The peaks of Nildazi are arid and dry, not cold like one might expect. Journeying northwest along a dusty road, the party sees the towering volcano, mightiest of the Nildazi Crags.
When the road splits, they take the old stone road, long past it’s prime, heading southwest. It widens and thins, leads through overhang tunnels and bridges over vast crevices with gargantuan arches. They pass a great stairway that leads to the volcano. The road forks again, meeting an old worn trail. At the fork a massive circular cave stands. It’s getting dark, so they choose to rest inside. An attempt to find the caves back proves fruitless, the tunnels snake and intersect. Gruffie Mayhem knows these caves were burrowed by something large. She also identifies the strawberry-scented orange mold as that which grants protection from the cold and can fill your lungs with fire. In the night, Balthazar and Icoriol find the shed skin of a giant serpent. They leave at daybreak.
Following the trail southwest, the beating of wings puts everyone on edge. Luckily, it is not a wyvern, but a single, bold and hungry. It swoops the party, grabbing gruffie Mayhem with it’s monstrous talons and lifting her into the air. It gets 100’ up before Balthazar’s holy blast destroys one of it’s wings. It drops gruffie as it crashes to the ground. Before she plummets 100 feet to her death, she uses the ancient power of the druids to transform into an ant, floating harmlessly to the ground.
After harvesting the griffon, they travel down the road, spotting a giant goldfish circling a distant mountaintop. They choose not to investigate, instead continuing down the path and coming across and iron arch next to an old banner. Icoriol recognizes it as the star of Tayan Theras, an ancient order of knights - The Knights of Madness. The leave this in the back of their heads, pursuing the objective the sorcerer baron marked on their map.
Up a north-facing path and into the forested mountains on the southern edge of the Nildazi border, a thick fog rolls in. In the distance, they hear thunderous crashes and grunting - giants! Two hill giants are fighting one another. The party navigates the forest off the path, staying well out of their way.
The next day they leave the path, journeying through the forest. After a long day of climbing steep hills, they arrive at the place the baron told them of.
Here stand two magnificent stone statues of knights, worn by time and covered in moss. The cling giant great shields which bare the star of Tayan Theras, and grasp down-pointed swords, their tips hovering mere inches off the ground. Lobsang searches the shrubbery, finding an old stone altar. An inscription has been worn thin by time, but the shape of the last line reminds Icoriol of an old saying: madness in nightshade.
Upon uttering the words, the statues twitch, their sword aims raising just an inch. At this, they crush their crystal, given to them by the baron, and commune with him. He knows little of the statues or the passage, but tells them that if Tayan Theras once built statues here, they must have done more nearby. They remember the old banner they saw, and endeavour to head back.
On the way, they spot an armored figure and a retinue of 4 robed men. They are hailed, and it is found that the knight is Sir Adrian Barantyn of the order Tayan Theras, He has journeyed all the way from Solemnity, searching for an ancient temple and hidden relics within. He and his clerics join with the party, moving towards the old stairway and the banner.
It is storming when they arrive. Pelted with rain, they walk up the stone stairway and come across a great building clinging to the side of a mountain. Beside it are great piles of sand and dust. They approach the entrance and find three husks of men staggering around the main floor. Worms ooze in and out of their skin. Upon noticing the party, they attack.
The fight is fierce, but the party prevails with the aid of Sir Barantyn. He is nearly slain by burrowing worms, but Balthazars holy magic is able to destroy them. The bodies are burned.
The temple has two floors and a deep spiral staircase leading down into the mountain. The upper floor contains two grey dry husky corpses of philosophers. They have no eyes, frozen dead, still arguing. On the wall is a fresco of a flaming bird with a single eye. They spend a night here, recovering from some of their wounds.
In the morning the group of 9 descend into the temple. They first enter a large room with columns and many doors. Through an arch, they come across some strange green crystals that seem to numb their skin. Down a set of stairs is a room with three doors. Clinging to the ceiling is a statue of a three-armed man. When Lobsang moves to enter a passageway, the old man drops - living stone! He laughs and flails his stone arms, knocking Lobsang unconscious. Inventive Icoriol is able to build a machine to bring back some of his vitality, and he cracks the stone mans head wide open.
Through a passage and into a corridor they come across a giant carven face, its eyes screwed shut in pain. An inscription reveals it must be fed gems. When it has been fed, the floor shudders and begins to descend. It descends into a giant cavern, partially collapsed. Amongst the rubble stands a giant statue of a man with a warped bifurcated head. On the ground sits a giant stone disc, carven with an image of the bird from the fresco, inset with a gemstone eye. A scratched message on the wall reveals that the platform must see the sun to activate. They bring the heavy disc back to the temple, but the storm prevents the disc from working.
Descending back down to the passageway, they go through a door into a small stone room with a chest in the corner. A stone body crouches over it. A golden plaque reads “test thyself ’gainst the chest of wickedness.” Gruffy Mayhem opens the chest, and a foul curse almost turns her to stone, but she is able to fight it off. They collect 1100 electrum pieces as their reward.
At the end of the corridor stands a wall of fog being created by two jade statues that breath out the mist. The party finds they must inhale the mist to pass. After doing so, they descend into a massive cathedral with three great stone columns. Husky corpses sit amongst dust praying desperately to a jade man upon a jade table. The elfs identification spell reveals nothing direct, but a strong magical link between the jade man and something else. They decide not to mess with it.
In a side chamber, the ruins of a temple library. A blue book stands on a lecturn. Upon touching it, books fly off the shelves, propelled by foul magic. They batter Balthazar and Lobsang but are put down easily. Within the book, among pages and pages of unintelligible garbage, they find an old creed of Tayan Theras:
With chaos as my liege and lord
To further aims of the outer spheres and domains of higher dukes
I do pledge to carry within me forbidden understandings
Madness in NightshadeSir Barantyn is overjoyed with the find - this is the kind of artifact he is searching for.
While the knight and his clerics study the finding, the party enters another side chamber and descends into a room with 13 coffins. 12 are shut, but one at the far end of the room is open. Lobsang approaches, and finds a solid pieces of limestone with just enough space carved out to fit one person: him. The longer he looks the more he is sure - this coffin is his exact sillhouette.
Propelled by a sense of duty and destiny, Lobsang enters the coffin. The cool stone touches his body, and he finds his head and muscles going numb. For a moment, he is suspended in a great void, seeing wisps of light - stars - fly past him. When he awakens, his mind has been altered, re-ordered by the power of madness. He feels fine, but it remains to be seen if that is all the coffin has done.