After making their way into the Outlands through Tane Cordoba’s Sigil-centered Blood Gate, using a vial of dark blood found at Alnnahas Al-Qasr, the adventurers find themselves at the edge of the gate-town of Glorium. A small fishing village at the edge of a majestic fjord, Glorium is the nearest settlement to the massive river-bound gate into Ysgard.

The Blood Gate here—presumably the only one in all of the Outlands, if Tangrim Malfactor is to be trusted—is free-standing, placed where the doorway to a ruined house once stood.

The group make their way down the cliffside pathway to the village proper, where they are informed by the guards at the wooden palisade gates—both half-giants of some ilk—that going through the gate is not something that anyone can do. Only the most courageous heroes are welcome through. They can enter “the contest”, a fighting tournament, if they want a chance. The meadhall—for it is the only one—has more details.

There’s a strange magic to Glorium. A brawl taking place in an alleyway alternates between a sad and vastly outnumbered beatdown and a glorious, heroic duel between honorable men. The meadhall itself is quiet and dark, and a barrel on the bar contains a number of pledges for the contest. Once your coin, emblazoned with a sigil, goes inside, it can’t come out. Putting more entries inside doesn’t appear to help, as they simply vanish.

The barkeep informs the group that if they prove their mettle in the contest, they can enter Ysgard. But when the contest happens is entirely up to the gods, and they’re a fickle bunch. So Eddie, Gareth, and Ziggy decide to stick around for a little while to see if anything happens.

That’s when Flatnose Grim shows up. A shorter, barrel-chested human with a massive blond-gone-white beard and an oft-broken nose, he starts drinking about an hour before sundown. Which is roughly 2pm, according to those who keep time in these parts. And then, as the sun starts sinking, Flatnose gets everyone at the meadhall riled up and they head outside.

Turns out our heroes have stumbled upon the monthly ritual where Flatnose scares off the “Malice Striker”, a snake who cruises down the river on the eve of the full moon toward Glorium and the gate to Ysgard. For a decade now, he’s protected the town by heading out onto the longest dock into the river and scaring the big snake off.

And a big snake it is. Over 300 feet long, with a head the size of a big wagon, the pale wyrm appears over the edge of the mountains and skates along the river, sending up frozen spray. The whole ordeal doesn’t seem to have a lot of seriousness to it, with everyone raising drinking horns and drunkenly congratulating Flatnose long before the snake is “scared back off into the hills”, as they put it.

Which is all the more alarming when the snake doesn’t turn away and, instead, heads straight for the dock.

Aside from our heroes, two hulking half-giants, and a bystanding bariaur, everyone flees. Including Flatnose.

Ziggy is swallowed almost immediately, but with the help of Eddie’s flight magic, Gareth mounts the great serpent. A well-placed stab by Ru’mo nearly pierces the intrepid dwarf inside, but Ziggy calls forth a lightning storm from within the beast’s gullet. This gets the Malice Striker vomiting, and out comes Ziggy, cold and covered in drool, but no worse for the wear.

The creature shoves Gareth away and gobbles him up, but a well-placed web spell sends the wyrm into a choking fit and out comes the half-drow.

And then an odd thing happens… the Malice Striker, nearly defeated, blows raining down from the half-giant fellows, begins to sniff at Ziegfried’s bag of holding. The dwarf, convinced that the beast has been cowed, calls off the beating and slowly pulls out the vial of blood that they used to reach this place. The Malice Striker whimpers.

Then Flatnose reappears, somehow reinvigorated now that his foe is no longer a threat. He reveals the truth: a Dark Stranger came to Glorium a decade ago and helped rid them, with powerful magic, of the first Malice Striker, an aggressive serpent that destroyed the settlements upon the cliff. When the beast died, the stranger took her parts, including a great deal of blood, and disappeared into the portal to Ysgard.

Flatnose kept the beast’s head, as he “helped” with defeating her, and mounted it in his longhouse.

Eddie pours some of the blood on his hand and touches the wyrm’s head. It lovingly hisses, allowing the warlock to mount it. After some concern from Flatnose on killing the beast outright, Eddie, Gareth, and Ziggy climb aboard Malice Striker II, as the portal to Ysgard slowly opens for the heroes.

It appears that the gods were enjoying the show…

Questions raised

• Who was the bariaur?
• Was the Dark Stranger really Tane Cordoba?
• Who was watching from Ysgard?

• The party bribes a caretaker in the Gatehouse into letting them take Ekxire out of the asylum
• While trying to get the dying tiefling back to a safer district, they run into one of Gareth’s old flames, a half-elf named Mila, who tries to pickpocket Ziggy
• Mila convinces them to check out the Dirt Temple, a small hovel dedicated a number of Powers worshipped within the Hive
• It’s here that Ziggy decides to try praying to Gond… and he succeeds. Ekzire stabilizes…
• Suddenly they all here a familiar voice outside: “Help! Get away! Leave me alone! Someone help me!” It’s Tangrim Malfactor, and he’s being chased by Estavan’s ever-loyal half-ogre thug, Rinceroyce, and a bunch of other muscle. The gnome runs into an alleyway choked in razorvine.
• The pursuers are also accompanied by a drow, who mutters to himself as he follows in the drow language, “I brought them right to the crazy gnome, and they’re going to lose him!” Stranger still is that Gareth can understand the drow’s words…
• While Ziggy waits inside the temple, Gareth and Eddie attempt to help Tangrim…
• Gareth uses his new magical cloak to teleport into the alleyway…

The group kills the corrupted green dragon, but Fallon escapes through the Blood Gate and, very likely, into the Far Realm.

The dragon’s hoard is a pretty big haul, but it all fits into the magic bag from Ildor’s Vault. When they know they can hop back to Sigil through the Blood Gate, the group takes an inventory:

• Sending Stones. Oh, wait! You already had these! Huh… weird that Ildor never used it to get in touch with you.
• Brooch of Shielding
• Cape of the Mountebank
• Gauntlets of Ogre Power
• Red Dragon Scale Armor
• Old rusty lance (75 gp)
• 1200 cp, 9500 sp, 3900 gp, 110 pp, Polished Stone Statuette of a Female Gith (25 gp), nondescript gray gem (15 gp)

Not bad for a jaunt through some Backring Prime world. Sure, they lost Fallon to Tsaggothua-related madness, and the berk hopped through the gate to some Far Realm beyond mortal ken, but, c’mon: Gauntlets of Ogre Power?!

Weirdest part was getting back and finding out that three months have passed.

Satu’s nowhere to be found. She did leave a short letter for the group, with the Ironhand Family, dated about a week after you left, indicating that she’s skipped town.

Speaking of the Ironhands, the family matriarch, Alma, is due back in less than a week. Which also means that autumn starts soon. Or at least it will in Toril, which happens to share the same time flow as Sigil. How convenient!

Gareth does some investigation, calling on some of his contacts in the various Wards, and he discovers that Estavan has vanished. No one has seen him in the flesh during the last three months. Rumors abound as to where he’s gone, with the consensus being that he’s not in Sigil…

Eddie hears some rumors that his mother is well, that she’s set back up in the Cordoba manor, and is greatly concerned about the safety and well-being of her only son.

At the moment, after a few hours back in the Cage, you’re still unsure about:

• Ildor. Why didn’t she contact you via the Sending Stones? How bummed will she be about her brother?
• Arthani. Is ne still alive and what is ne up to?
• Tervo Hillclimber, the halfling you rescued from the Far Snail caves who is likely infected by an Illithid slug.
• Ekxire, the tiefling from the same mercenary group.

After dispatching the wights—who, upon closer inspection, were undead githzerai—the group stands in a large antechamber carved into the mountain. Dust covers everything. To the left side of the room is a staircase leading straight downward. Nearby, in the top left corner, is a ten foot hole cracked into the stone floor.

Ziggy examines it, drawing upon his racial expertise in stone masonry. It was smashed in from below, and while the room itself seems millions of years old, the chasm is roughly the age of a teenager. It’s also around a hundred feet deep, with water at the bottom.

Then something weird happens. Eddie notices Fallon staring down the hole. He hears him muttering, “Maybe I could push them over. Get them over here and push them over and then I’ll have Ru’mo. Just kill them and get it over with.” Then Fallon looks up, smiles at Eddie, seemingly obliviously that the half-elf has overheard anything.

Independent of Eddie, Gareth sees Fallon staring down the hole with a strange rictus on his face. For a second, Fallon’s face shimmers and becomes a horrific death’s head. Then it’s suddenly back to normal…

Fallon overhears Ziggy’s plans to go down the stairs and says, out loud, "Take the stairs. That’s fine. Let ‘em go first. Whatever’s in there will kill them. Shit them out. I’ll wear them as shit! A shit shirt!”

Needless to say, the group decides to restrain the elf poser in their traditional method: by knocking him unconscious.

But then they start noticing each other acting oddly. Ziggy sees Gareth snap back a hateful retort at his recommendation to go down the stairs. Gareth watches as Eddie overreacts and rushes at him, weapon in hand. Eventually they realize that none of these hallucinations are actually happening, but it’s disconcerting nonetheless.

The companions bravely push on, down the stairs and into another large rectangular chamber with doors at each wall. The door directly ahead is larger and emblazoned with the seal of the Order of Rrakkma. Gareth discovers a trap in the tiles in front of this door, seconds before Ziggy triggers it, and disables it. Then the group decides to explore the other doors first.

The door to the right leads to an ancient storeroom with wooden shelves dissolved to dust. In the far corner of the room, there is a roughly hewn hole that leads into a cavern. There are some strange spores on the wall, some of which are fresh and wet as if disturbed recently. Ziggy seems to think that this cave seems natural, compared to the rooms they just came from. It appears old, like the formation of natural limestone caverns.

Backtracking, the group goes back to the central room and into the other door. They find a common room with collapsed wooden tables. To the left is a large stone portal with a slot for a portkey and a lancet: another Blood Gate.

The room’s only other door leads to a bunkroom. The beds, constructed of metal racks supporting decrepit wooden pallets, still stand. Ziggy puts the unconscious Fallon down on the ground and walks in.

As the group surveys the barracks, the shadows start to swirl and converge…

The group sets out from the campsite. Ziggy is groggy from a night of strange dreams of massive chitonous shapes moving amongst a blighted landscape of onionskin blobs and wet fleshy organ meat moving within. Disturbing, to say the least. When he awakens, a whispering voice echoes within his brain. It’s Erethu Tsaggothua again. But this time, there’s no compulsion to follow. It’s annoying, more than anything, but it does happen to grow louder the further the group moves down the road.

Ziggy spies the noose from the encounter with the banshee and discovers that it has fallen on an ancient stump where a small box is buried. Within the box is some parchment, dissolved by age, and a silver dagger, along with three gemstones.

The road grows more crowded with vegetation. Gareth sees plenty of signs that Fallon has been this way, and aside from a strange group of mice that watch the companions as they venture further, nothing happens.

Eventually, they reach an ancient stone marker nearly retaken by vines. A side road leads up a mountain, and the group finds an abandoned village. A small flock of blackbirds watch the companions from a crumbled hearthstone.

The whispering in Ziggy’s head grows louder, and there’s another sound from further up the mountain pass: the unmistakable clinking of a pickaxe.

When they find Fallon, he’s knee-deep in a hole, muttering to himself about something called “Ru’mo”. He startles when he sees the group, recognizing them from when they slayed the gibbering mouther, but when he learns that Ziggy is also “awakened” and can hear Tsathoggua, he begins to see them as allies.

There’s a massive doorway set into the mountain, below the symbol of the Order of Rrakkma. Fallon can’t get in, so he’s digging.

When Eddie moves close to the door, he feels his father’s signet ring grow warm and begin vibrating. He tells the rest of the group, and Fallon grows angry. “You? You are holding Kar’tho and don’t even know it? Kar’tho does not belong to you!”

“It was my father’s. It is mine by right,” responds Eddie.

“Your father stole it,” Fallon snarls. “It is not yours. It is no ones. You can’t even see it. Not really.” He pauses and looks down at his bleeding, blistered hands, whimpering almost to himself. “I’m… so confused. What am I even doing here?”

Ziggy calms Fallon down, convincing him that they’re all in this together, and Eddie approaches the door. There is a metal medallion and a small spike and channel, almost identical to the other blood gates that the party has encountered. But when Eddie tries it, it does nothing.

Only when he places his ring against the door does it respond, by trembling. He closes his eyes, channels his power into the ring, through it, into the door. He feels something crack within the door’s magic, something important, something that is irreparable. Something cracks within Eddie, too, and he falls to his knees. The door slides open, broken.

Inside, three undead guardians prepare for this invasion of their vault. “You should turn away,” come the wights’ hitching gravelly voices. “You know not what lies within!”

The companions ready their weapons…

With Ziegfried needing rest, the group disposed of the draconians, advanced down the road a bit, and set up Leomund’s Tiny Hut just inside the timberline of Darken Wood.

After about eight hours of sleep, at approximately 3 in the morning, the rustling of leaves and a low moan awakened Eddard and Gareth. Upon investigation, a lone female figure stood near the road watching them.

When Gareth approached, a nearby tree bent low and hit him. He let loose an arrow at the woman, who whirled around and revealed her grisly undead visage: a banshee, with talon-like claws, a broken neck, and a haunting spectral visage. Her scream nearly sent Gareth to his knees with fright.

The tree above Gareth, upon which a ratty old noose had been tied years ago, attempted to crush the elf. Eddie cast a spell which allowed Gareth to fly up and away from the awakened tree, but the banshee flew forward at once, striking at him with her claws.

It was a hard-won fight, but between Gareth’s new magical sword (which made a show of shocking his hands again, and sucking away all of the early morning light for an instant) and Eddie’s spellwork, the banshee was destroyed.

The tree also fell apart at the banshee’s death, and the noose fell, drifting in the wind to the opposite side of the road…

Synopsis

The group braves the Sons of Mercy and infiltrates the Prison. They manage to get into the high security magic wing, a cube-shaped building which floats above the black silty ground of a pocket demiplane. They break Tangrim Malfactor out of his cell, where he was forced to relive bad life decisions on repeat until he makes the “right choice”, and escape through a small portal that the Prison’s cook, a kobold named Geerbo, created.

Notable NPCs

• Arwyl Swan’s Son, the leader of the Sons of Mercy
• Captain Bull Bronzefist, the chief correctional officer at the Prison and a relatively new Son of Mercy
• Jeremy Kolovos, chief guard of the mage wing
• Riley De Beul, Kolovos’ second
• Tangrim Malfactor, a gnome inventor specializing in abjuration and conjuration, specifically with portals
• Geerbo, kobold prisoner and cook

The party eventually makes it back to the Killavullen cave and after destroying the remaining grimlocks, they find another portal. This one, they discover, operates via blood. The blood of its operator opens a portal.

They test it with grimlock blood, and it brings them back to the cave they’re already in. With Eddard’s blood, it takes them to the ruined Cordoba compound. For Ziegfried and Gareth, it’s to another cave. When they go through, they discover it’s a cave in Faerun, somewhere in the Sword Mountains near Neverwinter.

They discover a dead githzerai near the entrance before being attacked by a number of ghouls..

After dispatching the grimlocks, Ziggy continues to feel the urge to see what’s at the end of the southernmost passageway. It’s like the words in that book opened a wound in his brain, but he can’t see it, can’t even begin to repair it, until he sees what’s down here.

In his head, he hears strange thoughts in his head. “We are Erethu Tsathoggua. We are the hope for peace, for an end to conflict and strife. We are the beginning and the end, the Illithid.”

Unbeknownst to Ziggy, the others hear this, too, but they have no idea what Erethu is, or what Illithid means. But Ziggy has an idea. In his mind’s eye, he sees this Erethu, a tall figure clad in tight black wrappings, its purplish skin covered in a thin sheen of slime. Tentacles fall from its massive octopus-shaped head, flexing, hungry.

Sure enough, at the end of the tunnel is a big cavern sloping down into an underground lake. Four figures stand at the edge of the water, blood dripping from their noses. They don’t move or respond to sound, but they’re burning up. As Gareth approaches, discovering one is Fallon, Ildor’s brother, the water beyond roils and a massive sphere of flesh rises out from the glowing depths.

The aberrant thing attacks the group, using its strange powers to assault their perceptions of reality, but they are able to take it down. Eddard ties a rope around himself and swims down to inspect the glow, with the help of his Necklace of Adaptation. He discovers the source of the glow: a shard of metal, not unlike the kind used to make the rods of portal disruption. Thousands of others shards surround it at the bottom of the underground lake. It fades even as he swims back to tell the group.

Gathering up two boxes of far snails and pulling along the four men, the group returns to Sigil and Ildor. She heads out to find a healer, Eddard stays behind to watch over Fallon and the mercenaries, Gareth goes off to find Lynch and Finn’s group at the House of Song, and Ziggy fetches three of the rods of portal disruption. The dwarf also stops by the Planar Trade Consortium to give Estavan a status update.

Then they head back through the portal with the Irishmen…

Neither the words “safe” nor “house” seems to apply to the place Gareth has brought his companions. It looks, and smells, as if it’s what remains of a burned out townhouse that’s been patched up with thick leather shades, refuse cobbled together from other buildings and structures, and a pervasive sticky dust that’s on everything.

The second floor is completely gone, the jagged blackened remnants hanging overhead, many draped with ragged material as if in an attempt to warm up the place. As if that was possible. Piles of refuse — maybe a place to sleep? — dot the corners.

For their part, however, there are a few sturdy chairs. And if you look close enough on the filthy floor, you may see indication that this man is not the first to have gone through the ropes of interrogation here. But he is, judging by the rusty hue of the stains left behind, one of the luckier ones.

There’s a scuffle outside. A lilting voice calls through the door: “You’ve got our mate inside. We’d like him back, please. You’ve got to the count of three.”

Lynch and his men attempt to rescue the group’s hostage, a fellow called Finn. Thankfully, due to some handy spellcraft by Eddard and some intimidation from Gareth, the combatants agree to some parley.

Turns out they’re a bunch of clueless primes who just want out of Sigil and back to their little backring. Doros Gilex, who used to go by the name Colm O’Bradaigh, lost his wife and daughter to disruption from the harvest of the far snails in a cave in their home realm Killavullen. He worked to combat the planar visitors, who blocked off access to the cave, and gained powers somehow. Initially he wanted to close the gate, but now it seems he’s preoccupied with vengeance…

Lynch and Finn offer to help however they can, and they suggest the party visit Ildor’s Vault in the Lady’s Ward and try to get through the gate to Killavullen.

When our heroes arrive at the Lady’s Ward, they find Ildor, an elf poser, passed out in her office. Eddie discovers a symbol on a piece of parchment, which is causing all nearby to fall asleep. They wake up Ildor and get a bit more back story on Killavullen. It’s just a business venture and Ildor seems more annoyed than anything over the “local” resistance to her operation. After first setting up a magical barrier over the cave, she sent in mercenaries to aid her brother, Fallon, in reestablishing contact, but hasn’t heard back.

The party heads through the gate to investigate. Ziegfried is very impatient about it, it appears, and goes straight through without waiting. In the cave, they discover the far snails, cat-sized gastropods that shiver and pulse from the corner of the eye. They’re crawling all over the cave walls.

Ziegfried heads down the right passage, but the sound of Gareth inspecting a snail draws the attention of some of the cave’s denizens. These eyeless creatures attack with gnarly clubs, but are quickly dispatched due to some clever distraction Eddard magics up.

The far snails flock to the creatures’ bodies…