| After the ball, the party (Dominic, Ignatius, and Jack with Drusila) went back to their normal plans. Dominic started work on building a revolver and looked into the materials for a magic sword. Ignatius attempted to talk to his cousin about some cryptic things he had told him before passing out from poison with no luck. Bu a couple of days later, Ignatius received a message from his brother asking to meet him near the base of the Great Tree. Suspicious he took Drusila with him. As he waited for his brother to arrive, two invisible warriors attacked, including the assassin that the party had destroyed earlier. Ignatius quickly succumbed to the assassin�s paralysis poison and by the time his eagle brought help was carried deep within the depths of the Great Tree. The party and Drusila dispatched two lurking shadow vessels and plunged into the dark depths of the World Tree. The abductor�s trail led to down into the depths of the Great Tree�s root system. This area served as a tomb area for elven royalty. The trail went deeper into the darkness where ominous rumbling and thumping could be heard. At this point, Drusila noticed some invisible creatures up ahead. As the party rushed to engage them, Dominic noticed some cracking and electrical noises. Once the creatures were dealt with the party quickly found a secret door to an eerie passage. The entrance was ringed with crude crumbling runes that arced violet electricity. After some discussion the party plunged though the ring of runes into a dark tunnel that seemed to absorb their light. As they moved forward, they heard a crash as the portal imploded sealing them in the plane of shadow. At this point, Ignatius recovered from his paralysis in a dark cavern lit only by a guttering torch. As he lay tied up and guarded, he could hear the party�s feeble attempts at stealth. Three shadow vessels set themselves up to guard the entrance, while the assassin loaded his hand crossbow at the exit. Then the party barged using summoned monsters to soften up the guards. The party soon finished off the shadowy warrior and chased after the assassin. There they found him mounted on a strange worm-like creature with wings. Screeching it attacked the party, tearing into Drusila and breathing clouds of noxious fumes. Finally with barrages of magic and blades, the creature died and the assassin was destroyed. But not before saying next time he would fight them for real. Leaving the burnt stump of a great tree, the party noticed firelight far in the distance. They quickly crossed the forest of short twisted trees. Bone dust and leaves covered the forest floor. After an hour they reached a large body of water two miles wide to the next shore, where the light could be seen. Under Dominic�s instruction, they built a raft and paddled across. Once there they began to rethink their plan, for the campfire was set by tall slender giants with fearsome hounds. They began their own camp when a one of the giant approached them asking if they would join them. They were merchants from another plane, traveling on the plane of shadow. The mercanes told them that there was a nearby settlement called Nightmount (which the party later realized was also the name of the Dark Master�s capitol city) and sold them a bag of holding, a wand of choke, and a dimensional sextant, in exchange for the wand of shadow spray and manual of the iron golem. After resting the party use the sextant to lead them to the nearest portal home, which was strangely disappearing and reappearing. Travel was relatively easy, leading higher and higher into the mountains until they reached a crude massive fortress. The building was laid out on a massive scale suitable for giants. Huge cold fires roar in granite fireplaces. As they near the center of the complex, they encountered a shadowy figure. As they retreated it revealed itself to the Marquis d�Sorn. His eyes were crazed as he charged the group screaming, �You can not stop it!� and laughing. When he was defeated he dissolved like a normal shadow. After that a man with a mechanical arm leapt out of the shadows saying, �You shouldn�t have seen that.� He whirrs into high speed and quickly dished out lots of unarmed damage. He obliterated Dominic�s summoned monsters but was finished off by Ignatius�s magic as he sat on the ceiling. Dominic took his clockwork arm while the rest of the party divvied up the rest. After several more �days� of travel the party rested the outskirts of Nightmount, there past a low wall vast field of grain were tended by thousands of enslaved political dissenters and criminals. The banner of the Dark Master flew high above the gates. The city itself lay on the edge of a dark lake and was laid out like a maze. The central keep was a vast palace covered in spires. The guards did not bar entry but maintained an intimidating posture. They went to the Shadow Market, the only lively area of the city, where mercanes and other planar traders engaged in business including slavery. First they attempted to get lodgings at the Dark Elf, where Jack made small talk with a gnome slave. He ran into a dangerous looking man who seemed to be looking for a fight, but Portia appeared out of nowhere and �convinced� the man to let him go. After lodging in the Black Road, Dominic went to find out where the portal was exactly so he could recalibrate to find the next nearest portal. While he was wandering around the palace perimeter, the others put out word that they wanted to talk to Portia. As Dominic finished his investigation watching the towers fade away from this world into the Prime Material, a handsome white haired man with creepy red eyes approached and conversed with him, calling him Avan as he left. Dominic realizing he had just met (and been touched by) the Dark Master fled back to the inn. Meanwhile at the rooms, Portia walked out of the shadows and talked to the party. She explained that she couldn�t help them and that they had better leave. With the return of Dominic they did just that, stopping only to buy the elven slave who worked at the inn. Their trip across the shadowy reflection of the Zelencian desert was uneventful. After a couple weeks of travel they saw a cluster of tall buildings crushed together on a rocky hill, the town that held a portal home. |
| Shadow Threats |