Recollections

Windwalker – Eleven Warden/Ranger of Greyhaven

Windwalker gave an exasperated sigh, he had put it off long enough. Dragging his pack to him across the ground or more accurately the bark of the world tree he still found himself a guest on, he pulled out his logbook, quill, and inkwell. With a familiar, methodically consistent script, he dated the entry and continued.

“Veridis visited as promised. We put together information from him and what we learned from the avatar of Mintalk in our previous adventure.

Veridis had the location of several potentials on a dead world that could lead to Tican Sumnere, a pocket dimension of the negative plane we learned of from Mintalk. This would be a trip we would be ill equipped for. We didn’t even have knowledge beforehand how to operate the portals, which was the one we needed, or if it was two-way. But given the intel from Mintalk that a prisoner was held there and the consensus from the party that any enemy of the visage was a potential ally with possibly vital intel, we accepted some otherwise insane risks.

Despite having lost some of our party, we had gained others leaving our current platoon with the following members:

Arnell – Tauren Monk

Simon – Arcane Rouge

Baldrix – Dwarven Cleric of the Argent Flame

Giles – Psionic Warrior

Kya – Feral Rouge

Kavyr – Elven Magus 

Oth – Paladin of Mintalk

Tina – Dwarven Warrior 

Vara – Feral Mystic 

Windwalker – Elven Ranger

Windwalked paused for a moment, he felt like he was leaving a major portion out. But it was hard to recall some details, the world hoping, pocket dimensions, false encounters. It was taxing to keep straight, it had the distinct feel of years having passed in the interim, unstable. All the more reason to write down what he could.

“We returned to the dead world with only one of the six potential locations searched out. After only a single encounter on the dead world and despite the risks, we decided to rest up before attempting the next portal.”

At this Windwalker smiled; how in the wisdom of the Far Shores did Kya and Kavyr get put on the same watch?

“During the second watch, a ghoul who identified as Rex, approached Kya. He appeared to assume them friends despite Kya never having met the creature. When asked where he knew Kya from, we ended up quickly rousing the rest of the party to hastily follow Rex to a portal, one marked on our list to explore.

We convinced Rex to accompany us and entered Tican Sumnere. Even with our eleven, we were hard pressed for what awaited us. Tican Sumnere obviously had a distinct effect on most of the party, gravity itself seemed subjective at best. Only Rex and Kya seemed unaffected.

Ghouls and Wrights set upon us on the first landing platform. Each platform was connected by conduits that could be traversed, but once set upon, required making the entire trip. Fortunately, we were able to keep the party together for perhaps the most difficult battle we had encountered to date. Several fell in combat, and we learned quickly how ineffective divine healing was. After the combat, Rex fed upon the fallen foes, and Arnell, once healed seemed no longer affected by the subjective gravity the rest of us still struggled with.

We made our way around easily enough. Stray visages were comparatively easy to dispatch individually. We found a workroom with the vilest of research underway. An elven cadaver, somehow preserved against becoming a wisp…”

Windwalker shuddered involuntarily at the thought of what that research may have produced if completed - an abomination against nature, undead elves…

“… and a demon preserved against falling to dust. The lab notes of each was taken.

An observatory tower inhabited by void monks was explored. One was dispatched in his sleep, another awakened to be tortured for information. However, we discovered that they were guests of sorts, indifferent to the activity of the rest of the fortification and even to the fate of what we had assumed his companion.

A lab of sorts with a machine covered in levers adjacent to a vat containing some biological construct was explored. Another example of why Kya and Kavyr should not be left unattended. Kya sat in what appeared to be a subject’s chair first while Kavyr lowered a metal dish on her head and haphazardly flipped levers. When that produced no effect, they switched places. The machine whirred to life and after a dispute amongst the party, the vat was broken and the machine rendered inoperable before whatever it’s intended purpose could be completed.

Arnell appraised the body now sprawled on the floor as an incomplete flesh golem. He took the time to surgically remove the claws as they appeared a silver reagent of value to him.

A temple to a dark god was explored. There was a bell here we tied to devastating effect on living beings, which explained the monks’ use of wax filled cotton in their ears. A stature here reminiscent of Tanar’ri demons had a circlet suspended from one horn. Given the incredible order found elsewhere, this seemed both out of place and intentional.”

At this, the elf glanced over at this pack, the glint of gold on an otherwise unremarkable circlet made him feel uneasy. He couldn’t wait till Arnell returned with Simon and Baldrix to give it back.

“A chamber with seemingly meditating visages was found around a pillar of sickly light. This was left alone.

A cauldron teeming with souls was discovered on another platform. This the cleric and paladin found to be an abomination, but we convinced them to leave it be for the time being.

A throne room and adjacent vault were searched and much of the contents of the vault looted. Simon was… brave enough under warning on one specific chest labeled ‘Claim what’s yours, now and forever’ to take a magical wand and exclaim, ‘This is mine.’ An obviously magical sword was taken and 4000 gold pieces, minus whatever the rouges managed to sneak away since discovery.

We made our way through a platform that wasn’t open as the others and shadows played across the walls. Kavyr and Simon were separated from the party for a bit, weapons were drawn all around, but between shifting walls and warped sound, it was impossible to tell what was happening save something didn’t feel right.”

Windwalker stopped briefly, his eyes and one corner of his lip turning downward into a scowl. It wasn’t that what he wrote had been untrue, but he considered striking the sentence due to its unobjective nature. Finally, after some thought he did strike a single line through the words, “save something didn’t feel right.”

He looked far across the world tree’s limbs to where Kya and Kavyr sparred. From this vantage, something objective was obvious to him. Kavyr was a Bladesinger, a warrior wizard of the Greayhaven, home of the elves. But since that encounter, his blades hadn’t ‘sung’ for which his title was so named.

“Eventually the passages opened up, the party was all accounted for and we moved on, directly into a trap.

At the time, it seemed we walked through yet another portal, this quickly becoming the norm we didn’t even second guess. It opened on a small hamlet and to abridge the story, we made our way to a keep, invited guests of a regent who knew us by name, and recalled exploits of our travels.”

Windwalker didn’t include the details where the regent had correctly listed many of his own achievements, even correctly labeling him exile of the Greayhaven, welcome to make his home there where he was estranged from his own. It had been a very enticing proposal. It had actually taken others to break him from the illusion. In hindsight it was obvious, but traversing the world tree and fighting lucidity controlling undead in a completely and constantly foreign environment was taking it’s toll on them all.

“Ultimately shaken from the illusion, we found ourselves in prison cells, guests of visages that had taken us unaware. With the aid of Kestod, a deep elf-vampire prisoner of the visages, the party was able to vanquish the remaining visages. For his help, Kestod then pleaded for his own execution.

He explained that they had been torturing him for information he could not give - the resting place of a wand he had hid together with another deep elf named Erehe. This was done in the service of the deep elf goddess Kiaransalee and both had been drown in the river Styx to remove all memory of where they had hid it. Kestod only knew this much from his life since being brought back as a vampire and what the visages had unknowingly allowed him to glean during his captivity. He wished to die before they could employ the memory restoring magic of the desert bloom.

Kestod assumed that Erehe, a deep elf wizard to be found in the Deep Vault had similarly been brought back to an unlife as he was. Before his execution, Kestod had the party swear to track down and similarly kill Erehe that the information could not be had by Tenebrous. If the visages are only a taste of the warped power a being such as Tenebrous wields without the wand he seeks, Kestod was right to deny him even at such steep costs.

I ensured Kestod’s death was quick, a single stroke beheading.”

Windwalker closed the logbook. He would finish describing the interaction with the spirits and Kya at the cauldron later; perhaps when he better understood everything that transpired there before the Cleric and Paladin destroyed it freeing all the imprisoned spirits.

There was else on his mind anyway. While it would not be said aloud, the Ratatosk were running low on food and sharing with the party was becoming increasingly taxing for them. Baldrix had indicated his spells helped, but it seemed his deity was in agreement with the world tree - being less generous with any requests allowing them to continue to remain on the world tree. It was time to move on.

A bright glint caught Windwalker’s attention. He had only casually been overlooking a sparring match between Kya and Kavyr. But watching intently now, Windwalker noticed a curved blade hung and the small of Kavyr’s back. He hadn’t noticed it before or rather Kavyr had previously taken better caution to conceal it. Any seasoned elven warrior would recognize that magical blade as a primary tool in the work of undead slayers. Windwalker knew Kavyr had been entrusted with one when the night they raised Kya, but had assumed it had been returned to the slayers present that night.

Why did he still have it and more importantly why had he concealed it?