Let me recap the situation going on here. Problem One: Big toad demon about to eat me. Problem two: Succubus that is trying to summon demon lord. Problem three: I'm drunk (as usual). Since problem one seemed to be the biggest threat to me at the time, I perform the only logical response to "giant toad demon barreling straight at me": I open a portal to the fey plane. Now I know what you're thinking. "Man I never would have thought of that, that cleric is awesome!" And yes, I would have to agree with you; but sometimes, with epically sized solutions come just as epically designated costs. And this just wasn't the day for the High Cleric of Cayden Cailean (Hey, that's me!). So the toad demon successfully is deterred. It barrels through the portal, and I thought all was going well... well... until the succubus decided that I needed to go in there too. She apparently had charmed our barbarian friend (either that or he's dumber than I thought he was) and made him drag both himself and I through said portal, sending both of us to random points in the land of the fey. I, being the awesome aspect of all things just in the world as I am, become an angel and fly up until I could see the portal way off in the distance; and one other figure... the barbarian who luckily ended up right next to it. He casually just saunters through, as I am left to jet, near the speed of light itself, toward the ever expiring portal. I'm not sure what that oaf did, but I just had a bad feeling as I was racing there. I tried to say a quick word to keep the portal open slightly longer, but (and this literally never happens to me) just as I reached the portal, it closed right in front of me. So there I was, just an angelic dwarf in bright holy armor, in the land of the fey. I tried to open the portal again, but nothing happened. Confused, I looked around to see if there were any native beings nearby, and although I didn't see anyone, when I flew back up into the air, I did see the distant silhouette of what appeared to be a very large fortress in the mountains. Out of other ideas, that is where I began flying toward. About the time I reached the gates of the fortress, I was met by a guard by the name of "Trestarin" who took one look at me and signaled his watch to detain me. Quickly I was surrounded by... people? elves? I wasn't really sure what they were at the time. I pulled out my axe and got ready in a defensive stance, but let them know I had no desire to fight them, if they could understand me. Luckily, they did speak fluent dwarven, and I was able to get my message across that I wasn't from this world and I needed to get back. I thought all was going well in my negotiations since they seemed to back off a bit and become more at ease as we were talking, but it was also about that time that I heard a very large "THUMP" behind me. You guessed it, it was a demon toad. I quickly reared around and exclaimed "well this is just fanTASTIC!" As the guards looked at me and asked "You've seen that thing before!?" I just turned to them, nodded, and yelled the warcry of my people: "Dwellers of mountains, forgers of gold, as warriors of legend lets break all their bones!" Of course, coming from me especially, this causes a giant pillar of fire to envelop the toad, not quite killing it, but severely charring and crippling it. It was at this point that Trestarin knew exactly who I was. It turned out that my people who were missing from the mountain where I was found had fled to the fey plane and I missed the escape. A few of said dwarves happened to be at this very fortress, and hearing my warcry, charged past all of us at the toad to finish it off. I didn't recognize them, as neither of them were acquaintances of mine, but the Ironshield Dwarven clan of the sleeping mountain Draevakir will always charge into battle when another cries the warcry. Once the giant toad was finished off, we went into the war room of the fortress and I explained what was going on in our world to Trestarin and both of the dwarves, who I later learned were Arindar and Dernin. Their responses were thoughtful and when I mentioned Prince Aegnor they both looked at each other. Apparently he had already tried to destroy the fey plane, as he saw it as a lesser conquest to the natural plane. He had made many enemies amongst those in the fey, particularly the dwarves and the eladrin (which is what Trestarin turned out to be). Once revealing that I was the High Cleric of Cayden Cailean, the dwarves, who recognized my tankard immediately confirmed that my story must be true and that any aid that could be mustered to help the natural plane may be in order. They informed me that the reason my portal had not worked was that a powerful spell had been cast over the fey plane after Prince Aegnor's initial attack so that the remaining demons would not be able to easily go from the fey world to the natural one. At this point in time, only a few heavily protected portals still are allowed to remain open. One of which is under the care of one of the clans of the eladrin as well as the majority of the Ironshield Clan. This gateway leads to a point that has for centuries been kept secret by the dwarves in the mines of Kent. After our discussion, Trestarin sent me, Arindar, and Dernin on a week long journey to the natural gateway at Brandinar Fortress. Along the way we were forced to sneak by several small bands of demons. One of those bands, which consisted mostly of low ranking imps did spot us, however. (Funny how a glowing dwarf sometimes has trouble blending in with his surroundings) After a quick battle, we continued on our way there. Once we reached the fortress, however, we saw that it was under siege by several large fire elemental demons. The two dwarves informed me of a side entrance we could sneak through in order to reach those inside, so we decided that would be our best chance of getting through. Upon reaching said entrance (which turned out to just be a crude tunnel in the side of the mountain), they led the way through. Apperantly there were several traps (mostly water based since the army of Prince Aegnor consists of a lot of fire based demons) that were clearly of dwarven construction. I in particular was very excited by this, as it had been a very long time since I had gotten the chance to see anything newly invented by my people. Once inside the fortress, we were greeted by a couple young dwarven lads named Bairn and Darvik who after learning of our trip, led us to a great mess hall and brought us dwarven ale and the specialty food of the day: a hog roast with cornbread and beans. When we were a wee bit further than halfway through our meal, I noticed both lads I traveled with sit up at attention as a very familiar, bulky dwarf walked into the hall. My closest childhood friend, Greldan was standing before me, telling those around me to be at ease. I just looked at him and said "I should have known by the ale that it was yer keep, Greldan! I've had elven brew stronger than this!" as I stood up and hugged him. "Ye wouldn't know good brew if it was poured on yer head til ye drowned in it! Its good to see ye too Sandrick, though you came at an... interesting time." Over the next couple hours we discussed what was going on at his keep, his plan that he was going to put into effect to end the siege today once and for all, as well as what was happening in the natural world. I explained that I was traveling with friends and we were the natural world's best chance at stopping Aegnor once and for all, so I needed to get back to them as soon as possible. He said I am more than welcome to use the gateway to get back home, but I should stay to watch what he was going to do to the giant fire elemental demons outside in a couple hours. I, of course, agreed to stay for a while to see what happened, and boy was I glad I did. I watched as a team of 500+ dwarves assembled this huge pipeline that led to the mountain's river. Once it was all assembled, they pulled a lever, and icy water from the river filled the pipeline and flooded out the front gate onto the fire elementals, squelching their living flame until they were nothing but ash floating in a torrent of water. Once this was done, the lever was pushed back into the other position, the mouth of the pipeline closed, and the water went back to its original pathway. After the waterworks show, I said my goodbyes to Grelden, walked up the stairs, joined by both Bairn and Darvik that led to the gateway, and summoned the portal to the mines of Kent.
