Consequences of the Quill (Restored 5/13/06)

[LordVyreth]

The Eye of Nerull: The Outer Sanctums

Once they got through the wall, the party quickly and quietly snuck into the Eye itself. However, getting to the relevant parts of the Eye won’t be tricky. Most of the Eye is filled with the yellow fluid Danae had studied earlier, and which corresponds to the vitreous humor found in a real eye. The parts of the Eye containing the control room, various maintenance systems, power generators, and “living” conditions correspond to the more delicate components of the eye found near its front, and the party had to have the eye conveniently pointed in the other direction just to get in. Thus, to reach their target, they have to swim through the vile fluid.

The swim itself was easy enough, thanks to the spells that were protecting the entire party. However, the fluid was nonetheless slightly dangerous. Dark clouds made of some unknown material billowed throughout the fluid. Not only did they reduce visibility even further than the yellow goo already did, but the party was understandably worried about swimming through the potential biological threat. Even so, one or more of the party got caught in one of the liquid clouds as they moved about in the fluid, and those trapped felt the very essence of life threaten to leave them.

In addition, the temperature of the fluid was very odd and extremely dangerous. It remained at a relatively temperate level most of the time, but every few seconds, it would pulse with incredible heat followed by incredible cold. Both extremes were intense enough to damage the party, and while the damage was minimal, the constant shocks to the system were getting both frustrating and dangerous.

“Are we almost there?” an annoyed Robin asked after yet another pulse.

“Well, the entire Eye is only –ow- five hundred feet in diameter,” Danae replied. “It shouldn’t be much longer now, though I –ouch- didn’t expect us to have to wind our way there.”

Indeed, the eye’s vitreous humor was filled walls made of the same dark stone as the Eye itself, and that made the whole thing into a massive labyrinth. Because of the very small range of vision the yellow fluid and clouds created, trying to find their way around the tunnels was proving more difficult than expected. However, just as they were nearing the end of the trip, a much more dangerous threat revealed itself; some of the Eye’s guardians discovered them.

From below, a massive squid-like monster rose up to meet the party. However, it was clearly no longer living. In fact, its entire body was transparent, suggesting that it might a spectral monster or a ghost. In front of the party, a strange worm-like creature with numerous tentacles growing on its face blocked the path. It was bloated and rotting, similar to the waterlogged Sunken undead the party fought earlier. In fact, just to the side of the tunnel-blocking worm, there was what appeared to be a perfectly normal Sunken.

“A Sunken? They’d actually use something that week to guard the Eye?” Tal asked with disbelief. “We’ve fought creatures this weak since I first started exploring the surface! Nothing powerful enough to get this far would even be scratched by such a creature.”

Danae, however, studied the creature more carefully and using her years of research on the anatomy of various monsters. She suddenly gasped as she realized what this thing was. This wasn’t an ordinary Sunken. It was a rare, exemplary, nearly unheard of variant. A creature of this level of power and ability only appears one time in a million, or possibly even one time in a billion. In short, it was a paragon of its kind.

Before the party could mobilize the spectral kraken lunged at the party, striking Danae and draining some of its life force. “Where are Tiana and Azat?” a panicked Danae screamed while she looked around the battlefield.

The rest of the party quickly looked around as well for their missing allies. “Maybe they went down a side tunnel by accident?” Tal offered.

As they talked, however, Bath had other concerns, in particular the tunnel worm that was guarding their best exit. She charged it as Tal also recovered from the initial confusion of battle and fired a magic disintegration ray at the creature. Surprised by the sudden attack, the tunnel terror could do little against the assault but flail about and futilely try to strike the avenging angel with its tentacles.

Meanwhile, Danae magically changed her shape to that of a massive dragon in the hopes that it would help her drive off the spectral kraken, and Robin and Devlin focused on the paragon Sunken. However, the unusually strong Sunken easily evaded their attacks due to its unnatural dexterity and some sort of divine insight. It lashed repeatedly at Devlin, who again regretted his human half when all the air was sucked from his lungs! He was able to survive due to the magic that let him breathe water as if it was air, but was left gasping to fill his lungs while the Sunken bore down on him, ripping more flesh from his bones with each slash and frequently stealing his breath.

Bath and Tal quickly finished off the tunnel worm, and Bath moved to help Devlin and Robin fight the Sunken while Tal assisted his fellow arcane practitioner. Danae was holding her own against the creature with her magic and her new form’s breath weapons, but the monster was draining more and more of her life force with every attack. Finally, just as she was feeling her grasp of advanced magic leave her, one last breath coupled with a barrage of magical energy by Tal finished the beast.

That left just the Sunken. It was having more trouble with Bath than Devlin because of the near impenetrable armor the angel both wore and possessed naturally, but she was also unable to hit it with any regularity. However, Bath and Devlin managed to surround it and strike it with greater ease, and Danae and Tal’s magic finally helped finish the semi-divine threat.

With the guards dead, the party quickly located the lost Tiana and Azat and then moved on before the temperature pulses in the fluid damaged them further or more guards detected them. They finally reached a ramp that lead out of the water and into a dark and gloomy chamber. After Azat healed the party’s wounds and helped Danae partially recover her lost life force, he and Tiana carefully moved away from the edge of the chamber to explore it. They quickly dashed back to the party moments later. “We found some coffins in the middle of the room!” Tiana quietly hissed.

“Coffins? But who’s coffins?” Danae wondered.

Tiana shrugged. “Vampires, maybe? Maybe they’re hiding in the coffins for protection but will spring out to attack us if we get too close or try to leave the room.”

“That’s possible,” Danae admitted. “But there are a lot of other possibilities as well.”

Tiana concentrated while activating a magical power from one of her items. “Let me detect the presence of evil in this room,” she explained. “We should get some idea if there is indeed a threat here that way.”

After a moment, she gave a look of surprise and turned to the party. “It’s worse than we thought. Both of the coffins have something evil and powerful inside them, but the coffins themselves are also radiating evil! Maybe there’s some dark magic based on them?”

“Well, there’s only so much we can do to investigate them without potentially setting whatever traps the spells might be tied to or alerting the coffins’ inhabitants. I recommend we just try to dispel their magic and either charge the coffins or dash out of the room afterwards,” Tal recommended. “We can’t afford to waste time; we have to find a safe place to hide before they investigate.”

The party agreed, and after Danae used her most powerful dispelling magic on the coffins, the party charged in the general direction of both the coffins and the hallway at the other end of the room. As expected, the coffins were part of another guard force that reacted immediately when the party charged. What they didn’t expect was the two coffins growing ghostly legs and moving to the attack the party themselves!

Before even the coffins (though sarcophagi is a more accurate term for the massive stone tombs,) could attack, however, a dark, shadowy form appeared out of one of the sarcophagi and attacked Tal! Before the party could react to the sudden threat, the shadow ducked back into the same sarcophagus. Tal responded by attacking the coffin with magic, but did only minor damage to the massive stone structure.

Meanwhile, it was the coffins’ turn to attack. They moved almost like spiders on their ghostly insect legs and closed to attack the party. One hammered Tal with a leg and another charged the other side of the party. It struck at Bath, and her typical trust in her armor faded as the ghostly leg phased through her armor and struck right at her! Though it wasn’t able to use the same trick on her natural defenses, it nonetheless struck true and damaged the shocked angel. Eager to get revenge, Bath began to cut into the coffin, but it was difficult damaging the thick stone of the sarcophaspider with her blade. As a result, she was only slightly prepared when a wraith flew out of the second coffin, attacked Azat, and then flew safely back inside the coffin!

“This will get old fast,” Azat muttered, as he called upon the holy light of his god and sent a spray of shifting colors at the two coffins. One was seemingly unaffected, but the other was struck by a blue ray that caused it to turn to stone! Granted, it was mostly stone already and the stone parts seemed unaffected by the spell, but it did freeze the creature in place, preventing it from moving or attacking with its now stone arms! Seizing the opportunity, Devlin and Tiana moved up to help Tal deal with the motionless coffin.

Robin, however, had another idea. Over the past few weeks, he had been studying the inherent properties of undead, and as a result he learned how to strike their vulnerable focal points that bound them to reality much like a living being’s vital organs kept it alive. As a result, his training against undead enemies will be just as useful to him against undead now as it is against his chosen living targets. And since he didn’t know what those coffins were, he decided to focus his attacks on the sneaky creatures inside the coffins. The next time the shadow burst out of the first coffin, he fired a volley of arrows at it with one shot! The bolts largely struck true, forcing the surprised undead to flee back into the coffin.

Tal, meanwhile, took advantage of his enemy’s immobility by backing out of range and helping Tiana and Devlin with his magic. However, the tables turned on the three of them and Robin when the creature opened it stone coffin lid “mouth” and breathed at them! Well, technically the breath was a flood of ghostly spirits that flew right through the four heroes, draining some of their life and lancing their bodies with deadly negative energy, but the four heroes caught by the blast weren’t too concerned with technicalities.

While the four heroes recovered from the deadly attack, Bath and Azat began to trade blows with the second coffin. The sarcophaspider struck with both its legs and a ghostly tongue that rolled out of the lid opening. The tongue seemed to be the most powerful of its attacks, for it kept on trying to grab hold of the duo and pull them into the coffin, but fortunately the same magic the party used to travel the Vitreous Humor pool with ease also helped them avoid being grappled by the creature. Danae helped a little as well, but she also identified some magic on the exit from the room and tried to disable it in case they needed to escape quickly.

While Bath and Azat were getting a handle on their foe, the rest of the party was less successful. For one thing, when the shadow again emerged from the coffin, it was largely healed from the wounds Robin inflicted on it! It was as if the coffin somehow partially restored its health. In addition, the coffin opened again the next chance it got. This time, however, instead of firing a spray of spirits, it sent four more powerful spirits to hound the heroes. Each one bit at its victim and tried to wrap it with ghostly bindings, freezing the target. Tiana was affected by this strange attack, but the others ripped their ways out of the binding and attacked the coffin with renewed vigor. Soon, both of the strange coffins were reduced to rubble, leaving the undead inside them defenseless. They were soon destroyed as well, letting the party advanced down the tunnel Danae was trying to safeguard.

However, as they traveled down it, they soon discovered that she didn’t completely eliminate the magic traps located down it. They barely started their journey when ghostly eyeballs suddenly rained down at them! They filled each of the heroes with unholy pain whenever they struck, and the eyes then continued to circle their victims, as if watching every move they made for a weakness. Almost instantly afterwards, a word of blasphemy echoed down the hallway. Fortunately, Bath and Azat, the only heroes from who were not natives of this plane, were outside of the effect and thus were able to avoid being banished! However, it left the rest of the party dazed by the strength of the evil word. No sooner did they recover from that then a third danger appeared in the hallway. This time, it was a strange ooze that appeared to be of some dark, shadowy fluid. However, while it seemed to have more luck in attacking the party than expected because of the eyeballs’ assistance, the party was able to destroy it and reach the end of the tunnel without much trouble.

Once they were about to leave the tunnel, the party abruptly stopped to let the eyeballs finally dissipate and prepare for their next move. “Now, we can’t use force from here on, at least not until we figure out where Palfrin is. I don’t think we can single-handedly destroy every single undead in the Eye of Nerull, especially in the condition we’re in. And if we do use too much force, Palfrin will likely figure out that we’re here and try to flee before we get the chance to find him,” Danae explained to the group.

“I agree. We need to find a way to recover before we do anything, though,” Azat said. “I have a spell that lets use become invisible to undead. We can get use that and a regular invisibility spell in case they have any living allies or if we run into Palfrin. With luck, we can search the personal chambers until we find an empty one to rest in.”

The party quickly implemented that plan, and soon after they were searching the hallways of the Eye for a possible sanctuary. However, as they turned a corner after exploring for a minute or two, they stumbled upon an extremely unusual resident of the Eye: a rakshasa. Even stranger, it was a rakshasa who was totally without any form of disguise, a rare thing to find by accident indeed. The party immediately froze, afraid that this creature might discover them and alert the entire Eye, but it merely walked right past them while laughing and smoking his pipe, seemingly completely obliviously. The party released a collective sigh of relief, but they weren’t about to rely on the hope that the rakshasa didn’t really see them and was just bluffing. They intensified their search for a safe haven, and soon found an empty room to rest in. The next morning, they knew, the hard part of this mission would truly being.

OOC Notes: This update represents the last two updates before the group split to multiple states throughout the United States. As a result, we took a few months off to let the moving players adjust, and then started up again online. Of course, that wasn’t an easy transmission, and the first few games in particular saw little action. In other words, the next update will cover about six months of in real life time!

This was another adventure that used a lot of unique or unusual ideas. The shadow ooze was from a Dragon article, and the sarcophaspiders and the All Seeing spell (the ghostly eye one,) were unique ideas of mine. I actually enjoyed using the spiders quite a bit, as they had a lot of unique features. Notably, whenever they were damaged, negative energy filled their interior. This let the spring attacking wraith and shadow heal themselves every round the coffins were damaged, but it also could have been a deadly trap to the party if they weren’t all safe from the grapple checks due to Freedom of Movement spells.

 

[LordVyreth]

Oh, and thanks for the kind words, Oaxacan and Neurotic. I appreciate your responses. I really do wonder sometimes how many people generally read this thing, and it's good to hear from the readers sometimes.

As for the Dark Moons, let me just say the plotline just started revisiting that little story...

 

[LordVyreth]

The Eye of Nerull: Stone Eye Solid

The next morning, the party prepared their spells and their disguises for the next day. “I don’t think we can all appear as undead,” Tal pointed out, “even with magic. We could try more mundane disguises.”

Bath shook her head, “We can’t risk anyone mistaking even one of us for a living being here. Maybe we can treat them as prisoners? We can disguise that a lot more easily.”

The party agreed, and soon everyone figured out whether they would appear as an undead or a prisoner. Due to their magical talents, Bath, Danae, Tal, and Azat would appear as vampires or similar undead, and Devlin looked close enough to an undead to pass without magical aid. Robin and Tiana, however, would be disguised as prisoners. While Tal helped them prepare makeup so they appeared less dangerous and more beaten and disheveled, Bath had another idea. “I think I can scout around a bit while we’re waiting. I can polymorph myself into an insect. That shouldn’t attract too much attention.”

The rest of the party was concerned, but reluctantly let him go. Bath quickly changed form to appear as a fly, and then left the room to find any noteworthy rooms in the residential section of the Eye. She soon discovered two rooms that radiated intense heat and cold, respectively, a dark door that with mist that seeped out of its cracks, and finally the control room/bridge of the Eye itself. The control room was dominated by a massive bone throne, where a skeletal figure sat watching the control room’s view screen. The room also contained another stone coffin, a vampire who worked at a room’s control panel, and a massive undead minotaur in heavy armor. As Bath continued to explore the room, the minotaur suddenly turned to stare at her. “Master, we have an intruder!” the minotaur shouted as he swung a massive halberd at the surprised fly/angel.

Bath quickly moved out of the way as the rest of the room, who didn’t see her tiny fly body, stared at the minotaur like he was crazy! Bath narrowly evaded the halberd a few more times before fleeing the room terrified!

“Kuurnok, what is the meaning of this?” the shocked skeleton on the throne asked after Bath escaped.

“There was a fly in the room, master! I’m sure it was a spy for the dragons or a polymorphed wizard or something!”

The skeleton would have rolled his eyes if he still had any. “Kuurnok, it was probably just a regular fly. It must have been on or inside one of the ghasts when they returned from repelling the dragons. Now stop worrying about it and watch for legitimate threats.”

Kuurnok said nothing, but his eyes narrowed, or they would have if, again, he had any. He knew no regular fly would be that good at dodging his weaponry. This was the beginning of a greater threat.

Meanwhile, the spooked Bath returned to the party. “I found the bridge room. I think if we wanted to move about safely here, we have to present ourselves to him.”

Tal nodded. “Good idea. Even if we don’t get recognized as living beings, someone might realize we’re new. We could claim to be a standard patrol that caught these prisoners trying to sneak into the Eye.”

With a plan established, the party finished the make-up and marched directly to the bridge. There, Tal presented himself and told the cover story he thought up earlier, with some typical embellishments.

Kuurnok grunted. “Our policy has never been to bring captured prisoners here! And they still have some of their equipment!”

The skeletal leader of the Eye, however, shook his head. “Yes, but it makes sense to send us the prisoners who are trying to attack our base, does it not?”

“Not if they were trying to break in…” Kuurnok protested, but to no avail.

“Enough of this! If it really bothers you, Kuurnok, we’ll have the prisoners thrown into the ghast chambers. They’ll make sure the two prisoners don’t escape. However, the prisoners are not to be harmed! We want Emperor Petrach to receive them intact!”

A vampire servant led Robin and Tiana out of the room, while the skeletal leader continued his conversation with the others. “Will you be leaving, then?” the skeleton asked.

Tal shook his head. “Not yet. We’ll wait to help you deliver the prisoners as soon as our Master is ready for them.”

His presence established, the skeleton dismissed the remainder of the party, who realized that unless they find Palfrin soon and he will soon be ready to leave, they could be in big trouble if Petrach (or The Puppet, as the party more generally knew him) was ready to take the prisoners soon! They began their investigation immediately while Tiana and Robin were unceremoniously dumped into a pit full of ghasts! Robin was almost paralyzed with fear and by their incredible stench, but Tiana was an expert at dealing with undead and was unconcerned. In fact, something that the eye’s ruler said gave her an idea…

“Right, I must be going,” she said as she moved towards the door.

Of course, the ghasts quickly surrounded her. “You’re not going anywhere,” one hissed. “We have orders not to let you out. If you even try, we’ll rip your limbs off.”

“Ah, but didn’t your master also say that I’m not to be harmed?”

“Well, yes…” one of them admitted. “But it’s only a few missing limbs. We can have them repaired magically if need be, so long as you are left alive.”

“No, that’s not what he said at all. He said that I’m not to be harmed, period. There’s no ambiguity there.”

“But what if it is necessary to harm you to fulfill our other order? You are our prisoner, so our priority is to keep you here, regardless of your condition.”

“What makes you think you have the authority to determine what your priority is? It’s just as likely that not harming me is your primary objective.”

This went on for a while, and in fact Tiana discussed semantics with ghasts for the next several days while the party continued their investigation. They quickly discovered a number of potential suspects, with their primary suspects including the Rakshasha! Apparently, his name is Alastarix, and he only recently started to work at the Eye on an apparent consulting job. He also was known for his rolling card game, which he got a bit of a reputation for being absolutely awful at. This was suspicious to the party, however. After all, most Rakshasa were known for both their dexterity and their skill at deceit, making them excellent card players. Furthermore, if he really was that bad at it, why play so often?

However, their other suspect proved to be even more likely. She was a vampire named Verulan, and she came to the Eye recently to work on her research. As a result, she was allowed to avoid the usual guard duty most of the Eye’s vampires are forced into performing. Currently, she was working in what the vampires questioned called the Spirit Containment room. They soon discovered this was the misty room that the dark door led to. Though understandably nervous about the whole concept given the name and the strange mist, the party carefully entered the room.

Once there, they learned that the “mist” was clearly not something so mundane. It drifted across the room as if it had some life, and strange faces randomly appeared throughout it.

“What is this?” Tal asked with discuss.

Azat studied it for a moment, and then gravely said, “The stuff of souls. This is the residual spirit material that is left behind in a body when the consciousness has gone on to the next life. It can be absorbed by the undead to heal them, but it is harmless to living beings. We can proceed, but be careful.”

Exploring the room was as confusing as navigating a heavy fog, but after wandering for a few minutes, a seated figure could be seen. The party approached it carefully, but the pale woman appeared to be meditating and didn’t notice them. They carefully backed up long enough for Azat and Danae to prepare detection magic, and then approached. Sure enough, as they expected, when seen through the eyes of pure truth, “Verulan” was actually a human male with a large amount of crystal equipment.

“That’s him!” Tal confirmed as they made they way out of the room. “I recognize him from the last time.”

“Now all we have to do is wait for him to leave, and then use the Eye to track him,” Danae noted.

Tal nodded, but sighed, “Years after he escaped me the first time, and we have to let him go again.”

The days following this discovery passed uneventfully, for the most part. Tal and Danae spent as much time as possible in the bridge, so they could be prepared to use it quickly when the time came. Finally, Verulan/Palfrin told the skeletal leader (who the party learned was an ancient lich named Fell Kniss by this point,) that she/he was ready to go, and not a moment too soon, for that very day, word had come from the Puppet that he was ready to receive the prisoners! In addition, there was another complication: Devlin was gone. He had disappeared about a day before Palfrin and the party’s planned departures, and the heroes had no idea what happened to him.

“Did he sell us out?” Tal asked that morning, as they went over their preparations for that day’s likely battle.

“If so, it wasn’t to the undead, or we would already be arrested,” Azat replied. “Maybe he got tired of waiting and fled back to Dragovigis or tried to find Methosilang on his own.”

“At any rate, we can’t afford to wait for him any longer,” Danae admitted. “If he was captured by the undead, we would have heard about it, so we have to assume he’s safe wherever he is.”

Later that day, the party gathered Tiana and Robin. Fell Kniss expected them to meet with him one last time at the bridge before they left so he could brief them one last time, and the party was able to carefully time it so their last meeting would take place mere seconds after Palfrin left. They carefully re-entered the bridge, and just as Fel Kniss turned to shake their hands and begin the final briefing, Tal shouted “Now” and the party charged into the room!

The “prisoners” were the most eager party members to get some revenge on the undead after their long imprisonment, so they were the first to act. Both of them moved to attack the giant minotaur, but his dark nature repelled all but a bit of the damage from their attacks.

“I knew you were spies from the very beginning!” he roared as he created a dark burst of fire and unholy energy at them.

“And look how much good it did you!” Azat taunted while he began to heal the party.

Meanwhile, the rest of the party surged in. Bath flew right at the surprised vampire assistant and nearly destroyed its body with one series of swings! About the same time, Danae shapechanged into one of the most dangerous things she could think of: a monstrous being from the Far Realm known as an Uvuudum! She struck at the lich and grappled him in her giant tentacle. Tal was just a step behind her and aided her with magic, but his primary concern was the throne. As soon as Danae could wrestle Kniss out of it, he knew he had to get on it and use it to find Palfrin and Bas. His thoughts were distracted, however, when the coffin that lied next to the throne grew four insect legs and breathed its unholy spirit breath at the party!

Seeing this, Robin broke off his fight against Kuurnok and fired at the sarcophaspider, but his arrows were about as effective on the creature’s stone body as they were on Kuurnok’s unholy form. Without the threat of the ranger, Kuurnok roared and charged right at Azat. Because he was pretending to be an undead, Azat didn’t have the chance to transform into his more powerful wereleopard form, and as a result he couldn’t withstand the furious blows of the raging minotaur! After a few bloody strokes of his halberd, Kuurnok had sliced the lifeless body of Azat into little pieces!

Meanwhile, Fell Kniss relied on his years of experience to use magic even while being grappled. He summoned a swarm of the dark eyes that hounded the party at the corridor into the residential sector. The eyes bored into the party with their dark glares, filling them with damaging dark power. In addition, Kuurnok and the other fighters looked at the party with a new insight, having received information about how to attack the party more easily from the scouting eyes.

However, Kniss’s plan was costly, for Danae continued to pierce him with the spiked tentacle and dragged him out of his throne. An overly eager Tal ran to sit on the throne, but as he did so, the stone coffin opened and lashed at him with an ectoplasmic tongue. It struck Tal easily, and then wrapped itself around him and suddenly pulled him into the tomb! With the heavy noise of a coffin lid closing, Tal was trapped.

Bath was having slightly better luck. She destroyed the vampire’s form, forcing it to turn into mist and flee. However, at the same time, reinforcements flew in from the ceiling. A massive wraith floated towards her and struck her with a ghostly claw, damaging her and draining some of her life force at the same time.

After seeing her friend’s horrible fate, Tiana realized that Bath might be the only force capable of stopping the deadly Kuurnok. She moved to help her fight the wraith while Robin was forced to endure the brunt of the minotaur’s attack. The monster’s blows hurt even the tough ranger greatly, but he held his ground.

Meanwhile, Danae succeeded at pinning Fell Kniss, but the wily lich simply vanished after obviously using some sort of teleportation spell. With her primary target gone, Danae knew she had to save Tal and quickly, but realized that first she had to prevent more reinforcements from coming. After using magic capable of stopping time itself, she coated the walls and ceiling with multiple walls of force, and made sure to toss two in front of the door in case one was destroyed. She then altered her shape into that of a massive adamantine golem and worked to free Tal.

With Tiana’s help, Bath was able to destroy the wraith and turn her attention to the hateful minotaur. With Robin and Tiana’s support, she began to seriously wound the massive monster at the same time as Danae grabbed onto the sarcophaspider and began to pry its lid off. The creature attacked Danae’s form as it struggled, but Danae ignored the pain and continued to fight the beast. Finally, she freed Tal, but it was a costly victory, as she realized when she saw Tal. The poor sorcerer looked almost as injured as the coffin did, as if the sarcophaspider projected all the pain and injury it suffered at Tal!

Despite the painful state he was in, Tal quickly sat onto the throne and began to use it to find Palfrin while Danae continued to pummel the coffin. However, a new threat presented itself to the party, for Fell Kniss had returned, and he brought an incredibly dangerous reinforcement! It was a skeletal figure, but it was covered with ice and a cold mist radiated around it. Danae realized it was a Winter Wight, one of the most powerful undead in existence! Fortunately, her walls of force managed to hinder Kniss’ attempts to return, and both he and the wight were trapped outside the room!

With time running short, the party intensified their efforts. Bath quickly finished off the minotaur death knight while Tal finally figured out the throne and used it to track Palfrin. He was currently located only a few dozen miles from the Fortress of Vengeance and the underground drow city the party fought the Lady of Blood at, suggesting that this was indeed Bas’ resting place.

At first, it looked like Danae’s plan was even more effective than she thought, for the necromancy-focused lich didn’t even seem to be capable of disintegrating the force walls! However, a series of disintegration beams were fired by an unknown caster from the end of the hall, letting Kniss and the winter wight reach the party. The party, however, wasn’t eager to stretch this encounter out any longer than they had to. Danae created a sphere of prismatic energy around them while they quickly gathered the treasure dropped by their enemies. They then gathered around Bath so she could take them back to Methosilang. However, Danae was too far away to reach Bath in time. “Don’t worry about me!” Danae shouted to her friend. I’ll be right behind you!” Bath nodded and teleported away. Bath turned to face the two powerful undead and smiled. “Besides,” she thought, as she reveled in the incredible success she had in this fight so far, “I can probably defeat these fools myself!”

Her overconfidence lasted all of six seconds, for as soon as he entered the room, Fell Kniss shapechanged into a beholder and trained his antimagic eye on the surprised wizard. Her own shapechanging magic was temporarily negated, letting the powerful winter wight pummel her! She survived the attack, but just barely, and wisely fled into the sphere for safety and to regain her magic. Once there, she teleported away to rejoin the rest of the party in Methosilang.

Despite the death of a party member and their own near-destruction at the hands of the winter wight and lich, the party was jubilant at their success. At last, they found the location of their enemy! As soon as the army of Methosilang was ready, they could attack her and destroy the twisted goddess once and for all! Once they healed and gave the body of Azat over to Methosilang’s clerics for preparations, they went over the treasure they earned over the course of their adventure, and were surprised by some of its contents. “Two, three, four onyx goats,” Danae counted as she looked over the jewelry. “That’s strange. We have four nearly identical carvings of onyx goats and we got them from completely different enemies. But they don’t radiate magic, so they’re not some sort of new magic item. I wonder how a set of such strange figurines were spread about throughout the Eye…”

Later that night, Alastarix rested in his room in the Eye and began a magical communication with his master.

“Yes, everything went more or less exactly according to plan. The heroes of Methosilang arrived and discovered Palfrin as expected.”

After listening to the other speaker, Alastarix replied “…Yes, I was able to steal his research and his duplicate his samples in time. I was able to scatter them throughout the Eye’s guardians without arousing suspicion.”

“Of course the heroes collected them when they killed the guardians. What adventurers wouldn’t?”

“Yes, I was able to use the throne in all the confusion. Fell Kniss left the room as soon as the Eye couldn’t track the heroes in the traditional method. Nobody even noticed that I had far more success.”

“Oh, I agree. I would love to see the looks on the faces of those pathetic gray-robes! They went through all this effort, and then we accomplished what they thought would take weeks or months in a matter of days!”

“Oh, Bas will recognize this success for you without a doubt. You have yet to fail her, from what I can tell. Even the incident at the dwarf city was pinned on Kulstra, not you. You will clearly become her favored servant after this.”

“Yes, the adventurers likely know where Bas is as well, but that couldn’t be helped. I tried to force them to retreat early, but if Fell Kniss killed them all, all our plans would have been ruined. It really isn’t relevant. It won’t matter in a week anyway, and there’s no way the Methosilang army will be able to mobilize in time.”

“No, you don’t half to worry about the vampiric half-breed. I resolved the situation exactly as you requested and without the party’s knowledge. You won’t have to be concerned about him any further.”

“I’m planning on leaving in a few days. I don’t want to make the undead suspicious by leaving too early. Useless as the gray robes normally are, we do need them in this crucial stage.”

“Yes, I will have my full report ready for you at my arrival. Goodbye, Phellis.”

OOC Notes: That last part wasn’t really part of the adventure, I admit, but how many opportunities do you have to have a perfect Revolver Ocelot-style ending in a D&D game? Hopefully it will give you some hints about the next couple of adventures as well. And if you’re confused about the above dialog, you should know that only Alastarix is being heard here. The other half of the conversation (Phellis Mune, in this case,) is skipped over, as if you were listening to only one half of the phone conversation.

If you’re still confused about the events of this adventure, let me know, and I’ll write up a brief synopsis of just what happened exactly in the last three adventures. I understand it is a little confusing, and even some of my players had trouble with it at first.

Kuurnok, for those of you who don’t recognize the name, was created at my request by ENWorld’s own Black Dirge! He was a source of continual amusement in the early games of this recap. It’s rare that the minion of the BBEG is sharper and more aware of the party’s plans than the actual BBEG, especially when the minion is a stupid minotaur and the villain is a supposed super-genius lich.

 

[LordVyreth]

The Truth: The Revelation of the Keeper

After their success at the Eye (and their defeat as well, though they didn’t know it yet,) the party took a few days to rest. Of course, they had an audience with the king and queen of Methosilang, where they told the tales of their latest adventure, made sure that the location of Bas would be known even if something happened to them, and learned the current status of the kingdom’s military build-up. Things were going very well, and once the party got the exact details shortly after their post-adventure shopping spree, they learned that the army would be completely trained, mobilized, and ready to deploy at a moment’s notice in only a month’s time. With this information, the party returned to their home to make their own plans and decide what to do while waiting for the army to be ready. They could just take the time resting, but with the final battle so close and so much riding on it, something had to be done.

Fortunately, in a way, adventure found them again as it often has. The first noteworthy event occurred shortly after the party through a quick memorial service for the killed Azat, who chose not to be resurrected after his death. As per his wishes, the party shifted to his plane of existence to put the remains to rest at his homeland. During the service, they were surprised when a visibly angry man suddenly appeared out of thin air and shouted, “What happened to my student!?”

The man had a similar style of dress and appearance to Azat, although he had a certain glow that Bath immediately recognized as a sign of celestial heritage, so the party assumed he came from the same plane as Azat originally did. Understanding the situation, Tal quickly intervened to calm the strange man down, “We’re sorry to tell you he was killed. However, if it helps, we can tell you of his fate. He died honorably, fighting against evil undead monsters of the highest order to help save his new homeland.”

The man was calmed enough at Tal’s words to hear the story of Azat’s death in the Eye of Nerull. After hearing it, the man nodded and introduced himself more formally. “I apologize for my shock and anger when I first arrived. I am called Tonacacihuatl, and I was Azat’s teacher and mentor. I helped him better understand his gift and guided him on his quest to destroy the enemies of life. It sounds like your quest is an honorable and worthy one. I believe that it would please my pupil’s spirit if I were to assist you and finish the quest he has started. Will you let me join you?”

The party agreed, and soon they were back at Methosilang and once again processing a new citizen and ally of the city and the kingdom as a whole. Tonaca (as he was swiftly called by everyone who couldn’t remember or pronounce his full name,) had some trouble adjusting to the vastly different civilization of a new plane, but just like Azat before him, he was learning quickly.

However, he only had a day or two of adjustment time before a far graver situation came up. Olivia Neddle arrived at the party’s manor to let them know that once again her “associate,” the goddess of knowledge Ordhari, had important information for them.

After the party was gathered and new members of the group were introduced to both Olivia and Ordhari, the woman/goddess explained the situation. “Before I explain what has happened, I have to give you a brief history lesson.” Ignoring the groans from everyone but Danae, she continued, “Nearly a thousand years ago, the Undead Empire had a very important underground research lab. This lab was located in an ancient temple left over from an ancient era, much like my own Ancient Library. This area was called the Forgotten Temple, and the undead used the relics from this ruins in their quest to create and perfect new magical weaponry and beasts. However, something went wrong. They ended up creating a new creature so powerful that not even they could control it. The creature went mad, destroying the undead researchers and proclaiming itself the emperor of the various experiments and subjects in the lab. Not even the undead emperor, the being you call The Puppet, could easily stop it. Not willing to risk his own unlife or that of his most powerful servants, he summoned his most powerful clerics and wizards to collectively seal the Temple itself. The seal prevented the creature from leaving under any circumstances and hid the entire area from all kinds of divination magic. Or, at least, that was the situation up until a few days ago.

“I suddenly became aware of the Temple, suggesting that somehow the seal was breeched. It initially thought the spell merely was getting weaker, but instead it turned out that some accident physically disrupted the seal, creating a tiny gap in it. The creature can’t escape from such a gap, but a group from outside can get in.”

“So you are afraid someone will try to release this creature? Why would anyone do that?” Danae asked.

Ordhari hesitated, and then explained, “Over the last thousand years, the creature took full advantage of its time in captivity. It grew in power and knowledge, as it studied the abandoned relics of his prison. In fact, it no longer can even be considered a mortal creature. It is more like a twisted demi-god, an abomination if you will. It has been absorbing the knowledge of the various creatures it claims dominion over, and since it didn’t gain full godhood, it isn’t bound by the rules of secrets that we gods are. It has become so knowledgeable that records of the creature’s existence, which no longer have any recollection of the creature’s original name, now simple call it the Keeper of Knowledge. It could provide accurate information on nearly any subject, but for a price.”

“So we could learn information about nearly anything from it? Better ways to stop Bas, how to destroy the Dark Moons, even who Lady Memory is?” Tal asked.

Bath shook her head. “I’m more worried about the price.”

“Well, most likely, anyone who wants information from this creature will have to free it in exchange. And this gives us two options. We can’t just ignore this beast. Someone is bound to find it, and then Bas will not only have answers to any questions she can’t get herself, like the location of Methosilang, but also the friendship of an incredibly powerful ally. On the other hand, as Tal pointed out, getting help from this creature could be helpful to our cause as well, but doing so is very risky. If released, the Keeper will likely direct its vengeance against the undead empire initially, but after that it could seek any ally or go after any civilization. It could even try to conquer the world itself, and we’d have a second Bas to worry about. If you do get answers out of it, you have to make sure to use deceit or offer only partial aide. From there, it will likely be necessary to destroy it, if possible.”

“If possible?” a worried Robin asked.

“Well, like I said, this creature is far from weak. It is almost as powerful as the Puppet, after all. However, if you hope to actually fight Bas, then battling creatures like the Keeper should be less of a danger in comparison. If nothing else, the Keeper might be a good test of your skills before the final battle with Bas.”

Faced with this information, the party agreed to go to the Forgotten Temple and confront the Keeper, but they were undecided about what to do when they finally met the beast? Try to deal with it for information that could be critical or simply destroy it? For now, they decided to just explore the Temple and hope to find some answers by the time they were ready to confront this strange opportunity.

Surprisingly, however, their first clue came before they even reached the temple. Danae had teleported the party to the closest area they knew of to the Temple. From there, they had to take a few days to get there the old fashioned way. It was on the second day that they were stopped by some unexpected figures.

The first figure suddenly materialized in front of them. It was vaguely humanoid, but it lacked any gender-based features. It also had four legs and arms, very pale, white skin, and vaguely insect-like eyes, and it flew on wings made of pure force. Behind it, a second figure of the same species floated, but it was invisible, and thus most of the party was initially unaware of it. The figure that was revealing itself to the party said in a voice that was forceful but not hostile, “Stop! I am not your enemy, but I must insist you cease this quest! I know who you seek and you must not deal with such a beast! It will endanger far more than you realize!”

The party halted for now, at least until they could determine the nature of this potential threat. Tiana quickly studied these creatures for any hint of evil, but was shocked at the results. She gasped, “They’re good!”

Danae nodded. “I thought they looked familiar, though the common belief was that these beings were extinct. They’re called Malachim, and they’re celestials, but of a particularly strange nature. They oppose evil like all celestials do, but they are far less picky about how to win their battles. They have been known to use less orthodox and even slightly unethical methods to oppose evil. They even have been known to ally with evil gods or fiends to fight greater evils! That was believed to be their downfall, for when great evil powers sought revenge on their kind, they were abandoned by the other celestials and completed annihilated! Of course, that last part may have to be revised now.”

After hearing that they were willing to work with evil, Bath was suspicious despite her kinship with these celestials. “Tell us, who do you serve?” she asks the Malachim.

The visible Malachim, who so far was the only one who responded or spoke in any way, shook his strange head and replied, “I’m afraid I can’t tell you that. The entity we serve wishes to remain anonymous. I can only say that it is not your enemy, and in fact its greatest desire is to see your success. However, it is unable to reveal its true name or form to you due to various laws of the divine.”

Danae sighed and said, “Well, that’s all very well and good, but we can’t just ignore the Keeper. If we do, then Bas’ forces will abuse his knowledge, and I’m sure even you must agree that would be even worse.”

The Malachim nodded, and responded, “Very well. We won’t stop you from seeing this creature, but you must make a vow to us and to your gods that should you find this creature, you will only act to destroy him, not bargain with him.”

The party conferred for a while, and surprisingly, most of them agreed to this request despite some lingering suspicions about the Malachim, including why one of them chose to try remaining hidden. “After all,” Robin admitted, “We sort of wanted to just destroy him anyway. I’m not so certain that trying to deal with such an evil creature is wise at any rate.”

Even Danae and Tal, who were most comfortable with the idea of seeking knowledge from such a beast, reluctantly nodded their heads. “The idea of losing so much knowledge sickens me,” Danae said, “but there has to be a better way.”

However, it turns out that one of the party was not willing to accept the vow, and it was possibly the last one that any would expect. Bath, remarkably, was not willing to take the vow. Even though she couldn’t directly work with an evil being because of her vows as a paladin, she wasn’t willing to the tie the party’s hands before they knew the entire situation, especially to such an ambiguous creature. On the other hand, she couldn’t attack a celestial either, so she decided to take the only course of action she could; call his bluff.

She began to fly forward, right past the sentinel Malachim and in direct opposition to his order. Both it and the party protested, but she continued onward, causing the Malachim to sigh and cause two energy blades to materialize out of thin air. It attacked Bath as she passed by, forcing both groups to react to the new situation.

Though they were reluctant to do so, the party had to support one of their own, and they helped Bath fight the Malachim. However, as early as the first strike, the Malachim demonstrated that they weren’t bluffing when they claimed to want to help the party. The blades were incredibly painful to Bath when they struck her, but they left no permanent wounds. Even when the invisible Malachim cast a spell that rained fiery meteors on the party, all of the damage was nonlethal! Confused by this usual change from the norm, the party focused on supportive and nonlethal magic, at least at first. Tonaca, demonstrating his unusual culture in comparison to that of the home plane of most of the party, summoned a flying snake known as a coualt, which Tonaca put to work to detect the nature of the Malachim and confirm that they are truly good. Danae put up a defensive wall of force and later shapechanged into a solar. Even when the party did attack the Malachim, as both Bath and Robin swiftly chose to do, they used nonlethal damage. Before long, both Malachim were wounded and may soon be knocked unconscious.

However, this situation bothered Danae. As much as she wanted to preserve such rare beings and despite originally agreeing to take their vow, if the Malachim now considered the party to be enemies, if not deadly ones, they’ll likely return to hound the party throughout the entire Forgotten Temple. That could be deadly depending on what they’ll end up finding there. She sighed with regret and disappointment and decided she would have to use lethal force in this situation.

After making that decision, she fired a ray of utter darkness at the nearest Malachim. If successful, the ray would instantaneously cause of the death of any living being. It struck the Malachim directly and though it shuddered and almost collapsed from the pain, it managed to resist the ray’s most dire effects. However, since they were losing the fight up to this point and now that they realized the party would fight to the death, the Malachim teleported away, confirming Danae’s fears.

The rest of the party was less happy with the end of the fight, and Danae and Bath in particular were visibly upset with each other. “Why did you provoke them?” Danae asked. “We didn’t have to fight them!”

“If I didn’t do so, we would be forced to obey that oath. I couldn’t take such an oath from an unknown source. Besides, no one got hurt. At least, we didn’t this time. They might not be so forgiving if they show up again.”

“That’s exactly what I wanted to prevent! They could come after us at any moment!” Danae responded, but she sighed and realized this fighting was futile. After uttering a few choice curse words, she decided to let the matter drop. The party rode on towards the Temple, but they did so with greater reluctance. Already, they were up against mysterious enemies and the party itself was in danger of being split. What would they be up against in the Temple itself?

OOC Notes: The party essentially reached a collective 22nd level right before this. There was actually some confusion on a few people xp totals due to people missing a few games and the overall confusion of the switch to online, so I just balanced out everyone except for Tal, who was well above the rest of the party’s level at this point. That just made him higher up at 22nd level, though.

Oh, and some good news. I'll hopefully have another update for you next weekend. I switched weekends for my biweekly schedule a month or so ago, but the new system really doesn't fit the schedule as well. Doing it next week will give me an entire saturday that's free, letting me stretch work on the recap over two days so I hopefull will have less of these Monday updates.

 

[Axegrrl]

Now, this just sucks, because you've been telling us to read your story hour... and whammo, massive spoiler. Basically, it doesn't matter what we do next, as according to post #173, the bad guys now know where the hidden city is. So while we try to find allies to go beat up on Bas, when we get there with the army from Methosilang, Bas and army will probably be gone -- destroying Methosilang, which we have just left essentially unprotected. Wonderful. I so love playing in games where I as a player know the mission is doomed and my character is clueless. Not.

 

[LordVyreth]

Now, this just sucks, because you've been telling us to read your story hour... and whammo, massive spoiler. Basically, it doesn't matter what we do next, as according to post #173, the bad guys now know where the hidden city is. So while we try to find allies to go beat up on Bas, when we get there with the army from Methosilang, Bas and army will probably be gone -- destroying Methosilang, which we have just left essentially unprotected. Wonderful. I so love playing in games where I as a player know the mission is doomed and my character is clueless. Not.

Err, what? I don't want to spoil things for the readers, but I thought the current adventure made it fairly obvious that the Bas forces knew where Methosilang was. Otherwise their current plan would be a waste. Since this storyline was just about to come up, I didn't feel too worried about revealing how they learned this when it became a given that they did in fact know this.

As for your second concern, Bas can't actually go anywhere. The whole point is to raise an army and destroy her before she gains her full strength and the capacity to move. Considering that and that Methosilang will certainly leave some defenses behind and is in a very decent position defensively in the first place, it would make no sense for Bas' forces to send any significant forces away in the final battle when their very goddess' life is at stake for something as trivial as the destruction of Methosilang after its armies have been raised.

I hope this answers your questions on the subject. If you want to discuss this further, I recommend you do so via email to avoid waylaying the Story Hour. I've seen situations where player-DM conflict seep into the SH discussion and it isn't pretty.

As for the SH, I apologize for not getting the update in yet. I was sort of surprised by unexpected Father's Day plans. I'll probably finish it up in the next two days.

edit: Okay, slightly longer. Sorry about that. Hopefully I can get a fairly short update up tonight, and then we'll resume the normal-length updates next weekend. In case you're wondering, I'm about 3 months behind right now, and should be able to catch up pretty quickly at this point.

 

[LordVyreth]

The Truth: Bridge Over Troubled "Water"

The party journeyed farther, until it began to grow late in the day. They briefly considered resting for the night, but before they could make a decision, they had reached the mountain the Temple was buried under. It took only a few minutes of searching for the party to find a tunnel leading deep underground. From what they know, this should take them directly to the Temple’s entrance. However, they once again had to make a decision on whether it would wise to rest beforehand.

“I really don’t recommend it,” Danae said. “Those Malachim are still out there, and they have a very good chance of attacking us while we try to sleep.”

Tal scoffed. “We still have the Instant Fortress. I can make it impenetrable to any attack!”

“Well, yes, but we only have half an hour of invincibility with your Lyre of Building, so we can’t keep it up all night, and that won’t help us if they sneak in. Besides, we’re right in the middle of undead territory. If we set up a massive fortress, a patrol might find us, especially since we’re right next to such an important location.”

Mark conceded the point, the party agreed to investigate the Temple for now. The tunnel they took twisted downwards for thousands of feet, and while it was barely ten feet high and wide at first, by the end of the tunnel, it was more than two hundred feet high and wide! It also opened up on the side, letting the heroes look downwards into a massive cavern. A gigantic dome rose out of the ground at the bottom of the cavern. “That must be the top of the Temple,” Robin speculated. “Can we get in there?”

Tiana shook her head. “We don’t know how or what will break the seal trapping The Keeper in. I’d rather find the regular entrance if possible.”

The tunnel eventually descended below the cavern floor and finally ended hundreds of feet down. A massive stone door, covered with runes of unknown origin, stood before the party.

“I wonder what that says,” Robin nervously remarked.

Danae peered at it, her supernaturally effective skill with languages working overtime. “There are some engraved lettering from what I suspect is the original Temple’s owners. It’s mostly a lot of praising of various gods and creatures, though possibly evil ones. At any rate, I can only read a little bit of it. Somebody, the undead I wager, have printed new lettering above the old. Some of it is more prayers, though to Nerull and his great priest. The rest are warnings to stay away, probably written after the Keeper took control.”

The door was slightly ajar, and led to a massive stone bridge. From their perspective, there was no way of seeing what was at the end of the bridge or what was beneath it.

“So, who wants to go first,” Tiana asked, obviously implying it wouldn’t be her.

Danae smiled. “Well, there is the instant volunteer…”

The summoned badger carefully walked through the door, crossed the bridge, and turned to look at the party. Its brief mission completed, it safely vanished to the Plane that it had come from, and the party followed its path onto the bridge.

The bridge apparently connected the original Temple’s outer walls and interior, but the damage it had taken since then ruined much of the originally massive building. In fact, it appeared that there was a lower level to the Temple at least 100 feet below, but 100 feet down it was flood with a strange, green liquid. The liquid helped illuminate the entire temple, but it didn’t appear to be safe for a living being to swim in. To help demonstrate how dangerous the liquid is, something was spotted moving in the “water.”

“What is that?” a sharp-eyed Robin, who was the first to spot the thing, said.

“Can you drop another badger in there?” Tal asked.

“Oh, no,” Danae said. “I’d rather not send them to certain doom if I can help it. I know it doesn’t kill them, but it’s supposed to be pretty painful. Besides, it looks like Robin is not enthused about that plan.”

“Well, we should at least get some idea about what’s down there, so they don’t ambush us later,” Tiana said, and she dropped a rock into the mire.

Immediately, the pool was abuzz with activity. Dozens, if not hundreds, of bloated undead bodies bobbed to the surface, eager for what they thought was the first live meal in centuries.

“Sunken,” Tal identified as he saw the brief feeding frenzy. “We’ve fought them before, but never this many. We have to make sure to stay clear of the pool.”

The party journeyed onward, and soon came to the end of the bridge. However, they still weren’t inside the inner walls of the temple. The path ended about ten feet from an indentation in the wall, and then split to the left and right. Those paths soon entered dark tunnels into the walls, but the party was more concerned about three alcoves above the two tunnels and the far wall. As they nervously approached, their fear was confirmed, as three hideous yet familiar monsters emerged. One was a jelly-fish like monster with four hook-like tentacles and a cacophony of screams emerging from its head. One was a gigantic bat with the head of a pale elf. And the last was a red demon with a dozen unnatural mouths throughout its body.

“A lipido, a swift pride, and a canor factum?” Danae said with surprise. “Why would three fiends of such diverse origins be working together?”

“We serve the master,” The canor factum replied. “He told us that no unworthy ones are to see him. We are the guardians of his domain.”

“Well, how to we become worthy?” Tal asked, eager to get passed this threat without further violence, despite Bath’s obvious eagerness to destroy them.

“You must pass a test.”

“And what is the test?”

“You must destroy the guardians.” So saying, the three fiends swiftly set upon the party!

OOC Notes: Apologize for the really short update this time. I’ll try to make up for it with a double-length one next weekend, is possible. Between Father’s day and a tough work week, it’s just been too stressful to get a lot of writing done.

So, did anyone get the theme of the dungeon’s encounters yet? It’ll be more obvious in the next update, when we explore the main portion of the Temple at last!

 

[OaxacanWarrior]

So, did anyone get the theme of the dungeon’s encounters yet? It’ll be more obvious in the next update, when we explore the main portion of the Temple at last!

I don't have the theme yet so I'll just wait for the next update. I'm looking forward to it.

 

[LordVyreth]

The Truth: We Are...

Tiana, as is often the case, was first to react, but her specialty was undead, not fiends like these creatures. She quickly took flight using an enchanted figurine of a fly, while the Canor Factum and the Lipido crashed into the front ranks of the party. Bath, as expected, was far less reluctant to engage in battle with demons and immediately attacked the most demonic-looking of the three, the Canor Factum. As the two squared off, Tal and Danae retreated to the back to attack the monsters with their magic, and Robin began to fire at the Lipido. However, he only got started when the creature descended into the party’s ranks and released a spread of dark energy. At the same time, the Swift Pride flew to the side of the bridge and began to rapidly beat its wings, creating a gale tainted with dark energy. The unholy power cut like a knife, but most of the party held their ground and resisted the dark force of the wind. However, Tiana lost her footing and was slammed into a side wall by the blast! Only quick reflexes and a lucky foothold kept her from falling 100 feet into the swarm of hungry Sunken!

Their special powers exhausted, the three fiends settled into a more routine battle with the party. Tonaca decided to seek the higher ground and ascended using a flying carpet, while Danae rode along with him as a passenger. Tiana used her climbing skills to move across the wall until her figurine could catch her again. Robin remained on the ground and began to pepper the Swift Pride with arrows, and Tal used magic to fly away from the bridge entirely and cast spells from the far corner. And Bath, well, did what came naturally. As Robin battled the Swift Pride and the crew of the carpet was in danger of being grappled by the Lipido’s tentacles, Bath easily destroyed the Canor Factum and moved on to helping the carpet crew. The fight ended quickly at that point, since the party outnumbered the remaining fiends three to one.

However, something unusual happened when the monsters were destroyed. Unlike most outsiders the party encountered so far, they didn’t dissolve into ash when destroyed. “How strange,” a suspicious Danae muttered, but Bath just shrugged.

“It doesn’t matter. Let’s dump them in the water and let the Sunken destroy them for us.” The party concurred and after stripping the fiends of any possessions, the remains were sent to the glowing pool below. However, though the Sunken eagerly ate most of the bodies, a bit from the Swift Pride, the last of the three fiends killed, was left untouched and continued to float on the water’s surface.

The party, however, was less interested in this mystery and more interested in exploring the rest of the Temple. The path opened to the left and right, and after a brief discussion, it was decided that they would go left first. The path began to curve to the right as it continued on, suggesting that the main layout of the Temple formed a big circle. More unusually, the path often opened to the right, revealing what looked like a strange forest. The trees and plants were vastly larger than normal, and they all had black leaves. “Oh, we have to check that out!” Robin eagerly said, but the others were more reluctant.

“We should explore the normal pathway of the Temple first. We can come back to the forest if we get stuck or after we finished here,” Tal suggested, and Robin reluctantly backed down when he saw the others agreed.

They soon came to the next room of the Temple. It appeared to be a massive biological lab or wizard’s study. It contained multiple levels separated by ramps and ladders and with metal grating floors. Tubes designed for storing biological samples covered most of the walls, and while many were empty, others included outsiders like the ones the party just fought and various other biological samples. There even were skeletal penguin-shaped birds with bat wings, just like the Prinnies the party encountered in the semi-planar rift, though their tendency to explode when damaged suggest that these samples were obtained very carefully!

Speaking of skeletal birds, the room also contained the skeleton of a massive roc-sized bird, though the skull suggested that it has extremely large and unusual eyes. Danae was able to tell that much from a distance, but hesitated to get in close for a more detailed examination. “Is it just me, or does anyone else think this thing will get up and attack us as soon as I get close?” she asked the others.

“Oh yeah,” Tal agreed.

“Of course,” Tiana also concurred.

“I expected it as soon as I saw it,” Tonaca added.

“Hell, I’d be disappointed if it didn’t try to kill us,” Robin admitted.

“Yup, let’s destroy it!” Bath enthused.

The party quickly prepared and charged the skeleton, and were strangely satisfied when it did animate, even if they completely devastated the simple, if large, skeleton, in a matter of moments. After reducing the bird to dust and a few loose bones, the party moved on.

The tunnel again curved to the right and periodically opened on that side to the forest, but the party ignored it again and came upon another room. This one was missing a floor entirely, letting the party see more of the green pool than normal. Oddly enough, the pool was boiling here, as if something extremely hot was inside it to rise its temperature. The walls and ceiling of the room were covered in murals, runes, and statues of strange monsters from alternate planes. The only thing located in the room itself was a carefully-positioned platform covered with more strange runes and suspended by a series of massive chains. The party could literally walk down a chain to reach the platform and then up another chain to reach the next tunnel out of the room, but Danae stopped the party before they could try this. “The runes on that platform suggest that it contains a planar gateway.”

Using magic, she floated closer to the platform and studied the runes more closely. “I believe the gateway is currently locked to Pyrodessy, that strange plane we were on earlier that consisted of mostly fire. It looks damaged or at least highly erratic. I’m not sure what will cause it to open, and given the nature of the Pyrodessy plane, it’s very likely that anything to come out of it will be very unpleasant.”

With that information, the party decided it would be safer just to destroy the runes on the platform outright, destroying the gate. Tal prepared a massive acid barrage and used it to destroy the runes while the rest of the party waited on the chains or in the air around the platform. As expected, the acid destroyed the runes, but it also seemed to activate the gateway one last time before it was destroyed. Two strange monsters appeared on the platform. They seemed to be undead, for they contained glowing spectral skeletons, but their outer bodies appeared to be pure magma.

In different circumstances, the creatures would have posed a serious threat to the party. However, because so much of the party was able to fly out of their reach, it was a short and easy battle. Only Bath would consider getting close enough to the Molten monsters for them to attack her with their blades and tentacles of lava, and the quick and armored angelic warrior was beyond their ability to strike. They also were able to breathe jets of lava, but foolishly chose to breathe on Tiana, who easily evaded the breath weapons. The two monsters were soon brought down, and their bodies melted into pools of cooled magma almost instantly.

The party continued onward from here, and soon reached the next chamber. This one looked like it used to be on the surface and served as a massive graveyard. However, most of the tombs have been desecrated, and the bodies were nowhere to be found. In addition, the party found a crater at the top of a hill in the middle of the cavern. Unlike the rest of the graveyard, it was filled with bodies, though the creatures appeared to be nothing like humanoids.

“What is this?” a disgusted Robin asked.

Tonaca examined it, and came to a conclusion. “It appears that this might have been the foundation for a stone crypt. And the bodies are possibly failed experiments, perhaps taken here from the lab we saw earlier.”

The party determined that none of the bodies were magical and likely to animate, so they left the place in peace and moved on to the next chamber. By Danae’ calculations, assuming the remainder of the Temple had evenly spaced rooms, only two remained. The next one, however, was unusual as it didn’t have a tunnel leading farther! Instead, the perfectly-cubicle room had a much larger gateway leading from the party’s tunnel into the room, but it was much larger than the tunnel was. Much like the entranceway they fought the demons at, this room had no floor near the walls, and the party could only reach the pillar-like central floor using a stone bridge. The liquid at the bottom of this room was even greener than usual, and it glowed more brightly. Apart from all this, the only object of note in the room was a simple lever located in the middle of the floor. It was currently turned to point at the doorway the party entered the room from.

After a brief investigation, the party had some idea what the room’s purpose was. “Notice how the walls of this chamber don’t connect with the walls of the tunnel,” Tal said, as he demonstrated what he meant. “I think the entirety of this room can move. I assume that after the room moves, that doorway will connect to something else to make its size make more sense. And we can probably move the room by pulling the lever.”

Danae frowned after pondering this conclusion. “I really don’t want to be here when the room moves if we can help it. I don’t trust this place enough for that.”

“So what do you propose?” Robin asked.

Tiana had an idea and pulled something out of her pocket. “I have a magical spool of rope! We can tie to the lever, set up an elaborate pulley system, and activate the lever while we’re still in the tunnel!” However, after seeing how everyone except Danae looked bored after the phrase “elaborate pulley system,” she amended her plan. “Or…we could just walk all the way around and see what’s left in the in the other direction.”

The party eagerly agreed, and soon they found themselves in a very familiar room. The last room of the Temple’s outer ring was a nearly identical match of the Ancient Text room of the Great Delaspie Library! It was also about five stories tall, had a central pillar that served as a walkway anchor point and additional shelving space, and the numerous floors were connected by various walkways and ladders. However, this library was nearly empty, and it was completely uninhabited except for a few zombie and wight caretakers. The party quickly disposed of them, and then investigated the books and the rest of the library. The library didn’t have the numerous secrets passageways of Olivia’s library, but it does have a similar mural on the ceiling. However, this mural depicted a strange, alien monster with details obscured by darkness. It was raining monstrosities, including many of the monsters the party just fought, on the planet. Below the world, the body of a strange creature with some features from wolves, dragons, and humanoid women rested. It looked like it was murdered, perhaps by the dark alien figure.

Also in the library were the remains of a destroyed statue. It looked like a dragon, but it was violently destroyed. Also of note was the fact that the entire head and neck of the statue was missing. Danae was curious about the statue and scooped its parts into a portal hole. However, the last piece of the statue behaved strangely. It rested on the surface of the hole and refused to go in! Even more intrigued, Danae placed this last piece in her pocket and then continued her research on the books. They were in varying condition; some were well-preserved, but others were rotted and some were even intentionally ripped to shreds. All the books had a common theme, however: they detailed the history and discover of various new creatures, and none of the creatures appeared to have evolved naturally or even been created by wizards or the gods. They were all creatures that came to this world, and possibly even this dimension, from outside, and they include the fiends, the Sunken, the Molten, and nearly every other complex creature seen in this Temple.

After finishing their work in the library, the party decided to finally explore the forest. Upon entering it, Robin was called upon to investigate and see if he can discover what creatures may inhabit a forest this large. He studied the tracks, and quickly determined some interesting things about the grove. “As far as I can tell, there are only two sets of tracks. One is of a wolf, and one is of a deer, but both are massive! These animals must be fifty feet tall!”

“We should find these creatures, and make sure they aren’t a threat. Otherwise, they could ambush us,” Tonaca reasoned.

Robin nodded his head in agreement, and said, “We should go after the wolf first. I can’t imagine the deer would be that much of a threat, even of that size.”

The party quickly followed Robin as he tracked the wolf, and in a matter of minutes he discovered the wolf. It looked like a perfectly normal wolf, albeit a large one, with one exception: it was eating the fruits of the trees!”

“Huh, that’s weird,” Tiana commented.

“Well, I can’t say I’m too surprised. After all, if the only prey in this entire forest is one large deer, the wolf would have starved if it didn’t find some alternate source of nutrients. Of course, that also might explain why the wolf never bothered to eat the deer. It already adjusted to a vegetarian diet.” Robin explained. He then prepared to move. “If this is really a normal wolf, I should be able to befriend it. It could help us find the Keeper, or at least a safe place to rest.”

The wolf, as expected, was surprised to see another living creature, but it was also unusually afraid, especially since Robin was so small by comparison. However, Robin was able to calm it, and then managed to get some information from the wolf, including some surprising ones. He turned the party and in a skeptical voice said, “It didn’t attack the deer because it wasn’t hungry. It didn’t attack the deer because it’s afraid of the deer!”

“Why would it be afraid of a deer?” Tal asked.

“Maybe the deer is unnatural in some way,” Tonaca offered. “Or even worse, undead.”

“But that’s not all I learned,” Robin continued. “Apparently, there’s a ‘human nest’ at the center of this forest that the deer won’t go near. I think that’s supposed to mean a house or cabin of some sort. We can investigate it.”

Before long, the party found the cabin, and discovered a strange circle of protection surrounded it. The skeletal body of an elk lay sprawled next to the circle. The way the body rested suggested that it was destroyed by the circle’s power. However, the body was missing its head completely. The party carefully entered the cabin with almost no trouble. Bath, however, felt some resistance as she passed over the circle, but the pendant The Indigo Entity gave her glowed and somehow cancelled the resistance.

The cabin was surprisingly small. It only had two rooms: a central foyer/trophy room containing a mounted deer head of a normal size, and a bedroom filled with more books. Danae took a few moments to study both the books and the circle itself while the rest of the party checked the cabin for secret doors and other objects of note. “I think this circle is actually a smaller part of the sealing spell trapping the Keeper here, except in reverse. That is, it prevents creatures from getting in. It seems to be tied to undead and extradimensional creatures primarily, however. Hence the trouble that Bath had getting in.”

Bath, however, was the happiest about this news. “That means we can rest here without fear of the Malachim!”

Danae nodded. “That’s true, but we’re on a bit of a deadline here. We have no idea how long it will take Bas’ forces to find out about this place and get here. We should only rest when absolutely necessary. I think we should explore a bit more first.”

“Well, we have more options now,” Tiana explained as she finished her search of the cabin. “There seems to be some secret passageway in this room.”

The party carefully opened the hidden door and discovered a massive pit in the room beyond it. It went down for several hundreds of feet, and the room containing the hole also contained an opening leading back the foyer, but it appeared be blocked.

“That deer head!” I think it’s blocking the opening!” Tal reasoned, and the party quickly returned to the foyer to remove the head, only to learn that it wasn’t just a simple obstruction. As soon as it was taken off the wall, it began to fly under its own power! Its preserved eyes glowed with dark energy, and a series of humanoid hands emerged from inside the deer’s head. Each appeared to be suspended and controlled by the deer head by a grisly tendon! Despite the creature’s horrific nature, however, it was easily dispatched by a quick-reacting Tiana.

“What was that thing?” a Robin asked.

Danae had an idea, and she pulled out one of the books she obtained at the library. “It’s called a ‘Nature’s Rage,’” she explained. “They’re basically the spirits of killed and preserved animals. Ick, it says they collect the hands of the same race as the creature that killed them. Luckily they’re not especially powerful.”

With that danger taken care of, the party had to choose which of the three remaining mysteries to solve. They could find the deer, try to figure out the moving room, or explore the dark pit. Unsurprisingly, the big deer won out. Robin soon tracked the creature down, and discovered that it was both undead and headless!

“That’s not a good sign,” Tonaca commented, after realizing this is the second headless giant undead creature they found in the grove, but the body was easily defeated, so the party proceeded to their next goal, the moving room. Rather than go through the whole rope and lever system, however, they simply decided to shuffle in and pull the lever.

As expected, the room began to move, but instead of rising or lowering like an elevator, it rotated about ninety degrees. The door they used to enter was now pointing to the far wall, and it connected to what appeared to be some sort of prison or giant kennel. As soon as the connection was made, however, the inhabitants of the new room noticed the party and charged out! They were Instant Murdeans, the same massive centaur-like gator/elk/cat race as the one TIE used as a guardian in her last test of the party, but there were two of them this time!

As soon as the room shifted, the quicker of the two monsters trampled right over the entire party. Eager to prevent the same thing from happening again, Bath charged the slower Murdean in an attempt to distract it while the party fought the first one. The plan worked, in a way. The second Murdean indeed focused its attention on the brave angel, but it responded by scooping her up and promptly swallowing her! This forced the party to deal with both of the creatures again, and without their best fighter!

Things looked dire until Danae remembered how they prematurely defeated the last Murdean. The creatures aren’t especially bright, and have no understanding of magic. Thus, all she had to do was protect the party with a prismatic sphere and they’ll stupidly attack through it, exposing themselves to its effects! It took a while, but as expected, both eventually succumbed to the sphere’s powers and were sent to parts unknown!

“Well, that takes care of that!” Danae smugly said. “They should be trapped on random planes…I think.”

“You think?” Tiana responded with a suddenly worried expression.

“Well, if they’re servants of the Keeper, they should be unable to leave this plane. That’s the whole point of the sealing spell, after all. But that means they probably just got as far as the spell’s boundary. Fascinating…”

“Well, at least they’re not here!” Bath said, as she started to mentally recover from being swallowed and then having the creature she was inside of vanish without a trace.

“Yeah, let’s hope they’re embedded in solid rock or keeping the Sunken company,” Tiana muttered. After looking over the injuries she suffered from being trampled and otherwise attacked by the Murdeans, she asked, “Can we please rest before we descend into the dark pit?”

The party agreed, and the next morning, the party began to explore the last available recesses of the Temple. As before at the door to the Temple, Danae summoned a creature to go ahead and make sure it was safe before they themselves descended. The celestial bird she summoned reported it was safe, but they were less than certain when the landed and realized they were surrounded by a dozen skeletal boars!

Despite their fears, the boars held their positions, letting the party get a look at where they were now. They appeared to be inside a ruined church of some sort. The pews and other religious paraphernalia was removed, with the exception of a gigantic bowl-shaped alter at the far end of the room. A disgusting, giant, half-decomposed deer head floated on the surface of the bowl. The walls were carved with a repeated series of words:

The flesh of a failed gatekeeper
The stone of a guardian of knowledge
The horn of a restless gladiator
The earth of a disturbed house of rest
The blood of an ultimate outsider
The bone of the mutilated donor
The hand of the last loyal.

As the party tried to take the room in, the head turned towards them and spoke. “I have been waiting for you. You’ve caused quite the stir in this Temple lately. I know you want to find The Keeper, but before I can allow you to do that, I must know what your intentions are when you see him.”

The party looked to each other. They remember the last time this situation came up, and that was with good gatekeepers. “We’ll let the situation decide our intentions,” Danae replied, as she glanced warily at the others, especially Bath.

The head shook, well, itself. “Then I won’t let you pass. There must not any doubt that he is to be destroyed.”

“So you are the one who sealed him in?” Tal asked.

“No, my master Petrach, who you call The Puppet, did that. I am the last loyal servant of his in this place. All others here have been corrupted by the Keeper.”

Bath, as everyone feared, remained skeptical. “We’ll let our hearts decided his fate.”

This, however, enraged the Keeper. “HEARTS! That fiend has no heart. He even uses his own followers for spare parts! He forced my own brother to join with him!”

The deer’s eyes began to glow just as the smaller Nature’s Rage’s eyes did back in the cabin, so Danae tried to quickly calm the discussion. “Please, do not be angry. She is young yet, and has much to learn. Will you grant us passage?”

The deer, however, was still verging on hostile. “Can any of you vouch for her? I will not let you pass unless I know she will do nothing to free the monster.”

Though using diplomacy on the undead was repugnant to him, Tonaca stepped forward. “I will do so! You know my kind and our devotion to the fight of evil. If this being is so vile that even an abomination like yourself finds him evil, that is all I need to know.”

This is apparently enough for the deer head, for it says, “Then you may pass. There is a stairway hidden in the rear of this room. Take it to reach our mutual enemy.”

The party prepared to leave, but before they could, the deer spoke again. “Ah, wait,” it says to Danae. “You have one of the components to the key the Keeper needs to escape. Individually, they’re worthless to him, but when they’re bathed in my essence, they can be used to partially protect you.”

Danae took out the remains of the dragon statue, and the head rose to give her access to the bowl. Under the head, the creature had hundreds of severed arms connected by tendons, including a massive one that must have come from a giant! Danae nervously placed the stone in the evil-looking fluid, and then took it back after it began to glow slightly. Slowly, she and the rest of the party left while the Nature’s Wrath called back to them, “Good luck! May Nerull’s blessing be upon you!”

Ignoring the bittersweet nature of that blessing, the party began to climb. Eventually, the stairwell ended, leaving nothing but a twisting corridor to ascend. Soon, even that became difficult to climb as the corridor began to get clogged with corpses. About this time, the party also started hearing voices in their heads.

The first one boomed at them, “HOW DARE YOU COME TO ME WITH SUCH A PALTRY OFFERING? ONLY ONE KEY IS IN YOUR POSSESSION!”

A second, quieter voice added, “And you sent another key away. How foolish.”

The party realized that at least one of the voices was likely the Keeper, but they ignored it/him/them. Soon, the voices spoke again. “IF YOU WANT TO LIVE IN MY PRESENCE, I ORDER YOU TO SEEK THE KEYS,” the first voice said, with a hint of urgency. The other, however, was more amused as it said, “Will it be freedom or food today? Either should be a pleasure.”

The party again tried to ignore the voices, and focused on their plan to kill him. Meanwhile, the tunnel they were climbing in continues to get filled with more bodies. The voices respond again, with even more urgency and amusement, respectively, in their voices. “OH, YOU THINK YOU CAN DESTROY ME? YOU FOOLS! YOU SOUGHT ME OUT FOR GREATER REASONS THAN THAT! IS BAS NOT YOUR ENEMY? DO YOU NOT WISH TO SAVE YOUR WORLD!” the first one screams. The second merely observes, “It was such a pretty little world.”

This continued on during their climb, and as the first voice got more desperate, they became more willing to give out information. They said, “AND WHO CONVINCED YOU TO KILL ME? YOU THINK THE NATURE'S WRATH IS MORE BENIGNTHEN ME? AND AFTER ALL YOU'VE SEEN, YOU STILL TRUST TWO SERVANTS OF LADY MEMORY?”

“Lady of deceit and deception. Why should we powerful have to hide our nature?”

“YOU BELIEVE SHE IS BENIGN? SHE WHO HAS TAKEN YOUR TWO FRIENDS-”

“-and made them your enemies?”

This last part had an unsettling effect on the party, and Danae finally tried to answer back, “You declared you would kill us. We wish to destroy Bas. You can save or destroy her by your life or death. If you kill us, we will be unable to stop Bas. What would you have us do?”

The voices were not impressed with this reasoning, and again used their knowledge to their advantage. “BAS IS NO CONCERN TO ME. I HAVE GREATER ENEMIES. BUT WE COULD BOTH BENEFIT FROM OUR MEETING. IF YOU GIVE ME THE KEYS, I CAN HELP YOU DESTROY BAS AND YOU CAN END MY IMPRISONMENT. BUT IF YOU SO DESIRE, CONTINUE TO LISTEN TO THE FOOLISHNESS OF THE BEINGS YOU ONCE CALLED-”

“-tsine and galeron.”

“YOU STILL THINK LADY MEMORY IS SO BENIGN? SHE TOOK YOUR FRIENDS AND MADE THEM HER TOOLS. WITHOUT MEMORIES. WITHOUT PASTS!”

“yet without sorrow...”

For the first time, the voices seemed to disagree with each other. “BE QUIET YOU! AND PERHAPS YOU WOULD LIKE TO KNOW WHAT WONDERS SHE WORKED IN THE LIVES OF YOUR FRIENDS QUERCUS AND SHEKULDELLSTRA? WHO ELSE WOULD HAVE THE POWER TO ATTACK A SOLAR AND HIS WIFE WITHOUT THEM SENSING IT?”

These last revelations were far more effective. The Malachim were their friends, Tsine and Galeron? And the Lady of Memory, the being that theoretically gave them life, was responsible? Even ignoring her attack on a solar and his good (if half-fiendish drow) wife, that drove Shekuldellstra insane all those years ago, that was a lot to accept. Of course, they weren’t sure that the Keeper could be trusted, and even if he could, their first priority was ending the evil being’s life. They finally reached the end of their climb, and saw the Keeper in all of his evil glory. His room was a dome larger than 300 feet in diameter and partially filled with giant hills of corpses, which the party is forced to stand on. The Keeper himself appeared to be based on the Granfaloon monsters the party saw and fought before, but he was much larger. Counting the expected shield of corpses, he was 150 feet in diameter! In addition, the shield contained numerous other elements, including rivers of lava, embedded tombs from presumably the graveyard, and even a singe eye.

The party looked at this creature with horror. Tiana quietly said in a terrified voice, “We can’t stop this thing. Look at it! It’s hopeless.”

The rest of the party was less certain of this, but not by much. However, the Keeper wasn’t eager to start the fight, either, since it still hoped its words were enough to convince the party to help it. Even the sudden arrival of the Malachims now believed to be Tsine and Galeron wasn’t enough to end the standoff. Surprisingly, it was Tonaca who broke the silence. He wasn’t exactly used to these sorts of things in his battles with wild creatures and the more crude undead, and tried to create a defensive prismatic sphere around himself as a matter of habit. Of course, as soon as he began his spell, everybody reacted with finely-honed reflexes, and the inevitable fight began!

Things seemed to get off to a good start, as Tiana was the first to react. She enhanced the party magically while the arcane magic-using Malachim, presumably Tsine, began to strike at the sphere shield of The Keeper. His rain of flaming meteors was a powerful attack, but the corpses of the sphere were partially coated in stone and much more durable than normal corpses, and it survived the attack. Tal followed through with his own magic, but the hideous monstrosity then responded.

“YOU DARE ATTACK US?!” it bellowed, referring to itself in the plural for the first time. “WE ARE NOT MERE CREATURSES. WE ARE KINGS! WE ARE GODS!”

“We are Legion…”

After saying this, Legion’s body shuddered and almost fifty zombies rained down on the party. At the same time, Legion floated closer the party and summoned an ally. It was a Molten, like the ones the party fought at the gateway, but this one was close enough to be a threat! It ripped into Robin and Tal as the zombies closed in all around them!

Robin, however, was undaunted. Using his nearly superhuman archery skills, he pulled out his bow and literally struck every single zombie at once, destroying nearly all of them. The immediate danger gone, Danae retreated and helps her old friend Tsine bring down the shield, while Bath focused on damaging the Molten. Galeron helped damage the shield and distract Legion, while Tonaca realized his original plan was over when the battle broke out before he could even start the spell. Instead, he chose to summon an air elemental, and let it loose on the shield as well.

Tiana, Tsine and Tal continued their efforts on the shield, and it appeared to be weakening, when something strange happened. The entire shield spontaneously appeared to disintegrate! More accurately, it broke down to its original bodies, which began to revolve around the actual body of Legion while more bodies rose into the field from the ground. It was obvious that Legion was repairing his shield. At the same time, this gave the party their first clear view of Legion’s true form. Like other Granfaloons, its body was a spherical mass of floating flesh that vaguely resembled a brain, and tentacles rose out of the body at various locations. However, some of the tentacles were missing and replaced with new weaponry. These include a giant skeletal elk head, a stone dragon head, the Hive eye that normally remained outside of the shield, and a massive crypt. All of them had fairly obvious sources to the party based on their explorations. As the shield repaired itself, Legion continued to act. The dragon head breathed on the collective party, which fortunately caused none of the unusual metaphysic powers it normally creates, but it did damage the party somewhat. At the same time, the four remaining tentacles fire light blasts at the air elemental and Bath, and the wounded but still active Molten also breathed its lava breath on much of the party.

Fortunately, despite the damage, the party was able to use this opportunity to actually harm Legion directly, and they happily took it. Robin finished off the Molten as Danae, Tsine, Tonaca, and Tal fired spells at Legion and Bath, Galeron, Tiana, and Tonaca’s air elemental charged at the creature itself, heedless of the retaliatory light blasts it fired.

The combined assault wounded the creature greatly, but it responded by close its shield, which was now partially repaired. As the bodies closed in, the melee attackers had to flee before they were trapped inside! Bath and Tiana made it out okay, but the others weren’t so lucky. The zombies rained down again, and this time Legion followed it up by releasing a swarm of demonic insects to attack Tsine and by striking the party with various ghostly and magma-based weaponry. Finally, it fired an insect missile out of the eye, lancing Tsine just as the regular swarm continued to eat away at him.

However, though the party was heavily wounded at this point, they were prepared for what Legion threw at them. Robin again devastated the falling zombies, while the rest of the free party worked to destroy the shield, eventually bringing down a few pieces of it. The party took advantage of the weak spot in Legion’s armor just as he opened up the rest of the sphere to repair the shield. At the same time, he began to fire dark rays out of the elk skull and more of his heated light blasts, but it wasn’t enough to finish any of the party. The party responded by again charging in or striking from a distance with magic, and while Legion was able to barely survive long enough to put up his shield, he didn’t repair all the holes and the party continued to attack him even after it was put up. Finally the creature died, and Tsine fired the killing shot in the form of a disintegrate spell.

As the abomination died, its shield began to fall apart, and the bodies screamed one last time and were silenced as they struck the “ground.” Legion had only a few last words to say as he disintegrated, “NO! I WAS SO CLOSE! I CAN'T DIE AFTER ALL THIS TIME! YOU FOOLS, YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU LOST! I HOPE BAS RIPS THIS WORLD TO SHREDS!”

But the other voice, the mad voice of Legion’s second mind that was created out of the remains of the psyche of the creatures he used to perfect his body, simply said, “Free at last…”

OOC Notes: I hope you enjoy the extra-large update this week! I had this Monday off for the 4th of July (Independence day, a national holiday for Americans,) so I decided to put some extra time into finishing up this adventure, or at least come close. The next one will deal with the consequences of this adventure and the introduction to the next one, which the party is currently still in! I’ve finally almost caught up!

Expect more OOC Notes for that one, but if anyone has any questions about the relatively large update, I’ll be happy to answer them until then.

 

[LordVyreth]

The Final Countdown: A Bleak New Dawn

At last, the abomination was destroyed. The answers that Legion gave the party were sketchy, potentially unreliable, and terrible if true, but at least no force of evil, like Bas, could free the monster and gain the knowledge that they needed in exchange. The party quickly looted the beast’s remains and confirmed that no evil remained in this place, either in the bodies or in the items the creature had possessed. With their mission complete, they were prepared to return.

However, as the party prepared to leave, Danae looked back and saw the Malachim that apparently were Tsine and Galeron wave them goodbye and prepare to leave. While the battle with Legion left her comfortably numb, now that it was over, she realized with a sickening sensation what it meant if Legion was truthful. “Wait!” she pleaded with both the party and the Malachim, and both ceased their departure and turned to her.

“Why can’t you come with us?” she desperately asked, leaving much of the party confused.

The Malachim believed to be Tsine sighed. “Because the Lady didn't tell us to. We were glad that we could help you fight this abomination, but we were not instructed to help you otherwise."

The almost emotionless way he said it brought a tear to Danae’s eye. “Tsine, the only reason I left my tower was to find you. After so long, and after losing you again just after we saved you at the Arena, we finally find you. And that’s it? You can just leave? How can you become one of these creatures? How did you come into servitude?”

“Tsine” was clearly uncomfortable at this point. He wanted to help Danae, but at the same time he realized it would be impossible. “Danae, I don't even know if I am Tsine. That's just what that…thing called me. I know that I became what I did freely, though. I wished to become a servant of Lady Memory, who we owe everything to, and she allowed us to do so."

Danae clearly wanted to say more, but instead, she wordlessly embraced her friend for what may be the last time, and then prepared to leave. Tsine regretfully teleported away, but Galeron waited one more moment, for now he was curious as well. “Danae, did you know me as well in those days?”

It took all of her strength, but Danae responded with more anger than she expected. “Yes. I know you too. You were a hero that stood together with us in good times and bad. We faced great foes together and always won, until the day you left. Do this for me: if you serve Lady Memory, ask her why she took your memories from you. Ask her why she took your memories of US away from you.”

With some hesitancy, Galeron replied, “I could try asking, but I'm sure she knows what is best. Perhaps it was necessary to lose our old lives to be reborn here. Or maybe we would be in danger if we were remembered from our past lives. Maybe we can regain our memories when the Lady Memory is again brought to power here, and all of you can join us in glorious servitude to her."

Danae finally was ready to leave, but before she did, she whispered to Galeron one last time. Galeron nodded in response, and then said, “Well, I must be off as well. Whatever you may think, Tsine and I are very happy now. I would not put too much stock in the accusations that Legion has leveled against our Lady.” And then he was gone as well.

The party slowly began their journey out of the Temple, and noticed a few changes to the place as they exited. Most notably, the massive Nature’s Wrath was gone, as was his servants. The cabin and its seal were gone as well, and the former appeared to be completely destroyed, most likely as a result of Nature’s Wrath. They found the wolf as well, and while it was unsurprisingly terrified at seeing the Nature’s Wrath’s exit, it was nonetheless willing to leave with the party.

As soon as the party cleared the Temple, the party returned home with the aid of a Shadow Walk, dropped their new guard wolf (Named “Fluffy” by Robin,) at the manor, and then left for Union for another typical shopping spree.

Almost a week passed, meaning that only 23 days remained before Methosilang’s army was ready to attack, but the party still had plans and preparations to make before they returned home. However, their plans were interrupted by a desperate Sending from Methosilang. It simply said “Come home immediately! You must see this!”

At the same time, Danae, who finished her shopping early and went home to check on her apprentice, was visited by a unit of guards on their law-centric griffons. “Miss Danae! You must come with us immediately!”

She complied and was taken to the top of Methosilang, where the mountaintop was opening. This was unusual unto itself, for it was too late in the day for the sun to be seen, and the city never risked opening the mountaintop needlessly. The royal family was gathered here, along with their new royal wizard, the party’s former ally Damien. All eyes were on the sky to the east, and Danae soon learned why.

To the east, near where the party knew Bas was trapped, a green ray was being fired at the moon. “Danae, what do you make of this?” Damien asked.

Danae thought back to the notes the party procured from the Nightmare Prince’s temple, and instantly realized what this meant. Numbly, she said, “The beam is fired from a device that will crash the moon to earth. It appears that we can rest no longer. We must stop this!”

However, Princess Amira Stael looked reluctant. “But this moon is positioned right over Malmoris, the undead capital! If it strikes the earth, it will destroy the undead empire with one blast, and double the amount of daylight we can receive each day.”

Danae looked thoughtful for a moment and replied, “That’s true. This moon’s destruction means little to us, and may even been a boon. However, it’s the other moon that I am worried about.” She pointed upwards to the second Dark Moon. At this time of the month, it was positioned almost exactly above Methosilang!

By now, the rest of the party arrived after received the Sendings. They quickly joined with Danae and the royal party, who caught them up on the dire situation. “Can you get everyone out of here before the moon strikes us?” Tal asked.

King Berin Stael replied, “I can evacuate the population, mostly, but the city itself will be destroyed. If we lose the city at this critical juncture, our army will be devastated. It would take years for our nation to even recover, let alone create a functioning military again.”

Danae suggested, “You should evacuate the city’s citizens to the lower tunnels. Whatever it takes, we will deal with this, but you must be prepared for the results if we fail.”

With that, the party briefly retreated to their manor to determine their options. As they left, however, they saw that the beam had stopped firing, and the moon slowly began its descent…

“The question is; do we destroy the weapon or the moon itself?” Bath asked. Meanwhile, Tiana was making contact with her allies from Delaspie and Tal was using a magical mirror the party recently acquired to get a lock on the moon.

“We could try capturing the weapon instead of destroying it. That way, we could send the moon down on Bas instead!” Robin suggested.

“That assumes we can fight the guards around the device in the first place. Bas probably has her best servants guarding it, and we still don’t have our army,” Tiana glumly replied.

“What about the MIDAS bomb at Dragovigis?” Tal suggested. Most of the party pondered the situation, except for Tiana and Tonaca, who looked at him blankly due to their lack of knowledge about the city. As Bath and Danae filled them in, Tal sent Violet to Dragovigis with a message about the situation.

After a brief summary of the city, the conversation continued. “What do we know about these moons, anyway? I admit I haven’t had the chance to learn much about it since I’ve been here,” Tonaca asked.

Danae thought back to her research on the subject, and explained, “The moons are mostly hollow, fortunately, but they’re still large enough to seriously devastate an area if they actually crashed into it. They are also filled with undead.”

“What? That’s cool!” Bath said, and she began to be far more eager about this mission.

Robin seemed to agree, and Tiana nodded her head and said, “All those undead to kill, and I’ve never been there? What a waste. Wait, won’t the undead leave to wreak havoc after the moons crash? If so, even if we can capture the weapon and drop a moon on Bas, it would still cause the undead to attack. But then, I suppose most of them wouldn’t survive the crash…”

Danae nodded at that last part in the affirmative, and then sighed, “It’s a shame we can’t just build a device like this ourselves.

Tal agreed but said, “True, but Bas’ forces took years to build theirs and calculate their firing procedure. We only have 23 days, and that’s assuming we destroy their device. Maybe we can build one after Bas is destroyed to save the other continents.”

About this time, Violet returned from Dragovigis with a message for the party. Tal quickly read it over and said, “Facetous is willing to speak to us.”

The party used the magic of the mirror to reach the forbidden city of dragons and machinery in a hurry. As Tal led the party to Facetous’ lair, Danae and Robin pointed out the city’s landmarks and recounted old stories of the party’s earlier adventures here to Tiana and Tonaca.

The party soon reached Facetous’ lair, where the expectant God/king was eagerly waiting for them. “I’m sure I know why you’ve come? You wish to use our bomb, the safeguard of our city, to save your own. Correct?” it asked, though there was clearly a note of displeasure in his tone.

Tal noticed this as well, and desperately tried to create a compromise. “Yes, we would like to use it. But it also our hope that Danae would be able to replicate it and use the duplicates to destroy the other moons.”

If nothing else, Tal’s plan was able to surprise his god. “Replicate it? The device can not be replicated! It is a product of technology beyond all of our understanding!”

His plan foiled, Tal tried again with the direct approach. “In that case, yes, we would like to use the bomb to destroy the dark moon. We hope it buys us enough time that another is not needed.”

Facetous snorted with irritation. “You are asking for a great prize, mortal! You realize that if our city is to be attacked, this bomb is the only thing that will save us and keep our technology from falling into the wrong hands?”

Tal nodded, but he replied, “If Methosilang and Delaspie fall then there will truly be no point in you remaining on this plane. At that point you can leave here, take what you can and destroy the rest. Evil will have won on this world.”

Facetous considered this, and admitted, “I see your point. Very well, I will allow you to take this bomb, and I will give you what knowledge of the moon our scientists have discovered.”

As the scientist dragons began to make their entrances, however, there was a low rumble and Facetous suddenly looked to the north. He then replied, “It has happened. Malmoris, the undead capital, is no more.”

However, he didn’t have to tell this to the party, for most of them were aware of it already. As soon as Malmoris was destroyed, the party members that worshipped the Sisters heard a sudden, painful scream in their heads!

Facetous noticed this and continued. “Nothing will ever be the same again. You will have more sunlight each day, yes, and the undead empire will soon cease to be a threat, but your goddesses shall suffer as well.”

Tiana, who didn’t learn as much about the truth of the goddesses from the avatars and TIE as the others, looked confused. “Wait, I thought that the realm of the dead was ruled by the evil god Nerull?”

Facetous nodded. “Yes, Nerull is the god of the undead, and he was so powerful that the old gods like myself were forced to flee this plane or go into hiding. But Ba-el, the first of your gods, stole some of his power when the moons were created. That let her create the Sisters, and because their power was his own, they could co-exist with him safely. But now that his source of power has been destroyed, Nerull will soon become a weak or even a dead god, and your goddesses shall follow. It could take years, decades, or even centuries, but it is inevitable at this point. There is only one exception…”

“Bas,” Tal said, well aware of the totality of the dark goddess’ plans now.

“Exactly. When she fell, her ties to the Sisters and Nerull were severed. She now is becoming a goddess on her own terms. When she awakens, she will be reborn as a new goddess.”

For now, however, the doom of their goddesses was not the worst of their concerns, and the scientists explained the properties of the MIDAS bomb and the moon. “The bomb is powered by something called “fusion,” and setting the bomb up for detonation is fairly easily. Once it detonates, it will destroy everything within a range of several dozen miles, easily encompassing the Dark Moon. However, it takes a minute to set up the bomb and the minimum timer the bomb can be set to is also a minute, so the party will have to defend it from any undead that are attracted to them. The bomb itself must be positioned at the very core of the moon to ensure its destruction,” the scientists explain to the party.

“The moon itself is partially hollow; a series of tunnels from the surface to the core, so getting that far won’t be too difficult. There’s no air on the surface of the moon, exposing the party to the dangers of space, but some stale air remains trapped inside the moon. The only other good news is that as a result of the dark energy that powers the moon, there is a tear in reality itself near the core. The very laws of the universe are weak inside the demi-plane of that tear. Space and time itself bend around the tear, letting you stay there briefly without time passing in reality. However, if you stay too long, your bodies will be broken down. You shouldn’t try to stay there for longer than one night of rest, if possible.”

Sadly, the scientists have little more to add on these critical subjects, so the party prepared for what was possibly their craziest and most dangerous mission yet: Teleporting onto the surface of a dark moon laced with artifact-level magic for the purpose of exploding a futuristic nuclear bomb at its center.

OOC Notes: The next update will likely be a major milestone for us, because it will be the point where I officially catch up with the campaign! That’s right; the party is still in the moon and currently in the middle of the final battle of the adventure. Unfortunately, this means that updates after the next one might be a little sparser. Most of these updates covered multiple play sessions, so when I have to cover only one per update, they might seem short. Alternatively, I might also have to skip a normal update time if not enough has happened for that week or if I had to end it in the middle of a fight. What method would you prefer?

The first part of this update was actually very emotional for character and player. I think this was the first time I actually was able to bring a tear to a player’s eye just because of the story. It’s a bit of an honor, though also just a bit embarrassing. Still, moments like that one of the reasons I still DM this game, despite all the setbacks, so it was a big moment for me.