Squares on Cubes, Parts 2-5: Campaign Diary

Makrete Ironskull took the heroes to the central keep of Istvarhan, through crowds of orcs readying themselves for war. In the void above their heads, the Blue Cube passed silently by. An unusual omen. Once inside the keep, Makrete offered them food and drink and asked their business in Acheron. Sensing honesty in the trio, Makrete shared a secret with them: the imminent battle was all a smokescreen. Makrete needed to send scouts into the surrounding area to monitor the incursion of the monsters that 12-Bar had seen earlier. Makrete’s theory was that they were looking for a local roving portal to Ocanthus, the fourth layer of Acheron. The ice shards there are said to be the terminus of the River Styx – the shards containing all the memories ever lost to the river.

And with that, Makrete left. Stratagems don’t forge themselves after all. The heroes’ offers of help were rebuffed, and they were left in the hands of the Grand Headsman, Moragrek. Moragrek had been ordered to return the heroes to the portal they’d come through, but she duly ignored those orders. She told them instead that they were to be her personal bodyguards for exactly three days. A soothsayer (very recently deceased, so tragic) had prophesied that Moragrek would be betrayed by one of her own within three days of the Blue Cube passing overhead. In return for her survival, Moragrek would grant a handsome reward, in addition to safe passage home. Refusal was discouraged.

*             *             *             *

Okay, I have fallen behind on this blog due to Christmas relaxing and other pursuits, so I am going to condense the events of the next few sessions.

Charged with protecting Moragrek in battle, the players decided to rustle a pair of rust dragons from a den of Achaierai, colossal flightless pelicans with atrophied wings and too many legs. There was a very tense fight which culminated in M’narr teleporting onto one rust dragon’s back. The plan had been to learn the Song of the Achaierai, a melody said to charm the rust dragons. But M’narr had a streak of insanely high dice rolling, and so he was able to just tame one by force. The other dragon was likewise tamed, and the three planewalkers and Moragrek flew towards the field. 12-Bar executed a defenceless goblin to get some health back.

Soaring over the battle, firing spells and aiming rust dragon breath, the party landed behind the enemy’s rearguard and began a frenzied fight to destroy as many siege weapons as they could. M’narr was knocked from his dragon mount when another, smaller cube flew out of the void and smashed into the battlefield. Ragados very nearly died at the hands of a Hobgoblin Lieutenant, saved at the last moment by 12-Bar pulling an crumpled old spell scroll from his pack. Ragados then executed a defenceless slave to get some health back. One rust dragon fell to missile fire, and Moragrek lost her hand in the fray. The day was eventually won by the heroes, but there is no glory in victory in Acheron; only the slow march to the next battle. M’narr was feeling pretty chipper though!

Heading back to Istvarhan, the second day of guard duty passed uneventfully. With Moragrek growing increasingly distant and paranoid however, a coup was attempted before dawn on the third day, led by the Marshal of the Watch. The Marshal had a grisly ally –Moragrek’s severed hand, reanimated by dark magic. But the coup failed, and Moragrek survived, getting her mojo back with unsettling speed. Laden down with loot, the heroes were escorted back to Yggdrasil.

It was a relief to be back on the relative safety of the World Ash. But even there, all was not as it seemed. The party got lost on the way back to Crux (“Wait a minute, how did this happen? We’re smarter than this!”), somehow finding themselves looping back to the beetle hatchery. Tired and a little frustrated, they found a secluded spot and M’narr cast Leomund’s Tiny Hut. But from inside the hut, all the vegetation outside the dome suddenly vanished. On the edge of the darkness, within the grey mounds of the hatchery, 12-Bar could just about make out a masked face. The same evil, pitiless face of the monster he had seen with Renik on Acheron!

 

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