PCs

The Note
    While the PCs are sharing a nice, peaceful night at the Three Dragons Inn in Tamorin, a man bursts in and begins running towards their table.  Suddenly, a volley of spells kills the man, destroys the Inn, and severly damages the PCs.  Once the party has recovered from the shock and clear away the rubble, they find that the man was clutching an ivory scroll tube.  Half the characters think this is some kind of spell scroll, the other half realize he was trying to give them (or someone near them) a message.  They open the tube, pull out the slip of parchment.

Mithril,
Pearl has failed in her quest and now is beleived dead or trapped.
Take Ruby and Sapphire to Kilan Tor.
Try to get the help of T'lann and One-eye.
          -D

For some reason, the party splits at this point.  Cassandra, Cydwin, Nask, the Githanki, and a few others go after Kilan Tor.  Gerald, Stephan, and Cranis go wandering off after another clue.  The first group basically played it out first, so I'll list all of their stuff first, then the second group.

Keepers of Truth
    The Characters can't sort out any of the gibberish, so they decide to consult the worlds premeir group of sages, the Keepers of Truth.  They make the long trek to the Keepers tower, near the elven wood.  The Keepers rufuse to let them in unless they share valuble information, so the party retreats and regroups.  After a short time, they come back, with tales of their adventures (specifically, the strange shrine in the Wind Knife Mountains).
    Consulting with the Keepers, they learn that Kilan Tor is a ancient elven vault, designed to contain certain unspecified items of evil magic.  T'lann is the name of a mysterious mage that lives near Tikar's Ferry and One-Eye is a orc that leads a much feared group of mercaneries.  Having found this out, the party makes their way towards Tikar's Ferry, and from their, to Kilan Tor.

Kilan Tor
    The party makes it way to Tikar's Ferry, a small town right on the western border of Milandar.  They consult with Baron Tikar, who gives them a little more specific information on T'Lann.  It turns out T'Lann is a very powerful mage, with several potent minions, but just claims a small area around his tower.  The residents of the town suspect that he has the secrets of immortality, because the oldest records of the area show a mage named T'Lann living in basically the same spot.
    Armed with this knowledge, they take the ferry over the river and walk to T'Lann's tower.  His servant Lupus meets them at the door, as they are not allowed inside.  He informs them that T'Lann has no truck with the forces invading Kilan Tor and offers to send what assistence they can, then gives a scroll and a potion as a sign of good faith.  Luckily for the party, T'Lann is trustworthy, otherwise the fatality rate would have been much higher this adventure.
    When the party finally enters Kilan Tor, they discover a somewhat run down elven defense system.  The PCs learned later in the campaign the danger of running afoul a well-maintained elven defense system.  Most of the magical defenses were discharged in an earlier attack by unknown forces.  They break through the defenses, but accidently loose a party member (the Bard) to a magical item that actual wasn't ment to hurt anyone, when it fused with the back of his neck.  Looting what remained of the defenders stash, they get a few minor items and Dracos Deneir, a psuedo-intellegent short sword.  Breaking into the vault itself, they find two items of great importance: Takieren and the Serpent Rod.  The Githzerai is immediately possessed by the rod, and is knocked unconcious by his compatriots.
    On the way back out, beaten and battered, they meet Ruby and Sapphire (a dwarven fighter and elven fighter/mage, respectively).  After an extended battle, they are victorious, but heavily injured.  The party, Cydwin and Cassandra mostly, have a short parlay session with Mithril and she decides not to push her luck.  The party is so shocked by this that they actually start to like her, strangely enough.

One Eye
    While making their way back to Tikar's Ferry, they have one of the most remembered encounters in the campaign.  One-Eye and his mercenary band demanded all their possessions, and when the party refused, they attacked.  The party soon found One-Eye had a way of reflecting magical attacks.  A spike growth and a plant growth were reflected in quick succession, killing the parties new horses.  The party had not succeeded in landing a single blow when they were forced to retreat.  Luckily, there was enough instant transportation to go around.  Cydwin had shadowwalk and there were a few small (one shot) items used.  When everyone got back to Tikar's Ferry, they were very, very angry.
    To this day, the players present loathe One-Eye, although he never made a major appearence after this one.  The combination of a cocky enemy and being soundly thrashed really got under their skin.

Puzzle Box
    While all this was happening, a minor encounter blew up in the other party's face's.  They entered a traveller's inn to rest up and get more supplies.  A pall of fear lowered over all the player's faces when they realized the man in the corner was manipulating a little metal puzzlebox.  (Note: I hadn't seen Hellraiser at this time, but I'm sure it had an effect somehow)  A few moments later the entire Inn is superimposed onto a plane occupied by malevolent energy beings.  After a long and difficult battle, destroying another Inn, the party drives off the beings.
    The party drops whatever it was they were doing and go to the Keepers of Truth in an attempt to find out just how they could destroy it.  The Keepers inform them that it might be destroyed if they actually transport it to the plane it manipulates.  After twisting themselves in knots for a while, they figure out what the box is, roughly (basically a door to the dark plane)..  Having figured it out, they fear it less, but want to destroy it more.  They also find out that to get to the plane, they're need to get to a gate.  Unfortunately, the only known gate is in Linith's afterlife realm.

Linith's Afterlife Realm
    Unfortunately for the party, the only way to get to Linith's after life realm is also through a gate (or being a worshipper and dying, of course), all of which are located in major drow cities.  Absolutely enthused about breaking into a temple of Linith they trek into the underdark.  Bloodly and battered, they make it to the drow city closest to the surface.  Luckily for them, the temple has several open parts in the roof.  Gerald teleports them over the structure (works in the underdark for a little ways) and they fall into the gate. Waaaaaaaa...
    The already battered party, relying solely on Stephan's lay on hands for healing, march through the hordes of spiders found all over the realm.  As they near their destination, they realize the spiders are getting bigger and bigger.  Soon, Gerald contacts on of them, and realizes that they are part of the plane.  The backlash almost drives him insane.  However, being Gerald, he then mind links with it and probes it's brain.  He still manages to make the saves, but gets some minor mental abberations (which are cleared up later).
    However, in doing this, he gets the attention of the daemon lord who controls this realm.  He (it) agrees to let them use the portal for their purposes in exchange for a minor favor... breaking into Vile's Tower and erasing his name from the books found their.  The party hems and haws, but agrees eventually.  They throw the puzzle box into the gate, destroying the gate violently.  Then the daemon lord transports them to the wastelands near viles tower.

Vile's Tower
    The party soon discovers that there is absolutely no life near Vile's tower.  The damage done to the area in the War of Reckoning is still evident.  The once miles high (literally) tower is now just a stub of around a hundred floors.  The party groans.  A hundred floors of tower made by a mage powerful enough to summon gods, probably infested with beasts created by the long ago presence of Xaod.
    Knowing better than to go in the front door, Gerald teleports them above the tower, falling a few feet to the "roof."  They wander through the corridors, making their way slowly downward (luckily, even though tall, most floors aren't more than three or four rooms and some are just one) encountering a damaged binding circle.  They ignore it, and soon find themselves face to face with a rather powerful daemon.  After a few rounds of getting beat on, Cranis realeases a bound daemon from a device to stall their enemy.  They manage to get far enough away before their daemon is destroyed so that their enemy can't find them.
    After that, they get entertaining encounters like the huge chaos slime and the stone juggernaught (more an animated seige engine than a monster).  The first is defeated with sheer martial skill, and the second with repeated use of the Molecular Bond psionic power (from Will and the Way, basically sticks things together permanently).  Eventally it got stuck to the floor and they destroyed it with ranged attacks from further up the stairs.
    They finally discovered the book they were looking for.  But each was struck by a powerful psychic suggestion.  I took each aside and explained what the suggestion was saying, then gave each a bonus or penalty to their save based on their response.  Gerald basically said "I'd do it if my companions wouldn't be pissed" so Gerald had a huge penalty.  The others were more resistent.  Gerald failed his save and, while the others were fighting off the effect, was dominated to complete a quick ritual using a runic circle (precarved on the floor) and a pouch of dust from the desk.  The shade of a healthy, but thin, man appeared before them.  It introduced itself as Vile.
    The party flipped.  Gerald was very nearly attacked by fellow party members.  After a long discussion between the four of them (including Vile), they decided they couldn't really help it, they were going to help him get his body in exchange for some items from his treasury (at least what survived the blast).  They fight a little further down and Vile opens the vault.  He inhabits his prepared body and reclaims his personal items.  The party then grabs some items from the horde, gems mostly, but a few magical items too.
    As per their agreement, they have Vile break the geas (without removing the name), and Vile transports them roughly back home, after destroying a nearby city.  "Don't worry," he says, "they worship dark gods."  The party gets back home and much merrymaking is instituted.  Vile dissapears to raise a new tower, near the Illuminati.  This one is a little less austintatious, looking like a basalt cube, several hundred feet on a side. However, it has large extradimensional spaces just waiting for him to expand.