The Beast Tamers’ Lost Last Door

• Characters: Hlinthi, Krullix, Pardonei, Trizoon, V.L.
• NPCs: Kirken Trumpetnose, Julbin Cometstrike, Wa’Oolum, Mintassin the Planeswalker
• Synopsis: Julbin’s brownie assistant Kirken Trumpetnose tracks down Pardonei, Hlinthi, and V.L., requesting their presence in Julbin Cometstrike’s hut. Before entering, a depressed Alyssic is exiting, providing the barest of greetings. Inside they are met with the clear-minded Julbin who escorts them down a flight of stairs to the tunnels below the town of Threshold. Swiftly navigating the serpentine corridors, Julbin uses the protective medallions to ward off the Underdark sentries of the tunnels. Ultimately the group finds themselves atop a free-floating bridge that rotates back and forth down the purple worm tunnel before resting at an unremarkable spot. Julbin magicks them an entrance to the newly refurbished guild hall of the Naturalists. Pardonei’s questions are partly answered, but the sage of Threshold asks for his daughter’s patience before the big reveal. In the guild hall control and conference room, they find the napping Trizoon who sparks to life seeing his friends arrive. Julbin rings a silent bell summoning Wa’Oolum the guild hall caretaker and the Westgate exile Mintassin the Planeswalker. As the group gathers around the diamond-shaped meeting table, Julbin recaps the one of the last missions of the guild before it was murdered from within. A guild member named Rordic was tasked with implanting a magic device in the region of the Eastern Shaar. This adamantine “seed” would mature and allow an invisible portal to be established by guild members to all them to travel to the location through the massive mirror portal in the hunting foyer. Rordic never returned, but before an expedition could be mounted the guild was destroyed. Now that the guild has been rebooted they are tying up a few loose ends. Julbin needs the seed recovered. Mintassin and Trizoon have been scouting the region and gathering information in the halfling city of Delzimmer and the pair believes it has found the right spot to begin looking. The disheveled Mintassin is more focused on another task as Julbin requests that the party departs immediately. The sage is working in tandem with Alyssic to achieve adjacent goals simultaneously. Agreeing to the task the party adopts the adventurer Krullix to their cause and leave for Delzimmer. Traveling through the portal, the group finds the quest more a vacation. Gone is the snow and ice. Delzimmer offers fresh fruit, vegetables and meat. The bustling city is so far removed from the war of the Dragon Coast that the adventurers are tempted to stay longer than needed. After their first taste of beef stew in months, Trizoon procures horses and they set out for their destination: a tower that has sunk into the land near the base of the Toadsquat Mountains. A swift ride finds them at the tower. Krullix trips a trap upon entering but Hlinthi is quick with the remedy to neutralize the poison. The upper floor of the leaning tower is home to a raging hag that is quickly killed. Traversing through the squatter’s home they find a poorly hidden ladder to a dungeon below. The first chamber encountered is a map room, but the smooth actions of the now beguiler Krullix draw out the guardians, two armor-laden constructs capable of engaging multiple aspects. One at a time, fire, armor and death is stacked upon the sentries as they call out in Undercommon to an unknown deity named Thoon. But the adventurers utilize the bottlenecked stairwell to their advantage and soon both guardians are destroyed. The map room contains miniature representations of the City of Delzimmer and another city Hlinthi recalls as Deepburrow, another halfling run city with direct access to the Underdark through a deep ravine that runs through the center of the city. Several buildings of the terra cotta are illuminated but no other details can be extracted. Moving on, the barred double doors are magicked open once again by Krullix, but two mind flayers stand in their path surprising the adventurers. Mind blasts rip through the room and all but Trizoon and V.L. are caught, stunned in the illithids’ psionic trap. V.L. fights off the tentacled attack, breaking away from one after the other while crashing his great sword through his enemies. Trizoon offers support with his rapier, hoping to hold out long enough for the others to regain control. The violence in V.L. is unleashed and before the others can blink the mind flayers are flayed. The two Underdark dwellers came from a shrine. Sitting atop an altar is a green-glowing cube, floating and rotating at a slow pace. Determined to destroy this “Thoon” Hlinthi smashes it to bits with his war hammer of shock and thunder. But the sundering is almost too much to bear as the gnome can feel his soul peal away from the Material Plane. But by Garl Glittergold’s good graces, Hlinthi stands tall and repels the psychic attack. Krullix discovers a hidden cache of treasure and more stairs leading further into the depths. After a quick sort, the rogue finds what they have been looking for, and what has been lost to the Beast Tamers for a tenyear: the portal seed. Enough with the dungeon, the party retreats to Delzimmer riding swiftly through the night and returning to the guild hall of the Naturalists with the much sought after prize.
• Encounters: trapped sunken tower, annis hag barbarian, 2 Thoon soldiers, 2 mind flayers of Thoon
• Achievements: witnessed the new guild hall of the Naturalists, traveled to the halfling city of Delzimmer, found the sunken tower, uncovered mock-ups of the cities Delzimmer and Deepburrow, recovered the Beast Tamers’ portal seed.