Frei's Memories: Day 7

Day 7:

This day definitely turned out to be the scariest day of my life so far, but it started innocently enough.  We departed for Kitzingen in the morning.  Along the way, the lush landscape quickly died off and the land started becoming fragmented.  It started reminding me of Nebel.  I wonder if it is nearby.  We noticed several landmasses floating in the clouds.  Perhaps there is something interesting up there, but we can't fly, yet.  We passed a petrified forest.  There's a portal inside.  It reminds me vaguely of the other forest portals.  I bet it goes to Katja's place, but there's not way to be sure.  It would be nice if it did; that would save us about 6 hours of walking between Keening and Eibelstat.  We decided to conserve our resources and leave it alone for now.

Acheron and Kitzingen

We eventually discovered a lonely portal on an island held to a larger landmass by huge chains.  We passed through the portal into a terrible place, Acheron, part of the Shadowfell.  It is a vile, stinky swamp under a hot orange sky.  The plants wanted to attack us, but we stuck to a well worn path.  After following the road through the jungle for some time, the plants became green and calm and the sky blue.  We arrived at a strangely lush town, Kitzingen.  The most prominent feature is the granite temple of Bahamut, the platinum dragon emperor.  We met a priest named Belzerius who seemed like some sort of deranged youth minister.  He praised Bahamut for turning this patch of Acheron into an inhabitable place.  I couldn't help but notice the parallel with Eibelstat's emperor, though I have many more reservations about this place.

Belzerius said the zombies were coming from an ancient graveyard.  The town had been using it, but I guess the old corpses weren't happy to have company.  I can't say I'm surprised given the nature of Acheron.  Anyway, Belzerius wanted us to guard them while they relocate the friendly corpses.  We did.  There were a few zombies, but not much.  It's strange.  I would have thought Belzerius and Silvi could have handled it.  They seemed surprised, though, at the lack of resistance.  I was still suspicious.

Anyway, Silvi promised us a reward so we met them in the temple.  Our priest was practically giddy. *BARF*.  Belzerius promised the invoker a personal audience with his god.  He took us downstairs to a strange portal . . . creepy.  He gave us some platinum and some healing potions for our trouble and Silvi started opening the portal.  Great black tendrils dragged all of us, including Silvi and Belzerius through the gate!

Erebus

We landed in a bad place.  Probably Erebus, the deepest shadow known---it had to be!  At first, I though we were lost in sand dunes in total darkness.  Upon closer exanination we discovered the sand was, in fact, finely crushed bone!  We were surrounded by huge bones (dragons?) and stifling stale air.  We saved Silvi from suffocating, but it looks like Belzerius didn't make it.  His life seemed to be suppressed, somehow.

We followed Silvi and the Invoker as their holy symbols led over a dune.  On the other side we found a dais surrounded by huge bones.  If the dragon's skull had been exposed, I'm certain the paladin could have stood easily inside it's eye socket.  A huge, black, featureless monolith rested in the center of the dais.  Silvi followed her holy symbol to it, but died immediately upon touching it.
Nonetheless, the invoker found the obelisk irresistible.  It sucked us nearly dry, but we managed to extract a book from within the monolith.  The invoker plunged his hands through the stone as if it were jelly and pulled out a book covered in platinum scales.  The book contained dragon flesh and blood, but we didn't have time to otherwise examine it.

We decided to try to weaken the obelisk further, but that caused a bunch of skeletal dragons to approach from the darkness.  I didn't get a good look at them, and it's hard to tell from the skeletons, but I don't think any of them bore any resemblance to Katja.  The huge bones around us shifted a wiggled.  We concluded that the monument was actually doing us a favor and maybe the book was not going to be a boon for us.  Luckily, the shifting bone sand revealed a portal out.  We used the healing potions and some of my life force (not that I have a lot!) to open the door and return to the temple basement.

We were obviously dismayed to find Belzerius and Silvi(?) on the other side.  They acted as if nothing bad had happened and asked if Bahamut had blessed us.  They immediately noticed the book and wanted it.  We were naturally reluctant to hand it over (we went through a lot!).  They agreed to let our priest study it overnight.  We rested uneasily, but we had to sleep; Erebus nearly killed us.