#82 - Where we left off....

I neglected to update this blog when our campaign paused a year and a half ago. At that time, the party had made the bold decision to remain in Egilina’s castle and hunt her down — a mission they succeeded in completing.

To pick things back up, here are the key details to orient where we are in the story.

The characters are currently level 16 and have built their adventuring careers in and around a frontier city known as Fort Aralan. Throughout their journey, they’ve been guided and mentored by a wizard named Sihirbaz.

At one point, Sihirbaz was captured and imprisoned by a renegade mind flayer known as The Thinker of Thoughts. The Thinker had begun amassing a following on a desert world located just a short trip across astral space from the party’s home. This world contains a single city — an ancient Thri-Kreen fortress now occupied by Githzerai and a dwindling Thri-Kreen population, alongside refugees relocated there by the Githzerai after their own homes were destroyed by Githyanki or Illithid incursions.

The party confronted and ultimately defeated The Thinker. His ability to imprison Sihirbaz came from a powerful artifact known as the Eye of Igurz — a bullseye lantern powered by the preserved eye of a Beholder. At the conclusion of that arc, the party came into possession of the Eye.

Sihirbaz and his assistant, Merl, immediately recognized the Eye as dangerously unstable. Not only did it radiate malevolent curses onto its bearer, but it also had a notorious history — one that would surely draw the attention of Illithids, Beholders, and the Gith. They began searching for a way to destroy it.

Merl uncovered a lineage of the Eye’s previous owners, hoping that by studying them they might find a way to bypass its many defenses. One such former owner was a vampire named Egilina — a figure the party had encountered before.

This led them to Egilina’s castle, where they confronted not only Egilina but also a powerful lich named Uzildalf — an uneasy ally and rival of hers. Both were ultimately defeated.

Among Uzildalf ’s tomes, the party discovered a crucial passage:

To understand the power of the Eye, you must understand that it is pan-dimensional. It consists of three parts, existing simultaneously on different planes of existence. The lantern and its contents may reside in one place, drifting through the planes as fate dictates. But it is tethered by a mystical cord — not unlike the silver cord that connects some astral travelers to their bodies. At the other end of this cord lies the Eye’s true essence. I do not know what form it takes. The curses that guard the Eye originate from that distant source. I surmise that to destroy the Eye — without suffering the full force of its wrath — one must travel to that source. The Eye is like the trunk of a great tree. It cannot live without its root.

Now, Merl has succeeded in tracing the Eye’s mystical cord to its origin point. The party is preparing to journey across the Astral Sea to that location, in the hopes of destroying the Eye of Igurz once and for all.