Phoenix Rising

Session 64 Synopsis

Previously, on Phoenix Rising…
… she just could not go on anymore and Zerak decided that he needed to take her to the surface to rest and stay out of harm’s way. They would wait on the usrface until the other four party members finished their quest for the items and would then leave this city of death when they do…

Once rested and after saying a short adieu to Jobi and Zerak, the rest of our heroes pressed onward and deeper into the catacombs. The next chamber they came to looked to be an old treasure room. Most of it had been looted already but there was three chests and three urns that were untouched. They were all made of metal and looked to have significant locks on them. Blackwell went to work and had to disarm and unlock all six of them to finally get at all the treasure that had been left behind. They found 3,500 gp three ioun stones (incandescent blue, iridescent and orange), five 1,000 gp fire opals, and an amulet of mighty fists +2. The group pocketed all the items and some took the ioun stones to use immediately. Then they continued their exploration of the catacombs and finally came to its end with only finding one more item, a mummified body that had appeared to be tossed aside in a corner alcove. They found a platinum amulet around its neck with the initials, ‘MJ’ on it and Asphodel deduced that this could be the missing body from the sarcophagus in the first room of this underground complex. So they took the body back there, put it back inside the coffin and closed the lid. Almost immediately a ghostly figure appeared with a forlorn smile upon its face. He looked at the four heroes and made a slight bow and thanked them for bringing him back to rest. Then he slowly disappeared. Seeing that there was no longer any where to explore down here, they decided that they now needed to go back to the three buildings on the surface to continue their investigations and promptly ascended the long flight of stairs to the surface.

After quickly checking in on Zerak and Jobi to make sure they were still OK, they headed to the three large buildings in the back of the complex. Through experimentation they determined that the large medusa heads on the floors of each of these building were in fact teleportation circles that led to the exact same destination. After their first teleportation to this destination they saw the following:

This great, domed chamber is home to hundreds of funerary urns of every description, housed in niches along the walls. The domed ceiling thirty feet above is decorated with images of old Cormyran aristocrats engaged in passionate debate, locked in duels, or poring over great tomes together. A carving of a medusa’s face decorates the floor in the room’s center, flanked to the sides by two trios of stone sarcophagi. An archway to the north opens into a large pillared hall.

Their examination of the medusa carving revealed the following unusual aspects of the medusa seal:
a keyhole in its right eye
a starburst indentation in the left eye
a thin slot in the mouth
and an oval indentation in the chin

They figured out that the large key and mithral dagger they had found earlier fit correctly in the eye and mouth respectively but now knew that they were missing two other items to complete the puzzle to allow whatever was supposed to happen, happen. So they ventured forth into the large room beyond and say the following:

This massive hall hosts a vaulted ceiling fifty feet above, supported by huge pillars of marble running down its center. The walls are lined with vaults, stacked in columns of eight, twenty feet high. Lavish murals occupy the thirty-foot stretch of wall above the vaults, depicting naval confrontations between Cormyran and Qadiran ships to the east, and Cormyran ships and what appear to be ghost ships to the west. The dominant ship in the painting appears in both battle scenes, its mainsail proudly flaunting the mocking medusa; a handsome figure clad in archaic captain’s uniform grips the rigging in one hand while he rallies his sailors by waving a falcata over his head. The man has thick white hair and a long beard divided into three braids.

But just as they were investigating this large chamber someone materialized directly in front of the staircase that led downwards and began to speak in a booming voice to our heroes:

“It is apparent that none of your assembly is of the blood, so I must conclude you are thieves. To avert my righteous vengeance and leave in peace, answer me these three questions. First, what was the name of my flagship? Second, how did my first darling wife die? And third, why is my eldest son’s body not here with us? All the information you need is
within this chamber. I give you ten minutes.”

The four then set out examining the room’s murals and plaques to find the answers to the three questions. And with just enough time to spare they had their answers:
The Flagship: Pasco’s flagship was the Harlot
Pasco’s Wife: Pasco’s first wife, Annavale, died in childbirth
Pasco’s eldest son: died at sea

Since the party answered the questions correctly the ghost of Pasco told them, “Good! One should know of those who came before, and tread reverently. Disturb not these three tombs before you and I shall not vex you further,” before fading away into nothingness.

So next they decided to explore the two outer hallways leading to two similar rooms. Both rooms were identical except for the names on the coffins and the fact that they were mirror images of each other:

A marble fountain, the basin of which resembles a huge shell, sits near the entrance to this room, its waters cascading from between the fingers of reclining mermaids. The chamber beyond is empty, save for a single sarcophagus at the far end of the room.

The room to the west had a sign on the sarcophagus that said, "Vespacio Voxus Adella, 4349–4401.” It contained what they determined to be the reliquary of Vespacio, a necklace of gold with a small globe of crystal suspended from it. Within the crystal is a human finger bone and it functions as a greater ring of energy resistance (cold) that takes up the neck magic item slot. They gave this one to Zola.

But when Zola tried to enter the room on the east, she became very nauseated and decided to wait in the large chamber while the other three went in to explore the room. The room to the east had a sign on the sarcophagus that said, "Vincenzo Voxus Adella, 4349–4401.” It contained what they determined to be the reliquary of Vincenzo, a necklace of gold with a small globe of crystal suspended from it. Within the crystal are three human teeth and it functions as a greater ring of energy resistance (cold) that takes up the neck magic item slot. This one they gave to Kel.

But something odd happened when Kel got back into the large chamber. Both Kel and Zola, when they looked at each other felt a wave of disgust towards each other because they each had the other reliquary in their possession. But Kel was infuriated and drew her weapon and landed a harsh blow to Zola. Asphodel slammed Kel to the wall to stop what was going on and Zola was able to use one of her abilities to snap Kel out of her murderous possession. After this, they both seemed OK and the group continued on to the center stairwell and made their way down. However, as time went on, both Kel and Zola felt an annoyance over the other one having the other reliquary nearly every minute from then on.

But after a few steps, thick white mist filled the stairwell, obscuring further vision. Three circular tiles are set into the floor inside of the archway at the head of the stairs; each tile depicts a different medusa’s face—one howling in rage, one mocking with a forked tongue, and one with crossed eyes.

As soon as they entered the mist, the disembodied spirits of four young women materialize and swoop up from the mists, swirling about our heroes, disconcertingly whispering a few repeated phrases in their ears: “Are you of the blood?” “Have you come to pay your respects, cousin?” “Is his name still spoken?” Kel attempted to answer the apparitions but to no avail, they did not seem to hear her words or even respond that the recognized that she was talking to them. So the party ignored them and pressed the tile with the howling medusa face and entered the mists and found themselves teleported to yet another location:

Flickering light dances on the walls of this room, thrown from fat, black candles in silver fixtures wrapped around supporting pillars that rise twenty feet to the ceiling. Frescoes cover the walls, all depicting a handsome, red-haired man of noble mien engaged in acts of heroic prowess: single-handedly dispatching a cohort of fearsome demons, speaking movingly
to an adoring throng, and leading a column of Cormyran soldiers toward an enormous mob of Qadiran infantry. On a raised dais in an alcove on the northern wall, an elaborately carved mahogany coffin, decorated with motifs of vines and eyes, sits on a stone base.

Then they went up to the locked coffin and Blackwell started to attempt to unlock it, but his first couple tries were unsuccessful, so Kel jumped in and decided to use a crowbar to unpin the hinges and get it opened from the opposite end. She needed help from Asphodel to get the hinges to break but once they were, Asphodel, and the others stood back while Kel forced open the coffin. Inside they found mummified remains of what appear to be the man in the murals along the walls. He had a +2 cold iron greatsword with a large ruby in its hilt and a ring of evasion on his finger. The party took these items and after only a very cursory glance around the rest of the room, they started to head back out. But then they heard a loud wailing coming from in back of them and turned around to see a ghastly undead creature surrounded by the four girl ghosts they saw earlier. The creature, which they determined to be a rare undead called a nemhain lashed out and attacked with great force against the four heroes, nearly taking Kel and Blackwell down. But after a few tense rounds of combat, they were able to defeat the creature and then destroy the white pillar that she was bound to – ultimately destroying her permanently. Then they group headed back up the stairs and through the mist into the large chamber again.

This is where we have to leave our group of heroes until next time…

View

JUN/2015

Session 63 Synopsis

Previously, on Phoenix Rising…
… Their melee engagement only lasted a couple of rounds for the creature had teleported away and even though Asphodel had landed a strike as it disappeared, she was certain that it was not dead yet. She looked around the room and saw no other foe around so she headed out towards the hallway to see who might need some killing out there…

There was only oine barbed devil left in the narrow hallway where Blackwell, Kel and Zola were engaging it. Asphodel quickly entered the fray with the devil, allowing Zola to go around and attempt to circle back to the stairs leading down into this crypt to see what was going on with Zerak and Jobi. But just when she got there, she only was able to glimpse Jobi and Zerak as they were just coming down the stairs again when a blade barrier flashed into existence right in the very narrow hallway she was standing in – and that definitely hurt. Fortunately she was able to quickly step out of its reach and concentrate on what was in the original entrance chamber. There she saw Zerak and Jobi battling something – well Zerak was battling it for it seemed he could see it but whatever it was made quick work of him and he fell in front of Jobi. Jobi worked on healing him and trying to keep away from whatever it was attacking them.

By this time, the barbed devil had been laid to waste and the rest of the group was now advancing towards the entrance after hearing Zola shouting out that there was trouble back there. She ran through the blade barrier without a second thought but couldn’t see where the enemy was, until Kel got close enough to the area. Kel had casted her invisibility purge spell and when she was close enough, the medusa-snake-like creature winked back into visibility. Everyone converged on her and did their best to kill her as fast as possible. This creature had some very formidible magic at her disposal and used it freely: chain lightning, harm, slay living, just to name a few. But out heroes were able to vanquish her before she was able to kill one of them, though Zerak had been quite close to death if it hadn’t been for Jobi coming to his aid.

Once the creature was killed, the group did some healing and looting and found several powerful magic items including a +4 ring of protection, a suit of +5 leather armor, and a magical axiomatic bow -but none could use this since no one in the group has a lawful view on things. So they packed up the items and headed back into the catacombs to finish searching the area for any signs of the sword or documents they were here looking for. The next chamber they came to was both elegant and important looking, which gave them pause:

Arranged in various raised niches in the ornately-bricked walls are several dozen mummified corpses, attired in clothing of bygone eras, standing in lifelike poses as though engaged in conversation. Four oval niches in the north wall are obvious places of honor, as each holds but a single mummy bearing valuable-looking treasures and weapons. The room itself is lit brilliantly by two spheres of bright light floating near the center of the thirty-foot-high ceiling above.

Blackwell immediately set up searching the area for traps while the others looked for magical auras in hopes of finding the sword they were looking for. They all thought that the mummies in here were a possible threat if disturbed but the real threat came from the globes of light floating near the ceiling, as they found out all too soon. The globes formed into four shining creatures of incredible power called shining children. They used fire as their main weapon and the ability to fly as their main defense. Although some of the party had resistances to fire and even immunity as in Asphodel’s case, the creatures had a very powerful fiery blast attack that could severely damage most of the party. The battle was very heated (no pun intended) for while the party was able to damage the creatures with each of their attacks, the shining children were certainly taking a toll out of the groups magic and healing abilities. Zerak, Kel, Jobi and Blackwell at one time had to retreat back into the hallway for a time to get out of the way of the enemies attacks. But that was no permanent relief for one of the creatures then teleported into the hallway and attacked them there as well. Fortunately they had had enough time to do some triage before those attacks came and between Jobi, Kel and Zerak they were able to defeat it just about the time that the others had vanquished the ones in the room with all the mummies.

Now that the battle was over, the party had to do some serious healing and resting for many of their daily abilities had been drained from these last two encounters and it would be foolish to continue on down here without being fully rested. They also went ahead and looted all the treasure on the mummies and made off with quite a bit of valuable items. But during their time down here, Jobi had become so traumatized from these battles and the countless others they had endured together, that she just could not go on anymore and Zerak decided that he needed to take her to the surface to rest and stay out of harm’s way. They would wait on the usrface until the other four party members finished their quest for the items and would then leave this city of death when they do.

So our adventures come to a close this evening. Come back next week when we will continue the exploration of the Tomb of the Iron Medusa with only a party of 4…

View

JUN/2015

Session 62 Synopsis

Previously, on Phoenix Rising…

… Once the door opened, she looked up as our heroes were beginning to enter her bathhouse and said in a serpentine-like voice, “Oh good! Visitors! Fresh meat.” And then she began advancing through the water towards the invading group…

Our heroes took quick stock of the situation and began advancing on the creature. Zola was the first to react and advanced into the room only to find herself attacked by an invisible (but now visible) barbed devil. It drew blood first blood and Zola decided to react in-kind. One bad thing about attacking a barbed devil at melee range is that every time one hits it, its spiny barbs cause the attacker damage as well, and their claw attacks can cause fear. And even worse, if they get a hold of you, then they can repeatedly impale you with their spines on their bodies and tails. This is exactly what happened to Zerak when he moved into the room and found another invisible (not-so-invisible-now) barbed devil that attacked him, grabbed him, and impaled him round after round, nearly killing him. Kel decided that an invisibility purge was in order and sure enough, they saw a third barbed devil pop into their sight.

So now Asphodel had also moved into the room and began attacking the devils. Blackwell, Jobi, and Kel remained in the hallway for a while, with Blackwell using bow attacks, Jobi casting buffing spells like haste and bless, and Kel using her starknife when she had a target. Soon however, through the movements in battle, the one devil that Zola and Asphodel had concentrated on was hurt very badly and teleported to the creature in the pool who healed the devil so it could continue the fight. She was also using her bow against the group and she was very good with it – causing lots of damage every time her aim struck true.

One of the devils then took the fight to the heroes in the hallway by teleporting right next to Kel. Her devotion to Desna was the only thing keeping her from getting grappled and impaled. Then Kel got the inspiration to use her liberation ability to get Zerak free, which was a good thing for the witch would not be able to take much more of the barbed devil’s attacks before succumbing to his injuries. His hexes, cackles, and lightning spells did hurt the devils but not enough to actually get him free (but did help the others damage the devils more often).

At this point, the heroes began to get a handle on the devils when Asphodel was able to kill the one that had been grappling Zerak for most of the time so far. Once that one went down, Asphodel began moving back to help Zola with the one that had been healed by the medusa which had teleported back right next to Kel. Kel up until this time had been mainly focusing on the one that was in the hallway but had since moved into the chamber entrance. That is when the healed devil began delivering some ferocious blows to her and to everyone’s surprise, the cleric fell dead. Asphodel quickly changed her course of action and leapt to Kel’s side, drew out a scroll of a breath of life spell and successfully cast it upon the dead cleric – and Kel was brought back to life.

Meanwhile Zola kept concentrating on the devil that had just killed Kel and was pushing it back into the hallway. Soon, this one too was to fall and die. But in the hallway, Blackwell and Jobi were having troubles of their own with the third barbed devil. It kept advancing on them and pushing back down the hall until it was able to grapple Jobi in its spiky clutches. With Jobi quickly being rendered to a bloody mass in the clutches of the devil, she screamed and Zerak heard. He ran to her side, not caring about the other devil taking a swing at him and damaging him. He needed to get to her as fast as he could for he had a plan to save his love. When he got next to her side he touch only her and casted a teleport spell, bringing the two of them back to the surface of the mausoleum where they could heal themselves without fear of attack. Then they began their descent of the stairs to rejoin their comrades in the fight.

Meanwhile, Asphodel moved into the ‘medusa’ that had not been engaged in battle until this time. She charged at it and went into a voluntary rage condition to try to exact more damage to the foul beast – for, let’s face it, those who cavort with devils need to be put down. The medusa was also more difficult damage, similarly like the devils were. But the medusa could also use high level spells for just a mere touch by this creature was enough to cause a lot of damage. Their melee engagement only lasted a couple of rounds for the creature had teleported away and even though Asphodel had landed a strike as it disappeared, she was certain that it was not dead yet. She looked around the room and saw no other foe around so she headed out towards the hallway to see who might need some killing out there.

The heavy battles always take a long time and this one is no exception. Come back next week for the exciting conclusion (hopefully) of this battle and more adventure…

View

MAY/2015

Session 61 Synopsis

Previously, on Phoenix Rising…

… The smallest one of the fire creatures appeared to be the most skilled since it was casting fireballs and other spells at the party. But once the party was getting close to it, it disappeared from view. It seemed it had left the battle. But the other three huge fire creatures were not push-overs either. Their blows delivered crushing damage and had the chance of catching their targets on fire as well…

Our heroes were able to keep Kel alive amidst battling the fire elementals. The monsters were quite tough and were slowly whittling away at our heroes defenses. But just after the first elemental was killed, the creature that had disappeared earlier made his presence known. It touched Zerak and he felt a dizzying swirling sensation and his vision started to go black. Then he saw what looked like an entire sea of fire opening up before him. He struggled and fought the sensation of being pulled into it and after what seemed like forever, was finally able to break himself free from the grasp of the spell that had been cast upon him.

He then recovered his wits and cast a spell to help him see invisible things and that’s when he saw that creature standing right next to Jobi. He cried out to her but the creature touched her as well – thankfully its spell had no effect on her. It then started after Blackwell. So Zerak started casting lightning bolts at it and Jobi used her cold spells against it.

Meanwhile, Kel, Asphodel, and Zola had finally beaten down the last two fire elementals and turned their attentions to the last remaining creature. Asphodel was able to break free from her uncontrollable rage and was fatigued, but still went after the last creature and used her breath weapons on it. And soon that creature also fell. After the battle the group did a lot of healing wounds, searching the areas, and also cleaning up the defilement of Aeroden’s temple/shrine. In addition to the mithral dagger, Blackwell had found a large iron key.

Our heroes rested after that and then Kel casted a consecrate spell on the temple altar to help re-purify the area to the now dead god. The whole area seemed brighter and more cheerful afterwards – at least as cheerful as a crematorium can be that is. And after they had gathered themselves up, they consulted with Kel to see where and what they should explore next. Kel decided that the best course of action was to investigate the seven similar small buildings within the complex. Each one, except the one in the middle, had locked black iron gates with large stone doors behind – all facing toward the center of the compound. The central building had its doors facing south. In most of them what they found was the following:

Each internal wall has nine stacked interment vaults, a total of twenty-seven in all. The dates of death on these vaults fall between 3754 and 4050. None bear full names, only first initials (such as P. Adella, A.G. Adella, etc.). The limestone sarcophagus at the center of each crypt bears an epitaph in its surface, but the effects of time have rendered these illegible.

The central mausoleum was a bit different though:

The epitaph on the lid of its central sarcophagus reads: “Marcus Iulius Adella, 3711–3758, Great Patriarch of Our Clan, Died Valiantly at the Battle of Istavala Vale Saving Prince Abelard from the Undead Hordes of the Whispering Tyrant, Earning the King’s Gratitude. Herein Lies Our Claim to Nobility. May Great Woe Befall Any Who Would Violate His Most Sacred Rest.”

The lid was also slightly askew and with a little bit of pushing they moved it far enough to reveal a set of stairs inside instead of a mummified body. They definitely believed that this was important to look into but thought it wise to check out the rest of the buildings in the compound before venturing down to who knew where. So they left this building and took a look into the three larger buildings.

The western mausoleum is crafted of green marble, the entrance carved to mimic the maw of a ravenous lion. The 50 foot diameter medusa head carved into the floor depicts the howling medusa crest of the Sardisi clan – which was the conclusion they came to since a marble block at the north end of the octagonal shaped building had the words Clan Sardisi engraved into it.

The central building is constructed of pale granite and decorated with numerous bas-relief carvings of nautical scenes from the Grand Campaign. the 50 foot medusa head carved into the floor depicts the mocking medusa, its forked tongue extended and was dedicated to the Voxus clan of the Adella family.

The eastern building is of gray basalt, and unlike its sister buildings is plain and functional in design. Chiseled above the entry arch is the phrase, “The Living Make Their Plans; the Dead Watch, Amused.” The 50 foot diameter medusa head carved into the floor depicts the cross-eyed medusa which was for the Daellum clan.

In each of the buildings they noticed that if they stepped onto the medusa heads in the center of each room, they began having similar feelings as they did when they were teleported into the coffins, so they made note not to step on them for any length of time. A detect magic spell did reveal that each area was infused with conjuration magic.

Satisfied that there was nothing else of note on the surface, they decided to head down the stairs inside the coffin to see what lay beneath. After what had to be more than a hundred feet of steep staircase to traverse, they finally found themselves in an ancient chamber:

The walls of this room are brick. The ceiling is twenty-five feet above, and from its center hangs a ghastly chandelier, made entirely of skulls and bones. A pair of tapestries flanks a corridor that exits to the east, so ancient that the fabric retains only hints of the original color and the scenes they depict are insubstantial. Written on the stone above the archway seems to be some sort of phrase, although letters seem to be all strung together. The phrase written above the exit from this room reads: “SOONENOUGHYETOOSHALLSLEEP.” The room’s lone sarcophagus is made of plain limestone and the fitted lid is without mortar and somewhat askew, as though replaced in haste. Carved in its surface is: “Marcus Junius Adella, 3711–3758, Hero of Taldor, Patriarch.” Along the lid’s edge are the words, “While my bones rest peacefully here, the guardians need not protect me.”

The catacombs beyond the archway are composed primarily of narrow, low-ceilinged (8 feet) corridors riddled with burial niches. Some host one or two full skeletons in tattered rags; others are packed with bones stacked in an artful, if grisly, manner—one niche may hold nothing but thigh bones, another jawbones, another an array of vertebrae. Some of the walls feature decorative brickwork, others are adorned with frescoes, and still others have bones and skulls mortared into place as though they were the most convenient and mundane building materials. The air is stale, and all areas are lit as though by flickering torchlight, though no such illumination can be found.

The heroes made their way along the southern branch of the catacombs and explored slowly, making sure they did not run into any traps or missed anything of significance. Blackwell led the way with Asphodel close behind him (but not too close, just in case the accident prone rogue set off an electrical trap which seemed he was apt to do). The western passage ultimately ended in a dead end and they were forced to backtrack and continue eastward. After passing a couple northern passages their searching led them to find a secret door on the southern wall within one of the burial niches. Once opened it revealed the following chamber, much to their surprise:

This room appears to be a beautifully decorated bathhouse, complete with a large pool of crystal-clear water that dominates the center of the room. A pair of stone statues depicting reclining medusas decorate niches to the east and the west, while a large caption along the southern wall reads, in the common tongue, “Have you ever beheld a smiling face and not named it beautiful?” Lounging within the large pool of water at the far end is a strange-looking creature. “She” appears to be, and not to be a medusa. Once the door opened, she looked up as our heroes were beginning to enter her bathhouse and said in a serpentine-like voice, “Oh good! Visitors! Fresh meat.” And then she began advancing through the water towards the invading group.

That’s all we have time for today. Tune in next week when we’ll find out the answer to the question: Can stone statues really swim?

View

MAY/2015

Session 60 Synopsis

Previously, on Phoenix Rising…

… No one else was around except for the small crew for the ship. Kimba told Kel that the people on the ship are completely trustworthy and will not betray anything. So our heroes boarded the Spelljammer and then took off in search of the Adella’s ancient tomb…

By mid-morning they had spotted the Lion Sleeps Inn on the banks of Usk Lake. There they knew to turn North-East to look in the foothills of the Mindspin Mountains. By late afternoon, they had found a site that looked like something out of the ordinary and landed. They had found hidden away between the hills an ancient walled enclave that had several large, ornate carvings of a medusa head with crossed-eyes and a rictus grin. They walked around to all of them and studied the carvings to see if there was anything at all different about them. And when they determined that there wasn’t, they set about attempting to enter the enclave.

Kel first inserted the funerary baton into the carved medusa’s mouth and found that the eyes began to glow with a blueish light when she did this, but nothing more happened. Asphodel suggested that Kel try turning the baton while it was inserted and when she did that they saw that the blueish light began to emanate outward from the carved head and envelop those standing near it, mainly Kel and Zola. She immediately took the baton out and the light instantly faded away. After some discussions, they determined to try it again and see what happened if they let whatever was happening finish. So Kel once again place the baton in the mouth of the carving and turned it. The light got brighter and reached outward to around 15 feet in a semicircular pattern from the carving. Then it looked like to the rest of the party that Kel and Zola were being shrunken and sucked into the medusa’s mouth. And then with a bright flash, they were gone and the baton fell out of the medusa’s mouth and onto the ground in front of it.

They had examined the magical aura of the medusa head and found that there was an aura of conjuration magic around it. They surmised that it was possible that Kel and Zola had been teleported somewhere and decided that it would be best if they also invoked the magic of the medusa carving with the baton. After the same thing happened to the rest of our heroes, they all found themselves in a very small space that was pitch black and stale air. Each of them either casted some light where they were or began searching around with their hands, but all came to the conclusion that they were now inside coffins (except Asphodel who immediately had a flashback to her days being imprisoned and just froze, unable to do anything).

It took everyone several rounds to break out of the coffins, some needing a little help, and Asphodel needing to be pulled out calmed down. They had now found themselves in a large chamber:

This octagonal chamber is made of fine, polished white marble. The domed ceiling peaks twenty-five feet overhead, decorated with frescoes of people in billowing robes, hands joined, looking down with pity on those below. Braziers along the base of the dome filled with flickering flames faintly illuminate the chamber. Twelve carved stone sarcophagi lie beneath the dome, surrounding a large carving on the floor of a leering medusa’s face.

They also noticed that each of the sarcophagi they had broken out of had their names, birthdates, and this very day as their death dates carved into the lids of the caskets. At the foot of each casket was another funerary baton. At the north end of the chamber was a very large stone block that appeared to be blocking the only way out of this area. They also noticed that the medusa head in the floor had holes the size of the funerary batons around the outer edge of it and that the head itself was not carved into the floor but appeared to be resting on top of it. Eventually they inserted the batons into some holes and were able to figure out that the medusa head had to be rotated in order to get the stone block to sink into the floor and allow egress from the chamber.

Once they were out of the chamber, they saw that they were in a large, walled in area that had numerous buildings and tombstones within. It was now night time, with a nearly full moon to illuminate the overgrown pathways. But being night seemed strange for just a little while ago it was only late afternoon and the sun had still been hours away from setting.

Directly ahead of them they saw several tombstones on the western side of the path here had been crushed and shattered in a wide swath. The back of an ancient carriage was visible through the overgrown weeds and shrubs at the far end of the array of destruction. Since this was the closest to them they decided to investigate the scene. But as they approached the area a blinding bright light flashed, then everything went black and they each felt a dizzying motion. Once they had their sight back they saw a chaotic apparition:

The carriage hearse barrels along a hard dirt road, drawn by four frothing, maddened horses driven forward by your frantic whipping. A quick glance over your shoulder tells you that your mounted pursuers are gaining ground in the hazy moonlight.
“Aroden save us!” shouts a beardless old man sitting beside you as he desperately clings to the wooden seat.
“We no longer serve fools, Parsimus,” you growl with irritation. “Best get that through your thick skull.”
You glance behind again, this time to the bed of the hearse, where the fine silver coffin lurches dangerously, despite the five straps of stout leather securing it in place.
“Forgive me, sister,” you think. “It was I who was the true fool.”
You hear a dull thud as an arrow strikes the seatback. Another arrow sinks into Parsimus’s shoulder, knocking him from his seat to the hard ground below with a cry of pain. As a third projectile thuds into the carriage, you cry out to the starlit sky. “Asmodeus! Have you abandoned me?”
With the cry still in your throat, a strange shimmer surrounds the hearse and the scene about you flickers and fades. The dirt road is suddenly replaced by a paved walkway, and the surrounding woodland by a graveyard.
Startled by the sudden change, the horses shriek and careen to the left. As the carriage leaves the road, the shimmering bubble of energy that encompasses it crushes the tombstones in its path. Suddenly, the horses seem to smash into an invisible wall, and their cries of terror abruptly cease. You are propelled from your seat, hurtled through the air as you and the carriage crash to the ground. You feel bones break, and as your neck snaps with a nauseating crunch, you hear a sinister voice behind your ear, whispering with an intimacy that terrifies.
“No, my puppet. I never forget a bargain.”

Once the vision fades, everything returned to as it had been. They then discovered a decomposing corpse just past the carriage and they knew that it was the body of the carriage driver they saw in the vision. But when Blackwell went to search the body, it lurched and stood up. He looked around at the group of heroes and said, “Begone! Leave this place now with whatever you have stolen!”

The group tried to ask him about where the sword was and who he was and several other questions, but all they got out of the undead being was that his name was Cadimus Adella and they would never get the sword. But he was allowing them to leave unharmed if they left now. Of course our heroes were not about to do that and just as they were bracing for a fight with this undead, Cadimus faded away and disappeared.

The next area they decided to investigate was the large building directly north of the carriage crash site. After cautiously approaching and having Blackwell scan the area for traps they finally opened the main door to this building:

This dull gray granite building looms in the center of the necropolis. Its entrance has a domed ceiling that rises to a height of twenty feet, and is decorated with intricate geometric designs. In the center of the chamber’s floor, a carved medusa crest stares endlessly upward. To the north, a pair of stained-glass windows depicting a handsome man and a beautiful woman look on.

Once inside, the party spread out to explore the three connected open rooms. To the west Blackwell and Asphodel saw:

Once an elegant domed shrine, this place of reverence has been foully and thoroughly defiled: statues lie broken on the floor, and the mosaic symbol of Aroden under the great dome is smeared with all manner of filth. The walls, bearing once-beautiful frescoes of deeds of the god, are soiled with ordure. Pools of red-tinged water stand to the north and south, while a scorched curtain that once sheltered the altar to the west hangs in tatters.

Asphodel found a magical dagger, still gore encrusted lying partially in the southern pool of fouled water and was examining it when something erupted at the east end of the building.

To the east Kel saw:

The walls of this domed and oval-shaped formal chamber are covered in complex geometric patterns of green and gold. It appears to be used for funerary rites, with marble tables to the north and south and two elaborate wheeled wooden biers at the center. To the east, the wall is made up of a huge iron oven with a closed door three feet square and two feet off the floor, with a shelf sticking out beneath it like the tongue of a huge, taunting beast.

And as she looked at the large oven, she saw a pair of glowing, fiery eyes look out at her. Suddenly creatures made of fire erupted out of the ovens with a loud startling sound of the iron oven door grating being ripped off its hinges and thrown aside as 3 huge fire creatures and 1 large one poured out of the ovens and began the attack!

Kel found herself nearly surrounded by the creatures before she knew what was really going on and suffered many wounds at the fiery hands of these beasts. Soon Zola, Aspohdel, Zerak, Blackwell, and Jobi joined in the fray, but Kel went down quickly and the party scrambled to save her from a fiery death. And it did not take long at all for Asphodel to lose control and become completely and uncontrollably enraged.

The smallest one of the fire creatures appeared to be the most skilled since it was casting fireballs and other spells at the party. But once the party was getting close to it, it disappeared from view. It seemed it had left the battle. But the other three huge fire creatures were not push-overs either. Their blows delivered crushing damage and had the chance of catching their targets on fire as well.

Next week we will witness the conclusion of the battle with the fire creatures…

View

MAY/2015

Session 59

Previously, on Phoenix Rising…

… Rudigar stiffly walked towards Kel and addressed her most formally – almost chillingly one could say. He gave her a small, but respectful bow and was obviously not happy to be here taking care of this matter,
“Princess Keladry. Here is a message from your mother. Read it and give me your answer forthwith.” He handed her a sealed envelope which Kel slowly took and opened. The she read the letter .…

The letter read:

Dearest Keladry,

I do hope this letter finds you well and that you haven’t gone and killed the messenger. You are proving yourself to be quite the warrior from what I’ve been hearing. Please forgive the airship incident. Those “people” were not sanctioned by us. They somehow heard about what we really planned on doing, intercepted and killed the real crew, and then tried to kidnap you for ransom. The ones that were left after you and your friends, quite frankly, handed them their asses, were dealt with appropriately and severely; never to trouble any persons again. The entire family misses you and wants to see you again – and even though you may not believe me – I miss you too. I hope that we can come to some sort of agreement on these matters.
But you must know that your “disappearance” is now to the point of causing an incident of national proportions for us here. I have been able to cover for your absence all this time but soon no more excuses will be accepted by your betrothed’s family. Riindaerth Emmarask is nearly completely beside himself in worry and anger and I fear that he doesn’t believe my excuses about your whereabouts any longer but is too polite to question me openly, bless his young heart. But his father won’t have any problem doing that and if I have to reveal that you “ran away like a spoiled school girl,” then I fear that exorbitant reparations will be asked for and those demands will be backed by the crown itself! This could ruin us; maybe even strip us of our titles and land, my dearest child! Do you really hate me and your family so much that you would destroy our name, your name, our family, and risk losing everything just because you don’t want to marry?
Your running from your duty has gone on long enough. I need you, nay; we all need you to come back. Please come back! Come with your friends. None of you will be in danger and your friends will be considered honored house guests. I promise on my word as a Crownsilver! I realize now that you may not be meant to be married off like some beautiful, shining prize and we need to find a solution to the situation. But we need you here to do that – they will not listen to anything we have to say about you and the marriage unless you are physically present and they hear it from you.
Please don’t destroy us because of my mistakes with you. Maybe I deserve that fate, but the rest of the family surely does not and neither do you.

Your loving Mother
Kimba Anastasia Crownsilver

Kel then said, “Well it looks like I have to go speak with mother.”
“Is that your answer, Princess?” Rudigar inquired. When Kel indicated that it was, Rudigar continued, “Good. Then we shall leave as soon as you are ready. When will you be ready Keladry?”
“Tomorrow morning,” Kel answered.
“Will that be the actual morning or your usual time frame and we should be ready to leave the day after?” Rudigar snidely remarked.
Kel looked quite perturbed by that statement but answered in an even tone, “I said tomorrow morning.”
“Very good Princess. We shall expect to see you at the Neverwinter docks in the morning.” With that Rudigar and the complement of Crownsilver soldiers bowed and took their leave.

Our heroes then took their leave of Lord Neverember and went about some business before they would need to leave in the morning. Kel went and made sure that her temple was still under construction and progressing, while the rest of the party went around town to sell off the latest spoils they had acquired from Arrealla’a stronghold on the Storval Plateau and did some personal shopping and errands. The rest of the day and night passed by uneventfully.

The next morning our heroes made their way towards the docks but what they saw there was no ordinary sailing ship ready to take them back to Kel’s home. Parked on dry land they saw an airship – undoubtedly owned by the Crownsilvers for their golden emblem was emblazoned on the bow right next to the purple dragons of the King of Cormyr. But as Zerak looked more closely at it he began to realize that this was not just an ordinary airship (if such a thing as an ordinary airship actually existed) but that this was none other than a real Spelljammer vessel. He became extremely excited and began to try to relay this information to Jobi and whoever else would listen, but none of the others had the same heartfelt appreciation for this type of craft.

When they boarded, all the crew gave bows of deference and respect to Kel before going about their business. Kel immediately went down below to find herself suitable quarters, having traveled this way before she was familiar with the layout of their family’s ships. The rest of the group were greeted by Rudigar, who seemed quite a bit more pleasant today, almost as stern, but at least pleasant. He welcomed them aboard and had one of the crewmen show them to their quarters below.

The journey back to the Crownsilver estate was only a couple days long and uneventful. When they arrived and disembarked, Kel’s friends got their first look at where she had grown up. It was a pretty vast enclave, with the manor house several times the size of Asphodel’s castle. But what really struck Zerak was the fact that there were more Spelljammer ships berthed here. He was truly fascinated with them but still went with the group to the house for formal introductions.

When they finally reached Kel’s mother’s parlor, one could feel the air get colder and thicker as the two women, mother and daughter first looked up each other and made curt greetings to each other. Then her mother started explaining to her more of the details of what was going on and what was expected of Kel. As they spoke, the group learned that Kel’s arranged marriage was done by the king’s family, not hers nor her betrothed’s family, the Emmarasks. Kel was quite confused by all this that her supposedly not marrying this man Rinddaerth, could and would cause her family to be stripped of title and land and that an agent of the crown had made this threat to her mother.
Kel kept on asking her mother why this was so and what was in their past that made this so important. Kimba did not know at all, but in the process it came to be realized that her uncle, Rudigar actually did know something about this but was either unable or unwilling to tell them what the exact nature of whatever dealings had gone on in the past that warranted this marriage. Kimba became furious with Rudigar but was unable to do anything about it so she dismissed him. Then Kel decided that she wanted to look through their library and see if she could find out anything about what was going on. The rest of our heroes also followed her out but not before Zola and Blackwell noticed that Kimba’s hand were shaking as if she was affected either by fear, illness, or anger, or all of the above. They mentioned it to Kel but she just dismissed it.

Zola went and explored the castle to see what the lay of the land was – just in case they needed to make a hasty retreat for some such emergency purposes. Blackwell cased the place out sneakily and tried to glean any information by eavesdropping on the people within the castle. Jobi went to the gardens and spent the afternoon relaxing and enjoying the Crownsilver’s very elegant and well-kept gardens. Asphodel walked around a bit but eventually made her way to the gardens where she found Jobi and sat with her, also trying to relax.

Zerak decided to go back to the Spelljammer ships and ogle them. He spent quite a bit of time talking with one of the servants who was cleaning one of the ships. But eventually it seemed to Zerak that he wasn’t getting much back in the way of conversation from this person so he decided to fly around the ships to get a better look at them. After a bit, someone flagged him to come down and land. The man introduced himself as Aloysius. He was definitely a wizard but was also wearing a gleaming mithril chain shirt. He spent some time speaking with Zerak, then offered him a tour of the ship. Then, to Zerak’s utter joyfulness, he offered him a ride. When the ship took off, it was the fastest Zerak had ever gone and was completely exhilarating and fearful at the same time. After a few minutes of flying around, the ship stopped and Aloysius came above deck and then really made Zerak’s day by asking him if he wanted to try and fly the ship. So Zerak got the very basics of Spelljamming and was able to fly the ship back and forth for quite a distance before Aloysius took over again. He said Zerak had done well for his first lesson and now wanted to show him what could be done with practice. He told him to tell the crew to get ready for a demo and when Zerak told them this they scrambled very quickly and every last one of them lashed themselves down very, very tightly. So Zerak did as well. Good thing too for Aloysius was an excellent pilot – damned crazy – but excellent. He took that ship through rolls, spins, dives, climbs, and even sometimes it felt like it was completely out of control. But it wasn’t and when he finally stopped the craft it was during a nose dive towards the earth and stopped just in the nick of time before smashing into the dirt. When it came to a stop, Zerak immediately vomited but felt wonderful. He thanked him for the ride and the chance to drive and then went to find Jobi to tell her all about it.

Meanwhile, Kel has spent most of the day within the library but did not find much information at all, other than it appeared that her royal family just appeared on the scene 350 years ago. Also it seemed that once every one hundred years or so, a person from her family and the Emmarask family wed, but were never mentioned again in the history books. Kel’s siblings came to visit her while she was in the library and it was good to see them again but none of them had any more knowledge of what was going on. Her twin brother asked her to go spare with him and since she had had enough looking through musty tomes, she agreed. While they were sparring, others came by and watched the two. Her brother commented that she had grown significantly in skill since she had been away and after a while they had finished and retired to get dinner and drinks.

While all this was going on and just about at the time that Zerak had found Jobi and started to excited tell her about his Spelljammer adventure, Asphodel, who had been sleeping next to Jobi, suddenly and very loudly awoke with a scream that made Jobi jump and fall to the ground. When questioned, Asphodel wouldn’t say a lot, only that she’s been having a recurring nightmare about past events. And so the conversation was dropped so that everyone then went for dinner and later to retire for the evening.

After breakfast the next day, Kel was required to meet with Rinndaerth. She decided to have Zola go with her, which at first seemed to put out Rinndaerth since he had wanted to speak with her privately about this family matter. But eventually he acquiesced and told Kel and Zola what he had found out about why the two of them were being forced into this marriage.

He tells her that they are part of a deal their ancestors made with the crown and that they are to be sacrificed to the old Adella tomb after the marriage, where they enter and will never be seen again. Apparently long ago (350 years actually) their two families had conspired with the then king (same family as today’s king) to bring down the royal house of Adella. They were successful and the Adella name has been all but completely removed from history and their lands are now the Emmarask’s and Crownsilver’s lands. The crown had added one more condition that every hundred years a couple of the crown’s choosing would be sacrificed – the reason for the sacrifice is unknown now. But the two of them had been chosen for this.

Rinndaerth goes on to explain that his research into the matter had led him to find a funerary baton and a poem about the Adella’s and he presented both to the two women:

Set thee off from Slumbering Cat
Seeking where the Dead are at
Journey north and east apace
To find Medusa’s iron embrace,
Follow now the Spider Star
Behind the Wall that hides its Face
To our Sad, Abandoned Place
If visit ye the Long Deceased
Find the Will to Feed the Beast
Then Begin where all Men End
Light go out and Breath Suspend
Egress through the Stony Door
After turning Face to Floor
Each Adellan Branch has Room
In its Silent, Musty Tomb
For at least one Careless Soul
Wouldst thou fill that Empty Hole?

He believes that the slumbering cat mentioned in the poem is the Lion Sleeps Inn and that the actual tomb resides north and east of the inn. He continues that he feels their only hope is for someone to go into the tomb and retrieve all historical notes, papers, books, etc. that pertain to the house Adella’s affairs with the king and crown to find out what treachery was visited upon them. In addition, the Adella’s had a house sword, said to be an intelligent weapon. That along with the papers would be proof enough that he crown continues this treachery and may be the catalyst needed to end these arranged marriages/death sentences.

Kel asked why he just didn’t go to the other houses and reveal this information. Rinndaerth told her that the other houses are firmly behind the crown and that just their two houses would not stand a chance to get this matter undone. That’s why they need to evidence so they can prove the crown is not to be completely trusted. Kel thought that something like this may cause civil war within the nation and he agreed that was a possibility. But the other alternative was much worse for the two of them.

Rinndaerth knew he was not capable of retrieving those items in the tomb – he wasn’t a soldier and would never have the abilities needed to such a dangerous thing. But Kel is and does and she has friends that may actually want to help them with this issue. Zola agreed and then they sent for the rest of the group to discuss the matter. All but Asphodel and Zerak showed up in a timely matter – it seemed that the two were deep in a private discussion and were not willing at first to break it off and join the rest. Eventually they do however and hear what everyone else had heard.

The next catch Rinndaerth mentioned is that the marriage was to be formally announced that night at the banquet. A representative of the crown would be there and they had to make sure that he believed the two of them were going through with the wedding and were none-the-wiser about the background machinations of the crown. Then they had only a week to penetrate the old tomb and get the evidence. They would have to leave late this night without being seen. This meant that they were going to need help in order to get out of the compound without being spotted. So Kel reluctantly went to her mother to explain the situation and see if she could get her help by getting a ship to leave with them after the banquet.

She found her mother in her study and set about explaining everything she had learned. As she spoke she could see her mother starting to unravel and by the time she was done, her mother was shaking and crying and nearly inconsolable. But with some time Kel was able to get her mother to setup a late night escape that would ensure that no one thought anything other than what was supposed to be going on was.

The banquet went as expected and no one seemed suspicious of the two newly engaged young people. When the time came to sneak out of the compound, her mother escorted Kel, Rinndaerth and the rest of our heroes to her personal Spelljammer. No one else was around except for the small crew for the ship. Kimba told Kel that the people on the ship are completely trustworthy and will not betray anything. So our heroes boarded the Spelljammer and then took off in search of the Adella’s ancient tomb…

Until next session, I bid you adieu.

View

APR/2015

Session 58

Previously, on Phoenix Rising…

… The back wall had many shelves and some of the shelves had those strange vial-like objects on them – probably two to three dozen of them. And all of them had a sickly greenish glow to them … She addressed the party as the door opened up, “Ah, you finally found your way here. Arrealla sends her regards. Too bad you won’t live to meet her.” And the battle began.…

Zerak’s black tentacles didn’t seem to do much this time. The human fighter that was trapped by them easily broke out of them and advanced into the fight. But he did not last long against Zola. Then she went on to attack one of the graveknights that was stuck in the tentacles. The undead abomination posed quite a challenge for her but eventually she was victorious against it. Asphodel went after the second graveknight in the room and quickly went into an uncontrollable rage. Even so, it lasted against her for a few rounds.

In the meantime the wights that were working on the dead bodies in this room had advanced and were attacking Blackwell and Kel. They too soon fell from the onslaught of the two heroes. And Jobi and Zerak gave lots of support with healing and summoning spells.

But when the high level cleric started throwing her spells around, mainly targeting Zola and Asphodel, the extra healing was sorely needed for them. She cast several destruction spells as well as harm spells at the pair doing sometimes immense damage to them in a single round. She also bolstered her undead minions with negative energy channeling and had help from a couple more spell casters as the battle continued.

First, an invisible attacker plagued the likes of Blackwell, Jobi, Kel, and Zerak for some time. He was using spells such as slay living, inflict critical wounds, and channeling negative energy as well. Finally they had become quite sick and tired of this person so Kel cast invisibility purge to find the culprit. Then Zerak used a deep slumber hex on him to put him down till the end of the battle.

Another spellcaster came up from behind them and first blasted Jobi with three scorching rays – which really only amounted in getting her attention and alerting the party to his presence. Then he switched to fireballs and other damaging spells but Kel and Jobi concentrated on him and brought him to the point that he teleported away – not to be seen again, at least for now. It took our heroes nearly all their strength to finally bring down the evil cleric in charge down in this hell hole of a basement. And then it took both Jobi and Zola to help calm down Asphodel to the point that she wouldn’t start tearing into her friends.

Shortly after the battle was over, Zola went still and stiff and had another waking vision. Once it was over in a couple minutes she did not share the whole vision with everyone but only said that she had to kill Arrealla and that Arrealla was her older half-sister.

Once everyone settled out of the combat, they started healing and taking stock of the surroundings. They saw that they still had nearly two dozen living captives to deal with. They were all chained to the far north wall, naked, malnourished and badly beaten. Some of the party then went to work unlocking their manacles, and doing basic first aid as well as giving them small amounts of healing magic. Others in the party went and gathered all the magical items they could find strewn about and upon the dead. They also turned their attention to the small vials with the greenish-bluish mists in them, nearly a hundred of them on the shelves. It took some time but they thought they were holding the life essences of those that had these vials viciously slammed into their chests. They broke one and saw some of the liquid inside seep into the stone floor as well as the mist travel through to another plane of existence, but unable to determine exactly where. SO they packed all of them up to take with them so they could get another opinion from one or more of the churches in Neverwinter of what to do with the vials.

Meanwhile, Zola had seen the Afterlife Machine in the southern part of the room and stated to destroy it. At first she sued her fists only to find out that it really hurt and wasn’t getting her anywhere except toward the goal of broken hands. So she borrowed Asphodel’s large axe and struck at it with all her might until the thing was nothing more than broken remains.

They also talked about what they were going to do about the graveknights’s armor. They couldn’t just leave it here because the creatures would reform in just one to ten days from now. So they discussed it and decided that dropping them into a volcano was the only immediately expedient thing to do to hopefully ensure their total destruction. So Asphodel gathered up the suits of armor and teleported above the nearest volcano and dropped them into the fiery depths and then teleported back to the rest of the group.

Once they were finished down here, they led the ex-prisoners out to the main floor and double checked to see what had gone on outside. They were pleasantly surprised to see the guard they had let live sitting at a small fire and eating a freshly cooked rabbit. All the other combatants out here were either gone or dead. When asked, the man said that he owed them at least the courtesy of taking care of the rest of the evilness outside the castle in exchange for them sparing his life. This moved Asphodel enough to give the man back his sword that they did not allow him to take earlier. The man also accepted the charge of making sure the prisoners got to the nearest town unharmed. He had just accepted the task when Zola added that she would give him 5,000 gold to do this for them. He gladly accepted and then set about getting more food out of the castle for the people there.

They all slept the night and rested till the next day when our heroes took their leave of the man and the ex-prisoners. They then teleported back to Asphodel’s castle courtyard and promptly started the people in the courtyard. But once this was overcome, it did not take long for Asphodel’s cohort, Donamira, to come rushing out and tell the group that a messenger had been sent from Lord Neverember himself about having them come to Neverwinter as soon as was possible. And they had to make sure that Kel was with them.

So our heroes set out to Neverwinter to see what Lord Neverember was needing from them this time. When they arrived at the estate, they were escorted in to see him. With him were a number of other people in foreign regalia but Kel immediately recognized who was there with Neverember. It was an entourage from her family, the Crownsilvers. The one speaking with Neverember was her uncle, Knight Commander Rudigar. He was a stern man normally but he looked especially perturbed to Kel. Once their presence was announced, Neverember was delighted to see them and said as much.

Rudigar stiffly walked towards Kel and addressed her most formally – almost chillingly one could say. He gave her a small, but respectful bow and was obviously not happy to be here taking care of this matter,
“Princess Keladry. Here is a message from your mother. Read it and give me your answer forthwith.” He handed her a sealed envelope which Kel slowly took and opened. The she read the letter and said, “Well it looks like I have to go speak with mother.”

With that we leave you till next week…

View

APR/2015

Session 57

Previously, on Phoenix Rising…

… The mastiffs were now dead as well as the three guards that had been in their midst, but the female was not and continued her assault on them. After some time it dawned on them that she must be some type of undead – probably something powerful. Kel scored a very big hit on her with her searing light spell, but it wasn’t enough to drop the enemy.…

Eventually the vampire bitch made herself known again and this time the heroes were able to destroy her. She had awoken the last of the deep slumbering guards, but once he was up and able to fight again, he found that he was the only one left. He immediately threw down his sword and flung his arms up in surrender, in hopes that the attackers would not run him through.

As this was happening, Zola was able to calm Asphodel down enough to get her to drop out of her uncontrollable rage, but not before making sausage out of the skilled fighter that had faced the group in the other room. Asphodel then, after hearing the surrendering of the last soldier, decided that she just needed to rest against the cool stone wall of the building and slumped down into a seated position.

The group started asking him questions about the layout of the place and his role in all of it. They found out that he was just a hired mercenary that decided to quit here before being skewered. So Jobi attempted her charm person to get the man to change his ways, like she had done before. After a while, however, it was apparent that she wasn’t really getting through to him about a full change of heart. The only real piece of information they got out of him was that whoever went into the basement never came out – except for the high ranking people here (i.e. the ones that the group had already killed). Nevertheless, she did manage to convince him to look for more upstanding employment in the future and he did agree to leave immediately and would not take up arms against them again. He had asked to take his sword, but the group did not let him. Zola watched him walk down the stairs and out of the castle, but not before he bent down to grab another sword just before leaving. Shortly after, Zola heard the sounds of swords clashing outside, then she went back upstairs to rejoin the rest of the group.

So our heroes searched all the rooms upstairs thoroughly, gathered all the worthwhile treasure they found and then barricaded themselves into one of the rooms in order to get a proper rest so they were at full capacity when they were to go into the basement. Luckily they were not disturbed during their rest and were able to get to the basement stairs unmolested.

Once down at the bottom landing, they found themselves in a semicircular room with one set of doors leading out. They didn’t really hear much beyond the door and so Asphodel kicked open the door to reveal the other half of the semicircular room filled with half a dozen more guards all with composite bows just waiting for them. The fight that ensued was rather short lived – for the guards here were not much of a match for the party. Some injuries were sustained but nothing major.

Soon they were exploring the rest of the area around the circular center room and found another circular hallway around the room that led to four other short passages to other rooms. What they encountered in that hallway and in two of those rooms was rather ghastly. There were sets of manacles driven into the ways and floors in every five foot square of the rooms and all along the hallway’s walls. Everything – manacles, chains, floors and walls had a coating of blood on it – mostly dried, but some in places was still coagulating. It appeared that many beings hand been chained and bled here, but for what purpose was not readily identifiable.

The eastern most room was where they found something quite unsettling. The room was a long rectangular shaped room with open brick ovens on the south wall. In front of that was half a dozen zombie-like creatures – each working at a table using meat cleavers to chop up things into smaller pieces and tossing those pieces into the ovens. In front of the tables there was a stack of desiccated humanoid corpses, neatly piled and about 4 feet in height running from east to west – some thirty or so feet in length. The zombies ignored Blackwell as he entered the room and even as he got close to the pile of bodies. But once he fired an arrow at one of them, they all turned their attention to the intruder and scrambled over the corpses to attack. The rest of the party had waited in the hallway, waiting to see what would happen, and for a moment, joked about closing the door and leaving Blackwell alone. But of course, our heroes did nothing of the sort and soon the zombies were dispatched and nothing left stirred except for the flames in the ovens.

This led the party to the last passageway out of the circular hallway – this one led to the west and also ended at a single door. This door was trapped and Blackwell handily disabled it for them. Then Asphodel listened and heard some sounds of voices, but nothing definite and decided to open the door wide.

Inside, they saw a very large chamber with quite a few things going on. To the north, there were six slabs with six naked humanoids lying on them, strapped down, silently writhing and in various states of desiccation. All of them had an object protruding from their chests – objects that looked like the same object that Arrealla had jammed into the chest of the man she had savagely raped and murdered in Zola’s vision-dream. Attending to the six humanoids were six more of the zombie like beings. Along the north wall there were at least a dozen more naked humanoids beaten and bloody – all chained to the walls and floor with manacles – apparently waiting their turns on the slabs.

The back wall had many shelves and some of the shelves had those strange vial-like objects on them – probably two to three dozen of them. And all of them had a sickly greenish glow to them.

The southern wall had an alcove where there was a strange human height pillar jutting out of the floor with three places that looked kind of like seating positions equidistant from each other. There were tubes and skull caps and other strange things protruding from the pillar at each seat location as well as round receptacles in between in each seat. They had three holes spaced around the outside rim of the receptacle which made them look like they could accept the strange three-pronged vial-like objects on the shelves.

Also in the room there were other creatures and people. There were a couple of obviously undead warriors – very powerful looking, a human warrior type and a female cleric of some religion, though without careful study of her, the religion was not apparent. She addressed the party as the door opened up, “Ah, you finally found your way here. Arrealla sends her regards. Too bad you won’t live to meet her.” And the battle began.

Blackwell decided that he was going to take on the zombie-like creatures since he had had some luck fighting them in the oven room. Zola went for the closest undead fighter and began her smiting evil to help in the battle. Zerak decided to use Black Tentacles to try and pin down the human fighter and the female cleric, but the fighter broke free easily and made his way clear of the tentacles. Asphodel went after the second undead fighter. The cleric was able to conjure up several wights to add to the parties troubles.

And this is where we have to leave our band of heroes until the next exciting episode of Phoenix Rising…

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APR/2015

Session 56

Previously, on Phoenix Rising…

… The wizard and cleric were so far the strongest resistance they had encountered at the castle. But eventually these two fell as well and the group found themselves free of enemies for the first time in this castle. They hurriedly healed themselves, hoping to be able to finish before any more combatants showed up .…

Once our heroes had healed themselves, they spent a few minutes gathering up some of the magical items from the fallen, just in case they wouldn’t be back this way to take everything with them. They collected up the following items:

1 suit of full plate armor +2, 1 heavy wooden shield +2, 1 vicious morningstar +1, 2 cloaks of resistance +1, 1 healer’s kit,
1 masterwork light crossbow and 10 bolts, 1 amulet of natural armor +1, 1 ring of protection +2 and 1,000 gold pieces

With this booty quickly collected they made their way back upstairs to investigate the rest of the level before heading anywhere else. Once they got into the library, Asphodel, Zerak and Blackwell took turns listening at the double doors to perhaps hear what may be behind them. But all they were able to hear was what sounded like heavy breathing – something akin to what a large animal might do. So they checked the doors for traps and flung them wide open.

The room beyond was hexagonal in shape and only about fifty feet in diameter with three other sets of double doors leading to other parts of the castle – all of which were closed. But the enemy was ready for them. There was four bowmen along with 2 very large black-coated canines that Zola recognized from her vision dream as the Shadow Mastiffs that belonged to Arrealla. The two forces closed in an instant and began battling. For the first few moments it appear that our heroes had the upper hand, with Zola engaging one of the bowmen in melee and Asphodel taking on another in addition to one of the mastiffs. The rest of the party was supporting with ranged attacks both magical and weapons-based. Zerak was able to use his deep slumber hex against two of the bowmen and help thin out the aggressors. Kel was very effective with her star-knife as was Blackwell with his arrows and Jobi with her spells.

But then, two of the other sets of double doors opened and enemy spell casters launched a barrage of punishing spells at the group of heroes. Fireball after fireball – Unholy Blight – Scorching Rays – as well as spells to help their comrades were flying for many consecutive rounds and began wearing down our heroes.

Then two secret doors opened – one on either side of the library and out came two more canines and three more guards. Now they were being attacked on all fronts. Blackwell was hit hard by them and had to move into the hexagonal room to avoid melee combat. Jobi also needed to move away for she was caught in melee range by all three fighters and soon she was heavily wounded – to the point of losing her already limited eyesight from a particularly nasty cut across her face. Zerak was also within the melee but managed to back up enough to cast a summoning spell to bring up a dire tiger to help them.

The last fireball cast against them brought Kel down, unconscious and dying. Then a lightning bolt came crashing through their ranks and only by the grace of Desna did Kel survive that onslaught.

Blackwell was also experiencing some troubles – he felt his hit points draining away a couple of times just after it felt like something touched his shoulder. But nothing was there. After the second time he called out to his friends and said something he couldn’t see was attacking him. That’s when Zerak cast a see invisible spell and saw an evil looking female standing right next Kel and him. Then the female reached out and touched Zerak, draining away some of his life force and shortly thereafter the female changed into a gaseous state and floated away over towards the western secret door.
Meanwhile, Asphodel had gone into another uncontrollable rage and was quite literally disemboweling the three guards and spell caster she was fighting. Once she had finished those four off she turned around and advanced on the two guards in deep slumber since they were the closest creatures to her.

Also at this time Zola had advanced into the next room to engage the other spell caster. She also found that one of the fighters there was just as good as they were – and nearly just as well protected for she had a difficult time landing a blow on him. She did have some help from Blackwell who had also advanced into this room and was shooting at the caster and the tough fighter alternately. Soon the spell caster was so hurt that he disappeared – either by some teleport, dimension door, or some other traveling magic. Since the tough fighter was so much a problem, Zola decided to try to call to Asphodel to get her attention to move into the room and fight this one. Her first attempt did not get her attention but after she had ripped apart one of the sleeping guards, Zola was able to get her attention and get her to come after them in the next room.

Meanwhile, the other half of our heroes were faring a bit better than they had been. Kel had been healed ups some as well as Jobi. And Zerak had regained his life force back by way of a restoration spell. The mastiffs were now dead as well as the three guards that had been in their midst, but the female was not and continued her assault on them. After some time it dawned on them that she must be some type of undead – probably something powerful. Kel scored a very big hit on her with her searing light spell, but it wasn’t enough to drop the enemy.

The battle continues on the next episode of Phoenix Rising…

View

MAR/2015

Session 55

Previously, on Phoenix Rising…

… Then the castle front door slammed open. And it slammed right into Zerak. He found himself staring at one of the Troxes from outside. So he did what he would normally do – he cast black tentacles in front of the doors and proceeded to capture not one but three Troxes and began hitting them with other spells as well .…

The battle raged on for several more rounds, first finishing in the central chamber where Zola and Asphodel were. Zola quickly made her way back into the entrance corridor to help the rest of the party battle the two remaining Troxes while Asphodel decided to start looking around. Still be in a rage condition, she moved down the western corridor and opened all the doors to reveal nothing but empty barracks rooms, six in all.

Meanwhile the rest of the party battled the Troxes, who had been throwing spears in with pretty decent accuracy at Zerak and Jobi. Blackwell finally finished off the last remain bowman off in the western alcove while Zerak, Jobi, Kel, and Zola finally brought down the Troxes. Then they made their way into the chamber where Asphodel was.

Once they were all back together, Asphodel went down the eastern hallway and found the kitchen, storage room, and the common mess hall, which turned out to be in complete shambles. Someone had dug up all the tiles and uncovered an ancient spiral stairway leading down into the earth. The group decided to close the door and come back to this later, opting to finish exploring and clearing out the above ground levels first.

They made their way into the next open area which appears to have been some sort of armory. There was a ceremonial set of plate armor standing against the wall in the middle of the room. It was flanked by a pair of stairs going up to the next level. The rest of the room contained weapons racks and other armor mannequins but no weapons or armor was to be found anywhere within the room.

So our heroes made their way up the stairs – they split into two groups and ascended each stairwell at the same time. The room above revealed itself to be a large semi-circular library with books lining the outer walls from floor to near the ceiling ten feet above. Also there were two large bookcases running between the staircases that also ran from floor to ceiling. Just as Asphodel and Zola reached the top of the stairs and started to look around, the group was ambushed by the half a dozen fighters that were at the back of the room. The fighters let loose with a barrage of arrows aimed at Asphodel, Zola, Kel and Zerak (Blackwell and Jobi were the last to come up the stairs and were not visible to target at the time). Several arrows struck true and wounded some of our heroes before they had time to react.

The battle was pretty fierce – the fighters were pretty good marksmen and quite a few arrows hit their marks. Zerak kept getting hit so he used a spell that turned his flesh into swarms of wasps and attacked several of the enemy. Jobi and Kel were using healing magicks almost as much as offensive spells. Zola dispatched a couple of the fighters and just as the battle seemed to be heading in their direction, Asphodel lost control of herself and flew into a rage. The rest of the group realized what was happening and began to disengage by heading back downstairs until Asphodel could calm down after the battle. Jobi and Zerak decided to stay near to attempt to help her calm down. Kel and Blackwell retreated to the lower level only to be surprised by a wizard and a cleric who had come from outside of the castle in pursuit of the intruders. They yelled out and Zola soon was in a position to go back down and lend help against the new enemies. Meanwhile, the rest of the fighters in the library were sent on to the other side and Asphodel then advanced on Jobi and Zerak.

Both Jobi and Zerak tried talking to Asphodel to help give her a chance to regain control of herself, and after a few moments it worked. Then the three made their way down the stairs to join in the new fray. Zola removed Asphodel’s fatigue as she went passing by to join in the fight. The wizard and cleric were so far the strongest resistance they had encountered at the castle. But eventually these two fell as well and the group found themselves free of enemies for the first time in this castle. They hurriedly healed themselves, hoping to be able to finish before any more combatants showed up.

Tune in next week where we may find out what really inhabits this castle …

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FEB/2015

Session 54

Previously, on Phoenix Rising…

… Our stalwart band was able to overcome the seps without anyone succumbing to their poisonous bites after a few rounds of battle with them. They did have to use significant amounts of restoration magic to heal the damage to their constitutions caused by the poison, but it wasn’t a big concern since they were nearly done traveling for the day anyway and rest would replenish their magical abilities. Our heroes only traveled a little distance from this last encounter before settling in for the rest of the night .…

The band of friends continued their trek through the wastelands of the Storval Plateau only resting during the hottest times of the days and the darkest times of the nights. A couple days after the battle with the giant seps they were ambushed by a giant scorpion. It popped out of the sand without warning and promptly grabbed Blackwell, who was in the lead, with both pincers and also landed a tail sting. The creature was able to do severe damage to Blackwell over the next few rounds of combat. He couldn’t escape the mighty pincers of the gargantuan arthropod and without the help of Kel’s and Jobi’s healing magic, he wouldn’t have survived the ordeal. But soon, the battle prowess of Asphodel, Zola, and Kel, along with support from Zerak and Jobi, the beast finally collapsed and let Blackwell go, much to his relief.

In the morning Asphodel was the first to see what looked like a fortress way off in the distance. The group concluded that with no other structures appearing on the horizon that this must either be their destination or at least a place that they could get their bearings. The next couple days were also uneventful until late one night when Zola received another vision-dream. She awoke with a start and after she woke up Blackwell for his watch, she said she needed to go out and relieve herself. Asphodel and Zerak were also awake at this time but did not think much of what Zola was doing – until about fifteen minutes later when Zerak asked if anyone thought Zola was gone for a long time. That’s when they went out of their secure structure and looked around for her. And they didn’t find her anywhere. The only conclusion that came to their minds was that she had decided to head on to the fortress on her own.

So they woke everyone else up and packed up to go after Zola. Once they were ready Asphodel casted a teleport spell and was able to land them within a mile of the fortress without any incident. Then they began walking toward the fortress while keeping an eye out for Zola. And sure enough, a few minutes later they saw her flying overhead speeding directly toward the fortress.

The heroes then saw Zola land in front of the gate to the fortress and started to yell – demanding to see Arrealla. The gates slowly opened and three of the Trox barbarians were inside blocking the way in. They could also see that there were many others working around the fortress, though exactly how many was left unanswered. One of the Trox’s spoke to Zola in a language that the rest of the party did not understand, although it appeared that Zola had no trouble understanding the Trox. Zerak then casted the comprehend languages spell on himself so he could translate for the rest of the group.

The conversation went basically like this: Zola demanded to see Arrealla. The Trox said no. Zola spews forth her entire lineage and demands that Arrealla come out and face her. The Trox said no. Zola continues by repeating herself and then asks to go inside to see Arrealla. The Trox said she couldn’t come in unless she left all her weapons at the gate. She demands that someone go and get Arrealla and tell her that she was here. The Trox sends in a human into the castle.
They wait…..
The human comes and says something to the Trox. The Trox tells Zola that she can come inside but has to leave all weapons at the gate. So she drops her weapons (and, of course, her ancestral weapon just disappears) and then heads inside.

Meanwhile, the rest of the group had hung back far enough not to be considered a threat but close enough to hear the entire exchange. Asphodel intently studied the space beyond the castle door when it opened again so that once it closed she would wait some moments and then cast teleport on the group to land just inside the castle door. And it worked perfectly. The party found themselves with their backs against the closed outer castle doors with Zola being lead down the corridor to another set of door some sixty feet away. And they had not been noticed. So they waited until the next set of doors was opened and Zola entered the other room. They waited until what they had feared could be an ambush realized itself. Then they began attacking as well as Zola with her ancestral weapon materializing out of thin air.

It seemed like the enemy was coming out of every door and ganging up on Zola, trying to kill her – and that’s because that is what they were trying to do. However they did not expect the rest of the party to be there as well and so they were forced to split their firepower between the heroes. After several rounds of combat several of our band were hurt, but many more of the enemy were hurt and dead. Spells, arrows, and blades were flying – spraying the blood of friend and foe alike across the walls and floor (mostly foes’ blood, which was a good thing).

Then the castle front door slammed open. And it slammed right into Zerak. He found himself staring at one of the Troxes from outside. So he did what he would normally do – he cast black tentacles in front of the doors and proceeded to capture not one but three Troxes and began hitting them with other spells as well.

We leave our heroes in the heat of battle for this week and will continue the carnage on the next episode of Phoenix Rising …

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FEB/2015

Session 53

Previously, on Phoenix Rising…

… Asphodel gave Telliann her own quarters and told her to feel at home, that she could stay as long as was needed. Then she asked some of her friends if they would be interested in having positions of power at her castle/settlement. There wouldn’t be much now to do, but as the place grew in inhabitants, their services would be needed more and more. Zerak was offered the Magister’s position which he accepted graciously. Jobi was to be the new head priestess in charge of all the temples and shrines that were to be built. Zola gladly accepted the position of General. And Sir Oakley decided that the Marshall position was best suited for his talents – training guards, teaching Bahamut’s litany, and making sure the settlement runs smoothly. Blackwell and Kel weren’t actually offered any positions since they had their own settlements to work on and be in charge of.…

Our heroes have been on a long deserved break for about the last three months where they have worked on their personal projects / issues. The much needed rest comes to an end when Zola experiences a very peculiar and graphic vision while sleeping. She realizes that this vision is of something currently happening and was sent to her by her father. Throughout the break Asphodel had been keeping to herself a lot and was usually pretty difficult to find quickly. Today proved no exception to this. Zola urgently searched for, and eventually found, Asphodel and told her about the vision-dream. Then the two decided they needed to gather everyone together to let them know what Zola has seen. Asphodel also included Telliann, Sir Oakley, and Donamira, her cohort in this meeting since the decisions that the group would make may very well affect them as well.

Once gathered in Asphodel’s conference room, Zola recounted her vision-dream to everyone there:

You see a beautiful woman lounging in a large overstuffed chair. This shapely female humanoid has dark hair, dark eyes, a pair of small black horns just above her eyes, and small black leathery wings protrude from her shoulders. She is almost completely naked except for some straps of black leather with wicked looking barbed studs protruding out of the leather at her shoulders, elbows, the sides of her thighs, on her knees, and the backs of her hands. She is holding a cat-o-nine tails that is dripping with fresh blood.

The room’s décor suggests that it is located somewhere hot, possibly near a desert. All the colors are light and the floor is tile or worked stone. The windows have light colored curtains and no glass, allowing a slight breeze to waft into the room. There are four very large and muscular canines lazing on the ground near her, oblivious to what is going on around them. They have maws full of sharp teeth and inky black coats that almost seem to drink in the light around them. Near her is a naked human male tied upright between two metal poles by his wrists and ankles located in front of a large bed. It looks like all his hair has been shaved off carelessly for he has numerous razor cuts on his head, arms, legs and other places. His bloody lash marks across his back, chest and thighs are still welting and thin lines of blood are running down and forming small crimson pools on the floor under him. What appears to be a Mage Hand spell is slowly stroking his manhood to life while he feebly and unsuccessfully tries to avoid the contact.

The woman speaks, “So darling are you ready to perform for me or do I need to persuade you some more?” The man gasps out, sobbing with fear and loathing that his body’s desires betray him, “Mistress Arrealle (pronounced Ar-ree-alla) I am ready to perform for you. Please … use me as you wish.” With that Arrealle smiles, stands up, cuts the ropes binding the man’s wrists and ankles and pushes him forcefully onto the bed. Then she violently rapes the man, causing him severe wounds all over his body. She laughs with abandon as the man weakly screams from the pain and his blood flies everywhere. Finally, with her legs, stomach and arms covered in the man’s blood, she finishes with him and gets off the bed. The man is silent, unmoving except for his ragged, shallow breathing.

Arrealla then walks over to a nightstand and retrieves a small glass cylinder, about the size of a potion vial, and removes the cap revealing three two inch metal prongs protruding from the top. She then turns to the man lying on the bed amidst the blood soaked sheets and says to him while smiling and caressing his chest, “Oh I just love a good fuck, don’t you? Now for your reward for pleasing me: You get to join the others in The Afterlife Machine.” She jams the three prongs deep into the man’s chest and he starts to scream but no sound comes out as he writhes in agony as she again laughs maniacally. The man’s body starts to wither like it is being drained of his very life essence. Soon the man is dead and just a withered, deformed husk is left.

Arrealla smiles as she pulls the prongs out of his chest and puts the cap back on the cylinder, which is now softly glowing with a translucent blue light. She then turns to the four lounging canine creatures and says, “Come on puppies! Let’s go give The Afterlife Machine some more souls to corrupt!” And the three “puppies,” which are nearly the size of ponies, jump up and happily nuzzle her. One starts to lick the blood off of her thigh which makes her giggle and she playfully scolds the beast, “Stop that, silly. You’ll get a treat a little later.” And they follow Arrealla out of the room.

As this scene fades it is replaced with a transparent image of your father’s face hovering over a map. His head is looking down and he is crying. His tears are falling onto the map and turn into bright pin points of light landing somewhere in the Storval Plateau …

Kel and Donamira all looked shocked and a bit embarrassed at the graphic nature of the vision. Jobi also appeared a bit shocked but not as much as the others. Zerak just stared forward, meeting Zola’s gaze whenever the assimar looked at him, but said nothing for a long time. Then when Zola said something about it, all Zerak said was, “All you have to do is ask.” It took Zola a few moments before reacting, but she soon recovered and asked the group for help in tracking this Arrealla and her Afterlife Machine down. Everyone quickly agreed that this was something important to look into, even as Jobi mentioned that the time off was nice and seemed too short for her. Zola brought out a map of the world and they planned their travel route to the Storval Plateau.

The first part of the journey would see the heroes on horseback for a few days till they reached the Storval Stairs. At this point Asphodel had her henchmen take the horses and wagons back to her castle and made it known that Donamira was to be obeyed as if she herself were giving the orders. Then the group spent the next day climbing up to the top of the Stairs where the air was noticeably drier and hotter, even as night descended upon them. From here on out, they would travel by foot and limited flight.

For the next two days they traveled North, following the Iron Peaks mountain range, until they made their way to the northern edge of the range and were able to follow the Lampblack river east as far as the eastern shore of Lake Skotha. There they now had to head straight east into the desert where their next way-point would be the Storval River. After about a day’s travel east of the lake, our heroes encountered a massive sandstorm. I moved so quickly that Zerak did not have time to cast a shelter spell and so they had to resort to hunkering down in the sand and covering themselves with blankets, tarps, whatever they had on hand. Jobi was very familiar with these types of storms and warned everyone to cover their faces as much as possible to avoid sand and other debris getting into their eyes and lungs. Zerak had difficulty getting himself completely covered before the storm hit and suffered a bit of damage from inhaling sand.

Hours later, the storm had subsided and Zola and Jobi were able to help Zerak recover from the damage to his lungs. The next day they were now within territory that some of the locals guarded jealously. The group was attacked by some strange looking barbaric creatures that Zerak and Zola recognized as Trox – large 6 armed, cloven hoofed, and ill-tempered creatures that could burrow through the sand. The battle with them was relatively short, especially when Asphodel lost control of herself and went into one of her rages. Fortunately this time, there were no party members within thirty feet of her after she mutilated the Trox she was fighting. This allowed her to regain composure in only a few rounds time. Zola was nearby to remove her fatigue so she could still be able to travel for the rest of the day. Asphodel had decided not to recall her eidolon after the rage, just so she could get a rest from the powerful feelings she had when it was summoned to her. Jobi showed some concern for Asphodel’s well-being after this latest episode of uncontrollable rage and spoke with her at some length about it. Though nothing was able to be resolved, the conversation did let Asphodel know that her friends were concerned about her.

Now that is was getting quite a bit hotter the further they ventured into the desert lands, they made a plan to break up their travel to allow them to rest and shelter from the hottest part of the day while still being able to make decent travel each day. But this required them to travel some of the time during the night when possibly other predators were out and about.

The next evening brought another attack by some more locals. This time they accidentally walked into a nest of seps – large armored snakes. While most of the party saw them in time not to be surprised by them, Zerak was pretty blind to them until they struck him with their sharp, poison-filled fangs. The four babies were around 7 feet long and at first the battle did not seem to be much of a problem. That is, until the parents showed up. The two fully grown seps were all of thirty feet long and had very nasty bites and poison. The group also found out that as they wounded the seps, they had acid-laced blood and had to dodge out of the way of the blood backsplashes in order to not get burned by it. In addition, their poison had a bad side effect of draining their victims’ endurance. Blackwell, Zerak and Jobi felt these effects as they were bitten and failed to ward off the poison for a time. Our stalwart band was able to overcome the seps without anyone succumbing to their poisonous bites after a few rounds of battle with them. They did have to use significant amounts of restoration magic to heal the damage to their constitutions caused by the poison, but it wasn’t a big concern since they were nearly done traveling for the day anyway and rest would replenish their magical abilities. Our heroes only traveled a little distance from this last encounter before settling in for the rest of the night.

Next week we will continue the adventures as the group wakes – ready for another day of travel, and hopefully, finding Arrealla’s domicile without too much more time or difficulty…

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10

FEB/2015

Session 52 Synopsis

Previously, on Phoenix Rising…

… Shortly after Blackwell finished eating Alira’s heart he reverted back to human form, having spent all the time as a werewolf that his current condition would allow each day. His face and hands covered in the evil woman’s blood. His now human stomach gave a lurch as it tried to come to terms with cannibalistic flesh now residing inside it which it was expected to digest. Jobi looked on with obvious disgust and disdain and Zerak looked on with an incredulous look upon his face…

Zola helped Blackwell out with his feelings of fatigue by temporarily removing his fatigue so they could effectively leave this place without anyone lagging behind. The party searched the entire room and the remaining bodies – the devils bodies had disintegrated into ash when they were “killed” for their mortal forms were all that were really destroyed. Each devil will reform again on one of the plains of Hell where they will reside for quite a while before being able to come back to the mortal realms. They found the following items:

(2) +1 flaming composite longbows for a +5 strength modifier, an amulet of natural armor +3, a belt of mighty constitution +2, a cloak of resistance +3 and a headband of alluring charisma +4

The part took a few minutes to compare these items to their current gear, made a few swaps and bagged the rest as party treasure to be sold off at a later date.

Next, the party left the House of Knowledge dungeon ruins and headed back to the guard captain’s headquarters to talk with Telliann about what they had found out. When they arrived, Zerak asked her if they could go and talk at the same place they did before, namely on the bridge, so they would not be overheard. She agreed and they all walked over to the bridge.

Once they were sure that no one was in the area to overhear their conversation, Zerak began laying out the documents they did have and what they were able to piece together, although he indicated that the hard evidence was not in their possession – presumably Mordai Vell had it somewhere. It took Telliann a few minutes to absorb everything and to appreciate the severity of the situation if all this turned out to be true. If Lord Neverember and many others of Neverwinter’s ruling class were truly being controlled by the devil worshipping cult, then it was only a matter of time before they came after her and did the same thing or worse. If she stayed on and acted as if nothing was going on, she would be in danger of being abducted as soon as Vell found out what the heroes had done. He supposedly would step up his timetable and maybe grab her very soon. But if she left abruptly, then Vell would be tipped off that she knows and would have her hunted down. No, there needed to be a different plan.

Then Asphodel put forth that maybe she could hide out at her castle until such time that they could put an end to Mordai’s plans. After some debate, she agreed that this may be the best thing to do. So she decided to make up a story to tell her second in command that she needed to travel to a neighboring town in the north for some official business. Then she went and retrieved some things she would need and then headed out of Neverwinter heading north. After an hour or so of traveling, she met up with the party where Asphodel then teleported the group back to her castle which was located half a day’s ride south of Neverwinter. It took her a total of three castings of her teleport spell to get everyone back and they made sure that no one would have been able to follow them and figure out the whereabouts of Telliann.

Asphodel gave Telliann her own quarters and told her to feel at home, that she could stay as long as was needed. Then she asked some of her friends if they would be interested in having positions of power at her castle/settlement. There wouldn’t be much now to do, but as the place grew in inhabitants, their services would be needed more and more. Zerak was offered the Magister’s position which he accepted graciously. Jobi was to be the new head priestess in charge of all the temples and shrines that were to be built. Zola gladly accepted the position of General. And Sir Oakley decided that the Marshall position was best suited for his talents – training guards, teaching Bahamut’s litany, and making sure the settlement runs smoothly. Blackwell and Kel weren’t actually offered any positions since they had their own settlements to work on and be in charge of.

With this all worked out for now, our heroes settled in for a much needed rest. But just how long they were going to get to rest (or want to rest) remains to be seen. This concludes season 2 of the ongoing adventures of our heroes. Join us next season when we return in a few months for more action and adventure…

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19

MAY/2014

Session 51 Synopsis

Previously, on Phoenix Rising…

… “Telliann is the direct descendant of the last ruler of Neverwinter! And she’s also my cousin!” exclaimed Zerak. That and other revelations were contained in the treasure trove of information they had found in the complex’s crating room. But now they needed to rest for there was still one more door to deal with…

Once our heroes had a sufficient rest, they gathered up everything of value and proceeded to check out the double doors that had been hidden by the illusory wall. The doors were large, made out of heavy wood and banded by iron and silver bands. Blackwell examined the first door for traps and did not find any. But when he went to unlock it, a trap went off – this time he escaped injury though. After he unlocked the first door, he turned his attention to the second door. This door was also trapped but he had found it and was able to disable and unlock the door without much trouble.

Asphodel then slowly opened the first door just enough to peek inside. She was able to see the left half of a very large room, trapezoidal in shape with 20ft high ceilings and rather well lit. Immediately to her left was an erinyes holding a long whip that moved lazily around seemingly by its own volition. Further into the room she saw a bearded devil leaning against his glaive and further yet into the room she saw what was later identified as a Bone devil. All three were looking straight at her but not making any moves. Then she heard a voice telling them to, “Don’t be shy. Come on in and visit.” Several party members recognized the voice as belonging to Alira Vond, the woman for which the party had retrieved two so-called ancient heirlooms out of Gardmore Abbey. This same woman was the woman in Jobi’s visions. The same one, along with Mordai Vell, sacrificing and murdering innocent virgin girls to Asmodeus and trapping the wills of Neverwinter’s leaders.

So Asphodel opened the one door fully and stepped into the room. Alira Vond again asked the rest of the group to join them, “Please, please come in. You are quite welcome here. After all, without your efforts none of this would have been possible. I do thank you again for retrieving those two special heirlooms for us.” Now that Asphodel was completely in the room, she could see that on the other side of the room there stood another erinyes with a similar whip and another bearded devil. Alira was at the far end of the room which had a large recessed area that went up three steps to a platform that housed an altar to Asmodeus. She could see dried blood stains on it even though the altar was more than one hundred feet away. She did not see any other people nor the two heirloom nor any small green glowing globes and surmised that those must be somewhere else.

Some more banter went back and forth between our heroes and Alira while the rest of the party entered the room. But just at the moment when the speaking hit a short lull, Asphodel unexpectedly and pre-emptively teleported next to Alira and grappled her so firmly and did not let go so that she would never get a chance to get free nor cast a spell. And of course this began the battle.

The bone devil advanced and casted his wall of ice spell and completely encircled the 5 remaining heroes around the room’s entrance in a thick wall of ice that extended all the way to the ceiling. Then it and the erinyes positioned themselves around the wall of ice and waited for the heroes to break free. Meanwhile the two bearded devils advanced on Asphodel and began attacking her with their glaives in hopes of getting her to release Alira (but to no avail). The bearded devils were not much of a threat to Asphodel inside her eidolon suit and only hit her a few times.

Zola used her flaming greatsword to cut her way through the ice wall and engage with the bone devil. Zerak casted a wall of fire to melt the ice and had the entire right side of the encasing wall of ice melted in short order. Blackwell changed into his hybrid werewolf form and busted through the ice wall on the opposite side also using a flaming weapon to do it. He was engaged by an erinyes who had thrown her whip at him. The whip then came alive and tried to wrap itself all around him and entangle him, but was unsuccessful. The other erinyes threw her whip at Jobi and successfully tangled her, but Kel was quick with her liberation domain ability of freedom and effectively thwarted the erinyes’ whip attacks.

The erinyes then switched to their bow attacks and were very good at hitting the softer targets among our heroes, namely Zerak and Blackwell and later in the battle just Zerak since he was casting many spells like summoning other creatures to fight for the party, walls of lightning, lightning bolts, etc. Jobi kept busy with healing her friends and casting magic missiles. Blackwell was using his pistols to shoot at the erinyes and the bone devil. And Kel helped out by targeting the bearded devils, trying to relieve some of the (slight) pressure on Asphodel.

After nearly a minute of fierce fighting, just the erinyes and Alira were left. Zola had moved in on Alira as did Blackwell and it was clear that the evil woman was nearing the end of her life. She had started to try to talk her way to surrendering but just at that moment, Zola landed a blow that cut her throat and made it impossible for her to speak. Zola then moved on to help kill the erinyes who were proving to be quite good at making Zerak a pin cushion (or arrow cushion to be more accurate). Jobi helped bring Alira down with magic missiles and Blackwell landed the final killing blow and then decided to cut out her heart and eat it (and horrified Jobi who was actually close enough to see the scene). At the same time the two erinyes were finally defeated as well.

And this is where we must leave our stalwart band of heroes for this session has come to an end. Next week we’ll have a quick wrap up session for this particular story arc …

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14

MAY/2014

Session 50 Synopsis

Previously, on Phoenix Rising…

… The devil once again trapped Blackwell in her tentacle cage and by this point had nearly bludgeoned him to death – one more round of these attacks from her and he would die in this forsaken place – something he was not relishing. But there was some hope for him for Asphodel, Zola and Kel were all within striking distance of this devil and maybe, just maybe they would do enough damage to her to kill her before she killed him…

But the bludgeoning attack came too quickly and Blackwell felt his life being squeezed out of him by this infernal bitch’s tentacles. Then everything went black as he passed into unconsciousness.

Zola and Asphodel looked on as the devil automatically pummeled Blackwell into what looked like death for the human. But then she teleported away and left Blackwell in a heap on the floor where they both had been just moments before. The handmaiden then reappeared in back of Zerak who was standing in the room near the far wall. So now Asphodel and Zola had to figure a way back through the black tentacles to reengage the devil.

Meanwhile Zerak decided the best alternative was to flee from the devil as fast as possible and ran to the other corner of the room. Kel took up a position near Jobi to protect her if the devil decided to go after her. And the devil came into melee with Kel almost immediately. The tactic of grabbing onto her opponent and forcing them into her tentacle cage did not work on Kel because of her faith in her god’s liberation domain and clearly frustrated the devil. By this time Asphodel used a dimension door spell and popped back into the room and was able to get an attack on the devil about the same time that Zerak’s summoned dire tiger appeared and pounced. But both attacks were only marginally effective and the devil once again teleported back out of the room and right next to Zola. Blackwell fortunately had been revived by Zola a short time ago and he was able to move further down the hallway to get a chance to drink some more healing potions.

With the black tentacles still being an issue, Asphodel decided maybe the direct approach was best and enlarged herself. Then she rammed into the stone wall of the room that separated them from the main hall. She hit it very hard and damaged it significantly causing bricks to dislodge as well as dirt and mortar from the ceiling, but she didn’t break completely through the wall. So Zerak stepped in with a shatter spell and finished the job. Now the gaping hole in the wall gave them access to the hallway. At the same time Kel remembered that she could give freedom of movement to her allies within a certain distance from her. She activated the ability which then let Jobi escape the black tentacles and retreat further into the room since there was not really anything she could do against the devil because most of her spells were centered on fire, which devils are immune to.

Asphodel came running out and closed into melee distance with the devil as Zola positioned herself to flank. With those two attacking along with Blackwell shooting at it and Kel also in melee, they finally defeated the devil when Zerak’s magic missiles penetrated her spell resistance and dealt the final lethal blow. Everyone let out a sigh of relief and commenced to patching up wounds.

Zerak then investigated the lab and after using his mask of a thousand tomes he was able to discern that most of the alchemical ingredients were rare with some not even of this world and most had to do with the creation of that foul brew used in capturing people’s souls, or dominating them, or, well he wasn’t quite sure how the liquid worked. He did know that all of it was highly toxic and not something to be casually messed with. But he also found 3 cure critical wounds potions in the lab and those would most definitely be useful.

After they had patched themselves up they were ready to explore the last door in the main hallway. Nothing had come out of it yet, even after all the noise of breaking down the wall occurred. So maybe there was no one in there – more likely though a trap had been staged by whoever, or whatever was behind that door. Once again Asphodel opened the door which revealed as no surprise another short hallway ending in a door. Once again Blackwell searched and unlocked and opened the door revealing another large room. This one had many large wooden crates in it – some not closed with what looked like books and papers sticking out of them – definitely not a place for fireballs or any other type of fire source if Zerak wanted to keep whatever knowledge was written on them intact. But there was a nasty looking creature near the back of the room – he had many razor sharp spike growing out of his body at all angles. The party identified him as a barbed devil, one that used its spike effectively against all who entered melee combat with it. This was going to hurt.

Zola rushed into the room to the attack as did Blackwell and Asphodel. Blackwell made sure to stay well out of the way and used his pistols against the creature. Even though the damage dealt back to each of our heroes was significant, it was not enough to keep them from melee combat with the devil. Then another threat appeared – invisible imps, about a dozen of them materialized and swarmed in groups of four around some of the heroes. The imps were not a huge threat but they did have a poison stinger and could potentially cause damage to them. The most they did however was drain away resources that could have been better spent on fighting the barbed devil and they knew it and worked in unison with each other to keep the party from concentrating on the devil. Zerak used a see invisibility spell and shouted out the locations of the imps so that the rest of the party would not always end up surprised by the little devils when they attacked.

Close to the end of the battle, the barbed devil teleported outside the room in the main corridor, right behind Zerak. This caused a shift in where the main battle was taking place but soon Asphodel, Zola and Kel were out in the hallway battling this creature toe-to-toe. Suddenly, two bearded devils ran out of the wall at the end of the corridor and closed within glaive range with Kel and struck a couple of nasty blows against her. Looking where those devils came from, they only saw a blank solid wall but nevertheless they were now there and fresh for the fight. By now all the imps had been killed and Jobi was able to come up and heal Kel just in the nick of time for she had nowhere to retreat to without provoking attacks from any of the three remaining devils. The bearded devils’ glaives had caused some very nasty bleeding wounds on her that would have surely dropped her in a few seconds had Jobi not been there to help. Blackwell came up and used his pistols against the barbed devil as did Zerak with more force missiles. That coupled along with Asphodel and Zola beating on it, the devil finally fell and left the field open for Zola and Asphodel to advance on the two newcomers. With ranged support, the two bearded devils fell very quickly without anyone else in the party falling from injuries.

Now that the battle was over, Blackwell headed over to the “wall” and did indeed discover it was an illusion and the hallway continued further along. Soon everyone had dis-believed the illusion and saw that the corridor went for another twenty feet or so and ended in a pair of large wooden doors that were banded in steel and silver and had ancient symbols etched into their surfaces. But since they were closed our heroes decided that they would be better served if they investigated the room with all the crates and possibly even holing up in there to rest for a while. Even though they it had not been long since they were fully rested, they had taken a fair amount of punishment in a pretty short time. And no doubt that the last door they knew of promised more of the same. Plus it would take a long time to go through all those crates to see what was really important in them.

After several hours of searching, our heroes found the following items contained within the crates:

Artwork items totaling 20,000 gold pieces – 12 small statues in marble, 24 small to medium sized paintings, 10 crystal vases, 6 crystal pitchers and 30 crystal glasses
3,000 gold piece worth total in various coin denominations

The Documentation contained in the crates consists of the following:

A notebook written by Alira Vond contains notes and partial explanations of the documents here but also makes note that most of the original texts have already been removed from the site. By using this notebook and the documents still here the following details are able to be discerned (but actual proof will need the other missing original texts):
The true lineage of Lord Nasher Alagondar:
…This names Ashmalia Ruunleit as the wife of Lord Nasher’s second son, Belthor.
…Ashmalia was the sister of Lucretia Ruunleit
…Lucretia is Zerak’s great-great grandmother
…There is a note that states that Ashmalia’s family changed their name to Brunleaf shortly after the wedding since it was about to be discovered that the Ruunleit’s had a history involved with Thay.
…Just after the Spellplague hit, the Alagondar family name is changed to Sommset for some unknown reason
…This lineage follows straight to Telliann as being a direct and the last living descendant of Lord Nasher Alagondar himself – she is the real heir to the Neverwinter crown and is a target for their soul capture ritual or target for death if that doesn’t work for some reason.
A page has notes on Zerak:
…has been looking into the Orpheus stone
…a direct descendant trying to make a play at the throne
…target for death.
Some notes that the Orpheus Stone was stolen and taken to Luskan in an attempt to bring down the Neverwinter throne a few of centuries ago. The cult seems to think that it may still be in Luskan since that city was decimated without any prior warning when the Spellplague hit. The Ashmadai cult has sent a team of investigators to Luskan to see if they can find the stone amongst the ruins of the city.

And this is where we must leave our stalwart band of heroes for this session has come to an end. Next week we’ll see what they make of all this new information and what manner of evil lurks beyond the steel and silver banded door…

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6

MAY/2014

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May 06, 2014

Session 49 Synopsis

Previously, on Phoenix Rising…

… they had returned to the underground broken statue room to rest and regain their strength before they continued on exploring this unholy degenerate dungeon. Positioning themselves in the broken statue room assured that at least none of the inhabitants down here would escape to the surface using this route. They only had two more doors to explore here as far as they knew, on the left side of the main corridor and the one at the end of the main corridor…

After what resembled a good night’s rest in this debris ridden chamber, our heroes were once again ready to explore and try to put an end to the unholy and subversive acts that were being perpetrated down here. Our heroes advanced upon the last door on the left of this main corridor and did their usual thing before opening it (Blackwell checking for traps, unlocking, Blackwell possibly getting healed, Asphodel opening, etc.). This door again led to another narrow corridor that ended in a door that finally revealed another library, the third on this floor. It looked like this library had been thoroughly ransacked. While there were still plenty of books in here in haphazard piles strewn about the room, there was no order or obvious important section of books here. Blackwell discovered that there were no traps at all and Kel went ahead and detected for magic. She noted four areas located in various areas of the room. She went ahead into the room and began searching the piles for the items that were radiating magic and found four scrolls hidden amongst the old books:

Scroll 1 (Divine) 4th level spells of Lesser Planar Ally and Tongues
Scroll 2 (Divine) 2nd level spells of Shield other and Zone of Truth
Scroll 3 (Arcane) 4th level spells of Shadow Projection and Symbol of Revelation
Scroll 4 (Arcane) 1st level spells of Dazzling Blade and Decompose Corpse

They spent an hour or so doing a fairly thorough search of the room which yielded nothing of interest to any of them. It seemed that all the important texts had already been removed from this room.

Next they went and examined the door at the end of the hall which revealed another long, narrow staircase leading further down into the earth. With the memory of the last long staircase down still fresh in everyone’s mind, Asphodel backed out of the way to let Blackwell lead. He cautiously checked nearly every square inch of that stairway for traps and found none at all. With the way clear, they all headed down the stairs and to a small landing that ended in double doors. This time Blackwell found both traps and successfully disarmed them before the doors were opened to reveal another ten foot wide long corridor with a single door on each side wall. He went to work yet again and searched the entire area and the doors for more traps and found none. So they decided that the door on the left side would be the first that they open. Since it was locked Blackwell commenced to pick the lock and no sooner had he stuck his lockpick into the lock that he found a trap, the hard way. A large shocking charge erupted, charring his lockpick and his fingers, blowing him back a couple of feet and causing significant damage (though not some much of the burned fur smell that usually was associated with this type of event a bit earlier in his career).

After quickly recovering from the trap the door was opened to reveal another short, narrow hallway that ended in a door. This was quite different though, for standing in the hallway were two beautiful ‘women’ who were wearing black leather and had longswords and composite long bows. They almost could have been mistaken for humans except for the large black leathery wings growing out of their backs. Asphodel and the two ‘women’ stared at each other for just a second before she advanced into the corridor. She thought about them for a moment and determined that since they had found other devils here already, these two must be ones called Erinyes.

Both Erinyes ran out of the corridor and through the open door at the end of the hallway opposite our heroes and disappeared from sight. Blackwell then decided that he was going to run into the room and take a shot at the erinyes and get a look at what else was in there so he could yell out to the rest of the group what was there. He saw a total of three erinyes and something much more grotesque and frightening in the back of the room. He had absolutely no idea what it was only that is wasn’t good – it had the torso, arms and head of a beautiful woman but her lower extremities were a mass of tentacles. He got off a couple shots of his pepperbox pistol before having to retreat after getting hit by numerous arrows from the erinyes. He made his was quickly all the way back to the outer door leading into the corridor to this room so he could drink some healing potions in relative safety.

Asphodel and Zola along with Kel and Zerak close behind advanced cautiously into the room and engaged the erinyes. All of a sudden more devils popped into existence – they must have been summoned by some of the ones already here. Four bearded devils appeared and joined in the fight. It was at this time that Zerak cast of wall of fire spell across the room trying to catch as many as possible within its area of effect. But knowing that devils are immune to fire, he changed the element type to lightning which they do not possess any type of resistance to. This had the desired effect of causing damage to some of the devils, but also blocked their vision so no one could see what was happening on either side of the wall of lightning.

It wasn’t long into the battle that Asphodel found herself dealing so much damage to one of the erinyes that she once again went into an uncontrollable, blood-lusting rage. At the same time this happened, the powerful devil with the tentacles from her abdomen down (Zerak would soon identify her as a handmaiden devil) just blinked into existence outside the main hall right behind Blackwell and proceeded to cast a black tentacles spell that caught all of our heroes in its grapple, except for Kel, and began pummeling them. It did not last long however because Kel had dispel magic in her memory and quickly dispelled the tentacles and freed everyone. Unfortunately, the devil cast a second black tentacles and was able to once again catch everyone in its grip. And again, Kel was able to dispel it. The devil changed tactics at this point and used its claws and tentacle attacks against Blackwell and trapped him inside her “tentacle ball” which began bludgeoning him to death. Blackwell after a bit was able to extricate himself from the devil and crawl away to once again drink some healing potions. Meanwhile Kel engaged the devil in order to get its attention away from Blackwell as well as channeled energy a couple times to help heal everyone she could.

After the second black tentacles spell was dispelled, the rest of the party tried to spread out so if that it happened again, not everyone would be caught by it. But this led to Jobi being chased around by an erinyes which in turn led to Zola pursuing the chaser and Zerak targeting lightning bolt spells at their assailants – both erinyes and handmaiden alike. The bearded devils had by this time fallen to Zerak’s wall of lightning and Zola’s sword. Soon the rest of the erinyes fell to Asphodel and everyone began getting out of her threat range and began advancing on the handmaiden. Jobi had hung back within the room and tried to get Asphodel to go after the handmaiden out in the hall and was successful. But the handmaiden had another black tentacles spell that she cast and was able to catch several of the party members again. This time however, both Zola and Asphodel were able to break free and advance to within melee striking distance of the handmaiden. The only one left trapped in it was Jobi, for Zerak had backed away enough to not be in the area of effect and Kel’s liberation domain ability of freedom was still active for a bit longer for the day.

The devil once again trapped Blackwell in her tentacle cage and by this point had nearly bludgeoned him to death – one more round of these attacks from her and he would die in this forsaken place – something he was not relishing. But there was some hope for him for Asphodel, Zola and Kel were all within striking distance of this devil and maybe, just maybe they would do enough damage to her to kill her before she killed him.

And this is where we must leave our stalwart band of heroes for this session has come to an end. Next week we’ll see the exciting conclusion of this battle…

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1

MAY/2014

Session 48 Synopsis

Previously, on Phoenix Rising…

… You feel a soul-rending sensation of isolation and loss which can only be described as feeling as if the gods themselves had suddenly turned away from you … the lion gave Asphodel and Zola enough time to advance and get the graveknight cornered. Zola’s smite evil against it succeeded and now the rest of her attacks would ignore its damage resistance. Asphodel’s attacks were powerful enough that a lot of the damage could get through fairly consistently…

Almost immediately the graveknight just disappeared and nearly at the same time the far door leading into the main corridor opened and a couple guards came rushing in and attacked Jobi from behind. Now the party had to reposition themselves to deal with the new threat coming up from behind them. As they started shuffling their positions, Jobi took substantial damage from the fighters just as another new threat made itself known. A cleric stepped into view at the open door and began casting spells at the rear of the party – flamestrike spells among others. The corridor was a very tight place for this battle since it was only five feet wide so repositioning to get the better melee fighters up to what was now the front line, was difficult. Eventually they were able to get Asphodel, Zola and Kel up front with Jobi, Zerak and Blackwell away from the front line.

Unfortunately, the cleric was pretty good as using the situation to his advantage and let loose with a wall of fire right down the center of the narrow corridor and it got everyone. Those without any fire resistance had to scramble out of the area, trying to take as little fire damage as possible. When Zerak got free of the flames he cast a wall of ice directly on the same area the wall of fire was and was successful in nullifying the blazing wall. Asphodel, Zola and Kel made it out into the main corridor where they discovered more guards (about six more) in addition to the cleric and the graveknight was back as well – looking fully restored on top of it!

The battle in the corridor was also cramped for a while since the guards basically only let one hero out at a time until the guards started to fall. Kel confronted two of the guards, but with all the damage she sustained from fire attacks, it wasn’t long before she fell under their blades. Jobi now ran out into the main corridor to help her with Zerak up near the door as well casting spells and trying to keep the enemies preoccupied while Zola and Asphodel engaged the guards, cleric and graveknight.

Soon, the pandemonium became even worse when Asphodel finally lost it and went into one of her uncontrollable rages. Zerak, Jobi and Blackwell slowly backed out of the main corridor and drug Kel back into the narrow corridor leading into the prison cell chamber and closed the door so Asphodel would not get distracted by them being too close to her instead of their enemies. Zola stayed in the main corridor for at this time she was going toe-to-toe with the graveknight and dared not turn her back on it. Jobi had been healing her to keep her going but now she had to rely on her armor and a little bit of luck to avoid being taken down by this evil and powerful creature. As luck would have it, she and Asphodel brought the creature down soon after all the guards were dispatched. Then all that was left was the evil cleric who had backed away from the melee and had been channeling negative energy to heal the graveknight as well as casting scorching ray spells among others at our party members.

Asphodel, still in an uncontrollable rage, and Zola advanced on the cleric and soon had killed him with extreme prejudice. Now Zola, being the only one near Asphodel, began attempting to calm down the raging halfing-in-an-eidolon-suit. Either fortune was smiling on them or Asphodel was getting better at handling her rage, or probably both, for it did not take too long to calm the raging beast and Asphodel once again dropped out of rage and the small halfing woman sat down next to Zola, exhausted. And Zola banished her fatigue with a quick spell. Now the split group rejoined and did a couple of things. One was to gather anything and everything of value from these now dead bastards and the other was to check on the imprisoned girls in the cells.

Blackwell went to the cells and began unlocking them. Then he tried to approach one of the naked and chained girls to unlock her wrist and ankle chains but only managed to completely spook her where she huddled and flailed in the farthest corner she could get away from him. This prompted Asphodel and Zola to come over and try to calm the girls down one at a time so Blackwell could free them from their chains – Zola even used her angelic appearance, wings and all, to try to get the girls to trust the party.

But as soon as Jobi got a good look at the young girls chained in the cells she had another powerful vision:

Your vision slowly comes into focus and you find yourself watching an extremely debased ritual – one of obvious evil. The circular chamber is large, some sixty to eighty feet in diameter and has a domed ceiling some twenty feet above. The area is lit by many braziers located around the room. There are several hooded figures standing around, all holding some type of branding iron in the center of the brazier fires. There is an altar on one wall that has the two heirloom items on it and a small doll between them. There is also a small 4 inch glass globe in front of the doll with a clear amber colored liquid inside it. On the wall behind the altar are many shelves with other dolls and glass globes, but these globes are glowing with a soft sickly green light and all the dolls have a hole through the middle of their chests . There are name placards under each doll. One is labeled as Degault Neverember and other name of Neverwinter’s government are also listed. The name of the mayor is also up there but no doll or globe rests on the shelf. Telliann also has a name on the shelf but also no doll or globe is there either. In all, there are around two dozen dolls and globes with another dozen or so empty spaces on the shelves.
In front of the altar a truly lurid scene is enfolding.
On a low marble slab table lays a young naked woman spread out chained by her wrists and ankles. She is terrified and crying. Alira stands at her head – she is naked except for a blood red cloak and some weird looking crown of thorns that seems to be drawing a little blood from her temples. She is now holding the heirloom dagger at chest height pointing down at the woman. At the woman’s feet stands Mordai Vell, also naked with a blood red cloak and crown of thorns on. He is holding the heirloom rod at chest height and pointing it down and the woman.
As one, the two mount the naked woman (who turns out to be a virgin). They use her sexually with wild abandon. As the two devil worshippers climax, Alira plunges the dagger deep between the woman’s breasts and twists it with all her might. As soon as she draws out the dagger, Mordai forcefully replaces it with the rod he was holding. It is obvious that the rod has gone completely through the woman’s body. The other six hooded figures in the room now step up to the woman and brand her body with the heated metal implements, leaving the symbol of Asmodeus burned into her flesh. The woman’s body convulses as she is being branded, like she was still partially alive, even after the middle of her chest had been destroyed by the dagger and rod.
Then, with the two devil worshippers still using the now still woman, a sickly green light comes out of the rod’s tip and arcs over to the glass globe and the doll on the altar. With a blinding flash the doll now has a hole in its chest and the globe is glowing with a sickly green colored liquid inside it. Mordai disengages from the woman and picks up the doll and globe and places them on the shelf where the mayor’s name is. He looks back at Alria, smiling and says, “Now the mayor is under our control. Just a few more left and we’ll own Neverwinter.”
“Excellent, love! I’ll work on prepping another virgin straight away. But first, come quickly for we need to finish the ritual!” With that they each walk over to opposite sides of the woman and both of them shout loudly, “For Our Master, Asmodeus!” Then they bend down and bite the woman’s nipples off and eat them. Then with fresh blood smeared on their faces, they kiss each other deeply as the vision fades …

Zerak had noticed that Jobi was standing stiff as a board staring out into space and tried to rouse her from whatever had captivated her. Slowly she regained a sense of what was around her and looked at Zerak. She had a growing horrified look about her as she processed what her latest vision was telling her. When she saw how concerned Zerak looked about her, she told him about what she had seen, not leaving out any detail. Then Zerak got everyone’s attention and retold Jobi’s vision to the rest of the group. Stern looks and growing anger towards the devil worshippers spread quickly among our heroes.

It took quite a while to calm all the girls down, get them freed and make them simple clothes from the cloaks and other pieces of clothing from the dead devil worshippers, but eventually they had them clothed and had given them some food and water. Asphodel in particular took a very active role in helping these girls. She knew all too well what it was like being captive when so young. They decided to take them out of this place and get them to Telliann who could use the city’s resources to help these traumatized girls. Telliann agreed to get them to a temple and try to find out who their parents are so they could be returned to their families, if they were still alive. They also told her what they had found down there and that they were going to finish getting to the root of the operation.

Then our heroes went back down into the depths of the Hall of Knowledge and were planning on resting in the broken statue room again but first decided to look down the main corridor and into the other open door – presumably where the other guards and cleric had come from. Blackwell slowly advanced into the area beyond and found a similar arrangement of door-hallway-door-room. The room beyond looked like a barracks, complete with beds and personal footlockers, a table and some chairs. But it also had another “special table.” And there was another girl bent over the edge lying face down on it; her arms outstretched and chained by her wrists and her legs chained to the table legs by her ankles. She was bloody and dirty and at first appeared to be dead but then Blackwell noticed she was breathing, albeit very shallow breathing. He alerted the rest of the group and they came into the room. Blackwell approached her and unlocked the chains binding her. She immediately scrambled into a corner of the room crying and flailing her arms wildly trying to keep anyone away from her. She couldn’t have been a day over nine years old. She was obviously badly abused, raped, and completely traumatized mentally for she would not say a word and stared wide-eyed into space. This time it took Asphodel and Zola a very long time to get the girl to calm down. They cleaned her up a little and made her some clothes as well then escorted her to Telliann. She told the party that she would personally take this one straight to the temple to see if the high priest(ess) could help her or at least console her.

And so we leave our band of heroes after they had returned to the underground broken statue room to rest and regain their strength before they continued on exploring this unholy degenerate dungeon. Positioning themselves in the broken statue room assured that at least none of the inhabitants down here would escape to the surface using this route. They only had two more doors to explore here as far as they knew, on the left side of the main corridor and the one at the end of the main corridor…

View

15

APR/2014

Session 47 Synopsis

Previously, on Phoenix Rising…

… Armed with limited knowledge of this underground library complex, they now faced a decision of either: going through the single door and exploring what is supposed to be another library beyond, or to go through the double doors and go further into the belly of the beast…

So the party decided to go through the other single door so as not to leave any places behind them unexplored. The door revealed a hallway similar to the one that led to the other library. Blackwell went ahead and checked every inch of the hallway for traps as he slowly made his way to the closed door at the end of the hall. He was feeling confident that there were no traps on the door when he opened it. But to his surprise, the entire floor gave way and opened into a deep pit. His reflexes were almost good enough for him to reach back the ten feet to the solid floor, but he narrowly missed this and proceeded to skid his way down the sixty feet to the bottom – which also had long, sharp, rusty and poisoned spikes at the bottom of the pit. He sustained some damage but fortunately the poison did not take hold of him. Asphodel threw a rope down to Blackwell so he could get back up. Then he looked around for a way to disarm and reset the floor. He found a small panel at the end of the hallway (which is where Barabass had said it would be incidentally).

After resetting the floor he was able to walk into the room beyond. He again began looking for more traps as he slowly advanced into the room with Zerak, Zola and Jobi making their way right behind him. Just as he was about to step forward, he felt the unmistakable tug of a wire on his ankle. He stopped in mid step and looked down and, sure enough, saw a thin metal wire stretching outward. He was certain it was very near the breaking point so he cautiously backed up and allowed the tension to be relieved. Then he started scanning the room trying to follow the wire along its course to find the origin of the trap. He told everyone else to get out of the room in case he blundered and set the trap off. Then he slowly followed the trip wire back to its origins and found that it led through a small hole in the wall near a corner of the room. There he began disarming the trap and soon had the false wall panel removed and saw that the wire was attached to a small ring that had two posts positioned on the top and bottom of a glowing gem. It looked like the trip wire would cause the two posts to crush the gem, releasing who knew what of a magic trap. The gem detected as not only conjuration magic but also abjuration magic as well. Blackwell was successful in removing the strange jewel and disarming the trap in general. He gave the jewel to whoever wanted it and the group studied it a bit further only to find that the abjuration part of the magic on it was most likely an alarm spell. The conjuration part was currently still a mystery. Nevertheless it was thought that it may prove useful to a room full of unsuspecting victims… uh, foes.

With the traps cleared away, Zerak led the charge to find anything that might be useful in their hunt for historical books, etc. While they did not find much in the way of historical evidence to use against Mordai Vell’s sinister plans, they did find a Manual of Clay Golems, another divine based scroll of spells and another arcane based scroll. So with this library pretty well picked through for anything immediately important, our heroes made their way back to the (broken) statue room and proceeded to open the remaining double doors into the rest of the complex. They revealed a long ten foot wide corridor that had two doors on each the left and right walls as well as a door at the very end of the corridor. Blackwell started by checking for traps along the entire hallway and doors first. Then they came back to the first door on the left which he unlocked and they proceeded to go down the short hallway that again ended in a locked and magically trapped door. This time Blackwell was able to disarm, unlock and open the door without incident. What they saw beyond the door was obviously a scribe’s workroom – complete with half a dozen bookshelves and three working tables. And all had written works in various states of completeness, but there were no people in the room. So Kel decided to enter the room and look at the open books on the worktables. There she saw that it looked like the scribe had stopped writing in mid-word, for the quill was just dropped at some point like someone was in a real hurry. Shortly thereafter, Kel found out what had happened to the scribes for a total of six scorching rays blasted into her from three different corners of the room – but there was no one in any of the corners! The damage done to her was great and she immediately began to plan her escape from the room as quickly as she could for another attack even only partially in strength as that one would surely bring her closer to Desna than she really wanted to be at this moment.

Soon the party figured out that they were battling three wizards who had cast greater invisibility spells on themselves so they could attack without breaking their invisibility. The battle was long and difficult and soon our heroes became frustrated and decided that area of effect spells were going to have to be used in order to pin them down. Zerak was not happy about the decision but went along with it since it was more important to vanquish these wizards than it was to save the papers and books within the room. First, a fireball was sent into the middle of the room by Jobi and then Asphodel used her breath weapon to breathe a cone of ice. A little bit later Kel came back in an unleashed a flame strike spell in one half of the room.

Somehow one of the wizards got behind them and sent a lightning bolt down the corridor significantly hitting Zerak, Jobi, Kel and narrowly missing Blackwell. So Zerak returned the favor with his own lightning bolt and Jobi helped out with her scorching rays to make the evil wizard take a dirt nap. Soon the other two wizards were beaten down by Zola’s and Asphodel’s weapons which they had to swing several extra times just to connect with the invisible foes and in the end they stood over three bodies and lots of ruined books and papers. A quick search through the room revealed that none of the written material had survived as everyone had suspected. But they did loot the wizards and came out with at least something for the troubles they caused.

After casting some healing on the group they made their way across the hall to the next door. The usual process of checking for traps and unlocking, etc. was followed and revealed another short hallway that ended in a door. Our heroes all got into the corridor and closed the door behind them before opening the door in front of them. This door opened into what was a prison area complete with four guards in heavy armor and another being encased in full plate armor that was as black as night itself. The guards reacted quickly and the battle began. The four guards proved to be accomplished fighters though ultimately not enough to keep from falling to our heroes. Several fireballs were cast into the room that just missed the prison cells and tried to capture as many foes in them as possible. Our heroes heard the screams from the prisoners when the spells went off and they sounded like women screaming. The first ones into the room were Asphodel and then Zola followed by Kel. Zerak, Blackwell and Jobi tried to stay as close to the door as possible so they would stay out of melee range with their enemies. As soon as our heroes had entered the room, they felt a strange and evil feeling aura wash over them:

You feel a soul-rending sensation of isolation and loss which can only be described as feeling as if the gods themselves had suddenly turned away from you.

This feeling immediately got Zerak probing his memory. It quickly dawned on him that this creature must be a graveknight and he shouted out as much. He knew they were resistant to many different forms of energy, had damage resistance, and were generally regarded as the “lich” form of powerful fighter types. If it were allowed to gain the upper hand, it could cause great harm to all of them. Armed with this knowledge the party prepared to face the creature but first they still had a few rounds of battle to go with the other guards before Asphodel and Zola were free to engage it. Zerak cast a summon monster spell and had a dire lion attack the graveknight. He watched with concern as the graveknight dispatched his summoned creature in only one round of combat. But the lion gave Asphodel and Zola enough time to advance and get the graveknight cornered. Zola’s smite evil against it succeeded and now the rest of her attacks would ignore its damage resistance. Asphodel’s attacks were powerful enough that a lot of the damage could get through fairly consistently.

But we come to another end of a session in mid-battle this time and have to bid farewell to our stalwart band. Until next week…

View

27

MAR/2014

Session 46 Synopsis

Previously, on Phoenix Rising…

… Asphodel and Zola threw down ropes and helped the three back up out of the hole and got them to the other side of the trap and through the open door. Beyond was a small landing and then a narrow stairway going down for a long way – further than anyone’s darkvision could see…

Meanwhile above ground something else was happening:

It was a decent late-summer / early fall day in Neverwinter. The kind of day that starts out chilly in the morning but warms up by mid-morning. The sun was out in full force and there was a gentle breeze traveling through the city, carrying along all the smells and sounds of a bustling city. Kel was in town today as she was nearly half of every week over the past few months, ever since she took a break from adventuring with her friends so she could concentrate on getting her temple/way-station for Desna built and complete her training as a cleric of Desna. Progress was coming along nicely and she made frequent trips to the city for supplies for building materials and for taking care of her workers’ family needs (there wasn’t any place yet for families to move in). Plus she liked trying to spread Desna’s Word to any who would listen to her and she would frequently offer assistance to anyone who looked like they might need help (which covered an awful lot of people in Neverwinter still). She had a bit of an ulterior motive for this as well. She hoped to gain as many followers as she could to help speed along the construction in addition to adding them to Desna’s flock. And if her mother saw all the good she was doing here, maybe, just maybe, she would let her live her own life and forget all about this arranged marriage bullshit.

It was kind of strange though, she thought. Her mother hadn’t tried getting her back to Cormyr ever since that Spelljammer ship they destroyed. She smiled at her thoughts of that Spelljammer going up in flames and explosions. And then frowned at a darker thought: her mother must be absolutely furious – which means that she’s probably going to do something that Kel would not be able to ignore. Her thoughts were interrupted when she heard several loud explosions off in the distance. She scanned the horizon in the direction in which she thought the sounds came from and saw some smoke coming up out of the old ruined House of Knowledge. As far as she knew there were only some squatters, beggars really, living there. Thinking that some plague-changed monsters had surfaced there, she knew that there would be people in need of healing, and maybe even protecting. So she sped off in that direction.

She found that she was the first one to get the scene – no one else was visible and the smoke was slowly dying out. She entered the ruins and cautiously began searching for signs of what had blown up. When she found the origin of the blast, she saw half a dozen bodies of the beggars that lived there, but no living ones. The stairwell down was completely caved in as was some of the second story floor and walls above the area. But it looked like the people were not killed from the blast but from some kind of battle for there were wounds on the bodies that were caused by weapons as well as some that looked more “animal” in nature. But the most striking feature of the area now was a large hole bored out of the floor and earth leading down in a parallel path to the stairwell. With the adventurer inside getting the best of her, she decided to venture down tunnel to see where it led. Soon she came upon an old chamber that someone had opened a secret in the corner. She quietly advanced when she heard voices coming from beyond the door. As she peered around the door into the chamber beyond, she was surprised to see her friends preparing to exit through another door on the opposite side of the room. She took a step forward and quietly announced herself, trying not to startle anyone…

As our five heroes were extricating / being extricated from the pit trap and getting across to the stairway beyond, Asphodel’s mind wandered…

All through the day, Zerak’s words had echoed in the recesses of her mind. You are in control, he had said. If only she could believe that. She really didn’t know how to interpret the strange half-elf’s sudden growth in the heart. She glanced toward the teifling woman that seemed to have become the center of his world. She didn’t know how anyone could change that drastically for someone, it just didn’t make any sense… but then she’s far from an expert in these cases.
Then her inner dragon growled, interrupting her silent revere. Looking over her shoulder, she saw the source of the noise, Kel. The errant princess, turned full fledged cleric of Desna, was standing just inside the door on the other side of the pit trap room. When did she get here? Was I really that distracted that I didn’t notice her arrival. As she approached and explained that she was in town picking up supplies for her Desnan waycastle, Asphodel fought down the dragon’s urge to growl. She didn’t understand why her inner dragon doesn’t like the Cormyran princess, but it seems that way ever since he tasted her blood back in Gardmoor Abbey…

“Well what the hell are you doing here?!” shouted Blackwell after he had turned around to see who had made the noise behind them. Naturally, everyone else looked back and shock, amazement, and happiness crossed everyone’s face (well, almost everyone’s – Asphodel reflected none of those emotions across her eidolon’s half dead looking face). After a few pleasantries (hugs and greetings) the now completely reformed, now complete, newly reforged, bigger and badder… uhh, sorry – got carried away again. After a few pleasantries our stalwart band of heroes ventured through the door and onto the steep and narrow stairway leading down to who knew what. Asphodel was in the lead – moving slowly just in case something jumped out at them. Blackwell was right behind her with Zerak next, then Jobi, then Kel, and finally Zola bringing up the rear. About midway down the flight of stairs Asphodel took another step and then the party heard a loud click as she triggered a pressure plate which set in motion a series of events that would have decimated lesser heroes (moral of the story – the rogue probably should lead into unknown areas that may be trapped).

The ceiling opened up along the entire length of the stairway and a deluge of oil spewed forth, coating everything and everyone from the tip of their horn(s) to the tip of their tail(s) and everything in between and around. It smelled like lantern oil and was extremely slick. Then the stairs collapsed in on themselves forming a very steep (40 degree) smooth stone surface. And so everyone began sliding down towards the bottom at a very fast rate of speed. Asphodel used her large axe and tried to slow down their descent by jamming the haft against one oil-soaked wall and the sharp head against the other oil-soaked wall. She then felt everyone behind her slide into her as she used all her might trying to grind the axe into the walls. It definitely slowed down their descent but it was not enough to stop it even though Zerak had his overland flight active and Zola had popped out her wings to help slow down (there just wasn’t enough room in the hallway to spead wings out to allow proper flight). Jobi and Kel were not able to keep their footing and slid on their knees and backs which helped to speed the entire group’s slippery slide down. And then to top it all off another click was heard and all along the hallway from both walls hundreds of jets opened up and shot forth flames which in short order engulfed absolutely every surface that had oil on it, which was every surface and every creature in that hallway (the scene made me think of the joke Richard Pryor told about himself running down the street on fire from free-basing – but I digress yet again).

Asphodel didn’t care about the flames since she is immune to fire and Jobi and Zola could withstand them for at least a little bit, but the others were going to turn into roasted marshmellows at a campire in hell if they didn’t get out of there quickly – already the screams of pain were beginning to get quite loud. She saw that at the end of the stair-slide led to a drop off that could be pretty far down. She also could see that the small room at the end had a set of double doors and was not currently on fire, well not much anyway. So she decided that the best course of action was to release her axe from contact with the wall, spin around, try to grab Blackwell and fly after she slid off the end of the slide. The sudden release made everyone slide that much faster down and Zerak was unbalanced by getting hit by Jobi sliding under him that he was not able to grab her and keep her from falling over the edge. Jobi landed on her feet thirty feet down because she had her catfall boots on and only sustained minimum damage from the fall (and the fire). Zola caught Kel and was able to get her quickly to the floor below and then staring casting her create water spell as fast as she could (many gallons at a time), trying to wash away the burning oil off of her companions. After a few rounds the burning heroes were extinguished and they did a small amount of healing.

Then they turned their attentions to the two double doors. Blackwell found no traps (and neither did detect magic) and he successfully picked the locks. Asphodel opened one of the doors and they saw a large chamber beyond and appears to have been a reading room – ransacked and nearly destroyed many years ago. This fifty by forty foot room has tables and few small bookshelves – all toppled and rotting with the remains of books and other mostly decayed paper material scattered all over the place. The opposite wall has a set of double doors in the middle of the wall along with two single doors on either side of the double doors. What was newer in the room was the many stone statues of women placed throughout the room. There were a total of 12 of them, six on each side wall and all looked alike. And their faces were carved such that they were all looking at the door the party just opened so it looked like all twelve statues were looking at them. Blackwell entered the room cautiously by checking for traps every step he took. He examined the nearest statue and saw no traps nor anything out of the ordinary. A detect magic spell revealed that every statue had some transmutation magic radiating from it – meaning that they might be able to animate and attack them. And sure enough, that is exactly what happened. The statues all moved away from the walls while pulling out long, slender stone long swords from seemingly nowhere and advanced slowly towards the party.

Only one of the two doors was open at this time so only two statues could get close enough to attack at all. Asphodel took a swing at one with her giant axe and cracked into it but her axe made a definite resounding sound indicative of metal being stressed. Zerak probed his knowledge for a few seconds and blurted out that he believed these were caryatid columns – a type of construct that has similar defenses like other stone golems, like immunity to most spells plus they were hard enough to actually shatter weapons used against them. Plus he also placed a black tentacles spell in the middle of the room and captured eleven of the twelve constructs within it, effectively grappling them in place for the rest of the battle. He then proceeded to use his crossbow to whittle them down slowly. Jobi resorted to using her sling and proved that she was definitely getting better at using it for she never did hit any of friends with a sling bullet this time. Zola and Blackwell switched spots so Zola could attack with her ancestral weapon and Blackwell could use his pistol on them. Since there was virtually nothing Kel could do against these foes, she casted spells like bless and prayer to help other members’ chances of hitting the enemy. Jobi also casted hast on everyone so they could attack them more quickly. Even still, it was a long and drawn out battle. Zola had her ancestral weapon broken a couple of times, but all she had to do was let go of it so it would disappear and then re-summon it so it would be whole again.

Eventually the party destroyed all the caryatid columns and were able to enter the room and sift through the debris. They found nothing of use so Blackwell turned his attention to the four doors along the back wall. He checked each one for traps and found none. Then he unlocked the last door (the single door on the right side of the room) and Asphodel opened it revealing a hallway that went only a dozen feet or so till it turned to the right. So Blackwell started checking for traps and slowly went down the hallway, around the corner, and followed the hallway for about sixty feet. Then he turned another corner and checked another twenty or so feet for traps. This led them to the end of the hallway to another closed door on the end. He also checked this door and unlocked it. Then he decided to open the door. Beyond was a large room, some sixty by fifty feet or so. It was obviously a library. There were long and tall bookshelves all along the perimeter of the room as well as two more free-standing bookcases down the middle of the room. There were a lot of books on the shelves and in tall piles near the back of the room. And there were also a half dozen heavily armed and armored men in the room. The one at the far end spoke up, “Hey! You’re not supposed to be here! Who in the Hells are you?” Blackwell tried to bluff them by saying that they were the new recruits but that only got them the sound of weapons being drawn and another battle had begun.

Zola, Kel and Blackwell held the line at the door so they could limit how many of the fighters could get at them. Asphodel went into the room and brought the fight to them so fifteen or so feet from the doorway. These fighters proved they knew what they were doing for they were able to strike true a lot more than our heroes had been used to for a little while now. Blackwell kept trying to get out of melee range so he could use his pistol, but one enemy had other ideas with him and kept pressing into him with his bastard sword, forcing Blackwell to use his own melee weapons – then trying to get enough magical healing several times in order to stay up and in the fight. Zola was hitting back just as hard as, possibly even harder than the enemy. She struck one fighter down enough to allow Kel to help heal Blackwell. Kel also was proving that she could still fight effectively even though being a cleric and even though her new weapon of choice was now the star knife (instead of a bastard sword). Zerak and Jobi casted several spells including magic missiles, scorching rays, and other directed spells. Zerak had called out early in the battle for everyone not to use any kind of fire or other forces that could potentially destroy the books.

Vicious blows were exchanged back and forth but in the end the only ones to fall were the soldiers guarding the library. Asphodel and her large sized greataxe made making ground meat from a dodging creature seem easy. And then it happened again. She got a bit over-zealous in her melee attacks that she once again slipped into an uncontrolled rage and then really started making minced meat…

Kill! Asphodel’s inner dragon roared as he made a mighty swing with the over-sized greataxe. He was once more free of the little halfling girl’s will. Free to bathe in the blood of his free kills. Free to exact his vengeance upon all creatures foolish enough to stand in his way. She may be his “master”, but she can’t do what is needed to survive in this cold, hard world. With a draconic smirk, he opened his maw to belch forth a gout of crimson flame upon the humans in his path…

No… Asphodel weakly protested, grimacing from the intense effort needed to push against her inner dragon’s rage.. Don’t breath out here, you’ll ruin… all the books… that Zerak… wants… To her incredible surprise, the dragon seemed to obey, however, his rage continued as he slashed violently against the men in front of him.

She/he violently hit the first one with the flat of her axe and with a loud THWACK he went down like a puppet that had its strings cut. If he wasn’t dead, that last hit was going to leave a very, very bad bruise on his face. By now the first one she had been fighting had been joined by the one who had spoken to them in the beginning, most likely the small band’s leader, so she now focused all her attention on him. But he turned out to bleed just like all the others and soon fell to the heavy blade as well. Turning around she advanced on the one that Blackwell had been battling and soon made him into dinner for the lesser scavengers of the world.

At about the same time Zola also hit the last enemy soldier with a solid flat-of-the-blade hit and promptly knocked him unconscious. Then, seeing that Asphodel was not in control of herself, Zerak, Jobi, Blackwell, Kel, and Zola all backed away from her so none would be within her immediate sight range in hopes that she would be able to calm herself if no new “target” presented itself. Fortunately, it only took a few moments for Asphodel to regain her control and dismiss her eidolon, which afterwards, she went to the nearest corner of the room, sat down and rested due to her fatigue. Zola went over to her and used her mercy paladin ability to remove her fatigue. In the meantime they bound the one soldier remaining alive while Kel channeled healing energy to heal our heroes (but they only stabilized the soldier).

In the meantime, others were searching the library for anything of value. The soldiers themselves had around 300 gold pieces, magic full plate armor, magic shields, magic bastard swords and cloaks of resistance – 5 sets fo each all worth a substantial amount from the right buyer. Plus they found a few books and scrolls that were quite valuable – a tome of understanding to increase someone’s wisdom, a divine based scroll with stone shape and speak with dead written on it and an arcane scroll with the spells pugwampi’s grace and explosive runes.

When the soldier awoke, Jobi was determined to question him and find out what was going on down here. She asked him several times what they were searching for but he refused to say anything at all. He didn’t respond even when Blackwell held his pistol to the man’s “family jewels” so to speak (which got several disapproving scowls and admonishments from several party members). So Zola decided that she needed to cast her confess spell in order to try and get this person to tell them what they wanted to know. Then she asked him again, “What were you looking for?” He struggled and struggled. It was apparent that he was having a difficult time trying to resist but then he gave up and answered, with a smug look on his face, “Books.” He told the truth in the most basic of answers and thwarted the punishment of the spell without giving away any secrets. So, our heroes looked at each other for a minute then asked Jobi to go ahead and charm this joker like she did to that one back in Waterdeep some months back.

Jobi successfully casted charm person on the soldier, and he immediately became so much more cooperative. He was smiling and very pleasant, especially to Jobi. She asked him a number of questions and found out that they were looking for all manner of history books, especially the ones that dealth with the royal line of Alagondar, the original ruling bloodline of Neverwinter. Then the scribes were making copies of the books. He didn’t know why – he just worked for the highest bidder who, he revealed was Alira Vond. Jobi knew that Alira was partners with or at least worked for Mordai Vell. This gave her visions some collaborating truth, not that she needed that for she knew her visions were true given their source, but nonetheless, it felt good to get a second corroborating source. Then she asked him about the library area in general – what was behind different doors, where and how many foes were around, etc. He didn’t know much but did tell them that the other single door from the statue room led to another library that was pretty cleaned out and left with only traps to guard it. And that the scribes and others were down the main hall beyond the other set of double doors.

She then proceeded to talk to the soldier, named Barabbas, about his life choices and instructed him to seek out the temple of Saranrae and ask what services he could do for the goddess in order to repent for his previous evil ways. He was agreeable to this but asked if he could seek out Pharasma instead – he always had an affinity for the Lady of Graves. Jobi and Zerak both agreed that Pharasma was a good choice too and immediately Barabbas looked happier and brighter and said that he would go straight away. He also asked Jobi if she would come and visit him – he was beginning to have a smitten look across his face as he gazed at the tiefling beauty he was enamored with. She said she would but right now they all had things to do.

So they untied him and went out to the room with the now smashed statues and showed the party how to reset the stairs and also told them that the statues used to stay put for anyone that showed them a symbol of Asmodeus (mumurs of ohhhh and ahhh spread through the group of heroes at this gain in knowledge). Then without further ado, Barabbas left.

And so we come to another end of a session and have to bid farewell to our stalwart band. Armed with limited knowledge of this underground library complex, they now faced a decision of either: going through the single door and exploring what is supposed to be another library beyond, or to go through the double doors and go further into the belly of the beast. Until next week…

View

18

MAR/2014

Session 45 Synopsis

Previously, on Phoenix Rising…

… So we leave our heroes just after they had cast the teleport spells and arrived at the front gates of Blackstone Keep (after putting on their pins that Valindra originally gave to them for their first trip here).

With a blink of an eye, our five heroes were standing in front of Blackstone Keep’s main gates and four startled guards that were obviously not expecting anyone to teleport right in front of them. To his credit, the guard captain recovered very quickly and just said, “We were not expecting you back so soon. Please continue inside.” And with that the four guards stepped aside as the gates slowly opened. The group noticed that there were not as many people around this time, no doubt some were still at the newly formed Ghost Wolves’ encampment. Valindra met them in the main audience chamber and welcomed them back, asking how their adventures were going up till now.

The party first drew attention to Jobi’s plight and Valindra immediately led her and Zerak to the keep’s temple to Saranrae – it was a very elaborate and expensive looking temple which had both Jobi and Zerak even more so in awe of what was before them – especially considering where they were. The head priest, Duthar, was summoned for and promptly entered the temple with everything he needed to restore Jobi’s hand fully. She thanked him once he was done and said she would rest it for the next day so the residual stiffness and pain would recede. Jobi then told Valindra about her visions at the urging of Zerak. She was most interested and concerned where Saranrae’s visions were leading the heroes. She told them about a few places in Neverwinter that could possibly be the site of an ancient underground library where Mordai Vell and his accomplices could be working on something like this: under the city’s ancient cemetery, inside old Castle Never, in the Hall of Justice, or in the old temple of Oghma/Nethys called the House of Knowledge.

They returned to the rest of the group who had lingered in the main audience chamber, resting and just hanging out. Jobi and Zerak started relaying all the information that Valindra had told them about what Jobi had learned in her visions about the plans of Mordai Vell and the Ashmadai cult of devil worshippers and how they were attempting to rewrite history to make Neverwinter their puppet state with Lord Neverember at the helm. Valindra also commented that Vell and his agents were all over and gaining in power all the time and were now too powerful/well connected to go after head on. They heroes would have to be a bit craftier than brute force allowed and go after Vell’s secret endeavours and expose them at the right time in order to win the battle for Neverwinter’s freedom. Valindra indicated that her spies within the Ashmadai cult were not able to find out much about what Vell was currently doing – either he was being so careful that no one else could find out, or her spies had be identified and were being purposely kept out of the information loop.

Valindra also commented on Asphodel’s new eidolon look: she smiled approvingly on the now partially undead visage that Asphodel was showing the world. Zerak too commented to Asphodel that if she needed anyone to talk to he was there for her. And this stuff only brought some grunts of acknowledgement from her. Valindra also congratulated Blackwell on gaining some of his stolen powers back and said that there must be something out there that can help cure him even more. She would start looking into it to see if she can find anything out for him and for him not to give up hope. So our stalwart band decided that it might be best for them to teleport back to Asphodel’s castle and go to Neverwinter from there. This would allow for Asphodel to check up on her castle and grounds and to get the new temple construction on its way and well as Blackwell to visit his land and adopted family as well as swing by Kel’s place to check in on her and she how she was faring.

That night, Jobi once again had a vision:

You find yourself standing in a featureless gray stone room. A soft, bright mist starts to rise up from the floor and slowly begins to coalesce into a shape. As the shape is solidifying, you feel happiness, kindness, and joy emanating from it and your mood changes to match. The mist finally forms in the shape of an unbelievably gorgeous woman with bronze colored skin and long flaming hair gently swaying in a breeze you do not feel.
The vision of Saranrae smiles at you and starts to speak, “Jobi my faithful servant, your path intersects with the man you love. His family is partly descended from Lord Nasher Alagondar’s lineage and is in as much danger from Mordai Vell as is the future of Neverwinter. Bring My Word to Neverwinter. Cleanse the Ashmadai cult from its borders, both above as well as below ground. The ones that are controlled by the devil’s cult can be freed without their deaths and will prove to be allies in the coming years if saved. But hurry, if all are controlled then Neverwinter is lost. But take care for Vell and his allies are strong and have much support throughout the city. A head-on confrontation would surely end in failure. Trust only the ones you know.”
As the bronze woman’s smiling face fades away, an image of the old partially destroyed temple to Oghma, called the House of Knowledge in Neverwinter’s Protectors Enclave comes into view. And then that too fades as you wake up. It is now the dawn of a new day…

Jobi told everyone about this latest vision and especially emphasized the part about trusting only the ones they knew. Almost immediately everyone thought about making their first visit in Neverwinter to Telliann Sommsett, one of Neverwinter’s Captains of the Guard. She had verbally stated her distaste for Mordai Vell and his ilk before so maybe she wasn’t one of his lackeys or one of the corrupted ones yet. The trip to Neverwinter was relatively short with our heroes arriving near midday at the Protector’s Enclave Guard Headquarters. Asphodel decided to stay as a halfling citing that her new eidolon form may be too much for the normal citizens of Neverwinter to handle without any preparations. Telliann was inside and smiled broadly when she first saw the group.

She greeted them and said she had missed them since they had been gone for several months now. The engaged in some small talk before asking her if they could somewhere a bit more private to discuss some important matters. She agreed and it was decided that they would walk over to the Bloated Float Tavern and Inn for lunch and drinks. On the way there, they stopped on the bridge connecting the Protector’s Enclave with the Blacklake District since it was rather deserted with only a few people crossing at this time of day. Zola kept watch to make sure that no one was spying or listening to their conversation. They talked in hushed tones to Telliann about what they have discovered about Mordai Vell and his partner Alira Vond. She wasn’t surprised and said as much, though she had no idea who might already be corrupted by them. No one seemed different or had been acting strange lately. She did agree to keep her eyes and ears open and would let the heroes know if anything suspicious surfaced.

She was thankful to the party for sharing their information and told them that the only development around here was that some squatters had moved into the old House of Knowledge ruins some weeks back and that the guards patrolling that area were keeping an eye on them because those people were actually helping the guards by letting them know when a plaguechanged monster popped up. As such monster attacks ending in tragedy in the area have gone down considerably. But no one really knows much about the squatters themselves or where they originally came from. Since this location was one that was not only identified by Valindra and Jobi’s latest vision from Saranrae but also now had signs of recent and ongoing activity, the party decided that needed to be the first place they would look for this secret underground library.

They carefully made their way to the House of Knowledge, making sure that no one was following them. When they arrived, Asphodel decided it was a good time to summon her eidolon and then they cautiously entered the failing structure. Inside they found evidence of people living here but did not see anyone immediately. Soon as they explored the ground floor they started to see shadows of moving creatures here and there and finally they made their presence known. Soon the party saw that there were a number of people here, all dressed in rags and dirty looking but it was impossible to get a correct count of how many were actually there since they kept moving around and they were not especially different looking from each other. At first they were pleasant enough, saying hello and telling the party that the area was a bit unstable so they should take care walking around. Our heroes asked if they knew where the priest of Oghma was and where the library was. Several of the vagabonds chuckled and one addressed them directly by saying that the old priest is long dead and the library was completely destroyed with nothing left of the old House of Knowledge except the bones of the building they saw here.

The party told them they were going to look around anyway and see what they could find. The “main vagrant” said that was fine but again said for them to be careful for the ruins were unstable to those who didn’t know them. As the party searched they saw that the squatters were keeping their distance but were definitely watching where and what they were doing. For the most they only found burned and charred remains of old books and book shelves scattered all along the ground floor with no real way to get to the collapsing 2nd and 3rd floors above without risking more collapse and possible injury. But in one corner they saw an area where it looked like the building had collapsed into a stairwell leading down into an underground area. When the party approached this area, the head squatter spoke up again and said that the area there was very unstable and had just collapsed again recently. It had killed some people as well. He also said the stairs led nowhere since all was collapsed and was not possible to excavate without causing more collapse. Zerak, Zola, Blackwell and Asphodel all studied the area from a short distance away and it seemed that possibly some of that “collapse” had been put there on purpose, most likely to dissuade others from investigating the area below.

So the party told them that they were going to investigate that area anyway and the squatters obviously became more agitated and the one that had been speaking all along was getting pretty insistent that they were not welcome to investigate since it would cause more collapse to their home and they had no right to be there. At this point Asphodel was getting a bit perturbed with this person and decided to attempt to intimate this vagabond into backing down. He and the rest of the squatters were completely un-phased by her, not showing any signs of fear or concern or intimidation whatsoever (which would be considered very odd anywhere considering Asphodel’s partially undead visage these days). Our heroes ignored their warnings and went ahead to attempt to clear the area so they could investigate the stairs leading down below. While they began to work, they noticed that the half dozen squatters nearby were slowly backing away from the area but never looking away. Blackwell and Zola both thought it best to move away from the area quickly and Asphodel looked around and saw why the squatters were backing away at the last second. There were four more squatters up on the second floor overlooking the stairwell area and each of them threw down a wooden barrel into the collapsed area and ran away out of sight. Just as the four barrels made contact and exploded in a fiery blast that sent stone and other debris speeding at Asphodel, Zerak and Jobi, Asphodel tried to wrap her wings and body around the other two in hopes of shielding them from the fire and flying debris. She was successful to a point and all of them only sustained minor blunt force damage from the stones and wooden projectiles. Needless to say the battle was on at this point.

Zerak summoned his new favorite pet, a celestial lion to “eat away” at the opposition. Jobi began casting her spells. Zola and Apshodel moved into melee with the treacherous bastards. Blackwell moved into close range and began firing his pistol and sneaking in to deal extra damage while they were occupied by Zola. For foes that were only wearing rags and seemingly nothing else, they were proving to be rather difficult to hit – not impossible – but more difficult than one would expect – and they were fairly good at attacking them with their daggers. But they did have trouble with Asphodel’s and Zola’s high armor values as well as getting through the inherent damage resistance that the “kitty” (as Jobi is fond of calling the celestial lion) had. All in all the battle did not last very long. There were no others around afterwards – the four that threw the barrels were not to be found as was no other squatters. It was strange though that the six did not flee, falter, or become demoralized while they were being defeated. It was as if they had none of the human emotions of fear and pain that normal people experience. They searched the bodies and came away with only twelve magic daggers (+1 variety). But now our heroes were able to continue the exploration of the stairs down.

After some minutes of contemplating engineering principles to figure out the safest way of clearing the debris without further collapse they finally decided that they had to go around the caved in area. So Zerak summoned an earth elemental to burrow a large tunnel around the collapse and into any areas that may lie beyond it. Soon, the elemental had made its way parallel to the cave in and burrowed into an underground area where the stairs ultimately led to. They found themselves in a small basement area that seemingly had no other doors or exits. So they began searching all the walls to see if there might be a secret door hidden somewhere within the chamber. Luck (or skill if you prefer) was with them and they had found a secret door in the southwest corner of the room. Blackwell looked for traps and found nothing so he went to work on picking the lock inside the small keyhole. But as soon as he got his lock pick tool inserted into the keyhole he was greeted with an extremely large electrical discharge. He wasn’t even able to evade the blast with his quick reflexes this time. It felt like the electrical blast was so forceful that it immediately grabbed him and wouldn’t let go. Fortunately for him his reflexes did help to break the grip but that caused him to be literally blown back twenty feet into the back wall (which was a better outcome than being held by electricity until charred dead).

After that they cast detect magic on the door to see if there was anything else still there and found nothing. So Asphodel opened the door and beyond they saw a chamber that was twenty feet deep and sixty feet wide – again with no other doors or exits visible. So they once again searched all the walls for secret doors and were again rewarded with success for another secret door was in the same location as the last chamber, the southwest corner of the room. Here they started with casting detect magic and found none so Blackwell went to work detecting traps and did indeed find one. It appeared to be a trigger wire that would set off some type of large projectiles to be shot into the room from many holes in the walls and ceiling – possibly as large as javelins. Satisfied he went to work unlocking the door and was able to pick the lock, although it was even pretty difficult for him to pick (which he did not let on to the others). So once again Asphodel strode forward and opened the door.

But there was another trap that Blackwell had not detected for the floor inside the room – a full twenty foot square of it opened up and our heroes began to fall into the large and deep hole hidden by the large trap door. Fortunately Zola and Asphodel had their wings (so to speak) and were able to resort to flight after only a fall of ten feet or so. And Zerak had feather fall in his memory and immediately cast it to allow the rest of them to slowly float down to the bottom one hundred feet below. But when the three got close, they had to avoid a lot of long, sharp and rusty spikes protruding up from the floor, which only caused them minimal damage. Asphodel and Zola threw down ropes and Zerak used his overland flight to help get everyone back up out of the hole and got them to the other side of the trap and through the open door. Beyond was a small landing and then a narrow stairway going down for a long way – further than anyone’s darkvision could see.

And so we come to another end of a session and have to bid farewell to our stalwart band. Until next week…

View

11

MAR/2014

Session 44 Synopsis

Previously, on Phoenix Rising…

… And so we leave our intrepid band of heroes bruised, battered and wounded sitting in the middle of an old coal mine getting ready to trek back to the now defunct Grey Wolves’ encampment.

After patching themselves up and resting until Asphodel was no longer fatigued, the party packed up Zerak’s body into a bag of holding and made their way back out of the coal mine. Once they got close to the basement door, they could still feel that the burning building could still be too hot for the ones without fire-resistance to travel through. So Asphodel and Blackwell both joined Zerak in the bag for the short jaunt out of the fiery area. Just as they were leaving the basement, Jobi was struck motionless, her eyes glazing over. She was having a vision as the rest of the party made their way into the encampment.

As you come out of the mine tunnel and back into the compound where the mansion is still burning, your vision blurs so everything is black and fuzzy and you have a slight dizzy feeling but it quickly fades and your sight slowly returns, but now you see something entirely unexpected. Before you is the table back at Lord Padraig’s estate where you placed the two heirloom items that Alira Vond had asked you to find and paid for their return to her. She is on the opposite side of the table smiling as she takes hold of the dagger and rod. She looks up at you and she mouths, “Thank you,” all the while having a rictus grin and visage that soon starts to change. She grows small horns on her forehead and her skin turns a ruddy color with wisps of smoke rising from her hair. The two items in her hands begin to glow with a sickly green light and start to drip blood that begins to eat through the table as it splashes down on it like it was some type of acid. She laughs and turns away from you and the scene fades into black…
Your vision once again fades in but still not to where you remember being with your friends. This time it looks like you are in a dimly lit scholar’s work lab or a large run down library. The air is musty with the smell of old parchment and paper mixed with the smell of candles. You again see the two heirloom items – this time they are on an elaborate pedestal next to a wall of bookshelves filled with books.
There are several people here sifting through books while Mordai Vell and Alira Vond are talking to each other. She says, “No luck yet, Mordai, but I feel that we will soon find the names of who the last remaining ancestors to Lord Nasher are. And we’re nearly ready with the sacrificial site so that we’ll be able to ‘donate’ their lives to our cause. Then no one can stop us taking over Neverwinter.”
Mordai, smiling, asks, “How about our corruption efforts? Are we ready to permanently replace the rest of our ‘allies’ with our puppets? I trust that you are not ignoring that aspect of the plan.”
“Of course not lover! We now have more than 60% of the leadership of Neverwinter under our control when we need it. And no one suspects a thing. At this point, even if someone does notice something wrong it is nearly too late for them to do anything about it without us finding out. We just have to get to a few more at this point – captains of the watch, etc. But in the meantime…” Your vision fades as you see Alira’s robes fall to the ground and Mordai widely smiling with lust…

Zola let the Asphodel and Blackwell out of the bag and continued to make her way to the Thayan commander to ask if there was anyone here that could raise Zerak from the dead. He responded that there was not at the current time but he would contact Valindra and someone should be here shortly. In the meantime, they put Zerak’s body on a large table inside one of the Thayan command tents in preparation for raising him.

After a few minutes, the others noticed that Jobi had not followed them all the way and she was sitting on the ground, apparently oblivious to the world around her. When asked what was wrong, she responded that her vision told her they needed to get back to Neverwinter as soon as possible. Blackwell agreed to go but not until the party had gone after the last of the Grey Wolves to the Druid encampment. If there was a chance that the Lycan Spire could heal him he would not pass that opportunity up for anything.

Valindra and her head priest of Sarenrae, Duthar, teleported into the encampment soon after and went straight away caring for Zerak. After some time, the raise dead and restoration spells were cast and Zerak was again among the living. Valindra was very pleased to see that the party had indeed won the day against the Grey Wolves and she reiterated to Blackwell that she was going to leave a detachment of solders to help protect the newly reformed Ghost Wolves tribe and that she would also send messengers to seek out other displaced Ghost Wolves and tell them the news that the Grey Wolves are no more and should come home again. Blackwell thanked her, but also told her what they learned about another strike group going after some group of druids that guarded an artifact called the Lycan Spire and wanted to know if she knew anything about it. Indeed she did, although her knowledge of it was only basic, she did know where those druids were located and would teleport the group there once they were ready. Everyone agreed that they needed to rest for the night and regain their strength and would be ready first thing in the morning to go after the miscreants.

While everyone seemed to be in better spirits the next morning, Asphodel’s mind was like a raging torrent. The inner dragon had wrested control away again and another ally had paid the price for her lack of stability. How many more people were destined to suffer due to her shortcomings? As she began the ritual to call forth her eidolon, something immediately seemed wrong…

Normally, the ritual is fairly straightforward. She spends a minute muttering a chant and concentrating and he draconic eidolon appears and surrounds her small body in its protective embrace. This time, dark tendrils of shadow began to appear around her and the ambient light seemed to darken. As the ritual continued, the tendrils started to wrap tightly around her. As the halfling’s ritual finished, the heavy black mist parted to reveal a very different figure…
The eidolon appeared to be already dead. More than half of its scaly flesh looked like it had been melted or decayed away leaving little more than a tall hunchbacked skeletal figure crouched were the little halfling girl had been. Normally, the eidolon looked mostly translucent with her floating in the middle of it’s chest. Now, it definitely looked more solid. The halfling girl wasn’t visible anymore as the dark tendrils had sealed around her and hardened into what almost looked like a dragon’s egg, however, it seemed to pulsate and glow with an inner purple light.
To make matters even stranger, the eidolon’s personality seemed to have taken an even darker turn. It seemed for now, while embraced in the eidolon-suit, the young halfling girl’s very essence is doomed to be overwhelmed by the feral power of the “Inner Dragon”, or “Id” for short…

Zerak had taken upon himself to do some research into psychology during his precious free time and was very interested in and very concerned about Asphodel’s new choices and told her that if she had ever wanted someone just to talk to he was there. She mumbled something in her new very dead sounding voice and dismissed the exchange.

So with a few quick motions and a couple magical phrases, Valindra teleported the group into the middle of a clearing that was surrounded by dense forest to the south and what looked like a nearly impenetrable barrier of thick foliage. And all around the large clearing were werewolves attacking the barrier and whoever was beyond it. Once our heroes materialized out of nothing, the werewolves stopped for a moment to assess the newly changed dynamics. The party was facing some still odds here – there were at least a dozen that looked like typical fighters, well typcal werewolf fighters at any rate, another four that were obviously spell casters, two more that were heavily outfitted fighter types and then two more Netherese soldiers as well. The fact that there were Netherese here dashed any hopes that Blackwell had of ending this standoff peacefully. And then all at once it turned into a free-for-all killing zone.

Zola strode out and engaged with one of the fighters while Asphodel went the opposite direction to engage some of the other fighters. Before the rest of them had a chance to really do anything, the Grey Wolves spell casters blasted them with multiple fireball spells which did some damage but not enough to incapacitate anyone. Blackwell, Jobi and Zerak all decided to help concentrate on the side that Zola went since Asphodel usually didn’t need too much help, especially at the beginning of a battle. Jobi was using her ranged spells to great effect and Zerak put down a mass of black tentacles that severely hampered the movements of the five enemies he trapped inside it. He also summoned a lillend azata to not only help with attacks but also with healing when needed (and it was definitely needed during this battle).

Everything seemed to be going fairly well for our stalwart band until the rest of the enemies began advancing and engaging in the combat. They were all fairly competent fighters and luck seemed to be on their side for the time being. One got close to Jobi and landed a blow that would sever her left hand (yep – it happened again). Since this is something that one just really doesn’t get used to, Jobi went into shock when her hand flew off her arm and blood started shooting out of the stump that was left behind. Fortunately, the azata was nearby and was able to heal her to the point that she would not bleed out from the wound, but that did nothing for the shock that she was experiencing.

Blackwell in the meantime ended up playing cat and mouse with the enemy, first shooting at them, dodging melee attacks, guns jamming, using his swords to attack, etc… all the while trying to stay alive as these werewolves turned out ot be pretty good at landing blows against him. He had to retreat several times to take potions so he would not fall in the battle.

Zola was holding her own against the troops that were engaging her. She kept herself right next to the black tentacles for a couple reasons – one to keep her from being flanked and the other to keep attacking the enemies while they were entangled in the tentacles.

Asphodel was taking on an entire group of enemies. They lined up just perfectly for her to use her breath weapon so she sacrificed a higher level spell to cause them maximum damage and pain. After a few rounds of melee, ranged, and spell attacks against her however, the enemies had chipped away at her eidolon to the point that they actually had damaged it enough to send it back to whatever plane of existence it had come from. This caused Asphodel to “emerge” just in her true halfling form. But she just backed up from the fight and was able to re-summon her eidolon (at full strength as well) and then used her greater invisibility spell to disappear. Now she was able to move around the battlefield and attack the werewolves with impunity since they could not see where she was attacking from.

Zerak continued to cast spells and summoned up a celestial dire lion to go after the enemy spell casters. It made lunch of one of them fairly quickly and continued to chase another one around for a while before he too fell from both the lion’s attacks and Zerak’s spells. He also cast another black tentacles spell at another group that had a spell caster, a couple soldiers and one of the Netherese. This helped slow them down from entering into melee before they wer ready for them. In addition Zerak cast a wall of fire (ring shaped) and engulfed several other werewolves. Incidentally they also met with the invisible Asphodel and were quickly cut down.

Right about this time, Jobi was able to snap herself out of her shocked state and began furiously casting scorching rays and magic missiles to help bring down the baddies fast approaching her and Zerak as well as the ones ganging up on Zola. She also used her channel energy abilities to help heal her friends in an effort to keep everyone up and fighting. She kept moving out of melee range once one of the Netherese got free of the black tentacles and made his way up to them to melee with Blackwell, Zerak and his azata. But at the point when the battle was nearing its conclusion, with only the Netherese still standing and fighting, she froze again and had another vision…

You find yourself back in that same old library, though this time it feels like you’re underground somewhere. There are three scribes hard at work. It looks like they are copying old texts into similarly old looking parchment s and books. But they are also making subtle changes. Mordai Vell is standing next to one of the scribes, looking over his shoulder and says to the scribe, “Good, now make sure that you replace all references to the Ruunleit family name with Neverember’s family name. Double check everything and let me know when you’re finished. We’ll have to burn the originals once we have verified that they all have been copied and modified to the new version of history.”
“Yes, my lord. We should be done within the week and will contact you as soon as we’re done through the usual means,” stated the scribe.
“Good. There’s a bonus in it for all of you if you do finish this week. A bonus that starts without your deaths.” With that Mordai starts to leave the library and the vision fades. You slowly open your eyes and see and hear that the battle still rages on all around you. Your head is in agonizing pain…

At this point Jobi had her back against the wall of foliage and she just slowly slid down and stared ahead. And just after the last Netherese was cut down Zerak noticed Jobi sitting and staring off into nothing and raced over to her to find out what was wrong. He knelt down beside her as she spoke of her latest vision and how Mordai Vell was going through old texts and replacing the Ruunleit family name with Neverember’s and planned on burning the original texts when they were finished. Zerak’s eyes went wide with horror and confusion as her words sank in. He told her that Ruunleit was his original family name.

They told the group that getting back to Neverwinter was a definite priority now. But even as their words were fading, the massive wall of foliage began to part and soon there was a passageway leading to the other side of the wall and several druids, obviously battle-worn and wounded, walked out to greet our heroes.

“Oh thank nature and the gods that you arrived when you did and defeated those evil werewolves! We would not have lasted much longer and I fear that we all would have been destroyed by them if you hadn’t come along!

Blackwell answered them by stating that they were really there because he needed to use the Lycan Spire to try to heal and regain his natural lycanthropy. The druids listened to him and said that they would be happy to perform the healing ritual with the Lycan Spire although they were not sure if it could actually heal him of this particular ailment – they had never seen a case so severe before. But they invited everyone in to rest and get some healing, even though they were currently limited in what they could offer. As it was they had no magicks strong enough to reattach Jobi’s hand. All the could do is cast a gentle repose on it so it would not begin to decay before she could have it reattached somewhere else. But the food and drink were good and the area was comfortable to rest. The druids spent around an hour preparing for the healing ritual and when ready they brought everyone to the artifact. It looked like a very large stalagmite, some 20 feet in diameter and made out of rock and wood and possibly other types of debris.

The ritual included lashing Blackwell to the spire using long vines which nearly covered him completely, basically only allowing him to breathe. Then the druids performed the ritual for the next hour. After a while the spire started to glow red though no heat was given off. When the last words of the ritual were spoken, the vines disintegrated and Blackwell fell to the ground unconscious. The druids laid him out so he could sleep as the Lycan Spire continued to work its magic on him and 8 hours later he awoke.

The druids told him that they were not sure if it actually worked so he should try out changing his form to see what happens. Blackwell agreed and proceeded to will himself into hybrid form. What used to take only a few moments now took a full round to accomplish. But he was again a werewolf! He then changed into wolf form – again a full round for the transformation but it also worked. He then switched to hybrid form and stayed that way. Unfortunately he found out that he was not completely healed for after only a few more rounds, he automatically reverted back into his human form. Plus he was completely fatigued from the shape-changing and felt that he needed another full night’s rest. And so our heroes stayed the night with the druids.

In the morning, our intrepid band was again ready to travel. Since they weren’t exactly sure where in the Neverwinter Woods, Asphodel and Zerak both had prepared teleport spells. Asphodel was able to take herself and three others with her and Zerak’s spell allowed him to join them. So they debated where would be the best place for them to teleport to. Some of the options were Neverwinter, the new created ghost wolf encampment, and Valindra’s Blackstone Keep. After some debate it was decided that they would travel to the Blackstone keep since it would probably be easier to find someone there with the ability to regenerate Jobi’s hand than it would be in Neverwinter (and possibly even less expensive).

So we leave our heroes just after they had cast the teleport spells and arrived at the front gates of Blackstone Keep (after putting on their pins that Valindra originally gave to them for their first trip here). Stayed tuned for next week’s exciting adventures …

View

4

MAR/2014

Session 43 Synopsis

Previously, on Phoenix Rising…

… At this point, the way was now clear to the main building where apparently their main objective was – the head of the Grey Wolves, Ethrain Marrowslake. It was time to storm the mansion and put his head to the pike! And maybe, just maybe, Blackwell could convince at least some of the remaining Grey Wolves to rejoin their ancestral pack the Ghost Wolves after seeing what they did to the enemy in the courtyard.

With the rest of the party looking to him for the next move, Blackwell surveyed the courtyard carnage and the battles still raging on at the now breached palisade gates. He knew it wouldn’t be long before the small Thayan army decimated the remaining werewolves. Even now some of them at the edges of the battle were starting to drop out of hybrid form while throwing their weapons down on the ground and trying to surrender from the onslaught. Thankfully the Thayans didn’t appear to be too bloody-thirsty and did not cut the surrendering ones down. He made the decision that he needed to call out Marrowslake and challenge him in order to have any hope of stopping the complete annihilation of the former Ghost Wolves.

He turned to Asphodel and Zola and said that he needed to get into that mansion and relayed his plans to the rest of the party. Looking at the mansion, they saw all the windows were boarded and barred as well as the one main double door entrance. So Zola and Asphodel began ramming the door in order to break it down (after Blackwell searched for traps that is). It took them three tries but the door finally gave way and beyond they saw a nicely furnished two story reception room. There was a closed door in the middle of the left and right wall, a closed double door in the wall opposite the front door, two staircases leading up to the second story landing, and three doors on the second story, all closed: one on the left, right , back walls. The place was obviously lived in and well used, though still fairly opulent even though it was evident that it had seen more glorious days in the past. Since no one was there to “greet” them, Blackwell loudly and in no uncertain terms issued his challenge to Ethrain Marrowslake to come out and face him. Meanwhile Asphodel had walked over to the corner of the room nearest the double doors to get a position of surprise if needed. After a few moments the three door on the ground floor opened up and nearly a dozen werewolves poured out of the doors. For a few tense moments they just all stared at each other, then one of them took a couple steps forward and began to speak to the group, “Why should we let you anywhere near Marrowslake?”

Blackwell began conversing with the man-wolf to try and convince him to surrender and rejoin their common ancestral tribe, the Ghost Wolves. He pointed out that by now they knew of the Thayan army that was backing them and taking over outside the mansion. And that there was no shame in surrendering in a hopeless situation. Plus they would all be granted amnesty and be full members of their tribe once more. Black noticed that it looked like he was swaying the minds of some of the werewolves there. And Zola had decided to detect evil to see if she could figure out the most evil one of the bunch to direct her attacks at if it cme down to it and Blackwell’s efforts at diplomacy failed. While all had traces of evil auras upon them, none really stood out as glaringly evil, which reminded her of groups of people that might follow an evil dictator – not truly evil but driven to evil acts because of their following nature. Asphodel also remained ready to strike, while Zerak and Jobi were standing behind Blackwell but nonetheless ready for anything to cause an eruption of violence.

The leader of this group then asked Blackwell, “Your talk makes sense, but all I see before me is a human – not a werewolf. How do we know you are who you say you are if you even refuse to be in hybrid form while addressing us of this matter?” This brought nods and murmurs of affirmation from his fellow collegues and caused Blackwell to slump a bit with sadness as he began the tale of his assassination by an unknown enemy that robbed him of his lycanthropy. He also recited all the names of all his relatives, which many names were obviously known to the group of werewolves. And to prove his identity, he tossed the man his ghost wolves amulet, given to him by his father, the former leader of the Ghost-Wolves who was murdered by Ethrain Marrowslake.

The group of Grey Wolves looked at each other and their leader long and hard, obviously weighing all their options in front of them. Then the leader nodded and as one they all put their weapons down and declared that they once again wanted to be part of the Ghost Wolves. The tension in the room immediately lifted and it was evident that the younger werewolves were very relieved not to have to fight anymore. The leader now asked Blackwell about saving the rest of the men in the courtyard and the two groups hurriedly left the mansion to go outside. Asphodel picked up Blackwell and they flew over the battlefield and landed next to the Thayan commander and told him to stop hostilities for the rest of the werewolves now outside are surrendering and rejoining the Ghost Wolves. The commander sent word quickly and within a few short minutes all battles had ceased. The newly rejoined members of the Ghost Wolves were gathered in the middle of the courtyard and relieved of their weapons, given food and water, and allowed to rest.

Now our heroes turned their attention back to the mansion and to finding Marrowslake, who would not be offered any quarter this day. They thought about how he would be ready for them and that he would most likely have traps and ambushes set up for them. So they thought it would be better to draw them out to the heroes instead of them chasing after the villians. Jobi mentioned that she missed Kel’s counsel and was at a loss for any tactical answers to the problems they faced. But then an idea came to Zerak and the others. What better way than to smoke them out? So Zerak had used a spell that created a long snake of fire to wind around and engulf one of the supporting walls in the house. They thought that if that wall started burning a lot of smoke would be created as well as the house collapsing in on itself and this would drive the villians out of the building and onto their swords.

But things didn’t go quite as planned. The fire worked too well. Soon the entire mansion was engulfed in flames and it became a raging inferno. But yet, no one came out of the building. No screams were heard either. Asphodel didn’t even see anyone trying to escape when she flew around the perimeter. The leader that had surrendered mentioned that there was a safe room somewhere and that he didn’t know the exact location of it, only that the entrance was somewhere in the left half of the basement. So Asphodel went wading into the burning structure once it had collapsed to the point that there was no threat of it falling down on her and hurting her through blunt force. Even with her fire immunity, the work was hard, hot and slow.

Zerak pitched in by summoning a large earth elemental to burrow under the house to see if it could find some secret passage by way of tunneling into it. And this had worked to a point. It found an area that was protected by what looked like a tall and long metal sheet connected to the foundation of the house on the left side and continuing for at least thirty feet from the house. So Asphodel concentrated her search on that part of the basement wall and found a heavy metal door. This one had its hinges on this side so Asphodel was able to use her acid claws to break through them. After a while they were able to get it open to see what was beyond it – and it revealed an old mine tunnel, no more than five and a half feet tall and five to ten feet wide. Since the fires were so hot still, they used the trick of putting the ones that had no fire resistance (Blackwell and Zerak) into a bag of holding for just a minute in order to get them far enough down the tunnel that the heat would be dissipated enough no to cause them harm. Zerak even reduced his size so it would be more comfortable in that bag.

Then our stalwart band continued cautiously down the tunnel for nearly a mile before it ended in another metal door. This one had its hinges on the other side so Asphodel couldn’t use her acid claws to do the same thing but could help weaken the metal to break through the door. Of course the door was also barred from the other side so she also had to bend and force the door before it would open far enough to remove the bar and allow entrance to the area beyond which made a lot of noise. There was more tunnel beyond but it also opened up into a larger chamber. The ceilings here were around six and a half feet tall so most every one could stand up completely. The party listened intently to find out if they could hear any traces of people nearby. They thought they had heard a few voices in the distance but nothing definite except for the occasional pop and crackle and dirt falling down the walls. They examined the walls and found them to be made of some blackish sort of flaky rock, which Zerak determined must be coal. Jobi immediately spoke up (in a hushed voice) that they must be careful not to do anything that causes a flame or sparks or they might ignite the entire cave which could then even blow up killing them all.

Asphodel and Blackwell slowly advanced into the chambers with Blackwell slightly in the lead. He stealthily rounded a corner and was immediately greeted by a voice, “Well, well if it isn’t little Raizen come to save the day. Too bad all he’s gonna get is an ass full of boot.” Blackwell saw the hybrid wolf speaker in the dim light had two other hybrids with him. They were in a chamber that had a couple of heavy wooden cabinets, a table, and some chairs. Blackwell still tried to have him surrender by telling him that everything was lost to him in the compound, but it didn’t seem to phase him at all. Instead he said that they were going to beat and kill “little Raizee” just like they did to his mommy.

Well, needless to say, this last statement just plain enraged Blackwell and so he tried to bluff them with a powder keg stating that he would blow up the whole place, but they didn’t buy it so Asphodel surprised them by coming around the corner and charged Marrowslake and kept him engaged for the entire fight even before he knew what was going on. The party gained a small upper hand but soon found that not only were the three werewolves down here with them but two Netherese were also here. Unfortunately for Zola and Jobi, they found out first hand that the Netherese were very skilled at surprise attacks when both were struck multiple times from the back. Both sustained severe wounds which stunned them for a couple rounds each. Jobi felt the bite of their translucent blue weapons bite into her flesh and saw one of the blades pierce through the front of her stomach – fortunately it missed her vital organs and didn’t paralyze or kill her instantly.

Marrowslake’s two right hand men used crossbows to attack Blackwell and Zerak as the advanced on the party and both were pretty damn good at attacking them. It was then that Zerak decided that casting an ice storm spell would help to dampen their advancement for a bit and he was right. But they continued to advance and shoot and soon had closed in on Zerak as they had switched to their longswords. Zerak also sustained a critical hit from one of these assailants which caused him to be stunned for a short time as well. Meanwhile Blackwell tried to get around to attack the Netherese with his pistol while he could stay at ranged combat distances to try and distract them from finishing off either Zola or Jobi. One of the Netherese advanced past the stunned Zola and attacked the stunned Zerak with a nasty hit while the other Netherese closed in with Blackwell who had to switch over to his flaming sword (and possibly forgetting that the area could completely ignite on them).

But just as Jobi and Zola regained their senses and rejoined the battle, a tragedy struck. One of Marrowslake’s right hand men swung viciously at Zerak and cut him down. Zerak dropped dead to the ground with major abdominal wounds. His blood quickly ran and was soaked up by the dirt and coal floor. Jobi at first went to see if there was anything she could do for her lover, but once she took a good look at him, she knew he was gone. She started backing away from the fight, heading back the way they had come and began casting magic missiles and scorching rays at the Netherese, her vision even more blurred at the edges from the tears that were forming. And Zola began tearing into the Netherese with a vengeance, trying to exact every ounce of blood in payment for the ones they took from the party. Blackwell worked well with Zola in flanking the Netherese and quickly helped to bring down one of the evil bastards.

It was at this time that everyone was wishing again that Kel was there to help them with her sword arm and great healing and other magical powers. Maybe Zerak would not have fallen and this battle not turn so desperate as they fought for their lives.

Meanwhile, Marrowslake was standing up to Asphodel pretty well and landing damaging blows against her pretty regularly. However, there comes a point in a halfling’s life where she just won’t take it anymore and she reached this at just about the time when Zerak fell. She raged and brutally attacked Marrowslake who withstood her onslaught. She lost control and saw nothing but hate. Soon even Marrowslake could not withstand the full force of the halfing in the eidolon suit’s unbridled raging attacks and fell at her feet, nearly torn apart. She then turned and concentrated her attacks upon his two right hand men. She advanced to the cavern opening and let loose her fiery breath weapon and melee attacks, first against the one that had killed Zerak and then against the other one who was continually shooting at Blackwell and Zola and Jobi. When Asphodel used her breath weapon, Jobi heard and saw even through her blurred vision the ground start to crackle and spark as the meancing fire cloud erupted like a small furnace belching out the excess fire it could not contain from her friend’s translucent, wide open tooth-filled maw. She held her breath for a second and braced herself for what was surely to come – an explosion of fire and rock within the entire cavern, but thankfully it wasn’t enough to start the dreaded chain reaction.

Now there was only one Netherese left and he tried to make it straight to the exit of the cavern but Jobi was right there in the way and he couldn’t resist taking another hateful swing at her causing her even more damage to her body. But it was soon the end for him since there was now Blackwell and Zola right on his heels to cut him down. A little bit of good fortune was smiling down on our heroes for when the last foe fell before Asphodel, none of the party except for Zerak’s corpse was within thirty feet of her. That gave he a little time to survey and think about the situation and when her eyes locked on Zerak’s form, her uncontrollable rage was broken and her eidolon winked out and a small little halfing girl fell to the ground next to Zerak. The rest of the party converged on her and Zola gave her some comfort as usual while Jobi just sat next to Zerak.

Blackwell, even though he was sad for the death of his friend, had other things on his mind. He went and removed Marrowslake’s head and the two Netherese heads as well. Then he searched all the bodies except Zerak’s of course – that would just be bad form with so many of the party still living, uhh, yeah, well, carry on. He also went and disabled the traps and opened the cabinets and found a trove of treasures, literally.

The bodies had the following items of value:
3 silver longswords +2, 3 chain shirts +2, 38 silver crossbow bolts +1, and 2 suits of mithril scalemail +1

The first cabinet he opened contained the following:
4,500 gold in various coins, 10,000 gold worth of jewelry, 2,500 gold worth of small art work pieces (statuettes, etc), 1,000 gold worth in loose gems of various types.

The second cabinet had the several books and papers including Marrowslake’s journals and other writings which contained the
following highlights:
• Most of the villages in the surrounding countryside – perhaps as far as 30 miles away have all been ransacked and mostly burned to the ground. All able-bodied men, women and children that did not die fighting or trying to escape are now slaves of the Netherese that have been transported by their delegates to their work site camps.
• A lot of the prettier women and cute budding girls did not get sent into slavery to the Netherese but instead were kept as playthings for the werewolves. Most were brutally used and abused and when they wore out their usefulness, they were eaten (mostly grilled on a spit).
• The slaves that the grey Wolves had were there basically on loan to sort through all the items retrieved from the villages and towns that were ransacked.
• The scorched-earth policy they were following was to hide the fact of who was actually attacking these villages and they were successful in hunting down any runners.
• Their next target is a druid encampment about a few days away to the northeast, deeper into the Neverwinter Wood. They reportedly have some kind of relic called the Lycan Spire that supposedly can heal lycanthropes of any ailment or condition. Ethrain has decided to go after it. He has instructed a strike team to go there and kill all the druids, loot everything of value there and bring back the Lycan Spire so they can use it to their benefit. The strike force left before Valindra’s troops and the PC’s arrived so they have more than a day on them.

Zola and Jobi did the best they could to help heal the surviving members of the party of their wounds even though they did not expect any problems following the tunnel back to the decimated compound. But better safe than sorry. Even Blackwell dipped into his healing potions since the battle had been quite brutal. They needed to rest for at least an hour since Asphodel was completely fatigued after her uncontrolled raged and this gave them the time they needed to heal, catch their breaths and gather up all the loot around here. They decided that they should pack Zerak’s body into one of their bags of holding for the short trip back to the compound. They all hoped that there was someone with the Thayan army that could raise and heal Zerak quickly, since they still needed to go and help those druids, if not because it was the right thing to do to remove the last of the Grey Wolves’ threat upon the land, but at the very least, Blackwell wanted access to the Lycan Spire in hopes that it would cure his current condition.

And so we leave our intrepid band of heroes bruised, battered and wounded sitting in the middle of an old coal mine getting ready to trek back to the now defunct Grey Wolves’ encampment. Stayed tuned for next week’s exciting adventures …

View

25

FEB/2014

Session 42 Synopsis

“OK. But you’re really not going to like the answer,” Deep Thought said. Then he cleared his “throat” and declared, “Anndd Noowww! The Answer to Life … The Universe … And Everything is ….”
Oops sorry. Wrong fantasy story…

Previously, on Phoenix Rising…

… “Are you sure that is what you want Zerak?” asked Valindra.

“Yes. I am sure I don’t want to be a witch anymore. I want to redirect my efforts as a wizard.” replied Zerak, glancing between Valindra and Jobi, who were both nodding affirmations as he spoke.

“Very well. I will help you with that. Jobi, you do understand that Zerak and I will be spending a lot of time together while I tutor him in the ways of the wizard and it will take up a lot of his free time as well?”

Jobi answered, “Yes. By the way do you have someone that could help me increase my endurance during battles?”

“Yes of course Jobi. You can start immediately as well.” With that, Valindera sent for and introduced Bruno to Jobi, “Bruno will help you train. He is very accomplished at bringing the best out of people.” Bruno was a six foot seven mean looking half-orc that looked like he could pick up and juggle a wagon with four horses attached to it.

“Now Zerak,” Valindra continued, “Please give me Priscilla.”

The rest of the party soon departed and made their way to Neverwinter before dispersing to their respective settlement areas. Asphodel began construction on her temple to Bahamut and greeted Sir oakley when he arrived at her castle. Zola basically hung out with Asphodel in addition to upgrading some of her magical gear by selling some off and having a new headband constructed for her in Neverwinter. Kel parted ways once they got to Neverwinter so she could concentrate on the task of building her Abbey and gathering followers loyal to Desna. Blackwell also went back to his settlement to start the task of planning expansion and building – plus he spent some time also training to have more battlefield endurance. Those couple of months soon were spent and Asphodel, Zola, and Blackwell made their way to Blackstone Keep once again to reunite with Zerak and Jobi.

When the friends met up again, some were surprised about Zerak’s new familiar, named Dawn. Earlier, Jobi had already gone through the adjustment period she needed and still wasn’t 100% OK with Zerak’s choice in familiars. He had called forth a lyrakien azata to be his familiar. While no one objected to having a good aligned outsider from Elysium around. The fact that she looked like a very beautiful woman – albeit small at only 13" in height – with large delicate butterfly wings and surrounded by sparkling lights and gentle rainbow arcs also was no issue. The real issue was the fact that this little woman didn’t wear any clothing and seemed perfectly at ease with the whole world looking at every inch of her physique.

After the awkward introductions, our heroes and Valindra got down to business. Valindra gave a short recap of the situation with the Grey Wolves:

“Their compound is sizable and the werewolves also have allies with them. We think that a small strike force going inside is the best; you’re more likely to not draw any attention to yourselves until absolutely necessary. We have a basic map of the compound but not of the interiors of the buildings. Once inside, you should attempt to get at the heart of the compound and take out the leader, Ethrain Marrowslake, and his inner circle. If everything goes as planned, we’ll breach the walls and secure everything but the main building where you will be going room-to-room exterminating these evil creatures. This will allow you to be able to pull back to friendly territory quickly and easily if you find you need to rest before finishing them off. And it will ensure that no one escapes to warn the Netherese of what happened. Hopefully some of the Grey Wolves outside the main building can be convinced to surrender and possibly even to rejoin the original Ghost Wolves, assuming they can be redeemed. They do have some living slaves so we all should take care to minimize their casualties. They should be easily recognizable and may even help our cause if the opportunity presents itself to them. Of course, some may be turned to their captors’ cause, so not every one of them may be worth saving. So if we’re all ready, let’s go!”

Several days travel to the northeast of Blackstone Keep was all that was needed to reach the evil Grey Wolves fortification. it was a rather large area protected by a sixteen foot palisade. Before the main body of troops arrived at the front gate, the party split off and circled around to the “secret compound exit” and saw two werewolves guarding it. Asphodel used her greater invisibility spell to circle around and flank the two guards while Blackwell led the rest up to a short distance from the guards and hailed them. The guards were immediately suspicious and near hostile but did not attack immediately for it appeared to them that they were outnumbered by two to one, so the opted to speak with Blackwell. He began by telling them that he was a member of the Ghost Wolves and that he was here to liberate “our tribe” from the evil machinations of Ethrain Marrowslake.

After several minutes of Blackwell and the guards speaking, he was able to convince them that there really was a Thayan army unit outside the front gates ready to storm their compound and retake the area by force. But if the guards were to leave now they could take this writ and present it to the Thayan commander and be spared anything nasty and be offered to rejoin the Ghost Wolves once they had won the battle and be counted as heroes to their original tribe. the guards finally agreed to “walk away” from the gate and once they turned the corner of the palisade, they saw the army – looked back a Blackwell who waved – then back at the army and went rushing towards it with the writ held high and waving it in the air. Blackwell, smiling, turned back to the closed secret exit gate and proceeded to defuse the trap and unlock the lock so they could make their way down the tunnel to it’s exit inside the compound.

The tunnel ended at a ladder that led up about twenty feet to a closed trap door, which magic showed was also trapped with another glyph trap. So Blackwell went up, disabled the trap and made sure the door could be opened but found that he probably wasn’t quite strong enough to force it open all the way. He came down and let Asphodel up who put a lot of muscle into it and forced it open with a loud crash from something that had be on top on the door falling over. She immediately jumped up into the room to allow space for the others to quickly follow. She saw that the building was a barracks that had eight werewolves and one Netherese in it all preparing for the battle outside. The amount of noise and force that she created busting up out of the secret trap door surprised all of them which allowed the entire group of heroes to move in and attack them before they could even react.

This time there was no chance for Blackwell to parley them into surrendering, especially since there was one of those Netherese bastards with them. The battle in the barracks was pretty brutal for the enemy had a couple spell casters and they were not afraid to use area of effect spells even to the point of catching the barrack on fire. Our heroes slowly made progress through the enemies
cutting them down one by one. Once Zerak was able to get in a good position, he cast a black tentacles spell to grapple and injure up to five of them, including the Netherese soldier. Jobi then followed the Grey Wolves’ lead and threw some fireballs of her own at the entangled ones. In addition Zerak and Jobi kept using other attack spells to help weaken the foes. Blackwell’s pistols proved pretty effective at damaging these unrepentant evil creatures, and along with Zola an Asphodel wading into melee, the party was able to kill them all except the Netherese soldier who somehow was able to cast some kind of teleport or dimension door and get out of the barracks without sustaining much damage.

Once the battle was over, they quickly cast detect magic and grabbed up all the items that were worth carrying, mainly magic swords, armor and crossbow bolts. Then they left the building before it could collapse on them in a burning heap of rubble. Once outside they were able to see that the battle at the front gate was going well for the troops of Thay since they had breached the gates and were starting to meet the Grey Wolves head on inside the compound. they also noticed where the slaves were being held and saw that they couldn’t run straight across to them without drawing the attention of more of the Grey Wolves and their allies. So for a few moments they assessed the situation and began to formulate plans while hidden from sight by the now burning barracks.

Zerak came up with a plan to distract the enemy while they circled around the back of the main building to the other side where the slave pen was. He cast two different spells and had them charge out after the enemies near the main building. First was his ever popular summoning of a bad-tempered rhino followed by a new spell he learned while transforming his profession from witch to wizard called mad monkeys – and a troupe of raving mad monkeys joined the rhino in charging the Grey Wolves and afforded enough of a distraction to allow them to hurriedly sneak around to the slave pens.

Blackwell got the cage door unlocked and then he continued to pick the locks on the chains holding the slaves prisoner. Apshodel helped by using her very large great axe by chopping down on the chains to break them free. They also threw down the weapons and armor telling the slaves that they could join them in dispatching their captors, but most of them looked to weak or scared to be of much help against the armed werewolves. they had been working feverishly try to get everyone free before being noticed, but Zerak’s spells didn’t last forever and soon our heroes were spotted and more werewolves began to advance on their position. Zola and Asphodel went ahead to meet them before they could get to the slave cage and Zerak used a wall of fire to surround and burn a few of the werewolves and their spell casters.

The Grey Wolves’ spell casters that came after them this time, three in all, made no effort to spare the slaves and targeted our heroes trying to get as many of them in the blast radius of their fireballs as possible. This had the unfortunate effect of roasting all the slaves alive, which upset Jobi greatly. Spells from Zerak and Jobi rained down on all the werewolves in range while Blackwell pummeled them with bullets, Zola showed them the business end of her mace of disruption and Asphodel went into her controlled rage and began tearing them apart limb from limb.

Even though the party handled themselves well during this and the last battle, they definitely felt the lack of Kel’s presence. if Kel had been with them, they would have been able to free all the slaves very quickly using her Liberation domain powers granted by Desna and quite possibly all of them could still be alive. In addition Kel’s channeling of positive energy to heal her allies was sorely missed as area effect spell after area effect spell kept injuring our intrepid adventurers. Jobi even resorted to channeling positive energy herself just to keep some of her friends from dropping at a most inopportune time.

In all when this part of the battle was over, the party successfully had killed eleven more Grey Wolves. The sad part was that none of the slaves survived and none of the Grey Wolves ever got a chance at redemption.

At this point, the way was now clear to the main building where apparently their main objective was – the head of the Grey Wolves, Ethrain Marrowslake. It was time to storm the mansion and put his head to the pike! And maybe, just maybe, Blackwell could convince at least some of the remaining Grey Wolves to rejoin their ancestral pack the Ghost Wolves after seeing what they did to the enemy in the courtyard.

Stayed tuned for next week’s exciting adventures …

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5

FEB/2014

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Feb 05, 2014

Session 41 Synopsis

Previously, on Phoenix Rising…

… “Hey everyone! They’re back!” The other villagers stopped what they were doing, looked in their direction and proceeded to quickly descend on the party, excitedly all talking and pointing towards their town at once. Through the cacophony they could only make out a couple of words – words like “help us please” and “they took our village.”

After Asphodel loudly roared to make everyone go quiet for a minute, she pointed to one villager to explain what has happened. The small, meek man spoke, “After we got back to our village, we found a pack of trolls had moved in and we were lucky to escape before they caught many of us. As it is we lost a few to them and haven’t been back since. Please can you help us?! We want to go back and gather whatever hasn’t been destroyed by the trolls and bury any remaining dead before we move on to somewhere else.” They were asked how long the party was gone and found that they were only gone for about three days (which meant that in the portion of the Fey World they were in had time moving about the same as their mortal home).

Most of our heroes were ready to help right away with Asphodel and Blackwell a bit indifferent to the villagers’ plight, especially since they had run off when they first all got to the clearing they were now occupying. A couple of comments to do with the fact they didn’t have any way to pay for the party’s help were quickly met with disapproving remarks by the more “morally good” members, like Jobi and Zola offered her help right away. And the villagers stated that no they couldn’t pay right now but were willing to follow the heroes to any settlements they may have built or needed building. They were ready for a better home and felt that the heroes would be very worthy people to follow to a new home.

Our party then relented in full to help the villagers and made their way to the overrun village after resting for the night. It was only a mile or so away and they found the trolls – eight in all.
Our stalwart band was able to catch them by surprise and started with fire and acid based attacks right away. The trolls were very surprised that anyone would actually try to attack them and were slow to react. Zerak, Jobi and Zola lambasted them with spells like fireball, burning hands, scorching ray, lightning bolts turned into acid bolts, as well as massive physical damage from Asphodel, Kel and Blackwell. Soon the trolls were reduced to smoking piles of ashes and the party did a quick search of the village and didn’t find anything that they thought would be useful or valuable. So they headed back to the refugee camp and informed the villagers that it was safe to go back to the ruined village and search through the remains. They profusely thanked the party and promised to go to their settlements near Neverwinter as soon as they finished reclaiming anything of value to them in their old homes.

So our heroes headed out back to Blackstone Keep via Winterhaven. Each night while on the road Zerak cast a secure shelter spell in order to make a good place for them to rest and sleep in. Each night Zerak used his additional awake time afforded to him by his ring of sustenance to try to study the strange black stone and residual powder they got from the Netherese reclamation team. But all he could figure out is that the powder had not only alchemical properties but also some magical properties and found there was faint necromantic emanations from it. The stone was a complete enigma to him.

When they arrived in Winterhaven late in the afternoon, it didn’t take long before they were recognized and greeted as the heroes of the town that they were. People were happy to see them and some of the children started following them around the town. Zerak, Jobi and Kel went to see Valthruun the local sage about the powder and stone to see if they could find out more about them. And Asphodel, Zola and Blackwell went to the tavern to see about visiting Sir Oakley so Asphodel could give him her letter to him and try to convince him to come to her castle and help set up a temple to Bahamut as well as act as her second in command while she is out adventuring. He was quite receptive to the challenge of helping her build up and govern her settlement and agreed to join with her.

Meanwhile Valthruun was telling Zerak and the others that the powder was an ancient Netherese concoction that they created in the Shadowfell using magic and alchemy. After digging through his vast library for what seemed like hours, Valthruun finally came back and started to talk to the three.

“I can’t seem to find my books on the subjects. I know they’re here somewhere. Oh well. They have used that powder countless times in the past to keep their slave workforce working as long as possible and they have always used it freely. And that indicates that they have no problem making more and keeping a good supply. The black stone also originated in the Shadowfell and was called Darkstone. It is able to hold lots of magical energy and slowing give it off over long periods of time. It is the main building ingredient in their fabled ancient flying cities. And if they are digging the stuff up, they are definitely trying to get one either built or repaired. Very, very disturbing indeed. But that is about all i can tell you. I’m no expert when t comes to these subjects. Your best bet is to try and find someone who had direct descendants involved or was there themselves.”

Zerak thanked Valthruun for the information and then asked him if he had any books on the Netherese language and if he had seen the language in a book of his and pulled out the primer book he had received from the Fey. Valthruun quickly (for him that is) looked around and came up with a small book for him. He looked at the Fey book and said it was very similar to ancient elven. With that the three heroes took their leave and went to meet back up with the rest of the party at the inn. There they joined the rest for some drinks and food and then decided to retire to rooms in the inn since the innkeeper offered them for free to the Heroes of Gardmore Abbey. Then slowly the group went to their respective rooms for the night. Asphodel, Zola and Kel shared one room, while Zerak and Jobi went to their own room for some “intimate” time together, which left Blackwell to his own room to curl up in wolf form next to the soothing fire.

Later that Night…
The assassin and his crew crept silently towards the heroes rooms. The silence spells cast on small pebbles they carried masked their footsteps and the slow opening of the bedroom doors completely. Zerak and Jobi were sleeping in each other’s arms when the archers struck. They were rudely awakened by three arrows shot into each of them at point blank range. Kel, Zola, and Asphodel suffered the same attacks with each one also receiving three arrow shot into them unexpectedly. Only Asphodel was awake when it happened and screamed out the moment the arrows bit into her flesh. And to top it off, all the arrows were poisoned with a powerful sticky black poison. The only thing Asphodel saw where she turned toward the now open door was the archers fleeing down the hall towards the inn’s common room downstairs…

She immediately summoned her eidolon and looking back at Kel and Zola to make sure they were still alive, rushed out of the room and looked down the hall. She saw that Zerak and Jobi’s door was open as well as Blackwell’s. She popped her head into the room and saw that Zerak and Jobi were still alive as well – healing themselves furiously and trying to beat back the poison that had started flowing in all of their bodies – and haphazardly putting on some clothes in the process. next she ran over to Blackwell’s open door and looked inside and came to a complete standstill. Blackwell was most definitely dead. he was lying on the ground next to the fireplace, in human form, with a large, bloody hole in his chest where his heart should have been. after a couple seconds she regained enough awareness to yell out that Blackwell was dead and then proceeded to run down the hall screaming and roaring in rage, hoping to run into the assassins so she could rip them from limb to limb. Other guests started coming out of their rooms to see what was going on and ran back inside as they saw Asphodel rampaging down the hall and stairs. But when she got down into the common room, all traces of the assailants’ magical trail had vanished – apparently they had teleported or something like that to make good their escape. She screamed and railed and smashed a heavy wooden table to ruin with her bare fists before calming down a bit and going back upstairs to Blackwell’s room where she slumped down on the ground next to her friend’s body, trying feebly to put him back together again.

Meanwhile the rest of our heroes had finally overcome their poisoned wounds and got dressed enough to be at least mostly covered up and then went to investigate Blackwell. Kel knelt down and saw the massive amount of physical damage and all the black sticky poison that was already rotting the flesh around the horrific wound and stated that there was no way she could help heal him. So she ran downstairs to go to the temple to get Grundelmarr the priest to see if he could fix Blackwell. On her way she ran into the city guard entering the inn and quickly told them what had happened. They immediately began searching the surrounding area and the rest of the town trying to find the assassins but would eventually give up.

Grundelmarr and Kel came rushing back to the inn and when he saw what Blackwell looked like and tried a couple of spells, said that his condition was beyond his abilities. Blackwell would need far greater help to come back from the land of the dead. And he cast gentle repose on the body to keep it fresh for the time being.

In the room, as Zerak was contemplating why Blackwell had turned into human form this time when last time he “died” he had turned into wolf form, he found a crumpled note on the ground and Zerak picked it up and read it:

Kara,
The target is Raizen Silverclaw, who goes by Blackwell, a werewolf who thinks he’s a gypsy. Kill him. Payment will be what we agreed upon and left at the place we discussed. The others he travels with are dangerous so plan accordingly but there is no extra money for killing them. I don’t care about them.
Besnik

The note was definitely dropped by his assassin, named Kara, who was hired by someone else named Besnik. No one in the party had any idea who these people were. Jobi was particularly upset (not as much as Asphodel though) and had indicated that his death looked exactly like his death she had seen in a vision sent to her that was supposedly showing a possible future to come if she had decided to quit adventuring and leave the group behind. But his death happened anyway and that unsettled her since it may be true that some more of her vision may also come to pass.

So Asphodel packed Blackwell’s body into one of their bags of holding and the party immediately set out to go to Blackstone Keep and see if Valindra Shadowmantle might be able to help Blackwell. The couple of days travel to Blackstone Keep were uneventful and somber. Even though they stayed within Zerak’s secure shelter spell, they all knew that no place can ever be truly safe. Once they reached the outskirts of Blackstone Keep’s influence, they all put on the small pins they were originally given and proceeded with haste to the keep proper. They were greeted in the same manner as their last visit, though a little less formally and were escorted into the main audience chamber where many people, including Valindra were waiting for our intrepid band of heroes.

Valindra begins to speak in her very melodic and pleasing voice, “Welcome, friends. I am so glad that you decided to come back and visit us. I take it you’ve met one of their Recovery Teams. Nasty sorts aren’t they. So tell me, what was your impression of what’s going on?”

The party halfheartedly started to explain that they had dealt with a recovery team and about the undead creation from the powder and their slight detour into the Fey Realm, but then Asphodel pulled out Blackwell’s corpse and showed him to Valindra and her comrades. She showed her the note they found by his body and asked if she could do anything to help him out. And Jobi explained that she had been making diamond dust out of the large diamond they procured from their time in the Fey realm. Immediately Valindra had her people spring into action with them getting materials required for the necessary spells to be cast.

One of her seconds, Morphus, began casting a raise dead spell on Blackwell when all preparations were ready. Everyone was silent as he finished casting the spell and waited for Blackwell to revive. But he didn’t and then Valindra asked, “Did you say he was killed by a real assassin? That explains it. It is always more difficult to bring someone back from the dead when killed by an accomplished assassin. We just need to do this again with a slightly more powerful spell.” With that she nodded to Morphus and he left the chamber.

A short time later he came back with another human male. This one was obviously a high ranking cleric of Saranrae, which completely baffled Jobi, who made comments about how and why a cleric of Saranrae would be here where there are all manners of undead beings. Valindra just turned to her and smiled at her and said, “This is Mandrake. He will perform a slightly more powerful spell on Blackwell – one that should do the trick.” While casting his spell the rest of the party noticed that he was casting a resurrection spell! And indeed, it did work and Blackwell soon gasped in a new breath of life. He was angry that he was killed again and was going to change to his hybrid form but he felt something was not right. He could no longer change form! He was not a lycanthrope any more! He was stuck in his human form! He gave a loud cry of frustration, rage, anger, and sorrow. Valindra had heard of legends about such poisons that could take away lycanthropy but didn’t know much more than that. But she promised him that she would look into who this Besnik guy was and how it may be possible to reverse what had happened to him. But in the meantime she told him that he would most likely be safe from his enemy since he thought he was dead now, which should free him up to take care of other matters until the time is right for revenge.

Valindra suggested the all get some sleep before talking about other matters dealing with becoming allies against the Netherese. Everyone agreed. Zerak decided that he would like to take a look at Valindra’s extensive library before turning in and she agreed to personally escort him. This drew a very emphatic, “Hmmmph!” from Jobi who stormed out of the room and up to her bedchamber.

Zerak was confused and asked Valindra what that was all about. She said, “Dear Zerak, isn’t it obvious? Jobi is jealous that you should want to spend any time with me. She is in love with you.”
“Maybe I better take a rain check on the library tonight, huh?” stated Zerak. And after Valindra nodded, he got up and followed Jobi back to her room and knocked on the door. After a few quiet sentences between the two, Jobi opened the door and let Zerak in. (After that, we only have speculation as to what happened next…)

In the morning when everyone had gathered and finished breakfast, Valindra turned to other matters…

“Are you ready to join us in this fight to save the world as we know it?” (nods from our heroes) “Excellent! Now the first task we have at hand is to land a blow against one of the Netherese allies, and I think this will especially delight Blackwell, for the task is to destroy the Grey Wolves! They have been supplying the Netherese with numerous magical items and bodies for their necromancers. They basically go raiding across the countryside to small villages and kill most everyone and strip everything of value from it then burn it to the ground, leaving nothing but scorched land. They have also been raiding burial sites for bodies and treasure – especially the ancient burial sites that the Netherese tell them about, many of which are sacred to one group or another. I believe that one of the first ones they plundered was the ancestral burial grounds of the Ghost Wolves. We investigated the site and found that the Grey Wolves had taken everything, leaving nothing but empty, desecrated burial mounds!”
“We have scouted them for quite some time and have found their base of operations and times when they are visited by the Netherese for pickups of their latest deliveries. We will strike just after one of those deliveries has been completed. That way we won’t have to deal with the extra Netherese troops, plus they will be at their lowest level of alertness, and their Netherese masters won’t find out about the attack until long after we’re gone. We will give you support by way of staging an attack as a diversionary measure so you can infiltrate the compound and wipe them out from the inside while we keep their attention focused on the outside with our troops, in addition to helping prevent enemies escaping.”
“Still, this attack won’t be easy. Their compound is sizable and the werewolves also have Netherese allies with them. We think that a small strike force going inside is the best; you’re more likely to not draw any attention to yourselves until absolutely necessary. We have a basic map of the compound but not of the interiors of the buildings. Once inside, you should attempt to get at the heart of the compound and take out the leader, Ethrain Marrowslake, and his inner circle. If everything goes as planned, we’ll breach the walls and secure everything but the main building where you will be going room-to-room exterminating these evil creatures. This will allow you to be able to pull back to friendly territory quickly and easily if you find you need to rest before finishing them off. And it will ensure that no one escapes to warn the Netherese of what happened. Hopefully some of the Grey Wolves outside the main building can be convinced to surrender and possibly even to rejoin the original Ghost Wolves, assuming they can be redeemed."
“They do have some living slaves so we all should take care to minimize their casualties. They should be easily recognizable and may even help our cause if the opportunity presents itself to them. Of course, some may be turned to their captors’ cause, so not every one of them may be worth saving. Any questions?”

Blackwell was ready to cause murder and mayhem and the Grey Wolves were just the perfect target for the way he was feeling right now. The rest of the party agreed that this was a good target to go after but they wanted to get some things done beforehand. Valindra was fine with that. Zerak wanted to engage Valindra for some retraining services, and Kel thought she needed a break from the adventuring lifestyle to concentrate on building up her followers and her Abbey on the land she purchased from Neverwinter. She would leave in the morning back to Neverwinter to begin that process, possibly rejoining her friends at a later date. With Zerak needing time for retraining, the others also had some time to think of what they personally wanted to get done so they all contemplated on their next decisions.

And now our heroes are going to take a little time for themselves while Zerak retrains, Asphodel, Blackwell, and Kel focus a little on their settlements before they tackle going after the evil Grey Wolves head on. Tune in next week to see what happens …

View

29

JAN/2014

Session 40

Previously, on Phoenix Rising…

… As “wolf-form” Blackwell was peering into the dark tunnel, something shot a crossbow bolt at him that connected squarely with his snout and really hurt. At that time from the five other tunnels other small creatures, who looked very much like the ones they found above ground near the two trap doors, appeared and began shooting heavy crossbows at the party…

The battle with the spriggans wasn’t all that difficult and was not that notable except for a couple things. One is that the small glowing orb turned out to be a will-o-wisp that was very efficient at delivering massive electrical damage that it, along with some very lucky shots from the spriggans with their crossbows, was able to bring Zola down to the point that she needed some healing from Kel. And a somewhat comical situation arose when Zerak spewed out a wasp swarm at one of the spriggans and it chased him all round the room including into one of their small tunnels and back out into the room whereupon it promptly died.

After the fight was over the party searched the entire room and then proceeded to get some healing done. Jobi and Zerak were still down several negative levels so with some lesser restoration spells and uses of the bandages of recovery, they were able to regain all their lost energy by the time they woke up the next “morning.” Asphodel witnessed something peculiar happen during her shift. She saw Jobi suddenly bolt upright from her sleep with wide eyes looking all around the room at all the companions. Then, without saying a word, she got up and laid back down close to Zerak and went back into a fitful sleep for the rest of the night.

In the morning our heroes decided that they needed to explore the various small sized tunnels exiting this chamber. So before Asphodel summoned her eidolon for the day, she summoned a lantern archon to go wandering through the tunnels and see what it could find out for them. It came back and told them that all the tunnels are connected together and there are a total of three tunnels with ladders leading about forty feet up. Two of the tunnels were the ones they had discovered after they had battled the other spriggans and one that led to some unknown location. So our heroes went to investigate that one.

Blackwell climbed up the rickety ladder, nearly falling but able to catch himself and tried to pass it off as nothing more than something he meant to do – which fooled no one. Then finding no traps, he unlocked it, opened it a small amount and peered into the room beyond – which just so happened to be that crazy cursed gaming room. Blackwell’s spirits immediately perked up and the rest of his companions could hear him shout out, “Oh cool. Let’s Play A Game!” Needless to say, the rest of the party just waited for him to either win and break the spell or die so they could drag him back down the tunnel and revive him. Fortunately for Blackwell, he won and came back down the ladder another 20 platinum richer, with only moderate damage to himself, which was healed by a couple of his friends.

Not wanting to use that trap door to exit these underground tunnels nor the one that led into that building that kept changing its interior, they all made their way over to one of the two trap doors they found earlier and climbed up and headed back to the room with all the tapestries. They began searching the southern walls of the room and discovered a slightly open secret door which they had not seen before. So Blackwell cautiously checked the area for traps and then slowly opened the door to reveal a short hallway into the center complex of rooms they had seen from the outside.

Asphodel then took point and slowly made her way into the room to see what was in there.

A semicircular chamber features a raised dais along its curved side. A great pile of stones rests atop the dais – it looks like a cairn. Three other cairns, of roughly human or elf size, lie clustered on the floor before the dais. As with many of the other structures through which you’ve traveled in this place, the walls of this chamber are covered in runes. It’s obvious that these cairns don’t belong here. They appear to have once lain outside, beside the other fey graves, but have been moved inside for some reason.

Blackwell joined her as they moved further into the structure and peered around the corner.

Two walls intersect in the center of this chamber, serving no apparent architectural purpose. The walls are probably inscribed with more of the runes you’ve seen elsewhere, but it’s difficult to tell, because thick curtains of hanging ivy cover them. There are also several small holes in the ceiling – perhaps they provide sunlight to nourish the ivy.

Blackwell then stealthily moved throughout the rest of the large room and relayed what he saw back to the other. He saw more ivy and more unnecessary walls throughout and on the south wall of the room he found an enormous set of double doors that were covered in runes and bound in iron and silver just like the doors in the tapestry that Asphodel had touched the giant key to earlier. And one of the doors appeared to be slightly open. So Asphodel also approached and verified that it was indeed the same door from the tapestry. Everyone else came up to the two as they prepared to open the door and see what was behind it.

An empty thirty foot corridor was behind the doors and they could see that the room opened up to the west. So Blackwell again snuck down the corridor to take a peak around the corner. He saw that the room was halfway full with a large, dense mass of ivy starting fifteen feet inside the room and extending the length of the room and to the west wall. he turned around and went back to the double doors and began telling everyone that there was just a bunch of ivy in the room beyond. It was at that moment that Kel and Asphodel saw what looked like a moving tendril of ivy. Before they could say anything, the ivy grabbed Blackwell around his mid section and quickly dragged him off his feet and back into the room.

When the other party members sprang into action, they found Blackwell hanging in mid air upside down while being heavily constricted. Also a large eye-like appendage had risen up out of the massive ivy “body” and there was a strange, sickly green beam of energy coming out of the eye and engulfing Blackwell, who seemed to be completely out of it and not fighting back. The rest of our stalwart band lept into action and began attacking the tentacles, for now there were a total of four of them lashing out and trying to entrap the party members. But just as some of the others were about to rush to Blackwell’s aid, three skeleton champions emerged out of the thick hanging ivy near Asphodel, Jobi and Zerak. They were accomplished fights and bit into our heroes with consistency and caused quite a bit of pain when they did hit. Kel stepped in to channel energy to damage the undead and helped quite a bit damaging them significantly. Asphodel was effective at taking one out as Kel also used her weapons against the things. Zerak and Jobi also helped in vanquishing these three creatures and soon turned their attention to Zola and Blackwell who were trying to fight off this huge plant monster.

Zerak conjured a large fire elemental to go after the creature and hopefully start it on fire. Jobi
was casting her fireballs into the far corner of the room, also hoping to catch it on fire, if not blow it to pieces. Zola was regularly hacking at the tentacles and chopping them off. But the creature seemed to keep growing them back at an alarming rate. Zerak was also grabbed by a tentacle and had the same experience as Blackwell – losing any sort of will to try to fend off the attack. For him it was nearly deadly for it seemed that if the tentacle held on long enough that one’s soul would start to be drained out of one’s body through that sickly green beam and transfer to what appeared to be a large crystal of some sort that had formed on top of the creature’s eye-stalk. Had it not been for one last burst of will to fight off the creature’s hold on him, he would surely had his soul sucked out and died. But he was able at the last moment break free and shortly after the tentacle was cut.

The battle raged on with fireballs and scorching ray spells being blasted upon its massive “body.” And with Asphodel voluntarily raging and getting up close and personal with the overgrown hedgerow, along with Zola, Blackwell and Kel trying to keep the tentacles off of their friends and occasionally taking a shot at the beast’s eye. Kel was also channeling energy to keep the party healed up as much as possible since the tentacles did quite a bit of damage when they attacked and there were a few times that the positive energy was just about the only thing keeping them alive as they battled to keep the constricted party members alive.

The battle raged on for what seemed like forever but in the end when the final killing blow was landed, the creature died and a scream of frustration sounds, not from the creature but throughout the chamber. The creature of vegetation rots away to nothing almost instantly, as do the curtains of ivy hanging along the walls, exposing the many scrawled runes beneath. Soon, everything is quiet and the strange chaotic mixture of background magic has dissipated as well.

Our heroes existed the building through the tapestry room and saw that the dirt path now went off to the north where before it seemed there was another cliff face. They decided to follow the path in this direction since everything appeared the same back where they had come from. After following the trail for several miles, our heroes came to a fork in the road where the fork to the left looked like it led to some kind of strange looking city made out of trees and other living plants.

Once they were about half a mile from this city, they were met by a dozen very well armed and disciplined elven soldiers. They stopped them and asked what their business was here in the Fey Realm. the party explained that they had stumbled into the Fey after being attacked by harpies and they had met a man named Paelius who was trying to find someone to help them with the corruption in the Garden of Graves. The soldier in charged asked where Paelius was and they informed him that he was now dead, but they did have the note he gave them and gave it to the soldier when he asked for it. He looked at it approvingly and indicated that the heroes should follow him to the city to meet with the Fey Court.

When they arrived in the main audience chamber the PCs were greeting with what could only be described as unemotional gratitude for what they had done in the Garden of Graves. They were thanked and told that they will send them back to their world through another gate they have. They were escorted into another chamber that had a large archway with what appeared to be a permanent gate inside its borders. The elderly elf who was the head of the Fey Court held his hand out palm up towards the party and closed his eyes for a few moments. then he placed that same hand onto the stone of the gate and held it there for a couple minutes. Soon the gate reacted and colors and mist swirled (not squirreled, Blackwell) and in a matter of minutes, they were looking out at the open field where they had fought the harpies. Our stalwart band saw that the villagers had made a makeshift refugee camp in the clearing and were not back in their village for some reason.

Our heroes exited the Fey World one by one through the gate the members of the Fey Court had opened for them. After a couple heroes had “re-materialized,” it only took a little while for one of the villagers to notice and call out, “Hey everyone! They’re back!” while pointing to the party. The other villagers stopped what they were doing, looked in their direction and proceeded to quickly descend on the party, excitedly all talking and pointing towards their town at once. Through the cacophony they could only make out a couple of words – words like “help us please” and “they took our village.”

So we leave our heroes as they re-entered the mortal world in the same clearing as they had left. Next week we shall see what they make of these villagers who have set up their own refugee camp here …

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22

JAN/2014

Session 39

Previously, on Phoenix Rising…

… We left our heroes looking at the trap doors and wondering which way they will head next. They decided that they needed some more rest after that taxing fight and settled down to recuperate …

This rest was just as much for psychological reasons as physical ones. Jobi had seen plenty of battles in her life but never experienced the awful sensations that she had when her hand was severed. Even though the party was able to quickly reattach her hand and make her physically whole once again, she feared that the emotional scars might be too much for her and began questioning her decision to adventure with her newest set of friends.

(See the forum entry for details)

All was quiet while they rested and soon they were back up and ready to continue finding a way out of this crazy place. After a brief discussion, our heroes opted not to investigate the two trap doors any further until they finished exploring above ground. So they back-tracked through the building until they exited the tapestry room and then made their way down the pathway to the other doorway on the building a bit further south.

Before they left the building though, Zerak really wanted to know what was behind that door in the trapped gaming room. So when they reached it, he cautiously entered the room and then decided to blast the door with a lightning bolt, hoping that would destroy it without him having to risk getting enthralled by a gaming table again. The lightning bolt was powerful and did the job he was looking for. The door shattered into many pieces of charred wood. But when the dust cleared, the only thing behind the door was the stone wall. He had decimated a false door – obviously designed to get people to fully enter the room and fall victim to the traps within. So they continued out of the building.

In the clearing before the southern building they saw two unicorns. Being the normally skittish creatures that they are, they also noticed the party immediately as they rounded the corner of the building. But while normally they would have taken off, these two charged the party and attacked – having a menacing red gleam in their eyes.

The party responded in kind and moved into the battle. Shortly after it started, the unicorns were joined by three displacer beasts! this was very odd since these creatures are normally enemies and have never been known to work together. But this time they were and Asphodel found herself stunned from a particularly successful attack against her. And then they continued to gang up on her as she was basically helpless. This prompted Jobi to throw some fireballs that way since she knew Asphodel was, among other things, immune to fire damage. A few fireballs and a couple lightning bolts from Zerak, had greatly softened up the beasts and and allowed for Blackwell, Zola, and Kel to finish the beatdown. During the battle Kel was attacked by a displacer beast coming in from behind the party was knocked prone. Still she was able to fight from this vantage and eventually regain her footing and when the rest of the creatures were slain, zola stepped up and gave Kel a hand with the last remaining one.

Now they focused their attention to the other building’s entrance. The door was closed – Blackwell found no traps and was able to force open the door. the hallway and room beyond was just like the other building with the strange runes carved into the walls and rocky debris littered the floor. Asphodel cautiously moved into the building and the rest of the party saw her disappear – again. So after some mumbling and grumbling, they all decided to follow her into the building determined that if one of them disappears, the rest will follow in hopes of staying together until the can get home. One by one they entered and the other saw them disappear. Then finally with all of them in the building, the door slammed shut:

The world spins, dropping away beneath your feet. For an instant you fall, and the memory of stability, of reality, is only a fading dream. Then the vertigo stops, without even giving you time to stumble. You find yourself standing on solid ground “somewhere else.” Although you stand inside a structure, its solid marble walls are rough and worn by weather and age. Then you hear the echoes of screams reverberating off those walls; of the originating sounds, you can make out nothing at all. Suddenly, a pall of despair and the agony, of loss floods through you. Before your eyes pass the faces of every friend and loved one you’ve ever lost. and a part of you wants to add your screams to the echoes to give voice to your own torment. The sounds and visions soon fade, but they leave behind a lingering gloom in your soul.

The dimensions of this chamber are difficult to determine because hundreds, perhaps thousands. of humanoid bones jut from its marble walls. Skulls and femurs,fingers and hands, and spines and ribs are intertwined and set into the walls, forming a rough surface of repulsive complexity. A marble sculpture, slightly larger than a broad-shouldered human, stands near one corner of this chamber. It depicts a figure clad in robes with a crown upon its brow, but the face has long since been chiseled away. Many of the wall bones appear to be pointing in its direction. Elf-sized footprints, which have been carved into the marble floor end next to the eastern wall behind the statue and seem to originate coming into the room from the hallway

As they began to explore this very gloomy area, they were suddenly accosted by a very powerful creature which appeared to have materialized out of thin air and attacked Blackwell with a flaming greatsword with an attack so fierce that he was stunned for a few rounds. After studying the creature for a few seconds, Zerak had figured out that it must be a movanic deva, though definitely not one that is normally a good and kind creature – this one was greatly tainted somehow and had nothing but hate and evil in its eyes. As the realization of what they were fighting dawned on him, he began to shout out to the others what type of defenses this thing had in hopes that the rest of the party would modify their tactics to the most useful possible, “Immune to fire and electricity, resistances to cold, acid, Spell Resistance, Damage resistance…”

So our band of heroes began attacking the creature with attacks that they thought might harm it. Most efforts resulted in the creatures resistances reducing the damage it took, but some of it did get through. Another “fly in the ointment” so to speak was the fact they found out the hard way that if they stood in the same spot for more than 10 seconds or so, the room itself dealt them negative energy damage right through the floor, like the entire place was trying to drain them of their life forces. So everyone started to shift around the room as they battled this creature. Blackwell was stunned from that first hit he received and felt the negative energy damage a few times. But our heroes were able to deal with the creature eventually. However just before the first one fell, another materialized behind Zerak who was just inside the room. Zerak was hit hard and backed up and cast a summoning spell to bring an azata to fight for him and take damage for him.

When the first one fell to Zola, they began concentrating on the second corrupted deva. But even as Apshodel moved in and started beating upon it, it disappeared for a couple rounds. everyone stayed weary and kept shifting about the room. Asphodel looked and found a small blood trail that led away from them into the corridor and into the room beyond. Asphodel and Zola began to follow the blood trail while the rest of the group milled around the bone room. Zerak had his azata change into a whirlwind form at this pont. Then suddenly the second corrupted deva appeared out of nowhere right in between Zerak, Jobi, and Kel and attacked Zerak and hit him hard. Blackwell and the rest attacked the creature as Asphodel and Zola made their way back to the room, but it was Kel this time that dispatched the creature with great showmanship (showwomanship?). She landed a blow with her bastard sword right into the creatures head and hit it so hard that she crushed its skull and splattered its brains all over the room. It didn’t help for cleanliness sake that the azata was standing right next to it and it flung the grey matter all over. Jobi, Zerak, Blackwell, and Kel found themselves covered in bits of brain and gore, but the creatures were now dead and they just had to keep moving in order to avoid the negative energy damage.

They quickly explored the rest of the building and found two other statues with the destroyed faces and a set of double door at the far end of the building. Blackwell checked them for traps and then began to disable the lock – and again took negative energy damage since he forgot to keep moving. the doors opened up to the outside which looked like the “normal” Feywild that they were exploring, so the party exited the building and began to cautiously explore the rest of the grounds. They followed around the buildings and found that there were no more doors or archway entrances back into the main building they had come from. Asphodel tried to fly above the buildings and found that as soon as she was at the height of the roofs, she was forced down by some strange, powerful magic so it looked like they would have to go back through the building that transported them “somewhere else” in order to get back. once again when they entered the building, they saw their companions disappear one by one and found themselves yet again somewhere else:

A sudden dizziness washes over you, and you almost stumble. as though stepping down into an unexpected drop. The sensation passes as swiftly as it began, leaving you slightly shaken. You realize that you are not where you once were again. The stone and brick walls around you are pitted, and the black mortar that binds the stones sheds f1akes that look like dried blood. A faint chill emanates from those walls: a chill of melancholy and despair that strikes at your soul. You’ve clearly entered a catacomb of some sort. Numerous burial niches line the walls, and several marble slabs stand apart, all clearly intended to serve as someone’s final resting place. But their rest was anything but final. Broken bits of stone indicate spots where holy symbols, name plaques, and similar adornments should be, but are now missing. More disturbing is the fact that although various burial shrouds and garments lie within the niches and upon the slabs, the bodies themselves are absent.

After thinking about what they saw in here for a while Kel came to a conclusion: it would take some effort, but she thought they could reconstruct, and reconsecrate, at least some of the violated graves by using the broken pieces amid the rubble in the cavern chamber and piecing them back together. Zola and jobi agreed and so the three of them along with Zerak started to try to fit the broken pieces together, while Asphodel and Blackwell remained vigilant just in case something interrupted them.

Kel had a quick success try to fix the one they had concentrated on first and was able to get the holy symbol and nameplate for one sarcophagus put together and mounted correctly again in short order. The others were having a bit more difficulty and when they tried to place the incorrect symbol(s) on the graves they had selected, a inky black shadowy figure rose up in front of each of them and attacked. The party was able to discern that they were being attacked by spectres and knew they had to dispatch them quickly so that no one would be completely drained of their life force and risk turning into a spectre themselves.

The party was rather successful in attacking these undead horrors with Blackwell’s ghost-touched longsword, Zola’s mace of disruption, healing spells from Zerak and Jobi, channeling positive energy from Kel, and the immense damage capabilities of Asphodel, even though her damage dealing capabilities towards incorporeal creatures was cut in half. At the end of the battle, Jobi was found to have been hit pretty hard but through the use of magics the party currently possessed, they were able to boost her life energies back to their normal levels.

After the battle, they were much more cautious and careful getting the symbols and name right before attempting to re-affix them to their respective graves. Zerak pulled out his mask of a thousand tomes in order to help decipher the jumble of broken debris. And although it took them a few hours to finish, they had no more incidents of being attacked by the undead.

Once the last one was in place, our heroes held their breath for a moment while they saw numerous incorporeal undead rise up out of the cracks between the walls and floor and slowly float over to the graves and then sink back down into them. One of them lingered on and floated over to be just in front of Zerak. It was “looking” at him for a few moments and no one dared move. But then the creature slowly raised its arm and pointed over to the north wall of the chamber and then held its hand with its fingers pointing up for a few seconds as if making a farewell gesture and turned and floated down into the last remaining “unoccupied” grave. The party could feel that the depressing and gloomy feeling that had been in the chamber lift and be replaced by a feeling of peaceful calm.

They headed over to the wall area where the spectre had indicated and after some searching, they found a secret compartment that revealed a small mahogany and gold chest that contained not only 400 platinum pieces but also a magical headband of unshakable resolve, which was given to Blackwell. Then our stalwart band made their way back to the original door they had entered this strange building from. As they passed the room that had once be the bone room, they saw that it had nothing more than normal rocky debris in it now. A glint of something shiny off in the corner caught the party’s eyes, but only Zerak decided to go and investigate it – everyone else just wanted out of that building.

He had found a magic dagger of venom stuck into the wooden floor. he tried to pull it out to no avail, but on his second try he got it unstuck and saw that part of the floor was moving up and down with the dagger as he pulled on it. Soon he discovered that there way another trap door in this floor with the same 40 foot old wooden ladder leading down into some narrow tunnel. the party debated a bit and decided that rather than leave this building and possibly have to come back to it (and discover that it took them somewhere else yet again), they would investigate what was under the earth now.

Since the ladder was old and rickety, it did pose a bit of a challenge to climb down it without falling. It wasn’t surprising that one of the party members did fall about midway down and land on their pride. What was surprising is that it was not Jobi – she had climbed down the ladder without incident, even making it look like she was a real climbing pro at that!

they found a narrow tunnel dug right out of the earth and left unfinished – mostly narrow five to seven feet but five to eight feet tall in most places so it was not too uncomfortable to traverse. The winding tunnel opened up into a large chamber that had quite a number of small beds (four to five foot long), a rectangular and round tables with chairs, a cooking fire area, and several cabinets and barrels and boxes about the chamber. There was a small glowing globe on the rectangular table in the middle of room that pulsed slowly with a bright white light. there were also six small tunnels leading out of the chamber – no more than about three feet high. Blackwell, still in his wolf form from traveling through the tunnel, investigated one of the small tunnels.

As he was peering into the dark tunnel, something shot a crossbow bolt at him that connected squarely with his snout and really hurt. At that time from the five other tunnels other small creatures, who looked very much like the ones they found above ground near the two trap doors, appeared and began shooting heavy crossbows at the party.

Alas, this is where we leave our heroes – on the brink of yet another battle. How capable is this new threat and will our party be hurt or possibly worse? And what’s with that pulsating glowing sphere on the table anyway. Tune in next week when we continue the Phoenix Rising adventures. Until then, don’t let a succubus suck out your souls. No really – don’t. I like my friends they way they are …

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13

JAN/2014

Session 38

Previously, on Phoenix Rising…

… Now the heroes believed that this area had something to do with the sundial they found across the river, but what exactly they weren’t sure. So after some debate, Blackwell moved in between the burning staff and the numbers on the wall and let his shadow be cast upon the brass twelve. As he stood still, they noticed that black shadowy tendrils came pouring out of the walls and coalesced into wraiths! Eight in all, they attacked the party as soon as they could…

The wraiths came in hard and heavy against our heroes. These were not just ordinary wraiths but seemed more power full in their damage dealing capabilities. Blackwell was attacked by the two closest to him with near disastrous results. His constitution was sapped away at an alarming rate, making him feel more weak and vulnerable than he had in a long time. Apshodel, Zerak, Jobi and Kel all experienced attacks that connected from the wraiths, all sustaining ability damage, but not to the extent that Blackwell had. Kel on the other hand had several equally disastrous rounds of battle that resulted in her constitution being drained completely, killing her on the spot! The only hope for her now was that the party defeated the rest of the wraiths quickly enough so that they might be able to stop her from rising up as a wraith herself and be lost forever.

Fortunately, Zola and her mace of disruption was proving to be very effective against the wraiths and she was able to dispatch a few of them with only a single hit of her mace, watching them disintegrate when the magic of the mace proved too much for the undead abominations. Asphodel also was able to take out a couple of the creatures by sheer brute force while Zerak and Jobi helped out with supporting magical attacks. Soon, the last of the wraiths fell to Asphodel and Blackwell (who used his ghost-touched weapon to great effect) and as soon as the last one “died,” the two noticed a small panel on the eastern wall of the room with the staff and numbers flop open. They quickly went to investigate and found 4 golden scroll tubes inside a small cubby. They detected magic and found no traps and soon Asphodel had opened the scroll cases to find the following magic scrolls: Raise Dead, Greater Restoration, Heal, Restoration.

The Raise Dead scroll they quickly handed to Jobi so she could cast it on Kel, hoping they weren’t too late. As luck would have it, they were just in the nick of time and she was able to raise Kel from the dead. They then used the Greater Restoration scroll on her to bring her back to full power. The Restoration scroll was used on Blackwell and the rest of the ability damage and wounds were cured using the heroes’ spells in memory.

Zerak brought out his mask of a thousand tomes and Pricilla again and sat down and concentrated on the poem, the sundial and the staff and numbers, racking his brain trying to figure out what the heck was going on here. Finally he thought that the correlation must be in synchronizing the sundial and the casting of a shadow on a number. But which number he asked of Pricilla – who answered (!) in a hushed, gravelly voice in his mind, “Match the numbers and all will be revealed.” He wasn’t sure if he was happy or scared that “she” answered him, but decided not to dwell on it too long.

So he and Zola went back to the sundial room and fixed the orbiting lantern so it shown on the sundial casting a shadow on the number 20 – which stood for 8 pm, and was the number of wraiths that attacked them. Then they went back to the tapestry room where the others were and everyone got ready for another battle when Asphodel walked in front of the flaming staff and cast her shadow on the wrought iron 8. As her shadow settled on the number, they heard a loud click noise from somewhere to the west. So they began searching the room, looking at all the tapestries and behind them as well.

The three tapestries on the south wall all depicted giants using dwarves in some sorts of games – dwarf catch, dwarf bowling and dwarf shot put. The northern wall had one depicting n elven man crying over the corpse of an elven female in a thunderstorm. Another had several pixies dancing around a boulder with an overcast sky. Asphodel took a second look at the large tapestry showing the door and the thief being hit by a trap. The lock on the door was oversized compared to the door and the key she had was the same key as in the tapestry. So she decided to touch her key to the keyhole on the tapestry and they heard another booming click noise coming from somewhere distant. At this time, Zerak found a secret door that was slightly ajar behind the tapestry of the man and dead woman and told the rest of the party about it.

Blackwell led the way down a narrow corridor that turned right and left before opening out into a larger area. All the way he searched for traps but didn’t find any. Even still, the party followed him staying back twenty feet or so, just in case. When they rounded the corner they saw that the area opened up into a larger room with very strange curved wall and the runes were even more swirling and curving than the other they saw. They also saw another short corridor doubling back the way they came and opening into another dimly lit room. They also heard the muffled sounds of people talking, glasses clinking and laughter like some kind of social gathering or party was going on in the room beyond.

Asphodel decided to advance a bit into the intersection of the corridors and curving room and cast Detect Magic. She experienced something quite different than she expected to …
You’re no longer standing in the chamber-perhaps even the world-where you were. The passages around you are now made of rough-hewn rock, apparently dug directly through the earth. The floor is worn smooth. Along the walls farther ahead of you, a series of images was once painted, but they have largely worn away; you can make out, at most, a few vaguely humanoid figures. There’s a sense of emptiness around you – the peculiar feeling that whatever life and magic once flowed through this place are long gone. Then, in the blink of an eye, you find yourself once more back in the Feywild with your companions around you.

With a confused look on her face, she asked if anyone else had seen something strange, but no one had. So Zerak stepped up and also cast Detect Magic and experienced the following …
The world shimmers and changes around you. Walls that were constructed of bits of stone now have evenly carved brickwork, which appears to be mortared with oozing black goo. It drips slowly down the face of the stone. Moans echo from afar, and feelings of despair assail you. And then it’s over. You find yourself back in the Feywild, with your companions watching you as though nothing untoward had happened at all.

He too was very perplexed and asked what Asphodel had “seen.” Of course this did not match what he had seen and this prompted Zola to cast Detect Magic as well. And she saw …
Suddenly, you find yourself within a desolate wasteland. Dust blows around your feet and swirls about a number of broken statues made of chipped and pitted marble. The sky above is black and empty of stars, and the air brushes your skin with a chill that is as much emotional as physical, bringing you a sense of unrelenting loss. Even as you quickly take this scene in it is gone, replaced by the familiar faces of your companions and the sounds of the Feywild.

So none of them had experienced the same thing but all concurred that this was a very strange thing to be happening. Jobi slowly advanced to just at the edge of the room and the sounds stopped, but they could now see into the room and saw …

If it weren’t for the fact that some of the walls have eldritch runes scattered here and there. you’d be certain that you had been teleported somewhere else. The chamber before you is luxurious, sporting a rich carpet, a gleaming chandelier in the center of the ceiling, and five small gaming tables around the outer edge, each with a haphazard collection of dice, cards and game pieces. There’s no trace now of the voices you heard on the way in, and the only other visible exit is a wooden door along the south wall.

Zola detected for evil and found that the whole area was radiating an evil aura but it was not concentrated in any one spot and seemed to emanate from the entire area. So Blackwell advanced into the room to check out the closest gaming table to get a better look at the games on the table. But when he got near, he felt a sudden urge to start playing a game. Once he stepped up and began to interact with the table, everyone could see a translucent humanoid figure behind the table acting as a dealer or moderator of the game. Apparently Blackwell won the first hand for five platinum pieces appeared before him. But the next hand instead of more coins showing up he visibly winched and shook like something had hit or poked him hard. But he kept playing even when Jobi told him to come out of there – he just ignored her. So she tried to pull him out but he brushed her off without so much as turning around to acknowledge her. So Zerak came up with an idea on how to help break Blackwell out of the strange trance he was in. He first cast Evil Eye on him to lower his defenses and then cast his Sleep Hex on him. Blackwell dropped to the ground asleep. But then after a few seconds of inactivity, he lurched again like someone had kicked him and woke up. Then he stood up, momentarily confused as to what was going on but then began gambling again. He was winning five platinum pieces each time but when he lost he was taking damage though no noticeable cuts or wounds outwardly appeared on his body.

Zola walked up to the table and felt the table’s magical influence for just a moment before shaking it off. Zola then tried to cast her spell Cast Out on the table and it seemed to have broken the hold it had on Blackwell for he came out of his obsessed trance but then saw the ten platinum pieces on the table and grabbed them. As soon as he had them in his hand he was once again under the table’s spell and continued to gamble – once again under the table’s influence. It was at this time that the rest of the party gave up on Blackwell and let him continue to gamble. Zerak then decided he was going to walk through the room and examine the wooden door on the south wall, but when he passed the table next to the door, he too decided to stop what he was doing and go and gamble. Now the party was becoming alarmed with two of its members stuck gambling and getting damaged as they lost. Soon though Blackwell won four hands and twenty platinum pieces and the hold on his mind was broken. He again grabbed the coins but this time he was not again compelled to gamble so he high-tailed it [pun intended :)] out of the room and told the party that he had taken a lot of damage when he lost. Just about this time, Zerak had won his fourth hand and twenty platinum and the table let go of his mind. He pocketed the coins and made his way out of the room but got caught by a third table and began gambling again. Jobi immediately started to move towards Zerak with the intention of healing him while he was gambling but she got sucked into the same ensorcellment and began gambling at the same table. So Zola came over, withstood the compulsion and began healing both of them as they gambled. Soon they too had won four hand and twenty platinum and were released by the table. Everyone got out of that room as quickly as they could.

Since they had used so much healing and some other spells trying to keep their friends alive while trapped by the evil tables (huh, evil tables – now there’s a new phrase – one I don’t think we’ll hear too often), they decided they better rest before continuing on and so they went back into the tapestry room and holed up there for eight hours. Fortunately nothing bothered them while they were resting and soon they were ready to continue their journey.

Our intrepid band made their way back to the room that intersected with the strange gaming room – giving that corridor a wide berth. The next chamber was equally puzzling …

Twisted runes cover the uneven walls, even parts of the floor and ceiling. Two of the walls jut out and curve oddly and end in narrow columns, as though to continue patterns begun by the runes around them. A few of these runes glow, providing weak light throughout this area.

Cautiously advancing into the room, Asphodel first explored a small alcove that was found to contain a large lever adorned with the same strange curving runes all over it. It was in the up position. Blackwell examined it for traps and when he declared there were none, Asphodel pulled the lever down. It moved very slowly and when it reached the bottom the party heard the echoing click of something off in the distance. They could not pinpoint where this sound came from but it did sound similar to the secret door when it clicked open. Next she advanced into the rest of the chamber and found it was empty of anything except the strange runes carved into the walls. They continued on to find a narrow curving hallway that led to another very strangely shaped chamber – it had two sections that jutted out from a central location and seemed to dead end. It was at this time that everyone felt a powerful magical force wash down upon them. Zola, Jobi and Asphodel shook off the effect as quickly as it had descended upon them, but Zerak, Kel and Blackwell were not so fortunate.

The rest of the party saw expressions of horror grow across their faces and then the three dropped to the ground, apparently dead! Blackwell’s resiliency was put to use as he regained consciousness with just a few hit points remaining, but also was stunned. Immediately after that, half a dozen goblin-type creatures materialized among the standing party members and attacked. Asphodel and Zola thought they resembled spriggans, only they were as tall as humans, not the traditional halfling sized versions. Zerak and Kel were able to stabilize and keep from bleeding out but remained unconscious for most of the fight. The spriggans were very adept at swordplay and caused some sever damage to the standing members (not really Asphodel, though). One landed such a great hit that it had severed Jobi’s right hand sending her straight into shock and spewing blood out of the stump at an incredible rate. It was good that just before that happened she was able to heal Kel to the point where she regained consciousness. So Kel was able to cast healing on her to staunch the flow of blood and keep the beautiful tiefling from bleeding out. Blackwell was able to regain his wits enough to take a healing potion and join the fight using his pistols. And soon the party had killed all the spriggans and healed Zerak. And as soon as Zerak was up, he grabbed up Jobi’s right hand, held it to her arm and cast his Regenerate spell to make Jobi whole again – well physically anyway. She was still suffering from the shock of losing a limb and Zerak and Asphodel tried to comfort and reassure her she was alright now.

After completely healing everyone of their wounds, Asphodel began to search the dead ends for anything that might be hidden. In the eastern area she found a secret trap door in the floor. Blackwell examined it and found it to be safe, then unlocked it. She opened it to find an old wooden ladder leading down a tunnel some forty feet. After that nothing much was discernible. In the western end she found another secret trap door. And once again Blackwell check for traps and then went ot unlock it. But this time he failed at his search and received the full force of a lightning trap. This caused him so much damage that all his fur immediately stood on end and tendrils of smoke wafted off of him, smelling of burned hair and skin. He kind of looked like a full grown Chia Pet, but I digress once again. Of course he needed some more healing after this. Asphodel then opened the trap door and saw that this one too had an old wooden ladder leading down some forty feet into the cold, hard ground.

We leave our heroes looking at the trap doors and wondering which way they will head next. Will they rest again first, or take off into more adventure right away? Until next week …

View

28

DEC/2013

Session 37

Previously, on Phoenix Rising…

… Blackwell, Jobi and Kell concentrated their attacks against these two new foes while Asphodel and Zola continued to beat upon the obelisk, slowly chipping away at its dense black rock. Those floating balls were extremely hard to hit and resilient to just about all magic attacks but when Asphodel struck the final shattering blow on the obelisk, those balls of electricity also winked out of existence and the entire clearing was now still and quiet except for the normal small forest animal sounds all around. With everyone’s magical abilities completely or nearly completely exhausted, our party decided to clean an area in this clearing and take a rest…

Our heroes’ rest was thankfully uneventful and soon everyone was back to full strength, ready to continue exploring this strange place hoping that the way home was just around the corner. upon first glance this clearing seemed to be a dead end, but after some careful searching, the party found a small path winding through the dense forest, no more than five feet in width at its widest and sometimes less than three feet wide which made most of our heroes have to walk sideways at times. Blackwell changed into his wolf form and scouted out in front of the rest of the party, but only by a dozen feet or so. It was difficult to traverse this winding path and it took a long time before it finally opened out into another clearing. This new clearing wasn’t nearly as large as the previous two they had encountered but it was also significantly different. It forked in two directions: to the west the clearing ended in about fifty feet with a ten foot wide smooth black stone pillar rising out of the ground and going higher than their vision in this dim and hazy area allowed – at least eighty feet tall. To the east the clearing ended in a very swiftly moving river with a sheer cliff face on the opposite shore. The river was only fifteen feet across but the water was very clean and cold and looked very deep. Zerak estimated that the river was probably flowing somewhere neat sixty feet every second. To the north they could just see a violent waterfall crashing down to the surface of the river. But the strangest feature here was another smooth black pillar, again about ten feet in diameter, sunk into the river bed and also rising up into the air just as far as the other one – but this one also had smooth black stones jutting out of its sides, making a stairway spiraling up the entire height of the pillar. It seemed that the only way forward was to climb the stairs. Asphodel took out a rope and said that they should all tie off together so that the less adept at climbing would have some extra protection against falling off the stairs – since there was no handrail or anything else that would prevent one from just slipping off the edge and plummeting into the river below. The first step of the stairway was right at the shore and they would be ascending over the raging river nearly every step they climbed.

They decided on the order they would ascend the stairs and slowly made their way up. Around thirty feet up, they began to feel the cold mist from the waterfall and saw that the stairs were coated in a fine mist of water which made them very slippery. Almost at the time of this realization that they needed to be very careful, Jobi and Kel both slipped and nearly fell off. Fortunately Zerak and Zola were able to hold onto to them and keep their foot as they helped their friends climb back onto the stairs. Unfortunately this was not to be the only mishap. Jobi again, and Zerak both slipped when they were around sixty feet up. This time Asphodel and Kel were able to stabilize the two and get them back on their feet. After this second potential disaster, Jobi hugged the pillar the rest of the way up. At ninety feet the stairs entered a large, strangely shaped room made out of some strange grey stone (partially limestone and lava rock possibly). The room had a ten foot ceiling and only two arched exits out – one to the west and one to the north. The western archway led to a wood and rope bridge that led to a small platform (which appeared to be on top of the other smooth stone pillar from the clearing below) and that had another bridge leading north to the top of the sheer cliff edge. They could see some other strangely shaped buildings over there but not very well for it was still dim and hazy up here as well. The north archway led to another wood and rope bridge that spanned around thirty feet (and only five feet wide) and attached to the other side of the sheer cliff here. The other side had another building close to the edge also made of the same strange grey stone.

Inside this room the walls were covered in strange and unintelligible runes – at least not one of our heroes could translate the runes so they made any sense at all. Also there was a large stone table that had a diorama on it. It looked to be the area that they were exploring, They could recognize the building they were in on the miniature landscape as well as the bridges, paths, and the closer buildings on the other sides of the bridges, but that was about it. So they decided that they would continue to the closest building, the one to the north. And again to cross the bridge, they used a combination of flying over the chasm (for those that could), tying ropes to each other to walk across the bridge, and carrying others who had difficulty staying up on both feet. Once across they saw that the river flowed right next to this building and could see that it was traveling just as fast here before the falls as it was down below after the falls.

Blackwell examined the archway entrance closest to the party and determined that everything looked safe so far. So Asphodel, Zerak and Zola slowly advanced into the building with care – Asphodel exploring the empty room on the right side and Zerak and Zola checking the room to the left. In there they saw a low stone pool at the north end of the room that had water overflowing from it into narrow rivulets flowing slowly across the floor. It seemed that this must have been going on for a long time for there were grooves etched into the stone floor by the running water. Zerak slowly went up to the pool, avoiding stepping on any of the rivulets and saw that a pale colored key was at the bottom of the pool. So Zola came in with Zerak coming out of the room so she could try to get the key using her mage hand spell. But as soon as she had cast it and started to move the key, the water rose up and formed a serpent like appendage that slapped across Zola. She then instantly disappeared fro sight and Zerak yelled out that Zola was gone. Asphodel came running over to see what was going on and took a look at the pool herself, seing the large key at the bottom. Meanwhile Zola found herself in the middle of the river being swept towards the falls. So she readied her wings and just when she went over the falls, spread her wings and took off flying back to the archway they had entered the building from.

Now knowing of the protection against trying to grab the key out of the pool, Asphodel braced herself and quickly reached for the key. Just as she grabbed it, she felt a funny dizzy feeling come over her and found herself in the river just like Zola had. She too, prepared herself and flew out of harm’s way as she went over the falls. With key in hand she flew back to the building and once Zerak got a good look at it he declared that the key appeared to be made from solid platinum!

So our heroes started their way further into the building and into the second room. Here, some of them could hear a very low sounding moan. Carefully they advanced into the room and saw:
The walls, ceiling, and floor of this structure are covered in strange runes whose twisting shapes poke unpleasantly at your mind.
In addition, the chamber’s inner walls curve at odd angles and end in columns. They serve no apparent architectural purpose, but appear to be part of the runic pattern itself. To the north beyond these walls, a dim light flickers and sways, as though something is moving before an open flame. There they saw a flaming bronze brazier hanging on a chain from the ceiling. Propelled by unseen magic, the brazier slowly revolved around a large stone sundial, casting a shadow that moved steadily from one hour to the next. The brazier’s revolution remained constant, causing the shadow to shift from one number to the next at intervals of one minute; at that pace, a full “day” passes every 24 minutes. Plus around the corner they saw a beautiful elven woman beaten and chained to the wall – apparently a prisoner of someone or something.

When Zola came into view and the dirty, bleeding woman looked up, surprise and hope seemed to show across her face as she exclaimed, “Oh, gods! Strangers, you must help me! They’ve already sacrificed my family, and I’m to be next! Oh, please, help me …”

Immediately Zola and Zerak both thought something was amiss and got ready for anything, or so they thought. For upon sensing that her story wasn’t being believed, the elven woman’s shape began to change and grow and soon she was now a lamia noble – complete with two wicked looking scimitars! At the same time joining her was four swarms of bright red spiders that came rushing out of the cracks between the walls and floor and ceiling! The lamia proved to be a formidable foe that was able not only to strike hard enough to stun Zola but also could drain Wisdom points as she did as well! In addition to the swarms with their very painful and poisonous bites, three large black widow spiders joined the fray as well and put pressure on everyone to try to avoid the poisonous bites of these nasty arachnids.

Jobi’s fireball spells and Zerak’s burning hands spells were the only thing really effective against the swarms so they concentrated on those first while Kel, Blackwell, and Asphodel started in on the spiders and lamia. Jobi needed to retreat at one point, not only because of spider bite damage but because Asphodel ended up going into her rage again and she didn’t want to be the next target of her uncontrolled attacks. Blackwell took some serious damage from the spiders and the lamia, so much so that he ended up playing dead in the northern corner near the sundial hoping that he would remain unbothered while he tried to stealthily heal himself. Zerak unleashed a lightning bolt upon the lamia, and once that was the only enemy left standing, he took ran out of sight of the now crazed Asphodel. Kel also did significant damage to the spiders and damaged the lamia as well, but also ran for cover from the little halfling in the eidolon suit.

Once the lamia was put down by Asphodel’s last attacks, both Zola and Jobi moved in to help calm the halfling to help her regain control of herself. They were successful and Asphodel dropped out of her eidolon and slumped to the floor exhausted. Zerak sat by her to help ease her nerves while the rest of the party took care of some healing and recuperation for the next hour or so. They took the scimitars that the lamia was using since they were magical and would bring a decent amount of coin when they got back to the normal mortal world. During this time several of our heroes looked at and studied the sundial and the poem and tried to make some sense of it. Zerak even resorted to pulling out Priscilla and his mask of a thousand tomes to try to decipher the meaning of everything, but little came to light for the group. Maybe they would find some more clues to its use further into this crazy realm.

After their brief rest, our stalwart band then traveled to the other side of the river to where the path split north and south and followed it north to the next closest building. Like the others so far, there was only an archway with no door and all the strange runes inscribed onto the walls, but this building’s interior was different…

This chamber is adorned with about a dozen tapestries. One has an image of fey dancing in a ring of toadstools as thunderclouds gather overhead, and another shows a young man weeping over the corpse of a murdered maiden in a glade. One tapestry against the western wall shows an almost life-sized double door, bounded in iron and silver and covered in arcane runes. A figure clad in black is being hurled back from the door by a bolt of lightning, with obvious lock picks flying from his fingers. His companion, who is dressed in chainmail, is leaning forward as though to stop him. The second figure is holding a key in his open hand. It’s the only tapestry that shows an indoor scene. The key in this tapestry looks just like the platinum key they found in the stone pool of water. And the large tapestry to the southeast doesn’t stand in front of a wall, but rather hangs before the entrance to another chamber. Pushing past the tapestry, you find yourself in a chamber of strange curves and bizarre shapes. In the rough center of the room stands a tall staff with a flame burning atop it, like a torch. On the curved, southeast wall is a line of numbers, 1 through 12, repeated twice. The first series is inlaid in brightly polished brass, and the second series is inlaid in black wrought iron.

Now the heroes believed that this area had something to do with the sundial they found across the river, but what exactly they weren’t sure. So after some debate, Blackwell moved in between the burning staff and the numbers on the wall and let his shadow be cast upon the brass twelve. As he stood still, they noticed that black shadowy tendrills came pouring out of the walls and coalesced into wraiths! Eight in all, they attacked the party as soon as they could…

Stay tuned for next week’s exciting adventures…

View

27

DEC/2013

Session 36 Synopsis

Session 36 Synopsis:

Previously, on Phoenix Rising…

… And soon Zerak blurted out that maybe they should have put the coin into the hand of the old crone instead. No one else seemed to have any better ideas, so once again Blackwell cautiously approached the statues and place a gold coin into the old crone’s out stretched hand. The fist immediately closed upon the coin and all three statues started to move off to each side and revealed a narrow, lightless passageway behind them stretching off into the darkness…

The passage through the earth was like it had been burrowed out of the rock by a drunken dwarf who knew nothing of mining for it ranged in width from just under five feet to seven feet and in height from five feet to eight feet but by no means did it stay level or descend or ascend with any sort of regularity. After what must have been a half mile the tunnenl opened into a seemingly large area. The area was now visible to some eighty feet or so, but after that everything was clouded by some misty vapor, similar to fog but not damp. Out of the tunnel the trail split into to paths, all surrounded by dense forest and brush. large trees, some with trunks as wide as three feet lined the paths and were spread out everywhere, but nothing grew more than twelve feet tall, in essence making the whole area some sort of dense forest populated with dwarf tree varieties. They first took a look at the path veering right and immediately saw a corpse just off the trail. the body had been there for what looked like at least several months for it was partially decayed with bones exposed. The studded leather armor was ruined with blood and deep gashes over most of it. The dead elven male held a scimitar in his had that, other than the dried blood on the blade, was not showing any signs of wear or weathering. A detect magic spell and a spellcraft check by Asphodel revealed it to be a powerful +3 scimitar and the party decided that Kel was the best one to wield the weapon.

They also found many different kinds of tracks in the hard, dirty ground. Some looked like they were from giant humanoids, others looked like horses hooves and some looked like giant webbed, three-toed claws kind of like dinosaur or some other large reptile type creature. After some debate, our heroes decided to follow the left hand passage to see wher it led. Zola decided to fly about thirty feet in the air to try to get a little more perspective on where they were headed, but the misty surroundings kept her vision no more effective than anyone else’s and was only able to see about eighty feet as well. After about an hour of cautious walking they came upon a large clearing that had a very dilapidated shack with a bunch of wooden debris and rocks strewm about. they also saw some of the large webbed footprints just inside the clearing near the trail. Zerak approached the prints carefully and started to study them to see if he could better discern what kind of creature had made them. While he was contemplating this, he got his answer, although not in the way he was expecting. The prints belonged to a giant crocodile who happened to be invisible standing right where Zerak was looking and soon Zerak found himself in the jaws and doing the death roll with the creature.

Just after this surprise two other ugly humanoid female creatures emerged from the trees and attacked Kel and Jobi. It was immediately apparent that these new foes were some type of hag for their claw attacks caused Jobi to start losing her strength nearly every time they attacked. Kel’s armor and good fortitude was keeping her safe from the strength drain for the meantime. Then the rest of the party sprang into action with Apshodel and Zola descending onto the giant crocodile in hopes of killing it before Zerak was officially renamed Lunch while Jobi, Kel, and Blackwell concentrated on taking out the green hags. The battle was relatively short with Zerak being the one that bore the brunt of the damage – nearly being killed by the crocodile but not before he had sent a lightning bolt or two through the croc. Jobi did lose some of her strength to the hag but nothing that truly affected her for now. Just after they finished healing their wounds, they heard a distant noise like thunder and felt a rumbling in the ground. It continued and seemed to be getting louder coming toward them from the north. Zola flew back in the air and saw the the trees were moving as if being pushed aside but could not see what was doing it since the top canopy was so thick. They all knew what was coming once the first creature pushed its way through the thick foliage and trees. It was a nine foot tall, bald and stinking, cyclops. In fact there were six of them coming to visit the area where the sounds of battle had rung out a few minutes ago.

The cyclopses (cyclopsi ??) were powerful, swinging their large sized great axes and determined to do the party in but in the end, they failed to kill our heroes and soon found themselves dying at the feet of the little people (awww). Something unusual also happened though. Asphodel noticed it on the first one that she had killed. When the cyclops was falling to its death, it stiffened up and then righted itself and continued to fight for another round of combat before collapsing dead in a heap. Its large eye rolled back in its head so only the white was showing but it continued to see and go after its opponents. It was as if the creature had died and then something stopped it for a moment to continue on before death could finally have its reward. Of some note was the fact that one of the cyclops had an axe that could fully damage Blackwell, much to his chagrin. But now that same large axe (a +2 weapon at that) now was usable by Asphodel in her eidolon suit (this made quite a sight actually – a halfling girl inside a translucent eidolon wielding a large sized axe – kind of like those monkeys that stack inside each other – but I digress). After a thorough search of the area that only netted some platinum, the party backtracked to the fork in the road at the cave entrance and began heading west.

After walking for nearly a mile down the winding and twisting path, they came upon a large clearing that had what looked like a destroyed campsite with debris strewn all about. There were three large tents on the ground as well as several now extinguished campfires and various rusted tools (hammers, knives, etc) lying around like there had been some great battle here but no bodies or blood was to be found. There was also an octogonal black pillar with a large rusty iron ball on top. Zola and Zerak decided to go investigate the obelisk with the iron ball on it while the others were looking around the camp site looking for anything valuable. But as soon as Zerak was standing in front of the obelisk, chaos struck. the iron ball opened up like a giant eye and all the tents, campfire logs and rusty tools animated and flew into the air and began attacking our stalwart band! there were so many animated objects that everyone was attacked by at least three things and soon the whole party was engaged trying to fight tents, logs and tools (oh my!). All these items proved very difficult to hit – they were very nimble and fast moving. Plus the tents had the ability to engulf their opponents and attempt to suffocate them. The obelisk/eye also had another power that was unleashed first upon Zola and Zerak since they were the closest to it. Zerak was knocked unconscious more than once while Zola’s actions kept on being slowed down and hampered by the “eye’s” magic.

The party soon discovered that “killing” the inanimate objects was not going well for as soon as they knocked one down, it would just come back up after them the next round. So once Asphodel extricated herself from the objects that had been attacking her, she took off straight towards the obelisk and began hitting it with that large magical axe she acquired earlier from the cyclops. She also was affected by the slowing magic from the obelisk but never succumbed and went unconscious. And speaking of, when Zerak woke, he was able to attack the obelisk for a round, but hten promptly succumbed again and went unconscious a second time. Blackwell was having a difficult time battling the objects and a tent and finally had to do a full retreat for fear of being killed by these strange foes. Jobi and kel were also kept preoccupied with the objects and it was all they could do in terms of contributing to the fight against the obelisk.

Once the eye was destroyed, all the animated objects fell to the ground permanently and Jobi, Kel and Blackwell could heal and join in the rest of the battle. Two small electrical floating balls appeared and began attacking everyone with some type of shock attack. Blackwell, Jobi and Kell concentrated their attacks against these two new foes while Asphodel and Zola continued to beat upon the obelisk, slowly chipping away at its dense black rock. Those floating balls were extremely hard to hit and resilient to just about all magic attacks but when Asphodel struck the final shattering blow on the obelisk, those balls of electricity also winked out of existence and the entire clearing was now still and quiet except for the normal small forest animal sounds all around.

With everyone’s magical abilities completely or nearly completely exhausted, our party decided to clean an area in this clearing and take a rest.

Stay tuned for next week’s exciting adventures…

View

17

DEC/2013

Session 35 Synopsis

Previously, on Phoenix Rising…

There were still a dozen living slaves that were cowering and were in desperate need of healing, food, and water, which the party provided in the form of light healing from Zola and rations and water from the stocked horses they had received from Valindra. They found out that the people were from a village about three days away…

After feeding and healing the liberated slaves and healing their own wounds, the party got everyone up and started to lead the way back down the ridge and on towards the direction that the people said their village was located. Again, the party used flying and levitating magic to get all the people down the ridge line safely, while some of the party members climbed down on their own quite easily (Blackwell, for instance) and others not so easily (Jobi and Kel). The trek was slow going due in part to the “roads” not being in great shape, the denseness of the forest and the former slaves weren’t very fast movers to begin with. Asphodel and Zola did some flying in front of the group to help spot for danger and to see where the roads were leading them as well as trying to do some hunting to supplement their food stores. They were fortunate that they had no encounters for the three long days and nights they travelling while escorting this group of people.

But when they neared a fork in the road leading to the last short stretch of road heading into the people’s village (not to be confused with the village people, mind you) they came upon a clearing that showed signs of violence and death. The party saw what looked like three human females dead and very bloody lying on the ground around a large boulder. the boulder was some fifteen feet high and easily just as wide. The party called for a halt and cautiously looked around everywhere, trying to discern if any threat was still around. That was when a couple of our heroes spotted a harpy in the nearby trees and sprang into action.

Shortly after the battle began, more harpies made their presence known by signing their charming songs. They were able to charm most of the villagers and Zerak – causing them to want to head directly for the harpy that snared them in her song. But the free villagers and Jobi along with some help from Kel tried to hold them back, with Zerak proving to be a bit slippery in the beginning. In all, six harpies were all around the area attacking the party and villagers, not only by singing but also by their fly-by attacks using claws and morning stars.

Asphodel decided that she needed an edge against these creatures and not only enlarged herself, but also used her greater invisibility spell to allow her to bull rush these damned creatures without them having any chance of seeing her. Zerak, once freed from the hapries songs, sent lightning bolt after lightning bolt after the filthly creatures – and this also had the effect of clearing away the cover they were using by hiding in the trees. Many a tree was singed and burned by his had that day.

Jobi, Zola, and Kel also used spells and weapons against the creatures and eventually they were all destroyed and the villagers were saved as well. The villagers immediately after the fight decided that since they knew the way home from here (and the fact that it was only a half mile away) that they would get home on their own as fast as they could and left the party standing in the former battlefield. Jobi was trying to stop them, but Zerak went to go and inspect the three female bodies near the boulder – and saw that they were gone! No trace of blood or dead bodies anywhere near the giant rock. So he creid ouot to the others to come and look while he tried to detect if something magical, or otherwise was going on here.

Meanwhile, Asphodel and Zola has chased the last remaining harpy into a particularly thick area of trees and brush and had fought it to the death and decided to search the interior of the thicket to see why the harpy had retreated here – thinking that maybe their nest was located inside. But they found no nest nor anything else of interest in the thicket. When they turned back to rejoin the others, they were stunned to see that no one was there, just an empty field – similar looking to where the battle had happened, but different. Maybe a bit more colorful, brighter, slightly rearranged – it was hard to nail down the exact differences. All the two of them knew was that the rest of their companions were nowhere to be found. Shouting for them did not return anything but silence.

the rest of the party had gathered around Zerak as his thoughts were forming and he told them that he thought he detected a weak spot in the planar boundaries here and it may be possible that the creatures had come through. He also thought he had detected where the boundary was and made sure no one went past it. They were now aware that their two lost party members were most likely on the other side of the boundary, if they had survived the crossing. So they started to do the only rational thing and started throwing things at the boundary. And sure enough, the items disappeared. Then they tried tying a rope to something and throwing it through to see if they could pull it back, but the rope was severed. After much trepidation, they finally made the decision to walk quickly through the boundary and let Fate decide where they may end up. And one by one the crossed the boundary and found themselves in the same place as Asphodel and Zola were.

Now that the party was back together, Zerak and Zola had both come to the conclusion that they must have crossed over to the Fey Realm – for this place looked very similar to their mortal realm but only more so. Knowing that not all Fey are friendly, they decided to move away from the boundary in search of some other means to get back home. They cautiously made their way down the road and about a mile from the planar boundary the party saw an Elven male who was obviously gravely wounded and weakly signaling for help further down the road. When the party reached him they saw he was nearly dead, with many strange looking wounds in him that were coated with some black substance. Immediately Zola used her healing abilities to help the the man, but it appeared that the strange substance may have been keeping him from healing correctly. The man looked up at the party and spoke with obvious pain…

“Thank you for your kindness. My name is Paelias, and I was sent by my people to look for heroes that could help us. There is a place just a couple miles down this path called the Garden of Graves. It’s a holy site and a cemetery for my people. But the site has been corrupted by a malignant outside power that has taken it over and remade the region. It is driving many of the fey mad and enslaving others. This corruption is spreading and will soon have an impact in this region of the mortal world, if it has not done so already. My people are a peaceful lot and are afraid to fight back by themselves, and I fear that I have failed for I was attacked by several crazed Dryads working with Harpies and my time is nearing an end. Please, can you take up my quest to find heroes able to help us? My people would be so thankf ….. cough … sputter…. gahhh …” And with those final words he dies.

He had a small leather bag with 100 platinum pieces in it with a small parchment map detailing where the Garden of Graves is at and where the Fey Court is located. It also contained a short message that says, “Please come to the Court when you have succeeded and we will get you back home.” This confirmed the party’s thoughts that they must have crossed a weak spot in the planar boundaries and had wandered into the Fey Realm. And they knew that the way back no longer lead to the mortal world – the gate was closed.

So the most logical choice so far presented to them was to follow the map to the “Garden of Graves,” pass through there and head to the “Fey Court” on the opposite side. After a couple of miles they came to a large ridge line. The road ended at the ridge line where a small cave opening was. From outside it was completely black in the cave. The ridge line was more than one hundred feet tall and stretched on for miles in either direction, so going around didn’t appear to be a very good option. Asphodel flew to the top to see over it, but only saw plains above, nothing of the so-called Garden of Graves was up here. It must be through the cave entrance at the end of the path. So she rejoined the party at the cave entrance.

There was an engraved stone to the side of the cave entrance and our heroes determined that it was written in an ancient form of Elven. It was a poem that read as follows:

Count you the shadows, watch the sun,
The wise know where they stand;
While knowing not the time to shun,
The fools must find themselves undone.

Like lustful swain or panicked child
Who beg another’s gentle hand,
The fool delves heedless through the wild.
The wise are not so soon beguiled.

When darkness falls and dreams portend
The rising of a fearsome foe,
The fool, swift-striking, meets his end,
The wise know foe from friend.

Let art and image point the way,
Abandon all you think you know,
For common sense leads fool astray.
The key is simply this: Obey.

The wise must ever strategize;
They never play, unless to win.
They see the harm in comfort’s lies,
And seek to open weary eyes.

You’ve fought your way, you’ve risked demise,
To view the ivy heart within.
Now as the soul within you dies,
This knowledge is your only prize:
You’d never have come, were you truly wise.

No one in the party cared for this at all. But they casted a light spell on a rock and tossed it into the cave to see what was in there. They saw the following:

A simple cavern in the rock cliff that looks as though it has not been used in some time. Not all the stone is natural, however. A trio ofstatues stands along the far wall,forming a portion of that wall. Each statue depicts a humanoid female clad in rags and tatters with her right hand out, palm up, as though expecting to receive some gift. The figure on the left is a young female, her beauty apparent even given the poor condition ofthe stone; the center figure is older, her face kind and matronly; and the figure on the right is stooped with age, her face a maze of lines and wrinkles.

Detecting magic the party had found that they sensed powerful magic within the cavern, coming both from beyond the carved figures, and from the statues themselves, which radiated arcane energy related to polymorphing. The party sat there a bit stumped on what to do next and while pondering the hidden meanings within the strange poem, Blackwell usggested that maybe they need to put a gold coin in one of the outstretched palms. So with some further discussion, they decided that Blackwell would put a coin into the hand of the young girl statue (since he was the quickest at getting away should anything untoward happen). Just as he placed the coin in the hand, the statues started to shift – but it was the old woman statue that moved away from the wall and turned into a large stone golem and attacked the party!

The first to get hit was Zola and the golem packed quite a punch. So Asphodel got up front after casting stoneskin on herself so she could start to absorb some of the attacks while the party tried to think of spells and attacks that could hurt this construct. In a couple rounds it quickly became apparent that stopping the construct would be a difficult feat without alll our heroes getting seriously pummeled. So the squishier ones ran for the outside of the cave while Asphodel kept blocking the way. Then Blackwell made a dash and grabbed the coin out of the statue’s hand and ran out of the cave as well. Then, once everyone else was out, Asphodel rettreated as well. The golem continued to slowly advance, but when it got to the entrance and no on else was in the cave it stopped and in a flash of bright light disappeared and returned back to the other statues as the old crone once again.

So now the party focused their attention on the second stanza of the poem for it seemed the one that had something to with this situation…

Like lustful swain or panicked child
Who beg another’s gentle hand,
The fool delves heedless through the wild.
The wise are not so soon beguiled.

And soon Zerak blurted out that maybe they should have put the coin into the hand of the old crone instead. No one else seemed to have any better ideas, so once again Blackwell cautiously approached the statues and place a gold coin into the old crone’s out stretched hand. The fist immediately closed upon the coin and all three statues started to move off to each side and revealed a narrow, lightless passageway behind them stretching off into the darkness.

Stay tuned for next week’s exciting adventures…

View

5

DEC/2013

Session 34 Synopsis

Previously, on Phoenix Rising…

Valindra continued, “I believe that Fate has brought us all together for each of has a personal stake in the defeat of the Netherese. I’ve been following your adventuring careers and I am convinced that you are the allies we need in order to win the war. Despite everything you’ve heard of the nation of Thay, I tell you now that we as a nation have changed for the better. So please, consider my offer of alliance. You have shown to be a capable band of heroes that can get things done where much larger forces fail. Don’t give your answer now, but instead please see for yourselves what is going on. It’s important that you see it first hand before you decide so you know what we’re up against. I have found the location of Xinlenal and can provide you a map so you can travel there and see the evil first hand. Go there and see what they are doing across the lands. And then come back and tell me you answer. I’m sure that once you see the horrors that the civilized world is facing, you will say yes to our partnership. But for now, please stay with us for the night and dine with us. We’ll talk and I’ll answer any questions you have. You can head out in the morning with fresh horses and supplies.”

Our heroes agreed to stay for dinner and converse with Valindra and the others present. Slowly during the feast they began to notice that people were receiving different types of food – and then it dawned on them. Some of the guests were undead! Zerak noticed a couple of vampires at the table and he was quite certain that others were also undead of some sort – probably liches and maybe other types as well. But no one detected as evil! Not one of them. Zola was very wary and kept casting detect evil and was very wary of the food and drink as well, casting spells like purify and detect poison, just ot be on the safe side.

Valindra was very pleasant and understanding about all of their nervousness and reservations and attempted to reassure everyone that she was truly looking for allies and no one there posed any threat to them. They all talked about many things and the party did find out a few things of interest. For instance, Zola found out that someone in her family had helped the Netherese and that she may be paying the price of that collusion. And Zerak found out that many of his ancestors were/are Thayans (in addition to Valindra acting quite smitten with him). Valindra also spoke of the long ongoing war between Thay and Netheril and that how Netheril was slowly gaining the upper hand. Thay, she insisted, was a changed nation from its past and truly wanted to save the world from Netherese invasion, but also realises that their reputation will be difficult to overcome with the other free nations, especially in the northern continents.

Slowly the questions died down and eventually everyone retired for the night. True to her word, the next day the party was outfitted with fresh horses and full supplies. Our party decided to first head back to Neverwinter to take care of a few personal things for a couple weeks before venturing on to follow Valindra’s map. Kel did some retraining of her fighter levels to her new found clerical leanings. Asphodel and Blackwell took some time at their settlements to start advertising for new people to come join them at their burgeoning domicles. Jobi started helping Asphodel decorating her castle. Zola created a wand for herself. And everyone did a little bit of shopping as well.

After a couple weeks, they decided it was time to follow the map and see what was really going on with the Netherese. Follwoing the map was actually quite easy and the whole trip took about a week without so much as an incident along the way. But when they got near to their destination, everything began to change for the worse. The forest seemed to be in a state of dying or decay. After a while they reached a particularly dense part of the forest and found human bodies in various states of decay. Some were just impaled skeletons but others were bodies and others yet looked only like skin. It appeared that at least some of these victims were skinned in addition to being impaled on wooden poles with a rounded tip (to decrease damage to the internal organs – someone wanted these people to suffer greatly).

Then the party came upon a ridge line where they were at the bottom with the top more than 60 feet above them and the climb would be very steep indeed. Zerak could levitate and Zola and Asphodel can fly, so they worked on getting everyone up without much trouble. When they were on top, they saw a vast, blasted wasteland with dead trees and other sparse vegetation surrounded by lots of broken rocks and ruins. About a half mile from the ridge line they encountered an area where it was clear there was some ruins that were still partially standing and the area was being excavated by a crew of some sort. They saw the following…

There are at least a dozen living slaves working this area along with about another dozen or so skeleton workers, 4 heavily armed and armored skeleton guards, and five other humanoids who are all dressed in black cloaks over silver colored chain shirts. (Perception DC 20) They appear to be humans, but different, for their faces are tan and vibrant looking and their dark hair almost seems to reflect multi-colored light similar to the way shards of a broken mirror would. they crept up and watched for a little while and saw the following:
One of the slaves drop over from exhaustion. One of the people dressed in black walks over and inspects the slave.
Another asks in a strange language, “Onko se elossa ja se voi jatkaa?" (No one in the party understands this at all)
The other responds, “Se on lähes kuollut – hyödytön nykyisessä tilassa."
The first one says, “Kiinnitä se."
One of the human women cries out in common, “No! Please don’t!”
The second one then kicks the woman over saying, “Turpa kiinni tai olet seuraava!"
The woman moans to herself and crawls back to work. Then he kicks the slave in the ribs, keeping him from crawling away, and pulls out a small vial and says chuckling to himself, “Tämä tulee tepsiä," opens it and sprinkles something over the nearly dead slave, maybe a liquid or possibly a powder. The slave screams as soon as the substance touches his skin and a horrible scene unfolds. The man’s skeleton rips itself out of his body, spewing blood, flesh, and organs to the ground. The bloody skeleton stands up even as the echoes of the man’s dying screams are still fading.
Then the man says, “Takaisin töihin!" and the skeleton rejoins the rest of the slaves, picking up a pickaxe and begins to dig.

It was at this time that one of the black cloaked men noticed Jobi attempting to hide and said, “Näyttää siltä, ??meillä on vieraita, jotka tarvitsevat meille töihin.” And the rest of the black cloaked men and skeletons turned to engage the party in battle. Al the men had weapons of transparent blue energy that just materialized in their hands. The battle was heated and very nearly fatal for several of the party members. The black cloaked men seemed to be able to resist damage and even nearly spontaneously heal themselves of some damage caused by the party. But then, Apshodel lost control and went into her rage. From that point on the tide of battle turned in our heroes favor, even as Zerak and Kel nearly fell to the enemy. At the end of the battle it took Asphodel a little bit to calm down, forcing Blackwell to retreat and stay out of her vision for several rounds. But once calmed, the party was able to take stock of the current situation.

We leave our heroes at the end of the battle licking their wounds and assessing the remains and remnants of the battle. Until next week, “Onnellinen metsästys!” (happy hunting)…

View

5

DEC/2013

Session 33

Session 33 Synopsis:

Previously, on Phoenix Rising…

Padraig had lost any semblance of patience at this point and yelled out, “Guards! Seize them and bring me their cards!” Immediately the entrance door was slammed shut from the outside. The guards with the crossbows then began lifting their weapons and the other guards were about to start advancing. And then Zerak got fed up with the whole thing and threw his cards down on the floor and exclaimed, “That’s it! I’m done with these.” They landed in the middle of the room and everyone’s attention went to the three cards.

Zerak was the first to speak. he was visibly upset as he addressed Lord Padraig, then Zola, then Asphodel. He told them that the cards were causing all these strange happenings, that they were dangerous to use, and that trying to use them would be a very bad idea. He tried to plead to Padraig’s sense of duty, responsibility, and goodness by telling him that if he used the cards, something like what happened in Gardmore Abbey would most likely happen here as well. Then the guards, their families, and the rest of the people in Winterhaven may end up suffering a terrible fate. He continued by listing out all the creatures they had fought in the small area of the Abbey. Creatures that were all drawn to that area just because of the cards, and if they were used here, then Winterhaven would end up overrun with all those evil creatures as well. Blackwell, then threw his cards onto the floor as well. He also felt that where this was heading was not going to end well and did not want to be a part of it. Kel also spoke up against the use of the cards and that Padraig should think about the fact that the cards have a hold over him forcing their will upon him and that he should really think about putting the cards down. Jobi jumped into the conversation and said that the cards should not be used and that she thought they should be destroyed as well, but admitted that they probably couldn’t do it.

This whole time Asphodel was concentrating on the growing pile of cards on the floor and slowly began to inch her way forward in hopes of picking the up. But Zerak picked up the cards before should had a chance to. Then she heard jobi mention something about destroying the cards and reacted instinctively by looking at her while a low, threatening growl escaped her lips. This caused both Jobi and Zerak to tell Asphodel that she was being overtaken by the cards and needed to back down. Asphodel did not move, nor did she stop staring at the two of them either. Then Jobi also decided that she wanted to get rid of her cards as well, but when she went to get them, she couldn’t find them. Zerak began asking everyone if they had the cards, but no one admitted to having them. He then turned to Asphodel and asked her directly but she did not answer. Just as he was about to confront her more on this, Lord Padraig, who had a confused look on his face, pulled out his three cards and sat down on the stairs leading up to his raised dais. Zerak immediately began encouraging him to “fight it” and soon Jobi and Kel joined in giving encouraging words to Padraig to help him break the hold the cards had on him. Finally, as if a heavy weight had been lifted off of him, he managed to break free of the cards’ influence and clarity came back to his eyes as he slumped forward a bit as if very weary.

Lord Padraig, now back in control of his faculties, seemed truly humbled by the experience. He began, "Oh my friends. Please forgive my actions. It was like a waking dream. I sensed that things were amiss but couldn’t, or maybe wouldn’t do anything about it. Thank you for putting a stop to my madness without killing me. Those cards have such an allure. I can see now why the Knight Captain at Gardmore Abbey used them. I don’t want to keep them here. I know I’m not strong enough to use them without being consumed by them. I’ll trust in my skills and my people to keep the area safe. I’m also sorry that I don’t actually have the power to grant all the land that I said I would. The power for that lies with the governments of Neverwinter and Waterdeep. I will, however, inform Lord Neverember of how much you’ve helped us here and I’m sure he will also be grateful for this. But I can and will still honor our trade agreement, Blackwell. Maybe someday I can come and visit you and your growing community. So I will bid you farewell for now. Please take all the cards from here. All I ask is that if you decide to make draws from the Deck that you do it far away from Winterhaven, just in case.

Before the party bid farewell to all their new friends and took their leave of Winterhaven, heading back home to Neverwinter, they returned the sword call Moonbane to Sergeant Murdeggin. He way very happy that the sword was once again useful to the forces of good and rewarded the party with 3,500 gold pieces for bringing it back to him in one piece. He said that it will stay in Winterhaven just in case it was needed again to help protect the community from evil.

Once the party stopped and made camp for the second night of their travel back to Neverwinter, they were faced with a decision that everyone had on their minds since that final meeting with Lord Padraig. Would they assemble the Deck and take draws? they discussed it for a while and in the end decided that luck was in their favor. They assembled the deck by giving all the cards to Asphodel. Once all the cards were in her hand, the deck suddenly emitted a very bright light outwards about a foot in diameter surrounding the cards and Asphodel’s hands then quickly faded out. She no longer felt the obsession to gather all the cards together and was now completely in control of any decisions she was to make concerning The Deck of Many Things.

At that moment, inside a very different consciousness…
I am happy. I’m very happy with the whole situation from the moment the funny little girl in the dragon suit picked up that first card from that idiot human who had it sequestered away in some dungeon. What was it’s name? Zarr I think it called itself. Should have been named Moron or Idiot-boy. I was even happier that her five friends helped her gather up all the other cards from their scattered places and from their former stick-in-the-mud owners. Then that one said the “D” word – destroy – and Pandemonium came to visit! It was glorious, glorious fun! Like any mortal can actually destroy me. Ludicrous, but very amusing, I must say. And to think the suggestion came from a kindred spirit – kind of strange, but who am I to judge. In the end, they obliged me and reassembled all my cards, just like everyone else had for… well, forever. They always do. Must be my irresistible charm and good looks. This time though, it was different for they all worked together to assemble me. It was kind of refreshing to have so many work on my behalf at the same time without murdering each other. I must commend them for that, it seems only fitting. They have given me my true purpose back so I must reward them all. Even now the little girl knows that she can not keep me forever, no one can. I need to let her know though that I am very happy with her and her friends. I’d like for them to benefit from knowing me because I’ve enjoyed their company so much, daresay I to call them… my friends? In the true fashion of a reward, I’ll give her friends two card draws and they can pick which one they like, and little dragon suit girl can have three to pick from. Then, alas, this chapter for me comes to an end, which is a bit sad. I haven’t had this much fun in centuries. I really hope they do well for themselves. I wonder if I will miss them…

Asphodel told the others what she had “heard” in her head and then began shuffling the deck of cards in preparation for giving “readings” to everyone that wanted one…

Blackwell drew The Flames Card and The Rogue Card. Unfortunately both cards had bad results so Blackwell took the lesser and chose The Flames Card. He is now expecting to see some attacks against him from some unknown powerful being that now has a grugde to settle for some reason begin within the next couple of fortnights.

Zerak drew The Ruin Card and the Talons card. Again the Deck dealt out two bad cards and Zerak chose the lesser of the bads by choosing the Ruin card. He immediately lost all non-magical wealth and items and stood before the group naked except for this magical cloak. Blackwell gave him a set of clothes to use till the party made it back to Neverwinter so he could buy some more. Of course, Zerak had also lost all his money so some of the party members decided to chip in and give Zerak some money to get him by.

Kel drew the Vizier card and the Skull card. This time, the choice was very clear. Kel avoided a potentially disastrous fight that the Skull Card promised and chose The Vizier Card and gained the answer to any one question she has within the next year.

Jobi drew The Jester Card and the Skull card. Again, a clear choice about not taking The Skull Card, but The Jester Card also offered two choices itself. She could either accept a gift of 10,000 experience points or a “gift” of drawing two more cards. Not being an extreme gambler with Fate, Jobi chose to take the experience points.

Zola drew The Key Card and the Void Card. This was another no-brainer choice, since The Void Card would have made Zola comatose with her soul imprisioned somewhere the party would have to go find and fight to release. The Key Card granted her a major magical item and it just so happened that her morning star was re-imbued with its magical attack powers and the disruption ability. She now had the weapon that her father had given her back to full power.

And finally Asphodel drew the Trhone Card, The Jester card, and the Void Card. Once again, The Void Card was dismissed out of hand. But Asphodel had a real choice of benefits here with The Jester Card offering the experience points or two more cards and The Throne Card that offered a castle to be granted to her. She thought about it for quite a while and ended up choosing the castle. She decided to have it placed bordering Blackwell’s land near the sea about a hlf day’s journey south of Neverwinter.

And when Asphodel’s choice was final, the Deck began to emit a bright light and then vanished from her hands, never to be seen on this world again. the rest of the journey back to Neverwinter went by uneventfully. Back in town, everyone decided to get some shopping done adn some other personal agenda items. Jobi went to Mordai Vell’s estate along with Zerak and retreived all her belongings and basically gave him the “we’re done” speech. Mordai was saddened but very gracious and understanding and they left his estate without any incident. Now Jobi joined the rest of our heroes in living at the Bloated Float Tavern and Inn for the meantime, since where her house had been is now a part of the Spellplague Chasm / sinkholes. Blackwell decided that he needed to work on his gunsmithing and created/upgraded his weapons and ammunition, along with several kegs of black powder. He had also paid to have his new guns enchanted by a local wizard. They also were able to sell off the magical gear they had collected from the final battles in Gardmore Abbey and everyone gained a nice some of coin from it, which definitely pleased Zerak, who up until then, was living on donated funds.

A few days of rest and relaxation did everyone a world of good, and during this time Zerak and Jobi went on their first official date (more to come via a forum post for those who are curious). One evening in the Bloated Float bar, the waitress came over to Zerak and handed him a note saying that a man gave it to her to give to him. The note said, “Please meet me outside in back of the Stables. I represent Regis Freemantle’s employer.” And it was signed Montreau. So Zerak told the rest of the party and with some trepidation they all went out to meet whoever sent the note. When they arrived at the designated meeting place, they found a person dressed all in black and it was impossible to actually get a look at his face since the cowl on his cloak was very long. He had a deep voice, though a bit on the airy side, and spoke somewhat slowly and deliberately. “Greetings, to you and your friends. I am Montreau. My mistress sends her regards and would like to speak with you. She is aware of your efforts on behalf of Regis and other matters here in Neverwinter and abroad and would like to discuss them with you. There is a small compound, named Blackstone Keep, about a day’s journey southeast of Neverwinter in the Neverwinter Woods. It is near where the King’s Road has a four way intersection – south heads towards Waterdeep, east heads towards Winterhaven, and the much lesser used route north is the one that will take you to the keep. You will have to look carefully for it for it is not marked, most see the area as a three way intersection. Wear these pins on your chests starting at the intersection and you will be greeted peacefully as guests.” He held a small leather bag in his hand and offered it to Zerak. He was wearing black gloves that left no skin showing. The party did a detect evil and detect magic spell on this person and saw that he was not evil and that the bag was not radiating as magic. So Zerak took the bag from him. Montreau then bowed, said good bye, turned, and left.

They did a quick look in the library to see if they could find out anything about Blackstone Keep. But all they found out was that it was an ancient Thayan outpost that was abandoned centuries ago. So our heroes left in the morning and followed the directions. they found the northern path, little more than a goat trail here and put their pins on before proceeding. Soon they came upon a part of the woods that seemed to be a little off. The trees were a bit blackened, the dirt was not quite the right color, and the wind seemed to avoid this entire area. After about a quarter day, they reached the site of Blackstone Keep. It was situated in a clearing – no trees or anything else to hide behind was present for at least a thousand feet around the black walls. There were eight towers along the walls, one in each corner and one in the center of each wall, with each tower about another 30 feet taller than the walls, which are also around 30 feet tall and span at least 500 feet in each direction. The gates were closed and there were four individuals standing outside the gates. They were dressed in black with crimson cloaks and were all human and very well armed. When the party approached, the guards stepped aside of the gates and bowed to them, never taking their eyes off of the party, while the gates swung slowly outward. The gate tunnel was about 30 feet long or so and was a pretty standard design with murder holes in the ceiling and arrow slits along the walls. The inside gates slowly started to open into the tunnel as they passed by the outer gates, which started to close, and they saw four more humans dressed the same way just inside the inner gates.

When our stalwart band had entered the keep proper, the guard in the (left) middle said, “Greetings. The mistress has been expecting you. Please follow me.” Looking around, they saw a couple small outbuildings, also made of the same strange black block stone but no other people inside the compound. Around the wall, however, there were many fully armed and armored guards, all wearing the same crimson cloaks. And as they walked to the keep’s front doors, they were able to count about 15 guards per wall section. The keep is also made of black stone and the doors are some type of black metal. As they approached the keep’s front doors, these doors also slowly and silently swung outwards, just like the main gates. They walked up the black stone stairs and into the entrance chamber. It looked and felt old, very old, but the structure seemed sound and very well built. As they passed through the chamber they saw guards in suits of armor lining the left and right walls, ten to a side, all polished and gleaming in the dim light. Each was holding a two-handed sword by the pommel, point down on the ground. The suits looked very archaic and ornate compared to the ones you’ve seen in the shops in Neverwinter and they all have the same strange crest on the breastplates which they were able to recognize as Thayan from the time before the current government some four hundred years old or so.

The party continued to follow their escorts into what appeared to be the main hall of the keep. It too was very ornate with wall carvings and similar armed guards standing inside alcoves along the two long walls. These ones were holding halberds, and there are 24 of them here, twelve per wall. There were also a number of people in here as well, possibly around twenty. They were all wearing the same type of garb as your escorts, black leather or black robes and crimson cloaks. There was a dais at the far end of the chamber that went up by 4 steps to three large ornamental chairs, not unlike thrones, but not nearly so audacious looking. On the floor in front of the dais was a long wooden table with a dozen chairs on each side, gold place settings, and crystal goblets like a banquet was planned. Upon the dais in the two chairs on either side of the center chair were one human male on the left side and one elven female on the right side both of indeterminate age but obviously confident in themselves. They too were clothed in a similar manner as the rest of the people here but more opulently, and in the case of the elven woman, more scantily. The person in the center chair was not really visible due to the shadows and the chair itself was a little further back from the other two. The escorts suddenly stopped in unison and the man who spoke to the party before, now spoke again, “Greetings, Mistress. I present to you Zerak Brunleaf, Kel Crownsilver, Asphodel, Zolanorateal, Jobi, and Blackwell.” He then turned back to you and said, “May I present to you, Valindra Shadowmantle, mistress of Blackstone Keep.” And with that the four escorts parted and backed up to be in line with the rest of the people off to the sides.

Then the person in the middle chair got up and walked forward as she began to speak in a very melodic and pleasing voice, “Welcome, honored guests. I am so glad that you decided to make the journey and meet with us.” She continued as she indicated the two people next to her, “Seated next to me are my two advisers, Morphus and Zereena.” As she finished her sentence, you got your first good look at her. Valindra was wearing a very expensive looking crimson cloak, most likely some sort of silk, and a very revealing leather bodice and leather thigh boots adorned with what can only be diamonds and gold trim glittering in the dim light. She is very well proportioned and tall with long golden blonde hair that shows highlights of white and honey. Her elven features and form show great beauty and she looks to be in her prime (She’s absolutely gorgeous). Her skin does look a bit pale with a slight grey tinge to it though, coloring unusual for an elf. But her eyes are a very bright green, almost unnaturally so, and reveal a much older and wiser intellect than her body suggests. She has a commanding presence and projects an air of confidence, authority, and power. She walked down from the raised platform and approached the party and continued, "I wish to help you and wish for your help as well, for we have a common enemy that neither of us can handle on our own. I propose an alliance between you and us against Netheril. Please just hear me… oh my! Montreau! Quickly, assist her!”

Upon hearing the word “Netheril,” Asphodel got a sudden burning sensation from her amulet and the all too familiar pain of the experiments done to her during her captivity intensely shooting through her body, causing her to drop to her hands and knees, and loose her breath. Her eidolon was dismissed in a second. She momentarily went unconscious.

Montreau and several others came quickly to Asphodel and Zola gently lifted her onto the table. One servant had water, and another some towels. She awoke shortly and was visibly shaken by what she just experienced and the pain lingered on like skin being raked by many small needles. Montreau looked back to Valindra and gave a quick nod. Valindra then said, “I’ve seen this before. Even just hearing the name of our common enemy has the power to bring out dark, repressed memories for those who have experienced… personal attention from the Netherese. I apologize, Apshodel. I did not realize that you had not heard their name before now, otherwise I would have prepared you.” Another servant came into the room with a tray containing 2 vials and an empty glass to Valindra. She took the two vials and poured them into the glass and gently mixed them together. “Here, Asphodel, drink this. It will help ease the pain and calm your nerves. It is a mixture of local herbs and whiskey. You can thank Zerak’s ancestors for this old family remedy. As I was saying, I propose an alliance between you and us against Netheril. Please… just hear me out before you make any decisions.”

“For centuries we and Netheril have been at war in the Shadowfell, that nether-plane where the Netherese found themselves banished to millennia ago. But the Spellplague opened a rift between the Shadowfell and our plane that has allowed them to come back and begin aggressions towards everyone anew. And they work tirelessly to raise their ancient flying cities of death and destruction that were destroyed a millennia ago. They are currently trying to fix Xinlenal, the first enclave. And once they raise that city they will start working on the next one until all six of them are brought back from destruction. So far, we have been the only ones working against Netheril, trying to stop them and send them back to their imprisonment. But now we know we need help, for the Netherese are slowly gaining allies in this world through their honeyed lies, bribes, and gifts of deceit. And each one of you has a personal stake in this conflict even if you are not aware of it. Let me explain.” Then Valindra addressed each one of the heroes… (Note: these are a bit more elaborate than at game time due to time constraints. Please read them and you’ll probably have more questions for Valindra)

“Help us defeat Netheril, Asphodel. All they want to do is use wizards as mindless power sources and destroy magic items and relics to power their flying cities so they can once again subjugate and enslave the world. Think what happens if they succeed. Do you want others to be enslaved and tortured like you and your mother and father were? We are not your enemies. We desire nothing more than to uplift the unique nature of all, so everyone can fulfill their own destinies, wherever those choices take them. And, if that destiny includes the wonderful transformation into the un-living, then we are here to help guide them. Whatever anyone chooses, that is their choice to make, ours to respect and not to interfere with. The Netherese don’t respect anyone but themselves. Everyone else is just a slave or a tool to use – that would be the fate of everyone. You know this to be true for you have already felt it. Help us end their threat.”

“Blackwell, you too know their corrupting and evil touch for the Netherese have corrupted your entire tribe, and caused the deaths of your family and all who opposed them. They use your former pack mates that didn’t escape or get murdered to search for and gather the magic items that they’ll destroy to fuel their flying cities. Surely, your pack deserves to have its honor restored and your family’s deaths avenged. They see your kind as nothing more than beasts of burden; only useful for as long as you can carry your own weight in some menial tasks. But that’s not what we see. That’s not what I see. I see creatures of great magical and earthly power. I see someone who is one with nature and one with the magic of nature. Your kind should be celebrated by others, not hunted down like common beasts. You understand the balance between nature and man like no others can. Take pride in your mastery of the wild forces of nature. Don’t be one to hide your true nature from others, let them see and celebrate the diversities of life with you. Help us defeat these murderous interlopers and we’ll help you restore your pack’s honor and pride!”

“And Jobi, don’t believe the gilded lies you heard from Mordai Vell, the leader of the Ashmadai cult here in the North, for those simpleton devil worshipers don’t even realize they are just slaves of Asmodeus and have no free will of their own. Your destiny should be your own making, not assigned to you by some devil resting on his ass in the Nine Hells. Plus his cult is working to usurp the true ruler of Neverwinter, something that would be a great blow against us and all free people. You now worship Sarenrae, a peaceful and loving goddess with noble ideals indeed. She works towards the destruction of all the evil undead in the multiverse. And this is what we do as well. The evil ways used to create undead are the very sources we despise and attack with our research! Netheril will never offer anyone freedom or justice or peace to do as one pleases, nor will the Ashmadai. Both continue to shed unimaginable amounts of blood to create their undead soldiers and work slaves to death. They only seek to enslave us all. Join us and we can bring freedom from them to everyone!”

“Zola, you’ve seen how the immortals make the rules for everyone else; how they force their will upon others and don’t take any of the blame themselves. They cast you out for not following their rules! But that is far from the real truth for someone close to you has ties to the Netherese. I do not know who exactly that person is but corrupt celestials are mixed up in this war and have caused or are causing great mischief for the forces of good. Work with us, with me, and we can unravel the mystery of why you have been scorned and who is behind the subterfuge."

“And Kel, you’re such a strong woman determined not to do what the others in an oppressive society expect you to do. You’re a woman after my own heart. Independent, free, and caring, yet not afraid to do what needs to be done to achieve your goals. I admire those qualities and see that you are a lot like me. Imagine how oppressive a society dominated by the Netherese would be. Entire families, towns, cities, and even nations, murdered only to walk again as mindless slaves an all because taking care of the living is too much trouble and costs too much effort. They’ve done it before – I’ve seen it happen – and they will do it again when it suits them. There is no regard for life, or freedom in Netherese society. We would all be doomed to a fate not of our choosing, including your homeland of Cormyr, great as it is would fall, and there wouldn’t be anything we’d be able to do about it. That’s why we need people like you to lead the charge; to stand up and say, ‘No More! This ends here! This ends now!’”

“And last but not least, little Zerak, well, not so little now. My you’ve grown up well, so handsome and intelligent. The last time I saw you, you were only a small child no older than a tadpole. Your parents were so proud of you, their newborn baby, and with good reason. They also saw the great power potential in you. You’re part of a long and storied line of powerful wizards, sorcerers, and witches. Did they ever tell you about your family’s history? No, I suppose they didn’t. That’s not your family’s way. I’ve been in your family’s lives for quite a while now, ever since I gave my good friend, your great-great-great-great-great grandmother Lucinda… was that four or five greats? Oh no matter, time has a way of blurring after a while. As I was saying, I’ve been in your family’s lives ever since I gave Priscilla to Lucinda. And I suspect that you’ve had dreams for a long time now about what some would call… disturbing topics. You’re akin to us in Thay. Only the ones who truly desire and deserve, many of whom are in your family, hear Szass Tam’s calls – the dreams about everlasting life and power. That’s what has brought you back to me for I am an agent of Thay. I am the Hand of Szass Tam, second in command, if you will. I can help you fulfill your destiny to become what you truly want to be, but I need your help too. You see, Regis is a fool. He tried to trick you into getting something we needed for our research by claiming it was something else. With me, you’ll get no such ridiculous games. And if you are not one to play games either, as I believe you are, then, my dear, we can have a great relationship together.” She’s been slowly walking around you very closely and when she puts her hands gently on your shoulders from behind you, you can feel her power tingle through your skin, and she has a very intoxicating fragrance about her as well – subtle, yet very powerful and alluring. She continues, “As a token of good faith, I’ll tell you that your true ancestral name is not Brunleaf. It is Ruunleit. That is why you are having issues researching the past.” Now facing you, she leans in close and you feel Valindra’s face nearly touching yours as she whispers in your ear while gently touching your shoulders with her cool, electrifying, touch, “Come… Help me defeat our common enemy and then let’s discover the power you deserve, together!”

“I believe that Fate has brought us all together for each of has a personal stake in the defeat of the Netherese. I’ve been following your adventuring careers and I am convinced that you are the allies we need in order to win the war. Despite everything you’ve heard of the nation of Thay, I tell you now that we as a nation have changed for the better. So please, consider my offer of alliance. You have shown to be a capable band of heroes that can get things done where much larger forces fail. Don’t give your answer now, but instead please see for yourselves what is going on. It’s important that you see it first hand before you decide so you know what we’re up against. I have found the location of Xinlenal and can provide you a map so you can travel there and see the evil first hand. Go there and see what they are doing across the lands. And then come back and tell me you answer. I’m sure that once you see the horrors that the civilized world is facing, you will say yes to our partnership. But for now, please stay with us for the night and dine with us. We’ll talk and I’ll answer any questions you have. You can head out in the morning with fresh horses and supplies.”

The party had asked only a couple questions so far. Zerak asked about his father and Valindra sai he was really of no consequence, that all the power in his family comes from his mother’s side. Zola was truly perplexed by Valindra’s statements about her and her family and couldn’t form any questions at the moment. Asphodel asked how they knew about her father and mother. Valindra stated taht they had raided a Netherese experimentation facility when she and they were being held – in fact they were able to escape because of Valindra’s attack on that facility and they had recovered the documents that the Netherese kept on all subjects at that place. She would share those documents with Asphodel.

We leave our heroes sitting down to dine with Valindra and her associates and will continue with the discussions over dinner and the journey to Xinlenal next game session.

Stay tuned for the next exciting season when we will continue our exciting adventures when our heroes investigate what the Netherese are really doing. Will they decide to align themselves with Valindra and help a growing war effort against the Netherese infidels? Will Asphodel start to get answers about her previous life of captivity? What will Zerak do now that he knows his ancestors have been steeped in necromancy and have had ties to the nation of Thay for many generations – will he follow in their footsteps, make a new path, or take Valindra up on her offer? Will Blackwell finally get vengeance for the deaths of his family and fellow tribesme… uh, pack-mates? Does Jobi decide that she must do something about Mordai Vell and Neverwinter, her home for the past decade – the only truly “stable” home she has had? What did Valindra mean when she spoke about the usurping of the true Neverwinter ruler? And what does Zerak’s original family name have to do with Neverwinter and the Orpheus Stone? What will Kel do? Will she take up the mantle of freedom fighter and help put down another repressive regime. Will Zola be able to come to grips that someone in her family may be mixed up with the nation of Netheril and what does it have to do with her casting out? Does the good of the many really justify the means to an end? So many questions… so many decisions… so many different paths ahead…

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17

JUL/2013

Session 32

Session 32 Synopsis:

Previously, on Phoenix Rising…

With the main gate cleared, the party rushed in after the hill giants. Asphodel charged one of them and managed to hit him hard enough to push him back five feet. Zerak and Jobi and Zola used magic spells against the two giants, hoping to wear them down so that they wouldn’t be able to hit Asphodel very many times. After all, the stoneskin spell Asphodel had cast upon herself would only absorb so much damage before failing to protect her any longer. Kel and Blackwell hung back a bit and shot the giants with their bows, scoring hit after hit. Asphodel went toe to toe with the one giant she had rushed and had a very good round of attacks against it. So much so that she flew into the all-to-familiar rage that she had been in before. She made short work of the giant, felling it shortly after raging. About the same time the other giant, who had also sustained a couple of hits from Asphodel, succumbed to all the magic spells thrown at it and fell as well. Once the last enemy was dispatched, the raging Asphodel-fused-Eidolon looked over her/its should and momentarily fixed its gaze upon Kel. Then it shook its head and the uncontrolled rage subsided…

Our heroes continued their onslaught into Gardmore Abbey’s village by heading straight for the main building. With only a couple of rounds time before they got to the main building, they quickly healed up as much as they could and pressed on. Just outside of the target they were met by another group of 8 orcs, 2 ogres, and 2 ettins as well! The party cautiously approached, ready for any charging monsters. But the orcs were equipped with bows and made full use of them by targeting the softer targets – mainly Zerak and Jobi – and they would continue to harass these two with arrow fire for nearly the entire battle. The ogres and the ettins also hung back, apparently waiting for the party to come to them. Zola, Kel, and Asphodel took the fight to the monsters and closed into melee, while Blackwell, Zerak, and Jobi used bows and magic to attack the creatures from a distance.

Asphodel, still affected by her rage, but not the unbridled, uncontrollable rage, rushed into combat with one of the ogres and made short work of him. Jobi kept switching between using her scorching ray wand and casting magic missiles at the creatures once she had advanced close enough to see the enemies. Zola went into melee with some of the orcs on the front line. Kel bull rushed a couple of orcs that were starting to surround Zola and hit them with such great force that she sent them back twenty feet, knocking them prone right next to one of the ogres. Blackwell then used one of his cards and forced the ogre to attack his allies who had just conveniently landed right next to it. And true to form, the ogre made one of the prone orcs into mush within a single round.

One of the ettins then used its two heavy flails and managed to score tripping attacks against Asphodel. These attacks didn’t really trip her since she was flying, but did manage to entangle her and pull her down onto the head and shoulders of the ettin. That turned out to be a fatal miscalculation on the ettin’s part. Asphodel tore into the thirteen foot tall beast with all her eidolon’s claws and did so much damage that not only did the ettin crumple into a bloody, heaping mess, complete with a severed spinal column, but Asphodel once again went into an uncontrollable rage of blood-lust. Her next victim was an orc standing close by and she made very short work of it. Next up was the last standing ogre, the one that had been dominated by Blackwell’s use of the Rogue card. Even though she only scored three hits against the ogre, she also turned it into a bloody corpse in a single round. Her fourth attack missed so completely that she had winded herself to the point that she had to just stand there and rest for a couple of rounds. This was actually a fortunate event for it gave her time to survey her surroundings in search of more enemies and time for the other party members to get out of her immediate vicinity to avoid becoming targets themselves like the last time she went berserk like this. But since none were close by, Asphodel was able to fight back the blood-lust urges and calm down enough to get out of the uncontrollable rage.

Meanwhile, Kel, Zola, and Jobi had convened against the arrow shooting orcs off to one side and managed without too much difficulty to defeat them. Zerak and Blackwell went after the other two orcs located on the other side of the building’s entrance. Zerak put both of them to sleep using his deep slumber hex. Then Blackwell advanced on the first one, tried shooting it with his bow and promptly broke his bowstring. So putting his broken bow away, he walked the rest of the way and got next to the sleeping orc and used his wounding mace in a coup-de-gras attempt. And so spectacularly missed the orc and nearly shattered his own leg! Zerak saw what happened and went to Blackwell’s aid. He healed him using his healing touch powers and then went over to the orcs and finished what Blackwell had started and did the beasts in with his weapons.

Now that there were no enemies in the immediate vicinity, the party once again took a couple-three rounds of time to heal up and get ready to enter the main building where the orc leader was supposedly stationed. Blackwell did his thing and check for traps and locks on the two sets of double doors leading into the building (still limping a bit from his self-inflicted bruise) and found none but discovered that the doors had been barred from the inside. So Asphodel approached one of the doors and prepared herself to break down the door. She evidently overestimated the strength of the door and bar and effectively shattered it into splinters (toothpick, anyone?). Peering into the large room beyond, our heroes did not see much of anything. The entrance was jutted out from the rest of the main room by 20 feet so Asphodel and Blackwell crept into the foyer and peered around the corners to get a better look into the room. Kel and Zola also crept into the foyer area while Zerak and Jobi stayed just outside the door, waiting to hear what the others saw. Just as Asphodel and Blackwell got a good look and saw that they were now facing nearly a dozen orcs and two dire wolves, one of the orcs casted a web spell in the entrance and coated the whole area up to the doors in thick, sticky webs.

Zola and Blackwell were able to move just outside the webs before one of the other orcs used a card from the Deck and shot flames into the area right at Zola and Asphodel who were standing next to each other. The webs caught on fire in a flash and caused burning damage to Kel who was still in the middle of the foyer. The dire wolves had rushed in to attack Zola and Blackwell and some of the orcs were also using bows against the party members. One of the orcs engaged with Asphodel and proved to be a bit of a challenge, definitely more so that the other orcs. Zerak used his summon monster spell to summon his pet rhino to go after another one of the big orcs – this one looked like he was probably the leader. The rhino only lasted a couple of rounds against them. Then to Zeraks surprise, the orc moved all the way across the room and nearly getting next to him! He must have a something to enhance his movement, or maybe a haste spell. All that Zerak knew is that he had to stay out of range of this one for he feared that just a couple of hits from him may do him some serious harm. So he skirted just out of the creature’s reach further into the room. Then Asphodel swooped over and engaged the leader just after she had dispatched the other big baddie. Zerak then saw a chance to do some major damage and positioned himself in such a way that let him use his remaining javelin of lightning on a group of 5 of the orcs who so compliantly lined up in a nice neat line.

At this time, Blackwell and Kel were engaging not only a dire wolf but three or four of the orcs at the same time. Blackwell’s mace of wounding finally did in the orc that was harassing him, allowing him to concentrate on the dire wolf, by using his Key card and teleporting around a couple of times to get better positioning. Unfortunately, the last time he used his card to teleport near the wall, the card ended up outside of the building so he wouldn’t be able to use it any longer for this battle. Jobi had slowly moved into the room and continued with her scorching ray / magic missile strategy of ranged combat quite effectively. She was able to keep herself out of melee combat partially with the help of Asphodel standing in front or her while she kept her back to the walls. the entire battle didn’t last very long and finally, after all the enemies had fallen, Asphodel literally ripped the head off of the leader and stuck it on a pole. She then went outside and began flying around the entire battlefield, screaming as if she were a dragon by using her ghost sound spell, until all the remaining orc troops saw that their leader had been defeated – uh, beheaded (his feet were still on his legs). Once the word got around, the orcs routed and the forces of Winterhaven gave chase and killed every beast they cornered. Soon, only the cheering forces of good were left at Gardmore Abbey and the area was once again free from orc tyranny. The party and the rest of the troops spent the next day clearing the village area of bodies and loot and soon they would all head back to Winterhaven. The party collected all magical weapons and armor from the last two groups they had fought head on and came up with the following items (Note: Please disregard if there are any differences in this list from what we had during the session. I did not write down what I said and my memory of what I said fails me. Kevin has the correct list in his notes.):

2 warhammers +2

16 falchions +1

12 longbows +1

2 composite longbows +1 rated for 18 stregth

2 chain shirts +2

non-magical armors and wepaons plus gold silver and copper totaling 2,000 gold pieces

3 more cards from The Deck of Many Things

The Flames Card –
Power: Flames of Torment: ranged touch attack to all creatures within 25ft radius, 4d6 damage, miss for half damage
Effect: You are pushed up to 5 squares in a random direct – Anyone in card’s square gains Fire Resistance 5
Action: Standard Location: in a card’s square Frequency: once per encounter

The Gem Card –
Power: Gem’s Riches: Take an extra action
Effect: card teleports up to 3 squares randomly
Action: Swift Location: in card’s square Frequency: once per encounter for each creature

The Fates Card –
Power: Fate’s Warding: Attacker hits and must reroll attack with a -2 using that total instead
Effect: Card teleports to square adjacent to defender and floats in mid-air
Action: Immediate Location: in card’s square Frequency: once per round

The party and Lord Padraig’s entourage then headed back to Winterhaven for a much deserved victory celebration that commenced as soon as they made it back to town. Every member of our group was treated as true heroes of Winterhaven and were given honorary Lords and Ladies titles by Lord Padraig at the height of the celebration feast (he actually is a Baron but never really liked the sound of Baron Padraig). The party lasted for some nearly a week but the major celebrations had finished in a couple of days and life started to get back to normal in Winterhaven. The party kept most of the magical loot that was taken from the last battles at Gardmore Abbey, since Winterhaven was in no real position to purchase all the magical falchions and armor they had taken and had plans to sell it in Neverwinter when they returned. Valthruun who had worked on creating the magical headband for Jobi during the feasting, had finished and delivered it. And Blackwell found supplies and gear for his newest endeavor into gunslinging. So he spent most of those days practicing his new found craft in earnest by fine tuning his first pistol, making another gun along with a bunch of ammo. Our stalwart band of heroes were now beginning to contemplate going back “home” to Neverwinter soon. It was at about this time that Lord Padraig had sent a messenger to find the heroes and ask them to join him for a meeting at his estate.

During the feasting and celebrating, Asphodel was having some issues. For all the successes they had, Asphodel still wasn’t content, for they still had not completed the Deck of Many Things. Even with the three cards they had retrieved from the orcs, she still didn’t know the location of the missing three cards. And the deck was making its displeasure with the current situation known. She felt, maybe almost knew, that the last of the cards were very close by – just waiting to be “found” by her. Going home to Neverwinter for her was not an option until the Deck was completely reassembled.
Deep down she probably agreed with Zerak and the others that the Deck was somehow influencing her decisions and feelings when it came to the Deck, but it didn’t really matter to her because <u>she wanted to reassemble and have the entire Deck!</u> And nothing was going to deter her from this goal. Not Zerak, not Jobi, nor Blackwell, Kel, or even Zola. It was just not going to happen. She was secretly elated when Lord Padraig had summoned them because it meant that talk of leaving the area would temporarily stop. And maybe this meeting would lead her to the rest of the cards…

When our heroes arrived at the estate’s main audience chamber, the overall mood in the hall was somehow different than the last several days. Not nearly as happy and friendly. Asphodel stopped just inside the door, keenly aware that something wasn’t right and almost immediately noticed that the guards’ crossbows, while pointing to the ground, were loaded. And she didn’t remember any other time when crossbows had been loaded in this room before. Plus, there were many more guards in the room than ever before, all with grim, emotionless faces and all seemed to be highly alert.

Lord Padraig then addressed the party, “Greetings my friends. Come on in. I wanted to thank you again for everything you’ve done for me, for Winterhaven, and for the rest of the area by defeating the orcs and other menaces resulting in liberating Gardmore Abbey so that it can, once again, be used by the forces of good to secure the peace in this region.” Asphodel spoke up immediately and asked why there were so many guards in the room and why did they have loaded crossbows. Padraig just dismissed this as there was no real reason why there were more guards, just a quirk of the time of day, and that they always had loaded crossbows. Apshodel disagreed with that but Padraig stuck to that assertion, mentioning that it was possible that they just hadn’t noticed the loaded weapons at other times. Padraig quickly kept the conversation moving by saying to the party, “The reason I called you all here is that I want to offer you gifts for your service to Winterhaven.” Upon hearing something about gifts, Blackwell advised the rest of his party members that they should tread carefully and hear what Lord Padraig is offering, since gifts are always a good thing to get. So Zola and some of the others stepped a bit further into the room and gave Padraig a chance to speak to them.

He continued, “I want to offer each of you a land grant so that all of you can build a small keep, stronghold, temple, or whatever you desire. The grants are spread out around the area but are all within a day’s travel of each other.” Blackwell was very excited to hear about getting a land grant – he began thinking about how he would be a noble-titled-land-holding-big-shot-gypsy-big-wig! Then Zola immediately spoke up, “What’s the catch?”

“Well yes, there is a catch. The main idea for giving you the land grants is so that you can continue to help defend the Winterhaven and Gardmore Abbey area from the violent threats that still exist here in the north. This would give the entire region much more stability and give the common people peaceful existences. Plus there is one thing that we have not yet spoken of which we need to discuss now. I want you to give me the cards from the Deck that you have retrieved.”

Almost as one, Asphodel and Zola said, “No.” Asphodel asked Padraig for him to give her his cards. He also refused this request. And then Zola added that she would see the cards destroyed before allowing them to be reassembled into the complete deck of cards. This last statement caused a bit of concern to pass through Lord Padraig’s face before continuing,“Come now friends. We’ve all seen the many dangers that face this part of the world and you and I have worked well together. I want you to work with me, not against me. I’ll give you help to build your own small strongholds to allow us to better defend the area. You know I’ve paid you well for your service to me and I will continue to do so. Just think of what I could accomplish with the cards in my possession. The entire region would be a safe haven from all enemies, both from outside and inside my borders! I would be able to extend my protection all the way to Neverwinter and Waterdeep and beyond! All I require from you is your agreement and all the cards.”

Zola made a quiet comment about evil overtaking Lord Padraig and that he must be stopped. But Jobi interjected that it had to be the Deck exerting its influence on people’s minds, a sort of mind control, which inferred that Padraig is not in his right mind at the moment and they shouldn’t do anything rash. At this point Zola decided to use her detect evil abilities and found that no one in the room had any evil inclinations at all, which meant that none of this was steeped in any malicious intentions. Nothing inherently evil was going on here so something else was causing these irrational behaviors. Someone tried to remind Padraig that the fall of Gardmore Abbey had occurred because the leader there had decided to use the deck back then, but the argument just fell on deaf ears. Blackwell continued to try to calm everyone down and take things slower and make no rash decisions, but he too seemed to be ignored. Zola stuck to her previous conviction and reiterated that she would not see the deck reassembled; that it should be destroyed.

Padraig had lost any semblance of patience at this point and yelled out, “Guards! Seize them and bring me their cards!” Immediately the entrance door was slammed shut and barred from the outside. The guards with the crossbows then began lifting their weapons and the other guards started spinning their bolas. And then Zerak got fed up with the whole thing and threw his cards down on the floor and exclaimed, “That’s it! I’m done with these.” They landed in the middle of the room and everyone’s attention went to the three cards.

While all this was going on Asphodel became extremely focused on the situation when Zola said that she wanted to destroy the cards. DESTROY THE CARDS! OH HELL NO! That was something that she would absolutely not let happen. The mere thought of it nearly sent her into a crazed rage. No, she needed to get all the cards and quickly. The deck had to be whole. So while all the talk between everyone was going on, she very slowly made her way the short distance, getting next to Jobi, and successfully pilfered the three cards Jobi was carrying without her noticing. Now she had six of them. Good. She started sizing up her options now that it looked like things were going to get out of hand pretty quickly with no one backing down about giving their cards to someone else. If she could just get Padraig’s cards before he had a chance to use them, she would then have nine, since the feelings she was getting from the Deck had her believing that he had the last three cards. Being so focused on gaining all the cards, she barely heard Padraig call out to his guards, but she felt the doors being slammed shut behind her for they caused a slight breeze to pass by her. As she was just about ready to act and get the jump on Padraig, incredibly, Zerak threw his cards down onto the floor in the middle of the room…

Tune in next week for the exciting conclusion of the adventures at Gardmore Abbey. What will our heroes do? Will they kill Lord Padraig and go from heroes to regicidal pariahs, running for their lives from the other nobles in the North, especially from Padraig’s good friend Lord Degault Neverember? Will they figure out a way to diffuse the situation and restore peace between the allies? Will the party tear itself apart fighting over the cards? And finally, will they assemble the Deck and take a chance on Fate and use it…

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10

JUL/2013

Session 31

Session 31 Synopsis:

The group needed to do a bit of healing and decided to rest on the ground floor of the wizard’s tower since no one wanted to be a popsicle if they rested upstairs in Vandomar’s freezer room. After preparing their spells and doing some healing they left the tower and made their way over to the ruined building where the guardian wraith had appeared. the day was very gloomy and the dark clouds threatened rain soon. The thunder and lightning were already at it making everyone’s mood a bit dour this morning.

Once again, When he got about ten feet away, a vague black silhouette of an armored figure materialized outside the doors, accompanied by an otherworldly cold. he repeated the same words as before, “Only the bearer of the lonely sword passes this way unharmed,” it says. “Vandomar must open the seal.” Asphodel this time held the sword in front of her, and approached slowly. When she was only five feet away the spirit looked at her and said, “The Lonely Sword,” and disappeared. Next, Zerak approached as well and read the words on the strange scroll they had found. When he finished, a large, previously invisible glyph in the shape of an enormous dragon’s head on the doors glowed brightly for a few seconds then disappeared. The party was then able to open the doors without a problem. They swung open outwards slowly and silently to reveal a building interior that hadn’t seen anything except for dirt and dust for centuries. Asphodel cautiously peered in and slowly made her way inside the large room. There were four eight foot tall stone statues of human knights of Bahamut; three were holding swords. One held a sword pointing up, the other pointing down, and the third held the sword sideways. She detected magic in the room but couldn’t see what it was from since there was a wall running north-south in the middle of the room, blocking the view to the other half. She made her way slowly around the interceding wall as the rest of the party slowly made their way into the room, with Zola skirting around the far side of the wall. Past the wall she saw a large rectangular broken table, a spiral staircase leading up to a second floor choked with fallen debris from above, and a large chest past the table near the opposite corner.

Blackwell went up to the chest to examine it. He saw that there were four slots in the front of the chest, each about the size of a sword’s blade and evenly spaced apart. But before he could examine the chest further, five armored wraiths materialized about the room. One said, “They have the Lonely Sword.” Then another spoke and said, “But none of them are Vandomar.” With that, the five drew they ghostly swords in unison and began the attack! Zola began the attack using her newly acquired holy morning star since it would do more damage against the wraiths than a normal magic weapon would. Kel and Blackwell pulled out their ghost-touched weapons and began tearing into the creatures. The wraiths in addition to their negative energy damage they did, they also were draining the heroes’ constitution with nearly every landed hit. Fortunately the heroes were able to beat down the threat fairly quickly and no succumbed to the damage and turned in a wraith themselves. Once the creatures were destroyed and after they had a chance to do some healing (by spells and putting on some bandages of recovery), the party focused on the large chest with the sword slots in it. Blackwell and Asphodel got close to the chest and she inserted the icy sword, now known to them as the Lonely Sword, into the first slot in the chest, but just as the point was in the slot, the entire area erupted in a blast of crackling electricity, damaging Blackwell and Asphodel. So after that, Blackwell retreated and let Asphodel handle inserting the swords, just in case it kept doing that. But only the first sword set off the chest’s defenses and the other three swords (the ones being held by the stone statues) went in with any issues. Once all four swords were inserted, the lid glowed brightly for a few seconds then opened to reveal a silver brazier and a small wooden box. The brazier matched the description of one of the sacred vessels that Sir Oakley was looking for and the box contained a dozen pearls of which Jobi gained ten of them for her jewelry making craft (only Blackwell kept his share of two pearls while the others gave their share to Jobi).

Jobi wanted to explore the upstairs floor of this building and decided that she was going to make another long-distance mirror so they could look past the debris and see if there was anything worth exploring. She deftly attached her small mirror to the end of her quarterstaff like she was a professional engineer, thereby impressing all with her skill. But they discovered that there was nothing of note on the upper level and would nearly be impossible to traverse the stairs up. Asphodel flew on the outside of the building and confirmed that the roof was all but completely collapsed in on the upper floor. So the party decided they were done here.

Now they had everything they could think of that they needed from the area except the rest of the cards from the Deck of Many things, which were still being elusive. So they decided to head back to the elves to drop off the Southern Scroll with Sir Berrian. After glimpsing it, he was very pleased with the party bringing it to him and said that he would study it later to see if there were any clues as to his father’s whereabouts. After a quick discussion with the elves, they found out that Lord Padraig was to be soon marching troops upon Gardmore Abbey. So they took their leave and headed back to town to get Sir Oakley to purify the temple on Dragon’s Roost.

Once back at Winterhaven, they noticed that there were even more troops in the area than last time. Lord Padraig was very pleased to see them back so soon and even more pleased to hear that all three relics of Bahamut had been discovered. He quickly sent for Sir Oakley and Valthruun. Valthruun was extremely happy to get his hands on the Winterbole Codex and gave the heroes a tidy sum of gold each for their efforts. When asked about the book, he explained that it was a treatise on how the Feywild and the Prime plane interacted and intersected with each other, which piqued Zerak’s interest in the book. But therre was no time right now to study the book for everyone was in the final planning and readying stages for the invasion of Gardmore Abbey. Sir Oakley agreed that they would leave for Dragon’s Roost as soon as possible, and the party agreed to get going right away. And so our stalwart band and Sir Oakley left for the temple.

Another two day uneventful journey had the party back at Dragon’s Roost preparing for Sir Oakley to begin the ritual. He told them that their part was pretty simple in theory – protect him so he can finish the purification ritual undisturbed. So they all spread out away from the altar where Sir Oakley stood and began the ritual. He chanted for nearly five minutes before something happened. At first, it looked like the light was getting dimmer. Then all of a sudden, nine incorporeal creatures came up out of the stone floor, right in the midst of everyone and attacked. The party quickly identified them as shadows for the first few hits had our heroes feeling their strength being sapped away. Zola backed out of melee and prepared to enter into her element – she started blasting the shadows with her searing light spells. These spells were powerful enough that some of the shadows were destroyed with only a single hit. Kel used not only the sword, Moonstone, but also began channeling positive energy to help destroy the creatures. Blackwell was using his ghost-touched weapon in melee until he was able to use his Key card and get into ranged combat to use his bow, which he ended up breaking the bow string and going back to the melee weapon. Asphodel used her claws and even though she would only do half damage since the creatures were insubstantial, half of a lot of damage is still a pretty substantial amount of damage. She ended up by Sir Oakley’s side because several of the shadows were ganging up on him and at one point he faltered and dropped to one knee, but still kept on with the ritual.

Jobi was using her magic missile spells to help destroy these evil beings along with some well placed healing spells. Zerak summoned a couple of hound archons to help beat down the creatures defenses, bolster the party’s defenses, and to provide a couple extra hands at damaging these beasts. But a more powerful spirit made itself known and decided to concentrate on Zerak. It was a haunt – something immune to Kel’s channeling energy bursts as well as incorporeal. Before all the shadows were destroyed, everyone helped Zerak with the haunt for it was causing Zerak to continue to back up and get out of the way. Even his lightning bolt didn’t drop the damned creature. But our heroes prevailed before anyone was killed by these creatures. the haunt however, exploded in a great burst of negative energy that blasted everyone in the temple and also healed up the remaining shadow. But the party concentrated their efforts against it and it quickly fell. And shortly after they were all destroyed, Sir Oakley finished the ritual. Then in an amazing display of divine power the entire temple was bathed in a glorious golden light. This had the effect of not only healing all the damage the party and Sir Oakley had sustained but the entire temple was as if it was reborn, newly constructed, shiny and clean and filled everyone with joyous hope and happy feelings. Asphodel flew on outside to see if the orcs below had noticed what happened and discovered that they did. But they were only putting up defensive positions on the road up to Dragon’s Roost while still mobilizing and preparing for the battle they knew was coming. A quick discussion led the party to the conclusion that they once again had to make the trek to Winterhaven to tell Lord Padraig about their and Sir Oakley’s success at purifying the temple. They left straight away, all in better moods than they had been in for weeks. They met no opposition during their travels the first day and had a quiet, peaceful night in camp; everyone except Asphodel that is….

Asphodel awoke with a start yet again. She dug the heels of her petite hands into her eyes as if trying to scrub away a particularly annoying piece of dirt. She couldn’t remember the last time she sleep through the night. The image of Kel lying on the dungeon floor still seemed burned into her mind. She had almost killed her, and if she hadn’t stopped when she did… She cut off that thought with a shake of her head, however, that was only one of her worries. She had, since that day, managed to control this almost “primal” rage, but these lapses in control were occurring more and more often. She had hoped that the exorcism at the temple would give her mind some peace, but it seemed that even the euphoria of the positive energy that filled the room as well as each and every soul in it didn’t still her troubled mind.

But… something else was beginning to occupy a bigger portion of her thoughts… the Cards… At first, she thought that her adamant desire to control the Donjon card originated with her fear of it being used on her again. But now, she wasn’t so sure. This feeling only seemed to subside when they found a new Card.

Asphodel glanced around cautiously and saw Kel quietly patrolling the small campsite. For a moment, her eyes were drawn to the small belt pouch that the young princess kept the two Cards that she possessed. Asphodel began to sit up and lean toward the cleric as she walked past. Kel was too focused on what was happening outside the camp that she didn’t notice the subtle movement. A sudden movement a dozen feet away drew the halfling’s attention. It was Zola rolling to her side as she slept. Suddenly a little confused, Asphodel settled back down onto her small bedroll. Was her connection with her eidolon still present on some level even after she had dismissed it for the day? Was it possible that her eidolon wanted more of the cleric’s blood? She shook for a few moments as that thought ran its course. Unconsciously, her left hand slipped into her pouch and pulled out the three Cards that she carried; the Donjon, the Star, and the Comet. As she closed her eyes and attempted to go back to sleep, she never realized how tightly she was clutching the three ivory Cards.

The next day, the sun was shining brightly and the world seemed a very cheery place as they continued on toward Winterhaven. While traveling, Zerak had noticed that Asphodel kept on holding, playing, and fidgeting with her cards and asked her what was wrong. Asphodel came to attention as if being snapped out a daydream and told him that nothing was wrong, even as she kept fiddling with her cards. When he asked her about what she was doing with her cards, she denied that she was doing anything; just holding them. And the tone in her voice made it seem she was a bit annoyed by the questions and attention she was now receiving. Blackwell began talking about being tired of this place and wanting to go home. Asphodel then said that they still had some more cards to find. They only had sixteen of the twenty two cards needed to assemble the full deck. He mentioned that he didn’t care about finding the rest of the cards and was still ready to go home. This kind of shocked Asphodel who then said that she didn’t want to go yet because she had to finish assembling the deck, the complete deck. Zerak said to her that he thought the cards were affecting her somehow, that they were influencing her decisions. Asphdoel denied that categorically and looked away, all the while continuing to play with the cards (no pun intended).

That night at camp…

On the other side the camp, the small cooking fire was reduced to a nice pile of smoldering embers. A pair of eyes looked on with concern at the halfling because of her recent behavior. Ever since the event with the minotaurs, the witch had tried to keep an eye on the obviously troubled young woman (well, at least to him it was obvious). A murmur from the tiefling a few feet away brought the memories back. Zola and Jobi had stood in front of the enraged eidolon, and by the sheer grace of the gods, they had managed to calm it. Somewhere deep inside he battled with a lingering thought… What if she lost control of it again? Would they be able to quell the creature’s raging emotions? Or… would they be forced to fight her and… possibly even… kill her? As the halfling’s breathing finally leveled off, signifying she had fallen asleep, Zerak turned his attention toward the gorgeous woman lying near him. He watched her sleep for a long time, and made a promise to himself that if they had no other choice…

Blackwell’s groggy acknowledgement of his turn at watch brought him out of his thoughts and he rolled back into his bedroll and let sleep take him into grim and troubled dreams.

the next afternoon, the party was still talking about what their next actions should be. Even Sir Oakley was trying to convince them all that they should stay and help Lord Padraig because it was the right thing to do – to see it through – and finish what they had started so everyone in the area would be just that much safer. This line of reasoning was falling on deaf ears with Blackwell. Ironic if you think about it – deaf ears, half wolf, better hearing than everyone else, oh um, ahem, well yes, back to the story… A couple of miles from Winterhaven they saw that padraig and his troops had started the march towards Gardmore Abbey. They met Padraig at the front of the troop formation and began to speak with him about the recent developments. Lord Padraig just seemed to get a bigger and bigger smile on his face when he was listening to the account of cleansing the Abbey and the intelligence the party brought about there being more than one area that they could attack from. Sir oakley quickly left to continue on to Winterhaven to send word to other Paladins and clerics of Bahamut that the temple was cleansed and he required help to man and restore the great temple. Lord Padraig started laying out his general plans for the invasion of Gardmore Abbey and had asked the party to help with the main assault, since they were the best equipped ane experienced to take out the orcs’ heavy troops, namely the ogres and the giants. When that was going on, Padraig’s troops would go after the watchtower and also enter the city from the east near the old wizard’s tower, as well as pepper the walls with arrows and send in troop to back up the heroes. Blackwell wanted no part of this at all. He really wanted to go home to his family. When Lord padraig saw the heroes he now considered not only great allies, but as friends hesitate, he spoke up and offered them noble titles in exchange for their help. He himself was actually an Earl and said that he could make them Lords and Ladies, the lowest rank of nobility, but nobility nonetheless. Asphodel agreed to stay, then Zerak, then Zola, Jobi, and Kel. Blackwell asked if Padraig would also extend trade relations and military protection to his land holdings near Neverwinter. Padraig agreed and so did Blackwell, happy in the fact that he was also helping out his entire family by staying and helping his extended family. And so the heroes joined in the ranks and began the slow march back to Gardmore Abbey.

Three days later the host had reached Gardmore Abbey (even Sir Oakley who had ridden from town and caught up with the small army). The army made camp about a couple miles away from the Abbey and rested for the coming attack the next morning. While it was still dark the following morning, the troops advanced as quietly and as quickly as they could, getting troops positioned to storm the area of the watchtower, the wizard’s tower, and the front gate. They also had gotten word to Sir Berrian when the attack would start so his troops could hit them from the inside, surprising them out of the small forest inside the old walls. Then the charge was sounded and our brave heroes stormed the gates.

It was as was predicted. There were many orcs along the walls trying to fire at the heroes but Padraig’s troops kept them busy dodging arrows of their own. The party made it to the front gate and was immediately set upon by at least a dozen orcs followed by four ogres with two hill giants bringing up the rear. The battle started with the party getting rushed by the orcs and when they clashed, Jobi happened to be a bit too close to the front lines and was cut down very early on. Zola and Kel moved up and took the orcs head on with Blackwell throwing the last of his minotaur horn bombs, and Zerak casting ice storm spells, then rushing to aid Jobi, hoping he would make it in time to heal her. Asphodel advanced on the orcs as well, but stayed only until the time when a hole opened up so she could rush at the hill giants who were bombarding them with boulders. The heroes slowly thinned out the orcs without incurring much damage to themselves at all, except for Jobi, who Zerak had been able to heal her and snatch her from death’s claws. Then the ogres closed in with the party members and attempted to crush them with their clubs. They did hit the party members several times, with each time causing some significant damage. But, here again the party proved too strong for the ogres as well, especially after they had been hit with two ice storms and one was dominated via the Rogue card and made to smash one of his little orc cousins to a bloody pulp.

With the main gate cleared, they party the rushed in after the hill giants. Asphodel charged one of them and managed to hit him hard enough to push him five feet back. Zerak and Jobi and Zola used magic spells against the two giants, hoping to wear them down so that they wouldn’t be able to hit Asphodel very many times. After all, the stoneskin spell Asphodel had cast upon herself would only absorb so much damage before failing to protect her any longer. Kel and Blackwell hung back a bit and shot the giants with their bows, scoring hit after hit. Asphodel went toe to toe with the one giant she had rushed and had a very good round of attacks against it. So much so that she flew into the all-to-familiar rage that she had been in before. She made short work of the giant, felling it shortly after raging. About the same time the other giant, who had also sustained a couple of hits from Asphodel, succumbed to all the magic spells thrown at it and fell as well. Once the last enemy was dispatched, the raging Asphodel-fused-Eidolon looked over her/its should and momentarily fixed its gaze upon Kel. Then it shook its head and the rage subsided.

With the iniital strike into Gardmore Abbey going very well for our heroes, they were now poised to go after the leader of the orcs and hopefully end the evil reign of these foul beasts once and for all. Join us again in three weeks time when we continue our adventures with this adventuring band that is turning out to be quite a force to be reckoned with and see how they fare charging headlong into the jaws fate…

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17

JUN/2013

Session 30

Session 30 Synopsis:

After a much needed rest at Sir Berrian’s enclave, including some healing for everyone and the reattachment of Kel’s hand, the party thanked Sir Berrian and decided to make their way back to Winterhaven to report in to Lord Padraig and claim some rewards for the items and information they had found for their various patrons. the journey back to Winterhaven was uneventful since the party now knows the best ways to travel in order to avoid most encounters with anyone they don’t wish to meet.

When they arrived at Winterhaven about mid-afternoon, they noticed that the town was much more active and crowded since the last time they had been there. Apparently Lord Padraig and the town council had been busy recruiting soldiers for the impending assault on the Abbey’s unwelcome denizens. They made their way to Padraig’s estate to report what they had found and done at Gardmore Abbey since the last time they were in town. He was very happy to see the party and listened intently to their account of events. When told about their successes with finding items for the other people who had met with them a while back, he immediately sent someone to spread the news. When everyone was gathered, the party started distributing the items they found.

Kharas received a number of ancient minotaur relics with which he was more than pleased with and rewarded the heroes with a nice sum of gold. He was also shocked to hear that there were still some minotaurs living down there, but not surprised that they were more feral specimens of that race. Grundelmar was also extremely pleased to receive the head of Vadin Cartwright, secure in the knowledge that he would no longer plaque the countryside with his special brand of insanity. Alira Vond left the gathering very quickly once she paid the party for finding her two heirlooms. This was a bit strange since everyone else stayed around and wanted to act like they were all long lost friends. They also met with Sergeant Murgeddin and presented him with the sword Moonbane. He also was almost astonished to see that they had actually retrieved the sword. But before turning it over to him, they asked if they could keep the sword to use until they were finished with cleansing Gardmore Abbey since it was such a useful sword, especially against undead creatures. Murgeddin agreed but stressed that he does want it back at the end of the Gardmore campaign. The party also sold a lot of mundane arms and armor along with several magic items to Lord Padraig and when all was said and done, they each walked away with more than 8,500 gold pieces. Blackwell had also brought the heads of the evil adventurers they had battled alongside the dragon and asked if there were any known bounties on them. Unfortunately, no one recognized, nor heard of then and no bounties were to be had. The knowledge that there were five fewer evil people in the world because of them would have to be reward enough. Well, that and all their gear they acquired, that is.

In addition, they had spoken with Valthruun to see if he had a headband of alluring charisma he would be willing to trade for the headband of vast intellect they had acquired from the band of evil adventurers. He didn’t have one but was willing make one and do an even trade for it, though it would ahve to wait until “all this Gardmore Abbey business” was finished for his time was being completely taken and then some by preparing for the coming assault. The party agreed, and decided to go pitch Blackwell’s tent outside the town for the night.

Once their camp was made, amidst all the other camps of mercenaries and soldiers from neighboring towns (even some from Neverwinter), Jobi decided to put on her dancing outfit (yep real clothes) and proceeded to dance, entertaining all who walked by. She received many whistles, catcalls, shouts of appreciation, and some coins as well. Zerak was just mesmerized and just sat and intently watched her the whole time, almost drooling at some points. Zola stood as a bodyguard to Jobi, just in case someone got a little overzealous and decided he or she wanted a bit more than just dancing. During her dancing she convinced Asphodel to join her in dancing (in her halfling form of course). She immediately took to dancing very well, prompting Jobi to declare that Asphodel was a true natural at the craft and the two of them danced together, sometimes quite sensually and definitely rialing up the crowd that had gathered. After watching the two beauties bump and grind for a while, most patrons ended up searching out the local brothel to get some relief from certain… pressures.

The next morning, our heroes broke camp and headed back to Gardmore Abbey. Again, the trip was uneventful and when they arrived at the site, Blackwell started to scout out the far side of the walled town, looking for a good place to infiltrate without being spotted by any of the current inhabitants. this turned out to be rather easy since there was a breach in the wall right near where the wizard’s tower stood and none of the orcs came anywhere close to the tower and the surrounding buildings. They slowly crept into the town through the wall near a building that stuck out of the wall, but didn’t have any doors on the outside of the wall. Blackwell slowly walked up to the door of that building, not wanting to leave anything at their backs that could come and surprise them later. The partially ruined building appeared to be avoided by all the denizens here and it felt like it was shrouded in a heavy gloom, and not even the ravens dared draw near. As Blackwell approached, it felt as if even the air was getting heavier the closer he got to the doors. Two massive wooden portals engraved with twin reliefs of rampant dragons stood intact and closed. Each dragon bore two swords, one held aloft and one pointed downward. Above the door, an inscription read “Ever vigilant the dragon.” When he got about ten feet away from the doors, a vague black silhouette of an armored figure materialized outside the doors, accompanied by an otherworldly cold. “Only the bearer of the lonely sword passes this way unharmed,” it says. “Vandomar must open the seal.” So naturally, Blackwell ceased advancing and looked to the others to see what they might do next. No one had heard of anyone named Vandomar and weren’t sure what the lonely sword was. Kel tried to advance showing Moonbeam in a non-hostile way, but it was obviously not the correct sword for when she got within ten feet, the wraith began drawing its weapon. Kel stopped and backed away and the wraith put its weapon away and just stood guard at the doors. As the party backed away, the wraith disappeared, so they turned their attention the the square, multi-story building they believed was the wizard’s tower. Here again the orcs stayed well away, although they determined that if they ventured away from the building that they most likely would be spotted.

When the party turned their full attention to the tower, they saw the following:

The wizard’s tower broods above the murky fog of Gardmore Abbey like a gray giant. The tower doors lean off their hinges, the old wood charred and splintered, yet also frosted with rime. Two dragon-headed statues stand to either side of the doorway atop a five foot tall landing with steps leading up to the door.

Asphodel flew up to look through the door and saw the bodies of nearly a dozen orcs, all dead, but strangely they didn’t smell. A cursory sweep of detect magic revealed a collision of various schools of magic and one larger one in a cabinet at the back of the room. A fallen table with a sheet over what looked like a body dominated the center of the room. Zola used her mage hand spell to pull the sheet off the figure and revealed a flesh golem which sprang to life immediately. Also at moment, the two gargoyles decided to spring into action and attacked Zola from either side. Realizing that golems are not evil, have resistances to most forms of magic, Zola foregoes using her magic and new holy Morningstar and settled for closing in with her magical greatsword. Asphodel and Kel tore into the gargoyles with Jobi using her scorching ray and Zerak backing her up. Blackwell was caught between the two creatures at the door, but his rogue skills saved him from becoming flanked as he did battle with one of the gargoyles. The two gargoyles went down quickly under the onslaught, and Blackwell entered the room with Asphodel following shortly after. As Blackwell moved into an attack position against the flesh golem he missed the trap glyph on the floor and acid sprayed up from the floor covering a fifteen foot diameter area under and around him.

Now alerted to the presence of the energy traps the allies attempted to space themselves about the room. Asphodel used her flying ability to maneuver herself to the back of the golem, however, something went wrong when she attacked and her wing rebounded off the golem’s rigid structure and she was rendered stunned for a short time. The rest of the group now entered the room, as Blackwell used the key card to retreat outside the room to get some much needed healing in the form of a potion. Zerak began to lay down curse after curse via his evil eye hex dropping the monster’s defensive and offensive abilities. Even Jobi was pitching in with a successful strike with her enchanted sling (and a sigh of relief from the rest of the party). Under the weight of the allies’ attacks, the golem finally succumbed. Blackwell now proceeded to around the room and disabled the energy traps immediately after they activated. A search of the table and cabinets yielded the only thing of value, a scroll case with a strange scroll in it. Zerak examined the scroll and figured that it looked like some sort of scroll to either activate or deactivate something since it was not a true spell scroll. Next they turned their attention to the stairwell that led up to a landing with another closed door.

The door to the room was covered in a layer of ice, but with a measure of muscle, Asphodel and Blackwell managed to dislodge it and open the door. Inside it was cold, meat locker cold, and a series of ice blocks that resembled closets adorned three walls and four block of ice with humanoid shapes lying on top of them sat near the center of the room. On the far side a strange blue skinned man beckoned them to come in, "Visitors at last! Ohh please come in come in come in come in! Blackwell took a step into the room and the man became very excited, “Ohhhh!! Wonderful!!! I have something for you, yes! Its over here! Come in come in come in come in!” Then the man literally pushed his hand into one of the large ice blocks on the far end of the room and looked like he was searching for something. Blackwell decided to slowly approach and see what this strange person was up to. Shortly, the made exclaimed, “Ah! there it is! I’ve got it!” and pulled out his arm from the ice block and presented a frozen squirrel to Blackwell, “Here you go!” he happily proclaimed and then looked to see who else was coming into the room. Blackwell jumped for joy and moved across the room as Zola moved to the other corner of the room and Asphodel and Kel took up a protective position in front of Jobi and Zerak. Blackwell began to munch happily on the frozen treat and the strange undead man went to another dresser saying he had more gifts. He pulled out a sword and walked to the center of the room and suddenly focused a cone of cold on the largest concentration of the heroes: namely Asphodel, Jobi, Kel, and Zerak.

Then immediately after the four figures became zombies and closed in for battle. Two mummies ganged up on the werewolf and laid into him. All the allies felt a strange wave pass through them, however, most were able to shake off the effects. Zerak, however, found himself stunned and unable to move Asphodel placed herself between the mummies and her physically weaker allies and began to tear into them. Kel followed suit with her channel positive energy, but found her combat potential quickly over whelmed as the demented wizard threw out another cone of cold. Blackwell made a strategic retreat with his Key card to gain a few moments breather. In the meantime, Zola put her new holy morningstar to good use against the nearest Mummy. The mummy’s attacks were able to penetrate the aasimar’s sturdy armor, but her divine blessing aided in resisting any lingering effects, however, Blackwell wasn’t so lucky. It’s likely that the several of the party’s members would have faced disaster as the wizard began to cast his third cone of cold spell if not for a sudden and heroic effort. Asphodel leapt into action and bull-rushed the mummy in front of her and sent it hurtling back into the wizard disrupting his deadly spell. With Asphodel now pushed further away from her allies, Kel was overwhelmed and succumbed to her injures and collapsed. Jobi used her magic missile and scorching ray spells on any target that presented itself and Zerak came to his senses and fled the room to heal up. By now, Asphodel and Zola had dropped a mummy each and with the aid of Blackwell’s bow and Jobi and Zerak’s magicks, they brought down the other two. Jobi darted into the room and gifted some curative energy into the fallen princess. With his entourage of mummies dispatched, the crazy frozen wizard soon followed.

Among the various items our heroes found in this very frigid wizard’s lair was a large heavy tome bound in white dragon scales atop the table near the southwest corner of the room. Upon examination, the group determined that this was the Winterbole Codex – the tome that Valthruun was hoping still existed here. He will be very please to get his hands upon this work of research, which describes the connections between the Feywild and the “normal” world in a very esoteric manner. They also had found a scroll entitled, “The Southern Artifact.” It was written by someone named Vandomar, who by the tone of the writing was most likely a very knowledgeable wizard. It suggests that an artifact in the knights’ possession was responsible for the chaos unleashed, and through its agency the Far Realm somehow intruded into the watchtower. This is something that Sir Berrian would definitely be interested in since it pretty much documents the events that destroyed the Abbey over two hundred years ago.

The party found only a few things of note scattered throughout the old wizard’s tower. This is the complete list:

The strange ritual scroll found in a cabinet on the lower level

The Winterbole Codex for Valthruun

Four suits of half-plate armor worn by the mummies

A wand of shocking grasp (5 charges, CL 10) found in a block of ice

A number of small frozen creatures, like the frozen squirrel given to Blackwell by Vandomar, suspended in blocks of ice

Several scrolls found on one table including Restoration, Regeneration, and Cone of Cold

“The Southern Artifact” scroll that Sir Berrian would be interested in

A sword with an ice-blue blade and black hilt that Vandomar had pulled out of an ice block just before attacking the party

One Card from the Deck of Many Things, The Comet card (described below), found in another block of ice

The Comet Card (found on another koblod) –
Power: Comet’s Challenge: Single out (i.e. mark) one opponent within 50ft. Each attack that you make against the marked opponent that hits gives you 2 temporary hit points. At the beginning of each round after the first round, the marked creature gets a DC20 Will save to end the mark.
Effect: After hit, the comet card moves to a square adjacent to target.
Action: Swift Location: in card’s square Frequency: Once per round

Conquering the wizard’s tower was just another small victory for the party. They still needed to find the third sacred vessel for the cleansing of the Dragon Roost temple with Sir Oakley, and it seemed the item was nowhere to be found. Maybe they now had to scour the rest of the town for it, or maybe the building guarded by the wraith will provide some answers, assuming that they can get into the building, that is…

View

13

JUN/2013

Session 29

Session 29 Synopsis:

We last left our stalwart band of heroes in the second level of the catacombs of Dragon’s Roost – more specifically in the minotaur Sun Room, resting and getting ready to continue on after the terrible explosions and ceiling/room collapses. Asphodel summoned an earth elemental to dig out a tunnel along the route where the hallway was to the grand chamber of the dragon. During the digging, they recovered the dead kobolds’ bodies and gear plus the Moon card one of the kobold’s was holding at the instance of its untimely death.
They discovered that the Moon card has the following properties:

The Moon Card
Power: Wish on the Moon: Receive healing equivalent to a Cure Light Wounds Spell (1d8+5)
Effect: Gain concealment from enemies within 5 squares to you until the end of your next turn
Action: Swift Location: in card’s square Frequency: once per encounter for each creature

When the earth elemental broke through to the chamber, it was immediately fired upon by numerous enemies using bows and spells. It dropped back out of the entrance it created dead and scorched, then disappeared like all summoned creatures do. So Asphodel started summoning her eidolon, hoping that nothing would rush them while she spent the entire minute in the summoning ritual. No one moved. They waited and nothing came into view, so they surmised they were waiting for the party to show themselves before attacking.

They debated a bit amongst themselves and decided to lash a mirror onto the end of Jobi’s magic quarterstaff to get a look into the room without putting anyone in harm’s way until absolutely necessary. They saw only two kobolds about midway into the room with composite short bows and looking quite strong for kobolds. So Zerak got an idea to use his last ostrich egg as a giant stink bomb. They thought about attaching an explosive onto the egg before throwing it, but thought better of it in light of what had happened earlier, plus when thought about it, the explosion may dilute the stink too much by scattering and/or vaporizing it in the blast. Asphodel cast numerous buffing spells on herself, Zerak, and Blackwell, including stoneskin, cat’s grace, ablative barrier, and others before the battle began since she knew the coming altercation was going to be very, very bloody. And the Blackwell threw the ostrich egg and it laded exactly where he wanted it too – forcing the two kobolds to scatter from it. But he had exposed himself to attacks from the other kobolds in the room and he was hit by other arrow fire and magic missile spells. And so the battle commenced…

Blackwell jumped back out of the line of fire as Kel, Zola, and Asphodel advanced. Asphodel went after the dragon and found it very difficult to hit, let alone damage. Almost immediately the dragon flew away from Asphodel and positioned itself close to the entrance to the tunnel the heroes carved out and used its negative energy breath weapon – dealing significant damage to at least half of the party. Fortunately its breath weapon didn’t actually do anything more than negative energy damage and didn’t drain energy or abilities (that would have been truly dire). jobi retaliated with a magic missile spell, only to find out that somehow the dragon was immune to them. So Jobi decided to take on a more supportive role and started to heal her comrades as needed in order to keep them in the fight – all the while trying to stay out of the way of any more dragon breath attacks. Blackwell and Zerak began concentrating on the kobolds in the room. Four of them were exceptional fighters (using kobold standards, that is) and tow of them wer actually quite accomplished sorcerers (very surprising indeed). Zola resorted to using searing light spells in addition to physical attacks against targets that she was able to hit (i.e. kobolds in the beginning).

Asphodel tried again to use the Donjon card against the dragon, but it failed to do anything. This was the first time the cards hadn’t worked as expected. But then again, this was the first time any of them tried to use the same card against the same enemy more than one time. Maybe the cards only affect a creature once. Or maybe the dragon had some sort of protection against the card(s) now that it had already been the victim of their use against it. She made a mental note of this as something to ponder later, for right now things were looking a bit chaotic and deadly.

Shortly into the battle, however, a new threat made itself known to all. The band of five adventurers that our heroes had encountered before on top of Dragon’s Roost materialized as if out of thin air amongst the warring combatants. They must have come through the other tunnel out of this chamber, presumably the one that the dragon would use to go out hunting for food and treasure. Then made themselves invisible so they could position themselves around the room without being seen in order to get some surprise strikes in at everyone. The human fighter appeared behind Blackwell and took a sizeable chunk out of his hide. The drow rogue did some significant damage to Kel via arrows. Zola was fired upon by the half-orc barbarian, who was definitely no slouch when it came to ranged combat. Then the bulk of the group, including the dragon and its kobold lackeys, took damage from two different fireballs cast by a human wizard and what looked like a dwarven cleric.

Trying to make the best of a bad situation, the party split their efforts into attacking the dragon and its comrades a bit more than the evil adventurers in hopes that the other adventurers would help out by taking out some of the kobolds and damaging the dragon along with our heroes, along with Jobi doling out healing to whomever she could reach. And to a certain extent, they did help out in that respect. But they also began concentrating their attacks, especially ranged spells, like fireball and lightning bolts more at the party than anyone else. this prompted a very short-lived “truce” between the party and the dragon. The dragon had been concentrating its attacks against Kel and Zola, quite effectively knocking them down to edge of death. Zola just laid prone, hoping to feign death so as not be a threat anymore to the dragon so it would leave her alone. Kel, also being very badly hurt, did the only thing she could to keep herself alive, was to channel positive energy and heal herself and the party members close by. This also ended up healing the dragon. This caused the dragon to look at Kel with a confused look and her trying to show that she wasn’t going to attack it by backing up a couple feet with weapon down. the dragon took that as a sign to end hostilities against her, for the moment, and concentrate on some of the evil adventurers. It flew the short distance over to the rogue that had been firing arrows at everybody for the last several rounds of combat and began battling the dark elf. Zola took the opportunity to crawl away and begin healing herself so she could rejoin the battle as soon as possible.

Kel then flanked the drow rogue with the dragon and between the two of them, eviscerated the dark elf. But as with all evil creatures, the truce was now inconvenient for the dragon and it tore into Kel since the opportunity presented itself. Any mortal would have been ripped into a mutilated mass of flesh and broken bone after the dragon finished its next attacks against Kel, if not for the heroic abilities and luck that our stalwart band possesses (translation = 2 hero points used). As it was, Kel’s left hand was completely severed off and went flying across the room. Then the dragon started to concentrate on Blackwell and Asphodel. And this gave Jobi a chance to run out to Kel and use more healing magic on her to steal her away from her impending death. Unfortunately for Zola, where the dragon landed kept her in the fray and so she had to try and keep away from the dragon as much as possible which delayed her healing for a while. In addition, Zola had been using the Throne card to slow down the dragon in hopes of being able to get away, or at least avoid any more consecutive rounds of attacks from it. The dragon’s attention also had the effect of forcing Blackwell to teleport back and forth from the tunneled out hallway and back into the room numerous times, trying to stay out of the way of getting hit (effectively using his comrades as his personal living shields). To his credit though, he was also able to attack the human fighter that snuck up on him using his sneak attack ability since he was literally popping in and out. But one time when doing this, a kobold who was still alive at the time, rushed and grabbed the Vizier card after Blackwell had used it against the human fighter, depriving him of regaining the card for the rest of the battle.

Asphodel decided to go after the half-orc barbarian that was firing arrows quite effectively at the party and her charge, now fueled by her rage, bowled over the half-orc and hurt him severely. But he had a card as well and used it on Asphodel. She became completely dominated by his will to rush and attack the nearest of her allies, which happened to be Blackwell. Fortunately for Blackwell, Asphodel’s attacks missed their mark (arguably the worst attacks of the entire battle), and he was spared their potentially devastating damage. And fortunately for everyone, the card’s effect on Asphodel was very short-lived as well. When she regained her senses, she helped Blackwell finish off the human fighter and then stormed over to the half-orc and obliterated him.

Meanwhile, Zerak was summoning up rhinos to deal damage and preoccupy the human wizard that kept throwing area spells at them. Then he followed up the second rhino with a wasp swarm that definitely distracted the wizard until he was finally killed by magic missiles. Jobi also had a chance to use the Euryale card she was holding and successfully petrified the dwarven cleric, allowing other members of the party (Zerak and Blackwell) to start concentrating on him. Afer the petrification wore off, Zerak his the cleric with the Skull card and knocked him unconscious. And that allowed Blackwell the chance to run up to him and deliver the killing blow, putting the cleric out of their (as in the party’s) misery.

Only a bit more than a minute into this chaotic battle, it was reduced to just our heroes and the umbral dragon. The only one “brave” enough to go after the dragon head on was Asphodel. The rest of the party believed, and possibly rightly so, that the dragon would just make a meal out of them if they ventured too close, hung back and tried to decide what ranged offensive actions they had at their disposal would be most effective against this terrible and intelligent beast. Asphodel raged on and faced the dragon in the air and attacked. And by some whim of luck or by chance of fate, or maybe destiny itself, she scored some of the most impressive hits of her life against any foe. She lashed out and ripped into the dragon’s skull, tearing flesh, breaking bone, and piercing the soft, vulnerable brain tissues that hid beneath that massive skull. The dragon convulsed, and quickly died with a look of incredulous surprise as it crashed to the hard stone floor. This time, Asphodel was able to contain her rage and did not lose herself the maddening bloodlust of the unfettered carnage and gore covering the room and her allies. She quickly dismissed her eidolon and fell to the floor next to the dragon, landing in the growing pool of blood leaking out of the fist-sized hole in its skull and staring straight into its large, opened unseeing eyes. And there she sat as she slowly regained the strength to function normally again…

Sometime later, after completely searching the area our, heroes found not only the Vizier card stolen from Blackwell during the battle, but also all the following items, which includes the dragon’s hoard, everything that the kobold’s had, and everything that the group of evil adventurers’ had as well:

The Chalice of the Dragon – one of the three sacred vessels that Sir Oakley needs to purify the temple on Dragons Roost

800 platinum pieces

2,250 gold pieces

5,000 silver pieces

One golden vase with mithral inlays of minotaur origins – a great artifact for

One suit of Half-plate +1 of Jousting

One Morning Star +1 and Holy

One Mask of a Thousand Tomes

One suit of Chainmail +1

One Heavy Steel Shield +1

One Bastard Sword +1

Three Cloaks of Resistance +1

Two suits of Leather Armor +2

Two Javelins of Lightning

One Composite Longbow 1 (4 strength)

40 Arrows +2

One Rapier +1

One suit of Full Plate +2

One heavy Wooden Shield +2

One Mace +1 of Wounding

One Wand of Scorching Ray (12 charges)

One Headband of Vast intellect +2

A pair of spiked gauntlets

5 javelins

A masterwork greataxe

One masterwork hand crossbow and 20 bolts

One climber’s kit

One set of masterwork thieves’ tools

One Healer’s Kit (full)

One masterwork light crossbow and 20 bolts

Fourteen sets of kobold-sized leather armor

Four sets of kobold-sized chainmail

A slew of kobold-sized arms, including daggers, swords, staves, spears – all non-magical

Two kobold-sized Composite Short Bows +1 and 40 arrows

The cards the found among the dragon, kobolds, and evil adventurers were the following:

The Ruin Card (found on another koblod) –
Power: Touch of Ruin: Ranged touch attack within 15ft radius – hit target is slowed and weakened (DC16 Will save ends both), miss and target is slowed until end of your next turn
Effect: You and target teleport and swap places, any creature ending turn in card’s square is weakened until end of its next turn. The card does not teleport with creature who activated the Touch of Ruin power
Action: Standard Location: in card’s square Frequency: once per encounter

The Talons Card (found on a third kobold) -
Power: Grasping Talons: Ranged touch attack within 25ft radius – hit target paralyzed (DC16 Will save ends) – miss and target is paralyzed until end of your next turn
Effect: Any creature ending its turn in the card’s square is paralyzed until the end of its next turn. Card moves to random adjacent square.
Action: Standard Location: in card’s square Frequency: once per encounter

The Idiot Card (found on the evil human wizard) –
Power: Touch of Idiocy: Ranged touch attack within 15ft radius – hit target is stunned (DC16 will save ends), miss and target is dazed till end of your next turn
Effect: Any creature ending its turn in card’s square is dazed until end of its next turn. Card moves to random adjacent square.
Action: Standard Location: in card’s square Frequency: once per encounter

The Rogue Card (found on the evil half-orc barbaian) –
Power: Rogue’s Incitement: Ranged touch attack within 50ft radius – hit target is dominated till end of your next turn. Dominated creature moves and attacks nearest ally on its round.
Effect: You are pushed up to 5 squares in a random direction, anyone in card’s square does 1d6 extra damage. Card moves to random adjacent square
Action: Standard Location: in card’s square Frequency: once per encounter

The Sun Card (found on the drow rogue) –
Power: Sun’s Refreshment: Receive healing equivalent to a Cure Moderate Wounds Spell (2d8+10)
Effect: Gain concealment from enemies adjacent to you until the end of your next turn
Action: Swift Location: in card’s square Frequency: once per encounter for each creature

Next week’s exciting adventures continue with our heroes camped out with Sir Berrian’s group of elves in the forest within Gardmore Abbey, where they could study the new cards they had recovered to discern their powers. Now they had a total of fifteen of the cards from the Deck of Many Things, three quarters of the fabled twenty-two card deck. Also, they had two of the three sacred vessels they needed to recover so Sir Oakley can do the purification ritual. Plus they needed to heal up and relax a little as they decided their next moves – do they now go to the wizard’s tower, or will they go back to Winterhaven to report back and present the artifacts and items they found to those looking for them, or do they do something completely different…

View

3

JUN/2013

Session 28

Session 28 Synopsis:

After gathering up the treasure they had found and taking a few minutes to investigate the secret door, our heroes decided that they should take a look at where the other gnolls had come from before opening the secret door, just to make sure nothing came at them from that direction. Beyond the two doors the other gnolls rushed in from was another room that had more rancid sleeping mats and broken down furniture as well as a circular stone pedestal. Just after the party members entered the room, they had a vision of sorts…

Everything goes dark for a moment, then you see a knight in gleaming armor kneeling in prayer before the pedestal which once had a small statue on it, apparently oblivious to the battle raging around him. There are other knights engaged in heavy battle with strange orc-like creatures, but none that you’ve seen before. They look like they are some cross between orc and some kind of frost or cold dwelling demon. The knight then stands and draws a deck of cards from a pouch at his belt and places it on the pedestal. Hands trembling, he turns the top card over. His face is anxious for a few moments and then quickly turns into one of horror as he recoils from the card. Chaos erupts around the knight as magical energies swirl out from the card and engulf everything and everyone in the room. You see a rift appear where the statue was. It looks like the fabric of the multiverse has been torn and all manner of strange alien creatures begin pouring out and joining the fight against the knights and the orc-like creatures. The slaughter continues as your sight again fades, plunging the room into darkness once more. Your sight clears to reveal the decimated centuries old ruins of that one knight’s actions.

A quick consensus between our heroes brought them to the conclusion that they had seen an echo of the past. Most likely it was the event that doomed Gardmore abbey and caused the downfall of the knights who had inhabited and guarded the temple of Bahamut. Sir Berrian would be interested in knowing what they saw in the vision. It may give him more clues as to the fate of his and his sister’s father.

Once the vision was over, everyone cautiously looked around at the room itself. There was much damage done to it and Kel had told the party that the room was definitely not safe. It could collapse from any more violent actions done in the room, such as battles, very loud noises, etc. There was one door leading out of this room that was closed. Blackwell searched the door for traps and did not find any. The door wasn’t locked either, but it looked like it was a bit skewed, as if the door jam had shifted and was now putting pressure onto the tops of the doors. They could be dangerous to open, so Blackwell and Asphodel listened at the door to try and hear if anything was beyond it. Asphodel heard grunting and other noises that were being made in some sort of rhythm, like a language, but it was none that she had ever heard before. Zerak and Blackwell also tried to decipher what they were hearing and finally determined that it must be minotaurs talking to each other.

They also thought that it would be too dangerous to open these doors and instead opted to go through the secret door instead. So Blackwell decided to ram two silver short swords in between the door jams in hopes of completely jamming the doors shut. Unfortunately, the Minotaurs heard him do this and went silent. The party all retreated back into the sun room where the gnolls were and closed the door to the unstable room. Then they heard a loud smash as the jammed door splintered apart from what they assumed was a minotaur ramming the doors. Kel was up close to the still closed door and braced herself to keep a minotaur stuck in the doorway and not allow it to pass through to the others in the group. Only a few seconds passed when a minotaur broke through the door, splintering it into hundreds of pieces! The hulking minotaur had so much momentum left that it bowled over Kel and slid to a stop on its face right under Asphodel, who was hovering about 5 feet off the ground some 15 feet away from the door. Then another minotaur showed up in the now empty doorway as well.

Now the battle was on with Kel, Zola, and Asphodel concentrating on the one on the ground and everyone else using ranged attacks against the other minotaur. Asphodel casted haste on everyone to begin, allowing our heroes to make even more attacks each round. Kel and Zola hit the creature and caused it some damage but it was Asphodel who finished it off. Asphodel attacked the back of the minotaur from her hovering position above it and had done some immense damage to the creature in only a single round of combat, essentially making it just a bloody mess with body parts severed and eviserated it from its back around its spine. And something inside Asphodel snapped. What follows is a description of what the party saw and what Asphodel saw as she would later recount what it was like for her…

With a haste induced rapid succession of claw swipes and wing buffets, the eidolon empowered Asphodel quickly and quite bloodily dispatched the large minotaur beneath her. Somewhere deep inside her core, she felt a shifting. Ashpodel’s tiny halfling body convulsed suddenly as she hovered within her draconian eidolon. For a split second, it looked as if the eidolon was being banished as it staggered slightly; however, this was not the case. Those that might have been able to see magic would have witnessed a truly marvelous and almost terrifying series of chaotic waves radiating from the Asphodel dragon. The eidolon clad Asphodel dropped to a knee as if in pain. The waves seemed to twist and contort as they began to wrap around the dragon’s body.

Mere seconds later, an almost feral roar erupted from the dragon’s maw. The once translucent draconic form was now blood red and as solid as the minotaur upon which it crouched. Only a close, visual inspection of the dragon’s scaly body would reveal the small convulsing shape of a halfling girl with burning red eyes floating within. The dragon let out a throaty growl as he glared around at every possible threat, both enemies and allies. Settling on what he perceived as the biggest threat, the dragon beat its wings once and plowed into another minotaur. The dragon’s rage made him oblivious to the creature’s spiked armor.

It was at this time that two other minotaurs made themselves known. One had charged through the other door into this chamber and was engaged by Zerak, Jobi, and Zola by using webs, burning hands, and melee attacks. The other, much more dangerous minotaur had actually charged and broken through the solid wall next to the splintered door. It was wearing heavy armor complete with spiked shoulders, helm, and gauntlets which went unnoticed as Asphodel charged it for the attack. And this one was also right beside the still kneeling Kel, who kept on fighting from that position, fearing a direct hit if she stood up so close to the minotaur. Asphodel’s recollection continued on…

Within the eidolon, the young halfling’s mind was also in chaos. She was suddenly back in the strange laboratory strapped to a cold metal table as her mother’s dragon shaped eidolon exploded into being. At first, it was the same as every nightmare she had ever had about that day. Suddenly something changed, some of the figures of people mutated into minotaurs.The rest changed also, but only slightly different looking. Her eyes stung when she tried to focus on them. A large minotaur came into her view and the dragon seemed to leap in front of her and attacked it. As it fell to the ground dead, the dragon leveled a hate filled gaze at a heavily armored human about to rise and strike out with a hand and a half sword. Not giving the warrior a chance to deliver his attack, the dragon lept toward him and dealt it several massive claw swipes.

Something inside Asphodel clinched. The cry of pain…it was familiar. Somehow… she knew that person. With that, the blurry armored form shifted slightly until the person’s face was clearer. Kel was crouched defensively on the ground. She watched as the young princess cast aside her long blade and pulled behind her heavy shield. No, Asphodel tried to scream, but the words seemed to die in her throat. The dragon between her and the severely wounded princess seethed in anger as it readied its massive claws and wings for a full out assault. Tears of pain and helplessness poured from Asphodel’s eyes as she fought to call off the deranged dragon. She knew that if he were to launch his next attack then… he would… kill her.

Suddenly, the dragon shifted his stance as a new combatant came into view. Unlike the previous, this figure’s features sharpened almost instantly. Zola! Asphodel managed to gasp aloud. The dragon growled and angled to attack the fallen angel, the only one that she truly thought of… as a… friend. The aasimar threw up her empty hands and began speaking to the dragon. A second later, the beautifully exotic tiefling, Jobi, was standing at Zola’s shoulder. The two were unarmed and looked to be pleading with the enraged dragon.

Then, their words began to carry past the overly protective dragon. She heard them begging her to stop, that the minotaurs were gone. The laboratory faded away. All that was left was a few ravaged piles of minotaur remains and her companions. Kel was huddled protectively behind her shield bleeding from the claw wounds that she had given her. That was when she realized the truth. It wasn’t the dragon that had attacked the clerical princess… it was her. She began screaming…

The blood-red eidolon stared in confusion at the odd pair of enemies that entered his vision, an aasimar and a tiefling. He growled loudly and readied himself for an attack. Suddenly the dragon convulsed and wrapped its arms protectively around its body. The dragon pounded it wings launching it into the air. It unleashed a bellowing roar that went on for several seconds before it began tapering off into a decidedly different sound, a screaming halfling girl. The bloody red color faded from the eidolon as the roar subsided, and when all the red had vanished, the eidolon winked out of existence. Asphodel’s scream stopped instantly as she fell limp to the hard stone ground.

Zola carried her away from the blood spattered ground to a relatively clean area to sit down and comfort the halfling. Jobi also sat with them lending her support to Asphodel as she slowly regained her senses and became more alert to her surroundings. Our heroes sat for a while in this room allowing Asphodel the time she needed to compose herself and be able to continue their exploration of this place. While this was going on, Blackwell decided he wanted a souvenir and started to rip off one of the minotaur’s horns. He was having difficulty so Zola helped out and with a ripping and crunching noise, the first one came off. And Jobi nearly lost her trail ration lunch. So she ran towards the other side of the chamber and covered her ears as they tore off all the other horns. Then someone got the idea of cleaning them out and stuffing them with some of the black powder they had and making minotaur horn bombs out of them. So, after building bombs and some washing off of the blood everyone had on them with water creation spells, they decided to move on towards the other secret door instead of going into the room where the minotaurs had come out of since that connecting room was now even more unstable than before.

The secret room revealed an ancient secret temple:

The air in this chamber is stifling and oppressive, as though the doors had not been opened in centuries. You see no sign of creatures within, but you can feel a presence in the room as if you were close to an enormous sleeping beast, its slow, heavy breathing just below the threshold of hearing. In contrast to the elegant artwork that adorns the other chambers in this area, the walls here are carved with leering demonic faces and depictions of minotaurs engaging in brutal acts of savagery, wallowing in gore and drinking blood. A stone altar is against one wall and holds a sacrificial bowl, a stone rod, and an ancient book. On small shelves above the altar are 4 small stone idols carved in the image of some demonic minotaur beast-like creature.

Zerak believed that this room was a temple to Baphomet, the evil demon-god of the minotaurs. The party decided that they should take the bowl, rod, book, and statues up out of here and present them to Kharas the Just. He would be very interested and pleased that they had found some very ancient relics of the minotaurs. The book was in very bad shape, but with several mending spells, they were able to get it to the point that they could handle and store it without fear of destroying it. At the other end of the chamber was another set of double doors. When Blackwell checked them out, he discovered that they were barred from the other side and could not be opened from this side. So he got an idea to use his Deck of Many Things card to teleport to the other side. It was risky since they had no idea what was on the other side (for no sound could be heard beyond the doors), but they thought it a better course of action than going back the other way. So he teleported to the other side and saw that he was in a long corridor that continued on beyond his sight. The door turned out to be barred with a 4×4 bar of iron, which he was incapable of lifting on his own. So Asphodel, now back with her eidolen, also teleported over using the card and was able to lift the bar without any problems.

Once the doors were open, our stalwart band made their way down the corridor and around the corner. There they came to another set of double doors. This time Blackwell found that they were trapped with a Glyph of Warding and set about disabling it. Meanwhile the party moved back up the corridor to hopefully make it out of harm’s way in case he did not disable the glyph successfully. Which turned out to be the case. Blackwell did something wrong and got lit up with a whole bunch of electricity; hair standing on end and scorched too. Nasty burnt dog smell, yuch. Um, yeah, anyway, no one else was harmed by the glyph and Zerak administered some healing to Blackwell. Then Blackwell picked the locks and Asphodel pushed open the doors to reveal:

This enormous chamber was the heart of the minotaurs’ temple, and it remained a place of worship for the knights of the abbey in addition to the larger temple above ground. Statues depicting saints and heroes-both human and minotaur-offer eternal praise to a great statue of Bahamut installed by the knights. The abbey’s greatest treasures were displayed in this room for Bahamut’s glory, but those treasures were an irresistible lure for the dragon that now makes its lair here. Treasure stripped from the walls and given in tribute by the gnolls and minotaurs is now heaped on the floor to make the dragon’s bed.

This chamber glitters with flakes of gold leaf that still cling to reliefs of minotaurs and statues of human knights, all offering homage to a huge statue of a noble-looking dragon. The marble floor is adorned with elaborate designs that form a path toward the dragon statue, accentuated by parallel lines of faceted metal columns. The ceiling ranges from 20 feet to 40 feet at the center of the room, about where the double doors are where the party entered. A heap of treasure is piled in one corner where
it forms a bed for a living dragon, its scales are black and all its colors are muted. Roughly two dozen kobolds mill about the room. Many are clad in armor that echoes their dragon patron. Several others are in robes, standing in various places spread about the room. The rest are wearing leather armor. All have weapons out and everyone is looking towards the doors when the party opens them.

Asphodel recognized the dragon type as an umbral dragon – one that breathes negative energy and uses spells effectively and whispers this to the rest of the party. Only three members of the party are visible to the dragon at this time. And it speaks, “Who are you to enter my domain?” Asphodel began speaking to the dragon trying to play upon its egotistic nature by flattering it and debasing the party. She was able to keep the conversation going for a little while, when they noticed that one of the kobolds had a card from the Deck of Many Things. That’s when the party thought of using the explosive minotaur horns along with vials of alchemist’s fire and the last of the Stygian Fire Water bottles that Zerak had procured from Mordai Vell’s estate after that crazy party they went to. They spaced them out evenly along the corridor to the door to the dragon chamber all the way to the 90 degree turn in the corridor, probably 120 feet or so. Plus they also laid down a cask of black powder right near the double doors so the blasts would carry into the room itself. The dragon so far had only seen three of the party members, which left Zerak, Kel, and Jobi free to get this trap set up. Their thinking was to lure as many kobolds as possible into the corridor and then set off the explosives with a fireball bead from the necklace of fireballs Zerak still had. He gave on of them to Kel since her aiming ability was better than his. Plus he and Jobi, being the squishiest ones of the group, could then hang further back in case there was a backlash of fire or whatnot and not get injured from it. Or at least, that was the idealistic version of the plan they had formulated.

Meanwhile the conversation with the dragon hadn’t been going so good. Now it seemed that the dragon could sense that our heroes had a lot of magic on their persons and was beginning to demand payment in exchange for letting them live through this intrusion into its lair. So Asphodel began formulating her own plan…

Staring across the large chamber, Asphodel quickly calculated the chances of her and her companions surviving the battle that seemed imminent. With well over 20 kobolds, several of which seemed to be casters and an umbral dragon… the situation seemed grim. Tapping into her newly discovered intuitive knowledge of dragon-kind, she attempted to play up to the dragon’s ego. She knew that it would only work while the dragon believed he would come out ahead. The Donjon card seemed to burn in the back of her mind. Possibly… I’ll have to get closer to him. She glanced over her shoulder at the others. She saw fear, not so much in their faces, but in their reactions. She felt guilty for what she did to Kel and nearly did to Zo… everyone else. She had to try.

And so Asphodel strode into the room; not with arrogance but with purpose while trying to fool the dragon into thinking she was going to capitulate to his demands. She got to within 25 feet of the dragon and stopped right in front of one of the heavily armored kobolds. The sight was almost comical – a kobold “warrior” no taller than 3 feet trying to look brave standing next to the hulking form of her eidolon. She the whipped out the Donjon card and used its power against the dragon and her hopes rose just a bit when the dragon actually disappeared. Then she shouted at the top of her lungs that she was now in charge and all the kobolds now served her, and smashed the kobold standing in front of her on the head, knocking him down.

The intimidation tactic didn’t quite work, for though the kobolds were stunned for a few seconds, they quickly came back and started to charge the party to attack! But those few seconds gave Asphodel enough time to run into the corridor while shouting at her comrades to do the same. They all ran into the corridor with the kobolds right on their heels. Asphodel stopped to block the kobolds from advancing further down the corridor so that the rest of the party could be a good distance away. Plus she was immune to fire and had cast a stoneskin spell on herself so she felt like she was pretty invulnerable to what was coming. The kobolds piled in one after another, just as planned. Then Asphodel gave the signal:

“Throw the fireball NOW!” A cacophonous explosion threatened to knock the eidolon clad Asphodel forward into the rushing kobolds. As planned, the series of minotaur horn bombs, alchemist’s fire vials, and Stygian firewater bottles blasted its way down the corridor past her. The eidolon shell was immune to the fire, and with the stoneskin spell she placed upon herself as backup; she braced for the impending concussive force of the chain reaction. It wasn’t until the first rock from the tunnel roof began falling that she began to doubt her chances. She dove to the ground and prepared for the worst.

And she wasn’t disappointed. The series of blasts did their job, killing a lot of the kobolds outright and causing major wounds on the others in the corridor. But when the cask blew up, that’s when things turned bad. The roof began collapsing! It started with a very loud rumbling sound they all could feel through the stone floor and walls, and then it quickly cascaded down the corridor. Asphodel only managed to get a little way before she was engulfed by the falling stones. The rest of the party saw fire then dust come quickly around the corner, then saw the cave in rushing towards them. They ran as fast as they could, only barely keeping ahead of the violence they had created. They ran through the doors back into the temple to Baphomet and were trying to get out of that room when they saw that the cave in wasn’t just following the corridor, but the room where they had seen the vision of that first cataclysmic event happened, which was already structurally compromised, had collapsed as well. Not only were they running from the crushing stones behind them, now they were also just to the left of them! They sprinted as fast as they could out into the sun room, narrowly missing a crushing fate. Luckily the collapse had lost its steam and stopped before the last room on this level also got swallowed by tons of stones and dirt. Only by diving out of the way did Zola avert becoming another blood stain on these stone floors.

When the dust had settled, the five heroes saw that there was nothing left resembling a corridor or room beyond the one they were in. They feared that Asphodel had been crushed to death. But Zerak thought of summoning an earth elemental to start digging towards the last know location of her, in hopes of finding the halfling alive. But luck was with them this day. The elemental dug out a tunnel and found her alive! With the whole party back together again, they were happy that they had all survived a near death experience together.

Contemplating on what they had done, they collectively learned a little bit about dungeoneering and engineering: Explosive, concussive bombs underground, even in worked stone, is a very dangerous thing and should not be done willie nillie as they had just done. Everyone kind of had this notion in the back of their minds as they were prepping this trap, but none thought that it could be this bad. Now they knew that it could have been much, much worse. And this could have been their collective grave.

But now that it was done, they had another problem, well several problems. One was that they knew at least one of the cards they were searching for was buried in the aftermath. Plus, most likely the dragon had escaped the Donjon and was now completely enraged at them. Plus if one of the kobolds had a card, who’s to say that others didn’t or even the dragon had one or more other cards. They were going to have to dig their way to retrieve the one card they knew about and they were still going to have to face the dragon. Besides, it had a lot of treasure that it slept on…

In our upcoming adventure, we’ll see what else can go “BOOM” in the dead of the night…

View

15

MAY/2013

Session 27

Session 27 Synopsis (updated to include the stay with the elves):

After gathering up the treasure and items they were searching for from this large chamber, our heroes decided that a bit of rest was needed in order to regain their drained abilities. Kel tried to bless the area in hopes of beating down the evilness of the place if just for a little while while they rested. A couple bandages of recovery, a number of healing spells and nearly a full day of rest happened before they were ready to continue on. During this resting period Zerak did some looking into the strange viscous liquid on the table that Vadin Cartwright had. He determined that the substance was made from the substance of the Abyss and it gave off a most certainly evil aura. And so he warned everyone not to touch it or even get too close to it.

First up was the cleansing and re-consecration of the secret temple/altar to Sarenrae. Jobi worked very hard to get this area cleaned and ready for it to receive Sarenrae’s blessings once again. When all the candles were in place and lit and the incense was burning on the freshly cleaned altar, Jobi knelt down and began her chant:

Mahtava Sarenrae puhdistaa nämä haavat ja takaisin teidän temppeli (ancient celestial language) (translated here for the rest of us: Mighty Sarenrae cleanse these wounds and reclaim your temple).

She had to repeat this chant for two full hours without interruption. The rest of the party waited outside the secret doors, for there was no real room to stand without fear of knocking over a candle (which also could not happen for a successful ritual). They watched all around for any signs that something evil may try to come and interrupt her and they did not have to wait for very long. About half an hour into the ritual, seven shadows materialized out of the walls and started to converge on Jobi.

Zola immediately resorted to using her searing light spells to attack the evil creatures from afar, thus avoiding stepping into the room and possibly disturbing the candles. Her spells were very deadly to the shadows, bring some of them down with just one casting. Blackwell started attacking using his magic bow and redirected its attention away from Jobi and onto him. Kel channeled positive energy, damaging nearly all of the shadows at the same time and got the attention of one of the shadows away from Jobi as well. Plus she used Moonbane, the sword that they were asked to retrieve since it had the ability to fully damage incorporeal undead. The shadow that focused on Kel was a bit more powerful than the others and after only a couple of successful hits by the shadow against her, she dropped to the floor because her strength was nearly gone, almost to the point of her dying and becoming a shadow herself!

Zerak had summoned a couple of lantern archons to try to distract the shadows in the temple from Jobi and summoned a hound archon to get in between the stronger shadow and Kel, hoping to distract it enough so it wouldn’t kill Kel. It succeeded in prying it’s attention from Kel but the lantern archons were much less successful and were not able to distract any away from Jobi.

Meanwhile the shadows in the room were basically beating on Jobi, draining her strength at an alarming rate. Fortunately, she was able to keep her concentration and not falter with the re-consecration ritual. Asphodel flew into the room and began attacking the shadows one at a time, using all of her physical attacks against a single foe until it was destroyed, which in this case, usually didn’t take more than a round each. But even at this fast pace that they were able to vanquish these shadows, there were enough of them that they nearly killed Jobi as well. Her strength was just a depleted as Kel’s was. It was the fact that the two women were on the verge of death and the ritual nearly disrupted that prompted Blackwell to use his Deck of Many Things Card to teleport into the room. He successfully avoided knocking any candles over and then attacked one of the last remaining shadows with his new ghost-touched sword and was able to destroy it before it had another chance to attack Jobi.

With all the shadows destroyed, Asphodel hovered in the temple near Jobi for the rest of the time she had to perform the ritual, since if Jobi sustained just one more hit from a shadow she would die and become one herself. Fortunately for our heroes no more shadows or evil creatures showed up to attempt to thwart their activities.

At the end of the ritual all the candles flared up and the whole room became as bright as the summer noon day sun. Our heroes saw Jobi, or rather just an outline of her since it was so bright, slump over at the end of her chanting then rise up and float in a bright light. They also heard her distant screams of pain and cries of joy. After a few minutes the bright light fades and Jobi slowly sank to the floor and gently collapsed on the hard stone floor. The party quickly wrapped her with more of the bandages of recovery and she slept for many hours. Upon the altar a silver holy symbol of Sarenrae and a crimson sash appeared. Once she awoke sh gathered up the items from the altar and the party continued to rest from the very draining battle with the shadows. Healing took several bandages of recovery, a number of healing and restoration spells and another full day for the party to feel ready to continue on.

In order to rest in safety, they decided to travel back to the elven encampment in the forested area near Gardmore Abbey and (hopefully) impose a little on Sir Berrian and his companions. When they arrived at the clearing, they were greeted as friends and were quickly looked after since it was apparent to the elves that many of the group were suffering from injuries; ones that normally took a long time to heal. After our heroes described what had happened inside the first level of the the catacombs with Jobi cleansing a secret temple/altar to Sarenrae, the elves were truly happy for them and immediately set upon helping the injured with healing water from their wellspring, restoration spells, healing spells, and just plain good cooked food and a safe place to sleep.

When they were ready the next day or so, our stalwart band headed back up and down into Dragon’s Roost towards the secret door they found in the large chamber. Blackwell was able to find and disable the traps on the door and once opened, revealed a long, narrow, steep-winding stairway heading further down into the depths of the Dragon Roost mound. When they reached the bottom of the stairs, a small landing ended in a blank wall and Blackwell found all three walls had traps on them. He deftly disabled all three of these and then found and unlocked the secret door. Asphodel attempted to quietly open the door, but the door was having none of that and made loud scraping and grinding noises. And unfortunately, this alerted the creatures in the room behind the door. They found nearly a dozen gnolls lounging around in a very large room. Zola quickly leaped out of the secret passage and engaged the closest gnoll and the battle was on!

This battle, though having many combatants, was not nearly as deadly as the battle with the undead in the rooms above. The gnolls called for reinforcements and soon there were nearly two dozen of the foul creatures to battle. But through some spell use, like black tentacles, lightning bolt, and summoning a rhino from Zerak, and mgic missiles from Jobi, some sneak attacks from Blackwell, plus some good old fashioned head bashing from Kel, Asphodel, and Zola. the party quickly made minced gnoll out of them and could then turn their attention to the room they found themselves in.

A murky pool dominates this grand hall, its waters dark and still beneath a high vaulted ceiling. Carvings of a bull carrying the sun in its horns adorn the walls, and a circle carved into the floor suggests the shape of the sun. Dim flames flicker in twisting runes within the circle. The flames in the sun circle shed dim light. The vaulted ceiling is 20 feet high at the outer edges of the hall, rising to 40 feet above the pool. The shallow pool, built to honor Sarenrae, once reflected the light of the sun filtering through a shaft overhead. The shaft has long since collapsed, and the pool is now corrupted by some unknown influence.
Heaped in the corner of the room behind the Sun Circle is a small pile of furs and sacks that contains the personal stashes of treasure belonging to the now deceased gnolls first arrived. In the stash are two potions of cure serious wounds, a golden ring in the shape of a serpent with one amethyst eye biting its own tail (250 gp), an elaborately embroidered ceremonial robe with beads and lacquered wooden strips (250 gp), and a pair of pearls in a small wooden box (100 gp per pearl). In addition, the stash contains an adamantine rod that matches the description of the rod that Alira Vond was looking for. Now it seems that all they need to find for her is the dagger she had described.

The party also finds another secret door in the wall almost directly opposite the secret door they had entered from. And this one also appears to not have been disturbed for many, many years.

Our adventures are taking a small break but will return in two week’s time when we will discover what else is contained in the ancient minotaur halls below Bahamut’s Dragon Roost Temple…

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29

APR/2013

Session 26

Session 26 Synopsis:

Previously, on Phoenix Rising…

So they opened up the western set of doors and found another room with sealed coffins in it plus something extra – some wraiths and some shadows!

When the battle was over, they found that the four coffins in this room had already been broken into and the room’s murals and art had been defaced almost completely. The wraiths and shadows were able to do some damage to the party, enough so that they decided to leave the catacombs and head back to Winterhaven to get some more supplies, rest and heal (by using their bandages of recovery while traveling), and find out if Valthruun had come up with any information for Asphodel and Zerak. And Jobi needed to look into the rituals for cleansing and re-consecrating the defiled temple and altar to Sarenrae they had found in the secret room.

The trip back to Winterhaven was uneventful and when they arrived, they all set about taking care of various tasks. Jobi and Zerak first went to the temple. Zerak had a chat with Sister Linora about his previous life choices and the fact that he was really contemplating on making changes for good, for redemption. She had some advice for him including telling him to bury and bless Boris to put him (it) to rest. Jobi and Zola agreed to help him with this task. Jobi got everything she needed for the cleansing and re-consecration ritual from Sister Linora as well.

Asphodel, meanwhile, was at Valthruun’s tower. She was selling off the party’s acquired items and making a few purchases which included some new bracers of armor and a larger bag of holding (and her smaller bag of holding went to Jobi). Valthruun also took some timie with her privately and told her of her research findings into the subjects she was asking about. Asphodel had a lot to think about after their conversation (but none of it will be repeated here).
Zerak also made his way to Valthruun’s tower and had an even longer private chat, which, afterwards, had visibly disturbed him very deeply. He had let Valthruun do a divinatiion on Priscilla, the doll that his mother had given him. The results were astounding and certainly completely unexpected for the minute he started the spell, Zerak, Asphodel, and Valthruun were thrown across the room and onto the ground from an invisible force emanating from the doll. After that, Valthruun wanted no more part of the doll, citing that it definitely had some dubious beginnings in the necromantic arts.

So Asphodel and Zerak went back to the Wrafton Inn and began drinking whiskey to try and help ease the news they had both received. Eventually everyone else made it back to the Inn and either drank heavily, watched the others drink heavily, or just relaxed had dinner and went to sleep for the night. The next day proved to be very challenging for Zerak – hangover and burying Boris. So our heroes stayed an extra day in Winterhaven before setting back out to the Gardmore Abbey area. Again, they had a very uneventful trip back to Dragon’s Roost and then descended back into the catacombs.

Once at one of the doors that they had not opened yet, Blackwell did his usual thing and checked the door for traps and found a magical glyph inscribed on it. Though his diable device ability makes him very good at, well, disabling things, he wasn’t good enough for this glyph and he ended up setting it off. The entire area was filled with electricity and smoked him pretty good (everyone else had backed quite a ways away – maily from experience – and were spared any damage). After getting healed from one of the healing wands the party has, he then unlocked the door and Asphodel slowly opened the creaking door:

This enormous chamber holds the remains of the leaders of the abbey and has many stone sarcophagi in the room. Your footsteps echo throughout this enormous chamber, a mansion
for the dead knights of the abbey. From where you stand, you can see at least half a dozen stone sarcophagi arrayed around the shadow-draped chamber, and more probably stand in the darkness
deeper inside. A strange reddish glow tinges the shadows, apparently emanating from something near the wall to your right. There doesn’t seem to be any creatures lurking about in here.

Our heroes slowly and quietly entered the room, expecting something to jump out at them. But when Zerak and Blackwell had made it to about the center of the chamber (and everyone else spread out in back of them) trying to see where the reddish glow was coming from, they didn’t expect creatures to just form out of smoke right next to them, nor the shadows separating from the walls and advancing on them. They were being attacked by shadows, vampire spawn, and a true vampire formed right in front of Zerak!

The party, taken a bit by surprise sustained some substantial injuries from these monsters as they slammed into them and bit them and drained their blood and strength as much as they could. Spells were flying from both directions – the vampire was also a sorcerer and was casting some nasty spells at them, until Zerak started to counter-spell her spells. Then Jobi also did the same thing. Asphodel waded into melee with the undead creatures. Blackwell used his bow for a while, then switched to his longsword. All told, there were 3 vampire spawn, 5 shadows, 1 vampire, and then an evil priest of Urgathoa slunk out from the depths of the shadows (actually was invisible before attacking). He used some kind of power that turned Zola into stone! Jobi kept casting spells as long as she could until she was nearly brought down by the vampire (and so ran out of the room to relative safety). Zerak was casting summoning spells for a celestial rhino and a hound archon. The rhino kept charging first the vampire then the evil priest and the archon tried to stay close to the enemies in order to let its abilities benefit the melee fighters in the party. And Kel kept channeling positive energy to help heal the party and damage the undead. Once Zola turned back into flesh, she was able to continue the fight by using healing spells on the undead in addition to her mighty two-handed sword.

Then Asphodel used the Donjon card on the evil priest and sent him away for a round. And when he reappeared, naked with all his stuff beside him, the group concentrated on killing him. Zerak then used the Skull card from the Deck of Many Things against the evil priest and knocked him unconscious. That was all that was needed for practically the rest of our heroes to rush up and and deliver a coup-de-grace against the priest and kill him (if memory serves, Zola actually did this I think, but it could have been Blackwell). By this time all the other enemies had also been dispatched and the room was now theirs. If not for the powers of the cards, this battle would most likley been much, much worse for our heroes. A quick glance at the priest’s dead body shows that he had sores and crystalline growths on his body, possible indications of some strange disease, though which one is not known by any of our heroes

The pile of items left from the evil priest included the following:
scale mail 1, morning star +2, ring of protection +2, sling +1, cloak of resistance +3, 2 potions of barkskin (4 nat AC), a gold unholy symbol of Urgathoa (that was radiating magic from part of it) and three more cards from the Deck of Many Things! The cards are labeled as Euryale, Star, and Vizier.

The southeast sarcophagus has an ancient looking bowl sitting on top of the coffin lid. This bowl matches the description that Sir Oakley gave you of the Bowl of Io’s Blood, one of the sacred vessels that he requires to purify the temple. Now all you need are the other two items to do the purification of Bahamut’s temple above you.

Also near the bowl is a journal or diary with the initials VC on the cover. Maybe that evil priest was actually Vadin Cartwright, the evil cult leader that the priest had mentioned to you to kill if your paths crossed. Grundelmar will be happy to hear that you slew Vadin Cartwright and maybe even give you a reward for his journal.

In addition there was a magical longsword lying on the coffin as well. When identified, it was discovered to be called Moonbane (written in elvish along the blade) and is a +2 silvered, ghost-touched longsword with shocking burst. Sergeant Murgeddin will be very pleased that you found this ancient sword.

The area that the red glowing light was emanating from turned out to be a small metal work table where Vadin Cartwright had something very unusual on it. The table had sides so it could hold a liquid about four inches deep. There is a strange looking substance on the table. It is pale red with streaks of silver and flecks of gold in it. This strange substance catches light like crystal but flows like a viscous liquid when the table is bumped. None of our heroes had seen anything like it before. In addition, they were able to find a secret door in the far corner of the room, which looks like no one has disturbed in years, maybe decades or more…

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24

APR/2013

Session 25

Session 25 Synopsis:

Previously, on Phoenix Rising…

So our heroes cleared out the storage room attached to the main gatehouse so they could rest for the night, recuperate from their wounds, and regain memorized spells to be ready for the next day where the group had plans to descend into the catacombs underneath the temple. On their way to the temple proper Zerak hung back a bit with Jobi and the two of them had a short conversation. (read it here)

Our heroes descended the stairs down into the catacombs of the temple and found something entirely unexpected at the bottom of the stairs, which made them all the more suspicious. Four sarcophagi, one broken open, stand in the outer portion of this irregularly shaped room. Beyond, seven armored humans kneel in worship before an ornate altar decorated with twin rearing dragon heads. The room is softly lift by several wall sconces holding low burning, smokey torches. As the group warily entered the room, one of the armored knights stood up and bid them, “Welcome. Won’t you please join us in our prayers to Bahamut?” Naturally the party was skeptical about any group of living knights that still were in this place so they began questioning them as some of them slowly began to spread out. The leader of the knights revealed that his band came here to pray before they left on a mission for their holy order and the last time they were there was several months ago.

Detect magic spells only revealed that only the creatures themselves were radiating illusion magic, but not whether it was coming from equipment or from the knights themselves. Zola took no chances and decided to cast a spell to help make them invisible to undead, thinking that this surely must be a trap. Turns out she was right for in the next few moments the “knights” ended up dropping their charade and revealed their true nature – which turned out to be shadows, and not the fun kind you can make do things in the sunlight like making a bunny or flying bird, or, ahem… I digress. Where was, ah yes, nasty evil shadows that drain your strength until you wither, die, and turn into a shadow! Those kinds of shadows.

For a little bit it looked like the party was going to have some real problems with these things. Zola, Zerak, Asphodel, Jobi, and Kel all ended up getting hit and getting some of their strength drained. But through judicious spell use and some luck with standard attacks, they were able to beat down these shadows and prevail. After the fight, the members used some of the bandages of recovery and a restoration spell that Kel had to help speed up the ability damage healing. After listening at both doors leading out of this chamber and not hearing much activity at all, they decided to make camp and rest, trying to gather their strength back up (no pun intended). Blackwell decided that he was going to open up the three remaining coffins to see if there was anything of value in them. This openly disturbed Zerak who, eventually seemed OK with opening ones that had already been disturbed, but he got vehemently upset when Blackwell moved to search a still sealed coffin. Kel and Jobi backed Zerak on this and Blackwell reluctantly agreed to leave them alone.

After their rest and again listening at both doors out of this room, they decided on the southern door. When it was opened they saw another oddly shaped room, but this one looked like it had some kind of fountain on the far southern wall as well as two more sealed coffins. Kel and Asphodel advanced into the room and saw some more undead coming from the hidden parts of the room to investigate who made the noise opening up the door. This time our heroes were facing a couple skeleton champions, two soul knights, and a handful of burning skeletons. It didn’t take long for the party to eliminate these threats and there were only a couple of interesting moments during the battle, like when the skeleton champions were found out by Kel and Blackwell to be skilled in disarming and tripping their opponents. Then Zerak had cast an enlarge spell on Zola and she was able to squeeze through the door and basically block the creatures from getting around to the other party members in back of her. And most of the burning skeletons ended up dying and exploding near Asphodel, who wasn’t hurt a bit by the fiery explosions.

Inside the room they found a fountain that still had very clear and cold water coming out of it – in fact the water had healing properties, which only one or tow of the party took advantage of for now (the battle with the skeletons was not very dangerous to them). They also saw that tile mosaics were laid into the floor and walls – mostly depicting Bahamut and the like. They also listened at the two door leading out of this room (south and north) and decided to take the north door, figuring that it may connect up to an area with the western door that was in the first room they explored of the catacombs. Opening this door led to a short hallway that ended in another pair of doors. And it was these doors that led to another room with several sealed coffins, and some half-round alcoves on the far west wall of the room. It also had a couple of mummies and four strange stone statues that advanced for the attack.

Still being double her normal size, Zola advanced into the room just far enough to block the enemies from getting around her and into the hallway to the less armored of the group. THis proved to be a good tactic, allowing the spell casters to cast spells from the safety of the back plus it allowed others, like Asphodel and Blackwell to get into the room and attack in melee. Fortunately, no one contracted mummy rot and the stone statues were a bit easier to destroy than they looked and soon the party had won the battle. With the battle over, Zola returned to her normal size and the group began searching this room carefully since there were many more mosaics on the floors and walls of this room. This room also had four sealed coffins in here that Blackwell stayed away from, albeit reluctantly. The four alcoves had the following scenes laid out in colored tiles:

Crusade of Conquest: The knights ofGardmore Abbey fought orcs, lizardfolk, and the
minotaur remnants of Saruun Khel, killing thousands of the monsters before establishing the abbey as a safe bastion in the north.
Stonemarch Crusade: A few decades after the founding of the abbey, the orcs of the Stonemarch became a significant threat. After the orcs launched several attacks on the
abbey, the knights ventured into the Stonemarch to wipe them out and put an end to the raids. It took a full century for the orcs to recover from the losses they suffered.
Serpent Crusade: When a temple dedicated to Norgorber arose in the depths of the Witchlight Fens, the problem quickly warranted the abbey’s attention. The knights suffered devastating losses in this campaign, primarily because the cult of Norgorber was so adept at recruiting converts to their faith from within the ranks of the knights, creating highly effective spies.
War of the Infernal Bastion: The greatest threat to the empire of Nerath before its eventual downfall was the hobgoblin warlord Hur-Tharak, the greatest in a long line of goblin leaders to arise in the southern lands. Aided by devils and powerful priests of Asmodeus, Hur-Tharak gained a strong foothold in the empire’s southern lands, in the region called the Dragondown Coast. When Nerath launched a counterassault to take back those lands and sack the warlord’s Infernal Bastion, the knights of Gardmore Abbey marched alongside other paladins and
armies in what is heralded as one of Nerath’s most glorious moments of unity and victory.

Sidebar: Only Nerath thought itself important. It was basically a feeble attempt to disengage from Cheliax and, although it had succeeded in doing that for about 100 years, Nerath was devastated by Cheliax when they decided to take them seriously. Gardmore Abbey for too far north for the Chelaxians to bother with at the time.

While examining the alcoves, the party noticed that the third one, about the serpent crusade, had a secret door in it. Blackwell discovered the latch and opened it up. Behind the door a long, low ceiling room had only one item in it, a coffin. They approached cautiously and noticed that the coffin lid was partly open. They pushed it aside and took a look inside and saw noting but velvet pillows and dark, rich looking dirt inside the coffin, but nothing else. After a few moments of silence, Blackwell said something to the effect of, “Oh ****! This looks like it belongs to a vampire!” And the rest of our heroes definitely got just that much more nervous in here and decided to back out and close the door as quickly as they could.

There was one more set of doors out of this room that they didn’t hear anything behind, plus they had also found another secret door; this one on the southern wall of the room between the door they came in through and the western door they had just listened at. Blackwell once again deftly found and opened the secret door. What was revealed behind the door made Jobi’s heart skip a beat, just before the anger set in. What they saw was what was obviously once a small temple/shrine to Sarenrae. But it was now defiled and ruined by followers of Asmodeus. The walls had profane graffiti written in blood all over them. The altar and likeness of Sarenrae hanging above it were defaced, chipped, gouged, etc. Jobi just knew that she had to re-consecrate this site as soon as possible. But first they would finish clearing out the catacombs, plus she had to do a little research in order to figure out exactly what she needed to do in order to re-consecrate this shrine to her god. So the group closed the secret door, in hopes that it stays secret until they could come back to reclaim the shrine for good.

So they opened up the western set of doors and found another room with sealed coffins in it plus something extra – some wraiths and some shadows!

Stayed tuned for next week’s exciting adventures that may have the answer to, “Do wraiths and shadows really have more fun?”

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10

APR/2013

Session 24

Session 24 Synopsis:

Previously, on Phoenix Rising…

They stopped to camp for the night in a relatively secluded spot that afforded them an undisturbed night of sleep. In the morning, Jobi was in a great mood, especially compared to the day before when she was in a rotten mood from her nightmare. The day passed quickly and by dusk they found themselves back in the clearing where they had first met Sir Berrian and his elven knights.

Sir Berrian was very pleased that the party had brought him good news from Lord Padraig about his claim for the forested area inside Gardmore Abbey, and he gladly handed over the card he had from the Deck of Many Things – the Throne card. Now the party had six cards, but still had many things to work on including finding the rest of the cards. Our heroes had to make a decision now as to which way they were going to pursue all the open issues they still had to complete. Sir Berrian did remind them that he was interested in whatever they found out at the wizard’s tower about the intermingling of the far realm, shadowfell, and prime material planes. The party did finally decide on making their way back up to Dragon’s Roost to further investigate the temple and what lies below it. They asked if Sir Berrian could spare a few elves to escort them to the top of Dragon’s Roost through the forest path, just to help avoid any encounters with the wild denizens and he agreed. The party made it to the plateau without incident, bade farewell to the elven escort, and began exploring the area more in depth.

Our stalwart band first decided to scan from the outside of the nearest building for any magic that may be detected. From the outside, nothing was detected as being magical anywhere in the vicinity, but Zerak decided that he wanted to peek into the building to see what was inside. Blackwell helped out by examining the double doors for traps, etc. He got the doors open and Blackwell and Zerak peered into the darkened room ahead and saw:

The crumbling remnants of stone walls and a rubble-strewn floor are all that was left of what was once a building. A few ramshackle bunks remain, marking this place as a barracks.

Then he saw some strange movement in the rubble, but wasn’t sure what it was until a hungry slime crawler charged out of darkness to attack!

The beast wasn’t able to do much damage to Blackwell and didn’t fare much better against the rest of the party either. Turned out that a second slime crawler joined the fray and kept Kel busy for a moment until something much more dangerous made its appearance. A bulette crashed through the floor, taking out fifteen feet of the floor and part of a stone pillar as well and right in back of Blackwell! The bulette had no trouble injuring Blackwell and was particularly successful at it – causing him to be stunned and unable to defend himself. Kel jumped into action, running to grab Blackwell and drag him out of the old barracks to try to keep him safe. Meanwhile Asphodel started going after the bulette, trusting in her exceptionally high armor class and abilities to take the beast head on. Within a few rounds of combat, including a fireball from Jobi and deep slumber hexes from Zerak, the party was able to dispatch the bulette and the two slime crawlers without any other casualties.

Zerak then went over to the bulette’s corpse and started his animate dead spell, but just as the creature’s bones were complying, he stopped in mid spell, dropped his arms and head and walked away just shaking his head and mumbling something about not wanting to add to the evil that is already polluting this place. Asphodel heard his comments and fired back that maybe he shouldn’t even be here if he didn’t want to add to the evil here. Jobi immediately snapped at her saying that was completely uncalled for and downright mean. She just shrugged and made no motions to retract her statement. Zerak then said that she was probably right and he really had no business being here and just turned away from her. For a few moments everyone just stared at Zerak before getting back to the business at hand.

A search of the building noted that there was no magical items / areas detectable. A well was found in the building on the far side, which was quite deep and still had water in it, although no apparatus existed anymore to draw the water up to the surface. Nothing special was noted about the tunnels that the bulette had created – they appeared to go in all directions without any sense of organization or order. There was a stairway in one corner that appeared to be choked off with rubble and debris.

Then our heroes went to investigate the next building on the plateau. Again, using detect magic, they did not find any traces of magic near the building but decided to take a look at it anyway. This building had the second story completely collapsed but the ceiling of the first floor was still intact so that the ground level of the building was still pretty much intact. The doors were not very sturdy on their hinges anymore, and opening one quietly allowed the other door to slip off its top hinge and thud on the ground. Peering into the building it appeared to be a small chapel. There were many partially faded and damaged frescoes on the walls as well as a couple altars in the room. Carefully advancing into the room, the party spotted the giant spiders in their webs at the same time the spiders saw them.

This battle was rather short since spiders in webs make excellent targets for fireballs. And even though Asphodel was in direct melee combat with the giant spiders, the fireball from Jobi only roasted the spiders since Asphodel was now immune to fire. Just as the giant spiders were getting under control, three swarms of spiders made their appearance. These were no real threat to the party, for with a couple burning hands spells and one swarm of wasps vomited up by Zerak and they were defeated. In the webs they did find a bit of treasure inside a partially burned leather pouch was a necklace of pearls which the party estimated to be worth around 1,000 gold.

From here, our heroes went to the main gatehouse – the only other building on the plateau besides the temple proper. On a previous visit, some of the party thought they had seen statues here move, but never had time to fully investigate since the rest of the party started yelling for help from the temple. Now they were back and cautiously approached the gatehouse, expecting to run into at least a couple gargoyles. What they found was much, much more than that.

They saw two gargoyles, a giant lizard of some kind, and two rust monsters engaged in combat with a dwarf, a half-orc, a drow, and two humans. Those five fit the description of the other group they had heard the rumor about who were also trying to gather the cards from the Deck of Many Things. The half-orc, engaged with the giant lizard thing, saw our heroes and yelled out asking for some help. While some of the party were reluctant to just jump in and help, that single request was all that Kel and Jobi needed to jump right in and start battling the monsters. The rest of the party did follow suit. Everyone concentrated on the giant lizard first since that seemed to be the greatest threat here. Kel was determined to stay as far away from the rust monsters as she possibly could. The lizard succumbed to its wounds in just a few rounds and then the gargoyles were concentrated on next. Just as soon as the lizard went down, two more gargoyles swooped down into the fray, engaging Zola and Kel where they stood. Asphodel was able to move up to one of the other gargoyles while the half-orc went to the other gargoyle to help his companion. The two fighting the rust monsters began backing away from them trying to avoid their metal eating tentacles.

After a few more rounds of exchanging blows and spells with the monsters, the other group did something unusual. They all pulled back away from the rust monsters and stood side by side. Then one of them casted a spell that created a very dense fog over the area, obscuring all sight. Jobi then sent a fireball to a spot that would cause damage to the rust monsters and the remaining gargoyles. That along with maybe another blow or two from the other members and all the monsters were dead. Once the fog cleared from the area where the other group had stood, no one was there anymore. The group had either teleported or dimension doored out of there – either way it would be impossible to track them down. So a search of the area revealed that one of the old decaying orc corpses had a hand of glory still around its neck. It didn’t have any ring on it, but the hand itself was intact.

So our heroes cleared out the storage room attached to the main gatehouse so they could rest for the night, recuperate from their wounds, and regain memorized spells to be ready for the next day where the group had plans to descend into the catacombs underneath the temple.

Stayed tuned for next week’s exciting adventures that may have the answer to, “How many undead creatures killed does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?” Then again, maybe not…

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1

APR/2013

Session 23

Session 23 Synopsis:

Previously, on Phoenix Rising…

Our heroes had spent some time hearing quite a number of different requests that people wanted them to look into the next timet they went exploring in the Gardmore Abbey area. And they had heard rumors of another group of adventurers that were also looking for cards from the Deck of Many Things, and weren’t quite sure what that might mean for their future explorations…

The party decided to spend the night in town so they settled in to a night of light drinking and relaxing and slowly made their way to sleep for the night.

It was Jobi who actually noticed that something was wrong. She had awoke for no readily apparent reason, but when she did, she saw three people had broken into their common room and were in the process of stealing Kel’s stuff. So she screamed out loud to wake everyone else and warn them of the intrusion. The intruders then ran out carrying two large bags with them. And that’s when everyone noticed that Kell was no longer in her bed, nor anywhere in the room!

The party sprang into action, mostly foregoing putting on armor, except for Blackwell who was putting on armor as he was running down the stairs and hallways. Asphodel flew out the window to try to cut off the thieves, while everyone else ran through the building in hot pursuit.

When outside, the party saw the three riding horses straight for the main gate, where the two local guards were knocked to the ground, though it was unclear if they were dead or not. Asphodel flew in front of them and Zerak was able to cast a web spell on the thieves, also coating Asphodel with the webs as well. they worked fairly well, catching one rider and pulling him off his horse, tangling up the second and his horse as they tried to avoid Asphodel (horse and rider went over backwards, pinning rider to the ground). And the third one had to try to veer out of the way. The rest of the party quickly caught up with the three and stopped them from getting away. One was killed and the other two severely wounded and captured. Zola used a new spell of hers to compell them to tell the truth about what had happened to Kell after they discovered the bags they were running away with only contained her gear and not her. Zola even had to heal one of them some before casting the spell so if he didn’t tell the truth, he would only be injured and not killed by the spell. So the party tied the two up and readied them for an interrogation.

The bandits thought it better to just tell the truth than to suffer any more attacks from our heroes and told them that kel had been kidnapped and was probably already on their ship. With a little extra nudging – by way of Zerak casting a spell which caused an animated skeleton to come out of the dead body of the thieves’ former acquaintance, they also indicated that their ship was an airship and was “docked” in a clearing around a quarter mile away (take the first left and its in the clearing, you can’t miss it!). Plus they also said they were hired by the Crownsilvers. So Asphodel hung up one of the bandits on the town wall and Zerak instructed his skeleton to just tap him with its sword constantly, so he wouldn’t try to get away. Then they went running and flying at breakneck speeds after Kel.

Asphodel was the first to arrive near the clearing where the airship was. She saw a covered wagon blocking part of the path to the clearing, some 150 feet or so away from the airship. She tried to be sneaky (and was in her own mind) to stealthily approach the clearing to get a better look at what was going on. Fortunately she decided to use the woods as extra cover for her and was able to get to the clearing without being seen. She saw what looked like a normal sailing ship about eighty feet in length, complete with sails and rigging. There were around 8 to 10 people either on the ship or in the clearing and it looked like they were keeping an eye out for possible pursuers as well as getting ready to set sail.

At this time Blackwell came upon the scene and changed into hybrid form from wolf form and began to stealthily advance on the bandits as well. He also made it to the ship when he was spotted and attacked. That prompted the one who looked like a ship’s captain to shout out orders to pull anchor, which in turn prompted Asphodel to break cover (not to be confused with breaking wind) and attack the people on the ship.

Meanwhile, in the bowels of the ship…
Kel awoke with a horrendous headache and found herself tied up, laying on the dirty floor of what looked like a cabin on a ship, wearing nothing but her sleepwear. She looked around and saw that there was an armed and armored man standing inside the room looking away from her. The door was closed, and there was a longsword and shield mounted to the wall. The shield had the heraldry of her family on it. She quietly slipped free from her bonds (not to be confused with bondage) and with the grace and silence of a cat stalking its prey, she was able to get the sword and shield off of the wall, sneak up on the guard, and brain him with the shield. She hit him so hard that he just crumpled like a marionette that had just had its strings cut. She quickly bound him with the ropes that were tied around her just moments ago, then peeked out the door to see what was going on.

She saw (not to be confused with seesaw) an empty below deck area with only two other doors, no portals, and one set of stairs leading up to a closed hatch. So she crept up the stairs and slowly lifted the hatch and peered over the edge. She saw that there were some people on the deck of the ship facing away from her but that was about it. Suddenly someone screamed, “She’s escaped!” and she felt the trap door slam down on her very hard – hitting her head right where it hurt the most, causing her to fall down the stairs. Luckily she didn’t get any fingers caught in the trap door and she was just a bit worse for wear – mainly a bruised backside this time to match her aching head.

Back on deck…
The battle had started to get furious by the time the rest of the party had managed to run the distance to the clearing. The bandits had summoned up some hyenas on the deck to try to keep Asphodel busy, and the ones on the ground had converged on Blackwell’s position, giving him a difficult time. Zola, Zerak, and Jobi continued to run up to where Blackwell was whn one o fthe bandits targeted them with a fireball. Not to be deterred by this, Jobi decided what was good for the goose was also good for the gander and threw one of her own fireballs back at that bandit wizard. Her fireball erupted and started the ship on fire!

Back in the ship…
Kel had pulled herself up and tried to open the hatch only to discover that it was now locked down. So sh went to the knocked out guard and grabbed his flail and took that up the stairs and gave the most powerful swing she could muster. Just as her swing contacted the hatch, an explosion of fire happened, knocking her once again down the stairs and onto her backside. But at least the hatch was now partially open. Unfortunately the ship was also on fire! She had to find a way out and fast.

Meanwhile back on deck…
The fighting was fierce but it slowly was looking like the kidnappers were losing. The two spellcasters started moving about and one of them teleported or something like it all the way to the end of the path leading to the clearing, causing Jobi and Zerak to turn back towards him to engage him. But once they got close enough, he threw a fireball at the wagon. Evidently, before the battle had begun, the wagon was placed there full of other explosives for when the fireball erupted, the resulting explosion was truly spectacular – exploding with a force many times that of a normal fireball spell and setting a lot of the forest on fire here as well. Had it not been for the near inhuman quick reactions of Zerak and Jobi, and the great reflexes of Blackwell, all three of them would have been nothing more than charred toast.

The other spellcaster, the one that appeared to be the captain, had jumped off the back of the ship and launched another fireball at the the deck of the ship, attempting to incinerate the entire deck and below decks. And he would have succeeded if not for Asphodel’s quick thinking to block the fireball by letting it hit her. This tactic didn’t cause her any damage since she was now immune to fire. But this act gave Kel enough time to break through the burning hatch and get off the ship. Zola too, who had made it on the ship to help battle the hyenas and kidnappers also made haste to get off the ship now that it was becoming a raging inferno.

The captain had then vanished and was nowhere to be seen, so the heroes then went after the remaining bandits over near Blackwell. Just about then, the ship blew up throwing chunks of ship and debris everywhere. After this, the last remaining bandit threw down his weapon and surrendered. Zola went and used her create water spell to douse the flames in the area so the whole forest wouldn’t go up in flames. After a few questions to the prisoner confirmed the thought that these were just mercenaries hired to retrieve Kel, they tied him up and marched him back to the town.

When they got back to the town, they found a lot of people in all states of panic. Zerak’s skeleton had been beaten into pieces, and the town guards were trying to calm people down as well as going to investigate taht really loud explosion off in the woods that they heard just minutes before. The party handed over the surviving kidnapper and explained what had been going on to the town guards and eventually, the town calmed down and went back to sleep and so did our heroes.

But Jobi experienced a nightmare when she went back to sleep and awoke screaming and crying. It took several minutes for her to calm down enough to even blubber something about the dream to the others and it still was pretty incoherent. Bits and pieces did emerge, something about a cult and her latest lust, I mean love interest, Mordai Vell, but she kept most of it inside and didn’t explain to the rest of the party.

The next morning came too soon for the group, but eventually they rose and began getting ready to head back to Gardmore Abbey to tell Sir Berrian the good news about his claim being honored by Lord Padraig. Before they left Zerak and Asphodel also went to see if Valthruun had made any progress with the research topics they had given him nearly a week prior. No such luck yet – Valthruun mentioned that he was working on them but they were very rare bits of information he was looking for.

They stopped to camp for the night in a relatively secluded spot that afforded them an undisturbed night of sleep. In the morning, Jobi was in a great mood, especially compared to the day before when she was in a rotten mood from her nightmare. The day passed quickly and by dusk they found themselves back in the clearing where they had first met Sir Berrian and his elven knights.

Until next week, may you not have any nightmares that come true…

View

25

MAR/2013

Session 22

Session 22 Synopsis:

Previously, on Phoenix Rising…

About a day into their return travel, in a particularly desolate area, the party caught a glimpse of several creatures. But they were too late to act for they had walked into a clever and well prepared ambush! They saw four werewolves stand up and throw what looked like stones into the midst of the group. But these made a horrendous noise and were in fact thuderstones! At the same time a web spell was cast upon the party! Then, right on cue, another spell erupted in their midst just after the web took hold. And it was….

… A fireball! The web wasn’t about attempting to capture our heroes at all! It was about causing as much damage in as short amount of time to as many individuals as possible! These werewolves were out for blood and not looking to take any prisoners, alive that is. No one was stuck by the webs but nearly everyone took at least some damage from the blast and then the flames. Another spell caster summoned up three giant spiders in the rear of the party to help box them in, while five of the werewolves in front and to the sides of the party trained their crossbows on Blackwell almost exclusively.

The spiders kept Zola, Jobi and Zerak busy long enough for the two spell casters to hit the the party with lightning bolts, empowered burning hands, and magic missiles spells. While all this was going on Asphodel was getting acquainted with the werewolves up at the front of the paty, concentrating on one at a time until they fell, then moving onto the next one. Kel, meanwhile, also began attacking one one at the front of the group but was also in the line of fire for the lightning bolt spells and was taking heavy damage.

The spiders kept Zola busy long enough so that the spell casters were able to nearly kill Jobi. Zerak helped her by using his healing abilities but it wouldn’t last for long. Blackwell was being targeted so much that he had to start moving and drinking healing potions just to stay upright, let alone do any actual fighting. When he moved in close to where Jobi, Zerak, and Zola were, the rest of the werewolves shifted their positions to get a better aim at Blackwell. In addition the commander of the werewolves showed his face just about this time and started targeting Blackwell as well.

Zerak was able to put the spiders to sleep using one of his hexes which allowed him and Jobi to move away from Blackwell. It also allowed Zola to move against one of the spell casters and she began to pursue him basically at a 5 foot hack-n-slash at a time pace. Asphodel was able to kill a couple of the werewovles but not before Kel was struck down and out of the fight. Then she ended up focusing her attention on the commander to try and keep him away from any of the less robust party members. But another one of the werewolves came through and dropped Zerak before going after Zola and Jobi. While this was going on, Blackwell had resorted to using his Card from the Deck so he could teleport out of danger and drink a potion – doing this several times until ending up in melee combat with one.

And just when it was beginning to look like the rest of the party was in real danger of being taken down, something snapped in Asphodel and a blood-crazed fury erupted from her. She slaughered the commander, then went after the one attacking Blackwell, who was happy to get out of the way. And Zola with some help from Jobi was able to bring low the last remaining werewolf just before Asphodel pounced from above on the one that had turned to run away and tore it limb from limb.

With the battle over, they looked for a more defensible position to make camp. They gathered up everything that was of value (magic silver weapons and bolts, magic armor, etc) and healed each other up as best as they could and rested for the night. And by morning were pretty much good as new.

when they arrived back in Winterhaven later that day, they went straight to Lord Padraig’s estate to meet with him and tell him everything that had happened. They were surprised to see many people in Padraig’s audience room, several dozen in fact, all talking at the same time. It was chaos. Then Padraig spotted our heroes and all eyes followed. When the crowd saw the party, they all began talking to them at the same time, until Lord Padraig shouted for silence and told the crowd that HE was going to talk with the party IN PRIVATE before ANY of THEM would get a chance. Then whisked away the party into a side chamber and slammed the door.

“I am sooo glad that you’re back,” he started out saying. “As soon as I talked with the city council and told them that you were helping me to gather allies to fight the orcs, all of a sudden it seemed that all these others came out with ‘other requests.’ So first let’s discuss what you found with the elves and then we’ll go deal with the others.”

The party showed Lord Padraig the claim that the elves had on the forested area of Gardmore Abbey and that they requested the claim to be officially recognized before they would agree to an alliance. Padraig readily agreed to honor the request after reading the parchment document the party presented to him. Then he asked about what happened to Zerak’s arm. Zerak described the encounter with the beholder in the watchtower and asked Padraig if there was anyone that could regenerate his arm and if it could be done for less gold, since he did lose it in his service. Lord Padraig said that this could be done for him and mentioned that one of the people requesting an audience with them was the head of the temple here in Winterhaven. With that the group rejoined the crowd in the main audience chamber. Padraig then very sternly told the crowd that only one at a time would speak and he would tell who would speak when, and if things got out of hand, everyone would be dismissed. So the crowd was completely quiet.

“Now,” Padraig began. “We have five people that want to speak their case to the group. They are completely free to either accept or reject your requests and what they decide on each one is final. There will be no arguing about anything. So let’s begin.”

The first one to speak was Valthruun, Winterhaven’s mage and local historian. “Lord Padraig tells me that you found some kind of mystic tower in the village connected to the abbey. I wonder if you’d do me a favor. If you find yourself inside that tower, keep your eyes peeled for a tome bound in white dragon scales. It’s called the Winterbole Codex, and I’d sure like a look inside its pages before I die. I can pay you for the book, say 300 gold each.”

Asphodel asked if Valthruun could do some research into dragons pertaining to her amulet and half-dragons. He said that he thought he had somethings on those subjects but it would take him a while to dig through his library, but he would do it for her. The party agreed to take on this request.

Next up was Kharas the Just, the head of Winterhaven’s temple and a cleric of Abadar. “According to my research, Gardmore Abbey was established on the site of an ancient temple built by minotaurs hundreds of years before humans ever settled these lands, back when it was reported that minotaurs were not worshipping the demon Baphomet. I am in search of hardy souls, such as yourselves, who are willing to explore the abbey and unearth the ruins of that temple. If you bring me useful knowledge or relics of the minotaur civilization, 1 will pay you handsomely – 400 gold each for each relic or substantial information.”

The party was inclined to do this for Kharas as long as he would also agree to regenerate Zerak’s arm before they went back to the Abbey. He agreed to this and soon after the meeting was over Zerak had a new arm regrown in mere minutes.

The third petitioner was named Grundelmar, a priest of Sarenrae from the northern city of Threndarr, and he had something very interesting to bring up. “Sarenrae urges all people of good heart to be constantly on guard against the encroachment of evil. Among the most insidious evils are those that take root in the hearts of our communities and grow like a canker. Years ago, up near the city of Fallscrest, a group of right-thinking adventurers such as yourselves rooted out one of those cankers, a cult of Urgathoa that had spread through a certain stratum of society. The cult leader escaped, though: a man named Vadin Cartwright. It was assumed that he fled the area and would pose no more danger. Well, Sarenrae has spoken in my dreams to let me know that Cartwright is still a danger. He’s dabbling with forces beyond mortal understanding, and the results could be disastrous. I don’t know any more than that, except to seek him among the dead in old Gardmore Abbey. But if you find him, don’t hesitate to kill him. I cannot offer a reward, just a warning that he must be stopped before he unleashes any more evil upon the world.”

Our heroes made a note of Vadin’s name and said that they would keep an eye out for him and take care of him with Jobi and Kel paying particular attention to the details of Grundelmar’s request.

Next to speak was a woman named Alira Vond. “As you probably know, the knights who built Gardmore Abbey were overzealous crusaders who killed innocents and plundered sacred sites for treasure.” The crowd voiced their complaints about this statement and Alira had to raise her voice to continue before the crowd quieted down. “Don’t get me wrong – they started off as well-meaning champions of truth and justice, but the more powerful they became, the more greedy and corrupt they grew. Believe me, my ancestors witnessed their rapacious ways firsthand. Now I just want to recover the items they stole from our lands – two in particular. One is a silver dagger with a large amethyst, deep purple in color, set in the pommel. The other is a sort of rod or scepter crafted of adamantine. Bring these items to me, and I’ll pay you well – 1000 gold pieces for each one of the items.”

The party also made note of this request while Blackwell was secretly thinking about how much more those heirlooms would bring on the black, errr, open market. They agreed to keep watch for anything that may match Alira’s descriptions.

The last petitioner was Winterhaven’s captain of the guard, an old dwarf named Murgeddin. Sergeant Murgeddin started off by telling the group a little about the last major battles at Gardmore Abbey. “I’m a veteran of the Blood spear War – the orc invasion that resulted in the destruction of Fallscrest ninety years ago. One of the major battlefields of that war was
among the ruins of Gardmore Abbey. I stood with the forces of Fallscrest at the summit of the temple mount, and terrible things I saw, too. I watched Lord Markelhay, who was the great-grandfather of the current Lord Padraig, disappear into the catacombs beneath the temple. He was clutching the ancestral sword of his line, the sword of Aranda Markelhay, called Moonbane. I don’t know why he went down there – he never did emerge from those catacombs, and neither did the sword, so far as anyone knows. If Moonbane could be recovered, we would have a great weapon to help protect the entire area against invaders like those stinking orcs! The city council will definitely pay you a reward for recovery of the sword.”

And with that the audience was over. Zerak got his arm regrown and the party went around town to make some purchases of healing items, protection items, and other things. Then they retired to the Wrafton Inn for some food, drink and to catch up on any local rumors, etc. One of the waitresses made mention that they were the second group to come through saying something about collecting some strange cards or something. This piqued our heroes’ interest and asked her to describe these other people. She recalled that they had been in a couple of days ago. She thought that one was a large male half-orc, one male dwarf, two female humans though only one of them seemed to do all the talking, and a male elf that had a very dark complexion. She said that they said they were going to explore the Abbey and get lots of treasure out of the place.

And so our heroes search for the other cards, the three sacred vessels of Bahamut, and what seems like so many other things continues next week. Same time, same channel. Be there. Don’t miss it.

View

20

MAR/2013

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