General Summary
Iron Range
Fane of Black Hematite
Luyos and Krummer chased Daelee to the Fane of Black Hematite. Krummer had caught up with Daelee, but there was something else here, and he was unsure how to proceed. A strange shadow aura surrounded her, and they were cut off from the exit. Luyos first thought it was dark fire blocking them, but he realized it was solid shadow in the shape of flames. It seemed to be amplifying the sapping effect weighing on them. Behind Daelee was a fane. The design matched the Fane of the Fire Egg, but with a dark, prismatic gemstone rigidly held above the plinth. On the ground surrounding it were a series of smaller gemstones radiating a dark light. Daelee pointed and said, “Krummer, you are the reason behind this. You are the one who has put me to this. Everything that has happened to me and to The Copper Dozen is your fault.” There was an additional layer to her voice as she called him weak. As she spoke, Krummer tensed as shadow folded around him. He moved away as a void formed where he had been standing. Luyos saw a roiling humanoid shadow held inside, and the gems surrounding seemed to glow briefly to contain it. As Krummer dodged, he replied, “If you want me to believe those words, whoever you are, you’re going to need to speak a bit more convincingly like the Daelee I know.” Daelee drew her shining, elven greatsword. She said, “You will pay for your crimes.” Luyos felt Tha’theo’s voice. There was an eagerness to destroy the entity held within the central gemstone. A sense of justice against an affront of some kind. He felt whatever was held inside had somehow previously tried to claim Tha’theo’s egg and became trapped inside this gem as a result.Mentor and Mentee
Luyos called out the shadowy gem to Krummer. Luyos and Tha’theo kept their distance from the circle of gemstones. Krummer, though, seemed to pay no mind to the gems and rushed forward. He crossed that threshold and a ripple of energy seemed to flow out, like a ripple on a bubble. The shadow violently left Daelee and engulfed Krummer in the aura. With the same layered voice, he said, “This close I can control any of you. Maybe you’re… maybe I’m the better vessel for this.” He attacked Daelee as she stumbled and recovered from the shadow’s effect. Luyos tried to discern anything about the gemstones. The effect seemed to be divine magic. He ran forward and shoved Krummer away. He grabbed Daelee’s shoulder and pulled her back out of the circle. Krummer said, “That was a nice little trick, dragonborn. You’re the one who stole my prize.” He pursued them out of the circle, with the shadow aura, and attacked Luyos and Daelee savagely. Daelee said, “Krummer, I never wanted this for you. I know the shadow you now face!” She knew how to break its control, and Dalee slammed the broadside of her blade against Krummer’s helmet. It rang out, and the shadow faltered and scattered. Instinctually, Krummer swung his weapon. Daelee caught it with her greatsword, and they tensed against each other. As the entity faded, they looked at each other, really, for the first time in a long time. “You came for me.” “I was never not going to come for you.”Shadow and Rage
The shadow was pulled back to the barrier, sending ripples around and alighting the gems. The draining effect surged with rage. The siphoned lifeforce empowered this entity, even imprisoned as it was. Pushing with this energy, it extended a part of it into the chamber. A spectral, shadowy form clouded with dark mist stepped forward with eyes glowing red. A last attempt to succeed. “Oh hells, what is that? Alright, reunions later, I think!” Luyos was startled. He’d never seen anything like this creature. He drew his longbow and fired, but the arrow went through the shadow harmlessly. Krummer stepped forward, but Daelee pulled him away. She said, “This shadow entity… This is a Karakura. It is going to be difficult for us to kill. It is bound to that gem somehow. We must force it back!” At Daelee’s order, Krummer fired his crossbow, but the bolts were lost in the shadows. Daelee’s arrows and Luyos’s acid struck the shadow form, though it resisted. Krummer attacked with his blades, which were engulfed with flame as Tha’theo charged in with biting jaws. Despite the building damage, they weren’t forcing the karakura back. There was a desperation in the draining energy radiating from the shadow. It severely attacked Tha’theo and scattered the drake down. Luyos felt their connection break. Daelee reached for magic and healed Tha’theo with a word. She then leveraged her greatsword and rushed to Krummer’s side. The shadow of a shadow spoke, “More! I need more… The only way I’ll be able to break out of this is if I take MORE!”Activating the Fane
Luyos recognized the stones as black hematite, the holy stone of Nerull, The Scythe-Bearer. He cast Detect Magic and sensed strong abjuration magics funneling energy to the central plinth. Somehow, the gems had trapped the shadow as it came to the Material Plane. Luyos thought it could be possible to empower the fane to draw the karakura back into the gemstone. He reached out with the divine energy of his own essence. A pulse of grey energy from the fane lashed onto the fiend, burning it with divine light and pulling it backwards. With a shout, it raged and resisted, holding fast. It wracked Krummer and Daelee, knowing their minds and anticipating their movements as they made them. With a familiarity with hunting monsters and fighting side by side, Krummer and Daelee didn’t back down. Luyos and Tha’theo’s joined, and they attacked as a team, pushing the karakura farther towards the gems. The shadow was enraged by the blatant connections on display and leveraged against it; Krummer and Daelee, and Luyos and Tha’theo. It struck out again, wounding and nearly downing Daelee and Luyos. Luyos attacked with Tha’theo’s fire. A final hit pushed the shadow back. In a surge of grey light, the tendrils of abjuration magic pulled the enraged shadow back and shunted it back to its body.Banishment
Roiling and raging, the entity attempted to force them back within the gemstones. The shadow fire ringing the room moved and started closing around them. Luyos called out to charge the gemstones. Daelee disagreed, “Even weakened, if we improve and empower its prison, one day it will try to escape again. This place is connected to the realm of Nerull. If we end the protection here on this fane and summon this shadow creature forward and kill it, that energy, that return to the realm of the dead, will carry this creature to its doom.” Luyos asked if she was certain. Daelee said, “I have lived inside this thing for too long, and I know what it fears. Come!” She steeled herself and crossed the barrier. At her touch, the holy energies manifested through her role as a paladin of Nerull, shattered the black hematite prison. The karakura was forced out before them. Together, they attacked the fiend and sundered it. As the last remnants of the abjurative spell left this plane, the energy latched onto the karakura, pulling it to its doom beyond the Material Plane. The shadow flames flickered and faded, and the chamber fell silent.Daelee’s Insight
Luyos asked if they’d won. Daelee said it was gone and would trouble them no more. In the aftermath, Daelee explained several things to Luyos and Krummer. Daelee had been leading The Copper Dozen’s efforts against the kruthik threat. She didn’t have many details, but she felt she had been set up somehow, leading to her encounter with the karakura trapped at the fane. While she was under its control, Daelee had learned a lot about the karakura. It was a fiend that fed on connections and devotion. Looking to Tha’theo, she said, “It sought the egg that was carried for so long by someone who loved it so deeply. It sought it to feed on that connection, but instead was trapped here through these divine means.” Under its influence, Daelee had sacrificed her sigils, holy symbols, and regalia to strengthen the karakura and deepen its hold. Daelee was directed to seek Tha’theo’s egg, to sacrifice it, too. She said, “I don’t know what it could have been capable of if I had claimed that egg for it, that it could feed on it.” After Luyos hatched the egg before she could take it, she then sought to sacrifice her connection to Krummer. Daelee knew the attack on The Copper Dozen’s camp would be unsuccessful. It had been meant to enrage and draw Krummer forward. She continued, “I did not anticipate that you would be able to catch us overland as you did. Well done, ranger. If we had reached back to the warren, Krummer, you would have stopped at nothing to come find us.” Krummer said, “Aye, that’s true. And I would have been walking right into this damn thing’s trap.” Luyos asked how the karakura knew about the fane and egg at all. Daelee said, “I don’t know. It was never clear to me how this thing had even known the egg was there, whether something else had directed it towards this fane or whether it found it of its own accord. But thankfully, that drake and its connection now to you was never sacrificed to something so foul.”The Copper Dozen
With the monster defeated, they returned to the surface. The Copper Dozen hunters had defeated the kruthiks, though they suffered casualties of their own. The hunters displayed a range of emotions as Daelee and Krummer emerged. Luyos had noted a strong element of community to them, and they seemed happy to have their leaders come through this alive. Krummer told Luyos Thelman was alive and held at their previous campsite near the Immrinni Stream waterfall. If Luyos hadn’t returned, their plan was to ransom him back to the Ritivan Cartographers Guild for the funding they desperately needed. Luyos asked about the kruthiks remaining underground. Daelee said something must be done, and they would hunt them down. Luyos asked about the gold and the spell circle in the warren. She didn’t know its full purpose, but said, “There was some intelligence to its design, some importance that it was trying to achieve, but it was beyond me to know. It was layers upon layers of schemes and plans that I could not glimpse. I was just a part of it.” Luyos said it should be undone. “I don’t want to be running from something that I don’t understand. I think we should and deal with that together, if you all would be amicable to me tagging along for this. Not going to lie, a bit of that gold would go far for my own coin purse as well.” Daelee said the gold would go far for their group as well. She said, “We have tasked you, specifically, too much, dragonborn.” Daelee retrieved an old and worn sigil of The Copper Dozen that Krummer held. She explained this was her own regalia from before she became the leader of this band. She gave it to Luyos and said, “This, from my understanding, still carries some weight in the First Mountain. I know it is not the reward that you deserve for having helped save my life and Krummer’s life, but take this with the promise that we will deal with these kruthiks.” She continued, “This sigil is the thanks that I can give you, and as long as you carry it, you are a friend to The Copper Dozen.” Luyos thanked her and wished them well. He said, “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t happy to be washing my hands of it myself.” Daelee nodded in an elven fashion, and Luyos returned a dwarvish bow. He met eyes with Krummer for a moment, and they exchanged a look, each acknowledging the aid they had no reason to give.Towards Endor
Luyos spent the rest of that night tracking towards the campsite. On the way, Luyos pondered questions about Tha’theo and their growing connection. He said, “I think you and I are going to have to do something that I don’t necessarily want to do, and that’s head back to the First Mountain. That place had some connections to the divine. Certainly, there’s something on the edge of my memory about drakes such as you. I think it’s time we go and talk to a friend of mine and maybe get some answers about you, your egg, and that fane, aye?” Tha’theo nuzzled up to Luyos as they moved south. He reached the camp, where Luyos found Thelman and a member of The Copper Dozen. There was initial alarm, but Luyos showed Daelee’s sigil and quickly explained what had happened. With questions answered, the hunter departed to rejoin the others. Luyos released a grateful Thelman. Thelman said, “You’ve come back! What has happened?” Luyos said they would have plenty of time to talk on the path back to Endor. Thelman agreed, saying he wanted to return home and reevaluate his priorities. They rested, and in the morning, Thelman annoyed Luyos with many questions about the caverns, the kruthiks, and Tha’theo. Luyos grumbled as they departed eastward towards the city. He quickly felt the journey back was now going to be that much longer for it.
Related Time
23 Sedaena 5A 178 to 24 Sedaena 5A 178
23 Sedaena 5A 178 to 24 Sedaena 5A 178