The time travelers arrived in the War of the Mark and rescued Mouly and her fellow prisoners from goblin mercenaries hired by House Cannith. Among the prisoners was Lilith, a dragonmarked half-elf and carrier of a deadly plague. With the new members of their crew, they traveled to Taer Shaeden in search of an elven girl named Mari who was destined to plant the forest of the future.
Player Characters: Mouly, Rolf, Teromil, Vaelen
The Second Invasion (6008 YK, Eyre)
The cry of hammer upon steel rang through the Argonth as the wreckage of the mobile fortress was repaired by the time travelers and their friends. Captain Rolf oversaw the renovations and rechristened the mobile fortress the Ultragonth in honor of its new navigator, Mist’s mechanical servant Ultron. Mist had briefly taken his leave to pursue a personal mission, but he left behind his mechanical servant to help the crew of the Ultragonth. With the mobile fortress partially restored, the heroes journeyed across the river of time to the War of the Mark (-500 YK) in search of their missing companion Mouly.
War of the Mark (-500 YK, Eyre)
Mouly and a group of nine researchers had been captured by House Cannith. They were forced to develop a serum for a plague that infected those who possessed dragonmarks and turned their true dragonmarks into aberrant marks. House Cannith, the most powerful of the dragonmarked houses, intended to use the serum to control the younger houses. The researchers who developed the serum were too valuable to kill and too dangerous to leave free, so they were being transported to the prison island prison of Dreadhold in the distant north, established long ago in -1000 YK by Karrn the Conqueror to hold exiled rulers and nobles who had fallen from favor. House Cannith had hired goblin mercenaries who had no chance of contracting the deadly virus, since goblins did not manifest dragonmarks.
The prisoners were chained to the rear of the goblin caravan. Suddenly, there was a bright flash of light and the Ultragonth appeared where the goblin soldiers had been, crushing most of them underneath. Mouly stared at the fortress in terror and confusion until she heard a familiar voice booming from the thaumatrugically enhanced speakers.
“This Captain Rolf of the Ultragonth. Go back to your leaders and tell them that you few were spared by the mercy of the captain and his crew to deliver this message. Beware the Ultragonth!”
The few surviving goblins scattered and fled while being harried by the Ultragonth’s dragonshard cannons. From that day forth, the goblins kept watch from a distance, but no goblin dared to approach the Ultragonth which, in the goblin language, they nicknamed the Matsuuc Goth, the Creeping Fortress.
Mouly invited the other researchers to join her and her friends. Having nowhere else to go, they joined Mouly aboard the Ultragonth. There were nine of them altogether. Vaelen immediately began to train them to be members of the crew, teaching them how to man their battle stations and operate the dragonshard cannons. All of them became productive crewmembers aboard the Argonth except for one who was confined to the infirmary. She was a dragonmarked half-elf named Lilith d’Medani.
Lilith had a dragonmark that resembled Teromil’s mark of detection, but it was strangely twisted. Her eyes were covered with a blindfold, though she could not see anyway. She was infected by the aberrant plague which had mutated her dragonmark into an aberrant one and left her blind. What was more, the mere touch of her skin or the gaze of her eyes could turn a living person to stone. The other researchers had nicknamed her “the Basilisk” and kept their distance from her, and now so did most of the crew aboard the mobile fortress.
However, Mouly often visited Lilith in the infirmary. She was trying to recreate the serum that she had helped develop, and she needed an infected patient as a test subject. Despite the risks, Lilith obliged since there were few aboard the Argonth who would go near her, and she secretly longed for company. By the time they reached Taer Shaeden, Mouly had successfully created five doses of her serum.
The only other person who looked in on Lilith was Teromil, and Lilith often looked forward to his visits. Teromil was keenly interested in the history of his dragonmark which first began to appear during this time period. Despite the risk of contracting the deadly plague and being petrified by Lilith’s aberrant powers, he regularly visited her and listened to her stories.
Lilith was one of the first half elves to manifest the mark of detection. She watched as House Cannith rounded up others like her who manifested dragonmarks. They were pressured or coerced into forming new dragonmarked houses that swore fealty to House Cannith. Lilith found other dragonmarked half-elves who desired to band together so that they might determine their own fate. But the agents of House Cannith found her. They would have put her to the blade if it were not for her powers of divination and unique knowledge which made her invaluable for their research. Lilith was forced to work with Mouly and the other prisoners to develop a serum for the dragonmarked plague. During their experiments, she was infected and became a carrier of the aberrant virus.
Without a noble house to call their own, the half elves with the mark of detection had few choices. If they did not ally themselves with House Cannith, they risked being exposed to the plague without having access to a cure. Those who were infected manifested destructive powers that were often difficult to control. Being seen as a danger to people around them, the bearers of the aberrant marks were either shunned by society or hunted down ruthlessly. These pour souls had few alternatives. They could either go into hiding or fight alongside the other aberrant marks who gathered in the city of Sharn under the banners of Lord Halas Tarkanan and his consort whom they called the Lady of Plague.
Lord Tarkanan and his consort had built an army of aberrants to fight back against House Cannith and the other dragonmarked houses. And so began the War of the Mark that pitted the noble houses against the aberrant marks. Lord Tarkanan’s forces had conquered the city of Sharn, but armies of mercenaries hired by the dragonmarked houses and armed with the weapons of House Cannith were being mustered in the city of Wroat. From there, they would launched an attack on Sharn and lay siege to the city.
However, Lord Tarkanan was a shrewd tactician and a powerful aberrant who had the ability to cause earthquakes and rain down fire upon his enemies. The Lady of Plague was said to have the power to cause terrible outbreaks of disease and summon clouds of locusts. With their leadership and aberrant powers, they fought back against their oppressors in a bloody conflict. The war had now reached a stalemate. The Battle of Sharn would determine its outcome, but the city was well defended and could hold out for a long time. It looked as if the war would continue indefinitely, lengthening the suffering of soldiers on both sides.
Lilith told Teromil of all that she had seen during the war as the Ultragonth slowly made its way east. The party was headed to the ruins of Taer Shaeden, in the land that would later become the elven nation of Valenar. That was where Teromil had seen Mari, the creator of the world forest, in her vision. Once they had crossed the borders beyond goblin territory, the crew began to see elven riders on the horizon. These riders kept a watch upon the mobile fortress from a great distance. Once, Vaelen rode out on his steed and circled the perimeter of the Ultragonth. A single rider came out and rode in a parallel path with him, never coming nearer. That was the closest they came to making contact with the inhabitants of this land until a month and a half had passed since they first set course.
War of the Mark (-500 YK, Dravago)
One day, while Rolf was manning the helm, the silhouette of a distance tower finally came into view. It was the ruin of Taer Shaeden. But before the Ultragonth could go any closer, it fell into a trap. The flat plain held a hidden trench that was disguised to look like ordinary grassland. The mobile fortress lurched forward and sank into the trench. It was stuck in the ground and could no longer be moved. Then all around the Ultragonth, hundreds of riders emerged from the surrounding hills and formed a ring around the fortress. They were the warrior elves of the Valaes Tairn, Vaelen’s own ancestors from the past.
Vaelen rode out to meet them. With help from Captain Rolf who used the Ultragonth’s thaumaturgical speakers to broadcast appropriate mood music, Vaelen tried to explain their strange mission to the Valaes Tairn elves. The elves would have turned them away or slaughtered them as was their custom if they had not seen confirmation of Vaelen’s tale with their own eyes. Some time ago, a man and woman had appeared at Taer Shaeden, and they claimed to be from the future. Their knowledge of historical events proved that they were being truthful. These two individuals had gone to Sharn to lead the rebels with aberrant dragonmarks in their war against the true dragonmarked houses. They were Lord Halas Tarkanan and the Lady of Plague.
Ultron the mechanical servant analyzed the situation and gave a hypothesis. Perhaps the elven children had traveled through time in a temporal anomaly at Taer Shaeden and their souls had leaped into the bodies of two historical figures in the past. The time travelers now decided that the best option was travel to the Last War and prevent the two children from entering Taer Shaeden in the first place. It seemed that they had come full circle and needed to return to the beginning to prevent history from going awry.
The Last War (-958 YK, Dravago), first voyage
The heroes navigated through time once more and arrived at the same location in the future. A bright light engulfed them, and when it subsided they saw that it was nighttime. Ultron verified that they had arrived in the year 958 during the Last War, two years after. They saw Taer Shaeden in the distance, but to their shock and surprise, they also saw another mobile fortress far off but within firing range of dragonshard cannons. It was the Argonth! But it looked much newer than the Ultragonth. The time travelers suspected that it was the Argonth from an earlier point in history. Teromil hastily read the captain’s log and found that the entries for about one month during the Last War were missing from its records, as if the fortress had gone missing for a period of time.
Rolf hailed the Argonth. “This is Captain Rolf of the Ultragonth! Identify yourselves immediately or suffer the consequences!” A familiar voice boomed from the Argonth’s thaumaturgical speakers. It was the voice of Lilith, and she spoke a message in a strange language that the heroes did not know. Only Mouly could make out a few words of the archaic tongue, and she recognized them as the druidic words for elf, friend, safe, and approach.
Rolf cast a spell of clairvoyance upon the bridge of the Argonth. He saw Lilith at the captain’s helm, but she looked older. Her skin was pale, her head was completely shaven, and she was clad in a white robe. She no longer had a blindfold, and it seemed that she had regained her sight. Her eyes glowed with a cold blue light. She was surrounded by stone statues of people whose faces were frozen in fear, their arms raised to cover their eyes. Then Rolf knew that these were no ordrinary statues but the crew of the Argonth who had been petrified by Lilith’s aberrant powers. There was one other person on the bridge, but Rolf could not see who it was. A spell of nondetection surrounded Lilith’s sole companion, so Rolf could only see a shadowy blob.
Fearing that the future Lilith would lure the elven children aboard the Argonth for her unknown purpose, the time travelers manned their battle stations. Mouly, Vaelen, and Ivel activated the Ultragonth’s dragonshard cannons and opened fire upon the Argonth. When elemental blasts struck the Argonth’s hull, the Ultragoth also shook and messages came in from the crew. They reported holes in the side of the Argonth, but these holes looked like they were made thousands of years ago.
“Captain, hull integrity is down by 86%,” Ultron reported.
The heroes could not let the elven children board the Argonth, but they could not continue firing upon it either. It was then that Lilith came to the bridge from the infirmary. She was alarmed by the firing of the cannons and wanted to know what was happening. It was then that she heard her own voice being broadcast outside, speaking a strange language that she did not know.
“What’s happening out there? Whose voice is that?” she asked.
“Everything is fine, Lilith. Go back to the infirmary,” said Teromil, trying to reassure her so she would leave the bridge.
“Is that… my voice?” Lilith asked insistently.
“That could be your voice,” Rolf began. “But it doesn’t have to be. The choice is yours to make.”
After a moment of hesitation, Vaelen explained the situation. He told Lilith of the danger to the future if the two elven children they were seeking were lost. Lilith understood, and after a brief moment she made her decision. She drew out a vial that resembled the serum Mouly had developed, but it held a different liquid. She calmly injected it into her vein.
“I don’t want to hurt anyone,” she said quietly.
A moment later, Lilith collapsed. Her body went rigid, and from her fingers and toes she was slowly petrified. Soon, her whole body had turned to stone. Ivel ran up to Lilith and shouted in shock and dismay.
“No! What did you do? Why?!” Ivel cried out.
The time travelers saw the Argonth vanish from time, returning to its proper place in history. Teromil looked at the captain’s log and saw that the missing entries had returned, as if the Argonth had never been missing. The damage done to the hull of the Ultragonth had likewise vanished as if it had never occurred. The crew of the Ultragonth carried Lilith back to the infirmary and laid her to rest.
Vaelen entered the ruins Taer Shaeden, searching for the elven children. At the top of the ancient keep, he found a great hall ringed by tall windows. The hall was dimly lit by starlight, and in the center of the hall there was a crystal ball. But the elven children were nowhere to be seen. Vaelen returned to the Ultragonth with the crystal ball and gave it to Mouly the diviner. Mouly recognized it as a crystal ball of telepathy, a legendary object with the power to scry upon others and speak to them in their minds.
After attuning herself to the crystal ball, Mouly used it to search for the elven girl named Mari, based on the description given to her by Teromil from his vision. Much to her surprise, she found that Mari and her friend were hiding inside a storage room in the Ultragonth. The children were stowaways aboard the mobile fortress! The heroes located the storage room and found the elven children instead, huddled together in fear.
Mari the elven girl wore a green robe decorated with leaves, but underneath she carried an assortment of strange mechanical devices. The elven boy introduced himself simply as “John.” He wore a fine black robe with red fringes, but it was stained and dirty from travel on the road. John was very protective of Mari and suspicious of the Ultragonth’s crew.
“Who are you, and what do you want,” asked the boy.
“We are friends. We’re here to help you,” the time travelers replied.
“Don’t worry. You can rest for now. We’ll explain everything to you over a nice hot meal,” said Teromil.
The heroes led the elven children to spare quarters aboard the Ultragonth and bade them to rest. At last, their mission was nearly complete. They had found the creator of the World Forest, and the future could now be saved.
But the heroes had tarried too long. The moon had risen to its full height, and the ghostly apparitions of goblin and elven armies appeared around Taer Shaeden. Mari and John disappeared from their quarters, being pulled through time by a temporal anomaly.
“No! We must find them!” the heroes cried out.
They heroes used the power of the Ultragonth to leap through time, to the moment just before their first arrival at Taer Shaeden.
The Last War (-958 YK, Dravago), second voyage
The heroes appeared some distance away from Taer Shaeden. The moon was still rising above the ancient ruins. In the distance, they saw another Ultragonth. They were seeing themselves upon their first voyage to this moment in time. The other Ultragonth hailed them through its speaking stone. They heard a familiar voice booming from the speakers.
“This is Captain Rolf of the Ultragonth! Identify yourselves immediately or suffer the consequences!”
The time travelers tried to send a message to their younger selves, warning them not to tarry when they found the elven children. But something was blocking their communications. Rolf used his spell of clairvoyance once more. He saw the crew of the Argonth manning their battle stations. Everyone was acting as they did before, everyone except for Ivel. Where Ivel had stood during the battle, Rolf saw only a shadowy blob. It was the same shadowy figure that stood beside the future Lilith abroad the Argonth from the past.
The heroes now knew that Ivel had deceived them. He would betray them if he had not done so already. But they had no time to worry about that now because their younger selves were firing their dragonshard cannons upon them. The Ultragonth shook, this time from the impact of dragonshard cannonfire that blew great holes in the side of its hull.
“Captain, hull integrity is down by 86%!” Ultron reported.
The heroes decided to abandon the Ultragonth and sneak aboard the other mobile fortress to look for the elven children. Rolf remained aboard vessel along with Ultron and the tiefling artificers William and Theodore. The rest of the crew watched as a final barrage of dragonshard cannonfire destroyed the bridge of the Ultragonth. The mobile fortress, damaged beyond repair, descended to the ground and moved no more. Fortunately, Rolf and the tieflings survived the explosion and dugged themselves out of the rubble. Ultron was badly damaged, but the tieflings carried him to safety. The survivors joined the rest of the party and snuck aboard the younger Ultragonth. They found the elven children in their quarters where they had left them.
“Why are you back so soon? Is dinner ready, Captain Rolf?” Mari asked innocently.
“I’m not a captain of anything anymore,” Rolf answered sadly.
“We’re skipping dinner this time. Come with us!” said the time travelers.
The heroes asked for help from the Scion of the Delorean Tree. The awakened tree transported them through the river of time to the point in history where they began their journey.
The Silver Purge (845 YK, Dravago)
The party arrived in the Eldeen Reaches, outside the place where they met the gatekeeper druid named Mossmantle. But the old stone hut was no longer there, and the druid was nowhere to be seen. It was as if he had never lived there at all.
What was more, the forest was sparser than they remembered it to be. They heard a loud crash as a tree fell to the ground. It had been cut down by a lumber machine. The sound of hammer upon steel rang through the woods, and the heroes saw through a clearing a tall building that looked like a large factory. It was a creation forge of House Cannith. Workers, both living men and constructs, were carrying timbers to the creation forge whose tall chimneys sent an endless stream of black smoke into the sky.
Mari and John looked all around them in terror and dismay as the beautiful trees of the forest fell one after the other. What had happened to the Eldeech Reaches? Where were the druids, the wardens and caretakers of the woods? The heroes realized that something must have happened in the timeline which had erased Mossmantle and the other druids from history. The sky was darkened by the smoke rising from creation forges scattered across the once great forest, and the quiet of the deep woods was broken by the cry of the anvil.
Treasure:
Crystal Ball of Telepathy