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<blockquote data-quote="LordVyreth" data-source="post: 2290494" data-attributes="member: 9626"><p><strong>The Eye of Nerull: Stone Eye Solid</strong></p><p></p><p>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.”</p><p></p><p> 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.”</p><p></p><p> 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.”</p><p></p><p> 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.</p><p></p><p> 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!</p><p></p><p> “Kuurnok, what is the meaning of this?” the shocked skeleton on the throne asked after Bath escaped.</p><p></p><p> “There was a fly in the room, master! I’m sure it was a spy for the dragons or a polymorphed wizard or something!”</p><p></p><p> 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.”</p><p></p><p> 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.</p><p></p><p> 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.”</p><p></p><p> 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.”</p><p></p><p> 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.</p><p></p><p> Kuurnok grunted. “Our policy has never been to bring captured prisoners here! And they still have some of their equipment!”</p><p></p><p> 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?”</p><p></p><p> “Not if they were trying to break in…” Kuurnok protested, but to no avail.</p><p></p><p> “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!”</p><p></p><p> 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.</p><p></p><p> Tal shook his head. “Not yet. We’ll wait to help you deliver the prisoners as soon as our Master is ready for them.”</p><p></p><p> 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…</p><p></p><p> “Right, I must be going,” she said as she moved towards the door.</p><p></p><p> 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.”</p><p></p><p> “Ah, but didn’t your master also say that I’m not to be harmed?”</p><p></p><p> “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.”</p><p></p><p> “No, that’s not what he said at all. He said that I’m not to be harmed, period. There’s no ambiguity there.”</p><p></p><p> “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.”</p><p></p><p> “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.”</p><p></p><p> 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?</p><p></p><p> 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.</p><p></p><p> 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.</p><p></p><p> “What is this?” Tal asked with discuss.</p><p></p><p> 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.”</p><p></p><p> 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. </p><p></p><p> “That’s him!” Tal confirmed as they made they way out of the room. “I recognize him from the last time.”</p><p></p><p> “Now all we have to do is wait for him to leave, and then use the Eye to track him,” Danae noted.</p><p></p><p> Tal nodded, but sighed, “Years after he escaped me the first time, and we have to let him go again.”</p><p></p><p> 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.</p><p></p><p> “Did he sell us out?” Tal asked that morning, as they went over their preparations for that day’s likely battle. </p><p></p><p> “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.”</p><p></p><p> “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.”</p><p></p><p> 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!</p><p></p><p> 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. </p><p></p><p> “I knew you were spies from the very beginning!” he roared as he created a dark burst of fire and unholy energy at them. </p><p></p><p> “And look how much good it did you!” Azat taunted while he began to heal the party. </p><p></p><p> 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!</p><p></p><p> 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!</p><p></p><p> 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.</p><p></p><p> 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.</p><p></p><p> 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.</p><p></p><p> 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.</p><p></p><p> 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.</p><p></p><p> 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!</p><p></p><p> 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!</p><p></p><p> 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.</p><p></p><p> 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!”</p><p></p><p> 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.</p><p></p><p> 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…”</p><p></p><p> Later that night, Alastarix rested in his room in the Eye and began a magical communication with his master.</p><p></p><p> “Yes, everything went more or less exactly according to plan. The heroes of Methosilang arrived and discovered Palfrin as expected.”</p><p></p><p> 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.”</p><p></p><p> “Of course the heroes collected them when they killed the guardians. What adventurers wouldn’t?”</p><p></p><p> “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.”</p><p></p><p> “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!”</p><p></p><p> “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.”</p><p></p><p> “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.”</p><p></p><p> “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.”</p><p></p><p> “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.”</p><p></p><p> “Yes, I will have my full report ready for you at my arrival. Goodbye, Phellis.”</p><p></p><p> 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.</p><p></p><p> 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.</p><p></p><p> 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.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="LordVyreth, post: 2290494, member: 9626"] [b]The Eye of Nerull: Stone Eye Solid[/b] 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. [/QUOTE]
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