The fighting with Azarr Kul tested you to the limit of your abilities. Your skill as a rogue aided you in dodging the foul breath of the abishai, and your prowess as a fighter allowed you to stand toe-to-toe with the half-dragon chieftain himself. It was perhaps, a blessing that you were able bring him down rather quickly, as what was about to commence afterwards was unpredictable.
Tiamat, in her spiteful rage, had sent an image of herself to slay you for disrupting her conquest of Elsir Vale. What followed was the most horrifying and difficult battle of your life (thus far). The horrid aspect had not only great power, but also almost unconceivable endurance. For most of the fight, it seemed as though the blasted thing would never fall.
Yet, both skill and an unnatural dose of luck prevailed, and the abomination was finally put down. Regrettably, Tiamat was not deterred, an proceeded to tear a hole between the material plane and her own hellish realm in an attempt to drag your team into her grasp. A fierce and bone chilling roar was issued from what could have been the dark dragon goddess herself, as the floor began to give way.
Regardless, you had been through far too much to give in now. As Naruil called for everyone to leave the chamber, you began to jump from platform to platform, skillfully dodging a fall into hell itself. As you dodged and tumbled your way out of the room, you turned to see the Tauren misstep and fall into the flames. Naruil, who was right next to you stop dead in his tracks at the sound of the roar, and drop, paralyzed in fear, along with Taur. Keravel, who had been flying behind the abomination during the fight, was out of site, and you were out of time.
Despite your skill, the mountain itself was coming down upon you. To dodge such a thing would be a task for even the mightiest of hero. So, as the path before began to come down, you resigned yourself to defeat (hey, you’d had a good run). Yet, it appeared that fate had other plans. No sooner had the ceiling above you begun to come down did the floor beneath you give way, plunging you into the realm known as the Underdark.
You regained consciousness several hours later in a pile of rocks. Your body was broken, but your luck was obviously not. Several humanoids mostly dressed in patchwork or clothe suits; much like those of slaves, found you while looking for gems in the new rockslide. As you regained your senses, they carried you to their barrow and explained to you their situation. They were slaves to a somewhat petty and mostly unimportant drow priestess. In return for the healing and treatment they provided to you, you vowed to see them free of their enslavement, and so began to plan their uprising.
While the cave-in had been highly destructive, it also had sealed off the priestess’s holdings from her allies. Leaving her relatively small force stranded behind thousands of tons of adamantine (the cavern was, quite literally, a fortune waiting to be mined. Also of note, was that her guard captain, a male drow who a penchant for tactics, who, under her rule had been used primarily as a consort, was more than willing to work to the ends of seeing her dead.
The plan unfolded brilliantly and successfully. The priestess’s remaining loyal forces were no match for the guard captain’s strategic wit, and were simply too meager after the cave-in to put up a decent fight. Four hours after it began, the priestess was slain, the slaves were free, and her holdings (including a magically worded keep) were yours.
It didn’t take long for male drow and the slaves to realize that they were in a very awkward and very dangerous position. Non-drow without protection would always be considered slaves, and the renegade male drow would be slain once word got out of their betrayal. The end decision was to ally with you and stay in the keep and its surrounding areas. Thus, the city of Blackstone was founded in the ruins of the priestess’s holdings.
Years went by as your city worked the surrounding area to make it defendable against the retaliation from the drow that the guard-captain insisted was inevitable. Around year 5 of the renovation/refortification process, a tribe of dwarves broke through the adamantine wall on the east side of the cavern. The Brass-Hammer dwarves had been chased from their original holdings by drow forces into the cavern. Drow-dwarf tensions ran high, and it looked as though the two would go at it in a matter of days. But years of bridging the gap between drow and non-drow had given you an edge in diplomacy needed, and, in time, you convinced them to join forces against the greater enemy. After all, a war was coming.
By the time war came to Blackstone it was far more than a simple rabble of escaped slaves and renegade males. The Drow had presumed that by waiting long enough, the rebellion would run out of resources and be easier to take. They presumed wrong. When they finally infiltrated the cavern proper, they found Blackstone to be a stone’s throw away from a metropolis. In the time given, you had used the dwarves tunneling to network with other tribes and cities that stood against the drow. Four months before the attacks began, the Ashen Compact, a loose organization dedicated to destroying drow dominance had reformed after hundreds of years and formally declared Blackstone their base of operations. Furthermore, over time, word of Blackstone had spread throughout the Underdark, and other escaped slaves and renegade male drow had been flowing into its territory, seeking to forge a new existence. With help from the Brass-Hammers, the four primary entrances to the cavern had been fortified, and, at the insistence of the guard-captain, all citizens of Blackstone were trained as soldiers.
The Siege of Blackstone lasted for 13 months with heavy casualties on the side of the attackers compared to almost nonexistent losses on the side of the defenders. Blackstone’s ability to effectively rotate forces into and out of combat, coupled with a solid defense network was too much. The drow, who were trained for subtle and swift attacks were not prepared for the task of cracking Blackstone’s solid adamantine gates, and then fighting through sea of after unrelenting sea of citizen soldiers. In the end, the siege was turned, and the houses that participated in the attack nearly drained of resources. Blackstone, in turn, was now in a position to expand its territory and presence.
You served as high lord of the city from its meager beginnings, to initial rise, to siege, and long into its age of expansion. In your time you saw the people of Blackstone transform from a couple hundred slaves and renegade male drow to a vast metropolis of thousands of members of all the races of the Underdark. When you died many decades later, the Blackstone’s population had risen to nearly 100,000 and was still bastion of protection from the evils of the realm below.
(Ending ECL 29 (if you feel like rebuilding))Statistics: Posted by Mr_Praetorian — Sun Feb 03, 2008 8:04 pm
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