(Game Dates: Sept.18th/Oct.9th/Nov.27th/Dec.18th, 2016)

The planeswalkers trekked up the middle mount of Torch and after dealing with a few local encounters, met Badurth in the Festhall of Falling Coins. They handed over Giovanni's letter, but before they were given a reply Badurth expressed great interest in several members of the party.

He showed them a wanted poster with their faces on it, telling them it was printed by the Gray Orb. As a man who knows everything and everyone in town, he was unaccustomed to not knowing what was going on, and so he offered a tit-for-tat exchange of information.

After both asking and answering several questions, and taking advantage of other sources of information, the planeswalkers learned that the Gray Orb had been propped up by mysterious out-of-town backers, doubtlessly the Black Lotus, and had been moving large volumes of slaves and kidnapped sages through their fortified compound at the top of the mountain.

The planeswalkers returned to Giovanni with Badurth's written reply, where he offered them an even higher paying job; helping him with a secret mission to assault the Gray Orb. He had forged a fragile alliance with the Kindred of Yoj and the Fire Kings, and together they were planning a three-pronged assault. But the plan hinged on a surprise force getting on the other side of the wall and opening the gates from the inside without allowing them to light a signal fire and alert the Gray Orb of the intrusion. Badurth's information told of an old burial catacomb that predated the wall, and if a small force could traverse it to the other side, they could surprise attack the guards and open the gate. In exchange for their support, he offered them a full third of the take when he looted the Gray Orb headquarters.

The party agreed, and with Mosely and Lenny (other Brotherhood members) they ventured to a run down graveyard that housed these catacombs. After an encounter with the ghost of its former caretaker, and a pitched battle with a small force of Yugoloths in the catacombs proper, the group discovered a sealed-off temple to some ancient and unknown god behind a wall. Aside from the skeletal remains of a worshipper and an adamantine key (The one that we found the lock for from Donat Sanp? (27)), they found nothing else of note or value within, so they ventured forward, finding the ruins of the catacombs connected to an underground river. Splashing upstream, they discovered a well that led up to the surface, and the other side of the wall.

Taking full advantage of the element of surprise, the planeswalkers overwhelmed the guard contingent at the gates and opened them for the army hidden outside. Then, joining Giovanni's strike force, they marched through the streets of Karal and attacked the Gray Orb headquarters.

After a pitched battle against the hastily mustered Gray Orb defense force, the planeswalkers finally breached the manor house itself. There they found the leader of the Gray Orb consorting with none other than the Astrally projected form of Guildmaster Brackett, the leader of the Black Lotus. Using a strange magical cube, the Guildmaster had opened a Gate to another plane, through which Black Lotus troops were leading a column of chained slaves. Before the Gray Orb leader could join them, however, he sealed the gate, denying his pawn any escape.

The pair were guarded by a hulking monstrosity… a half-golem graft made from the remains of Raven DuBois, who launched herself at the party in a bid for revenge. She failed, and was struck down by the combined might of the planeswalking adventurers, killing her for good. Guildmaster Bracket teleported away, but with the Gray Orb routed and the leader captured, a victory against the Black Lotus had still been won.

Previous Entry | Next Entry