Their trip was halted, however, as they saw smoke coming from a burning building in the People’s Ward. Letting Gwendon know, the three went to investigate while Gwen and Lusipher left the keep to catch up. Toll, Gallandro, and Kobort arrived in time to see a half Orc being thrown out of the building – breaking part of the wall as well as the window (the thrower was too strong and had poor aim – or was just vindictive). Verifying that the half-Orc was dead the group moved inside the horn of the minotaur tavern, according to the sign on the outside. Inside they found the place filling up with smoke from the kitchen, and could hear the smashing of furniture and glass from another room. While Toll went to put out the fire, Kobort investigated the smashing sounds. Meeting him on the way there, a Minotaur came out of the room and headed for the door – ignoring the bewildered elf. Outside, the minotaur then encountered Gwendon and Lusipher, who informed him that he had broken the law. He snorted and told Gwendon to arrest him, then walked off down the street. Lusipher fell into step beside the bullish brute and tried to strike up a conversation, but was met with anger and silence. Lusipher then realized that the minotaur’s path would take him by the Luck of the Leprechaun bar so he hurried ahead to make sure there was no trouble there. However, the minotaur just walked right by the bar, apparently heading for the town gate. Shrugging, Lusipher went into his bar to have a drink.
Meanwhile, back at the still smoking bar, the guards arrived and began to sort out what happened with Toll’s help. Turns out that the minotaur is none other than Anoth’Tuk, a legendary creature that comes to town every five years or so to kick butt in the arena, sells adventuring equipment of those who have hunted him, before disappearing back to the southern end of the valley. It also turned out that the owner of the bar had apparently claimed to have killed the minotaur, displaying his horn in the bar, and was cashing in on the fame for such a feat. Too bad his lie caught up with him in the worst way. Toll resurrected the unfortunate and after making the half Orc swear to pay the temple of Moradin a monthly tithe, headed down the road with Kobort, Gwendon and Gallandro to meet up with Lusipher and decide what to do. In the end, they decided that they would not do anything where the minotaur was concerned.
They then headed to the gnomes to see if Sirrathi was done. Arriving, they discovered that the shop had been excavated and was in fact an old airship (shaped like a shark). It was ready to begin a voyage and the gnome agreed to journey the ten thousand miles to the kingdom of Gloesten, where all airships are made. So the group spent the rest of the day stocking up and getting ready for their journey across the world. Everyone would be coming on the journey so that they could read the two Tome of Deeds that the group had recently purchased. Six days later, the group arrived at the kingdom of Gloesten. And what a sight they had – thousands upon thousands of floatstones, or “tears of Pelor” as the Gloestens called them, littered the sky. Some small, some large, the floatstones were truly a wonder of the world. They were approached by an airship and asked their business. The sailors also joked about the strange airbag that was holding up the groups ship and how useless it seemed. They eventually agreed to escort the ship through the stones to the capital of Gloesten. There the group could try to gain audience with the Emperor in his “Palace of Brialyn”.
The capital turned out to be a beautiful monolithic set of floatstones with arched bridges connecting each other. The group made their way to the palace, and after some time finally gained access to see the Emperor. Much to the surprise of the group, the chief advisor for the human emperor turned out to be the third hag sister! The emperor showed Kobort an engraved stone inset to place Brialyn in to prove his heritage to claim the “Heart of Pelor”. After doing so, Kobort laid hands on the fist-sized chunk of metal that was the heart. Wisely looking to Toll for assurance that his actions could be reversed, Kobort then placed the stone into the pommel of his sword. The resulting horror will be burned in the mind of Toll for eternity (as he did reset time to before the stone was placed) as Kobort burnt and melted into a puddle of bubbling metal and blood. It seems that the markings on the cave wall where Brialyn was found intended that the wielder be a full celestial before attempting to join the heart and the sword.
The group thanked the Emperor for his time and went on a shopping spree, spending overall more than a million gold in trade bars before returning to their ship. Lusipher and Gallandro elected to remain behind – Lusipher wanted to have a Psychic Surgeon purge him of his skills with a bow, since his enormous muscles made firing one more difficult. The pair would then rejoin the group once the mind manipulation was done. The day after the group returned to Mythrazel was the Summer Solstice – the official first day of Summer. So, for the next two weeks, the group decided to kick back and relax and read a few books. Two a day per person that is; Magical books to enhance ones abilities that is; Reading is cool!
The first sign of trouble that one fateful summer morning was that it was overcast and cool outside. Toll and Gallandro decided to check it out, and sat at the roof access in the northwest tower for a while watching the sky. Over the course of the next ten minutes, the sky became very dark and it got really cold outside like an early winter morning. As this was nowhere near magical, they went to talk to the queen. As they filled in the queen on the weather problem, the Bendicole (The giant alarm bell set into the cliff face in the city) rang once alerting everyone in the castle to the danger. Rushing to gear up, the group assembled in the throne room to find out what was going on.
A quick scry through the city revealed a swath of icy destruction through both the Battle Ward and the People’s Ward. About that time, they heard a booming voice rumble through the city “Send out the Sun”. Everyone looked at Kobort. About that time, Vheshema hurried up to the rest of the group.Vheshema told the group that she recognized the voice as belonging to Umtarathrx the White, the oldest white dragon in the world. She informed the group that it had long exceeded the age of Great Wyrm and had become larger than any other white dragon. The group decided that they were going to go out and meet it, as it had attacked the city and wanted Kobort. Gwendon started to go get her Megalith (A surprise to everyone) but was dissuaded from doing so by Lady Arlinde who said it was just a dragon. The group headed out in the mist filled city and headed for the southern wall. Reaching it, they could see a denser area of fog. The only one who could see through the fog was Toll, who beheld a dragon larger than anything he had seen before! Its overall length from head to tail must have been near 200 feet (246 feet post-humorous measurement). Granting everyone a holy aura to prevent the dragon fear from affecting them, Toll returned to mist form as the group headed out to attack.
Toll launched the first volley at the dragon with a fiery storm, but it was magically reflected back on the group with no real lasting harm. The dragon responded with its own attack in the form of a Meteor Swarm! This massively powerful spell set the standard for the legendary battle that was about to take place. And to add to the pain and humiliation of the group, when Kobort struck his first blow against the dragon his artifact sword Brialyn disappeared from his grasp – taking him out of the beginning of the battle. The dragon had come prepared for the Order of Brialyn and his friends. It came sheathed in a cold-fiery aura that damaged any who tried to do it harm and lessen any fire damage that was not outright reflected back at the group. The fiery aura did massive damage to Lusipher, his mighty blows causing him more damage than the dragon itself. And in addition to its tooth, claw, and breath attacks, it continued to pound the party with powerful magics – Spells that would suck the very moisture out of a person’s body. It was such a spell that took the queen to her knees and ended her life, with her falling next to the near dead Lusipher.
To their aid came the mysterious Megalith with the blue hand that had been continuing to watch over the city for the last month or so. Bringing Gwendon back to life and healing Lusipher, the Megalith took the pair to safety as the fight raged on. Toll, usually the heavy hitter with his divine fury, was not able to affect the dragon as much as he normally could. Opening his magical lock, he stopped time and performed a sequence of spells on the great beast – even a powerful earthquake – but they were not overall very effective in turning the tide. As soon as the queen was back on her feet, a door opened back to her castle and she ran to get her Megalith. The battle came to head, with the wounded dragon disappearing first from sight, then from the area. Toll gathered the group around and began to heal them. But he had no sooner healed the party than not one but two Meteor Swarms smashed into the group from a long distance away. The group began to charge the foe once more, this time taking damaging spell after damaging spell on their mad charge. The queen came to the rescue in her twenty foot tall Megalith and took the battle to the dragon quickly with a well placed Teleport spell from Sirrathi. A titanic exchange of blows later and the great Umtarathrx the White fell victim at last. Shortly after the fall of the white, the dwarves of the keep poured out and began to work at skinning the great beast in haste. Of the mysterious Blue Handed Megalith, there was no sign.
