evitalized by the desperation of the situation, the party decides to make for the Spire, hoping that they may use its magical amplifying abilities to find the dark knight. Arriving, they find the tower glowing brightly. Racing up to the entrance, Thorin spider-climbs down the inside surface to the focus crystal. Bathed in the light are three figures, two of which seem to be staring upward, arms raised, to the central figure, floating above the center of the crystal. Thorin recognizes Alicia and Romlynn, as well as an unknown woman. As Decimus and Marcus make their way below, they are introduced to Rebecca Rymestar – High Priestess of the Higher Draconic Nations. The party also learns that Romlynn is lifting Old Tu’Banor through the magic of the tower. He announces that the time for games is over, and that the green stone must be uncovered without delay. Rebecca informs the party that the dark knight with which the party has been battling is in fact Melgorith – a lieutenant of the greater evil that Pelmora was crafted to slay… a pawn in the overall scope of things. She explains that he is attempting to revive his master, Nogith… “The Enemy” of the undead war a millenium prior. Romlynn charges the party with stopping Melgoreth, and sends Rebecca to assist them. He then ventures out into the risen city, beneath the spire, with Alicia. Before leaving, Thorin attempts to locate Veral while in the tower. He sees a vision of several succubi around Veral’s corpse… one of which appears to be more powerful. This she-demon holds above her head a pristine gem, across the surface of which the image of Veral’s face passes. Thorin surmises that this she-demon has imprisoned Veral’s soul.
With their new quest and vengeance in their heart, the party returns to Skull Pass. Before entering, Rebecca feeds each party member an orb with unknown magical properties – each of which grants the men different abilities, and bestows them with permenant magical protection and supernatural strength. The party ventures forth into Skull Pass, making their way, with haste, back to the great chamber where Melgoreth was found. They venture down the great stairwell, and find themselves in a heavily guarded compound. The central hallway, which extended for hundreds of feet, sported undead sentries every five or so paces. They stood at fast attention, and seemed to make no note of the party as they passed. Reaching the great iron doors at the end of the corridor, the party observed two giant-esque suits of full plate mail, each sporting two massive greatswords. Decimus calls upon Heironeous to turn the undead in the area, and the skeletal sentries take flight. As Marcus approaches the door, the suits animate, and move to intercept him. While taking no hostile action, the golems obviously did not intend to allow the party to pass. Rebecca bids the men to stand behind one of the many pillars lining the corridor. She hurls a volley of magic at the beings, which is reflected harmlessly away, and is promptly crushed by the now very animate suits. Thorin sends a volley of magic towards them, which is also reflected. Marcus, with a roar, explodes into the fray, leaping atop one of the greatswords of the left-most golem. He races to the hilt, where he is shocked to see the chestplates of the golems open to reveal what appeared to be two human upper-halves – featureless heads and all – wrihing and reaching out for him. Driving his blade home, he manages to behead on of the creatures. Decimus, following Marcus’ lead, charges up the other greatsword of the left-most sentry, and plunges his blade into the fleshy center as well. The creatures flings Decimus to the ground, and begins to attempt to shake Marcus from his other blade. As it does so, the other sentry takes a wild swing at the falling Decimus, but manages to cleave his brother in arms in two. Reeling from the sudden change of events, Marcus topples backwards off the sentires sword, landing in a heap beside Decimus. Rising to their feet, ready to battle the second sentry, the party is surprised to see an adult gold dragon swarm the creature, smashing it to the ground, and rending it to pieces. The dragon stands up and changes shape, revealing Rebecca. She explains that she allowed herself to be killed as a ruse, and apologizes for deceiving the party.
Marcus opens the great iron doors, and leads the party into a massive chamber, dwarfing anything else in the compound. Several hundred feet into the room is an altar, over which looms a sinister statue of a man in black robes. On either side of the chamber, massive pillars sported a host of hostages – all young females – bound from the stone by chains. Before the alter, stood Melgorith, a young girl held above his head, and the she-demon that Thorin saw earlier with his magic. As the party enters, Melgorith casts the girl upon the spiked altar, spilling her blood across the floor. Turning, Melgorith cackles madly… the she-demon takes flight… and Melgorith charges – but is quickly intercepted by Marcus, and dimensionally anchored by Decimus. Unable to escape with his teleportation, a battle ensues, in which Marcus duels and beheads Melgorith. In the excitement, Decimus realizes the girl who was slain on the altar is encompassed in some manner of living darkness… and is now holding Pelmora high above her head. He slays her, reclaims his blade, and returns to the battle. The she-demon promptly latches onto Marcus and, despite the party’s efforts, bites him on his neck. Then, employing some magic, the demon blinks out of existence. In an instant, somehow, she managed to gather Melgorith’s remains, and escape. Frustrated, Thorin approaches Marcus and asks his take on the situation. Marcus turns to Thorin, and attacks him – having fallen under the spell of the she-demon. Nearly slaying Thorin, Marcus rages out of control before Decimus defeats the curse with his holy magic. While Marcus is freed from the control of the she-demon, he can never be completely whole until she is destroyed. He makes a solemn vow to finish her himself, when the time comes. In the mean time, he decides the party needs rest, and he begins freeing hostages. He ushers the party, and the freed hostages, into the stone. During the course of the night, Decimus and Thorin take advantage of the situation, having saved the host of virgins from what was an indescribable hell, and bed many of the women. Marcus, on the other hand, takes the greater many of them under his protection – saving them from their imminent deflowering. He chooses one from the crowd, and she offers herself to him.
Waking after their “rest”, the men must be married to the girls whose virginity they were given. Rebecca, being a priestess, gladly performs the ceremony – albeit with a sidenote of sarcasm. The party then teleports back to New Tu’Banor, where they leave their wives at the Stonemorrow home, and free the remaining virgins, save for one. Alicia and Romlynn arrive, and announce that they could not acquire the stone… but they have returned to assist in the next task. Rebecca explains that the only way to prevent Melgorith’s plot, was to resurrect Nogith, and destroy him once and for all. Alicia enters the pocket dimension with the stone, effectively hiding it, should the party fail. Romlynn throws his arms skyward, and the party is teleported beneath Skull Pass once more. Rebecca urges the party to stand back, as she goes to the altar with Pelmora in hand and one of the young girls at her side. They speak for a moment at the altar and after a momentary embrace, Rebecca throws the girl atop the barbs as Melgorith had, before. Transforming, Rebecca observed through dragon-eyes as the living darkness again encompassed the sacrifice’s body. Her arm lifted, raising Pelmora high above her head. Leaping, Rebecca kicks off of the dark statue, snatching the greatsword from the girls hand, and retreating back to the party’s hold at the door. She returns the blade to Decimus, and stands with the party as the statue crumbles, revealing a flaming pit beneath. A fusion of smoke, shadow, and flame occurs over the altar, and a fire-wreathed figure steps forth. Romlynn turns to the party, and offers a smile – bidding them a fond farewell, in the face of what lay before them. Marcus turns to his brothers, and clasps their arms. Decimus and Thorin nod in reassurance, and say their own words. Casting it’s arms outward, the figure summoned forth from the pillars a suit of armor, complete with a massive shield and a flaming greatsword. Romlynn bows his head to Rebecca, and faces the figure and, with an exhale, charges forth towards it. Erupting forth, the party and Rebecca charge the fire demon. An epic battle ensues, focused between Romlynn and Nogith. Through the course of the battle, each of the party members land fierce blows against the demon, and, eveentually, his armaments explode out and away from him. He emerges from the cacaphony of flame to reveal his true self – something like unto a dragon, but far more sinister. His wings spread out across the chamber, casting ash over the field of battle… his body was aflame. Casting down columns of fire, Nogith destroys Romlynn, who is promply resurrected by Rebecca’s dragon magic. The party continues their assault upon the demon, and Thorin is felled by his own magic as he hurls a flurry of lightning at the demon, only to have it reflected back at him. Rebecca brings Thorin back to his feet as well. Romlynn continues his fierce barrage of ice magic upon Nogith, and still the demon’s firey breath rains havoc upon the party members – namely Rebecca and Romlynn. Rebecca falls to the ground, unable to maintain flight due to her greivous wounds. Romlynn is again undone by the column of Nogith’s breath. Crawling across the room, Rebecca uses her power to, again, resurrect Romlynn. The wizard, of course, continues his assault. Marcus, however, charges across the battle field to Rebecca. As he reaches her, he asks to mount her, in an effort to charge out and meet his now aerial foe. She agrees, but requires mending before she may go into battle, and Decimus arrives to provide said healing. Scrambling atop her back, Marcus explodes into battle atop the gold dragon, swearing an oath against Nogith in their flight. With his breath, Nogith again annihilates Romlynn, before turning his attention to Rebecca and Marcus. He unleashes his breath directly at the pair, and Marcus is forced to leap from the dragons back, some 160 feet in the air. As they fall, Thorin erects a web across the pillars, effectively breaking Marcus’ fall. However, Rebecca lies dead in a heap. Thorin is again killed by his own magic, as it is reflected back upon him once more. With only Decimus and Marcus remaining, the pair scatter, Decimus, with Pelmora, melds into the stone at the center of the chamber, and Marcus takes cover behind one of the many pillars. Nogith, giving Pelmora greater precedence than Marcus, lands above Decimus’ hiding place, and simply waits. Marcus downs an invisibilty potion, and charges out from behind the pillar, running up Nogith’s tail and scaling his back. He plunges his greatsword between the demons shoulder blades. Nogith, failing to shake his attacker off, flips over and smashes his back into the ground, crushing him instead. Marcus, beneath the crushing, burning weight of the demon, tears his sword back and forth, mauling its back. In great pain and desperation, Nogith takes flight, rising nearly to the cieling of the chamber. Marcus falls from his sword, but manages to stay atop the demon. He uses the remaining magic of Jaren’s “Ring of the Ram” to crush Nogith’s ribs. The pair then spiral downward in free fall, crashing into the ground. Marcus looks over to find the demon’s flames extinguished… its face blank.
Rising to his feet, bloody and broken, Marcus calls out for Decimus, who rises from the depths of the stone. The two lock arms, and begin gathering the bodies of their fallen comrades. Decimus prepares his Word of Recall, but notices something before he can cast his magic. Standing at the entrance of the room are Melgorith and the she-demon. Melgorith waves his hands, but nothing appears to happen. Decimus releases his magic, only to find that the two have been dimensionally anchored – the same trick he had played on the dark knight in their last meeting. They charge forth, and assault the last remnant of the party. Decimus wraps his fingers around the hair of the dead party members, yanking it out as he runs, that he may have material for the resurrection, should he survive. Resolving himself to death, Marcus hurls himself upon Melgorith, bidding Decimus to leave him and save the others. As Decimus retreats from the chamber, Melgorith teleports to him, cutting off his escape. Marcus charges to Decimus’ side, and the two engage the dark knight. Attacking from above, the she-demon dives at Marcus and Decimus. Grievously wounding the dark knight, he casts the same vile magic at Decimus, dropping him where he stands. Marcus lands another blow, and Melgorith teleports back into the great chamber. Marcus turns his attention to the she-demon, who attempts to latch onto him and bite him once more. He slays her, removing her head and regaining his freedom. Magic missles raining upon him, Marcus closed the distance between himself and the retreating Melgorith. Driving his blade home into the knight’s chest, Marcus finishes him once and for all… his bones shattering once more into fine dust as they had so many times before. Falling to his knees, Marcus takes in the destruction around him.
After taking a moment to gather his thoughts, he goes to Rebecca’s body, and attempts to locate the source of her ressurection magic. He finds a rod that Thorin mentioned during the battle, and he believes it to be the source of the said power. He moves over to Romlynn’s broken body, and attempts to activate the rod – however, with such limited knowledge of magical devices, it is nearly impossible for him to do so. However, before the rod disintegrated, he manages to activate it once, bringing Romlynn back to the world of the living. Romlynn congratulates Marcus on his heroism, and calls for Alicia to open the portal. As she does, the bodies of the fallen are moved into the pocket dimension. Romlynn searches the she-demon, and recovers a gem which contains the soul of Veral. Marcus takes Nogith’s sword and shield… and the three take refuge in the stone. As the portal closes behind them, Marcus collapses at the base of the “Tree of Life”, and falls into a deep slumber born of exhaustion.
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