Wandering Wolves: Lure of Ancient Spells (2)

Dravago 17 - Nymm 5

With the Library of Korranberg team in possession of the journal, the Wolves had only a few pages and their secrecy on their side. They headed out into the jungle and raided a fallen Giant laboratory that had a few surprises left in store, namely alchemy beetles and a couple golems, as well as a black dragon that had taken up residence. The Wolves defeated all their adversaries, driving the dragon off into the jungle, before cracking open the vault below. They found the translation wheel they needed to translate the maps they would find at the Idol of Dal Onam, and they found that it was guarded by a half-mad giant ghost. They fled from the ghost with the wheel.

Outside, they had a run-in with Lucan and his sister Grilsha, who were working with the King's Task Force. They managed to trick him and escape the task force for a time.

Dal Onam turned out to be a gigantic stone statue with a temple below. It had been taken over by Yuan-Ti, who had already captured a team of Cyran mercenaries also seeking the Labyrinth of Ancient Spells. They rescued the mercenary and defeated the Yuan-Ti, using the translation wheel to examine the remnants of the Cul'Sir Empire map room below and determine the location of Yaoteca Venta, the Labyrinth of Ancient Spells, in the southern part of Xen'drik.

Lysander received a message spell from Gorenof, the bard who was heading up the Korranberg Expedition, who revealed that they had been betrayed. He wasn't sure who was responsible, but their academics had been murdered and their airship hijacked, and the forces responsible were now trying to crack the codes and figure out the way to Yaoteca Venta. Using Lysander's scrying and Brand's dragonmark, the Wolves were able to teleport aboard.

They discovered that the betrayers worked for The Twelve, and included a number of dragonmarked as well as Halas Martain and a particularly nasty mercenary troll. After an extended fight in which several people were thrown off the airship and a few members of the Twelve strike force escaped, the Wolves managed to regain control and joined forces with what remained of the Korranberg Expedition to head for Yaoteca Venta.

The travel aboard the airship was relatively easy, considering that they are flying over the untamed lands of Xen'drik. They flew for two weeks, flying over jungle, volcanic fields, vast desert wastelands and a series of mountains called "The Scimitar Spires." The map guided them, but the Traveler's Curse affected them, and the mood had grown somewhat dour, as some wondered if they would ever be able to find the lost city, even though they had a map to its location.

Then, on the thirteenth day of travel, as the sun faded below the horizon, the mountains broke, the air turned bitter cold and below them were snow fields and glaciers. Everyone felt in a celebratory mood, surely the expedition was getting close. But just after night fell, when most were in their quarters trying to stay warm or get some rest, the airship jerked violently, as if hit by a massive fist. The Wolves rushed to the deck to find strange, arcane-tinged snow and ice pelting the ship with such ferocity that it killed some of the crew and tore into the ship. The captain ordered them to turn back, but a massive elemental of ice and wind formed on the deck and smashed him through to the bottom of the ship. One of the quick-thinking crew members summoned the fire elemental from the ship to battle the frost elemental, but it was a primordial thing, shrugging off attacks from all quarters (even the Wolves) and the battle between the fire and frost began to tear the ship apart, sending it plummeting toward the ground.

Brand used his teleportation to save the Wolves and a few of the expedition members, but some kind of magical effect interfered with it. The next thing the Wolves remembered was blackness, and hazy dreams. Pel remembered talking with a faceless, shifting man/woman who told him "You have come seeking one quest, you will find that your role here is one completely different. I have guided you in your travels to help an unlikely savior into this world." Lysander dreamed of Arenydee, on the run in Stormreach from something that was clearly terrifying to her. She looked hurt and scared, but when he reached out to comfort her, he awoke. Brand dreamed of his father, standing beside his drow priestess looking pensive as she attempted to read omens, but she only shook her head sadly. Xydryk dreamed of nothing, although he was the first to awake.

And Luggoth? Nobody knows what Luggoth dreamt of, because he was gone. When the Wolves awake, it took them hours to find one another. They met up in time to find a cave to hide out from the vicious winter storm still raging through the area.

In the morning, the snow was four feet deep, the wind and snowfall had abated and all that was left was a vast chill and a general sense that if they were to reach Yaoteca Venta, they needed to move south.

After hiking for a while through the freezing snow, the group was attacked by a frost giant atop a mammoth, along with his winter wolf and another frost giant. After a harrowing battle, they managed to talk with the giants, and learned that the mounted giant was named Matay, and he was the leader of a group of giants who had escaped from the Everice with their pregnant princess in tow. The princess's child was prophesied to overthrow the corrupt leader of the tribe, and so the leader had intended to murder the princess before she could give birth. A loyal shaman and believer in the prophecy gathered the princess and her few loyal supporters and sailed for Xen'drik, for a place where legends said their people had once lived. The shaman died in the journey, making the princess's birth look even more dangerous, but they did reach their destination.

That place, it turned out, was Yaoteca Venta. Matay took the Wolves to the city, where they found that the princess, very pregnant and due very soon, was resting in the top of the gigantic tower at the center of the frozen city. Pel was certain that this was the quest his god had told him about, that he was supposed to come here and make sure this frost giant prince was born safely. The Wolves helped the princess and made sure the baby was born safely.

Shortly after, a copper dragon appeared and attacked. The Wolves defended the newborn prince and his mother, and defeated the dragon, who explained to them the true nature of the Labyrinth of Ancient Spells. It had been created by the dragons as a prison to contain a Rakshasa Rajah during the Age of Demons. The giants built their city up around it and began researching this ancient prison, and in casting one of the spells, had accidentally frozen the southern part of Xen'drik. The dragon explained that if any of the spells were cast, it could release the Rajah back upon the world. He also explained that Sithov Nagel from the auction house was an agent of the Lords of Dust, and he was on his way with an army of undead and demons to attack the city and unleash the Rajah.

The Wolves teamed up with the giants and the dragon to defend the city, and after a pitched battle, managed to defeat the forces arrayed against them. However, in the course of the attack, two things happened: First, William d'Deneith, leading a force of Emerald Claw expatriates-turned-vampires, rushed into the city to attack the Wolves, and two, Sithov Nagel did manage to get into the city and begin casting one of the spells. As a security measure, only one spell could be cast by any individual being, but Nagel had managed to cast a spell that would begin a chain unraveling several of the other spells, and quite possibly freeing the Rajah.

While the remaining giants and Brand battled William, the dragon, along with Pel, Lysander and Xydryk, began working to try and re-weave the spells so that they could prevent the Rajah's release. Eventually, the battle between Brand and William and their allies spilled down into the spell area. The heroes were successful, but not entirely. They had to use the dragon's knowledge of Prophecy, their arcane abilities, Pel's connection to his god and the Prophecy imbued within their dragonmarks to essentially re-weave reality.

In the end, reality was saved and the Rajah remained imprisoned, but using ancient dragon magic to interfere with the Prophecy resulted in changes in the world, both large and small. One of the most important, at least for the Wolves, was that William was no longer a vampire, but had been restored back to his original form and personality, albeit with a dead dragonmark. The Wolves had undergone other changes in abilities, possessions and perhaps even slight personality and history changes, but they didn't recall these changes. Indeed, there are probably few in the world who remember it as it was, as opposed to how it is. Some of those few are dragons, some of them are Lords of Dust, most of them are probably not entirely happy with it, and thus the Wolves have gained a few new enemies, although they won't ever really know why.