With the wish from the freed Djinni, our heroes gained 10 years of experience in an instance.
The piggy in the hut made of straw and grass was stupid, but not so stupid he would stick around to face the party so he fled to his brother living in a castle made of wood further into the forest.
A castle of wood
However, the Hellebenders quickly arrived at the gate of the wooden castle and the two piggies who were quickly out matched by the heroes especially as Thorga summoned an iron elemental inside the castle walls.
The piggies fled to their brother even deeper in the forest. Surely his stone castle would prove sufficient.
A castle of stone
While the stone castle did indeed sport some solid walls and towers, it was still no match for the pumped up heroes with Thorga misty stepped inside, Pestilence climbing up the walls with ease and Kaari jumping on her flying broom to make mockery of the stone walls .
To make matters worse, Thorga cast a Resilient Sphere on the lead pig after which his pseudodragon lifted the sphere higher and higher and higher…
Meanwhile Kaari and Pestilence ended the other two pigs and the with a huge tornado like swirl, everything sucked down into the last fairytale book in the same way as with the other two…
Well almost…
The book keep open on one page that was frantically flapping in the air. As Kaari leaned over to see what was going on, the final pig came crashing down as the Resilient Sphere had popped and with that, the heores had the final fairytale.
Back at the Grimglee Jubilee
Back at the Jubilee, Chief Jester Nihilus waited with excitement to get the three lost fairytales back and in exchange he gave the party a map of Castle Rostak.
Nihilus told the party that his team had struggled with drawing up the map as their original plan was to spy at the castle through the soul of somebody inside the castle… the problem was, there was no souls left in Castle Rostak.
But one of the fey helping with the project had a stroke of genius and proposed tapping into the soul of the castle itself. And voila! a map was made.
With access to the soul of the castle, the party now also had access to the history of Castle Rostak as the castle itself would have experienced it.
it was a risk to take to experience the world as a castle as it would be unlike anything a person would experience, but the party immediately said yes.
The history of Castle Rostak through the senses of Castle Rostak
While the history mostly matched what the party had already learned, there were some key differences (highlighted in italics):
- Thousands of years ago, King Thaddeus Rostak and Queen Adelyn Rostak ruled the surrounding lands in peace and prosperity.
- But Thaddeus yearned for adventure and excitement as the legends of his forefathers told of.
- Then Baltana Ilalal, the Drow Ambassaror arrived (she was not plainly a Drow Maiden as previously documented).
- Thaddeus and Baltana quickly shared a connection, then a friendship, then a bed!
- As time passed the affair grew more and more bold and public, much the the anger of Queen Adelyn Rostak.
- She left heading in the direction of Dragonskeep.
- Soon after a huge golden dragon, Grindrax came soaring towards Castle Rostak. As the dragon came closer, it turned darker and darker. (All other accounts tell of Grindrax as a Black Dragon, the evilest of the dragon species)
- Grindrax hunted down and tool Baltana and burned a circle in the ground itself around Castle Rostak, crashing the castle down deep into the ground with all it’s inhabitants to die buried underground.
- Grindrax then flew back towards Dragonkeep and the horrific screams of a woman was heard for years even down in the buried castle.
- Thaddeus, while desperate, knew he did not have the power to fight the dragon.
- Everything that follows was entirely new to the party.
- But Castle Rostak had one of the finest libraries of the times and him and his staff spend years hunting down the solution until they came upon a book.
- Soon after Thaddeus left with the book only to return months later, changed, but with a clear purpose in mind.
- The book had been a map to nameless, but ancient book of forbidden magic.
- What happens next is unclear as the foul magic Thaddeus called upon, was too despicable to be recorded in any memory, but the souls of all in the castle was sacrificed to turn Thaddeus into a powerful undead: A Lich!
- After the change Thaddeus quickly became so powerful that his magic prevented further memories or scrying.
Goodbye to the Grimglee Jubilee
As the heroes woke up from the trance, they slowly gathered themselves.
The Lady Clown Celestia gave them some information about Liches. She didn’t know much, but knew that a Lich is formed by when a powerful wizard uses some ancient forbidden magic to seal his or her soul in a item, a Phylactery, which would have to be destroyed before the Lich could be destroyed.
Pestilence, having had nightmares of an iron skeleton since the party left Phlegethos, immediately guessed it was Iron Sight, her ring of True Sight.
Kaari summoned a Fire Elemental to destroy the ring. And it was done.
DM note, impressed my players realised the ring was the Phylactery as I introduced the item in a previous campaign a year ago.
It was time to go.
Nihilus gifted them each with a fey cloak and bid them farewell.
Pestilence got Nihilus’ Cloak of the Fey Mage (AC + 1 as long as you do not wear metal armour. Your spell save DC and spell attack bonus each increase by 2.)
Kaari got Nihilus’ Cloak of Invisibility (AC +1, Saving throws +1. Pull hood up to turn invisible. Deduct the time you are invisible, in increments of 1 minute, from the cloak’s maximum duration of 1 hour. After 1 hour of use, the cloak ceases to function. it takes 24 hours for the cloak to recharge.
Thorga got Nihilus’ Cloak of Fey Smarts (+2 to INT checks and saves. Advantage of INT saves against magic).
As the heores started to leave, Nihilus the Archfey of Grimglee Jubilee gave them a final word:
“Oh by the way, the people in Castle Roastak, they don’t know they are dead!”
And with that, the party found themselves transported to the borders of Elderthorn Forest.
Epilogue
The party had made their way half ways to where the burried Castle Rostak was supposed to be found out, when a large slim figure appeared on the road.
“Thou have destroyed my soul, yes”
It was Thaddeus the Iron Lich flanked by two animalistic looking, smelling and sounding iron constructs.