Heroes of the Mist

We set out the next day, again looking for the Vistani. We were happily minding our own business when more of Ziinnj's minions attacked us. After first hitting us with an anti-gravity spell, they were actually willing to parlay. Poor Feldon meanwhile was being whisked away as he "fell" towards the sky. Jory and Krellian had gone Ethereal, and were biding their time. Weylyn was initially caught in the spell effect as well, but it managed to fly out. Valas and Weylyn were more than willing to talk things out (was this a marrashi conspiracy?), and Weylyn was about to trade Aerin for being able to go home, but unfortunately this was the one thing they couldn't do. While they were talking things out, I polymorphed into a pegataur and flew up after Feldon. I quickly caught up and flew us out of the area of effect. We were now leagues away from the people below, so we decided to streamline ourselves as best we could and drop in on them. Just as we showed up on the scene, Jory and Krellian popped out of the Ethereal plane and engaged Mogul (the cornugon) in battle. It was a little bit too much for Krellian however, and he immediately fled. Weylyn took on the goblyn, and quickly dispatched it while Valas took off and helped Aerin fight a Vistani sorceress. Feldon and I battled a huge Yugoloth, but we were no match for it and eventually fell to his blows. Fortunately by this time Krellian had returned and managed to bandage us just in time. The remainder of the party finally managed to bring the Yugoloth down, and we took a short time-out to heal.

Aerin had found a cave, and went inside to investigate. Not having much choice, we followed in after her, and here in the darkness did we finally find the Vistani that we have been seeking for so long. These are not ordinary people however, and they would sometimes answer our questions much later after we asked them, and at other times seemingly before we even asked them. We managed to deduce that we had to travel to a nearby lake, while the full moon was out, and that in addition to Aerin and her sword we would need a ravenkin feather. Not wanting to waste any more time, we set off in a hurry.

After a while we made it to the lake, and were now kind of clueless as to what to do. I suggested that Aerin take out both her sword and her ravenkin feather, and she walked out into the water. Near the middle of the lake it was suddenly jet black, and spreading outwards. Aerin walked out, but the blackness kept growing until finally it covered the whole lake. Weylyn dipped her staff into it, and when Weylyn pulled it out part of it was simply gone, disintegrated. I have heard of something like this before, called a Sphere of Disintegration, and had no desire to try it out personally. We remembered a key part of what the Vistani had told us, and finally deduced that Aerin would have to sacrifice herself to save us. After a short intense pleading period, Aerin gave in and was willing to do the deed. I flew her over the lake, and at her command let her drop to the lake below.

As Aerin was engulfed by the blackness, a thick fog rose up around us. With fond thoughts of Queen Maeve and the time I could have spent with her, the rest of the group and I were swallowed up by the mists. When we could again see we were near Akken and the oppressive feel of Ravenloft was no longer with us. We had finally saved the land. Off into the distance we saw a lone rider, and as he approached us we made out the figure of Jackson. We decided to head into town, were everyone was already celebrating. Stryfe had come with us, but of course was deathly afraid of the sunlight (literally) and was hiding out in my back-pack.

We (of course) went straight for the nearest bar that we could find. As we entered the Blushing Mermaid the bartender and the other patrons hailed us as heroes, and we all got free beer (aww yeah). At one end of the bar there was a large circle drawn on the floor in which a 7' tall powerful woman was dueling with some poor guy, whom she quickly mopped up. She challenged Jackson next, and of course he couldn't resist. Krellian took off after the guy who had been taking bets. A merchant entered the bar as well and approached Valas; he had an escort job for us if we were interested. Meanwhile Jackson was getting a severe beating by that tall woman, and I think he was starting to lose his self-control. Almost as soon as the fight started he tripped and fell down, and as the woman was helping him up I swore she licked him. I think it was soon obvious to Jackson that he was losing badly, so he chose to grapple the woman and toss her out of the ring, thereby technically winning the fight. However, she had different ideas and charged right back in.

As this was going on, four huge guys entered the bar and approached the merchant we were talking to. They got in his face, and then suddenly transformed into huge ogres, unleashing Cones of Cold at both the merchant and us. The merchant just shrugged the spells off and transformed into a huge humanoid tiger. A large brawl ensued as everyone was attacking us and each other. I looked over to Jackson, but he was just sitting down and purring; and the woman was gone. We managed to kill off our attackers, and Jackson finally got a hold of himself and helped out. Krellian came back from wherever he was at, bleeding profusely and pissed off about something.

Since that fight Jackson is now much bigger and has grown permanent claws and fangs. He clued me in later that the woman he had fought was actually an avatar of Shar, the Goddess of Pain. He's now cursed to remain in this tiger hybrid form, and at stressful moments has the unlucky predisposition of turning extremely docile. Well, at least he's no longer blood-lusting. Can't say I cared too much for that part of him. With Krellian's help, we managed to be magically transported to Newmoon. We've recently been chilling out here while Krellian helps out some other people of Akken that wanted to make it to Newmoon.

Jackson has decided to step down as Lord of Newmoon, since he felt he couldn't do a good job as sovereign while still adventuring. So, with all the hustle and bustle regarding Diaz's (the new Lord of Newmoon) imminent coronation, Romero (his second in command) asked us if we couldn't investigate rumors of kobold invasion. We agreed to help out and see what's going on to the North of here. A drow named Katara and an elf named Avielle volunteered to join us, and we let them tag along (reluctantly in Katara's case). After a couple of days of travel, we came upon a small hamlet that had been burnt to the ground. Jackson picked up the tracks of a large force of kobolds, heading due North of the hamlet, and so we followed the trail to their lair. We found out later that in fact there were no kobolds left, besides a few skeletons and zombies, and that instead a necromancer had moved in.

After defeating his minions (and running away from rust monsters), we finally cornered the mage. Well, more specifically, he was out of reach on a ledge, and we were standing on a wall of force that was suspended over a river. Nonetheless, we managed to defeat him, and he took off running towards his study. There we caught up with him, and Jory ran him through with her sword. We all thought him dead, but in fact he had taken over my body and trapped my soul in an amulet. Fortunately, the others in my group managed to clue in that something was not right, and they not knocked him out. Feldon then cast Dispel Magic on the amulet, and I was returned to my body.

Since that time, I've looked into the Magic Jar spell and discovered that we should have destroyed the amulet as well. Instead, we sold it and five other gems that we had retrieved from the necromancer. In other words, the necromancer that we faced off is likely out there possessing someone's body. It's also dawned on me that we must not have found the necromancer's real treasure cache. All we found was a traveling spell book and five gems. Yet everything we saw seems to indicate that he had been living there a while. In the future I think I'll definitely return and see if I can't do a more thorough search.

But that will have to wait. I received a Sending from a mage named Ramazith in Akken that the city was under attack by giants. I rushed downstairs to tell the others, and ran into Feldon, who told me that we should immediately go to Akken. He too received word of the attack on Akken, though he learned of the attack through different means (apparently involving lots of pain). We got the group together, and decided how best to reach Akken. Feldon suggested we go talk to Diaz, and ask him for help. We were quickly let into the palace (after all we're the Heroes of Akken), but then made to wait for an audience with Romero. Jackson had already left for Waterdeep, and so to Romero we were just another bunch of Jackson groupies. Fortunately Krylar eventually passed by, and he allowed us to accompany him to see Romero.

Romero wasn't much help, but after learning of our situation Krylar was willing to help out. He suggested that with his help we could easily Shadow Walk our way to the other side of the chasm. And as for the rest of the journey, he had someone in mind that could guide us. We met up with our blue-skinned guide named Veldrin, and Krylar began casting the spell. We all made sure to touch him (no, not there), and after a final warning by Krylar not to lose sight of him, we were slowly absorbed into the demi-plane of Shadow.

The demi-plane of Shadow is, well, a blur. You move by thinking about moving, and you can travel at extremely fast speeds. But everything is shades of grey, and there are almost no living beings. It only really got interesting once we were crossing the chasm. Up ahead, we could make out the shape of a huge grey (of course) shape intercepting our course. As it came upon us the shadow dragon breathed a huge cloud of smoke, and we all immediately felt drained of energy. It was fortunately much slower than us, so we kept moving forwards and hoped to eventually out-distance it. However, up ahead we saw two smaller dragons bearing in on us. We all split up in different directions, and of course I quickly lost sight of the others. After what I thought was a safe amount of time, I cast a Continual Light spell and hoped that the others would be able to find us.