Warning: Spoilers below for the Living Forgotten Realms Adventure, Slivers of Eaerlann.
As the party prepares to enter the opening in the mound from which the orcs came last session, they hear a loud clang and then a long yell as Dent falls into sight, landing atop the mound. Apparently, after leaving the party at the Barrow of the Ogre King, Dent found a dragon. He attacked but his axe could not penetrate the beasts scales and the dragon simply ignored him. When it took off flying, Dent’s waterskin got caught on its scales and Dent was dragged along into the sky. Eventually the dragon dropped low enough in altitude that Dent felt he could survive the fall and landed right next to the party (Dave, my out of town player, was in town so I wrote a little story about Dent and a dragon to explain how he wound up a significant distance from where he had last left the party). With Dent joining them, the party descended some stairs that led into the mound.
The stairs led to a fairly large antechamber completely with elven architecture and silvery motes randomly floating about providing light to the chamber (these motes continue throughout the entire tomb complex). The room could be divided into two areas. One area looked as though the orcs had been using it as a campsite. The other area had the bodies of the four members of The Fellowship of the Spear that the party had been sent to retrieve. Each body showed obvious signs of torture and/or defilement. One of them, a dwarf, was pinned to the floor with spears through his arms and his legs. As the party removes the spears in preparation of taking the dwarf (and other bodies) back to Loudwater, he moans. Not an undead moan but a “I’m still alive” type of moan. It turns out that this dwarf, Joyin Bladebite, is one tough fellow.
It is pretty clear that Joyin’s wounds are well beyond the capability of anyone in the party to heal (who ever said that triggering a healing surge or an extended rest could heal anything…it’s my game and I can have massively traumatic wounds that require powerful magics or really extensive rest and care as narrative elements if I want). So after making him has comfortable as possible, the group learns a bit more about what happened. Joyin basically confirms the story that they had learned from Halaskar previously in Loudwater and then expands upon the things that happened after the orcs defeated The Fellowship of the Spear. After the battle, the orcs remained and set up camp within this chamber. They spent their time alternating between defiling his fallen companions, torturing him, and attempting to open the large, ornate double doors in the chamber.
Said doors had already been noticed by the party but they initially focused on the bodies and the task at hand. The double doors had a large, stylized tree bas-relief upon them and a set of a dozen or so stylized stars in relief on the wall above the door. The doors had no apparent handles, latches, locks or the like. According to Joyin, the orcs were quite interested in getting through the doors but had not yet succeeded. The orcs believe it is some elf tomb and had sent for reinforcements to break through the doors. Joyin suggested that party see if they could recover whatever might remain in the tomb before the orcs could and offered to stay right were he was (as if he could go anywhere else with every limb broken and previously impaled) and give a shout if the orcs arrived.
The party set about giving the doors a closer look to see if they could get them open. They discovered that the stylized stars above the door could be depressed. Tyrande, the paladin who worships Selune, realized that some of the stars were in a pattern that looked very familiar to a antiquated symbol used to represent Selune. After a bit of discussion, the party elected to depress the stars comprising that pattern. When they had, the stone above the door transformed such that the superfluous stars disappeared and the older symbol of Selune fully appeared (i.e., the 3.5 version versus the 4e version). With that, the doors opened.
The corridor beyond the magical doors was comprised of stonework to make it look like one was walking through a forest. The ceiling has tree broughs and leaves, the walls have tree trunks, and the floor even has tree roots along the edges. The corridor ends in another pair of double doors. Moving forward, the group opens the next set of doors. A large room lies beyond. It also has a tree or forest motif, including a number of columns shaped to look like trees. A small pool lies in the center of the room and a statue of an elf holding a harp and bow stands upon a small platform in the center of the pool.
A group of stone trees (magical constructs) attack the party and archers (a magical trap) poke out of the branches across the ceiling to fire arrows at the party. Although the party is able to handle the stone trees, the archers present a bit of a problem. Eventually, someone notices that each time an archer fires an arrow, the eyes of the statue in the middle of the pool briefly glow. The party focuses their attacks on the statue and eventually break it and stop the archer attacks. (An important lesson was also learned in this fight. It is a good idea to pay attention to the game even if it isn’t your turn during combat. Ruben, our resident wizard, had cast a Cloud of Daggers upon the statue. Dent, our resident barbarian, had not quite realized that. Dent leaped across the pool to smash the statue with his axe, only to take enough damage from the Cloud to knock him unconscious, fall into the pool, and sink to the bottom. Fortunately for Dent, Tyrande jumped in and saved him…in the end everything worked out for the party but it was all quite amusing).
After catching their breath, the party explored a bit more. One hallway has numerous paintings which depict the life of a female elf, from infancy to adulthood and culminate in scenes of her fighting, with blade and spell, hordes of orcs and demons before showing her fallen in battle. The hallway ends in a small room with an altar. On the wall behind the altar is a painting of an elven woman with long silver hair and silver eyes (they believe it to be a depiction of Selune) battling orcs and shadowy creatuers (Ruben believes them to be Shades). Both Tyrande and Yuri spend a few moments in prayer to Selune (Yuri is also a worshipper).
Another hallway is flanked by statues of elven warriors armed with sword or spear. Although the party is quite nervous about moving down a hallway of armed statues, nothing happens as they make their way to the room at the end. Within the room is a single sarcophagus and two large candlesticks holding magical candles that burn with silver flame. Inscribed upon the sarcophagus, in elven script, is the phrase, “Servant of Selune, Fallen to Darkness.” With some difficulty and a few heaves and hoes, the party eventually lifts the rather heavy stone lid from the sarcophagus to only find a few old bones within. Yuri carefully places them in a sack rather than leave them for orcs to defile.
Not satisfied with this discovery, the party spends some time searching the room and the sarcophagus. They discover that although they cannot lift the candlesticks from the floor or slide them out of position, each does tilt in four directions. Tilting both towards the sarcophagus causes a secret door in the bottom of the sarcophagus to open, revealing a stairway leading down. A corridor at the bottom of the stairs leads to another set of double doors.
The doors open into a chamber with a mosaic upon the floor that appears to represent the High Forest (although it is probably a representation that is at least a hundred years old). It is complete with mountains that rise from the floor. There are also two, slightly glowing, pools of silvery liquid. After intently looking at the liquid for a few moments, Ruben thinks that it could actually be some form of Residuum…a form that he’s never heard of. He goes forward and fills his waterskin with the liquid. As he does, the liquid starts to bubble and silver tendrils rise out of the pool. Four, silvery humanoid figures who look to be made of the liquid then rise from the pools as well (two in each). A battle ensues. The party is able to dispatch the figures but the tendrils continue to spread out from the pools, reaching towards the party. So the party decides to head through another set of double doors at one end of this room.
After another short corridor and set of doors, the party finds a small chamber containing nothing but another sarcophagus. The elvish inscription on this one reads, “Tarndae, Servant of Selune.” The party lifts the lid and find that the sarcophagus is filled with the silvery liquid. A slim, female figure rises from the liquid and asks who disturbs her long slumber. The party tells her who they are and describes the situation…orcs are planning on sacking and desecrating the tomb. After talking to her for awhile (and essentially convincing the spirit of Tarndae, an elven warrior-mage of old who was displayed in the paintings above and accepted a role as guardian of this place and its magics on behalf of Selune after her death), the voice changes. It becomes stronger, louder, and carries with it a certain regalness that is quite awe-inspiring.
This new voice states: “Shadow of Evil rises again in the East, the northern savages rise to aid it, and even outsiders harken to its call. They have even corrupted the magic of the fey to their own evil purposes. Those who would combat this evil must aid the Gem of the North and her sisters. Do you pledge your service to defeating the evil that menaces this land?” Each character agrees without hesitation (to my surprise actually…I figured someone would balk or want to ask a lot of questions). As soon as they agree, numerous silvery tendrils shoot out from the liquid in the sarcophagus, one striking each character. As each character is struck, they fall unconscious.
After who knows how long, each character regains consciousness. The silvery liquid is gone as are the silvery motes and so it is completely dark. Light is summoned and the party can see that each of them now has eyes of silver. This is where the session ended.
(After the session, I explained that each character had been somehow imbued with the liquid Residuum. This manifested in two fashions that the characters where inherently aware of. First, as they had already seen, their eyes were now the same silvery color as the pools…the entire eye is the silvery color, not just the iris. If they did not already have it, each now has low-light vision. The second effect is that each character has the ability to imbue a single item with magical power. Mechanically, they can transform a single item into a magical item of their level or less. They can transfer this magic each time they gain a level (as part of the extended rest when the gain the new level). This ability cannot alter or further enchant an existing magical item or create a consumable item. The item only retains its magical powers when wielded by the enchanting character. This was just a mechanism for me to allow the players to have an item that they want for their character–a la the suggested wish list approach for 4e–but provide something of a story element to it as well. Their oath to act as protectors of the North or to aid the Gem of the North and her sisters puts the characters directly in the story arc that will eventually fully develop…maybe…it all depends on what the characters do.)
