998 Aryth 26th New Cyre

998 Ayrth 26th New Cyre

Bryanna is dead.

Somehow seeing those words written in my own script makes the tragedy of her premature and undeserved death somehow take on a reality it did not previously hold. Each morning as sleep slowly flees my befuddled mind I have to tell myself that she is gone and that I should not look for her when I open my eyes. I find the task of recording the events that led to her death to be utterly devoid of meaning and even slightly distasteful. I do so only that the truth of what occurred will be preserved and I care little if the truth makes cowards of any of us, myself in particular.

When King Orgev asked the Honor Guard to strike at the Redhand command center, known as the Seven Caves, my intuition warned me that we would face opponents beyond our ability to overcome. I should have trusted my instincts and left Bryanna behind then and there. However Bryanna and I had worked out a stratagem to keep her safe and I foolishly persuaded myself to bring her along. Also we were to be accompanied by one Lord Avoreth, whom we were told was a powerful sorcerer, and I thought his daunting presence would draw attacks away from my beloved. With our own eyes we saw Avoreth use a spell of disintegration to dispose of the green dragon’s remains and therefore we knew that he was a powerful spellbinder. Too powerful perhaps and that coupled with his excessive concern over draconic corpses caused my compatriots to speculate that he might in fact be a shape shifted dragon-spy from Argonnessen. As it turned out we were not far off the mark………

I used the leverage granted us by King Orgev’s request to earn the freedom of the hobgoblin sorceress we had turned over for questioning. Orgev never attempted to conceal the fact that he was using basic torture techniques to question the witch. I would not be party to such barbarous behavior so I attempted to lead Orgev believe that I needed her, and another goblinoid, as guides and as a source of intelligence. When Orgev finally acceded to this demand, I had her dressed in Redhand plate armor so that she would be unable to employ her deadly arcane spells and we departed. And in truth her presence was somewhat helpful despite the expected prevarications. Our goblin guides led us up a steep mountain path that offered a precipitous fall to our deaths and the left and an impassible wall on our right. The goblinoid female warned us of the many wyverns that dwelled in the mountains and we were thus prepared to meet them when our cave camp was attacked. The forewarning and Zed’s immunity to wyvern poison guaranteed a nearly effortless victory. When we finally sighted the dragon statues that indicated the entrance to the Seven Caves lair, we freed our two goblinoid prisoners and they were even more eager to be elsewhere than were we. Among evil cults such as the Redhand, failure makes one fear one’s superiors even more than the enemy.

Byranna and I had employed the time between conflicts to work out a plan that we thought would keep her out of harm‘s way. She was to stay in the back of our company and use one of the invisibility spell-scrolls she created as soon as danger threatened. Bryanna was supposed to skirt the edges of battles invisibly, healing only so as to preserve the lives of our allies and would otherwise remain hidden during hostilities. This very stratagem would lead to her tragic and meaningless death.

We bypassed what we thought was a lightning trap in order to approach the main gate, avoiding the electrical arcs that seem to issue from one of the stone dragon heads. As Pazenga sought egress through the massive front gate of the cavern complex, a gigantic blue dragon burst from the huge statue and struck at the rear of our party. Bryanna was severely burned by the creature’s first bolt of lightning breath and she wisely chose to play dead rather than attempt an escape in the cramped defile. Only a pained wink of Bryanna’s scorched eyelashes gave me the truth denied the dragon; she was badly hurt but still alive.

I had been severely burned by the very same lightning bolt and was in a poor position to continue the fight. I cannot help but constantly relive and second guess my next decision because my actions led directly to my wife’s demise.

By now we had become something of experts at dragon combat and thus I knew that dragons must rest between breath blasts. I ducked into an adjacent grotto thinking that I had time to cast a protection spell before rescuing Byranna. While all this was happening, Elarin, Pazenga, and Zed threw everything they had against the dragon but the huge azure reptile was barely wounded. Before I could return to the conflict the dragon somehow managed to breathe its electrical blast a second time, this time aiming at the warforged swordsman Zed. Tragically Bryanna’s limp body was just behind the dragon’s intended target. Bryanna suffered a huge jolt that caused her body to lurch spasmodically and then become still, clearly dead in truth this time. I screamed my rage at the dragon and hammered it with a volley of force missiles but to little effect. Then Lord Avoreth, seemingly noticing for the first time the looming disaster before us, chose to loose one of his most powerful spells. The sorcerer shouted a syllable that sounded similar to the draconic word for death and the great dragon keeled over, locked in an instantaneous rigormortis. Then Avoreth again cast his signature disintegrate spell and the dragon dissolved into a handful of dust.

After the battle Avoreth suffered some sort of painful weakening seizure that left him temporarily incapacitated. Despite sympathy for his suffering, I could not help but be nearly as angry with him as I was with myself, for if he had acted sooner, my wife might still be alive. Had Avoreth but cast disintegrate when the dragon first attacked and immediately followed with the draconic death word he might well have have slain the dragon and saved my wife's life.

I don’t know how long I wept over my darling wife’s smoldering corpse but it seemed like an eternity before Lord Avoreth interrupted my grief and offered to use magic to encase her in a shroud of solid stone so that she would not be eaten by the many wyverns nestlings in the area. I could do nothing but acquiesce.

After Bryanna was encased in stone there was nothing more that could be done for her so I chose to swallow my grief and take my self loathing and rage out against the leadership of the Redhand horde. As I walked away from her body I felt an almost paralyzing guilt for which I could not find a logical source. In retrospect I suppose I felt (and still feel) that I should have died with her. My intention was to save us both but I only succeeded in saving myself and I know that many will now despise me as a coward, as I know despise myself.

Before I had come to closure with my ruminations Pazenga began working on the door once again. Our gith ally received a serious jolt opening the doors but this was easily remedied thanks to the many healing wands I carried. We stepped into the antechamber of the Seven Caves and quickly routed a goblinoid force hidden there. Noises in the distance alerted us to another Redhand assault and believing it was more of the stalwart but familiar hobgoblin elites we prepared to hold the antechamber and thus keep the enemy bottled up in the hallways.

This proved to be a nearly fatal error, for although a small group of Redhand swordsmen attacked Pazenga’s door on our right flank, the true assault came at our center straight though what we believed was an impenetrable oaken gate. A huge creature of nightmare shattered the double doors in front of us and sent Avoreth and myself tumbling backwards. The blue scaled beast was immense and its head was much like that of the dragon that had slain my beloved wife, though much larger. However its body, while clearly of draconic origin, was humanoid in shape and and clasped in one of its hand was a sword the length of a house and in the other a shield made from a great dragon skull. The gigantic sword threw off blue sparks of electrical energy much like the shocking spell Elarin casts through his own sword. The four of us were overmatched and Pazenga could not come to our aid as he was forced to hold the hobgoblin swordsmen on our right flank at bay.

In that moment of its first awe-inspiring rush I thought we were dead men. But then as my friends sprang into action I noticed scarlet drying brown on the azure scales. The mighty creature had been seriously wounded sometime recently. We knew that we had to put the weakened creature down quickly if we were to avoid further fatalities among our tiny company. For this reason I chose to hammer the creature with another volley of force missiles rather than attempt a disabling spell like time slowing or phantasmal assailants.

As Zed laid into the creature with his great sword, Elarin inflicted terrible burns with a swarm of his fire rays. The creature retaliated with a flurry of blows simultaneously wounding all three of us. Zed, Avoreth, and I managed to dive aside and received only painfully scorched flesh wounds but Elarin was sliced and burned from neck to crotch and would likely have been eviscerated had it not been for his protective mithril shirt. As we desperately attacked the creature, Elarin’s life blood gushed onto the floor. All present knew that the azure giant’s next blow would certainly be death for Elarin in his weakened condition. Thinking quickly the elf drew upon his newest power, and filling his blade with necromantic energies, he desperately drove it into the creature’s groin. The dark energies drew life force from the wound drawing it up Elarin’s enchanted sword and then into his arm. The elven swordsman-sorcerer’s gaping wound closed immediately and he re-entered the fray with a vengeance. Weakened by the same spell that had healed Elarin and taken aback by the elf’s sudden revivification, the blue beast was off his guard when Zed leapt in and drove his blade deep into the thing’s chest. The creature collapsed onto the ground, its huge falling body nearly as dangerous at its living attacks.

We had no time for the shock of survival to play itself out as Pazenga was still engaged on our right flank with the hobgoblin warriors. Once we were confident that the gith had matters well in hand, we retreated out the main exit and headed for a cul-de-sac in which to tend our wounded. When Pazenga had put the survivors to flight and rejoined us, Avoreth decided to cover our retreat by closing off a choke point near the main entrance with a force barrier. Thus protected, I was able to fully heal my compatriots. As we reentered the cavern complex, Avoreth suffered another, even more severe, bout of the weakening seizures, causing him be unable to continue the attack on the Seven Caves.

Weakened though he was, Avareth was able to drop his protective force screen so that we could continue the assault without him. We had only journeyed a short distance when we came upon what seemed to be the austere living quarters of a large number of elite hobgoblin commanders. When the inhabitants attacked, Pazenga was able to bottle up the hobgoblin spell binders and swordsmen up in the narrow entry area. A fierce battle ensued but Pazenga’s preternatural agility backed up by Zed’s sword and Elarin’s arrows made for an easy victory. My own fire sphere spell joined the teleporting Avareth and took the hobgoblins from the rear and lending some minor assistance in the decisive victory.

Yet again we retreated to heal and regroup and re-plan our assault. We chose to change tactics at this point and we sent the untouchable gith martial artist Pazenga ahead to scout. I was not a first hand witness to what occurred next but I received a full account before putting this to pen. Pazenga was scouting the right hand passage and in the distance he saw a black cloaked figure that he feared was the very assassin that had nearly killed him during the siege of New Cyre.

Thus began a deadly game of cat-and-mouse carried out in the near-total blackness of the Seven Caves. Both opponents had the uncanny ability to see in complete darkness, abilities far beyond those of even the keenest eyed gnome. After the first exchange, Pazenga had an arrow lodged in his shoulder and he retreated to the officers’ quarters to make his stand there. Hidden in the thick blackness Pazenga waited silently in blind alcove hoping to ambush the dark clad assassin as it entered the labyrinth of the officer’s quarters. The assassin was invisible in the darkness but Pazenga struck as the invisibility lapsed. The ebony clad creature was un-phased by the attack and thrust a poisoned blade between the gith’s ribs. The poison so weakened Pazenga was forced to dive out into the main corridor to preserve his life. By that time our warforged warrior Zed had grown concerned when Pazenga failed to return and he began to head down the gith’s last known path. Pazenga sprinted past Zed in the main hallway and shouted a warning as he sped by. Zed closed with the dark assassin and another running battle began. The assassin used every sly trick he new or could invent but Zed is an unstoppable juggernaut in hand-to-hand combat and quite immune to an assassin’s greatest powers. The creature was quickly cut down and with the dark garment removed, it was revealed to be one of the dark scaled dragonmen, though one uniquely skilled in the assassin‘s arts. Zed returned and we decided, given Pazenga’s weakened state, we should furthermore travel as a group.

Still it seemed prudent to scout out the western section of the entrance to guarantee an escape rout. Therefore Pazenga and Zed went a few tens of yards ahead of the group and searched the few remaining chambers. In the largest of these caves they came upon a platoon of the black dragonmen. The creatures attacked with tooth and claw and Pazenga was forced to flee. Zed waded into the gap and began to slash into them. The creatures then switched tactics and employed their acid vomit. The vitriolic acid was a small danger to Zed’s venerable wooden superstructure. But before the dragonmen could vomit enough acid to cause serious damage, Zed cut them to pieces.

My companions and I had only traveled a short distance before we came to an extremely large, worked stone cavern. Fearing some sort of a trap, I sent Pazenga ahead to search the room while the remainder of the Honor Guard watched from a safe distance in the main corridor. It was fortunate that we had done so for six great winged dragon-like creatures with scorpion tails glided down on Pazenga from their hidden position near the distant ceiling. Our gith friend was forced to run and dodge for his life as tail spikes filled with deadly poison struck at Pazenga.

When the gith martial artist tumbled out into the corridor we sprang into action and engaged the huge reptiles. The creatures found it difficult to fight in the hallway’s cramped quarters. Zed quickly began to strike them down while simultaneously backing deeper into the corridor. I was only a few yards behind the warforged swordsman to offer assistance or heal him, as indeed was Elarin with his deadly bow. Intent upon the draconic beasts, I was taken off guard by Zed's back peddling and before I realized it, I was within range of a deadly tail. Just as mind began to register the danger I was in, a tail spike was driven deep into my shoulder and searing venom burned in the wound. I staggered away from the conflict as the poison entered my system. I was able to remain conscious and managed to limp to safety where I then slid to the floor adjacent to the similarly poisoned Pazenga. But where the gith felt only nauseous and exhausted, I was having great difficulty breathing and I felt very sleepy. It was very tempting to sleep and dream that Bryanna was still alive but I knew that it would be a sleep from which I would never awaken. And I yet sought comfort in vengeance.

As from a great distance, I watched the battle and it became clear that Zed’s golem-like immunity to poison and the narrow defile of the corridor which forced the wyverns to approach in single file guaranteed him the victory. So I called to Elarin and begged him for assistance. Elarin sucked as much poison from the wound as possible. Unfortunately much had already entered my bloodstream. By the time Elarin had finished, Zed was dealing with the last of the false-dragons and our contribution, while appreciated, was relatively meaningless. I did what I could to heal our company but I had no counter to the poison flowing in the veins of Pazenga and myself. Knowing that I might not survive another hour, we pressed on. I was determined that if I was to die, I would see Azur Khul dead with me.

The next cavern we entered was a thing of madness the like of which we had not seen since the worst of Haverthold Sanitarium. We had at last uncovered the source of the strange mutations and the alien technology grafts employed by the special corps of the Redhand Horde. The master of the chamber of horrors was what seemed to be a formerly human spellbinder by the name of Orbald. He was no longer human in any meaningful sense and seemed more like an enormous spider or cuttlefish than a man. Many metal pseudopods jutted from the scarred humanoid torso. Despite his hideous appearance he spoke to us in a solicitous, if macabre, manner. The former human explained that he was the surgeon that performed the uncanny operations which turned the Redhand irregulars into warforged-like monsters. The creature was chained and desired its freedom so we broke it free and allowed it to leave. Or we almost did, for reasons known only to himself Zed suddenly began slashing at the flesh-warper. The creature retaliated by firing deadly rays of black energy and we were forced to join Zed in the attack. Seeing the hopelessness of his situation the mad sage cast some sort of spell on himself that caused him to explode into slivers of flesh and metal. Only Pazenga was nearby when the creature exploded and he employed his preternatural speed to dive to safety.

The battle with the flesh-warper was over so quickly that I was unable to finish my Gatekeeper spell and summon a timber wolf before the creature destroyed itself. Not wishing to waste one of my precious Gatekeeper spells, I sent the wolf running to next room to flush out any hidden enemies. It turned out that the next cavern was the antechamber of Azur Khul’s hidden grotto. The room, while furnished in the sparse Redhand style, was devoid of life or even doors. The exit was in the ceiling itself. Apparently Azur Khul accessed his summoning chamber with flying or levitating magic, for far above us on the far side of the chamber was a shaft leading up to the High Wyrmlord himself. Of course we did not know this at the time and so I wasted precious time by first levitating Zed (bearing the summoned wolf) up through the aperture. Once Zed spotted Azer Khul he released the wolf and I lowered him back. Zed shouted down that we had cornered Azer Khul and that we should attack immediately. Elarin and I began casting furiously and soon all of us were soaring through the air. Even Pazenga’s weakness was masked by Elarin’s magic. In my weakened state I thought it wise to enter invisibly and rely primarily on my healing prowess. Once up in the second floor we found there was a powerful and unique magic defending Azur Khul and his summoning chamber. Azur Khul could be heard chanting a conjuration ritual and we could hear our own foot steps but our voices could make no sound whatsoever. That being that case, Elarin and I were deprived of most of our magical powers, though I could still draw upon continuous healing ability.

Azur Khul’s appearance was striking, if in a bizarre and monstrous sort of a way. Khul seemed to bear the marks of draconic heritage as well as armor made of huge black dragon scales. Where his skin was smooth, such as around the face, it was the dark red characteristic of the Redhand Horde hobgoblins. Elsewhere on his body where other humanoids might have hair or callus Azur Kuhl instead had thick azure scales and blue bony ridges. Other than the vestigial wings he looked much like one of the powerfully muscled hobgoblin swordmasters we had fought time again. However Azur Khul bore the mace and shield of the cleric rather than the hand-and-half sword of the blademaster. Guarding Azur Khul were two young blue dragons the size of a large dog. And in the center of the room on the floor there was what looked like a reptilian creature with many heads trying to push its way out of a hole covered by a grotesque black membrane.

Pazenga employed the flying and silence spells I had placed upon him to hover directly above Azur Khul in an attempt to prevent the summoning ritual. Unfortunately the inherent magic resistant nature of his draconic parentage allowed him to shake of the effects of so minor a spell. Azur Khul then began casting a series of spells that caused his body to swell and glow with magical energy while his dragon pups attacked with claw, tooth, and lightning breath. Protected as we were by Bryanna’s elemental wand, the young dragons were easily dealt with. After slaying the tiny dragons my allies tried to close with Azur Khul but found themselves turned aside by some sort of a magical barrier. Elarin and Zed then began a furious missile barrage while Pazenga turned his attention to the hydra-like creature pushing against the black membrane. After a futile attempt to harm the creature the gith turned his attention back upon Azur Khul just as he emerged from his protection sphere. It quickly became apparent why he had abandoned his magical haven. Bolstered as he was with divine magics, he laid into my allies and began inflicting painful wounds on all around him. It was almost as if he had read my mind and knew that best way to defeat us was to wound everyone slightly before attacking to kill. Against this tactic, I would be unable to bring my healing talent to bear until it was too late to save my friends.

Our own attacks were having little effect on Azur Khul and Zed, showing more cunning than I would have credited, switched tactics and began raining blows on the dragon lord’s shield and armor rather than his body. The half-dragon’s shield was soon destroyed by Zed’s razor sharp adamantine sword but the armor proved more intractable. I was preparing myself mentally to invoke our prearranged retreat signal when Pazenga drew one of the brown desiccation potions he had looted from the mutated goblins and threw it into Azur Khul’s face. The potion broke on Azur Khul’s great fangs just and he reflexively swallowed the vile liquid. The effect was as horrific as it was providential. Azur Khul was instantly mummified from the inside out, looking for all the world like a giant scale-covered strip of jerked beef. Then some unseen force immediately pulled Azur Khul's toppling corpse backwards toward the black membrane. Fearing that the creature therein restrained might find some way to resurrect Azur Khul, Pazenga launched a second brown potion, this one hitting the wyrmlord squarely in the chest. When Khul struck the macabre mebrane there was a flash of light and the half-dragon disappeared. As we blinked out the white blindess caused by the flash, a multi-headed and multi-hued winged hydra-like creature began to manifest in the air above us.

Just as we began to recover from the shock of the dragon-hydra's sudden appearance, a great rainbow-winged serpent also appeared and arrowed straight toward the coalescing form. Instead of the expected struggle of tooth and claw, the couatl disappeared much as had Azur Khul, but this time with the opposite effect. Somehow the couatl's disappearance strengthened the fading membrane and renewed the great beast’s imprisonment.

Bewildered by magnitude of our great fortune, we smiled at each other without speaking. The silence was broken when we slapped Pazenga on the back and congratulated him for the throw of a lifetime.

We retreated from the Seven Caves with minimal looting due the poison coursing through my veins. We had thought to set up a camp at the entrance where I would attempt to ride out the effects of the wyvern poison. This proved unnecessary as “Lord Avoreth” appeared with our old friend Pteris the pale and I was given a potion of anti-venom that probably saved my life. “Avoreth” explained that he was the “brother” of the Lord Avoreth that we knew. The Lord Avoreth that we knew was actually the couatl that had given his life to restore the barrier that kept a draconic being known as “Tiamat” bound in Khyber. He further explained that the Redhand Horde and even Tiamat herself had been played for fools. Forces were at work that desired the release of things bound in Khyber, abominations much better left imprisoned.

I listened intently as the being that called itself Avoreth spoke of things that supported my own long held conspiracy theories. But I found myself suddenly growing extremely angry as we were told that we must deny the presence of dragons to one and all. My wife was slain by these creatures and I would not return to her father with lies. After heated debate, it was agreed that “Lord Avoreth” would accompany me to support my version of events when I told told my father-in-law of his daughter’s death. And now poor bereaved Doatal d’Sivis now knows the truth, though he will be magically prevented from sharing it.

I am now enduring a seemingly endless series of celebrations of our unlikely victory. All of it leaves a sour taste in my mouth. With Byranna dead it seems so pointless and hollow. Even the generous gifts bestowed on us by King Orgev bring me no pleasure. I would give it all away in a heartbeat if only I could have her back again. Or better yet, to do it all over again and refuse to marry her. But for me she would have lived a long and happy life with children and grandchildren. If I grow strong enough with the magic, then perhaps one day I will have the power to undo the events that lead to Byranna’s death……………..









































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Zed's dragon damaged docent hole