Party Members:

Sir Kal, Khortaz, Toshiro, Kevralyn Soulfire, Lancorrin Bloodcall, Teppic, Tersius, Jack, Calliste, Quicksilver, Puke, Gravesong, Aruna, Randolphin and Ezekiel Bramble.

Mission Brief:

Essentially your task will be to travel to Agoth’s stronghold upon the Void and do all that you can to stop his aggression. In particular Otion Wraithchild must be stopped. In order to do so he must be made vulnerable and his power must be severed from the Void. This will entail a group accessing the Void and destroying his Soul Garden. To do this a group must journey to the Hall of Heroes, find out where his Soul Garden is and travel there from the Hall of Heroes to destroy it. The only way to access the Hall of Heroes is via the Realm of Battle, which in turn can only be accessed via other Realms on the Plane of the Sleepless Dead, namely that of Pain and Disease and Decay. The Chorien and Anubis will facilitate travel to the Plane of the Sleepless Dead.

The First Evening

Tower leaders and representatives arrive to impart details of the mission and to carry out some promotions. Many of our number are given the final part of their advanced training for the mission. Dreadlord Araikas gives Kal the Necronomicon to look after. Sir Clavados gives Kal a cloak of resurrection. Anubis and The Chorien arrive and tell us they have created a portal to the Plane of the Sleepless Dead (PotSD). They tell us that while we traverse the realms there that we will not be able to rest and recover our resources, at worst for three days depending on how we do. They instruct us to seek out the library in the Hall of Heroes to gain information vital to our mission. We hear word that the fight against Otion Wraithchild and the forces of Agoth is going badly and that Lensil Blackbone and Mothac storm have fallen. Our fallen cannot be revived due to Agoth’s influence. As evidence that the fight is going badly, we are assaulted by a force of Agothians.

The First Day

Another force of Agothians attacks us, many among our number are soul marked. We wait for the instructions for using the portal to arrive. We hear that the Dreadlord has been shifted to Maeglor by Tireseas thus leaving Wraithchild temporarily unopposed. Shortly after Otion Wraithchild arrives and we make for the portal with all haste. A desperate fight ensues and several of our number fall and have to be dragged through the portal, killing them in the process. Now on the PotSD we are immediately attacked by a number of dead. The fight ceases when Cardinaris (appearing as Kelnozz Hatch’nett) ,the realm lord of Disease & Decay, the realm lord of Pain and Lord Mian make themselves known. We have apparently been intercepted in our transit. They are opposed to Agoth as much as we are and wish its destruction. To that end, Cardinaris offers us the use of his lodge to rest in. The other realm lords offer us the boon of avoiding having to die to enter the Hall of Heroes in return for some tasks they wish to be completed. The Lord of Disease and Decay needs a new body plus he wants us to save his lieutenant, The Leprous One, to stop his realm falling, something we are inclined to do anyway. He also tells us there is a Vere on his plain that needs to be defeated. The Lord of Pain tells us that there are three anchors that channel pain but they have been corrupted by Agoth. He will grant us safe passage to the Hall of Heroes if we fix them. For this he will require an innocent spirit. Various party members take up the respective lord’s offers. With the Chorien’s aid we transfer to the Realm of Disease and Decay. We head to the Leprous One’s location, all the time becoming more infected, and on the way we fight magical inhabitants of the realm. Past these we encounter some guardians of the way who give body parts to, and demand body parts from those who wish to proceed. We find the Leprous One under attack from Agothians and rescue him, restoring him with the limbs gained earlier plus some of our own. Some time later the Agothian creature called The Unclean One arrives and we defeat it and the accompanying Agothian minions. We travel on in haste and find a Vere of battle accompanied by more of the local creatures (they need to be cured of disease before they can be harmed). We triumph after a long and difficult fight but the Vere permanently drains those near it of life essence in its dying breath. With mere moments to spare before many of us succumb to fatal diseases we call the Chorien and transfer to the Realm of Pain whereupon we are stricken with, not unsurprisingly, great pain. After using a potion to remedy this we proceed onwards to find the pain anchors. We find one of the “anchors”, a black faced creature lying on a path. Nearby are a large group of ghostly creatures, “guardians of the mind”, which we attack. Initially our attack was repelled by the appearance of vast numbers of stinging insects, (I later complimented the Lord of Pain on his finest creation) but we return to the fight and defeat them. We find an Agothian ritual which was tainting the anchor and disturb it thus freeing the anchor, recovering an amulet that grants immunity to Psionics. We travel on and do the same with “guardians of the body” and “guardians of emotion”, the last fight being a very random affair as the party are all overtaken by extreme emotions causing erratic behaviour. We travel to Cardinaris’ lodge defeating some Agothians on the way. At the lodge we find a restored Lord of Disease and Decay, the Lord of Pain and Lord Mian. We collect our boons from the Realm Lords and they perform some kind of ritual on Puke that we gain more information from his buried memories about what occurred when he was guarding Suliman on the Path of Heroes.

Information gleaned from this: It transpires that he promised Suliman to Agoth in return for his life but then hid Suliman on the Realm of Battle. The Realm Lord of Battle is “The Merciful One”

Tersius was drawn in a direction as he is carrying a seed from the tree that Erf’s spirit had been bound into. We fight several groups of magical inhabitants of the realm and when we get to the tree, the Druids and Sorcerers deal to the taints in the tree. We plant the seed which will grow into a tree to anchor our return. We return to Cardinaris’ lodge.

The Second Day

In the morning we are attacked by groups of warriors. This being the Realm of Battle, the inhabitants are quite keen on fighting at any opportunity. We go off to find The Merciful one who we suspect is inhabiting Suliman’s body fighting more warriors along the way. The Merciful One’s herald appears and offers several duels to prove us worthy to speak with him. Khortaz, Puke and I duel three knights. I fight Sir Harold first. After some time he concludes that I am worthy to proceed and withdraws from the fight but I subsequently die of the wounds received in the fight; a good death fighting a worthy and honourable opponent in single combat and I am offered a place there when it is finally my time. Khortaz triumphs over his opponent but Puke is defeated as well. We are deemed worthy to talk to the Realm Lord and proceed onwards. Upon meeting the Realm Lord, indeed in Suliman’s body, there is a combat to further test us. This climaxes in a duel between Gravesong (who has Suliman’s spirit embodied) and the Realm Lord which proves to be a titanic struggle. Gravesong fells the Realm Lord but falls himself. The spirits of Gravesong and Suliman seem to merge into one and both bodies disappear. This leaves the Realm without a lord, a situation we must resolve before nightfall or the Realm will fall. With this grave task in mind we return to the lodge. A while later the Child of the Light, Moon and Stars, or “Sulisong” as I dubbed him, appears. Their spirits are now one and complete. He tells us there will be a series of challenges for the title of Realm Lord between aspirants and their retinues. There are three aspirants: Sir Ballantine, Ugh the Invincible and an Agothian Soul Corrupter calling itself Vissim. We talk to Ugh and Sir Ballantine to decide who would be acceptable as a Realm Lord and decide that none of them will do, we therefore set about defeating all three forces. Ugh makes it easy for us by attacking soon after. He turns out to be not quite as invincible as he thought. We are invited to do combat with Sir Ballantine so we proceed to the location and defeat him and his forces handily. We decide to strike the Agothians before they are ready but as Agoth can hear everything said in earshot of Puke we are ambushed on the way to them. Among their number is a new Agothian undead, a “Soul Scribe” plus a psionic undead, the name of which escapes me. Despite being split and surprised we defeat them. Having defeated all the aspirants, Sulisong announces that Puke will once again be Realm Lord of Battle. We return to the lodge and Puke is given the scrolls containing the words to intone while dying gloriously in combat to travel to the Hall of Heroes. After preparing ourselves we travel to a site where the barrier between the realms is weak and begin chanting the words and Puke summons a host of inhabitants who fight us to the death, all of us falling in mortal combat. I’m really beginning to like the Realm of Battle.

We are awoken in the Hall of Heroes by three brothers. It later transpires that they are the spiritual representation of Nathan. They tell us that we are in the Outlands and that it is relatively safe here from “The Masters” who they hide from. We summon the lodge and it appears nearby. One of the lodge’s minions leads us to it. We see a light nearby which turns out to be the library. The librarian arrives and allows us access to the huge collection of scrolls. We are each allowed to take one out at a time so we ferry them backwards and forwards from the lodge, translating them. At one point a shade appeared, grabbed Ezekiel and disappeared. He reappeared some time later saying he’d had a vision of fighting and killing someone from Wolfhold, a vision from what’s occurring back on Orin Rakatha. The brothers are attacked by Set worshippers which gives us the clue to realising the brothers are Nathan as the ritual he was part of was to withhold power from Set so they are attacking his spirits to try to release the power. Members of “The Claw” appear. It appears that memories of old valley enemies are being thought into being on the Hall of Heroes (by Cardinaris?). They have come for the Necronomicon. Quicksilver tells us about their abilities and after a confused melee we defeat them. We obtain a book from the library which translates scrolls but only a limited number of them so Kal selects some to be translated. We gain vital information about “The Agoth Experiment”, indeed far too much to relate here. Hopefully the scrolls will be reproduced elsewhere although their import is less now. Kelnozz Hatch’nettt appears on his throne in the lodge and thanks us for getting him into the Hall of Heroes, something we knew we would be doing but we needed his lodge to complete our mission. Randolphin gets a boon from him that will allow him to stop Tireseas, Leader of the Catacombs of Agoth, from shadow shifting away when we go to kill him but it will kill Randolphin in the process. Tireseas is the last of the five who contributed power to the Agoth experiment and he has one of the activation keys.

The Third Day

Memories of old foes drawn to us, Shadowsfall and Saldorians, attack us. “Bookworms” from the library appear to retrieve scrolls from the library and generally annoy us but the Librarian appears and tells them to go away. We are attacked by more Saldorians and Sulisong is killed during the fight. He can’t be resurrected until Kal talks to him of his past deeds and memories. The three brothers arrive, one wearing Nathan’s livery and he recognises us. He tells us we will not see him again. The warden of the Hall of Heroes tells us that three memories of powerful enemies have been awakened and will come for us. Cirith and Tancred appear and tell us that things are going badly back on OR. They inform us that they know of some Dymwan nearby so we go to deal with them and find them accompanied by The Claw plus Erelan Black who demands the Necronomicon. After a period of brutal combat they declare that they have the book (it seems they have retrieved it from our dwelling) and Erelan black leaves with it. We give chase but are unable to find him. We return to the lodge. Kal, Khortaz and Quicksilver return after casting cosmic invocations seemingly lacking in memories. They have gotten too close to the life sphere in their casting but we talk to them of their pasts and they recover. We are once more assailed by Agothians. We carry out a ritual to prepare a soul vessel to shield us from the spirit sapping effect of the void. We call upon the Chorien and we travel to the Void. On our way to the soul garden we fight strange, white faced creatures which I don’t remember from my last trip to the Void. We eventually come to the soul garden and it is obviously for a much more powerful Vere than the one we first found many years ago as it is a large affair and full of wondrous soul jars. As happened when last I was at a soul garden, a very chaotic fight occurred with strange magical and spiritual effects going off and all manner of strange enemies and allies appearing in the oppressive gloom of the Void. After wreaking havoc on the soul garden we perform the return ritual and once more go back to the lodge. The warden arrives and tells us that Duke Zarn’s memory is in the area and will continually assault us until we deal with him. A few of our number go to the library to retrieve necessary ritual components and are attacked by Saldorian memories. We rush to their aid and defeat them in a confused fight in the dark. We then proceed to find Duke Zarn and assault him in his lair, a difficult task as he is very hard to hurt without killing his shade but he is eventually defeated but vows to return. Upon returning to the lodge the warden tells us that there is a strange spirit nearby. It turns out to be Myrtle who was slain in a battle on OR by Otion Wraithchild. The warden tells us that the “Staff of Doom” TM is how Cardinaris is coming to the lodge so we use a warding ritual (which we originally intended to use on the psionic Vere) to seal him into his throne area and deny him access to the library. We send Myrtle’s spirit back. A group of Agothian Hollow and the Psionic Vere assault us and a desperate combat ensues with many of us being controlled and made to attack our fellow party members. We managed to put down all but two of the Agothians, the last two guarding the Vere seemed impervious to damage. Despite repeated valiant assaults on the Vere it became obvious that we were not in a position to defeat it. While we were in discussion about what to do about it the Vere left the field. We retire, battered, to the lodge. Some time later, Kelnozz Hatch’nett appears and tells us he will uphold his end of the bargain but that the alliance between Wolfhold and the Dymwan will be broken, a fact that pleased most of us greatly. He leaves, taking his staff with him, allowing us to dismantle the ward.

The Fourth Day

Once more we are assaulted by Agothians. We perform a ritual to share our spirit strength so that none of us will fall for the last time while on the mission. We then conduct a second ritual to transfer to the Void in order to go to The Agoth Experiment itself. We fight a couple of groups of Soul Harvesters which possessed members of our party. Upon arrival we find a building full of mist with Agothian creatures lurking within and the sound of arcane machinery all around. A vile apparition emerges shrieking from the mist to assail our very sanity, the creature, once an individual called Gil, now a tortured form seemingly part of the machinery of the place. We fight the creatures and Kal and myself attack and destroy a brain in the centre of the room that Gill is trying to protect. At that moment we are all sucked into a black abyss. Agoth assails us with treacherous lies and falsehoods in an attempt to crush our spirits. We all wander in the black abyss trying to locate one another. Anubis and The Chorien project their thoughts to us and guide us to a focal point where we must assemble a device to escape from the blackness all the while, beset by unseen creatures in the dark. Some of our group succeed in assembling the key and we once more re-appear in The Agoth Experiment. We are attacked by more of the Agothian creatures and Kal slays Gill, allowing us to escape this abhorrent place. With Agoth destroyed and having no wish to remain here any longer than necessary we perform the ritual to return us to the Hall of Heroes. We say goodbye to Sulisong who will guard the Path of Heroes and Puke who returns to the Realm of Battle as its lord. We then perform the ritual to travel to the Realm of Battle to take possession of our bodies once more and then we call The Chorien to take us back to Orin Rakatha to hunt down Otion Wraithchild and stop his ritual of sundering. We encounter several groups of Agothians who have sadly lost their powers and dispatch them without a second thought. We feel waves of darkness begin to wash over us as the ritual proceeds so we hasten to the source. We find Otion Wraithchild performing his ritual, guarded by Agothians who retain their powers in this evil place. We assault the ritual, killing the Agothian minions then concentrate on Wraithchild, very narrowly averting the completion of the great sundering ritual. He seems to regenerate himself by walking beneath an archway so we use spells and invocations to repel him away from it and eventually cut him down.

Randolphin feels the presence of Tireseas so we move off to intercept him. He is difficult to locate being a shadow shifter but we eventually find him and his bodyguard. A fight ensues but after some time breaks down into negotiation between Kal and Tiresias. Tiresias gives his key for the Agoth Experiment and we both go our separate ways. We return to lodge to celebrate a mighty task fulfilled and to remember those who fell during its completion. The Dreadlord, Sir Clavados and Arbour all appear to congratulate us and several of our group are promoted. Puke accompanied them and is now acting head of the Necromancers with the loss of Lady Mortifera. The Dreadlord tasks Kal with the recovery of the Necronomicon and announces that hereafter none shall be elevated to the title of Hero and we shall be known as the Last Heroes of the alliance. Later, Anubis and the Chorien arrive to commend us on the destruction of Agoth. It is my hope that through strong leadership and the balance of all three towers that the Valley will continue to grow in strength.

Let it be known that once Jack has passed to his final rest he will go to the Realm of Battle and guard the tree. While he is guarding it, leaders of valley groups may call upon his boon for protection in their time of need by leading their group in the following refrain, in rounds:

is calling, is calling,

Nature aid me, Nature aid me,

Leaf and Stream, Leaf and Stream,

Praise the Green Man, Praise the Green Man.

Let it be known that “Sulisong”, The Child of the Light, Moon and Stars now stands guard on the Path of Heroes.

Let it be known that High Priest Puke Scumgrief has taken his place as Lord of The Realm of Battle.