Session 24

Day 102 (1st cycle of summer, 24th day)

Quickly Nevron casts invisibility and heads back to the warehouse. There he sees a shadar-kai pick up the wand and bid 8 orcs to follow him. Nevron runs back to the church and gets the other Sons, who meanwhile had been somewhat healed by Elias.

They run down the streets, catching up with the shadar-kai and the orcs. The Shadar-kai tries to make a run for it, while the orcs stop the Sons, but Nevron turns him into a turtle. One of the orcs then picks up the turtle and continue towards the battle in the southern part of the town. 

Nevron casts fly to catch, which breaks the polymorph, but he manages to stall the Shadar-kai while the rest of the Sons kill the remaining orcs. 

Once the fight is over, Arath and Urnyx limb very wounded back to the church, to the heals of Elias, while Nevron flies out of harms way towards the battle and orders the golems to break from the fight and head north, into the water, to guard the crystal coffin. 

They all meet up by the docks, where an orc atop a huge lizard is parked, surveying the area. The Sons give him the slip and board a small boat and sail away from Ashfield, which is now burning, lost to the orcs.

Day 103 (1st cycle of summer, 25th day)

After sailing a short while, they stop to find the tracks of the army, which they do. It appears to be heading east. They continue to sail east, and during the night, they pass by the gigantic orc army.

At evening, they arrive in Chalkam, which has been mostly evacuated, leaving only able-bodied soldiers behind.

Day 104 (1st cycle of summer, 26th day)

They continue towards Ironville Crossing, passing Riverburn, which has been sacked completely.

Day 106 (1st cycle of summer, 28th day)

They finally arrive in Ironville.

Almost immediately, they head towards the palace, to talk to Hagron, Nevron's uncle. As it turns out, he is now a close advisor to Warlord Sophie Ran. Sophie asks the Sons to help her with a problem. Some nobles (presumably) have hired an assassin's guild called the Blackhawks to kill her. She is busy enough due to 50.000 orcs heading her way, and doesn't need any distractions. 

Arath dumps off his plate armor to be refitted with a smith.

They hire a sage called Mostrat to look into the coffin and the sigils.

They learn from Hagron that Togir of the Short Brothers is supposed to know something about the assassination.

Day 107 (1st cycle of summer, 29th day)

After dinner, the Sons find Togir in a small tavern called the Drunken Halfling down in Sewer, the poorest of the wards. He quickly tells them that Silas, a rogue who has worked in the kitchen of the palace, is the one to have contact with the assassins. At first, he says it is because the Short Brothers want to keep Sophie as warlord, but when pressed, he admits that he was told by the high-ups the day before the Sons arrived that they would come and ask, and that he should cooperate. 

Shortly before midnight, the Sons track down Silas in his house near the Fish Market. A bluff and some gold later, he has agreed to show them the way into the palace the next evening. 

Day 108 (1st cycle of summer, 30th day)

Instead of going home, the Sons hide outside Silas' house. They are not disappointed. A bit later, he leaves the house. Using his divine magic, Arath tracks Silas through the dark city, to the very place Silas has set for them the next night. There they see Silas meet up with 9 dark-clad humanoids and head into the sewers.

The Sons follow them into the sewers, but quickly find themselves ambushed, when (at least) two assassins jump Urnyx as he comes down the stairs.

Session 23

Day 95 (1st cycle of summer, 17th day)

The Sons investigate the crystal coffin some more. Nevron, with the help of Arath and Urnyx (and later Esmaralda), determine that some of the symbols are enochian, which is the written language used by celestial beings, angels. He also determines that some of them indicate that the coffin is protected a variety of things, from dispel magic, to the elements and radiant/necrotic energy. It seems to be completely immune to everything. They consider tossing it over the edge, 60' down, but in the end decide to bring it along.

Nevron polymorphs and digs a tunnel out of the cave, and they drag/roll the coffin down to the raft and sail off for Porrac

Day 97 (1st cycle of summer, 19th day)

They arrive in Porrac, after a two-day journey through the swamp. Only once did they run into trolls, when Urnyx was surprised by three trolls during his shift one night. But once the initial surprise was over, the three trolls weren't really a problem for the Sons of the Phoenix.

Day 98 (1st cycle of summer, 20th day)

The Sons leave Porrac, after buying a cart and two mules for the crystal coffin.

Day 100 (1st cycle of summer, 22nd day)

Passing through the Bluestone Hills, the Sons meet a bard called Izabel. She is heading towards the Swamp of Death, having heard about the undead infestation. The Sons are vary to share info with her, so they part ways the next morning.

Day 102 (1st cycle of summer, 24th day)

The Sons return to Ashfield. Outside they find the remains of a lot of soldiers. Some orcs, but mostly Ashfielders, Starkholders and Lochhursters and some from Ironville.

They receive a message from Elias, telling them to hurry to the church. Before heading in, they hide the crystal coffin by pushing it into the river, before heading into Ashfield. After crossing the river, they run into some orcs and some ogres. The some more orcs in the streets, before they enter a house and save a girl from being raped. They bring the poor, chocked girl to the church, where they face off some more orcs, before leaving the girl there, while they follow a bloody trail to a nearby warehouse. There they find Elias, who is being kept by an orc, and his invisible ogre mage. The two are quickly dispatched, but especially Arath and Urnyx are by now quite wounded. The ogre mage manages to blow a horn before dying, and the Sons pick up Elias and storm out of the warehouse, narrowly avoiding 20-30 orcs storming the warehouse.

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Heaven

Is there something wrong with Heaven? Well, Heaven is not really what I imagined it to be, but on the other hand, Heaven is so much more. It's a bit like living in your most pleasant memory. Not repeating it, but reliving it, in an infinite amount of ways, in a constant state of indifference and rapture at the same time. That's the closest description I can give of Heaven. No, there is nothing wrong with Heaven. Now the angels on the other hand. They are not at all what you would expect.

Written by Marquan the Sage in "Musings on the afterlife", attributed to the late Sir Renard, who at the time had been dead for 213 years.

Heaven is a plane. Heaven is a place. Heaven is so much more. It is the place where the good souls are supposed to go, when they die. It's where Bahamut resides, along with all the angels. If you follow the Fourteen, it is where Pelor, Torm and Lathander and their followers reside. It is a place of good, of peace. Pelor can be found in the Temple of Life, Torm in the Halls of Justice while Lathander resides in the Forge of Eternal Light.

In reality, Heaven is many places. It is an infinite amount of places. Or rather, it is a number of planes equal to the number of souls currently residing in Heaven.

You see, the dark of the place is that each soul make it's own Heaven, in it's own image. The more powerful and the more true a soul is, the bigger that place is. So Bahamut, the arch-angels and the three aspects naturally have fairly big areas under their influence, but the rest, well it's not like they are stuck in a closet, but there are definitely boundaries nearby. And worst of all, if such a thing can be said about Heaven, is that at first and most of the times always, the souls are confined to their own Heaven. Only through time, luck or experience, can they learn to navigate and enter the Heaven of others.

That limitation doesn't apply to the angels, nor to the gods, obviously.

Quel'Terath

So you have heard about the treasures of Quel'Terath? Let me save you some time, lad. Give me your money and your knife. Let me cut your throat. At least that way, your money stays in human hands. If you enter the forest, you will not find gold and riches, just death.

Yarm Beersling, Innkeeper, the 100 Kingdoms 

Quel'Terath, also called The Elven Refuge. A large forest untouched by man.

The forest has always belonged to the elves, but in the old days, it was a place open to all, where you could visit the elven cities and mingle with the fay folk. Those days are long gone. Because of the greed and violence of human rulers, the elven king and queen long ago closed their borders.

For more than 900 years, no non-elf has set food inside Quel'Terath and lived to tell about it. Instead it has become a place of refuge for elves all around Gemnos that has seen their territory encroached upon, whether it be by humans, orcs or something else all together.

So, little is known about the place today. But the ancient stories tell of a place full of life, with beautiful crystal palaces seemingly grown from the earth itself. They speak of the King and Queen of elves, eternal and wise, of a fusion of art, magic and song intertwined into the fabric of reality. The stories also speak of riches beyond the wildest dreams of the richest mortal king - something which may explain why so many have tried to attack and take control of the elven empire. Naturally all have failed, because as the old stories go, Quel'Terath the forest is alive and protects the elves.

In fact so little is known, that sages today do not even know if King Dernath and Queen E'virha still rule the empire of elves, as they did 900 years ago. Normal elves do not live that long, but elven royalty has been known to obey other rules.

High Imprecator Julius Maccra

You say the Magna Maccra has too many laws? My Lord, allow me to disagrees. For example, there is no law against saying such a thing, which, now that I think about it, there ought to be. I mean, speaking ill of this masterpiece will surely not encourage others to follow it to the letter, aye? And not following the Magna Maccra to the letter is going against Torm's will, aye? And what happens to those that defy the gods? 

High Imprecator Julius Maccra 

Before the Second Demon War, before it was called the Cursed Lands, the continent was dominated by the Empire, later called the Fallen Empire during and right after the Second Demon War. Officially the Empire was ruled by it's emperors, but in reality, it was ruled by a series of High Imprecators, the most famous of which is High Imprecator Julius Maccra.

Born as noble, High Imprecator Julius Maccra made a rapid rise to fame and power within the church of Torm. But it became soon apparent that the traditional teaching of Torm did not fit him well. He founded the Crusaders of the Silent God, a fraction within the church that believed not only in order, but also in the necessity to spread the order aggressively to neighbor nations. They believed they were destined to bring order to the entirety of Gemnos and that those who opposed them were not fit to rule, nor have a say in how they were ruled.

Under his guidance, the Crusaders of the Silent God prospered and so did the Empire. Neighbor nations fell to the imperial armies and the word of Torm was spread. High Imprecator Julius Maccra soon became the most trusted advisor of the Emperor and for almost 40 years, he was the de facto ruler of the Empire.

While High Imprecator Julius Maccra was aggressive when it came to spreading the word of Torm and bring order and justice to all nations, he was still a visionary man. The Empire became a good place to live, food was plentiful and crime was almost eradicated at some point. A free man of the Empire could walk almost anywhere unharmed, as other nations knew that the Empires retribution would be swift and hard, should any one of their citizens be subject to attack.

It was also a period of time where libraries and other places of learning were built by the hundreds. Aqueducts sprung up all over in the Empire, making sure there was water for all. In general you could say that High Imprecator Julius Maccra used the considerable wealth of the Empire to improve the lives of all. All those who followed the laws, that is.

It was also a time that saw the Magna Maccra created, the greatest tome of law man has ever written.  While some might think there were too many laws, one can not read the Magna Maccra and not be impressed. The laws were simple and to the point. They were easy to understand and so was the punishment should you break the law. Torms word (or at least as the Crusaders interpreted it), written by High Imprecator Julius Maccra, had become law.

The Wall of Gemnos

The wall of Gemnos is the oldest building in Gemnos. No one knows who built it,  but as long as man has recorded history on Gemnos, the Wall has been there, eternal, tall and unbreakable.

More than 3000 miles long, 100 feet high and about 60 feet thick, built with flawless stones dipped in magic, the Wall cuts across from the Narrow Sea across the plains of Lamar, around the Mountains of Zark, separating Varnor from the Republic and all the way to the Sea of Djabi.

It is said it was built to keep out flesh-eating monsters who roamed the plains of what is now the Republic, before the dawn of man. Whether that is true or not is very hard to say. Throughout the ages, the wall has had many purposes. For examples, nomads of Varnor have been using it for hundreds of years as a way to pass into adulthood. Amongst the tribes, any boy wanting to be a man only had to travel to the wall and scale it without help.

Today it has three primary functions. First of all, it serves as a border between Varnor and the Republic. The towers, located with 1500 feet between them, are manned by Varnor. Second of all, the wall serves as a trade road, running across the continent. Third but not least, the wall is a city onto itself. Or rather many small villages. All along on top of the wall, communities has sprung up, along the trade route. With the wall being 60' thick, the 20' in the middle is road, while the rest is used for buildings.

Session 22

Day 86 (1st cycle of summer, 13th day)

The fight with the dragon is brutal. The dragon's breath weapon is lethal, and it's ability to instill fear into even the bravest causes a lot of problems for the Sons. Nevron goes down, almost dying, but Arath rescues him with a mad dash. The fight continues, and they do manage to wound the dragon, enough for it to decide to retire to it's lair to have more advantage. 

The Sons decide that they are fighting a losing battle and that they need a new plan. So they make a strategical withdrawal.

Day 88 (1st cycle of summer, 15th day)

The Sons arrive back in Porrac. They convince Aaron and the villagers that Acidbreath has made an alliance with the demon that has destroyed the other villages and that they are next. The Sons want to take advantage of Aaron's ability of contacting the dragon to lure it into a track.

They also convince Esmaralda to make them a foul-smelling concoction that will protect them somewhat from the acid.

Day 91 (1st cycle of summer, 16th day)

After days of preparation, the Sons of the Phoenix have Aaron and the villagers call on Acidbreath, having set up a fake offering. The Sons hide in a boat next to the dragon-statue.

Acidbreath arrives, but notices the Sons, killing Aaron. Fight starts and soon Urnyx latches on to the back of the dragon, hacking away it's life. It's a long and brutal battle, but in the end, the Sons of the Phoenix can call themselves: Dragonslayers.

Day 92 (1st cycle of summer, 14th day)

The villagers and the Sons celebrate the death of the dragon.

Day 95 (1st cycle of summer, 17th day)

The Sons arrive back at the dragon's lair. After dealing with some trolls, they find and enter the lair through the underwater entrance. Inside the lair, they find the dragon's hoard, which includes a lot of money, some gems and artifacts and also a couple of magical items and potions. But most noteworthy is the coffin-esque crystal with a blonde man inside.

As they discuss what to do, they receive a vision of Elias sitting in a circle of candles:

Hurry home. Ashfield will soon be under attack by the orcs. I don’t think we can hold for long, given the size of the army.