Chapter 45 - Memories of the Dawn War (Death's Reach - Part 4)

ARRIVAL

The sound of ravens fades away and they sense that they're falling. Vaguely, they perceive that they are falling as a luminous orb. They plummet through a dismal sky toward an ashen plain.

With a gut-wrenching twist and a blinding flash, they appear on an alien slope. In the still air, they smell the faint scent of ancient dust and old fire. Pale ash covers the ground between black rocks that are smooth and glassy. Above them, the slope ascends at a sheer angle, forming a black cliff. Maybe 200 feet overhead, it disappears into a turbulent field of clouds that flash sporadically with sinister light. Downward, the slope gives way to a barren wasteland of ashy soil.

Great spires of black rock claw upward, some straight and others bent at unnatural angles. In the vastness, theysee an orb of silver light falling slowly, trailing a luminous rail and reminding them of their own arrival. From the orb they can hear a distant cry like that of a dying creature. They also notice an orb of red light hovering over the desolation in the distance.

They're greeted by feline monsters, minions of the blackstar host, and they have to fight them while the ground itself seems to be their enemy. As soon as they get a moment to rest, they start to plan a course.

HERALD OF SECRETS

As they crest a ridge, the blue glow of a soujfall -brighter than any thet've seen so far— illuminates the sky. Rather than the descent of a single incandescent form, they spot a rain of five orbs falling to the dark soil of the ridge ahead. Their vague shapes hurtle soundlessly toward ground.
Just before striking and dissipating forever, the five glows change course and merge. In a split second, they form a towering humanoid that shines momentarily with violet light. Behind the figure, the glow takes the shape of ten broad wings that shimmer and disappear. The body solidifies into a vaguely feminine form clad in robes like liquid shadow, its lower body flowing mist. Winged brooches on its cloak dim, but its eyes continue to glow with purple light.
Without paying attention to or perhaps even noticing them, the figure clutches a stone sphere with a dark flaw that makes it look like an eye. The figure turns toward the north, peering intently in that direction.

As the adventurers approach the creature, it turns and speaks in a feminine voice that sounds like a chorus of soft voices.
"Areyou servants of the craven Orcus? Or areyou far from well-tread lands on a righteous mission in this ancient place? If the former, words are at an end! If the latter, know that I too am on a quest to oppose the demon prince."
The creature readies to fight, a blade of vibrating mist forming in one hand as the other clutches the ball-sized moonstone. It hesitates only to hear their answer.
The heroes convince the Angel that they're in Daeth's Reach on a holy mission to defeat Orcus, and the Angels gives them the moonstone, which guides them to a secret cache of ancient weapons. On their way to the cache, they find ancient ruins.

EMPEROR OF BONES

An orb like a nearly burned-out sun hangs over sharp spires of black rock that jut high into the air. The spires create a natural wall bounding an area into which the dying orb dimly shines.
Debris of all sorts litters the area within-rubble, weapons, bones, ancient statues, and more collects here. Closer to the rock wall, the debris gathers more thickly.
Above, a soulfall careens into the dying star, causing it to flash white. It silently shoots a bolt of white energy down into the natural canyon.

The rock walls form a hollow stuffed with ancient refuse. Dim red light illuminates the depression, but the sharp shadows of the overarching rocks create long patches of darkness within. The interior of the hollow's walls are carved in macabre reliefs. Above these carvings, a ledge runs around the interior. Statues stand here and there, broken and at chaotic tilts. A few look like ancient pillars, still supporting pieces of a long-lost floor or ceiling. A throne of rubble, black rock, and bones is set against the far wall.
In the shadows lurks a gigantic humanoid, probably 12 feet tall, like darkness made flesh. Horns sprout from its shoulders and head. Its face has no features, only hollow eyes staring out of the darkness... a Nightwalker!
Discovering their approach, the creature attacks, as the very bones of ancient soldiers animate in a terribile storm of rending death. The heroes defeat the creatures, and proceed to the ancient cache.

SPOILS OF WAR

They crest a rise that descends into another broad valley. A few miles off, a great spire of black rock has been neatly cut into near the base, as if by the sword of a god. The surface sparkles with a soft silver glow issuing from a rectangular hole in its middle. This glow is a subtle beacon in the gloom of Death's Reach.
Smooth and shiny in the dim silver light, the surface of the spire's top is like black glass. It descends toword a circular opening that drops into the spire's dark interior.

They land in the southern end of an ovoid-shaped chamber. Silver light with no discernible source floods the chamber, and ornamental carvings cover every interior surface. Across from their entry point is a massive door that looks like it slides up or down. Two similar but smaller doors flank it on the side walls. A suit of armor and a weapon floats in the middle of a square of blue and silver light, rotating about 10 feet above the floor.

Waylander tries to approach the armaments, but awakes the ancient guardians of the place.
A glittering silver construct emerges from behind each door, limned in stiver light that resembles brilliant wings. Each is an armored, vaguely humanoid shape, floating legless above the floor. As big as a titan, the largest has massive arms and a head like a fenight's helm with a pointed tail. Silver lightning whirls and rumbles in its torso and dances on its armor. The smaller constructs, each as big as an ogre, are slimmer but no less fearsome. Only after defeatng the guardian can the heroes take possession of the armaments of ancient Dawn Warriors, that will help them greatly in their fight against elementals and primordials.
Tired from the many ordeals, our heroes decide to rest in the ancient sanctuary.

NERULL'S GATE

The day after they resume their travels into Death's Reach. An enormous arch, covered in runes that dance with silver and red light, towers over a circular platform. Steps around the paved platform descend into a depression around the arch. Flanking the arch are two gigantic statues the color of ebony and bone. They look like they were once treants, but the ages have petrified them and left them leafless. Hovering above the arch's apex is a skull swathed in blue-black fire.
Under the arch, a giant dark serpent topped with the body of a female human with six arms appears to be in the midst of casting a ritualfrom an ancient tome. The runes on the arch pulse in response to her unfamiliar words.
The heroes notice the treant statues move everso slightly as the marilith is manipulating and altering the arcane energy present in the gate. Fearing the demons are about to summon an aspect of Orcus, as they wish to do use the Gate themselves, the party attacks the monsters and defeats them. Then they start performing the ritual to summon an aspect of the Raven Queen.

THE WRATH OF ORCUS

They begin the Raven Queen's ritual, and as it progresses the runes on the arch of Nerull's Gate darken and then begin to glow with blue light. As they perform the last incantations, the arch turns with a loud grinding sound. It makes a complete rotation, stopping briefly three times as it comes around.
First, they hear the calls of ravens and a swirling form appears in the arch. Black motes of darkness-like tiny, swarming ravens-slowly unite toform the regal form of the Raven Queen.
"Excellent," she says. "You have done perfectly, and I salute your tenacity and competence. Now, wait a moment, and I shall divine what it is we need to know."
Her wings extend, and she. bows her head. The sound of circling ravens again fills the air.

Suddenly, the Raven Queen's head snaps skyward, and her eyes grow fierce with anger.
"The Great Beast is upon us." she says. Howling in rage as it appears over the walls, Orcus rushes toward the Raven Queen.
The aspect of Orcus leads more demonic minions, and the fight rages on.
Orcus smites the Raven Queen with his mace, and she staggers hack, pained and wounded. She looks to the heroes, and they hear her voice in their minds.
"The place you seek is the Reliquary of Timesus, nearly 40 miles to the northeast. Your map now shows this location, and you shall mark it as the place where great black monoliths, squared in their ancient shaping, rake the sky. Use this knowledge well. I've not much power left in this place, but enough to aid you one last time. If you defeat this dog, he will be unable to return to this place for at least a decade. Strike well, my faithful."
The Raven Queen glows, and she phases through Orcus, taking a ghostly double of the demon prince with her. Orcus staggers and snarls, swinging his mace at her departing form. His blow connects, but she flies into Nerull's Gate. In a flash, she disappears.
With the aspect of Orcus now weakened, our heroes manage to defeat their adversaries, and proceed to the Reliquary.

RELIQUARY APPROACH

Gigantic shafts of stone, carved from single spires of rock, stab into the clouded sky. Carved into these monoliths, relief images show a great flaming rock crashing to the ground. Symbols like writing cover each monolith in a twisting script. A few paces beyond the monoliths is a wide opening, carved to resemble a great maw. A ramp leads downward into darkness.

With a sound like glass scraped across glass, an apelike construct of smooth black stone emerges from each monolith, floating slightly above the ground. The size of a giant, each creature is legless and hunched, with massive striking limbs.

Out of nowhere, hovering between the monoliths, dark mist coalesces into a centaurlike form blacker than a starless night. The creature's lower body is that of a hunting cat whose legs and tail trail off into nothingness. Where the cat's head would he, a humanoid torso sprouts, topped with a long, featureless head with two burning red eyes. Ripples pass through the creature as if it can barely hold its incorporeal body together.

Our heroes face these last guardians, before they can finally enter the Reliquary of Timesus, the Black Star.