Reunion at Great Rock
In the evening of the 18th of March, the message appeared in Duran Fortnite's mind: "Gather your boyhood friends and return to Great Rock. I have need to speak with you on an important matter."
With the help of Adarrial Smythe and his helm of teleportation, Duran followed the message's instructions to pick up Jarvis Osburn from Stormpoint on the way. He also relayed a sending to Beran Findalson, requesting that he join them in Great Rock as soon as possible. Beran replied that it might take a day or two for him to get there, but he'd make haste.
Thus, the morning of March 20th saw Duran, his cohort Rexander, Jarvis, and their "chauffeur" Adarrial arrive in the quiet village of Great Rock. Their first stop was at the Wayfarer Inn, to break their fast with a hot meal. There, they renewed old friendships with those they'd known in childhood. It seemed like many years since they last lived in Great Rock, but in truth it had been only a few. The bard Adarrial regaled the crowd with tales of the heroes' exploits in the many worlds they'd traveled to over those years.
Then Rexander's keen senses picked out a suspiciously familiar scent in the crowd. With a growl and a flash of speed, he grabbed one of the townsfolk dining quietly in the corner and hauled him before Duran. With a shock, the heroes realized that Rexander had discovered a disguised Seth McCullin!
Seth apologized for his subterfuge, explaining that he had received a telepathic summons from his old mentor, Steidel. Sensing no dissembling from their wayward friend, the heroes nodded, but Rexander wasn't convinced. The hound archon still held a grudge against Seth for the actions of his shadow counterpart, not to mention this Seth's clearly fiendish inclination.
After finishing breakfast, the four heroes and the hound archon ambled down the road to Steidel's house to see what all the fuss was about. Entering the dilapidated structure, the heroes were attacked by several horrible chitinous creatures! This wasn't a meeting--it was an ambush!
A fierce battle commenced, as the heroes struggled against an assemblage of the deadly foes who ranged in size from dog-sized to as big as an ogre. Then vile spells began raining down upon the heroes from the second-floor window above. The shock of the ambush couldn't compare to the shock of seeing who was responsible for the attack. Standing in the open window was a face that mirrored that of one of the heroes themselves--the Shadow Realm's Seth McCullin, despotic ruler of that dimension's Great Rock!
Despite the upper hand gained by the ambush, the heroes managed to defeat the insectlike creatures, only for the shadow Seth to teleport away. Searching the house, the heroes found a comatose Steidel hidden away in the bedroom. Reviving him, they learned that the shadow Seth had arrived a few days earlier. Posing as Steidel's former ward, the villain gained entrance to the house, then used his vile magic to overcome the wizard. Steidel could give the heroes no additional information about the twisted man's plans in Great Rock, but it seemed clear to all that vengeance--and perhaps the power contained within the heroes' bloodlines--was on Seth's mind.
The heroes reasoned that the shadow Seth must have a nearby base of operations--the creatures he employed (which Steidel's tomes identified as otherworldly beings known as kythons) needed fresh meat on a regular basis, and no signs of such consumption were present in Steidel's home. They racked their brains for a possible location, then Duran turned white as a sheet.
"I know where he is," Duran said grimly. "He's in the church."
Thanks in large part to donations from the young cleric Duran, Great Rock's church of Altius was undergoing major renovations and had been closed to the public for some weeks. The spacious building would make a perfect hiding place for the shadow Seth's vile minions, and had the added value of allowing the villain to spit in the face of the religion that he had stamped out in his home town.
Wasting no time, the heroes hurried to the church. After surrounding the building, the heroes broke in, only to be confronted with a horrible-yet-expected sight. Blood stained the walls and floor. Fragments of bone and flesh lay scattered about, the signs of feeding frenzies committed over the past few days. Also within the church were several more of the kythons, as well as the shadow Seth.
"Well done, heroes," the Shadow Seth sneered. "I had hoped that we'd be able to continue our little joust, and now is as good a time as any!"
The battle resumed, with spells and blood flying back and forth. The heroes began to notice that the shadow Seth's reliance on his vile magic seemed to be taking a mental toll on the villain, as his actions began to become more and more erratic. Once again, his kython minions fell before the heroes' swords and spells. And once again, Seth teleported to safety, but not before a parting remark: "You know, Duran, I never had a family as lovely as yours. I hope you don't mind the changes I'm making in them."
The heroes didn't need any more clues than that, and rushed to the farmhouse owned by Duran's mother and stepfather. Crashing through the door, the heroes realized that they were too late for some of the unfortunate occupants, as blood already stained the rooms. But others of Duran's family still remained alive, though the teeming mass of kythons swarming through the house sought to solve that problem.
The shadow Seth was here as well, now reduced to raving lunacy but not yet ready to give up the fight. The heroes, exhausted from the running battle of the day, began to falter for the first time. The kythons began to take the upper hand, and the shadow Seth cackled with the thought of victory over the foes he had killed once before in his home dimension.
At just that moment, a familiar sound cut through the air: the twang of a bowstring. An arrow suddenly embedded itself in one of the big kythons, and the heroes heard a a familiar yelp of jubilation.
Beran Findalson had arrived.
With the ranger's deadly accuracy on their side, the heroes turned the tide of battle once again. Kython after kython fell, and then finally, the heroes had defeated even the shadow Seth McCullin. The deaths of their own shadow counterparts, as well as an untold number of other deaths both here and in the Shadow Realm, had been avenged.
Nearly half of Duran's family had been slain, including his mother, brother, and a stepsister. Bringing the power of Altius to bear, Duran restored life to these three unfortunate souls, bringing them back to the world of the living. The heroes also confirmed that no more of the kythons remained in Great Rock, and contributed their strong hands to rebuilding some of the structures damaged in the fight.
The threat from the Shadow Realm was over. The heroes would probably never know the entire truth about that horrible, twisted version of their world, or the full depth of the mania that drove the shadow Seth to such ends in his aim of destroying Duran and his friends for a second time. All of that would have to remain a mystery, but thankfully, it was a mystery which was ended.
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