Mulligan

The fight was not going in our favor. Shatain pulled out a handful of smoke bombs. She warned us in Dwarven to close our eyes and run. She threw them down; not as many burst as she wanted. It was enough for us to run. Brennen grappled past one of the Ku Rog, and got out. I bumped into Brennen but got out as well. Shatain got clear without incident. The smoke was growing larger and thinner as we broke clear. The Ku Rog were a little confused but in general seemed to know where we were going.

The Ku Rog were distracted enough for Shatain to get off another smoke bomb. We ran to the forest. We got far enough away that the Ku Rog didn't seem to want to pursue us. We made it about 1000' before having to stop. I healed Brennen for 34 and Shatain for 24. We could see the Ku Rog were dropping some of their armor and picking up their bows.

Brennen put up a spell to hide my tracks and his. Shatain barreled off into the forest to lay a false trail. The Ku Rog didn't pick up any of our tracks. About a mile out from the Ku Rog camp, Brennen found us a small sheltered area where we could rest.

About 45 minutes into our rest, a strange fog crept over the forest. Brennen suspected it was supernatural, but couldn't put his finger on it. Over the next 10 minutes or so, the fog became noticeably thicker, and seemed obviously supernatural. After I completed my rest, the visibility was down to about 20'. Binky was not happy.

We searched for high ground, but it appeared the forest was uniformly foggy. Visibility dropped down to about 15' while we searched. We heard a deep, inhuman voice in the fog. It said that we were not safe here.

A giant snout appeared in the fog. A greenish dragon, its head about 10' off the ground, seemed to be grinning in front of us. It was a little bigger than an elephant. My limited knowledge of dragons told me that this was probably a bad situation. The dragon moved its head to about 5' away from Brennen, and repeated its warning that we weren't safe. Then it sniffed us.

The dragon asked us why we were in the area. We told the dragon we were running from Ku Rog and a lich. The dragon growled at the mention of a lich. Though tempted to eat us, the dragon was curious why the lich was here. It was less than happy that there was fog in the area. It decided the lich was more interesting than eating us, and told us to be on our way.

We moved about 500 yards, back towards the Ku Rog camp. Along the way it seemed that the dragon was stalking us. Considering visibility was down to 15', it was impressive that the dragon was only 40' away and pretty much staying completely silent. It didn't follow us a great distance however.

Shatain climbed up a tree, as high as she could go. About 40' in the air, the fog wasn't any thinner. From my knowledge of the arcane, it seemed like this was a ritual involving multiple casters; this wasn't the lich acting alone.

We continued on back towards the camp. After about 10 minutes, we heard keening, moaning sounds. It seemed there was an infestation of undead in the area now. We slowed down a bit, but were prompted forward again by the dragon's voice. The undead keens and moans were not getting louder, strangely, and we hadn't seen any actual undead.

We figured we were within about 100' of the camp. We could see glints of fairy fire in the fog. It seemed pretty similar to what we'd seen around the lich's staff earlier. Then we saw shambling shapes in the fog. The shapes appeared to be Ku Rog zombies. We stopped.

The dragon crept closer, until it was very close to me. It asked why I smelled of wizard. I told it how we'd been sent by a wizard to see what the Ku Rog were up to. The dragon told us to keep moving and find out what was going on. It told me to stay.

Shatain & Brennen crept forward until they could clearly see the zombies. They didn't seem to be aware of their condition; they were going about their normal daily work.

While they moved forward, the dragon asked to see the crystal. It looked at the item in my hand very closely; I could feel its hot breath on my arm. It asked the name of the archmage that had sent us - I told it Ezekiel.

Brennen & Shatain continued into the camp. The zombies didn't even seem to notice their presence. They stumbled on the lich. It seemed to be in the middle of a ritual. There seemed to be a fractured hunk of glass, suspended in a soft lightning bolt surrounded by light and color. The fractured glass seemed to be trying to come back together. It was roughly the same size as the orb. It didn't seem like the orb could really come back together.

The dragon was interrogating me about Ezekiel. I told the dragon everything I could, since that wasn't much - he was an archmage from Solaria that had sent us down to see what was going on with the Ku Rog attack on the giant.This wasn't terribly surprising - dragons were known to be inquisitive creatures.

Shatain asked the dragon why it wanted so many answers. The dragon reasonably pointed out that we should want the answers as well. It told us to look around - the fog kept going. It seemed like the lich might be in the middle of an attempt to bring an area into the Shadowlands. We weren't sure why, but we knew we were at the epicenter.

We were pretty sure the lich was trying to pull something out of the orb, or had already and was trying to contain the rest. Likely the lich had been playing both sides through Zurykavlen to get hold of the orb.

We debated shooting the lich. The dragon asked for my recommendation. I decided the best course would be for me to move up and view the ritual myself. We felt a small shock wave roll across us.

We all moved up, to about 25' away from the lich. With the swirling lights, we could see it. The orb was still encased in a sphere of soft greenish blue lightning. I didn't recognizer the spell, but I believed the lich had intentionally fractured the orb and was keeping it under control to extract something, though there was probably more to it.

There was something shimmering around the lich, some kind of spiritual protection. The dragon reminded us that whatever the consequences of breaking the containment on the shattered orb, it was pretty likely that the lich would kill or enslave us once the ritual was done.

We knew the staff was the lich's focus; it had used it to draw out the souls of the wounded. Brennen & Shatain would attack the staff after I attempted to dispel the lich.

I dispelled the spiritual shield, which it now appeared to have been the containment for the orb. It definitely broke the lich's concentration. Brennen attacked the staff with his axe, hitting critically for 25. The staff clove in two. The lich definitely knew something was going on. Shatain stabbed the lich for 14.

The lich imploded. A huge wave of energy rolled out as we ran. When we stopped to look back, there was a pile of clothes where the lich had been, along with the sundered staff and the intact orb. The fog was lifting, and the dragon was gone. The zombies had lost their animation. It seemed likely the dragon had been part of the world the lich had been trying to bring into conjunction.

We camped in the same place the mage had dropped us off. All was calm and peaceful; there were no insects or other wildlife for that matter. Around 7 in the morning, Ezekiel appeared in our camp.

After we told him our story, he agreed to a 2,000 gold finders fee for the orb, along with our promised pay and passage through the trade tunnel back to Valleya. Ezekiel took us past the giant and into the cavern. It was a long walk down a deep spiral staircase. There were a few landings and rooms along the way. Eventually we reached the canal. Ezekiel left us in the secret passage while he went to secure a safe boat.

Brennen looked around for tracks. From what he could tell, this passage was infrequently used. The most recent tracks seemed to point to the time when Michael Merchants disappeared. Tracks said the tracks started in the canal and went into the passage, but didn't come back down.

Ezekiel returned after about an hour. Brennen relayed the information he'd found in the tracks. Ezekiel was thankful; we didn't have any evidence of Michael's death. We suspected once he realized he was up against a lich, Michael secured the orb as best he could (behind the giant) and teleported out. Ezekiel suspected the lich had been weakened before we attacked.

4-5 hours later, our ship arrived. It held a contingent of soldiers along with one of Ezekiel's apprentices. Ezekiel advised us not to stop along the way; we wouldn't be paid for days spent gallivanting in towns. Ezekiel disappeared, with a sigh of relief from the soldiers. They weren't unprofessional, but it was pretty obvious they didn't care for Ezekiel's company.

In the night, the locked door to our cabin swung open. A staff led the way, light at its tip - Michael Merchants had returned. He closed the door behind himself and threw the latch. He sat down and invited us to talk.

He needed the orb. Zurykavlen had his brother's soul, and would trade it for the orb. Michael confirmed with us that he'd had to leave the orb when the Ku Rog showed up. We told him we'd destroyed the lich and the Ku Rog in alliance with it.

We asked Michael about what he thought was going to happen. Michael believed as we did that Zurykavlen would use the orb to somehow reforge the Ku Rog, changing the way their race worked. Michael didn't particularly care about the end result; he believed it doomed to failure. The blood magic in the Ku Rog was too strong.

Further Michael didn't think they'd get anything out of the orb anyway. It was a failure as an artifact, and nothing was going to change that. Brilliant arcanists throughout the years had tried to make something out of the orb, but no one had been successful.

Shatain suggested that perhaps the magic of the artifact had evolved or matured over its thousands of years in existence. The orb was layered in magic; traditional arcane magic wrapped around deeper spiritual workings inside. Students of the orb suspected this was the reason it didn't work - the 2 magics didn't mix well, and they'd been forced together during the orb's creation. In the end, the attempt had just been a failure.

We talked about other permutations - Michael strongly felt Ezekiel didn't really care about the orb, but it was supposed to be in Valleya's vault, so that's where it needed to be. What it really came down to was that Michael was going to take the orb to Isador. He wanted to persuade us to give it up. Whether he could talk us into it or not however, he didn't intend to leave without it.

General Isador's faction and the lich's faction were involved in the original split between the general and the Ku Rog nation. General Isador wanted to change the race; no one really knew what the lich wanted.

In the end, we didn't feel it was worth possibly destroying the ship over. Michael left, promising to return with 2,000 gold or his best offer. We could accept that as a civilized compromise to fighting. Fighting a wizard on a wooden ship rarely turned out well for anyone concerned.