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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Radiating Gnome" data-source="post: 273464" data-attributes="member: 150">Cannons on the right of me, Cannons on the left of me . . .Cannons on the right of me, Cannons on the left of me . . . As the sun rose over the smoky and bloody Dragoon compound, the party gathered to try to figure out what to do next.  Crys and Ulric showed up a little after dawn, having gathered their personal effects and finished their business with the Claws of the Dragon.  At least, as members of the claws.  When they entered the Dragoon compound they found the place a wreck.  Charred bodies everywhere, blood and other bodily fluids all over the training grounds, and the barracks were smoldering.  And, sitting in a small circle, the rest of the party was talking about what their next move would be.Once they had been filled in with the full story, and looked down their noses a bit at the halflings, who were getting the blame for most of the trouble the group was in, the group began to take stock.  Pavel and Crys started to go over the legal situation carefully.  As the one eyewitness to their burglary attempt at the magic shop was now dead, it would be hard to bring a case against the Goonies at this point.  Add to that the fact that the wizard had come after them himself, rather than going to the authorities, it was likely that they would not be able to go to the authorities now and make much of a case.  So the Goonies were more than likely not going to have to worry about legal proceedings.However, the Claws knew who they were, and what had happened.  And the dead wizard’s master, the mage who had escaped from the battle, was still out there, as was the rogue.  They would not be safe in the Dragoon compound for a while, and as long as they were there they would draw trouble and get more and more young recruits killed. Pavel was of the opinion that the Goonies should make themselves scarce.Of course, there was the problem of Eli, his dead body still soaking in a tub of brine (to keep it from decaying) and waiting for the party to put together the money they would need for a True Resurrection.  Pavel had already thrown in his savings to bring Irk back again, they were not in a position to buy another one right away.Pavel made some inquiries, and then the compound was visited by an elderly priest, who was leading a small caravan of wagons and carts, all packed to overflowing.  The priest, Father Travet, served Pelor, and was one of Pavel’s colleagues in town.  Travet told Pavel that they had been forced to close their temple – they had lost too many faithful in the city, their acolytes were being attacked in the streets too frequently, and their guardians were all dead.  The city was shifting more and more over to the dragon faith, and smaller faiths were being squeezed out.  Travet promised to return, and bring Pelor back to Dyvers, but they needed time to regroup.  He handed Pavel a pair of scrolls.  “Take these.  I prepared them last night.  I won’t ask for payment now – Pelor knows we would probably only lose it to bandits on the road to Greyhawk anyway.  Keep your Dragoons fighting the good fight here in Dyvers, and do not forget your debt to Pelor.  When we are ready to return, we will call on the Dragoons, and they will come to our aid, and do the things we require.”The party agreed to those terms, and Travet left.  Within a few hours Eli had been revived again.  This time he was a bit more disoriented than usual – he had spent nearly a week in the afterlife, among the ancestors of his people, and the decision to allow himself to be drawn back to his body was a tough one.  Luckily he didn’t know the sort of trouble the group was in before he got there.Not that he couldn’t have guessed.Once Eli was back, dressed, and ready to go again, they decided that they should head back to the spire to try to stop Anathe.  They girded their loins, all held hands, and Irk thought really hard about the sarcophagus room.And with a jolt they were there.  The first thing the noticed was that there was something . . different. The place was still dark, dusty, dank, spooky, and creepy, but at the same time there was something a lot less foreboding about the place.  It wasn’t quite so evil, dark, and oppressive. The next thing Ulric and Eli noticed was that a lot of traffic had moved through the room – many footsteps, some apparently carrying heavy loads, heading for the upper floors of the Spire.  It didn’t take long for the party to put together a theory of what had happened – Anathe, whose agents had stolen the Mystery Machine, and perhaps the denizens of the tower, had packed up their goodies onto the ship and headed out.  While they were openly upset that the bad guys had gotten away, it did make it a bit easier to imagine that their foray into the lower levels of the spire would be a lot less deadly.  And that was always a good thing.  So they made their way down towards areas they had not yet explored.They found themselves quickly standing in front of Rhunad’s door.  Rhunad, the voice beyond the door, was glad to hear from them.  “You’re back!” the small, weasely voice said.  “You’ve come back to let me out!”“Where’s Mr. Stitches?” asked Irk, who had a few things he wanted to give to the Half-Dragon Flesh Golem.  “I think he’s gone,” said Rhunad.  “I think just about everyone is gone.”“But they left you here.”“Yeah, I’ve been in here for a while.”“So why should we let you out?”“I can help you!  I know all about this place.”And so on.  They opened the door (after Pah set off a lightning trap protecting it) and they discovered that Rhunad was vulturish humanoid, gaunt and nasty and evil. The party stood in the doorway, well, within earshot of Rhunad, and debated the merits of taking the demon thing on its word.  In the end, despite all the misgivings they could muster, they released Rhunad.  Rhunad filled them in on the background of the place – he had been a prisoner for centuries, and had known the cultists that had served Ashardalon, especially Gulthias, who had imprisoned him.  He told them about the construction of the tower, about a lot of the little features, and then he told them about the heart.  The Heart of Ashardalon is the mummified and empowered heart of the great wyrm, a potent necromantic artifact, and it was the heart that was the source of a great deal of Gulthias’ special power.  The party quickly figured that the heart had been taken out of the tower, and that would explain the shift in atmosphere they had all felt upon their arrival.So, with Rhunad as their guide, they continued to explore the rest of the tower, finding room after room empty and abandoned.  In more than one place they found zombies and other undead inert on the ground, like puppets with their strings cut.  There was little or no sign of life.  That is, until they entered a large, semicircular room on the fifth level of the tower.  There they found a huge pillar of fire, apparently some sort of furnace for immolating the dead.  That’s what they thought it was until Pah took a few steps into the room, and the fire lashed out at her.   They were faced not with a huge magical fire, but a huge fire elemental.  That got their attention.Irk charged in, standing toe to toe with the huge elemental, slashing away with his axe.  He was wearing a ring of fire resistance, and that allowed him to stand in and slug it out with the elemental while most of the rest of the party dealt with other problems.  Not that the rest of the party new quite yet that they had other problems.  As the rest of the party started to roll into action against the Elemental, the hallway went suddenly black.  In the dark, Uri tried to cast a sleet storm into the room with the elemental, to try to take a bit of the heat of it, and found himself being slashed by claws from far too close to his skin.  Rhunad had turned on them, and in the darkness slashed away at the relatively soft underbelly of the party while Irk was left with only Pah for support against the Elemental.  Uri managed to summon a Lantern Archon, who proved to be useless in combat with Rhunad, but whose presence did counter the Darkness.  Then Uri spider climbed up the wall to try to escape from Rhunad. Ulric shape shifted into bear form, then realized he would need magic fang to hurt the demon, and shifted back to.  Crys turned invisible and moved on ahead to try to help Irk.  Eli had moved ahead into the elemental’s chamber before Rhunad had turned on the party, and he had been trying to offer some archer support for Irk.  When Rhunad turned he moved into position to try to help out with him as well.  Uri was feeling pretty confident up on the wall, watching Ulric waffle back and forth from one form to another, until Rhunad flew up into the air and took another big chunk out of him with a brutal slash.  He stood his ground on the wall, drew his rapier and tried to defend himself.  Pah, seeing an opportunity, sprang into action, leaving her pistols behind and spider climbing up the wall behind Rhunad, where she could be opposite Uri. She managed a vicious sneak attack with her sword of subtlety before Rhunad noticed her, and the two halflings managed to finish him, exchanging sneak attacks before he had a chance to make an escape.Irk, meanwhile, had been pounding away at the Elemental like John Henry craving a path through the mountain.  Crys had appeared nearby, where she fired off magic missiles repeatedly from cover.  She helped, and once Rhunad was dead Eli returned to providing cover fire for Irk, and eventually the huge flame-thing dissipated.Irk, who felt like he’d been trading blows with the thing for the better part of an hour, sat down in the ash and bellowed for Ulric.  “MEDIC!”  The others milled around, got patched up, and dug around in the ashes for some loot.  Then they moved on.  They found a pair of shafts that descended down about 150 feet from the floor they were on – a depth that would put them well below the surface outside the spire.  Irk flew down to scout, then the rest of the party followed.  They found themselves in a catacomb full of mummified corpses and ash.  They poked around, checking out rooms, until they opened a door that revealed a Girallon guard post.  Six Girallons stood at the ready – not charging in to fight, but ready for one if the party should attack.  Irk and the others hesitated.  There was something different about these Girallons.  Each had a crude “E” painted on the fur of his chest with what looked like blood.  Ulric stepped forward and tried a bit of animal empathy with the beasts.  One of them stepped forward, and they began to communicate with some crude hand gestures.  The Girallon signed that if they put up their weapons he would take them to see “E” (which he signed by pointing to the E on his chest.  He also had to trace the E out on the floor to get the point across).  So they sheathed their weapons – Ulric had to leave his magic longspear behind, as there was no way to tuck it away, and then the Girallon spokesman led them through the far door.  They passed through several rooms – a few more guard posts with squads of Girallons, and them a large living chamber with many more, including females and young.  As they passed through each room the group of Girallons that followed along behind gathered strength, until the party was no longer able to count them.Opposite the mouth of a passage that ran south from the Girallon village chamber, there was a large female, wearing a bit more crude adornments than the others, staked out and dead on the floor.  The spokesman lead them down that small passage, where they rounded a soft bend in the passage and were met by something they had not quite expected to see.There was the predictable crude Girallon throne, the predictable but disturbing courtesan-girallon, fawning over the throne’s occupant, all four arms caressing and stroking him.But it was the occupant of the throne that stopped everyone in their tracks.  Eldgrim.  Half-dragon son of Sear, the dragon that was the mind behind the Dragon Faith.  The overseer of the mine work that had been intended to free Sear from the underdark and allow her free passage to the surface.  The insane, obsessed old enemy that the party had dropped a mountain on months ago, when they blew up the mines to keep Sear from escaping into the outside world. Crys and Ulric also knew him – having traveled with him for most of a month on the way to the Spire from Dyvers.  They knew him as the obsessive, maniacal, megalomaniac sidekick that Anathe barely kept under control most of the time.Eldgrim licked his lips with genuine, lecherous pleasure.  “Well, look what the ape dragged in.”-rgNext update: It has to get easier soon, right?</blockquote>

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