The Mad Mage of the East

The Adventure:

There have always been tales out east of a wandering stranger past the mountains of Nandone. The tales say he or she tends to pull pranks or grant twisted wishes but no one has ever had proof just rumors.

Since Ontars return to Falonde more people coming from out east tell of a stranger who matches the tales. Many others also mention of strange visions and creatures that defy logic.

People also mention these events seem to happen nearby a small village that no one has been able to make contact with for a few months now. Chances suggest that this stranger may in fact be an agent of Ontar.

Gather a group and investigate this stranger, find out if they are an agent of Ontar. If so gather as much intel as possible and if the worst happens take them out.

Actus:

At the behest of my god Gildite, and the request of Altanis, the Mortal Sword of Onos, I ceased my wanderings and journeyed to the town of Newood. Entering the town, I touched the shadow beast and was teleported into the domain of the woman named Mistsplitter. Here, I was approached by a rapid talking elf, who requested my assistance with some of his friends in discovering what events had been transpiring in the east. According to the stories told by refugees from the area, something was going on in the area, and people fleeing through the mountains were being killed or turned away from the area. A nearby town had also gone completely quiet, and tensions were beginning to rise.

My new travelling companions, the dwarf Thoridin, human Wilson, and elf Naivarra, managed to find us horses to carry us rapidly to our destination. We rode along the road, skirting around Nandone to avoid any unwanted eyes, and arrived at the mountains that form the eastern border of Falonde and the free lands to the east. Following the passage through the mountain, we were accosted by falling rocks as we journeyed through a long canyon. At first I believed it to merely be rocks misplaced by the beginnings of the spring thaw, but the human Wilson spotted motion on the cliff. The dwarf's owl managed to spot a few figures above us as well, and we realised that this path was the perfect spot for an ambush.

We decided to move through the next area that was threatened by the rocks one at a time to try and avoid us taking too much damage. The human Wilson went first and he disappeared into the shadows and was able to sneak by unseen. However, when the dwarf Thoridin went past, the rocks were knocked towards him. Seeing them hurtle towards him, he teleported away from the rocks. The elf Naivarra and I were then separated from our companions as the cowardly figures began to attack us from above. The dwarf Thoridin unleashed a massive fireball on a few of these hobgoblins, but the rest managed to avoid the attack. I tried to hit them with my arrows, but the shots continued to fly wild. Frustrated with my inability to hit anything from afar I charged up the side of the cliff to take on these hobgoblins face to face. The two in front of me proved no competition, though before I could reach the third Wilson managed to defeat him.

With the canyon empty of these wretched monsters, we journeyed a little while longer and found an area where a large battle had been held. A lone figure had destroyed a number of hobgoblins, wielding much fire and destruction, all that was left was the footprints and scorch marks. Rather than risk finding this person in the dark, my travelling companions and I decided to rest for the evening. While my rest was uneasy with awful dreams, it was nothing that I haven't dealt with recently.

In the morning, we continued on our journey. We came out through the passage on the other side, with the remains of a large fortress on our left, and the road splitting ahead to the cities of Habrycg and Zirakzund. Before travelling to either of these cities, we decided to investigate this fortress first. As we looked over it, the dwarf Thoridin discovered that the symbols here were of an army that once fought against Falonde. Uneasy with spending time in the place of those who had been destroyed by my master, I stayed outside while the other three journeyed inside. As they entered, the doors suddenly slammed shut. I turned to the loud noise to see that the human Wilson had leapt backwards from the door, and only the two of us were still outside of the fortress. Worried about my new friends, I began to charge towards the door to try and gain access.

Actus:

As I smashed through the door, the human Wilson stayed behind for a moment, surveying the scene as I rushed into the fort. Inside, the dwarf Thoridin and elf Naivarra were inspecting the room. As the door had slammed shut behind them, mysterious torches had suddenly lit all around the area. Behind me, the human Wilson had seen that shadows were creeping towards the fort, as a collection of bones began rising from the ground and sealing the doorway I had just smashed through. Rather than be separated from the group, the human Wilson leapt through a small gap in the doorway as the bones sealed it shut behind him.

Before we had a chance to do any more investigating, the bones lying on the ground began to rise into the air and form rough humanoid forms. One of these bare skeletons attacked the dwarf Thoridin. I rushed to help him, but my attacks were ineffectual against this creature made without flesh. Before it had a chance to retaliate, the elf Naivarra muttered a prayer and the room was filled with a radiant light. Unable to withstand the holy powers emanating from our cleric, the skeletons were ripped apart and the bones clattered to the ground, no longer being held up by a dark magic. Behind me, I heard one of the skeletons collapse a moment slower than the others, when I turned to look at it, the human Wilson was standing over top of it.

Once all the skeletons were defeated, a voice came from around the corner, as a group of rotting bodies shambled towards us. I rushed forward, attacking these shambling beasts, and we made short work of these evil beasts. Then, their leader strode around the corner. A tall figure, wearing impressive heavy armour and wielding a large flaming sword, began walking towards us. I closed the distance between us and began my attack. While I kept him busy, my allies threw what magic and arrows they could to destroy this monster. His heavy armour deflected most of my attacks, but I kept the attack up to keep him away from my allies. Unfortunately, he wielded a powerful ability that ripped through our defences and brought the elf Naivarra to unconsciousness. Luckily, the dwarf Thoridin was able to keep her from succumbing to her injuries. In my rage, I managed to find a weak spot in the armoured figure, raining down as many powerful blows as I possibly could.

Rather than continue fighting me, the coward used his magic to send me away. Suddenly I found myself in an empty black void, unable to influence anything. As quickly as I entered this void, I found myself brought back. When I returned, I found myself standing above this abomination. Taking advantage of this situation, I raised my sword and plunged it into the center of the beast's chest. As I pulled out my blade, the figure broke up and disappeared, leaving only the sword behind.

We could find nothing else in the fort, so we spent the night there, in an effort to recuperate from the fight. In the morning we continued travelling east until we came across a spot where the trees had all died. Inside this area I spotted an old man stumbling towards us. I rushed into the dead area, pausing as the area seemed to draw energy from me, but I helped the man back to our group. After giving him some water and food he quickly appeared to recover. The dwarf Thoridin began to interrogate the poor man, but I intervened to give him some time to feel better before we bothered him too much.

All of a sudden, he threw off his robes and revealed the yellow coat and hat he was somehow wearing underneath. Then, as payment for helping him, he offered to fulfill a wish for me.

Actus:

Cautious of the proffered wish, and not needing the aid of any but my god, I turned down the magical human's gift. He didn't really react to this, and instead offered to take us to his house. My companions and I did not wish to take him up on this offer, and the human Wilson expressed his wishes to begin walking away. The man heard this, and decided to 'help' us walk. Suddenly, my companions' shoes all grew feet, which began walking, carrying my companions with them. I grabbed my friend Wilson and stopped him from moving further away, and demanded that the magical man return my friends' shoes to normal. We tried to walk away, on our own feet, but any time we got too far away, a portal would open in front of us, forcing us to return to this man. Trapped, we were forced to stay nearby him and his presence seemed to have a suppressing effect on myself, and my friends Thoridin and Wilson. The elf Naivarra was unaffected, but the rest of us slowly began to slip into an unwanted sleep.

I awoke on the same road, but the trees here were healthy and animals flitted through the woods. The dead and dying place we had just come from was gone. All of my companions had also been brought here with me. The owl of Thoridin flew above, trying to find where we are, and where we should go. All that the owl could see, as recounted by the dwarf Thoridin, was forest in every direction, except for at one end of this road, where there was a small village. Having no other real options, we began following the road. As we walked, the dwarf Thoridin and the human Wilson determined that wherever we were, it was not our world. They found that if you focused on something, it could be made into reality. The human Wilson began floating, and attracting small wildlife to him. The dwarf Thoridin attempted to summon the elf Seraph, but failed in his attempt, and only a half built illusion was created. Eventually, we reached the village and found it full of people, all enjoying some sort of feast. Children floated through the air around us, while many of the adults were gorging on the feast.

Still on edge, we avoided these festivities, but the human Wilson befriended one of the men from the village. We found out that there was some ruler here, presumably the magical man that brought us here, based on the description, who required everyone to enjoy themselves. Anyone who fought his rule was sent into another place. Luckily, this new friend of Wilson knew where we could find this ruler. He lived in a tower a the top of the hill, just outside of the village. We stepped outside and saw the tower, though I didn't remember seeing it before, I'm pretty sure it was always there. The others had the same confusion, and the dwarf Thoridin came to a surprising conclusion. We had not been teleported just into another realm, we had been brought inside a dream.

Regardless, my only goal was to leave this place, and the magical man in the tower at the top of the hill was the only one who could accomplish this. I took the lead as we made the long march up to this tower. The hike took forever, no matter how much we marched, the tower always seemed to be the same distance away. The magical man attempted to dissuade our arrival, though he was ultimately unsuccessful. A small voice from behind kept calling to us, trying to have us turn around and return to the village. Knowing that this was just a trap, I instructed my companions to continue walking and ignore this voice. After a considerable journey, we finally arrived at the tower.

Through a doorway at the base, we entered, to find only a large, empty room. While the room was large, it was considerably smaller inside, than the tower was, and I could see no way up the tower to the top. Luckily, the magical man was not at the top of the tower, and was instead floating on a throne above our heads. He attempted to convince us to return to the village and enjoy ourselves, but I was tired of his talk and removed my bow, intending to fire. Before I had a chance to fire, the magical man changed the world around us. Suddenly the sun was no longer shining into the room, and the magical man had disappeared. We went outside to see if we could see where he went, but there was no sign of him. With no real options, we began walking back to the village. Before we could reach the forest and begin hiking down, a group of flaming horses strode out towards us. I ran forward, closing the distance with these beasts and began attacking. Behind me, my companions threw their magic and fired their arrows into these beasts. We easily managed to destroy a couple of these horses, but then the bodies began to rise up and move towards the living ones, until all of them were melded into a large monster in front of me. Now there was one massive horse with numerous horse heads jutting out from it. Every time I cut off one of the damn beast's heads, two more grew in its place. With no real options I gave out a load roar, and began attacking this monster with everything I had. It took a while, but with the grace of Gildite I finally managed to destroy the beast, slicing off its monstrous heads too fast for it to keep up and it finally collapsed, dead. Then we heard that same small voice from before, though now we could see its origin, as a young girl broke out from the woods and ran past us, into the tower.

We followed her into the tower and watched for a moment as she seemed to create stairs to climb up the sides of the room. We sprinted on to the stairs to try and keep up with her. After a few minutes of running, we arrived at the top of the tower as the young girl ran through a colorful door. She left the door open behind her and we tentatively entered the room. I saw the young girl duck behind a curtain, and then a woman stepped back out. She explained that she had been here for a very long time and had become adept at manipulating the world around her. Knowing that the magical man would not like her interfering in whatever he was doing, she needed to try and stay hidden from him. More importantly, she also told us that we had a way to get out of this accursed place. If we flew up to the sun, she promised that this would be possible, she believed that we would be able to break out of this place. Specifically, only the elf Naivarra could handle this task. Since elves are unable to sleep, she had been brought into this dream world on a physical level, the rest of us had left our physical bodies behind to rot in the real world. As a physical occupant of this realm, the elf Naivarra could break us out without the magical man interfering with her.

After a quick break to recover from our fight with the large horse monster, we hiked back down to the village in order to get into position to attack the sun. Through the forest, the human Wilson managed to accidentally summon a number of tentacled beasts, by letting his fear get the better of him. I managed to destroy some of these beasts, and our new companion destroyed the remainder with a bright light that she fired at them, that seemed to completely eliminate them. Once we reached the village, the woman somehow gave all of us wings, allowing us to begin flying towards the sun. We began flying up to the sun, but the magical man appeared in between us and the sun. I immediately closed the distance and began attacking him. My weapon seemed to have little effect, the blade seemed to almost just pass through him instead of slicing, but I was able to hurt him and continued attacking him. The dwarf Thoridin summoned a number of small smoke monsters that also attacked the magical man, while the human Wilson fired arrows and the elf Naivarra summoned a floating magical weapon that attacked him. With my friends' aid, I was easily able to destroy him and he began falling to the earth so I flew up to the sun, which now appeared to be some sort of glowing glass dome. Below me, the magical man had somehow recovered and changed from a human form into some form of demonic form. The demon's presence was too much for me, and I found myself unwilling to continue fighting him. Instead, I focused on destroying this dome. I attacked it with all of my might, even as I watched over my shoulder to make sure the demon didn't sneak up on me. The glass dome began to shatter underneath my punches, but it remained complete. As the demon flew up to attack me, the dwarf Thoridin unleashed a massive bolt of lightning to attack the dome. I managed to duck partially out of the way, as did the demon, but the dome shattered under the impact. The demon roared, but the world around me just turned black.

I awoke on the ground where I had fallen asleep. While the forest around me was still dead, I could now hear a few animals moving in the woods. I could also hear stirring beside me. I rolled over to see that my companions had also returned to wakefulness. After a brief moment confirming that we were all okay, we decided to return to the village and see if we could provide any aid. It did not take nearly as long to get to the village now. When we arrived, we found only death. The villagers had all been taken into the dream world for too long. While their minds had resided there, their bodies had decayed without food and water. We spent some time searching, but we could find no living villagers. We were preparing to leave and bring news of this tragedy, when we heard sobbing coming from a small shack. Opening the door, I discovered the magical man, though looking much older, gripping the decayed body of what appeared to be a young girl. He looked up at me and shouted that I had killed her. I pulled out my sword and sliced his throat. Before we left the village, we buried the man and girl, and then returned to Newood.