Caravorn Darkwalker met the party in the stonelands and, as tasked by her mistress Meilikki, set to guide them to a certain place.
The Party traveled among the dark and towering monoliths and rock towers of the Stonelands without much incident for three days without incident. It was within only an hours travel of their destination, a gigantic rock edifice, that the sky began to suddenly fill with roiling purple clouds. Blinding purple lightning bolts began to strike the rocks and plains around them. Their worst fears realised the party ha been caught in the midst of a Wild Magic storm.
Quickly they conferred, their destination seemed the safest place so they decided to run for it. Great arcing bolts of arcane lightning began to strike around them each manifesting in strange and unpredictable ways.
Thraxus narrowly escaped a bolt which blasted a great hole in the earth almost under his feet. The hole was about 80 feet on a side and formed a perfect cube.
At almost the same time a bolt stuck Skylar directly, the purple crackling bolt struck, went through and seemed to ground itself next to Skylar with a shattering crash of sound. When the dust settled Skylar was unharmed, but a living simulacrum of purple lightning was standing beside him, mirroring his movements.
The group had so slow their headlong rush when exhaustion from the hard running threatened some of the party, despite the storm thy moved to a walk dodging wild magic bolts where possible. Suddenly a bolt struck directly in front of them, the resultant crash and wave of magic culminated in a circular wall of fire 400 feet across and rising hundreds of feet in the air with the adventurers standing directly in the center. They waited for a chance or for the fire to die down. Another bolt struck on and snuffed out the flames for a hundred foot arc of the circle, at last a gap they could get through.
Thraxus saw something suspicious and threw a rock at the unnatural still grass and scrub ahead of them. Giving a warning he tossed a rock ahead,only to see the “grass” shatter into a million razor sharp fragments. The storm had transformed a wide patch of land into glass and crystal. Carefully they made they way through smashing and clearing a path with staves.
Now rested form the slower pace the party picked up to a run again. Thraxus was struck by a bolt which radiated it’s residual energy through him, leaving him glowing with slowly changing colours. Aelar found the sounds of a full orchestra ringing through the area centered upon him, the music changing according to his mood.
A glimpse of something burrowing behind them . . . Thraxus let loose a bow shot hitting the creature which quickly burrowed underground again.
Thraxus described the glimpse he has seen an Caravorn informed thrm grimly that they appeared to have attracted the attention of a Soul Sucker, a mutated magical creature which fed off the life energy of any creature it came across.
With that the Soul Sucker burst out of the ground under them send forth a deadly cloud of metallic spikes and attempting to gather Thraxus into it’s thrashing mandibles. Aelar managed to get off a frost spell which caused the creature to recoil in pain. Viciously it resumed the attack focusing on the mage. Suddenly another Soul Sucker burst form the ground near them, While Thraxus moved to deal with the new threat, Skylar moved to help Aelar. attacking and injuring the creature The injured Soul Sucker retreated only to be felled by an arrow from Thraxus
The second creature tok advantage of this distraction to attack the mage, the great mandibles grabbed Aelar crushing him and holding him fast. rubbery tendrils snaked their way into gaps in his clothing, puncturing his skin and draining blood and life from him. Aelar collapsed unconscious and dying as the vile creature continued to drain him. Skylar managed to get a restorative spell into Aelar bringing him back into the fight, Aelar triggered a teleportation device leaving the Soul Sucker clutching at empty air.
Hit and injured again the beast reflexively sent a spray of metal spikes arcing into the surrounding adversaries. The spikes dazed most of the party and the creature quickly burrowed into the plain seeking to escape.
Anxiously the injured group waited for another attack, looking to the skies as rain and great purple lightning bolts continued to strike around them.
Seeing no further sign of the creature they hurried to the enormous rock pillar which was their destination, over 300 feet wide and reaching 1000 feet into the sky the pillar leaned slightly to the west, looking like a stone javelin of the Gods hurled deep into the earth. Cut into a switchback in the side of the pillar was a slippery narrow switchback of ancient looking stairs. The acutely angled stairway reached almost 200 feet up the sheer rock face, terminating in a solid looking stone door.
Roping themselves together with the most experienced climbers at front and back, the group slowly sidled up the treacherous path, attempting to ignore the sheer drop to one side. Skylars lightning doppleganger mirroring his movements in the empty air beyons the steps. Two thirds of the way up a bolt struck resulting in a wild magic surge which simultaneously saw Cara Darkwalkers hair instantly grow a foot in length., Thraxus feet grow to almost four times their normal size and laving a very surprised looking rust monster on the path in front of Skylar.
A brief struggle saw the rust monster close to dissolving Skylars armour and sword before to toppled off the steps into far down to the ground below.
Finally the bedraggled members of the party made it to the door. with a hefty shove they managed to push it open and they collapsed into the room beyond. Panting and recovering they pushed the heavy door shut and attempted to rest while taking sock of their surroundings.
Now that they had some time to rest some things became apparent, firstly the storm could have been far worse. Aelar hypothesized that it could be due to his and Skylars early childhood exposure to wild magic that they may have developed an affinity for it shielding them from the worst effects. Looking at Thraxus quietly glowing in the corner while looking despondently at his oversized feet, Skylars electric twin and the length of Cara;s hair, Aelar informed them that Wild Magic effects were often not permanent, in fact most would probably wear off soon , or at least when the storm passed . . ..probably
“It’s all quite exciting really isn’t it?”. His comments were underscored by the mournful sounds of a dirge softly played by a seemingly invisible orchestra siting all around them.
Thraxus noted that he had seen signs on the way up that the stairs had been carved over the top of an even older path which had would up the side of the rock face. Maybe where they were had previously been a natural cavern?
Giving their attention to the interior they saw worked an carved stone, maybe 5oo years old, faintly etched into the stone were sigils and symbols . . . with dread, Skylar recognised them, .it appeared that they were in the forecourt of a temple dedicated to Tiamat !!
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