User:Lhynard/Projects/Imago Deorum/Campaign outline/Summary 4

Dates
Ches 21 – Tarsakh 1, 1372 DR

Summary
They find the village in ruins, and find evidence of Calishite weapons, though Mythlos claims it had been a Tethyrian baron who had attacked them. They travel to the town of Stonethrow, which is in the barony that used to belong to Gargon. They gather information from the locals. Some of them have worked for Gargon in the past in the job of arresting "terrorists" and "traitors against the queen". Hakam catches a lad pickpocketing him, and questions the boy. The boy squats in an old barn, from which he was witness to the kidnapping of a farmer's family by Gargon's men. The boy agrees to take them to the farm. Belvin has another vision again while in trance. Jayce and Mythlos visit Gargon's keep in disguise, offering to find him employees in the town. They are able to observe some of the layout of the keep, and they are impressed by his armor, which is made of dragonhide, which he claims came from a dragon he slew himself. He passes them on to one of his stewards. The steward says he needs a servant to mop the walls, but only after rainstorms. The next night, Belvin calls down rain on the keep. The morning after that, Hakam arrives disguised as a peasant with a mop and bucket. While he mops the walls, he detects magic, detects thoughts, and detects secret doors with his magics. He is thus able to determine a good deal about the layout of the keep, including a hidden door in the northwestern corner of the keep. They interrogate the apparent slave keeper, who recognized Mythlos and Jayce from their time there. (Each of them were blindfolded at the time.) They learn the dungeon below the keep is actually an old dwarven settlement. A ways down the shaft, a bridge crosses over from one side to the other. This bridge is guarded by a shield guardian left by the dwarves. They execute the prisoner and then search for slave cells. The cells are old chambers built by the dwarves. In one, they find several human peasants and also Mythlos' grandfather, Gargantos Moonspinner. While tempted to explore the Dwarven ruins more, they decide to free the prisoners first. They find a tunnel they expect leads to the surface, but they activate a trap that crushes and kills Leokas instantly. The group continues out of the tunnel. When they reach the surface, they find themselves surrounded by Gargon and his guards. Gargon offers them an option to avoid a bloody battle and loss of life on both sides. He requests single combat to the death with Mythlos. If Mythlos wins, all go free, and Mythlos will be the new lord of the keep. If Mythlos looses, Gargantos will also be executed, and the Moonspinner family sword will belong to Gargon. Mythlos accepts. Hakam writes to a druzir of Manshaka to whom Gargon had been sending slave shipments. He also writes to Kyrin Hawkwinter for advice on what to do legally in this situation. Mick stays at the keep, deciding that adventuring was too risky for his tastes. The rest return to Darromar to see if Malick has collected their money yet. On one of the higher floors, they encounter a summoned air mephit, which Malick had called and bound in a summoning circle. They question it and learn that four or five hobgoblins have raided the tower but little else. They break the circle so that the mephit can return to its plane. They also find Malick's weasel familiar, who appears depressed. At the roof of the tower, they find Malick's head impaled on a stick and his body sitting without its head in a chair. There are also two dead hobgoblins, and the wreckage of two animated statues. Allu had come for revenge.
 * Belvin receives a vision from Thard Harr while in trance that involves him following Kamil through a jungle to reach a cliff, from where he could see an island of white.
 * The PCs visit Malick of Darromar a second time. They tell the truth about finding the omlar gem and demand a larger reward, else they will turn him over to the authorities for participating in the slave trade. Malick finally agrees to their terms but requests time to collect the money.
 * In the meantime, Mythlos wants to see if there were any survivors of the battle in which he was captured and sold in to slavery himself. They visit his home of Moonspinner Web, where a solitary green warder remains on defense of the former elven tree village. It puts Mythlos under a spell of confusion, but eventually flees.
 * By magic, they find a secret door in a large tree, which leads them to a hidden underground abode. There they find a survivor, a friend of Mythlos', Faelar Eveningfall. Faelar explains how nearly all the village, including Mythlos' grandfather, were captured and taken by one Baron Gargon. Faelar has remained in hiding since. Mythlos wants to attack the keep, but the others talk him into doing some investigation first.
 * The next morning, the boy takes them to the farm, but they could not learn much. They travel to the next farm over. This farmer believes the other farmer had been "arrested" for not paying his taxes to Baron Gargon, even though Gargon was not permitted to collect taxes anymore since the new queen came to power.
 * A day later, Belvin sends another rain storm at night. During the storm, the entire group manages to put a number of guards on the wall asleep with magic, scales the wall, and enters the keep undetected. They descend to the secret door and find a lift that lowers them down to a dungeon level.
 * Hakam, Mick, and Mythlos descend first. They are in a large underground chamber with a wide shaft and a spiral bath around it. They encounter, fight with, and kill three guards, including a large man with a whip.
 * Gargantos explains his story of why he became a pacifist and granted his moonblade to Mythlos. While defending a village of Tethyr from an attack by goblins, he accidentally decapitated a civilian child, who happened to be the cousin of Baron Gargon. This was why Gargon later targeted them for slavery.
 * Mythlos learns that his sword has only partly accepted him. He still must perform a truly noble deed before it will gain another rune and an additional unique power.
 * On the Fugue Plane, Leokas' spirit is visited by a messenger from the gods. He is told that he is being sent back, because he and his companions have been chosen for a divine task. "Someone on the plane of [ his ] creation is delving in deep magic, which has come to the attention of the gods. They will that this being must be stopped."
 * The PCs mourning turns to joy as Leokas is resurrected before their eyes. He explains the task they have been given.
 * The duel between Gargon and Mythlos occurs. Mythlos begins well, but soon he is overpowered by Gargon and knocked out, dropping his sword. Gargon picks the moonblade up from the ground and is about to behead Mythlos, but the moonblade, having tasted Gargon's blood earlier in the battle, rejects its new owner, and Gargon is burnt to a crisp by spellfire.
 * The men of Gargon's keep swear allegiance to Mythlos as the new lord of the keep.
 * Malick does not answer his door when they visit him. After giving him a few hours, they try to enter through the secret door through which Jayce had entered the day he had been caught and sold into slavery. It was an invisible door out back. Leokas notices fresh hobgoblin tracks out back, before they enter the tower. To pass through the tower, they have solve many puzzles left by Malick, all of which are based on card or board games&mdash;draughts, nine jhasinnar's dance, chess, and Talis. Failing to make the best move on any game set-up resulted in animated statues attacking them. Success opened the way to the spiral staircase to the next higher floor. Along the way, they saw that Malick's house had been ransacked and searched.