Steel, Blood, and Glory

Ah... The feel of metal rending metal and slicing deep into the thick knotted muscle underneath... Nothing quite like it thinks the Rageborn paladin as he pulls his greatsword out of the Dourstone guard with a cheer to Tempus and raises it on guard against the retalitory axe swing... Ulfgar lands a series of axe cuts of his own against the guards and the dwarf fighter stands shoulder to shoulder with Pagu setting squarely the battle line between the Magnificent Seven and the guards of Clan Dourstone... Our hin charged into the fight, Hallorin our carnival bard enchanted our martial artist, Reed, with super speed who then uses Ulfgars shield to summersault over the 3 Dourstones and finishes the manuever landing a flurry of blows and stunning several... Magnus Tai, our bladesinger deftly puts his skills to work in blur of steel, lighting, and eldritch force... The clan guards are no match for the seasoned adventures and the battle is over in seconds and no alarm is sounded... Catching his breath at the end of his first battle in several weeks Pagu reminisces on how his band ended up here...
 
Heliogabalus was getting hot... After our work righting the wrongs inflicted upon the Knights of Virdin several of my companions and I received gifts from anonymous patrons... While awesome also means enemies might know of us as well... Conveniently my companions also received Intel on a plot from their past, heads in magic barrels heading to Ironspur... Sounds great to me getting out of this city... Plus I already had to knock out one foppish Deridian cousin who showed up at Goodbarrel Manor defending his cousin's virtue... Taking off might take some heat off sweet Evelaine too... The road North was uneventful... Hallorin kept his carney hands out of stranger's pockets and Reed didn't talk to many strangers... Hopefully we shook any tails from the city...
 
Ironspur is impressive... A majestic spire with a massive dwarven fortification erupting out of a cavern over looking a small Vale only approached by a well guarded pass... The small Vale teams with trade and activity with the outside world... Ulfgar takes us up into the terraces and sets us up in a local pub while he makes arrangements to get us inside... We manage to stay out of trouble as Ulfgar gets us into the city and to his clan hall... His father's hospitality was first rate and he supports our efforts to investigate the Dourstones... Several days later he informs us a shipment has reached the Dourstones... We spring into action... Magnus Tai invisibly scouts the Dourstones and positions his transformed spider familiar to hear the passwords for entry... Tai returns and informs us the passwords include reference to the great elder Evils of the void... The Yellow King... Raising the confidence this clan Dourstone has a rot to it... We breeze up to the clan hold Gates and use the password to gain entry without a hitch... While being led to the Thane Reed wanders off and opens a secret door leading to this fight...
 
Shaking his head clear, Pagu reaches deep inside connecting with his oath and casts locate object expanding out his senses looking for the magically sealed cast... He senses pings an area just beyond the walls of the hallway... We spend several minutes searching the hallway for secret doors but are unable to find any... Reed's secret door leads to a secret clan reliquary that has been destroyed and desecrated... We leave the great Hall alone for a minute and scout the outer Hall's for signs of the barrels but we are unable to find the hidden room... Frustration sets in so we go to confront the Thane...
 
We attempted a ruse of offering a platitude to the King in Yellow but failed when Thane Dourstone's madness recognized our sanity and combat ensues! The Thane spins madness out of the void in a hypnotic pattern of light entancing all but Hallorin, giving the Dourstone forces a great opening... Luckily My armor deflected the worst of the opening hacks from the guards and raging Thaneguards but at least the pain shakes me out of the trance... Reed and Tai shake off the trance... The hin charges the Thane and pummels him mercilessly... Tai enters his bladesong and erects his wards as he tests the fray... I carve one guard deeply with a critical wound and spin to see Ulfgar unable to break his trance so I punch him in the face to help in back into the fight... The might of Pagu, Ulfgar, and Tai is too strong and the guards fall to them... The Thane is unable to shake loose from Reed and he falls from flurry after flurry of stunning strikes from the diminutive yet mighty hin... Pagu goes over to stabilize the Thane from dying so he can be given like a present to the Thane of Thanes to ensure the highest of honors and rewards but Magnus Tai, not willing to take chances with madness, barrages the mad Thanes body with firebolts until death was sure...
 
Exploring deeper into the hold reveals empty guardrooms and filled prison cells... But nothing is more startling than when Pagu opens up his divine sense and feels elder evil... Following the sense the Seven find a black voidling of dark matter and tentacles bound in a magic circle... The deceased Thane's wife breaks the magic circle and releases the voidling while being grabbed, ripped apart, and smashed against the wall in thanks by it... Wow... Both amazing and disgusting...
 
Uttering a battle cry to Tempus I charge the entity! I utter my Oath of Enmity and get suprisingly hasted by Hallorin... with Tempus's might fueling my blows I lay devistating smite after smite spreading radiant glow where all there was was the sucking darkness of the void... The being, maybe for the first time in it's existence feels fear and recoils in horror from the assault... Reed follows up my smites with a volley of radiant bolts that damage enough to end the voidling's hold on whatever twisted version of life it had as it collapsed in on itself and vansishes from our reality... The Magnificent Seven raise a cheer over the victory...
 
The group spreads out to search... Tai finds the Thane's office and finds further information on this conspiracy, linking the Citadel of Assassins, derro, bloodstone mines in Virdin, and Necromancers in the druegar city of Heageraf in the underdark... Much evil indeed... Hallorin finds the twisted ramblings of the mad Thane scribbled on the walls of his trashed bedroom... Eventually the clan hold reveals all it's secrets as we find the hidden rooms that containing the magic barrels amongst the possessions of many sacrifices...
 
We deduce there must be a derro presence somewhere here in the clan hold that must be dealt with... so we prepare to take a short rest to recoup our strength and prepare to take the main Gates to set the prisoners free and have them run to Clan Hammerfall and update them... Once that is done we will root out these crazed derro...
 
We rouse and make our way to the front Gates... May Tempus ride the white horse for us!