WB2, Session 21, The Battle of the Sun Palace

Session 21: "The Battle of the Sun Palace"
Wednesday 23st, April 1001AC
(destiny token 1)

After a week off due to Easter festivities, the party is back and kicking!

Companions

Urist, dwarven cleric of Kagyar (level 3)
Danik, human scholar mage (level 3)
Rurik, dwarven fighter (level 3)
Serrin, human bounty hunter (level 3)
Zao-rin, human monk (level 3), keeping watch at camp

Lost companions

Grom, half-orc druid, went missing during dragon attack.
Adran, gnome bard, fell to his death after being dropped by a Drahie.

And so the words of the fading Shade of Tranur-Kur echoed in the small room as more bizarre forms of whirling black filaments emerged from the walls: "...we were thousands..". As Serrin, Urist and Rurik prepared for more battle, Danik arrived down the stairs, ready for anything, while Zao-rin remained upstairs, making sure the area was safe.

Urist radiant flame made good work on the aberrations that appeared through the walls, but a couple managed to touch Serrin, draining his life force away and weakening him severly. While Urist kept watch for more near the staircase, the rest of the group pushed east through the massive silver doors and soon found what looked like old soldier quarters. There, they quickly searched the place, under the constant lamentations and words of despair of an ever fading shade of Tranur-Kur, who seemed to have lost all will after his entire clan's force was destroyed somehow, despite Urist offering some of his own life force to sustain him for some time.

In the barracks, the companions found:

• Many weapons heads made of silvers for Handaxes, Spears, Javelins, Staves, Urumis and Halberds. While only the heads remained and were overall of crude design, their shaft long rotten away, their silver nature itself made them interesting.
• There were also basic armors (made of some kind of bronze metal) and shields of all sorts (made of silver), including a large Pavise. All would need some work and refitting to use properly.
• Serrin grabbed 15 silver bolt tips as well, suited for future crafting.

Not wanting to waste too much time, they grabbed what they found useful and moved south toward where Urist sensed potential presence of undead or life energy. A glyph that the cleric had found made the group warry for a moment. Danik quickly realized that it was a warding glyph, that was apparently not crafted to ward against their own presence, and they crossed safely.

There, in what seemed to be an old kitchen quarter, they found three spectral Drakkins. Two were soldiers, wielding shields and weapons made of the very life energy that gave their physicality. The last one seemed to be a priest and he was focusing on casting a ritual at the western wall when the battle erupted.

While Urist and Rurik kept the soldiers occupied, with Serrin keeping his distance, shaken by his very weakened condition, Danik rushed onto the Priest itself. A well placed Thunder-Wave exploded and pushed the Drakkin priest through the wall (a secret passage!) and the two went into a brawl, Danik charging fist first. That shook the priest who tried to run through the newly opened corridor, but Danik was hot on it's heels.

Finally, Danik was ready to throw another punch at the spectral drakkin, when he realized he had emerged into a throne room with many other enemies! Alone, he didn't waste any time and turned tail, shouting for retreat at his companions.

They reached the surface soon after, leaving the chasing drakkins and the ominous chanting behind and decided to journey North to Samshira's home as fast as possible. As they reached the forest, they noticed that a cloud of black smoke was rising slowly somewhere South, probably the ruins of the Sun Palace. 

The elf woman was ecstatic to see them return and offered all she could. The party rested there for some time, Serrin slowly feeling his body strong once again but Urist, who needed very little rest, noticed that the cloud was now no more than two miles south of them and seemed to be filling up the cavern south of the them from the ground to the ceiling.

Without wasting any time, they traveled back to the Simphiwe village as fast as possible, dragging a near catatonic Samshira behind. Reaching it after only a quick rest on the way, the village itself seemed to be once again as normal could be, with the Simphiwe people doing their daily routine as if nothing happened. This was a sharp contrast with the few animals (and other monsters) they had spotted on the way back, all fleeing north from what they could tell.

Serrin and Rurik rushed to Manelesi's hut with the elf to see to her comfort. There, they spent some time trying to explain to Manelesi that the area was not safe for them and the young woman seemed to understand most of it, even through none could actually say what the black mist would do once it reached the village.

Meanwhile, Danik and Urist proceeded to the old woman's hut, Nozizwe. There, they found the hut empty and decided to search for anything useful, finding:

• Another box made of bone and warped in black leather that contains more pages, quite alike the ones Serrin and Danik had found previously, adding to the researching Spellbook.
• About 5 pounds of silver trinkets.
• 4 Flasks of Silverine.
• Some decorated Barbed Spears and Barbed Nets.

As they were pocketing some of what they had found, a young woman, obviously from the village but wearing the same kind of blue cloak that Nozizwe wore, surprised them and ordered them to leave the hut. As tension mounted, Urist realized the woman was quite afraid, despite trying to appear confident, but Danik jumped into action as he noticed her eyes shifting between human and reptilian (much alike Nozizwe), and patches of her skin darkening like black scales...

The mage then dragged the woman out of the hut, asking questions, knife drawn....