Pierce the Blackveil

Summary
After their conference with the queen of Elvandar and her advisors, the party travels north through the elven forest to the Great Northern Mountains. It's a hard, ten day journey in early winter with rain or snow everyday. The party reached the edge of the forest and begins to cross the pass. Crossing the mountains and descending the other side, they come to a barrier. In a narrow part of the pass, all the trees have been logged and piled in an abatis stretching side to side across the pass, broken only by a crude stone gatehouse. In the rain, the sentries don't spot the party, but Gala spots moredhel guards on the roof. They move forward quietly in the rain. Gala casts Improved Invisibility on Flynn and Jace casts Silence. Flynn uses the Rod of Passage and teleports to the roof top. Invisible and silent, the guards don't see him, but they are in the Silence area of effect. They try to communicate and one climbs down the ladder and goes inside to warn the rest. Flynn follows and spots a moredhel wizard and the barred door facing the pass. He lifts the bar and opens the door, then attacks the wizard first. Invisible and silent, Flynn dodges around the room, fighting the moredhel. They swing swords and shoot arrows blindly, landing a few blows. The party charges up and engages the sentries with spells and arrows. Some of the guards go outside to join the battle while others stay inside chasing Flynn. A couple of the guards are down when Flynn sees one take a magic Sending Stone from the wizard's body and concentrate on it. Once the party gets close enough to cast more spells, the guards begin to drop. Gala drops a Shatter spell on the guards outside the door and Jace throws a Fireball at the guards on the roof. Most of the guards are dead, then a skeletal figure and five more moredhel appear behind the party. Gala hits them with Fireball, but the skeleton dodges it. Raaha uses Erupting Earth on the new moredhel and the skeleton hits her with Finger of Death, almost killing her. Adolphus steps up to heal her. Jace tries trapping the skeleton with Wall of Fire, but it Misty Steps and gets Jace, Raaha and Gala and their horses with Cloudkill. The horses drop, throwing their riders to the ground. Zinnius hits the skeleton with Lightning Arrow. Gala tries hits the moredhel with another Fireball, dropping most of them. Jace uses Mass Healing Word to get the horses up and they bolt out of the poison gas. Flynn is still fighting a one man war against the sentries, but they are wearing him down. Then the dead moredhel that came with the skeleton rise up as zombies!! Raaha uses her Pearl of Power and regains power and hits the zombies with another Erupting Earth. Gala shoots Lighting Bolt at the skeleton and it dodges again! But many of the zombies take the hit instead. She tries Wall of Fire again. Raaha is flinging Eldritch Blasts into the zombies and Zinnius is shooting arrows as fast as he can. Adolphus has hit the skeleton a couple of times with spells and now he charges forward. He casts a spell, calling on his goddess for help and uses Turn Undead and the skeleton collapses. Flynn is finishing the last of the sentries and most of the zombies are down again. But the last moredhel rises as a zombie and Flynn heaves two javelins into it from all the way over on top of the gatehouse, then Raaha finishes it.
The party makes sure all the moredhel are down for good and Flynn collects ears from his kills. The last Wall of Fire drops and Adolphus kicks the skeleton's skull away and cautions the party not to touch his weapon or armor; they may be cursed. He casts Speak with Dead and the dead elf's spirit cannot resist a demand from a servant of Lims-Kragma. Adolphus asks questions. Who are you? Varadgrim, one of the entombed evil elven wizards. Why are you here? My master sent me to kill you. Who is your master? The Grey One. Has the wall been breached? Yes. The spell ends and the skull settles to the ground. Adolphus pours holy water on it, then crushes the skull with Sacred Flame. Some of the party hears the elf's voice begging for mercy and then a woman's harsh, vindictive laughter. Flynn realizes Lims-Kragma has taken the soul for judgement…
(GM's note- This was an epic battle between the party and their ally and the fifteen seventh level moredhel and Varadgrim, a modified Skull Lord for stats. It took about 3 and 1/2 hours…)
The party travels further into the Kanmorhan Vane and the weather is better north of the mountains. But the forest itself is darker and feels unpleasant. They come to the area the map labels as Argenthyne, Mornhavon's old base and where he and two of his lieutenants were entombed after their execution. The forest stops suddenly in a cleared band that encircles the wall surrounding Argenthyne. They see that the wall is about fifteen feet tall, and a shimmering light like a magical wall extends upwards from it. In the distance to the west, they see a guard tower on the wall, to the east is a camp. The adventurers decide to explore the camp. They travel through the forest, then dismount and approach on foot. The camp is a group of moredhel tents, with one larger, better quality tent. There are four scattered moredhel sentries around the camp and four more can be seen inside the circle of tents, tending campfires. One is guarding the large tent. The party decides to start taking out sentries. Flynn leads Zinnius and Adolphus after the eastern sentry, Gala, Raaha, and Jace go after the one to the south. Adolphus and Jace cast Silence on the sentries as the attacks begin. Flynn activates his Tourmaline Dire Wolf, then uses the Rod of Passage to Teleport himself, the wolf, and Adolphus into the center of the camp, leaving Zinnius to fight the sentry alone. The camp moredhel surround them and attack and one of them kills the dire wolf immediately. The other team is fighting their sentry and the west sentry starts moving towards them, shooting arrows as he comes. The north sentry moves to help his comrade against Zinnius. The tents in the camp open and five more moredhel, including a spellcaster emerge to attack Flynn and Adolphus. Now they are outnumbered nine to two! Realizing he made a bad move, Flynn uses the Rod of Passage again and Dimension Doors himself and Adolphus to join up with the spellcasters. Zinnius is still fighting two on one by himself and doing poorly. The camp moredhel fan out, trying to figure out where their attackers went. With targets in the open, the adventurers open up with heavy spells. Three moredhel gang up on Flynn while Jace and Gala throw Fireball spells and Adolphus casts an Insect Plague. Raaha throws two Erupting Earth spells and gets into a magical duel with the moredhel wizard who hits her with Magic Missile and Lightning Bolt. Flynn continues dueling his three opponents while others shower arrows on the spellcasters. They reply with Sacred Flame, Firebolts, Eldritch Blasts, and Guiding Bolts. The party is starting to wear down their enemies, when Zinnius falls to his opponents. Gala Dimension Doors to his side and gives him a Healing Potion, then they retreat with another Dimension Door to the clerics. One of the moredhel who was fighting Zinnius turns and flees. Jace and Adolphus heal the party slightly and they manage to kill the last of the moredhel. But the one has gotten away.
(GM's note- ANOTHER epic battle, about three hours of non-stop combat)
The party searches the camp and fines the large tent is elven made and the furnishings are either elven or high quality human crafting. There is a fine elven bow and arrows, clothes for a male eledhel, and copies of the maps they have. When they examine the maps, they appear to have been made by the same cartographer… There are also human spellbooks about necromancy and elven spell books about ward and defenses. Adolphus wants to see the wall, so they move away from the camp and approach the wall. But when they get close, everyone except Gala is hit with pain that increases as they approach. It doesn't seem to affect the animals. They decide it is part of the wall's magical defenses. But now, they can see there is a fissure in the wall. Gala approaches and sees the wall has a break, starting about five feet off the ground and extending upwards and widening. She climbs up and can pass through the crack and sees the forest on the other side is hideously damp, moldy, dark, and twisted, evil beyond compare. There are animal sounds, but not normal animals, the sounds are haunting and frightening. But there are no signs anyone has entered the forest. Gala retreats and explains what she saw. Raaha suggests if she takes the party into her genie ring, maybe they can pass the pain barrier? They agree to try and conceal the horses in the forest, then Raaha enters her ring with Flynn, Zinnius, Jace, and Adolphus. Gala picks up the ring and is able to carry it through the wall and they enter the evil forest.

Silly Quotes and Smart Remarks
Jack "Fate kicked me"
Nick "As it does"

Jack "You can't stop me"
Jim "Ohhh?"
Brittany "Why, why?"

Jack "I can cast Fireball at the front door"
Brittany "Knock hard"
Sam "Candygram"

The skeleton dodges
Jack "Can't rattle his bones"

The skeleton is still standing, some of the moredhel are standing back up as zombies
Jack "I don't like all this standing"
Jim "So you use Animate Object to make chairs?"

The objective is to check out the elven necromancer's tomb, which also contains two of his lieutenants' bodies
Jim "The super tomb"
Brittany "Sumb"

The forest is dark and unpleasant
Jim "It is not a happy forest"
Brittany "Is it sad?"
Jim "No, it's angry"
Sam "Passive-aggressive forest"

Planning to take out the sentries
Jim "Dead men sound no alarms"

Zinnius is casting the Jump spell to get away
Jack "Don't jump to conclusions"
Brittany "Jack gets a chip"
Jack "And Jim takes it away"
Brittany "It's the circle of life"

Jim's cat Merlin jumped on the desk and got in his face because it was dinner time
Nick "I was promised sustenance"

The wall causes pain in anyone that approaches except for elves or animals
Nick "So the wall is racist"
Jim "All walls are racist"

The forest beyond the wall is dark and evil
Jim "It makes Dagobah look like a pleasant summer forest"

The party enters Raaha's ring
Nick "I always wondered what it was like in here"
Brittany "I've always thought it was like Jeannie's bottle on I dream of Jeannie"
Jack "It's a plain, white cube"
Nick "That would be terrible"