The Mark of Prophecy
From DeadGoblins
Contents |
[edit] Olarune 20, 994 YK
[edit] Encounter 1: Horrors of the Tower
Khav reached the tower first, then Kurvilis and Sentinel, and finally, Lan. All walked cautiously up to the tower as they noticed kruthik hatchlings inside.
Sentinel used hand signals to coordinate with Khav and then charged in, killing a hatchling and taking some minor damage from another's bite. Khav followed closely, but missed and took some minor damage from a hatchling bite, as well. Two dolgrims appeared from the inner part of the tower and managed to flank the half-orc, and one hit him HARD with his club, bloodying him, which activated his half-orc resilience. The final hatchling takes a swipe at Sentinel, but misses. Kurvilis then steps towards the tower and layed down an illusion, missing a hatchling, but hitting a dolgrim harder than he thought. Lan finally revealed himself to Kurvilis and healed Khav, while remaining concealed from the dolgrims and kruthiks.
One of the dolgrims hit Khav, utilizing flanking for a stronger attack. Sentinel then tried a thunder burst from his sword, managing to kill another hatchling, but taking another bite. He also shifted his aegis to one of the foulspawn. After both kruthiks missed Khav with their claws, he swung both of his swords at the same time and cut through both. The dolgrim with the aegis on it swung and missed at Sentinel again and then backed off before taking another swing and moving further out of the tower. The other dolgrim moved further inside the tower after another miss. Meanwhile, three hatchlings appeared up from the ground outside the tower, next to Lan and Kurvilis, two of them managing to hit with their claws. Kurvilis went invisible when he was hit and moved away from the kruthiks, but they still sensed he was there and attacked again. Luckily, only one hit him. Kurvilis then hit and killed a hatchling with a bolt of illusion. Lan moved around killing the other two hatchlings, boosting Khav and Lan in the process. A fourth kruthik popped up next to Lan, but managed to miss with its claws.
The dolgrim in the tower came back to the outer portion and bashed Sentinel on the head. Possibly feeling dazed, he finally introduced himself to his fighting companion and returned the favor. Khav moved to watch Sentinel's back and cut deeply into the dolgrim on the outside. The two foulspawn coordinated, as the one on the outside of the tower moved around the tower and charged through the break in the wall, hitting Sentinel hard enough that he became visibly damaged. Kurvilis tried to help his friend, but could not penetrate the dolgrim's mind. Lan, meanwhile, finished off the last hatchling and soothed the swordmage's wounds.
With only the two dolgrims left, the group slowly corralled them into the tower. Khav killed the first one and Lan killed the other. In the process, the group entered the inner part of the tower and saw two men chained to the walls and a prophecy mark on the ground (and one of the chained men, catatonic on the mark). Sentinel walked into the mark and became dazed.
[edit] Encounter 2: Competitors
After rescuing Lord Major Bren ir'Gadden and his aide, Aric Blacktree, the group took to investigating the Mark of Prophecy. Sentinel found that, upon studying it, the Mark revealed a bit of verse, "Four at the brink of the desolation stand as one against the tempest's roar."
Blacktree was more or less unresponsive to everyone, the Mark seeming to have placed him in a state of shock. ir'Gadden, meanwhile, was unhappy that Khav wanted to bring him to Karrnath, but because of Blacktree's condition, was reluctant to fight about it and decide to go willingly. As the group stepped out of the tower, orange lightning flashed through the sky and the ground seemed to shake.
Then, some zombie rotters were noticed, along with two Emerald Claw soldiers and a necromancer. It seems the Emerald Claw had designs on taking the Lord Major themselves. The group, with ir'Gadden fighting at their side, made quick work of their foes, with Sentinel particularly going after the necromancer for an attack on Kurvilis. Lan was near death at one point, but everyone was relatively unharmed by the end of the battle.
During the battle, the sky seemed to catch fire and a gray fog rolled down to the hill at the battle below. Once the last zombie was dispatched, the group noticed that the sounds have battle below had been silenced. They went to investigate and noticed that everyone who had been fighting in the Battle of Saerun Road was now dead. Even the grass looked withered. All of this was behind a dead-gray mist that the group quickly found was not to be crossed.
They headed north along the mist, all on their way to their own destinations, but also to see the extent of the devastation. It seemed to go as far as the eye could see. Eventually they ran into a human of House Orien and a gnome of House Sivis, who had been collecting reports of the devastation. It seemed to have covered all of Cyre.
[edit] Olarune 20, 998 YK
[edit] Encounter 3: Interrupted Observance
The group went its separate ways after The Mourning. After another two years, The Treaty of Thronehold was signed and The Last War was ended.
Four years after The Mourning, each of the group received an invitation from Bren ir'Gadden, asking them to attend a remembrance ceremony in Sharn on Olarune 20, 998 YK, the fourth anniversary of the Day of Mourning. Soon, the group was catching up with each other amongst some nobles and military leaders on a rooftop, although ir'Gadden had not yet shown up. Suddenly, a demon surrounded in the dead-gray mist that borders the Mournland appeared on the rooftop. It was a Mourning Haunt. The Haunt immediately went after some nobles, killing four of them. Lan tried to rescue a few before they died, but was unable to. As the rest of the bystanders fled, Lan, Sentinel, Khav and Kurvilis corralled it around the roof. The demon was almost impossible to hit, and after awhile it was obvious it came for the four of them. As the fight went back and forth across the rooftop, the demon became hurt and stopped producing mist, making him easier to hit, but not much easier to kill. Eventually, after a long and difficult battle, Khav was able to drop the Haunt, and as it died it displayed the Mark of Prophecy the group had seen exactly four years before.
This lead to a couple of questions...where did it come from and who sent it?
[edit] Encounter 4: Hunting the Mastermind
After defeating the Mourning Haunt in a grueling battle, they went searching for its origin. As they made their way through Sharn, they ran into some local thugs who blocked their path. After dispatching the thugs with great haste, they continued their search, which lead near Dalannan Tower, which houses Morgrave University. The group finds a home near the tower that seems to be buzzing with arcane energy. They break in and...
[edit] Encounter 5: Red Jackals
The group enters the home and finds a couple of goblins. As they fight the goblins, a couple more goblins show up, in addition to a couple of shifters that have their fur dyed red. A furious battle ensues, where a half-orc appears in a hallway and starts pelting the group from range and going back to hiding. One of the shifters is able to knock Khav unconscious briefly, but the battle is never really in doubt. The group kills 4 goblins and two shifters, but takes the half-orc hostage. Before they question the half-orc, a thunderous crack occurs upstairs. The half-orc is tied up and stashed while the group tries to find out what is going on.
[edit] Encounter 6: Eldritch Machine
The group went upstairs and found a machine going haywire. Two humans were attending the machine, as well as a type of foulspawn, a dolgaunt. The party dispatched the foulspawn quickly, but had to deal with the machine shooting lightning everywhere. They knocked out one of the humans and managed to get the other to surrender, before figuring out that the two were changelings all along. The group also managed to disable the machine in the middle of the battle, saving Morgrave University. The changelings later admitted that the Mourning Haunt came from the machine, but shortly after it started malfunctioning and that a Mr. Blacktree was responsible. As the group left the apartment, a skycoach pulled up to take them for a reward from the city council.
[edit] Encounter 7: Fight in the Skies
As the skycoach flew through the Sharn skies, several goblin archers and a human pulled up on soarsleds and began attacking the party. The man turned out to be Aric Blacktree, the man that had been catatonic on the Mark of Prophecy four years prior. An intense battle was fought in the skies as Khav jumped on a soarsled and the archers killed the pilot. As the group got a good look at Blacktree, they noticed that he had what appeared to be an aberrant dragonmark on his shoulder. Eventually, all of the goblins were killed, Sentinel took control of the skycoach, and Blacktree was subdued on the deck. The skycoach was piloted to the city council.
Once there, city guards took Blacktree away and Captain Kalaes, commander of the Brelish forces in Sharn met with the party, requesting that they remain in town in case more information is required.
