Menexenus's Age of Worms Campaign Journal

[Menexenus]

Session 31: Hall of the Rainbow Mage

23rd of Goodmonth. After a fortnight on the road, the party was finally nearing its destination: Rosewater, a small town that was once home to the Rainbow Mage. As the party broke camp to begin the final leg of their journey, Thorash revealed that he had performed a divination and had learned that the party would not be facing the Rainbow Mage in combat (at least not within a week's time). Alexander was typically dubious of anything that the dwarven cleric claimed to have learned from Wee Jas. The others seemed at least somewhat relieved that they were not destined to face such a powerful and renowned wizard in combat.

The party finally arrived in Rosewater a little past noon. As they rode through town, they found that it was a bit smaller than Diamond Lake. The roof of the wizard's tower was clearly visible poking through the tree tops on a hill about 5 to 10 miles away. The party's first stop was at the Rosewater Stable, to board their horses. They all tipped the stable boy, Radik, 4 extra silver pieces to pamper their road-weary horses. He was very appreciative. Alexander asked him where they might be able to find the Rainbow Mage. Radik responded solemnly that the Rainbow Mage had been ambushed on the road outside town almost 2 months ago now and was feared dead. No one in town knew who had attacked him or why. Radik confided that, upon learning of the Rainbow Mage's disappearance, some strangers had been coming to town to loot his tower. Some of these strangers came back from their expeditions and some didn't. Those who returned seemed disappointed with what they were able to find. By all accounts, none of them had found any of the wizard's secrets. No one has found the wizard's body. Alexander thanked the boy for his information.

Next the party stopped at the Town Hall right off the village square. Inside they met the town sheriff, Hamra Ranthas, a towering woman with a greataxe strapped to her back. She had a large scar running down her cheek and neck. Her voice was barely louder than a whisper, no doubt because of her wound. When the party inquired about the Rainbow Mage, she inquired about the cause of their interest. They told her that they were from Greyhawk on a mission to investigate the Rainbow Mage's death because there was evidence that he might have known something about the forces that caused the Worm's Rampage. The sheriff seemed to accept this explanation. She asked for the party members' names, and said she would convey them to her constables so that they would let the party pass. She explained that the wizard's tower had seen a good deal of looting, and she was trying to put a stop to it by arresting trespassers.

She shared with the party what her investigation had turned up about the Rainbow Mage's death. He had been travelling to town in his carriage one evening when he was ambushed by several assailants at a bend in the trail. A number of poisoned arrows were shot at the carriage. 3 of them struck the horse pulling the carriage, causing it to bolt. It ran for about a minute before collapsing, causing the carriage to overturn a short distance off the trail. Two arrows were also found in the driver of the carriage, Dane, Londar's longtime house servant (a local man). Both the horse and the servant died quickly of the poison on the arrows. It had been a warm night, and apparently the Rainbow Mage had opened the windows on his carriage, as some arrows were also found inside the carriage itself. There was also blood found inside the carriage. Killick asked for permission to inspect the arrows taken from the crime scene. Hamra took out a sack containing evidence from the crime and allowed Killick to inspect its contents. He found the arrows to be perfectly ordinary. The poison was too old for precise identification, but Killick was able to ascertain that it was very deadly - whoever was using a poison like this one was intending to kill their target, not capture him.

When the party asked for permission to investigate the wizard's tower, the sheriff referred them to the tower's lawful owner by right of inheritance, the Rainbow Mage's daughter, Learah. Hamra informed the party that she was staying at the Red House, a local boarding establishment for wealthy and well-connected travellers, but she ate dinner each night at the White Boar Inn looking for adventurers willing to find out what happened to her father. Hamra suggested that they party might be able to strike a deal with her.

While most of the party left to get a room and order dinner at the White Boar Inn, Thorash went off to find Dane's elderly mother. As delicately as he could, Thorash asked the woman for permission to exhume Dane's body so that he might ask his spirit for more information about the circumstances of his death. While the old lady encouraged him to find and punish Dane's killers, she asked Thorash to allow Dane's spirit to rest in peace. Thorash told the woman that he would respect her wishes and then left to join his companions at the White Boar Inn. Each party member except Katawan and Killick rented a room for the night. (Killick had been disappointed to learn that Baeris, the owner, did not allow guests to keep dogs in their rooms.)

Since dinner would not be ready for an hour or so, the party took a stroll through town entering a small house with a placard outside indicating that healing services were available for sale. Inside was a woman with long brown hair into which she had braided numerous wildflowers. She introduced herself as Mara and asked if the party was in need of healing. They said they were not, but they might be in the future. Thorash asked her if she could tell them who in town had used her services at about the same time that the Rainbow Mage disappeared. She politely replied that she had taken a strict vow of neutrality which required her to keep her patients' information confidential. When the party asked her if she had any healing potions for sale, she said that she did. However, if they wanted a greater selection of potions, they should find Maroof, the local apothecary, who sold a number of magical elixirs along with more mundane potions and salves. Since it was about time for dinner, the party thanked her for her help and suggested that they might have reason to return over the course of the next few days.

The party walked back to the White Boar Inn and found that dinner was well-attended. It seemed that half of the town had turned out. The party was lucky to find a small table available. When they asked a waitress, they were told that this level of attendance was normal. Just before dinner, a golden-haired woman with a lute took the stage. She introduced herself as Khenden Brightsun. She began singing and playing very pleasantly, and her performance was greeted with generous applause and not-quite-so-generous tips from the bar patrons. As soon as the party was done with their meal, a well-dressed, well-mannered woman in her late 20s or early 30s approached the party's table, introducing herself as Learah, Londar Brightrain's daughter. She asked the party if they could be persuaded to help her find out who attacked her father. The party replied that they were in town to do just that. They told her they had come from Greyhawk because they thought Londar might have had some information about the Worm's Rampage in Greyhawk. Learah interjected that perhaps that is why her father was killed. She explained that, since she was not a student of the magical arts, she had never had a reason to visit anything more than the first floor of her father's tower. So she was unaware what might lie on the other levels, and she was unaware of the passwords that might disarm any traps. The one thing she could help them with was getting in the front door, which she knew was trapped. She said she was in possession of a key that would temporarily disarm the trap and allow the party to enter. She said that her first priority was to find her father's remains and her second priority was to find out who had killed him. She gave the party permission to investigate her father's house and read his writings. She offered each party member one item of their choice from the house in payment for their help. The party accepted this offer, and they all agreed to meet just after dawn to go to the tower together.

After Learah retired for the evening, the party was approached by a dark haired man whom Alees had noticed earlier was watching them. He introduced himself as Anders Fierk, a humble student of the arcane arts. He surmised from observing the party's discussion with Learah that they would be helping her explore her father's tower. He offered to pay the party generously if they would recover Londar's spellbooks for him to copy. He explained that he was the Rainbow Mage's former apprentice, and he couldn't bear the thought of his former master's knowledge being forgotten. He wanted to help spread the word of his former mentor's greatness, but in order to do so, he needed copies of Londar's work. While Alexander complimented Anders on his motives, he said that he could not agree to such an arrangement without discussing it with Learah first. Anders seemed disappointed. As he left, he asked the party not to forget his offer, if they should change their minds. After he was gone, Alees shared with the rest of the party that she thought Anders was not being completely honest with them.


24th of Goodmonth. The next morning, the party met with Learah outside the White Boar Inn and they all headed down the road towards the wizard's tower. Alexander asked Learah about Anders. She replied that Anders had been making the same offer to everyone who arrived in town. She was of the view that his offers were encouraging much of the looting that had taken place. Consequently, she did not want the party to make any side arrangements with Anders. Alexander assured her that they would not do so.

Along the way, they came across the spot where the carriage had been found. Killick poked around a bit, and found the deep wheelmarks where the carriage had left the road. But there was nothing else of interest left there. A few minutes later they came across the ambush site. This location was easy to spot, because there was a large black blastmark in the middle of the road where the Rainbow Mage had apparently fought back briefly against his assailants. Killick spent a half hour here while the rest of the party continued ahead. He was able to find a few more arrows like the ones that Hamra had shown him before, but nothing new.

Killick and his dog caught up with the group just as they arrived at the wizard's tower. A dead body lay on the steps leading up to the front door. The corpse had already been picked clean of valuables. After examining the deceased's state of decay, Killick guessed that the body had been lying there for about a week. He determined that the man died from a massive discharge of energy, but the state of decay made it impossible to tell exactly what kind. Two stained glass windows on the front of the house had been broken - a round one above the front door and a square one to the right of the door. There was almost no glass at all left in the square one, while the round one looked as though a rock had been tossed through it. Learah used her key in the front door and wished the party luck. She informed them that she would be in the common room of the White Boar Inn if they had any news to report. At that point she headed back to town. The party scouted around the outside of the house. There were two other broken stained glass windows on the other two sides of the building. But on the rounded far side of the house - the side where the tower was - there were very large unbroken stained glass windows.

Thorash propped the front door open to ensure that the door would not close and the trap reset. The party entered the foyer. There were darkened spots on the walls where pictures or tapestries had once hung. There were 3 interior doors leading from this small room. 2 were closed, but the one directly across from the front door was open, showing a hallway that eventually opened up into a larger space. Along this hallway were a number of doors, all of which were closed. Alees took her time checking everything for traps and secret compartments. She found no traps on the door immediately to the right of the main entrance. She opened the door and found an emptied coat closet. The door to the left of the main entrance was also not trapped. When she opened it, she found the servant's quarters. This room had been ransacked and anything of value big enough to fit through the window had been taken. Everything else had been destroyed. Alees also found a secret compartment behind a loose panel in the foyer. Inside was a finely-made crossbow with some finely-made bolts. Since Alexander was still outside, Alees made an attempt to switch her own mundane crossbow bolts with the bolts inside the panel. She thought that her sleight of hand had not been detected by anyone in the party (or at least, anyone who might actually care).

Next she started carefully checking the doors in the hallway. She opened the door on the right side of the hallway, and it opened up into a kitchen. There was a large brick oven in the middle of the room, flour was strewn about the floor, and all the cupboards were open and bare. The party spotted a number of human-sized boot prints moving through the flour in all directions. After Alees was convinced that there were no secret compartments in this room, began investigating the doors on the other side of the hallway. While she was looking at the first door, Thorash moved into the open space at the end of the hallway and found that it was a dining room. The table and all of the chairs had been overturned, and there was a noticeable odor of stale vomit in the room. Thorash saw that there was a small ledge on the far wall below the broken stained glass window, where small figures might once have stood. Indeed there was one small statue of a silver dragon still on it.

At this point, Alees finished checking the door for traps. Finding it untrapped, she opened it and found herself face to face with a group of 5 adventurers who seemed prepared for her. As soon as the door opened, a wizard cast Web into the dining room, catching Thorash and Alees in the sticky strands. An archer shot an arrow at her, missing her. A rogue stabbed at her with his rapier, missing. A cleric in the back of the room cast a spell on himself. Finally, a large, well-muscled man screamed in rage, stepped up and slashed into Alees with his greataxe, causing grievous damage. Her companions moved up to the Web to help Alees escape. Katawan even drew a flint and steel from his backpack in order to help burn her out of the web, but Alees shook him off. Instead, she closed her eyes in fervent prayer to Fharlangn, and suddenly she was able to slip out of the Web, avoiding another blow from the big man's greataxe. The enemy wizard stepped up to the doorway and fanned a sheet of flames from his finger tips, setting the web alight. This was the opening that Katawan had been hoping for. He dropped the flint and steel, ripped a bead from his necklace, and tossed it against the room's far wall, engulfing the whole room in flames. Screams of pain came from inside. Alexander launched magic missiles at the man in the doorway who had struck Alees. The enemy cleric cast a spell that caused Alexander to freeze. However, Alexander was able to shake off this effect just seconds later. Used his skill with the whirling quarterstaff to block the doorway and make it virtually impossible for anyone to hit him. Thorash struggled to free himself as he saw the fire quickly approaching. Alees healed herself in the safety of the kitchen. Tarric attacked the man with the greataxe from around the corner, doing him serious damage. Meanwhile, Katawan kept tossing in beads. After the third explosion, the enemy party dropped their weapons and offered their surrender to Tarric. They seemed to recognize his shield insignia and surmised that a Knight of Holy Shielding would be likely to treat them honorably. However, just when the battle seemed over, a bearded demon suddenly appeared in the room. The enemy party quickly rearmed themselves and began fighting it. Tarric and Killick moved into the room to help them against the infernal entity. Seeing that it was most likely going to be dispatched by force of arms anyway, Thorash waved a charred hand and the bearded demon returned from whence it had come.

With the fight really over this time, the enemy party negotiated the terms of their surrender. They offered the party all of their magical items in exchange for their freedom. When the party realized that arresting and trying the looters in court would result in the looters' property being forfeited to the crown (rather than to them), they decided to accept their prisoners' offer. However, before the prisoners left, they mentioned that the party might regret attacking agents of the Thieves' Guild engaged in Guild business. The party found this comment to be laughable and sent their former prisoners on their way, warning them not to return.

 

[Menexenus]

Session 32: Exploring the Hall of the Rainbow Mage

24th of Goodmonth. After accepting the surrender of a rival gang of adventurers, they were relieved of their magical items and released after pledging not to return. Then the party continued its exploration of the Rainbow Mage's house. After Alees certified that the door was not trapped, she stepped back and allowed Killick to open it. When he did so, he saw a large wooden man standing in the far corner of the room, sculpted to look as if he were holding a light mace in each hand. It raised its head and began emitting a tremendous howl from its mouth, making communication difficult. It began moving forward in a threatening manner. Killick suggested that the party fight the construct in the doorway, but not all of his party-mates heard (or wished to heed) this advice. Tarric and Thorash moved into the room. Katawan used spring attack to remain outside the room. Killick cast a spell and then began throwing spheres of fire at the wooden creature. Some of this fire did not affect the creature, but some seemed to scorch it. After a small amount of maneuvering, the party was able to flank the creature. Only Thorash, attacking with his dagger, thought he was doing full damage when he struck the wooden construct. Alexander shot two volleys of magic missiles at the creature, but when he saw that they were not affecting it, he stopped attacking and left it to his party-mates. Eventually, it fell to the party's combined assault.

With the action over, the party had time to look around a bit. This room had clearly been a fancy bedroom at one time. It had a small stained glass window on the far wall that had not been broken. However, it was currently in a disastrous state after at least two pitched battles. (Two mostly decomposed bodies lying in the room indicated that there must have been another battle in this room within the last several weeks.) Killick requested that the party forego a detailed search and move on to the next room before the duration of his fire spell expired. So the group moved through the dining room, through an archway into the living room. The living room represented the ground level of the rounded wizard's tower. On the far side of the room was a winding stone stair case leading up. Above the staircase was a large and impressive bank of unbroken stained glass windows. The many chairs and sofas in this room had been slashed to ribbons by previous looters. Dark spots on the wall indicated where paintings or tapestries had once hung. Along the west wall was a set of double doors. Alees approached them and did a quick check for traps. She did not find any, but she did point out a spray of blood that had been left on the doors. Killick determined that blood's splash pattern was consistent with injuries received inside the room while the doors were open.

With flames still dancing on his fingertips, Killick opened the doors into what looked like a large office. There was a somewhat larger unbroken stained glass window on the far wall. There were small crystal vases and statues ensconced in small depressions along the walls. Each piece of crystal was backlit, producing a pleasant pattern of colorful refracted light that played along the walls and the ceiling. There were also two wooden guardians standing in the far corners. Again, they sounded a nearly deafening alarm and moved to attack the intruders. Before the party could move in to engage the creatures in melee, Katawan tossed one of the beads from his necklace into the room, causing a concussive ball of fire that shattered the crystal objects ensconced on the walls (which also eliminated the colorful pattern on the walls). The party moved into the room to face the guardians. Again, they were able to flank the creatures. Again, Alexander waited for his companions to take care of them. Again, Thorash's dagger seemed to be the only weapon that was doing full damage. And again, the creatures were destroyed.

Again, rather than performing a thorough sweep of the room, the party decided to continue on up the stairs to face any potential threats before spell-effects wore off. The party ascended the stone stairs that rose around the perimeter of the round room. Above the office, the stairs ended in a landing before red stone door. Alees noticed scorchmarks on the stone landing which helped her to find a trap on the door which she quickly disarmed. Then she unlocked the door using her "locksmith" tools. Inside the door was a round, empty, stone room. The only thing in the room was another curving set of stairs ascending to the next level. Before anyone entered, Killick checked for traps and ascertained that the tracks he had found throughout the rest of the building were not present here. He surmised that the party was now in territory that no other looters had already exploited. Alees entered the room and shot a bolt into the emptiness of the room and heard it thunk onto something. She entered the room to retrieve the bolt and tripped over something unseen. The rest of the party lost sight of Alees. They called out to her, and she called back that she had fallen. After a few moments of conversation, it became clear to all involved that the party could not see Alees but that she could see them. She moved her hands over the objects in front of her (which she still could not see) and determined that they felt like furniture. Thorash cast Invisibility Purge and the party saw that indeed Alees was standing among a large group of valuable looking castoff furniture piled up in the middle of the large circular room.

The party chose to move on. The ascended the next set of stairs which led to another landing and a blue stone door. Alees checked it for traps and found another one which she quickly disarmed. The party opened the door and found what seemed to be a reading room decorated with beautiful crystal lamps, broad wool tapestries, and ornate wood chairs with plush cushions. In the middle of the room, a full-sized mirror was molded into the stone decorated with colored stone inlays resembling strange runes. Alexander found the runes to be unknown in meaning or function, but he determined that the mirror radiated an aura of strong transmutation magic. He also noticed a small gem-sized depression at the top of the mirror which Alexander speculated might be involved in the activation of the magical effect. Along the circumference of the room was another winding staircase leading to a landing. The party chose to press on.

At the landing was a purple stone door. To her surprise, Alees found that this door was untrapped and unlocked. She opened the door and found a circular room with a massive crystal ball in the center of the room surrounded by numerous silver bowls filled with water. Runes and sigils decorated the north wall above a circle of inlaid stone. Thorash determined that none of the stonework in the room was any newer or older than any other. Alexander determined that this room functioned to significantly enhance a spellcaster's scrying abilities. On a table were a number of maps stacked on top of one another.

At this point, the party decided that the house was "clear" of threats, and so they began to take their time investigating everything they had found carefully. After a bit of triangulation and pooling of general geographic knowledge, the party determined that some of the maps provided a detailed analysis of a region of the Eastern Abbor-Alz mountain chain to the southeast of their current position. A mountain that was referred to as Arn's Mountain on the maps was highlighted as if it was of great significance. This name rung a bell with Thorash. He reported to the party that that name (Arn's Mountain) had been referenced in the Apostolic Scrolls as a legendary lost repository of ancient treasures sacred to Kyuss. Other maps seemed to contain battle plans leading from the Abbor Alz mountains in the south towards important cities in the Duchy of Urnst. The party also found an unsigned letter written by a Kyuss worshipper recording an agreement that the Rainbow Mage would conquer the Duchy of Urnst while the letter's author would conquer Greyhawk. The letter also requests that the Rainbow Mage deliver something of great importance to Greyhawk with haste, as the day of the author's ascension was quickly approaching.

After looking a bit longer at the reading room on the third floor and the furniture stacked on the second floor, the party returned to the ground floor. They examined the bedroom where they fought the single wooden guardian. Although most objects of value in this room were either destroyed or gone, Alees found a drawer with a secret bottom containing 7 potions. She also found 2 nicely-made daggers and a well-crafted longsword on the corpses in the room. Then she turned her attention to the office. Although most of the papers on the desk had been charred beyond recognition by Katawan's fireball, there was still a scroll that might contain a few salvageable spells. Alees noticed a suspicious-looking unbroken crystal on the top of the desk, embedded in the wood. Alees discovered that it was part of a trap and disarmed it. Papers inside the desk had remained unharmed. Here the party found 3 scrolls. Behind a bookcase near the desk Alees found a secret door. The door was untrapped. Behind it lay a tight spiral staircase descending steeply downward. The party prepared to continue into the unknown.

At the bottom of the staircase was a rough-hewn passageway with a dim light coming from up ahead. Ahead they found a shimmering wall of force and a corpse lying on the ground in front of it. Alees was able to find and disarm the trap that had killed the unfortunate adventurer, who seemed to have been killed by some sort of energy blast. The only thing of value on the corpse that was not destroyed outright by the blast was his robe. Just in front of the energy field was a thin pillar containing a hand print. After some experimentation, the party discovered if someone placed a hand on the hand print and turned it one quarter turn clockwise, the energy field directly in front of them subsided. They discovered a similar hand print on the opposite side of the field. They also noticed that the air beyond the energy field was much noticeably hotter and moister. About 40 feet ahead, the party came to a fork in the passageway. They followed the left fork which turned and came to another energy field blocking passage into what looked like a jungle filled with lush vegetation that reduced visibility to only a few feet. Again, there was a handprint on the wall which dropped the forcefield and allowed passage inside. There were numbers of exotic bird and animal calls coming from inside. Killick changed himself into one of the birds that he saw and flew into the jungle area. While Killick was gone, someone decided to close the first force field the party had passed through.

Ten minutes later, Killick returned and changed back into human form. He reported that the area was indeed a large cavern, about 40 feet tall, illuminated with permanent daylight spells cast on some of the stalactites hanging from the ceiling. The giant cavern was filled with lush vegetation, exotic birds and mammals, and one large giant with 3 arms (one of which extended from the middle of its chest). The giant carried many large clubs and seemed to be watching a disk carved into the floor with magical runes inscribed on it. Killick reported that there were at least two other similar disks in the cavern. There were also at least 3 small pools of water which the creatures of the cavern seemed to use as watering holes. Because of the lush, overgrown vegetation, Killick could not guarantee that he had seen everything that might be lurking in the cavern. However, he had not discovered any other means of exit from the cavern. It seemed to be a dead-end. Alexander entered the cavern and started yelling loudly to the giant that he wished to negotiate with it. It approached him and yelled in a language that no one in the party understood. Then it threw a rock at him. Alexander quickly stepped back out and reactivated the force field.

Seeing no reason to attack the giant, the party decided to explore the other fork. This also led to a cavern protected by a force field. Through the force field, the party could see that this cavern was filled mostly with a large pool of water. There was a narrow pathway leading around the pool to the far side were there was an exit protected by yet another force field. The party disabled the force field and entered the room. As soon as they did, they saw the force field on the far side drop and an elven woman reading a book walk through. Then she looked up and noticed the party. This caused her to scream hysterically. She jumped into the pool and swam as far away from the party as she could get. Tarric exclaimed that they must rescue the girl. He began taking off his armor so that he could swim to her rescue. However, the rest of the party was dubious. Killick walked to the far side of the room and attempted to reactivate the force field that the elf girl had opened. But something was wrong - turning the handprint did not reactivate the force field as it had done in the past. Suddenly, Alees agreed that the elf girl must be saved, and she jumped into the pool. However, she was such a poor swimmer that she was barely keeping herself afloat. (How did she expect to rescue someone else if she could barely swim herself?) Killick jumped into the water and transformed himself into a porpoise. He used echo-location to determine that there was no elf girl flailing in the water and that there was a large tentacled creature floating below. Unfortunately, he was unable to communicate these facts to the rest of the party!

Finally, Alees made it to the elf girl and found that there was no one to grab onto. This caused her to snap herself out of whatever was affecting her judgment. She yelled out that the elf girl was not real and started swimming back to shore. However, at this moment the creature rose to just below the surface and attacked her with its tentacles. She noticed that the creature had drawn blood and that there was some icky slime around the wound. Thorash cast Airwalk and walked out to aid Alees. Now that Alexander could see the creature, he fired a volley of magic missiles at it. Suddenly, Tarric stopped taking his armor off. Instead, he drew his sword and attacked Alexander! Katawan felt the creature try to take over his mind, but he retained control. Killick returned to human form and got out of the water. The creature attacked him with its tentacles. Again, it drew blood and Killick noticed copious amounts of viscous slime around the wound. Thorash was able to get Alees to dry land. Seeing that Tarric was not himself, Grimlock launched himself at the fighter, knocking him to the ground. Alexander continued pelting the creature with magic missiles. Before it could sink back down to safety, it was killed by magic missiles cast by Thorash from a wand. Its corpse floated to the surface, revealing a large fish-like creature with three eyes arrayed in a row leading toward its dorsal fin. Alexander recalled reading about such creatures before and knew that it was called an aboleth.

As the party celebrated its victory, they noticed that Killick and Alees's skin was already starting to become noticeably transparent. Something was happening to them! They seemed to be undergoing some grotesque transformation. The party quickly surveyed its remaining spells in an attempt to save Killick and Alees from their unknown fates...

 

[Menexenus]

Sessions 33-35: Securing the Rainbow Mage's Dungeon

24th of Goodmonth. After fighting an Aboleth, Killick and Alees were both in the process of turning into some kind of aquatic creature. Alexander informed the party that a Cure Disease spell was needed to prevent the transformation. Thorash had one memorized, but there were two party-members to choose from. Rather than make the choice himself, Thorash left the decision to a party vote. Killick and Alees voted for themselves, cancelling each other's votes out. Katawan voted for Alees, but Alexander and Tarric voted for Killick. Consequently, Thorash cast the spell on Killick, and his skin returned to its normal hues. Alees was desperate to prevent the transformation. She opened all 9 of the unidentified potions that the party had recently found and quaffed them all in sequence, hoping that one might have the effects of a Cure Disease spell. Some of them made her stronger. Some of them made her quicker. Some of them healed her damage and restored her abilities. One of them caused her to fall head over heels in love with Thorash. But none of them stopped her transformation. Minutes later, Alees became a fish creature. She was unable to communicate with her friends and had a strong desire to keep her skin wet. She sullenly jumped into the Aboleth's pond and swam down to the bottom looking for treasure. But she found that she wasn't as good as she used to be at finding hidden things. Thorash cast Fox's Cunning and Water Breathing on himself and had Alees accompany him to the bottom of the pool to assist him in looking for the Aboleth's nest (which she did gladly). After a good deal of swimming and looking, the pair found a hidden cave where the Aboleth had stored some valuables.

Alexander promised Alees that the party would take no actions until she was cured. This seemed to raise her spirits a bit. Unfortunately, though, now that the transformation was complete, Alexander informed the party that a higher level spell would be needed in order to return her to normal. After he described the required spell, Thorash admitted that he was unable to cast it himself. Consequently, the party pooled all of the loot that they had accumulated since leaving Greyhawk, and Alexander prepared to teleport to Greyhawk the next morning to purchase a scroll of the necessary spell.

25th of Goodmonth. The party camped in the pond room overnight. When they awoke, Alexander rememorized spells, gathered the swag to sell, and teleported to Greyhawk. The party kept watch on the exits of the room and did what they could to keep Alees's spirits up. The thing that Alees seemed to want most in the world was Thorash's love and attention, but all of her advances were gruffly spurned by the dour dwarf. The party rested up and waited for Alexander's return...

26th of Goodmonth. Alexander returned in the morning with a scroll of Heal along with the leftover cash in platinum which he divided evenly among his party-mates. Thorash successfully cast the spell from the scroll and Alees transformed back to her old self. Alees was over-joyed to be back to her old self. Thorash had to fight to squirm out of Alees's exuberant hug of gratitude (and attraction). The party got ready to continue on into the memorably bizarre dungeon of the Rainbow Mage.

Leading out of the Aboleth's cavern was a narrow stone passageway that glittered darkly with small gemstones. As they filed into the hallway, a loud noise exploded all around them. The walls of the cavern seemed to be amplifying the effect, causing damage to those who were not fast enough to cover their ears. The party moved forward quickly into a very large, dimly lit cavern of gem encrusted rock. In the middle of this natural cavern stood a glowing pillar of light. The party approached it. The pillar seemed to be carved out of crystal with a magical light effect inside that gently changed colors as the viewer watched. As the party began fanning out to explore their surroundings, they noticed figures emerging from the walls of the cavern. The humanoid figures seemed to be made of gem-encrusted rock, just like the walls of the cavern. There was little time to ponder who or what these creatures might be, because they were attacking the party! The party formed up to defend itself. The rock creatures moved into close range and then emitted a colorful spray of light from their mouths that had a stunning effect on some members of the party. The rock creatures moved to grapple those who were stunned by this effect. Those who were not stunned fought back, but found that their weapons had a significantly reduced effect against their enemies' rocky hides. All except Thorash, that is. His dagger seemed to be doing full damage. As Thorash stabbed at the rocky creatures, he wondered suddenly why he had drawn his dagger. Hadn't he intended to draw his morningstar? Nevermind. He lunged at the rocky creatures again and again. But on two occasions, when he made particularly poor attempts to hit his enemies, his dagger doubled back and cut Thorash instead! Thorash accepted these painful rebukes from his dagger in stride and pledged to wield it more expertly in the future.

Alexander used his wand to cast Magic Missiles at the creatures. Some of them damaged the creatures, but some did not. When the rock creatures died, their bodies exploded, sending shards of rock outward in all directions. Those standing close to the creatures had to jump out of the way quickly to avoid taking damage. Just as the encounter seemed almost over, the party noticed more of the same shapes moving towards them in the gloomy distance. Katawan pulled the penultimate bead from his Necklace of Fireballs and tossed it towards the reinforcements. The explosion lit up the back of the cavern and revealed 8 more rocky creatures coming to aid their brethren. Alexander also launched a fireball. The combined explosions caused one of the creatures to collapse, but the other 7 continued their approach. They also used their colorful attack at short range to disable some members of the party while others tried to grapple those who were stunned. Tarric found himself grappled by 4 of the creatures, and had difficulty escaping their combined hold on him. His party-mates tried to help, but both Killick and Katawan hit him instead of the rocky creatures. (They both tried to make amends for their embarrassing mistakes by administering healing potions to their grappled friend.)

However, at long last, the party was successful and all was quiet in the dark cavern. The party explored the cavern and found a large pool at the far side of the pool, but no valuables and no obvious exits. Could this entire underground complex be a dead-end? Killick had found no exits in the jungle cavern, and there seemed to be no exits from this one either. However, after about an hour of careful searching, Alees discovered a secret door hidden in the rock. The door was opened using the familiar rotating handprint symbol that had also been used to drop and raise the force fields they had passed through earlier. Since it was untrapped, Alees opened it.

The contrast between the dark rough cavern they had just been in and the new room beyond the secret door couldn't be any starker. Inside the door was a well-lit, immaculately clean sitting room, containing couches, comfortable chairs, rugs on the smooth floor, and pleasant tapestries hanging on the walls. On the far wall was another door with a handprint symbol in the middle. Alees carefully checked it for traps and found none. She stepped away and allowed one of the better armored characters to open it. It opened into a slightly larger but even more brightly lit room. The light coming from this room was so intense that it took the party-members a while for their eyes to adjust. When they could see clearly, they saw an empty room with a ceiling that glowed like the noonday sun and strange runes that circled all four walls in a repeating but uninterrupted pattern. There were doors on each of the 3 other walls.

Alees checked the door to the right first and found it untrapped. Killick opened the door and saw a dark room full of coffins - 3 smashed wooden coffins and 5 stone coffins against the far wall. (One of the stone coffins was also broken or collapsed.) Killick checked for tracks in the room and found some that were very old. He looked up and noticed a strange mist hanging near the 20 foot high ceiling. He and Thorash moved into the room to investigate the coffins. The wooden ones contained nothing of value. Thorash moved to the smashed stone coffin and found it was also empty. Killick and Thorash jointly surmised that the coffins had been smashed from the outside, not the inside. They noticed that the stone coffins were ornately decorated, but no names or dates were carved into them. Killick asked Thorash if his faith would permit the party to disturb the closed coffins at the back of the room. Thorash determined that since the coffins had no markings, they were probably empty. (So there would be no offense in opening them.) Killick tried to open the one in the middle, but found that the stone lid was too heavy for him. He called for help. Katawan came in to help out, and Tarric moved into the doorway as a precaution. Katawan and Killick lifted the stone slab off the coffin in the middle and found 5 potions and a wand inside.

Just as the party members were becoming interested in the swag found in the coffin, the mist on the ceiling poured down onto the floor behind the doorway and became a pale humanoid with piercing eyes wearing a chain shirt and a bastard sword on his belt. The creature gazed at Tarric and told him to close the door and prevent anyone from leaving. As it spoke, Tarric noticed the creature's long, pointed incisors. For a moment, Tarric paused, but then he shook off the creature's beguiling effect and drew his bastard sword to confront it. Seeing that its command had failed, it drew its weapon as well. The party surrounded the creature, taking turns lashing out at it. When it was flanked, it resumed its misty form and returned to the ceiling. Alexander continued peppering its misty form with magic missiles. The mist reformed into its humanoid form standing on the wall. It tried to command Alexander to fire his magic missiles at his friends, but Alexander refused the command. With the next volley of magic missiles, the vampire turned into mist and entered the coffin in the far corner of the room. The party fashioned a stake out of some of the broken wooden coffins, lifted the lid of the vampire's coffin, and plunged it into the creature's heart. It opened its eyes and screamed in agony before turning into a pile of dust. Inside the vampire's coffin was a bag with a number of pearls and some money as well as a finely made dagger. Lifting the lids off the other coffins, the party found 3 scrolls as well as a ring hidden under a pillow.

The party returned to the bright empty room and Alees searched the next door - the one opposite the one they had entered. Again it was untrapped. This time Tarric opened the door and found a large laboratory, filled with benches and bottles, shelves full of reagents, half-finished experiments, drawers containing glassware, and a basin for washing. There were three other doors in this room as well, one on each wall (as before). However, this time, one of the doors was purple. Alees checked them all for traps and found that only the door across from the purple one was trapped (the door to the right of the door from which the party had entered). She admitted that she was unable to disarm the trap. The party decided to try the trapped door first. Katawan thought he might be best able to avoid the trap and volunteered to open the door. He placed his hand into the hand print and turnd the dial. When he did so, a large jet of freezing cold air blasted out at him, but with almost unnatural reflexes, the monk was able to avoid the effects of the blast without removing his hand from the door. Katawan finished opening the door and found a decaying corpse lying on the floor of a small square room decorated with multi-colored tiles. The corpse wore a rainbow colored cloak and had a black arrow protruding from its chest. Killick examined the corpse and estimated that it had been dead for about 2 months, which fit well with the timeline of the Rainbow Mage's disappearance. The body also wore a signet ring identical to the one that Learah had worn at the inn back in town. These were almost certainly the remains of the Rainbow Mage.

The party removed the Rainbow Mage's body from the small room and brought it into the laboratory. Someone cast Detect Magic, and all of the mage's magic items were removed from his body for safe keeping. Then the party moved on to open the next door. Beyond this door was a large library, containing shelves full of books that covered the walls, floor to ceiling. In the middle of the room was a comfortable looking chair next to a round table. Some books were still sitting on the table. However, as soon as the doors were opened, 3 robed figures standing in the corners raised their heads and looked at the intruders. Their faces were wooden. Not recognizing the party members, the wooden creatures began to howl and moved to attack. They seemed to be the same wooden guardians that the party had fought upstairs in the Rainbow Mage's office and bedroom. Alexander screamed out to Katawan that fireballs were off limits in the library!

The party fought the 3 creatures from the doorway for a while. After killing one, they moved into the room to take advantage of flanking positions. The wooden guardians were no match for the party and were quickly destroyed. As Alexander perused the library, the party heard a loud pop come from the laboratory. Everyone came to see what had happened. They found Alees standing over an open drawer with a soot on her grinning face. She said sheepishly, "I guess this one was trapped." Inside the open drawer was an ornate book titled "Utility." Alexander cast Detect Magic and realized that it was a spellbook. Then he walked into the library and quickly found 5 more spellbooks scattered randomly throughout the packed shelves. Alees glanced at the books that Alexander was removing from the shelves and indicated that she thought they might be trapped. The party also looked at the books sitting on his reading table. Two of the books on the table comprised a 2 volume set titled "The Arcanari." A third book on the table was titled "Jaeral's Jungle Guide." The last book on the table was called "Iliachoam's Beasts and Saddles."

The party moved back into the laboratory and investigated the purple door. Alees certified that it was not trapped, but she could find no way to open it. The handprint on the door would not turn and the stone door was locked firmly in place, with no wiggle room whatsoever. Having no luck with the purple door, the party returned to the previous room (the bright room), and opened the last remaining door. It opened into a dusty closet with a large trunk in the back corner. Katawan moved into the closet to investigate, and as he bent down to investigate the trunk, a large mass of arms, eyes, mouths, and sinew rose up from behind it and struck him. Katawan felt his body losing cohesion for a moment, but then used the mental training he had learned in the monastery to bring himself back under control. The party jumped to attention and came to Katawan's defense. The chaotic aberration did not last long under the party's expert assault.

When the fight was over, Alees reported that she had discovered a secret door behind a false bank of bookshelves in the library. The party came in and saw a large steel metal door exposed where there had only been books before. Alees reported that the door was certainly trapped but she was unable to disarm it. Again, Katawan volunteered to be the one to try the door. Thorash remained in the room with him, but the others left the room, just to be safe. Katawan turned the hand dial in the middle of the door and a tremendous thunderclap filled the room. A huge lightning bolt struck Katawan in the chest and then arced across the room and struck Thorash as well. Both were sorely wounded by the trap, but still alive. After setting off the trap, Alees was able to finish unlocking the door. The party opened the heavy metal door and found a narrow 10 by 30 room filled with valuables. Inside were many of the Rainbow Mage's most powerful magical items, bags full of cash, and his journal. Several members of the party were now regretting their agreement with the Rainbow Mage's daughter that each party member would receive only one magical item in payment for their work.

The party decided to return to the large jungle cavern that they had encountered before the aboleth. Thorash decided to cast Comprehend Languages on the giant in the cavern so that he could understand its speech. But he would need to be able to touch it. So he cast protective spells on himself, and Katawan donated a stored Invisibility spell from his ring. Killick accompanied Thorash into the cavern in bird form. The cavern was full of think underbrush making movement difficult and limiting vision. However, Killick was able to lead Thorash to where the giant lay sleeping. Thorash successfully delivered the touch spell (causing him to become visible), but the giant did not wake. So Thorash slapped it across the face. It woke up and said in a language that Thorash could now understand, "You stupid for coming back. Me eat you now."

The giant stood up and swiped at Thorash, but missed him. Killick moved out of the giant's reach and transformed back into human form. The rest of the party heard things going badly and began moving into the cavern. The giant caught up to the retreating Thorash, drawing 2 clubs as he did so. With its third arm (the one extending from the middle of its chest), it grabbed tightly onto Thorash and squeezed. Thorash was in severe pain. Alexander shot a powerful lightning bolt at the giant which also damaged Thorash. As the party moved to Thorash's aid, the giant continued squeezing Thorash, causing him to collapse. Keeping its grip on Thorash's unconscious form, the giant swung its 2 clubs at the remaining party members. However, since it was not able to scare the party away, and since it was unable to run away, it fought to the bitter end. As the giant fell to the party's combined assault, it released its grip on Thorash's body, which fell to the ground gently, like a feather. The party looted the giant's body of some necklaces and bracelets. They also found some valuables hidden where the giant had slept.

With the threat eliminated, Alees did an extensive sweep of the walls of the cavern. After a couple hours, she found a hidden door. The party turned the dial and found a short narrow hallway opening up to a larger room. Killick went in to investigate. On the far wall was a purple hand dial, but there was no door. However, on both sides of Killick were 2 force fields that seemed to be holding back some kind of gas. Thorash cast Detect Poison and identified that the gas was poisonous. Thorash offered Killick a vial of antitoxin to help him in case the gas was released, and Killick gratefully accepted. After drinking it, Killick turned the dial. When he did so, the force fields dropped, and the gas engulfed Killick. He did his best to hold his breath. But emerging from the mist he saw a horrific sight - 4 bandaged undead approaching him with arms extended and malevolence in their eyes. Killick called out for help against mummies. Alexander immediately pulled out a scroll and cast Fireball centered on Killick's position. The explosion immediately dispersed the gas and destroyed the mummies. Thorash found an extraordinary amulet around the neck of one of the mummies, and picked it up. Alees mentioned that she thought she heard some sort of mechanism being tripped when Killick turned the purple hand dial inside the secret room.

The party split up and started looking around to see if something had changed. After 20 minutes or so, Alees called out that she thought the purple door in the laboratory was now unlocked and could be opened. The party gathered around the last known door in the Rainbow Mage's dungeon and opened the door. Inside was a bare stone room with magical symbols inscribed around the walls. Even fancier symbols were inscribed in a circle on the floor. And inside that circle stood a male human bard. He thanked the party graciously for rescuing him. The party was dubious. They asked how long he had been there. He replied that he couldn't be exactly sure, but he thought it had been months. They asked what he had eaten and drunk during that time. He replied that he had just recently finished the food supply that had been left for him. They asked him where his waste products were. He ignored this question and begged them for some water. Killick asked, "Why don't you come out here and get some?" At this, the male bard suddenly turned into an extremely beautiful naked woman with small horns on her forehead and large leathery bat wings extending from her back. In a sultry voice, she said, "Thank you for inviting me out. You deserve a kiss." Then the demonic creature stepped out of the circle and started moving menacingly towards the party.

Alexander cast Web into the room to keep it occupied. But it started casting spells instead. First, it produced an area of inky black darkness centered on the door. Then it caught Killick, Alexander, and Katawan in an explosion of dark energy, causing them damage and sickening Alexander. Thorash dispelled the Darkness and Killick tossed an Alchemist's Fire into the web, which immediately started burning. Tarric moved into the fire and attacked the shapely demoness. Thorash shouted out to the demoness in a harsh-sounding language. It shouted something back in reply. Thorash reported to the party that it was willing to leave the party in peace if they would allow it to leave. However, the party was not interested in making such a deal. The demoness began waving its arms, as if to cast a spell, but Tarric swiped at her with his sword, creating a gash that caused her spell to fizzle. Killick tumbled into the room to take up a flanking position behind the demoness. This acrobatic display occupied the demon's attention, causing her to drop her guard momentarily. This was all the opportunity that Tarric needed to bring his martial training to bear. With expert efficiency that surprised even himself, Tarric whirled around, giving his sword an increase in velocity which, when it made contact with the demon's neck, caused it to travel all the way through. The demoness's head hit the floor full seconds before its body, ending its days on Oerth (for at least the next century).

Having cleared the entire dungeon, the party made camp in and around the laboratory. It had been a very eventful day.

27th and 28th of Goodmonth. The party recuperated while Thorash and Alexander identified magic items.

1st of Harvester. Alexander used the laboratory to begin crafting a Headband of Intellect +2. Late in the afternoon, Alexander received a Sending from someone claiming to be Lady Learah's servant asking for a progress report. He responded that he would meet her for dinner at the White Boar Inn. He told the party where he was going and teleported directly there by himself.

2nd of Harvester. Late in the morning, Alexander rode back to the Rainbow Mage's house along with Lady Learah atop a large wagon. Attending Lady Learah were 6 retainers, 4 of which were heavily armed guards and 2 of which seemed to be scribes or advisers. One of them took out a piece of parchment and scribbled notes as Alexander led Learah through the mansion, noting traps that she should avoid. He led her and her servants down into the dungeon areas where the rest of the party had been waiting. She was astonished by all of the strange caverns that she had never seen on her previous visits to her father's home. She was shown all of the rooms in the basement and was finally brought to the vault, where all of the items the party had found were stored and cataloged.

Learah was very pleased with the party's work. She instructed her servants to carry her father's corpse out to the wagon and to bring her bodyguards down so that they might begin carrying her inheritance out to the wagon piece by piece. The party asked if she planned to have her father raised from the dead. She indicated that she would have to discuss the matter with her husband. In accordance with their agreement, Learah invited each party member to select an item as payment for services rendered. Alees choose a unique item called the Rainbow Crossbow, which fired a bolt of force once per round without first needing to be loaded. Killick took a unique item called the Rainbow Ring, which would allow him to create and wield a staff of energy 3 times per day. Katawan selected a unique item known as the Rainbow Bracers, which would allow him to cast Shield on himself 3 times per day. Tarric selected the mage's Ring of Protection +3. After clearing the choice with Learah first, Alexander selected the Rainbow Mage's spellbook, a Boccob's Blessed Book filled with 45 spells from levels 1 to 9, including 3 unique spells of the Rainbow Mage's own creation. Thorash selected the mage's +3 Dagger (which he intended to trade).

As Learah and her servants were loading their wagon, Killick asked if the party might retain the Rainbow Mage's journal along with the 3 items with strange magical auras that could not be identified by traditional means. Killick suggested that the party would continue trying to decipher the journal in order to discover what the Decaying Book, the large faceted ruby with a black imperfection in the middle, and the miniature stone pyramid might do. (Killick suggested that this was for Learah's safety.) Alexander also asked her leave to remain in the house in order to continue crafting magic items in the mage's well-stocked laboratory. She agreed to the arrangement as long as Alexander paid for any resources that were expended and as long as the party consented to defending the house from looters while they stayed. The party agreed. (Alexander paid her 100 gp up front for use of laboratory materials.) Learah said she would return with her husband in a fortnight. At that time, she would expect the return of her father's journal, the Decaying Book, the ruby, and the pyramid. She would also expect the party to take their leave of her father's house.

As she was leaving, she asked the party one more question: what did they call themselves? She explained that she was thinking of having her bards compose a song about the party's bravery and honesty, and she wanted to know what she should call them. The party told her they would have to think about it and try to give her an answer when she returned in two weeks.

After Learah left, Alexander continued crafting his Headband.

3rd of Harvester. Alexander continued crafting his Headband. He also worked on deciphering the code with which the Rainbow Mage had written his journal. (Alees tried unsuccessfully to use her roguish skills to help with this task.)

4th of Harvester. Alexander completed his Headband. Later that same day, Alexander finally cracked the difficult code that the Rainbow Mage had used in writing his journal. As he read the Rainbow Mage's journal, he observed a brilliant man whose bitterness caused him to descend into a state of evil and near madness. In his readings, Alexander discovered that the ruby, the pyramid, the Decaying Book, and the amulet worn by the mummy (which Katawan had claimed as treasure) were all powerful relics related to the cult of Kyuss and the Age of Worms. Without telling the rest of his party-mates, he gathered all of these items together (except Katawan's amulet), and teleported to Greyhawk alone.

While he was gone, the rest of the party discussed how they should approach Alexander's apparent betrayal if he should ever return.

5th of Harvester. Alexander teleported back in the morning. The rest of the group insisted on casting Detect Evil on him, which he did not resist. The party found that Alexander was untainted by evil, but Katawan's amulet radiated moderate evil. Alexander belatedly informed the group what he learned from deciphering the Rainbow Mage's journal. The Rainbow Mage had become intent on conquest and had turned to members the Ebon Triad to assist him. The Decaying Book contained such potent arcane secrets of Kyuss's evil that merely reading about them warped the reader's soul, bringing his alignment in accord with that of Kyuss and his worshippers. This had changed the Rainbow Mage into a man of scholarly arcane interests into a rabid Kyuss worshipper. According to the journal, the ruby and the pyramid were two parts of a three-part artifact that, when used in concert, had horrific powers that (among other things) could be used to help facilitate Kyuss's return to the Material Plane. The amulet that Katawan had selected for himself as treasure was really a key that would help unlock secret doors in a temple inside Arn's Mountain where the Rainbow Mage believed he would find the third part of the artifact, known as the White Eye. Realizing the power of these items, Alexander had taken them immediately to his mentor Eligos in Greyhawk.

However, Alexander confided that he was worried that Eligos might have been compromised as a trustworthy contact. Alexander related to his party-mates that Eligos had insisted that Alexander spend the night in a hotel rather than staying in the house. He also found it odd that Eligos wanted the group to recover the White Eye and bring it to him. He thought that bringing the 3 pieces of the artifact together made little sense. Alexander expressed his worry that Eligos may have been corrupted somehow.

Killick asked where the items were now. Alexander replied that they had been left with Eligos. Killick expressed anger that Alexander had taken matters into his own hands without consulting the rest of the group. He said that if the two were not lifelong friends, he would seek Alexander's expulsion from the group for this breach of trust. This comment drew Alexander's ire, and things were tense between all of the party members.

However, these disagreements did not have time to fester because Alexander reported that Allustan had just sent him a magical message. Allustan had told Alexander in a hurried, panicked voice that Diamond Lake was under attack by a large black dragon and that it seemed to be looking for the party. Allustan claimed that he had tried to draw the dragon's attention away from Diamond Lake. He said that he had retreated into the Whispering Cairn and that he hoped he might find a weapon to use against the dragon there. Alexander had replied that he would bring the group back to Diamond Lake as soon as he could.

For the rest of the evening, the party's disagreements were set aside as they began planning how they might best confront a powerful dragon in order to defend whatever would be left of their childhood home. (Alexander left a note for Learah, along with the Boccob's Blessed Book he had selected from the Rainbow Mage's belongings, explaining his actions and promising to face any necessary legal consequences.)

6th of Harvester. Since Alexander can only teleport 3 people with him, two party members must be shrunk down in order to make the trip with the rest of the party. Killick reduced his wardog Grimlock II and turned himself into an eagle. Alees drank her potion of Gaseous Form and put herself inside a bottle for Alexander to carry. The party teleported inside the Whispering Cairn and immediately saw that a previously collapsed passage had been cleared of rubble, revealing a new (and apparently functional) dimensional portal. Killick found boot prints leading from the entrance of the Cairn into the portal. Killick transformed into an eagle and flew out of the cairn towards Diamond Lake on a scouting mission. On the way out, he spotted a large black dragon hiding in a small stand of trees on a hill overlooking the mouth of the Cairn. He continued on towards Diamond Lake and found that about a quarter of the buildings in town had been destroyed, either by acid, weight, or strength. The two most notable losses were the Church of St. Cuthbert in the town square and the Greyhawk Militia garrison just outside town. He did see a few people moving in the town. So it had not been completely destroyed or depopulated. Killick flew back into the Cairn, transformed back into human form (for the second time that day), and reported what he had seen.

Since the dragon was literally lying in wait just outside the Cairn, the party considered entering the portal and following Allustan. Killick pounded a piton into the ground near the portal and tied a rope to it. Katawan lost patience with the party's careful preparations for entering the portal and walked in without a rope. Seconds later, he fell back out with a nasty-looking gash across his chest. Katawan claimed that some humanoid creature with claws inside the portal that tried to block his progress to the other side.

Now that it was clear that travel through the portal would not be automatic, the party decided to face the dragon after all. All of the preparatory spells they had cast had been with a black dragon in mind. They decided they might as well face what they were prepared to fight. When everyone was ready, all the party members except Alexander left the cairn at once, scattering in all different directions. Killick had sprouted wings and was flying. Tarric was flying (via a Fly spell) near Killick. Alees and Katawan were trying to sneak around the opposite side of the Cairn's entrance towards the dragon's position. Thorash strode straight out the cairn's entrance and turned to face the dragon (trying to draw its attention away from Alees and Katawan).

The dragon stood up from its hiding place. She said in Common, "I chased Allustan here to force him to tell me where you are, but instead you have come to me. All the better! You will pay for your interference in my plans. Prepare to die, heroes."

 

[Menexenus]

Session 36: Ilthane and the Portal Guardian

6th of Harvester. The party had rushed out of the Whispering Cairn to confront the black dragon, Ilthane. Alees found herself shaking uncontrollably at the sight of the powerful dragon. Never in her days as a young thief had she considered the possibility that she might someday face a creature as powerful as this. Part of her wanted to run, but she worked up the courage to stay and fight. Killick flew towards the dragon and yelled out, "O powerful Ilthane, we understand your desire for revenge for the destruction of your egg in the care of the lizardmen in the Mistmarsh. However, you should know that the egg was already infested with worms when we destroyed it. So, if you are looking for those who killed your offspring, you should direct your anger at the Cult of Kyuss."

Ilthane responded, "Fool! *I* am the one who placed the worms in the egg! I *serve* Kyuss through his Oerthly prophet and general, Dragotha. You will die because you ruined our plans. Die now, in Kyuss's name!" With that, Alexander emerged from the Cairn and cast Ice Storm on the dragon. Ilthane flew away from the spot where the chunks of ice were still falling from the sky and cast a spell on herself. Alexander recognized (with some disappointment) that the spell she cast was Shield. So he grasped his Empower Rod, causing it to glow, and cast a Fireball at her. The dragon angled her wings to avoid some of the damage. Now that the dragon was in the air, Alees and Katawan resorted to crossbows. Killick flew back away from the dragon and began casting a spell. Thorash cast a Flame Strike at the dragon, causing it to screech in pain. Tarric flew toward the dragon, ready to confront it.

Seeing that Killick was still in the middle of casting a spell, the dragon flew toward him and bit him as it flew by, causing him to lose the spell. Alees and Katawan continued shooting. Tarric flew up behind the dragon, but the dragon noticed his approach and turned around to attack the onrushing fighter. It bit him, knocking him off his stride and causing serious damage. The dragon's momentum carried it away from Tarric, but it performed a wingover and turned to face him. However, rather than attacking the fighter, it shot a line of acidic green spittle at Alexander and Killick. Both were struck by the acid, but both shrugged off the damage due to the preparatory spells they had cast before the battle. Thorash attempted to dispel the Shield effect on the dragon, but Alexander recognized that the dwarf had mispronounced the final syllable of the incantation, rendering it virtually powerless. Tarric moved closer to the dragon and unleashed his full fury upon it, slicing into its scaly hide. Alexander grasped his Empower Rod, causing it to glow, and then shot a beam of black energy from his fingertip. However, the energy danced across the dragon's scales and dissipated.

The dragon's momentum carried it past Tarric. It made a wide turn to the left, back towards the party. Once again, it shot a stream of acid at Alexander and Killick. This time, some of the damage got through Killick's protections. Tarric flew down to the ground next to Thorash and asked for healing. Alexander grasped his Empower Rod for the third time, and once again a beam of black energy shot out towards the black dragon. But this time the energy seemed to have an effect, and the dragon seemed slightly weaker and less powerful. Having no other way to attack the airborn target, Alees and Katawan continued using their crossbows to no effect. Thorash cast a healing spell on Tarric.

The dragon noticed that many of its targets were grouped together on the ground, so it swooped in low and landed right next to Tarric, Thorash, and Alexander, chomping at Alexander as it flew over him. Tarric stepped up and slashed at the dragon while Thorash cast a second Flame Strike. Now that the dragon was on the ground, Katawan charged at it but missed. Alees moved up to try to sneak attack it. Killick ordered Grimlock to threaten its flank while he continued hurling small orbs of magical flame at it. Alexander tumbled out of the dragon's reach and cast a spell on his dagger. The dragon spread his attacks to Tarric, Thorash, Alees, and Grimlock. The party continued attacking it from all sides. When needed, Alexander even tumbled back in to help threaten the dragon's flank. The dragon turned its full attention to Tarric, but still the squire of Holy Shielding held fast, withstanding the dragon's full attack. Katawan used his spring attack ability to remain out of the dragon's reach. He also attempted to stun it with his blows, but he was unsuccessful. Thorash continued healing Tarric. The dragon continued raining blows down on Tarric, hitting him but not incapacitating him.

Realizing that the dwarf was undoing much of the damage that she was inflicting on Tarric, the dragon turned her attention to the wands in Thorash's hands. She sundered one and then the other. In response, the dwarf shot a beam of Searing Light into the dragon's scaly hide. Another of Killick's flaming orbs struck home, causing additinal damage to the embattled dragon. The dragon focused all of its attacks on Tarric once more. This time, without healing support from the party's cleric, Tarric was brought low. Seeing that the party's fighter was down, Katawan threw his last Fireball bead at the dragon in an act of desperation, but the explosion had no effect on her. Rather than following up on her victory over Tarric, the dragon disengaged from the party and shot another line of acid at Killick, wounding him again. She seemed to be trying to get her distance from the party. Now that Thorash was out of melee range of the dragon, he drew a scroll and cast Dispel Magic at her again, hoping once again to drop her Shield effect. When Alexander realized that Thorash had cast the spell more proficiently this time, he drew his Wand of Magic Missiles and fired it at the dragon, hoping that the Shield was down. It was indeed. The Magic Missiles slammed into the dragon's skull, knocking it unconscious. Alexander ran up to the dragon and continued casting Magic Missiles at it until he was sure that it was dead.

Tarric was quickly revived and the party celebrated its victory! Alees worked on removing the dragon's head as a trophy while Tarric, Alexander, and Killick flew into town. Tarric and Killick flew to the newly ruined militia barracks just outside town. Melinde, the paladin of Heironeous, was in a state of shock as she tended to over a dozen wounded. She was grateful to see Tarric and Killick and to hear the news that the dragon was dead. Killick did what he could to assist the wounded, as Tarric asked if there were any other survivors. Melinde shook her head no. She told him that when the dragon attacked, Captain Trask ordered them to form up for battle. He knew that they wouldn't stand a chance against it, but they hoped that they could buy the civilians some time to flee or hide. As she described the horrific efficiency with which the Captain, the High Priest of Heironeous, and most of their friends were cut down by the marauding dragon, she finally broke down and took refuge on Tarric's shoulder. She blubbered that she was in charge because she was the only officer left. She cried that she didn't know what to do. Tarric shared in her pain and comforted her. Tarric recalled that Melinde had been famous for her sunny and cheerful disposition when he had been a member of the militia. She was always an optimist and always had a smile on her face. So it was all the more difficult to see her overwhelmed by grief and despair. It brought home the seriousness of the events that had taken place and put the party's victory over the dragon into perspective.

After Killick was done assisting the wounded and after Melinde had had time to regain her composure, Killick asked if Merris Sandovar, the militia's scout and his old mentor, was still alive. She said that he was the luckiest of them all. He had been out on a scouting mission when the dragon attacked. She told Killick where to find him. When he did find him, he and his old mentor embraced. After exchanging news and pleasantries, Killick asked Merris to deliver a message to Nogwier, the High Druid of the Bronzewood Lodge, informing him of the party's progress and asking for an update. Seeming happy to finally have something useful to do, Merris said he would return by dusk the following day.

Meanwhile, Alexander had flown into town to see what was left of Allustan's house. It was completely destroyed. After some asking around, he was able to find Mick, one of Allustan's apprentices. Mick recognized Alexander immediately and seemed impressed and envious of his newfound power. Mick reminisced with Alexander about how they had both been lowly servants just a few short months ago. Alexander brought him back to the present and asked him about where Allustan had gone and what he had taken with him. Mick described that when the dragon attacked, it landed in the town square and asked for Allustan by name. The clerics of the Church of St. Cuthbert, led by Father Jierian, had filed out of the church to face the threat, but they were quickly cut down by the great wyrm. With the sounds of screaming and crying all around them, Allustan had prepared to face the dragon by casting some defensive spells on himself. He told Mick that he was going to try to lead the dragon away from town and that Mick should run. Mick said that he followed his master's instructions, and he never looked back to find out what happened. Alexander asked Mick about Allustan's activities at the Whispering Cairn prior to the dragon's attack. Mick confirmed that Allustan had been excavating a collapsed passage in the Cairn. Allustan had confided that he thought there might be a portal leading to another, possibly more important, Wind Duke Cairn. He had found the portal only a couple days before the dragon attacked. Allustan had been researching it carefully before entering it to make sure he was prepared for any challenges he might face. Mick could not be sure that Allustan had entered the portal, but he thought that it made sense that Allustan might go looking there for something to fight the dragon with.

When the rest of the party finally arrived in town with Ilthane's head in tow, the town's survivors erupted in celebration. Since the Governor-Mayor and the mine managers were no where to be found, Allustan had disappeared, and the High Priest of Hieroneous, Father Jierian, and Captain Trask had all been killed by the dragon, all of the traditional authority figures in town were gone. So the townspeople naturally turned to the party for leadership. Alexander gave the townspeople permission to sift through the ruined buildings and sell anything of value to finance a rebuilding effort. Killick advised them that they should focus on keeping at least one mine active so that they would continue to receive Greyhawk's protection.

Alees inquired about Killian's father. No one knew where he was, but since he was a teamster by trade, he might have been away on a delivery when the dragon attacked. Killick used his healing arts to help his party gain the benefits of long-term care. The Feral Dog Tavern was being used as a make-shift hospital. So most of its rooms were full of the sick and the dying. However, out of gratitude, the townspeople insisted that the best and largest suite at the inn be reserved for the party so that they could rest and recuperate. Later that night, Alexander had a bit of insomnia and noticed that Alees was not in her bed.

7th of Harvester. The next day was bleak. A few people succumbed to their injuries and died, but not as many as would have died if Killick had not offered his assistance. The party healed up as best it could in preparation for an expedition to find Allustan. The party asked Alexander if they might take one more day to rest and recuperate before they ventured after his former master. Alexander reasoned that, since Allustan had been gone for 2 full days already, he was either dead or safe but in hiding. Either way, an extra day of recuperation shouldn't make a big difference. So the party chose to recover for another day and leave to find Allustan the following morning.

Alexander spent the day sifting through the rubble of Allustan's home, trying to find a book or a journal or some papers that might help the party find Allustan. Although he found many books and papers, he did not find any that would be of immediate use. Alexander gave all of the books and papers that he did find to Mick for safe keeping.


Just before dusk, Merris returned and delivered Nogwier's response to Killick. After receiving Merris's message privately, Killick shared the following information with the party. Ilthane has been spotted flying north away from the Mistmarsh on a number of occasions, prompting the belief that her true lair is somewhere north of Nyr Dyv. Additionally, Nogwier has uncovered some ancient druidic legends that seem related to the fight to prevent the Age of Worms. Apparently, there was an ancient sect of druids, known as the Order of the Storm, who combatted an earlier attempt by Kyuss to bring forth the Age of Worms. They banished Kyuss and were tasked with keeping his demonic minions in check. The remnants of Kyuss's powerful army were contained in a part of Rift Canyon now known as the Wormcrawl Fissure. Over the centuries, the Order of the Storm seems to have died out and it is unknown whether any of its members maintain the vigil. The party discussed briefly whether they should go directly to the Wormcrawl Fissure or try to recover Allustan, but it was quickly decided that helping Allustan was the more immediate goal.

Alexander noticed that, once again, Alees was not in her bed when he woke up in the middle of the night.

8th of Harvester. After resting, recuperating, and rememorizing spells, the party ventured back to the Whispering Cairn to follow Allustan into the portal. Katawan reminded the party of what he had experienced when he had tried to enter the portal before: the portal was narrow, filled with a dark soupy substance that made vision of any kind impossible, and blocked by some foul creature with claws. Tarric went in first. Others tried to follow, but the way was blocked by Tarric, who seemed to be fighting something directly ahead. After a short time, Tarric was no longer blocking the way, so Thorash entered. For a short time, he was also blocking the way as he seemed to be doing battle with something directly ahead. Then he was gone, too. So Killick moved in to take his place. He immediately popped back out screaming that the creature inside had defeated both Tarric and Thorash by grappling them and that someone else needed to step into the breach. When no one else volunteered, Alexander drew his dagger and jumped in. He stepped out moments later to allow Katawan in. However, Katawan also fell prey to the portal's guardian. Killick stepped in and Alexander cast Dimension Door to appear on the far side of the unknown creature, flanking it. Killick struck it with his staff and Alexander struck it with a casting of Magic Missile, finally felling the foul beast.

The party stabilized its unconscious members and dragged the beast's carcass out into the light of day. They saw a horrific undead creature resembling a ghoul, but much more powerful. The party considered whether they should press on or rest yet again before actually entering the unknown cairn that lay beyond the portal.

 

[Menexenus]

Session 37: To Rescue Allustan

8th of Harvester. After facing the guardian of the portal, the party decided not to press on into the cairn. They returned to Diamond Lake for a day in order to heal and recover spells. Killick left the party to collect medicinal herbs. Alees turned in for a midday nap. The rest of the party struck a deal with Venelle that she would mount the dragon's head for free and would also skin the dragon in preparation to make something useful out of its hide. If the party did not return to commission the creation of an item from the dragon's hide, she would keep it.

9th of Harvester. The party was awakened by shouts of joy coming from outside. They saw commoners outside dancing in the streets. When they opened their door to go outside and find out what the commotion was about, they stumbled over a large bundle just outside their door with something heavy inside. The bundle had a note pinned to the outside that read, "Thank you for killing the dragon." They opened the bundle (which was made of torn clothes) and discovered 500 gold pieces inside! They went outside and found that apparently everyone in town opened up their doors this morning to a similar bundle. However, the commoners in town only received 50 gp in their bundles and their bundles did not come with notes attached. The party discussed the possible origin of the money without coming to any firm conclusions. The common people of Diamond Lake were very grateful for this money which could not have come at a better time. The party asked Alees examine the handwriting on the note, but she did not recognize it. The party then divided up the 500 gp between themselves. However, Alexander refused to accept his share of the money, not wanting to be beholden to (or scryed upon by an) unknown benefector.

After spending a little time speculating as to the identity and the motives of the town's benefactor(s), the party returned to the Whispering Cairn to find out what had happened to Allustan. They entered the portal and emerged in a long smokey hallway howling with wind. The noise and the wind seemed to be coming from small whistle-like nodules built into the wall. The smoke that hung in the air quickly coalesced into beings that tried to enter the party members' lungs! Tarric and Alexander were overcome by these strange beings and felt claws ripping into them from the inside. The party responded to the attack. Killick found that his walking stick/quarterstaff had no effect on the smokey creatures. Grimlock was also unable to affect the creatures. So, he dropped his walking stick and cast Magic Fang on his wardog Grimlock. (However, he found that casting in the midst of such a loud noise required a significant amount of concentration.) Meanwhile, Tarric coughed out the smoke-being that had entered his lungs. Alexander was unable to do likewise. The mage doubled over in pain as the creature continued to assault him from the inside. Freed of the vile smoke creature, Tarric brought his magical sword to bear to great effect, cleaving quickly through the enemies.

Thorash ran down the hallway and into the next room, guessing that the smoke creatures would not be able to reach him there. But his plan was foiled as one of the smoke creatures followed him into the larger pillared hall with two strange spikey barricades. Thorash fought the smoke creature with Katawan's assistance. However, as he maneuvered to flank the wind creature, he inadvertently activated a trap. A hurricane wind came up suddenly and blew the dwarf onto the barricade, causing him to become impaled on one of the spikes.

Alees and Killick were both briefly invaded by the strange smoke creatures, but they exhaled them quickly with some effort. Alexander had much greater difficulty ridding himself of the insidious creature. He did so briefly on two occasions, only to have the smoke re-enter his body. Killick overcame the noise of the windy room to cast a spell on Alexander that allowed him to recover health slowly over time. He also successfully cast more customary healing spells on the wizard to keep him from losing consciousness. When the smoke creature emerged from Alexander the third time, the party was ready for it and cut it down quickly. Some of the smoke creatures took physical form and attacked with wings, claws, and bites when they found themselves unable to enter their target's lungs. But this mode of attack was not very effective. All six of the smoke creatures were soon dispatched, and only Alexander was much the worse for wear. (Thorash had quickly healed the damage the spike had done to him.)

As the party moved into the adjoining hall, Thorash took care to warn his companions about the wind trap that he had succumbed to. This room was larger than the first, containing two rows of pillars, two spikey barricades, three sets of double doors, and bas-relief sculptures on the walls near each set of doors depicting the same tall, thin, bald, robe-clad figures that they had first seen in the Whispering Cairn. Alees moved to the far set of doors to check it for traps. However, as she approached the door, she triggered a device which released smoke from the wall. The smoke played across the bas-relief, causing it to simulate motion. It showed an armored, apparently high-ranking Wind Duke fighting and defeating many twisted creatures of Chaos. At the end of the display, the gas showed the Wind Duke holding out a square seal in one hand and a long rod or staff in the other, as if presenting them to those watching the spectacle. However, as interesting as the smoke performance may have been, it caused Alees to cough. When she was done coughing, she stumbled around and had trouble catching her balance. She mentioned to the rest of the party that she felt weird. Killick came up to her and cast Delay Poison, just in case. Alees continued with her search of the door and found it to be untrapped. In fact, in the middle of her careful search, she discovered that they were in fact false doors. There was nothing behind them but stone.

Alees was now much more cautious about where she walked. She found that the next set of double doors was similarly trapped, but the third set of double doors was untrapped. Katawan volunteered to set off the known trap in order to see whether it would give them any new information. However, the smokey display was identical to the first. Katawan seemed unaffected by the smoke. Killick moved to the third set of double doors (which Alees had certified to be untrapped) and set off another gas trap which produced another identical display. Although caught slightly off guard, Killick was not otherwise harmed by the gas.

Killick opened the double doors and the party filed quickly into the adjoining hallway, before the gas trap could reset itself. However, as Grimlock stepped on a stone in the floor, a loud arcane word was spoken to him and he was paralyzed. The party waited for a short time, but Killick's faithful canine did not recover. Ahead was a large statue of a Wind Duke holding an ornate greatsword. Killick determined using his tracking skills that Allustan had come through this hall and taken a right turn, entering another set of closed double doors just ahead. Since his dog was still paralyzed, he dragged it over to the far side of the statue, away from the double doors that they would soon be opening. As he dragged Grimlock, Killick heard the same arcane word being spoken to him, but there was no effect.

When Alees certifed that the door was untrapped, the party opened it, revealing a large room with double doors on the far side. From the ceiling hung 4 chandeliers shining with a purple light as well as a black sphere hanging between them. Alexander immediately recognized the symbol on the black sphere as that of Bwimb, a cruel general from the para-elemental plane of ooze who had allied with the Queen of Chaos at the Battle of Pesh. He also recognized that the chandeliers were crafted from loops of metal that resembled his Talisman of the Sphere (which he had obtained from Zosiel's tomb in the Whispering Cairn). Sound in the room was very muted, as if it were being absorbed by the black tile floor. Just beyond the entrance were two staircases rising to a second level gallery that traversed the room's perimeter. The walls on the lower level seemed to contain detailed frescoes that were difficult to see from the entrance. Alees investigated the stairs carefully and found them to be untrapped. Killick ascended the stairs and found that there were two sets of double doors on the second balcony level as well, one set on each opposing side. Killick called for Alees to continue checking for traps leading up to the doors on the second level.

Thorash grew impatient with the care being taken by Alees and Killick and walked into the lower level to investigate the frescoes more closely. However, as soon as he walked under one of the chandeliers, the floor seemed to come alive. As it assembled itself into a lumpy black mass, it knocked Thorash off his feet. The black ooze occupied almost the entire room. Thorash immediately stood up and cast Flame Strike into the center of the room (singeing the black sphere and tarnishing the chandeliers on the ceiling). It wriggled with pain. Alees shot it with a bolt of force from the Rainbow Crossbow. The bolt seemed to hurt the creature, but it immediately divided into two smaller oozes. Killick cast his trusty flame spell and hurled orbs of flame at the oozes. Katawan leaped forward striking and damaging one of the large fluid masses. The two oozes formed pseudopods that lunged forward to strike out at Thorash and Alees. Thorash was missed, but Alees was struck. The ooze's body followed its pseudopod, completely engulfing the screaming rogue (to the horror of her party-mates)! Tarric rushed forward and slashed at the ooze to free Alees. His slash damaged the ooze, but it also split again into two smaller oozes. Tarric noticed some smoke rising from his weapon. He looked down to discover that his sword was dissolving in acid before his eyes. If the creature was able to do such horrific damage to his weapon, imagine what it was doing to Alees! Alexander refrained from casting Magic Missile at the creatures for fear of causing them to split even further, so he tossed his last Fireball at the creatures. However, the one that contained Alees seemed to avoid some of the damage. Katawan moved up to the ooze that contained Alees and pummeled it furiously with his fists. After the assault, the ooze shriveled up dead revealing an unconscious Alees with some of her equipment still in the process of dissolving. Killick tumbled down the stairs, dropping his walking stick along the way, and stood over Alees's prone body holding out a potion. His magical petrified quarterstaff also appeared suddenly in his gloved hand. Tarric grabbed the potion and forced it into Alees's mouth.

Now there were two oozes left, a smaller one and a larger one. The larger one attacked Thorash again. This time it struck him and engulfed him. Tarric dropped his shield and attacked the ooze with Killick's walking stick. It damaged the ooze, which did not split in two this time. However, Tarric found that the walking stick was also dissolving in his hands. He dropped the stick just before the ooze's powerful acid completely vaporized it. Alexander was still fearful of using his Magic Missiles, and Tarric was fearful of losing his last magical bastard sword. So it was up to Katawan to use his fists to do most of the damage against the oozes while Killick threw orbs of fire at them. The smaller ooze struck Killick. As it engulfed his body, Killick released his petrified quarterstaff. Just before the black fluid closed around his face, he implored Tarric to use the quarterstaff. After dropping his shield, Tarric followed used Killick's weapon (made out of petrified wood) to good effect.

A few moments later, both oozes were destroyed by the combined assault of Tarric and Katawan. When the smaller one died and shriveled, it revealed a still conscious Killick. None of his belongings had been ravaged by the creature's acid because he had cast a spell moments earlier that protected him from the harmful effects of acid. However, as the larger ooze shriveled in death, it revealed Thorash's skeleton with only his Bag of Holding remaining. The party was shocked: Thorash was dead and most of his belongings were gone! Since Thorash was the party's cleric, they were unable to raise him without outside assistance. It was clear that the party needed to withdraw from the cairn. Killick offered to reincarnate the dwarf. Many in the party found the idea appealing, hoping that Thorash's new body might come with a more pleasant disposition. However, Alexander suggested that the party take Thorash back to his church to see whether they would revive him at their expense.

Since he was out of healing spells, Killick removed Alees's Necklace of Prayer Beads in order to use it to bring her back to consciousness. As he did so, he noticed that Alees also wore a ring around her neck on a thin leather cord. Killick was surprised by this, but did not immediately say anything to Alees. The party had more important things to do. Alees used her remaining healing spells on the other party members. The party then collected Thorash's remains and the still-paralyzed Grimlock and withdrew from the cairn.

10th of Harvester. After rememorizing spells, the party teleported back to Greyhawk. However, after Alexander's last encounter with Eligos, the party did not return to his house immediately. They spent most of the day tracking down Mother Iridni, the Prelate of Wee Jas. The party discovered that Wee Jas did not have a dedicated temple in the Free City. So they were forced to track down Iridni's residence. When they finally found it, it was well-appointed, as befitting the residence of an official ambassador. When the party mentioned their business was related to Thorash, they were granted an audience with Her Excellency. Mother Iridni greeted the party in a sitting room dressed in her ceremonial finest. She was a tall but wrinkled and dour-looking woman with a prominent aquiline nose and hair that was dyed bright red. She interacted with the party in a very formal manner. Overall, the party found her to be a little creepy. When they explained the circumstances of Thorash's death and asked if the church would be interested in raising him, Mother Iridni replied that Thorash's service to the church of Wee Jas had been exemplary and she was certain that his service to the Ruby Sorceress was not yet complete. She was sure that the Death Goddess would consent to return her servant to the land of the living. She asked for Thorash's remains and took them with her to a private chamber. About 30 minutes later, she emerged with Thorash. Thorash asked the party for his equipment and was disappointed to learn that only the contents of his Bag of Holding were left to him.

The party decided to stay that night at a common inn that they had never been to before, in the hope that they would not be recognized. Alees left the group to keep watch on Eligos's residence.

11th of Harvester. After breakfast, Alees returned and informed the group that she had seen a very burly man whom she did not recognize leaving Eligos's house the previous night. He went to the local bar and had some drinks, but kept to himself. She followed the man back to Eligos's house when he was done. He entered the house without knocking or being announced by the elven manservant. She returned to the bar and asked the barmaid about him, and she told Alees that the man had been coming to the bar for about a week now. One time he had come with a smaller man, but they had acted secretively whenever she or anyone else had approached them. The smaller man was very non-descript, but definitely did not fit Eligos's discription. Alees had continued watching the house until the morning. Soon after dawn, someone resembling a door-to-door salesman carrying a satchel arrived at the house. He was shown in by Pollard and left again about half an hour later. His satchel seemed to be about as full when he left as it had been when he arrived. She had been unable to peer into any windows because all of the curtains had been drawn. She had not tried to open any windows from the outside, for fear of setting of arcane alarms.

After breakfast, the party went together to sell some of the items that they had not had a chance to sell previously and split the proceeds between themselves. Then the party members split up, resolving to conduct any business that needed conducting during the remainder of the day. They pledged to meet outside Eligos's house for a potential joint confrontation at around 5 pm.

 

[Menexenus]

Session 38: Confronting Eligos (or, Tying Up Loose Ends)

11th of Harvester. After conducting their individual business in the City of Greyhawk, the party members congregated at the Crooked House (a bar in the Foreign Quarter near Eligos's house in the Garden District) just before dinner. Thorash revealed to the party that he had communed with his deity and learned a number of important facts: a) Allustan was alive but safe, b) there is another band of adventurers seeking the Eye, c) the Eligos that Alexander gave the Pyramid and Ruby to was not the true Eligos, and d) the new Eligos was in league with Kyuss. Alexander was (as always) skeptical of any information reported by Thorash. Still, it gave the party some useful ammunition as they were about to confront the potential imposter. They cast a few protective spells and then made their way through the gate to Eligos's house. As always, they were accompanied by a City Watch guard until they reached their destination and were accepted inside.

Upon arrival at Eligos's house, they knocked on the door, which was quickly answered by Pollard, Eligos's elven butler. Pollard invited them inside, inviting Killick to tie his dog up in the house's small attached stable. Instead, Killick ordered the dog to stay just around the corner from the house's front entrance. Pollard escorted the group through the house's ground floor to the conference room. He invited them to make themselves comfortable and informed them that the master would be in to see them in a matter of minutes. Thorash and Killick remained standing while the other members of the group took seats around a long table. Given their suspicions about Eligos, all the party members were a bit on edge.

After about 10 minutes, Eligos came in, greeted the party, and seated himself at the head of the table. Killick and Thorash took their seats as well. After some pleasantries, Eligos inquired whether the party had been successful in recovering the White Eye. Alexander informed him that they had been distracted by a call for help from Allustan. Eligos inquired about Allustan's state of health. Alexander replied that his status was unknown. Eligos showed appropriate concern for his former colleague, but suggested that they make the White Eye their top priority. The party inquired as to the location of the Pyramid and the Ruby - the two pieces of the artifact that had already been delivered to Eligos privately by Alexander. Eligos replied that after inspecting them himself, he had sent them up the chain of command to his superior who he insisted must remain nameless. When he saw some incredulous looks on the faces of many party members, Eligos explained that Alexander was aware of the identity of Eligos's superior and that they should trust him that that individual was trustworthy. Alexander confirmed that Eligos's superior is a powerful and trustworthy wizard.

Next, the party expressed doubts about the wisdom of bringing all of the pieces of the artifact together in one place. Eligos explained that there was no way he could find to destroy the individual pieces of the artifact other than to use the artifact's full power against itself. And the only way to activate the artifact's full power was to bring all the pieces together. Tarric asked why the artifact needed to be destroyed at all, as long as the pieces were scattered and hidden. Eligos replied that a part of Kyuss's own essence had been reposited within the artifact. So, destroying the artifact would weaken Kyuss, thereby making it more difficult for Him to break the barriers that prevented Him from returning to Oerth. Finally, the group consented to retrieve the Eye, but they insisted that they would not deliver it to Eligos. Rather, they suggested that they should assemble members of their respective churches and give it to them instead. Eligos warned that there was significant danger in spreading word of their plans to assemble and destroy the artifact. Even if the churches were trustworthy, the more people who knew of the plan, the greater the chance that word of their plans could leak to the Cult of Kyuss. Killick mentioned that Thorash's divinations had revealed that there was another band of adventurers currently seeking the Eye. Eligos pointed out that this fact, if true, made it all the more important that the party recover it first. Killick asked how word of the Eye's location could possibly gotten out, since only he and the party knew its location. Eligos said he did not know how that could have happened. He speculated that divination magic of some kind might be involved.

The party reiterated that they would recover the Eye, but they would not deliver it to Eligos. After Eligos confirmed that the party could not be swayed on this point, his demeanor suddenly changed. He threatened that the party would not leave the house alive, and then, with a wave of his hand, he disappeared. Alexander informed the party that he had cast a spell allowing himself to teleport only a short distance away. He was probably still in the house. The party heard loud footsteps coming down the stairs. They jumped to their feet and armed themselves. They arrayed themselves to surprise whomever should open the conference room's door. But despite hearing many footfalls down the stairs and in the hall outside, the door did not open. Finally, Tarric opened the door. He saw a hulking figure with a scar running down his left cheek wearing banded mail and carrying a bastard sword waiting in ambush up against the wall just outside the door. Tarric stepped out into the hallway to confront this opponent. As he swang his sword at the aging gladiator, he suddenly felt a sting in his back that caused his stroke to miss. He had been stabbed by some previously invisible figure standing on the opposite side of the door. The figure was now visible. He was short and nondescript, dressed in dark colors, carrying a shortsword in each hand. Now that Tarric was out in the hallway he could see that a tiefling cleric whom the party had killed below the Arena was alive again and standing about 25 feet behind the gladiator. And about 10 feet behind the cleric stood Anders Fierk, the wizard who had asked the party for help obtaining the Rainbow Mage's spells at the White Boar Inn in Rosewater.

At the other end of the L-shaped hallway stood Pollard and a doppelganger. Both of them were wielding longswords. Katawan tumbled out into the hallway toward the doppelgangers. Alees tumbled out as well. However, she was struck by the darkly clothed shortsword-wielder in the corner. This caused her to stop her movement prematurely for fear of being struck again. Alexander cast a spell which allowed all of the party members to move faster and attack more often, for which they were very grateful. Fierk commanded Tarric to attack his partymates in words that dripped with arcane power. However, Tarric shook off the spell's effect. Two more doppelgangers wielding longswords emerged from a door near Katawan at the other end of the hallway. Thorash cast a spell on the gladiator, and he froze in place. The shortsword wielder in the corner sliced at Tarric unsuccessfully. He shouted out to the gladiator, "Get your head back in the game, Loris. I would have had him if you had continued distracting him!" Killick, who had cast a spell on his walking stick before the door was open, used it to pummel the dark-clad rogue in the corner multiple times. The cloven-hooved cleric cast a spell and strode forward with black energy crackling across his fingertips. He touched Alees, trying to draw the soul out of her body. For a moment, it seemed that he was successful, but then, with a scream of pain, she pushed his hand away. With the gladiator frozen, Tarric turned his attention to the backstabber in the corner, knocking him unconscious. Perhaps as a result of seeing his friend get knocked out, the gladiator recovered his wits and was no longer frozen.

Katawan successfully occupied Pollard and his three doppelganger friends with his Whirlwind Attack maneuver. Although they landed an occasional hit on him, his monk training was on full display as he avoided blow after blow. Alexander chose to assist Katawan by casting a fireball at the end of the hall, causing significant damage to all of the doppelgangers while Katawan's cat-like reflexes left him completely unharmed by the fiery explosion. At the other end of the hall, Eligos came down the stairs and cast a defensive spell on himself that made his skin appear to be as tough as stone. The evil cleric stepped forward and cast a healing spell on Loris's rogue ally, whose eyes flittered open momentarily. That is, until Tarric brought his bastard sword down onto the rogue's prone chest, closing his eyes once again. He brought his remaining attacks to bear against the cleric, causing him grievous wounds. Alees repositioned herself so that she was flanking the cleric with Tarric's help. She stabbed the cleric with her dagger in a vulnerable spot, and he collapsed to the floor sputtering blood. The gladiator turned to Alees and told her that she would pay for what she had just done. He swang his bastard sword in a whirling frenzy that struck her several times. Alees collapsed to the floor unconscious and bleeding.

Fierk began casting another spell. Thorash stepped into the doorway and tried to end the gladiator's life with a mere touch, but his attempt failed. Katawan continued to pummel his doppelganger opponents, preventing himself from becoming completely encircled by withdrawing slowly back toward the rest of the party. Tarric and the aging gladiator continued exchanging blows. Thorash reached down and touched the unconscious rogue in the corner and energized himself by absorbing what little life force remained within him. Alexander seemed disgusted by this evil act. (Apparently this was the first time that Alexander had witnessed Thorash delivering his Death Touch.) However, there was no time to dwell on Thorash's act. Alexander tumbled out of the doorway into the hall, past the gladiator in the direction of the two enemy wizards. Killick cast a spell that brought down a pillar of fire onto the two wizards at the end of the hall. While both seemed resistant to the flame damage, both of them were damaged by the holy column of fire. Fierk endured the pain and continued casting his spell. Loris attacked Tarric and then stepped closer to Alexander in order to threaten him. However, Alexander merely stepped out of the gladiator's reach and then cast a lightning bolt down the hallway, knocking Fierk out before he could finish his spell. (Alexander was surprised to see that his lightning bolt did not blow out the windows at the end of the hallway.) Killick tumbled down the hallway, onto the stairs, and struck at Eligos. Eligos suddenly changed shape into a barbarian brute. He gave out a cry of rage and then moved towards Alexander, drawing a great axe from his back. He swang it at Alexander striking him rather than one of the several images of himself that surrounded him for a moderate amount of damage. At long last Tarric won his battle with the gladiator. Loris's head dropped to the floor apart from its body. With the way now clear, Thorash moved out of the conference room towards the barbarian that had previously resembled Eligos. He touched the raging barbarian, and wounds suddenly appeared on his flesh where they had not been before. The barbarian collapsed, and reverted to its true form, that of a doppelganger. Alexander quickly moved back towards the conference room and targeted Pollard with a barrage of magic missiles. As the butler fell to the ground, its form shifted to that of a doppelganger as well. No enemies remained standing; the party was victorious!

Now that the battle was over, Killick quickly cast a spell that slowly rejuvenated Alees. Alexander checked out the window to see whether any members of the City Watch had come to investigate the loud noises coming from Eligos's house. There was no movement outside the window. All seemed well. The party did a quick search of the upstairs that Eligos had warned Alexander away from before. They found that many of the bedrooms contained multiple styles of clothing, like the bedrooms they had discovered in the doppelganger lair. One of the larger rooms contained an intricate (but incomplete) apparatus composed of a metal table and many glass tubes leading to a small receptacle. This large apparatus looked exactly like a broken apparatus they had discovered in the throne chamber of the doppelganger lair. In the closet of a deserted room, they found the bodies of both Pollard and Eligos in a state of decay that Killick estimated at 10 - 12 days. Eligos's skull had been cracked open by a combination of blunt force and a sharp edge, and his brain had been removed.

Alexander, desperate to revive Eligos, removed what remained of Eligos's skull. He told the rest of the party that he planned to teleport across town to the Church of St. Cuthbert and call in a favor to have Eligos revived. Killick suggested that he take Loris Raknian's head with him as well so that he might claim the reward for his capture and contribute that money towards raising Eligos. Alexander agreed. With a head under both arms, he cast the spell and was off.

About two hours later, Alexander and Eligos returned on foot. Eligos was visibly saddened to see the corpse of his butler Pollard. While Alexander had been gone, the party had gathered all of the enemies' valuables into a pile for identification. Eligos picked out the items that had been his. In the pile that remained, there were various magical armors and weapons, as well as the standard magical cloaks and rings. However, one notable item that was recovered was the very same Boccob's Blessed Book that Alexander had left behind in the Rainbow Mage's dungeon for Lady Learah to find. Inside the book, Alexander found the note that he had left with the book being used as a bookmark. Alees reported that the book had been recovered from Fierk's body. The party also found three very large and valuable gems on Eligos's imposter that have magical auras. Alexander confirmed definitively that the Eligos to whom he had given the Pyramid and the Ruby was the imposter. He asked the party if either item had been found anywhere inside the house - they had not. The party assumed that these pieces must now be in the hands of Kyuss worshippers.

Thorash, Alexander, and Eligos decided to wake the next morning and spend 8 hours working together to identify the properties of the magical items they had found. Then, after necessary sales and purchases had been made, they would teleport back to the cairn where Allustan was apparently trapped and try again to rescue him.

 

[Menexenus]

Session 39: Rescuing Allustan (Take 2)

12th of Harvester. After spending all of the morning and most of the afternoon identifying what the party looted from some doppelgangers and Loris Raknian's crew, they went out together to sell what they chose not to keep and then went their separate ways to buy much needed equipment. When they were done, they returned to Eligos's house. After Thorash prayed for spells at dusk, Alexander teleported the party (with Alees in gaseous form, Grimlock shrunken, and Killick in bird form) back to Diamond Lake. Killick and Alees hurried to Venelle's to catch her before she closed her shop for the night. She was indeed still in her shop. Killick had decided to purchase a masterwork cloak and Alees had decided to purchase a masterwork shield, both made from Ilthane's dragonscales. Venelle said they were in luck, because she had already crafted those items.

As they were transacting their business, Killick asked how the town was faring. Venelle warned that trouble was brewing. She said that the mine managers had returned to town soon after the party left, but the political situation had changed drastically in their absences. Since every family in town had received a gift of 50 gp, many of the common people were refusing to work the mines. So the mine managers were finding it impossible to keep their mines fully staffed. In addition, when all the authority figures in town were gone, Killick had told the townspeople to keep a mine open to ensure Greyhawk's defense of the town. The miners had selected Dourstone's old mine and had been working it collectively. But when the mine managers returned, they did not permit Gelch Tilgast (the mine manager who had bought up the lease to the mine after Dourstone was imprisoned) to resume control of the mine. The townspeople claimed that Dourstone's mine was their mine now, and they cited the party's authority for support of their position. Since most of the members of the old Greyhawk Militia garrison were either wounded or dead, none of the traditional authority figures in town had sufficient muscle to enforce their will over a large percentage of the townspeople standing together in solidarity. So for the time being, Dourstone's mine was being run collectively by the townspeople while all the other mines in town were barely producing anything.

Killick told Venelle to relay to the workers that he had not intended for them to commandeer a mine in violation of mine managers' legal rights. Venelle told Killick that they certainly wouldn't believe it coming from her, and she guessed that they might not even back down if they heard it coming directly from him. Besides, Venelle concluded, she couldn't help but root for the underdogs in this situation. Killick conveyed that he and the party would return to help sort things out at a later date. As he and Alees were leaving to rejoin their partymates, Venelle told them that Ilthane's head would be mounted and ready for pick up in two days. She mentioned she was also working on something special for the party - a token of her gratitude for all that the party had done for the town.

The party trekked out to the Whispering Cairn, reaching it about an hour before midnight. They entered the portal and emerged in the loud hall howling with wind. They moved into the next room containing the barricades and gas traps. Alees attempted to disarm the one in front of the door that Allustan had passed through. She thought she had done so successfully, but when Tarric and Killick walked across it, the trap was triggered anyway. Still, since they were both ready for the gas, they successfully held their breath until the danger had passed. When the gas had expended itself, the party moved on into the cross-shaped hallway with an 8-foot statue of a Wind Duke standing in the middle. They carefully avoided the arcane word traps that they had triggered previously and moved into the room where Thorash had been devoured by the black pudding. After Killick determined that Allustan's tracks led to the southern doors on the balcony level, the party prepared to enter new territory. While Alees carefully checked these new doors for traps, Killick noticed that the fine craftsmen who had created the chandeliers in this room had produced scenes in miniature, and that all the lights of the chandelier were emitting from miniature Wind Dukes.

Finding no traps, the party opened the doors and found a dark hall that turned to the left about 20 feet ahead. They advanced slowly, giving time for Alees to check for traps. Once they turned the corner, they saw a long hall that inclined downward. Using his darkvision, Thorash informed the others that the hall eventually opened into a large room with pillars. Then Thorash reported that he heard spellcasting coming from that room. The party began moving forward more quickly. Alexander cast a spell that made everyone in the party faster, while Killick and Thorash cast preparatory spells of their own. When they entered the shadowy room up ahead, they found old stringy cobwebs hanging from the pillars, doors on each of the other three walls flanked by statues carrying a longsword in each hand, and a huge spider in the far corner that seemed to be arching its back in the process of doing something. Soon thereafter, the spider sprayed a smooth silky substance over the entire floor of the room. As characters began entering the room, they found it difficult to keep their footing. The spider advanced towards them, climbing along the pillars (staying off the floor). Tarric stepped up to the spider (barely keeping his feet) and cut into the giant creature's carapace. Katawan moved around behind it and attacked from the rear, but missed.

The spider turned its attention to Katawan, the lone flanker. It struck him with 3 claws and a bite, wounding Katawan severely. It picked up Katawan's struggling body with 2 of those claws. The spider seemed somewhat preoccupied with its new tasty morsel. Killick cast a spell and a column of flame erupted around the creature, causing it to squeal in pain. Tarric stepped forward and sliced into the creature's carapace again, slicing much deeper this time. Recognizing that the creature was less mobile than it had been before, Alees dropped her new dragonshield, drew her crossbow, and fired it at the creature. The bolt entered the wound created previously by Tarric and ripped into the creature's vital organs. It slumped to the ground dead. The party recovered Katawan from under the creature's bulk. He used his monk abilities to heal his own wounds and he also received some healing from Killick.

While Killick spent some time trying to determine which way Allustan had gone from here, Alees checked all the doors and the statues for traps, finding none. When the silk on the floor suddenly sublimated away, Killick's job became much easier. He determined that Allustan had gone through the blue double doors directly across from where the party had entered. The party passed through these doors finding an empty room with a rotted carpet on the floor, an altar with a 4 foot tall golden idol of a Wind Duke, bas-reliefs depicting a victorious army on the walls, and a door to the south. Killick used his walking stick to try to lift the rug. The rug disintegrated with his touch, and he found nothing but stone underneath. Meanwhile, Alees walked up to the altar with the golden idol and started looking for secret compartments. She noticed that the eyes of the statue were made of blue gems.

When she touched the statue to check it for secret compartments, two of the soldiers depicted in the wall relief emerged from the stone and moved to attack Alees. She tumbled nimbly out of the way. One of the stone warriors pursued Alees while the other moved towards Killick, who was nearer to it. Both warriors successfully struck their targets with mighty blows from their fists. Alexander and Thorash both tried casting spells at the stony warriors, but the arcane and divine energies flowed around these constructs without having any effect. Since Tarric was the only member of the party who seemed to be able to do serious damage to the creatures, the party moved back into the doorway and allowed Tarric to go toe-to-toe with the constructs one at a time. Killick occupied the other spot in the doorway and aided his friend Tarric. Just when Tarric was about to collapse from the wounds he had suffered, Thorash cast a spell that completely rejuvenated him. Tarric attacked with renewed strength and destroyed one of the creatures, which collapsed into dust. Then the rest of the party entered the room to surround the second one. Killick, Alees, and Grimlock found that their attacks were useless against it. Although Tarric's blade did most of the damage, it was Katawan's fists that felled the second creature. (The party members could not help but notice that since Katawan bought his Monk Belt in Greyhawk, the damage that he could deal with his fists had increased significantly.) While the others took stock of their situation at battle's end, Alees returned to the golden idol on the altar. She used her dagger to pry out its eye gems and began investigating the gold content of the statue (and was disappointed to discover that the statue was merely gold-plated and not solid gold).

However, the party cajoled her into leaving the idol for a moment and checking the next door for traps. She found it to be untrapped. The next room was circular with a downward sloping floor leading to the middle of the room where there was a large sphere of bluish energy. Inside the sphere was a heavily wounded Allustan in an awkward pose with cuts that did not bleed. After trying briefly to interact with Allustan unsuccessfully the party concluded that he was somehow frozen in time. The party noticed that there was a steel pin emerging from the ceiling which barely made contact with the top of the blue ball of energy encasing Allustan. Curious, Alees stepped inside the room, and a bolt of electricity arced from the sphere toward her. It seemed that the lightning bolt was surely going to strike her, but, calling on Fharlangn for aid, she managed to jump out of the way just in the knick of time, taking no damage. Alees retreated back into the previous room and began looking for secret doors.

The party discussed how they might free Alexander's former master. After a bit of thought, Alexander cast a spell that teleported him and Alees to the downward-leading stairs on the far side of the room. There they both searched for a release mechanism, but found nothing. They saw that the stairs led down to a 40-foot deep shaft, at the bottom of which were two passages. Alexander was about to descend the steel rungs on the side of the shaft, but Alees stopped him, warning that the rungs might be trapped. She volunteered to go down and check them out for him. She drank a potion and then began crawling on the wall next to the rungs, inspecting each one closely. When she got to the bottom, she found a pressure plate at the base of the shaft. She attempted to disarm it by jamming it, but she heard a click and realized that she had triggered the trap by mistake. She heard the sound of lots of rushing water moving quickly toward her. Thanks to her climbing spell and her quick thinking, she was able to climb up out of the shaft and back onto the stairs just in time to see a metal plate slide across the shaft about halfway down. Both she and Alexander heard the sound of rushing water beneath it. When the crashing water noises subsided, Alexander drew his newly purchased Chime of Opening and commanded the metal plate to open. It did, and beneath it he and Alees saw blood red water rushing in from the northeast and out to the east. This water was at least 10 feet deep.

At this point, Alexander and Alees yelled across the room to their companions that they were out of options. Rescuing Allustan would be up to the other four party members. After some strategizing, they decided on a new plan. Killick cast a protection spell on himself, sprouted wings, and flew into the chamber. As before, electricity arced out at him, but his protection spell absorbed almost all of the damage. Killick flew up to the spike above the ball of energy and cast a spell that caused the stone around the spike to move aside. Once a sufficient amount of stone had moved away, the spike fell to the ground and the ball of energy dissipated. With the sphere gone, Allustan collapsed to the floor unconscious and started bleeding profusely. Thorash ran into the room to help the old mage, but a bolt of electricity shot at him from the spike lying on the ground. The dwarven cleric took the damage in stride and cast a healing spell on Allustan, who immediately returned to consciousness. Killick flew down to the spike and grasped it in his gauntleted hand, causing the spike to rust at an accelerated rate. Within a matter of seconds, the spike was no more than brown dust. With the danger past, the rest of the party entered the room triumphantly and conversed with Allustan.

Allustan asked if the dragon had been defeated. They told him that it had been and, as proof, they showed off the cloak and the shield that had been fashioned from its hide. Allustan asked about Diamond Lake and was told the mixed news that it had been done a great deal of damage. Allustan asked how long he had been stuck there in his timeless prison and was surprised to learn that he had been in the room in suspended animation for 7 days.

Alexander asked Allustan to recount what had happened to him on the day that Ilthane attacked. He said that when he heard the dragon attacking in the town square, he cast some preparatory spells and emerged from his home to see how he could help. By this time, the church of St. Cuthbert and most of its occupants had already been destroyed. He saw the Diamond Lake garrison forming up for battle and went to their aid. When the battle was joined, Allustan noticed that the dragon called him by name and seemed to be focusing on him. He realized that neither he nor the garrison could seriously threaten the dragon, and it occurred to him that the cairn of Icosiel, the victorious Wind Duke commander at the legendary Battle of Pesh must surely contain weapons of extraordinary power. He broke from the battle and flew at top speed towards the Whispering Cairn. He was surprised to see that the dragon was following him, so he made himself invisible. It was during this hectic flight that he cast the Sending spell to warn Alexander about these events. He was aware from previous experimentation with the portal that there was something powerful guarding its entrance. So he cast a spell from a scroll that allowed him to become ethereal, thereby bypassing the portal guardian. His ethereal state also protected him from the smoke creatures in the first hall as well as from the gas trap in the following room. He noticed that the statue in the middle of the next hallway was holding a potentially powerful sword, but since he was not a fighter, he continued on, searching for something that he might use against the dragon. When he entered this room, he was struck by a bolt of electricity. And that's the last thing he remembered before being revived by Thorash just a few minutes before.

As Allustan finished telling his story, someone noticed that Alees was missing. They called out to her and heard her acknowledgment coming from the room with the altar. While Allustan had been talking to the rest of the party, Alees had been scraping chunks of gold off of the idol with her dagger.

 

[Menexenus]

Session 40: Antyress Redpike and Icosiel's Razor

12th of Harvester. After recovering Allustan from the cairn of Icosiel, the group was a bit more relaxed about time pressures. However, the pressure from within the group to begin crafting items was intense. The party asked Allustan if he could craft the party's desired items for them, but he admitted that he lacked the requisite knowledge. However, he offered to adventure with the party in Alexander's stead, giving the party's wizard an opportunity to begin crafting. Alexander surveyed the group to find out which items he could enchant the quickest. He found that, although Alees and Killick would eventually like to obtain higher level enhancements, they would both appreciate receiving the minimum level of enhancement to their armor and cloak (respectively). Doing so would only take 2 days. So the party took Allustan up on his offer. Alexander would leave and magically enchant these two items and Allustan would adventure with the party in his place. Alexander would return in two days and the party would make further decisions from there. Before he left, Alexander cast a spell that would allow his partymates to crawl into an extradimensional space in order to rest unseen if necessary for about half of a day. Then he teleported back to Eligos's house in Greyhawk in order to begin crafting.

The party had to decide whether to use Alexander's spell immediately in order to rest and recover spells or to continue on. Tarric was curious about the sword that Allustan had mentioned seeing in the statue's hand. Although the entire party had walked by it, none of them had noticed that it was accessible. Killick suggested that the party recover the sword first before resting. The rest of the party agreed. Allustan lobbied to take some time to investigate the frescoes, the chandeliers, and other details of the tomb, but the rest of the party insisted that that should wait.

The party walked back to the hallway where the statue stood holding the greatsword. They were careful once again to avoid the Word traps that they had encountered before. Alees looked carefully at the statue and concluded that there was indeed a trap on the sword in the form of a spell that would sound an alarm if it were removed. Alees admitted that she could not disarm a spell. The party concluded that the alarm would most likely alert protectors in rooms that the party had not yet explored. Willing to take the chance, Tarric climbed onto the statue, removed the sword, and jumped back down to the ground, ready for action. As he waved the enormous sword around him in one hand to test it out, he found that it was incredibly light and well-balanced - and from time to time a brief but intense gust of wind would keep the normally two-handed sword from falling out of his hand! Apparently, there was an ancient Wind Duke enchantment on the sword that kept the greatsword balanced, permitting one to wield this greatsword effectively in one hand instead of two.

As Tarric experimented with the new sword, the party heard a loud gong noise coming from a room at the far end of the hallway. Moments later the double doors opened, causing a wave of intense heat to travel down the hall, like opening the door of an oven. The creature opening the door was a large snake-like being that seemed to be composed of flowing lava with a humanoid face, holding a longspear in one hand. Upon seeing the party at the other end of the hall, a broad smile crept across its face, and in stilted (sometimes archaic) language, it said, "Interlopers! Adventurers! What fun! It has been so very long since I have had an opportunity for conversation. Of course, the conversation will have to be short, because I am compelled by duty to kill you. But that's no reason for us not to become better acquainted! Allow me to introduce my bodyguard, Snoughed." At this point the snake-like creature stepped aside to allow a huge being composed entirely of flame to squeeze into the hallway. From behind the gigantic mass of living flame, the noble continued in a concerned tone, "I hope you have some skill in combat, otherwise we may not even have time to complete the introductions, let alone engage in any satisfying conversation!"

The huge fire elemental moved forward laboriously (activating, but ignoring, a previously undiscovered Word trap) and clocked Tarric with one of its flaming fists. The proximity of the flames from the creature's gigantic fist caused some of Tarric's clothing to smolder and catch fire. Alees drew her crossbow at the creature and fired at it. Because the huge creature was squeezed into the entire width and breadth of the hallway, it was a difficult target to miss. Allustan stepped forward and fired a volley of magic missiles from a wand he had borrowed from Thorash, damaging the flaming behemoth. Killick attempted to tumble into the cross-hallway in order to attack the creature from another direction and help set Tarric up for a flanking attack. However, he was astonished to discover that the gigantic creature had extraordinarily quick reflexes. It was able to swing its fist at Killick 5 times before he reached his destination, landing 4 blows and catching his clothing on fire in the process. Seeing what had happened to Killick, Katawan chose to use his Spring Attack maneuver to avoid the creature's exceptional reflexes. However, he found that his punches did not land in any satisfying way on living flame. Consequently, Katawan did less damage to the creature than he would have done to a more tangible opponent. Thorash cast a spell causing a column of flame to engulf the creature, which surprisingly seemed to harm the creature.

From behind, the party heard the snake-like lava creature order its bodyguard to get out of the way. It facetiously asked, "How am I supposed to make proper introductions if I cannot see my new guests?" Obliging its master, the creature pursued Killick into the cross-hallway, leaving the intersection vacant. The burning snake-like creature cast a spell creating a wall of fire at the far end of the hall, blocking off some of the ranged attackers. Then it bowed and said, "My name is Antyress Redpike, Earl of Coalchester, keeper of Icosiel's Razor for more centuries than I care to count. Please, against whom do I have the pleasure of fulfilling my unfortunately deadly duties? I promise to record all of your names so that someday someone might find and mark your collective final resting place."

Killick introduced himself and asked Antyress when was the last time that he had seen another party of adventurers infiltrating the cairn. Antyress replied that it must have been nigh on a century. Killick asked if those adventurers had worn red leather with an 8-pointed star insignia. Antyress replied that that description did indeed fit his memory of the last force that had attempted to remove the sword. Killick asked for more information about the composition and abilities of the previous party, but Antyress bragged that they had not lived long enough to tell him much about themselves.

Thorash cast a spell on Tarric that would protect him from all bodily contact by summoned creatures. So Tarric confidently moved down the hallway toward Antyress, ignoring the threat posed by the bodyguard. However, the fire elemental took two swings at him as he walked by. One of those blows landed, causing Tarric further damage as well as lighting more of his clothing on fire. When Tarric and Thorash both gave incredulous looks at one another, Antyress explained, "Oh, you thought that I *summoned* my good friend, Snoughed! No, no, he is simply my loyal bodyguard. Quite an easy mistake to make, though." Tarric continued moving forward, and sliced into Antyress's hide, causing his blade to glow red-hot where it had made contact with his body. Tarric stood in the entrance of a long room whose floor was covered with burning hot coals. On the opposite wall was a set of copper double doors. Near those doors sat a chest made of black stone. Tarric felt his armor starting to become uncomfortably warm in this room.

Allustan, who was caught on the wrong side of the wall of fire stepped to one side and cast a spell protecting him from the flame's effects. Alees was also caught on the wrong side of the wall. But with no spells available to protect her, she simply bore down and stepped through, grunting aloud in pain. She stopped immediately after passing through the wall and fired another force bolt at the elemental, striking it. The elemental, seeing that its master was threatened by a fighter, called out asking Antyress if he would like some assistance. Antyress replied that he would indeed. The elemental stepped back into the corridor, blocking the party's view of the far room, and smacked Tarric again. Katawan moved through the wall of fire as well. Although he did not cry out, his fleshed sizzled as he passed through it. After enduring the pain, he shot his body forward to strike the creature with his fists, bouncing back afterwards to end up next to Killick. He asked the druid if he could be of any assistance. Killick replied that he would take care of it and then cast a healing spell on himself. He also called out, ordering Grimlock to heel, but the dog, who was caught on the far side of the wall of fire, hesitated to move.

From behind the huge elemental, the party heard Antyress huffing and puffing as it attacked Tarric, saying, "I see that you carry an emblem proudly on your shield... but I am ashamed to admit that I am unfamiliar with its meaning... having been stuck down here in this tomb for the past few centuries. ... Please favor me with some tales about yourself and your organization. ... Please hurry, though; you don't have long to live." Indeed, Tarric had been stabbed 3 times by the creature's longspear. With the elemental standing directly behind him, Tarric could see what was about to happen. He knew that Antyress was probably right. He did not have much longer to act. So, rather than waste his breath on pointless introductions, he turned his attention to the elemental in hopes of weakening it enough to help his partymates get to him. He swang his sword at it multiple times, but only landed a couple glancing blows. Soon thereafter, the elemental bodyguard pounded Tarric with one of its fists, knocking him unconscious. Then, without missing a beat, it quickly swiveled around and landed a second blow on Alees.

Killick moved forward into a position where he could see Tarric's unconscious body lying on the ground behind the huge fire creature and cast a spell that doused his friend with water, quenching the flames that had been consuming his clothing. Allustan stepped through the wall of fire, causing barely a wisp of smoke, and fired another volley of magic missiles at the fiery bodyguard. Seeing the wizard step through the fire with no apparent damage finally gave Grimlock the courage to advance through the fire in order to find his master. However, when he ran through the wall of fire, he gave out a yelp of pain. While Katawan continued to spring attack the huge elemental and Alees continued to shoot it, Thorash shot a beam of energy from his fingertip at the creature. When this beam struck it, it gave out a roar and then finally collapsed to the ground and dispersed, leaving harmlessly dwindling bits of flame strewn about the hallway floor.

With the huge elemental gone, Thorash, Katawan, and Killick moved up to Tarric's side and looked into the burning room, but Antyress was nowhere to be seen. Then, from out of nowhere, a new fire elemental appeared in the doorway that was just as large and potent-looking as its predecessor. From somewhere behind the new creature, Antyress called out in a more angry tone of voice, "You've proven yourselves to be worthy adversaries. But now that you've killed Snoughed, my bodyguard and sole companion for all these many centuries, you'll forgive me if I admit that this fight has just become a bit more personal for me. I'm afraid that the kid gloves have to come off now. But, as you die, I want you to know that I hold you in the highest regard nonetheless."

With the appearance of this new huge fire elemental, the group unanimously called for a retreat. Killick dragged Tarric's body back as far as he could, away from the new threat. Thorash moved back to cast a healing spell on the party's fighter to get him mobile. Katawan stood in the doorway, giving his comrades time to pull back towards the portal. He stepped up to the creature, deliving a flurry of blows. It traded blows with the monk, catching his robes alight. Alees collected her weapons (some of which she had previously had to drop) and tried to jump over the gas trap into the room beyond. Unfortunately, though, she stumbled at the last moment and activated the trap anyway, causing the jets of poison gas to shoot out of the floor. Allustan fired his wand at the new elemental and moved toward the door, but he found it blocked by the other party members and was unable to make as much progress as he had anticipated. Not wanting to be left too far behind, Katawan attacked the new fire creature once, and then sprang back toward the exit. The summoned elemental followed the monk, but found Allustan first and walloped him with a closed fist, causing the wizard to become noticeably weakened and disoriented. Tarric stood up and pulled him through the doorway, but the older man was unprepared and inhaled the poison gas, making it difficult for him to keep his balance.

As the elemental pursued the party into the barricade room, it inadvertently activated a previously undiscovered wind trap. But this had no effect on the huge creature other than to make it glow temporarily brighter. The elemental finally caught up to the party in the loud and windy room. It successfully knocked Alees unconscious, but Tarric grabbed her and pulled her toward the portal. All of the party members slipped through just before the rampaging elemental caught up to them. Although it had been a narrow thing, all of the party members had made it back to the Whispering Cairn with their lives.

The party chose to walk back to Diamond Lake. They arrived in town just before dawn.

13th of Harvester. The party rested, healed, and identified the two magic items they had been able to liberate from the tomb, the sword that Antyress had called Icosiel's Razor and the bracers that the shadow spider had been wearing. It turned out that the spider's bracers had very powerful protective magic on them. While Killick was tempted to lay claim to them, he realized that Alexander needed them more than he did. The sword had many distinctive markings. Besides being a wind-balanced magical weapon made of mithril, it turned out that Icosiel's Razor was also exceptionally sharp (as its name implied). Allustan recalled from his previous research into the Wind Dukes and the Battle of Pesh that Icosiel's bodyguard had wielded such a weapon.

14th of Harvester. The party continued healing. Alexander returned, meeting up with the party near dinner time. He handed Alees her minimally enchanted chain shirt armor and Killick his minimally enchanted cloak of resistance (which Venelle had fashioned from Ilthane's hide). Both party members were grateful to receive their protective items back. The party gave the shadow spider's powerful Bracers of Armor to Alexander. In gratitude, he offered to teleport back to Greyhawk to sell his old set of bracers as well as Icosiel's Razor. Killick reminded Alexander not to reveal the existence of Icosiel's Cairn to anyone in Greyhawk who may want to compete for its riches. Killick suggested that Alexander attempt to sell the unique wind-balanced sword to the church of St. Cuthbert, or one of its paladins. The party hoped that they might get better than usual value for it. Since none of them had ever heard of a weapon with the wind-balancing property before, they anticipated that buyers might be willing to pay more for such a one-of-a-kind item. Alexander said he would meet the party in the Whispering Cairn after he had completed the sales on the following day, and then he teleported away again.

15th of Harvester. The party returned to the Whispering Cairn and cast multiple preparatory spells with the expectation of facing Antyress and his minions once again. As soon as they entered Icosiel's Cairn via the portal, they spotted Antyress waiting for them at the far end of the adjoining barricade room. He slithered into the hallway, purposely causing the jets of poison gas to erupt, and the party lost sight of him. Katawan, explaining that he was immune to poison, ran through the doorway heedless of the poison gas. He discovered that Antyress was standing just beyond the poison gas but was invisible. He slithered away from Katawan, towards the hot-coals room. Tarric and Katawan moved into the room, both hearing Antyress in the process of casting a spell. As Killick moved forward in hot pursuit, Grimlock carelessly stepped on the same Word trap that he had activated the first time and was paralyzed once again. Seeing that his faithful hound was in no immediate danger, Killick continued following Antyress into the hot-coal room. Tarric pointed Killick of Antyress's general direction, and Killick cast a spell that caused glowing spoors to explode in a small radius. Some of these spoors stuck to Antyress's invisible form, outlining him.

Now that Antyress was visible again, the party moved to attack. Katawan struck him 3 times, causing him to lose the spell that he had been in the process of casting. Killick suggested to Antyress that he put his weapon down and surrender, but the proud creature replied that he was unable to do so. Instead, he struck Katawan angrily, stabbing him with his longspear and wrapping him up within the coils of his searing hot tail. Eventually, Katawan broke out of Antyress's grip. Meanwhile, Antyress took damage from Allustan's wand of magic missiles, from Alees's dagger, and from Killick's petrified quarterstaff. Things looked bleak for the creature that Allustan had previously identified as a noble salamander. Then Thorash cast a spell that caused Antyress to return to his plane of origin. Antyress's eyes widened with surprise when he saw what Thorash was casting. As the magical energy washed over him, he made no attempt to resist its effect. As his form was pulled away to some fiery place, he gave a quick salute to Thorash, saying, "I owe you one, friend." Then he was gone.

With the threat over, Alees moved quickly to the double doors at the far side of the room and discovered that they were false - the did not open and led nowhere. Then she turned her attention to the black stone chest. She had it unlocked in short order and revealed its contents to the party. After some quick stacking and counting, the tally was 2300 gold pieces, 300 platinum pieces, 2 honey topazes, and 4 crystal decanters of some kind of alcohol. After Alees had certified that the room contained no secret doors, the party moved out to investigate the frescoes and take a closer look at the chandeliers. The chandeliers depicted miniature scenes of demonic forces surrendering to the Wind Dukes. The craftsmanship of these miniature scenes was so astonishing that Alees was willing to bet people would pay a pretty penny for them (even if they didn't know what the scenes were about). The fresco on the wall beneath the chandeliers depicted a creature reaching for a large block with a handle - a seal. This seal was almost certainly the same object that had been represented in the scene depicted by the gas trap. Allustan said that the creature was known as an inevitable - a creature of pure law from Mechanus, the plane of law. In the fresco, there were words written in strange symbols spilling from the creature's mouth. Allustan said that these words were written in Vaati, the language of the Wind Dukes. Although he was certainly not fluent, his research of the Wind Dukes allowed him to read these words. He said that they were "Aqaa", "Icosiel", and "Pesh". He suspected that they were the seal's command words, but he could not tell from the fresco what the seal's magical abilities might be.

Since the party had exhausted a good number of spells preparing for their short battle with Antyress, they decided to return to the Whispering Cairn and await Alexander's return rather than pressing on further into the cairn. Alexander returned in the afternoon carrying a large sack of coins, amounting to 22,000 gold pieces. He reminded the party that they had promised to meet Learah at the Rainbow Mage's tower the following day. There was no telling how she would react when she learned that Alexander had given away three items that the party had promised to return to her after researching them (the Pyramid, the Ruby, and the Rainbow Mage's encrypted journal). The party had to decide how best to proceed.

 

[Menexenus]

Session 41: Facing the Music

16th of Harvester. Alexander thought it made sense for him to return to face Learah alone, in case she decided to have him imprisoned, but the rest of the party insisted that they should accompany him just in case. Before they left, though, Thorash cast a spell allowing him to commune with his deity that revealed the following information:

• The enemy party that had been competing for the White Eye was now dead.

• The Cult of Kyuss/Ebon Triad was in possession of the Pyramid and Ruby, but those items were not at the Rift Canyon.

• The Cult/Triad would certainly recruit others to continue trying to obtain the White Eye.

• The Cult/Triad knows that the party is in possession of an Amulet of the Dark Sun.

• It was unlikely that the party would be attacked directly by the Cult/Triad before finishing their exploration of Icosiol's Cairn.

• Learah is not in league with the Cult/Triad.

• At least one piece of the Rod of Seven Parts was in Icosiel's Cairn.

After considering the implications of these new revelations, Alexander cast spells that reduced Thorash and Alees and Killick did the same to his pet Grimlock, all of whom were placed in Bags of Holding for the brief journey by teleportation. (They were all quickly released from their airless pocket dimensions upon arrival at the Rainbow Mage's tower.)

Learah was already there waiting for them. She was pleased to see them. She welcomed them and praised them for keeping their word. Alexander regretfully informed her that he had lost the items that he had promised to return. He explained that he had discovered that the items were instruments of tremendous evil, and he wanted to safeguard them. However, he confessed that in his attempt to do so, he had unwittingly handed them over to the very agents of evil that he had been trying to keep them from. He apologized for his actions and promised to yield to whatever applicable criminal proceedings she wished to initiate. As a token of his regret, and by way of partial recompense for her family's potential financial losses, he returned the Boccob's Blessed Book that he had chosen as his payment from the Rainbow Mage's personal belongings.

She was clearly very upset by this news, but she maintained her composure. In the end she admitted that she had no legal standing to initiate charges of theft or fraud against the party, as she was no longer the legal owner of the items that had been lost. They had reverted to their prior owner, the Rainbow Mage, Londar Brightrain, Learah's father. She explained that a few days after she returned to her husband's keep with her father's corpse, a small caravan from the Church of Pelor arrived. The priests claimed that her father had done their church an important service about a decade previously, and they wished to repay the debt they owed him by using their church's resources to return him from the dead. Learah and her husband agreed, and the priests took her father's body north to Leukish, the capital of the Duchy of Urnst. She believed that they must have reached Leukish by now. So, for all she knew, her father was currently living again and on his way back to his tower right now. She said she would leave the matter of the theft of his belongings for him to take care of. She wished to have no further dealings with the party and asked them not to return to her father's house. The party happily consented to that request.

With their business concluded, the party reduced 3 of its members again and teleported back to Eligos's house in Greyhawk. Alexander discussed matters with Eligos and reported to the party that Eligos was willing to help the party craft magic items, out of gratitude for defeating his doppelganger and raising him from the dead. However, he recommended leaving only one magic item with him at a time, since the Cult of Kyuss/Ebon Triad almost certainly knew who and where he was. He was basically a sitting duck who could be attacked at any time of the enemy's choosing. The party decided to have him start repairing their Wand of Cure Serious Wounds (which Ilthane had sundered). Alexander also reported that Eligos recommended that the party continue searching Icosiel's Cairn for weapons that could be used in the fight against Kyuss. Even a piece of the Rod of Seven Parts might contain powerful residual magical energy.

The remainder of the day was occupied by commerce. The party sold off some items, divvied up the gold, and scattered to make individual purchases at various shops around town.

17th of Harvester. Some shrunken members of the party dutifully filed into their Bags of Holding for a return trip to Diamond Lake by teleportation. Allustan was found in town evaluating the damage to his home. As a favor, he asked the party to show him any items of historical value before taking them away and selling them. And if there were any items that were of no monetary value, he would be happy to preserve them as historical artifacts.

After quickly checking in with Allustain, the party traveled to the Whispering Cairn and entered the portal. Upon arriving in Icosiol's Cairn, the party decided to clear out some of the regions of the tomb that they had previously passed by. First, they opened a set of double doors behind a gas trap in the barricade room. This opened into a small room with double doors on each wall. Two of these double doors turned out to be false, but one opened into a long room with two rows of pillars and another set of double doors on the far wall. Alees carefully checked the room and found that the pillars were trapped. Katawan ran from one end of the room to the other, in an attempt to set off any pressure plates, but his round trip had no visible effects. Alees walked to the far side of the room and examined the double doors on the far wall. She determined that they were most likely the trigger of the trap. Furthermore, she determined that they were also false doors. She checked around for secret doors, but finding none, the party decided to leave the room alone.

Next, the party investigated a set of double doors on the gallery level of the room that had contained the Elder Black Pudding. Behind the doors was a small room garden scenes painted on the walls containing only a large urn on a pedastal and six small black boxes on the floor against the far wall. Alees determined that the urn was trapped. So, she set to work opening the small black boxes. While many of their boxes' contents had disintegrated with age, some potential valuable items that were recovered were a wand, some small decorative gems, and a platinum necklace, ring, and earring set. Unable to resist the urn, Alees worked on disarming the trap and was successful. She opened the urn and found only ashes. She stirred the ashes around just to make sure that nothing was hidden inside. Thorash expressed the view that, since this room was clearly someone's final resting place, the items that Alees had taken should be returned. Alees scoffed at Thorash's opinion.

Next the party opened a set of previously unopened doors exiting from the hall that where the party had encountered the spider. They found a collapsing stone bridge traversing a river of blood, leading to a gatehouse with corroded iron double doors covered in strange glyphs. Thorash determined with his dwarven stonecunning that the bridge could carry the weight of one person at a time, but that person would have to walk carefully. Katawan went across first with a rope tied to his waist. When he got across, a strange being with 3 arms and 3 legs emerged from the ground, baring its claws as well as its fangs - which were located on top of its head! Killick sprouted wings and flew across to Katawan's side. He told the xorn (which he recognized from his summoning list) that the party did not wish to fight it. It replied that it was hungry and that it could smell their 'shinies'. This was Alexander's cue to pump 5 maximized magic missiles into it. Following Alexander's lead, Tarric drew his bow and fired at the creature, but he accidentally grazed Alees instead.

At this point, 5 additional xorns emerged from the ground all around the chamber. Thorash cast a spell that produced a column of flame. Although the fire did not affect them, they took damage from the spell nonetheless. Killick cast the same spell and saw the same effect. Alees attempted to join her comrades on the far side of the bridge, but she slipped while going across. Luckily, she grasped the rope tied to Katawan's waist at just the last moment, pulling him unexpectedly backward. Tarric stowed his bow and jumped down from the bridge to the riverbank just a few feet below, but he was unable to keep his footing and fell to the ground. The xorn on his side of the river moved to attack him. Grimlock took bites at it from up on the bridge. Killick was briefly surrounded, but he used his petrified quarterstaff to good effect. Katawan flurried with his fists to good effect as well. Alees was able to get in a sneak attack against one of them. Alexander made excellent use of his boom stick. Tarric noticed that his sword was not having full effect against the creatures' rocky hides, but he did significant damage to his opponent nonetheless. Eventually, after 3 of the creatures had been killed outright, the remaining xorns (who were severely wounded) decided to look for safer feeding grounds elsewhere.

To Killick's dismay, Alees cut open the bellies of the 3 dead xorns looking for gems. She found only remnants of worthless base metals. While Alees was taking care of her grisly business, Killick examined the rushing river of blood. He found that the liquid was not blood but merely water colored by fine metallic sediment that had a reddish tint. The party moved up to the rusted iron double doors and was unable to decipher the meaning of the corroded markings on the door. So Killick touched the doors with his gauntlet, causing them to rust through, creating a 6 foot diameter circle. However, just behind the first set of double doors was another identical set. Alexander drew his Chime of Opening and activated it. The second set of doors opened to reveal a third set of double doors just behind the second set. Alexander used his chimes again, and the third set of doors opened to reveal a fourth set. Alexander used his chimes again, but this time the fourth set of doors didn't budge. Alees moved forward carefully to investigate. She found that the fourth set of doors were false. She checked all around the area looking for secret doors, but she found none. Killick cast a spell that allowed him to shape the stone of the bridge and make it slightly more stable. The party then carefully left this area empty handed.

The party now moved to the last unexamined door in the complex. It was directly across from the door that had led to the bridge. This was merely a single door that opened easily. Inside was a small room containing a dusty set of armor, a dusty altar, and a door painted on the wall. Alexander cast Detect Magic and noticed that the armor was magical, but the altar was not, nor was the door on the wall. Alees entered the room, carefully checking the floor for traps. When she did, a ghost flew out at her from the wall yelling at her in some forgotten tongue that no one in the party understood. Katawan tumbled into the room behind it. It turned to face him. As its incorporeal arm passed through him, he felt his lifeforce leaving him. Katawan quickly realized that this opponent was better dealt with via spring attacks. Seeing the gaunt look on Katawan's face, Alees quickly tumbled away from it and drew her crossbow. Alexander drew his wand of maximized magic missiles and pumped bolts of force into the creature. Tarric moved up to protect the wizard, but his sword passed right through the undead creature. Realizing that Alexander's magic missiles were the greatest threat, the ghostly figure passed through the wall and waved its arm through Alexander's body, causing his face to go white. Thorash presented his holy symbol and tried to force the creature back, but it merely hissed at him in defiance. Alees shot at the creature but missed. Katawan spring attacked the undead, but his attacks passed through it harmlessly. Killick activated the Rainbow Ring for the first time, and a quarterstaff of multicolored energy appeared in his hand. Alexander stepped back and fired with his wand yet again. But the creature was not felled. It advanced on the wizard and passed its arm through him once more, knocking him unconscious. Thorash moved over his unconscious comrade in arms but cast a spell on himself protecting him from the baleful effects of the undead creature's touch. Alees moved behind Thorash and cast a healing spell on Alexander. With the wizard down, the undead turned its attention to the fighter, whose blade had occasionally done some damage. Tarric also blanched visibly after the creature passed its arm through him. Seeing that Alexander was OK, Thorash decided to cast a more offensive spell. A beam of searing light emerged from his pointed finger and connected with the undead creature. It seemed to be especially vulnerable to this spell. It cried out as it was snuffed from existence.

With the threat gone, Alees did a careful exploration of the small room. She found that there was a rectangular spot on the altar where the was significantly less dust than everywhere else. Presumably something had been resting there that had recently been removed.

At this point, the party was not aware of any more doors left to be explored in the cairn. So where was the fragment of the Rod?

 

[Menexenus]

Sessions 42 & 43: Exploring Icosiol's Cairn

17th of Harvester. The party used its Wand of Restoration to heal the ability damage that many in the party had sustained from the Dread Wraith. Then Alees spent a few hours taking a close look at all of the walls in the cairn, looking for secret doors. When none were found, the party had no other choice but to begin exploring the tunnels that had been submerged when Alees set off the trap. Luckily, many members of the party had selected spells with just such an exploration in mind. Thorash and Killick worked together to cast Water Breathing and Freedom of Movement on the whole party. They then climbed down the iron rungs toward the two passages that Alees had briefly observed before the river had come rushing in.

First the party explored the passage leading upstream (northeast). The party moved forward at a snail's pace as Alees took the lead and did her best to look for traps in murky water. None were found. However, when the passage led out to the larger river channel, Alees found the mechanism that had allowed the water to flood the tunnel in the first place. After a couple minutes of work, she was able to repair the mechanism, allowing a large metal door to slide back into place, blocking off the flow of water. Now that the water source had been closed off, the water within the tunnel flowed out in a matter of minutes and the party was once again standing in breathable air. They returned to the iron rungs and then followed the eastern passage. This led out to a yawning chasm of natural rock, about 25 or 30 feet in diameter, into which fell the rushing red river. The waterfall was quite noisy. Many members of the party spotted an apparently man-made ledge on the far side of the waterfall. After considering how they could safely cross the chasm, Alees produced a potion of Fly and gave it to Tarric to drink. The then flew the party members across one at a time. Once across, the party members saw that there was a short stairway leading up to a room lined with statues. The party could feel the temperature drop as they approached the stairs, and they could see that the floor of the room on the other side of the stairs was covered in red ice.

Tarric decided to do some quick reconnaissance before the duration of the Fly spell ran out. He flew up as far as he could until the space tightened and the passages became to small for him to navigate. Then he flew down into the waterfall. After zigzagging a bit, bouncing of rock formations, the waterfall collected in a pool about 30 feet below the ledge where the rest of the party was standing. Tarric could see that the water continued pouring down into the chasm from the edge of the pool. As he was flying down to get a closer look, he heard the twang of 6 separate crossbows and felt the bolts rush by him from out of the darkness. Tarric decided to fly immediately back up to the rest of the party rather than try to face his ambushers alone. They did not pursue him and he escaped without suffering much harm.

Since there was no pursuit, the party decided to continue exploring the cold room up the stairs. They walked up the stairs and found a room lined by 6 statues. All of the statues had their hands outstretched, and 5 of the 6 had little models of tall buildings the likes of which the party had never seen floating just above their outstretched hands. There was one door on the wall. Alees investigated the statues and noticed that there was a lever behind the statue without a building model. When she alerted the party to its existence, the statue in front of it turned, grasped the lever and yanked down on it, causing an iron portcullis to fall from the ceiling in both of the archways leading in and out. This left half of the party inside the room and half on the outside. The statue-being said something to the party but it was in a language that they did not understand. A fight commenced during which the being simply touched the party members and drew their life-forces out. The statue-being seemed to be largely mechanical in nature, and when he drew out the party members' life force with his touch, this seemed to have the effect of repairing its mechanisms. Alees had the presence of mind to flip the lever back to the open position, allowing the portcullis to slowly retract back into the ceiling. Killick shouted back at the statue the phrase he had heard the Dread Wraith use a few hours earlier. However, these words merely puzzled the creature and it replied using words that the party still did not understand. Before the mechanical being could be surrounded by party members, Thorash cast a Flame Strike on the creature, causing the icy floor to melt in the location where the column of flame erupted. Tarric, Killick, and Katawan led the melee portion of the battle, and eventually the creature fell.

With the threat over, the party opened the door on the wall near where the false statue had been standing. They were disappointed to discover a completely bare small room. Alees went inside to look for secret doors but found none. So the party turned its attention to the adjoining hallway. Its floor was also covered in red ice. Two enormous ice statues with white arcane runes on them stood vigil over this long empty hall. When Katawan crossed the threshold into this hallway, the statues came alive and attacked the party. They shot icy shards from their hands at those who were close by. The ice in their eyes caused one or two party members to become temporarily blinded. Alexander and Katawan rained fireballs on these ice creatures, exposing a large hole in the floor. Thorash's Magic Missiles (from a wand) were ineffective. Eventually, Thorash and Alexander simultaneously realized that no magic except fire-based spells could effect these large constructs. Tarric found that his bastard sword slid right off the creatures, like an ice skate. So most of the damage was left to Killick and Katawan, who eventually did fell the creatures along with their comrades.

With all of their Water Breathing and Freedom of Action spells still in operation, the party decided to jump down into the hole exposed by the fireballs into a calm area of the red river that they had encountered elsewhere. Thorash and Killick led the way as the party explored the underwater environment. Before the party had gone far, Thorash and Killick were struck by pseudopods. The damage was minimal, but Thorash noticed that his own blood was leaving his body where he had been struck and traveling in ribbons to join the pseudopod. This blood loss weakened the party members while strengthening the blob-like creature. After some observation, Thorash determined that there were two of these creatures and they were not only ooze-like, they were also undead. As much of the party retreated back up the rope which Katawan had tied off ahead of time, Thorash moved into a position where he could present his holy symbol. He did so, but his words were garbled by water and they undead oozes seemed to be unaffected. When Tarric and Thorash saw the two oozes splitting off to form new oozes, they joined the retreat. The party climbed back up to the hallway in the hopes that the oozes would not follow, but they did follow.

The party was particularly low on spells and resources. And since there was a waterfall behind them, the party was forced to make a stand. They concentrated their attacks on the first one to emerge through the hole in the floor killing it rather quickly. Thorash once again brandished his holy symbol, causing one of the creatures to flee. The party slowly retreated in the face of the other two newly created oozes. However, after the party threw everything it had left at them (like Alexander's Shocking Grasp spell), they were indeed destroyed. About 2 minutes later, the one that Thorash had chased off returned. But with all 6 party members attacking that one target, it did not last very long.

With the threat over, the party decided to check out the door at the far end of the hallway. Behind the door, they found a swirling whirlpool of snow, sleet, and ice approximately 15 feet across. Because Killick had previously cast a spell protecting him from cold, he jumped in and stirred around with his quarterstaff, looking for treasure. None was found, however, when Killick emerged from the whirlpool, Tarric noticed that Killick seemed more commanding, handsome, and inspiring than he had been before.

It looked like the party would have to venture down the waterfall to find Icosiel's final resting place. But the party would be doing nothing else today. They were completely tapped out. So they withdrew carefully back through the cairn to the safety of the Whispering Cairn in order to make camp.

18th of Harvester. The party had decided to make camp in Icosiol's Cairn, in case whoever had stolen the Seal returned. The night was uneventful and the party returned to exploration after all the spellcasters had a chance to rest, pray, and rememorize. Once the party returned to the top of the waterfall, they had a prolonged discussion about how best to proceed. Thorash mentioned that he could cast a spell on most of the party that would allow them to turn into a vapor and float down to the bottom of the shaft. Thorash cast the spell and then drifted down 30 feet to the large basin where the red water was pooling. He was attacked by crossbow wielding Wind Warriors, like the ones the party had faced guarding Zosiel's sarcophagus. The crossbow bolts passed harmlessly through him. Thorash ignored the attackers and surveyed the location, looking for likely secret doors or entrances to additional rooms. However, he found nothing of the sort. By this time, the Wind Warriors had put away their crossbows and drawn their swords. Although most of the warriors tried cleaving into Thorash with their swords, one of them clanged his two longswords together, producing a sonic effect which damaged Thorash. Seeing that their sword-strokes did no damage, all 6 Wind Warriors began attacking Thorash with their sonic attacks. Thorash retreated back to the top of the waterfall. When there was no pursuit, Thorash made himself solid again.

He described all that he had witnessed to the rest of the party and then cast a spell protecting him from sonic energy. Killick did the same. Again, there was more discussion about how best to proceed. Some thought it would be best for Thorash to lead the Warriors away to give Alees time to check more carefully for secret doors. However, the party could not reach consensus. Finally, in frustration, Alexander simply flew down to face the Warriors, casting a fireball on them. Killick sprouted wings and joined his childhood friend. The rest of the party, though, was forced to move slowly down to the combat in vapor form and then begin the slow process of resolidification. During that process, Alexander was surrounded by the floating suits of ceramic full plate armor. He moved away from his attackers, taking some damage in the process, and then cast Shout on them, causing their armor to crack a bit. Killick landed on the lip of the basin and fought the Warriors that would face him in melee. Soon thereafter, the other members of the party appeared in vapor form and took up the remaining positions on the lip of the basin. All except Thorash, that is, who moved out beyond the lip of the basin to peer down into the shaft. He could not see the bottom. The wind warriors attacked Killick with physical attacks and the gaseous party members with sonic attacks. Alexander withdrew to the top of the waterfall to use his Wand of False Life. Two of the six Wind Warriors moved to attack Thorash, who chose to continue downward until he could see the bottom.

Soon the rest of the party was solid again and began attacking the Warriors in earnest. The Warrior on Tarric and Katawan's side of the battle was quickly felled. Katawan waded into the basin to get to the fight on the opposite side. He discovered that the water was only about neck deep at its highest point. Tarric then followed him across. Meanwhile, Alees was exploring some of her new feats on the opposite side. She was now able to get attacks of opportunity when others hit a target that she flanked. She was also able to get extra attacks when an opponent was successfully feinted or otherwise caught flat-footed. However, when the remaining Wind Warriors discovered that they could not strike Killick, they turned their attention to Alees. Alexander swooped down and put one of them inside a Wall of Fire to help protect her. Soon after this, however, the two remaining Wind Warriors withdrew from this battle to join their brethren who were pursuing Thorash down the shaft.

When it became clear that the Wind Warriors were relentlessly using their sonic attacks on Thorash and that he was not coming back up, Killick flew down after him. The rest of the party reluctantly made themselves gaseous again, and slowly began heading down. Since that was the way that the rest of the party seemed to be heading, Alexander decided to accompany them as well. Since Alexander was flying via the Fly spell and was not gaseous, he caught up to the combat relatively quickly and found Killick in mid-air combat with 2 of the Warriors. Many quarterstaff blows and Magic Missile castings later, only 2 of the original 6 Wind Warriors remained.

They broke off pursuit once Thorash found the bottom of the shaft. The waterfall was finally hitting bottom. It pooled up on one side of a large cavern and then began channeling swiftly downhill towards the far end of the cavern. With the Wind Warriors breaking off, the rest of the party quickly caught up and resolidified, grateful to be standing on solid ground again. While they talked about how best to proceed, some of the party members noticed a sickly green light reflecting off some of the rocks on the far side of the cavern. Shortly thereafter a gaunt man with a goatee and a greatsword strapped to his back approached the party holding a lantern aloft - a lantern that emitted a sickly green light. This stranger hailed the party and welcomed them cordially. He introduced himself as Moreto, Marquis of Ravenstone. He described himself as an explorer from a nation known as the White Kingdom which existed far below in the Underdark. He said that he had been trying for months now to discover a way to the surface. He explained that he wished to open up trade routes to the surface in hopes of eventually finding allies for his nation's war against the dark elves. He told the party that he had been trying for months to find a way up the waterfall, but his progress had been stymied by the Wind Warriors. He wondered if the party could help him.

During his introduction, Thorash interrupted him more than once to ask about the bodies that he had left behind him. Each time, Moreto looked puzzled at him and then continued on, essentially ignoring him. Finally, Thorash announced to the party that Moreto was an undead creature and that there were two other undead standing somewhere behind him, out of sight. With a sigh, Moreto acknowledged that he was indeed undead and that he did indeed have two bodyguards following him. He explained that he had been informed of the surface dwellers' prejudice against his kind, so he had chosen to address the party without his companions, given that their appearance was a bit more disturbing than his own. He insisted that surely beings of reason could come to an amicable arrangement regardless of their prejudices. He said that he was willing to pay for the information he sought. He said that in one of his attempts to bypass the Wind Warriors, he had teleported blindly into a room containing an altar with a large seal sitting on it. Since it glowed with powerful magic, he had taken the object. But as soon as he had done so, he had been attacked by a giant spider and forced to teleport back down here to his campsite. Since he had no idea what the object was, he would be willing to part with it in exchange for information about how to reach the surface safely. The party asked for time to confer, and Moreto walked back around a corner to give them some privacy.

Soon thereafter, the party called for him to return. Alexander, speaking on behalf of the party, informed Moreto that they had decided that they could not reveal the way to the surface for political reasons. However, they were interested in bartering for the magical Seal. Although Moreto was disappointed, he thought for a moment and said that if the party would bring him the head of the spider, he would gladly give them the Seal. The party asked to confer again, and again he gave them their privacy. Even though the party had already slain the spider, they were concerned that Moreto might somehow link up with the Cult of Kyuss on the surface and somehow make it stronger. So they did not wish to let him know that it was already dead.

At long last, they called Moreto back once more. Alexander, speaking for the whole party, regretfully informed him that they could not make any deal with him. Furthermore, he would be required to surrender the Seal to them or face destruction. Moreto began casting a protective spell and the battle was on! Moreto created a globe of protective energy around himself and called his servants forward. However, Thorash quickly dispelled Moreto's protective bubble, effectively negating his action. Meanwhile, the party's melee combatants moved forward, striking him and flanking him. Killick summoned a dire wolf and Killick's wardog Grimlock successfully tripped him. Finding himself prone and surrounded, Moreto drew a wand from his belt and activated it, causing him to disappear. With Moreto gone, the party focused its attacks on the two Mohrgs which had appeared from behind the corner. They focused on one and quickly destroyed it with (among other things) Magic Missiles and a Searing Light. The second one grabbed Alees and paralyzed her with its purple worm tongue. At this point, Moreto appeared from around the corner, apologized to its minion, and fired off a Lightning Bolt which struck all of the party except Alexander and Thorash who were too far back to be in the line of effect. Being paralyzed, Alees took the full brunt of the attack and fell to the ground with a dull thump. All of her exposed skin was charred and sizzling. Killick moved to her side and cast a curative spell on her immediately. Then he ordered Grimlock to drag her out of harm's way. However, such caution was unnecessary as the next blow from Katawan's fist felled the undead creature.

With the battle over, the party gathered around Alees to see if she would be OK. Unexpectedly, a ghostly figure resembling Moreto rose suddenly from the undead explorer's body. But recognizing that it was certainly outmatched, Moreto's new aspect flew directly into the nearest wall rather than face the party again.