Eberron Adventure Journal: The Wrath of Vulkoor

Vult 8 - Vult 9, YK 998

Part One - Arrivals and Departures:
Setting out following the direction of a generally confident Halas Martain, the Wandering Wolves rode their newly acquired warhorses into the Eberron jungles, hoping to reach Stormreach before the Golden Dragon departed for Khorvaire, where the news it carried would almost certainly spark a war.

After traveling about 10 hours, encountering surprisingly little resistance from local beasts, night fell and the weary adventurers decided to make camp. They made sure that Gunter was still bound, gagged and secured before resting, and they left Luggoth to keep watch.

As morning dawned, Luggoth awoke, groggy and uncertain what had happened. He remembered the sound of spellcasting, then silence cutting off his cries of alarm. He remembered pulling out his sword and then falling victim to paralysis as darkness enveloped the campsite. He saw shadowy forms moving through, and one of them took advantage of his paralysis to club him unconscious.

A quick glance at the camp revealed that Halas, Gunter and Tworock were missing. Before he could fully process this information, however, he heard rustling in the bushes nearby. Letting out a roar, he rushed toward the bushes with his sword. This stirred Lysander immediately, although Pel simply muttered in his sleep and rolled over in his bedroll.

Luggoth held his sword when a familiar face emerged from the bushes. Brand, last seen dying of mummy rot, emerged hale and hearty with a new companion, a human in explorer's clothes adorned with spell component pouches and a carved wooden club slung across his back. Luggoth's cries of surprise, and the sound of the reunion, soon woke Pel as well, and the Wandering Wolves had a reunion at the campsite.

Brand introduced his companion as Maechen, a servant of the same dragon that Muroni had followed, and then began spinning the tale of his father's rescue and what he had been doing in Eberron for the month. It was at this point that Lysander and Pel both noticed that they were down a few members. Brand's story would have to wait... there was a mystery afoot.

Luggoth recounted what had happened, and Brand informed them that they were in the territory of the Volentar Clan, drow who worshipped the wrathful aspect of Vulkoor. This was a hint as to what had happened when Luggoth discovered a note in the bedroll of Tworock reading, in scrawled Common, "This area belongs Vulkoor. Your friends go to Vulkoor. You leave or you go to Vulkoor."

Maechen cast a detect magic spell and found no lasting magical auras, but did determine from his experience that the spells were probably Hold Person and Silence, and that they were most likely cast by a cleric. The Wolves searched the area and together determined that all three of the men were taken without a struggle, that there were four in the group of drow, and that the drow had moved throughout the camp quietly and carefully before choosing who to take.

Brand could tell from the prints that two of the drow were carrying Tworock, and one each was carrying the other two men. Brand guessed that they were probably taken as sacrifices to Vulkoor. He theorized that the drow hatred of giants might have informed their decision to take Tworock, although he couldn't guess why they might have taken Gunter and Halas. He offered that the drow often passed without trace, but that they should try and find their trail.

Part Two - A Trail of Gold:
As Brand suspected, there was no trail to be found once the drow got about 20 feet from the campsite. However, Luggoth spotted something in the mud, a gold piece, and picked it up to determine that it had an arrow scratched into it, pointing down the trail. They guessed that Halas must have been dropping the coins to leave a trail.

On horseback, the Wolves and Maechen began following the trail, and found additional gold pieces along the way. About every ten minutes or so, they found a piece of gold. Luggoth realized as they were following the trail that the drow, despite being hidden, had been taking a circuitous route, doubling back on their tracks and making random detours. They were obviously taking no chances about being followed.

After about three hours and 20 gold, the adventurers found their first platinum piece. It would be the last one they found, because about the time they were to reach the next one, they found instead something that had been eating them. A very large, mutated rust monster, which after snapping up the platinum piece on the trail, turned its attention to the metal-laden adventurers in front of it.

The Wolves feared the creature's immense size and rusting abilities, but they were able to put it down fairly quickly. Pel and Maechen unleashed magic missiles from their wand as Luggoth and Lysander peppered it with arrow fire. Pel blasted it with enough magic missiles to blacken its face and destroy one of its eyes, and Luggoth followed up with an arrow into its burned head that put it down for good.

Unfortunately, the rust monster had eaten the rest of their trail, but they were able to follow the large beast's tracks and find where the drow's pass without trace abilities had faded. They could see that the four drow were still traveling, and they still showed all the signs of carrying all three prisoners.

Part Three - Canyon of Darkness:
As the Wolves continued on, they saw that the path lead through a box canyon, twenty feet wide and thirty feet high with considerable jungle cover above that rendered the canyon fairly shadowy and dark. Fearing an ambush, Pel, Lysander and Brand moved stealthily into the canyon. Unfortunately, they didn't know that Ashkala and Teralas, a pair of drow raiders, waited in the tree cover above and had spotted them coming from a ways away. When they entered the canyon, however, Lysander spotted Ashkala in the branches and cried out "drow!" just as they launched their ambush.

Xen'drik boomerangs whistled down out of the trees, impacting Brand and Pel, as Lysander pulled out his bow and fired an arrow into Ashkala's arm. Maechen and Luggoth rushed up to join the group as Brand fired his bow at Ashkala as well, one scratching his cheek and the other landing solidly in his leg. After the arrow impacted, however, a cloud of darkness enveloped the two drow, making it even harder to see them amidst the foliage cover.

As Pel readied his crossbow, the darkness dropped suddenly into the midst of the Wolves, and Brand heard something landing on the jungle floor. Ashkala drank a potion of healing that reduced but didn't eliminate his wounds as Lysander and Brand moved forward out of the darkness, further into the canyon. They emerged just in time to be targeted by Neveress, a drow firebringer who had been invisibly watching from the end of the canyon. She launched a fireball into their midst, blasting Lysander, Brand and Brand's animal companion, Crowley, a viper that dropped nearly dead to the floor of the canyon.

As Pel moved up to cast cure light wounds on Crowley and prevent his death, Luggoth shifted and charged, easily covering the immense amount of ground to slash at Neveress with his sword.

Two more boomerangs came whizzing down into the group, both aimed at Lysander, but only one connected. Lysander was badly wounded, and for some reason a vision of his death entered his mind, as he witnessed another fireball launched into their midst, resulting in his instant fiery demise. He was shaken out of this vision as Pel moved to him and cast cure moderate wounds, and Lysander began singing, inspiring Luggoth's second attack on Neveress, which slashed her apart and dropped her, dying, to the jungle floor. Maechen tried to use a Grease spell to get the drow to fall, but Teralas managed to nimbly leap to another branch, aided by the rope harnesses he and Ashkala were wearing.

Seconds later, however, Teralas and Ashkala dropped to the ground anyway, swinging down on ropes and cutting them free with their drow long knives. Maechen blasted Ashkala with an empowered magic missile, killing him, and the other Wolves quickly surrounded Teralas. He acquitted himself well, fending off attacks from Pel and Brand, but Brand deflected his return attack and threw him off-balance, allowing Lysander to summon his new keen rapier from his glove of storing and stab Teralas all the way through his chest, resulting in a burst of electricity running up and down the drow's frame. Before he could recover from this blow, Maechen rushed up and bashed the drow's skull in with his club.

While searching the drow, Brand found a scorpion on Teralas' body. It tried to sting him and failed, and Brand crushed it. None of the others had anything similar, but they did have some magical armor, potions, an amulet, a ring, a scroll and a wand, as well as masterwork weaponry.

As Lysander and Maechen identified some of the items and Pel placed the rest in the haversack, healing Lysander and Brand further as well, Luggoth climbed the rope into the trees and looked around for other snipers. The creaking branches supported him well enough to look around and he determined that this was the last of the drow in the area.

Part Four - The Survivor and the Demon Farmer
Despite this assurance, the Wolves moved more cautiously from this point, with Brand and Lysander scouting quietly ahead as the rest of the group rode slowly behind them on horseback. Brand found the tracks of the last drow, realizing that the three that had attacked them were part of the same band that had kidnapped their allies and their prisoner. The tracks indicated that the drow was carrying the three prisoners on some sort of stretcher, leading them to guess he or she must be fairly strong, but it also left a very easy trail.

Lysander returned to the rest of the group as Brand scouted ahead, following the trail. As he moved, he heard movement about fifty feet ahead in a group of bushes. He moved quietly, using cover, to get closer to the bushes, and the movement stopped. Brand stopped as well, looking around and casting a spell that gave him blindsense so that he could spot an invisible man, about 10 feet away, trying to sneak past.

"Martain? Is that you?"

"Who's asking?" came the reply.

Brand revealed himself to be one of the Wolves, showing his ring as identification, and Halas Martain became visible. He explained that he had been feigning unconsciousness when they were captured, and that he felt he was outnumbered and didn't want the other hostages to get hurt, so he didn't attack, but he did leave coins. Brand feigned ignorance in the coins, pretending to have tracked the traceless drow, impressing Halas while annoying him at the loss of his money.

Halas offered his own inflated account of what had happened as the two men headed back to rejoin the other Wolves. After the shaman had carried them for a short while, another band of drow, made up of about six drow warriors, met him in the jungle. Two of the warriors and the shaman carried Gunter off in one direction, while two of the other warriors took Tworock in a different direction. The other two warriors were carrying Halas, and he decided to make his move, since they had never bothered to disarm any of the captives, thinking them soundly unconscious.

Halas gave an account of a brave battle in which he was wounded by their scorpion chains (this much was borne out by some fairly nasty looking wounds) but managed to prevail, and Maechen, not yet annoyed by Halas as the rest of the Wolves were, took pity on him and offered him a potion of cure moderate wounds, which he greedily but gratefully drank.

Halas led the Wolves back to the spot where the drow had split, but unfortunately, they had used their pass without trace ability and were basically gone. The Wolves determined that Tworock would want them to prevent the war and resolved to go after Gunter, but they weren't entirely sure how they were going to do that. Then Brand offered that he knew of an informant in the area, about two hours to the south, who would almost certainly know where the secret shrine was. The Wolves resolved to go to this informant.

After about two hours, the group did indeed reach the farm of Hackrazet, a babau demon who had retired from the Demon Wastes to open a farm for eternal rations. His crops were Long Corn and Gurk'ash, flora and fauna used to make the expensive rations. As they arrived, though, the Wolves saw that something was wrong. The corn was trampled and eaten in several spots, and the fence showed signs of being patched several times as well. The Wolves approached the farmhouse of Hackrazet, and he greeted them, as he had met Brand once before and knew his father well.

The Wolves explained their dilemma to Hackrazet, and he offered an exchange. He knew where the shrine was, probably four hours to the north, and he'd offer them directions if they'd agree to do something for him. It seems an old enemy had unleashed a celestial bulette on his crops, and Hackrazet was unable to destroy the beast. In addition to being difficult to deal with thanks to its celestial nature, he worried that if he destroyed it, he might call down some fairly nasty holy wrath upon himself. But if some adventurers were to destroy its corporeal form, sending it back to its celestial home, they would surely not suffer the same consequences. Or at least, not to the same surely fatal extent as Hackrazet would.

With little choice in the matter, the Wolves agreed to Hackrazet's terms. He then produced a scroll of Geas from a magically trapped chest and asked that one of the adventurers' agree to be ensorceled as a sign of good faith. After trying to pawn off Halas, which Hackrazet saw straight through, Brand was given the quest spell. The Wolves were on the clock, now. They had to deal with the drow and rescue Gunter and return to handle the bulette within the next day, or the spell would begin having its ill effects on Brand. They mounted up and began the journey back into the jungle, heading for the drow shrine.

XP:
Lysander 700
Luggoth 700
Pel 700
Brand 900
Maechen 900