Session 11
General Summary
Our heroes found themselves facing the powerful leader of the Ashen Covenant, Elder Arantham,
a lich of incredible power. He was standing next to a blood red portal, pulsing with necromantic
energies. In the pit in which they had found him were a small group of the Blackstar Host and a
couple of undead skulls which floated around the place, glowing with an inner green fire.
As Magma Force unleashed their full power upon the undead menace ahead of them the undead
skulls threw bolt after bolt of eldritch fire at them. Elder Arantham berated them over and over for
being �too late� and took great delight in singling each of our heroes out and belittling them and
their achievements and aims. He then went on to gloat that he had already managed to secure the
body of Timesus and had taken it through the portal beyond their reach to be given to his master.
Camero threw huge amounts of raw spell energy around the room; Harley darted back and forth,
rapier flashing; Braken kept our heroes on their feet; Sora flitted between beast form and elf,
wreaking havoc; and Gotrek lay about him with his huge axe. In the middle of this whirlwind of
destruction stood King Morgan of Mochica. When the fight seemed to be swinging towards the
evil lich and his minions it was Morgan�s great healing power which turned the tide. Within
seconds he had brought himself and Gotrek from bloody pulpy messes to fully refreshed fighting
warriors once more. Elder Arantham did not have enough fire power to stop them.
But it seems he didn�t have to. Instead, when he himself was looking beaten and bloodied, he
once again repeated his phrase that the heroes were too late and stepped into the Blood Portal. His
two undead skull minions whizzed into the portal after him. The creatures of the Blackstar Host
seemed uninterested in fleeing and instead continued to beat on the heroes, but to little avail as
they were soon put down.
Camero and Braken then spent some time examining the Blood Portal. They determined that it
was a portal to the legendary city of Sigil. Unfortunately it appeared that they could not use it to
follow Elder Arantham to Sigil as this portal would only permit undead creatures to pass. Not
even Camero, on his way to becoming a fully-fledged Lich would be able to pass through. Perhaps
more significantly this portal appeared to be the focus of the ritual which was causing the Soulfall
� the misdirection of souls away from Letherna and the Raven Queen�s judgement and here into
Death�s Reach. So the group decided that the best thing to do was to destroy it. Camero pointed
Gotrek to some lodestones which were anchoring the portal and the dwarf smashed them to bits
with his axe.
The archlich then opened a portal to the Raven Queen�s domain � to the first of the Seven
Veiled Gates of Fate, the test which had to be passed to enter Letherna. As Magma Force had
already passed the first four tests the Fate Pillars were visible through the mist and they were able
to simply follow the path to the Fifth Gate where they had defeated Malglurien the Black Dragon
previously. Here they stepped through yet another portal and then found themselves in the Court
of the Raven Queen.
She greeted them and asked them how they had got on. They explained they had failed to kill
Elder Arantham but said that they had destroyed the portal which was causing the Soulfall. She
thanked them for their work but said that if Elder Arantham had managed to acquire the trapped
form of a primordial as powerful as the Blackstar and was taking it to Orcus then their work on
this matter was not finished. She urged them to follow Elder Arantham to Sigil and track down the
primordial.
Magma Force asked if she knew who Elder Arantham was working for. She said that she didn�t
know but that she felt regardless of his role as the leader of a hugely powerful organization on the
World of Rodinia, he was too unimportant to be working directly for Orcus. There was almost
certainly some sort of entity between them. This creature would need to be determined.
Asked if she could help them getting to Sigil she said that she could. There was an inn called the
Moribundus Minotaur which was located inside the Temple of Erathis�s Gladiatorial School in
Londinium City, Rodin. When opened the door to this inn usually opened onto a cheerful drinking
establishment where the gladiators went to drink their fill after surviving another day on the sands.
But if this door was unlocked by a special key, then it would transform into a portal into Sigil.
This key could be found in Waymeet, a small village in Albion. It would usually be used to lock
the cellar door of the Waymeet Inn. The party would need to acquire the key from Waymeet (a
copy would not do) and then take it and unlock the door to the Moribundus Minotaur in
Londinium with it. That would open a portal into Sigil.
The group asked a few more questions and then prepared to leave. As they prepared to head back
to their homelands on the World of Rodinia, the Raven Queen said that she could sense that they
were disappointed they had not received any special rewards from her for all their work. She said
that there was one special reward which they were still to receive and that was travel through the
Seventh Veiled Gate of Fate.
Not knowing what this really meant the adventurers said their farewells to the Raven Queen and
willed themselves back to Rodinia. The passage back was the complete opposite of when they had
taken the Sixth Veiled Gate of Fate into Death�s Reach. Where that was an agony of psychic
horror, this was a calm and tranquil passage, soothing to the soul.
As they traversed through the ether back home they became aware of a sea change. They realised
that their names and their deeds were now suddenly famous worldwide across Rodinia. Every
inhabitant of the lands would have heard of Magma Force, of King Morgan, Saint Braken, of Sora
the (Arch) Druid and Gotrek the Slayer. Children would fall asleep dreaming of one day taking
over the shady empire of The Jester or of studying under the supra genius archlich Camero. That
was quite a reward.
Report Date
11 Apr 2024
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