Finding the Eye

The next day, we received word that a caravan had just been attacked on its way to the keep, and that there were a pair of survivors from the ambush. We questioned the two, and they said that the attackers were a fairly large group comprised of Nothrogs, Dwarves, and humans. I thought it to be quite strange, because you'd normally never encounter such a mixed group working together. I surmised that the attackers were perhaps under a form of magical compulsion, which would explain the missing soldiers, and why the Deveranians had thought that they had been attacked by the Lyrans.

Borrow suggested that we disguise ourselves as a group of merchants, and head off as bait. It was a fine idea, and as we left the towards, we were caught in an ambush by four humans and four Dwarves. I quickly cast a spell that I had prepared to suppress magical compulsions, and it worked like a charm. The Dwarves snapped out of it, and we knocked the human attackers unconscious. We questioned the Dwarves, one of whom remembered that the last thing he saw was a large floating sphere with six eyestalks. How strange I thought again, but unfortunately, no one knew what that thing was, but it had to be the "eye" that was in my vision. We took the captives to the nearest tower, and one of the Wardens there was kind enough to give us a ride on one of the great condors, dropping us near where the Dwarf remembered last.

There was a large cave in the area, and Borrow scouted forth and reported that six Nothrogs were waiting inside, seemingly on alert. We went with the straightforward plan and attacked head-on. It did not take long before we had eliminated them and we scouted the cave further. We came across what appeared to be a group of captives, among them several foul-mannered Devoranians who were not too grateful at being saved by us. We got what information we could and continued forth. As far as we could tell, whatever it is that had entranced the others had also planned on launching a surprise attack on the keep. We didn't have much time to waste, and we figured that the group must have been traveling underground in order to escape detection. In one of the caverns, we found a large tunnel that sloped downward. The tunnel seemed to have been bored recently, and it was easy to follow down.

After several miles of travel, we came to what was close to the base of the mountain, except underground, of course. We saw flickering lights in the tunnel ahead, and Borrow reported that it appeared as if there was a large force camped out in the cavern, in addition to an Earth Elemental that must have been the one who created the tunnel. There was nearly one hundred humanoids standing in the cavern--too many for direct confrontation. However, we suspected that if we killed the eye-thing that was leading them, then the rest would come to their senses. We formulated a quick plan in which Barron and Barricade would distract the main force by breaking the Earth Elemental of any magical compulsions, while the rest of us would travel via magic next to the eye and try to take it out as quickly as possible. We cast what magics we could before we teleported in...