Chronicles of Zadkai’s Return and the Scouring Wind

After returning from Cairn Dor, the Silver Tempests discover that several years have passed, and the world has changed…

Adventure 21: Airion’s Secret Lair

Session 64

The Silver Tempests make their way to a refuge and hall of stories that Brelith and Dinia have established on the western slopes of the Fiatara Mountains, following the oligarch takeover of Voltara, where they have a relaxing dinner and long discussion with Brelith and Dinia. Over the course of the next couple of days, the group learns of the events of the past few years, while they were asleep in Cairn Dor, and learns more about each other as well. Mabist and Blue try lily pad cakes for the first time, to mixed results.

After a few days of relaxation and restoration, Silverstorm arrives, his massive wingspan blocking briefly blocking the sun as he flies over the reuge, seeking to speak with the Silver Tempests. From Silverstorm, the party learns a little of the politics of the Elemental Plane of Air: Zadkai’s master, Azravan, Duke of the Scouring Wind, leads a faction who believes that all humanity must be erased from the multiverse as punishment for the sins of the wizards who enslaved djinn. Orumei, Duke of the Returning Wind, wants to prevent this war. Having learned that Zadkai is seeking some kind of hidden research or magic of Airion the Mistspeaker, hidden in his secret lair, Orumei has asked Silverstorm to find what Zadkai is seeking and bring it to them. Silverstorm has asked the party to help, figuring that stealth is an asset and a roc with a three-hundred-foot wingspan will struggle to be stealthy.

The party agrees to help, and asks Dinia if she knows anything about Airion’s secret lair. She tells a tale of a mountain in Tawir Forest, that was called Bald Mountain long ago, but acquired an impenetrable cloud that hovered over the summit, and gained the name Mount Graybane. This, she says, must be Airion’s lair. As she finishes her tale, Brelith completes a casting of Legend Lore, which reveals the same information.

Departing the Fiatara Mountains, the Silver Tempests fly on Silverstorm’s back to the edge of Tawir Forest, where they camp for the night. The next morning, using Wind Walk, they travel quickly over the forest to Mount Graybane, noting that the floating tower presumably occupied by Zadkai has landed near the mountian.

Attempting to fly as mist through a supernatural storm, Adrik and Blue are tossed by the wind and slammed into the ground, forced to shift out of mist form. Adrik manages to run out of the storm, while Blue huddles close to the rocks, calling for help with her thaumaturgically-enhanced voice. With no way to see Blue, it is only Adrik’s stone sense and storm affinity that hints at her direction and allows the party to regroup.

Afteward, they proceed into the storm on foot, tied together by ropes. The wind makes walking difficult, and the climb has some challenging moments, but the real difficulty comes as the rain grows and the party must scale a steep boulder, slick and running with water. Samso uses his Staff of the Swamplands to push the water clear of the rock, simplifying the ascent. Even so, the weaker members of the party need help to reach the top: Samso by shapeshifting to a giant lizard, better suited to climbing, and Blue by simply being dragged to the top, battered by the winds.

Near the summit, the Silver Tempests make a final push through lightning and thunder, and finally attempt to dodge loose rocks that come flying down the mountain, dislodged by the storm. Adrik’s stone sense give some warning, though ultimately he decides to simply absorb the blow of the rockslides, deflecting them out of the path of the less robust party members below.

We end as the party suddenly enters the quiet at the top of the mountain, at the eye of the storm. Standing a short distance away is a large domed building, clearly the entrance to something, the door smashed completely open.

Session 65

We begin as the Silver Tempests enter the domed building, the entrance to Airion’s Secret Lair. The doors have been smashed open, as if by a hurricane, and the interior of the building – a large, domed room about 60 feet in diameter – has clearly been ransacked and destroyed. The only obvious exit is a spiral stairway descending from the center of the room; the party immediately descends below. The descent is strange, and grinding noise seems to shift the staircase somehow, but the party safely arrives in a small, square room below. One wall contains a heavy metal double door, glowing with heat. One wall contains a moving, animated tapestry depicting a sky with clouds. One wall contains a gemstone mosaic depicting a tunnel leading into the wall, ending in a distant point. The final wall has a silver mirror frame, covered in runes, surrounding a vault door with four elemental keyholes. Shattered pieces of the mirror lay on the ground, and between the stairway and the metal door is a stone-rimmed pool of still, cold, water. After some fruitless investigation, long debate, and realizing they probably need to find four elemental keys to enter the vault, the party steps through the tapestry into a vast expanse of sky, distant clouds blowing across the horizon. With Blue and Mabist under the effects of Blue’s fly spell, and Adrik riding Samso in giant-bat form, the party flies across the sky, quickly noticing a distant group of humanoids approaching, and also that the exit is nowhere to be seen.

The humanoids turn out to be a djinn leading a small elemental scouting party, who cannot find the exit. Though they are allies of Zadkai and laugh at the party when they admit to being enemies of the Scouring Wind, the djinn agrees to give the party two diamond gemhearts – but not the elemental air key – in exchange for help finding the exit. The party goes along with this initially, even though they also have no idea how to exit; eventually Samso notices a glitch in the distant clouds that may be a clue, but doesn’t reveal this to the djinn. Soon, the party just decides to attack before their fly spell ends. The battle is quick, as Mabist strikes the djinn with a dramatic blow enhanced with eldritch force, and Adrik manages to jump to the djinn and strike it several times while clinging to its back despite its attempt to flee. With the djinn dead, Adrik falls as well, grabbing the diamond gemhearts and the air elemental key, and is chased by Samso who gathers him.

The party then turns to searching for the exit. The glitch is a clue, but it takes a while for the Silver Tempests to release that the door, camouflaged by an illusion, is moving away from them at a constant rate. Once Blue and Adrik teleport some distant away, they realize the glitch is in between them and the rest of the party, and quickly are able to close in on it and grab the door frame, passing through back into the vault room.

The air gemhearts contain an essence of elemental air that allows not only flight, but allows one breath to last for an hour, opening up access to the deep pool of water. With Samso able to hold his breath for some time, and Mabist able to breath water, the two air gemhearts let Samso and Blue also descent safely through the cold water column. Sinking, the party passes through several hundred feet of increasingly cold and frigid water, until they reach a frozen ice cap at the bottom. An ice cave is visible on the other side. Adrik and Mabist attempt to shatter the ice, resorting to Thunderbrand and Booming Blade, which draws attention. Two ice sharks, and a larger, tentacled ice creature, come to investigate, seeking warm-blooded food, and attack. Samso shifts into an orca, and Mabist finishes shattering the ice, which then leads to the Silver Tempests and the ice sharks, but not the larger creature, tumbling into the cave below, which fills with water, though the ice plug quickly begins to refreeze. We end as the sharks are driven off, dead or badly wounded, and the party swims through freezing water of the ice cave to a tunnel, leading slightly up, where they can stagger, wet and cold, out of the water onto solid ice.

Session 66

We begin as the Silver Tempests continue through the glacial tunnels in the ice realm within Airion’s Secret Lair, making their way through a passage that resembles a roofed glacial crevasse, with walls of blue ice and a dangerously slippery floor. Despite their haste, the party makes it safely to a gash in the floor, opening into a large chamber below. Using the flight granted by the air gemhearts, the party easily flies down into the cave.

The ice guardian, a massive serpent of ice, has heard their approach and waits hiding on the ceiling. When the party lands in its cave, it attacks, smashing its tail into the ground, sending a cloud of freezing ice erupting around the party, quickly followed by a blizzard that batters the group before they can establish themselves, and blasts of ice that freeze the party into place. Adrik can endure the punishment, but the guardian’s sweeping attacks leave the rest of the party restrained, bloodied, and staggering.

The party fights back, led by Adrik’s blows with Thunderbrand and helped by Samso’s draconic spirit. Mabist, struggling to get into position, summons a field of tentacles that keep the guardian immobile, as to resist their effects it is forced solidify itself in ice. When the guardian summons a giant snowman, Samso holds it off in giant lizard form, Blue catches both enemies in a Fireball, and Mabist, finally getting into melee, follows with a fierce series of greatsword attacks. Several heavy blows, including a critical hit amplified by Eldritch Smite, do substantial damage to the guardian.

But the serpent survives the assault. After series of blows from Adrik leave it badly wounded, but not dead, it unleashes a devastating eruption of frost, overwhelming the already wounded party. Blue, Samso, and Mabist all fall, leaving only Adrik to face off against the guardian. With his companions down around him, he strikes the killing blow with Thunderbrand, and then rushes to revive Samso with a healing potion.

Samso manages to heal Blue, but Mabist succumbs to their wounds before Samso reaches them. Luckily, Samso is able to restore him with Revivify, using the last of the party’s diamonds for the spell. Meanwhile, an ice gemheart falls from the guardian’s chest, with the elemental key wrapped around it, and the entire ice complex begins to melt. The party grabs the gemheart and key, and hurries back through the tunnels, escaping up the water column to the vault room.

Back in the vault, the party takes a breather, and then turns to the hot metal doors leading into the fire realm. Mabist drinks a potion of fire giant strength and uses the ice gemheart to gain resistance to fire. With this combination of strength and protection, they pull the massive doors open.

Beyond the doors, a passage of dark stone leads to a large circular chamber. A pool of lava fills the center, with fire elemental dolphins jumping and playing in it. Golden runes cover the left hand side of the floor, channeling lava that flows out of the pool through complicated circuits before it disappears into the walls, near one of four exits that lead away from the chamber.

After a brief look around, including Samso’s realization that the runes are some kind of energy control mechanism, the party leaves via the further away of the two right-side doors. This leads through a room with a stuck door and a channel of lava; Adrik leaps across the lava and forces the door open. The session ends as the Silver Tempests step into the next room, the lair of the iron golem that holds the fire key.

Events

Jun 29, 1752 DR, afternoon: Travel to Brelith and Dinia’s sanctuary on the western slopes of the Fiatara Mountains, and reconnect.
Jun 30, 1752 DR - Jul 01, 1752 DR: Catch up with Brelith and Dinia, and rest and recover from the Cairn Dor adventure. Learn that Silverstorm is looking for the Silver Tempests.
Jul 02, 1752 DR: Meet Silverstorm, and learn about Zadkai’s return and the Scouring Wind, a group of air elementals and djinn who want to wipe humanity off the face of the earth. Agree to seek out Airion’s Secret Lair. Travel on Silverstorm’s back to the edge of Tawir Forest, and camp.
Jul 03, 1752 DR, morning: Wind Walk over the forest towards Mount Graybane. Forced out of Wind Walk by the storm lingering over the mountain. Manage to struggle through, surviving wind, rain, and boulders, and arrive at the summit, where the entrance to Airion’s Secret Lair stands open.
Jul 03, 1752 DR, midday: Enter the lair, descend to the vault level. Explore the air realm and defeat Zadkai’s minions, taking the key and the air gemhearts. Use the air gemhearts, enter the water realm. Descent through the water, destroy the ice plug, enter the ice cave.
Jul 03, 1752 DR, afternoon: Defeat the ice guardian in Airion’s Secret Lair, recover its elemental key and gemheart, and escape the melting caves. Samso revives Mabist with the party’s last diamonds. After a short rest, open the fire realm’s entrance and reach the fire guardian’s lair.