Our heroes had had an uneventful trek through Everfrost Forest.
Having left the somewhat boring forest hours earlier, they camped for the night to get some proper rest before the long journey South to the Aeonspire Citadel, the Western most wizard tower of Skylathar.
In the morning Amelia, Alfein and Orlando realised Fenrir was gone. He had most likely taken wolf form and run into the night.
While this was still odd to them, they now knew this wasn’t as unusual as it seemed and that Fenrir would rejoin them as soon as he could. He moved with frightening speed in his wolf form and would easily be able to catch up with them.
The fog
After having walked most of the day, the Aeonspire Citadel was coming closer.
A fog was gathering and the way it behaved seemed unnatural, yet there was no indication it was magical.
The party decided to rest for the night and give Amelia time to commune with her god Ethuil and after hours of praying, she felt the true nature of the fog: It was a guardian, neither good nor evil, but it simply was and it simply protected.
With that understanding, our heroes rested for the night.
Stepping into the fog
In the morning our heroes made their way into the fog. As the fog thickened, old worn stone tiles emerged in the ground and the further they went the more tiles emerged until they were walking on what seemed and ancient tiled floor.
Orlando looked around for ruins, but his view range was severely limited by the fog leaving the party with a choice to make: Continue South, go East or West, or go back the way they came.
They moved on.
The fright
As they moved forward they found themselves amongst broken ruined pillars and three shambling zombies.
A rush of fear flowed over them and Orlando and Alfein succumbed to the fear fleeing behind the nearby pillars while Amelia rushed forward to engage the undead.
As she ran forward, the fear of her two comrades conjured skeletons out of thin air. She found herself surrounded by undead.
She called on the power of Ethiul and summoned the Radience of Dawn destroying all but two of the undead!
The two remaining zombies attacked her, one with a critical hit, but again her god protected the faithful Cleric and blinded the zombie with Warding Flare foiling the attack.
Alfein and Orlando rushed in to end the last two zombies, one of which had an incredible Undead Fortitude but to alas it was not enough to stop the heroes from taking it down.
Nope!
As the heroes proceeded, they came to a couple of trees and again Orlando and Alfein fell to the vicious fright that infested the fog.
They were so scared, they refused to continue South towards the tower and in the end the party turned to the West.
The unfinished grave
Soon the frightening feeling lessened and our heroes found an unfinished grave almost covered with a blank tombstone and tools spread around.
Somebody had been burying somebody but had not been able to finish it.
The grave was covered in weed and wear and the tools were all rusty and old, so the heroes decided to leave it and focus on the more current challenge of getting through the fog.
The well
Soon the fright picked up strength again as the party saw a zombie emerge from behind the well they had stumbled upon.
Orlando rushed forward to deal with the lone zombie.
But Alfein fell to the fog’s frightning foul grasp summoning four skeletons out of thin air (fog?!) before Amelia could shake her out of it.
Alfein and Amelia dealt with the skeletons in deadly efficient manners, leaving only the tough zombie that refused to return to death’s grasp.
The heroes finally managed to cut the undead creature down, but it was such a slog to bring it down that even after it looked dead, Amelia still blasted it with Fire Bolt to make doubly sure it would stay down for good.
Finally the party could investigate the well in peace. Alfein concluded the water was fresh and untouched of the fog, while Amelia used her medicinal knowledge to conclude it had healing properties.
The badly woulded Orlando grabbed the bucket and drank his fill healing all his wounds before the party moved on.
The wall of thorns
Making their way through the increasingly dense and frightening fog, our heroes came to a massive unpleasant looking wall of thorn bushes.
The fright was strong here, but by now the heroes knew how to shake it, especially as they could see the fog clearing behind the thorn bushes and the Aeonspire Citadel rise proudly closer than ever.
In front of the thorn bushes was a pedestal with a book. Orlando recognised it as the Book of the House of Memory, which her family used document the memories of the souls passing through the Shadowfell to their final resting place.
She rushed to the pedestal to try and claim the book, but failed as it vanished between her hands.
She explained the book to the others, but with no further clues as to what it was or had been, the party started investigating how to get through the thorn buses.
Alfein tried to maneuver through the thorns, but while it technically was possible, she was hurt by the vicious thorns to the point where forcing the way seemed like a less desirable choice.
Amelia went to investigate the thorn bushes and found a small beautiful hand mirror on thr ground.
She turned her back to the thorn bushes and looked at them through the mirror. Nothing seemed different.
She was about to put the mirror down when Orlando started singing an old Shadowfell hymn about creating a safe path for souls. And in that moment, Amelia noticed the reflection of the bushes had no thorns.
She urged Orlando to keep singing as she walked backwards through the thorn bushes. She fel no stabbings of thorns as she did.
Alfein quickly join her also looking into the mirror also walking backwards again without suffering the pricks of the thorns.
Orlando, still singing, joined the two ladies and all three of them walked backwards safely through the thorn bushes.
Welcome to Aeonspire Citadel
The three heroes emerged on the other side of the wall of thorns stepping onto a beautiful meadow surrounding the base of the huge Aeonspire Citadel.
The big gilded door in front of them opened and out stepped Zalthenna and Zaltar Evergaze, the Wizards of Westtor.
“Welcome to the Aeonspire Citadel. We have been waiting for you. Come, rest up while we wait for the others to arrive.”
DM notes
I tried something new with this game as it the path through the fog was actually randomly generated in that each new “square” had a few random elements:
- First “fright” rating was 1, meaning a Wis Save of DC 10. Each new square wound randomly go up or down 1 rating or stay same. Once the party hit rating 3 they would find the Wall of Thorns.
- For each failed Fright test, 1D4 Skeletons would emerge as the manifestation of fear. These Skeletons had 1HP each as they were figments of imagination.
- When entering a square there was also three outcomes: Either the square was empty, it would have D4 Zombies lurking about or it would have a random event from a list I made.The random events ranged from the unfinished grave to a fight between zombies and a ghost troll.
I did map the players’ choices so if they ended up at a previously visited square it would be where they had been before. Here’s the map:
And with that, we start D&D for 2026 with party yet to be named.
