked to some very surly willows, one of which dropped a dead branch on Kodo’s head. Essentially, they don’t like us but tolerated us. The path was clean and safe, and we had no complaint. Unprecedented for Lendore, there were zero encounters in three days!

We immediately found ourselves in the swamp. A thick mist obscured vision to 100 feet at best. Quentin spoke with a “beatnik” frog (“hey baby, hey baby, nice legs, hey baby…”), and learned a bit about the wildlife. The bad birds live up near the north end of the swamp, and there are also nasty lizards and stuff. We also spoke with a hyper-happy bird, which told us additional information about the wildlife. Apparently, the “bad birds” are practically impossible to see (“illusions?”). A fantastically good reading of the Telvar Bestiary by Morgan revealed a race of stork people that hunted like we had heard earlier, and used illusions to mask themselves. They were known to be neutral at best. A bunch of them suddenly stabbing someone with their beaks would produce the 30 stab wounds in 15 seconds effect.

The first night we set up camp, a HUGE lizard (30 feet long) bounded into camp with Narahn, Felix and Donald on watch. Narahn shot it, and Felix stabbed it, but it went straight for the hapless halfling and grabbed him, nearly unconscious, in its mouth. The thing turned to speed away, and Donald desperately fired the paralyzation wand at it. It froze, and we were able to get Narahn out in time, and skin it. Alduin used it to improve his boots and protect him from the leeches and bugs. Unfortunately, we forgot about the carcass and bugs swarmed all over us, freaking out Morgan.

We left that site and set up camp again, and finished the night miserable but alive. We traveled north through the swamp, when suddenly something happened.

Balinor felt a very strong hand grab him from behind and gut stab him. Fortunately the assassination blow was not fatal, and he merely took 24 damage and a triple wound. He tried to free himself but the creature was immensely strong. Fortunately he had gotten off a yell, and the party had turned around to see what was happening.

A 12 foot tall Godzilla was holding Balinor with a nasty looking short sword in its hand. It appeared to be some sort of lizardman. It threw Balinor at Felix, who missed, and Morgan stabbed it from behind. Balinor staggered over to Quentin, and Donald hit it with a Magic Missile.

The creature was suddenly pasted again by Felix, and Morgan moved behind it. The creature was obviously in sad shape, and took both of its arms and tried to smash Felix. Thanks to his defense, Felix was only struck once for insignificant damage and attacked back. Morgan yelled “Thunderstruck” but missed. The creature toppled over from damage.

Quentin threw a Cure Serious and a Cure Light and brought Balinor back to good health, while Morgan used the Thunderstruck charge to paste the creature. We found on it three magical tokens and some thieves’ picks.

This was odd. But it was almost certainly not the things that killed the previous party. Yet more lovely dangers in the swamp.

We pressed on, and suddenly noted a breeze picking up. The mist was thickening, and a voice spoke from the mist. “Go away. One of you will die for trespassing. For each hour you wait, another will perish.”

We yelled back, “We mean you no harm.”

The voice replied, “We mean YOU harm.”

The party retreated back to a piece of high ground, noting a pair of ravens sitting on a nearby tree. In addition, above the mist the spires of the ruined capital of the Kharg were visible about a half mile away. We believed that the voice was an illusion done by the bird people, though it would have to be pretty powerful. Cassian spoke with one of the ravens, and it was really nice to her, considering it was under orders to eat our remains. It spoke of people suddenly having their entrails dumped on the ground, and other gory details. We thanked it and looked for a less belligerent bird.

We found a hyper-frightened bird that sped around on thin legs, which in between fits of terror told us more information about the stork people and their ways. Apparently there is something even the stork people are afraid of in the ruined city. The bird claimed that it was going to die, but that the food was good here. We were going to die too, since we didn’t move very fast, or fly.

Cassian cast an Augury: “Would it be beneficial for the party to continue on the journey to the ruined city?”

“You will eventually triumph, but not before some have perished,” is a rough paraphrase. Really it was the same as the astrology at the beginning of the quest. We decided to press on, but not without a plan. Should we take out the bird people, or try to talk with them?

Cassian spoke with the raven. It should be noted that a lot of the information gained from the raven stemmed from its desire to be respectful to Cassian, and it probably told us more than it should. Cassian asked it to ask the bird people for safe passage for us, if we would go to the city and kill the thing they fear.

The bird looked very nervous at the idea, but agreed. Cassian prayed to Phaulkon that the bird would not be killed for taking this message.

Fortunately, the raven returned later and told us that we wouldn’t like what it had to say. The bird people would give us safe passage in, but wouldn’t make any guarantees about coming out. Essentially the thing in the city is their god, and they would be very angry if we killed it. So really they are hoping to send us into a trap and get credit for it.

Nevertheless, we decided that if we took out the evil, we might gain an advantage on the bird people. Somewhere in all this spell-shifting it was noted that a number of ruined masts of ships were appearing in the mist near the harbor of the dead capital.

A quick taking of stock:

Really annoying swamp. Mist you can’t see through very well. Illusory birds that drag your entrails out (abominations to Phaulkon). Ruined city with hideous evil(s). A fleet of ghost ships.

Whee.

Being incredibly bold and gaining some courage from Cassian’s Augury, we decided to destroy the evil.

We moved through the mist and were not attacked as we entered a narrow causeway leading into the ruined city. We went through a gap in the wall, and almost immediately noted that the mist had thickened to about 30 foot visibility. Ignoring this pathetic attempt to scare us we moved on, passing by a tower with no floor or ceiling. The cold stone motif was really hitting the spot.

The mist was now even thicker, about 15 foot visibility, but for some reason we were able to see the building on our left fairly well. There was a set of bronze doors lying open there. We circled the building and noted that it was 100 feet by 150 feet or so. Haladir was curious and threw a rock up to see how high the ceiling was. Sadly, luck was against the halfling. There was a grating sound, and Haladir stepped back, but was still crushed by the stone gargoyle head that fell down on him.

Without blinking an eye, we decided to use the gargoyle head to prop the doors open in case they swung shut. The bloodstained head was set down, and we marched inside. Once inside, we saw another set of bronze doors that would open inward, and almost immediately noted that the gargoyle head had been slid up behind us, bloodstain draggin across the floor, and that the doors were shut.

However, they opened with a gentle push. Satisfied that we wouldn’t be trapped until later, we turned around and marched through the second set. Inside was a large room with a double stairs (one right, one left, leading a to a grand stairway in the center), and several arches. There was also a smoking torch up above.

We traveled up the right stairs and took the torch. We turned and saw a room with several thin windows, and a throne of some sort in the center, turned away from us.

After a moment, the throne turned, and seated there was a figure in a cloak, with red eyeslits, its hand in a pondering position. Donald said he thought it might be an evil philosopher that could kill with a thought.

This was certainly encouraging.

Nothing happened though. We chatted amongst ourselves about what to do. Eventually the figure pointed to a tapestry above us, revealing a scene of Khargish people getting killed.

Balinor turned to the figure and said, “What can we do to end your torment?” A gray swirling thing detached itself from the swirling things above and headed lazily for Balinor. Balinor moved to the side, and it missed and retreated back. Felix then did the same thing after asking another question.

Eventually we realized it was trying to communicate. About this time Cassian realized we were in the presence of hideous evil, and were on consecrated evil ground.

While all this was happening, two groups of skeletons had appeared at the stairs below, wielding spears and broadswords. For the moment, they were just sitting there.

Kodo asked it again, and this time received the flitting thing. He fell back in shock with a wound, and was cured. He said that the thing wanted us to kill everyone.

Seemed a tad unreasonable to us.

We assumed this might be a challenge of some sort. The question is, do we rush the skeletons, or the evil philosopher?

Ridiculously, it was 3 AM, and this is how the game ended.

See what I mean?

Joel/Balinor