Heroes Against Evil

Warning: Some spoilers for my Fiery Dragon adventure Queen of Lies appear below.

From left: Aliya, Canabulum, Serai, Zophas, Shurrin, Mara, and Udalaag

Shurrin the fighter/rogue/cleric, Aliya of the Order of the Fist, Mara the cleric of Lothian, Zophas the Knight of the Pale, Canabulum the minotaur wizard, and Urlenius the Star of Navashtrom decided to enter the Dark Reliquary to rescue the trapped soul of their ally, Andach the druid. The Dark Reliquary, home to the Fallen (demons) and the Forsaken (undead and those that work with them), was a terrible place the first time the group was taken there. They just barely escaped with their lives. Now they went back intentionally.

Zophas got three of his allies from the Knights of the Pale -- Vestra, Dartalus and Cardillian -- to go with them. On their way through the Necropolis, they saw a huge cage made of wicker in the shape of a man, with children inside. Undead were about to set it on fire. The heroes, of course, intervened and saved the children, only to discover that the whole event was set up as an ambush: Their enemies knew that they were coming, and when. Wounded and spent from the battle, they retreated, intending to return the next day, although Dartalus' nerve was shattered already (he was young and inexperienced). When they re-entered the Dark Reliquary, they did so without him.

They found that there had been some strife in the Necropolis of late -- factions among the Forsaken were in the middle of a power struggle. They had learned that the tower of a necromancer held a secret underground passage into the gothic, palacelike Dark Reliquary. They were unsure as to whether they would parley with or fight the necromancer, but when they arrived at the tower she was already dead, killed in the strife. The adventurers found the secret passage, which entailed riding atop a huge creature/construct of bones.

There were many harrowing fights in the Dark Reliquary, mostly with undead. Through divinations, they knew that they were looking for a place called the Temple of the Half-Born. When they found it they discovered a terrible demon that could take a small tissue sample from a creature and give birth to copies of that creature. Luckily, they avoided being copied themselves, but still had to deal with other half-born progeny. Once that demon was destroyed, they discovered rooms of hundreds of black gems, each holding a captive soul. Destroying all of them, they freed not only Andach's trapped soul, but those of many others.

They fled the Dark Reliquary, their mission accomplished -- but it wasn't. Aliya had another goal as well. Ever since she was young, Aliya had possessed a strange affinity for mirrors. She could see things in them that were being reflected in completely different mirrors in places many miles away. Occasionally, she saw a young girl who looked a lot like her, but she was trapped -- held by a marilith named Drusii in the Dark Reliquary.

So the group did not rest after their success, but instead went back again. This time, they entered via the secret cliffside passage that they had once used to escape. They encountered Drusii, but used magic to force her away. After even more horrific battles, they found the girl, Calista. They also found a deva named Falstef who had been imprisoned there for decades, his wings ripped from him. They freed both and sought a way out. Just as they thought escape was close, they found themselves surrounded by demons. They said that their master, Raguel, wished to speak with the heroes. Raguel's lover, Lilith (the only creature Drusii answered to), was present and seethed with anger -- she wanted the heroes dead for their attacks. (She also did not want them to leave with Calista, who was an important key to the whole situation, but that comes later...)

They were brought before Raguel and left alone with him. Much to their surprise, Raguel was not a demon, but an angel. He explained that when the masters of Hell itself were trapped, he was put in charge of the netherworld by his parents, two of the Elder Gods. As new powers, such as Demogorgon and Orcus, rose to power over the next twenty thousand years, Raguel began to lose faith in his own position. However, all attempts to contact his parents failed. The Elder Gods were gone. So he and the Fallen -- demons that still served him -- came to the world to see if they could learn what was going on. Now, some of them, encouraged by Lilith, wanted to ally with the forces that sought to wake the Galchutt and bring upon the "Night of Dissolution." Raguel was unsure.

He told the heroes that he knew they planned to visit the Seven Jewels of Parnaith. He gave them a small silver orb that floated in the air. If they would agree to take it with them, they could all leave. Raguel said that if they found what he thought they would find in the Jewels, it would help him make his decision -- a choice to uphold peace for the innocent people of Ptolus, rather than allow a horde of demons to sweep into town.

They took the orb with grave reservations and, together with Calista and Falstef, they walked out of the Dark Reliquary. Nothing stood in their way.

Dark Elves and Chaositech

From left: Tellian, Vexander, Gaerioth, and Sercian

Meanwhile, the Company of the Black Lantern, deep under the city, encountered another bastion of the dark elves, a tower held aloft high by webs above the floor in a riftlike cavern. They battled with a number of dark elves, as well as the bebilith who'd made the webs. They captured the tower eventually and learned that the fortress of Ul-Drakkan lay just ahead in their path. They positioned their mercenaries in the cavern while the company moved ahead.
Before reaching Ul-Drakkan, they encountered a dark elf from an opposing house who wanted to help them attack House Vrama. He told them about an agent within that they could contact for aid, once inside.

Ul-Drakkan consisted of three towers carved out of natural columns in a gargantuan cave. The path in was guarded by a number of bugbears and a fire giant, who repelled them. They retreated and took a different tack. Serai made himself look like a dark elf and entered surreptitiously. Once inside, he found the contact they heard about and obtained a special tuning-fork-like object that the spy said would allow one to teleport in safely. A teleport key. Otherwise, entering Ul-Drakkan via teleportation was impossible.

But Serai's scouting mission took too long. The others assumed he was in trouble and attempted to teleport in to help. Their spell rerouted into a pit, its bottom wrapped in an antimagic field. Serai learned what had happened and reached them to help. Reunited, the company began their assault on Ul-Drakkan from the inside.

Although many battles with dark elves followed, the largest took place on a bridge that joined two of the towers of Ul-Drakkan more than 100 feet above the cave floor. They learned two important things then -- first, the dark elves had demonic allies. (One, in fact, was a foul-mouthed succubus whom the other group had encountered in the Dark Reliquary. And the Company of the Black Lantern would encounter her again, as well -- but again, I'm getting ahead of myself.) Second, the dark elves had recently obtained a vast amount of chaositech from the kython, but not as allies: They stole it. One of the demons, a massive glabrezu, was there to help them understand how to use it. But he -- like many of their demon allies -- was actually more spy than ally. When the Company reached the dark elves' main trove of gray liquid chaositech power containers, they also found a huge chaositech construct (deactivated). The glabrezu, in human guise, appeared and offered to teach them how to use it. They didn't trust him of course, and quickly learned his true nature.

Serai and his new (and only?) friend

Serai, however, got the demon to tell him how to command the construct. He then told the Company how to make the liquid power cubes explode (something he learned the hard way in Mahdoth's Asylum) in order to destroy the tower.

And then Serai teleported away with the construct.

Eventually, of course, the dark elves were able to mobilize and react to the Company's attack. The Company found themselves trapped at the top of one of the towers in a room full of chaositech and a demon, a veritable dark elf army on the way up, with only the ability to teleport half the group away.

It was Tellian the cleric who made the decisive move. He told Vexander the sorcerer to teleport away with their monk friend, Gaerioth, then made a deal with the demon to get himself and Serai's twin, Sercian, safely away. The demon said he would name his price later, and Tellian agreed. The demon happily gave Sercian, a budding sorcerer, two teleport scrolls and vanished. The two elves teleported away (Sercian failed with the first scroll, so both really were needed) just as the power cubes exploded in a burst of pure chaos energy, destroying the entire tower and slaying a horde of dark elves.

They were all safe. But now the Company of the Black Lantern hated Serai for what they took as a betrayal. They returned the next day (via teleportation) to their mercenaries' camp and marched with them back up to the surface. They had dealt House Vrama the blow they had come to deliver.

Next: Ptolus noble houses get involved.

Back to Ptolus Archive Page / Back to Monte's Home Page