The Age of Worms / A Gathering of Winds pt. 3 / Kith the 3rd, 3593 CE / 12-11-22

Not By Choice stands over the now-still corpse of the black dragon Dhorlot. Though they hope that this is the same dragon which was terrorizing the town of Ludon, the fact that Dhorlot's jaw was bound due to a previous injury from their fallen companion Harrov, preventing him from using his breath weapon, casts doubt on this conclusion. Nataliya's companion, the awakened giant cobra Essster, then proceeds to unhinge her jaw and begin the process of consuming the black dragon. Leaving the hungry snake to her feast, the party returns to investigating the strange black portal in an alcove of the Whispering Cairn, an alcove that on Lulu's previous visit to the cairn had been blocked by rubble. The portal seems to be made up of a dark, viscous substance, but it is also the direction in which the tracks the party has been following, tracks they assume belong to the sage Allustan Neff, have been leading, as so they resign themselves that they must push forward into the unknown. A thrown pebble bounces off of the portal, showing that it must have a certain surface tension, but Natalia, undeterred, strides boldly forward with an arm outstretched, breaching the portal and revealing that it leads to a hidden space on the other side. As the rest of the party follows Nataliya’s lead, they find themselves teleported into a dark and extremely windy passage. The howling air makes it difficult even to hear each other, and so Not By Choice proceeds cautiously forward, with the stealthy Nataliya taking the lead. The chamber beyond the howling gallery seems to be filled with smoke, as well as some rather dangerous looking spike traps protruding from the floor. As Nataliya enters the chamber, the smoke coalesces into the bodies of several large elemental creatures. These are belker, similar to the one summoned by Bozal Zahul in the shrine beneath the Free City Arena. A small skirmish ensues, but before anyone can be seriously hurt, Natalia uses a spell of tongues to speak to the belker in their own elemental language, negotiating the party's passage through their chamber in exchange for some additional traps that Nataliya places for them to deter other treasure hunters. The party discovers that Nataliya's traps are far from the only ones, as they avoid several already in place, as well as discovering that the builders of the tomb had an affinity for false doors to further frustrate explorers. A magically trapped statue in a passage to the south is indicative of the builders' disdain for anything of chaotic disposition, until Nari dispels the magic empowering it. Nataliya discovers another chamber to the south occupied by a salamander noble and his fire elemental servant, who have been trapped there since the tomb's construction ages ago by the Wind Dukes of Aqaa, an ancient civilization of lawful beings from the elemental plane who fought a massive war on the material plane with forces from the Realm of Chaos. Nataliya is able to resist the burning heat of the chamber occupied by Antyress, Earl of Redpike, and his servant, long enough to determine that their servitude to the now long-dead Wind Dukes will only end when they can destroy a powerful creature of chaos. Lulu meanwhile has been investigating the runes in the belker's chamber. Having some familiarity with Wind Duke lore from her previous visit to the Whispering Cairn, she is able to glean from the runes that a great battle in the Wind Dukes' war on the forces of Chaos took place on the plains of Pell. Nari and her crew investigate another room to the west of the belkers' chamber and are hit by falling pillars reacting to Idra's chaotic nature, but Nari is once again able to dispel the Wind Dukes' powerful magic. Nataliya, continuing to follow the most likely path forward to the south, discovers a large split-level room lit with strangely carved chandeliers surrounding a black orb suspended from the ceiling. The floor on the lower level of this room seems to consist of a strangely opaque black substance, and sound throughout the chamber seems oddly muffled. As Nataliya ascends to the upper level to investigate a door leading further south, the floor begins to rise, and black pseudopods extend menacingly towards the drow.