Chapter 2: Fate's Fell Hand

Several months have gone by since your adventure beneath the Cave of Secrets. While Brother Tim has parted ways with the group, Aislynn has stayed on with Honey, Hyde, and Kip, the three original companions who ventured through the Hole in the Sky.

Aislynn, Honey, Hyde, and Kip:

Honey has built her new temple to the Lady in Blue, slowly gathering worshippers for her enigmatic patron. Of course, not all look kindly upon the forces of Chaos, especially the zealots of Law. One would-be paladin made the fatal mistake of underestimating Honey and challenging her to a duel. Honey made short work of the fool, cutting his head off as an offering to her goddess.

But as she held the severed head, the face suddenly changed into that of an older man with a long beard! "Champion, free me!" the head speaks. "Two wicked wizards hold me in thrall in the Tower-Beyond-the-Moon! Aid me, and this sage shall serve you to the end of my days!" Honey sees an image of a path rising to a shallow cave, and then the face vanishes, replaced by the slack-jawed stare of the dead paladin.

Honey feels an urging from the Lady in Blue to follow up on this lead...

***

Tim the Enchanter:

In the course of your arcane research, you came across a scroll describing a cave: the mystical hermitage of Al-Hazred. After reading the scroll, you were haunted by a series of dreams, progressively revealing the cave and then a vale beyond the cave. In the seventh and final dream, a robed figure emerged from the darkness bearing a thick grimoire. The hooded arch-magus silently offered you the tome, but before you could accept, a misty gray serpent materialized from the mists, devouring the magus.

If you want the grimoire and the secrets it contains, you'll have to seek out that cave...

***

Rook:

While tending to the graveyard behind your church, a large sewer rat with a scroll tied to its back sought you out. Tied to the scroll was a platinum hair-pin set with a single ruby (worth 15 gp). The scroll was rendered in ancient Nimorian, and written in a flowing, feminine hand. Once translated, it read:

seek the cave beyond the cave
the realm of three wizards and none
free me from my watery grave
earn the gratitude of the Lady

On the reverse of the scroll was a crude map depicting the location of the cave. The scroll itself bore the faint scent of roses. Intrigued, you decided to check out the cave...

***

After traveling for several days, you all finally reach the cave at around the same time. The cave is shallow and dry, little more than an overhang carved into the side of the dark stone cliffs. Rustling twigs and dried leaves cover the floor, and decades worth of guano cake the back wall – hardly the mystical portal that you had expected to find...

The caked bat droppings conceal a seam in the back of the overhang. Clearing them away reveals a narrow cleft in the rock wall, scarcely wide enough for passage. You squeeze through, where the cleft opens just wide enough to permit you all to stand shoulder to shoulder.

The leaves crackle and crunch under boot as the walls open all around you. A ghostly form appears in the darkness. Dressed in the guise of a court jester or fool, giggling madly as it capers about, the fool seems ignorant – or blind – to your presence. As you watch, the fool deals out a series of twelve ghostly cards into three stacks:

The Magician: The Four of Swords, The Four of Swords, The Hierophant
The Sorceress: The Four of Swords, The Four of Swords, The Devil
The Wizard: The Ladies in Waiting, The Prince of Swords, The Four of Swords

Once all the cards have been dealt, the vision of the phantom jester capers away, shrinking into the distance. As you move to follow, you step from the darkness covered in gray cobwebs that stink of sulfur. Even as you wipe the webs and strands from your face and limbs, they dissolve into smoky wisps that drift down into the tall, dewy grasses.

You and your companions stand atop a high ridge, looking down upon a darkened vale. Above, a fat, gibbous moon sinks slowly below the horizon. Below you can spy the lights of a manor house and trampled fields, all set upon the shore of a glassy lake lit by dancing fireflies. And beyond the manor, obscured by the setting moon, you see a lonesome tower, awash in waves of moon-lit clouds. As the last of the moon sinks below the tall hills, the first hints of dawn streak the misty air...