Session 10: Black Mirror Report

General Summary

After the strangely friendly ambling house drops the adventurers off at the edge of the Citywalk District, our troubleshooters enter the Black Mirror District, where, so rumor has it, the armies of Lord Zarloff muster and train on the gleaming obsidian plain from whence this district takes its name.   Happy, Cerice, Fallenbridge, and Leonardo, led by the urban ranger, Silent Sam, scout out a path and make their way toward the training grounds, hoping to be able to get a count of the so-called Death Lord's army -- anticipating it to be impressive: several hundred of the undead, and maybe half that of living forces.   It is more of these latter they see as they get closer: dark-skinned, white-eyed elves with high ears and long, flowing white hair -- drow! Always in groups of three and led by a Lieutenant or Captain, these seem far more dangerous than the scattered patrols of undead. But for the most part, Sam is able to skirt these threats.   The trappings of life are more predominant within a few blocks of the Black Mirror, too. There are now shops, taverns, occupied apartments, and even bath houses, steam oozing out from beneath closed doors and fogging up windows in the chillier weather here near the foothills of the mountains.   There are also derro, duergar, bugbears, and the blue-furred goblin-like creatures of the snow that the adventurers encountered at the temple in Cloudborne so very long ago (or so it seems). There are also humans, but these appear to be in, at best, subservient positions of power, making Cerice very uncomfortable as the team plots their way around the training grounds.   And they are ALL made uncomfortable when they see the fog-bound obsidian expanse of Black Mirror, for there at the verges are the armies of the undead -- skeletons and zombies that number not in the hundreds, but in the THOUSANDS, encircling the camps of the living, which also must be in the thousands. Perhaps ten to twelve thousand undead and another two or three thousand breathing combatants. The army of Lord Zarloff numbers at least fifteen thousand!   With barely enough time to grok that, the party is stopped by a bored, three-person patrol of drow leading a giant spider on a chain. Since Sam is in the front, he is assumed to be the leader of the group, but retains his silence, motioning for Cerice to speak for the 'master'.   Cerice weaves a tale, all while casting an illusion on a piece of paper to give the impression of 'proper documents'. After a few tense moments, this ploy somehow (through a lot of lucky die rolls) manages to work and the team is allowed to proceed unhindered.   Spooked, though, they decide to acquire actual papers, and an invisible Fallenbridge follows a group of duergar into a tavern, hoping to pickpocket their travel documents. Leonardo goes in as well, his plan to get a drink, provide distraction, and probably get into a bar fight.   Leonardo manages to down some 'dragon's blood', an ultra-alcoholic drink outlawed even in most provinces of Morbus Gravis (where there are laws), and also manages to catch the eye of the very duergar Fallenbridge has targeted. While they make plans to rough up this upstart gnome, Fallenbridge filches the paperwork the party needs and starts out.   But, of course, exiting isn't as easy for Leonardo. The duergar accost him right on schedule and he challenges them back, intimidating them into hand-to-hand combat rather than weapons, at which point the duergar show their true abilities: the leader's bones crack and pop and he becomes a veritable giant, head brushing the rafters of the tavern and causing the giant spiders there to have to scurry aside or be crushed!   Happy enters the bar as backup, but apparently isn't required. The second mug of dragon's blood has sent Leonardo into a full-on barbaric-yawp-level rage, and the tiny barbarian lays into the giant duergar with gusto, eventually causing the foe to be forced to concede ... or be left unconscious or dead on the obsidian-chip-covered floor of the tavern.   Back out in the streets and regathered together, the adventurers continue on around the Mirror, sidestepping another encounter with a drow patrol -- this one a drider -- with the judicious use of their newly acquired, semi-legitimate papers.   Leaving Black Mirror behind, the team makes their way through the rest of the district and into the foothills, where the streets of Morbus Gravis become steeper, lined with steps that have them all panting by the time they crest the hills.   Then, before them, opens up a littoral space between the city and the citadel. Here, the buildings have been razed -- only rubble remains. And before them rises the great monolith of Graymark Citadel.   On the maps, it is shown as a butte, atop which is a traditional castle-shaped castle. But here, in person, it's mid-section wreathed in clouds, is a towering fist of stone two hundred feet high. The bulk of its mass is made up of a skeleton partially fused with the stone -- an impossibly gigantic skeleton. Taller than even a storm giant, stairs are carved into its bones, rope bridges span distances between ribs, whole chambers and arcades are crafted within its belly out of wood and bone and sinew.   A voice booms out from within the skull of the thing as its eyes blaze up with lighthouse-like fires of bloody hue. "You have finally arrived!" the voice thunders. "It is time!" And as the adventurers watch in horror, this massive remnant of some long dead god wrenches itself from the stone against which it has lain for who-knows-how-many centuries or even millennia and takes a step forward.   That's when they see the amulet hanging from the god-skeleton's neck, a huge, intricate piece as big around as a house: the Circlet of Worlds, bubbling with blue fire.