== Starday, Lamasha 5, 4708; Vekkers’ Camp, Kodar Mountains; afternoon ==

Trask, Avia, Sabin and I stood atop a small shelf above a mist filled chasm and stared at the small and forlorn graveyard. Huddled against the rock face was a mummified corpse: mostly dry skin stretched over a skeleton. It was a dwarf, and the only name missing from the tombstones was Karvek Vekker, brother to Silas, who had sent us up here looking for his sibling’s remains.

Karvek had curled up before a small fire pit, wrapped in his padded armor, and died. His feet were missing, and in fact they had been burned off at the ankles. But the explanation of what had done this, or any of the other strange things we had already experienced in this place, eluded us. Even the blanket of fog and mist beneath us seemed odd… unnatural.

Sabin and I stood by the corpse and I reached down to reverently touch the remains.

And up from the eerie fog drifted the translucent figure of a dwarf dressed in padded armor. His legs ended in burned stumps, and he moaned at us through his fanged teeth. Karvek’s ghost!

But unlike his brother Silas, Karvek was an angry and hostile dwarven ghost, and his red glowing eyes glared at us as he pounced upon Avia, thrashing at her with claws and biting her.

I channeled energy around us in order to drive it off, Trask burned it with a pair of Scorching Rays, and Sabin blasted it with Magic Missiles. Avia then struck at it thrice and Karvek dissolved into the mist.

We prudently decided to return back to our companions, and so when a quick scan of the ledge revealed only Karvek’s magical armor, Sabin picked up his remains and we flew back down.

Meanwhile a disturbing howling had started off in the distance, which unsettled Rigel, Sedjewick and Trask. We landed before our comrades when another howl from a different direction split the darkness and made Kane nervous.

Kane quickly pulled out a wand of Remove Fear and used it on the afflicted.

We all then assumed gaseous form and swiftly returned to the cabin, where we returned to our solid selves.

All during this time the snow storm that had unexpectedly closed in on us earlier had steadily worsened into a blizzard. We thought we could hear angry voices shouting out at us from the wind. Sedjewick thought it could be the work of a powerful druid, and given the harm the Vekkers had done to the local environment, it was easy to believe his theory.

We entered the basement of the cabin and Sabin handed Karvek’s body to me. Silas appeared in the adjacent room, and I placed the body at his feet.

Silas looked at the body of his lost brother with tenderness and forgiveness as it disintegrated to dust. A pale wisp of smoke appeared at the spot where the body had lain, and Karvek appeared, but he was still the angry and bestial Karvek.

The two ghosts stared at one another, and appeared to be locked in a battle of wills as spasms of pain flickered across their spectral faces.

I guessed that Karvek had been afflicted with a curse in life, which followed him into death. Silas was now trying to purge him of this curse, but it was not obvious who would win this confrontation.

I had a scroll of Remove Curse available, but that required you touch the person to be cured, and Karvek was incorporeal. Various ideas quickly passed through my brain, but in the end the only thing I could think to do was cast Bless in the area, with the hope that it would somehow aid Silas.

And still the sound of the storm outside intensified and grew louder. Suddenly there was a heavy thud, as if some creature had thrown itself against the door. Nolin stepped over and stood guard there, but from the upstairs Kane heard the sound of shattering glass. Something was entering through a window!

Howls rent the air from just outside the basement door and also from upstairs. Rigel was terrified and vanished as she activated her ring of invisibility, and Kane and Sedjewick likewise looked frightened.

Some large creature began beating against the door, but Nolin had slumped to the floor with a glazed look of panic in his eyes. Trask secured the door by erecting a force wall before it, and the banging soon stopped.

At the ore chute just above Silas, where the snow had been swirling in from the grey sky, a hideous elk-like face peered in with glowing red eyes. Fortunately the opening was secured by iron bars, which the creature shook furiously before disappearing back into the storm.

Avia grabbed the wand of Remove Fear from Kane’s shaking hand and used it to calm those she could see (leaving an invisible Rigel in what I imagined to be an unstable mental state).

Nolin returned to his senses and having heard Kane declare that something had broken in through a Window upstairs, took off up the stairs with me in close pursuit.

Sabin used his Dimension Door trick to bring Avia, Sedjewick and Kane upstairs before us, and so I used my new boots and flew up to join them.

Trask remained down below for reasons of his own.

There, in a room to the south, standing by a shattered window was a huge creature with an elk’s head and a humanoid body. Its eyes glowed red and it had sharp un-elk like fangs and claws. It floated above the floor, and like Karvek its legs ended in burned stumps.

The creature immediately grabbed Avia, but she managed to escape from its clutches.

Sabin raced to her defense and hacked at it with his axe, while Kane ran into the room to the north so he could assist with healing from afar, leaving plenty of room for the fighters to work.

A second creature was crawling through the window in Kane’s room when I arrived, and I used a Flamestrike to slow it down. Kane, mindful of how the other beast easily grabbed Avia, cast Freedom of Movement upon himself and confronted the thing as it towered over him.

I could hear Nolin running up the stairs, and Trask called out “Uh, what’s going on up there?” I had no idea where Rigel was, but she was invisible, and an invisible Rigel is a valuable asset in situations like these.

Sabin and Avia slashed at their beast, but it grabbed Avia in its mouth, pinning her arms.

Nolin ran past me and into the room with Kane, attacking the beast in there with a satisfying thwack. And just at that moment Trask popped into the room, right next to the creature, which promptly grabbed him.

The creature with Avia in its jaws began to climb through the Window, and so I closed off that route with a Wall of Stone. The beast screamed and dropped Avia and then turned and hit Sabin.

Rigel appeared as a flaming arrow left her bow and struck the creature in the face, slaying it.

To the north Nolin was bashing away at the other creature, and Sabin DD’d Avia and he into the northern room to assist.

The loathsome critter pulled itself and Trask through the window when Trask breathed fire on it — a useful enough ability, but the thing still held him in its mouth.

I channeled energy to heal all those around me while Kane wished Nolin good luck.

The creature began to fly up, but Avia hacked at it, followed by a mighty blow by Nolin which felled the beast.

We cautiously listened for other intruders, but hearing none we returned to the brothers, who were still locked in mental combat.

Minutes passed, but finally Karvek appeared to slump, and then he stepped back as his fangs and claws vanished. He seemed calm and at peace, and with a parting look at his brother, he quickly faded away.

Silas relaxed and smiled as he turned to us, “My new found friends, you have saved my brother. The greatest reward I can offer you is to take my knowledge of Xin Shalast with me. But I see your destiny is tied to that evil place. Read the missing pages of my journal for what you seek.”

And with that, he too faded from view while Trask sputtered, “But, but the pages are missing!”

True, the journal we had found earlier had had several pages ripped from it, but back in the room where we had found the journal was a sheaf of torn papers: the missing pages!

I quickly read through the entry, which described the daunting path to reach Karzoug’s city.

A grueling and physical trial, even without the strange and other worldly effects. It takes great luck and skill to find, and little wonder it has remain undiscovered for ten thousand years.

And indeed the way sounded difficult.

Continue traveling up the Kazaron River to the second tributary, the legendary River Avah.

The path is not one for the faint of heart, for there are no trails or banks, and the river boasts cataracts up to three hundred feet high. The waters of the River Avah are icy cold, but never freeze.

Follow the river up and the air will grow thin and the sky the deepest blue, until you arrive at the ice mists. At this point you will be very near the roof of the world itself, at the River Avah’s source.

Here you must wait and fast until a night with a full moon. And then the remaining way will open to you.

The trek sounds arduous… at least if attempted on foot. And while currently the winds howl about the cabin, once the storm passes I wonder if Wind Walk will once again provide the means of locomotion on our journey.

Endure Elements is also a must, plus Water Breathing, just in case, and it could not hurt to have a Freedom of Movement at the ready. Perhaps we should purchase enough scrolls of these types that each of us will be protected as we travel up river.

There is some speculation about fasting and the full moon, and couldn’t we just time our arrival to coincide with that celestial event, but I wonder if we must be in a particular frame of mind to see the way.

There is little will in the group to make camp here tonight as we originally intended. Instead we will teleport back to our base at the Monastic Library and prepare for the next leg — indeed possibly the last leg on this plane — of our long journey that began so long ago.

Even now as we ponder our next steps, Rigel is repeatedly asking, “Can we leave NOW!”

Time to go.