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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 9590484" data-attributes="member: 27780">All but one present this time. Like last session, this one was both unusually long and combat light. Much of this was because they had the first chance in 3 months to actually identify the magic items and spend the large quantities of loot they'd been accumulating all through the underdark arc, leading to a lot of admin headaches about who wants what and which items they'd simply liquidate once they got to Tu'narath that went on through the week and the first half an hour or so of the session. Eventually we worked out that they had around 46k each to spend on crafting, with fairly free reign on anything that doesn't require 9th level spells or worshipping a specific deity to create, since the Githyanki capital city is an extremely high-magic place. This was not a simple process, because some of the items they got were hard to price, since I've been using a mix of 2e and 3e modules and a few of them have no 3e stats. Most significant of these was the book of infinite spells from the illithid town, which they decided to gift directly to the lich-queen in the hope that she'd reward them in turn. And so they got to go to the whispering palace and meet the lich-queen personally for the first time in the campaign. (using my best imitation of her voice in Baldur's Gate 3) She had been personally aware of their exploits since they secured the Kadtanach and was very interested in seeing what they would accomplish in the future. Most of the group were suitably obsequious when meeting her, except for the feral binder, which really lived down to the feral part of her build, flittering about the room using her wings and landing on the lich-queen's hand when she gestured at her. Not wanting to TPK the whole group midway through the campaign, I played Vlaakith as too surprised by the sheer audacity of this move to disintegrate her, but this has definitely marked that particular PC as someone the Lich-Queen is very suspicious of, and will give her a serious reputation in Tu'narath when the gossip of this move gets out. Since she has also just taken the Leadership feat, this will definitely result in her gaining fans in odd places.That rather tense moment over, she gave minor plot-furthering magical items to two of the PC's and sent them on their way. They spent a couple more weeks engaged in shopping, retraining, regrowing lost limbs, etc, while considering their next move. They spent quite a bit of time coming up with good questions before using Speak with Dead on the Ulitharid head, to maximise the amount of info they could get on the fungus attack and the larger settlements deeper down in the mountain. Eventually they decided that their next course of action would not be heading straight back down to the underdark, but investigating the yak-folk monastery at the top of the mountain, see if they were aware of what was going on beneath their feet. A days uneventful trekking back to the color portal and another up the mountain and they hit their first obstacle, a mysterious stone garden. Three stone elementals and a yak-folk monk appeared in the centre and asked if they were pilgrims come to seek the wisdom of the Yikaria. They greeted it as equals looking for information rather than supplicants, which offended the arrogant monk, who set the elementals on them. Like most of their combats, this turned out to be a move he would regret, but not for long. The binder dived on him, but it turned out he was merely projecting an image and the real monk was watching from a ledge slightly further up the mountain. He rained magic missiles down on them while the elementals attacked hand to hand. Since the elementals have decent DR, this was a combat where the binder didn't completely dominate, giving the orc a chance to shine as the heavy hitter, while the githyanki summoned a couple of dire boars to serve as meat shields. Meanwhile the sniper turned invisible and snuck up on him, taking him to negative hp in a single blast with a sneak attack enhanced scintillating sphere. With their boss taken out, the elementals lost any kind of tactical acumen and were easily finished off in a couple more rounds, after which they tied up, stripped and stabilised the yak-man for questioning. Having shifted the balance of power, it was much more willing to answer their questions and confirmed their suspicions that despite seeming aloof, the yak-men had possessed agents ensconced in pretty much all the underdark settlements below save the illithid ones, which resist infiltration due to the casualness with which they can read minds, and were aware of the recent devastation of the svirfneblin & grimlock ones that the PC's had caused. (although they didn't know they were the ones responsible.) So the next course of action is pretty clear. What will they find at the top of the mountain and will they be able to have a civil conversation with the yak-folk up there or will it once again descend into violence due to the superiority complexes of the "enlightened ones"?</blockquote>

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