Part 4.1: Streets of Blood

 

The party searched for help with freeing Hyacinth from the Dragon Knights, and from Akrazul’s trove of knowledge they received a compass enchanted to point towards the nearest blood prince. Their plan was to track down and capture the remaining blood princes before Xelgol or the Orillees could get to them. Akrazul informed the party that the remains of Talaan the Second make up the Skull of the First, the moon with whom the party and Selrach had briefly interacted. He also let slip that as far as he knows, Tonilm was now the current living heir to the kingdom of Neothorus, or at least what remains of it now that the Plaguelord’s forces have pushed past the warzone of the Great Tree and Brunlight. Most Neothoran towns have been abandoned or consumed by the undead, with survivors flocking to the few fortified cities that remain, or the massive capital city of Centrous. The party left Hyacinth in the care of the Dragon Knights and left to collect the inhabitants of Tychus-Asadar-Brunlight, and, while travelling Oshland, they met an artificer and former student of Hyacinth named Hal.

 

While travelling Oshland in search of survivors, the party went to the city of Falanil, where the second half of Akrazul’s phylactery was kept. None of them, however, were prepared for the state of the city. Falanil, as reports had accurately stated, was abandoned by humans and nearly abandoned by zombies. Looters had robbed the city of most of its value. What the reports had not mentioned, though, was the smell of blood.

 

Every street was covered in blood. As the party got closer to the castle, the blood got thicker and more moist. By the time they entered the (destroyed) front door, the blood was wet, and squished and splashed as they walked. Determined, the party went up the stairs (which were dripping blood) and retrieved the phylactery’s second component. Bartholomew asked to leave, but chrome://dino and Tonilm had begun to suspect what awaited the party upstairs, and Tonilm insisted that the party see it in person.

 

Sure enough, two floors up, blood was oozing from a secret door that chrome://dino would have remembered even if its camouflage was still intact. The party opened it and squeezed up the thin staircase.

 

There, in the center of the small room on a cushioned plinth, was a headless body, bound to its resting place by a giant glowing skewer and pumping blood out of its neck with every heartbeat. The stained-glass windows of the room had been shattered outward into the city, and the blood that pooled on the floor of the room spilled out over their panes, flowing down the side of the castle and into the town below. The carnivorous plants overgrowing the room, feasting endlessly on the regenerating corpse, moved to attack the party and they made a speedy retreat. They had seen enough.

 

Part 4.2: Vale

 

The party regrouped with the Tychus-Asadar-Brunlightners and led them to seek asylum at Centrous. On the way they were given a wide berth by the Plaguelord’s forces, and during the first night of the trip V received a vision from an unknown third party requesting they be Dapped Up.

 

Arriving at Centrous, the party was greeted by the city guard, some of whom were familiar to them from their last visit. Under questioning, the guards told the party that Kelapan had returned, was accepting refugees from across Neothorus, and had given descriptions of most of the blood princes to the guards, who were to be arrested if sighted. The party was granted audience with Kelapan, who had moved his operations from his mansion to the keep in the center of the city. Unsurprisingly, Vale welcomed them to his city from atop the throne the party had recently learned rightly belonged to Tonilm.

 

Vale was confident that chrome://dino and Vasher would not allow the party to kill him, and talked down the rest of the party with a rather believable speech about how he was not working for the plaguelord, was doing the right thing by running the city under the guise of Kelapan, and did not see the party as his enemies. During the infighting about what to do with him, Vale teleported out of the room. The Neothoran guard deferred to Vasher and Tonilm, but were concerned that with Kelapan gone, the Plaguelord would soon march on the city. Stis left to track down Vale before he could flee the city, but returned injured and empty-handed. The Party struck out to rescue bronze://dino and potentially secure the entrance to Ritonar from the Orillee encampment near the God’s Eye.

 

Part 4.3: bronze://dino

 

The party teleported to Acrazul’s Teleportation Circle and used the Mountains to reach the Orillee encampment at the God’s Eye. The Orillees were watching for them and retreated into the material plane, taking bronze://dino with them and leaving automaton guards behind to slow the party down. The party dispatched of the robots and exited to the material plane into the basement of an Orillee hideout, which was then brought down on their heads. Through a series of very high strength rolls from chrome://dino and Vasher, the party escaped, taking Ritonar with them, and began tracking the Orillees and bronze://dino through Waterdeep, using a couple Fly spells to find them outside the city walls, but arriving too late to stop the Orillee sorcerer from killing bronze://dino and vaporizing his companions and the surrounding area in the resulting fireball.

 

By the time the party arrived, both the Orillee sorcerer and bronze://dino were in their final moments. V used magic to keep the gorgon alive for long enough for chrome://dino to say a final goodbye. When the beast passed, chrome://dino collected several of its pieces, by which to remember it. The Orillee mage said Vale assured him the party would not kill someone merely following his orders, and chrome://dino executed him. The party discovered the orders from Vale on his corpse to take bronze://dino and lure the party into the material plane to let him and the remaining Orillee members in Ritonar abuse the accelerated time inside to relocate. V dug a hole in the ground and sealed the party in to try to hide from the Orillees, and the party returned to Ritonar.

 

Part 4.4: Machina Demonium

 

V teleported the party to the Dragon Knights, and Akrazul warned the party that Vale had attempted to recapture Hyacinth by impersonating V while they were away. The party decided to attempt to get help from the inhabitants of the Foundry of Rage and Machina Demonium in freeing her, and left through the Mountains to Ritonar. The Foundry was still abandoned, and while searching the building, Stis was the first to find the clock-activated teleporter room to the hidden airborne Machina Demonium, and was promptly captured by the azer guards for questioning. Eventually the party followed and Hal was recognized by some of the resident azers from his time working under Hyacinth. While the party was speaking to the guards, Stis transformed into Vale, and ran deeper into Machina Demonium when the guards opened the interrogation room to collect him. The guards headed to secure the bridge, and the party searched the floors one by one for the bard. At the top of Machina Demonium, the personal quarters of Hyacinth and the hangar for the Forge of Souls, the party cornered Stis inside the Forge.

 

V and Vasher entered to try and talk it out, and Haren summoned some pixies to cast polymorph on himself, chrome://dino, and Hal. Stis turned down the diplomatic option, and teleported away from V and Vasher into the jaws of three tyrannosauruses rex. In a matter of seconds, Stis was killed, and while Hal could Revivify the recently deceased, he was a dinosaur for another 59 minutes after his window had closed. V and the azers held an impromptu funeral and cremation for V’s fallen student, and V kept the bones. The party recovered Hyacinth from Akrazul and brought her back to Machina Demonium, and through their knowledge of the magics and sciences (and no small amount of brute force) the blood prince was freed from her magical prison.

 

The party decided to finish their fight with Vormian before starting on a second front against Xelgol, the Orillees, and Vale. Killing Vormian would put him into the custody of Xelgol, but at least he would be out of the picture. Hyacinth brought the party to Neothorus, and promised to aid the party in their fight with Vormian if the party could neutralize Spencer and his anti-magic field. The Centrous guards surrendered the city to Tonilm, claiming it was Vale’s orders once he had been chased out of the city, and also informed the party the reason Vale had taken command and been so welcoming to refugees was so he could more easily keep an eye on a large portion of Ritonar’s population from one place. The party, Hyacinth, and the last remaining trained soldiers of most of Neothorus and Oshland began their plan to finally bring down the Plaguelord.

 

Part 4.5: The Plague Lord’s Mansion

 

While Vormian had a significant advantage in numbers, he had spread his forces too thin attacking the towns and cities throughout Neothorus. Abusing teleportation spells and the humble Mold Earth cantrip (and through V’s taking on a new apprentice, Stefan, a wizard from Oshland studying magic to help his people and avenge his fallen king) the party got a modest fighting force behind enemy lines and began their assault on the Plagelord’s Mansion. chrome://dino split from the party, found a back entrance, and tracked Vormian to his throne room on his own. Meanwhile, a subgroup of the party flew to the roof and the small army broke a hole in the Plaguelord’s forces big enough for the main group of the party to get to the front door of the mansion, where they were confronted with Spencer and his honor guard. Haren summoned several pixies, polymorphed Spencer and his team into rabbits, and, in the chaos of battle, lost track of them.

 

Vormian had a row of drinks prepared when chrome://dino arrived to betray him. Some few of the drinks, he explained, were poisoned, but most were not. On the table were a stack of clues as to which were which. chrome://dino could look at the clues, but for each clue he checked, he would have to drink one of the glasses, and Vormian would drink another. chrome://dino accepted the terms, and the duel began. As the two poison-immune paladins drank, chrome://dino asked Vormian if he knew the location of Vale. Vormian denied knowing anything about the bard. Eventually, after the duo watched through reinforced windows as the battle downstairs began to result in party victory, Vormian cast Hold Person on chrome://dino and escaped.

 

Vormian retreated into a series of secret passages under the mansion, leaving chrome://dino paralyzed and alone. With Spencer out of the way, Hyacinth joined the party in searching the Mansion, and the party found the underground tunnels shortly after. Underground, the party found a series of ritual sites and laboratories clearly used to make the powerful creatures in the Plague Lord’s army. Several abominations of engineering and necromancy blocked their path. One of them was Myrian.

 

Hyacinth helped with freeing Myrian from Vormian’s control, and the party arrived at the lowest point of the catacombs, finding the Plaguelord at the center of a massive ritual circle built hanging off the underside of Neothorus. Vormian welcomed the party to their final confrontation, reclaimed control over Myrian, and finished casting Foresight. The party was no match for such a powerful wizard until Hyacinth stepped in to even the odds, revealing that she, too, is a cyborg construct.

 

Hyacinth did her best to occupy Vormian in melee while the rest of the party recovered Myrian and attacked (mostly) from a distance. Vormian still knocked out most of the party, and was on the cusp of finishing off Hyacinth before chrome://dino found his way to the party and landed the killing blow with his first attack. The ritual circle on which the fight took place activated, and chrome://dino comes back to consciousness with the Plaguelord’s consciousness trapped in his mind, safe from reincarnation in Xelgol’s custody. Vormian grumbled that he would have preferred Tonilm, but this outcome was acceptable. The party recovered from the fight and collected Vormian’s belongings. As they looted, Haren attempted to steal the Plague Lord’s personal spellbook, but activated a trap, and was ejected out of the bottom of the world.

 

The party collected their forces and returned triumphant to Centrous, beginning their quests to liberate Neothorus from warlords and the remaining forces of Spencer and Vormian, track down Vale and the Orillees, decipher the Plaguelord’s grimoire (he refuses to be of any help), and unite all people of Ritonar under the banner of Tonilm Greencrest.