Lorwarith Seeks Revenge

One day Lorwarith, guarding a sacred cave of Ulaa, woke to find himself with no recollection of the past night. It was discovered that the Eye of Ulaa had been stolen, a powerful sacred artifact of the Goddess of the Hills. Suspicion fell on Lorwarith as there was evidence of him having been in the Chamber of the Eye, and he would have been accused of stealing the huge gemstone, were it not for some of the priests trusting him due to his perfect reputation as a defender of the faith. He was given a short time to discover what had happened in order to exonerate himself.

His only clue was that there was some blue powder he found on the ground near the pedestal where the Eye usually sat, and he determined that it was crushed crystal from the Glittering Caves not far off. He hurried there to find that the fae folk of the cave had all been charmed. They seemed to be working on some sort of grand magical ritual. After defeating some elemental guardians, the enchantment on the fae folk was dispelled, and Lorwarith learned that it was one Jillia Calarook, Sueloise Priestess-Magi of the Cerulean Order (and lusty follower of Wee Jas and Norebo), who had charmed them. He had come up against members of this order before, and knew how dangerous they could be.

After closely questioning the fae folk more, Lorwaith determined that Calarook's intent was to use the Eye of Ulaa in the ritual in order to cause a flow of elemental lava to come up from under the Glittering Caves. This was sure to endanger the entire village of Springdeer below. And all so that Calarook could harness the ley line power of the lava for her own ends!

Clearly this enchantress had used her powers to make Lorwarith forget the night of the theft, and pin it on him. Lorwarith swore to his friends the fae folk and his Goddess Ulaa that he would hunt Calarook down, stop the ritual, and bring the Eye back to it's rightful place.

There were only two problems. First, the fae folk had related that Calarook had already done previous rituals and was very powerful, nearly invincible (to say nothing of some apparently very competent henchmen). Worse, she had apparently gone off to the town of Molnar to obtain some things she needed to complete the ritual.

To counter her strength, Lorwarith went on a journey into Rieuwood to gather up an army of his elven friends. He took a dangerous shortcut, and had to deal with some foul denizens from parts of the wood that are typically not travelled. Victorious, but exhausted, he collapsed in an ephemeral glade. There had a vision of an elemental creature of Earth fighting another elemental of Wind. The Wind elemental, being air, was unaffected by the earth elemental's flailing, but the wind elemental eroded bits of the earth elemental away. Awaking, Lorwarith knew that the forgetfullness that Calarook had cursed him with was not over, and that his mind continued to slip away. He could no longer remember bits of his childhood, and more was slipping away every moment.

Lorwarith pressed on, and gathered together the aid of two elven heroes, individuals who had been staunch friends in the past. He sought the aid of more, but news of his supposed treachery had reached the elves, and most would not follow him. This dishonor made him feel very low, and he renewed his oath to deal with the evil enchantress.

Together they traveled back through the woods to Molnar, where the trail seemed to go cold. However, a man named Ardod Tane, inkeeper of the The Scoundrel and Wain, seemed to know something. It took Lorarith a pretty penny to learn that Calarook had gone to see a mystic woman in a very poor part of town. Seeking out the woman, they had to dodge some bad criminal elements, and ended up in a fight with some would-be brigands seeking to rob them. They ran the ruffians off, however, and found the woman. She turned out to be a strange seer, who told Lorwarith that Calarook had sought her out in order to obtain Fell Leaves from the Black Tree, and was going on from there to some place in the Glorioles to obtain a special enchantment upon them.

The seer offered to come along with them to divine exactly where she went, saying she felt guilty for having given up the valuable leaves to such a villain as Calarook. They stayed at the inn that night, where Lorwarith had a dream vision, an extension of the elemental battle he'd envisioned in the glade. This time, though the elemental lost some more of it's being, it merged with the earth to avoid as much erosion as possible. Lorwarith awaoke wondering what this meant, and realizing that more of his memories were lost to him.

They headed quickly to the mountains, and began to quest about, lead by the seer. After a few days of this, Lorwarith became aware that the Seer was not getting them any closer to Calarook, and in fact began to doubt the Seer's sanity altogether. One night, however, he had another vision, which showed a still pond high in the mountains. Asking some local dwarves, they found the pool in question, a couple of days later. Too late, howver, there was sign of encampment, but Calarook and her hencmen had left days ago. They made plans to head back to the Glittering Caverns, under the assumption that this is where Calarook would be heading next.

One of Calarook's henchmen, another mage of the Cerulean order named Adhoth Makili, was an old enemy of Lorwarith's. Lorwarith had stopped Makili from marrying an Elvish damsel who was under his spell. Calarook had recieved a message from a servitor of Norebo that she was being pursued. Makili ambushed the group that night, having asked to have the chance to serve her so (and get back at Lorwarith).

His attack was unsuccessful due to the group having carefully set guard, and they captured Makili. Under threat of death, and promise to set him free if he talked, he relayed that his mistress had gone on around the mountain range to an ancient secret temple of Norebo (though he could not say why she was headed there). They let him go honorably as promised, and Makili disappeared into the night. He is still at large to present day.

They headed out for the temple the following day, riding hard to attempt to get there while she still remained. They were forced to keep the Seer with them, not having any place to leave her off, which slowed them a little. This gave Calarook (who had again been warned of her pursuit) time to raise up a regiment of ghostly soldiers she left under the command of Umweard Wulfa, a Suel barbarian from the north who'd come south a long time ago to live the life of a mercenary captain. A very wily tactician, Wulfa sent out his soldiers in a pattern to find the pursuers, and ensure that they were dealt with.

Lorwarith's party proved to be very evasive, however, and got past most of the ghosts using earthen magic to blend in with the land. In the end they found themselves in a pitched fight with one unit of ghosts, however. In the end Lorwarith feared they would not survive, and so told the rest to run while he would spend his life to stand rearguard to let them get away. He would certainly have died had not a Paladin come surging in out of nowhere to lend his aid at that moment.

After they'd defeated the ghosts, the paladin introduced himself as Ryany Wente, a Flan worshipper of Beory. He'd seen what they did at the pool in the mountains, which was a holy place he'd been set to defend. He wasn't sure about Calarook's actions there, and if she was worth or not, but he was fairly sure that Lorwarith was. After following them for a while, and seeing Lorwarith offer his life for others, Wente knew that Lorwarith was one worthy of his aid.

Once Lorwarith told Wente about Calarook's plans, he decided to join them on their quest. They pushed forward, scaring off another squad of ghosts who had heard how their comrades had been destroyed by this group previously. In the end, they fought their way to the temple where Wulfa stood his ground for his mistress with his few remaining ghost soldiers. Though very tired, they finally defeated this foe, and entered the temple.

Calarook had just finished her ritual there, in which she'd created some sort of crystaline golem. She laughed at them, and told them that they were too late. That she was going to teleport back home, leaving them hopelessly out of place to be able to stop her plan. She cast her spell, and she and the golem were gone.

Night had fallen, and they were too exhausted from fighting the ghosts to push on. In his dream that night, Lorwarith saw a vision of the earth elemental now fighting not only a wind elemental but another earth elemental. He woke wondering what this might mean.

They found a small village on the nearest road, and told them of the hidden temple of Norebo, and bid the locals to go destroy it. They also left the Seer in the hands of the villagers. The party got some supplies there and rode hard back around the Glorioles, headed for the Glittering Caverns. By this time Lorwarith was having trouble remembering his adolescence and even some events of his training. Time was running out.

They decided to take a path through the Glorioles to save time. This resulted in them coming around a bend in a narrow defile, only to find the maw of a great earth dragon. The dragon taunted them, telling them that they should run. The group almost did so, but Lorwarith could see that somethign was wrong. He figured out that the dragon had been caught in the defile, and it's back quarters were pinned in by a rock slide. Speaking with the creature for a while, and handling the situation delicately so not as to bruise the dragon's ego, they managed to convince it to let them climb over him and try to get him out.

Once on the other side of the dragon, Lorwarith determined that, indeed, they could get the dragon free. But should they? His friends said that they should leave it trapped. But Wente and Lorwarith agreed that they had to abide by their promise, and decided to free it. The dragon, once free, threatened to kill them, but then told them that it was going to be merciful today and flew off instead. The party pressed on.

At the other side of the path through the Glorioles, they came across a keep that spanned the valley in front of them. Approaching it, they were told by the castellan that it was his job to ensure that only properly documented travellers and traders be allowed through the pass, as there were dragons about and they were not to be disturbed. Not having the proper paperwork, they party was told that they'd have to camp there for several days until the lord could be called to the keep to question them about who they were and what their business was.

Lorwarith, always a stickler for the rules, decided that they couldn't circumvent this roadblock illegally by sneaking over the walls or somesuch. But Lorwarith stuck with the Castellan, and learned the rules so well that he eventually found a loophole that allowed the party through. They surged forward to try to make it back to the Glittering Caves before all was lost.

As they approached the caves, they saw what they thought was Calarook on horseback in front of them. She lead them on a merry chase, until they caught up with her… only to discover that it was an illusion, and that they'd ridden right into a net trap. Calarook's remaining henchmen put them carefully on to a platform balanced over razorfish. One wrong move, and the platform would tip over, dumping everybody in the fatal pond below. Calarook, needing to attend to her ongoing ritual retired to the caves, certain that the four heroes could do nothing to pursue her, unless one wanted to run and leap off the platform, leaving the others to die.

That's when they found that the Seer had followed them somehow through the pass, and caught up to them a bit after their entrapment. She managed to jam the platform just enough that the four were able to time their leaps so as to get to the edge of the pit and not fall to the razor fish. Lorwarith thanked her, and sent her back to Springdeer while they went on. The Seer warned them that Calarook could not be stopped, unless they had a potent symbol of the earth.

Having no time to figure out what this meant (if anything), the group pressed on into the caves. There they found Calarook in the midst of causing the lava flows to emerge using the Eye of Ulaa, and using the power of the enchanted Fell Leaves to direct their flows in to precisely the right flow lines. Magic seethed about her, and she told them that they were, once again, just a bit too late, and that she was about to encase herself in the crystaline golem and become totally invicible. As the heroes surged towards her, she threw them back with blasts of chance power from Norebo, and stepped into the Golem, which locked around her.

Just then Lorwarith had another vision, while completely awake, and time seemed to stand still. The earth golem fighting the air and other earth golem looked up from the earth with a giant eye, and saw into the heart of the wind, and reached up and ripped it out, causing all the enemies to fall. He woke from the vision to realize that what he needed was to use the Eye of Ulaa against her. But how? It was the ultimate sin for him to touch the Eye of Ulaa, and his puny gauntlets would be destroyed by it's power, he knew.

Just then a section of the cavern ceiling fell in, revealing the dragon that they had freed in the mountains. It dropped a pair of Deep Earth Mail Gauntlets to Lorwarith, just what he needed, and then clamped down on Calarook. Even so, with the strength of a dragon arrayed against her, Calarook look to free herself soon, were it not for distractions made by Lorwarith's friends and Wenta. They gave him the time he needed to put on the gauntlets, get across the lava flows, and grab the eye. Just as Calarook broke free of the dragon's grasp, and turned to bring down her fury upon him, Lorwarith used the eye to slam all of the lava into her at once, melting her into nothing.

He then used the eye to set things aright, before Springdeer was flowed over by lava, and fixed the caverns again for the fae folk. As he did these things, he could feel his memories surging back, and he was glad that his goddess had given him the strength to do what was needed.