Sunblight Fortress

The fortress of Xardorok Sunblight. He and his remaining children are planning a siege of Ten Towns, collecting chardalyn to forge weaponry in preparation.

Happenings

§	Details
30	#ADuergarPlot Sloopidoop and his colleague Pleuruta, a myconid and another Society of Brilliance member, had been captured by the duergar while they were on a field trip in the Northdark. Sloopi was able to teleport out of Sunblight Fortress, but his escape should have landed him back at the Society. Instead, he was hurtled through ice and snow beyond belief before landing outside the fortress near a duergar mining colony. While his colleague was still detained, his teleportation brought along Pleuruta's former aide, Sensi, as well as Aruk Thundercaller. Both Sensi and Aruk were inspired by the party, deciding to join them back towards the fortress to rescue their companions. Sloopi wished to remain to study the phaerimm and hesitantly considered exploring passage towards the now twilit Icewind Dale.
29	#ADuergarPlot #UnderdarkExpedition Over several days, the Heroes of the Cairn took care to prepare for the forthcoming expedition, a journey into the Underdark to infiltrate Sunblight Fortress and apprehend the duergar warlord Xardorok Sunblight before his army marches on Ten Towns with chardalyn siege weaponry. Gadget used her time to research the capabilities of the duergar military, while others convened with members of the council. Fern found a local stylist to polish and primp her horns. Azgul wandered off, then returned after picking up several potions of healing. Tetro was overheard chatting to three kobolds in a trenchcoat about fungi of the Underdark.
29	#TheRimeoftheFrostmaiden On the third day, Crank was taking inventory and noted that of their two diamonds they created in the Lost Spire, only one remained. The other had moldered into a black ooze. Piecing together that their illusory items may be fraying, the party looked things over. Fern's studded leather seemed intact. Sparks was okay, tail wagging happily. Oona's great axe couldn't be found, though. Worried that their diamond may disintegrate, the party paid Copper a visit. The gnome, assessing the gem, believes he could repair the Summer Star, consecrating the chardalyn core and providing at least another charge. He would need a tenday. Thus, it should be ready when the party returned from Sunblight Fortress.
29	#UnderdarkExpedition #ADuergarPlot The party stabled their dogs in Termalaine. Accompanied by Oarus Masthew and Copper, they made their way into the mines, whose central shaft was now known to connect to the Underdark. A crude kobold map was given to them, barely decipherable, but containing a marker for a "glow tree", another for "grey folk village," and several dots warning for "bad things." On descending via a pulley, the temperature rose to a comfortable cool and the air went from icy dry to moist. Minutes later, they reached soft earth. At their feet were two kobold corpses, seen alive weeks ago, and now blooming with fungi. In front of them laid a fissure. Beyond that an endless cavern. It would be 20 miles to Sunblight.
28	#TheCouncil #ADuergarPlot Sunblight Fortress has been located, and leading an army there looked grim. Scouts have identified an imposing fortress and signs of duergar warrior deployment were seen. In related news, supposed dragon attacks destroyed a homestead, setting it ablaze in Dougan's Hole, as heard but not seen by Edgra Durmoot. This dragon cannot be Arveiturace, a white wyrm, and seems linked to the duergar activity and scorch marks witnessed across the southern tundra. Eight ballista have been commissioned by Bryn Shander. At the party's behest, four were diverted to Easthaven, and a potential evacuation plan was concocted for the greater Ten Towns.
28	#TheCouncil #ADuergarPlot When considering the approach to Sunblight Fortress, Oarus Masthew suggested the Underdark. It seems that mining activity has determined that the central shaft of the Termalaine mine, once thought to be a bottomless pit, opens up into the vastness of the deep. While duergar activity has not been spotted there, a pathway to their supply lines ought to be inevitable.
19	#BlackSwords #ADuergarPlot Kadroth was a middle-aged tiefling man in well-kept garb. He assuaged the party that he was the right hand of Speaker Crannoc Siever, that the poor speaker had kept to his bedchambers due to a malaise of the mind. Insight proved that he was indeed acting as the right hand to an extent, but that his "care" for the speaker was a equivocal at best. Nevertheless the party heard him out, as his men had indeed tracked the Duergar menace and located an outpost. Kadroth, clutching his black sword chardalyn pendant and extolling the virtue of stopping the duergar threat, was happy to arrange an alliance. He boasted that he had a wizard named Avarice under his command - though the insightful could tell he feared the conjurer - and that he would gladly assist the party if Sunblight Fortress's whereabouts were uncovered. When pressed about the "faith" of these apparent cultists, Kadroth praised the Archdevil Levistus, Lord of Stygia, the 5th level of the Nine Hells. Levistus spoke to him, he claimed. Levistus, patron of the desperate and forgotten, had brought salvation to most members in his fold. Kadroth was merely his envoy. The cult was named after their lord: the cult of the Black Swords.
19	#BlackSwords Kadroth had gleefully urged the party to speak with their soothsayer, the old and heartlessHethyl Arkorran. Hethyl knew each party member by name. She had dreaded this day, as she knew it would be her last. She was to die, and her soul was bound for the Nine Hells. She did so only after prophesying carnage at Ten Towns at the hands of the Duergar and the party's role in mitigating it. "Try, try, try... amidst countless screams." With a deep-set hatred for Duergar, she envisioned Sunblight Fortress nestled in the mountains: one entrance by ground, yet exhausts open to the sky as well. The fortress hosted a forge powered by a red dragon's still-beating heart, and a great weapon was being forged from black ice for Xardorok Sunblight's paranoid campaign to raze and conquer Icewind Dale. Hethyl's near-blind eyes grew dim after the conversation. Her heart stopped, and she fell dead.
18	#ChardalynCaper #ADuergarPlot The two standing duergar were coerced into talking. The mind master that the party just killed was named Durth Sunblight. He was one of the remaining sons of Xardorok Sunblight, a duergar lord with a mountain fortress in the Spine of the World. The duergar race, known for having lived in the Underdark for centuries, were descendants of dwarves turned grim and having developed psionic abilities after eons of influence by mind flayer colonies. Xardorok's intent is to bring his people to the surface, raze Ten Towns, and establish a footprint for his own people to live in the dim twilight of Icewind Dale. He has dispatched two of his sons, Durth and Nildar Sunblight, to scout ahead. Durth is now dead, and Nilder is in charge of an outpost on the eastern face of Kelvin's Cairn. The stolen chardalyn from East Haven Town Hall was meant to be hauled back to Sunblight Fortress to be forged into siege weaponry. After confessing, the two duergar made a getaway, narrowly avoiding an axe to their necks as they turned invisible and bolted.