Journal Day 2

We exited the mausoleum into the chaos of a city under siege, and saw
just a short distance from us a pair of well-armed individuals. It
seemed clear that they, like us, had been sent into this area by the
city guard to hunt kobolds, and like us, they discovered much greater
danger than they or the city guard might have expected. They were a
dwarven cleric named Jalfred and a half-orc ranger named Krusk.

The pair had just finished beheading a creature, which Dillius tells
me was a Lesser Aspect of the God Orcus! This is especially troubling
news because so far as we know, there has been no known manifestation
of any of the gods for a very long time (thousands of years?), so for
Orcus to have a foothold on this plane, even if only as a lesser
aspect, bodes poorly indeed.

Later, Jalfred and Krusk explained to us that they had had dreams very
similar to the ones that brought our group together here in Allaron.
They joined up with a barbarian who had also had a similar dream and
had woken near the city, and they were subsequently sent into the
graveyard to help deal with the kobold problem, but at some point,
this barbarian figure was possessed—horns sprouted from his head, his
eyes glowed red, and Orcus’s insignia was magically burned into his
chest—and attacked the pair. They managed to kill him and then to
perform a ritual to destroy Orcus’s vessel entirely.

We were impressed with this accomplishment, and took our shared dreams
as a sign that we are intended to work together—besides, given the
dangers on every side of us, we all needed whatever additional safety
numbers might bring us—so we decided to combine our forces.

We made our way back to Liam’s safe house in Allaron’s center, hoping
to find the representative from the Council of Divinity and to get
further guidance about how to protect this tree that our dreams spoke
of. The Council member was waiting for us when we arrived but he
seemed quite unsettled, panicked even. He told us that he had
prepared a ritual to take himself and this tree out of immediate
danger and was insistent that there was no time for us to talk,
because he absolutely needed to get the tree out of the city. Because
we had been advised so firmly by the devas in Melora’s grove in the
city square to trust this man, we handed over the tree to him. He
gave us what he described as the only assistance he could offer: a
Vengeful Javelin +1, which we disbursed to Yonah, and an Amulet of
Resolution +1, which we disbursed to Krusk. And then he spoke a few
words and disappeared with the tree.

I find myself, even as I write this, wondering about what this
exchange with the councilmember means. We don’t even know his name!
I don’t really question our decision to hand over the tree to him,
though I can’t quite say that I’m certain we did the right thing
either. I certainly hope he wasn’t some sort of impostor. But even
if he was exactly what he seemed to have been, why did he rely on us
to fetch this tree for him. If he knew that there was such a major
threat lurking, why didn’t he offer us any warning before sending us
off to supposedly deal with just a troublesome group of kobolds? He
didn’t say anything at all about where we might go next to find him
again or to discover further allies in this larger battle between
forces that seem to be far beyond our ability to deal with as a party.

In any case, very soon after the man disappeared with the tree, there
was a deafening blast outside the house followed by swarms of zombies
surrounding the building and pounding down the door. We rushed up the
stairs and barricaded the door, looking for some means of escape.
Yonah smashed a window, and Kellissa and Krusk leapt from it into the
street and then tried to move a cart closer to the window to help the
less acrobatic party members escape, but they were unable to budge
that cart. Dillius and Liam tried to leap from the window and crashed
hard into the street. Meanwhile, Yonah blocked the door and I noticed
a secret door, which I opened but triggered a trap in the process—the
trap set off a huge explosion all through the sewer systems, but also
buried most of the zombies in the house. Yonah and I jumped from the
window too, and we made our way along a broad city street looking for
some access to the sewers through which we hoped to make our escape.

We were ambushed by three undead dragons as we made our way through
the streets—a white undead dragon of young age and 2 black undead
dragons of whelpling age. I hung back and fired arrow after arrow
into the dragons, while the rest of the party engaged in closer
quarters. Krusk and I focused our firepower first on one of the black
dragons and eventually I was able to place the finishing arrow into
its eye socket and the creature just disintegrated. Meanwhile, the
other pair of dragons dealt severe blows with their breath attacks on
the rest of the party, who just couldn’t disburse enough in the close
quarters to avoid being caught up in the bursts. Nonetheless, our
party dished out some fierce blows of our own and eventually it was
clear that the tide began to turn against the beasts. The small black
dragon seemed to decide to flee and launched into the air, but once he
got up just a bit he paused to unleash a last blast on the party, and
before he could make good on his escape, I sunk a pair of arrows into
his neck and he exploded in another shower of dust. The white
followed soon after, and when he was dusted he left behind his red
eyes, which we saw now were a pair of red gemstones.

Once the battle was completed a woman opened her door and motioned for
us to take shelter in her home. Inside were a huddled mass of about
30 peasants all waiting for some sign as to what they should do. Once
we had caught our breaths and checked our equipment, we told the
peasants to follow us to the nearest sewer entrance. We set off down
the street once again, but when we came into sight of the sewer grate,
those feckless peasants really panicked and rushed at the gate. We
had only just begun to try to calm them down when a group of skeletons
and zombies shambled toward us, so Kellissa and Dillius tried to deal
with the peasants while the rest of us set up a defensive perimeter to
deal with the undead threat.

One zombie managed to grab Liam and drag him most of the way back down
the street before I was able to finish him off with a few well-placed
arrows—only mistakenly hitting Liam once—unfortunately, such close
contact with the zombie proved most deleterious to Liam, who became
infested with some foul disease and began to rot quickly.

In the meantime, Dillius and Kellissa had a most difficult time
dealing with the mob of peasants and before they could manage to get
through them and to open the grate, a pair of poltergeists manifested
and killed some of the peasants, setting off a renewed panic and the
crowd fled into the skeletons and zombies, and met their deaths in
short order. We were able to deal with the poltergeists eventually,
though they proved tough opponents because they were only really
harmed by radiant or divine attacks, and the only member of our party
with such powers remaining to him, after that battle with the dragons
was Jalfred. After he’d landed a couple of powerful but not quite
deadly attacks on the poltergeists, the two of them teamed up on him
and landed a couple of grievous blows. Jalfred went down unconscious
and extremely close to death. Luckily, the rest of the party was able
to land a quick series of attacks that, while only partly effective,
were enough to kill the geists before their regenerative powers could
really kick in. We were able to rouse Jalfred and to administer some
healing to him.

Then we fled into the sewers. The rope that Krusk bore, which he had
found in his tent when waking in this ill-fated city, proved a very
useful guide as we made our escape, as it glowed brighter each time we
took a correct turn. Just inside the sewer, we found a suit of
Imposter’s Fine Mail +2, presumably belonging to one of the
poltergeist’s victims, or maybe belonging to the body that was
transformed into a poltergeist.

We finally made our way out of the city and got enough away to stop
and rest for a moment. I do not know which way we go next. The
nearest town is to the north, but should we go into another population
center? Our adventure here this day seems to have been, at best, only
a mixed success. I know we did what we could to protect them, but the
screams of those poor peasants who died because we couldn’t protect
them will haunt me for some time.

--------------------------------------------
The loot:
Vengeful Javelin +1 [Yonah]
Amulet of Resolution +1 [Krusk]
Imposter’s Fine Mail +2 [Dillius]
[Did Jalfred get a magic item that I missed being distributed?]

2 red gems worth 30 gp each
120 gp [The 5 original party members should each have 203 gp total
now. Krusk and Jalfred have 17 gp plus whatever they gained on their
adventures before joining with us. There is a remainder of 1 gp.]

Experience:
Each member of the party received 1430 XP for today's adventure.
Therefore, everyone except Krusk and Jalfred should have a total of
1775 XP. I don't know how many XP Jalfred & Krusk received before
they joined up with us (220?).