Journal #36 - Castle Dalobar

 
As we entered, torches lit as if sensing our presence. They turned green, and showed us to be in a grand hall. Malastar warned that the Steward had had years to create traps, and that he wanted to conserve his strength should it be needed later. All we should have to do is request to speak to the master of the castle, but first we much reach the inner chamber to find the Steward to even ask. They may not yet know they even have visitors.
 
The castle seemed to breathe, as if the walls themselves were alive. Perhaps the Steward was unaware of our entrance, but something was, and hiding was a moot point. Ghiravont noticed ahead of us some hidden structure creating an invisible barrier – tossing coins across the hall ahead, they vanished as if into another dimension. A plane shifting wall. As the coins passed through, the ward was dispelled. It seemed clear we would have to walk extraordinarily carefully…
 
Several barriers and statue traps later, and we entered a large room blanketed in fog. There were four doors, one on each wall. There were also four light posts, and as we approached, four wights emerged from them, summoning a Reaper between them, and then vanishing - one to each door. We tried various doors, and most sent us back to the same room, it was quite disconcerting. As it turned out, the Reaper had wrapped itself around one of the ghosts, and only the door it had taken led to a new room. We eventually found it, and found four more light posts and a lone spirit in the center.
 
I divinely sensed that a celestial spirit was within one of the flames, and we snuffed its flame. As we did so, it disappeared leaving a lantern behind. We took it back to the main room, and hung it up on its post. It was a key, and we had to find the others. It repeated again and again, we followed the Reaper, sensed the spirit, and retrieved its lantern. Each time it grew more contested, guardian spirits awaiting our arrival. We distracted them to accomplish our goal.
 
As the fourth lantern was hung upon its post, the light shifted. A gale force wind blew into the room, and we were deposited throughout the room. There in the center stood the Reaper. It tried to behead us, attacking with vanishing speed. It was a hair’s breadth from decapitating me. We tried to guard against its attacks, and Ghiravont tried to predict them to counter. He succeeded, and his radiant blows revealed its true location for the rest of us. It summoned wretched skulls which enhanced its power, and yet before it could attack with them, it had already fallen. The storm was dispelled. A reaper from the lost realm, Malastar called it.
 
It was not an evil native to this place or to the inhabitants of Dalobar. It was an evil of the Drev, and that was concerning. Malastar said the castle was huge, and it was ever-shifting, rearranging itself, because the Cross controlled the mechanism, and was missing. We had not been greeted by the Steward because perhaps he himself is lost in the castle… But perhaps slaying the reaper rid the living castle of a cancer, and so perhaps it would be grateful to us.
 
And so it was. After a short rest, we tried another door, and proceeded into an old dining room. Windows showed a storm battering outside, and at the table, in a fur coat pelted with feathers, wearing a reddish furred cape, sat a bald, long, pointy-eared humanoid. A gold goblet set with red rubies was next to him… real gold.
 
We approached the table, and he spoke to us. His voice came not just from his mouth, but also from all around us. He knew who we were, he had heard from the Spires of Dalobar. There was some small talk about our journey, and he offered us refreshment. It was the Steward of Dalobar, Nos Faratose.
 
He offered us food, and it appeared out of nowhere. We ate. We had not heard of such magic, but he explained it as he came from an age before wizards, and their meddling. His master, Cyrandiil, has nearly recovered, he tells us.
 
Apparently the Key of Ariss, Ghiravont, has triggered something with his arrival. The storm is now a torrent, and lifting one spell merely invites the next. The storm was to stop the Key from ever leaving. He says the castle will likely be our home, and our grave, and to get comfortable. Must like his other guests…
 
I asked about Goma who I had cause to believe was here; yet he did not have the Key to make it here as we did. He was of Ashen Blood it turned out, he lived as a child here in the days before the castle was frozen. A native. As it turned out, not only was Goma there, but so were the Voices of Magulban. The Steward also warned us, he would not sit idly by while his master’s property was harmed… I wasn’t sure what he was implying.
 
Eating this magical meal left us curiously nourished and spry. Apparently, while eating this food one is immortal. However, once you stop eating for a halfspan (five days), the aging it prevented will present itself. If you stay for a short while this will not be perceptible. Yet, if you stay beyond the natural span of your years, ceasing to yet would cause you to die of old age.
 
We visited a small library, the repository, and spoke of the history of Dalobar and Cyrandiil. We continued touring the rooms.
 
The Steward said we’d been tested by Dalobar herself, we lifted a powerful scourge from this castle, and his lords slumber. Needlessly have the drev crawled in and summoned the Lost. Their ignorant suffering, their whining and mourning called forth the Reaper. The Drev that have been imprisoned here are not of his Lords doing, they are of the wizards and their meddling. He will inform Lord Cyrandiil of our victory over the Reaper. He will be most grateful as he was sure Dalobar was as well. Afterall none find themselves in their innermost sanctum unless she wants them to. Surely, you must have some merit…
 
He told us to make our final preparations; standing and holding his hands, he said to wake him when we are ready to come before the lord, and he turned statuesque.
 
First door opened as we approached, some beds - quite dusty, what used to be wonderful rooms. I cleaned with Prestidigitation. A spirit of a high elf woman sits on the last bed, she isn't looking at us, quite still. A ghost, spirit.
 
We went to sleep, and I centered myself. I awoke feeling even more attuned to the divine Alghadan energy. Roric awoke in a fright, the ghost woman was kissing him, and then departed to rest at last. He was death warded by her.
 
Ghiravont, needing little sleep, had been reading the historical records of the repository most of the morning. He learned the history of the terraforming of Magulban, what once was a utopian land, not a volcanic hell. The Dark Lord had fooled the Elinid into bringing evil into their world, allowing him a foothold to appear in the flesh.
 
We were ready, and went to speak to the Steward and entered the throne room. It was an open-air room, and inside King Goma stood by one throne on the left with his hammer leaning against it; on teh right stood the Voice of Magulban, and in the center was a ma with jet black hair - Cyrandiil?
 
Beneath Goma’s throne stood a familiar pair of rogues, Mabel and Straga. They were wielding Tybeerian’s knives…
 
The Steward introduced us, the Alliance of Nothric.
 
“Esteemed guests, let me announce our others. Clad in the white of the light of Elindi, the Voice of Magulban; child of Dalobar, Heir to Gardraka - King Goma, and his two royal guards of the Black Quartz, Straga and Mabel Blackthorn. Friends, allow me to formally introduce you to Lord of Castle Dalobar, and the Riders of Nordu, Heir of Magulban, Cyrandiil the Black…
 
The ceiling rose two hundred feet above us, where a flying creature perched above. I couldn’t quite decide whether it was a large bird, or a tiny dragon. My mind went back to when the Steward compared Cyrandiil with the Topaz wizard whose tower we plundered, and how they had created dragons in a competition, and Cyrandiil’s was small, yet strong - made of diamond.
 
Lug presented the Chrysanthemum Cross when asked why we had come. Cyrandiil could not recall what it even was… the others gave us strange looks. Straga was playing with Tybeerian’s dagger.
 
“He has just been given a grand invitation, his master has called him forth; he hears of peace in Terrinoth and that is good, perhaps in the long run the prismatic alliance was never needed. Please…” he looks to Lug, “I Accept this Kingly GIft,” said Cyrandiil. Who was his master that called him forth? I had an evil feeling in my gut as he said it.
 
The eyes of the high lord and the eyes of Lug are similar, lost, imprisoned… they meet at the crossroads, destiny fulfilled. He places it in his hands. He smiles.
 
For the first time Lug feels the Fade lift from the cross, instead of thorns the cross sprouts into red roses and it burns gold. Majestic gold-red light covers his face, he remembers now… children laugh in the room, an illusion of the court in the first days of green, his father on the throne, and the queen (mother) and him are on the smaller thrones, very young Goma and Talivar the Topaz. Time lapses. Parents fade, he takes their place, and then a lonely Cyrandiil. Steward at his side. Beautiful elvish woman comes, they fall in love, and the castle doesn't move. All the years he had the cross here he never once used it. It is now in the right hands, we feel sure.
 
His eyes fill with tears, and he views everything the cross has been through, he sees our journey, and he says he understands. He thanks us. He will return it… and in that moment the Voices of Magulban morph into the shape of Surindo the White as he casts Power World Kill at Cyrandiil.
 
This was a trap? The voices were actually Surindo, here to assassinate Cyrandiil. King Goma and his henchmen were here in reality though, however. Cyrandiil was Saren the Black once, it was implied.
 
Surindo the White had stalked us from the first days with Rosaravich the Black, mentor to Alastar. Caused the rape of Lucifel and creating Domino. Betrayed Saren the Black, did so much.
 
We entered into battle; the Steward protected his lord; Goma stole the cross, inserting it into his hammer which acted as a focus, creating a terrible aura. Surindo tried to kill Ghiravont next, and a series of three counterspells protected him.
 
At that moment, Malastar hastened myself and Orlando, and we moved in unison to attack Surindo. I smote him down the staircase he was perched atop, and as he lay prone at the bottom, Orlando struck him down. Or so we thought.
 
A look of undeath and drevness appeared in his eyes, eyes which were not of his choosing but that of a true polymorph. For the first time, a once living dragon began to emerge from Surindo the White. A staff is absorbed into his body, a claw emerged, and we were pushed back as he stood before us growing into a gargantuan, ancient undead dragon. It looked at Goma, and blasted a hole into the wall. Grabbing him in its talons, it flew out of the castle, the cross with them, flying to the ramparts.
 
Roric convinced the Black Quartz members to flee, since the Black King was moved away against his will. Surindo, it seemed, was truly a dragon. We chased to the top of the tower, and it spoke to us. The Dragon King was his father, and Surindo wishes to see him freed and awakened. Castle Dalobar rests above the lair of the Dragon King, preventing his slumber from being disturbed.
 
Goma used the cross to cover the dragon in an adamantine skin. We dispelled it eventually, and are battered with chromatic orbs. Amber fell, but Orlando saved her. Ghiravont was slain, and I stood over his corpse striking down King Goma once and for all, splitting his crown like I did that of the Goblin “king.” As he fell, the cross came loose from his hammer.
 
In that moment, Orlando jumped atop the dragon and attacked him directly. Our mages were working to counter a dreadful spell the dragon was channeling, and I distracted him by asking about why he wishes to free his father, who would immediately become a slave, rather than removing the need for him to be trapped at all – the dark lord. He didn’t seem to have a good answer, before the spell was ended. He had been opening a portal to the faded world - it snapped shut. Malastar says he will be scattered into the echo forever more, and reversed the spell, trying to banish the dragon. It resisted.
 
It raised the corpse of Ghiravont to fight us, and we had to battle him. Malastar sacrificed himself, and Amber was slain by the zombie. We fight, and fight. Malastar was also raised, and the dragon clung to its undead fortitude, alive by a thread.
 
Lug brought it down with lighting storms, exhausting himself. The portal remained, and Myra was our only hope. We assisted her as best we could, and she shut the gate. Ghiravont and Malastar turned back into normal corpses. We could only revive one, and it was Ghiravont, with his now cross-infused staff, Lug brought him back.
 
The castle crumbled, the volcano erupted. A spite of flame, meteor after meteor crashing down. We jumped off the tower and Ghiravont used feather fall to slow our descent. Lug became a bird and carried down Malastar’s body, and picked us out of the sky as he came.
 
That night, we sat on the cliff face pondering the days events. Waiting out the eruption of the Karakesh. The castle was damaged, but still stood. It now has a natural obsidian wall. We returned to the castle.
 
Returning the Cross to Cyrandiil, he took it and brought us to the great machination engine room. It was a metallic tree with branches reaching to gears. The cross was slotted it, and aligned.
 
Cyrandiil tells us he can take us anywhere in the world. Ghiravont goes to Almstead. Orlando and Amber go to the bar in Torm. I go back to Zuranda in the Sunken Summits. Myra goes to Tamalir, to put together a search party for those who fell in the Mistlands. Malastar’s staff is taken by Cyrandill, handed to the steward, to be kept with the others of the prismatic alliance. His body goes with Lug. Roric goes to Forge to report to Nothric. Lug … goes to Teren Tilith. He also gave his druid staff.
 
We shoot out in beams of light to our locations. We leave behind ruin, the fallen, the suffered, the avenged, the sacrificed. What we did (not?) leave behind was victory and peace for all of Terrinoth.