Through Dark Lord

Baru moved toward Soth, knelt in front of him and said "Your world is being torn apart, we have freed you from your imprisonment.  Let us go and we will bring no more trouble into Sithicus."  Soth visage froze slightly as his gaze seemed to look into the void.

"Sithicus will merely shrink to the size of Nedragaard, it is unaffected!  Why should I limit my use of the mirrors to save a flawed and boring domain?  For your insolence in disturbing my dreams, I shall have you tossed out of the keep.  Do not hope for re-entry.  You can DIE with Sithicus!"
Ralom looked around at the unmoving Banshees and Skeletal Guards hoping for a break.  Arvien thought to herself, we can die here, we never even touched a single Banshee and there are thirteen here.  Seglun pulled out the medallion she took from Tickelmop, held it by the chain and asked "Would you be interested in this bauble?"
The death knight's eyes blazed brighter as he saw the medallion.  "At last!" he cried, grabbing it.  "At last she is mine!"  But then his face contorted, and his entire body trembled with rage.  He turned the medallion over and over in his hands.  "The gem!  The gem is missing!"  he cried.  "This is worthless to me without it!  Where is the black stone?"
Soth glared at Seglun, who shrunk even smaller under the intense fury of the red eyes of Soth, "Where did you find this?"  Seglun responded that a Kender named Ticklemop had given it to them, "She said that she found it near a cave somewhere."   Soth muttered, "It must be near Kendralind."  Without another thought for the heroes, he disappeared from the throne room.  The Banshees and Guards started filing down the staircase after Soth's disappearance. 
Left to their own devices the group decided to head out of the keep and meet up with Magda.  Along the way the stuffed their rucksacks with coins and the platinum dragon statue.  As they met Magda and related the happenings of the 4 days in the keep, she encouraged them to search for the ghost of Kitiara themselves.  When asked where she said they should begin at Kendralind and volunteered to lead them there.  As the intrepid group headed down the road to Kendralind it was clear that the land was already healing itself, rifts were beginning to be closed or filled in, there were no new chasms appearing.  Apparently Soth exiting the mirrors was a balm for Sithicus.
As they headed north from the road through the forest the group had a feeling that they were not alone.  Here and there, a broken branch or patch of scuffed earth indicated that someone else had passed this way recently.  At one point all of the birds suddenly stopped cheeping.
Once again the forest seemed unnaturally still.  There!  Just ahead, Varrid say branches rustling.  A humanoid figure was trying to conceal itself in the undergrowth.
Seglun moved forward to investigate,  "Who is there?  Show yourself."  As Seglun approached, the figure threw up its hands, "Please!" a voice begged, "Do not hurt me!  I'm unarmed and mean you no harm!"
An elf emerged from the bushes, trembling with fear.  When she saw the group, her fear vanished.  She said, "You're the ones who rescued me from Azrael!"  Baru recognized Hethanna, the elf who had seen the ghost of Kitiara.  "What luck to find you again.  Lord Soth is in the area.  If he sees me, he'll kill me.  I know too much about the ghost."  Hethanna explained that hours ago she began to regain her memory and decided to come back to where she saw the ghost.  She is afraid that Soth will torture and kill her to ensure she tells him everything about her sighting of the ghostly figure.
"Can you lead us to the place? queried Drovic.  Hethanna agreed heartily and led them to a spot overgrown with shimmer-weed, a crystalline plant.  The party goes about searching the area and Baru found a cave mouth near one end of the shimmer-weed covered area.  Seglun and Baru decide to move cautiously into the cave.  The floor is covered with half-chewed bones and other debris.  As they make it halfway in Seglun spies several wolves lurking in the corners.  She attempts to calm the wolves by speaking to them but their response indicated that the party was in for a fight.  Grunyar tried to influence the wolves mood but seemed to have no success as they wolves moved to attack Seglun, Baru and Grunyar.  Drovic moved up to the cave mouth to cast lightening arcs and Varrid stealthily moved in trying to get a flanking advantage.  There was a brief battle but soon the wolves all lay on the floor of the cave.  Now the party searched the floor of the cave and Grunyar found a black sapphire carved in the shape of a rosebud.  It was the right size to fit into the hole on the medallion.  As Grunyar peered at the stone he saw something moving in the musky depths.  It seemed to be a tiny figure of a woman with short, dark hair.  Mists swirled around her as she slammed her fists against invisible walls.
"You have found her," a chilling baritone voice came from deeper inside the cave.  A pair of tiny red fires appeared, hovering in midair, in the deepest shadow, and Lord Soth strode into view,  "Your service to me this night will be well rewarded."  Grunyar held the stone in a tightly closed fist, "We want to leave Sithicus.  If we give you the stone will you let us go?"
"You would haggle with me, as though I am a sellsword as the likes of you?"  His firey eyes narrowed to slits.  "Very well.  Let us continue our haggling beyond the confines of this animal den."
Soth walked past the group and exited the cave.  The party followed still blocking the cave entrance. Outside the cave the group saw Arvien enclosed in the grasp of the mailed hands of a skeletal warrior.  Magda was battling furiously against the grasp of another, staring at Soth with naked hatred, as Azrael glanced at her with amusement.  Several other skeletal warriors and Kender stood around the forest glade also.
"Final offer,"  the death knight rumbled.  "Give me the gem and I will give you the lives of your companion and this wretched Vistani."  From a nearby tree, Shadow, Magda's rook, cawed:  "DARK LORD, DARK LORD."  Grunyar stood impassive flipping the gem from hand to hand but under duress from Baru finally flipped the gem to Soth, "Let my people go!"  he demanded.
"Dragon Highlord,"  Soth said in a voice barely above a whisper,  "I have you at last.  Come forth and stand by my side -- KITIARA."
As he spoke, the gem in his palm began to change, unfolding much like a rosebud blooming.  Then, a flash momentarily blotted out the dancing colors of the shimmerweeds.  The air was filled with the sound of a thousand windows being smashed.  When the spots cleared from their eyes, the party saw the weeds near Soth had been blasted away and the clear area around his feet was littered with a dozen or more fragments of the rose-like gem.  A misty form appeared, coalescing into a human woman with a finely muscled body and dark, curling hair.  Gradually, another layer of mist formed, solidifying into a suit of blue scale armor.  "Highlord Uth Matar," said Soth.  "You are mine ...... forever."
An expression of fury flashed across the woman's face.  "Yours?!  You abandoned me ages past!  No man will ever claim me as property.  I choose whom I will.  I'll never choose a traitorous lump of charred flesh!"
"The gem makes you mine to control," Soth replied, his tone startlingly gentle.
"The gem is broken.  And until you reassemble it, I am free ... something you'll never be able to share with me."  She glanced at the party, a crooked smile appeared on her lips.  "But at least now you have to offer freedom to my saviors."
"Pah," Soth said.  He bent to gather the gem fragments, but as he did, the rustling of innumerable wings came from the trees beyond the clearing.
"Dark Lord Through,"  the hoarse voice of Shadow returned.  Suddenly, rooks came sweeping down, cutting through the dancing rays of colored lights like solid shadows.  As the flock wheeled around Soth, one bird dove to the ground and snatched a fragment of the gem.  Before Soth could grab it, the rook was airborne again.
"Dark Lord Through,"  Shadow cawed from its perch.  "Dark Lord Through."  Ralom was ruminating on this phrase trying to determine how one would go through Soth.  His head spun at the thought.
The death knight charged through the flashing shimmer-weeds as the one rook headed into the dark sky with the gem fragment in its beak, barely escaping Soth' armored grasp.  Soth bellowed, a cry of terrible anger and boundless frustration that was so powerful that the party could feel it in their bones.  He whirled, his blackened gauntlets almost seizing first one of the black birds, then anther as they swarmed around him in a flurry of beating wings.  Soth whirled and spun, clutching nothing but empty air, as the cawing birds gradually began to take to the sky with their precious shards.  At the edge of the shimmer-weed patch, the Kender and Azrael watched, their mouths agape.
"You may keep me here till I die, Lord Soth, but now I know that you'll never have what you want the most either!"  Magda's voice was heard clearly above beating wings and the howling death knight.   As Soth continued to flail at the heart of a maelstrom of light and darkness, she laughed shrilly.
"Through Dark Lord," Shadow cried  "Through Dark Lord."
Magda's laughter was cut short.  A look of understanding, followed by a smile of triumph appeared on her furrowed face.  She suddenly wrenched herself free from the skeletal warrior's grasp and lunged toward Soth, her cudgel raised.  But then she stopped.  "My tribe," she wailed forlorn, the frustration in her voice equal to that of Soth's.  "I can't leave my tribe!" 
While this was happening, Baru, Grunyar, Varrid and Drovic all noticed that the rose on Soth's armor was no longer half-melted; in fact, it was fully detailed and glowed red.  Baru charged Soth, dove at his chest and the red rose ....  and disappeared from view.  The rest of the party followed quickly as they heard a final roar from Lord Soth.

The heroes stepped into a forested land but the leaves were a pale yellowish green more sickly looking than healthy.   Just ahead of them moving along a faint trail, was a colorfully painted, enclosed wagon drawn by a mule.  An elderly woman whose black hair was streaked with white drove the wagon while a boy in his mid-teens walked beside it.  The boy's hair was a brilliant shade of red.  He glanced fearfully about him and held an unusual looking weapon in his hand.  Baru called out to the wagon and the woman halted the mule with a sharp retort.  Baru introduced himself and the party to which the woman replied that she was Madame Ursula, the young man was her grandson Petar.  Because of his hair, most Vistani have black hair, they have lived on the fringes of Vistani society, usually traveling alone in their vardo.   As night was falling she suggested camping out for the evening.  A fire was lit and a meal prepared to share with all.  Madame Ursula explained that she believed they were in Forlorn.  Petar and she were interested in Forlorn since red heads apparently are highly valued there.  The evening wore one with Vistani tales related about Barovia and Kartakass, while the heroes talked of Markovia and Sithicus.
An eerie silence descended upon the forest.  Everything became still, as if the infested woodland was holding its breath.  Then, the howl of a lone wolf split the night.
As if in answer, the bushes around the group began to rustle and part, giving way to ugly misshapen humanoids.  There were over a dozen of the strange monsters, curiously dressed in the tattered remains of tartan kilts.  In the dim light, it was barely possible to make out their bloated heads, pointed ears, and gaping, fang filled mouths.  Their eyes, which glowed like blood red coals, gleamed int he dim light.  The goblinish monsters leapt forward attacking the party, Petar was surrounded by four of the creatures, one of which threw a net over Petar's head trapping him inside.  Arvien enlarged Baru, Grunyar started flinging arrows around, Varrid hunted for a backstab and Ralom said a prayer. 
Three more monsters entered the fray riding worgs which bit at the heroes as they rumbled past them.  Soon Drovic and Varrid had creature grab them with two claws and start feasting on the fine features of their faces.

DM's Notes:  The party earned 2000 XP for the night and now have 35,472 XP and have gained 6th level.