Chapter 3 / Episode 88 – At the Stronghold

Chapter 3 / Episode 88 – At the Stronghold

Date: Planting 11–13, 576 CY — Afternoon into Night
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

• Tiger Wong

• Lady Morwen Ellisar (NPC)

• Kern Blackshield of Safeton

---

Planting 11 — The Sword That Chose

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?

Terry’s answer was simple.
“We don’t leave rot half-cut.”

They went further.

---

The Ruby Faces

A chamber—twenty feet square—centered by a dry well. Five pillars ringed the space, each carved with a grimacing stone face. In every eye socket: a ruby.

Silversun stepped forward first.

He removed one gem cleanly.

No trap triggered. No curse screamed. Just the faint scrape of stone and the quiet weight of a prize pocketed.

Irving drank healing draughts slowly, age heavy on his shoulders but resolve unbroken. Terry searched for hidden seams and found none.

They withdrew.

Above ground, the world had not improved.

---

Lady Morwen and the Cart of Dead

They found her at the edge of the ruin—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—for another descent.

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.”

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 and Silversun.
Last: Dog and Silversun.

It was the third watch that broke the night.

Irving held the chaotic crown in both hands, staring at it like a problem that needed ending.

Silversun stood opposite him.

“Destroy it,” Silversun said.

“No,” 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 would not be destroyed blindly. It would be examined. Judged. Returned, perhaps, to the Church of St. Cuthbert in Hommlet—who had funded their war against this rot in the first place.

Terry supported caution.

Silversun wanted certainty.

In the end, no one acted rashly.

The crown remained intact.

But something else cracked that night.

Trust, perhaps.

---

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.

Horses and cart were hidden under entangling 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. 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)

  • One ruby gem recovered from skull pillar

  • 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 (Irving, Dog, Silversun aware of risk)

• 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.

 

Irving, Reluctant No More

 

Irving, Reluctant No More
By Michael S. Webster

Planting 11, 576 CY — Late Afternoon

Irving swung his mace too wide and missed the target completely. Stumbling slightly, he quickly regained his footing. The cleric, Terry Or, swung his own mace and ended the threat of the undead being who had sat on the throne.

Looking down at his hands, he also saw his beard had grown significantly from the touch of the undead creature. In an exhausted and older voice, "Irving, are you all right?"

From under Irving’s great helm came mumbling and spitting sounds. Lifting off his helm, cascades of hair and beard tumbled out. Clearly, he had aged more than Terry had. He felt tired. He looked at the cleric and just nodded that he was okay.

One of the other party members asked Irving if the fallen crown and sword lying in the dust were chaotic, and yes, Irving could feel the chaos worming around. He knew these items needed to be destroyed, but would the mace be up to it?

Removing a knife from his belt pouch, Irving cut off a great deal of the beard and hair growth.  Once on the surface, he would take care of the rest.  “At least,” thought Irving, “I won't be tripping over the beard.”

“I’ve missed a lot of haircuts,” Irving darkly smirked to himself.

Tossing the cut locks into a corner, he returned his helm to his head and followed the group back up to their campsite. Walking over to his rock seat, Irving sat down, removed his helm, set the mace down. He pulled out a mirror and his shaving knife and started to clear off the extra growth.

Harvey hopped up beside him, sending through their telepathic link:

Well, white hair looks good on you. Can't argue that.

Irving smiled and stroked his friend between the ears.

Periodically, Irving glanced toward the crown and sword. He could still feel the chaos.

Squirming.

Writhing.

Waiting.

Harvey interrupted Irving’s thought.

Well, at least there are some rats and vermin that will appreciate the donation to their nests.

Epilogue

Deep in the throne room, not all was still.

Spindly legs reached out through a crack in the wall. A bulbous black body soon followed.

A black widow spider crawled to the hair piled in the corner. It grasped a lock and slipped back through the crack.