Today will be sunny with a chance of tornado.

We return to the rift. This time we summon forth a powerful wind storm to help clear the fog so we can see where we are going. The fog peels away in layers like an onion being shredded. As we look down through the cleared chasm we see a massive fortress built in the middle. I feel a tugging in my head pushing me toward the NW branch of the chasm. We decide to investigate the fortress first.

The place is old. Thick rust coated porticullis block our entrance, but with some effort we wrench it open. Woken from their slumber just inside the next set of gates are two massive, mutated hydras. Eight scaled heads surround a massive fanged maw in the beast's chest. Unphased we wade into the swarm of snapping heads. A short while later one of the beasts lies crumpled on the ground and for the keep a figure emerges. He calls off the remaining thesla-hydra and demands to know what we want.
As he approaches we notice that it is a liche, probably the ancient wizard Thesla himself who created the abominations we faced. We question him about Dragotha and he laughs.
Go to your doom if you wish, but you would do best to leave while you still can.
We manage to persuade him to give us more useful advice by opting to not tear his little keep apart.
A short ways away a massive hole in the chasm floor drops down and that is the entrance to Dragotha's lair. I still have this pulling desire to head to the NW so we decide to check that out before we decend down to Dragotha.

The northwest branch leads to a cave entrance. A hidden drop awaits us at the entrance and a cavern filled with green and white centipedes that flow through the wall that ripple around them.
Definitely warped by Kyuss these things are and it is only bound to get worse.
As we head farther in some black three tailed scorpions skitter close and attempt to attack, but we don't give them the chance. During the fight we were sounds of spell casting coming from a side branch.
As we pass down the side path towards the casting a field washes over us and peels several layers of spells from our wardings. We press through as the field seems to require some time to recharge, but it catches at least a few others as we go.
Around the bend a mirror imaged massive worm clinging to the ceiling amid a cloud of whispy tentacles. It looks to be a somewhat larger version of the worm we fought in the arena, but this one is casting spells. Its foul sucker mouth intones a chant that leeches the moisture straight from our bodies.
As Slivik launches throught the air at it he find nothing but air as his blade passes through where the beast seemed to be. Xaan attempts to dispel its array of wards only to find that his incantation is turned back upon him. A tricky one it seems. But tricks will only get you so far and we have a lot more tricks up our sleeves. Moonbrook's volleys quickly diminsh the distracting images and with its defenses dropping more of Slivik's swings begin to have thier desired effect.
Beyond the worm a chamber lies and I am pulled to a small sack. As we pick up the sack we get images of Tenser's associate who was investigating the fissure rolling through our head. Other lost knowledge also seems to appear out of no where. It seems like part of him has some unfinished business to do here. The pulling sensation moves and we go to investigate where it leads next.

Where evil hides

After regrouping and recovering in Greyhawk, we make our way to the Wormcrawl Fissure.
A canyon etched into the earth far beyond what we can comprehend. Thick oscuring fog hangs in the air a thousnad feet below us as we peer down the edge of the cliffside. We are not ever going to find anything down there in that mess.

We decide to start at the beginning and descend to the opening of the fissure. As we enter the cloud everything seems so far away. We keep one hand on the person beside us to ensure that we don't get lost in the fog. After what seems like hour trudging through the darkness Moonbrook holds up her hand in an attempt to halt our advance. Unfortunately no one can see her gesture. Her keen elven ear detect a voice in the fog ahead. Its vocalizations muffled into a dull drone.

We begin to spread out hopeful that we will be able to find each other again. The voice continues for a while as we try and approach it. Zinzo unleashes a fireball into the fog hoping to flush the thing out. A sudden powerful gust of wind coupled with a searing blast of flames disclose the ancient red dragon we spied attacking the giant fortress.

Another dragon with mottled hide and a fang filled maw loped near the giant red. As we face off against the red dragon, the fang dragon launches itself upon our mages. The terrible bites sap the vitality straight from your bones. A few snaps and Xaan collapses to the ground. Zinzo narrowly escapes the deadly fangs. He dimension doors close by me seeking healing. As Nallec and Slivik are dealing with the red dragon effectively I move over and restore some of the vitality to Zinzo.

The fang dragon was not to be disuaded, it bounds over to us and begins rending through my armor. The flashes of light as its claws and fangs tear through my protective mantle. I frantically try and keep myself concious. The dragon is relentless and the last I see is its fangs clamping down on me once more. Zinzo also mauled by the dragon is able to grab ahold of my arm and gesture. Both of us appear hundreds of feet away from the battle. Zinzo begins pulling out healing potions in an effort to staunch the flow of blood onto the ground. We bought the others enough time to take down the red as they are able to turn to the blood soaked fang dragon.

We fall back to recooperate as I meditate to call Xaan back to life. We need to keep pressure on Dragotha and his minions so they are not able to escalate whatever plans they are working on. Hopefully the fog does not return by the time we do.

That wasn't so bad

We know the name of the phylactery's location, Koner Thulner.
We visit Tenser to peruse his library to locate this location. What we discover is that all sorts of ancient knowledge that was locked away has been revealed. Books now contain knowledge that they did not before. We realize that Dragoth and his minions may very well already know, or at least soon will the location of the phylactery.

We locate the city of Koner Thuler as being in the chasms in the bandit kingdoms. A hop, skip, and air walk later and we are overlooking a massive city sculpted out of the cliffside. However we also see that massive dragons are assaulting the giant defenders. We see a particularily massive red dragon attacking the central part of the city. Not wanting to thrust ourselves into this battle, but rather wanting to get the phylactery and get out we opt to go to the southern most tower and inquire there.

As we solidify on the terrace near the large doors we are spotted by several blue dragons that quickly wing toward us. Three fire giants manning war machines are to preoccupied to answer our questions. As the dragons belch forth lightning we return fire. Arrows digging in between the scales and sinking to the fletching. Acid gouts corrode through even the hard dragon scales. Slivik's powerful wings carry him straight to the first incoming blue and he throws all his weight into a single powerful stroke causing scales to be rent from the dragon's hide. The dragon drops quickly. The other younger dragon is driven off by the terrific damage it has taken. As the elder blue closes in we spot another dragon that is creeping along the crenelations of the fortificated wall. A green dragon nearly invisible against the stone. It launches to attack once it realizes that we have spotted it. She circles above and gouts a cone of acid over nearly the entire group. Finishing up the younger of the blue dragons we are able to turn our full attention to this new comer and with powerful strokes we cut the flight from its wings. The elder blue finally decides to join in the fun and attacks Slivik, but Slivik's dragon hard scales hold off the worst of the brunt. The elder blue lashes out viciously, but Slivik's own attacks deal thier own terrible wounds on the massive dragon. With only the one target left and all our fire power focused on it, the dragon's fate is inevitable.

With the distraction out of the way we are able to get a few words out of the defending giants.
They call for their leader to talk with us. We explain why the dragons are attacking in such great quantities and that if we can get to the phylactery and destroy it the dragons will have no reason beyond spite to continue their assault. Their leader instantly dismisses our request to enter the keep and search for the phylactery. He seems terribly offended by the accusation that they would be guarding something so dear to a dragon. We finally manage to persuade him to escort a single one of our group to locate the phylactery. Using a locating spell Nallec proceeds with his giant escort into the twisting hallways of the keep. His spell leads him to infront of the giant's main vault, flanked by some ancient undead giants. The escort refuse to open the vault to let him in.

Nallec dimension doors back out to the landing and we decide that we have given the giants enough opportunities to play nice with us, but they refuse. We teleport back to in front of the main vault. The escorts are still there and attack. During the battle the ancient undead giants are woken from their slumber by a stray disintegration spell hitting one. The leader and one of his best dragon slayers soon join the battle, but are struck down. Investingating the vault door it shows the depiction of us guarding the Order of the Storm druids against Kyuss's horde. As we are investigating it a ghostly figure emerges from the door. The ghost of the young farmer boy Alaster back in Diamond Lake speaks saying that we know the ritual of opening and we need only find the keys to unlock the resting place of Dragotha's phylactery.

Searching the fire giant leader reveals one of the two keys that we require. Another divination reveals the other key to be in the lower section of the cliffside city area. Shifting back to mist we fly over the city to get a better pin pointing of the exact location. As we locate a massive ladder heading down we hear a familiar voice calling out to us. As we look around we spot the Fool from the banquet waving us over to him. We learn that he has been trying to find our group so that he can craft the tale of the exploits of the Green Lady. Some of the group seems a bit uneasy with letting him follow us, but I figure we have more important things at hand than quarreling over letting this bard follow us.

We proceed down in the direction that Nallec's spell is pointing us. It leads to a rusty iron door. Zinzo promptly disintegrates the door. Moonbrook steps inside the doorway to look around and immediately a steel cage drops from the ceiling over her and a foul liquid sprays down from above. She manages to avoid most of the spray. Slivik and Nallec begin removing the bars from the cage as several troglodytes emerge from a door to the right. Moonbrook quickly dispatches four of them with a single volley and a fireball eliminates the rest huddled in the room beyond.
We continue down the hall and come to a room with a hill giant wearing banded mail. After a quick fight we convince him to tell us where the key is and in return we will spare him. He tells us that he threw it down into the cadaver pit and points down a dark corridor behind him.

As we make our way down the foul smelling corridor it opens up into a cavern with metal grating suspended for walking platforms. Underneath between the grating you can see the floor is covered in writhing green tentacled worms. Hundreds of the undulate below us and we pass overhead towards the key. The spell leads us to a massive cavern away from the living carpet of worms. The floor in this area is covered in mold, bones and every other bit of refuse immaginable. The spell indicates that the key is buried in there near the other end of the cavern.

As we decend to search for it the ground below bulges and then erupts as the largest worm ever bursts forth. Eight tentacles ring its tooth filled mouth and it lashes its tentacles out at us. The lashes sting terribly and our sorceror and archer are instantly paralyzed from the ichor of the tentacles. As Slivik carries the paralyzed ones out of reach of the colossal worm Nallec notices that the key is not buried in the refuse, it is inside this thing. So he begins hacking into the flesh of this massive thing. Once in safety I call upon the power of Wee Jas to purge the paralysis from our group. I then make my way back to Slivik and Nallec to lend them what aid I can. The worm proves extremely resistant to damage and resilient to spells as many are just rolling off of its back. Frustrated the sorceror summons a massive centipede to lend aid. The worm seems annoyed by the huge intruder and immediately turns its attention to the centipede, but the terrible lashing tentacles soon tear the insect into pieces and it turns its attention back on us. However that moment of distraction was all that was needed to heal the terrible wounds our fighters were taking. The sorceror then began hurling potent balls of lightning at the beast which burned into its flesh. Finally the realization of the terrible wounds it had been dealt catches up with the dim witted beast and it collapses to the floor. Exhausted we know that we can't pause for too long as we cut open the worm to find the key.

Both keys in hand we teleport back to the vault. As we insert the keys we recall the ritual of opening and recite the ancient words. The vault doors spring to life and open revealing a room with a dragon statue raised up on a dais. The statue is holding the phylactery in its rib bones. The Fool dimensional hops over to the statue and begins looking at it intensly. The rest of us move toward the statue as well. Suspicious Moonbrook heads along the wall and trains an arrow at the Fool in case he betrays us.
As we reach the phylactery we notice another visitor to the chamber. The cleric we fought on the druid's library island. It seems he is determined to obtain the phylactery. Just as Slivik grabs the box we hear whispering throughout the room and the Fool explodes in a spray of worms. The sorceror is coated with them and the instantly disappear beneath his skin. Nallec cuts the traitorous Fool into pieces as we regroup with the box. As I purge the worms from Zinzo's body we teleports us to the druid's island. Slivik drops the phylactery and begins smashing it. We notice a scrying sensor appear and Slivik looks up at it and smiles and he lands another powerful blow upon the cursed box reducing it to splinters. The sensor disappears and we wait anticipating retribution, but it does not come.

We have done it! Dragotha's phylactery is destroyed. He must be furious, but he is now killable.