The Octavious Expanse

The prominent Archduke Octavious left the court of Galdaria for the first time in years, intent on overseeing the holdings given to him by the king himself. There were rumors abound as to why the King gave him such a large and remote holding. Some said it was in payment of some secret debt and the Archduke asked for the lands himself. Others claimed the King and Octavious had a falling out. The King knew Octavious held too much power for him to simply order his assassination and so he did the only thing he could do, bestow on him a vast uncivilized land and banish him from court to wither away and die in obscurity.

No matter the reasons for the Archduke’s departure he made sure they would be talking about him for generations to come. He held a weeklong celebration in honor of the King, as thanks for the new lands. During the celebration he made a challenge to all, be they mercenary, adventurer or commoner; a challenge to journey with him to explore the uncharted forest, to settle it and against all odds, prosper.”

The adventurers, accompanying the Archduke Octavious’ personal bodyguards, Fire Team, were sent in advance of the Archduke to announce his arrival to the hamlet Fox Hollow. As they approached they saw the town was burning and under attack by a band of giants and gnomes. The adventure’s valiantly charged forth and battled the attackers while trying to save as much of the town as they could.

Eventually the attackers were pushed back, even after their leader, a green giant twice as tall as the other giants, joined the battle. Alas the fires did their work and the adventurers were only able to save two buildings the blacksmith and the baker. The only other building left was the building where the town’s people hid for safety, the tavern; a building which was protected by a spell of force cast from a scroll by the local mayor candidate Belvedere.

The adventurers set about gathering resources and rebuilding the town. In the evening they retired to the tavern to hear the local mayoral debate between Belvedere and Alice. The debate was ferocious but in the end neither candidate won. It was D’Gar, a member of Fire Team, who was elected through his teams efforts to bribe people with worthless currency. As a representative of the Archduke, he named Alice as the new Mayor, turning down the honor himself.

Black Company repaired an overgrown road that lead into the forest while Fire Team rebuilt a house and the Jail. Among the repaired buildings was a bridge that spanned a great chasm that was recently destroyed by the large nature giant. On a hill on the other side of the chasm the adventurers set about building a keep to help secure this new road. It wasn’t long after they broke ground when they were attacked in force by spriggans, fire giants, dire bears and the nature giant. The fight was fierce but in the end the keep was built and the creatures were destroyed. This time the nature giant fell in battle, shaking the earth as he tumbled to the ground where his body quickly became over grown with vines and shrubs, returning him back to the forest from which he came.

Jack, the tavern owner took it upon himself to open up a roadside in and trade post along the newly open route. His gamble paid off as it was the only place for the adventurers to sell their goods, take a rest and eat their fill. Eventually the adventures found a gnome city hidden deep in the forest which they affectionately called Gnome Town. Through diplomacy they managed to convince the gnomes to join with Archduke Octavious and let them use it as the site of his new capital city. However the celebration was cut short as the ground shook and from its depths a raiding party of dark elves came spilling out.

It didn’t take long for the adventurers to push the raiders back and collapse their tunnels. However during the battle a small unit of lizard men, working with the dark elves managed to sneak behind their lines. They ran into town and as they started to burn down the town Starsheild cast hallowed ground, preventing the lizards from doing harm and single handily saving Gnome Town from being burned to the ground.

The next day the Archduke arrived in Gnome Town and gave a moving speech where he renamed the town to Octoberg and gave each adventurer’s group a plot of land to build a home. A feverish building frenzy ensued with Fire Team building the largest guild hall followed closely by the Elysium team.

As the forest was further explored and its resources exploited it became obvious that something was wrong. It wasn’t till someone stumbled upon a lone tower, a tower which had no right to be there, a tower that should have been hundreds of miles to the west, Zena’s Tower.

The ward that had once protected it was still there but wrong, somehow a group of cultists had managed to tap into the ward, changing it to protect only themselves and corrupting it, draining its power for their own devilish means.

The adventurers would have none of this. They stopped building, joined together and attacked in force. It was a hard fight, the ward made their powers nearly useless but in the end they prevailed and they stopped the cultists although their leader, a litch, managed to escape.

Meanwhile Belvedere approached Black Company, throwing off his guise and showing himself to be The Bandit King, Markis Incor. Once, long ago, he was friends with the great Archmage Zena and he now needed their help to find the Archmage. He had a key that would allow them to enter the tower but had no idea where to find the gateway.

They helped him find the gateway and they were all transported inside Zena’s Tower right as the battle against the cultists was raging outside. They explored the tower and eventually found Zena and what had happened with him. They closed his stasis chamber and allowed it to bring him back to life. Zena quickly lowered the ward that had been corrupted but the battle had already been won. After being insulted by the leader of their group Zena admitted that he owed them a boon and then promptly teleported all them out while he chatted with his old friend Markis.

Later that day, after a much deserved rest, there was a large boom off in the distance that caused the whole earth to move. As everyone looked toward where it came from they saw a large rip in the sky where a demon army came pouring out. They rushed to meet the army head on and were confronted with an army being lead by a Demon Commander. Thanks to the magical sight of D’gar it was easy to see that there had been large amounts of magical energy funneled into a vortex causing an inter-dimensional portal to rip open.

The only hope was to close the portal and stop the whole army from entering their world. The battle was difficult, the Demon Commander killed dozens with a single swipe of his 50ft sword but they were making headway, that is until the remaining cultists, lead by their leader, attacked them from behind. The adventurers’ forward momentum crumbled and the future of this world looked bleak but they regroup and rallied their forces and slowly pushed towards the vortex.

While everyone was engaged in battle one sneaky adventurer, Rewand, took it upon himself to find the litch’s phylactery. Quietly he creped through the woods towards where the cultists were coming from and found their base, a base defended by only one cultist. The lone cultist was quickly dispatched and Rewand desperately searched and at the last moment found and destroyed the phylactery.

Meanwhile the battle was nearing the end. The vortex was closed just before another battalion of demons, lead by another Demon Commander was about to enter the word. With the rift sealed the demons scattered and ran into the forest. They were pursued and some of the demons were cut down but many of them escaped including the Demon Commander. Among them was also the cultist leader but with his phylactery destroyed he may have escaped but he was no longer immortal.