Session 7

They fell through time and space.

Visions from around the world and across the planes invaded their minds. Too fast for recognition, but still enough to convey understanding. They witness vile cults on many worlds. Each one snatching people to use in rituals like the one they’d just stopped.

Behind these cults stands the withered form of Vecna.

His desiccated body gathers secrets like threads and adds them to a glowing sphere of hidden knowledge in some impossibly distant place. He looks up. A singular eye glaring at them as they fall. His mouth curls into a snarl, and he snaps his fingers, ending the vision to leave behind only darkness.

Crushing, cloying, darkness.

Xalen felt the weight of it on his chest as he struggled to breathe. He tried to scream but his lungs refused to suck air, and his limbs felt trapped against him. Desperately he twisted his body, trying to free an arm, a leg, anything that might let him push the weight aside.

There was a soft scraping sound, like rocks shifting, and for a brief instant Xalen could see. The darkness pressed down again but his struggles had loosened something, and he could move more freely.

His lungs filled. Precious breath that allowed him to relax a moment and take stock of his situation. Xalen appeared to be lying in a cushioned box of some kind. A box just long enough, and just wide enough, to fit an adult humanoid body.

A coffin?

The lid was missing, and he seemed to be covered with rocks and stones instead of dirt. A fact which, despite being inconvenient, came as something of a relief to the young rogue.

Rocks he could work with. Dirt would have choked him to death by now.

Xalen pushed against the stones, testing their weight and balance and he carefully managed to lever a few of them up and away. He tilted one larger square-cut stone and could hear whatever was above it slide off making the rest of his work easier.

Eventually he dug his way clear of the coffin and stepped out to a scene of violent destruction. He stood at the bottom of a wide crater surrounded by the ruins of what might once have been a large building.

A mausoleum, perhaps, judging by the numerous broken grave markers and other funerary items in the wreckage. Several partially buried coffins jutted from beneath the fallen masonry, and he wondered if the others might be trapped in these like he had been.

He moved to the nearest coffin and cleared the debris atop it to find Ebyn’s motionless form inside. Xalen placed a hand on Ebyn’s chest hoping to feel a heartbeat when Ebyn gasped awake and sat up, coughing.

“What happened?” the shadar-kai mage said between coughs. “Is everyone okay? Where are we?”

“I don’t know,” Xalen replied. “Not sure, and not sure.”

With Ebyn’s help they found Seknafret next. Then Eldon Keyward, the prisoner who’d been held in the cage during the ritual, and finally Brabara wedged into a coffin barely big enough to contain her bulk.

“What is this place?” Seknafret said once they’d freed Brabara.

“It looks like we’re in the graveyard,” Xalen said pointing to the coffins and grave markers. “Maybe there was an explosion when we stopped the ritual, and it caused the catacombs to collapse.”

“You’re wrong about that,” Ebyn said.

Xalen raised an eyebrow. “How so?”

Ebyn pointed and they all turned to see a building in the distance that looked a little like Castle Never. “I don’t recall there being a river of lava running beneath the castle, do you?”

“Oh no, oh no,” Eldon said, his voice holding a panicked note. “This isn’t good.”

Ebyn turned to face the elf. “Do you know where we are?”

Eldon nodded and he turned his head from side to side. “Where is it? Where is it?”

Seknafrat placed a hand on Eldon’s shoulder. “Calm down, Eldon. Take some breaths and tell us what is going on?”

Eldon nodded and breathed deeply. “Thank you, that helped. We are in a nasty place called Evernight. It’s a terrible echo of Neverwinter populated by undead. We are currently standing in Evernight’s graveyard because that’s where we were when we fell through the crevice.”

“The crevice?” Ebyn asked.

“Crevice of Dusk, actually,” Eldon explained. “Cracks between our world and the Shadowfell. The wild magic from the interrupted ritual must have created one and we were pulled through it.”

“So, how do we get back?” Brabara said.

Eldon peered around again and sighed. “I was hoping that the crevice was still around but there’s no sign of it. Not surprising really, a spontaneous crevice typically doesn’t last very long. I don’t suppose any of you are able to create a planar gate?”

Seknafret chuckled. “Not yet, I’m afraid.”

Eldon’s shoulders slumped. “In which case, we need to find a stable crevice for us to pass through.”

“Do you know where one is?” Xalen asked, hopeful.

Eldon shook his head.

“Well, this isn’t good,” Brabara said. “I don’t fancy walking around an undead-infested metropolis hoping to stumble across one of these magic gateways.”

“Nor do I,” Eldon agreed. “But we may not have to go door to door. There is a market in Neverwinter not too far from the graveyard, which suggests that there might be an equivalent market here. Perhaps we can learn the location of a stable crevice from there.”

“Won’t we be immediately attacked as soon as we set foot in such a place?” Xalen asked.

Eldon shook his head. “Mortals do exist in this place. Provided we make it seem like we belong, the undead will assume we are here under the protection of a powerful patron. We should be safe so long as we do nothing to cause suspicion.”

“Right then,” Brabara said. “Let’s go to this market and act like we don’t have a care in the world.”

The attack came from all around them.

A dozen ghouls crested the lip of the crater and ran hungrily toward the five of them. Mouths filled with razor sharp teeth and hands tipped with wicked claws the undead beasts attacked with mindless fury.

Brabara kept a couple of the monsters at bay with her glaive, but the rest streamed past her to satisfy their hunger against the unarmed and unarmoured Eldon.

The young elf shrieked as the first of the slavering beasts struck him. Sharp claws raking the flesh of his chest and arms.

Xalen launched into the air, the wings of his boots flapping, and sent two arrows into the back of one ghoul. The shafts bit deep, dropping it mid-stride and sending its twitching corpse clattering into the debris. Seknafret’s eldritch blasts took care of another, and Ebyn’s firebolts brought down a third.

Eldon, now surrounded by undead drawn by the scent of freshly spilled blood, clutched at his chest trying to find calm despite the five monsters around him. He called upon Denier to shield him, and his body was bathed in a radiant light. Spirits in flowing robes holding a book in one hand and a lit candle in the other circled the elf and the ghouls surrounding him howled in pain.

Two burned away in the divine light and the remaining three jumped back with smoke rising from their flesh.

Brabara’s glaive cut down the two she’d intercepted, and she turned to face the nearest of the injured creatures stumbling clear of Eldon’s glowing spirits. Xalen picked off another ghoul, as did Seknafret. Ebyn’s firebolt struck one of the injured ghouls and it fell.

Only three of the original twelve remained.

Eldon closed on these. The glowing spirits circling his body passed through the undead and their desiccated flesh seared away. Just one managed to escape but Xalen dropped the beast before it could disappear over the lip and into the darkness.

“You’re a cleric?” Brabara said once it was clear the fight was over.

“I am,” confirmed Eldon. “Of Deneir, Lord of All Glyphs and Images, and First Scribe to Oghma.”

“It will be handy to have a priest in a place like this,” Xalen said.

Eldon chuckled. “I am under no illusions as to my strength. My spirit guardians would not have protected me for long, had you not been here I would surely be dead.”

“Do you know why you were kidnapped and used in that ritual?” Ebyn asked.

Eldon considered that for a moment. “I have no idea why those cultists took me.”

“Hmm,” Ebyn said. “Does the name Vecna mean anything to you?”

“Of course, it ... I mean ... ah,” Eldon stopped and scratched at the back of his head. “Wait, what was that name again?”

“Vecna.”

Eldon shook his head. “No, I don’t believe it does. Is that the leader of the group who took me?”

“No. That would be Jerot Galgin,” Seknafret spat.

“Oh, shit!” Brabara said and started laying the portable hole out on the ground. She reached in and fumbled about a moment before dragging the still bound and gagged corpse of Jerot Galgin. “Well, that’s not great.”

“Who’s that?” Eldon shrieked.

Seknafret took a deep breath then let it out slowly. “That, is Jerot Galgin.”

“We’d hoped to bring him to justice,” Brabara said. “Get answers regarding the various crimes he’s been implicated in. Now … I’m not sure what we can do.”

“The priests of Oghma should be able to question his corpse,” Eldon explained. “If he’s behind all that happened then you may still get something from him.”

“But we have to find a way back to Neverwinter first,” Ebyn said. “Put the body back in the hole and let’s go find that market.”

---

The corpse market was a morbid and colourless place filled with all manner of undead.

Vampires, awakened, and other sentient undead, led gangs of zombies and skeletons, while ghosts and non-corporeal undead moved about the many stalls and storefronts in this strange, topsy turvy place.

Brabara cuffed Ebyn on the back of the head. “Stop doing that. You’ll have every one of these monsters down on us.”

“Doing what?” Ebyn said.

“You’re walking around with your mouth agape like a tourist,” Brabara said. “Keep yourself together, man.”

“I am?” Ebyn said.

Xalen made a fist and held it up. “I could fit this in your gob it’s so wide.”

Ebyn shrugged. “Sorry, it’s just that undead are forbidden by The Raven Queen on pain of death. Seeing so many like this is unnerving, and a little exciting. I will take care to maintain my composure.”

“It’s unnerving for me too,” Brabara admitted. “But we need to appear like we belong.”

Ebyn nodded. “Understood.”

The group picked their way through the market and undead of all sorts leered at them. Occasionally one would start slavering and snapping their jaws in their direction, but it would soon be brought to heel by its master, and they were able to pass unmolested.

“There,” Xalen said pointing. “Looks like another mortal.”

An elderly woman made her way through the crowd ahead of them, seemingly at home in this ghoulish environment. She stopped at one of the stalls and took up an item from the vendor, a small animal skull from what they could tell. The woman sniffed at the bone then placed it back down without a word and moved on.

“Let’s follow her,” Brabara suggested. “She at least looks like she’s got somewhere to be.”

“Ah yes, that old chestnut,” Xalen scoffed, “If you don’t know where you’re going, find someone who looks like they do, and follow them.”

Brabara smiled. “The sixth maxim.”

They stayed a discreet distance behind the elderly woman as she moved through the stalls. She eventually entered a shop with darkened windows. A sign with the name “Sangoria’s” in flowing script, the words seemingly written in blood, hung from a shingle attached to a short veranda before the doorway in the front.

“Wait here,” Xalen said. “I’ll go in.”

Inside, the old woman was in hushed conversation with another elderly woman behind a short bench at the rear of the shop. The storekeeper looked up with blood-red eyes, she regarded Xalen briefly then furnished him with a quick fanged smile before returning her attention to her customer.

The woman they’d been following glanced over her shoulder to see Xalen standing there.

“Sangoria,” she said in a croaky voice. “I’d prefer our business be kept private. Would you mind asking this fine gentleman to wait outside.”

Sangoria, the vampire proprietor of the shop, looked at Xalen and indicated the door. “If you wouldn’t mind waiting on the porch. I will be with you as soon as this business is concluded.”

When Xalen didn’t immediately turn to leave, the elderly customer approached him with a speed that belied her apparent frailty. “Get out!” she yelled, in an unnaturally deep voice.

Xalen swallowed and backed out the door.

She watched him leave and slammed the door in his face. He heard the bolt on the door slide shut. For a moment he considered trying to peer through the windows but changed his mind when he noticed the attention the slamming door had earned him.

Xalen smiled and leaned against the wall of the shop, trying his best to appear nonchalant despite his rapidly beating heart.

A few minutes later, the door opened, and the elderly lady emerged with a small bundle tucked under her left arm. She smiled when she saw Xalen standing there and came up to him with a gentle look on her face.

“Apologies for my rudeness earlier,” she said and extended her right hand. “Sore joints, you see. They make me cranky.”

Xalen took her hand, and the lady pulled him down with surprising strength.

“You should always respect your elders, young man,” she whispered in his ear, and with that same incredible speed, snatched a few strands of hair.

Xalen yelped in stunned amazement, raising a hand to rub where she’d yanked. The old lady turned and walked away, fading into nothing after a few steps.

Xalen blinked. “What the hell was that?” he muttered.

He returned to the shop’s interior where the vampire, Sangoria, waited. “Who was that woman?”

“Morwen,” Sangoria said. “She’s a frequent customer of mine, but she can be a bit touchy when it comes to her privacy. She is dangerous, be careful she doesn’t get too close. You wouldn’t want her to get a piece of you.”

Xalen swallowed. “Too late for that. She ripped out some of my hair.”

Sangoria shook her head. “Oh dear, you will need to be careful. Now, what can I do for you?”

Xalen opened his mouth to speak but the knowledge of Morwen pushed whatever plan he might have had from his mind.

Sangoria’s eyes narrowed. “I am going to assume you did not come to me for ingredients. I get the sense that you’re here for something less tangible. Information, perhaps?”

Xalen nodded. “Yes. Specifically, the location of a stable crevice of dusk.”

Sangoria scratched her neck with one long fingernail. “That is a valuable bit of knowledge, young man. So, it must be paid for with something that is equally valuable.”

“How much?” Xalen said, taking up his coin purse.

Sangoria waved it away. “I’m not interested in your gold, boy. Information is bought with information. Something new that only you can tell me.”

Xalen considered her request. A vampire residing in Evernight would have little interest in the petty politics of Neverwinter or the thief’s guild. “Maybe Vecna?” he said without meaning to voice the words.

Sangoria’s eyes widened. “What’s that? What did you say?”

“Vecna,” Xalen repeated. “His cults are gathering the power of secrets from across the multiverse. Vecna is storing this power for use in some kind of terrible ritual.”

“How do you know this?” Sangoria said, blood-red eyes boring into Xalen’s face.

“I have seen it,” he explained. “Coming here, in that space between worlds, we saw the terrible power that he was accruing.”

“What will he do with this power?” she said.

Xalen shrugged. “Nothing good. But with this warning perhaps you can take action to protect yourself or flee.”

Sangoria said nothing for a long moment. “Your blood tells me you believe what you say. I will accept this trade. There is a mausoleum at the edge of the graveyard dedicated to the Dolindar family. A family of wizards banished here decades ago for some unknown crime and cursed never to be able to return. They spent years searching for a stable crevice and, once they realised the curse prevented them using it to escape, they built their tomb around it.”

“Thank you, Sangoria,” Xalen said. “I wish you all the best.”

Xalen turned to leave when Sangoria called him back.

“Wait,” the shopkeeper said while fishing around in a box beneath the bench. She retrieved a small brooch in the form of a young child sleeping on a bed of leaves and held it out to him. “Take this, it might help you against Morwen. To keep your dreams from becoming dark.”

Xalen took the brooch and pinned it to his chest. “Thank you.”

“Good luck, young man,” Sangoria said with a smile. “Don’t tarry here in Evernight, I fear this place will eat you alive.”

Xalen left the shop and found the others waiting a short distance away. He explained what he found out about the crevice of dusk and the five of them left the market in search of the Dolindar Mausoleum.

---

They left the market to return to the graveyard.

As they walked along the darkened streets, a path familiar yet so very wrong, Ebyn spotted a mangy looking dog following them. The animal gave up its chase as soon as it was seen but Ebyn noted that the beast was missing its left eye. On a tree ahead of them, a black bird, also missing a left eye, sat on a branch regarding them as they passed below, and finally a one-eyed rat, perhaps attracted by the stench of life, crawled out from below a pile of rubbish to watch them pass.

Ebyn shuddered. “Have you noticed that we’re being followed?”

Xalen shook his head. “I haven’t spotted anyone.”

“Not by people, by animals,” Ebyn said. “Specifically, animals absent their left eye.”

“Absent their left what?” Brabara said, then her eyes widened. “Oh.”

“We should assume we are being watched,” Ebyn said.

“Can we do anything to prevent it?” Brabara asked.

Ebyn shrugged. “Not that I can think of.”

“Then let’s not allow it to distract us,” she said. “We need to get the hell away from here.”

It took a bit of hunting around at the edge of the graveyard, but they found the Dolindar Mausoleum.

A roof supported by stone pillars rose from a weedy patch of uneven dirt. The area immediately beneath the portico was free of both weeds and dirt. Several steps led down to a stone door dug into the earth below, with Dolindar carved above it.

“That’s weird,” Eldon said pointing at the ground. “Someone, or something, is keeping this area here clean.”

“That is interesting,” Xalen said. “But right now we have bigger concerns.”

Four humanoid figures swaggered toward them.

“You lost?” one of them said, a biggish fellow with a wild mop of blonde curly hair.

Brabara stepped forward, placing herself between the newcomers and the rest of the group. “No,” she said, knuckles whitening around the haft of her glaive.

A female dressed in jester’s motley licked her lips hungrily. “Oh, she’s a big one.”

“You might want to think about what’s going to happen here,” Brabara said with an edge of menace in her voice. “There’s five of us and only four of you.”

Another of the male’s smiled, white fangs bared amid a beard arranged in two long braids. “I reckon we’ll be fine.”

“You’d be wrong about that,” Xalen quipped, tore a bead from his necklace and tossed it into their midst.

The bead exploded in a conflagration of red flames, setting hair and clothing alight as the four vampires fled the area. Brabara ran in with her glaive spinning deftly before her. She sliced across the chest of the smallest of the group even as he struggled to pat the flames out on his burning clothes. Brabara’s second attack spit the smaller vampire through the stomach, and she lifted the hapless undead over her head where Seknafret’s eldritch blasts struck it three times to send the vampire spinning through the air.

The body landed hard ten feet away and stayed there, unmoving.

“Oops,” Brabara said, looking right at braid beard as she spoke.

The bearded undead let out a wild hiss and ran at Brabara in a rage, sharp claws and fangs slashing at her exposed flesh. Blonde mop ran at Ebyn, red eyes wide while the female hung back, uncertain, eyes darting between the fight and the corpse of their companion.

Eldon stepped forward. He held his holy symbol before him and called upon the divine power of Deneir to turn the undead away.

Jester girl’s eyes widened as Eldon moved to face her. She stared, dumbstruck, then shuddered and turned to sprint away, leaving the others to their fate.

Ebyn’s firebolts added more burns to the two remaining vampires while Xalen peppered them with arrows from the air above. Brabara harassed the bearded one using a flashy combination of strikes before finally breaking the undead’s neck with an uppercut from the butt of the glaive.

Blondie knew he was done for but refused to back down. He screamed in fury, directing his ire at Ebyn who struggled to keep the creature at bay. Ebyn suffered several deep cuts before Brabara could exert herself against the last remaining vampire.

“You lost,” she said, echoing the vampire’s opening words with a gleeful smile. She knocked the blonde undead onto its back and brought her glaive down into the centre of its chest. The creature howled in agony for a second before falling limp.

Xalen flew in a circle above the group, signalling all clear with a raised thumb before landing beside them.

“Does anyone need healing,” Seknafret asked.

Ebyn lifted an arm with a grimace.

Seknafret used her power to close the worst of Ebyn’s wounds. When she was done, they took a short rest before descending the stairs to enter the Dolindar Mausoleum and hopefully find their way back home.