Session 8

The party departs with the mayor's hearty thanks from the town, now free of the scourge of the goatmen from the nearby hills. They return to the place that the portal originally deposited them at to discover it is still open and, without any further business in this country, they pile on through and arrive...

Not back at the sewers under Shieldbridge, but upon a thin strip of some sort of alien moonrock floating in a featureless void. Before them stands a figure with a peculiar shape, draped in a white robe. Aramil greets the figure and asks it where they could be. Alvalor and Keg guess that they've traveled to a new plane and the figure tells them, cryptically, that they have arrived at a place that many gods have spent entire existences trying to reach.

The figure invites them to follow it, and the party does so reluctantly, noticing as it walks that where this stranger's feet ought to be are insectile appendages. They pass through a gate and inexplicably find themselves in a chamber constructed of a material that is something like bone but also reminiscent of metal and not entirely of either species. They discover quickly that the room's gravity is at the very center of the space and that they are free to walk along its walls.

The party poses to the robed stranger a series of questions about their current location and the intent behind their presence here. It responds vaguely and ominously; it informs the party that it cannot describe itself to them in any language that they would be able to comprehend. The robed stranger tells them that they are both outside of and within the very essence of all of existence. The door to oblivion is being unlocked. There is still time enough, in terms understandable to the party, to prevent it from being thrown open. Fate has assigned them this duty and bound them together with a silver thread. Guidance will be spare, but they will know what the time comes to take action.

With that, the party decides the time has come to return to the world they know. The chamber begins to fill with a silver fog. When their vision is completely obscured, each member of the party finds themselves wandering in an infinite and empty white void for an indeterminate time.

And then they all wake up in the sewer and agree to keep their interportal experience quiet for the time being. They march on into the sewers and, thanks to Aramil's keen ear and unerring sense of direction, they locate the chamber in which the serial killer Pratt has taken up camp. When they confront the killer, they realize that he was driven to madness by witnessing a bale and vile ritual and he explains the crime at Whitelake; a Man With Stars Behind His Eyes forced him to help him gain access to the temple and the priest's chambers. When they arrived there, the Man With Stars Behind His Eyes slew the high priest and butchered his body in a ritual to call forth a demon. The silver needles in the tongue prevented the demon from lying, the iron circle bound it to that space and the heart gave him the power compel the demon to answer.

The party asks the killer for more information about what he witnessed. The killer tells them that the demon the Man With Stars Behind His Eyes called forth was named Zenithro and that he took on the shape of a shadowy fire. They conversed in a tongue that Pratt could not understand, but the Man With Stars Behind His Eyes told him that the end of the world had begun.

With that, the killer rises to his feet and walks out of the cave onto the beach where he is promptly arrested by a squadron of Bronzeclaws. The soldiers thank the party for their help and promise that they can take care of the perpetrator from here.

The party decides to go check in with the mayor of Shieldbridge and see if there is any work they could possibly take care of - in return for compensation, of course. They arrive at the mayor's office in the heights of the town and enter, only to be met in the first chamber of the building by a man at a desk. When they explain that they are heroes of the city and that they stopped a serial killer's rampage, the man only asks if they have an appointment. Before the party can answer, a woman enters from a side hall and chastises poor old Thomas for his insolence. The woman - Lady Mayor Saro Uhoya - invites the party into her office. She thanks them for their work in delivering justice and providing the good folk of her city with the security they deserve. She tells the party that if they're looking for work, they should go see her friend, Rulari Zurn, in the Kingsreach neighborhood of Stoneport, and provides them with a sealed letter of introduction.

Upon riding back to Stoneport and arriving at her estate, the party discovers that Rulari Zurn is a madame of a brothel. Nonetheless, they secure an appointment with her and she asks them to help her with a job. In case they haven't already heard, the prince is getting married soon. She wants to provide them with a gift and take care of the entertainment - not like that, you pervert!

Rulari Zurn is interested in hiring the most famous troupe of acrobats who ever performed to come (not like that, you pervert!) and put their act on at the prince's wedding. The only problem is that they've left Valinor and sailed across the sea to the North Country. She offers to pay each of them a fee of four hundred gold and gives them a piece of fine jewelry to present to the leader of the troupe when they encounter him. Rulari explains that the ring used to belong to her mentor, Icano Vos, but that she bought it from him when he was forced to sell it and that it should serve as a symbol of her importance. At Bharash's suggestions, she also drafts up a letter of engagement to bring with them. Much to the delight of Keg and Aramil, Rulari offers to each member of the party 'one ride around the block on any of the horses in the stable' (Alvalor and Bharash are happy to refrain from the service).

The party rises the next morning and hurries to the port to the catch their boat. Seven days later, they arrive in the evening at Copperleigh - the largest city in the North Country. If you can call it a city; with a population of only three thousand, Copperleigh is smaller than most of the minor towns in Valinor.

Kegburn leads the way and rides out to his home town of Clapperton, a village a short day's ride away. When they arrive, the party meets Keg's cousin, Sodan Forgehands, who takes the party out for a cup of wine at the local tavern. Sodan, like Keg, was born into a rather embarrassing lifestyle, in Dwarven terms. He spends his days working the fields, fixing things around the village and running other odd-jobs. Sodan doesn't even know the way to the old family keep.

Sodan makes the party an introduction to the barkeep, who tells them about the acrobat troupe. He has actually been renting his family lodge to them for a few months. The barkeep says that he's had no suspicions about them and no cause for concern - the rent comes in on time and no one's made any complaints. He gives them directions to the lodge and they ride out. A few hours before midnight, they arrive at the edge of a woods that thickens as it climbs up the foothills toward the mountaints. Further up the path, the lights of the lodge pierce the darkeness of the hoary, northern night.

As the party draws closer, they hear the sounds of merriment from within the building - music, laughter, singing and cheerful conversation. When they arrive at the door, the party is invited inside to join the acrobats in their revelry. Aramil joins the musicians and plays his dulcimer so well that even these professionals are impressed with his talent. Garret tries his hand at juggling but discovers he doesn't have the knack for it.

After a few hours of relaxing and enjoying the company of the acrobats, the party decides it's time to talk business. Bharash has been swapping stories of life on the road with a few of the acrobats and broaches the subject of Rulari Zurn's contract and a possible return to Valinor for a performance. The acrobats become quiet and the atmosphere turns suddenly sour. Some of the acrobats, including their troupe leader, had taken a short camping trip earlier in the week and while they were out in the woods, they were attacked in the middle of the night. All of the acrobats fled in the chaos - fortunately, none of them were hurt but their troupe leader never made it back to the lodge.

The party has some of the acrobats lead them to the place where they were attacked in the night. They admit that they didn't get a good look at what kinds of creatures they were, but they think that the attackers were some kinds of humanoids. Aramil, indeed, is able to pick up the tracks of several two-legged and roughly humanoid creatures, but he also notices that they must have strange gaits and their feet are unusually wide and they have crooked toes. The tracks lead finally to a large burrow in the roots of a big tree and the party wastes no time crawling in.

After a claustrophobic ten minutes of crawling sightlessly through a narrow tunnel (and a harrowing few seconds where Bharash seemed to have gotten permanently stuck), the party crawls out into a cavern. Around the corner, a squad of five molemen squat around a little fire roasting a giant rat. The party makes short work of them and wander down one of the other cavern halls into a large chamber where a (literal) sleeping giant sits on a huge stone chair.

The party throws together a quick plan and go in for the attack. Keg opens up by hurling a ball of elemental fire at the giant and rousing him from his slumber. The giant hurls a boulder at Keg but misses, allowing Keg  to retreat from the chamber and draw the giant toward him to the door where Bharash and Aramil spring out from behind the stalagmites they were hiding behind and lay into the giant, dealing him heavy damage. The giant swings his club about, smashing at the stone floor as Bharash and Aramil dance away from his attacks. Finally, the giant catches Bharash and knocks him into the wall. Before he can deliver the killing blow, Alvalor abandons his position waiting in reserve to provide healing and strikes the giant soundly with his mace, knocking it to a knee. Bharash scrambles back to his feet, thrusting his greatsword straight into the giant's heart as he rises.

Before they can celebrate their victory, the party is struck from behind by a burst of glacial air and sharp crystals of rime. They turn and find themselves the new targets of a pair of large, winterwhite wolves with piercing, lightning blue eyes. One of the wolves quickly knocks Aramil onto his back and delivers an injury to Keg while the second bounds past them toward Alvalor and Bharash. Alvalor delivers a blow squarely to the white wolf's face and it tips over, dead. Bharash and Alvalor bound over to their beleaguered companions and enter into combat with the other white wolf. Alvalor kicks it in the shoulder to draw its attention. As it turns its evil gaze away from the panicked dwarven wizard guarding his unconscious elven companion, Bharash chops down on its neck with his sword and nearly severs its head. The wolf, with a look of surprise furrowed into its brow, speaks in the Common tongue, it's confused, dying words, "I don't understand".

The party grabs Aramil's body and makes a quick retreat back to the tunnel out of the cavern and up to the surface.