That which was lost shall soon be found

Having all the quests completed we head back to the black stone circle. There the guardians emerge and accept our token or acknowledge our success at vanquishing the foe. Except for the guardian who tasked us with the living feather. He berates us for letting the Roc King perish. He then demands that we defeat him in battle or he will not accept us as being worthy.
We try to argue our innocence in the killing of the Roc King, but the guardian does not listen.
It begins chanting as it rises into the air. Iritated the wood elf mutters something under her breath, raises her bow and without pause launches an arrow. The arrow flies straight into the eye socket of the guardian and passes clean through. The figure drops to the ground immediately and melts away into nothing. Stunned we just stare at it for a while.

The other guardians don't seem fazed at all and transform the black stone disk into a fountain of water. I drink from the fountain and everything goes black.
Nothing, yet everything seems to exist all around me. Eternity seems to pass, but it seems like just a few seconds.

Eventually we awaken on a cliffside. Below us in the valley two massive armies clash. Ancient banners of long forgotten kings and rules sway in the wind as they face off against an unending horde of worm infested undead. Massive towering worms slime their way through the ranks, giagantic centipedes spitting out swarms of worms, large numbers of spawns of Kyuss. Every horror immaginable and several more are waging war upon the defenders of all that live. It seems that we have travelled back hundreds, if not thousands of years ago to when Kyuss' armies spread across the world.

Our attention to the battle is broken by the shouts of the Druids of the Order of the Storm. They have Dragotha's phylactery and need some time to get it away from here. If they destroy it, Dragotha will surely vent his anger upon the army desperately fighting for its life. However should they escape with it, Dragotha will be unsure and withdraw from the battle. The horde of undead will falter without its general. As he quickly explains this to us, Lashonna the elven noble that aided us before. She seems to have no recollection of us at all. She vows to hold off the airborne attackers of Dragotha including several large undead dragons. As she steps off the cliff her form warps and shifts into that of an immense silver dragon that wings off to the attack. The Druids task us with holding off any others that slip by Lashonna. They then head over the ridge to deal with the phylactery.

Before we have much time to prepare as two squads of the heavily armed knights of Kyuss haul themselves to the top of the cliffside and begin their advance towards us. Xan drops a field of black tentacles upon them to buy us some more time to prepare. However, the knights launch a massive volley of necromantic blasts at our line. Xan falls to the life draining magic as several others are wracked with agony. Reinvigorating our life force we begin warding against further attacks as well as launching our own against the knights. Arrows and acidic blasts answer further necromatic assaults. I was able to complete the summoning of a greater air elemental. Under my command the elemental twirls into a potent vortex and sweeps over one of the squads, dust billowing from it obscuring most of the battlefield and giving us the time to recover from the damage we have sustained. The undead are lifted off the ground and spewed out into the valley hundreds of feet below. By the time our death wards are fully raised many our barely hanging on to life, but the knights have been dealt telling blows as well. Despite their ability to repair the damage we deal with their necromantic blasts we have been able to fell most of them.

About then two more squads of knights crawl over the cliff. With our protective wards up we are feeling much more confident in our ability to deal with them. Nallec and Slivik advance to deal with them in hand to hand combat. I advance and begin to rebuke the unholy beings.
As the tide is turning in our favor a massive serpentine mass of bones flys over the ledge and attacks Slivik snatching him in its coils. Slivik struggles in its grasp keeping it from holding him immobile, but not able to free himself. Meanwhile the knights are laying into him with their greatswords. Severely wound I move in and am able to heal him as he pulls himself free of the creatures bony coils. Unfortunately it immediately turns its attentions to me and buries me in its mass of bones. I am quickly unable to move, as it grasps my skeleton and tears it clear of my flesh. My mind reels in agony as I watch my horrified team mates deal the killing blow to my killer.

Darkness envelopes me.

I awake whole back on the storm tossed island, only now there is no storm or ruins upon it. Shaken by what seemed to have been my death I pat myself down to make sure that I indeed have all my bones. I notice that Xan is also picking himself off of the ground very much alive.
Knowing that we succeeded in buying the Druids time to get away with the phylactery we now know where they secreted it.

One down three to go.

The gargoyles begin opening fire. Their aim is deadly accurate. Many arrows find their mark in the unprotected flesh of our sorceror and warlock. They grit their teeth and return fire with blasts of fire and gouts of sizzling acid. Our own archer takes cover and returns her own volleys of arrows. Meanwhile Slivik and Nallec head toward the line of archers swinging their weapons to swat them out of the sky. Many of the gargoyles begin to fall and we rout the survivors. Several of our members are terribly injured, but we survived.

One task completed we rest for the night and set out looking for the location of the next task.
We spy a valley filled with brambles. As we discussed how best to proceed we notice a cave opening on the far side of the valley. Deciding the easiest way is the best we fly over the thorns and enter the cavern. An enormous expanse with crevices filled with rising steam lies before us. We cautiously advance scanning for any sign of danger. We spot it in the back of the cave. An enormous hulking beast roars its defiance over our intrusion. It fires a sickly looking ray towards us. Slivik snarls and roars back his reply. The echo rings through out the cavern. Slivik launches himself toward the massive beast as a fireball erupts around it. While the beast is momentarily distracted by the blast of flame Slivik slams his whole weight behind the single stroke of his great sword. The splintering of bones and armor plating crackle through the cave. The telling blow had been inflicted and the fight has gone out of the monster. A few more blows resolve the second task.

As we were scouting the mountainside we had noticed the tallest peak was covered in a dark cloud with lightning flashing in it. We decide that this is the most likely place for the Roc King to reside and head there next. As we reach the summit of the peak we see a nest spanning at least 40 feet. However we see no trace of the Roc King himself. As we near the ridge of the nest we see what appears to be the remains of the Roc King torn and dead at the bottom of the nest. As we examine the corpse we find no trace of a living feather, but we do notice that spells and blades are what killed it. As we are nearly done a massive four armed gorilla scales the edge of the nest and rushes to the attack beating its chest. Having had much practice lately at fighting massive beasts it pays off and the gorilla is defeated without too much trouble.

Disappointed on missing the feather we go searching for the last task. A dark misty forest proves itself to be the Doom Shroud when we hear the sounds of singing coming from deeper in the woods. We approach a large clearing and in the middle is a massive tree with the tune seeming to emanate from it. The sound of the song overcomes several of our party and they begin heading to the tree to sit at its base. As Nallec moves in to put a stop to it it begins thrashing at him powerful limbs beating him on every side. With much difficulty we cut the tree down and as we are regaining our breath and senses we hear clapping coming from the edge of the trees.

The group we scrying on the ship heading here is moving into the clearing thanking us for completeing this part of the quest. Knowing that they have the feather we need to take them down. A powerful battle erupts with the flame skinned efreet riding a massive flaming horse riding over our heads slashing down with his scimitar. The cleric with the Hand casts some potent spells only to be foiled by sheer luck on our sorceror's side. His mount winks out of existance the duration over he plumpts to the ground. The ground collapses under him as he lands near a groggy bullette. The twins spring to the attack attempting to take out the warlock, but the tielfing falls to the blade of Nallec. The power of the other group is astounding and what is worse the cleric in the blue robe begins demanding wished from the efreet. The first wish rendering the warlocks invocations useless against them. Our warlock then turned his attention on the bullette that seemed intent on devouring the sorceror.

Just when things are not looking good for out side we hear crunching of branches as three enourmous rocks come crashing through the trees. The sharp talons and beaks begin tearing into the slayers of their king. With the reinforcements turning the tide we take down all but the cleric who pleads for his life. He offers us the feather in return for allowing him to live. Regrettably we agree, only to find that the kenku who I had already called down destruction upon was the one carrying it. Before we can verify it the cleric has departed.

Next we can access the font of knowledge and learn how to prevent the phylactery from ever being recovered.

Land Ho!

We learn that the dragon that made off with the stone at Kyuss' temple later became the powerful dracoliche Dragotha. Lashonna informed us that members of an ancient circle called the Order of the Storm disrupted Dragotha's attempts at ressurecting Kyuss and stole the liches phylactery. The phylactery has since been lost and the Order purged it from thought and history.
There may be one place where the knowledge yet remains, on a remote island where the Order kept a repository of all their knowledge. If the knowledge of the location of the phylactery is anywhere, it would be here. The island is engulfed by a terrible storm.
Lashonna admits that others have found out about the location of the island and casts a scrying spell to allow us a glimpse him. A man, Heskin, is strapped to the mast on a ship that is floundering on the enormous waves. We catch glimpses of the others on board; a pair of fiendish origin, probably tieflings, a massive fire giant, a kenku, and a being in blue robes who seems to possess the Hand of Vecna. He spots the scrying senson and he reaches out and touches Heskin on the forehead and Heskin spasms in pain before he perishes.
The scrying link broken we realize that we don't have much time. They are near the island and we cannot let them find the phylactery. We quickly devise some plans of cutting through the terrible storm as fast as possible. We decide on pacting some enormous water elementals to carry us beneath the stormy waves to the island.
Upon arrival on the storm bashed beaches we encounter the orcish sailors of the enemies boat. They have been stranded upon the island left to fend for themselves. We question them and promise to offer help in leaving the island for information on those they transported here.
We then proceed into the maze of rubble hoping to cut in front of the others.
We eventually find a huge obsidian stone with three sockets. Our warlock manages to coerce the magics to let us travel without possessing the keys. We find ourselves on a different island. This one much larger and populated with all sorts of wild animals.
We also find four beings stepping out of nearby trees. They introduce themselves as the guardians of this place and that they have four tasks for us to complete in order to gain access to the knowledge that resides on the island. The first of the tasks is to Retrieval of the Golden Belt of Krathanos. Then the trials of the Silence of the Doomshroud’s Mournful Song folowed by the Death of the Thorn Vale Nightmare amd the Harvest of the Living Feather of the Roc King. Then will we be able to access the repository of knowledge.

Ready to begin right away we decide to head off to the east and look for any signs of this Krathanos fellow. Windwalking across the sky we reach the eastern beach, so we swing to the south and travel near the coast. We spot a building with some large creatures flying above it. We land a ways from the building and proceed on foot.
Four huge displacer beast leap from the undergrowth and launch themselves at us, but their meal has turned against them. As we are wiping the grime from our armor several large gargoyles land near us and request that we follow them to their master. We proceed and are met by a massive titan named Krathanos. He is a follower of Kord and desired to rule over everything within his grasp, but the Order of the Storm inprisoned him here and obolished his ability to leave this plane. Unwilling to free what must be a dangerous being upon the world at large we decide to demand his belt and if he resists, to take it by him with force.
We learned the terrible might of an angry titan. Fortunately we were able to bring him down. The mouldering acid from eldritch blasts eating gaping holes in his flesh. As we are about to relax and investigate his lair more thoroughly we are reminded that we are not alone as up on the ridge above us perch the gargoyles armed with bows.