The Cast
Carver, a halfling ranger
Conrad Tombs, a shifter druid
Jaxon, a Cyran fighter
Persephone, a kalashtar soulknife
The Story So Far
998 YK (Year of the Kingdom)
It is the month of Eyre in the Eldeen Reaches and the first signs of spring are breaking through the last of the winter snows. As the plane of ice nears its completion of its five year orbit, the world is growing colder, and if crops are not string this year, then many will starve as Khorvaire’s next winter will the coldest in recent memory.
Six months ago in the Lhazaar Principalities, the soulknife Persephone was summoned before the woman known as Grandmother. She imparted a terrible prophecy of a great evil rising in the Eldeen Reaches that will usher in a new age of darkness. Persephone then embarked on a sea voyage across northern Khorvaire stopping most notably in Thronehold, the neutral island in the heart of Scion’s Sound, where the Kingdom of Galifar once held court and where the Treaty of Thronehold ended the hundred year long Last War two years ago.
Upon meeting an agent of the Path of Light in Merylsward, a port town in the Eldeen, Persephone is told that a young seer in Zilargo singled out Persephone as the one soulknife who must face the Age of Worms. Another seer suggested travelling to Dagger Rock in order to seek out someone named Heofreth.
At the Grain Stones, a circle of seven stones half-a-day’s ride from Dagger Rock, the druid Conrad goes to gather water for his master and fellow student. He makes the tal for Master Heofreth while Braid, another druid, makes breakfast. Heofreth has had a vision and askes Conrad to go to Dagger Rock, get some minor supplies and await a woman named Persephone. She is to be brought to Heofreth.
The evening before, the ranger Carver brought down a buck and is triaging it to town when she notices odd lights at the old observatory. With little time on her hands, she heads to the ferry in the morning and goes into town. She sells the buck to Andovan’s General Store and finds the Sheriff, Sidon Bearclaw in order to mention the lights. The Sheriff had to arrest two Aundarian nobles who came to town to hold a duel and is a bit overtaxed at the moment, but will check out the Old Observatory when he gets to chance.
Conrad finds Persephone and takes her to Heofreth that night. In the morning, Sherrif Bearclaw asks Carver to accompany him out to one of the local Cairns to check out a report. They find the door blown off, possibly from the inside. No tracks are found, so the two head back to speak with the druids.
Meanwhile, the swordswoman Jaxon arrives in town trying to start a new life after the destruction of her homeland, Cyre. She chooses to stay at the Half-Ogre Hostel, but becomes quick friends with Eric and Dana Kyr, two refugees living in the old keep and running a gardening business.
After the dinner hour, Conrad and Persephone arrive at the Grainstones. Heofreth is taciturn and contemplative as the soulknife relates her story. Heofreth releases a pigeon, while Braid tells Conrad that the master has been tense and restless all day. When the bird returns, he orders Conrad to take Persephone back to town as quickly as possible and to find Sidon Bearclaw.
Bearclaw relates the events at the Whispering Cairn, called so because of the strange noises that emit from it. The Cairn was resealed some four years ago during the war, previously explorers from the Wayfarer Foundation had tried to explore it, but went missing and were never found. Conrad gathers a few other hands, Jax and Carver, to accompany them to the Cairn.
Throughout the next morning, the party inquired at local farmer’s homesteads about the Cairn and eventually reached the Cairn. Most striking about the design of the tomb is the symmetrical and geometric quality of it. Cleverly concealed tubes produce the whispering, muttering sounds that ward people away from the area.
After Conrad dealt with two wolves that had taken up residence, speaking with them, but learning little, the group moved deeper into the tomb. They noted a beautiful, if faded, fresco showing glowing lanterns representing the rainbow. After passing through a heavily cobwebbed passage, they entered into what was latter discovered to a false tomb. There were seven short passages radiating out. The party discovered that the sarcophagus could be rotated and in some cases, would cause an effect in conjunction with a lit lantern.
Some turned out to be traps design to crush trespassers, while on passage became a deathtrap by using hypnotic patterns to paralyse the adventurer while growing winds threatened to push them over the edge of a fifty foot fall. The party faced horribly insect swarms and a pair of grotesque floating eyes, connected by raw flesh and nerves.
In the exploration of the tomb, the party explored two secret areas before uncovering the true tomb of the cairn. Before they can access the tomb, the party must first make arrangements with the ghost of a young boy, Alastor Land, who died in this chamber after running away from his home.
The party takes his remains to his families land in order to bury the boy with his family, allowing his soul to find rest. The heroes find the graves robbed of bodies and a wounded owlbear. Conrad speaks with the owlbear finding out that four men killed its mate before fleeing with the corpses. The party finds one of the local Wardens of the Wood, Rhen, who intends to follow up with this problem at the Feral Dog, a nasty inn a day down the road.
The party battles wind warriors to gain access to the final resting place of the annihilated hero, Zosiel. In the true tomb, frescoes are found showing a great war between the Daelkyr and the goblins of the Dhakaani Empire and the Orc druids who eventual barred the evil servants of Chaos. A heroic being, apparently a creature connected with elemental air, dies at the hand of a creature wielding a sphere of annihilation.
After solving the riddle of his identity, the tomb glows blue and reveals a seam in the sarcophagus. Inside, the party finds a silver diadem with an unknown glyph, a pair of black horns with read tips that match the horns of the creature in the fresco and a pewter box covered in constantly mutating glyphs.
Despite their success, the party is uneasy-the floating eyes, called a “lurking strangler,” which area form of aberration used as scouts by some wizards. This compounds with the lights at the observatory and the robbed graves to suggest that a mystery is still unsolved. The party leaves the tomb sealed and the lanterns removed to keep it inactive.
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