Chapter 3 / Episode 90 – The Gaze of Stone

 

Chapter 3 / Episode 90 – The Gaze of Stone

Date: Planting 13, 576 CY — Night
Region: Drachensgrab Hills, south of Highport — Slave Lords’ Stockade
Weather (Outside): Cold drizzle. Low clouds. Mud and mist clung to stone and bone alike.
Weather (Within): Smoke, sweat, and the iron tang of confinement.

---

Players

• Dog the Ranger

• Irving the Reluctant (with Harvey the Hare)

• TerryOr the Cleric

• Silversun Ubermage the Magic-User

• Slash the Bard

• Tiger Wong, Monk of the East

• The Jester

• Kern Blackshield of Safeton

• Lady Morwen Ellisar (NPC)

---

Planting 13 — The Cry Behind the Door

With Icar dead and his quarters searched, the party pressed deeper into his chamber. The smell of cooked meat and damp stone clung to everything.

Then came the sound from what appeared to be a closet.

Crying.

Soft. Desperate. Female.

Irving, Dog, and Kern volunteered without hesitation. The door opened under careful hands.

Inside stood a woman of unnatural beauty.

Bare feet. Pale skin. Crown of serpents.

Irving bowed slightly.
“My apologies, my lady—”

He never finished the sentence.

Stone crawled over him like frost.

Harvey leapt clear as the Paladin of St. Cuthbert became a statue mid-breath, apology frozen forever on his lips.

---

The Snake Queen

Kern looked away in time. Dog shielded his gaze.

The Medusa moved forward, slow and confident.

Dog loosed an arrow without meeting her eyes—biting into flesh. She shrieked.

Then she struck.

Kern faltered under her venom. The fangs cut deep—and poison followed. He collapsed, clutching his throat, eyes rolling back, foam from his mouth.

Slash struck up a sharp chord to draw attention, to break rhythm, to buy seconds.

Silversun, invisible, waited for a clear shot of a dagger.

Terry kept his shield angled, refusing her gaze, muttering prayers through clenched teeth.

The battle was awkward and brutal—blind strikes, half-turned faces, faith over precision.

At last, steel ended her.

Silversun removed her head cleanly.

No one celebrated.

Irving stood silent and gray.

Kern was dying.

---

Poison and Resurrection

The venom was relentless.

Terry tried curing beads. No effect.
Potions were searched. None helped.
The chaotic crown was considered. Quickly dismissed.

Kern’s breathing slowed.

There are moments in a campaign when you either let the dice decide—or you make a statement.

Terry made one.

Resurrection he remembered from a scroll.

Risky. Costly. Not guaranteed.

The miracle worked.

Kern gasped back into the world, coughing, weak—but alive, first thought was his beloved wife.

“I owe you,” he rasped.

“You do not,” Terry replied.

---

The Statue of Irving

They debated what to do with Irving. This was not death. It was waiting.

Irving stood as a monument to politeness.

Plans began forming immediately:

• Stone to Flesh

• Quest-based atonement

• Divine overreach

• Possible antidotes within the stronghold

The Medusa’s head was wrapped carefully. Its power would not last forever. Silversun felt powerful with the new weapon.

---

The Pantry and the Stairs

Beyond the Medusa’s chamber they found:

• A pantry filled with smoked meats and preserved rations

• No coin

• No magic

• No mercy

Tiger discovered the seam in the wall.

A secret door.

Beyond it—a stair descending into blackness.

Kern checked for traps with his trusty 10' pole. Terry cast Find Traps. Down they went.

Dog was in the lead, inching slowly.

---

The Goblin Den

At the bottom: a 10x20 chamber with a raised platform and a small hidden door.

Dog bent down examining the corridor, finding serveral tracks leading to and from the wall. Obvious secret door. He pushed and it gaveway.

Beyond it: twelve goblins eating around a crude table.

Slash moved first singing softly followed by the weakened Kern.

One goblin dropped before finishing his curse.

Dog followed with his bow.

Steel and arrows cut the rest down quickly.

Three were captured alive due to Terry'Or casting hold person.

A prisoner was all that remained after the battle, held captive in a small cage on the north wall.

The prisoner begged for food, looking like he had not eaten for days. Suspicion thick in his hollow eyes.

They found:

• 144 silver pieces

• Several scimitars

• Brass keyring with multiple keys

The goblins were questioned, only defiance and the promise that Markessa would kill them.

Silversun had enough and pulled out his new weapon, the medusa head. Crack!!! A grim reminder of who held power in that room.

---

Outcome Notes

• Medusa slain

• Irving petrified

• Kern killed by poison → successfully resurrected

• Goblin squad of 12 defeated; 3 captured / then medusa'd

• Starving prisoner fed but reluctant to talk

• Secret stairway discovered

• Goblin keyring retained

• Medusa head secured (Silversun happy)

---

XP Awarded

• Medusa encounter: 200 XP per player

Current Status

• Irving remains stone

• Lower levels opened

• Markessa still unaccounted for

• Specialist Quarters still ahead

• Medusa head ticking toward uselessness

---

Next Steps

• Restore Irving (Stone to Flesh or equivalent)

• Proceed cautiously down web-filled hallway

---

Inside the stockade now stands a stone paladin, a resurrected warrior, and a cleric who has called on his god thrice too many.

The walls are starting to close in.

And somewhere below…

Markessa waits.

Chapter 3 / Episode 90 – Inside the Stronghold

 

Chapter 3 / Episode 90 – Inside the Stronghold

Date: Planting 13, 576 CY — Evening
Region: Drachensgrab Hills, south of Highport — the slavelord stronghold.
Weather: Cold drizzle. Low clouds. Mud and mist clung to stone and bone alike.

---

Players

• Silversun Ubermage the Magic-User

• Dog the Ranger

• TerryOr the Cleric

• Irving Nonreluctant

• Slash the Bard

• Kern Blackshield of Safeton

• Lady Morwen Ellisar (NPC)

• Tiger Wong Monk from Afar

• Lailath the Jester

• and Harvey

I, Silversun of Greyhawk, set quill to parchment not in the safety of distance, but in the suffocating belly of enemy stone, where every wall listens and every shadow breathes. We no longer stalk the Slavers’ Stronghold from the outside—we are inside its veins now, moving through its blood, its filth, its secrets, and its screams. What follows must not be forgotten. Let it be a warning, a record of descent—into violence, into corruption, and into the kind of darkness that does not wait to be understood before it kills. But I digress:

We were crouched on the hill like carrion birds, watching the Slavers’ Stronghold breathe smoke and cruelty into the sky, when Terry Or began to chant again.

Not a prayer of comfort nor a hymn of gratitude. The cleric was reaching.

It was a plea wrapped in ritual cadence—a desperate summoning shaped by doubt, fear, and exhaustion. His voice carried the brittle edge of uncertainty, the kind that gods can smell like rot in the soul. The air thickened. The wind stilled. The tension itself drew tight, as if the world were holding its breath.

And St. Cuthbert answered. Not with warmth. Not with blessing nor mercy.

The presence that manifested was cold, crushing, judgmental—like a celestial weight pressing down on Terry’s spine and spirit. I felt it before I saw it, a pressure in the skull, a grinding tension.  I think we all felt it. The lesser god was displeased. Deeply displeased. Terry’s faith had wavered—fractured by fear, hesitation, and too many unanswered prayers—and the god punished him for it.

Not with lightning, fire or even death. But with humiliation. Celestial domination...with divine consequence.

What we believed to be a failed communion with a disappointed god—was in truth a relocation of flesh and fate.

Reality folded like wet parchment as the hill vanished beneath our feet and the sky collapsed into stone and shadow.

And we were suddenly inside the Stronghold itself.

Stone walls surrounded us. Iron rings jutted from blood-streaked stone. The air reeked of animal filth, rot, and old suffering. A massive boar stood in the chamber with us—tusked, scarred, red-eyed, froth dripping from its mouth in thick ropes of rage and hunger.

It charged without hesitation. Straight at me. It was raw violence, from a tormented soul—meat, muscle, tusk, and hate. The tusks missed my ribs by inches as the party tore into it with steel, arrows, divine force, and sheer fury. Blood sprayed the walls. Bone cracked. The creature screamed like a dying demon and collapsed in a wet, twitching heap, its intestines steaming across the stone floor.

That was loud, very loud.  Kern opened the door closest to us, to escape this small room.

And more of the evil that runs this place revealed itself with it. A galley with a fire roaring in iron pits.
Grease popping and hissing from the huge lizard being roasted. Smoke curling thick along the ceiling beams. There a  massive cook stood over the flames & three burly warriors sat at a table. All armed. All staring at us as they stood up reaching for their weapons. Even the so-called blind cook turned his head toward me, his empty face fixed on my presence like he could smell my soul.

Steel came out instantly followed by screams of rage as Kern Blackshield charged like a thunderbolt of iron and fury. Terry and Slash began their incantations. Dog loosed an arrow. I kept my gaze locked on the cook—blind eyes, wrong smile, too still, too calm. What was he reaching for?

Missed strikes by the thrashing fighter. A failed arrow by the steady ranger.
Then Slash’s crucial spell that collapsed on the beast with no eyes.

Luckily Terry managed to lock one of the berserkers in divine paralysis.

Then the room changed in diseased madness.

Bones cracked as they grew in size. Flesh tore as jaws extended and tusks grew. Spines reshaped to giant swine proportions. No fear, no hesitation.

The three warriors transformed into wereboars before our eyes—snouts ripping from faces, muscle tearing through skin, blood spraying as their bodies reformed into monstrous shapes.

The cook reached behind his cutting board and drew a sword so massive it looked like a butcher’s altar ripped from an execution hall.

I did not hesitate, though a Fireball would have been nice, I settled for Magic Missile. The cook’s chest detonated in purple-blue force, flesh tearing open like wet parchment. Dog’s second arrow dropped one wereboar in a screaming heap of blood and bone. The cook lunged for Terry as I cast a second Magic Missile.

“Die foul monster!”, I screamed inside my head.

His swing went wide—too much rage, too much momentum, too much confidence. Dog dropped the second wereboar in a fountain of blood and shattered bone as the cook roared, raising his blade again—

and died.

Terry was there with his Mace blazing with holy might. The fighter Kern redeemed himself with a deadly slash to the hulking man. But it was Slash’s strike that fell the brute, gutting the ogre like man. Three strikes of steel and faith and fury.

One mountain of a man—seven feet of muscle, cruelty, and firelight—collapsed like a falling tower, skull crushed from a mace, blood draining from open gashes from Kern’s longsword and guts sprayed into the heat of the galley fires as the chaotic blade of Slash struck true.

The last wereboar broke free and charged. It had Kern in its sights & lunged for him sinking its tusks into Kern’s neck.

We killed it anyway.

We always do.

We looted gold from the lycanthropes. Found parchment etched in raised orcish slang. A second tablet—directions to a place called “The Airy.”

Once again we fled into the nearest room.

It was a bedroom, the cook’s quarters & we found a name; Icar the Slavelord.

“He’s second in command of the Stronghold”. Lady Morwen spat.

She also confirmed Markessa as the head of this vile place, this festering scab in these lands.

We stripped the room:
A mandolin.
Platinum coins.
Silver.
Jet gemstone bracelets.
A copper coffer offering a strange small metal anchor, two potions and a cleric scroll.

Terry healed Kern and burned divine power to purge the wereboar venom from his blood. That’s when we heard the crying. A woman’s voice coming from an obscured door in the corner.

Dog and Irving rushed it.

I tried to stop them but it was too late.

Irving opened the door as he made sure Dog was ready. Then Dog gasped in horror.

I vanished as I cast Invisibility around me immediately.

Kern shoved past the ranger as Irving screamed—and turned to stone. Instantly. A statue of terror and frozen faith.

The woman laughed, a nasty medusa; Snakes writhing in her hair, fangs dripping venom, eyes glowing with cruelty.

Dog fired and retreated. Kern swung, missed & also stepped back from the creature. But he was not fast enough, the snakes struck him. Poison sank into his veins like fire in his blood.

Lalaith, taunting & tormenting the foul creature, quickly turned her face away avoiding being turned to stone. Slash played, magic in the music and courage in the sound.

Hearing the music Tiger Wong flew. A brutal flying kick shattered the medusa’s ribs allowing the rest of us to finish her before we all were petrified. We butchered her. Crushed her in the name of Cuthbert. Tore her down like it was somebody rifling through my backpack in the middle of the night.

Terry cut off her head and bagged it. I kept it because Tiger wanted nothing to do with it.

The aftermath was horror made physical.

Irving—stone. Too heavy to move. Too sacred to abandon. 

Kern—on his knees, choking, poison closing his throat. We scrambled but found no antidote. For our efforts we watched him die. Eyes bulging and fingers clawing at his airway. Blood foaming from his mouth as he wheezed for oxygen.

Then Terry used the scroll - Resurrection. Kern returned screaming, gasping, reborn in blood and breath.

We had no such miracle for Irving, nor did we know where to find such a remedy. So we put him in a closet.

Like furniture.
Like a relic.
Like a holy crime.

Then we continued. There were two more doors in the galley & we heard nobody enter so we went back to the large room with the dead stronghold leader & wereboar slavers.

The two doors revealed a larder & storage for unwashed dishes – nothing, except…

“Over here, a secret door!” Tiger told us all.                                                                                                 “Behind the stack of dishes.”, he pointed.

Terry cast find traps and found nothing so the door was opened revealing stairs downward with a hallway going left.  Dog and Tiger proceeded. About 30’ down the hallway it turned left once again but Dog noticed small footprints in the corner. They actually came from one wall and led directly into another wall.  Dog came and got the rest of us and terry sensed no traps.  Two secret doors were found. A small one for who knows what & a normal sized one.  We opened the normal sized secret door & found out what used the small door. We surprised 9 goblins eating at a table. They had an emaciated prisoner in a cage in the corner.

Terry Or casts Hold Person again & holds three of them.  Slash. Kern & Dog dispatch the rest with ease.

Goblins.
A prisoner.
We feed the prisoner hoping he would speak with us. Nothing, the gaunt captive was to far gone. 

This is where I started prying, asking the three held goblins questions about the medusa, about an antidote to the medusas dreadful stare. They mocked me, told us all we were all already dead. I reached for the bag with the medusas head pulled it out & let them take a good look.  All of them stoned by the head of the gorgon.

This was a rough start. With basically losing our paladin & almost our newly acquired fighter after only  just getting here. We are inside the Slavers’ Stronghold now. The hunt is over. The pain is unforgivable. Death is very real.

Our war continues and so be it!

All we do know is there will be no clean ending.

Chapter 3 / Episode 89 – The Slavelord Icar

 

Chapter 3 / Episode 89 – The Slavelord Icar

Date: Planting 13, 576 CY — Evening
Region: Drachensgrab Hills, south of Highport — the slavelord stronghold.
Weather: Cold drizzle. Low clouds. Mud and mist clung to stone and bone alike.

---

Players

• Dog the Ranger

• TerryOr the Cleric

• Silversun Ubermage the Magic-User

• Slash the Bard

• Kern Blackshield of Safeton

• Lady Morwen Ellisar (NPC)

---

Planting 13 — The God Answers

They watched the stockade from the ridge, counting patrol rotations and noting blind corners. The walls were thick. The towers manned. The gate a death sentence.

Terry knelt in the drizzle and admitted something he rarely would.

“We are overmatched.”

The dice fell.

St. Cuthbert came.

Not thunder. Not glory. Just certainty. A trance. Filth. The stink of animals.

Terry awoke on straw beside a wild boar in a cramped, foul-smelling chamber.

The others lay scattered around him.

They were inside.

The cost? A 10,000 XP penalty laid squarely on Terry’s shoulders for invoking divine intervention in full surrender.

No one said it was cheap.

---

The Boar Chamber

The room was twenty by thirty feet. Three straw pallets. A lantern on a table. Boar dung thick in the air.

The beast wore a spiked collar.

It charged.

Steel flashed in cramped quarters. Slash pivoted low, Dog loosed point-blank, and Terry braced as tusks raked across shield and wood.

The boar fell quickly—but not quietly.

Terry pressed his ear to the door.

Light beyond. Voices somewhere in the hall.

They were not in a forgotten cellar.

They were in the belly of the stockade.

---

The Kitchen of Icar

The door opened into a wide, smoke-filled kitchen. Fire pit roaring. A massive lizard roasting over coals.

Three hulking, barbaric men turned—hand axes already in hand.

And at the center stood him.

Seven feet tall. Broad-shouldered. Calm.

The cook.

Icar.

Second in command beneath the infamous Markessa.

Kern didn’t hesitate.

“I’ll take him,” he growled—and charged.

Axes flew first. Kern took both—eleven points of blood for his courage.

Spells followed.

Slash cast color spray—useless against a helm with no eye holes.
Silversun readied magic.
Terry invoked hold person—one barbarian locked stiff mid-charge.

Then they changed.

Flesh rippled. Snouts elongated.

Wereboars.

---

Lycanthrope Fury

The kitchen became slaughterhouse.

Kern swung hard but missed his first strike. Terry parried a brutal blow and drove steel deep into Icar’s flank. Dog shifted angles, arrows thudding into thick hide.

Slash’s new sword bit deep—and stuck.

“Of course it does,” he snarled, wrenching at the blade embedded in muscle. Singing!

Icar roared, towering over them. Fighter’s discipline. Beast’s fury.

Boars fell first. Silvered steel and holy resolve tore through lycanthrope flesh.

Then all eyes turned to the Slavelord.

He fought like a warlord, not a cook.

But numbers matter.

Slash freed his blade at last and struck true.

Icar fell hard enough to shake dust from rafters.

---

The Slavelord’s Secrets

When the smoke cleared:

• 150 gold in each wereboar’s pouch — 450 gp total

• Loaf of bread. Cup of wine.

• Papyrus-like tablet in a crude but deliberate script—unknown, akin to orcish.

• A map.

“The Aerie,” Slash read slowly.

“The Aerie,” Dog corrected. “Eagles.”

They believed it a questioning site. A place where slaves were broken.

They had killed Icar—second to Markessa.

The chain was shortening.

---

Rooms of Coin and Corruption

They pressed deeper.

Bedroom:

• Dagger

• Thick leather-bound cookbook (unknown tongue)

• 33 platinum pieces

• 100 gold pieces

Treasure chamber beyond:

• 2,000 gold pieces

• 10 pieces of jet (100 gp each)

• 10 silver and black opal bracelets (200 gp each)

• Brass coffer containing:

  • Anchor token

  • Potion of Undead Control

  • Potion of Diminution

  • Scroll (7 clerical spells)

  • Ring of Warmth

Hidden parchment: directions to the Specialist Quarters where Icar had hidden stash.

Further promise:

• 5,000 gold pieces

• Uncut ruby (500 gp)

• 8 uncut sapphires (250 gp each)

The stockade was more than holding pens.

It was infrastructure.

---

Aftermath and Calculation

Kern’s wounds were treated—lycanthrope bite cleaned, watched carefully. Terry cast cure disease as a precaution.

They considered the eyeless helm.

“Disguise?” Silversun suggested.

“Or curse,” Slash answered.

They left it.

They secured doors with chairs. Barricaded halls. Counted corridors.

The fortress assault had begun—not with a charge at the gate, but with a god’s nudge into the kitchen.

---

Outcome Notes

• Slavelord Icar slain (Fighter, 7 ft tall, second to Markessa)

• Three wereboars destroyed

• Significant treasure recovered

• Map to “The Aerie” obtained

• Specialist Quarters identified

• Divine Intervention used (10,000 XP penalty to Terry)

---

XP Awarded

• Total: 14,000 XP

• Per Player (5-way split): 2,833 XP each

---

Current Status

• Inside the stockade

• Alert level uncertain

• Markessa remains at large

• Kern’s wife possibly within these walls

• Crown still unresolved

• Aerie location now known

The walls that once looked impenetrable now bleed from within.

But they have only cut off the second head.

Markessa still lives.

And somewhere in these halls, slaves wait.

Next move decides whether this becomes a rescue… or a massacre.

Chapter 3 / Episode 88 – At the Stronghold

Chapter 3 / Episode 88 – At the Stronghold

Date: Planting 11-13, 576 CY — Afternoon
Region: Drachensgrab Hills, south of Highport — broken ruins along the slave road
Weather: Cold drizzle. Low clouds. Mud and mist clung to stone and bone alike.

Players

• Dog the Ranger

• Irving the Reluctant (with Harvey the Hare)

• TerryOr the Cleric

• Silversun Ubermage the Magic-User

• Slash the Bard

• Kern Blackshield of Safeton

• Lady Morwen Ellisar (NPC)

The Throne Room

The throne room still reeked of old magic and older death when Slash knelt beside the fallen blade.
The crown lay nearby, dull gold and red-stoned, whispering without sound. But it was the sword that drew him.
Ancient etchings ran its fuller—pre-Temple, pre-Stockade, older than the ruin itself. Slash lifted it carefully.
Steel touched steel.
His own weapon shattered instantly. Not chipped. Not cracked. Shattered.
Silence followed.
“Well,” Slash muttered, staring at the broken hilt in his hand, “that answers that.”
Irving said nothing. Harvey shifted on his shoulder, ears flat.
The debate that followed was not about loot. It was about direction. Return to the surface? Press deeper below?
To the surface.
Irving drank healing draughts slowly, age heavy on his shoulders but resolve unbroken.

---

Lady Morwen

They found her at the edge of the ruin, aboveground—Lady Morwen Ellisar, rain darkening her cloak, standing beside a cart filled with corpses. Hobgoblins. Slaves. Hard to tell in the drizzle.
“This place breeds death,” she said flatly.
They agreed to rest. No one had the spells—or the patience.
Dog ranged outward to find shelter off the slave road. Slash lingered behind.
“You trust her?” Slash asked quietly.
Dog didn’t look back.
“I trust what she’s done - and she calls me lord.”
That was answer enough. 

---

Planting 12 — Vultures and the Limping Man

The land shifted as they moved south—rockier ground, scrub brush clinging to stubborn soil. Vultures circled ahead.
“Fresh,” Dog whispered.
Then he saw him.
Six foot four. Plate armor. Longbow. Limping slightly. Alone.
They waited.
Irving offered to close the distance under divine sight, checking for chaos before steel. The stranger approached cautiously, but not like a slaver.
His name was Kern Blackshield of Safeton.
His wife had been taken by hobgoblins.
“I tracked them this far,” he said, voice tight. “Then I lost them near the old road.”
Silversun’s reply was cold but practical.
“If she lives, she’ll be at the stockade.”
Kern did not flinch.
“Then I’m going there.”
So be it.

---

Camp and the Crown

Dog brought down an antelope before dusk. Clean kill. Clean cut. Meat roasting over low coals as rain eased to mist.
Watches were set.
First: Kern and Terry.
Second: Tiger and Slash.
Third: Irving.
Last: Dog and Silversun.
It was the third watch that broke the night.
Irving went for the crown in Silversun's pack.
“What are you doing?,” Silversun said.
“I must rid Oerth of this Chaos,” Irving answered.
The word hung heavy.
Steel wasn’t drawn—but voices rose. Others stirred. Slash rolled to his side, blinking through sleep. Tiger rose silently.
Irving’s position was clear: the crown needs to be destroyed.
Silversun disagreed: "This is our treasure!!!"

---

Planting 13 — The Stronghold Revealed

By midmorning, the hills gave way to sightlines.
And there it was.
The slavers’ stockade.
High walls. Reinforced gates. Patrols in steady rotation. Towers with archers. Smoke from within. Organized. Alert.
“Front gate’s suicide,” Dog said flatly.
They pulled back until nightfall. The moons offered no light.
Horses and cart were hidden with an entangle spell of brush and canvas. Tracks masked. Animals released quietly to range.
From a higher ridge, they watched.
Patrol timing. Guard shifts. Blind angles.
There were rumors of a haunted section the guards avoided from Lady Morwin. If true, that was an opening.
Invisibility was discussed. Illusion. Bluff. Fire. Faith.
No decision yet.
Only reconnaissance.

---

Outcome Notes
XP Awarded: 1,000 XP each
Items of Note:
Ancient sword (superior enchantment; shattered Slash’s former blade on contact)
Chaotic crown retained (undestroyed)
New Ally:
Kern Blackshield of Safeton — man-at-arms searching for abducted wife

---

Current Status
Party low on spells but rested
Crown under guard (Silversun)
Stronghold identified and observed
Infiltration plan pending
Emotional tension rising between divine caution and arcane pragmatism

---

The stockade waits.
Behind those walls are slaves. Slavers. And possibly Kern’s wife.
And somewhere inside, the chain that binds this whole rotten network together.
Next move decides everything.

THE END OF APPRENTICESHIP

This is the beginning of the rest of your life

With the Slaver’s Stronghold finally reached, a place I’ve actually tried to avoid, the haunted memories of why I am actually here talk to me constantly.  This is my honorable death, considering the size of the stronghold and its inhabitants.

 

 Balan Xos never saw his own death coming. He never hurt any humanoid in his unstable thirst for knowledge.  He lived peacefully in a peaceful city he looked over and they hated him for it.

 

Yet I yearn for that one last lesson.

I have long pondered this question, as one does when standing at the edge of this power not yet claimed.

When does a Magic-User know the hour has come to walk alone, to sever the tether of tutelage and step beyond the long shadow of a master’s tower?

When does the schooling truly end?
Is it when the last lesson is spoken?
When the final spell is memorized?
When the hands no longer tremble while perfectly writing the scroll?

And if one is fortunate—truly fortunate—to be chosen by a Master who deems them worthy, how does the student know the judgment is true?

Yes. Yes. I hear the old answer whispered by every academy hall and dust-choked library:

“Your Master will tell you when the time is right.”

But what if—

What if the student is forced to become the master not by readiness…
but by survival?

Then there is no ceremony.
No farewell.
No blessing of staff and sigil.

Not even the essential spellbook!
Ash.
Memory. And a silence where a voice once stood.

 

Here is but a smidgen of my story.

 

The night the world broke, it did not do so with thunder. It broke with chains, as it came in chains.

Alhaster burned in quiet colors—ember-red windows, guttering wards, spell-light dying one sigil at a time. The slavers did not come as raiders. They came as customers of fiends. Silent. Precise. Cloaked in bought magic and stolen prayers, bearing sigils older than Hommlet’s first stones and darker than anything whispered in Greyhawk’s libraries.

I felt them before I saw them. The mana I learned to sense screamed.

Balan Xos of Alhaster—Archmage, spell-jammer, dark sun seeker, planescape forger, my master—stood at the heart of his tower when the first ward fell. Not afraid. Not surprised. Furious. The kind of fury that bends reality.

“Run, Silversun,” he said calmly, his eyes black as pitch, his hands weaving.  “They come to kill me and will do you no such honor young apprentice.”

I didn’t listen, my 1^st time ever.  What did he mean they wouldn’t do me “such honor”? I didn’t run. That was my first sin.

Chains of binding burst from the floor like iron serpents, ruined in languages I had only seen in forbidden margins. Prismatic-fields collapsed the air. My feeble weak spells died in my hands like drowned birds. I tried to cast them, all of them. The words turned to ash in my mouth.

Xos did not waste time on defense. He became a storm.

Fire and void tore through the chamber. Two fiends ceased to exist—no bodies, no ichor, no memory in the wraith of inevitable death. Just absence. A third screamed as its soul was ripped from his flesh and fed into a containment sigil like fuel into a furnace.

But there were mage killers that had come prepared.

A black spear of anti-magic punched through Xos’s shielding and buried itself in his chest.  Then another spray or rainbow colors.

He staggered. Not fell. Staggered.

He turned to me then, blood already burning through his robes like liquid rubies.

“Remember who you are,” he said.
“Remember what they are,” as he pulled the black spear from his chest, screaming in defiant pain.

Then they executed him. Not quickly. Not cleanly. I was left alive & forced to watch.

They carved the sigils out of his body while he still lived, harvesting spell-anchors from his bones, ripping living runes from his skin, draining his mind into crystal phylacteries like wine into goblets. The Archmage of Alhaster died screaming spells, his last finger of death took out two of the warlocks standing over him, this last act shattered the stone of his tower—but not his will.

When his heart finally failed, the city’s destruction went silent.

 

 

That silence was worse than the screaming. I was grabbed by the hair as some beast dragged me outside, the skin on my legs shredded along with my robes and dignity.  Stripped completely bare black iron shackels closed around my throat and wrists. My vision went white. My magic went dark. The world collapsed into pain, iron, and shadow.

Dragged.
Bound.
Catalogued.

A slave.

As they hauled me through the burning streets, I watched my master’s tower crumble behind me, its upper spire collapsing in slow, terrible grace—like a king bowing.

That was the night the slavers stripped me of my name.

That was the night I learned theirs.

And that was the moment the war truly began. The fools did not kill me, their 1^st mistake in my presence.

Because they did not take a student. They forged an enemy.

And the blood of Balan Xos of Alhaster did not soak into the stones of Hommlet in silence. It wrote a debt into the world. One I will collect.

 

As soon as I’m out of these chains…

The Watch and the Hunt

 At night, while all is still, Dog watches from his arboral perch and whispers.....

 Lady of the quiet green

Watcher of root and branch

I walk the paths you keep hidden

Let my feet fall where the earth is strong

Let the leaves cover my passing

Grant me the patience of stone

Sharp eye of the hawk

The mercy to spare what need not die

If I must hunt let it be clean

If I must fight let it be just

If I must kill let it serve your balance

Guard the wild places while I am gone

Should I fall far from tree and stream

Let my bones rest where grass will grow

For no crown I ask nor song to be sung

Only to remain unseen 

and worthy of the paths you entrust to me

Elhonna, sit with me as I sit alone

On The Road To The Slaver's Stronghold

 EPISODE 87/88

I, Silversun of Greyhawk, set quill once more to parchment not in triumph, nor in rest, but in the long, dangerous pause that follows revelation. The ground before us no longer pretends to be wilderness or road—it has declared itself an antechamber to war. Smoke rises where mercy has long since burned away, and every step forward now carries the weight of intention.

What comes next was not born of chance encounters or wandering blades. It was shaped by what we uncovered beneath still water, by what aged before our eyes, and by the quiet understanding that some evils do not wait to be found—they wait to be confronted. The slavers have a fortress. We have knowledge, scars, and the sort of resolve that only comes when retreat stops being an option.

Let this installment be read with steady breath and open eyes. For at anytime the gods are watching. And whether by spell, steel, or catastrophe dressed as destiny, what follows will decide who's god answers in kind—and who's allow one to be reduced to ash and rumor.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The battlefield, always a battlefield in our wake—not peaceful, always spent. Together with blood and mud, shattered shields lay where courage failed, and the shallow pond at the ruin’s edge had turned the color of old iron. Death had soaked into that water deeply & it had Slash & Dog’s attention.

It was Slash who found it first while wading through the muck, his boot striking something that did not give like stone or root. He cursed softly and bent, hands probing beneath the silt telling Dog to take a look too.

Sensing trouble, I passed them a pair of halberds taken from the cooling hands of dead hobgoblins. Long reach is wisdom when the water hides its teeth. With careful prodding, the shape revealed itself—flat, broad, stubbornly heavy.

A door.
Or a hatch pretending to be one.

We tied a rope to the latch and hitched the other end to the horse. When the beast strained and the door finally broke free, the pond itself seemed to recoil. Water rushed away from the opening, draining just enough to form a recessed ring around the hatch—a crude berm of mud and stone that held the rest of the pond at bay. Whatever had built this place had planned for intrusion.

Before trusting it with living flesh, we trusted it with dead weight.

We lowered a dead hobgoblin down on a rope, letting it sink into the darkness below. The line went slack. After a moment, we hauled the corpse back up. Wet. Limp. Untouched.

That unsettled me more than teeth would have.

Dog volunteered next. He was lowered some fifteen feet before his boots hit bottom. His voice echoed up to us, tight but steady. He described an archway and a door marked with a large skull—its eyes crossed out, defaced with intent.

Terry Or descended to confirm, faith clenched in his grip. Irving followed him down without hesitation. The rest of us stayed topside, watching the hole like it might blink.

Moments later, Dog called up that the door opened easily.

With this information Marawen, Slash & I secured the horse and cart, then we dropped down after them. Dog’s bow glimmered faintly, casting just enough light to reveal a long passage lined with sconces. Terry Or lit the nearest torch—and to our astonishment, every sconce down the corridor flared to life in perfect sequence.

Magic. Old. Confident.

Roughly forty feet west, Terry and Irving reached a “T” intersection—ten feet north and south, both ending in dead stone. Terry invoked his god’s sight and found what the builders left behind: traps on both ends, patient and armed.

Irving pressed where Terry indicated on the south wall.

The corridor exploded in motion. Darts screamed out with enough force that many shattered against the far wall after piercing flesh and armor alike. Once the servants of Cuthbert removed the darts, we noticed the true trick—a door had opened in the south wall.

Terry and Irving advanced, weapons ready.

That was when the dead came for them.

Dozens of zombies surged forward in a reeking wave. Terry Or did not retreat. He raised his holy symbol and called out St. Cuthbert’s name—and reality itself rejected the filth. The undead did not fall.

They were erased.

A second wave followed. It met the same fate.

When the divine light faded, we found ourselves in a sixty-by-sixty chamber. Five pillars lined the south wall, each set with skulls like the one on the door—each socket holding a gem that caught the torchlight like a watching eye. A dry well yawned at the center.

While some inspected the well, I studied the pillars and the south wall. Stone whispered secrets to those who listen. I found the seam of a perfectly balanced secret door.

Slash checked it for traps. Against the odds, it seemed safe.

He opened it.

His scream tore through the chamber, sharp and sudden. His body went rigid as a corpse mid-fall.

Terry and Irving dragged him clear and charged into the room beyond. Dog and I held position, waiting, listening, counting heartbeats.

They shouted back that some fiend lurked within.

They charged.

Dog stepped forward, bow drawn—only to freeze mid-stride, caught by the same paralyzing stare.

Irving closed with the thing and struck it twice with his enchanted mace, bone ringing like a cracked bell. Terry missed his blow. The creature missed in return. Irving swung again but missed and nearly lost his grip entirely.

That’s when Terry Or found his opening. His weapon came down with the weight of judgment, crushing the creature’s skull. It collapsed into dust, leaving behind a crown and a sword resting where it had ruled.

Irving took one look at the items in the pile of dust, frowned, and backed away. We all entered the room & I grabbed the crown while Slash took the sword only then did we truly see the cost of this fight with the vile ghost like entity.

Under the torchlight, Terry looked older—maybe a good 20 years. But Irving… Irving had aged decades in the engagement. Grey hair. A face carved by time. No longer the youthful right hand of St. Cuthbert, but something closer to a shell shocked warrior who refused to kneel.

We returned to the pillared room & Terry Or searched the chamber thoroughly. I quietly removed as many gems from the skulls as I could without incident, noting to myself they appeared to be exactly like the ones on the crown I just grabbed. Irving drank healing potions. Slash checked his instrument with shaking hands. Dog returned to the hatch to ensure no surprises awaited us above.

Finding no more doors, we withdrew from the underground and sealed the pond behind us as best we could.

Dog led us onward, scouting for a place to camp. We traveled miles before suitable ground presented itself. Along the way, Dog halted us—spotting a lone traveler approaching.

A tall human fighter hailed us, longbow in hand & ready. Dog told us to stand down as the stranger approached without hesitation. He spoke slow & warily of his wife taken by slavers. We told him our purpose. We did not mention Lady Morwen. When she revealed herself, neither knew the other. Tension eased. The fighter named himself Kern Blackshield, and he joined our cause gladly.

At dusk, we made camp. Dog hunted and returned with fresh game. We thanked the old gods and the new and ate meat instead of rations.

Rest came slowly.

Just before my final watch, I woke to a sound that did not belong. My eyes opened to see Irving rifling through my pack. I was on him in an instant—boot to ribs, staff ready—waking the camp in a breath.

“We must destroy chaos!” he spat.

“This,” I snapped back, “is what the Lion of Cuthbert does to friends when they sleep?”

The party answered for him. Even Terry Or, reluctantly, rebuked Irving. Not this way. Not like this.

Sleep returned, thin and uneasy.

We traveled two more days along the slaver road. Smoke rose ahead from a valley. Dog, Slash, and Morwen scouted. Slash returned breathless first—patrol incoming. Then Dog & Marawen returned. The patrol is large & the size unknown they spat.

We hid the cart, released the horses on Kern’s suggestion, entangled the wagon, and climbed to high ground. From there we saw it.

The Slavers’ Stronghold. High walls. Towers. Smoke. Patrols beyond counting.

We had lost sight of the first patrol that was coming down the road. Then Dog pointed out a second patrol that circles the stronghold. Morwen showed us where she escaped—an area the guards believed haunted.

“Maybe we go in that way,” she said.

She named names. Eight leaders. Atrocities poured from her lips like poison.

Plans were spoken. Laughed away. Reconsidered.

And then Terry Or began to chant again, holy symbol catching firelight as he sought St. Cuthbert’s guidance once more.

I wrote this knowing with certainty:

The road ahead does not end in glory or without sorrow.

We will show no quarter to those that benefit from enslaving others.

We will not stop and nothing will hinder us.

Hail hail, fire & snow. 

Call the angel we all  know...

Far away, far to see

Friendly angel come to me.

Sic Transit Irving

Sic Transit Irving
By Michael S. Webster

Planting 12, 576 CY — Evening

Irving ignored the glances of suspicion from his party members.

Maybe they will understand. Maybe they would not. It is too late for the pebbles to vote.

Irving sighed as he sat down on a convenient rock.

Don’t forget to take care of your feet.

Sir Vakymri reminded him. Of the spirits in the Mace, he was the most likely to give advice on field hygiene. The frustrating thing was he was always right.

Irving set down the Mace, then his shield and helm. His gauntlets were removed and mounted on sticks to air them out. Then his boots and socks as well. He wiggled his toes in the night air, letting them dry off from the day’s exertions.

Putting a strip of dried antelope meat in his mouth, Irving opened the copy of “The Book of Common Sense” they had rescued from a ruined church in Highport.  

He chewed while reading.

Irving read the same passage three times.

It did not change.

He closed the book.

Harvey hopped up to Irving out of the grasses.

You’re looking for certainty where there is only the offer of comfort.

Irving set the book aside and stroked Harvey between the ears.