D&D Chronicles: Of portals, dust and a strange villa

ZILLAH

We’re finally leaving Issimbaal. It’s been over a week, but feels even longer. So much has happened.

After much deliberation, we’ve decided to brave the dust plains and head south-west towards the Temple of Bahaal and hope it doesn’t live up to its other name — the Temple of Death. We’re pretty sure that’s where Elliana has gone too. Last night’s research revealed, that in addition to possibly being the place the zombie virus was created, it’s the location of one of six known Vahdrim portals.

There’s another in Tel Marrenor. It figures. Elliana must be after the Right Eye. This is so not good.

But maybe — if we don’t all die — we can can find some hint of a cure for the zombie virus. And now I wonder if Squirrel and Alix between them can figure out how to use the portals (if we get that far)?

The six Vahdrim portals

Baal — Temple of Death (dust plains)
Tel Marrenor (broken forest)
Teras Arnor
Vahd (dust plains)
Tel Elenor
Capital Tuyar Empire (dust plains)

We’ve geared up for the dust plains as best we can. Water is going to be our main issue: we’ve scavenged two barrels and a cart, enough for 80 days (total rations). Hopefully we can make it to the temple and back in 20 days. It’s lucky (in this instance) that Nightshade doesn’t need rations.

We depart Issimbaal on 5 April. At first the road is easy followed, if overgrown and untended. But soon we begin to feel the full despair of the dust plains. They are bleak. Barren. And this is only the fringe.

The first day is not so bad, but on the second the wind picks up until our visibility is reduced to about 30 feet. Grit swirls into our faces as we push through through the cloud of dust. It’s well nigh impossible to pick out the road, and I’m trusting all my instincts to make sure we’re heading in the right direction.

We shelter in a ramshackle hut for the night, but it feels like we’ve been settled only minutes before we’re under attack. Two creatures lurking in the dust and the night are hurling magic at us — fire, cold, electricity. We manage to fight them off, but our shelter is in flames and our water barrels are destroyed. Again.

Squirrel casts a magical shelter, and we huddle inside as the dust storms around us. Dawn comes and there’s no respite from the dust. Squirrel casts another hut and we wait out the day and another night. By the next morning, the storm has settled. We deal with a couple of giant scorpions… and then fight off three giant poisonous centipedes as we trudge along the road back to Issimbaal. We arrive back in the city, despondent and despairing, around midday on the fifth day after we left it.

The clerics have made some headway with the zombie virus. They tell us they need a special type of moss — Sorias moss — which is grown to the north and west. We discuss heading there instead, but ultimately decide we need to make a second attempt to get to the Temple of Death. We scavenge another couple of water barrels.

This time when we head out of Issimbaal, we have better luck. The ‘road’ is clear of creatures (mostly) and dust storms, until on the fourth day we reach a town. It’s in ruins and the wells are all empty, but it yields a few coins when we search.

The villa

On the fifth day, we see a villa on a hill in the distance. After days of lifeless waste and decayed buildings, the two-storey villa looks remarkably grand and intact. What is more, it’s surrounded by a thick border of living trees, vibrantly green. Clearly there’s magic at work, and we approach cautiously.

When we’re about 400 feet from the trees, we make out an array of withered corpses. It looks as though an attacking force fell foul of some magical barrier, and we halt about 30 feet away from the outermost one. Squirrel, Alix and I venture forward, but almost immediately feel the drain on our energy. We retreat, and Squirrel determines there’s a spell causing the trees to drain the life energy of living creatures in the vicinity of their root systems.

Nightshade crosses into the danger zone. Her zombie disease enables her to move through the field of corpses and get closer to the trees before the ward affects her. According to Squirrel, three of the corpses bear magic items and Nightshade drags them out. (There’s a ring, a suit of ring mail armour and an iron shield.)

We discuss how to get beyond the trees and reach the villa. I immediately veto Squirrel’s suggestion that he fireball the trees. I can’t bear the thought of killing these trees — it’s not as though the mages who cast that ward gave them a choice.

Instead, we circumnavigate the villa, searching for an entrance. There are more corpses, many non-human, and we discover a path and a gap in the trees. Beyond, there’s a dormant fountain in a courtyard in front of the building, and the doors to the villa tantalise us with their inaccessibility.

The villa is just too intriguing to abandon, and Squirrel eventually decides he will attempt to dispel the ward. It’s late in the day, so we make camp opposite the entrance to the villa.

Just before dawn, Squirrel casts his spell. It takes a while. He seems to be struggling. Sweat beads on his brow.

Then he reels and collapses…

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Will we get inside the villa? I’ll find out tomorrow, so stay tuned for the next D&D Chronicles post. See the D&D Chronicles page for the full story.