The Golden Horde

I woke up to a stinging cheek and Yvala yelling at me. “Wake up you Gods damned cleric or so help me I will use your body as a shield!” “What the hell Yvala!” I said slapping her hand away and blinking in the sudden light of the torch. “Not now. Yell at me later. Markas can’t take many more blows.” My mind was still foggy and I just stared at her. “What?” I asked, thoroughly confused. “Just go save his scrawny ass,” Yvala said as she yanked me to my feet and shoved me in the direction of the half-elf. I blinked a couple of times and finally the fog began to clear. Markas came in focus just in time for me to see a blow from a wight bring him to his knees.

I rushed over to his side and ran a hand over him, letting the healing energies flow into the worst of his wounds. Kord, bring back his strength to finish the fight, I prayed. The wights had taken the opportunity to close in around Markas and myself but Kalena blasted them away with a thunderwave. “You certainly picked a good time to wake up.” “Thank Yvala for waking me.” I said as I pulled him up. A green fletched arrow thudded into the skull of a wight next to me as I formed up back to back with the paladin. Since the rest of the party didn’t have to worry about protecting me, they turned their attention to the wights and the grue leading them. The fight was over quickly.

“So what the hell happened?” I said as I whirled about on Yvala. “You still owe me an explanation for slapping me.” I added as I jabbed a finger at her chest. She dismissively slapped my hand away and gave me an airy little laugh. “Well it worked, didn’t it? I was going to resort to stabbing you through the hand if it didn’t.” Her face softened, just a little. “Good thing you woke up when you did, too. As for what happened, I don’t really know. That’s more your expertise than mine. All of a sudden you just passed out on us. We tried waking you where you fell, but there are too many of these foulspawn crawling through the tunnels for us to stay in one place for long. We’ve been carrying you along for the last 2 hours, right up to the point where we ran into these wights.” “Guess I owe you thanks then.” I said. “Don’t worry about it. I’m sure you’ll be lugging my butt out of a tavern at some point.”

At that point Kalena could no longer contain herself and insisted on looking me over now that I was awake. As she did I mediated on what had happened to me. Why on earth would I just pass out? A mental attack? A smell? Was someone attempting to dominate me? I still haven’t come up with an answer that I’m satisfied with. But, as Yvala said, this was certainly not the place to sit and think.

The dirt tunnel abruptly broke into an open air courtyard. A blank granite monolith dominated its center, but the door on the back wall was far more interesting. It had been bricked up long ago, but now pulsed with energy. Black and purple tendrils of misty light showed through cracks in the brickwork. I looked at Kalena and saw that her eyes had gone wide as she bounced lightly on her toes. “It’s a portal to the far plane,” she said with more than a little awe in her voice. “It must be what the foulspawn and the cultists are after and what the paladins are protecting.”

Kyri and Yvala slunk into the courtyard to check out the other tunnels on the outer wall. As they did, a ghastly wail rose up in the corridor behind us. A tall female foulspawn was leading two males and several swarms of bugs. Markas stepped back to block the corridor and Kalena roasted the group with a fireball to give us time to get into position.

Being so close to the portal drove the foulspawn into a berserk frenzy. The fight went on a little longer than normal and we ended up with a few extra bruises, but shattered carapaces and the severed heads of the male foulspawn covered the brick floor. The female was a little smarter than the others and ran back down the dirt tunnel. Despite a couple of arrows and crossbow bolts lodged in her back, she made it around the corner before we could drop her. Shame too. She’d been wearing an interesting set of armor that had done something to our ranged spells.

Yvala and Kyri probably would have chased her down if it hadn’t been for the gold dragonborn that had started to spill out of the corridors into the courtyard. Drawn by the noise, they came out with weapons up and teeth bared. “Drop weapons,” shouted Kyri to the rest of us. Markas was a little slow so I elbowed him in the back. “We aren’t your enemies,” I said to the paladins in draconic. “Look at the corpses at your feet.”

They steered our group to one side of the courtyard, as a gigantic gold dragon swept down for the battlements and landed in the clearing the paladins had created. “I have guessed that you are not our enemies. You are persistent to be sure, but you have made no move to attack my sons. Whether you are the friends you claim to be remains to be seen.”

”I am Sylirix, gold matriarch of the Southern Continent. I have been on this isle for many years, protecting this portal from those who would use it for evil. Should the Torog high priests have access to it, they would open it and summon things most foul into our world. My brood and I have been the only things holding the cultist and the foulspawn back.”

“Why not just close the portal?” asked Kalena , somewhat timidly. “Alas, its aberrant nature makes it impossible for my magics to work on it, not that such a thing has stopped me from trying.” “Would it be possible for us to look at it?” “Of course my dear, have a look.”

Kalena moved up to the portal and examined it from top to bottom. She even wove a couple of spells to glean magical information. After a while she shook her head sadly and said to Sylirix. “No, I don’t have the skills to close such a portal.”Sylirix looked disappointed at our failure to fail the portal. “Ah well, if I cannot close it, certainly do not feel badly that you cannot. Come with me inside. We have more to discuss and I’m sure you could do with some food.” Sylerix singled out a few of her brood. “Argos, lead our guests to the dining chambers. Garothor, take your squad and collapse the tunnels the foulspawn have been digging.” With those commands the gold dragon spread her wings and flew off to survey the battlefields.