Chapter Five

Previous in Chapter Four

## Prologue - The Styes

### Muck and Mire

The Cloned Three found themselves pressed into the crew of a mad Beholder calling themselves The Blind.  He wanted them to aid him in finding his missing spell-jamming ship, The Morkoth.  It was taken from him when he docked in a decrepit port called the Styes but his memory of the events is muddled.  He thinks he must have lost a crew at the same time but he has no memory of them.  In return for their aid he offer’s them an escape from their ongoing degradation, passage to the Astral Plane, where time doesn’t pass for creatures, making it’s residents functionally immortal.

Lacking options the clones agreed and were delivered to the docks of the Styes, a wretched port sinking into the muck and mire at the mouth of a polluted river.  The people were a desperate and pathetic lot, covered in scabs and sores and generally among the least pleasant folk.  The party began to ask around about the ship, getting less than satisfactory responses from the populace.  Verminous Vohrun decided to attempt a bit of a spectacle, using an illusion to accentuate a blessing of fortune while Malformed Melech beat off beggars that emerged from the crowd.  Their combined display provided something of a show for the locals, providing a bevy of scrawny urchin pickpocket a chance to fleece the crowd of their meager belongings.  Melech grabbed on of the urchins by the arm and demanded he be led to whoever passes as an authority in this decrepit slum.

The urchin led them to the Alchemist Quarter to the home of Mister Dory, a member of the ruling council.  His home consisted of a ship suspended from a crane over a muddy channel.  The crane was affixed to the rear of a warehouse that served as one of Dory’s places of business.  The clones entered, choosing to posture themselves as inspectors from a shipping outfit in Neverwinter with Defective Diva posing as hired muscle.  They were met by Birsk Chumwell, the warehouse forewoman who managed a crew of laborers working in the warehouse.  She had no record of the Morkoth associated with the business of the Warehouse itself but her position allowed her to maintain a copy of the harbormaster’s log, a record that they had already learned might be unreliable for small fishing vessels but luckily included the arrival and almost immediate departure of the Morkoth.  While she was fetching the log the party questioned the workers, who had begun to loaf as soon as Chumwell had departed the room.  They learned that Dory was a recluse who rarely left the hanging ship he called home and has a fearsome reputation more in line with a mob boss than a politician and businessman.  The clones departed from Dory’s warehouse to a wharf on the far side of town that Chumwell’s records indicated the Morkoth had briefly docked at.  The wharf was empty so the three approached a flock of drunks that were congregated at the stoop of a flop-house.  One of men bore fewer of the deformities carried by the residents of the Styes and seemed more alert than the others.  When Vohrun made mention of the strange ship the man led him down an alley and confronted the dwarf, seemingly believing that Vohrun meant him harm.  Assuring the man that Vohrun didn’t mean him ill the party learned his tale, his name from Derrick and he was one of the Blind’s crew, he suffered from a similar loss in memory as his captain, remembering being chased by hooded figures through the night and finding the Morkoth already under their control.  He threw his pursuers off his trail by quickly murdering a man he encountered in the street and exchanging clothes with the corpse.  Since that day he has pretended to be a drunken local, watching for a chance to get off-planet, or at least out of the Styes.

The party resolved to pay Mr. Dory a direct visit and began to make their way back to his warehouse, along the way they witnessed the execution and incineration of a man who was identified to them as “The Lantern Ghost”, apparently a murderer that had been committing ghastly atrocities on the people of the Styes each night for some months.  Only one man protested the execution, a thin man who an onlooker identified as Refram, some manner of preacher and operator of a soup kitchen for the destitute.  Refram was pelted with rotten wares and the party moved on to seek Dory.

Arriving at the warehouse they glimpsed a figure in a hooded cloak enter the warehouse and lock the door behind them, ignoring a call from Malformed Melech.  The clones used flight to bypass the warehouse and land on Dory’s suspended ship home which emitted a constant stream of steam.  Entering through a hatch they found that the interior was housing a system of tanks and boilers that kept the inside of the boat steamy and dripping.  They were challenged by three deformed humanoids the like of which they had not encountered that emerged from the pools within the ship to assault them.  The melee was brutal with Verminous Vohrun being knocked out at one point but the tide turned as Diva tapped into her newfound source of divine magic and evacuated the water, song with one of the creatures from the ship.  In the final cabin they encountered Mr. Dory, stuck inside a deep tub that had been drained by Diva’s magic.  With the corpulent disfigured man at a disadvantage they questions him and riffled through his writings, learning that he was associated with a group called the Children of Slarkrethel.

Dory confessed to using the cult to achieve his own ends but in turn being required to offer service when called upon.  He told the clones that he had the crew of the Morkoth killed and handed the ship over to the Children of Slarkrethel.  A set of notes hinted at the location of their temple in “The evening shadow of Frother's Lamp” and indicated that the children expected Dory to find a new candidate to serve as the Lantern Ghost. The party began to make their way out of the boat but, thanks to some clever steps taken by Defective Diva, noticed that the top of the ship was being boarded.  Diva blasted a hole in the side of the ship and the three flew out just as a number of heavily deformed men severed the chains suspending the boat, sending it and themselves crashing down to the polluted mire below.  The echoing sounds of destruction drew the whistles and bells of the watch and the three flew up into the inky clouds of the moonless night, making their way back to The Blind’s small vessel to tend their wounds and plan their next move.

### Preaching to the Choir

The Cloned Three tended their wounds about the Blind’s stolen ship before venturing back into the Styes in the morning light.  The sought out the small home of Father Refrum, a follower of Ilmater whose meager domicile doubled as a soup kitchen for the beggars of the Styes.  The clones asked about the Lantern Ghost killer and Refrum was adamant that his friend Jarme could not have been responsible and confided that he believed he was scapegoated by the authorities to quiet the panic surrounding the killings.  When asked about the Children of Slakrethel he confessed he had never heard the name but had always suspected dark forces were at work within the city. The party inquired about Frother’s Lamp, finding that it was an abandoned lighthouse in an adjacent district of the city.  Before leaving the party accepted a blessing bestowed by Refrum from Ilmater, the suffering god to ease the hardships they were about to face.

The party made their way to the island the housed Frothers lamp, a slim rock on which the defunct lighthouse was perched surrounded by a muddy hill smothered in layers upon layers of shanty-town construction heaped upon pilings rising from the muck.  As the day grew longer the three hunkered down and watched the shadow of the lamp stretch out with the setting set, eventually pointing to a drainage ditch and the wreck of an old ship jutting out of the muddy embankment.  There on the deck they spied several figures in the same hooded cloaks they had taken from Dory’s.

The three clones donned the cloaks and made their way down to the ship and quickly moved inside, finding an antechamber with room for dozens more cloaks, most of them not present.  Pushing the sodden doors open the found a grim tabernacle beneath the island.  A congregation of the Children of Slackrethel lay before them, enraptured in a hymn chanted in an unfamiliar tongue.  Attempting the blend in with the crowd Malformed Melech and Verminous Vohrun took places among the pews while Defective Diva hung back and pressed into the back wall, attempting to prepare a spell for a potential conflict.  The leader of the congregation noted her presence and called her to the from where she might be greeted by the following.  The preacher extolled the virtues of Slackrethel, a being or power who he placed in opposition to the gods themselves and who was willing to share his gifts with the faithful of the congregation.  The preacher bid Diva strike down a prisoner kneeling before her who she unmasked to reveal was Derrick, having been abducted since their last meeting.  Diva released the spell she had been formed plunging the room into eerie silence and she took the offered blade and plunged it into the leader of the congregation.

This act shocked the assembled mass, many of whom discarded their cloaks revealing a variety of deformities ranging from bulging fish-like eyes to nearly total transformations into human-fish amalgamations.  The scrum that followed was chaotic and bloody as the three unleashed blasts of spells into the crowd, annihilating much of the assembled host including Derrick who was caught in the crossfire.  A roiling in the water was greeted by the preacher who announced that “The Whisperer has come”.  The creature that emerged was a massive fiend with a form reminiscent of a massive toad who filled the room with a noxious gas.  The three clones were badly injured in the battle but none perhaps more than Melech who met the creatures eyes and was reduced to a bestial intelligence.  As Melech’s mind faltered the memories that Vohrun and Diva had of their companion faded as well, as if all memory of Melech’s existence was being erased from the world by this fiends sorcery.  The tide had already turned into the clones favor when their benefactor, the Blind blasted his way into the room, having followed them.  The monstrosities were defeated and Diva resuscitated one of the less deformed congregants for questioning.  During the interrogation they learned that the Morkoth is currently circling the isles known as the Purple Rocks, carrying something precious to the cult within it’s hold.  They also learned that members of the Cult had been dispatched to a place far away to help their ally with an attack on two dwarves and a tiefling who needed to die...

Far away, a horse-drawn wagon trundled toward the landing site of the Peregrine.  The cart, driven by Sophie Lushboar delivered Diva, Melech and Vohrun and a load of supplies to Albert Thistlehill to complete the repairs to the damaged airship.  The Three reiterated their plan to fly to the Dessarin Valley following repairs and try to pry another Conch of Teleportation from the Hill Giant chief.  Harshnag was also present but seemed to be deep in a melancholy that unnerved the three.  The party returned to the north gate, intending to visit Sildar Hallwinter, but first encountering Belaeser Nithroma who extended an invitation to a dinner party to the three of them on the following eve.  Arriving at Sildar’s office the party reviewed the state of the conflict with him and utilized his reports of Hill Giant activity to narrow down their upcoming search area in the Dessarin Valley.

## Shell-Shocked City

### Scuttlebutt

Departing Sildar’s office the party split up to pursue their own agendas for the afternoon.  Melech, accompanied by Diva, went to locate Captain Brynn, who was in port and cooling his heels at the Beached Leviathan.  He told Melech of his attempts to undercut the Falcrest businesses, which had been met with, thus far, manageable reprisals.  He also identified a ship, The Toad, belonging to the Falcrests had taken up a position in the harbor.  The ship appeared was the scene of almost no activity, receiving only a single large crate as cargo.  Brynn’s prying had learned that the crate was not cargo they had been contracted to transport but rather the property of the Falcrests themselves.   Following the meeting Diva scoured the town, purchasing the material components necessary to consecrate a shrine within the home of her cousin Leanne Flockem.  Melech meanwhile visited Skeemo’s Concoctions, purchasing three invisibility potions and discussing a potential idea to develop a product that would better enable his habit of trying to mantle mammoth creatures.

Across town Vohrun made his way through the Blacklake district arriving at the Wounded Wanderer tavern where he had developed his craft as a bard.  Terico Levan bid that he take the stage despite the small crowd to lift his spirits.  Vohrun did so, the sound of his song brightening the mood in a section of the city still reeling from the loss of so many.

That evening the Three borrowed a rowboat from the Squall’s Son and made their way across the water.  Diva used her magic to strengthen the group and permit them to walk across the waves, permitting easy access to the deck.  Once on board they found the ship devoid of life or clutter.  Melech identified a silver thread placed across the door to the aft section of the ship and thought better of attempting to remove it.  Diva enveloped the ship in magical silence, allowing the party to inspect the hold without making a sound.  Within they found neat rows of crates, some with various mechanical clockwork components, but most containing humanoid forms constructed out of metal plates and clockwork mechanisms.  In the lower hold they found the large crate that Brynn had observed being brought to the ship contained a massive Clockwork construct, the size of an Ogre.

Upon returning to the main hold they found that their presence had not gone unnoticed and the captain, Mikki Rehak had closed the hatch out of the hold.  He ordered them to await their imminent arrest.  In the end he underestimated the pirates aboard his ship as they used spells to materialize themselves on the deck.  The captain revealed himself to be a wizard, using spells to escape from sight long enough to activate the clockwork constructs below the deck.  A brawl began to play out but the fate of the ship was soon sealed as Diva channeled a mighty spell that split the water of the bay, dropping the ship to the muddy bed below.  As the water rushed back in the ship was swamped and it’s guardians and it began to sink to the bottom of the sea.  Able to stride atop the water, the party managed to shake Mikki and the metal servitors, finding themselves standing atop the bay as the ship disappeared beneath the waves.  They had lost Brynn’s rowboat in the torrent but had gained a locked footlocker that Vohrun had spirited out of the captain’s cabin.  With their booty in hand the three pirates began their trek back across the rolling sea to shore.

### Wined and Dined

The party stood atop the gentle waves of the Neverwinter harbor and began to force their way into Mikki’s footlocker.  Inside they found a journal, liquor, a crystal decanter, playing cards, a silver quill, a roll of drawings and diagrams, vials of soil from around the north and a bag containing a clockwork owl and paired bracelet.  They partitioned the booty and dispersed to their quarters to inspect them.  After Vohrun slipped off to sleep, Melech ventured forth once more into the darkened streets intent on finding Sharn Bliss.  He failed to locate the elf, who had vacated his former office in the Haymaker Club.  Melech skulked through the nightlife of the city, eventually procuring a supply of Traveler’s Dust.

The following day the Three attended to their own business once more before their planned night out.  Vohrun made his way to the House of the True intent on checking in on his friends Eamon and Rhenda.  Inside he found Eamon at the center of the repair of the temple.  Eamon invited Vohrun back into the offices of the High Priest of the temple, revealing that he had now taken up that mantle after Benderin Drogoon left to find his death in battle.  Eamon confided in Vohrun that he thought the Paladins of Torm had failed, rotted from within and attacked from without.  He had decided on a course of action he worried would not be met with approval from the faithful.  He endeavored to create a new Knightly Order, supported by but not controlled or directed by the temple leadership.  These Hidden Hands of Torm would have broad latitude to act on the Paladin's behalf, pursuing what goals and objectives they thought would best protect the peoples of Faerun.  Membership could only be bestowed from one member to another, never sought.  Eamon asked Vohrun to be the fist of these knights, an appointment he accepted.

Meanwhile beneath the Flockem House Diva used her magic to sculpt a shrine in the form of a ornate hearth dedicated to Berronar Truesilver from the living rock.  She consecrated the shrine through the day, imbuing the place permanently with the protection and favor of Berronar.  Her work was interrupted briefly by a single faint message arriving on her sending stone from Matriarch Benezia.  The message “Keep away, that's just a memento from my Daughter Diva, to remind me of how I was always there for her growing up at Adbar” followed by sounds of a scuffle.

Melech, waking after Vohrun’s departure, journeyed once more to Skeemo’s Concoctions, asking the alchemist to render the Traveler’s Dust into a potentially lethal liquid poison, a task for which the gnome seemed well suited.

That evening the Three donned their best garb and made their way to the Moonstone Mask to attend the dinner party.  Arriving they found that most guests were already present.  The assembled crowd included the hosts Ophala Cheldarstorn and Belaeser Nithroma, as well as a number of people credited with the defense of the city such as General Sabine, Sildar Hallwinter, Eamon Targ and persons providing material support to the defense and rebuilding like Geartran Brasscrank, Bramdur Battlehammer and Davil Starsong.  Also in attendance was Olivia Falcrest, the stepmother of Nathan and Perin Falcrest.

Diva spoke for a time with Bramdur Battlehammer, the envoy from Gauntlgrym, learning more of the city's history and its connection to ancient Delzoun.   Vohrun and Melech seated on either side of Olivia Facrest attempted to amuse her with a variety of jokes and anecdotes.  Melech offered to take the young elven woman outside to experience magical flight when Mikki Rehak entered the room and whispered in her ear before departing.  Olivia quickly excused herself and departed the party to retire to her suite.  Shortly thereafter Melech excused himself as well, prying the location of Olivia’s suite from a member of the staff he remembered from his youth at the Mask.

Diva and Vohrun meanwhile turned their attention to Geartran Brasscrank, an artificer who was attempting to solicit new patrons from the city luminaries at the party.  They learned a little about the gnomes profession and came to believe he was the creator of the clockwork owl and potentially the clockwork soldiers they had encountered the preceding evening.

Upstairs, Melech located Olivia’s suite and quaffed a potion of invisibility before throwing open a window and flying outside and drifting to her balcony.  Entering her suite Melech found alone and in some manner of trance.  Melech went to investigate the rest of the suite, finding that Perin had appeared seated next to Olivia.  The young man seemed aware of Melech’s presence despite his invisibility and bid him take a seat.  What followed was a tense exchange where Melech learned Perin’s true nature.  The young man was actually an ancient devil from Cania, a former vassal and researcher for Mephistopheles, and perhaps most importantly, Melech’s father.  He explained that his attempted murder of Melech was an attempt to “tidy up” after one of his previous ventures into the material plane.  After countless eons of possessing different would-be summoners he now inhabited Perin’s form and had found a way to free himself from his eternal damnation and bind himself to the material world in perpetuity.  He also indicated his solution would work for another damned soul like Melech but he had no intention of relinquishing it.  It was at this point that Melech’s mother Neris entered the room and was quickly entranced by the fiend in the same manner as Olivia.  Indicating their conversation was drawing to an end he stated that he would not attempt to end Melech once more, instead drawing a fiendish obsidian dagger out of thin air and plunging it into the chest of Olivia Falcrest.  Perin faded away leaving Melech sitting invisibly in the room with the two women, one dying, and one screaming.

### Face to Face

Melech weighed his options quickly, deciding the best course of action was to ensure Olivia’s murder didn’t get pinned on him.  He shifted his appearance into Mikki’s form before ending his invisibility and running away from his screaming mother out of the room with the dagger and diving out of a window.  Taking flight he floated down to another floor and slipped back into the Moonstone Mask as he returned to his own visage.  Panic and confusion briefly overtook the mask before Ophala began to enforce a semblance of order and begin to try and determine what had just transpired.  Diva and Vohrun, accompanied by Davil Starsong rushed upstairs to try and resuscitate Oliva.  Diva began a ritual to coax her spirit back to her damaged body using a gem donated, perhaps not altruistically, by Davil.  Downstairs Melech comforted his rattled mother and did his best to guide the narrative that was forming amongst the crowd towards Mikki being responsible for Olivia’s brush with death.

With the ritual successful and Olivia resting in her bed the trio set out into the clear night.  As they made their way through town towards the point where they would part ways for the evening Vohrun heard a woman’s scream calling out from a nearby alley.  The recently knighted dwarf confronted a man tussling with a woman at the end of the alley, attempting to scare off the brigand.  The party realized things were not as they appeared when the rescued woman joined her apparent assailant in accosting her saviors, unhinging her jaw to reveal rows of narrow piscine teeth.  The situation grew more confused as the party realized they had been surrounded by gargoyles perched along the roof-tops which descended like a pack of stony dogs upon the trio.  A massive heavily armored half-dragon who would later name himself Baltior, entered the fray from a nearby building, declaring that at least one of the party should be kept alive to be taken back to Imyrith.

The would be assassins and kidnappers had underestimated their opponents however, as Melech quickly incapacitated the half-dragon while Diva and Vohrun fought through the scrum of stone and flesh with a pair of holy empowered weapons.  At the end of the battle Baltior was restrained and the rest of the assailants had been dispatched.  The party set to disarming the draconic warrior, claiming his arms, armor, and holy symbol of tiamat, though the later burned and flayed Diva’s flesh when she attempted to handle it.  The dragon told them their deaths had been ordained by the Doom in the Desert and that there was no escaping that fate.  When Diva plucked a small glass orb containing smoke and sand from his bag he unleashed a blast of potent lightning from his mouth upon her, causing her to fumble the small fragile object.  Melech’s failed attempt to catch it cause it only to fall to the ground and shatter further away from the trio and their captive.  Where the orb shattered an arcane portal sprang into being lined by spinning sand from the orb.  On the other side of the portal they saw a frigid desert whose strong cold winds immediately began driving a flow of sand through the gateway into Neverwinter.  Coming into view was a massive Blue Dragon, the same one that had attacked them within the collapsing Eye of the Allfather.  Melech shoved his compatriots out of sight and taunted the ancient wyrm.  This amused the dragon momentarily but she soon grew tired of the jeers of the tiefling before her and attempted to annihilate him with an issuance of lightning of her own.  The dragon, seemingly satisfied with her rebuke, turned away from Melech.  Before the portal snapped shut the three caught a glimpse behind the dragon where a pair of the massive gargoyles they battled once before were dragging an unconscious Harshnag through the sands.

The three rushed out of the city to the clearing where the Peregrine still stood.  The remnants of Harshnag’s resistance lie strewn around, he had apparently slain a number of gargoyles and human-like assailants before being taken.  The party found Rhenda and Albert inside the ship, having hidden within a still damaged portion of the hull.  Rhenda had already dispatched a few of the cultists who had been left to guard the ship and was trying to work her cousin out of his hiding place.

The group discussed their options and opted to continue with their prior plan of locating the Conchs of Teleportation, starting with the one possessed by the Hill Giant Chief Guh in the Dessarin Valley.  They plotted a course to include a layover in Phandalin but an exhausted Albert had to set the ship down several hours outside of the town to rest.  The group made camp not far from where they first traveled and shed blood together, along the road from Neverwinter to Phandalin where they had been ambushed by the Cragmaw goblins.  Scanning around their campsite Diva located a small totem or fetish carved by one such goblin that had camped her in recent months.  Diva reflected on goblins and their antics, which seemed almost adorable relative to the foes now aligned against them.  Vohrun and Melech however had far less peaceful evenings.

Vohrun’s dreams were once more not his own.  He instead saw what appeared to be another snippet of the life of Uther, the creator of the Arcane Cypher.  In this vision Vohrun saw the wizard complete his creation of the Spell Forge the three had found within Wave Echo Cave the previous fall.  In the dream Uther used the Cypher and his magic to rearrange the fabric of the weave around the forge and bind his spirit to it, rejuvenating the decrepit old man.

Melech meanwhile allowed his mind to drift into the darkness he had traveled once before, projecting himself into Cania, the frozen realm of Mephistopheles.  The archfiend revealed that Melech’s father’s attempt on his life bore a purpose, Melech had been sired before the being now calling himself Perin has slipped the bonds of Hell, and Melech’s blood was the last tether that might be used to drag him back.  Mephistopheles offered Melech a chance to extricate himself from the consequences of his pact if Melech could see his father returned to Cania, a bargain Melech accepted.

The morning after their restless night the Peregrine set down outside of the rebuilt Tresendar Manor.  The party spoke with Gundren Rockseeker and Horeak and found everything in the area to be thankfully peaceful and prosperous, an oasis of calm in the storm closing in on the Three.

## Dessarin Valley

### Bridge over Troubled Waters

With the Peregrine loaded with provisions and their pockets bulging with the wealth generated by their mining venture the Three took flight and left Phandalin behind.  The ship rose high into the cold air to clear the sword mountains before descending once more in the afternoon to skim over the canopy of dense and knotted Kryptgarden forest.  By early evening they had once more reached civilization of a sort, the small cross-roads of Westbridge.  Landing outside the town center the Three ventured into the town to return to an Inn they had visited once before, the Harvest Inn.

The Inn featured a warm common room, filling meals and an assortment of statuary that celebrated the human(oid) form. The party chatted with the owner, a halfling named Herivin Dardragon, who filled them in on the goings on to the east of town to the best of his ability.  With a general understanding of the disposition of the hill giant threat and the location of defenders near the Stone Bridge the party departed.  Before retiring for the night Diva purchased sturdy wooden shafts and small barrels of oil to craft oil-tipped munitions for the Peregrine’s harpoon launcher which Albert was in the process of improving.

A short flight the following morning brought them within sight of the breathtaking Stone Bridge.  The seemingly impossible stone edifice dominated the landscape for miles in every direction.  The party noted a military encampment being constructed by the western end of the bridge and set down to see if the soldiery had any better information than the innkeep.  They may have been taken aback slightly when the commander, who inspired some reverence from her troops, was a silver haired grandmotherly figure named Gale Harpell.  Gale filled in a few more holes in the group's knowledge over a cup of tea.  She had been dispatched by the Lord’s Alliance to keep the Hill Giants confined to the eastern side of the Dessarin Valley.  With the Dessarin River at spring highs there was no other crossing for the giants except through the fortified city of Yartar which they left unmolested.  Gale told the party that Beliard was under constant raids from the giants but the attacks seemed to be aggressive foraging rather than an attempt at annihilation.  The giants would arrive in small numbers, rarely more than three at a time and cart off any foodstuff they could find in the ranches and farms outside of Beliard proper.  Their main targets seem to be livestock which they would pull into their bags but they were not above also collecting the ranchers themselves if they got too close to the brutes.

The group’s tea time was soon interrupted however, by the sounds of horns signifying another giant was making an attempt to cross the dwarven edifice.  Gale’s expectations of driving off another dim-witted Hill Giant were dashed when the group found themselves facing a pair of Fire Giants leading a force of orcs and hell hounds, as well as dwarven slaves across the bridge.  The long sight-lines of the bridge allowed the party to prepare for the coming onslaught.  Melech made good use of his eldritch blasts to send foe after foe plummeting to the churning river below while Diva and Vohrun charged into the thick of the battle.  A storm of sleet summoned by Gale slowed the approach of the opposing force and the narrow confines of the bridge allowed the party to fell each of their foes in turn.  The fighting and an uprising from the dwarven slaves sent first one, then another of the carts teetering off the edge but clever heroics by Diva and Melech prevented any of the slaves from joining their taskmasters in the river below.  The battle culminated with Melech blasting the final giant off of the bridge and Vohrun severing the brute’s grip, and his life.

Interviewing the freed dwarves the party learned that the dwarves are from assorted mines and homesteads throughout the Silver Marches region, the were captured by Fire Giants or their minions several months ago and forced to work in the Fire Giant mines somewhere in the northern reaches of the Marches.  Eventually they were carted out as part of a much larger force they traveled with for several weeks to the west.  This detachment was split off from the main group about tenday ago in a moor that the larger force had been passing through to the north.   The main force continued westward and included about a score of fire giants, perhaps a hundred goblinoids and a number of trolls, ogres and other such monstrosities that had been hired as mercenaries or pressed into service along the way.  The three resolved to continue their path to Beliard and to stay focused on retrieving the Conch of Teleportation from the Hill Giant Chief Guh.

### Grudd Haug

As the Peregrine descended towards the village of Beliard the party decided to make their presence known.  The Airship descended rapidly over the center of town Vohrun and Diva rappelled down ropes and secured them to stone pylons that Diva molded from the earth itself.  The three inquired about the Hill Giant threat and were directed to speak to Krath, the innkeeper and the Watchful Knight Inn.  Inside the large inn Krath filled them in on the goings on, detailing the typical manner the giant attacks had unfolded as well as a somewhat atypical assault on a nearby farmstead by a female hill giant.  Opting to follow up on the female giant attack the three were referred to Herschel, the farmer whose farm was raiding who was cooling his heels outside.

Herschel detailed the raid on his chicken coop by the giantess, noting that she was crying and blubbering throughout the entire raid.  Intrigued, the party traveled to Herschel’s farm and followed the clear trail through the countryside to an abandoned tower whose entrance was blocked by a boulder.  Emanating from the derelict structure was the same blubbering cries that Herschel had described.  The party tried to make contact with the giantess but the language barrier stymied their attempts.  They withdrew for a time while Diva prepared the tongues spell.  Vohrun attempted to sooth the sorrow of the behemoth but chose his melody poorly, causing her to wail all the louder and eject the now-emptied chicken coop from the tower in the general direction of the party.

Eventually Diva was able to allow Vohrun fluency with the Giant tongue and he conversed with the Giantess, learning her name was Moog.  Moog depression was caused by the Hill Giant Chief Guh seizing her husband Hruk, and indeed all of the male giants of the clan as her own husbands.  Guh had tasked her new harem with bringing her food so that she might grow larger and larger.  Moog was apparently intimidated by Guh and was reluctant to lead the party to the Hill Giant steading that she named “Grudd Haug”, which translated to River Mound.  Vohrun told the giantess that they would fetch Hruk and send him to the edge of the High Forest to meet Moog there.

The party returned to Beliard to rest for the evening and ventured once more into the the Watchful Knight Inn to procure drinks and see if any volunteers wished to join their raid on the Giants.  While the downtrodden villagers stayed mum, one volunteer did step forward.  A suit of armor in a glass case behind the bar animated and clambered out of its case to step forward.  The silent “Watchful Knight”, for which the inn was named, assessed the party then joined them on the Peregrine.

The following morning the party lifted off once more, looking to locate Grudd Haug from the air.  They traveled down the Dessarin River for most of the day without luck before turning up one of its tributaries.  The tributary was a trickle of what they expected from the size of the river bed.  After the sun had set they discovered why, straddling a rock escarpment the river had cut through was a massive log and mud structure resembling a beaver dam with a large lodge constructed atop the pile with a smattering of defensive structures.  After a scouting pass the three set the Peregrine down upriver and ventured towards the hall under cover of night.

Squeezing around the boulder blocking the main entrance, the party snuck into the lodge, finding a number of giants slumbering around the perimeter of a massive feasting hall including the massive Chief Guh, reclined upon a wagon bursting under her tremendous girth.  Melech attempted to scamper up to a catwalk surrounding the perimeter of the room with some difficulty, nearly waking the sleeping giants.  Diva utilized a zone of magical silence around Guh and her Ogre assistants to keep them from being awakened while Vohrun tied up the legs of another sleeping giant.  The three crept along the room to the far side where Melech attempted to look for the conch in the horde of treasure and refused that Guh’s bloated form engulfed.  Failing to find the conch he opted to polymorph the sleeping giant into a turtle allowing him to locate the conch and hurl the shape-changed chief into a nearby grate to the fetid pig pens below the hall.  Vohrun and Diva meanwhile noticed a halfling being affixed to a spit in the nearby kitchen by a number of goblins and moved to intervene.  Their fracas began to wake the slumbering giants and after dispatching the goblins the party decided to flee rather than risk their wrath.  The halfing they rescued informed them that there were other captives in the lower levels but the party judged their mission to reach the Storm Giant court to restore the ordening to be of greater import and took to the air as the alarms began to rouse the many sleeping residents of Grudd Haug.

## Delimbiyr Vale

### Flying the Unfriendly Skies

The party slipped below the decks of the Peregrine to plan their next move.  They considered several courses of action but eventually settled on delivering the halfling shepard Roderick who they had liberated back to Beliard before setting off for the Delimbiyr Vale in search of one more conch to allow them to access the Storm Giant Court.  After a short flight they set down in the village to deliver Roderick and rapidly rose once more in the air as the assembled throng and Krath watched them fly away, leaving the village to endure the Hill Giants' continued predations.

Their flight to the southeast was interrupted by a near calamity.  Melech had taken to rapping his knuckles against the furnace and in the process had accidentally smudged one of the runes binding the fire elemental into the furnace powering the Peregrine.  The enraged elemental seized upon this opportunity and attempted to melt a hole through the furnace to escape it’s confines.  Melech sounded an alarm and roused Albert from a nap.  The three acted quickly with Melech using his magic to chill the vessel to slow the escape while Diva and Vohrun blinded and befuddled the elemental, thwarting it’s escape for long enough for Albert to conduct an impromptu repair.

Following the near calamity the Peregrine was set down for the better part of a day for a tune-up and inspection.  Melech used the opportunity to read through Mikki’s Journal while Vohrun struggled to complete a complex composition he had been preparing for some time.

Taking flight once more the Peregrine covered a good distance across the Vale on the way towards Loudwater.  The party observed a storm begin to roll towards them from over the High Forest.  Vohrun’s keen eyes picked a mote of blue against the clouds and was able to discern that it was an object in flight, and closing quickly on their position.  The party and their allies manned the artillery about the Peregrine and prepared for an assault, which took the form of a twin pair of Young Blue Dragons, wheeling through the air.  Bolts were loosed at the dragons as they approached and they retaliated with breaths of lightning that knocked Rhenda unconscious and killed Albert in an instant.  One of the dragons also dropped one of the glass orbs that Baltior had used and when it shattered on the deck it opened a sand-rimmed portal to the lair of Imyrith.  Out of the portal charged warriors of the Bedine people to challenge the party while they were engaging the dragons.  The Watchful Knight kept more Bedine from pouring through the portal while the Three fought off the dragons.  Eventually the party gained the upper hand as Diva healed their fallen allies and they slew one of the dragons as it turned to run.  The other dragon escaped, outrunning the peregrine as the party secured the portal.

They were faced with a dilemma, the dragon’s lair laid beyond, with nothing but a handful of Bedine guarding the portal from the other side but the party was wounded and tired and feared being trapped in that place.  Eventually Melech charged though, attempting to terrify and scatter the Bedine before he was joined by his companions.  In the massive strange complex beyond they found Harshnag bound beneath a massive green-black stone that hummed with energy and shined with an inner light.  Rending themselves invisible the party snuck to the giant, obscured from the army they could see guarding the entrance and used a potion to turn him into a cloud of mist, slipping free from his bonds.  The party moved quickly for the exit as Imyrith returned and flew into a rage at the sight of the empty chains.  The dragon demanded answers from the Bedine and when they told her they had opened the portals on her children’s command the great wyrm charged the still open portal as Vohrun used a spell to slam it shut.  The tip of the dragon’s claw clattered to the deck of Peregrine as the party narrowly escaped her wrath once more.

### Dreams of Destruction

Reunited with Harshnag the party questioned the Giant to try and learn more about his captor and her plans.  He did not know exactly where the complex he was rescued from was, but the blowing sand and hot dry air led him to confirm their suspicions that it lay within a desert.  He also described the massive stone that hung above him during his confinement, noting that it evoked a sense of both familiarity and otherness from him.  Several days during his imprisonment the object seemed to come to life, humming and buzzing with energy.  The party put their heads together and hypothesized that this artifact was responsible for the Giant souls, each embedded with a fraction of Annam’s essence no longer reaching his eternal realm in Jotunheim after their deaths.

With renewed urgency the party made their way toward the trade route frontier town of Loudwater finding it under heavy guard and heightened alert.  They were directed by the mercenary guard to speak with the town Magister, finding her in an office that resembled a merchant company more than a governmental building.  She introduced herself as Tashlyn Yafeera and was quickly joined by the Zhentarim agent “LD” who had just returned from an airborne scouting mission to the east.  Happy that the party was looking to intervene in the giant-driven chaos, Tashlyn instructed “LD” to bring the party up to speed.

“LD” informed the party that the towns of Orlbar and Llorkh had been wiped off the map, the giants had gone as far as to disassemble the towns stone by stone, burying the rubble or tossing it into the river to be carried away by the spring currents.  Orlbar had been utterly erased with a single Stone Giant spotted minding the area while the Llorkh was still in the process of being disassembled by a group of Giants.  The party reasoned that Orlbar’s more complete desolation indicated it was closer to the source of the giants and resolved to set out for the former location of the village to seek answers.  Tashlyn promised an unspecified reward if they managed to resolve the issue, allowing her to reopen the Zhentarim controlled trade route through the Anauroch desert.

The following morning the party arrived in Orlbar, seeing the Stone Giant noted by “LD” stacking the few remaining stones from the town into decorated cairns.  The airship circled in front of the Giant, allowing it to see the party approach so they might gauge it’s reaction.  It reacted calmly to the approach of the party, accompanied by Harshnag.  The frost giant served as a translator conversing with the Stone Giant, who identified himself as Zhork, an exile from the nearby clan and a hermit.  Zhork told the party that the local Thane named Kayalithica, had issued an edict that all creations of the small folk are blasphemous dreams, and that Ostoria can be restored when they are wiped away.  The Stone Giant showed no protectiveness for the Thane, informing the party that they might find her in an ancient Burial place several days travel called Deadstone Cleft.  He also warned them that the cleft was guarded by a “Jotunglang” meaning “Giant Above” which Harshnag informed them was the giant name for a Roc.

The party departed and flew roughly half the distance to the Graypeak Mountains before disembarking from the Peregrine, not wanting to lose it to a Roc attack.  Leaving Harshnag behind but bringing along the Watchful Knight they followed the river to the edge of mountains where, on a moonlit night, they arrived at Deadstone Cleft.

The cleft was a narrow gorge, shrouded in mist carved into a rock escarpment.  The wind blew through the narrow pass, whistling around dozens of Fossilized Stone Giants set into the walls of the cleft.  The wind passing past their jagged features caused a low continuous moan that seemed to echo from the open mouths of the calcified giant forms.  Vohrun sent Morrigan ahead, watching through the owl’s eyes as it flitted down the length of the canyon.  He observed that the walls of the canyon were honeycombed with entrances to caverns on either side, some at the level of streambed, others raised up on elevated platforms.  The canyon ended with a massive 150 foot tall statue of what appeared to be a Stone Giant with horns emanating from his head and shoulders.  It was here that the stream plunged into the canyon from above, running in rivulets all over the massive carving.  At the base of the statue is the spraying mist were two Stone Giants kneeling as if praying or meditating.

Once Morrigan returned the party decided to attempt to sneak into one of the nearby cave openings.  Diva slipped into the mud near the river bank but thought quickly and used a zone of silence to deafen the stirring Roc to any further noises until they had reached the cover of the caves.  In the first chamber they found a small group of Uthgardt of an unknown tribe resting inside.  The party struck quickly and the Uthgardt were easily put down, allowing the Three to explore, finding a vast keg of beer that seemed to be leaking eternally onto the floor of the cavern.

In the next room they found a pool of slowly roiling brown mud and three more of the Fossilized Stone Giants.  One of these forms sprang to life and attempted to shove Vohrun into the sucking mud.  The party outmaneuvered the stony behemoth, with Diva using trickery to lure it into the mud while Melech used volleys of eldritch blasts to propel it further in.  As they chipped away at it’s form they found that under it’s stoney carapace there was a desiccated dead giant forming it’s core.

Once the creature was dispatched the proceeded on to the next funerary chamber in the massive complex, finding a number of additional fossilized giants and three sets of stoney doors set around the perimeter of a circular room festooned with elaborate carvings worked into the stones.  Pushing open one set of doors they found a largely empty chamber with naught but a rowboat inside.  The rowboat was being used to hold the sacks of several giants and within the party found a variety of treasures and oddities including a Dwarven Shield, a Parrying Dagger, and Ring whose gem resembled an eyeball.  This pilfering however, had drawn the notice of additional fossilized guardians as two more of the Fossilized Giants ripped from the walls in a shower of stone chips and advanced on the party.

### At the Threshold

Beset by the pair of Fossilized Giants the three battled fiercely using their experience from their previous encounter to dismantle the undead creatures.  During the melee Diva managed to activate her newly found shield Dinnerbell’s enchantment, sending out a shockwave which battered the long-dead giants.  After the crypt’s guardians were dealt with, the party snuck further into the complex, arriving back at the stream running through the gorge.  The party delved as far up the river as they could, hoping to bypass more of the cleft’s defenders.  At the farthest end of the river they found a pair of living stone giants engaged in meditative prayer in front of a 100-foot statue of a giant deity the party recognized from a similar depiction in the Eye of the Allfather.  The party ambushed the two giants.  During the battle one attempted to flee to sound and alarm, they failed but not before creating enough noise to draw the attention of a group of Uthgardt tribespeople.  The Uthgardt were clearly outmatched, and the party made a show of effortlessly dispatching them until their leader called for them to stand down.  She agreed to withdraw her people from Cleft and told the party where they could find Kayalithica but warned that she was within a cavern so sacred to the Stone Giants that only their Thanes were permitted entrance.

Undeterred by the Uthgardt warning the party entered the Kayalithica’s sanctum, finding her carving runes upon a massive glowing stalactite that was the focal point of a massive chamber flanked by more of the lithified stone giants of ages past.

Melech appeared next to her and attempted to inform her of Imyrith’s machinations but was unsuccessful, the Thane, like most Stone Giants, considered the surface world to be an ephemeral dreamscape, where things changed too quickly to ever be considered truly real.  She dismissed Melech’s words and presence as a nightmare she meant to expunge.

The party battled Kayalithica, joined by the Watchful Knight and the Griffon Uthgardt Totem Spirit summoned by Diva using the fetishes prepared by Breolix.  Kayalithica proved an implacable foe able to draw upon powerful magics that seemed to be linked in some way to the Stalactite in the middle of the room to glide through the rock in an instant and to awaken more of the long-dead Stone Giants Thanes to join her in battle as Oloch Morrah “The Great Stillness”.  Kayalithica proved hard to pin down but Melech remained focused on the objective, slicing open the pouches hung from her belt in an attempt to locate the Conch.  Some of the pouches held treasures that spilt across the floor while another seemed to hold a prisoner of Kayalithica’s who didn’t react warmly to Melech’s spear slicing his leg.  Eventually, while Vohrun held off the Oloch Morrah singlehandedly and Diva harried Kayalithica from Griffon-back, Melech located and dislodged the Conch, diving to catch it before it struck the cavern floor and leaving himself open to a near-fatal assault from Kayalithica.

Diva reinforced her wounded friends and they began a fighting retreat, failing multiple times to banish Kayalithica as the magic she utilized held her fast to the chamber.  With the Watchful Knight destroyed in fracas, the three drew together as Diva uttered a powerful prayer, sending them hurtling through space in an instant to the shrine she had prepared in the Flockem’s basement in Neverwinter.

Safe in the refuge of the City the party made preparations to use the conches to reach the court of the Storm Giant King Hekaton.  Diva utilized the sending spell to get an update from Benezia, learning that she had been captured by Duke Zalto’s forces and that they were in the process of constructing something massive.  She used the same spell to inform Rhenda and Harshnag of their whereabouts and intentions and dispatched their allies to gather information on Zalto’s activities.  Meanwhile Vohrun and Melech experimented with the items they had found in the Stone Giant crypts, learning the properties of the Gauche Gauche and the Ring of X-Ray Vision.

Their preparations complete, the Three ventured outside of the city to a windswept cliff overlooking the Sea of Swords and each blew upon a Conch in turn.  The reverberations from the conchs caused each of the party to lose consciousness in turn and collapse, their forms changing into a pool of brine that ran out to the sea.  It is not clear how much time passed in that state but Vohrun was shown a vision of the last moments of the Netherese Empire and of the arcanist’s Karsus’s final spell that sealed it’s fate.  After the vision Vohrun found himself in an empty void, a transitive place where he came face to face with Uther, the ghost who had been haunting his dreams the last several months.  The netherese arcanist, who had later founded the Phandelver pact, told him that he had been with Vohrun for some time, that the dwarf, in his crossing of Anauroch,  had stumbled upon the place where Uther’s disembodied spirit lingered on.  Each time Vohrun had come across an Ostorian Relic, which were the focus of mages life, he strengthened the connection between the two.  Before Vohrun awoke Uther told him that if Vohrun had need of him, he could be reached when Vohrun slumbered and his mind grew quieter.

The party regained consciousness in an odd chamber constructed of what appeared to be living coral, crawling with tiny sea life.  They struggled to gain their footing while suffering tremendous pressure squeezing upon them, making it difficult to breathe.  They had, at last, reached the hall of the Storm King.

## Missing Monarch

### Court of Storms

Now within the Storm Giant hold they would come to know was called The Maelstrom, the party spread out through the chamber they found themselves, exploring what appeared to be a series of guest rooms sized for both Giant and Small-folk guests.  A haunting tune echoed down a massive set of spiral stairs.  Climbing the massive steps, each one taller than the Diva and Vohrun, the party found a massive great hall where a number of giant guests watched on as a pair of Storm Giantesses performed a haunting melody with one providing musical accompaniment to the others singing my playing on a living organ formed out of a massive crab.  A massive crystal window behind the performers confirmed what the party had come to suspect, that this stronghold lay at the bottom of the sea.  Not wanting to be faced with a room full of giants with unknown intentions, the party crept through the back of the room into a series of back rooms that served as kitchens and storage areas before finally arriving at a pair of chambers that appeared to function as a study and a library.  From there they heard the end of the performance in the great hall and the loud footfalls of giants moving throughout the complex.

At an impasse, and quit literally in too deep, Diva volunteered to search for Serissa from the safety of the Ethereal plane using a powerful spell.  Phasing from the world they knew Diva proceeded to glide through that ghostly realm, eventually passing into a grand throne room occupied by three Storm Giants.  The giantess at the center, Serissa, sat upon the Wyrmskull Throne, a massive piece of obsidian with the skulls of four dragons as legs that hovered just off of the floor of the room.  She was being counseled by two advisors, a female giant named Mithyri and a male named Ithor, who was apparently her uncle.  Both of the princesses urged her to act to preserve the authority of the Storm court, though Mithyri went further than Ithor, encouraging Serissa to declare war on the small-folk to rally the scattered tribes of giant-kind to her banner. Serissa dismissed her advisors and then slumped into the throne, clearly upset.

Diva chose to end her spell appearing before the sullen princess.  She insisted that she meant no harm and had come to end the chaos resulting from the actions of the rogue giant lords.  Serissa quickly warmed to the tiny intruder and told Diva of her plight.

After the shattering of the ordening her father King Hekaton had browbeat and threatened the various leaders of the giant tribes to hold on to a semblance of the old order.  This changed when his wife, Queen Neri was found dead at the site of one of her occasional visits she would make to the various settlements of small folk surrounding the Sea of Swords.  Her body bore evidence of an attack by numerous smaller assailants leaving Hekaton thirsty for vengeance against the small-folk who had betrayed Neri’s trust.  Serissa, who had been named Hekaton’s heir over her two older sisters, consoled him to not take out his sorry on the world at large but rather find those most responsible.  Hekaton departed the Storm Giant stronghold known as the Maelstrom nearly a year ago and has not been seen since.  Serissa reluctantly took the Wyrmskull Throne but without her Father’s power and with her sisters Nym and Mirran undercutting her she was not able to keep the various giant lords from enacting their bids for power.  All attempts to find Hekaton have been fruitless and the only clue found at the site of Queen Neri’s attack was a small wooden coin painted with a golden goose.  Recognizing the token from their evening on the Golden Goose gambling ship, Diva led Serissa to her companions cooling their heels in the library.  The princess implored the party to find and return her father to her, giving them an additional Conch to return him with.  Before they departed Vohrun gifted the young ruler with the Gavel of the Venn Rune, hoping it would aid her in her courtly duties.

As the conchs sounded once more the three fell once more into darkness before washing up on the sandy shore outside of Luskan.  The party ventured into the city, learning from Artan that the Golden Goose had been impounded by soldiers of Ship Kurth shortly after the party left the city.  Apparently all the people involved with the ship were rounded up by the Arcane Brotherhood and taken to the Host Tower of the Arcane.  Melech led the party to the ruins of Illusk located within the confines of the city and to Esoteric Oddities to meet with the owner, Jessamine.  She told them that the business with the Golden Goose was being dealt with by others in her organization but did provide a small note that she insisted would allow the party passage past the guards of Ship Kurth that guard the approach to the tower.  Diva and Vohrun prepared to make their way to the Host Tower while Melech lingered behind to discuss a matter of personal interest with the mage.

### The Trackless Sea

The party made the crossing to Closeguard island, the base of operations of Ship Kurth.  They were immediately challenged by a number of the northmen until Diva put her hammer down on the toe of the leader of the rabble.  Her dominance established, the old pirate adjusted his tone and warned the party not to proceed further to the Host Tower of the Arcane.  When they indicated that they would do just that he again attempted to interpose himself before being presented with Jessemine’s note authorizing their passage.  Clear to proceed the party noted a number of the Ship Kurth soldiery taking wagers on their survival.  The party decided to express their confidence with coin, a wager which a number of the pirates felt comfortable betting against.

The three walked up the muddy path to the large featureless doors at the base of the tower.  A knock on the pale stone door received no immediate response so the three began to deploy their magics to attempt to proceed further.  Vohrun used a spell to expand his vision to other realms, noting that the tower seemed to cut through the ethereal plane as if warded against magical entry (or exit?) from that realm.  When Vohrun attempted to bring down the dweomer holding the door fast he was struck by a blast of psychic feedback that left him reeling and bleeding from the ears and nose.  Shortly thereafter the hunched decrepit Seneschal of the tower opened the door and chastised the party for their lack of patience.

He led the three inside through a chamber of utter darkness.  They walked in the small circle of light cast by his odd lantern as he turned several times, as if maneuvering around unseen walls.  Vohrun, whose sight still extended beyond the material realm, could see countless ghostly hands reaching out from the floor and sides of the chamber, grasping at their heels.  The Seneschal led them to a twisting spiral staircase that curled up into the tower.  The disorienting staircase led to countless dark branching passages and sealed doors.  The party was delivered to one such passage blocked by a silvered round door, he bade them good luck and prepared to open it when they floated the idea of giving him gainful employment in Phandalin.  He promised to consider their offer, pending they survive their trip into the room beyond the door.

The three entered, finding a chamber occupied by several inclined tables with straps to restrain people upon.  One of these tables was occupied by a short man with a number of metallic ribbons emerging from bleeding incisions around his neck, the ribbons trailed down into a tangle that disappeared beneath the table.  A gaunt moon elf woman stood opposite herself running her hand across a number of surgical instruments.  She introduced herself as Valindra Shadowmantle and quickly surmised that the party was the group that tipped the Brotherhood off to the activities surrounding the Golden Goose.  She informed them that the brotherhood had imprisoned all of the principals from the Goose but they would die immediately upon the beginning of interrogation, their minds destroyed from within.  Before interrogating the owner of the ship, the man strapped to the table, she was forced to design a countermeasure.  The magical devices she had grafted into her prisoner had kept him alive for the time being and her administration of various drugs had loosened his lips.  She had learned that he was a member of a group that he called “The Children” operating throughout the area in isolated cells.  Valindra allowed the party to continue the interrogation of her prisoner, interested to see if their lines of questioning would provide novel insights into the Children.  The party put the man to question learning that the Goose had been used as a staging ground for the assassination of Queen Neri and they had interacted with the cell responsible since then, sending ships to an area of open ocean near The Purple Rocks to be supply a ship which the Children kept under sail continuously, never docking.  The man informed them that the ship had a peculiar form, resembling a squid.  The party thanked Valindra and left the tower, extending the offer of employment to the Seneschal who agreed as long as he could bring a few “retired” friends along.

After collecting their coin from the men of Ship Kurth Diva magically whisked the party along to Neverwinter where they located captain Brynn and purchased passage on the Squall Son to the west across The Trackless Sea.  After a quick visit to Skeemo to purchase healing potions and Sovereign Glue the party set sail.

The Squall Son made fast progress across the open sea, several days passed after the shoreline disappeared behind them before they saw any signs of activity.  The ship happened across a fishing vessel hailing in their nets with an unusual catch.  A creature that appeared to be an odd collection of human and fish parts was tangled in the coils of the next.  The captain of the fisherfolk cautioned against venturing further west, stating that nothing good came from those distant waters.

The remainder of their journey was devoid of any signs of life larger than a passing bird or splashing fish.  The only notable disruption in the monotonous rhythms of life on the ship was the sudden arrival of a frightful storm from the west.   Captain Brynn wanted to turn the ship around and allow the winds to carry the ship back to calmer waters but the party insisted he push on.  The winds and swells battered the small ship which the crew worked hard to keep on course.  The party did their best to aid them, opting to encourage and hearten them with hot teas, songs and prayers until the storm passed.

After the storm passed the ship found itself adrift in windless doldrums, with the craggy peaks of the Purple Rocks jutting out of the horizon like discolored teeth from the sea.  The party took to the air with the aid of Diva’s Wind Walk spell and eventually sighted their quarry, an oddly shaped, narrow vessel cutting through the sea with an open cargo hold.  The open hold held a single massive cargo, a bearded Storm Giant restrained and motionless beneath massive chains.  With no cover to be found the party departed for the Squall Son, intent on returning to the ship under cover of night.

### Into The Tentacles

Under cover of night the party descended upon The Morkoth in the form of wisps of vapor, materializing on the stern of the ship unseen by the crew.  They crept forward unseen but when Melech attempted to toss the sailor manning the tiller overboard he managed to hold on to the tiller, causing the ship to jerk suddenly and alerting the crew with his shout.  The party carved through the crew of the vessel until several Merrow who had been escorting the vessel, concealed under the water joined the fray, attempting to drag the three invaders overboard.  Still they were no match for the party and even the addition of the Ship’s captain and a mad wizard could not swing the tide against the invaders when Diva cleverly banished them both to a demi-plane until the ship had left them behind to be deposited in the sea.

With their foes dispatched, the three attempted to rouse King Hekaton as a violent storm began to roll in.  Melech determined that the King was held in some manner of stasis, and an attempt by Vohrun to sever the enchantment sundered one of the chains binding him to the deck.  Diva began to break through the chains, freeing Hekaton who slowly began to exhibit signs of life.  Their rescue was interrupted when the ship shook suddenly and a number of tentacles erupted from the water to grip and wrench the ship.  The party attacked the wriggling appendages with blade and spell but the counterattacks from the tentacles battered them badly.  Melech reached for the pinnacle of power bestowed on him from Mephistopheles and shifted the Kraken Slarkrethel to Cania for a brief moment to be tormented by the fiends there.  With a few seconds of reprieve Diva attempted to speed the ship along by compelling the very water to carry the boat forward but it was not enough to outrun the return of the Kraken.  Bolts of lightning lanced from the sky at the command of the beast, bringing the party to edge of defeat when the fray was joined by a small vessel piloted by the The Blind and crewed by The Cloned Three arrived, accompanied by blasts of magic.  The melee turned into chaos as spells, blades, and tentacles clashed atop the storm-rocked ship and Hekaton roused himself sufficiently to lash the Kraken with his own broken chains.  All attempts to disable the Kraken failed but cut by cut and blow by blow the Hanged Three and the Cloned Three drove it back into the water.  No sooner than the Kraken departed then Hekaton threatened to turn his ire on the parties.  Vohrun’s quick mention of his daughter calmed his rage long enough for him to request a conch and immediately use it to return to the Maelstrom.

The odd pairs quickly set to repairing the floundering vessel sufficiently that the Blind was able to activate it’s spell-jamming helm and wrench it from the ocean into the sky as Slarkrethel once more attempted to pull it under.  An odd reunion followed as the Hanged Three met the broken versions of themselves and learned the sad tale of their creation at the hands of Octavious.  Melech seemed intrigued at the Blind’s offer of immortality among the stars and promised to meet him one year hence at a place the Beholder called “The Rock of Bral”.  With that the party departed with their conchs and The Blind shunted The Morkoth into the Astral Plane, where the Hanged Three found themselves surrounded by the primordial mists of creation and edifices made of long-forgotten gods.

## End Game

### Gathering Storm

The party reappeared in the Maelstrom, finding King Hekaton still recovering from his magical imprisonment.  They brought the giant sovereign up to speed on some of the events that had transpired in his year-long absence.  The king led them to the throne room where they found Serissa holding court with the few giant lords in attendance.  The king’s return was met with shock from all and eternal gratitude from Serissa.  Mithyri declared that a celebration was in order and fetched drinks for the assembled court while Hekaton retook his throne.  The king called for his other daughters Nym and Mirran and upon their arrival accused them of providing information that led him into Slarkrethal’s trap.  The daughters pointed the blame at Mithyri, claiming she had given them the tip so that they might prove Hekaton made a mistake in passing them over as his heir.

Mithyri began to cackle wildly as the accusation was leveled, shouting that she did it because the Giants weren’t dying fast enough.  It was then that the frost giant began to choke and foam at the mouth and the court had the dawning realization that many of them had just been poisoned, including Princess Serissa.  Mythiri dove into the pool at the center of the room, revealing her true form as Imyrith as she disappeared beneath the water.  Diva and Vohrun rushed to the giants aid, magically purging the poison from a panicked Serissa and from the Fire Giant Duchess Tartha but were not in time to save the other members of the court.

An enraged Hekaton declared a war on Imyrith for her attempt of Serissa’s life and used his conch to summon the few Giant lords who could still receive the summons.  Countess Sansuri and Duke Zalto appeared a short time later although their disdain for the authority of the court was evident to all.  Sansuri refused to join the crusade, blaming the Storm Giants for the long slow decline of giant-kind and blaming the party for obstructing her own attempts at an Ostorian Restoration.

Duke Zalto was more interested in waging war but preferred to wait until the massive weapon of war he was reconstructing, the Vonindod, was complete.  He was luckily unaware that the party had obstructed his plans as well by defending Triboar and the Stone bridge from his troops' assaults.  After Vohrun prodded the Dukes ego he agreed under the condition that Hekaton would make no attempt to restrict him from pursuing the Vodindod project, including besieging Gauntlgrym to attempt to take the “Dawn Titan” that powered that city’s forges.

With the bargain struck, Hekaton dispatched the party to gather their allies and meet his forces in Ascore, a ruined dwarven port on the edge of Anauroch.  The three sped across the realms gathering a strike force of their trusted friends, finally arriving at the edge of the desert with Harshnag, Rhenda, Albert, Sildar, Gale, Eamon and Sandyse in tow.  After reuniting with Hekaton the three took to a wind walk to scout the Imyrith’s defenses.  They found her odd citadel in the vast desert abuzz with activity.  Imyrith’s Bedine followers were staging a number of ballista on the long ramp leading into her lair while the surrounding area was swarming with gargoyles like a hive on giant stony bees.  The sand around her lair was churning and something moved beneath it’s surface in addition to the visible defenders.  The three returned to the war camp and made their plan.  They would use wind walk to infiltrate behind the main lines of defense with their handful of chosen allies and cause chaos as the main ranks advanced upon the front of the lair.  In preparation for the attack Hekaton gave each of them a gift, a potion that would grant them each the form of a giant for a single day.

### Doom of the Desert

Their plans made, the united forces set out across the desert, with the Fire Giant army marching across the sands while the Storm Giants rode on their Roc mounts.  The party and their companions squeezed onto the Peregrine and took in the bleak vistas on the three-day trek over the dunes.  The stillness of the desert was interrupted by the approach of a massive dust-storm that drew a curtain from the desert floor to far into the sky.  The party urged Albert to press through the Storm rather that diverting over the top, using it as cover for the final approach to Imyrith’s lair, the Maw.

Within the storm the party could hear the distance screams and cries of some of their giant entourage and they were forced to navigate around areas suffused with powerful lightning.  Their luck held however and they emerged into an eye in the middle of the unnatural storm, an broad area of calm surrounding the Maw.  Her lair appeared to be missing most of the defenders, with only the Bedine tribespeople guarding the edifice.  The location of some of the missing foes became clear as the giants emerged from the storm behind the party.  They were fewer in number and many sported dozens of small slashes and gashes across their bodies.

The party and their companions took flight with a wind-walk spell and circled around the rear of the structure to observe the defenders and their reaction to the approaching giant forces.  As the giants closed in across the sandy expanse they were beset by calamity, several were swallowed by yawning sinkholes that opened up in the sand and others were engulfed in swarms of gargoyles that emerged from the sand to swarm over the attackers.

Still the advance proceeded to the point where the Fire Giants could hurl rocks onto the defenders of the ramp while the storm giants pelted them from above with bolts of lightning.  The party took advantage of the chaos to slip through the opening and re-substantiate themselves in positions within the central chamber hidden from Imyrith’s view by massive pillars.  The dragon was looking out through the maw of her lair at the battle unfolding beyond, clearly delighted at what was transpiring.    Melech stepped forth and attempted to belittle the dragon once more but Imyrith was not as easily goaded by him this time.  When he intimated that they were going to disrupt her plans she calmly replied that the only reason they were having this discussion was because she had already won, their actions had already sentenced enough giants to their deaths that her attempt to unleash Tiamat was already irreversible.

Melech sprung his trap on the wyrm, magically stepping in front of her head and hurling the Sovereign Glue into her mouth and then binding her with the Iron Bands of Bilarro while the rest of the party joined the battle.  Harshnag and Sandyse focused their attention on bringing down the massive arcane contraption hanging from the center of the room while the rest of the group focused on Imyrith.  The battle appeared to be roughly evenly matched for a time, with both the dragon and the party trading blows but the tide began to shift as one by one the party imbibed the Potions of Giant Kind given to them by Hekaton.  As the three assumed their towering giant forms the great wyrm shrunk in their eyes and they meted out a savage rain of blows.  The draconic sorcerer tried to unleash her full arsenal, freezing time, turning invisible and raining destructive spells and her lightning breath upon them but the party, supported by their allies, persisted.  During the battle Sandyse and Harshnag succeeded in bringing down the hanging artifact, and found the contact with the ground had changed it’s behavior.  A rising hiss, like a sucking wind slowly rose within it while the battle raged around it.  Eventually the stone was swallowed up into a gaping stormy funnel, resembling a wormhole.  Imyrith, hanging on to life by a thread, chased after the stone down the opening portal, which continued to grow.  Strangely though the vortex only pulled Diva, Melech, Vohrun and Harshnag down it’s well while buffeting and pushing away their smaller companions.  Hurtling through a tunnel of surging energy the party found themselves in a black void dotted with stars, resting on a translucent floating disk of force.  Beside them, a massive giant humanoid figure with broad wings floated, clutching Imyrith by the throat.  As he hurled the limp wyrm aside he surveyed the party and greeted them with grim tidings, “The seal is breaking”.

### Eternity

The Hanged Three and their companion Harshnag stood before the Avatar of Annam All-Father, creator of the giant race.  He explained that his partial return to the world has nullified the personal sacrifice he had made by abandoning his children to power the spell imprisoning Tiamat.  She would attempt to push through the weakened seal and he would not be able to full hold back her essence.  When the party asked what a portion of Tiamat’s essence would look like they were greeted by the unwelcome answer, a massive White Dragon head penetrated the surface of the seal that they stood upon and attacked them.  The party attacked Tiamat as she forced one head after another through the seal, with another one breaking free every few seconds.  The battle raged and the party looked like they might fall, they quickly dispatched the White head of Tiamat, driving it back through the seal but they were overwhelmed by the four remaining heads.  Annam diverted a portion of his energies that he was using to rebuild the seal to bolster the party, granting them boons and summoning the greatest of his children, King Hekaton to stand at their side.  Eventually the tide turned.  Melech immobilized the Black Head with the immovable rod while Diva and Vohrun and the two giants rained a flurry of divinely empowered strikes upon the Blue and Green heads.  Eventually only the Red Head of Tiamat remained, trapped raging within a field of darkness summoned by Melech.  As they collected themselves and approached the remaining aspect of the Dragon Queen it unleashed a magical blast of unadulterated Pride, which allowed the defeated four heads to re-emerge through the seal in a desperate last gambit to defeat the world’s defenders.  The party cut through the heads once more converging on the Red head of Tiamat intent on casting her back to the hells.  Vohrun rent Tiamat with divinely empowered strikes while Melech magically leapt upon the goddess’s head and wrestled her by the horns.  Sensing the moment was at hand Hekaton plunged his greatsword into the exposed neck and released the weapon, allowing Diva to bring her hammer down on the pommel, driving the blade clear through the belly of the dark lady, expelling her essence back to her eternal prison.

To complete the reconstruction of The Great Seal Annam returned to his throne in Jotenheim in Ysgard, cursed to repeat the abandonment of his children, the Giants.  He explained that magic of a power great enough to imprison Tiamat cannot be made without sacrifice and that his sacrifice was to never again be able to commune with or guide his children.  He asked the Three what they thought should be done with his children and they advised him to allow the ordening to remain shattered.  They reasoned that the desperate attempts of his children to climb to the top of their hierarchy had been the cause of so much of the destruction that had befallen the lands over the past year.  Without that external framework they suggested that the Giants might finally be able to integrate with the rest of the world that had come into being since the fall of their ancient empire.  Annam agreed and the party was invited to spend as long as they wished in the endless feasting hall that stretched from the God’s throne to the horizon.  They drank and conversed with the spirits of 30,000 years of Giant-kind before awakening to the shaking of their concerned friends on the floor of Imyrith’s shattered lair.

The year that followed seemed to transpire in an instant as the Hanged Three went their separate ways.  Diva journeyed to the Silver Marches to treat with Duke Zalto.  She brought with her tales from the spirits of his forebears and mentors gleaned from the ghosts that haunted Annam’s eternal court and managed to convince the Duke and his depleted Fire Giant forces that enslaving and warring against the dwarven holds would bring him no victory.  Instead she laid the groundwork for a tense peace, to be strengthened by trade and dialogue in the years to come.  With her mentor Benezia freed from the chatel-pits of the Fire Giants, Diva assumed a leadership position within The Faenor.

Vohrun honored the promise he had given Eamon and took his place as the Hidden Hand of Torm.  He began to establish a clandestine network of individuals whom he could “guide” to further the good of all within the realms.  In time he set his eyes upon a small group in Elturel, setting their journey in motion before he himself made the long trek back to Vassa to stand before his family once more.

Melech used his underworld contacts and growing wealth to locate his father’s hidden lodge.  After cutting through a small army of mechanical servators her laid his hands upon the fugitive devil and dragged him across the very plains to Cania, returning him to Mephistopheles in exchange for freedom from his own eventual damnation.  Now freed from the shackles but all too aware of where a mortal existence would eventually land him, Melech endeavored to seek immortality among the stars.  He set his affairs in order, seeing to it that his Mother and Horeak would be taken care and he invited his friends to join him, waiting at the Moonstone Mask for them.

When the appointed day came Diva and Vohrun did not arrive, rather a fond farewell letter from Vohrun was delivered to Melech, as well as a mysterious protege of Diva’s.  Uttering his eternal refrain of the last two years “fucking dwarves….” Melech shifted himself and his new companion to the Rock of Bral to seek out The Blind, and infamy amongst the sea of stars.