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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MarauderX" data-source="post: 2584265" data-attributes="member: 9990">Session 40: Knight Fall at Duergar MountainThe group gathered in a circle around the Book of Syn'nestra and debated about what to do next. Jerrin had told the group that the water tunnel had gold halfway down it's length, and the group agreed they should bring it up into the large chamber. Together they worked out a plan and ignored the book as it rested on the stone floor.The three remaining elves in the room thanked the party and immediately went to sleep when the party decided to rest. The elves then told the party that they were party of an emissary that had come to the mountain to begin diplomacy between the elves and the duergar. When the elves revealed their intentions of reuniting with the drow, the King of the duergar smirked. Several of their group first tried to appease the King, then one made boostful promises, then another, a barrel-chested human made an empty threat to behead the King. After a minute of silent pondering by the King, the court then errupted into violence. Their entourage split up and the four elves had wandered into a trap set by the dragon. The next thing they knew they were waking up from a terrible nightmare.Then the group turned their attention back to the underwater treasure. Jerrin cast an enchantment to allow the others the ability to breath water, with the exception of Alex. One by one they dropped into the dark water and fell slowly downward. Alex stayed behind and searched the large chamber while keeping an eye out for anything suspicious. The rogue managed to work his way around the room and noted that there was no exit, not even a secret door. The only ways out seemed to be down through the water or up into the darkness above where there was no ceiling.Thovaas, Grimnyr, Jerrin and Quentin stopped falling and Jerrin summoned forth light on a coin he felt floating in front of him. The watery tunnel glowed with the brilliance of the vast hoard of treasure they had found. Quentin blinked and counted a rough estimate of 35,000 gold in mixed coins. Behind them the bloated corpse of the green dragon they had killed was suspended in the water. The group immediately got to work and even began skinning the dragon to use its hide to gather coins. Casting a spell to detect magic, Grimnyr focused on four items; a spear, a warhammer, a scroll case, and Kakuko's helmet. As they sifted through the floating coins, scattering them about, Jerrin saw several coins drop from the tunnel on the other side. The copper pieces clacked against the other coins and thoughts of payment to the dragon went through the druid's head. With their bags full the group began the task of ascending to the chamber once more.Jerrin shifted into the form of a crocodile and took many of the bags to lessen the load on the others. At the top he handed the bags over to Alex, and the smiling rogue began shoveling piles of coins onto the floor to be organized. The group went down several more times and came back up, until finally they had grabbed nearly every last copper. Alex had split the piles up according to value, and though the platinum pile was the smallest, it was still as valuable as the pile of gold. The group split the platinum to take with them. Jerrin carried his share of the gold pieces, adn the rest of the gold was loaded into the saddlbags of Thovaas' celestial mount. Then the group began discussing where they should go next, and what was to be done.The next day the group set out to explore to the end of the water tunnel. Again protected by Jerrin's water breathing spell, the party dropped one by one into the water and fell slowly until they landed near the mutilated dragon. Then they began the climb up the other side. The going was slow, but after several hours they managed to see light above them. Jerrin could tell that this was not daylight, nor the moon, nor any other natural source of light - he knew they were still underground.Alex and Quentin were the first to come up. They felt the pull of a current and they found they had come up on the bottom of a small river. Above them was a metallic bridge with slats that allowed the duergar guard standing on it to see down into the hole they were emerging from. Thankfully the guard above them was lax in his duty and he didn't see the two men as they crept out of the water on either side of him. Just as Quentin had Umbra move into position, the duergar noticed Jerrin's head as it caused the surface of the river to ripple.Jerrin then swam quickly to the side of the river, his wolfhound close behind. Grimnyr and Thovaas followed, and Quentin moved in to attack the duergar. Alex noticed a second duergar guard standing along the river in the barrel-domed cavern and then saw it sprint towards a mammoth metal automaton standing silently along the wall. Jerrin summoned a massive wolf, and its celestial form appeared on the metal bridge. With a lunge it mangled the dark-skinned dwarf until he fell limp onto the metal bridge.Seeing the other duegar pressing tiles and pulling levers behind the massive automaton, Grimnyr darted to it and stabbed with the Spear of Dancing. The end of the spear caught the duergar in the chest, piercing his armor, and the barbarian catapulted next to the automaton.Thovaas looked upstream with his back to the bridge. Further up he saw the deep stream of water end at a shimmering glass-like wall. Through it's slow and steady ripple he could see a gap of five feet splitting the large arched cavern. On the other side he saw more duergar, armored in full plate mail and armed with their signature axes, hammers, and crossbows. Something about them was different;they moved far more swiftly than they should on the other side of this vertical glass wall. One by one they began forming a line on the other side, and before Thovaas could take a single step forward they had organized, readied and loaded their crossbows. Before Thovaas took another step forward their crossbows snapped up with blazing speed. As the paladin's foot touched the ground, they released a volley of bolts at him. The missles snapped toward the glass-like wall and struck it, where they slowed to match the slower speed on the party's side of the wall. Thovaas raised his shield and the clacking of the bolts could be heard reverberating in the cavern. When the paladin looked over his shield again, he saw that the duergar on the other side had already reloaded and were firing again. He had not gone four paces compared to their faster movement.The party saw as other duergar and humans appeared on the other side of the barrier in the blink of an eye. Thovaas charged as fast as he could at the wall, and still the duergar crossbowmen managed to fire four more volleys at him. When the paladin hit the barrier he felt it tug to press him backward but his strength and shear weight pushed him through. Holding his breath, Thovaas felt the effects of a vaccuum hit him with punishing force. He hit another vertical barrier similar to the other and pushed through with ease before landing, twisting his ankle from the leap.The rest of the party watched as the paladin now moved just as fast as the duergar and swung his sword with blazing speed. Seeing the difference in speed, the others looked to follow. Grimnyr broke through, and unprepared for the vacuum, exhaled blood when he landed on the other side. Quentin was repelled backward by the wall, as was Alex. Jerrin summoned a celestial bear to aid in the attack, and guided both it and the previously summoned wolf to jump through the rippling wall. The wolf made it through, however the bear was dispelled when it tried.Thovaas watched as the duergar broke their line and surrounded him. Blows glanced off of his armor all around him, and an occasional strike managed to bruise the large man beneath the metal skin. Then in the back of his mind, the paladine heard a voice speak to him. It was the book, the one he carried with him to protect others from its evil. The book had recognized the knight's plight, that he was surrounded and now several duergar clerics and human sorcerers were slinging spells at him. Thovaas wondered if using the book would mean his doom, and if he could use the evil book against other evil. In his care, the others would still be safe from the book, and using it to quash another threat was for the greater good, no matter his sacrifice. The paladin removed the book from his pack and opened it.The rest of the group couldn't see what the paladin was doing in the middle of the armored duergar, but suddenly they heard. From atop the wall he had leapt upon, Grimnyr turned away from the sorcerers he faced to look down at Thovaas. Sure enough the barbarian heard the paladin chanting vile words of death and sacrifice. A moment later, as Grimnyr cut down another sorcerer, a massive horned beast appeared next to the duergar. Thovaas somehow instructed the hairy beast to leap upon a cleric who threatened him.Distracted by the spectacle of the summoned demon, Grimnyr was unable to dodge a swirling ball of utter darkness hurled by one of the sorcerors. As it struck him, he felt an icy blast grip his chest and necromatic magic sapped his life-force from him. The barbarian pulled out his magical rod to absorb any further attacks, and surely enough they came. Each time he waved the rod to soak up the magic that sought to harm him. With his other hand Grimnyr sliced down his foes while starting a warrior chant to Kord. In front of him he watched the demon Thovaas had summoned be dispelled by the duergar cleric, and he saw Thovaas reading more out of the book. Suddenly the evil cleric's eyes exploded in a spray of blood, and he crumpled to the floor screaming. Grimnyr saw the look on Thovaas's face when this happened, and the paladin's smile was frightening. The erstwhile paladin seemed to have lost all trace of his previous purity, and descended completely into the book's clutches.One of the duergar laid down in the small stream of water that fed the river the group had found themselves entering from. The duergar, propelled by the water, shot through the gap between the vertical rippling barriers and arrived on the other side at the bottom of the river. Seeing this, Quentin ignored the dark dwarf and swam upstream to reach the other side. Alex soon followed, and Jerrin transformed into a massive ape and cast a spell to increase his stature yet further. The single duergar looked over the edge of the water, eyeing the huge unmoving construct, and calculating his chances of reaching it. Whatever his plans, the duergar had no chance to execute them, as he was was suddenly hefted bodily from the water by Jerrin and slammed to the ground where the enlarged wolfhound Tempest ripped him apart.On the other side of the barrier Jerrin saw that action was happening fast. Thovaas, reading from the book, cast a spell that inflicted wounds on all that surrounded him. Grimnyr leapt across the gap for the steam and landed on the wall on the other side to face another duergar cleric. The cleric motioned to Thovaas, as if expecting the barbarian to understand, and began casting a spell. Grimnyr sucked in his breath and using frictional tones of sound caused the air itself to erupt in a cone of blazing flame at the cleric, dark dwarves, and Thovaas. The lyrical barbarian watched as the duergar recoiled. Thovaas did not. Instead Grimnyr and the others watched the fiery attack blast the flesh from his face to reveal the bones beneath.Thovaas Stroth, a blackened skeleton sheathed in armor, kept reading from the book.The rest of the group looked on in horror. Quentin regained his composure and saw that the duergar were in as much shock, but they stood their ground nonetheless. The last of the duergar fell from around Thovaas and the skeletal ex-paladin strode forth over the bodies as he continued reading aloud from the book. Jerrin summoned a massive beast that began wreaking havoc from atop the wall, then as suddenly as it had appeared it was gone. The last human sorcerer smirked at Jerrin's large form just before he was clobbered by the giant halfling.Grimnyr looked beyond the wall from where he was and saw an immense underground cavern. The oval cavern was at least five hundred feet wide and well over a thousand long. The height soared for hundreds of feet above the thirty foot ledge they fought on, and for hundreds of feet below as well. Other ledges ringed the cavern and duergar started to mass on each of them, watching the fight. Then the group heard the sound of feet marching in unison. Grimnyr saw a phalanx of duergar troops marching along the wall and he cast a spell that threw them into a confused mass of metal.Thovaas summoned another demonic beast similar to the first, and it first attacked the duergar cleric before turning its attention to Jerrin. Thovaas sat cross-legged on the wide ledge and began a dark summoning chant. With a shudder the weight of two huge tyrannosaurus rexes slammed onto the ledge to intercept the remaining duergar from the first phalanx. A second phalanx of armored duergar troops were marching from the other side as Quentin, Alex and Grimnyr dealt with the duergar cleric. This group was fronted by two constructs, and with a look, a word and a gesture from Thovaas one began melting.The other duergar pushed in and surrounded the ex-paladin and others attempted to flank Grimnyr and the others. The two tyrannosaurs gobbled up several of the armor clad duergar at Thovaas's direction. One by one the duergar fell, and Grimnyr saw a chance to push the undead paladin off the ledge. He scrambled forward and slammed into the skeletal form, shoving him toward the edge. Thovaas, however, regained his balance and stepped away from the edge to launch a counterattack at Grimnyr. Quentin, seeing what the bard was attempting to do, raced forward and slammed as hard as he could into the undead paladin's side, pushing him squarely in front of the bard and dangerously close to the cliff edge. Grimnyr bull-rushed Thovaas with all his might, and their former companion was knocked back over the abyss.To Quentin and Grimnyr's astonishment, instead of plummeting from the cliff-like edge, Thovaas stood on the open air with his skull facing the black Book of Synnestra. Grimnyr and Quentin saw the red gleaming beads of light where the knight's eyes once were, and they read sentence after sentence aloud from the book. Then the two men heard the pounding of a massive construct coming their way.Jerrin and Alex struggled against the wooly horned demon that had been summoned, then against the duergar as they pressed their advantage. Grimnyr fled through the gap along the stream when he saw a another cadre of duergar and metallic constructs plodding their way. Jerrin reached over the wall and grabbed one of the previous human sized constructs with spikes all over it and crushed it with his tremendous strength. It exploded, surprising Jerrin and his wolfhound Tempest, and tiny spiked pieces of shrapnel tore through their skin.Quentin teetered by the edge and looked down into the bottom of the huge cavern. At the bottom he saw something lying at the bottom that was shaped like a half-dwarf, half-man. It was all metal, and was easily a thousand feet tall. Duergar scrambled over it like ants and the shadowdancer saw the whole cavern was watching him. Quentin pulled himself back from the edge and his mind digested what he saw. Just then the huge metal construct began to pick up speed along the ledge, and it swung a massive blow down at the thief. On the other side, Thovaas had walked back onto the ledge and with a hand wave he commanded the two tyrannosaurs to attack the huge metal construct. They thrashed into melee, and a clawed foot trampled the awestruck Quentin. He ducked and rolled, then sprang away from the three huge combatants to see Jerrin and the others using the wall for cover as a few ballistas and crossbows fired stray shots toward them.Grimnyr was the first to lay down, head first, in the high-pressure stream of water, and he shot straight through the vertical vacuum barrier to the slower side once more. Jerrin healed himself and wildshaped once more before resuming his natural form and shooting through the water to the other side. Alex and Quentin, seeing that Thovaas was keeping the duergar busy, decided to loot as much as they could from the bodies of the fallen. When Quentin strode on the wall, several blistering balls of flame errupted near the hidden shadowdancer. Grabbing only what he could carry, the pair of rogues dropped into the water and were flushed to the other side.From the slower side the group glanced back to see the pair of tyrannosaurs clamp down on the metal construct, only to have their teeth splinter and break. The construct spun its mechanical arm around three times before releasing the momentum in an axe swing that decapitated one of them. Several more blasts of fire errupted, and the figure of Thovaas could no longer be seen.</blockquote>

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