by Ryan "Orion" Welch
After Action Report
Events of 31 March 1018
The Cavern Offensive
Virgil Triskwater is dead.
After months of planning, the military campaign against him culminated in a final winner-takes-all battle. At noon on the last day of March, the forces of the Chimeron Militia marched on the largest entrance to the cave system to engage the enemy. Simultaneously, a well-equipped gathering of adventurers stormed a small side-cavern with the intention of crippling the Triskwater faction’s command structure and infrastructure. The Militia would drive deep into Risen Kingdom territory in order to force the enemy to commit as many of its own forces as possible to that fight. That would allow the party of adventurers to approach the most important part of Triskwater’s occupation: the portal which connected him to his home plane.
After a briefing, we drew our blades and entered the cavern. A week earlier, Militia Rangers had discovered a military command post, so that was out first objective. Our warband tore through the underground tunnels cutting down dozens of Void Abominations and Spinners. Our ruthless charge stalled briefly in a narrow and particularly well-guarded tunnel, but a division of our party managed to slip past them and capture the command post.
Once we were all at the command post, we discovered that it contained two automatons. The enemy had been using one to issue orders to its forces battling the Militia. Another was some kind of “recall” system, by which an individual could attune to a small gemstone that could later be placed on a pedestal in front of the automaton to magically whisk the attuned person back to the command post. There were also tables covered in intelligence reports and cypher keys which had been being used by Triskwater and his commanders.
Scouting reports had identified a number of potential targets for our next attack. As each location was heavily guarded, the bulk of our party would first need to clear a path to the objective, then we could dispatch a smaller specialized team to capture or destroy the target while everyone else moved on to the next push.
With the enemy’s command post now secured and working in our favor, I chose our next goal: liberating a group of imprisoned earth elementals. The hope was that they would be able to join with us and wreak even more havoc behind Triskwater’s lines. While a few people remained in the command post, I lead the rest of our forces to the reported location of the earth elementals. As expected, we encountered more Abominations and Spinners on the way and overwhelmed them with our superior numbers. Arrows and lightning hissed through the air, and were soon joined by boulders when we found portable launcher. While it was less effective against the enemy’s troops than our other projectiles, it was much more useful for knocking holes in structurally deficient walls. We got close enough to the prison-cave for Dame Twenaria and Sir Freesia to lead a small team the rest of the way to the objective, then we returned to the command post to regroup and recuperate.
Our second objective was a cave with a complex ritual circle; my Rangers had not been able to determine its purpose. As before, we would need to fight our way to the location and then dispatch a smaller group to study and destroy the circle. Unfortunately, the route to the circle was not as well scouted as the route we took to the earth elementals, so we almost immediately stumbled into an arena which was lorded over by some arrogant humanoid wearing gleaming armor and the heraldry of the Risen Kingdom. The self-proclaimed “Arena Master” watched on as a construct announced waves of monsters which swarmed us. There were poisonous snakes, wispy ghosts, angry skeletons, quick imps, and charging boars. We spent a fair amount of effort deflecting each onslaught while we parlayed with the “Arena Master” and tried to negotiate our escape. But once we had slain all of his pets, he became enraged and stormed down to the area floor from the raised grandstands where he had been watching us. Our weapons could not pierce his armor while his halberd tore through ours. We took heavy casualties, but a few of us managed to scramble into the grandstands through a barrier which the Arena Master had broken in his frustration. Among the empty stone benches, Sir Rorin found a bucket full of lava (perhaps to be used by the Arena Master to warm his lonely existence). While the surviving members of our party distracted the Master, Sir Rorin and Sir Freesia hauled the bucket across the arena and dumped its contents on him. The Arena Master burnt to a crisp in his armor and when the lava dispersed, we recovered the key that would allow us to unlock the exit.
While we were in the arena, we were able to communicate with our companions in the command post and our targeted strike-teams by way of enchanted stones which we referred to as “rockie-talkies” because each one communicated the voice of its user to all of the other stones. We discovered the stones when we first took the command post and assumed that there were no others than the four we found… but that assumption was proven to be incorrect when the voice of Triskwater himself started emanating from our stones. He realized that we had taken the command post and sent forces to recapture it. We were still trapped in the arena when the post was attacked, and the stones went silent for a while. But as we escaped, we re-established communication with the command post and learned that those who had stayed behind had repelled the attack but were cautious about using the stones now that we knew that Triskwater was listening to us.
The exit of the arena led back to the surface where we fortuitously encountered a Militia Ranger. They had been following an enemy supply caravan and told us that if we moved quickly, we could intercept it before it got back to Risen Kingdom territory. Move quickly we did; the fresh air filled our lungs and carried our steel as we came down on the lone wagon like a dragon diving at wandering cattle. To our great pleasure, we found the liberated wagon to be full of hand pies and fruit. We called a dinner break so that we could strategize for our final attack. We knew from the command and control automaton that the Militia forces now had the full attention of every Risen Kingdom unit in the area (as had been the plan). The time had come to seize the portal.
Of course we knew that we also needed to be able to control the portal. Written messages left behind in the command post indicated that the device used to manipulate the portal was vulnerable to theft. Later, when a mysterious spirit appeared and promised that it could aid our cause if a few adventurers followed it into the Dreaming, there did not seem to be a connection to the messages, but when the volunteers returned to us during the dinner break, they came bearing the portal manipulator. Despite a second attempt by the enemy to retake the command post around the same time, we quickly learned how to control the manipulator.
Our route to the portal would take us past the reported location of a depot full of raw materials, so it was decided that we would plunder the cache in case it held something that would be of use to us during the final confrontation, but the way was blocked by a giant fish-monster residing in an underground lake. Additionally, the lake hid another hazard: a spring of acid made one particular section of the lake particularly dangerous to swim through for more than a few seconds. The speed of the fish-monster and the strength of the acid combined to make a practically impassible barrier for our numbers. We could swim around the acid, but we needed to deal with the monster. We tried harpooning it with arrows, but it had little effect beyond stunning the creature. We also tried to wrangle it with colorful chains which we found near the edge of the water, but their weight proved unwieldy in the water. We finally killed the beast by luring it towards the acid spring then subjecting it to a barrage of missiles to keep it stunned for long enough for the acid to do its work. After that, we were able to swim across the lake.
After a few short skirmishes with enemy forces, we found the supply depot. Or rather, we found what used to be the supply depot. Triskwater’s forces were in retreat, and they must have taken most of their supplies with them. We did find a pile of colorful ore, which we realized could easily be manipulated to make more chains like the one we found near the lake. A handful of crafty people did so as we closed in on our ultimate objective.
The cave was dark, lit only by the evil blue outline of the portal. As I stepped into the room, I beat my sword against my shield to call Triskwater to battle, and the sound echoed deeply around the empty space. A line of Abominations and their Spinners emerged from the portal; they knew that they were the last line of defense. We heroes of the Realms met their line with our own and the sound of steel and reforged iron rung through the cavern like bells heralding death. Suddenly from the shadows, a hulking mass stirred. A terrible form took shape in the dim light: a cube-ish blob of void with two leg-like protrusions. It stood twenty feet wide and at least as tall. Anyone who went near it would get blasted with an unseen magical force that was like an omnipotent cannon. Magic missiles and lightning bolts fizzled against its body without so much as even marking it. The remaining enemy foot soldiers also seemed to keep their distance from the monstrosity, although it did not seem to target them with its blast of force.
In the upper reaches of the room, faerie spirits danced above the battle. They had been summoned by Crispin, who had taken the banner of the Militia, reversed it, and flown it as the plain green field that was the banner of Fae. Some of us went up to them and danced with them. Pleased by this, the faeries would send out waves of their own magic, which would repair our armor or shake the ground beneath our feet.
James Swift led a group of heroes to a ledge above the portal. There, with the portal manipulation device, they uttered the phrase which would bring the portal under our control. But the massive Void Monstrosity had too much magical influence over the portal, and it did not yield. We had realized though that the chains we had made could be used to stagger the Monstrosity, and in doing so, provide a window of opportunity for us to batter the thing with stones from the portable boulder launcher we had found earlier in the day. It was as tough as it was massive, but after a dozen successful hits, it finally collapsed. As soon as it fell, several people rushed back to the ledge above the portal to begin again the process of controlling the portal.
Triskwater must have been watching the battle play out from the other side of the portal because when the Monstrosity fell, he stepped across the threshold into our world. I met him only a few steps away. The strategic mastermind behind a decade-long occupation of the Chimeronian Caverns knelt before me, locked his hands behind his head, and offered his surrender.
I called for the attention of my fellow adventurers. The heroes in that room, who so bravely and graciously followed me into battle that day, witnessed as a I accepted the surrender of Virgil Triskwater.
And then I destroyed him.
Although I respected his prowess as a military commander, I do not pity him. If he had been left alive, he would have eventually found a way to escape. Instead, the Fallen King has been stripped of a valuable asset and sent an even more important message.
Don’t mess with the Realms. If you do, we’ll come kick in your door and piss in your wheaties.
Footnote:
I owe special thanks to Sir Tara, Kwido, and Caleal. Their strategic brilliance made the most out of the command and control automaton. Because of them, the rank and file of the Chimeron Militia suffered a 1.3% casualty rate, losing only 250 troops from the initial 18,700.