Heroes of Silvermoon, Chapter 10: Through the Underdark

Contents:

1. The Cultist
2. Arena Games
3. Phoenix Sorcery
4. The Half-Moon Crucible
5. Castle Mistamere
6. Bringing Back the Dead
7. The Curse of House Lightwalker
8. Captured
9. Far from Home
10. Through the Underdark
11. A New Port of Kings

The Tale of the Heroes of Silvermoon

Chapter 10: Through the Underdark

Sigil Bane, the son of King Bane and a world-famous bard, befriended the adventurers and helped them in several of his father's missions. Though Rhogar disliked his chaotic demeanor, the rest of the group, especially Ari, grew close to him as they adventured together. One day, Sigil invited the group to one of his performances that he assured would be very informative. Rhogar came as an official guard for the event, while the others watched from the crowd (with the exception of Gorthuk, who caused some trouble for sneaking around using the gaseous form ability of Azulius's cowl).

On the surface, the play seemed merely entertaining, but Laureal Strongborn, the daughter of General Richard Strongborn and former lover of Sigil, urged the adventures to read between the lines of the play. To some of them, it was clear that the play was actually a veiled history of the kingdom, showing how King Bane had seized power through terrible means and was not the kindly leader he seemed. After the performance, Laureal and Sigil revealed to the group that they were members of a secret paladin order called the Order of the Tree of Life. They asked for the adventurers' oath of confidentiality in helping them root out and expose King Bane's corruption.

The performance angered King Bane, who put his son under house arrest. The shape in the sky was revealed to be an interdimensional ship piloted by githzerai, an alien people who hated mind flayers and were on a rrokma, or hunt that was a rite of passage for young githzerai. With the githzerai's help, King Bane authorized the launch of an invasion against the growing menace of the mind flayers within the caverns. He lent the group some of his most powerful magic items and prepared for war.

The king's soldiers rushed into the caverns, paving the most direct path to the mind flayers' inner sanctum, sealing off all exits into the mountain except one. The adventurers made their way through the caverns, killing mind flayers and their thralls en masse. As they neared the mind flayers' elder brain, they miraculously ran into Nysae, who had in the intervening years apart from the party grown feral with the wilds and had learned druidic magic. She helped them pave a way to the mind flayers' leader, though Luna unfortunately had her brain sucked out by a mind flayer in the process and fell.

With heavy casualties on both sides and through the help of the githzerai, the way to the elder brain finally opened. Rhogar rushed in, hacking away at the elder brain with all his strength, withstanding psychic assaults from all sides. Ari and Gorthuk destroyed many mind flayers as they defended Rhogar and did as much damage to the elder brain as they could when they had a chance. Just when the elder brain was about to shift to another plane as an escape, Rhogar landed the final blow to kill it, rendering the entire mind flayer colony mindless and scattered. Victory was theirs.