After arriving at the dwarven outpost by caravan, the party sought guidance from the Raven Queen by praying at her shrine. Wether it was truly the will of the deity, or a misinterpretation of it, the party soon found itself inside Winterhaven's fortress . There they were granted audience with none other than General-Commander Onyxbeard himself, by privilege of having one of his sons with them. The General-Commander directed them to aid Winterhaven's cause by joining up with a squad under the command of a Dragonborn warlord by the name of Bharash.
After arriving at the dwarven outpost by caravan, the party sought guidance from the Raven Queen by praying at her shrine. Wether it was truly the will of the deity, or a misinterpretation of it, the party soon found itself inside Winterhaven's fortress . There they were granted audience with none other than General-Commander Onyxbeard himself, by privilege of having one of his sons with them. The General-Commander directed them to aid Winterhaven's cause by joining up with a squad under the command of a Dragonborn warlord by the name of Bharash.
Bharash joined the party and together they ventured out in a small task force, consisting of just the four beginning heroes, into the Pass of Despair. The place deserved the name, as it was nothing but a frozen death trap riddled by the scars of battle. Bravely fighting their way through the pass, our heroes soon bumped into a squad of Duergar and managed to infiltrate their ranks to gain valuable information. Alas, this is where things started going downhill for the brave heroes. Rincestorm, the mage of the group, did not agree with the secrecy of their true objective regarding the Duergar, as known only by Oglin and perhaps Bharash as well, and bought passage on a caravan away from Winterhold.
Despite their loss, the party decided to go on with just the three of them and soon found themselves in a vast network of tunnels they had accessed with the help of Bharash's knowledge of the surrounding area, as they were smart enough to avoid the main entrance into Duergar territory. Eventually they bumped into the Duergar stronghold (later to be revealed as a forward trading post) known as the Horned Hold. The fortress consisted of three towers spanning over a chasm of unknown origin or depth, connected by 2 bridges. The heroes attempted to sneak closer, but failed in their effort and were forced into a straight out assault on the first tower.
While Rincestom spent his time meditating during his stay with the caravan, his fellow heroes found themselves battling through the first tower of the Horned Hold only to find out that their lack of numbers and perhaps experience with warfare could prove them fatal and so they decided to abandon the assault. Luckily for them, just as they were about to be pushed back, reinforcements arrived from Winterhaven to cover their retreat. They were informed that Winterhaven's forces had secured the pass and that they were ordered to hold ground there until further orders. The Shield of Morradin was also present and they brought the heroes a mysterious message: 'The king has left open the door' without offering further explanation except for the fact that the heroes should move further down the tunnels.
With little other choice, and without back-up of the Dwarves, our heroes once again risked an assault on the towers. Alas, Oglin and Bharash ended up as Duergar captives after an heroic attempt to challenge the Duergar leader and his guards. Aleera managed to escape the Duergar's clutches, however, and with a combination of stealth and cunning managed to break her comrades out of jail before any harm could come to them. With rekindled hope and the Horned Hold in disarray the heroes managed to battle their way through at long last.
In the meanwhile, Rincestorm received a troubling vision from someone claiming to be a member of the Mages of Saruun, a group of magi located in a secret headquarters inside the mountain range amidst a cavern named the Seven-pillared Hall. There they served as guardians of a trading outpost in return for free reign during their research there. With the same cryptic messae as was gotten by his former party members and the means of returning to Winterhaven provided in the vision, Rincestorm still refused to cooperate. The mysterious contact resorted to mental torture and the mage found himself with no other choice but to accept the offer and teleport over to the Mages of Saruun.
After a brief stay in the Seven-pillared hall, where he was treated with strange hospitality despite his mysterious message and arrival, Rincestorm found himself pulled through a rip in space-time and back in the company of the other heroes. Reluctant he helped them clear out the last obstacles in the fortress and once again united, the party made its way to the Seven-pillared Hall. There it was explained to them the rip in space-time was not an unfortunate accident, but a side-effect of something far greater. Someone or something had created a breach in between planes, a portal if you will, that was causing upsetting fluctuations in the fabric of reality itself. Accepting the task of retrieving an artifact in nearby ruins that the Mages of Saruun claimed could help seal the breach, the heroes once more found themselves thrown into adventure!
Inside the ruins our heroes bumped into the den of the Bloodreavers, a clan of goblin slavers that had claimed part of the ruins as their home. Using deceit, they managed to get inside and quickly clear out the den without much trouble. In the den's great hall, the Chamber of Eyes, which unmistakingly once served as a shrine to Torog. This vile deity of torture and imprisonment, driven to insanity and hate for all life on the surface due to uncountable years of suffering, was also known as the King Who Crawls. Despite some initial debate, the party managed to deduce that the king from their message was in fact, Torog. The message turned out to be a hint to open a secret passage in the shrine, which lead the heroes deeper into the ruins and onwards to more mysteries and adventure.
Inside the deeper ruins, the heroes found the place littered with corpses. Many of those belonging to mages from the Order of Saruun. Not only that, but they found themselves assaulted by both the corpses turned undead and a hive of Kruthik that had made the old ruins their home. Bravely fighting their way through, the heroes found themselves wading through the blood and remains of their foes, for not even a swarm of Krutnik would slow down our valiant heroes on their quest to save Winterhold, and perhaps even the world! In another shrine dedicated to Torog, the heroes came into the possesion of a vial filled with an strange liquid. Not trusting their mage's knowledge of potions and his claim that it were a potion of invulnerability, the party safely tucked it away for now.
Soon after their previous encounters, the party ran into a pair of guardian golems and a set of forcefields. In the battle the party was given reason for doubting their ranger's allegiance to them, but nonetheless they prevailed and managed to avoid another break-up of the party. Behind the forcefields the heroes encountered a strange old man shackled to the floor and trapped in a null-magic field. Despite some attempts, they couldn't break through the field and interrogation failed to bring out any real information out of the man except for the fact he was captured by the Order of Saruun some time ago and that he was the guardian of these ruins, which were in fact the remnants of a temple. Not only that, but he revealed there to be an artifact somewhere further in the temple complex. Leaving the man behind for now with no real intent to free him, the party instead went forward to collect their sought after artifact.