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2010_07_03

Page history last edited by Azeari 13 years, 8 months ago

Garyn used his sending stone to contact Ensign Bolias and ask him to bring the mobile stronghold to the surface. Clicker's ability damage and Helena's paralysis were both taken care of using the healing platform. Garyn brought the dead body of the "half-elf" on board, hoping that the clerics would still be able to question it. However, he couldn't convince either of them to cast speak with dead. Clicker was willing to try with one of the dead drow, but not with whatever the hell that thing was.

After some discussion, there was general agreement that they would tunnel under the ground and remain there until morning, when all of the spellcasters would renew their spells. However, Rohit was concerned that another raiding party might slip past them in the night. Since he only needed 2 hours sleep, he proposed that he would stand watch over the crypts and raise the alarm if any drow emerged. But first, he decided to investigate the two tombs on the surface, to make certain that they were completely empty.

 

Entering the larger mausoleum, Rohit searched all four of the internal doors and determined that they were free of traps. In the meantime, Martok noticed magical auras emanating from the door to the other tomb: a faint aura of abjuration, and something else he couldn't identify. Lukwind informed Rohit of the discovery via message. Rohit found that he couldn't open the four doors inside the larger tomb, so he searched the door of the smaller one. He was certain that it was trapped, but for some reason he was unable to disarm it. Martok removed all of the plaster using his baleful utterance, but Rohit couldn't open this door either. When he touched it, though, the trap wasn't sprung.

 

Deciding that a more direct approach was needed, Elsa got out of the stronghold and tried to open the door. Even with her immense strength, augmented by the dragonfang gauntlets, the door wouldn't budge. Meanwhile, Rohit heard a pack of animals approaching from down the mountain. He climbed onto the roof and saw that there were half a dozen wolves, about 600ft away. When they came closer, Garyn determined that they were ordinary wolves, but that they were behaving strangely, perhaps under some kind of compulsion. Garyn cast dispel magic, but the wolves kept coming. He instructed Rohit to kill the lead wolf, figuring that it was the pack leader. Once that was achieved, the other animals scattered.

 

Clicker warned them that ancient crypts and wolves behaving strangely probably meant vampires. Taking the shortspear that they had found inside, Elsa sundered the door in three mighty blows. Inside, she saw a gaunt man dressed in fine, silk robes as well as four feral-looking associates with large fangs. Making some quick calculations, Garyn pointed his staff of transmutation at the ceiling, disintegrating the roof of the tomb so that the midday sun shone directly down on the undead. They turned insubstantial and fled inside their coffins, but that only gave them a temporary reprieve. One by one, Elsa lifted the lids and exposed the bloodsuckers to the harsh light of day.

Now that the area outside the crypts had been secured, Bolias phased the stronghold partway into the mountainside, leaving one row of arrow slits exposed. They made sure that the stronghold wasn't visible from the doorway, then Rohit climbed to a hiding spot above the lintel and waited there for the rest of the afternoon. He was glad of his enduring amulet, which protected him from the severe cold.

 

At dusk, just when Rohit was about to head into the stronghold to sleep, he heard the clanking of someone in heavy armor coming up the stairs from the caverns. After climbing down to warn the party, he returned to his position and waited. A minute later, the doors opened and five naked drow zombies stumbled out into the snow. They soon spotted the stronghold and began heading for it, but Bolias tunneled underneath and came up behind them so that Helena could turn undead.

 

With the undead destroyed, Bolias maneuvered the winnebago so that its "headlights" shone straight through the doorway, blinding all of the drow therein.  However, one of them conjured an opaque curtain of violet fire, 20ft high, which completely blocked the entrance. Activating his enduring amulet to make himself fire resistant, Rohit tumbled in through the entrance and past all of the drow, backstabbing the spellcaster who had cast wall of fire and killing him with one blow.

 

 

Garyn took out the wand of lightning bolt and aimed it directly down the corridor, knowing that Rohit should be able to dodge out of the way. Its caster level was high enough to overcome the spell resistance of most of the drow, electrocuting them. Lukwind attempted to dispel the wall of fire, but had great difficulty. The drow cleric surrounded herself with her remaining warriors, but a second lightning bolt from Garyn felled most of them. Two grotesque, skinless undead surrounded Rohit but were unable to hit him.

Finally, Lukwind succeeded in removing the wall of fire so that the rest of the party could join the battle. Clicker fired his wand of seeking ray, but the drow's spell resistance was too great. Martok felled the cleric with a vitriolic blast, but was unable to damage the undead, who were immune to acid (as well as resistant to Garyn's lightning bolts). Rohit activated his deathstrike bracers and together he and Elsa destroyed the two quth-maren. They had wanted to keep the cleric alive for questioning, but unfortunately the residual acid damage from the vitriolic blast finished her off.



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