September 5, 2018 Session

Highlights

Following a dream in which Corliss finds himself speaking sylvan with an unknown entity, he feels compelled to travel to Shadowcrag.

Their university contact Yancey Figbottom gives some instructions, both Corliss follows his instincts and they find Shadowcrag, a huge ravine torn open by a powerful spell cast by an elven captain in the last days of the wars between the elves and the orcs. A small fort at the edge of the ravine holds two Polonian guards that are quickly dispatched. The tell the party that Polonians had travelled into the city below just two days before, taking with them a captured priest of Amaunator. At the bottom of the ravine lies the remains of the elven city of Kithkaira.

The party crosses a rickety, rope bridge with fragile wooden steps. As they cross, a wyvern attacks. Yornan almost falls from the bridge and is saved by a rope tangled around his leg. Rhagal shoots the wyvern with his magic arrows. Finally, the party kills the wyvern as a wounded Corliss barely makes it to safety.

Crossing to the city, the party first stands in a well-preserved stone courtyard. The other portions of the city are ruined, but a single large palace or template stands before them, covered by a large green dome. The party can barely see through it. The bleached bones and rusty remains of an orc army are everywhere, scattered across the courtyard and the bottom of the ravine.

The green dome appears impenetrable. The party learns that the green dome can be breached only in the immediate presence of Yornan’s holy symbol of his god. They walk through and find the interior of the dome very different. Here’s the orcish bodies are still fresh and have not yet begun to decay. A few more steps into the palace and they find the freshly murdered body of a priest of Amaunator.

Just a few more steps inside the green dome and the party is attacked by an earth elemental that they manage to dispatch.

Deeper into the palace the party enters an ornate room filled with paintings and frescos of elves armed with spears victorious over their orcs foes. Filling a large portion of the room and the archway into the next room is a red dome, much smaller than the green dome that surrounds the palace, both otherwise seemingly similar.

The party examines the red dome, and instead of being hard and unyielding like the green dome, the surface of the red dome seems soft and gooey. Inside the dome, the party can see multiple Polonians, including a priest. As they examine and touch the dome, it appears to be trying to pull in anyone or anything that contacts it. Party members manage the extricate themselves from its grasp, but Yornan presses his holy symbol into it. The dome grabs hold of Yornan’s arm and only the strength of Hurodash is sufficient to save him from being sucked in. However, Yornan loses grip of his holy symbol, which remains is pulled fully into the red dome and remains suspended in the air, about two feet inside the surface.