Portal Tower

Our hearty adventurers had just completed finishing off a group of Ogre's and Warriors of Iuz and decided to take a well deserved extended rest.  Just before settling down they discussed the rather random attacks that party members had been making on each other.  Lythandar noted that only the members with Vecna relics embedded in their body seemed to be affected.  Pretis had never attacked the party and didn't have a relic.  Much discussion was about what they could do since the regular body parts weren't magically infused with the ability to attach or regrow into their bodies.  Lythandar was willing to knock out his molar and not replace it but the group decided to do nothing at this point.

Waking refreshed, the group examined the portal, throwing a dead body through and pulling it back with a rope.  This caused no problem so Lythandar stepped through into freezing air and sullen darkness which enveloped an area with black columns, cracked and slanting floor and a partial domed ceiling.   A group of howling creatures lurched forward at Lythandar and he yanked the rope to be pulled back.  

The group then stepped through the portal en masse and encountered a group of Zombies and Winter Wights.  The floor of the chamber slanted away at a 30+ degree angle toward the east there the group saw an opening framing a dead black mist.  There were several piles of rubble around the floor and three apparent dead bodies just to the north of the group.  The chamber was circular but in several places the wall and floor had collapsed revealing dead black mist and a drop of around 100 feet (only visible when lightning struck outside.)  Immediately the Zombies and Wights attacked delivering great amounts of cold and necrotic damage.

Seeing the undead moving toward her Alhellara invoked Turn Undead and pushed several Zombies away form the group.  The group found that all movement seemed difficult as the slope of the floor was dangerous. Demin sneaked off to the north to fire his crossbow while Mara and Pretis were slowed by Zombies moving next to them.  Lythandar cast his light spell which only seemed to work at half power.  The Zombies Rending Claws and the Wights Blackfire did significant damage.  But soon the party seemed to overwhelm the Zombies, then the Wights started to die and in doing so erupted in Blackfire Shroud bathing the group with cold, necrotic and ongoing damage.

Alhellara and Melisana were invoking every Radiant damage attack they could muster and having the standard planted also allowed fire damage from the party.  The monsters seemed vulnerable to both damages.  Gofin was shrouding and using shadow damage on the Zombies while Demin kept up the crossbow attacks.  Lythandar was hit by Blackfire and found himself unconscious and taking ongoing damage.   Just as Alhellara arrived to revive Lythandar he seemed to recover.  In the midst of the battle Mara and Demin suddenly stared to attack the party members again created more confusion in the battle.

At last all the creatures fell and the group took a short rest.  Demin searched the dead bodies and found that they resembled the Zombies but were shadar-kai creatures.  Lythandar used the hilt of a dagger to knock out his Vecnian Molar as a test for the random domination.  Looking around the group found the only exit to be the Archway to the east which led to a descending stairway into the black mist.

Looking around the group saw an ice-shrouded city of shattered stone spires and decaying arched bridges enveloped by the swirling mist.  Gray lightning surged through the clouds, and a boiling sea of black surrounded the base of the towers a hundred feet below.  Several other spires connected to the one closest to the party, but uncounted hundreds more spread farther int the distance, their shattered bridges out of reach.

Lythandar checked for Arcana and determined that there were no magical items around but he felt a sense of oppression settle on him.  He realized that they had entered the Shadowfell.  Melisana wracked her brain for a historical reference to this city and recalled that she was seeing lost Moil, the legendary City that Waits.  It was once the jewel of the mortal realm, until its masters broke dark pacts they had made with Orcus.  As punishment, Orcus hurled the city into the darkest reaches of the Shadowfell, never again to see the sun.  The demilich Acererak once controlled Moil, using it as the site of his dark experiments. The city granted access to his redoubt, the great Fortress of Conclusion.  The fortress and its master were both destroyed years ago. 

 Moving forward the group descended the stairway for around 50 feet and then found themselves on a bridge leading east.  The bridge sloped up slightly toward its center and was icy as was the outside of the tower they just vacated.  Traveling cautiously on the 2o foot wide bridge they approached another tower which was dark and covered with rime.  Approaching slowly Mara peered into the interior which looked larger than the area they just left.  Interior walls had collapsed in many places, there were fixtures, mostly shattered stone furniture, empty pools and scattered rags.  Some of the ceiling had collapsed and there were holes in the exterior walls all around the roughly circular chamber.  In the center was a solid core of black stone.  Melisana, her teeth chattering asked if they could start a fire as the frigid cold had crept into her bones.  Mara kept exploring and found a bridge attached to the chamber leading to the southeast.

Scorecard:  The group earned 1086 XP for the battle with the Moilian Zombies and Winter Wights.  They now have 49170 XP and need 7830 more to reach 15th level.