Lord Drakhons Fotress and the Temptation
of Power
They enter the fortress
and walk through its dark halls, facing counntless magical traps, and creature
guardians...they manage to best a red dragon whom fromt eh shadowns overheadd
in breathed its flaming breath down upon them all killing Lorthois and
nearly killing Valaria (if not for her enchanted wristlet), but due to
quick thinking on the part of Imoteph, he uses the potions of evil dragon
control he posssessed (all 4 of them) seeking to impart control over the
dragon...and between the creature casting fireball spells at them he drinks
from each one, and only on the 4th and final potion does it actually
affect the dragon! He bids it to look the other way as they open the last
portculis and escape out of the dragons chamber, however the control over
the dragon breaks as the adventurers pass through the cambers exit and
the dragon breathes flames at them once again...this time they narrowingly
escape death from the fire once again! Karranna usses the wand to ressurect
Lorthois, who comes back from the Fugee Plane.
Then after a series of magical
traps detected by use of Lorthois wand of magic detection. (which Karranna
dispels through use of Skais sword--uses its resistance to magic to trigger
the spells to its safe for everyone to pass through), they come to stairs
leading up to a black vortex...and they enter.... The find themselves
in a dark hallway ending with a door, however before they can enter to
everyone horror MOJO becomes possessed by the essense of Lord Drakhon,
and becomes a vessel for Drakhon who begins using a dagger to cut MOJO's
body. The heroes try to kill MOJO but no matter what they do or how many
times they hit him with blades , Drakhon still maintains hold over its
obviously dead body. However, Drakhon offers ultimate power to Imoteph
(who is a lich and the sudden powers of the lich is making Imoteph turn
back to his old greedy selfish ways) and Imoteph accepts Drakhon
offer to join his dark forces. Imoteph attacks his once allies now turned
enemies, but before Juan and the other could slay Imoteph, Drakhon
wisks him away, leaving the heroes alone in the hallway.
Then after focusing
on the matters at hand, they enter the door and into an oval room with
illusion clad Eyes Of Death, 5 of them to be exact. They attack everyone,
and grab onto Valaria, Regelan and Throg. A tremendous battle break loose,
and the heroes barely manage to slay all 5 of them without one of the eyes
draining the blood from their prisoners!!
Past the door leads them through
a cut entirely out of the earth itself, as if someone has taken
a giant shovel and burrowed a hole through the earth itself. This corridor
leads them to a long dark earthy stairway that leads them into another
corridor this was is VERY muddy, with the floor being made entirely up
of mud that is at first 6 inches deep, then gradually it deepens
to a foot deep, then as they walk suddenly the ground vanishes and they
sink 3 feet into the mud. Its at this point they know something is wrong,
and Lorthois cast a fly spell on himself and goes and scouts the hall ahead
of his companions which now is consistitng of Regelan (being only 4'1")
on Throgs back and a grumbling Juan up to his neck him mud, and a very
cautious Karranna and Valaria ready for the first sign of an attack!
Lorthois finds that the hall
strikes a dead end some 400 feet down the hall and he races back to his
companions and tells them of this problem. As he returns and speaks to
them, they notice the mud beginning to bubble and then giant arms and hands
of mud start coming out of the mud, as well at 15 foot tall humanoid shaped
beings formed completely of mud! Regelan is thrown from Throgs back as
he attempts to hit a mud creature with his bastard sword, and Regelan lands
and sinks into the mud...and to his companions horror does not resurface!
Soon all of the Heroes are overburdened by mud arms and bodies and are
pushed deep into the mud below them and are pulled deep into by this monsterous
mud elementals and soon they feel as if they are going to drown in a mass
of thick mud they all find themselves falling through the deep mud hole
they are being pulled through and they find themselves falling from the
cieling of a large cavern full of mud. Infact the entire caveran is made
of living throbbing mud! They make there way out of this cavern through
a muddy corridor and they soon find themselves walking on wooden planks
after walking through at least a good hour of trampling through a muddy
corridor.
They follow their wooden path
and end up in a massive cavern full of water, they stand at the beginning
of a large 30 foot long dock over a giant underground sea or large river!
AT the end of the dock is a large water vessel, that once they enter it
begins drawing up its own anchor and setting sail down the center of the
sea into the darkness beyond. The Heroes spend 4 hours on board this water
vessel (which has nothing of value or interest or danger on board
or below deck), also to their relief nothing attacks them! Then suddenly
out of no where they hear the sound of thunder, but suddenly realize its
the sound of water crashing, and infront of them some 40 yds is a waterfall
which basically appeared out of no where! Then before they can possibly
do anything, the boat vanished underneath them and they falling into the
icy cold powerful current that pulls them over the edge of the waterfall
down a 150 foot long drop! However, the Heroes are very smart and
they act accordingly: Regelan uses his ring to fly, Valaria utters a quick
feather fall spell, Lorthois cast a swift fly spell, Throg uses his swords
innate power to fly, and Juan uses an innate power he gained from a magical
foutain to levitate down and Juan also manages to have quick enough relexes
to grab ahold of Karanna and manage to hold onto her so that she doesnt
plummet to her death below.
The Heroes make it safely
to the water below and those that can fly over to land, the others swim
swiftly to land. Juan attempts to grab a couple of the multi colorful fish
that are deep in the crystal clear waters! (he wears an Helm of underwater
action) But Juan quickly gets out of the water as those once benevolant
colorful fishies shapechange into large 13 foot long sharks, and head up
towards Juan. Then once Juan is out of the water, they change back to minor
little fish.
The Heroes walk downn a seris
of magically trapped corridors, and come to another onyx stairway leading
up into a black vortex. The enter it and enter a room composed of flames,
molten earth for ground, all of their non-magical items, clothing and
weapons are burst into flames or melt! And the fires around them eat hungrily
at their burning bodies. some 200 feet across the room they see a blue
gateway sitting. Behind them they can see a pack hell hounds chasing
towards them, and to their right they see several Salamanders (elemental
creatures/serpents) writhing towards them with spears inhand! And all around
them they can see flames, and they begin running but along the way get
hit by more than one fire elemnetal...Lorthois takes out a scroll to read
a teleport without error spell, but the parchment bursts into
flames...and Valaria cast a quick teleport spell to teleport them over
to the portal, luckily the spell was successful and they land on target
and they lept through the gate, all nearly dead from the flames of the
elemental plane of fire!
Next they find themselves
hovering in midair, some 1260 feet above them is a aqua colored portal,
the heroes figure out how to fly in the plane of elemental air...to their
luck (Tymora was smiling upon them) no elemental air denizens attacked
them! They pass through the gate and find themselves at the bottom of an
ocean, Juan uses his Helm to breathe, Valaria uses the powers within her
wristlet to allow her to breathe, and Throg quickly downs (very carefully)
a potion of water breathing (Dm was being nice!! :o) ) However Regelan,
Karranna and Lorthois had no method of underwater breathing, and well before
they reached the surface of this watery domain all three of them did drown
and die! With their companions pulling their bodies up with them, Valaria
(and regelan), Throg (and Karranna) and Juan (and Lorthois) made it to
the surface and found a warm beach with a purple gate. Valaria dug out
the her remaining 3 elixers of life from her pouch and used them on all
3 to ressurect them! EVeryone spent some time to rest and heal wounds before
they pressed on and found themselves in a large cavern empty of life except
for Earth elementals that seemed to not care one bit that the Heroes were
within the cavern...up until Juan and the Heroes went down a wrong corridor
off of the main Caveran area and came to a dead end that had many
mineral-like crystal prisms growing out of it and Juan decided to break
a piece of crystal off of it. Then a low roar echoes through the entire
caveran annd all corridors as the walls and floor quake. The heroes run
out of the tunnel they took, meanwhile elemental arms and legs punch out
of walls attempting to grab them!
They make it out to the main
cavern and find themselves facing a hoard of over 100 earth elementals
standing before them throughout the cavern. They are cornered as elementals
come up from behind them. Then levitating across the heads of the
elementals walks a Dao. Who manages to bribe them after a lengthy conversation
into trading some valuable jewels for their lives (he gets
3 large diamonds, a ruby, an emerald, and a large sapphire)! Then he has
a small troop of 10 earth elementals show them to the next portal!
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