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Ghourmand Vale (3.5 campaign)
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<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 9248640" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 43: A BANNER DAY</strong></p><p></p><p>PC Roster: </p><p style="margin-left: 20px">Ageratum Purslane, halfling rogue 11</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Alistair Mandelberen Pastlethwaite, human sorcerer 11</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Chaevaris Noarunal, elf archer 11</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Harlan Starblade, half-elf paladin 11</p><p></p><p>NPC Roster:</p><p style="margin-left: 20px">Orchid, elf druid 11</p><p></p><p>Game Session Date: 17 January 2024</p><p></p><p> - - -</p><p></p><p>"Who may I say is calling?" <strong>Brother Toedwool</strong> asked politely. It wasn't every day that an armed group of adventurers showed up at the Temple of Saint Cuthbert in Furyondy's capital city of Chendl and asked to see the head of the church.</p><p></p><p>"Harlan Starblade of the Order of Pelor, lately from Ghourmand Vale. We have urgent news we wish to pass along to the temples and churches in your area."</p><p></p><p>The five heroes were ushered inside and led to a side room; Shushitan stayed outside with the group's riding mounts. They were soon met by <strong>Father Muldoon</strong>, the Head Abbott of the temple. Father Muldoon had a gruff-looking expression that instantly vanished into a wide grin upon meeting his visitors. "Ah, the 'Trained Professional Adventurers!'" he exclaimed. "I have heard the songs detailing your exploits! What brings you to Chendl, may I ask?"</p><p></p><p>"We are hitting the local temples and churches," Harlan explained, "and we decided to start with the Temple of Saint Cuthbert, as we are allies to Father Barbados, a leader in Ghourmand Vale of your own holy order." Harlan filled him in on their mission to look into the Ministry of the Father, and their discovery that they were not only a sham cult, but they were behind the recent crop failures and mysterious disappearances plaguing the area. The half-elf brought out the parchment holding the pact between the black dragon they had slain and Pecunnius Fecitus, asking Father Muldoon if he could read it, for if not they had a magic helm that would allow him to understand the words written on the document. But Father Muldoon was able to read the written language just fine, and he pursed his lips as he scanned over the document. He gave a gasp when he got to the bottom and read the signatures.</p><p></p><p>"Pecunnius Fecitus - that name is known to me!"</p><p></p><p>"Who is he?" asked Ageratum.</p><p></p><p>"None other than the leader of the Temple of Zilchus in Chendl!" exclaimed Father Muldoon. Zilchus was on the list of gods worshiped in Furyondy, along with Hieroneous, Fharlanghn, Beory, and Trithereon. The heroes wished to warn the leaders of these churches to be aware of the dangers of the Ministry of the Father, and had hoped to enlist the aid of the first few they hit to spread the word to the others. Fortunately, not being familiar with Zilchus, His temple had been low down the heroes' list.</p><p></p><p>"Then if the leader of the temple of Zilchus is behind this Ministry of the Father scam, we'd best go see this Pecunnius Fecitus fellow!" decided Harlan. "Can you give us directions to his temple?" he asked Father Muldoon.</p><p></p><p>"I can certainly do so, but I would advise all haste, for the contract stipulates the dragon is to be fed his eight victims a day through the second day of Patchwall - that's today! Whatever schemes Fecitus is up to - and they involve a demon, this 'Bannerman Mulgrave,' which bodes ill - it's scheduled to occur this very day! I can try to gather up some of our own fighting men, but I fear many of them are out tending to their harvests...."</p><p></p><p>"If you can but lead us to the Zilchus temple, we will take it from there," Harlan promised. Father Muldoon gave them directions on how to find it and the five heroes were off, climbing onto their mounts and racing through the city towards the Temple of Zilchus.</p><p></p><p>Finding the temple was not difficult; they dismounted a street away and tied up their reins, then approached the temple on foot. Once again, Shushitan was left to help guard the horses, along with Nova, whose reins had been fastened to a post in such a way that the celestial pegasus could undo them easily enough if his master whistled for his approach. Alistair sent Ambrose flying around and above the building to see if there were any other entrances. After a brief reconnaissance he returned, saying the two front doors were the only way into or out of the building, although there were two areas towards the back of the building open to the outside air, and each of these had doors leading into the building. Those were alternate ways in, for those who could fly over the roof. Orchid took special notice, for she had planned on wildshaping into an eagle for this fight. Ambrose also said he saw a robed man walking along the path in the leftmost such open area, having left the building through one door and headed for the other door at the end of the winding path.</p><p></p><p>Some 30 feet from the front door to the Temple of Zilchus, the heroes began casting their pre-combat spells, for they had no real plan but to burst into the building and put a stop to whatever fiendish plan was almost complete - after all, the very fact that a demon was involved could mean something as deadly as opening a permanent <em>planar gate</em> to the Abyss, allowing their fiendish armies to come swarming into this reality. Alistair placed a <em>flame arrow</em> enchantment on the heroes' assorted ammunition, then cast a <em>cat's grace</em> spell upon each of the five heroes, a <em>haste</em> spell over the entire group, <em>mage armor</em> and <em>shield</em> spells on himself, and as a new trick, he cast a spell he'd just mastered upon each of the five heroes as well: a <em>greater invisibility</em> spell, which not only caused them to fade from view but also allowed them to remain invisible if they attacked a foe in the meantime. Then he cast another new spell, <em>Rary's telepathic bond</em>, upon himself and three of the heroes, casting the spell a second time to include the fifth into the link. <This will allow us to communicate among ourselves without being overheard,> the sorcerer informed the others.</p><p></p><p>Orchid cast a <em>mass bear's endurance</em> spell on the group, giving everyone a bit more fighting vigor for the combat to come. She then cast <em>barkskin</em> spells upon Harlan and herself, a <em>resistance</em> spell upon everyone, and finished with <em>speak with animals</em> and <em>longstrider</em> spells upon herself. Harlan enhanced his own combat potential with <em>bull's strength</em> and <em>magic circle against evil</em> spells upon himself, a <em>protection from evil</em> spell upon Chaevaris, and a <em>bless</em> spell upon the entire group. "That should do it," he announced. "Let's go!"</p><p></p><p>As one, the group headed for the front doors, only to have it open suddenly open as an elderly woman in clerical robes, <strong>Sister Solvay</strong>, peeked outside to see if anyone was there - she could have sworn she heard talking just outside. But nobody was visible; shaking her head and quietly castigating herself for imagining things, she started to close the door. However, while the door was open, Harlan discerned no evil in the elderly Sister's aura, and passed that information to the others over their telepathic link. Ageratum used her <em>cloak of arachnida</em> to <em>spider climb</em> up the wall, over the top of the open doorway, and onto the ceiling of the vast room just beyond. This was apparently a reception hall of some sort, with a table and chair where the Sister sat awaiting visitors - she was a glorified greeter, it seemed.</p><p></p><p>Chaevaris had activated her magic necklace and caused the door to their extradimensional dwelling to manifest on the outside of the building. Opening the door, Alistair called for Carruthers to step outside and join their battle against the followers of Zilchus. The shield guardian did as ordered, as Harlan pushed his way past the open door and slammed the flat of his blade - he kept the flames from sprouting along its length - into the side of Sister Solvay's head. Without a word, she crumpled to the floor, and Harlan dragged her outside, depositing her behind a bit of shrubbery - that way, if anyone approached her station and saw her gone, they might assume she just wandered away for a moment; much better than leaving her unconscious in the corner for all to see.</p><p></p><p>Orchid wildshaped into her eagle form and flew over to the open area where the male cleric had been walking, just in time for her to see him close the door behind him as he re-entered the temple building. But a closed door, which might be a problem for a true eagle, was no difficulty for an elven druid who knew exactly how doorknobs worked; she flapped in place and opened the door with a talon on the knob. The man stood at a table, sweating profusely, and drinking from a glass he'd just filled with some sort of alcoholic beverage. He looked over at the door as it apparently opened by itself - for Orchid was still under the effects of Alistair's <em>greater invisibility</em> spell - and muttered, "Wizards!" to himself. Orchid detected some sort of shimmering field around him - some sort of magical protection, no doubt. She cast a <em>summon swarm</em> spall, filling the area around the cleric with hundreds, if not thousands, of spiders. But although he seemed surprised at their sudden appearance, he wasn't overly worried, and upon closer look Orchid could see that none of the spiders were actually touching him. A <em>protection from good</em> spell, she surmised, which would prevent contact from summoned creatures. Bummer!</p><p></p><p>Alistair strode into the reception hall, Carruthers at his heels. The hallway ended in another pair of double doors just ahead, but also stretched out almost the full length of the front of the temple, apparently leading to the eastern and western wings. But as he looked around, Orchid announced, <I'm in a large office area with the cleric Ambrose saw, at the middle back of the building!> So oriented, the sorcerer had Carruthers open the door to the office at the back of the reception hall. Chaevaris, still standing outside the building, saw the sweating cleric and started aiming down the length of her nocked arrow.</p><p></p><p>Ageratum ran across the ceiling of the reception hall and into the office. She stared down at the cleric and tried to cast her <em>web</em> spell at him, but then a strange thing happened: she felt a sudden compulsion to just leave the poor man alone. With part of her mind, she was aware that this was not a normal thought she was having, and it was probably some kind of magical effect, but she was unable to convince herself to go ahead and activate that particular power of her <em>cloak of arachnida</em>. And thus she stood there, hanging upside-down upon the ceiling, filed with indecisiveness. The cleric, completely unaware of Ageratum's presence in the room, had no idea his <em>sanctuary</em> spell had just saved him from being webbed into place and unable to escape - and escape was the one thing he desperately wanted to do, before Bannerman got any ideas....</p><p></p><p>However, despite not being able to see Ageratum or Orchid who were both in the room there with him, the cleric could easily see Carruthers at the doorway. He started casting a spell, and that's when Chaevaris released her arrow, sending it beneath the shield guardian's outstretched arm and plunging directly into the cleric's eye socket. With a cry of pain, he staggered backwards, but he managed to finish his spell - and promptly vanished from view, leaving Orchid and Ageratum to wonder whether he had <em>teleported</em> away or merely vanished from the visible spectrum as they had done. But as the spiders behind him suddenly parted, it seemed as if he'd simply turned invisible rather than left the room by magical means.</p><p></p><p>Ambrose suddenly popped up on the telepathic link; he'd been flying over the temple building and had something to report to his master. <There's a toad man in the west garden area, headed towards the open door!> - for Orchid, upon entering the cleric's office from the garden area, had left the door wide open. The hezrou, Bannerman Mulgrave himself, released a <em>blasphemy</em> spell into the office area, engulfing the still-invisible Orchid and Ageratum and the perfectly-visible swarm of spiders. The spiders all curled up and died en masse, whereas the two female adventurers were dazed into temporary immobility and felt the strength draining from their limbs.</p><p></p><p>Harlan entered the office, his own longbow out - for he suspected the "toad-man" Ambrose had warned of was a hezrou, and he wanted to try to slay him at range if possible, for he was well aware of the hezrou's incapacitating stench. He shot the demon, his arrow catching him in his ample belly. Bannerman frowned and plucked the arrow away, tossing it contemptuously to the ground at his side as he strode down the garden path towards the open door.</p><p></p><p>Alistair strode to the open double doors to the office and raised his <em>metamagic rod</em>, channeling a <em>maximized magic missile</em> spell through it. He lacked Harlan's training on the specifics of devils and demons and was fairly sure a fire spell would be ineffective, wasn't quite sure about electricity-based spells (he'd just learned the <em>lightning bolt</em> spell and was eager to try it out, but not on a creature that might be immune), but he knew for certain neither demons nor devils were immune to force magic. Unfortunately, the missiles streaming from the sorcerer's raised rod went straight to the hezrou but then sputtered out immediately before contact, having run aground against his innate spell resistance. So much for that attack!</p><p></p><p>"Kill that demon!" Alistair called out, and Carruthers scrambled forward to obey, slamming the hezrou with his powerful fists. But the demon had resistance against physical attacks as well as spell energy, and the shield guardian's best efforts didn't seem to be doing that much to Bannerman, whose toadlike mouth - filled with sharp teeth - broke out into a knowing grin. It was a particularly satisfying experience to have your enemies' various attacks come to naught!</p><p></p><p>Ageratum and Orchid were still dazed by the hezrou's <em>blasphemy</em> attack, but they both heard the sounds of spellcasting coming from the back of the room, where they suspected the sweating cleric was still in place. But what spell it was he cast was a mystery to them, for in his invisible state they'd been unable to see any gestures he might have made as part of his spellcasting.</p><p></p><p>Bannerman stepped forward and attacked Carruthers with his own demonic claws, just as Chaevaris released her next arrow, which hit him just below the throat. The arrow snapped off when the hezrou bent forward to bite the shield guardian, taking a chunk of wood out of his support structure. Then Harlan dashed forward, having drawn his <em>Starblade</em> and set its length ablaze. He channeled Pelor's smiting energy into the blade and brought it crashing against the hezrou's side, managing to ignore the demon's foul stench as he got within range. The blade cut deep, causing a black ichor to ooze from the wound in place of blood.</p><p></p><p>Orchid shook off the <em>blasphemy</em> effect and flew over to a shelf along the front wall of the office. She cast a <em>baleful polymorph</em> spell at the hezrou, hoping to force him into the innocuous form of a bunny rabbit, but the spell failed to take hold. Alistair tried another <em>maximized magic missile</em> but came up against the same problem: a failure to penetrate the demon's resistance to spell energy. He cursed aloud at his double failure. Carruthers continued attacking Bannerman as the construct's automatic fast healing effect started up, patching up the hole the demon's teeth had left in his wooden skeleton. And in the meeting hall, Chaevaris was taking careful aim at the hezrou, hoping to get off another shot to the eye, which had become a sort of signature move on her part.</p><p></p><p>Ageratum came to her senses upside-down on the roof of the office, and devoted her attention to the hezrou fighting off Carruthers and Harlan. She refocused her <em>web</em> spell on the demon, sending a sheet of sticky webbing from one corner of the garden area diagonally through the area where the demon stood, anchoring the webs to the opposite wall. This time there was no <em>sanctuary</em> spell getting in the way, and Bannerman found himself webbed in place, unable to move.</p><p></p><p>But the demon didn't need to move a muscle to escape the web, as all hezrous had an innate ability to <em>teleport</em>. As he readied to will himself into the meeting hall, Chaevaris released her arrow, successfully piercing the demon's right eye and causing him to roar in pain. But he finished his <em>teleport</em>, ending up standing just beside Chaevaris and Alistair, his foul stench causing both of them to retch and gag.</p><p></p><p>Harlan charged back the way he'd come, swinging his longsword into Bannerman's side and releasing another flow of demonic ichor from the wound. The hezrou by this time was looking much the worse for wear. Orchid cast a <em>flame strike</em> spell in the area around the hezrou (avoiding the area where his newest gash had suddenly opened up, figuring that must be where Harlan was standing), and the blast of holy fire raining down from the ceiling caused Bannerman to fall prone, his body bubbling as if struck by acid. He lay there, unmoving, apparently dead; the fact that his body didn't disappear back to the Abyssal realm which belched him forth only told he'd been <em>gated</em> in rather than simply summoned.</p><p></p><p><Now what?> called Alistair over the shared link. Ageratum and Orchid let him know the invisible cleric was still at large, so the sorcerer went running up and down the halls, looking and listening for his prey. Upon command, Carruthers joined the search, but although they hit every hallway between them, they found no sign of the missing cleric, whom they took to be Pecunnius Fecitus. Chaevaris covered the entire office area to make sure he wasn't still there, her keen elven ears listening for any sound of him breathing, but he apparently was no longer there in the room with her. Ageratum and Harlan started going room to room, surprised to see many bedrooms for the live-in clerics of Zilchus but nobody actually there in the whole temple save for the missing Pecunnius and Sister Solvay. Harlan burst through a locked door into the head cleric's own bedroom, finding a packed backpack; apparently the cleric, after having completed whatever deal he had going with Bannerman, was planning on skipping town. Orchid eventually found a long chamber - a meditation chamber, she guessed - which had an oddly-shaped doorknob on a door entirely at odds with all of the other doors in the temple, and surmised this was likely a <em>planar gate</em> leading directly to the Abyss. But as she watched, the door faded from view, the temporary link to the Material Plane apparently severed with Bannerman's cooling corpse.</p><p></p><p>Alistair eventually resorted to using a <em>detect magic</em> spell to see if he could find any clues about where Pecunnius might have gotten to, and discovered a spot along one wall that glowed with transmutation magic. Calling the others to him over the telepathic link, they lined up with weapons out and ready, for among the lot of them they had no way to dismiss the magic aura in effect upon the wall. But eventually, Pecunnius did their work for them; having feared the incipient expiration of his <em>meld into stone</em> spell and not having heard any movement or talking on the other side of the wall - not surprising, as the heroes had been discussing the situation among themselves silently over the <em>Rary's telepathic bond</em> spell - he exited the wall and right into Alistair, who had his rapier out and at the ready. The blade stabbed right through the cleric's belly and he died there, an arrow-shaft still sticking out of his right eye. Alistair let him fall to the floor.</p><p></p><p>"Any idea what all went on here?" he asked the others, aloud now that combat seemed to be over. "What was this idiot's overall plan?" Orchid filled the others in on the door she'd see vanish in the meditation room and her guess about it leading to the Abyss. "Maybe he had a deal with Bannerman, like he did with the dragon, about providing him with so many bodies over the past month. If he found himself coming up short, he might have tricked the other people who used to live here into becoming replacement victims."</p><p></p><p>"I guess," replied the sorcerer, unconvinced. "But if the goal was just to kill farmers, they could have done that much easier than involving a black dragon and a hezrou. And what's up with ruining the crops? Surely they have to eat as well?"</p><p></p><p>"We may never know the depths of depravity behind such an evil mind," Harlan advised. "But it seems the Ministry of the Father has been taken down. We'd best report our findings to Viscount Torl, as he hired us to do."</p><p></p><p>"Yeah, and claim our thousand pieces of gold - each!" enthused Ageratum.</p><p></p><p> - - -</p><p></p><p>This was, sadly, a subpar experience for just about everybody. For one thing, our dice sucked! I had Alistair cast his buffing spells on everyone right before entering the temple, and then I might as well have just had him take a relaxing break on a lounge chair, because he was absolutely useless in combat. The hezrou had SR 19, so with my Spell Penetration and Greater Spell Penetration feats, all I needed was a "4" or higher on a d20 - so naturally, I rolled a "1" for my first <em>maximized magic missile</em> spell and another "1" for my next shot.</p><p></p><p>Dan wasn't at the top of his game, either, doing a poor job of communicating status to us and overlooking how many of the spells his foes used actually worked. The hezrou's <em>blasphemy</em>, being a spread, shouldn't have reached Ageratum in the office; he had an invisible Pecunnius go through a closed door into a hallway without allowing any of the PCs who were in position to see the door open and close by itself to spot it doing so; he had Pecunnius use a <em>meld into stone</em> spell on a wall much too thin to allow him to "hide" inside; he should have allowed the spider swarm to attack the cleric after he used his <em>protection from evil</em> spell (he'd been afraid that Bannerman, to whom he owed more bodies than he had on hand, would try taking him to help make up the difference) to "force" his way out of the surrounding swarm; he had Bannerman teleport directly beside two invisible foes whose exact locations the demon was unaware of, taking a chance of teleporting in the same space as their bodies, but DM fiat placed him out of that particular danger and in the exact position to take out two of our PCs for the next two rounds - how extraordinarily lucky; and he tried having Pecunnius get shunted to a nearby empty space when he exited the <em>meld into stone</em> area instead of coming out in the same spot as he went in, as the spell specifies. He also got mad at us pointing out these inconsistencies, eventually yelling, "Fine! He pops out, you kill him, and you get all his treasure! Happy?" He was at that point frustrated that we weren't enjoying the adventure, when after having slaying Bannerman it turned into a sudden game of hide and seek in trying to figure out where the cleric had gone hiding. (We had other questions, too, like why hadn't he healed himself while he was inside the stone wall? Why did he leave his "escape backpack" locked in his room instead of there in his office if he was going to high-tail it after feeding his ill-informed acolytes to the Abyss? Why did you use a Paizo Flip-Map of an entire temple building if it was only going to have two people still alive in it, one of whom was 1st level and no threat at all and the other who was just going to hide from us and hope we went away?)</p><p></p><p>Dan claims the Zilchus upper class looks down upon the lower class and it made perfect sense for them to want to try to get a bunch of farmers killed; apparently their bad harvest would simply make Zilchus's own foodstuffs - which they grew in areas away from where the black dragon was attacking - raise in price at the market, but the whole scheme seemed (to the players, at least) overly complicated. Anyway, after Dan's outburst, we agreed to end the adventure right there (I "corrected" the part in the writeup above about where Pecunnius would have exited the stone wall, ignoring the fact the wall wasn't thick enough to support his having hid in it in the first place) and let everyone cool down for the night. I insisted we not get any treasure from this adventure (save the 1,000 gp each we'd earned by bringing down the Ministry of the Father), so if Pecunnius had any treasure hidden away in the temple, I told Dan to save it for another adventure. I wasn't about to accept treasure from a foe we didn't actually kill in-game (although apparently Chaevaris's eye-shot took him down to below half his hit points in any case).</p><p></p><p>Anyway, Dan and I had a talk about what went wrong and we've come up with suggestions about how we can try to prevent any reoccurrences.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 9248640, member: 508"] [B]ADVENTURE 43: A BANNER DAY[/B] PC Roster: [INDENT]Ageratum Purslane, halfling rogue 11[/INDENT] [INDENT] Alistair Mandelberen Pastlethwaite, human sorcerer 11[/INDENT] [INDENT] Chaevaris Noarunal, elf archer 11[/INDENT] [INDENT] Harlan Starblade, half-elf paladin 11[/INDENT] NPC Roster: [INDENT]Orchid, elf druid 11[/INDENT] Game Session Date: 17 January 2024 - - - "Who may I say is calling?" [B]Brother Toedwool[/B] asked politely. It wasn't every day that an armed group of adventurers showed up at the Temple of Saint Cuthbert in Furyondy's capital city of Chendl and asked to see the head of the church. "Harlan Starblade of the Order of Pelor, lately from Ghourmand Vale. We have urgent news we wish to pass along to the temples and churches in your area." The five heroes were ushered inside and led to a side room; Shushitan stayed outside with the group's riding mounts. They were soon met by [B]Father Muldoon[/B], the Head Abbott of the temple. Father Muldoon had a gruff-looking expression that instantly vanished into a wide grin upon meeting his visitors. "Ah, the 'Trained Professional Adventurers!'" he exclaimed. "I have heard the songs detailing your exploits! What brings you to Chendl, may I ask?" "We are hitting the local temples and churches," Harlan explained, "and we decided to start with the Temple of Saint Cuthbert, as we are allies to Father Barbados, a leader in Ghourmand Vale of your own holy order." Harlan filled him in on their mission to look into the Ministry of the Father, and their discovery that they were not only a sham cult, but they were behind the recent crop failures and mysterious disappearances plaguing the area. The half-elf brought out the parchment holding the pact between the black dragon they had slain and Pecunnius Fecitus, asking Father Muldoon if he could read it, for if not they had a magic helm that would allow him to understand the words written on the document. But Father Muldoon was able to read the written language just fine, and he pursed his lips as he scanned over the document. He gave a gasp when he got to the bottom and read the signatures. "Pecunnius Fecitus - that name is known to me!" "Who is he?" asked Ageratum. "None other than the leader of the Temple of Zilchus in Chendl!" exclaimed Father Muldoon. Zilchus was on the list of gods worshiped in Furyondy, along with Hieroneous, Fharlanghn, Beory, and Trithereon. The heroes wished to warn the leaders of these churches to be aware of the dangers of the Ministry of the Father, and had hoped to enlist the aid of the first few they hit to spread the word to the others. Fortunately, not being familiar with Zilchus, His temple had been low down the heroes' list. "Then if the leader of the temple of Zilchus is behind this Ministry of the Father scam, we'd best go see this Pecunnius Fecitus fellow!" decided Harlan. "Can you give us directions to his temple?" he asked Father Muldoon. "I can certainly do so, but I would advise all haste, for the contract stipulates the dragon is to be fed his eight victims a day through the second day of Patchwall - that's today! Whatever schemes Fecitus is up to - and they involve a demon, this 'Bannerman Mulgrave,' which bodes ill - it's scheduled to occur this very day! I can try to gather up some of our own fighting men, but I fear many of them are out tending to their harvests...." "If you can but lead us to the Zilchus temple, we will take it from there," Harlan promised. Father Muldoon gave them directions on how to find it and the five heroes were off, climbing onto their mounts and racing through the city towards the Temple of Zilchus. Finding the temple was not difficult; they dismounted a street away and tied up their reins, then approached the temple on foot. Once again, Shushitan was left to help guard the horses, along with Nova, whose reins had been fastened to a post in such a way that the celestial pegasus could undo them easily enough if his master whistled for his approach. Alistair sent Ambrose flying around and above the building to see if there were any other entrances. After a brief reconnaissance he returned, saying the two front doors were the only way into or out of the building, although there were two areas towards the back of the building open to the outside air, and each of these had doors leading into the building. Those were alternate ways in, for those who could fly over the roof. Orchid took special notice, for she had planned on wildshaping into an eagle for this fight. Ambrose also said he saw a robed man walking along the path in the leftmost such open area, having left the building through one door and headed for the other door at the end of the winding path. Some 30 feet from the front door to the Temple of Zilchus, the heroes began casting their pre-combat spells, for they had no real plan but to burst into the building and put a stop to whatever fiendish plan was almost complete - after all, the very fact that a demon was involved could mean something as deadly as opening a permanent [I]planar gate[/I] to the Abyss, allowing their fiendish armies to come swarming into this reality. Alistair placed a [I]flame arrow[/I] enchantment on the heroes' assorted ammunition, then cast a [I]cat's grace[/I] spell upon each of the five heroes, a [I]haste[/I] spell over the entire group, [I]mage armor[/I] and [I]shield[/I] spells on himself, and as a new trick, he cast a spell he'd just mastered upon each of the five heroes as well: a [I]greater invisibility[/I] spell, which not only caused them to fade from view but also allowed them to remain invisible if they attacked a foe in the meantime. Then he cast another new spell, [I]Rary's telepathic bond[/I], upon himself and three of the heroes, casting the spell a second time to include the fifth into the link. <This will allow us to communicate among ourselves without being overheard,> the sorcerer informed the others. Orchid cast a [I]mass bear's endurance[/I] spell on the group, giving everyone a bit more fighting vigor for the combat to come. She then cast [I]barkskin[/I] spells upon Harlan and herself, a [I]resistance[/I] spell upon everyone, and finished with [I]speak with animals[/I] and [I]longstrider[/I] spells upon herself. Harlan enhanced his own combat potential with [I]bull's strength[/I] and [I]magic circle against evil[/I] spells upon himself, a [I]protection from evil[/I] spell upon Chaevaris, and a [I]bless[/I] spell upon the entire group. "That should do it," he announced. "Let's go!" As one, the group headed for the front doors, only to have it open suddenly open as an elderly woman in clerical robes, [B]Sister Solvay[/B], peeked outside to see if anyone was there - she could have sworn she heard talking just outside. But nobody was visible; shaking her head and quietly castigating herself for imagining things, she started to close the door. However, while the door was open, Harlan discerned no evil in the elderly Sister's aura, and passed that information to the others over their telepathic link. Ageratum used her [I]cloak of arachnida[/I] to [I]spider climb[/I] up the wall, over the top of the open doorway, and onto the ceiling of the vast room just beyond. This was apparently a reception hall of some sort, with a table and chair where the Sister sat awaiting visitors - she was a glorified greeter, it seemed. Chaevaris had activated her magic necklace and caused the door to their extradimensional dwelling to manifest on the outside of the building. Opening the door, Alistair called for Carruthers to step outside and join their battle against the followers of Zilchus. The shield guardian did as ordered, as Harlan pushed his way past the open door and slammed the flat of his blade - he kept the flames from sprouting along its length - into the side of Sister Solvay's head. Without a word, she crumpled to the floor, and Harlan dragged her outside, depositing her behind a bit of shrubbery - that way, if anyone approached her station and saw her gone, they might assume she just wandered away for a moment; much better than leaving her unconscious in the corner for all to see. Orchid wildshaped into her eagle form and flew over to the open area where the male cleric had been walking, just in time for her to see him close the door behind him as he re-entered the temple building. But a closed door, which might be a problem for a true eagle, was no difficulty for an elven druid who knew exactly how doorknobs worked; she flapped in place and opened the door with a talon on the knob. The man stood at a table, sweating profusely, and drinking from a glass he'd just filled with some sort of alcoholic beverage. He looked over at the door as it apparently opened by itself - for Orchid was still under the effects of Alistair's [I]greater invisibility[/I] spell - and muttered, "Wizards!" to himself. Orchid detected some sort of shimmering field around him - some sort of magical protection, no doubt. She cast a [I]summon swarm[/I] spall, filling the area around the cleric with hundreds, if not thousands, of spiders. But although he seemed surprised at their sudden appearance, he wasn't overly worried, and upon closer look Orchid could see that none of the spiders were actually touching him. A [I]protection from good[/I] spell, she surmised, which would prevent contact from summoned creatures. Bummer! Alistair strode into the reception hall, Carruthers at his heels. The hallway ended in another pair of double doors just ahead, but also stretched out almost the full length of the front of the temple, apparently leading to the eastern and western wings. But as he looked around, Orchid announced, <I'm in a large office area with the cleric Ambrose saw, at the middle back of the building!> So oriented, the sorcerer had Carruthers open the door to the office at the back of the reception hall. Chaevaris, still standing outside the building, saw the sweating cleric and started aiming down the length of her nocked arrow. Ageratum ran across the ceiling of the reception hall and into the office. She stared down at the cleric and tried to cast her [I]web[/I] spell at him, but then a strange thing happened: she felt a sudden compulsion to just leave the poor man alone. With part of her mind, she was aware that this was not a normal thought she was having, and it was probably some kind of magical effect, but she was unable to convince herself to go ahead and activate that particular power of her [I]cloak of arachnida[/I]. And thus she stood there, hanging upside-down upon the ceiling, filed with indecisiveness. The cleric, completely unaware of Ageratum's presence in the room, had no idea his [I]sanctuary[/I] spell had just saved him from being webbed into place and unable to escape - and escape was the one thing he desperately wanted to do, before Bannerman got any ideas.... However, despite not being able to see Ageratum or Orchid who were both in the room there with him, the cleric could easily see Carruthers at the doorway. He started casting a spell, and that's when Chaevaris released her arrow, sending it beneath the shield guardian's outstretched arm and plunging directly into the cleric's eye socket. With a cry of pain, he staggered backwards, but he managed to finish his spell - and promptly vanished from view, leaving Orchid and Ageratum to wonder whether he had [I]teleported[/I] away or merely vanished from the visible spectrum as they had done. But as the spiders behind him suddenly parted, it seemed as if he'd simply turned invisible rather than left the room by magical means. Ambrose suddenly popped up on the telepathic link; he'd been flying over the temple building and had something to report to his master. <There's a toad man in the west garden area, headed towards the open door!> - for Orchid, upon entering the cleric's office from the garden area, had left the door wide open. The hezrou, Bannerman Mulgrave himself, released a [I]blasphemy[/I] spell into the office area, engulfing the still-invisible Orchid and Ageratum and the perfectly-visible swarm of spiders. The spiders all curled up and died en masse, whereas the two female adventurers were dazed into temporary immobility and felt the strength draining from their limbs. Harlan entered the office, his own longbow out - for he suspected the "toad-man" Ambrose had warned of was a hezrou, and he wanted to try to slay him at range if possible, for he was well aware of the hezrou's incapacitating stench. He shot the demon, his arrow catching him in his ample belly. Bannerman frowned and plucked the arrow away, tossing it contemptuously to the ground at his side as he strode down the garden path towards the open door. Alistair strode to the open double doors to the office and raised his [I]metamagic rod[/I], channeling a [I]maximized magic missile[/I] spell through it. He lacked Harlan's training on the specifics of devils and demons and was fairly sure a fire spell would be ineffective, wasn't quite sure about electricity-based spells (he'd just learned the [I]lightning bolt[/I] spell and was eager to try it out, but not on a creature that might be immune), but he knew for certain neither demons nor devils were immune to force magic. Unfortunately, the missiles streaming from the sorcerer's raised rod went straight to the hezrou but then sputtered out immediately before contact, having run aground against his innate spell resistance. So much for that attack! "Kill that demon!" Alistair called out, and Carruthers scrambled forward to obey, slamming the hezrou with his powerful fists. But the demon had resistance against physical attacks as well as spell energy, and the shield guardian's best efforts didn't seem to be doing that much to Bannerman, whose toadlike mouth - filled with sharp teeth - broke out into a knowing grin. It was a particularly satisfying experience to have your enemies' various attacks come to naught! Ageratum and Orchid were still dazed by the hezrou's [I]blasphemy[/I] attack, but they both heard the sounds of spellcasting coming from the back of the room, where they suspected the sweating cleric was still in place. But what spell it was he cast was a mystery to them, for in his invisible state they'd been unable to see any gestures he might have made as part of his spellcasting. Bannerman stepped forward and attacked Carruthers with his own demonic claws, just as Chaevaris released her next arrow, which hit him just below the throat. The arrow snapped off when the hezrou bent forward to bite the shield guardian, taking a chunk of wood out of his support structure. Then Harlan dashed forward, having drawn his [I]Starblade[/I] and set its length ablaze. He channeled Pelor's smiting energy into the blade and brought it crashing against the hezrou's side, managing to ignore the demon's foul stench as he got within range. The blade cut deep, causing a black ichor to ooze from the wound in place of blood. Orchid shook off the [I]blasphemy[/I] effect and flew over to a shelf along the front wall of the office. She cast a [I]baleful polymorph[/I] spell at the hezrou, hoping to force him into the innocuous form of a bunny rabbit, but the spell failed to take hold. Alistair tried another [I]maximized magic missile[/I] but came up against the same problem: a failure to penetrate the demon's resistance to spell energy. He cursed aloud at his double failure. Carruthers continued attacking Bannerman as the construct's automatic fast healing effect started up, patching up the hole the demon's teeth had left in his wooden skeleton. And in the meeting hall, Chaevaris was taking careful aim at the hezrou, hoping to get off another shot to the eye, which had become a sort of signature move on her part. Ageratum came to her senses upside-down on the roof of the office, and devoted her attention to the hezrou fighting off Carruthers and Harlan. She refocused her [I]web[/I] spell on the demon, sending a sheet of sticky webbing from one corner of the garden area diagonally through the area where the demon stood, anchoring the webs to the opposite wall. This time there was no [I]sanctuary[/I] spell getting in the way, and Bannerman found himself webbed in place, unable to move. But the demon didn't need to move a muscle to escape the web, as all hezrous had an innate ability to [I]teleport[/I]. As he readied to will himself into the meeting hall, Chaevaris released her arrow, successfully piercing the demon's right eye and causing him to roar in pain. But he finished his [I]teleport[/I], ending up standing just beside Chaevaris and Alistair, his foul stench causing both of them to retch and gag. Harlan charged back the way he'd come, swinging his longsword into Bannerman's side and releasing another flow of demonic ichor from the wound. The hezrou by this time was looking much the worse for wear. Orchid cast a [I]flame strike[/I] spell in the area around the hezrou (avoiding the area where his newest gash had suddenly opened up, figuring that must be where Harlan was standing), and the blast of holy fire raining down from the ceiling caused Bannerman to fall prone, his body bubbling as if struck by acid. He lay there, unmoving, apparently dead; the fact that his body didn't disappear back to the Abyssal realm which belched him forth only told he'd been [I]gated[/I] in rather than simply summoned. <Now what?> called Alistair over the shared link. Ageratum and Orchid let him know the invisible cleric was still at large, so the sorcerer went running up and down the halls, looking and listening for his prey. Upon command, Carruthers joined the search, but although they hit every hallway between them, they found no sign of the missing cleric, whom they took to be Pecunnius Fecitus. Chaevaris covered the entire office area to make sure he wasn't still there, her keen elven ears listening for any sound of him breathing, but he apparently was no longer there in the room with her. Ageratum and Harlan started going room to room, surprised to see many bedrooms for the live-in clerics of Zilchus but nobody actually there in the whole temple save for the missing Pecunnius and Sister Solvay. Harlan burst through a locked door into the head cleric's own bedroom, finding a packed backpack; apparently the cleric, after having completed whatever deal he had going with Bannerman, was planning on skipping town. Orchid eventually found a long chamber - a meditation chamber, she guessed - which had an oddly-shaped doorknob on a door entirely at odds with all of the other doors in the temple, and surmised this was likely a [I]planar gate[/I] leading directly to the Abyss. But as she watched, the door faded from view, the temporary link to the Material Plane apparently severed with Bannerman's cooling corpse. Alistair eventually resorted to using a [I]detect magic[/I] spell to see if he could find any clues about where Pecunnius might have gotten to, and discovered a spot along one wall that glowed with transmutation magic. Calling the others to him over the telepathic link, they lined up with weapons out and ready, for among the lot of them they had no way to dismiss the magic aura in effect upon the wall. But eventually, Pecunnius did their work for them; having feared the incipient expiration of his [I]meld into stone[/I] spell and not having heard any movement or talking on the other side of the wall - not surprising, as the heroes had been discussing the situation among themselves silently over the [I]Rary's telepathic bond[/I] spell - he exited the wall and right into Alistair, who had his rapier out and at the ready. The blade stabbed right through the cleric's belly and he died there, an arrow-shaft still sticking out of his right eye. Alistair let him fall to the floor. "Any idea what all went on here?" he asked the others, aloud now that combat seemed to be over. "What was this idiot's overall plan?" Orchid filled the others in on the door she'd see vanish in the meditation room and her guess about it leading to the Abyss. "Maybe he had a deal with Bannerman, like he did with the dragon, about providing him with so many bodies over the past month. If he found himself coming up short, he might have tricked the other people who used to live here into becoming replacement victims." "I guess," replied the sorcerer, unconvinced. "But if the goal was just to kill farmers, they could have done that much easier than involving a black dragon and a hezrou. And what's up with ruining the crops? Surely they have to eat as well?" "We may never know the depths of depravity behind such an evil mind," Harlan advised. "But it seems the Ministry of the Father has been taken down. We'd best report our findings to Viscount Torl, as he hired us to do." "Yeah, and claim our thousand pieces of gold - each!" enthused Ageratum. - - - This was, sadly, a subpar experience for just about everybody. For one thing, our dice sucked! I had Alistair cast his buffing spells on everyone right before entering the temple, and then I might as well have just had him take a relaxing break on a lounge chair, because he was absolutely useless in combat. The hezrou had SR 19, so with my Spell Penetration and Greater Spell Penetration feats, all I needed was a "4" or higher on a d20 - so naturally, I rolled a "1" for my first [I]maximized magic missile[/I] spell and another "1" for my next shot. Dan wasn't at the top of his game, either, doing a poor job of communicating status to us and overlooking how many of the spells his foes used actually worked. The hezrou's [I]blasphemy[/I], being a spread, shouldn't have reached Ageratum in the office; he had an invisible Pecunnius go through a closed door into a hallway without allowing any of the PCs who were in position to see the door open and close by itself to spot it doing so; he had Pecunnius use a [I]meld into stone[/I] spell on a wall much too thin to allow him to "hide" inside; he should have allowed the spider swarm to attack the cleric after he used his [I]protection from evil[/I] spell (he'd been afraid that Bannerman, to whom he owed more bodies than he had on hand, would try taking him to help make up the difference) to "force" his way out of the surrounding swarm; he had Bannerman teleport directly beside two invisible foes whose exact locations the demon was unaware of, taking a chance of teleporting in the same space as their bodies, but DM fiat placed him out of that particular danger and in the exact position to take out two of our PCs for the next two rounds - how extraordinarily lucky; and he tried having Pecunnius get shunted to a nearby empty space when he exited the [I]meld into stone[/I] area instead of coming out in the same spot as he went in, as the spell specifies. He also got mad at us pointing out these inconsistencies, eventually yelling, "Fine! He pops out, you kill him, and you get all his treasure! Happy?" He was at that point frustrated that we weren't enjoying the adventure, when after having slaying Bannerman it turned into a sudden game of hide and seek in trying to figure out where the cleric had gone hiding. (We had other questions, too, like why hadn't he healed himself while he was inside the stone wall? Why did he leave his "escape backpack" locked in his room instead of there in his office if he was going to high-tail it after feeding his ill-informed acolytes to the Abyss? Why did you use a Paizo Flip-Map of an entire temple building if it was only going to have two people still alive in it, one of whom was 1st level and no threat at all and the other who was just going to hide from us and hope we went away?) Dan claims the Zilchus upper class looks down upon the lower class and it made perfect sense for them to want to try to get a bunch of farmers killed; apparently their bad harvest would simply make Zilchus's own foodstuffs - which they grew in areas away from where the black dragon was attacking - raise in price at the market, but the whole scheme seemed (to the players, at least) overly complicated. Anyway, after Dan's outburst, we agreed to end the adventure right there (I "corrected" the part in the writeup above about where Pecunnius would have exited the stone wall, ignoring the fact the wall wasn't thick enough to support his having hid in it in the first place) and let everyone cool down for the night. I insisted we not get any treasure from this adventure (save the 1,000 gp each we'd earned by bringing down the Ministry of the Father), so if Pecunnius had any treasure hidden away in the temple, I told Dan to save it for another adventure. I wasn't about to accept treasure from a foe we didn't actually kill in-game (although apparently Chaevaris's eye-shot took him down to below half his hit points in any case). Anyway, Dan and I had a talk about what went wrong and we've come up with suggestions about how we can try to prevent any reoccurrences. [/QUOTE]
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