Using a first-level Smite:
And just like that the wraith is vanquished! The room falls deadly silent. A quick check of your keys and you find that one of them has vanished! Fizz is able to determine that the portal in the room was activated during the fight, most likely with the stolen key.
Fizz is going to use a charge from the wand of detect magic to search the room right quick, then i guess we should cautiously walk into the next room, knowing that there is someone/something in there that is probably going to want to hurt us.
Nothing is detected other than anything that the party is carrying. As you walk in, the room remains eerily quiet, as if no one was there.
okay, which of y'all is playing with Ventriloquism? I know I heard voices in here
Um, I thought so, too.
Fergus would propose that we search the room very carefully.
Searching the room the party finds absolutely nothing of any interest other than the portals.
Teleportation Portal: This black stone archway is a semicircle 30 feet in diameter and 15 feet high, set against the stone wall of the chamber. Silver crystals are set within the stone in a random pattern. Runes in Common cover it, but their ancient dialect requires a bit of time to decipher. They
identify the arch as an ancient shadar-kai teleportation portal. Though it resembles the portal in the previous room, this archway is inert.
Shadowfell Gate: This white stone archway is a semicircle 30 feet in diameter and 15 feet high. Black crystals are set within the stone in a random pattern. Runes in Common cover it, but their ancient dialect
requires more than a few minutes to decipher. They identify the arch as an ancient shadar-kai portal leading to the Shadowfell. On the left side of both faces of the arch is a circular indentation set within the stone. The key that you possess (as well as the one that is now missing) would seem to fit.
Well, it looks like there's only one way forward, right? Through the gate? Unless somebody can figure out how to make the portal work.
Fergus studies the portal to see if there's anything he can think of to make it active again.
[dice=Teleportation Portal Knowledge (aka "Intelligence check")]d20-1[/dice]
Well, I tried hitting it, kicking it, and yelling at it. None of those seem to work. Anybody else have any ideas?
Okay, doing the brainy thing.
Fizzlebomb can determine that the key will activate the gate. He can also detect that the gate was activated very recently, most likely while you were fighting the undead. The portal is dormant and can not be used at the moment, though Fizz suspects it was likely used for a similar purpose as the first one you had found.
Fergus will use Lay on Hands to heal the remainder of his damage.
Onward, then. Through the portal!
use the key as we understand, and through the portal.
With his arcane knowledge Fizz is able to attune himself to the key and bring the party through the gate. You feel a wrenching sensation as bitter darkness swallows you. Then the light returns, dimmed somehow. As your eyes grow accustomed to the gloom, you find yourself in a chamber that appears to be a strange inversion of the one you just left. The walls, floor, and ceiling here are jet black, and the orientation of the room is reversed so that the door now lies to the west and the second stone arch is on the north wall. What was a rubble fall to the northeast is now a rift where the floor has collapsed in the southwest. Along the walls, globes of gray glass give off a dim light.
Though the chamber is deserted, overturned stools and a burning brazier show that it has been recently occupied.
wow, looks like there was a struggle here....
No noises are detected from anywhere other than the sounds you are making yourselves.
Shall we proceed slowly?
The portal is not active at the moment though you believe that as long as you have the key you could return the way you came.
The party proceeds slowly into the passageway and follows it for some time until it opens up into a chamber. The mouth of the chamber emerges from a rocky hillside. There, an incredible vista opens up.
The land before you is like nothing you’ve ever seen before. A wide plain of gray-green grass and stunted black trees spreads beneath a sky scoured by fast-moving clouds. The sun is bright above but somehow doesn’t cut the darkness that drapes every rock and every blade of grass in gray gloom. This is the Shadowfell.
From the mouth of the cavern, a wide and well-traveled road runs in a curving line to the north. There, perhaps a quarter-mile away, a military camp spreads. Buildings are scattered here and there, with tents and pavilions spreading between them. Torches and fires burn brightly against the ever-present shadow, and lone trees and tall stands of graygreen grass are whipped by a hissing wind.
Looming above it all, a rise of black rock to the west is rent by a seething volcanic rift. Black-streaked lava courses from it to descend into a narrow channel, and a permanent pall of glowing red-black smoke rises above it. Over this molten flow, a great stone bridge is arched. This wide eastwest road meets the road north from the cavern. North of the bridge, a tall tower stands and a lower building spreads in its shadow.
Do we know anything about the political culture in the shadowfell and can we recognize whose army is to the north and have a general idea of where we are and who could be running this area, so we don't step on the wrong side of this thing
Let's also ask Julia about the camp down below.
Which army is that?
To your dismay, no matter how hard you think of what you know of the Shadowfell nothing of note comes to mind. The only way to determine these types of things might be to get a closer look...
Is it possible to tell, from where we are, a few details about the army? For example:
Does the camp look like an organized army--with flags waving and signs of organization--or more a motley group of mercenaries loosely banded together? Does the soldiers' clothing look uniform or varied? Do there appear to be officers walking around the camp?
Fergus is trying to get a sense whether our group would be obviously seen as outsiders--if this is a organized army--or instead whether the group might be able to pretend that it is another group of mercenaries flocking to the banner.
Fergus can tell that their does seem to be a mercenary feel to the collection, however not entirely. There is an organized element to it but there are definitely outsiders as well. It is conceivable that a group like yours might not be completely out of place.
Okay. I guess we'll follow the gnome, then. Walk down toward the camps and try to blend in as mercenaries while trying not to look conspicuous.
Deciding to walk cautiously toward the camps, the party tries to keep quiet and out of sight as best that they can. As they get closer a voice rings out and two dark creeper sentries suddenly appear where the shadows of the tall grass had hidden them. Angrily one of them shouts, All mercenaries stay within the borders of the camps! The other one then pipes up and yells, Next time you go wandering, you get shot, sellswords!
Fergus tries to put on a duly-chastened-but-not-too-much-since-we're-vicious-mercenaries look.
Then we make our way into the camp, if possible, and start trying to make discrete inquiries (as much as possible) about the camp, the army, the army's destination and purpose, the leaders, etc...
Fergus smartly leads the party through the camps around the tower. He also correctly figures that you have the opportunity to interact with mercenaries and war chiefs, slaves and slave-traders, forge workers, merchants, and more. What information will you discover? Can it help you find a way around without attracting hostile attention?
Arcana : You use your insight into arcane craft to observe the activities taking place around the foundry.
Persuasion : You act as a confidante to one of the creatures of the camps.
Athletics : You hook up with a mercenary unit for martial training, keeping your ears open for information.
Intimidation : You single out weaker characters for coercion and questioning.
Investigation : You seek out rumors in the mess halls and tent taverns that spread around the tower.
You can also try to use Deception in order to gain a bonus to a skill check that you are about to make for Arcana, Persuasion and Intimidate.
Fizz will wander to the far east (3) south of (6)
Fergus will go to the mercenary unit for martial training, in the same general area as Fizz. (3) or (4) on the far east just south of (6).
Fizz hears the following rumor about Sarshan. Sarshan is shadar-kai, an outcast who made a name for himself as the leader of a legendary mercenary band known as the Black Arrow. At their height, the Arrow put so much fear in generals and kings alike that Sarshan would take payment to fight for one group, then take a bigger payment from their foe to stand down.
Fergus also hears some gossip about the shader-kai. It used to be that Sarshan brokered mercenaries mostly within the Shadowfell, but that’s changing. Dark ones and shadar-kai are still his elite troops, but more and more, he brings creatures from the world to Umbraforge for training, then marches them off to places unknown.
around the market tents (area 6)
Also using Athletics, but elsewhere near the forges (#8):
Both the monk and the cleric are able to find out something as well.
Yeah, this is Umbraforge, dominion of Sarshan, a trader of great reputation and even greater wealth. The tower, foundry, and forges are his. The camps are those of the mercenaries and slaves whose services he sells across the Shadowfell and the world.
Modra? Yep, he is known well in Umbraforge, but for all the wrong reasons now. He was one of Sarshan’s trusted lieutenants before he tried to a broker a weapons deal that Sarshan had already turned down.
Haldor, to use Athletics you'll have to be near the training grounds or mercenary camps. Which would you rather be at?
Fergus somehow ends up talking to a shader-kai woman calling herself Leena. The shadar-kai witch wears a black cloak edged with adamantine beads, and she keeps her long hair plaited to hang down her back. Gold piercings line her ears and lower lip, and a black starburst tattoo encloses her right eye.
Sarshan’s mercenary operations have tripled in size in months past, but it’s not the Shadowfell they’re fighting in. When his forces are bought and sent on the march, they’re bound for portals to the world. Shadar-kai, dark ones, undead, giants, ogres, trolls, gnolls, orcs, you name it. Sarshan has the armies of two planes on the march. War is brewing in the world, but the forces that will fight it are moving into position in the Shadowfell, unseen.
Haldor will check out the foundry:
Haldor goes to check out the foundry and ends up discussing his findings with others nearby. The foundry is the new jewel of Sarshan’s operations. Its power comes from the fire and shadow driving its furnaces. Sarshan’s sages create beasts of battle there, born killers with magic in their blood.
Apparently, Fizz is a most imposing figure
Fizz is laughed away by those that see the feeble attempt of the gnome to garner information by strong-armed tactics.
Feeling the rebuffing of his intimidation attempt, Fizz will move to the Foundry and attempt to use his skills there.
Fizz is successful in overhearing this tidbit of information from a conversation being held at the Foundry that he happened to get in on after sharing bits of arcane knowledge.
You do realize that The Shadowfell is only a stopping-off place for Sarshan’s mercenaries. A force of archons from the Elemental Chaos was here not six months ago. I saw githzerai from the Astral Sea in Umbraforge once. I don’t know what job they took for Sarshan, but woe be to whoever got in their way.