By Jedran, Priest of V’garn. Transcribed by Mike Lay.I stepped into the stone room and paused, reaching for my sword. The last thing I remembered was the brick dust and mortar filtering down on my head as that blasted, stupid, impetuous dragon attempted to head butt its way into the temple of J’kel. "Must be a T’gellenite dragon" I thought to myself, surveying the scene, head throbbing gently. Hang over? Seemed unlikely. Must be that wretched servant of L’denon, T’sardan, at work. But what had happened to the traditional banter and briefing session?
I was standing with my back to a staggeringly ornate mirror, fully seven feet wide. On the other three walls of the stone chamber were similar mirrors. The chamber itself was big enough to hold the dozen or so figures milling about in it, all voicing similar concerns about their inability to remember what the hell was going on. Some of them, such as Mara, Walker, Dar, Linstram and the unmistakable Fatty, I knew, others not. Suddenly, someone cannoned into me from behind. Spinning round, I paused half way through drawing my sword, realising that the assault came from Nightingale, high priestess of K’nor, looking slightly more bemused than usual.
"Where are we?" She asked, and scowled at the suggestion that we were in a large square room with mirrors on the wall.
"But how did we get here?" She asked, and did not seem pleased to hear that she had apparently walked through a mirror.
In the meantime, various people had been examining the mirrors. Initially, they had appeared normal, but as someone approached them, they became cloudy and then cleared to reveal a scene. One mirror showed a rocky ledge, overlooking an impressive fall, with the ledge leading to a smashed wooden door into the cliff face. The second mirror showed an even more tedious scene of a fully armoured figure standing in a marsh. The third scene was rather more exciting. It initially appeared to show the quiet view through a pair of open castle gates, looking out across an open plain to a nearby hill. After a few minutes, a group of riders appeared from behind the hill, along with several footmen. The riders charged the gate, and the image faded out as a berserker, frothing at the mouth, came through the point of view. Close examination suggested that he was wearing a necklace with a bone finger - a V’garnian.
It became apparent that all the images cycled - the events repeated themselves after a few minutes. We also learnt that we could interact with the images - an arrow fired into the berserker killed him, though he was back for the next cycle of the image. Similarly, an arrow fired into the figure in the swamp faded after a while, though I noted with interest that the figure in question did not even flinch!
A great deal of discussion ensued as to why we were here, and what we were supposed to be doing. Walker identified the three scenes as a Dwarven Settlement near Rettkine, a V’garnian sect base in the Veller Wets and a place in the mountains near Sarem. The only connection that anybody could think of was that a V’garnian group called the Runeics had been to all three at one point or another. GodBarter suggested that what we were seeing was some form of time gate, and used his powers to determine that the events shown in the "attack" mirror were furthest in the past. Further discussion was pre-empted when the dwarves decided to think with their battle-axes (or possibly they were trying to escape from Bruno, whose presence was thickening the air considerably), and leapt into the "attack" mirror to help their dwarven kindred. They appeared in the scene, and we grudgingly elected to follow them.
Perhaps I should take this opportunity to introduce myself. My name is Jedran, humble servant of my lord V’garn, the god of death who comes to us all. This is the account of an unusual gathering of heroes and others - some of it is even true, though I apologise in advance for any errors and omissions. Those involved were: Friend Pointbreaker, Varianis, Stumpy (Dwarven fighters); Bruno (Unmistakably dwarven); Wulf, Damocules, Fatty, Dar (Human warriors); Grob (Half dark kin thief of ill repute); GodBarter, Jedran, Nightingale (human priests), Bjorn (Dwarf priest), Mara, Walker, Raistlin (human mages); Linstram (Elf mage).
Dwarven villages are unmistakable. The doors are too low, the people too short and they all carry battle axes. And this was unmistakably a dwarven village, complete with mine shaft and small harbour. As we appeared from thin air, we found ourselves on the wrong end of perhaps five crossbows. For some reason the natives had not been expecting a dozen heavily armed warriors to appear out of nowhere. How trusting!
Their leader, Beran, made a swift appearance and the shorties in the party explained that we were on a mission here, and that the village would shortly be attacked by a party of raiders who would slay all in the village. Beran opined that he didn’t believe us, so I shook him by the hand and assured him that we were telling the truth, and his village was in deep trouble!
A defense of the place was quickly organised, and the defenders hid anywhere they could so as to make the place as inviting as possible. The dwarves all had strange looking crossbows and battle-axes, and numbered perhaps thirty. The young and the old were directed towards the harbour, where a boat would take them to safety if things went badly wrong. After a while, I noticed that all the mages had vanished. My first assumption was that they had run off, but Dar told me that he had seen them with his powers of Truesight, and that they had cast spells so that they could fly invisibly - their plan was to launch a counter attack at the enemy camp!
The waiting did not last long - soon the riders appeared as expected; more importantly, various groups of undead and warriors magically appeared inside the stockade! The fight that followed was filled with moments of heroism, some of which I shall recount. I, myself, was positioned near the centre of the village along with Nightingale. From where we stood, we saw violence erupt in various parts of the village - the nearest to us was a group of five archers, who immediately opened fire on us. Arrows bounced from our armour, but the dwarf who was with us was hit, and promptly collapsed, a strange green paste oozing from the wound. Poison! I used my powers to strike down one of these interlopers, and charged the other four, a tactic which caught them by surprise given that I only outnumbered them one to four! As I got close, I called upon the gods to hide me in darkness, and in the ensuing gloom, I managed to finish off the other four. Just as I was doing so though, I was attacked by a vine-like plant which burst through the soil. I drained this vile thing of its life-force, but could not understand where this attack had come from, nor how some sorcerer had managed to target me. It was not until much later that I understood...
Elsewhere, invisible and visible ghouls were causing problems - it was perilous knife work on the walls. Fatty dealt with a contingent of enemy mages by the simple expedient of swan diving off the twenty foot high ramparts and landing on them. Those that survived the landing of the man-mountain were soon beaten into submission.
Unbeknown to his fellows, Grob had followed his baser instincts, and had broken into the gold store house and was happily looting when he heard a scratching at the door. A quick look through the window revealed that a pair of heavily armed skeletons, eyes glowing red, were trying to get in. Grob, resisting any valorous instincts he might have had, turned to flee, only belatedly realising that there was only one way out. What could he do? As the undead broke through the door, had they been a little faster, they might have observed a pair of feet disappearing up into the roof space. Grob was safe, at least for now.
Although I did not know it at the time, the most serious and desperate fight was taking place near the mine head. GodBarter and Stumpy had taken up position there, as Beran had told them that there was a secret path out of the village that started in the mine. To their horror, a large contingent of undead appeared, consisting of powerful looking corpses with flaming swords, some zombies and skeletons, skeletal warhounds, and a pair of demonic hounds. GodBarter used his powers to command some of the lesser undead to attack their erstwhile comrades, but the pair were soon forced back into the mine-head building itself - they had dealt several of the undead damaging blows, but they were still beset by more than they could handle. As the door quaked under the assault of the undead, they looked for a means of escape - but the only exit was down! With dazzling speed of thought, and staggering lack of forethought, Stumpy took the brake off the lift, and the pair leapt onto the platform as it started to accelerate down into the blackness! A splintering from above heralded the arrival of the undead, who shambled over to the lift shaft in pursuit of their prey - one zombie was so keen, it leapt after the two. One of the more intelligent undead grasped the brake lever in both hands, and with a massive heave succeeded in breaking the mechanism completely. The lift continued to accelerate, but now with no way of slowing down.....
The fighting was interrupted by a series of explosions and cracks of thunder from the south, behind the hills. The riders, who had not yet reached the gates, hesitated and then turned back. I learned later that the mages had flown to the enemy camp and had unleashed mighty magic on the priests and mages who had remained there. Then something really strange happened. One particular V’garnian, known as Deathlord, spotted the flying mages and unleashed a counter attack, sufficiently powerful that Linstram almost fell into his own "hell fire" spell. A savage magical attack dismissed the problem; Deathlord’s body charred to ash. As soon as his body hit the ground, a paleness began to spread from it. The pale tide engulfed the immediate surroundings and slowly climbing the hill, which began to settle into the ground, leaving a flat, empty, featureless plain.
By now the fighting in the village was at an end, and as we searched the bodies for anything of interest, we were surprised to see the portal return - and even more surprised to see the whiteness start to engulf the surroundings. We grabbed what we could, stepped through the portal, and found ourselves in the stone room once more. There seemed no hope for GodBarter and Stumpy, whom we presumed dead.
Back in the stone room, more debate ensued. What had we done? Had we altered time? Or was someone playing a far more devious game? As we talked, the mirror leading to the Dwarven village returned to being a standard reflective mirror - no second chances! The other mirrors continued to repeat their scenes. Suddenly, we were interrupted by the appearance of GodBarter and Stumpy, stepping through the mirror we had all entered this place by. Our relief that they were still with us was tempered when I noticed that they both seemed desperately pale. Or perhaps that should be deathly pale. This, naturally provoked more discussion, which ended when Stumpy announced that he couldn’t take this enclosed space any more, and leapt through the mirror to the Veller Wets swamp. With a soggy splash, he immediately began to sink into the treacherous morass.
The Veller Wets. My home away from home. Where I learnt the ways of my Lord V’garn and studied the glories of the Necromantic arts. More importantly though, I had learnt the secret paths through the swamp! I stepped through the mirror onto an area of solid ground and hauled the rather damp dwarf out of the marsh. Presuming the others would be following me, I approached the stationary armoured figure, and confirmed my belief that this was a zombie. I instructed it to take me to his master, the liche priest of the temple. Perhaps my old friend would have some answers?
Behind me I could here the occasional splash as the others found, or failed to find, the correct path through the swamp. For some unaccountable reason, it seemed that GodBarter and Stumpy did not want to go down into the cave, and they elected to stay above ground, watching the reeds grow or whatever dwarves do in swamps.
A long and sorry tale of combat ensued. It transpired that we were walking into the middle of an ambush: several years ago a number of powerful T’gellenite parties elected to attack the temple in the Veller Wets. Unfortunately for them, the Runeics discovered their plans, and laid a trap - they made the entrance into the underground complex a relatively simple affair, with just enough undead to make it convincing. Their main defence was centred around the main entrance cavern, whose exits were all heavily barricaded, with an oil soaked net in the roof. Suffice it to say that the attacking fire worshippers made it into the main cavern, where they were hit with enough magic to cave in the roof. The remnants of the attack force retreated with heavy losses, having caused the temple to be damaged. And we were walking right into it!
After a brief fight in the entrance tunnels, in which a number of minor undead were destroyed, I paused to ask Nightingale something (we tried and failed to resurrect her memories of the briefing we hoped T’sardan had given us. Instead, the memories dredged up were too shocking and unlikely for the K’norian priestess to even discuss. Curiouser and Curiouser!). Others made their way into the main cavern, and found the ambush exactly as described. Meanwhile, the V’garnian high priest had teleported to where myself, Nightingale and a few others were, and accused me of treachery! Me!! Nightingale reacted swiftly; producing several holy symbols, she managed to dismiss the old Liche. That a mere mortal could manage that feat confirmed my suspicions that something more than mere adventuring was afoot.
As the mages overflew the barricades and penetrated the inner sanctums of the temple, the whiteness began to grow again, and we were forced to make a swift retreat. The only real casualty of the day was Dar, killed instantly by a death envenomed arrow, fired from a cowardly attack from behind. He was a valiant warrior, and would be missed. I considered animating his body, but decided the other fire worshippers might object. But it would have been a great irony!
When we returned to the surface, we were just in time to see a small struggling figure dragged under the swamp by a large tentacular thing. Of GodBarter and Stumpy, there was no sign. We returned through the portal to the stone mirror room to contemplate our next move.
In the mirrored room, we now seemingly had only one choice - through the mirror that displayed the rocky ledge and the door into the cliffside. As usual, this many heroes could do nothing without discussion, and, while we talked, something very strange happened. Dar, Godbarter and Stumpy came through one of the other mirrors! All looked particularly pale, and Dar had a piece of parchment strapped to his breastplate. In summary this note was from Dar to Dar, and informed him that he had just walked through a mirror engraved with runes of forgetfulness, having made his way here across a strange grey plane. Naturally he didn’t believe it, nor could he remember it! Even stranger, we still had Dar’s body lying on the floor in front of us. The pale Dar eyed the dead Dar with some trepidation, and decided to take him with us on our next adventure.
It also transpired that the revenants had some new phobias - Dar seemed to think that any woman was the spawn of the Devil (a bit ironic in the case of Nightingale, High Priestess of K’nor!), and Stumpy had acquired a paranoid fear of weapons, to go with his fear of enclosed spaces.
As we discussed this turn of events, Stumpy announced that he couldn’t stand being in this small room any more, and promptly leapt through the mirror. Unfortunately, he then realised that he was standing on a narrow ledge, and the only exit was through the wooden door into an underground lair. He froze, but was eventually persuaded to move on when someone waved a sword at him - the fear of weapons being the more immediate one!
I called this place "The Tomb Of Arngra", but that was being optimistic. Arngra, knight of T’gellen, and general irritant, had visited this place, but had sadly not died here. It seems that the Runeics had hidden a valuable and powerful cross somewhere in the complex, and had trapped the place, in the hope of catching the T’gellenite. A laudable goal, but one which failed - Arngra was not killed, but did not find the cross. We immediately presumed that it was our task to do so.
We rapidly made our way to a series of doors, all of which were engraved with riddles of varying degrees of difficulty (for example: "Sons plus high card for a threat", to which the answer is obviously "Menace", or "two mules plus preposition for murderer", which gives "assassin"). These we soon solved, and soon encountered a very strange well. The runes around it indicated that any who bathed in the waters would be granted their hearts desire. Somebody (I forget who) tried it, and to my surprise, the well seemed to have the stated effect. So we all tried it, and realised we had been tricked. The well gave us our wishes, but twisted them against our best interests! Damocules wished to have the powers of a servant of A’dicne. He soon dropped dead, and reappeared as a spirit - to have the powers of a spirit, one must be a spirit. Fatty wished to have the powers of a mage - his prodigious fighting skills were translated into staggering magical prowess, but left him unable to fight his way through a sheet of parchment. Bruno wished that all his equipment should be enchanted - and was not best pleased to have a helm of silence, an operatic battle axe and armour that smelt of roses (the rest of us thought this was a distinct improvement). Somebody else wished that their armour should protect them more effectively - and ended up with a set of talking armour that advised him not to go into dangerous places, and tended to freeze up when he did. Dar wished that his "brother" was alive, and soon we had two Dars walking about. Fortunately, the second Dar wished for him and his brother to be re-united, reducing the number of Dars back to one.
The next door looked to be the salvation for some people. The wall had the legend "Parec Durnam Sombilis", which we translated as "Who seeks the cleansing?" Bruno entered the room and announced himself, and was overjoyed when it worked and lifted the effects of the wish-curse. Others tried it and discovered that it obliterated not just the effects of the previous room, but all magic - weapons, armour, everything. Worst hit was Fatty, who went into the room as a wimp with superb magical skills and left the room as a wimp. A sad end for such a fighter!
To cut a long story short, we were attacked by some undead, who were dispatched with relative ease, lost our A’dicne guiding spirit, who stepped between two highly enchanted pillars on the advice of (so he thought) A’dicne, and eventually found the cross hidden under the glowing coals of a forge. When we retrieved the cross, the scenery all went white, and we retreated to the sanctuary of the mirror room, to ponder our next move - all the mirrors now appearing as plain mirrors.
But, as we wondered what to do next, the mirror we had all come in by cleared, as if inviting us to step through. When we did so, we found ourselves on a featureless grey plain. The ground was grey, the sky was grey, and even the heroes looked a bit grey. From in front of us came a distant roar, like approaching thunder. We soon saw a giant demonic creature, fully 40 feet tall, approaching. Everybody readied their weapons, and awaited the final confrontation. Everybody, that is, except GodBarter, who suddenly turned and sauntered off with a distinct "aha!" expression. When I looked for him again, he had vanished. When the monster came within range, we attacked. The mages unleashed a variety of potent spells, I used my own powers to attack the creature, and others fired arrows, some with powerful venoms. The demon disappeared in a cloud of magical fire, roaring its displeasure. But, as we watched in dismay, the roaring turned to laughter, and the demon inhaled the various magics, and then exhaled a toxic cloud back at us. Most of the mages were killed instantly, and I was struck a mighty blow - but one that felt exactly like the power I had used on the demon.
Suddenly everything clicked into place. Why the various adventures had finished when we achieved something that the original adventurers had not; why the answers to obvious questions had turned out to be perverse; why our dead colleagues kept returning to us. It was an illusion! A chimera designed to weaken us. We were not fighting a monster from the darkest pits, we were fighting ourselves, flailing in our dreams. The only real resolution to the problem was inaction. "Follow me!" I hissed to Nightingale, "There’s no point in fighting this thing." As we turned and walked off, I explained what was happening.
Behind us, all hell was continuing to break loose. The demon flailed at those remaining, releasing a storm of black thorns, which, with uncanny accuracy, struck at those who were using bows. They of course exactly mimicked the original users aim; a bit unfortunate for those using death venom! Damocules, with true A’dicne stupidity, charged the monster, and died - he dealt himself a number of superb blows in the process though!
And it all went quiet - except for the demon, bellowing challenges. As no one took him up on those, its form began to decay and fade, until it was but a small puddle on the floor, eventually destroyed with a bottle of healing potion. The world around us faded once again.
The giant Jacross finished bargaining with T'sardan and left him and the group alone in the great kitchen. Wulf climbed up the chair and started to pass food down from the giant's table to the waiting Grob, Fatty and Damocules. There was much knocking on the door to the outside where Bruno had been pushed earlier by Mara, Dar and Walker. He was stood outside in the snow with a blizzard blowing around him and frost forming on his beard.
"How long are we going to leave him out there?" asked Varianis to which I dryly answered, "As long as it takes." "I think he was 'cursed' at birth with permanent flatulence," commented Nightingale, pouring herself a giant thimble of warm mead, "but I think it is even beyond me to remove his affliction." Godbarter meanwhile started to rip of chunks from the giant loaf of bread with the aid of Bjorn whilst Stumpy and Friend Pointbreaker were becoming rather nervous of the way the huge chicken in the corner was giving them a beady eye. The beast was the size of a horse but remained on its nest in the corner of the kitchen. Out of the blue Linstram mentioned to the two dwarves, "They aren't gold... I looked."
When everyone was feeling more like their old selves again, T'sardan gathered them round to impart what he knew and had discovered. "Having banished the Dream Master's presence with the power of your wills," he explained, "the force that bound you to the Realm of Dreams faded, and the rest of you were able to follow Godbarter back here to the Mortal Realm. Over the next few days you should be able to recover from the psychic torture your minds had been subjected to and may even forget the nightmare you have endured."
"It seems that an evil party of V'garnians called the Runeics had taken exception to the fact that I had previously called upon a group of Heroes to destroy a V'garnian Temple they had constructed. Seeking revenge, they traveled here to the Tower of Jacross, deep in the northern ice continent, with the intention of stealing the Crystal of Dreams."
"The Crystal of Dreams has the power to greatly enhance the abilities of anyone skilled in Dream Manipulation, a power normally limited to information gathering over a very short range, amongst humans that is. With the aid of the crystal, the Runeics Dream Master planned to enter the Plane of Dreams to which all mortal subconscious minds are linked. From here, he would have been able to locate the sleeping minds of those he sought, summon and ensnare their souls on the Dream Plane, and slay their mortal forms by destroying their minds."
"To prevent this, I, T'sardan, summoned you here to the Tower of Jacross to battle the Runeics. Unfortunately, the Runeics High Priest had already entered the crystal chamber using his power of Shadow Form. This then allowed the group's mages to then Teleport the Dream Master directly to the Crystal. I suspect F'norian Knowledge Demons also warned the Runeics of my plan. All this forced the Runeics Dream Master to turn the powers of the crystal onto your newly summoned, and unconscious, forms, before he could properly prepare."
"The different places you visited whilst on the Dream Plane were in fact raw memories belonging to the Dream Master. These were used by him to confuse you and inflict psychic trauma upon your minds. Each time you died whilst on the Dream Plane, your physical bodies suffered system shock, with the potential of inducing heart failure or permanent mental damage. Destroying the Dream Master's psychic form, banished him from the Dream Plane, freeing your own souls in the process."
"Due to the psychic battle, you will find both your physical and mental abilities severely drained for a good few days. Regeneration being a product of time, rather than mere magic, when the Runeics saw their Dream Master collapse in the same exhausted state as yourselves, and having the knowledge that both T'sardan and yourselves were in the immediate vicinity, they must have decided that discretion was the better part of valour, for they departed the area in some haste."
"The giant Jacross, whose tower this is, has allowed us to remain here in his lower chambers for a couple of days before you are ready to be sent back home. It took some persuading to even allow this as it seems that before the 'Runeics problem' some humans repaid previous hospitality by stealing from him. He does appear to have realised that with your help the crystal was saved and the Runeics driven away and has thus promised to offer gifts of thanks."
When T'sardan finished, Raistlin and Mara then started discussing the finer points of dream manipulation with the servant of L'denon. The knocking outside had stopped and Stumpy and Dar investigated to discover a rather stiff, blue dwarf outside. Though a show of hands seems to indicate that he should be left there, T'sardan demanded that he be brought inside and thawed off albeit after having first been gagged and sprinkled with 'pot pourri'.
Eventually, as is the way with a gathering of heroes, farewells had to be made and just before leaving, the huge Jacross came down to the kitchen and handed a sack to each hero. The sacks appeared to have been made from the fingers of giant gloves but before the contents could be examined, T'sardan called on the power of L'denon and one by one, the members of the gathering vanished to appear back with their respective parties.
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