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Monday, May 7, 2018

Adventures in Oerth- The Bane of Vecna: Book Two, Chapter Twelve

The Road to Nowhere


Dramatis Personae:
Aurora Isilime, the Valley Elf Bard of Valor, Bae'qeshel of Lolth, and Lore Wizard, the Silver Tongued Siren, Knight of Summer
Charlotte, Aurora's violet Faerie Dragon familiar
Eurydice, the Faerie Dragon Feylock, formerly Aurora's familiar
Aiden, Eurydice's Sprite familiar
Dervish, the Kasathe Brass Dragon Fighter and Dragon Blood Sorcerer, Knight of the Erl King
"Shadewing" Corvis Cairunis Umbrusalarim, the Shadow Elf Hexblade Warlock of the Raven Queen
Cloak, Shadewing's Empty Cloak familiar
Alfred, Shadewing's Raven familiar 
Alucard, the ancient all powerful wizard; formerly Oryn Talus, the ancient and mysterious halfling who has employed the party; also know as Cinder, the ancient power that is said to destroy every world
Lan El'Mandragoran, the Human Paladin of Pelor
Aerathema, the Wood Elf Druid
Narg, there's really no way to describe Narg, Narg is just Narg
Elder Vish, Dervish's friend and mentor from his world, Knight of Spring
Sil'ilos'anon Braz'Dracon, the "Drow" Warlock Blood Mage of Lolth, and the new DEATH
Ralliakkan, the Drow Rogue, Knight of Fall
Ceidil Rein, the Human Champion who serves as Eurydice's Knight
Mara Nemestk, the Human Champion who serves as Ceidil's Knight

Comrades we have lost:
Pharin Braz'Dracon, the Brass Dragon-Drow Conjurationist Wizard and Priest of Lolth- returned to Faerun
Andolin Braz'Dracon, the Brass Dragon-Drow Fighter/Beast Master- returned to Faerun
Lothar, the Sovani Smith and semi-Cleric of Moradin, High Priest of Lolth, Cleric of Istus, forced Cleric of Asmodeus; Kas Reincarnated - sacrificed to resurrect Alucard
Oryn Talus, the ancient and mysterious halfling who has employed the party- fractured himself into 4 parts to prevent cult from taking his soul
Willow Liadon, the Eladrin Arcane Trickster- sent to Elysium through a trap and was never heard from again

NOTE: Things will be mostly from Aurora's perspective. Anything in italics is from a third person, since the bard can't be everywhere at once.

***** Needfest 6, CY 710, Ruins of Eru Tovar

       Alfred merged with Shadewing and beseeched the Raven Queen to cleanse Shade's mind from the madness that had left him a gibbering mess, and she answered his call. Shade turned to aid Aurora, but Lolth wouldn't let the Raven Queen's Knight touch her...

       I felt Lolth's energy shoot through me, and suddenly my mind was cleansed of the horrific madness that douche had given me. I really wanted him dead now. Lolth's intervention had a bit of a side effect- she replaced the madness that had stricken the bard with another, turning Aurora homicidal. She was now in love with killing things, and being drunk was the only thing that made her feel sane. 

       I'm not entirely sure of how we ended up deciding to go somewhere besides the Beacon key, but for some fucking reason the boys had changed their minds about going there. I didn't fucking care so long as someone gave me a fucking drink. If Dervish didn't have booze I was going to fucking kill him. 

       Of course he didn't, but before I could reach for my blade, Shade offered me some drugs instead. I tried this thing called luhite, and it made me feel like I was on fire for about a minute, and then I felt no pain at all. This was fucking sweet. Aurora became permanently addicted to the substance, so Titania suppressed the addiction through Aurora's mantle. 

       So we were now heading to this fucking weird little town called Dantredun. They were a really secluded community, and there were a lot of flying races up there. We ended up walking there because of the issues with teleportation magic. After a day's travel, everyone except Shadewing was cold and miserable, and I've read far too many stories about people walking around in dark forests, so I set up the Mansion for us to rest in. 

       Shade refused to come in, declaring he would stay outside and keep watch, even though it wasn't really necessary since the Mansion was safe and cozy. I looked forward to soaking in my nice big tub with a bottle of wine.

       After a couple glorious hours in my bath, just as I was thinking about settling into reverie for the night, Shade let Dervish and I know that a nearby caravan was under attack and he was going to go help them. I reluctantly got dressed and left; at least now I'd get to kill something. I woke up Mara and Ceidil too, if they were ever going be even remotely useful, they needed to learn. 

       It took us about 45 minutes of travel to arrive at this huge caravan. There was smoke coming from one of the carriages, as if there was a little stove inside it, and there were some very twitchy guards with crossbows at the ready. But there was no battle. Maybe I'd get to kill one of them. That'd be fucking nice. 

       A goliath stepped up to us and accused Shadewing of having something to do with the attack. Apparently they'd seen his ravens a couple hours ago. I hoped they'd attack us so I could slaughter them all. Instead, Shade told them we'd take care of it. 

       I'd left Eurydice to wait on Mara and Ceidil, since she was somewhat capable of keeping herself alive. She stuck them on a flying carpet so they could make decent time. As Shade was promising these idiots that we'd help them, she told me something- most likely the insane douchequake Outsider Knight who'd fucked with my head earlier today. Mara and Ceidil were dead, and he took Ceidil's body. He found her. She may not be my familiar anymore, but I still liked her I guess. And nobody gets to kill my familiars but me, dammit. So I wasted a wish to bring her to me, just as he knocked her unconscious, and he fucking came with her. 

       The boys all went right for the fucker, while I summoned my Twin and we both dropped a delayed blast fireball at his feet before locking him in a forcecage. That fuckhole deserved to die in an explosion of my making. He didn't even attempt to break out or do an insane monologue, he just stood there. Fucking boring. Shade said the asshat's shadow was missing, so I dropped the cage, hitting him with harmonic dissolution and flamestrike, then the boys stepped in and slashed at him. Shade's strike knocked him back a little bit, and then we discovered it was never him in the cage. He was fucking gone. 

       We brought the caravan back to the Mansion with us and they set up camp outside it in Huts. I didn't really trust them. I flipped open my Tome of the Stilled Tongue to see what petty message Vecna had left me tonight- it had become a little game of mine, he amused me- and found a note that the Knight was still out there. As I was getting back up to go deal with that, claws came out of the chest of the lead merchant and ripped him to shreds. 

       I walked outside as Shade was yelling for everyone to get to the little shrine he'd made for the Raven Queen. There was, of course, no sign of the Knight, but Shade told us to check our shadows; then he dropped a globe of darkness on the guards to keep them safe. Vish's shadow waved at him, but the Knight missed his attack and vanished again. Dervish covered all of us who weren't in the darkness globe in faerie fire to keep him out of our shadows. 

       That did nothing... The Knight appeared, slammed him hand into Vish's chest, blood spurted from his mouth, and as he collapses the Knight tore his body to shreds. Vish's corpse began withering instantly. We all went for the douchequake after that, and eventually Dervish called on his Mantle to summon the Erl King's Forest Archers. Upon their appearance, the Knight said "fuck this," a pillar of purple flame destroyed the archers- leaving us unharmed- and the Knight was gone.

       He took Vish's soul with him.

       I let everyone and their things into the Mansion after that, and we decided to travel with Jacques de Marquis' Caravan to Dantredun.

***** Needfest 7, somewhere in the Wolf Nomads

       I was able to resurrect Mara in the morning, but I couldn't bring back Jacques. The douchequake had probably stolen his soul too.

       We ran into Ralliakkan on the road, and she told us Dantredun had been destroyed. Big fucking surprise there.

       As we traveled, Shade used a spell to speak with the dead, and learned Jacques had been given a small box to safeguard. It was onyx-looking, but it definitely wasn't onyx. The box we now in the hands of a girl named Me. Seriously, her name was Me... Apparently her family had zero imagination when it came to naming her. Another guard in the caravan was named I. Again, I'm not fucking kidding.

       I spent the day going through my Tome of the Stilled Tongue, taking stock of what spells where in it- there were a fuckton. In the back of the book, I found scrawled across a page: "The answers you seek have always been with me." I did not doubt for a moment that the God of Forbidden Knowledge knew what I needed to learn, especially since the Vale was tied to the ass clown. Didn't mean I'd take him up on it though. I was getting bored, I hadn't killed anyone at all today. 

       Around midday Me heard rust monsters nearby. We all flew toward them, I was eager for blood. Dumbass shot Shadewing in the back as we began flying out toward them. I dropped a firestorm on them, and then Shade cast an illusion spell of an iron golem to draw the rust monsters attention. All 50 of the rust monsters began scrambling to devour the non-existent golem. Then Shade zipped in there and bashed the ground with his mace, killing them all. Fucking spoiled my fun.

***** Diamondice 1, somewhere in the Wolf Nomads

       Super early in the morning, Shade aw a serpentine figure approaching us. An eldritch blast went for Ralliakkan- Eurydice and Ceidil had returned, corrupted. Shade killed Ceidil pretty much instantly, and she turned into a puddle of black goo. Eurydice hit Me with another eldritch blast, and Me returned fire, then Shade killed her. She also turned into black ichor. I suppose I should have felt sad or something about my former familiar's death, but I was just annoyed that I hadn't been able to kill her or Ceidil myself. 

       The Knight of Y'Chuk was in the distance, so we all headed out to him. Shade got to him first and began exchanging blows with the douchequake with Dervish and I dimension doored to him. Ralliakkan appeared in a burst of autumn leaves and lunged at him, kicking his sword out of his hand. She yelled out "I renounce my mantle,"grabbed his sword and began bashing him with it. With a burst of purple flame, a copy of each of us appeared, but they were only there for a few seconds before vanishing again; they didn't really do much to hurt us. 

       Shadewing and Dervish managed to stun the Knight, then Ralliakkan jumped on him, wrapped herself around him, and hit him so hard with his sword that he went flying. He attempted to cry out, but his attempt was pathetic. He vanished is a flash of purple fire and a voice called out "Not yet. My master will not all you to have him yet." A pair of purple eyes appeared in the sky- the Emissary of Y'Chuk. 

     We couldn't touch him, the Knights and Emissaries weren't allowed to fight. Ralliakkan challenged him, but he pointed out that she no longer had a Mantle, and that seemed to shut her up. He told us we shouldn't go any further, we should just leave now. His god was already here and waiting to reveal himself. This plane is already desolate and wasted, we should just move onto a different one. As his rant finished, the eyes vanished, leaving us all a little taken aback by how forward he was. 

       Later in the day Me attempted to open the box, but it poisoned and killed her instantly. I revivified her, and she died again. I did it a second time, and Shade used a spell to keep her up long enough for me to use a power word heal on her. She was terrified and had gone completely insane from the poison. I had a potion from Douchebag that could modify her memory, so I had her drink it to remove all memory of the poison and death. 

       Neither Ralliakkan or I had ever heard of a poison like that. Shade summoned a badger and dumped a bunch of the poison in it. Then he asked Dervish if he wanted to test the poison, because he had a badger full of it. We put the damn badger in stasis. 

***** Diamondice 2, somewhere in the Wolf Nomads

       I decided to flamestrike the goo that used to be Eurydice before we left in the morning. Turns out that was a bad fucking idea. An acrid black smoke seeped from the puddle, and suddenly there were twelve high cultists of Vecna staring at us... then the smoke began to corrupt them. Dervish bombed them, breaking Eurydice's staff of the magi. The staff sent the bomb to the fifth layer of the Nine Hells, and appeared in front of a dragonturtle. It swallowed the bomb seconds before it went off, destroying the creature.

       After some traveling the horses were looking a bit broken down- they were mechanical- so Me had to stop our travels pretty early to work on them.

       We decided to keep fucking with the box, so we took it to the experiment room in my Mansion. Mage hand couldn't touch it at all. I used my Tome of the Stilled Tongue to summon some squirrels, and they came out undead- thanks Vecna. They couldn't open it. Shadewing suggested we wish for it to open- Ralliakkan tried and nothing happened. Then Dumbass wished for the knowledge of how to open it... it told him to open the latch. The idiot hadn't worded it properly.

       Ralliakkan said we owed her some wishes now, but if we tried to open the box, she'd forgive us. While Dervish prepared to open it, all 32 of the undead squirrels became corrupted. Of course they went down with ease, they were fucking squirrels. I dropped and endless abyss under the puddles of goo left behind by the squirrels, then realized that could leave it in my Mansion, and that sounded bad. So Dervish gathered the ichor- since it couldn't corrupt us with the Mantles- and took it outside, shaking it off of himself like a dog... hitting three of the people in the caravan.

       Thankfully they were able to brush it off of themselves before they became corrupted. Now they all hated him, with good reason. He offered the draws from the Deck of Many Things as an apology. The first guy decided to draw 10: the Key gave him a magic bow, the Fool which became to Moon with three wishes, the Idiot, the Sun, the Fates, the Comet, the Rogue, Euryale, and the Void...

      The second guy drew four: the Rogue, Knight, Key, and the Void. Dervish was great at apologizing.

       The third guy wasn't dissuaded by his friends drawing the Void, and drew one: the Sun, which gave him a Deck of Many Things of his very own. And he forced Dervish to draw from it. Dumbass drew the Jester, the Flame -Levistus, the lord of the 5th layer of Hell, where Dervish had bombed, became his enemy- and then Dervish drew the Sun, getting another fucking Deck of Many Things.


Map by Anna B. Meyer

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