Ironfang Deep
Dramatis Personae:
Liavara Kayne, the Aasimar Warlock of Neifion, the Lord of Bats, librarian extraordinaire, Magister of Ironfang Deep
Nigel, Lia's sprite familiar who dies almost as much as the monk
Iona, the Wood Elf Monk who can't stay alive
Shump, the Half-Orc Cleric who keeps Iona from permanent death, and replaced Ishir after his untimely demise
Keh-Tee, the four-armed Mad Catter Warlock of Y'Chuk, Lord of Ironfang Deep
Lady Orhialla "Nya" Tarnash, the Teifling Sorcerer and Lady of the Zhentarim
Teegan, the Dragonborn Sorcerer of Many Faces
Orvu, the Human Rogue who loves shinies
Franklin, the one armed, one legged human ranger, who later regrows both limbs
Ishir, the Dragonborn Fighter who met his end to the Deck of Many Things; and now inhabits a dwarven golem and guards Ironfang Deep
NOTE: Anything in italics is written from Lia's (and sometimes Nigel's) perspective.
The group saw the path up to the Keep, a winding little road, lined in orbs that appeared to be faerie fire of a different color than anyone had seen before, with steep cliffs surrounding it. It was getting dark, so they decided to head back down the mountain a little to set up camp for the night.
***** Lia
In the morning, I decided to send Nigel to scout ahead while the rest of us finished getting ready to travel. He was instructed to look for traps along the trail, any spaces where enemies could potentially lurk and spring out at us, and if he could- he was to attempt to gain entrance to the Keep. Nigel left as he was instructed, and I stayed with him, watching through his eyes, until he went out of the limited range of our connection. I again wished my Lord would grant me access to the ritual to create a homunculus, they do not have the limits Nigel and I do; and it may keep my sprite alive more often.
***** Nigel
I flew off to investigate the path for my mistress, looking for anything out of place. The strangest thing I saw was the orbs of wrong-colored faerie fire. Being a fae spirit, I am curious by nature, so of course I had to get a closer look at the orbs. I zipped up to one and began examining it. It looked exactly like faerie fire, aside from being the wrong color, and since faerie fire is not harmful, I touched it. With a flash of searing pain I found myself in Darroch Castle once again- the home of our Lord, Neifion.
Our Lord finds it amusing when I die, since I seem to do it so often, so I went to him quickly, knowing my mistress would soon have me back at her side. I filled the Lord of Bats in on what had happened to Mistress and her companions since I had last died, and he too was curious about this Keep. With laughter in his eyes, my Lord instructed me to give him a full report the next time I died; which would probably be very soon, I seem to be good at dying.
***** Lia
The moment Nigel left, I began preparing the ritual to bring him back. He has a terrible track record for surviving the scouting missions I send him on, I would stop, but he is excellent at finding things, and I would rather him be hurt than one of us; Nigel we can bring back easily, the rest of us require a powerful spell from Shump. At the exact moment I felt Nigel die, I set to work casting the spell, and eventually he was at my side again. He told us everything he saw and the conclusions he had drawn from his brief mission; when he finished we all prepared ourselves to leave, and started the hike back to the Keep.
*****
When the group began their hike up the winding path to the Keep, they began getting peppered with arrows; apparently their new home was occupied, and they were seen as invaders. The group fought their way up the path and made it into the main hall of the Keep without much injury. They were not prepared for what awaited them inside.
In the main hall of the Keep, they found a huge spider statue- it appeared to be a shrine to Lolth. It would seem that drow had claimed Ironfang Deep as theirs. Aside from the shrine the hall was completely deserted. They selected a random hallway to go down, and ventured forth, ready to fight for what was now theirs. After checking a couple of seemingly empty rooms, the party ended up in a large room with a set of stairs on one side, being the only room thus far to have multiple entrances. Suddenly they found themselves surrounded by goblins, a common slave race for drow; frequently used as kill fodder so the drow can whittle down their enemies before they have to face them personally.
While goblins are easy to dispatch of, there was wave after wave of them, flooding the room from both entrances. The group fought hard and they eventually were left with the goblins only using a single entrance to attack from- the one the group had used. Everyone was exhausted by this point, Lia and Keh-Tee were out of the energy needed to use their warlock powers, and Shump had reached such an exhaustion that if anyone died he would not be able to raise them. Keh-Tee remembered a spell in the Tome of Terra that would let him bring a stone wall up over the entrance, sealing the group in so they could recuperate. The Tome had a special property that would allow the spells within it to be cast as scrolls, which is how a thoroughly drained Keh-Tee was able to throw the wall up. This also gave their adversaries eight hours to rest, and their enemies knew the Keep and how to set it up to be defensible in their favor.
After everyone had rested for eight hours, the group opened up the wall again, and found the hallway beyond to be covered in spider webs. The drow were alerted the second the wall came down, from the webs vibrating. They slashed their way down the hall, and eventually came upon a room with a small pool in it, and a group of drow dancing. That fight was almost as grueling as the one against the goblins had been- even though it was only a few drow instead of wave after wave of goblins. Eventually that taxing battle ended, and the group found that they once again needed to stop and rest. They sealed off the entrance and once again gave themselves some time to recuperate... giving their actual adversaries, whom they had yet to meet, more time to prepare.
Another day of fight, retreat, fight, retreat occurred, and the group had to again barricade themselves into a room to hide. This time though, they decided to use a teleportation spell that Teegan knew to send Keh-Tee back to town to go shopping; he took Franklin with him, so he could get his limbs back- he was dropped off with Orvu and the money required to pay a temple to perform this service. The time they had spent in the Keep had spent most of their supplies, they had few healing potions left and were constantly on the verge of death and defeat. Everyone put forth money to help Keh-Tee get supplies, since there was no point holding onto their personal wealth, and after several hours, Keh-Tee returned, with as much as he was able to purchase in his short time in town. They resumed their mission of claiming their Keep.
The next day gave the group a slight change in the tides- they finally saw who was running this place: a Brass Dragon, who had been corrupted and turned evil. The battle that ensued was the most difficult yet; they had to face the Brass and her half-drow children- several priestesses of Lolth, and twin boys, one an accomplished wizard, and the other a skilled fighter (you know them as Pharin and Andolin, members of Oryn Talus' Bane of Vecna). This fight ended with the party being forced to retreat, using some illusion to distract the drow long enough to get away; they barred a door on the hallway in hopes of detaining the drow for a few seconds once they got past the defenses the group had used. Teegan requested one minute, to throw a teleportation circle together, if he could get it up in time, the drow would end up stepping on it the moment they burst through the door; It worked, almost exactly after Teegan finished his circle, the drow burst through the door and were sent through a portal to the Underdark.
The group dashed into a room they had thought to be empty, and found a hidden door. Inside the room they met a dwarven woman, and a dwarven golem. The pair had been hiding in this tiny room for centuries, they were there when this Keep belonged to the dwarves still, and after hearing the group's story, and seeing the deed was authentic, they agreed to help purge the drow from the Keep. The dwarf claimed to be Nameless, though they later learned her name was Stryx, and the golem was Strax, who had once been her brother. They spent the night in the room, while they came up with a plan to defeat the drow, with their new allies help. Stryx said that the group needed to get to the Keep's vault, and there they should find what they needed to finally dispatch of the villains- the problem was that they had to fight their way to the vault, but it wasn't terribly far away.
They had to fight their way to the vault, but eventually the group arrived... only to find that they couldn't open the damned thing. Their new allies were not helpful in opening it, Stryx claimed she couldn't do it. While they attempted to find a way into the vault, the group noticed Stryx had a wish ring on her finger, with one wish left. She had been given the ring, as a contingency plan for if she ever needed to use it to cleanse the Keep. With this new information, the group realized what they could do with that wish: they could make the brass dragon good again- fixing her alignment would be an easier feat than trying to kill her, all of her half-drow children, and every slave they threw at them. It took some convincing on the group's part to get Stryx to let them use that wish, but eventually they prevailed.
It worked! The wish went off, the dragon was cleansed, and many of her children perished; but her twin boys made it through a portal that brought them to Oerth. They tracked the newly cleansed dragon down before she could leave, and attempted to make an alliance with her, but after spending centuries evil, and suddenly getting a conscious again had made her a little odd. She wanted nothing to do with the party or their Keep, and took her leave during their conversation.
The Ironfang Eight spent the next three months setting up their Keep, and its new town.
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