NBHK, This week we journeyed to The Demon Wastes to stop a ritual being perpetrated by The Closed Circle to open a portal to Xoriat. Prior teams had discovered the Closed Circle’s plans, and so we split into multiple groups to journey to various locations across the continent and shut down their portals. We rode an airship to Maruk’dar, the entrypoint of the Demon Wastes. Izana, Cypress’ bodyguard, journeyed with us and traded with the Orcs in town to secure us safe passage.

We entered a maze with the orcs’ assistance, stating a virtue that would be used as our lifeline if we needed to make a quick getaway. We had to bypass several traps and obstacles, including a chasm full of spiders and pillars to jump across, and sneaking past meat homunculus dragons. We had to solve a music puzzle involving notes written in primordial, the lyrics were as follows. “When the head is reared & the heavens choke, its blood shall stain the land- the beast is born: Madness infinite.”

After solving that puzzle and getting a magic harmonica, we encountered a large snake and tricked it into going down the hole it was guarding so that we could follow. After realizing that the snake had its eyes and ears sewn shut, we healed it and Sasha befriended it, naming it Geoffrey.

We encountered another music riddle and got another magic musical instrument, an obsidian whistle. “The world order now purged, offers the birth of a new one: Madness, infinite.” On our way through a tunnel past the snake, we realized the walls and ceiling were made of mashed up people and monsters, and had to run as it attempted to enclose us and eat us.

Making it through we encountered a massive Ash-choked city underground, and made our way towards the sounds of chanting. On the way we learned that the people doing this ritual want to welcome the realm of madness into Eberron, and I had a recollection of one Mordain The Fleshweaver, a powerful wizard that was once kicked out of the closed circle.

Hearing somebody call for help, we approached cautiously and found a strange three headed creature guarding the ritual area, but with time short we simply snuck past instead of putting it out of its misery.

Finally coming across the ritual grounds, we found three wizards and their homunculi performing a ritual to open a portal to Xoriat. Attempting to kill the wizards, we discovered that they could sacrifice the lives of the golems they were summoning in order to return to life and continue the ritual. Realising the signifiance of the three magical instruments we encountered on the way down, we used them to shut down the ritual instead and were able to return home successful.

The other teams that assaulted different teams were also successful, Xoriat will not invade this day. In addition, we discovered that the strange threads used by the wizards were made of draconic primordial crystals. Geoffrey shrank down to regular snake size and Sasha kept him

YLA, Toryn Viphonastar