The party spends several days preparing for a new battle with the Winter Wight that slew Fokurt. The knowledge that it now probably wears the Mask worries them greatly. That is counteracted by seeing William still casting spells through Heironious. If he can overcome an entire change in his being, surely they can defeat a Winter Wight.
The day finally arrives, and Galrond opens a gate. Stepping through it, the battle is joined! The winter wight is unsurprised to see them, and reacts quickly. It floats upward and the area fills with Sleet and Snow. The group joins up and begins to hunt it down, while it snipes at them from within the sleet storm, clawing then moving silently away.
Galrond dispels the sleet, and Kargur seizes the opportunity to charge forward. He is met by the grotesquely distended mouth of the Mask of the Devourer, eaten by Acererak’s tool.
Greatly distrought, but not stopped, the party continues to battle. Galrond opens a gate to Celestia and draws forth two cadres of Lantern Archons. William and Galrond buff the archons with magics, and their rays of holy light tear into the Winter Wight’s icy shell, forcing it to flee after creating another huge sleet storm.
They have seen its wounds closing before, and know it will be back. In the time allotted they look over the huge black puzzle box, and find inscribed upon it a riddle:
Many ends have I,
Or many a beginning.
When I fail people sigh.
Wails mark their passing.
Unable to puzzle it out in the few short moments they have, the party sends the archons out to hunt for the Wight. They do not find it, and shortly thereafter are drawn back through the gate, returned to Celestia. This of course, is what the undead thing has waited for, and it hurtles through the glowing emerald webs, thirsting for life essence.
When the party sees it returning fully healed, they quickly decide it is time to flee. Galrond opens a gate, and Oskar slices through the webs that hold the cube aloft. The party follows the falling cube through the gate to the outskirts of Lopolla, where the land has not yet healed from their prior battle with the forces released from the Contractor’s Tome. Galrond just barely manages to close the gate before the Winter Wight can get through it, and the party gathers up the cube and heads for Lopolla, where they hope to be able to find someone to open it.
The next day, after offering a huge reward, the riddle is solved by a young boy. When he answers aloud, “rope” near the cube, a perfectly hidden panel slides open to reveal a lever.
The party rests and meets Prospero, an undead hunter. He pledges to join their cause in destroying Acererak.
William requests and is granted a Miracle. His undead nature is removed.
The group then decides to try the lever, and returns to Lopolla (albeit not the Wight’s tower of webs). They pull the lever and there is no visible effect, so they continue their exploration of the city.
The party returns to Moil to face the Darkweaver in her lair. She turns out to be a rune-covered humanoid whose touch drains the magic from her victims and empowers her. The party only manages to defeat her by battering through the tower floor, dropping her into the negative material plane.
The party recuperates and then returns to Moil. They see the Vestige and flee, but when they anger it with attacks, it bursts forward and catches Oskar. The Vestige is a massive cloud of roiling gas and screaming souls. It relentlessly pursues them and shrug off everything they try to harm it with. Communing shows that Oskar's soul is now one with the conglomeration of cursed souls that were once the Moilian citizenry. As much as they would like to avoid the thing completely, it appeared to be guarding an hourglass, and with what they’ve learned of Acererak’s demented nature, they know it is probably another torment he wants to run them through.
The remainder of the group journeys onward. Inside a black spire of ice they find countless Moilian zombies, and another demilich. They hide within an Anti-Magic Field while determining what to do, then return to the Prime to discuss and divine.
Their divinations tell them that they should journey onward past this demi-lich and go to face and destroy Acererak’s true form, which lies within his Fortress of Conclusion.
The party returns to Moil, where they outwit the Vestige by teleporting into the Hourglass chamber and flipping it over, then hiding elsewhere while it searches for them in vain. They return a little less than an hour later, and rotate the hourglass when it empties, head back toward the Black Spire. The demilich there tells them that whether they fight it on the ledge or in the fortress, the outcome will be the same: Acererak's supremacy.
The bypass the demilich and rides the Phantom Flyer to Acererak's Fortress of Conclusion.
There they find an old friend: Galen. The wizard they have been following turns up in Acererak's Fortress, where he is sewn tight and tormented, forced to be the Devourer's 'doorman'.
The party journeys deeper into the Fortress after having rescued Galen and returned him to the Prime.
They fight a Nightwalker, which manages to destroy the Wand of Days, leaving the party at a loss as to how they will destroy Acererak's Phylactery.
They also fight a large group of demons, freed from their bindings by a Disjunction from Billy. William gates in a Solar and is told in no uncertain terms that the greatest forces of good are not to be called upon without cause. Indeed, they are never to be called upon again by him.
The party rescues a dretch from a room filled with vapors and chains, freeing it from the torment of its captor: a Glabrezu.
They return to the prime again to recover from their wounds and discuss their next course of action, which of course ends up being “go back in and find Acererak.” But before they return, they take a week to identify the items they have found, and sell those that re not useful to them.
Did they fight a good fight, or was it a one-sided slaughter?
