Betrayal Beneath the Caldera

Honorable Priestess of Melora,

We finally reached the caldera under which the Mad Mage lives. The caldera is a vast, barren, sunken circle. In caldera, spiraling down, there are giant roads that spell out runes of protection. As you get closer to the center, the surface becomes rockier and harder to traverse. And throughout the caldera, we see Gnolls everywhere.

Manos leads us to one of the side passages and tells us to sleep here for the night. Honorable Priestess, this is where I must finally deal with the Prophecy of Mades.

When Mades took me aside, he foretold that we would meet Manos in Kenner and that Manos would lead us to the Mad Mage. He also foretold that Manos would tell us to sleep before entering the Mad Mage's lair. And it is here that Manos would lead us into a trap.

The only way you can prevent this, Mades said, is to kill Manos in his sleep. You must then leave the lair of the Mad Mage because there is something that you are missing. You will know that this is. You will lead the party back to return to some place that you have been before. You will find the missing object there, and only then should you return to the lair of the Mad Mage.

And, Mades told me, this prophecy must not be shared with anyone else.

As hard as it would be for me to kill someone in their sleep, it would be impossible to do if someone else were there, awake and alert. Ryn, the Eladrin Warlock, never sleeps. Given how badly my luck at combat seems to have been (missing the Manticore in several of my most powerful attacks), it seemed likely that I would also somehow fail to kill Manos in his sleep if I tried. And then what would I say to Ryn? "Uh, hi, don't mind me. Just killing the guide in his sleep, that's all. Nothing to worry about."

I had this bad feeling that this could not possibly go well. The only way I could take any action against Manos was to tell Ryn about the prophecy. So I did, and in doing so, changed the prophecy in an unpredictable way.

Ryn also had his own prophecy as well, which seemed to fit with the one I was told. So there seemed to be some accuracy. However, there was still some doubt about Manos. What if the prophecy was wrong? Would we be killing an innocent man? How could we know?

In the end, we decided to tie him up instead, and question him about why he planned to betray us. We gathered some rope and slowly made our way toward his sleeping figure.

Unfortunately, although we attempted to be discreet, Manos had heard us discussing our plans and got up quickly before we could reach him. I attempted to shoot him with my arrows, but he scrambled over to the Horn of Summoning and sounded it, warning every Gnoll in the area about our presence. We eventually were able to subdue him.

The rest of the party were awoken by the Horn of Summoning. They were shocked at what had happened but after explaining our reasons and exchanging information about each of our prophecies, we realized that we did need to go back.

We tied up Manos and questioned him, but he refused to give us any answers. I was concerned that Manos might tell the Mad Mage or the Gnolls of our plans and thought we could not let him go. Garg ended up slaying him. After Manos collapsed, we found that his body was covered with runes of compulsion. They were old runes, so perhaps he had been compelled to lead us into a trap for a long time.

We ran back toward the Eladrin encampment, hearing the sounds of the Gnoll forces mobilizing behind us.

Your faithful servant,

Aelar