Campaign Date: Wap 4 - Vay 19, IY 485
GM: Andrew Smith
Characters:
Maliki Malfoe, human necromancer-1/cleric-2, Mike Miller
Quintus, half-dragon fighter-0, Toby Miller
Illyiana Jhorn, drastin sorcerer-3, Chuck Tillinghast
Nebakanezzar Bubex, minotaur barbarian-0, Justin Fernandez

Log:
The land of Gormak is a dangerous place, but there are many reasons for a storied wanderer to adventure there. So it was for Maliki Malfoe, heir to the Malfoe Barony in the Empire. His parents, the Baron Stephen and his bride Anne had implored Maliki to get his interest in the dead out of his system. Maliki had taken that as an open invitation to take his manservant, Moby and enter the fractured nation of Gormak in search of the Barren Tower, a dark edifice that has stood in the depths of the Rootmuck swamp for centuries.

Maliki found the tower surrounded within the walls of a city named Farscult. Apparently, it had grown in the shadow of the Barren Tower within the past hundered years or so. There was even a palace built that rivaled the height of the tower itself. The castle, known officially as the "Bright Keep" was known unofficially by the townsfolk as the "Buzzard's Roost" for all the carrion birds that found nesting within its gothic peaks and gables. Maliki entered the dark city, complaining about the constant drizzle and the calf-high muck of the fen.

Meanwhile, Illyiana had left her home in the underworld for a very different reason. She had tired of the lifestyle of the Drastin -- the dark elves. She wished to know a place where an albino drow elf like herself would be seen not as a freak or oddity to be mocked and cast aside, but rather a funcitonal member of society. She had made her way through some abandoned ruins Northwest of the marshlands surrounding Farscult. Hungry from the three-week trek up from the underworld, she decided to enter the city in search of nourishment and companionship.

Quintus the half dragon lived in luxury in his home. The village worshiped the serpent god above all others, and to them the scaly babe delivered by one of the clanswomen was a sign that they were blessed. Although Quintus' mother did not survive his birth, he was well cared for. He was revered as the son of a deity, and the half-dragon acted the part. Ignorant, spoiled, and bored, the reptilian youth decided he wanted to leave his village and see what was beyond its borders. It was this way that Quintus wandered through the gates of Farscult.

The half dragon's swagger and insolence brought the wrath of the city guard down on him and Illyiana together. Maliki was captured later in the day trying to purchase raw materials for a magical experiment in the black market. The three were stripped, fitted with magical collars that allowed the guards to track and shock them, and marched out into the fen at spearpoint.

The three were led to a gigantic mine where slaves, miscreants, lunatics, and criminals of all kinds were put to work digging beneath the earth for some sort of "vault". The three met a fourth companion there, Nebakanezzar Bubex. Nebakanezzar, a minotaur, welcomed the others into his work crew. The mighty man-beast was mourning the loss of his adopted father who died trapped in the mines, and the talk of the others got him to begin thinking seriously about escape.

The group toiled hard for over a month. Making quotas and watching their backs. First, they got rid of their overseer and made sure to heal the other members of their work crew. Of course, once one of these members (a halfling, of course) betrayed the ringleader of a major escape group in order to become the new overseer, Maliki poisoned him. The group muscled their way to get the best quarters and food in the mines. At one point, they were even able to bribe the guards to let them sleep through a shift of working at the mine.

Finally, miraculously salvation came the heroes way when their digging unearthed a stone face with arcane carvings all over it -- the vault. The guards watching the heroes ran for their masters, yelling that they had found the Vault of Kazerabet. After collapsing the tunnel behind them, the heroes entered the vault, grabbed the three books and magic horn perched there, and made their escape through a ladder and hatch in one corner of the vault.

The heroes now run blind through the misty night of the bog, trying to escape from their former masters motivating from Farscult.