Previous Next

Regina the Flamespeaker

Last week, the party delved bravely into the depths of the supernatural storm, following Aedan's lead. Unnatural earthquakes shook them from their feet as they walked, seeming to draw them into the depths of the earth. However, as a particularly devastating quake threatened to draw them into the earth, Aedan announced that the best way to the peak led down into an opened crevasse. The party bravely followed his lead and discovered a tunnel beneath the mountain's surface. The storm's power could not penetrate into the depths, and the party walked savely to reach the peak.

At the end of the tunnel, the party found a strange and beautiful door made of solid diamond. They immediately began plotting to steal it, but found themselves unable to damage it or pry it loose from the surrounding stone. Eventually, they worked up the courage to open the door and were immediately blinded by the brilliant, penetrating light of the Pillars of Infinite Light. Shanky and Aedan were able to "see" with their superhuman blindsight abilities, and Craggles was able to see just fine with his superhuman fortitude. Beyond the door was a peaceful eye of the storm inhabited by an emaciated, naked gnome. He happily greeted the party-shaped hallucinations he saw, and the party immediately realized that he was completely crazy.

The party tried to manage a reasonable conversation with the gnome, with mixed success. He managed to explain that he was a devoted servant of Regina the Flamespeaker, a majestic great wyrm red dragon. He had lived on the mountain peak for thousands of years, serving his beloved in isolation. The party realized that the subject of his worship was in some way tied to the central pillar of light, so they tried to figure out how to interact with the central pillar. Eventually, Ione fired a beam of light into the pillar which rebounded back and somehow mind-controlled her into walking into the light. Shanky and Azoreus walked directly into the light intentionally and were similarly stupified. When the rest of the party showed more hesitation, the pillar of light shot out many smaller beams to drag them all in.

After being controlled by the light, the party found themselves standing atop the peak of a vast mountain in an infinite sea of light, loosely bounded only by a strange ring of mountains. The earth rumbled, and with a vast cracking sound, the ring of mountains moved, revealing that the entire range was a single impossibly massive dragon. As the snow and rocks cascaded off its body, its true color was revealed: a blazing, vibrant red. Regina the Flamespeaker spoke to the party in a voice that could sunder stone, welcoming them to her domain.

Regina proved much more intellectually coherent than the strange gnome. She explained that she was an elder dragon from the time before mortals were created, when the world was ruled exclusively by dragons. Back in the elder days of yore, she had attempted to end the eternal battles between dragons of Tiamat and dragons of Bahamut by unifying them in a peaceful new order, free from the ideological tyranny of those so-called deities. She preached peace and understanding between dragons, and her movement spread throughout the world, gathering dragons to her cause. However, Bahamut and Tiamat cravenly feared the end of the age they had ruled, and gathered an army to strike her down. With their powers combined, they succeeded in breaking the back of her movement. They sealed her away and banished her name from history, ensuring no one would remember her deeds or the good she had tried to accomplish.

They were not Regina's true enemy, however - all that was mere history. Her true foe was Demogorgon, the Prince of Demons, who she referred to as the Dark One. She used her power to break Demogorgon's curse on the party and its claim over their souls, allowing them to finally speak freely about their lives as cultists. She revealed that Demogorgon had been active during the curse that had frozen Elysium. During that time, it had possessed the body of mortals, especially humans, and led them into secret underground tunnel systems to be cultists in its service. Demogorgon was banished from the mortal plane, but it still needed cultists to gain power - the souls it claimed, the more power it would gain in the Abyss. Regina had been fighting to oppose its plans using a shard of its soul that reincarnated as Empress Regina, the human who led the Empire of the Sun. The exact nature of Empress Regina was somewhat ambiguous, but it was a part of Regina the Flamespeaker, and she had been channeling her power through her mortal form to prevent Demogorgon's cultists from performing a horrific ritual. If performed successfully, the ritual would bind the souls of all mortals in Elysium to Demogorgon before killing them, granting Demogorgon an immense influx of power to accomplish its nefarious goals.

Regina charged the party with stopping the ritual. The ritual was performed in three parts, each in a separate part of the continent: one in the Empire of the Sun, one in the Sunwake Mountains to the southeast, and one in the Shadowfall Mountains to the southwest. The ritual took thirty days to perform, and a little less than two weeks had passed since Empress Regina had been killed by orcs, giving the party about three weeks to stop the rituals. She knew that if one of the rituals was stopped, the other rituals would be disrupted, which would give the party more time, but she did not know how much time that would give them.

Finally, she offered the party the opportunity to pledge their souls to her. If they did, they would gain powers, but their souls would belong to her. The party considered her offer, and some took it. They then plotted what they would do when they left the peak now that they were finally able to reveal the nature of their curse. Cayosin and Ione decided to go to the Shadowfall Mountains, where the Dragon Council ruled, to inform the dragons of Demogorgon's machinations. Azoreus insisted that he had to go to the cultist tunnels beneath the Sunwake Mountains to rescue his wife, who had been taken by Demogorgon. The rest of the party decided to accompany Azoreus on his quest, and the party prepared to split up - assuming they could make it down the mountain alive...

Stupid Awards

Cayosin Ione Aedan Lester Taito Shanky Craggles The Unnamed Monk Regina Everyone Who Doesn't Serve Regina Everyone Who Serves Regina Everyone Except Craggles
Previous Next