The Deep Wastes

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Castle Maerimydra

The Burning City

Having killed the last of their assailants, the party moved forward cautiously into the large cavern. At the far end they found what had obviously been their attackers encampment, and judging by the amounts of detritus, they'd been there some weeks. They found little of interest there, save trussed up in a corner, a tiefling who when untied, introduced himself as Cobol (Brian).

As the party commenced healing one another as bet they could, Cobol told his story. Trapped in the Abyss after an adventurous foray had gone sour, he'd signed up with the Hellspawn army to get back to the Prime and thence hopefully make his way back to Sigil. He'd seized his chance after one particularly bloody encounter and after feigning death had attempted to desert. Hiding out for days in the surrounding tunnels, he'd been picked up by the Hellspawn patrol in the cavern. Grateful for his rescue he swiftly agreed to join with the party and assist them.

Deciding the profusion of bodies made this cavern too dangerous to rest in, the party made their way back to a side-passage spotted by Beth about ½ mile back and set up camp. While the others rested, Aerlyn decided to teleport back to Hillsfar to re-supply with healing potions. After a slight mishap (when she appeared offshore near the docks) she made her way into the city in disguise and bought the supplies from the temple of Tempus. After that she decided to teleport back to Dagger Falls to see if she could find out more about the "Great Revenance". Initial enquiries at the temple of the Morninglord proved fruitless, however the priest their informed her that the sage Elminster was guesting with Randall Morn and might be able to assist. Swiftly gaining entrance to the lord of Daggerdale's hall, she conferred with Elminster who advised her that although it was clerical magic, his guess was that the "Great Revenance" was most likely a powerful spell that would enable Irae T'sarran to create a powerful form of intelligent undead - a revenant. This would mean that any soldier who fell in opposition to her would immediately rise and join her army. The more you fought her army the stronger it became! Armed with  this information, Aerlyn returned to her comrades.

Rested and refreshed, they pressed on, led by their new comrade the short distance to the city. As they neared their destination, Cobol warned them that the gates would be guarded, probably by fire giants. The guards however were swiftly dealt with by a combination of Aerlyn's cold magic and Beth's lightning. In the cavern beyond the gate, camped in the mushroom fields a detachment of troops was bivouacked. Beyond that, innumerable campfires pierced the darkness illuminating the huge cavern with a dull red glow. In the far distance they could see a castle atop a large raised area, where the surviving drow defenders of the city still held out against the besieging army. Arrows and huge boulders flew across the air, occasionally accompanied by the bright flash of battle magics. In the air above, winged demons swooped around.

Leaving Yellyond, Didagi and Shemdar at the gates, and telling everyone where to meet if they got separated, Cobol handed Beth and Yellyond an invisibility potion for emergencies, and began to lead them in sneaking around the troops. At first they made good progress, but Beth - unused to sneaking - made enough noise to draw attention to herself and was immediately challenged by a bugbear sentry. As the sentry spoke in goblin, they were unable to respond, and the sentry raised the alarm. Cobol, attempting to draw the attention to himself sprinted off across the fields. Beth and Aerlyn drank their potions and continued edging around the sides of the cavern which held the city. As Cobol crossed the field the Hellspawn troops poured out of the bivouac - a confused mass of goblins, ogres, bugbears and fire giants! As Cobol too downed an invisibility potion the troops began quartering the field and began beating their way through the crops in an attempt to locate him.

Making his way through the fields, Cobol began sneaking through the ruined city avoiding, as best he could, the Hellspawn troops camped in the ruined buildings. Beth and Aerlyn too, made their way to the city streets and began sneaking somewhat ineffectually. Eventually, realising sneaking was not their forte, they used their hats of disguise to appear as bugbears and sauntered their way to the agreed meeting area.

The meeting point was an abandoned building, just behind the front line, to the west of the castle. When the advance party was reunited, they considered their options as  to how to get across the battlefield and into the castle. As they did so, Cobol suddenly noticed a rat in the corner of the building who appeared to be paying undue attention to them. Fearing a spy, he motioned to the others, however as he did so the form of the rat shimmered and transformed into an elderly drow. The drow held out his hands as a sign of peace and introduced himself as Chiirikk. He told them he was one of "the Hidden", survivors hiding in the city ruins, opposed to both factions. He invited them to come and meet Hamadh, their leader. 

The Hidden

Chiirikk swiftly changed back into a rat, and led them out of the ruined building. Shemdar swiftly followed suit, Aerlyn and Beth donned their hat of disguise and Cobol follows along. Walking confidently through the ruined city, bluffing their way past guards, they finally arrived at the hideout of “The Hidden”, a ruined inn. Following Chiirikk in they waited in the ruined building. They did not have to wait long as a drow with short cropped black hair, emerged from the shadows and greeted them carefully. Introducing himself as Hamadh he asked what their business was. After brief explanation and the realisation they had common enemies, he led them down into the cellar of the inn and offered food.

Eventually, after discussion through the evening, and Aerlyn’s uncharacteristic diplomacy, they won round the leader on the Hidden. He advised that the castle was protected by powerful wards as well as the obvious troops manning the walls against the Hellspawn army. There were only two possible routes to the castle, through the battlefield or to fly over it. Either option would be difficult. The ground approach would involve fighting through two separate armies, and was quickly discarded, as was the idea of somehow attempting to tunnel through the bedrock. The airborne approach would involve dealing with the demons that ruled the “skies” around the cavern, but was decided on as the easier approach. Hamadh did offer the knowledge that Badrazel, the balor who commanded the winged demons only served there due a debt he owed Kourgoth. Faced with the though of dealing directly with Badrazel and his minions in the uncertain environment of the burning smoke filled upper air of the cavern, the party decided that Kourgoth was a better proposition. Hopefully with Kourgoth slain Badrazel and his demons would depart, and with any luck the rest of the Hellspawn forces would disintegrate as well. Hamadh also offered the fact that a were-rat rogue known as Logala had claimed to be able to penetrate the wards on Castle  Maerimydra. Logala, if she still lived, could be found in the slave quarter. As the slave quarter lay on the other side of the battlefield, the party puzzled how to get there, eventually Aerlyn hit on the plan of heading to the noble’s plateau from where she might get line-of-sight to the slave quarters and teleport the party there.   

Next morning, suitably disguised, the party set out for the noble’s plateau, this time Aerlyn cast tongues so if they were challenged they could respond appropriately. Fortunately they avoided any Hellspawn entanglements and made there way to the cliffs at the base of the noble’s plateau. Aerlyn cast spider climb and they began the ascent. Atop the plateau, the decaying corpses of their former owners swinging from gibbets dominated the ruined splendour of the noble’s palaces and castles. The ground was littered with the bodies of their retainers. After a brief survey they decided that the top of the temple of Lolth would make a suitable place to get a line-of-sight on the slave quarters across the cavern.

Making their way there, Cobal surveyed the3 entrance to the desecrated temple warily and then with a shrug edged his way in. The centre of the temple where the altar would have been was a huge still-smoking crater, next to which the corpse of a fire giant lay, his faced frozen in a rictus of horror. As Cobol surveyed the scene, a ghostly insubstantial figure emerged from the crater and moved towards him, swiftly followed by another. As the spectres slammed into him, he called on his colleagues outside for aid. Shemdar, still sitting in his pocket, cast death ward and Aerlyn and Beth rushed into the temple. As they did so a huge shadowy figure emerged out of the gloom and slammed the half-drow sorcerer.

Cobol, seeing this new threat tumbled away from the spectres to confront it, leaving them to Beth, but quickly found his rapier was unable to damage the creature. As the battle continued, and the nightwalker laid about with mighty slam attacks, Beth struggled against the level draining spectres, Aerlyn found that her spells little effect on the huge creature which even shrugged off a flame strike cast by Shemdar – though it did destroy one of the spectres! Eventually, realising they were making no progress, Cobol called retreat - however the undead followed. As the battle continued outside and the injuries to the party grew, Shemdar summoned a huge earth elemental.  Aerlyn, took decisive action, and standing behind her colleagues and placing her hands on their shoulders, teleported them all to the base of the cliff just as a huge fire elemental, summoned by Shemdar joined the fight. As the party healed their wounds, the two elementals continued the battle by proxy, the huge creatures battling back and forth, doing even more damage to the temple.

Having healed themselves as best they could they party climbed the cliff again to watch the titanic struggle as the elementals and the huge undead continued the battle.

Eventually the nightwalker succumbed, as did the remaining spectre. Still battered and bruised, the party decided to rest in the temple - where Beth used her vigour ability to remove some of the effects of the spectre’s energy drain.

The Slave District

Early next morning while her comrades still slept, Aerlyn clambered up to the damaged cupola atop the building. Staring through the hole in the structure she peered across the city attempting to catch a glimpse of the slave quarters in the intermittent flashes of magical energy that illuminated the cavern. Spending some time fixing the view in her mind, till she was confident she could teleport the party safely, she then returned to her comrades to inform them all was ready. Beth appeared to have shaken off the debilitating effects of the spectre’s touch and was preparing breakfast while Cobol was struggling his way through deciphering a scroll off Restoration to remove it’s baleful effects from himself. Didagi was rooting through the treasure they’d gathered handing out useful potions scrolls and wands to the various party members. Yellyond and Shemdar prepared their spells for the day while keeping a wary eye on the doorway. Once all was ready, and Cobol had successfully used the scroll of Restoration, Aerlyn gather them around her and cast the spell.

The party found themselves standing in the twisted streets of the slave quarter. Most of the pitiful hovels here had been destroyed and a huge fire had obviously raged through the district, one curious fact was that unlike the upper city the bodies of the slain citizens seem to have been removed. Cobol immediately set of searching through the ruins, looking for signs that the wererat pack might have survived somehow. As he headed towards one relatively intact building to check it out, the party were ambushed by a howling group of abyssal ghouls.

The ghouls proved formidable opponents and a prolonged melee ensued in the street – Beth and Cobol, somewhat apart from the others, taking some serious wounds. The ghouls’ resistance to magic proved particularly troublesome, but even so Aerlyn’s cold spells initially proved the party’s most effective response, accompanied by a mass cure light wounds and a few flame strikes from Shemdar. Those engaged in melee were having a tougher time against the ghouls. Eventually Yellyond used her regroup spell to recover most of her comrades (saving Beth and Cobol) behind a wall of thorns Shemdar had cast to provide some cover. This gave a brief respite while Shemdar summoned a huge earth elemental to assist them. Eventually, sorely tested by the battle, the party emerged triumphant.

As the licked their wounds a small figure emerged from a nearby ruin, he introduced himself as the last survivor of the wererat pack and thanked the part for destroying the ghouls which had killed most of his pack-mates. When asked about Logala, his face clouded and he advised that she had been captured by the Hellspawn a couple of days previously on a foray to the upper city for food. She would most likely have been taken to the amphitheatre to be held until forced to compete in the Kourgoth’s Games.

The Coliseum

After resting for a night on one of the abandoned buildings in the Slave District, the party set out for their assault on Kourgoth. Making their way round the cliff that bounded the slave district they easily scaled made their way back up into the upper city courtesy of a spider climb spell from Aerlyn. Disguised as bugbears, they avoided the troops bivouacked nearby and made their way safely to the back entrance of the Coliseum from which sounds of cheering and stamping feet could be heard. Cobol, with Shemdar (wildshaped as a gecko lizard) in his pocket, scouted ahead; discovering a group of drunk goblins in the foyer. Ignoring the goblins, he summoned his comrades forward.

Making their way up the grand staircase, they could see into the arena, where Kourgoth, his bodyguards and a group of assorted spectators watched as Kourgoth’s fiendish companion, Tusk, fought a trio of ogres. Tusk’s destruction of the ogres was obviously the final event that day as Kourgoth rose and left the arena swiftly followed by his hangers-on. Leaving some time for things to settle down Cobol dropped down into the arena looking for a way into the complex beneath where he reasoned the holding cells would be. He found a portcullis that led to a holding pen and considering that a good place to start . Shemdar ran through the grate of the portcullis and wildshaping back to his natural form on the other side, raised it. The rest of the party swiftly followed Cobol into the depths of the arena where they began exploring the complex. They swiftly located the holding cells, where they found Logala, after they promised to free her she told them the password to pass the Forbiddance that protected the Castle.

The first part of their mission accomplished they began the second, more dangerous part – the elimination of Kourgoth! They found his quarters on the opposite side of the arena, and after preparing themselves by quaffing what buffing potions they had, Cobol threw open the door and dashed in. Within were Kourgoth and two bodyguards. Aerlyn immediately cast a maximised orb of cold at the half-fiend as Didagi and Beth joined the fray. Yellyond used dimension hop to get into the room and flank Kourgoth and battle was joined.

The battle was fearsome, the giants dealing terrible blows with their mauls and Kourgoth with his flaming greatsword – and of the party took fearsome blows as they retaliating with their own spells and weapons - Aerlyn’s cold spells proving particularly effective. Didagi, Aerlyn, Beth & Cobol all were near to death at some point in the battle as the combat raged, only quick healing actions by Yellyond and Shemdar . When Tusk joined the fray from the next room the combat swung for a moment against the party as first Didagi, then Cobol, then Beth all fell gravely wounded. But as Yellyond protected her from Tusk, Aerlyn rallied and barely recovered from her own wounds, launched a devastating series of orb of cold spells against the Hellspawn commander. Not even the might Kourgoth could sustain that damage and with a groan her fell to the floor. Seeing their leader slain, his bodyguards redoubled their effort in an attempt to gain revenge and pressed home their attack.

Suddenly the combat was halted as a sulphurous odour suffused the room and a large bat-winged figured, wreathed in flames appeared. “who has slain Kourgoth?” the Balor asked. Somewhat defiantly, the party volunteered it had been a group effort . The Balor smiled a ferocious smile and said “the I owe you a boon as you have freed me from my obligation. What will you have?” Shemdar spoke swiftly “Take your demons and go!” The Balor nodded and vanished.

At this betrayal the fire-giants seemed to lose further heart and the party swiftly disposed of them. Tusk, bereft of his master, fought to the death. After briefly healing and looting the treasure chests in the room –Aerlyn teleported the party back to the Temple of Lolth to rest.