On the night of 1274, a full moon, while the party is at Lord Rogtymark's Keep, where D and Thor are training, G has a very vivid dream. In fact, he wakes up right afterwards, for it seemed so real. G confirms that he was wearing the ring of mind shielding that night.
You are walking, alone and exhausted through a dark tunnel,
cold rough stone walls on all sides. Elissa is in your hand, her
light guiding you deeper. In your veins, you feel the taint of venom,
temporarily slowed. You are weak, almost out of spells and the past
is a void.
Your way leads you to a single opening, choked close with thick
white webs. Dimly, you know that they are spiderwebs, and that your
way lies through them. The opening is very large, at least 20' wide,
and 20' high... Why is that important?
Using your wand, you call forth a flaming sphere. Standing back,
you send it towards the opening. The webs flare briefly, curl and
burn to a faint powdery ash. Your globe probes deeper into the
darkness and then suddenly IT is there. A huge black, armored
creature...a dread-nought (the name bubbles out of the past). The
ball of fire reflects dully in its eight deep-set eyes. The spider
moves forth and crushes the globe in its advance, seemingly unaffected
by the flames.
You slap the brooch at your breast quickly, a star, but the points
look blurred... impossible to tell how many... You are surrounded by
mirror images, four of them... The monster has crushed the sphere and
is now upon you. You hold Elissa ready.
Before it can strike, you are upon it, swinging Elissa in a
flurry. Your first stroke glances off the tough hide and your second
barely nicks it. Alone and without spells, this is clearly a losing
battle. You prepare your buckler for a parry. It lashes out in a
flurry, shredding all your images, and scoring a deep gash with a
claw. Another such hit will kill you.
A desparate plan forms in your mind. In Elissa's light, you think
you can spot a ledge behind and above the dread-spider. Activating
your boots, you leap high and hard, clearing the squat black monster.
A dizzy tumble, ending with a precarious landing. It turns
ponderously and begins to haul itself up onto the boulders, trying to
reach you. You wait until it is almost upon you, and then tumble
down, every bruise bringing you closer to death. Before the spider
can follow your move, you are sprinting away. And as you run, you
hear the heavy footfalls of the guardian...following.
Streck, the leader of the Nirduk Clan until his recent disappearance, had a similar, but not identical, dream on the same night. (The other members of the Nirduk Clan had dreams as well.) The main differences were:
On the night of 1288, a new moon, while the party is at Lord Rogthermal's Keep, resting before the werewolf mission, G has another vivid dream.
You are kneeling, alone and exhausted in a dark cavern, cold
rough stone walls on all sides. Elissa is in your hand, her light
illuminating your surroundings. In your veins, you feel the taint of
venom, temporarily slowed. You are weak, almost out of spells and the
past is a void.
In front of you lies an open chest, filled with coins, jewels and
gems. A memory tugs at you... weren't you are seeking something? You
prod the treasure with a wand, sifting through the riches, wary of
danger. You keep glancing back, at a single large passageway, dark
yet filled with thick white webs.
Greed overcomes caution, and you decide to sort through it all
later. Estimating that your bag of holding is of sufficient capacity,
you shovel handfuls of treasure into the sack. Elissa comments that
priests rarely realize that a wizard's spells never come for free.
Among the gems lies one of unusual worth: a dodecahedron, blood-red
and glassy smooth, about the size of a plum. Before you can stop
yourself, it is in your hand.
The dodecahedron feels warm to the touch, and pulses with a slow
beat before cracking open to reveal a horrible inky darkness at its
core. With one smooth motion, you drop the broken gem, and move the
sack to your belt. Tiny red spiders are flooding out of the blackness
-- a gate?
You doubt that your "burning hands" spell will harm these; best to
leave. Quickly you begin to read your scroll of "teleport", spiders
already leaping onto your clothing. You finish the spell in a flurry
of words, aiming for your memorized spot. The spiders keep coming,
but the familiar wrenching takes you away.
You arrive in what looks like a mage's lab (your own?). But your
eyes are drawn to the carpet of red on your leg --- the spiders have
hitched a ride. The fireballs explode in the confined space and hear
laughter in your mind before the darkness comes.
Once again, Streck had almost the same dream on the same night (and the other Nirduks had dreams as well). The differences this time were:
In any case, the Spiders seem to be biding their time, and the high elves seem to have degenerated into politics as usual, so there's no telling when something might come of all this.