Chapter 17: Into the depths
The group arrived in the hamlet of Jalanthar, where they rested for the night at the Crowning Cockatrice inn. They heard about troubles with orcs from the mountains, but discovered the town essentially gave the orcs tribute yearly to avoid repeated orc attacks. After speaking with the village elder, they chose not to deal with the orcs after discovering their leader may be a beholder (and the elder asked them not to interfere, lest the orcs begin their attacks anew).
The next day, the party departed once more. Two days into their ride through the chilly moon pass, they were attacked in the middle of the night by a pack of winter wolves. After the beasts unleashed their icy breath at them, Keladrien summoned forth a wall of flame around the wolves and set them ablaze from the top of the wagon. The group battled the wolves fiercely, with Baen and Nalzmyr defending the horses and Pan healing their wounds. Two of the horses perished from one of the wolves' icy breath. Keladrien rained down a lightning bolt at the wolves, but when faced with one of the creatures he was forced to drop his fiery wall in favor of polymorphing the wolf into a harmless frog. As the remaining wolves were slain, Keladrien opened his portable hole and dropped the frog into it before closing it. After waiting a sufficient amount of time for the frog/wolf to suffocate, they opened the hole and found the massive beast lodged within it (blue tongue sticking out and dead eyes staring back at them). Baen, with the help of the rest of the group, pulled the beast free and began collecting trophies from the pack. The beast had unfortunately evacuated its bowels as it suffocated to death and left behind several frozen feces.
Back on the road, the group arrived in Sundabar two days later. They settled in at the Trumpet Inn, an upscale inn home to many adventuring companies. After purchasing lodging and stabling for their horses, they learned that they must register for an adventuring charter at the master's hall. After having a meal and drink, the group left to explore the city. Pan led them to an alchemist, a strange Firbolg named Baernius who sold Pan strange glowing crystals with instructions to crush them into a paste with cow urine and apply the mixture directly to his eye. Pan paid the alchemist 200 gold, which he violently shoved behind his desk. Baernius apologized for his hand-eye coordination issues as he pointed Pan to a jar of "cow urine" in the store. After checking the jar and remembering he had NOT had spicy peppers that day, it became clear that the urine was his own. Regardless, Pan followed the instructions and applied the paste to his eye.
As the crystal imbedded into his eyeball, they began to glow and shoot out rays of colored light. Pan lost all sense of time and space, and hallucinated a shadowy creature melting from the ceiling behind Nalzmyr and putting its hands on his shoulders. The creature revealed its face as a dusky-skinned human male Pan had seen in the memories of Nalzmyr after ingesting the red ooze beneath hilltop. The creature formed into Nalzmyr's sword, and the ground gave way. Pan could see for miles beneath him into the vast underdark. In the distance, he saw a glowing wall with cracks from which shadowy tendrils seeped out. He convulsed, then went blind in his "medicated" eye before collapsing. He awoke 6 hours later and relayed his visions to Nalzmyr, then the group (leaving out the parts about Nalzmyr to the group). Keladrien ordered a set of spellbook "holsters" from a leatherworker and listened in on conversations in the inn. He learned that there was a "big job" for the ruling master of sundabar involving someplace dark for much gold. This seemed to coincide with Pan's vision, so the next morning the group decided to acquire a charter and ask about this job.
At the master's hall, the party was interviewed by bureaucrats in order to receive an adventuring charter. They were asked about themselves, the creatures they had slain, and any magic items they may have that could prove to be sentient and malign. With their charter in hand, they visited the ruling master Eomund Dwarf-friend and forgemaster Agni Firebeard. The job entailed discovering the source of some missing patrols in the fardrimm (the region of the underdark to the east of sundabar). forgemaster Agni showed concern about so many missing patrols due to the abilities of his dwarven patrollers and the location of their patrols (near the sharn wall). The group agreed to investigate and return with proof of the threat's demise in exchange for 30,000 gold pieces.
After gathering supplies, they descended into the undercity. In the depths of the dwarf hall they found the everfire rift (a magical volcanic rift powering sundabar's forges) and a lift that would take them down into the deepest chamber of the underdark connected to citadel Sundbar. After showing their charter and job papers, they were allowed down the lift and cautioned to avoid going south east where a city of Tannaruks named Ammarindar lies. They departed, with Baen leading them through the darkness with the help of Nalzmyr and Keladrien as lookout. Their first day proved uneventful, but on the second day they encountered horrific flying monsters feasting on dead Dwarves (sucking out glowing energy from them). They resembled flying maws full of teeth with 4 arms and a stingered tail. At the sight of them, Nalzmyr's blade errupted in shadowy tendrils and a voice boomed out "ABOMINATIONS!" Nalzmyr was compelled to attack them, and used his magic to fly out at them. Keladrien let loose a fireball in the midst of the monsters, while Pan and Baen unleashed arrows and crossbow bolts from a ledge. The creatures proved to be adept at magic, as one of them magically confused Pan and Keladrien and another charmed Baen. The beasts attacked with claws, bites and stinger when not casting spells. The larger of the creatures managed to take down Nalzmyr with a stinger to the neck, injecting something into him as it did so. Baen continued his barrage of crossbow bolts, while Pan brought Nalzmyr back to the fight with magical healing. Nalzmyr and Baen finished the remaining creatures, Nalzmyr's sword errupting in shadows with every kill and laughing maniacally.
After the battle, Nalzmyr doubled over and vomited out shadowstuff along with a small tadpole resembling the monsters. The shadowstuff coalesced into the shape of a man, who stepped on the tadpole and crushed it. The shape grew more defined, and became a shadowy robed man with a crown of shadows. He referred to Nalzmyr as his faithful servant, and revealed himself as Melegaunt Tanthul, an ancient Netherese wizard and one of the 12 princes of Shade. He told of the Phaerimm, ancient aberrations that feasted on magic and brought low the mighty magical works of the Netherese Empire before being imprisoned within the sharn wall in the buried realms beneath what is today the Anauroch desert. He also revealed that 100 years ago, a Svirfneblin wizard traveled with a group of adventurers who slew his father Telamont Tanthul in the shadowfell. The wizard collected the soul shards of his 6 fallen brothers, and later returned to the shadowfell to claim the city of Gloomwrought as its new Shade Lord. With the soul shards and the knowledge contained within the city, he achieved some of the power of The Shade Lord Telamont Tanthul. But doing so attracted the attention of the raven queen, and at some point this wizard (named Firble Gemcutter at one point) became one of her minions. Now he has unleashed the Phaerimm in order to draw out the remaining princes of shade. But Melegaunt sensed his brothers, and now leads the savage seven to the city of Chaulssin within the underdark to meet with them...
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