Solaster lay on his palate, thoughts racing over the events that had happened recently, recounting in his mind the battles and war that the party had become involved in without being aware of it being staged by some unknown guiding force bent on keeping them from reaching the portal (known locally as the gate of the gods) and passing through to the next area. He was grateful for the chance to rest and recover some of his energy that had been spent fighting group after group of enemies until he was almost depleted and every member of the party was so hurt (including Eli who almost passed into permanent darkness if Solaster had not managed get to him in time to heal him) that the party was almost destroyed down to each man. Thankfully, the priest of the keep had assisted in restoring the group back to full health and had graciously allowed them to rest in a fairly comfortable room with only asking for purifying some of their spoiled food in return, which Solaster was able to do before needing to rest and gave some collective hope to both the keepers of the keep and the members of the party that some might actually pull through all this and continue on the quest to pass though the next gateway and perhaps save the townspeople from total annihilation in the process. As each of the friends lay in the dark resting, renewed energy flowed into them and they felt their abilities increasing and preparing them to take on the forces of evil striving to keep them from accomplishing their quest.
Passing through the last portal that was protected by a stone golem (something felt wrong about leaving it un-examined - as if it was keeping some item of power that the party could have used, but our focus was on passing through and not wasting time looking over a fallen foe: much to our possible dismay at leaving something behind) brought us out of the side of a hill, right into the midst of a force of orcs, trolls, war-trolls (which we found were greatly empowered trolls with magic resistance, armor, and great swords that were meant to do us great harm and not be touched by our defenses in return), and hill giants. We engaged in battle with these vast forces, and yet managed to pull through using all the physical attacks and spells at our disposal. We found that spells did not work on the war-trolls, yet the blade barrier summoned by Solaster was helpful in doing damage and keeping some of the trolls down who fell. Upon felling the trolls through our various attacks, we found we needed to use oil and flame to destroy them and keep them from regenerating. The orcs and hill giants were affected by the blade barrier and took time to follow its edge to try to get to us which gave us time to run away from the force that could still bear down on us and bring us down in combat. We ran towards a town on a hill with a keep on the highest point surrounded by flame and destruction by armies who had obviously sought to destroy this town and all that lived in it. We sought to discover what had happened to the keep and, since Arihana said the next portal was somewhere within the keep, try to get to it and see if we could pass through to the next area, not knowing what was on the other side.
Arriving at the outskirts of the keep, we found an army of 100 orcs with their leaders, 6 trolls manning a battering ram trying to penetrate the gate of the keep, and 2 stone giants who were directing the battle. It was a formidable force and our hopes sank as we saw the pure number of enemies arrayed against us and the defenders we could see upon the keep walls. But we knew we had to try to reach the keep and defend the people inside it before the reinforcements coming behind us arrived and made entry into the keep impossible. Trident, summoning a spell he did not know would work, cast a powerful illusion of the most feared thing the stone giant could think of attacking it, and against all odds, the giant believed the phantasm he was seeing was real and, beset by his greatest fears, fell over dead at the image; the defenders on the walls cheered as they saw one of the leaders of the army fall without being able to see what had caused such a great hope to strike their most strong enemies. Soon, attacks were launched against the other stone giant and Malgrim began the work of death against the multitude of orc foes, attacking with such vigor and power with his orc banes, that a group of 10 fell dead at a time, causing more cheers from the ramparts. Solaster summoned some of his last spells for use against the trolls and burned them with a pillar of divine fire in a flame strike, bringing the 6 temporarily down and halting the attack on the door of the keep. Unfortunately, some of the orc legions were able to get some sergeants and troops up scaling ladders to the tops of the keep's walls and defenders were being lost while the attackers were beaten back. Arihana continued the work of death with arrows flying around the battlefield in a blur, enemies dropping like flies from her efforts. Solaster cast his spell that gave him dragon's breath, which he used in a cone mirroring a red dragon's fiery breath, and loosed it on two groups of orcs which killed all of them except for the sergeants. Some of the orc troops began to flee in fear, despite the curses and epithets shouted at them by their leaders. Others were killed where they stood by the attacks of the party who brought down nearly all the foes except the trolls who had regenerated and were manning the battering ram again against the door. It was up to the party to bring them down, despite being depleted from spells and some of us wounded from the battle.
Eli took it upon himself to burn the trolls by getting next to them and attacking a few at a time to try to bring them down and then roast them with his ability to be like the face of the sun. While he was successful in bringing 3 of them down, two of them caught him and clawed and rended him which brought him down and brought him nigh to true death. We had to find some way to get to him and finish off the last trolls before the ones down regenerated and made us lose forever one of our companions. Suddenly, the gate to the keep opened and a knight on a mighty war horse with his retainers rode forth and laid into the trolls, bringing them down, and then working with us to both keep them down with flame and get to Eli with healing before he perished. Quick exchange of information allowed the party to allay any fears the defenders had of us being allied with evil and to get back inside the keep with the battering ram to strengthen the support on the door before the reinforcements arrived. We both saved and were saved in our battle against and army of evil.
We discussed the location of the portal and the Earl was very against the idea of our exposing the gate of the gods which the keep was built over to keep anything from passing through it and was covered and bricked up by the keep, making it currently impossible for us to even think of passing through. We made an arrangement for him to try to give us time to rest and recover our strength and rebuild our abilities to help save his people of his town, and he would see about helping us get to the portal so we could decide what to do next. Trident was against anything that would put us at risk, as the town people were not HIS people and he did not care to put us at risk to save those who he was not associated with. We decided we would rest and pick up the discussion of what to do next after we emerged from our sleep.
Thoughts of what to do raced along with thought of what had happened as Solaster lay on his cot, wondering what would happen next, as some as-yet unidentified force was guiding the efforts to keep our party from reaching the next portal by sending an army and reinforcements to destroy the town and keep us from getting to our next destination. A moment of decision, he felt, was soon to be revealed as we decided what to do to help save the remaining townspeople and uncover the bricked-over portal while turning back the tide of evil forces arrayed against us in great numbers. Soon, he though, soon. All will be revealed. Will we be up to the challenge? We shall see.