Adventure 11

Where Chaos Reigns

Session One - Strange Happenings in Strange Times

After defeating the evil in the Barony of Twolakes Vale and closing the portal to the Sphere of Entropy, the heroes returned to running their baronies. Lithanor and Klaus repaired or replaced their damaged or destroyed golems. Morgan maintained his armies, as did Gandi, as well as checking on the Forge of Power. Sneaky kept in touch with her contacts in Thyatis and other parts of the realms before returning to her strange sylvan glade.

Mazaramus was eager to learn more about the portals and where the remaining ones could be. He was also interested in making more sophisticated constructs, similar to the magen in that they showed signs of at least semi-sentience. There was also this 'radiance' that he had heard about and wanted to learn more. To this end he journeyed to Glantri in the hope of learning more.

Meanwhile, Sneaky had heard that all was not well beyond the borders of her realm. Strange things were happening. The first indication was that outside of her realm, the grass was purple. Then there were the fish falling from the sky, and the strange red moon. She went to the city of Landfall to meet one of her contacts, who might have news as to whether these events were happening further afield such as in Thyatis. It was when they were at the docks that she thought it odd that the boats were bringing in large hauls of birds that they had caught in the seas. Her acquaintance thought nothing odd at first, until Sneaky pointed it out. If anyone knew what was going on, it would be Mazaramus, but first she sought the help of Lithanor, who had also noticed the strange signs.

Gandi emerged from the caverns where the Forge of Power was kept. The Keeper had told him that things were not as they should be, and that he should seek out his comrades. This he did, making the long journey southwards to the Kingdom of Vestland. Once there, he drank of a strange draught that seemed to cause a strange kind of forgetfulness. He did not recollect travelling by ship sothwards to Thyatis and then on to Ierendi. He did not even notice that the ship had been sailing backwards. When he stood on the shore of silver coins in Ierendi, he quizzed the bartender at the nearby stall as to whether any of his comrades had been seen. He failed to comprehend why the bartender expected to be paid in conch shells, and yet ignored all the millions of coins lying on the beach. The bartender did say that his old friend, Strongheart, had told him that he was expecting him,and that he should go and visit Strongheart at his mansion.

Mazaramus found himself once more at the Great Library in Glantri. After discussing matters over a few drinks with his old friend Guillaume d'Amberville, he found that this would be the best place to learn more on the matters that interested him, particularly the Radiance. Mazaramus fancied that this might prove some powerful source of magical energy, perhaps useful in the construction of magen, and that it might also be linked in some way with the secrets of the Seven Portals. It was thanks to a friendly janitor that he was able to find what seemed to be am almost forgotten section of the Great Library, and he soon found a curious looking tome with silver inscriptions. Opening up the tome, he found the first page to read simply "The answer you are looking for is here!" The letters glowed even brighter, and within moments Mazaramus was surrounded by a silver light. When the light faded, the library, the bookshelves and even the tome, were gone. Instead, Mazaramus found himself on a beach of silver coins. A short distance away, an open aired bar stood. The bartender stood cleaning a glass watching him as he approached. The bartender told him that his friends were already here, and he motioned in the direction of the mansion of Strongheart.

And so it was that the heroes found themselves once again in the presence of Strongheart. Sat opposite him was a helmeted warrior with glowing red eyes (nothing unusual in that, thought Mazaramus). This was Warduke, known to be a former enemy of Strongheart. Evidently they had put aside their differences in light of the recent strange happenings. The sorcerer Kelek, seemed to think that the rumours that Alphatia was somehow involved in what was happening to be of some merit. Even Guillaume, back in Glantri, had heard that the Alphatians had been accusing Glantri of interfering in the affairs of Norwold. The strange storm that had dispersed the Alphatian fleet was suspected to be Glantrian magic. Ringlerun, another wizard and friend of Strongheart, advised that such speculation at this time would yield nothing, and that they should resolve themselves woth dealing with what they knew.

Ringlerun had found that the strange little cottage that the party had  discovered near the Icewater Falls several years ago had suddenly reappeared in the Kingdom of Ierendi, less than half a amile from where they were now. Furthermore, powerful magic seemed tied to this strange little building, which would appear to be the source of all the chaotic happenings taking place over much of Mystara. Mazaramus noted that the location of the cottage coincided with where he had estimated one of the Seven Portals to be. The heroes therefore unanimously agreed to go to the cottage to investigate further.

As they entered the cottage, it seemed similar and yet different to the one they had been in previously. The sound of wind chimes gently tinkled as they entered.  A smoky clay lamp stood on a table and nearby stood a mug of foaming ale and a loaf on a platter. There was also present those items that the party did not already have on their person, particular those useful for adventuring, weapons armour, wands and rods as well as more mundane equipment that might be useful. Mazaramus decided to check his House of Zebulon. It was now that he noticed that he did not have it, and had a suddn flash of a vision of Guillaume d'Amberville holding the small black box and muttering to himself that 'he'll just have to keep hold of it for now'.

As they pondered further and gathered up their equipment, they noticed a tapestry on the opposite wall. The room then seemed to spin and swirl. Everything became a confused blurred mass. Soon the swirling stopped and they found themselves back in the room. Only now it was circular, and the timber of the walls were some kind of twigs held together with dried mud. The table was instead a frame of branches lashed together with thongs, and their was a bowl of steaming food in place of the load and some flowers where the mug of ale had been. The tapestry was now a crudely painted picture of a hunting scene. From outside came shouts and screams. Suddenly, the tent flap where once had been the door was flung open, and an elven woman in leathers stood staring, a terrified expression on her face....

Session Two - The Survivors of Aelos

They went outside the tent to see what was happening. A primitive village of mud huts was being attacked by large humanoids riding rocs. Several elven women were running around in terror, and the bodies of elves lay scattered about the village. Klaus decided now would be a good time to summon his efreeti from its bottle. Gandi gained the attention of the attackers by using his Horn of Blasting, knocking a rider off of his mount and plummeting to the ground. Riderless, the roc seemed to lose interest and flew away from the battle site.

Klaus' efreeti turned itself into a pillar of flame and went about immolating the brutish attackers. Mazaramus took several attackers out with a well placed fireball. Lithanor hoped to knock out some of the attackers with a sleep spell, but these creatures were too powerful to be affected, and instead several elven women who had been running around were sent into a slumber.

Seeing this new threat, the attackers turned their attention on the party. Morgan, Lithanor and Klaus stood firm in a clear area, ready to fight these foes as they flew in to attack with their spears. Gandi too ran about the village, hacking at any of the rocs or their riders that ventured too close to the ground. To their surprise, one of the attackers threw a gourd at Morgan's group exploding into flame as it hit the ground. Even more surprising was when one of these 'savages' pointed at Mazaramus and green bolt of energy were sent at the wizard, narrowly missing him. Mazaramus ducked out of sight whilst preparing a spell to knock what he assumed to be a spell-caster off of its roc. This large caveman directed its energy bolts at Morgan instead, two bolts would have struck home, but Morgan was protected by his ring of spell turning. The bolts reverberated back towards the caster. One was stopped, a blue glow appearing where it struck what was apparently a body force-field, similar to a shield spell, but the other struck home, wounding the caster. Mazaramus re-emerged from behind his cover and cast a power word stun spell at the caster. He fell off the roc and fell to the ground, dazed and badly wounded. Most of the attackers had now been defeated. The spell-caster savage had recovered from the fall and Mazaramus spell and had even launched a fireball back at Mazaramus, even catching the efreet in the blast although it was not affected. Morgan lunged at this 10' tall savage and knocked him to the ground. Gandi joined the fray, trying to immobilise the caster. As they did, it continued trying to use its energy bolts against Morgan, though each time, they were just redirected back by his ring of spell turning. It seemed that they had the caster helpless (though it was obvious it did not need to cast in the way that a magic-user or cleric does). It hand glowed green as if to fire another volley of energy blasts, but this time his eyes glowed green then slumped, limp and lifeless in their grasp.

With the attackers defeated, they consoled the elven women they had rescued, and found more cowering in a hidden cave on the edge of the village. They learnt that these attackers were called garls, and were intent in wiping the elves out. Mazaramus examined the body of the strange spell-caster. Apparently all was not as it seemed. He found it odd that such a primitive would have such potent magic, let alone be able to repeatedly fire these energy bolts. Klaus cast a truesight spell and found that this was not a savage like the others but was disguised by some sort of illusion. Its true form was some sort of human but instead of crude skins and rags, was wearing some strange body suit like very smooth leather, and was fitted with highly sophisticated weaponry and other devices. Mazaramus began removing these devices, but had not even the slightest inclination as to how to operate them. They were not magical in nature either. The nearest Mazaramus had seen of anything like this was the technology used by Markus Kaldarian, the survivor of the Blackmoor ctalaclysm, though even this seemed alien compared to what he had.

The elves told them that this village was Callafae and was one of only two remaining elven villages. They were going to travel to the last elven village, Loralis, about five days travel away through the forest. They learnt that the savage garls at one time were little threat, but in recent years the garls suddenly learnt how to make weapons such as bows and spears and to be able to control the savage animals such as rocs, mastodons and sabre-tooth tigers. They then began attacking the elven settlements, systematically wiping them out until only two villages remained. The elves themselves have only the simplest of weapons, leather for armour and have learnt the most basic of magic spells.

On the second day of travelling through the forest towards Loralis, Sneaky and Lithanor guarding the rear spotted some large cats pursuing them, a group of five sabre-toothed tigers. Mazaramus told the elves to cluster into as small a group as possible and then cast a wall of stone to encircle and protect the elves. Unfortunately, the elves were numerous and the trees also made placing of the wall difficult. The wall, although encircling the group, was only 10' high. The tigers easily leapt on top of the wall. Mazaramus had manged though to give Klaus enough time to cast a speak with animals spell. The leader of the pack of tigers was astounded to find that Klaus was talking to him. The other tigers hesitated. Klaus learnt that, though hungry, the tigers were also relieved to find that these 'shiny meats' (meaning humans in metal armour) were not like the strange creatures that had taken over and controlled many of their own kin. Klaus arranged a truce with the sabre-tooth tigers, and used a create food spell to feed them. They agreed not to eat the elves, and were so favourably inclined towards Klaus that they even offered to act as protectors for the elves.

Towards the end of the third day they found the ruins of one of the elven villages that had been devastated by previous attacks by the garls. The village was now desolate and deserted. The sabre-tooth tigers sensed something unnatural in the village and refused to enter. The heroes entered the village, with the elves hovering on the outskirts. In the centre of the village was an eerie scene. Several ghostly white figures of garls were attacking an elf, also pale and ghost-like. As they approached, the garls turned towards the party, emitting a frightening howl. The elves fled, as did Morgan. Mazaramus ws unphased and conjured up a rune of fire. The garls howled as the flames engulfed them and they sank to their knees, emitting a pitiful moan. Klaus stepped forward presenting his holy symbol, banishing the unholy vision of the garls. With his enemies vanquished, the ghostly elf approached. He motioned to Klaus to follow him, taking him to a collapsed hut. Klaus cast a speak with the dead spell and learnt that the elf, named Deorar, who had been the leader of the village and died defending it from the garls, wanted Klaus to recover the body of his wife and give her a proper burial. This Klaus did. As a reward, the ghost led Klaus to a tree and indicated a hollow in the tree, in which Klaus found a crystal pendant on a thong. The pendant was obviously magical. When Klaus had retrieved the pendant, the ghost of Deorar vanished.

They regrouped and pressed on, putting some distance between themselves and the eerie village before camping for the night. Two more days of travel and they reached the village of Loralis. Halliani, the leader of the elves was grateful to the heroes, and somewhat in awe of their powers and armour of shiny stone, as were all the elves. A young boy came running forward, excited to see these heroes. This boy was not an elf, but a human named Teb. Halliani was deeply troubled to hear of the destruction of Callafae. Knowing now that the garls were on the march again after the cold winter, they would soon find this, the last village of the elves. He decided that the elves would leave Loralis and head westwards, crossing a swamp there to reach the imagined safety of another forest on the far side. Teb , however, appealed to the heroes to lead the elves to seek out and destroy the garls once he heard how they had defeated the garls at Callafae. Later that evening, a treant named Fferttig approached the village. He too head learnt of the attack on Callafae and the appearance of the strangers. He asked that the heroes accompany him to his grove to help defend the 'great secret' that was kept there. He would not reveal what this 'great secret' was, though Lithanor suspected that it was a Tree of Life.

Whatever the heroes decided, the elves were going to leave and try to get across the swamp, going by way of the human settlement of Jo-Lak first. The party debated whether they should accompany the elves across the swamp or go with Fferttig to protect his grove, ruling out seeking out and attacking the garl stronghold for now.

Session Three - Expedition Across the Swamp

The next day the elves prepared to set off. Meanwhile the party debated over whether they should go with Ffertig to protect his grove, or escort the elves across the swamp. Mazaramus took the opportunity to spy out the land, and Sneaky set about preparing traps to waylay the garls that would be pursuing them, though the elves had set some traps of their own, covered pit traps and the like. The party finallt decided on escorting the elves, hoping to quickly get them across the swamp to the imagined safety of the forest beyond, and then double back to return to assist Ffertig. To this end, Mazaramus made a study of the village in preparation for a quick teleport.

The evening after setting off from the elven village, they had the uneasy sense that some evil presence was following them. Mazaramus went to scout about on his broom of flying. At was coming towards dusk when Mazaramus saw a leaf floating towards him. Ordinarily, there would be nothing unusual in that, except that the leaf seemed as though it was not floating in the same direction as the wind. Also, his infravision revealed that it was not giving off any heat in the way that a normal leaf would. As he watched, it was apparent that the leaf was coming directly towards him, changing direction to follow him as he moved. He fired a volley of magic missiles at the leaf, which disintegrated in a blaze of magical flame. He returned to the party to tell them of his horrific encounter with the leaf.

That night, during Sneaky's watch, she saw more of these strange leaves float into the camp. One approached Sneaky, while the others went towards the sleeping companions. One settled on Morgan,but brushed it off once he realised there was a commotion going on. Sneaky had roused the party as she sliced the leaves with her blade. Looking about, Lithanor could see a faint unnatural purple glow in the distance through the trees. He alerted the rest of the party to its presence, the cast a dimension door to get closer to this unnatural horror. What he found was some distorted tree, apparently dead, surrounded by a purple glow. Yet the tree was still animate and reacted to Lithanor's presence. A purplish beam struck out towards Lithanor, but his scarab of protection saved him from its deadly effect. Mazaramus had flown above and cast a fire ball directly at the unnatural tree. The scrub around the tree, which dead and lifeless, was burnt to a cinder, but the tree itself was totally unscathed. Gandi, Sneaky and Klaus rushed towards the tree as fast as they could through the trees, though Morgan was first to reach it, thanks to his boots of speed. Meanwhile, Lithanor was attacking the tree with magical arrows from his longbow of flaming, which seemed to be having some effect. Morgan charged the tree swing his claymore in a mighty arc. As he entered the purple aura, he felt the numbing, life-draining effect, and was barely able to resist having the life force sucked from him. Klaus, now just behind him, recognised the tree as an undead spirit, an odic. He presented his holy symbol, and the tree hung back, though unable to flee. Morgan struck, his claymore striking deep. The purple aura vanished, leaving just a lifeless husk of a tree. They returned to camp, resting somewhat easier, now that the evil presence was gone.

A few days later they reached the human settlement of Jo-Lak. The leader of the humans, Hobe, told the party how they had escaped from the garls stronghold to the north and formed this settlement. Many of the villagers had escaped by way of a narrow gap between a rough cliff and a torrential lake. Many of the humans had perished when the waves of the lake seemed to come alive and drag them into the water. Hobe explained that he had escaped by another route, though not without dangers and teeming with many wild beasts that he had to evade. Hobe, upon hearing of the devastation of the elven villages, decided that his people would join the elves and venture with them across the swamp, as they were no match for the garl army. Soon they were ready to depart, and within a few more days, the entourage, which now comprised about 300 elves and humans all told, reached the edge of the swamp.

Mazaramus had devised an idea to make their crossing of the swamp somewhat easier. Using a combination of his runic powers and move earth spells, he constructed earthen walkways across the more difficult parts of the swamp. There were still dangers to be overcome, and had the party not escorted them, many of the elves and humans may have perished. A group of giant crocodiles, colossal beasts about 50' long attacked the group, but were no match for Gandi, Lithanor and Morgan, who slew the beasts whilst Mazaramus used his magic to shield the elves and humans. Mazaramus resisted the temptation to cast animate dead on one of the crocodiles, for the time being at least, though he would return later to animate one, using his runic powers to control it remotely, without being seen by the primitives. Further along the swamp they came across an area where the land, what there was of it, dipped into a particularly boggy channel. Lithanor ventured forward and was soon beset by several giant leeches. Having lured them out, the group soon despatched the beasts, Klaus' efreeti being especially effective (despite hating the water), clearing the way for them to continue.

They soon reached the far side of the swamp. The elves and humans felt that they had at least bought themselves some time and were safe from the garls for now. They thanked the party. Now that they were reasonably safe, Halliani suggested that they seek out Ffertig's grove, and gave them rough directions from the village of Loralis. Mazaramus told everyone to give him their bags of holding and climb into his own bag of holding. He then cast teleport any object on himself to return to Loralis, taking the party with him, and ruling out any chance of teleporting too high or too low.

At the now eerie and deserted village, they followed Halliani's directions, heading east and then north-east. After about a day of travelling, with Sneaky scouting ahead and Mazaramus flying above on his broom of flying, the rest of the group stumbled into one of the elves pit traps, large enough to trap a mastodon. The pit was about 30' deep and lined with several sharp wooden spikes at the bottom. Furthermore, three giant rattlesnakes now occupied the pit. Mazaramus activated a rune of gravity and lifted the party out. As the rattlesnakes lunged, he manipulated the gravity to crush the snakes. The party were out and safe, albeit a little bruised. Mazaramus heard something behind him and looked round. A few hundred yards away, a group of rocs ridden by garls had heard the crashing of the pit trap and had turned to head in the party's direction. The garl war party that was hunting the elves had now found them!

Session Four - Encounter with the Oard

By the time the war party reached them, the heroes were well prepared, and the garls had no idea that they were even there, having stumbled upon them purely by chance. The advance group were seven humanoids, looking something like a cross between an ogre and a human mounted on rocs, armed with primitive spears and bows. while four sabre-tooth tigers kept pace on the ground.

Klaus unleashed the Efreet while Mazaramus and Lithanor bombarded the flying garls with devastating magic. Gandi and Morgan had little trouble dealing with the sabre-tooth tigers that had now spotted them. Before they went down, Mazaarmus thought he saw one of the garls hang back and hold his arm to his mouth, as though speaking into a crude bracelet of bones about his wrist.

The main body of the war party was headed their way, and they were sure now that they were aware of the party, either from the lights and explosions from their magic and the sound of battle or the advance scouts had somehow got a message to the main group. More garls mounted on rocs, as well as several on foot with sabre-tooth tigers converged on the party, closely followed by three huge mastodons, giant elephants rarely seen in the adventurers home-world, belonging to a age long past or areas forgotten by time. Each of these huge beasts carried a howdah, a kind of basket, housing several more garls in each from which they threw down spears towards the party.

Large though this group was, they still had their combat and defensive spells running, and Lithanor was able to deal with a great many of them by breathing chlorine gas at them, one of his draconic abilities. Mazaramus suspected that there may be some of these strange humanoid creatures among them that they had encountered earlier, though they had been so efficient in dealing with the group that none of them had the opportunity to demonstrate any abilities not usual to the primitive garls. Nevertheless, Mazaramus recalled the odd behaviour of one of them, who had been speaking to his bracelet, and bade Klaus to use a Truesight spell. Lo and behold, Mazaramus was correct in his assumption and they found two more of the unearthly humanoids adorned in highly sophisticated clothing and apparel, one from the advance party and in the main group. Instead of a crude bracelet of bones, they both wore a delicately wrought bracelet of some unknown metal, with strange designs etched into its surface. Mazaramus guessed that they were some kind of communicating device, though they did not radiate any magic, as with all of their devices. How they functioned was beyond even Mazaramus. He guessed that they were somehow linked with the Oard themselves, and would only function when worn by them. Still, the adornments and unusual metals on the Oards were highly valuable, especially to a collector of rare and alien artifacts, if one could be found back on Mystara.

After their encounter with the garl war party, they soon reached Galgrove, where Ffertig the treant was still waiting. They agreed that the grove was safe, at least for the time being, having dealt with the war party that was hunting the elves, and decided it was time to seek out the lair of the garls and eliminate the threat of the Oards once and for all.