The Cursed Crystal Sword

The battle ensued, and the room was soon filled with the chaotic battle cries, screams, and clang of steel on steel as Borris, Belarin, and I fought to hold our ground against the hordes of pirates, and soon, much to our despair, knolls. As the knolls attacked, Belarin threw himself into the heat of battle and challenged two of the four knolls at once, parrying their blows but unable to avoid taking a few hits, and in Belarin's state, was a perilous risk he took. Borris soon came to his aid while I held the pirates at bay with Stinking Cloud, blinding and slowly killing the vast hordes.
Strangely enough, however, in the middle of the battle the iron gate in the room swung open and Buck and Peregrine, along with two new friends, burst into the room, and seeing the chaos of the battle, Buck drew Polaris while Peregrine drew his new gold scimitars and jumped into the fray. Soon, the vast numbers of Valthorn’s hordes dwindled as I held off the pirates while Buck, Belarin, Borris, and Peregrine felled the knolls. As Valthorn witnessed our imminent victory, he retreated shorty and returned with Bonnie Baillie, held up by the throat with a pistol against her head. The fool thought that this would be enough to stop us, but Peregrine tricked the pirate into releasing Bonnie and he soon fled further into the scaffolding.

Peregrine, thirsty for revenge, slew the pirate blocking his path and began to climb the scaffolding. Buck shared his idea, and climbed the scaffolding like a freight-train and ended up standing precious few feet from Valthorn. Peregrine joined Buck on the scaffolding and in his cowardice, Valthorn began to cut the supports to the giant battering ram and the scaffolding, but his actions proved useless as Peregrine and Buck simply charged in to defeat him. While the duo kept Valthorn busy up top, Belarin, Borris, and I took care of the remaining pirates and knolls on the main level, with assistance from Buck’s new friend Jackson Volkin, and soon left to join our friends up top.

We soon had Valthorn cornered on the ground level, and as he was about to attempt one last desperate strike, Peregrine pushed a chair from the scaffolding onto Valthorn’s head, knocking him unconscious. The battle over, and us weary, we bound Valthorn in chain and explored the back of the scaffolding, where Bonnie and I found a crazy man by name of Thomas scribbling in a journal. He ignored me as I attempted to speak to him, so I used my Mage Hand to take his journal from him which made him go berserk, and when he tried to climb the ladder and attack me, I knocked him unconscious and bound his hands and feet. Bonnie and I then climbed down and found Nakisha Airalin lying in a jail cell across from an emptied one. So, taking advantage of these jail cells, we locked Valthorn in one cell and Thomas in the other, and began our interrogation of Thomas, with Buckles and I playing good cop, and Borris and Peregrine playing bad cop. Through this, we were finally able to extract from Thomas that Commodore Krogan, the very man we were sent to hunt down, was trapped beyond this gate, but when Thomas told us he’d “unlock” the gate, he instead locked it further.

Seeing as we could not convince Thomas to unlock the gate for us, I took his journal and prepared my Comprehend Language ritual to understand the abyssal writing within. Meanwhile, the others continued their interrogation of Thomas which led to his near death, including a missing middle finger, no nipples, and urine on his chest (I don’t wanna know what happened). Then, Buck led the interrogation of Valthorn, but when they began the interrogation, all Valthorn spoke was abyssal, and I then entered and translated for him. Before our very eyes, Valthorn began to transform, his body growing and bulging, and, realizing the danger, Belarin took action and decapitated the demonesque Valthorn and with his head removed, the body shrank back to normal size.

I unlocked the gate, and we proceeded inwards single-file as the small path leading to a single throne at the back of the room was surrounded by the same black liquid that melted a couple knolls in the previous room. On the throne sat a crumpled old man, missing some skin, and a sword sticking out of his chest. We approached, and he introduced himself as Krogan, and said that the sword impaled in his chest was the only thing keeping him alive. We were foolish to believe him, and as Buck removed the crystal sword from his chest, his spirit vanished from his body and thousands upon thousands of spirits appeared and flew out of the only exit of this room sitting 90 feet above us. Buck dropped the sword and felt a strange, dark power in his hand, and after some examination, was discovered to be possessed.

—Tibles

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