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2010_11_13

Page history last edited by Azeari 13 years, 3 months ago

The adventurers loaded the coffins of the three vampire noble guards, as well as the bodies of the two vampire driders, into the mobile stronghold. They planned to take them to the surface, to expose them to the sunlight. They also decapitated Velasta and Zedarr and stored their heads in the bag of holding, so that they could be questioned using speak with dead if the need arose.


Garyn & Rohit stayed behind and scouted out the rest of the House Morcane level, to make certain that there weren't any more drow hiding anywhere. They found 7 more ladders leading up through tunnels in the ceiling, spaced at even intervals around the perimiter of the level. Rohit disarmed the web traps on each. They decided to climb up the ladder where Tierak and the other Lolthites had gone, to warn her to stay in the Underdark and not to make any more raids on the surface.

 

The stronghold took a short detour on the way to the surface, to attack the gargantuan spider in the chasm. Of course, this was a fiendish spider, much more cunning than a mindless vermin. Using its tremorsense, it detected the approach of the stronghold, trapping it in a web as soon as it appeared. Martok burned the spider with his vitriolic blast and it responded by trying to bite him, but the transparent wall of the stronghold kept him safe from its fangs. He fired at it two more times, reducing it to less than half of its hit points, so it crawled away out of sight. Elsa and Lukwind tried to pull the door open so that they could burn away the web, but it wouldn't budge.

Helena was able to keep track of Rohit's movements from aboard the mobile stronghold using the chain of eyes spell. If he got into trouble, she could teleport in and rescue them. At least, that was the plan. Rohit was searching every 5ft square for traps, so at first there wasn't much to see. The web ladder led up a long tunnel, into a room where seven other tunnels met. There were drow in the room, but Rohit & Garyn were able to use their rings of darkhidden to sneak past, since they were now outside the range of the forbiddance and unhallow. Rohit found a couple of traps and disarmed them, then sneaked into the Inner Fane of Lolth. There, he found Tierak sitting in the middle of the floor, sobbing quietly to herself. She was surrounded by decaying corpses, all that remained of her family.

 

Rohit threw a daylight pellet and said, "Ah Tierak, we see you have gathered your fallen to you. It is lucky that you capitulated to us, else you would be amongst them. We have finished those Kiriansalee drow, so now is the time for a final warning before we leave. We have no more quarrel with you Lolthlites, as long as you remain in the underdark. Set foot above and we will return to bring death and ruin to your kith and kin. So stay in these dark places that you like to frequent and we never need meet again. I leave you to your mourning, as this should be a sacred time, so gather the rest of your fallen and make a funeral pyre so that even Lolth might rise again."

 

Tierak replied, "In the Underdark, one can never show any sign of weakness. Our ability to defend ourselves has been crippled, thus Szith Morcane is doomed. You have achieved what you came here to do, now LEAVE ME ALONE!" 


As Tierak screamed at them, Rohit & Garyn saw an apparition rise up through the altar. It looked like the ghost of a female elf, bearing a marked family resemblance to Tierak. The adventurers' hair turned white at beholding such a sight and their physical attributes were damaged by her horrific appearance. Before they could move a muscle, the apparition let out a wail so terrible that it felt like their brains would melt. Garyn dropped to the floor, dead.

In the meantime, Lukwind had altered himself into an avariel, a winged elf. Elsa handed him a torch and he lit it, then he activated his ring of blinking. He was about to step through the wall of the stronghold, but then thought better of it. He asked Helena if she could cast some buffs on him, before he went outside to face the fiendish spider. She suggested that she could cast mage hand instead, to carry the torch outside and set the webs on fire. This plan worked, but it meant that she had to concentrate on her spell and wasn't able to come to Rohit's & Garyn's aid when they needed her.

 

In the guild sign language that they had invented, Rohit communicated to Helena, "Screw this, I'm outta here!" Helena's vision became a blur as Rohit double-moved 100ft through the Fane of Lolth and back down the tunnel to the House Morcane level, dropping the last 30ft and rolling as he landed. Springing back to his feet, Rohit ran out through the entrance cavern, leaping across the chasm and grasping hold of the cliff on the opposite side. Gradually, he began to climb all the way up to the stronghold above. By the time he arrived, Helena had burnt away all of the webs, which enabled Martok to fire the kill shot that finished off the fiendish spider.

 

The next problem was how to retrieve Garyn's body from the Fane of Lolth, without the entire party falling victim to the banshee. They tunneled back inside the House Morcane level, this time using the lyre of building to create a space large enough for the entire mobile stronghold to pass through. They hoped that the banshee was ethereal, like a ghost, and therefore would be blocked by the forbiddance. Lukwind continued to play the lyre for a full hour, constructing a vertical tunnel through the rock. Rohit and Helena described where Garyn's body had fallen, so that hopefully the tunnel would open beneath his corpse and he would fall through into the stronghold.

 

When the tunnel finally broke through into the room above, the tip of someone's boot was visible through the hole. It looked like they were slightly off-target. The banshee appeared and Helena used a readied action to cast silence. This protected everyone from the banshee's wail, but also blocked the effect of the lyre of building and Lukwind's inspire courage. Everyone averted their eyes, but Helena still caught a glimpse of her horrific appearance, and suffered the consequences.

 

Rohit and Lukwind quickly conferred with each other using the guild sign language. Rohit handed Lukwind 50ft of silk rope with a grappling hook attached to the end. Using his bardic knack, Lukwind threw the rope up the tunnel ... rolling a natural 20 on his Use Rope check. He hooked Garyn's body and everyone helped to pull him down through the tunnel. Since the banshee is incorporeal, she couldn't do anything to prevent it. As soon as Garyn's body was inside the stronghold, Martok employed his Use Magic Device to drive the stronghold out of there by the fastest route possible, up into the sunlight.

 

Garyn was too long dead for revivify or revenance, besides which the banshee's wail was probably a death attack, which meant that they needed resurrection. The only 13th level clerics that they knew of lived in Laveril, over a thousand miles away. They spent the next four days aboard the stronghold, travelling to the south. In the middle of the night, each night, one of the party members felt a spell being cast on them. They were able to resist, however, rolling high Will saving throws. Although they tried, Elsa and Rohit weren't able to reflect the spell back at the caster. It seemed that it wasn't a targeted spell, but something else.

 

They arrived in the town of Fusina, on the shore of the lagoon, in the middle of the day. Bolias let everyone out and then he tunneled down into the bedrock to await their return. Lukwind managed to find the captain of a keelboat who was willing to take them through the swamp to the metropolis: Laveril was built on an archipelago of over 100 islands, in the middle of a wide expanse of marshland and mud flats, crisscrossed by deep shipping channels. The stronghold wasn't waterproof and couldn't tunnel through worked stone, so they had to leave it behind.

When they had sailed within a quarter mile of the city, they heard a loud banging noise from belowdecks. The entire boat shuddered, as if it had struck something solid. A second bang came and the boat began to take on water. The captain gave the order to abandon ship. Lukwind inspired courage, then dipped one of his mirror images into the water. The huge black dragon that was lurking underneath the hull took the bait and attacked, but the illusion winked out and its teeth met only air. Martok trapped the dragon with chilling tentacles.

 

On the opposite end of the boat, the other passengers and crew began jumping into the water to swim away. From his position in the crow's nest, Rohit spotted a nearby island and pointed it out to them. Clicker grabbed the captain and first mate and teleported away. Martok followed up with an eldritch blast and Helena tried flame strike, but the dragon's spell resistance was too strong. The dragon responded by breathing a line of acid at Martok, then it slipped free of the tentacles and dived back underneath the water.

 

The dragon surfaced right in the middle of the swimmers, eating two of them. Helena cast fly on Elsa and she charged the dragon. Rohit tumbled down to the deck and attacked with his kusari-gama. Helena struck a vital spot with searing light and the dragon swam away to nurse its wounds. She cast make whole on the boat to repair all of the damage and Lukwind convinced the passengers and crew to return. With bardic knack, he was able to serve as captain and guide the boat into port.

 

Once the boat was securely moored, they headed straight for the temple of Oghma in the district of Cannaregio. Lukwind used his diplomatic skills to gain an audience with the high priest, who cast resurrection to bring Garyn back to life. Afterwards, at the guildhouse of the Amazing Chicanery Troupe, Lukwind, Helena & Rohit staged a performance for their loyal fans. They were surprised that there hadn't been any sign of Clicker in all that time, but nobody was particularly concerned. They headed out on the town to gather information on current events:

 

  • The biggest news in Laveril at the moment is that the archmage has been arrested by the inquisitors. He is currently on trial before the senate, because the inquisitors want to render him to Therapne, the imperial capital.
  •  In the last 6 months, there have been an unusual number of disappearances in Laveril. Dessicated bodies have been found, dumped in alleyways throughout the city, or floating down the canals. 
  • The Wayfarers' Society has suspended its services after many of their members burned to a crisp. It is now apparent that the Astral Plane has become hot and dangerous, making any kind of teleportation a risky endeavor. 
  • Emperor Coaltongue has led his legions into the Goblin Wastes, north of the Alps. It is said that this invasion is in retaliation for the recent border incursions by tribes of orcs, in the northwest region of the empire.
  • Helsmuth has announced that it will be hosting the Ludi Terentini in two months' time. This ancient festival, which predates the Empire of Eastrealm, is normally only held once a century.

 

The next day, the party headed to the Rialto markets to sell all of the treasure that they had acquired in the Underdark, as well as to shop for new items. The magic shops in Laveril had the widest selection that they had ever seen. At the end of the day, Rohit asked the party if they would be willing to extend their stay in the metropolis, so that there would be time to have custom magic items crafted to his specifications. Elsa was in favor, since she could use that time to bond with a new weapon. However, the rest of the party were against the idea. Their quest to Maerimydra was too urgent to delay any further than strictly necessary.

 

 

Garyn wanted his familiar, Telémachus, to be resurrected. Lukwind spoke to the high priest of Oghma and convinced him that this was no ordinary cat and that it would be worthwhile casting such a powerful spell. Helena & Rohit went and had dinner with the riverboat captain whom they sailed with the last time they visited Laveril, 3 months ago. He wasn't actually all that surprised to hear that they had been attacked by a black dragon within a quarter mile of the metropolis. Such a small boat, travelling alone, would look like an easy target. He recommended that the next time they go out on the lagoon, they either hire a bigger ship or travel in a convoy for safety.
The day after was also spent shopping. Lukwind and Rohit established contact with an underworld figure, to whom they sold all of their poisons, as well as the illithid graft and the hook of dissolution that they had looted from the drow of Szith Morcane. They also found a collector who was willing to buy the scourge of fangs. Helena cast a divination to identify the person who had been casting spells on them every night for the past week. They were surprised to discover that the answer was Dorina T'sarran, the vampire that they were certain they had slain and turned to ashes in the sunlight.
On their third day in Laveril they headed to the Rialto markets again. On the way there, Rohit spotted a pair of huge arachnids hiding underneath a bridge. He signaled the rest of the party to stop, then used their indirect fire teamwork benefit to show them where the spiders were lurking. The party attacked simultaneously with blast globes, fireball, vitriolic chain and flame strike. The spiders disappeared and all onlookers fled from the ostentatious display of destructive power. Fortunately the bridge was made of stone, and survived intact.
A moment later, the spiders reappeared right next to the party. Now that he could see them clearly, Garyn identified them as shadow spiders: magical beasts that can hop between the Plane of Shadow and the Prime Material at will. Martok tried to cast defensively but failed his concentration check. Lukwind inspired courage with his bardic music. Garyn used rapid shot to fire several arrows. Elsa power attacked and did a great deal of damage, as did Rohit. Helena killed one of the spiders with searing light and Elsa finished the other one off with an attack of opportunity.

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