Twisted

The group took a short rest and did some checking of the area.  They found bodies with skeletal hand and eye tattoos and also bodies with grinning skull paraphernalia.  They recalled that Iuz used the grinning skull symbol.  Looking around Lythandar found three items that indicated arcane magic.  The items turned out to be a Stormwalkers Cloak +3, a Reliable Staff +3 and Defender's Scale Mail +3.  Discussion ensued and Melisana took the Staff, Pretis the Scale Mail and the Battle Standard from the previous encounters, and Demin took the Cloak while giving his Cloak of Protection +3 to Gofin.  Just as the party started to examine the arches in this realm a group of Centaurs came out of the tents and approached the group.


 The centaur leader introduced himself as Balophan and related that the centaurs are fighting against the incursion of Vecna cultists into Tovag Baragu.  The cultists started coming about 20 years ago with a surge about 10 years ago.  The centaurs are trying to hold this parallel against any more incursion.  The cult leaders are called Disciples of Vecna and are led by a woman named Ugwaerel.

The followers of Iuz came through recently and killed the Vecna guards, who were soon replaced.  The centaurs, while not enamored of Iuz, are trying to use the opportunity presented by his passing since Iuz is out to destroy Vecna, which can't be bad.  The cultists seem to use the archway to the southeast.

After the conversation with the centaurs, the party moved to investigate the archways, which from the outside have the same alternating pattern as before.  From the inside the following was seen.

North - Island of undead children.
NE - Clear view back to the parallel that the party entered from.
East - View magnified 10x
SE - View magnified 10x
South - Sheen of neon violet rippling between the arches.
SW - Courtyard with peasants impaled on wooden stakes
West - View with objects seeming 2x distant
NW - View magnified 10x

The only archway that seemed active was the one to the SE.  Melisana stuck her head through the archway and saw the circle of arches only strangely twisted, as if the pillars were pulled like taffy, then reset.  The stone paving bulged unevenly in places, and some of the distant arches had fallen.  Racing red clouds painted the sky, strewn with ruby bolts of energy discharge.  Darkness held sway except for the energy bolts.  Several unmoving figures lay in various positions.  Other figures moved in and out of the shadows around the bodies.

With nowhere else to go the party burst trough the archway to find a group of ghouls feasting on the dead bodies.  With surprise the group attacked the ghouls while Pretis planted the Battle Standard.  In a rather quick battle the party dispatched the ghouls, even though the ghoulish claws and bite were rather nasty immobilizing and stunning several party members before the battle ended.

Looking around after the battle the party found humans, ogres, centaurs and some drying protoplasm on the ground.  Several bodies either had hand and eye tattoos or grinning skull paraphernalia.  A very nice gem, estimated at 5,000 GP was also found.  Again the arches were studied with the same alternating pattern from the outside and the following on the inside:

North - Clear normal view
NE - Curtain of black
East - View magnified 10x
SE - View back to the centaur area
South - Curtain of black
SW - Sheen of neon violet rippling between the arches
West - Clear normal view
NW - View of the Shadow Rift with Gwydion's cloven hoof coming through the passage

Again only one other archway seemed active, the SW one where Melisana looked through and saw two buildings back to back.  One was two stories high, the other one story.  Also Melisana saw 3 ghouls wandering around the familiar circle of stone arches.  Beyond the arches was a hilly meadow with grassy downs extending to the horizon in all directions under an overcast sky.

Scorecard: The party earned 514 XP for the battle with the ghouls and now have 31,055 XP needing 945 more to reach 12th level.