Three grinned as he stepped through the portal to find Isaka zooming toward him. The reunion was almost enough to salve his wounded soul.

Only Alustriel was present, her back turned. She looked around in surprise. “So soon? But you’ve only been gone mere minutes.”

“You mean weeks?” Three said.

“Days,” Eli corrected, settling down to polish off the food that remained from their departure.

“It’s been two and a bit days,” Idris, ever accurate, recorrected. He glanced at the food and frowned.

“Not here it hasn’t. Someone is playing games,” Alustriel said. “Tasha and Mordenkainen left immediately after you and I had only just stepped away.”

“Are you fearing that the portals are being interfered with by you-know who?”

“No. I worry that time is being interfered with. Did you succeed?”

“We did,” Idris said brandishing the more-complete Rod.

Alustriel looked even more shocked. “Well done. There is no stopping you it seems, time be damned.”

“We also dispelled a lich. We didn’t find the…” Idris hesitated, lost for the term.

“Phylactery? Which lich?”

“Acererak,” Three muttered.

“Acererak?!” Alustriel shook her head. “He’s back?”

“Well he’s gone again,” Idris said. Marko nodded to Idris, who dropped the hole so Makro could pull the skull out with a beaming smile.

Alustriel looked horrified, stepping back with hands raised. “You brought him here?? You are mad! Is he in there?”

“Why don’t you see for yourself,” Marko said placing the skull on the table. Alustriel approached with great care, muttering a spell under her breath as she circled the accursed skull. She visibly relaxed a moment later. “He’s not present. But be careful—”

“Are you saying he survives somewhere back there?” Three interrupted.

“If you didn’t find the phylactery, then yes. He will return, as he always done. Acererak is very reliable that way.”

“What about that other eye gem? Is it magic?”

“Other?” Alustriel said. “There is no magic there. The teeth however…that is where Acererak would trap souls. It is impressive that you were not trapped.”

“That would not have gone well,” Uthar groaned, thinking back to the moment Marko was felled.

Idris glanced over to Three. “We should explain the ‘other’ part?”

Three sighed. “The creature…Acererak…to dispel it, I prayed to my god. And destroyed it’s eye.”

“What do you mean it had ‘an eye’?” Alustriel’s face darkened.

“Its other eye socket had a quite tough living eye.”

Alustriel paled.

“But our holy man here—”

“Brother Cooper the Devourer,” Eli said through a mouthful of rockmelon.

“He turned it to ash. Which I understand was probably no small feat.”

“I called upon my god and it was destroyed,” Three explained.

“Which god?” Alustriel said coldly.

“Kelemvor.”

“Are you sure it is destroyed?”

“Oh it’s destroyed,” Idris said confidently. “The ash is smeared down Three’s face.”

“I’m wearing what is left of it,” Three said boldly, showing his ash-strewn face.

Alustriel took a step back.

“You don’t have to be scared. I ate most of it. This is nothing.”

“Are you playing games, Three?”

“It was destroyed.”

“By Kelemvor.”

“Yes. The god of grace.”

Alustriel looked over to Eli, who was glaring at her with his own evil eye. “Did you witness this?”

“Do you doubt him!” Eli cried, full of religious fervour.

“Did you witness this, Eli?” Alustriel repeated.

“I witnessed the act!”

“Everyone was there,” Three protested.

“And did you feel Kelemvor, Eli?”

Eli held her gaze. “I felt Father Cooper. The Devourer.”

“Be careful who you worship.”

“I saw something,” Sifer interjected. “It was just a flicker but it appeared to be.”

The tension was broken as Alustriel broke Eli’s determined gaze.

“What I am more worried about is the phylactery,” Three said. “We could not have searched the tomb more thoroughly.”

“Acererak has many, many tombs. It could be anywhere,” Alustriel sighed. “I doubt he would leave his most precious item in that tomb. That is not a tomb he frequents—he would have been surprised to be called back there. He likes to toy with people.”

“In any case we’re going to extract the gems from this and then pulverise the skull,” Idris explained.

“Where are your friends?” Eli said gnawing a threadbare bone as Isaka looked on mournfully.

“As you know they departed shortly after you after you goaded them into action after feeling they were too passive, Eli. Mordenkainen has gone to find Kas, because you would not, and Tasha…we will talk about her journey when she returns.” Alustriel looked around the company. “She left me instructions if you were to return before she did. As she told you, her research uncovered not one but two locations on Oerth. You have obviously found one, but that does not discount the fact that the other may still hold a second piece.”

“I’d forgotten all about that,” Eli admitted.

“Even if it is not there, there must be a reason both possibilities manifested. I would suggest you pursue that second path as we await Tasha’s return. However, as you have made quite clear, you are men of your own destiny so you may also choose to do whatever you wish. Did you find anything in the tomb that may guide you elsewhere?”

“We found a map,” Idris said pulling it out from the hole.

“An Acererak map?” Alustriel said, almost smiling as she took the map. “‘The true treasure’,” she read, “On the Isle of Serpents?”

“We think it’s a trick,” Three said. “Is that a place known to you?”

“It is indeed a real place. Also on Oerth, hundreds of miles from the tomb you have just looted.”

“Is this the second location Tasha found?”

“It is not. But that doesn’t mean that it’s not relevant.”

“It’s a trap but that does not mean it’s not productive,” Sifer nodded.

Alustriel passed the map back. “A sinkhole has opened below Kas’s old fortress, long abandoned though the nearby townships in the Crystalmist Mountains have survived these many years.”

“Kas? Who Mor-deck-a-hane seeks?”

“Mordenkainen, Eli, has gone to the dark realm where Kas is imprisoned. The Dark One’s arch enemy.”

“Which is not Oearth?”

“Kas is imprisoned on a Domain of Dread called Tovag. Not Oearth.”

“Is everywhere on this Oearth world as abhorrent as this ‘Tomb of Horrors’?”

“I’ve heard bad things about the Isle of Serpents,” Alustriel deadpanned.

Everyone retreated for the evening, recovering in their various ways.

Eli ran anywhere he could until he was exhausted. Marko extracted the gems from the skull, marvelling at each. Idris counted and identified the takings from the Tomb, grinning despite himself when he found most of the coin had turned from platinum to copper, and thousands of gems turned to lumps of misshapen quartz. He was right about the weapons: cursed, dangerously so. Three treated Ikasa to his best treats and followed his rituals of cleansing. And the military men, Uthar and Sifer, simply rested.

The following morning Alustriel gathered the company. “Gentlemen, have you made your decision?”

“The sinkhole—we think the map is a trick,” Three said.

“Everything else in the lich’s tomb was a trick, a curse, so why not the map too,” Idris nodded.

“The answer to me is clear: you go to one and if it’s not there you go to the next,” Sifer said. “The Rod knows where it’s pieces are, so let’s go there. The tomb obfuscated the power of the Rod to find itself.”

“I am glad you have made the sensible decision. The Rod points to Oearth, and not to Acererak’s isle. Choosing that may have lessened my faith in you somewhat. But you are welcome to pursue it whenever you wish.”

“Thanks,” Three frowned.

Alustriel turned to Idris. “This may be particularly testing for you, Idris. Tasha believes a mindflayer cult of Ilvaash is using the Rod to transform some of Greyhawk into a new Mind Flayer empire.”

Idris’s face changed from it’s usual laconic countenance, to stone, to glowering hatred as Alustriel spoke. The last time the company had seen anything like that was when the flayer had appeared in the remnants of the Lambent Zenith when fighting the heart wyrm.

“The nearby townships are undergoing foul transformations—eyes sprouting in strange places, faces melting—and many are afflicted by strange maladies. Deep Speech has spread throughout, and some have an unsettling tendency to babble about ‘the coming ascendance’. Mordenkainen assisted Tasha and detected something else worrying: traces of a Netherese artefact, a dark obelisk pulsing with barely contained power. And an anomaly we can’t easily penetrate. They believe the Rod piece may be being used to power that artefact. The portal will land you at the closest point we can find to the anomaly.”

Silence greeted Alustriel’s proclamation as the company absorbed it, Sifer rising to his feet at the ready. Eli raised his hand. “Is this all new information you didn’t bother telling us before, or you learnt since, or?”

“Bothered? I explained your options, asked you which you would take based on your own efficacy, as you like to put it. And now I have bothered to explain in more detail after your decision was made. Nothing was hidden.”

“Eli? It doesn’t matter,” Idris said softly.

“Idris says it doesn’t matter,” Eli said turning away.

Alustriel walked to the portal and activated it. “Travel well, my friends.”

Session played February 9, 2025