Unicorn: 9/15/18

The Dark Below, by Mark Kung Xion | Genevra | Karash | Fiego | Tully

Smarting from their defeat at the hands of the shadow creature, our heroes regrouped in Neverwinter to make a second attempt to plumb the secrets of the hidden underground facility. Fiego the rakish bard, Tully the young noble with a secret identity, Xion the mysterious monk, and Karash the half orc ranger vowed to destroy fiend and end the threat to Neverwinter. The druid Lyra decided to leave the exploration of shadowy tunnels for the light of the sun, but she did enlist her friend Genevra, priest of Lathander, to smite the evil being in the name of goodness.   Having fought the beast once, the heroes sought to equip themselves with various spell scrolls and magical weaponry designed to attack with gouts of flame or bolts of searing light. They also enlisted the aid of a cleric of the good aligned God, Tyr. Inquiries at the Church of Lathander discovered that the Church, along with the City Watch, was already establishing a forward camp in the tunnels and would appreciate the aid of the Waterdhavians. The group would also be accompanied by the two members of the Watch who helped them two days ago, stalwart Galeena and young Ari.   Entering the tunnels and making their way to the forward camp, our heroes devised a plan of attack. The cleric, Genevra, would use one of her spell scrolls to trap the skeletal fiend in a Magic Circle from which it could not escape, leaving the group free to launch attacks at it from relative safety.   The best laid plans …   At the first sign of the creature’s magical pulses the cleric went to work setting up her trap. The monk, Xion, barely managed to brace the door against its monstrous might but held it until the last moment and then allowed it to come crashing through … just as glowing runes sprang up in a circle around it, trapping it in place.   Our heroes had only a moment to celebrate before the death knight crushed its armored hand into a fist and snuffed out the enchanted circle with a baleful word. Slightly panicked, the group took advantage of the small opening to unleash every attack they had prepared: Fiego once again limned its horrific form in glowing motes of green and threw knives of moonlight at it; Tully, remembering how it shrugged off everything he had thrown at it before, telekinetically dropped a flaming vial of oil at its feet; Xion unleashed a barrage of ki-reinforced punches and kicks; Karash loosed arrow after glowing arrow, imbued with radiant power; Genevra and the allied clerics called upon divine light and sacred flame to lay the judgement of the Gods upon the blighted entity.   Even against this withering assault the creature was able to fight back, but it soon fell to one knee, seemingly exhausted but not yet defeated. At this, the fell blade in its gauntlet sprang to its defense, rendering it incorporeal. Unable to physically affect it in any way, the group tried instead to remove the sword from its hand, but were rebuffed by a blast of dark energy. Stymied, our heroes took a moment to discuss their next move .. a moment too long.   The evil sword unleashed an even mightier blast of necrotic energy, killing three of the Neverwinter Guard and knocking a number of our heroes unconscious. As Karash and the allied clerics worked to revive the group, the shadow knight cried out that it would never succumb to the darkness. This odd battlecry and a few other details began to resolve in Tully’s journalist mind. Could it be that the creature believed it fought for the Light? Was its mad rage a product of delusion?   Warily, the group’s tactics changed from destruction to redemption. Spells were employed to call to the remnants of the once noble spirit within, to exorcise the influence of the evil blade, and to display the might, glory, and mercy of the good Gods. Most of all, the group simply spoke to it, Fiego’s silver tongue and impassioned plea seemed to reach something deep within the monstrous form* while Tully surrendered himself to its grasp. In a moment of lucidity, it plunged its blade into its own chest. There, impaled upon its sword, a trapped and weakened voice spoke to the group. It did not have the mind to tell them much, but they discovered that in life a hundred years prior it had been known as Sir Edwin Bryce, that it could not rest because it was fighting an eternal war against the darkness, and that someone named Academician Adnelis would be able to give them more information. It was also then that the cleric, Genevra, began to hear a mysterious voice telling her that in order to release Sir Edwin from his suffering she would have to cut off the source of the darkness.   The group split up to explore the laboratory and hopefully uncover the source of the darkness.   Genevra, Karash, and the allied clerics stayed with Sir Edwin and bolstered his ability to fight off the influence of the sword.   Fiego discovered a chain that he recognized for his studies as one that connected to the realm of Mechanus, a different plane of existence that consisted of machinery and clockwork, as well as a room with the bodies of magical researchers and a control panel of some sort. In that room was also an inert modron, one of the strange mechanical creatures that inhabit Mechanus. When he revived it with a healing potion, it began to methodically reactivate the power source for the entire facility. Though it understood Fiego, it could not speak Common.   Xion discovered a room where the darkness seemed to thicken even more, dimming the light of his lantern and even beginning to affect him. The center of the room held a portal through which only inky, malevolent blackness could be seen. The darkness that pervaded the laboratory was pouring from the portal in a dark flow.   Tully discovered the office of one Academician Adnelis Dorethau and called the rest of the group to investigate. Inside, they found the body of a high elf wizard and her journal on her magical research. They learned that their final project, research into a powerful magical sword, the Blade of Koserin, was interrupted by an unknown magical calamity that the group recognized as the Spellplague. When the laboratory’s magical portal malfunctioned and opened into a plane of darkness and evil, Sir Edwin, a holy knight, took up the Blade of Koserin in order to defend against the unholy creatures pouring in and vanished into the portal. Left alone with the ravenous darkness, their laboratory sealed shut in response to the cataclysm and their light spells mysteriously failing, the beleaguered wizards resorted to burning the pages of their research in order to survive. Adnelis clinically journaled their dwindling numbers and, eventually, took her own life in the face of the darkness.   With a map from the Academician’s office, the group set out to close down the portal and cut off the source of the Darkness.   In a small shrine to Lathander, Genevra encountered the image of a couatl, a winged serpent servant of the good Gods. It lamented that the darkness prevented it from helping her directly, but promised that if they closed the portal it would intervene directly to lay Sir Edwin and the Blade to rest. The original wielder of the Blade was a Planetar named Koserin, and its power was not meant for mortal use, driving those to attempted to madness.   Fiego returned to the little cube shaped modron and, given a pen and parchment, it scribed out the directions for shutting down the portal. It seemed that the laboratory was originally a joint venture between a group that it was not at liberty to name and the modrons of Mechanus.   Directions in hand, the group hunted down the components necessary to operate the portal, which were in the hands of Jerrik and his kobolds, who had somehow found their way into the laboratory as well and were hiding in a lounge. When the group entered the lounge, they were greeted by the strange sight of natural daylight through windows that beheld an impossible landscape on another plane of existence and they began to realize they were no longer in their own world. But they had no time to ponder such strangeness and instead proceeded to shut down the portal.   Back at the forward camp, our heroes were greeted by the sight of the couatl in humanoid form releasing Sir Edwin from his century long battle. It promised them a boon from the Gods and then vanished.   The group ascended to Neverwinter and vowed to relax at a local inn.