NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 9689142" data-attributes="member: 508">ADVENTURE 99: THE CONCLAVE OF SKULLSPC Roster: Alewyth Putterpye, dwarf vampire priestess of Aerik 20             Thurloe Pulver, human death knight fighter 3/wizard 3/spellsword 10/eldritch knight 4             Wakuren, half-orc mummy cleric of Cal 10/paladin 10             Xandro Silverstrings, human necropolitan bard 6/rogue 14             Zander Quilson, elf necropolitan sorcerer 20Game Session Date: 14 June 2025 - - -Mother Bones stood in the middle of the Temple of Akari, and despite the fact she was a lich, the five heroes - now undead creatures themselves - got the distinct impression if she had skin on her face, she'd be scowling at them."Well," Mother Bones said, "it seems as if you have actually made the transition to an undead state of existence.  It is now safe for you to go to stand before the Conclave of Skulls, and see the leaders of this community."  She walked over to the locked door along the back wall, and opened it with a key she wore on a chain around her neck.  There was a moment of silence, and then she begrudgingly added, "Go with Akari.""And He with you," intoned the five heroes as they passed by her and entered the passageway leading to the Conclave of Skulls.Stepping through the doorway, the first thing they saw was the wide set of stairs leading down into darkness, but now that they all had darkvision, they could see the area just fine.  The front half of the stairs were carved straight from the surrounding rock, but they opened into a larger area, with two octagonal chambers, one on either side of the steps.  There were no rails along the lower half of the stairs; if the heroes had desired, they could have leaped off the steps into either of the eight-sided chambers, each of which was filled with piles of bones: mostly seeming to have come from slain humanoids, but with the occasional larger bone hinting at having come from a much larger creature - a dinosaur, perhaps. Thurloe mused over the telepathic link still in place.  Wakuren saw the entire ceiling was covered in runes; casting a detect magic spell, he determined it was a necromantic effect, no doubt the precautions that would slay any living thing entering the area.  The runes covered the entire ceiling for as far as he could see.Just ahead, a 10-foot-wide corridor continued in from the base of the steps.  The heroes could see it turned to the left at the end, but it passed between two stone plinths.  The one to the left was empty, but on the one to the right stood a 10-foot-tall statue of a drow warrior, distinctive in that it had four arms, each holding a sword at the ready.  <Do you think it will attack us?> Alewyth asked, nervously.<We're undead now,> Wakuren reminded her.  <There's no reason we shouldn't be here.>  Still, he suggested it might not be a bad idea to be fully healed up after their battle with the carnivorous blob in the Hidden Village.  Alewyth cast a mass inflict critical wounds on the assembled group as they slowly and cautiously stepped down the stone stairs, and Wakuren cast an inflict light wounds spell on himself to finish up the healing of the wounds sustained by his mummified body.  Xandro activated his ring of invisibility and slipped from view, then decided that would seem as if he were hiding from the rulers of the Forbidden Lands, and deactivated the effect.  (Just in time, too, because Zander had been about to walk right into him.)The group gripped their weapons as they approached the four-armed spiderstone golem, but it remained immobile as they passed.  Alewyth was the first to reach the turn to the left at the end of the passageway, and what she saw brought forth an unbidden gasp from her undead lips.  The passageway turned to the left and opened up into a triangular chamber, the entire back wall filled top to bottom with shelves, upon which were stored what had to be around 200 skulls.  Each skull had gemstones in its eye sockets and smaller gems embedded in its teeth, some of them glowing slightly (in a variety of colors), others quiescent.  Standing off to the side of this chamber stood another spiderstone golem, apparently the one that had stood on the now-empty platform in the chamber behind them.  Its four swords were sheathed in scabbards at its carved belt, as each hand held either the wrist or ankle of its captive.As the other heroes came forward and stood beside Alewyth, the eye-gems of several of the skulls lit up, as they telepathically reached out to the newcomers.  <Welcome,> said a voice inside their heads, as a pair of yellow gemstones blazed in the eye sockets of one of the skulls on the shelves.  <We are the Conclave of Skulls, the pinnacle of biological and necromantic evolution.  We exist in a world of pure thought and contemplation, unhindered by the needs of physical comfort or the distractions of daily life.  We serve as a font of wisdom and experience, guiding those in the first steps along the path of the undead.  We have some questions to put to you.><Uh, sure, okay,> stammered Alewyth.  She had heard about such creatures before: demiliches, all that remained of a lich after several centuries - or millennia - of undeath.  They were said to be even more powerful than a lich, and this many of them!  There was no way the five former dreamwalkers would be able to take on an undead force in these numbers!<Please explain how those symbols of Akari came to be placed upon your foreheads," thought another demilich at the heroes, this one with green glowing gems in place of eyes.  <We cannot recall having seen anything of the like.>Wakuren, sensing Alewyth to be a bit overwhelmed at their audience, took up the answer.  <We were chosen as Emissaries of Akari by an aspect of the God of Death and Undeath Himself,> he explained, opting not to go into any more detail than he needed to.<The rest of eternity now stretches out before you.  What do you seek to accomplish, now that you have escaped the shackles of the living and attained your true forms?>Thurloe tackled that one.  <We are here upon direct orders from Akari.  What specific tasks He has for us are yet unknown, but we will do them to the best of our abilities.><Hello?  Can you hear me?> came a new voice over yet another Randor's telepathic bond spell.  It was distinctly female, and it was one with which Thurloe was quite familiar.<Andrea?  Is that you?><It's me,> she answered from in front of the spiderstone golem.  <I came down here as soon as my ritual into lichdom was completed, but apparently the Conclave grew suspicious because I was asking too many questions about their plans, and they sicced this golem on me.  I've been undergoing interrogation by these demiliches for a week or more now, but it's very slow going - they space out, sometimes for hours at a time, and almost seem to forget I'm here.  I don't think time means quite the same to them as it does to us.>The heroes stood, waiting for another telepathic question from the Conclave, but the eye gems were all dim in the rows of skulls for the moment.  That gave them time to telepathically chat with Andrea.<So, have you found out anything about the threat to the planet that we're supposed to stop?> asked Thurloe.<Nothing definite.  Whatever it is, it's on the other side of a secret door along the diagonal wall behind you.  And there's some sort of guardian there, but I don't know anything about it other than it's there to keep intruders out.><Do you know how to open the secret door?> asked Xandro.<No - and it's situated well in the Conclave's field of view, so if you try checking it out, they'll see you for sure.  They've all got true seeing, too, I know that much.  So, sneaking in invisibly is out - not only would they still see you, they'd see the door open and close.><Anything else you can tell us about the threat?> prompted Alewyth.<Only that it involves the Negative Energy Plane, there are several necropolitans in on it, and they are involved in something called 'astronomy' - whatever that is.>One of the demiliches spoke up in its own telepathic manner; it was confusing keeping track of three separate telepathic channels!  But its bluish eye-gems glowed as it said, <I see some among you were deathborn in life.  There is a deathborn lich, one of the most recent additions to the Forbidden Lands, who has been trying to probe into our plans.  Are any of you familiar with this individual?  Her deathborn name was Andrea Jandoval.><None of you have ever met me before!> coached Andrea on her private channel with the heroes.<We've never heard of her,> answered Wakuren on the Conclave channel.A new voice entered the Conclave's telepathic discussion, as a skull with purple gems in its eye sockets lit up.    This caused the heroes a fair bit of confusion.  <I'm afraid we haven't seen him,> answered Wakuren.  Zander was tempted to pull out his jade cooshee figurine of wondrous power and activate it, but he was afraid it might be confiscated - and, he belatedly realized, if it took living elven dog form it would be quickly slain by the defenses the Conclave of Skulls had built into their dwelling-place.Alewyth was careful to broadcast her thoughts only on the network among the heroes.  <This guy's senile if he thinks a cooshee he had when he was still living is still alive.  We're talking how many hundreds of years at a minimum?><Do you have any concerns to bring before the Conclave?> asked another voice, as the corresponding gems in that particular skull flashed orange.<We do not,> replied Wakuren.  <But we will be sure to bring any concerns we may learn of to your attention.><'Mud' rhymes with 'blood,'> pointed out another demilich, this one apparently not all there mentally.  None of the heroes knew quite how to respond, so nobody did.<When you leave us after this visit, please inform the necropolitan Vernetoth Xamblos he is to report to the Conclave.  We have some insight on his astronomical calculations about orbital mechanics,> commanded a demilich with eye-gems of a lavender hue.  Seeing this as a sort of dismissal, the heroes made their exit, returning back the way they had come.<We'll see what we can do to set you free,> promised Thurloe.<Worry about saving the world first, then about saving me,> Andrea countered."Who's this Vernetoth guy?" asked Zander as they climbed the steps back to the Temple of Akari.  "And what are orbital mechanics?""I'm sure Mother Bones can at least tell us the answer to the first question," suggested Wakuren.  Sure enough, Mother Bones knew all of the undead in the Forbidden Lands - she kept track of how often they came to pay their respects to Akari in His temple, after all.  Vernetoth Xamblos, it turned out, was a necropolitan who worked in the office Pendlebrook had taken them to during their initial tour of the Forbidden Lands.  He, Xandro recalled, was the one casting illusions of a pyramid shape over the top of a sphere.Finding their way to Vernetoth's office, Wakuren passed on the message he was to report to the Conclave.  "Very well," replied the necropolitan, eager to meet again with the leaders of the Forbidden Lands.  But Thurloe stopped him before he left the office.  "Not so fast," he said, placing his skeletal fingers upon the necropolitan's chest.  "It sounds like you're working on a fairly important project for the Conclave," he began."Yes," Vernetoth agreed warily."We'd like to be of assistance, if we can," the death knight spellsword insisted.  "I'm sure we could be of great help to your project, what with being Emissaries of Akari and all."<What are you doing?> hissed Alewyth over the telepathic bond.  <You're going to blow our cover with your questions - that's how Andrea got caught!> Thurloe insisted.  Then, speaking aloud to Vernetoth, he said, "What about it, then?  You want to let us in on what you're working on?""I think," the necropolitan replied, brushing Thurloe's hand away, "that if you wish to join in our efforts, you should talk to Mother Bones.  Now excuse me, I must be off - I don't want to keep the Conclave waiting.""Certainly not," agreed Thurloe.  "We know how punctual they are about time and everything."  But Vernetoth had already departed the area."Your inane ramblings are going to get us killed one of these days!" hissed Alewyth."We're already dead," pointed out Thurloe."We need to get past that secret door," said Xandro, trying to get everyone back onto the task at hand.  "Any ideas?""Yes," replied Zander.  My staff has passwall spells - we can go through the side of the wall, just past the four-armed statue on the platform, well out of view of the Conclave.  Two spells should do it: one a little way in, and another at a right angle headed towards whatever's on the other side of the secret door.""Sounds good," agreed Wakuren.  "We'll need to be sneaky, to try to get past the guardian; I think I'll cast air walk spells on those of you who can't already fly.  Anything else?""Hey, remember the illusion Vernetoth was playing with when we first met him in his lab?" asked Xandro.  "The pyramid superimposed over the sphere?""Yeah," answered Zander.  "It was like a hat over a melon.""Or a necromantic effect over the top half of the planet," mused Xandro.  "Remember?  Andrea said it involved the Negative Energy Plane."Wakuren cogitated over the idea.  "I suppose," he considered, "it would be possible to open a planar gate at the top of the planet, and send a cone of negative energy over the planet...but that would have disastrous effects!  All life would be snuffed out almost at once, and turned into undead!""The Conclave no doubt sees that as a good thing, though," argued Alewyth."But what about vampires?  Where are you going to get your blood, if half of the entire planet is undead?  Everyone will be juju zombies or wraiths or whatnot - the vampires are in for a world of hurt if they have to travel half a world away before they starve!  And the wraiths would travel south, looking for fresh victims - it wouldn't take long before all life was extinguished on the planet!""No wonder even Akari wanted us to put a stop to it," said Thurloe.  "That's just messed up.""But if half the Conclave is going senile, they probably can't see the great, gaping hole in their plans," said Alewyth."Or they don't care," offered up Thurloe.  "Maybe vampires are just the lowest form of undead, and nobody cares about them."  That earned him a stony glare from the dwarven vampire priestess of Aerik."Well, once we get into whatever's behind the secret door, we'll have to find a way to put a stop to it," said Wakuren.  "Who knows?  It might be possible to switch the mechanics to the Positive Energy Plane, and heal everything up instead of turning it into undead.  But I think whatever we do, we should do it tomorrow - we'll all want to be at full spellcasting power, because we're only going to get one shot at this.""And in the meantime," suggested Zander, "I can have Petey drop some mental seeds into the minds of the vampire population around here, let them know there's a plot afoot to gain more power for everyone else at their expense.  It wouldn't hurt our chances if there was a civil war going on in the Forbidden Lands while we were trying to put an end to the Conclave's idiotic plans."<Easily done, boss,> agreed Petey.  <I'll make it seem like a random thought - or even one put there by Akari.>"Then I guess we have a plan," confirmed Wakuren.  "Or at the very least, the beginnings of one." - - -Together, this short adventure and the one before it took about the length of time we normally play on a Saturday, so it all worked out.  And we got to play the final adventure, "Undead Dreams," one week after playing through these two, so everything was relatively fresh in everyone's mind. - - -T-shirt worn: My black "Walking Dead" WWDD ("What Would Daryl Do?") T-shirt, as this was the same game session as the previous adventure.</blockquote>

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