Campaigns

Back to the Burning Star

The Banewarrens, Part 9

Players/Characters Present:
Bruce Barnett - Bonzimir Amantes (Rog5/Hlf3)
Barbara Muth - Nereida Amantes (Clr8) 
Nora Dunn -  Elida (KSK5)
Tim Chan - Demetrios Amantes (Wiz5/Hum3)
Michael Burgio - Marcus Asinus (Ftr1/KSK6)

[GM's Note: We have bid good-bye to Erik Nowak, who found that his schedule wouldn't permit him to play with us. We'll miss you, Erik!]

[We also had the good fortune to be joined by Mike Burgio's girlfriend, Nora Dunn, who played Nereida's follower, Elida and is going to join us in the future with her own character.]

When one has battled the living dead, and been dead oneself, when one has seen the air torn asunder by the blaze of mystic energies and lived to tell the tale, there is little that one finds truly shocking. But the beautiful young priestess from Vendarius, waking one day to scratch at your -beard- is definitely one of those things. 

The man in whose body Nereida awoke was handsome and athletic, but more importantly, he was -familiar-. Nereida found the eyes of Admeh Sharon, the Ghostly Minstrel's resident bard staring back at her...at him!...no, definitely her...from the mirror. She blushed at her own nakedness before that gaze before realizing how silly that was...it was he who was...ahem.

Shortly thereafter, Nereida/Admeh emerged from his room, hurriedly dressed and without saying a word to young Cornelia behind the bar, rushed to the Company's house on St. Martius's Street. Finding they were not home, she left a message that they should seek Admeh at the Ghostly Minstrel and then left another message at the Great Cathedral and returned to the inn to wait.

Shortly after their previously-detailed meeting with Flavia Brassus, Moenia the housekeeper told them that Admeh had left them a message. Traveling to the Ghostly Minstrel, they met with the bard who revealed that he was really Nereida in the bard's body. Naturally dubious, the party tested Nereida with knowledge of things only she should know, and slowly became convinced that he was telling the truth. Elida, meanwhile, paced impatiently, determined to be on the way to rescue her mistress.

The party decided that it must act immediately, and so went to the Chapel of St. Thessina. Marcus sent his raven companion to spy on the top floor of the tower, but it was chased away by an eagle that roosted in the tower. Bonzimir discovered and opened the side door to the tower and let everyone in. Unbeknownst to them at the time, they had been spotted approaching the Chapel by Norsu Goldvein, the female dwarf who had aided in Nereida's kidnaping. 

They advanced through the rear portions of the chapel and located a spiral staircase leading up into the tower. At this point, they were ambushed by Norsu and a powerful gnoll warrior coming down the stairs and four nearly-identical brothers wielding two-bladed swords - the outrageously-accented Eight-Bladed Rissard Brothers. Trapped, the Company of the Starborn had the enemy right where they wanted. The Rissard Brothers, though skilled in fancy swordplay, proved woefully incapable of hitting real foes. Bonzimir and Elida managed to hold off two of them in a doorway while Marcus dueled the gnoll and Admeh froze Norsu in place with a spellchord of disrupt thoughts. A well-placed shout spell by Demetrios took the wind out of the Rissard Brothers for good. The two surviving Rissard brothers escaped, and Norsu was placed in manacles and knocked unconscious.

Ascending the tower, the Company took no time to investigate the many rooms of the tower, stopping in their upward rush only when confronted by a terrible basilisk guardian. The deadly lizard's gaze nearly petrified Marcus, but when Admeh used the disrupt thoughts chord to excellent effect, the Company made short work of the beast. In a nearby chamber, they were stunned to find their old friend Professor Herminius, bound and gagged. Released, he told them that the Pactlords had discovered his connection the Starborn and had seized him for questioning. He told them about the strange machine into which they had placed him and in which Nereida now lay - the Probe of Dreams. This device allowed the questioner to enter a victim's dreams and there seize answers and information. Herminius begged them to take him away and then return for Nereida, but they refused, telling him that he could stay in this chamber, where they would come back for him, but he opted instead to come with them "for safety".

At the top of the stairs, the Company of the Starborn confronted Brother Heth Neferul, no longer the smiling, sagacious cleric, but now a snarling, armored juggernaut, frothing at the mouth and raving about his superiority. Nereida lay nearby, strapped into the Probe of Dreams, and another large device, like an oven, stood nearby. As they faced off, Brother Heth rang a small bell - a Chime of Interruption, the powerful peal of which made it very difficult to concentrate on anything delicate...like casting spells. 

Marcus and Elida soon learned that their blades slid off Brother Heth like water rolling off a stone. The rogue priest ignored them while he drank a deep draught from a potion bottle. Demetrios, realizing that Heth was warded by a whole panoply of protective spells, summoned his own arcane art to dispel them. He had some real success, and thereafter Brother Heth was somewhat more vulnerable, though still mighty. 

Now the battle was joined in earnest. Moving with magically-enhanced speed, Heth lashed out with a longsword and a mace, whirling and slashing amid the heroes like a scythe through ripe wheat. No matter how terrible the injuries they inflicted on him, the evil priest seemed not to notice, and the wounds began to heal of their own accord! Meanwhile the same could not be said for the Starborn. Finally, Bonzimir, while tumbling into position to strike at the cleric's exposed back, slammed into something he could not see...something large and furry. He realized that humanoid cleric they had seen through Flavia's scrying was in the chamber, surreptitiously healing Brother Heth during the fight. Bonzimir tried to locate this invisible combatant, but without success.

Steady swordwork slowly whittled down Heth's stamina, and his injuries began to accumulate. Still, he raved about his own incomparable power and glory. Then, Professor Herminius entered the fight. Or rather, the being who had been disguised as Herminius. The old man enlogated into a shiny black monster with the body of a great snake and the head of a woman. "Never send a man to do a woman's job," she said, and spoke a word of power that sent a lightning bolt through Elida and Bonzimir. 

From there, the fight sprawled across the belfry, the naga trying use spells to convince Company members to stand perilously near the precipice over the city. In the end, Marcus and Heth faced off against each other and Marcus drove his spear through the evil priest (x3 critical hit and near-maximum damage). Amazingly the priest lived, and hacked through Marcus's magical spear and sliced into the knight just as badly. Both of them bleeding from many deadly wounds, they faced off one final time...and Marcus was clubbed from behind the cowardly bugbear priest, now suddenly visible, who was himself cut down moments later by Bonzimir and Admeh. The naga fled downstairs, and the party let her go, turning their attentions to Nereida and Brother Heth, who still lived, though barely.

Unsure of whether it was safe to free Nereida from the probe, the Company planned on interrogating Brother Heth. They stripped his body and discovered that his richly ornate knife was in fact a sentient being with the soul of a small elven girl named Yaeshla. Yaeshla told them that it was safe to remove Nereida from the Probe of Dreams, and also that a portal to the Quann existed on one of the balconies. She also explained the function of the second machine, known as the Unmaker. She also mentioned a member of the Quann not yet seen: Li. Li, she said, could look like anything. He and the naga had been lovers for a time, but were now enemies. Heth had sent Li to try to kill the Starborn earlier that morning, but he had not yet returned. Finally, Yaeshla told her own story:

Yaeshla, it seems, was thousands of years old, originally a resident of ancient Celendor, she was dying of an unknown plague and agreed to be bound into a powerful magical item, the Staff of Shards which was used to destroy Eslathagos Malkith (Danar). But she unexpectedly survived his destruction, and the Staff was broken into three pieces, of which only one, the haft, was inhabited by the girl's soul. When Aumerides and Maerithia Moonbow (the only two survivors of the final battle with the Dread One) fled Mons Tartaros, they took with them two of the Shards. The third remained trapped within the sealed Banewarrens in a region know as the Dread One's Path.

Maerithia took both shards with her when she returned to her sylvan home (Aumerides went on to become Vasil I, first Conorrian emperor). Her apprentice Thurnuin forged a beautiful knife blade and bound it to Yaeshla. Maerithia created the pocket dimension known as the Quann and lived there until her death. After her death, Thurnuin showed his true colors and recruited a trio of evil monsters as his companions Thurnuin’s companions were a beholder named Charch-Pahn, a mind flayer named Ilaprisarol and a black dragon that called itself Father Claw. Together, the four of them swore a Pact to work together from the pocket dimension of the Quaan to eliminate the hated humanoids “infesting” the world. (Yaeshla remains uncertain whether Thurnuin was always evil, fooling even Maeritha, or if something corrupted him toward the end. She did, however, come to learn that Thurnuin’s anti-humanoid feelings sprang from the ridicule he received due to his draconic heritage.) Centuries passed, and the Pactlords grew in power. Father Claw left, and many other original members died. As far as she knows, only Charch-Pahn still lives, a shriveled husk of a beholder.

Yaeshla wants nothing more than to rejoin the other portions of the staff of shards. She knows that one-third of 
the staff lies in the Black Manor in the Quann. She feels pretty sure that the other part remains in the Banewarrens, close to Jabel Shammar, the fortress at the top of the Spire. 

Healing Brother Heth, the Company of the Starborn tried to intimidate the vile priest into revealing how to remove Nereida from the Probe of Dreams. He tried to bargain his way to freedom, but when threatened with the Unmaker, he agreed. Unfortunately, he was lying. Seeing no way out, Heth tried to use the machine to exact his revenge by injuring Nereida. Surging free from his captors, he threw a pair of levers, causing Nereida's body to surge and contort in dangerous ways. The Starborn slew Brother Heth and pulled Nereida out of the Probe, quickly healing her. When Admeh touched her body, he fell to the ground, unconscious, and her eyes fluttered open.

After greeting Nereida, the party examined the portal to the Quann, discussed it options and decided that they had to report Heth's treachery to the Great Church. The naga, it seems, had cleared out of the tower, freeing the dwarf Norsu on its way. There was little else to be gathered in the Chapel. Back at the Great Cathedral, the Company was greeted by the paladins of the Order of the Dawn, who joked that they were happy to see the entire Company arrive on its feet for once.

Sister Donna Mara had great difficulty believing that Brother Heth would be involved in anything so sordid as the sort of grand betrayal that the Starborn alleged. Secret allegiances to hateful monstrosities, turning his back on the true gods...just for gold? But she was nonetheless convinced of the Company's sincerity and immediately ordered the Order of the Dawn to secure the Chapel and keep outsiders away from whatever they found there. Once the paladins had sent back word that all was precisely as the Starborn had claimed, Sister Mara was mortified, and agreed that the Company had done the Great Church a vital service. She rewarded them with several potions and an agreement to perform the needed raise dead ceremony on Basil.

The Company spent the afternoon and evening resting and examining the items they had looted from Brother Heth's person. They received a summons back to the Great Cathedral from Sister Donna Mara, who told them that she had had an audience with the Patriarch (sometimes called the Emperor of the Church), and that he was so impressed that he had sent the Company his own gift, several powerful potions and a scroll of heal. He had also given Sister Mara permission to discuss a very sensitive matter with the Company. 

For centuries, perhaps millennia, the Great Church had sought one of its own most ancient relics, a holy sword now lost in the depths of legend called The Sword of Truth. Some sources claimed that this was one of the twelve Swords of Fate, spoken into being by the One himself outside of time, and bound up with the fate of Theeurth. Some sources claimed that, long before even the rise of the great Danar, this sword had been cursed by one of the greatest of demon princes and known ever after as The Sword of Lies. Danar, the Great Church believes, shut up the Sword of Lies in the Banewarrens as one of its many great evils. But, says Donna Mara, some in the church still believe that the ancient taint can be cleansed from the once-pure sword and return a great good to the world. If the Company were to recover the Sword of Lies, the Great Church would pay 20,000 traders in cash, or twice that in spellcasting and the creation of magic items. The Company agreed to keep its eyes out for the sword.

And here the adventure paused....

1) Will the Company of the Starborn enter the Quann in search of the second part of the Staff of Shards? 

2) Are their any more traitors in their midst or in their allies'?

3) Where is the Ring of Wish?

4) How -did- the naga know about Professor Herminius?

5) What did Brother Heth and the Quann hope to discover from Nereida's dreams?

6) Where is Li?

7) What is the Lady of Shadows up to?

Tune in next time! 

Back to the Burning Star

Forward to The Banewarrens, Part 10