23: The Last Lord of the Six and the Yawning Portal

The heroes spent the evening in Diamond Lake. Almost immediately they met Lath’s cousin ‘Shaft’ (a nickname for something unpronounceable in elvish). He had come south following the soldiers and barely outpaced the Saint Cuthbert followers. He had been sent by Lath’s mother to check in on him. He bore a note for Lath which read ‘Would it kill you to write your dear old mother once in a while.’
Aarth had decided to head back to Celene, doing chores for Ellival grated on him, and he had enough adventure for a while. He bid his childhood friend Lath a fond farewell, and headed north.
‘Shaft’ was quickly put to work removing the crystal from the large cudgel and placing it on Lath’s sword. After 4 hours the heroes had lunch then headed west, since Aardgal had no desire to be around when 100 Saint Cuthbert cudgel thumpers arrived.
The rest of the days travel went smoothly. Morgrim grumbled about not having his cart to ride, but otherwise it was fine spring traveling weather at the edge of the Mist Marsh.
The next day around 11 am they came across some vultures feasting on a corpse. A goblin had been lashed to two poles forming an X. It was dead, it’s intestines had been cut out and stuffed down it’s throat. The body bore a peculiar brand in goblin on it’s upper arm. No one present could read goblin, so the heroes continued their march.
That evening around 4 pm the heroes spotted a large band of dwarves traveling to the east. Morgrim and Bornir hailed them. As they neared there appeared to be 15 dwarves, and 3 cowled humans. Morgrim and Bornir being dwarves were allowed to come forward to speak.
The head of the band was a red haired dwarf who named himself Toric Coalbrow, first son of the Coalbrow family. Most of the dwarves bore his clan marking, and they were escorting a female dwarf named Ullsa Ironmettle. She wore Full Plate, Shield, and a sword, and had a raven perched on her shoulder. She recognized the symbols of Moradin and Clanggedin and spoke “Praise be to Moradin the Soul Forger and his sons Clangeddin and Abbathor.” She wore the gold symbol of Abbathor, the Dwarven god of greed – a fist clenching a dagger, made of gold.
Morgrim and Bornir warned the dwarves of the recent fighting between the men of Blackwall Keep and the Lizard Folk, and the imminent arrival of scores of Saint Cuthbert worshippers to the Keep. In return for the warning Ullsa warned them of the ruins of a old Keep on a plateau. Undead were seen, as shadows and pales ones (the group figured this to mean wights). With that the two groups went their separate ways.


The heroes continued west towards the Ruins of the Six. The following morning they reached the smell plateau with stone stairs leading up the northern side. The stairs ascended 40’ feet to a roughly 250’ ft. diameter plateau atop which were the shattered ruins of an old keep. It looked as if siege boulders or some other means had reduced it to a dozen stone walls and rubble.
The group dispersed and some of the fighter types headed into the rubble, while a few others spread out. Morgrim spotted stairs heading down, and continued his search. He spotted a wolf dead perhaps a month, and a few other wet and torn pieces of clothing. He prodded the equipment with his trident when a terrible moaning rose up as the shadows of the keeps rubble animated and attacked. Six human shaped or smaller shadows attacked, Morgrim was flanked by two of the undead. Within a minute 3 had been dispatched and the remaining 3 had been turned by the power of Corellon Larethian channeled through Lath’s will. They had fled down through the ground.
The heroes formed a defensive ring, with Felnar in the middle. Soon the 3 shadows attacked, but were quickly destroyed now that the heroes were prepared.
The clerics cast lesser restorations spells to regain their strength, and Lath cast a Death Ward spell on himself and Shaft.
Morgrim went back to where he had seen the equipment and found a staff carved with a corn sheaf, the symbol of Obad-Hai, the Flannae god of nature and the wilds. Near the staff was a scroll case with a few clerical spells inscribed on weathered parchment.
The heroes headed down the stairs. The front ranks, consisting of the two elves, reached the bottom of the stairs when suddenly the stairs collapsed! Dirt and stone rained down, and luckily no one was hurt. As the heroes dusted themselves off they found the stairs had fallen in and where the stood was a pile of rubble with a few shafts of light from above poking through. Worse still, the front of the party and the back had been separated. Lath, ‘Shaft’, Morgrim and Krech were in a large mausoleum, octagonal in shape with six funeral biers in six niches. A well stood in the middle of the room, and two stone doors led from the room one across the room and a second on the left hand wall.

Felnar, Aardgal, Azrael & Bornir found themselves in a small natural cavern. A pile of dirt and stone remained where the stairs had collapsed. Bornir saw that the collapse had killed a large bug of some type, what it had been was uncertain but chitinous legs and antennae protruded from under a rock.
Bornir looked up at the collapse, and the four figured if they tried to dig from this side they risked another cave in. So with Bornir and Aardgal in the lead they hefted the ever-burning torch aloft and went exploring the caves. They heard a clattering noise and quickly saw 4 giant ants the size of a large dogs scurrying towards them, pincers wide.

Bornir, Aardgal and Azrael quickly slew the ants, then had a choice of tunnels. They went to the left and found a number of ant tunnels held up by sticky secretion.
After some walking they found an old room which was of older human construction. In a corner was a figure hiding. Aardgal spotted him and pulled the goblin from hiding. He gave his name as ‘Yak yak’ and spoke some common. He described a group of dwarves who took him and other goblins and after a long march over several days come to this place. The dwarves drove the goblins into the tunnel as a diversion for any inhabitants and to set off traps. Yak yak ran from any fighting and hid when possible. Yak yak was unarmed and unarmored and bore a brand in Goblin on his left bicep.
Bornir trussed him up with some help from Aardgal and they kept moving. Eventually a tunnel narrowed considerably then widened. It opened into a large chamber of human construction, 40’x50’ with two large pillars of stone. Near the tunnel entrance was a bas-relief carving of a mountain with a jet of steam from it’s cone. Underneath the mountain was a large triangle with an eye in it’s center. In the center of the room was a large 20’ diameter circle inlaid with precious stones into the floor. At the four points of the compass were 4 large indentations, as if something had been in those hemi-spherical depressions. The circle itself was a gateway to another realm. Mystical energy jumped along the edges of the circle, and the interior of the circle simply fell away into a strange realm of floating crystal asteroids in a slate grey sunless realm.
From the gate issued forth a mass of acidic ooze. After watching it for a minute the ooze revealed itself as the arm of a gargantuan ooze elemental which was sqeeuzing through the portal.
Felnar recognized the mountain from his mystical training. A place far to the north called ‘White Plume Mountain’ said to possess great elemental and mystical powers greatly revered in the pre-migration time of the Flannae peoples. Azrael recognized the triangle/eye symbol as the symbol of Ogremoch, the lord of evil earth elementals.
After some talk Felnar figured the gate was really an open portal, a permanent magical construct, probably closed until the four items were removed. Now the portal stands open to the elemental plane of earth. The only was to destroy such a portal is by means far beyond the normal, such as a Rod of Cancellation or a Mordenkainen’s Disjunction spell. Barring that recovering the four items and placing them back in the circle should re-seal it.
The 4 heroes plus Yak-yak moved wearily around the portal and to a position to see the far left wall of the room. It was then they saw a 10’ tall large man sitting on a stone chair. He had olive-grey complexion, wore expensive clothes of dark reds and whites, and his eyes were the color of opals.
“Greetings mortals. I am Shen, servant of Temn-Zren(he waves a hand to indicate the Ooze creature), itself servant of the great the terrible Lord Ogremoch. You are witness to Temn-Zren’s arrival.”
The four heroes parleyed with Shen for a bit, he told of the first lord of the Six, Hlath 'the Mordant', who bartered with Lord Ogremoch to raise the plateau for his keep above the land and in return to build this shrine to Ogremoch. Ogremoch knew the greed of men would eventually open the portal for Ogremoch’s forces.
Not wanting to be around when the ooze monolith issued into this plane, the heroes took their leave though a stone door on the left hand wall.
On the other side of the door was a room with a square stone pillar, carved with 4 caryatid columns, the sides of the pillar once again depicted White Plume Mountain and the symbol of Ogremoch. At the feet of the adventurers was a dwarf in leather armor, his head crushed to a pulp. The heroes searched his body and came up with a map entitled ‘Ctenmir’s Map’ it showed the region with 2 red arrows, both coming from a place called ‘the Great Burrows’ and one went to the Ruins of the Six, the second went to Diamond Lake. At the bottom of the map were notes hastily added to it ‘Hall of Many Doors, Great Burrows to Ruins of Six, Stones of Orgemoch for the Emerald Lady’
On the far side of this room was another stone door. When the four and their prisoner went through it they found an old octagonal mausoleum with a six funeral biers, a well in the center of the room, a collapsed stair opposite the door they entered, and around the room were half a dozen wight corpses, mostly hacked to death or with green fletched arrows in them.

When ‘Shaft’, Lath, Morgrim and Krech fell into the mausoleum most got to their feet quickly. Shaft lit a sun rod. The mausoleum had six funeral biers in six niches. Three of the biers had a carved figure on top of the biers slab. Around the ceiling of the mausoleum were carvings flannae origin – nature symbols such as the ‘face in the green’ symbol for Obad Hai, skulls representing Nerull - the god of the dead, and various wolf faces, guardian totem animals meant to ward off evil.
From several of the niches came wights, 5 in all. One had been in life a bearded man, tall and proud, in chain mail, and bearing a long bow of elf make. A second was an elf in leather armor, and with them came 3 goblins turned wight. Morgrim hadn’t gotten to his feet from the collapse, and one goblin-wight struck him. He shivered as the creature drew off and fed on his life force. The human-wight fired arrows at Shaft who returned the favor.
Soon the human-wight closed with Shaft and tried to strike him with him fists. Shaft evaded him, then the human-wight turned towards Lath and spoke in a papery, wavering voice “I sense the presence of Ellival Moonmeadow upon you.” Krech heard this and asked “Elephant what?” To which the four broke into laughter and quickly destroyed the 5 wights.
After the fight they found two stone doors, one carved with a mountain with steam coming from the cone, under which was the triangle eye symbol of Ogremoch. The other door was un-carved, so that’s the way they went.
They quickly found a cavern carved from the rubble and a passageway. Down the passageway was a large cavern with scores of giant ant eggs and more than a dozen giant ants defending it. The ants were quickly destroyed, and down another side passage was the ant queens chamber. The fight was over before it barely began. Amongst the queens nest were a few items of interest, including an ivery scroll case with carvings in elvish, with 5 arcane spells on scrolls inside.
The four back tracked and were about to explore another passageway when the four missing heroes and a goblin prisoner approached them from behind. At this point the ruins began to shake a bit, and the assembled group thought it best to head above ground as fast as possible.
They explained what had happened to each of them, and briefly discussed attacking Shen, but the creature hadn’t seemed hostile, and doing so would just piss off whatever was coming through the portal.
From this side of the stairway collapse Azrael thought he could fly up and clear enough debris to reach the top and lower a rope. He did so and Aardgal came up first, followed by the rest.
On the surface the rumblings continued and the heroes made their way back to Blackwall Keep. On the way back Lath prepared two Sending spells. One he cast to Allustan, prusably still at Blackwall Keep, asking him to detain a large group of dwarves if they should arrive there. The second spell he directed at Elluval Moonmeadow, telling him the same. Ellival responded "I will let the authorities know. Also, Dulok Blitzhame has been murdered."
The group speculated that it was no co-incidence that a large band of dwarves arrived in the region and the most prominent dwarf in Diamond Lake is murdered.