Chapter 28: On the Hunt
The hellraisers battled against the ancient white dragon conjured forth by the red wizard Escobel. Most of the group was able to react quickly, acting before the dragon could defend itself. Dorn smote the beast with divine fire, setting it ablaze as Pan used his bardic magic to force the dragon to dance in place (a comic, yet terrifying display) and Kathra summoned forth a wall of flame searing the enemy. The dragon unleashed his icy breath upon Dorn and Pan, nearly killing Pan and severely wounding Dorn. As Pan's concentration broke, the dragon flew away onto a higher platform of the arena. Nalzmyr then cast a spell that imprisoned it within a mental prison (believing the ground beneath it was giving way to an endless pit). As Kathra healed her wounded allies, Dorn climbed up to better reach the dragon. Pan flung as fireball at the beast, and Nalzmyr fired eldritch blasts. The dragon roared, frightening Pan but leaving the rest of the group unshaken. As Dorn approached, the beast flapped its wings at Dorn but unleashed the psychic power of the mental prison (severely damaging him). He flew up into the sky then, and unleashed his icy breath once more upon the group striking all but Nalzmyr. Dorn leapt from his platform and magically transported himself to the dragon's back, where he struck the dragon with his halberd. As the dragon tried to fling him off with his tail, Pan unleashed another fireball as Kathra healed their wounds once more. Eventually, the dragon succeeded in sending Dorn flying to the ground before landing himself. The group rallied together and finished the beast off (with one of Pan's fireballs directly into his mouth).
Happy with the results, the wizard Escobel asked them another riddle. When they answered correctly, he conjured forth a beholder and a T-Rex. Pan approached the beholder and tried to use magic against the t-rex, but found his magic unusable within the beholder's cone of antimagic. The beholder fired his eye rays at Pan, charming, slowing and paralyzing him. As Dorn and Kathra approached the beholder, Nalzmyr charged at the t-rex and banished it to Avernus using a spell of planeshifting and the key to the nine hells. The beholder fired rays at Kathra, eventually turning her to stone. He tried to shoot Dorn, but dorn resisted the eye rays' magic. As the beholder flew away, Nalzmyr granted himself and Dorn magical flight and they both assaulted the creature from the air with Dorn eventually cleaving the thing in twain.
Escobel once again proved happy with the results, and agreed to reveal one piece of information. The group asked him about Szass Tam's phylacteries, and he revealed that Szass Tam had brought a cultist into the shadowfell (through a portal in a graveyard near Bezantur), where he cast spells of protection on him and sent him into the negative energy plane (whereupon he was replaced by a Nightwalker, his phylactery safe with the cultist within the negative energy plane). Escobel revealed that the cultist and thus the phylactery could be retrieved by either destroying the nightwalker or offering it a willing sacrifice. Escobel warned that many undead protected the graveyard and then snapped his fingers and they were transported back to the village. Kathra sent a magical message to the knights at Escalant to send a company to the graveyard to clear it of undead (and to bring along Nalzmyr's 2 cultists for possible sacrifice).
On the road to the graveyard, they were assaulted by a cloaked and hooded creature with a long knife who waited for them outside kathra's conjured temple. They retreated inside, readied themselves for battle and banished the temple away. They found the creature nowhere to be seen.
Closer to Bezantur, the group found the missing knights who had been driven astray during a storm at sea. They were badly wounded, and explained that they were assaulted by powerful undead including a Death Knight at the port of Bezantur. The party agreed to clear out the port so they could sail the ship back to Escalant. There, they found many undead (including a massive pile of zombie animated like an ooze of undeath) led by a Death Knight. They assaulted the port from the air, with Dorn upon his griffon, Kathra flying with her wings and Nalzmyr and Pan given magical flight. They soon alerted the entire town, and were set upon by the zombie clot, vampire spawn, wights, zombies, ogre zombies and the death knight. After a protracted battle, the Death Knight joined the fray and quickly slew an already badly wounded Pan. In a burst of vengeance, Kathra conjured holy light in her hands and fired beams of light at the unholy knight as Dorn and Nalzmyr unleashed their fury upon him. The Knight was quickly dispatched, and Pan revived by Kathra. They took the knight's head and planned to question it later via a speak with dead spell.
At the graveyard, they found the company reduced to a single knight and the 2 cultists but the dead destroyed. Nalzmyr convinced one of the cultists (jasper) to sacrifice himself to the nightwalker, and the other cultist was sent away with the remaining knight to join the others at Bezantur. They discovered a grave intricately decorated with a raven (wings stretched out) with an ancient, mostly worn inscription of ".tr...v.n........ich". The grave was hollow, and within its depths they found a darkness that led them to the shadowfell. As they stepped into the grave, they were transported to that land of dread and despair in search of the nightwalker and one of the lich's phylacteries...
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