Chapter 1 - Armasse
T’was truly a great day!
Kenabres was holding the Festival of Armasse, a yearly tradition celebrating the
Wardstones, massive stone objects which have held back the
Wardstone from encroaching on the rest of the material plane. This week, it will be a week of partying, training, and fun in a normally distraught city of Kenebres, which sits on the front lines of war against the onslaught of demons coming from the Worldwound. This massive city of over twelve thousand individuals guards one of these Wardstones. Much of the town is set for the festivities of Kenebres, and many people abound in the streets, with vendors peddling their wares, magicians showing off for crowds, and people shopping throughout, what seems to be, every street. For a town that is normally distraught, this town looks nothing like its normal self. Almost everyone is enjoying themselves, and everyone is having a great time.
It is on this day, that five individuals have made their way to Kenebres to watch the festivities and enjoy the opening ceremonies.
Reid Moore, an old human, walks towards the center of town. His light brown beard with greying sways a bit through the wind. While a little more aged than much of the crowd, he’s still able to move around decently. He attempts to locate a seat so he can see the festivities. He squeezes through the crowd, trying to locate a seat, moving past another individual, Jorryn K’Thral, another human, a cleric of Ragathiel.
Jorryn K'Thral is clad in scale mail of his order, moves through the crowd. His back is adorned with a heavy wooden shield, and a bastard sword that almost goes down to his knees when placed on his back. His longspear is strapped with two leather straps along his back, moves with him as he is given a wide berth for those that don’t want to be poked by his weapons or armor. He continues pushing through, and steps around another individual: Aurius Cortahl, a half-elf that doesn’t seem to care for anyone else being here.
Aurius quickly locates his seat. This half-elf, at 6’5, towers over most individuals, with only some select elven individuals actually being able to meet or exceed his gaze. His black short hair wafts slowly back and forth, his aqua green eyes scanning the crowd to make sure there are no threats he must immediately deal with. No one seeks to really look at this half-elf that doesn’t seem to want to do with anyone. It is there, in his seat, he makes a chance encounter with another of these individuals, a female elf by the name of Yuhia Zhir.
Yuhia Zhir’s long green hair wafts through the air as she scoots past Aurius, excusing herself as she makes her way through the row of seats to locate one of her own. This elf moves past everyone with grace as she makes her way to a seat. She sits down, looking around at the rest of the crowd. Her studded leather armor clinks against her elven leafblades located on either side of her waist. Sitting down, she adjusts her backpack to her feet to make herself more comfortable as the last individual slips by her feet to his chair: a gnome by the name of Bosco Dieh.
Bosco Dieh, a small gnome moves through the legs of the various individuals to locate a seat, he climbs up onto the chair and stands so he can see the front stage. His blue beard wafting through the breeze. He flips through his Harrow Deck, inspecting it, and then he shuffles it, and randomly picks out a card, but frowns when he sees it. Putting his deck of cards back in its pouch, he waits as everyone takes their seats, and the opening announcer takes to the stage and riles up the crowd for the Opening Ceremonies to begin.
The announcer shushes the crowd, and everyone sits down, with the exception of certain height-challenged individuals, and the announcer uses a magical ghost sound effect placed on the stage to push his voice to the crowd huddled around the stage, and the people watching from balconies facing the stage. The announcer announces
Lord Hulrun and he walks onto stage with his ornate, resplendent mail armor, polished to a mirror shine, with the symbol of the city inlaid with gold in the center. His shield, strapped to his back, and his famed sword swings on its leather hilt. He clears his throat, a raspy voice begins, and everyone quiets down. As he raises his hands to begin to speak, a brilliant white light shines from behind the crowd, as if the sun is shining from the wrong direction. Lord Hunrun’s shadow extends high onto the cathedral, as everyone turns around to look at what the light is coming from. The Keep, which houses the Wardstone, is gone, and, in its place, a white and red column of fire and brimstone. A second later, a second explosion occurs, sending shards of material across the courtyard, shattering windows, and making everyone on the balcony and in the audience duck.
A few seconds later, a giant roar comes from the middle of the crowd. The crowd turns to see a human female taking off her cloak, and shapeshifting into a massive ancient white dragon and taking to the sky. A welcome sight, the best and most respected defender of the city, the Ancient White Dragon
Terendelev has arrived! The crowd cheers for a second while the White Dragon takes to the sky but stops as a figure flies with unnatural flight out of the plume of fire and brimstone, a Balor wrapped in fire and lightning that everyone recognizes:
Khorramzadeh, the Storm King. Khorramzadeh and Terendelev charge at each other in the sky as massive hordes of demons come filtering into the city. The crowd begins to panic as demons begin ripping people apart, swinging massive unsightly claws through the crowd. Above, the Storm King swings his massive whip into the underbelly of Terendelev, sending squirts of blood across the people below. Terendelev bites down on the arm of Khorramzadeh, and they begin grappling, plummeting to the ground. A few seconds later, the titanic duo crash into the facade of the cathedral, and, for a second, the entire city is quiet, as demons, humans, elves, gnomes, and dwarves look at the sight in awe, wondering what the result is.
This only lasts a second, as a massive portal opens in the middle of one of the buildings on the opposite end of the courtyard from the Cathedral, which towers almost 100 feet in height. The massive portal tunnels into the ground, sending shockwaves of intense magical energy through the ground, splitting it in half. Barreling out of the portal at a full run, this massive demon 80 feet in height smashes through the rest of the building, sending shards of debris everyone, impacting people, and knocking out our five intrepid individuals. As the ground splits and opens up to the abyss of darkness below, our individuals look towards the cathedral, seeing a bloodied Terendelev, barely clinging to life, crawl out of the cathedral rubble and sees the five, extends one of her claws, saying a few magical words as Khorramzadeh lifts up his sword and slices it through the neck of Terendelev, cleaving off her head at his feet. Our five individuals plummet into the darkness, as a cloud of magical feathers rests below their bodies, preventing their deathly fall. The massive demons continue to wreak havoc, and the five rest at the bottom of the rubble pile, and it caves in, sealing the entrance.
Chapter 2 - Underneath Kenebres
Waking up for who knows how long later, the five individuals get up, covered in dirt, debris and various other material, but alive, and undamaged. They dust themselves off, looking around in the darkness, hearing the moans of hundreds of people dying at their feet. Reid sets off a light spell, and sees the carnage, and so does the rest of the five. They stand up and look around at the carnage that has been wrought today. Many of the people around them are dead. Some are dying, major organs currently crushed with debris. It won’t be very long before they succumb to their wounds. However, these five individuals aren’t the only survivors. A human individual by the name of Horgus Gwerm dusts himself off, and gets to his feet, complaining the entire way up.
Horgus Gwerm looks to be a noble that hasn’t seen a day of work in his life. His plump figure sits 5’2, shorter than most humans, almost looking like a taller dwarf. His partially balding head is covered in dust from concrete rubble. He brushes off his very ornate clothing which looks to be the most valuable thing on him at the moment, picking off little bits of dust. “My god, this is terrible, I just got this clothing washed this morning, I will have to get my servants to clean it again.” He then finally brushes off his head, complaining about how he’s covered in this peasant’s dust. He calls out for an individual, but no one responds, and he mutters under his breath, “Useless servants dying to this stupid attack.”
Another individual leans against the wall, as he attempts to feel his eyes, an elf by the name of
Aravashnial holds his face, “I can’t see,” he claims into the darkness. His face is covered in a massive wound that covers both his eyes, but, remarkably, his wound has been cauterized, as if someone slashed a lava-hot metal poker across his eyes, blinding him. Dried and coagulating blood pools around his wound as he leans over and grasps onto his head and his staff, wondering what fate would come amongst him now that he is blind.
Lastly, the remaining surviving individual, a female human by the name of
Anevia Tirabade yells out in pain as she sits up and realizes her entire leg is crushed underneath a large rock. She cannot move it, and she grasps at her damaged thigh, gritting through the pain. She yells over to Horgus, “All you nobles are the same, always complaining, and you don’t have a scratch on you.” Horgus turns around and cross his arms at this comment and she grasps at her shortsword nearby, trying to figure out if she can use it to get the rock off of her leg.
The five of the party standing up, they take stock. Yuhia stands up and figures out what Horgus was complaining about. As she steps over the people, she notices Anevia, and sees the large rock in the middle of the knee. Yuhia tries moving the rock, but fails, and asks for help. Jorryn looks at the crushed leg and realizes how the leg is being crushed. He’s seen this injury before. He applies a tourniquet around the thigh, and Jorryn picks up the rock, and moves it to the side. Reid cleans off Horgus with prestidigitation. Yuhia looks at Aravashnial and looks over his wounds.
Meanwhile, Jorryn looks at the rubble and notices five scales. They are
Terendelev's Scales. These silvery white scales offer different powers, small tidbits of the dragon which are special awesome powers. Horgus remarks about a large spider behind him and he backs away to the wall. When looking over at it, everyone draws their weapon, and Jorryn hands out the scales to the party, giving one to each. As Aurius and Yuhia step up to the corpse of the spider, two large maggots burst out of the corpse, and start lurching at the two.
Getting everyone on their feet, the party proceeds forward, discovering they have the option to go towards two paths. Heading towards the North path, the party discovers two large cockroaches, which they spend a little bit of time taking out before perusing through the destroyed camp, finding some bits and items of a mostly destroyed camp. During the process, Jorryn notices that there is something shiny on the South path, and the party discovers that there is a way to cycle around to the South cavern and spots a backpack on a ledge. They levitate up to the backpack and discover a treasure trove of items that will help.
Moving onto the forward path, the party moves into what looks to be the lair of a Viper. It raises up to strike out at the party. The Viper is obviously hurt from falling debris, and it lashes out. The party attempts to charm the viper, but it shrugs off the notion and slashes at the party, leading to the party ending the life of the viper and continuing on down the cavern.
The party begins to limp through the Kenabres underground, navigating around Stalagmite and Stalactite formations through the natural cavern. No worked stone seems to be found down here, but this is the only path that seemed to be available to the party, as the exit out to the above ground where they came from seems to be covered in multiple hundreds of pounds of rubble. Far more than the injured party can seek to move in enough time that their water and food supplies could last.
After a long navigation through the cavern, the party comes to a division in the cavern. To the North, they see a long cave with a green glowing light. To the South, they see a long cave extending into the darkness. They decide to head north towards the Green light, deciding that the green light might lead towards a more favorable outcome. After a short walk, they come to, what looks to be a shrine to Torag. This small building, the first one they have noticed of non-natural stone seems to stand out against the natural cavern display. As they approach, a Giant fly buzzes into their face, and they successfully knock it out and cut it down without much trouble.
As they approach the front door, Anevia sits down to rest, and Horgus remarks, rudely to one of the party members that Anevia is slowing them down, and they begin arguing. The party talks to both of them, intimidating Horgus to back down, and he goes silent in a huff. The party heads into the building and discovers a small hallway with a basin. They decide to wash off Aravashnial’s face with the water, and then head into the main chamber. Inside, they discover an altar to Torag, and one person sitting on a pew looking at the altar. Aurius decides to step up and find out who it is, and the person ends up being a Huecuva! The undead shrieks and starts attacking Aurius, which is surprised. The Huecuva gets a strike off on Aurius, and he slices back, at the undead. The party begins piling into the main chamber, sending spells and strikes off on the disgusting undead, until it collapses from the damage, leaving its unused masterwork warhammer and various potions from its previous life as a living being behind.
After the fight, the party decides to take a little bit of time and restore the shrine to Torag. They spend time looking through the results of their battle, and Anevia comes in and reports that Horgus is starting to leave. Immediately, Yuhia goes outside to try to convince the wayward Horgus from leaving. Yuhia talks with Horgus and figures out that Horgus is just pissed off and offers a reward of 1000gp if they can get him to the surface. Horgus decides to head back in after a quick chat, and the party begins the cleanup of the shrine. Doing so, Torag is pleased and decides to give the party a small blessing.
The party then continues Southward, back to the split in the cave, and then through to the other side. Proceeding through tight caverns, and winding paths for almost an hour, the party comes upon, finally some worked stone. Into the walls, they notice this large chamber is decorated with a bunch of different statues. But, before they can inspect them, two darkmantles come out of the ceiling and start diving on the party! The group scrambles first to get to their weapons, and they dispatch the darkmantles as they come to feed on the party. They start perusing through the cavern and inspect the statutes. It appears that the statues are of the major knights in the First Crusade into the Worldwound. Hesitantly, Aravashnial shares a theory that, after the first Crusade, the knights, corrupted by the Worldwound, headed underneath the city to vast caverns to live out their lives in peace, never to be seen from again.
While the party finishes up their discussion, out of a offshoot path behind the large cavern steps a crazed dwarf! The dwarf hurts bolts of force at the party, and sprays the party with colors, but is quickly surrounded. The Dwarf then attempts to drink one of his potions, and the party skewers the dwarf from all directions, and lays his body to rest in the cavern. With that, the party returns to the shrine of Torag to rest for the night.
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