The Chronicles of Risan: Part the Fifteenth

Pausing in our saving of the artificer islands, Alrick, Lia and myself are called away (technically a month’s travel away!) to the land of the Shadowkin, which we had visited before (as chronicaled in Part the Sixth). The Shadowkin were dwellers in the Shadowfell (aka the Dark Dimension) before leaving for some reason and arriving here, around 500 years ago. They retained their homeland by the means of a dark dome about their city, making their sky dark.

While they were Raven Queen worshippers (as am I), a small sect started worshipping Amaunator the Sun God, and after their head priest died they thought him assassinated and declared that they would bring down the dome (thereby killing everyone else). We were called in to resolve the situation. Ah, an opportunity for diplomatic discussion and conflict resolution…

Upon arriving at their temple, Alrick immediately insulted them and they reacted by attacking us. Yeah, we are not Party Subtle, nor Party Parley either. They had angels on their side, but that end up being less of a problem than we thought.

Wandering through the temple, and nearly getting burnt after finding a trapped exit, we head up (sun god… must like being worshipped from high places, right?) and find a room behind a magically locked door (ha! says my thief side) in which there is a big angel, minor angels and a dead high priest. After challenging the angel, we find out that the evil priest binded the good angel, which didn’t please it any, and it wouldn’t mind if we killed it (aka sending it back to its plane). It was bound to defend the room (from anyone entering), and we decided that if the others in this temple were worthy then Amaunator would stop the angel from killing them, so we could test them by throwing them in here (note: cross off Party Ethical). [Also, turned out the angel didn’t help the priest perform a ritual that ending up killing him, so that angel ain’t exactly pure either.]

At that point, we detected a rumbling of a ritual and headed off to find the other clerics doing their ‘dome destroying’ bit. Getting near them made other angels appear, while not all easy to deal with, we finally do although the ritual progresses. However, after we take out the guardians, the clerics are more amendable to our point (yes, a sword point), and we deal with the head cleric (go me!) As for the rest, we test them in the angel room and find they’re not worthy. (Yes, I am supposed to be good, but they turned away from the Raven Queen, so religious war they get.)

Not sure if we’ll deal with the angel or not…

[END]