Through the Bowels of Chernoggar

Rhegar let us sleep exactly eight hours before he started pounding on the rooms of the Order members. When he got to Yvala’s room, he had to force the door and drag her out. Muttering curses at the dragonborn, she fell into step next to me as she adjusted the last few strands of her hair. The only member of the party we couldn’t find was Kalena. Since none of her stuff was in the room, we figured she probably went to Swan Tower early.

The sun had yet to crest over the city by the time we arrived at the teleportation circle. Kalena was indeed there chatting with Ioun’s powerful wizards. She seemed giddy, though I couldn’t quite tell if it was because of the interesting wizardry going on in the Swan Tower or if it was the cute wizard she was talking to. As I got closer though, I could hear that the chatter was in fact about the teleport we were about to make.

“So if the wizards are getting us into Chernoggar, how are we getting back? Is there a teleportation circle on the other side?” asked Vixi.

“Not exactly,” answered Kalena. “That’s part of what makes this teleport more difficult than usual. Honestly, they are hoping that we actually manage to rescue Bahamut since there isn’t a good way of getting us back from Chernoggar.”

Yvala was more than a little annoyed at being woken up by Rhegar and declared, “Let’s go if we’re going. This place sounds downright dirty so let’s try to get in and out and back to civilization.”

The wizards made some final calibrations to each of our signals and turned the final step over to Kalena. “Here we go,” she said before taking a deep breath and uttering the final lines of the incantation. The circle on the floor glowed then flashed with a bright white light. When my vision cleared, I could see that we’d arrived in a desolate landscape. The scrubby brush around us looked as if it had been burn. The scrubland stretched on for miles to the horizon. An enormous black castle loomed over the otherwise featureless landscape. Rhegar was already running toward it.

Luckily we caught him before Rhegar – in a very dragonborn manner – attempted to charge the front gate. With her exceptional ranger skills, Kyri set about finding the tunnel we would be using to sneak inside.

Kalena looked at the enchantments for a moment and declared that they had not been kept up and that it would be faster to force the gate. Together, Kyri and Rhegar obliged and the party climbed inside. The acid trickling the tunnel gave off noxious fumes. We tried our best to keep from coughing and gagging as we walked along. I whispered a few healing spells when people seemed to be having more trouble.

By the time we got out of tunnel, we’d easily covered a mile. Overall, this didn’t surprise me much. From the outside it had been easy to see that Chernoggar was miles on a side. Fortunately the room we came out in was empty. The devils living in the castle had smashed the room and all the fixtures, so it was impossible to tell what it had once been.

We started into the hallways with Yvala leading. She would at least be more likely to spot any of the guards before they spotted us. Sure enough, before we’d covered the length of three corridors, Yvala spotted a group of devils.

“Their leader is a succubus and they all look bored,” she told us. “They’re probably on watch or something.”

With a dragonborn, an elf, and two humans in our party, we didn’t trust our luck to bluff our way past them, nor did we think we could beat them in a fight without drawing attention. In the end we opted to sneak by, Yvala and Kyri keeping a close eye on those of us wearing clunky metal armor.

The rest of the day continued in much the same way. I’ll wager we crept through halls until well into the afternoon, but without the sun it was hard to be certain. My legs certainly told me that we had logged a respectable number of miles. The map Erathis had given us was far from complete, nevertheless it more than proved its worth.

At last we came to the final door between the avatar of Bahamut and ourselves. The door was sealed with a magic lock that couldn’t be undone with a spell. Yvala drew the masterwork picks from her pack and settled down in front of the door to work. She gave a little cheer when the last bolt fell into place and swung the door open triumphantly.

The door led to a balcony. In the chamber below the great avatar of Bahamut lay sleeping. Naturally, he took the form of a massive platinum dragon. His blindingly shiny scales glimmered as his chest heaved up and down. Surrounding Bahamut were a crowd of abishai. The largest were breathing clouds of poison gas into the great dragon’s nostrils.

“Those are the same abishai were at the siege of Aurincia,” breathed Kalena as she peered over the railing.

“What?” asked Yvala.

“We saw some of those creatures back in the fight that started this whole thing, well at least for us anyway,” I explained.

“Tiamat was probably going to use them to enslave the population,” added Vixi.

“But then she struck the deal with Prince Farin, which doesn’t exactly make sense. She could have easily broken Perinor but something stopped her,” Kalena mused.

Rhegar pulled his sword. “Well we’ll show the Black Dragon that the sons and daughters of Perinor are not beaten down so easily. For Bahamut!” he crided before running down the stairs.

The abishai, of course, noticed his cry. About half of the guards pulled out wicked iron lances from the floor around the dragon and coated the ends with their poison breath. The other half stayed behind, continuing to drug Bahamut.

The abishai met us partway across the room. We fought hard, making sure to avoid the poisoned tips. If even one of us went down to their poison, those that remained would be in serious trouble. We worked in tandem, flanking the abishai whenever possible to gain the advantage.

We’d beaten down about half of the first wave. The big abishai that seemed to be the leader signaled to two more that they should fight us. I took the chance to look over at Bahamut. It seemed like the dragon was sleeping less soundly now that more abishai had left their places. Thinking it was just my imagination, I glanced over again. This time I could see an eye fluttering open. If one or two more abishai could be forced to leave their posts, Bahamut would awaken! Another abishai left its post and the big dragon gave a shuttering gasp as he shook himself awake.

Too late the abishai realized their mistake. The remaining guards scattered away from the god as he rose angrily to his feet. With a mighty roar he bellowed “You have kept me here too long cowards! Now you will feel the wrath of a god!” Lightning crackled along the length of his body which he unleashed at the abishai closest to him. He plodded forward a few more steps and let loose another round of lightning that took out the remaining abishai.

For a second Bahamut looked ready to launch a third round of lightning at us, but he noticed Rhegar’s tabard and stopped. “So a group of mortals has come to my rescue. I certainly owe you a great debt. Tell me, hatchlings, who sent you here and why.”

Naturally, Rhegar answered his god. “My liege, Erathis sent us. I uncovered some of the details of your capture. She sent my companions and me because there are no others to spare with Hestevar under attack.”

“Much then has happened since my capture. Come hatchlings, I will take you back to the Bright City.” With a mighty roar, Bahamut tore through the chamber wall. Together we left the Iron Fortress, with the great dragon taking obvious delight in creating as wide a path of destruction as possible. Once outside, he plane-shifted the party directly to the throne room of the Great Cathedral where Erathis sat smiling on her throne.