Sessions 80 - 82: Completing the Four Tasks
3rd of Reaping. Since the Roc feather that Quethos had had in his possession had been incinerated by his suicidal Flame Strike, the party decided to head toward the mountaintop where they had seen the lightning strike once more. But this time, they decided to use one of Talon's Windwalk spells to get there without having to face any pesky land sharks or packlords. On the way there, they spotted a valley from the air which looked like it must be the Vale of Thorns. The valley floor was covered in dense, enormous thorn bushes. On top of that, the valley was crawling with land sharks. However, the flying party seemed to have no need to actually land on the valley floor, because at the far end of the valley, they noticed a gigantic cavern far above the valley floor which was belching smoke. Surely this was the lair of the Thorn Vale Nightmare whose death was one of the tasks given to them by the Watchers. The party decided to take a quick detour to investigate this mysterious cavern. When they got closer, they found that the white "smoke" that the party had seen from afar was really just water vapor, probably emanating from some geological feature. But they had a very unsettled feeling when they landed at the cave's entrance which confirmed their hunch that this might be the lair of some dread beast. Alees wished them luck as they entered the cavern. They found that the water vapor in the cavern was thicker than fog and made sight by any means virtually impossible. The party members could barely see their hands in front of their faces. Their inability to see clearly made them extraordinarily cautious. Alexander quickly tired of his companions' caution, bordering on indecision, and he flew forward headlong into the cavern by himself. He flew over one crevasse that was emitting steam and then over another, after which he was suddenly able to see clearly in the torchlight that he had invaded the lair of an enormous creature with no eyes and huge tusks. The monster didn't seem to appreciate the intrusion. It charged at Alexander, causing him a grievous wound. Alexander fell back toward his party members and breakneck speed, yelling out about what he had found. The party could feel the creature's footsteps as it approached. The party members fell back out of the cavern to the ledge where they could see more clearly and readied themselves for a fight. But unexpectedly, the footsteps stopped. The monster had apparently decided not to follow Alexander out of the cavern. As the party waited uneasily, they set up a perimeter around the cave's mouth. Killick called it a chokepoint. At just that moment, a cloud of yellow gas rolled out of the cavern - a Cloudkill spell. "Chokepoint" indeed! The party withstood the worst of that spell and then waited for the inevitable attack. Then another poisonous Cloudkill rolled out, followed by an Incendiary Cloud.
At this point, it was clear to the party that the beast had no need to come out on its own. So the party's melee fighters - Tarric, Killick, and Katawan - entered the cave once again to try to lure it out. It continued casting spells as long as it was approached by only one or two party members - Chain Lightning, Disintegrate, Heat Metal. But once it noticed the party members trying to surround it, it simply ran away, trampling over whomever might be in its way, causing serious damage. The party became very concerned. This was a beast that could not be targeted at range as long as it remained in the cave and who could easily avoid melee gang tactics by simply running over whomever might be in its way. However, the beast's trample ability was a double-edged sword, for while it could get away from multiple opponents in flanking positions, it was unable to focus attacks on a single target or prevent a single target from withdrawing to be healed up by the party's clerics. So, the party eventually won the battle of attrition, and the Thorn Vale Nightmare was slain. The party members intuited that one of their tasks had been successfully completed.
The party chose to continue on without rest to the summit of the mountain where they had seen the lightning flash in the hopes of completing a second task. When they reached the summit, they were disgusted to find the rotting corpse of an enormous bird partially submerged in a small lake of its own blood. Apparently, Quethos had attempted to burn the corpse so that no useful feathers would be left when the party arrived to collect one. However, Killick realized that a feather from a dead Roc would have been of use to neither party, since the Watchers had specified that the task was to return with a feather of the *living* Roc King. The party imposed on Alees, who provided a scroll of Raise Dead. Norvell cast it on the Roc and it returned to life. However, it returned to the world in the same state of mind that it had left the world with - namely one of fear and anger. Killick cast a spell enabling him to speak to the Roc and was able to use his affinity with nature to calm the creature and convince it of their harmless intent. They even displayed the disembodied Hand of Vecna in order to convince the creature that they had exacted vengeance upon its killers. Once calm, the enormous bird thanked the party for raising it from the dead and asked if there was something it could do for the party to repay the favor. The party members looked at each other with wide grins. They asked the Roc for two things: a single feather from its hide and some information about the rest of the island. The Roc gladly agreed to both requests. It plucked out one of its own feathers and gave it to the party and then consented to answer any questions that the party might have about the island and its denizens. From the Roc, the party learned that the Doomshrowd Forest was filled with giant Girallons and that at its heart was an enormously powerful tree that had tainted the surrounding trees for miles around. They also learned that Krathanos lived in a keep on the far side of the island. He seemed to be some sort of giant with the ability to hurl thunderbolts. The party thanked the Roc and made for Killick's treetop sanctuary in order to rest up.
4th of Reaping. Since the Doomshroud Forest was closer, they decided to deal with that task next. Once again, they had Talon cast Windwalk so that the entire party could avoid the Girallons on the ground and travel directly to the evil tree at the forest's heart. After a few hours of searching, the party felt confident that they had discovered the lonesome tree at the heart of the forest from which the evil that pervaded the rest of the forest seemed to spread. They landed a short distance away from the tree and carefully began their approach. From the ground, the forest was even more disturbing than it was from the air. It was an alien landscape whose black, monolithic trees seemed to shift unnaturally even when there was no wind. The canopy was able to block out so much of the light coming from the overcast sky above that the party experienced night-like conditions for the first time since arriving in the demiplane. The forest's drooping trees continuously wept a thick black ichor from which the party was careful to keep its distance. After a short time, the party reached the clearing dominated by a single evil tree which seemed to hover over the rest of the trees in the forest. As the party tried to decide its course of action, the tree struck first by casting a spell on Talon, knocking her instantly unconscious. The party leapt to action. Alexander reasoned that the tree would be vulnerable to fire, so he cast a quickened Fireball to test his hypothesis. When he saw that his hunch had been correct, he then followed up his first spell with a maximized Fireball. The tree creeked and groaned in ways that sounded eerily like shrieks of pain. The party was surprised to find that, not only was the tree vulnerable to fire, but it seemed to have no natural defense against spells. So they simply threw Flame Strikes and Fireballs on the thing until it was a burnt cinder. About 10 seconds after the fight had begun, it was suddenly over. The party huddled around Talon and was relieved to discover that she was fine. The tree's spell had appeared to be much more potent than it truly was. They investigated the base and the interior of the burnt tree, hoping to find some treasure, but they found none. Still, they were proud that they had accomplished the third Task with extraordinary ease.
Having some time remaining on their Windwalk spell and having most of their spell complement available, they decided to fly to the island's far coast and scout out Krathanos's keep. Once they emerged from the forest, the keep was clearly visible about a mile away. As they approached, they saw some winged creatures flying around. Eventually, those winged creatures flew out to meet the party. The party didn't know what to expect. They prepped for another fight, but the flying gargoyles made it clear that they wanted to talk, not fight. With pleasant words, the gargoyles invited the party to sit at their lord Krathanos's table tonight for dinner. The party was reluctant, but the gargoyles insisted that their master would take great offense if his invitation was refused. Suspecting the worst, the party decided to accept the invitation. The gargoyles were overjoyed. They led the party into the keep, which the party found was in a terrible state of disrepair. The keep's main entrance stood wide open without a door or a portcullis to keep enemies out. There was little left of the original keep other than the walls, and even these looked like they had been knocked down recently and had not yet been built back up enough to conceal Krathanos's head when he stood up. In the back corner of the keep were some shoddily-fashioned cages containing 9 or 10 normal-sized girallons.
Krathanos welcomed the party gleefully, saying that it had been a long time since he had had the opportunity to entertain civilized folk and learn about the outside world. The party wondered aloud that he hadn't been visited by Quethos's band. Krathanos admitted that he had recently been approached by a minotaur, but he had smashed him because he didn't like its manners. This flippant mention of killing a visitor on a whim sent chills up the party members' spines. They made sure they were on their best behavior. They asked how Krathanos had ended up on the island. Krathanos accused a group of druids of imprisoning him here. This topic seemed to anger Krathanos, so the party changed the subject. Once he was sufficiently calm, the party admired Krathanos's belt. Krathanos was very proud of it. He claimed it was a symbol of his rulership of a sprawling and powerful country on Oerth, prior to his imprisonment of course. He seemed to feel that if he ever escaped from his prison, he would need the belt when he returned to Oerth to prove that he was indeed the rightful ruler of his former realm. It seemed clear that the would not part with it easily. The party said they would pay him what it was worth, in gold or in trade. He refused. They tried persuading him that his best chance at freedom would be to give them the belt, because once they had it, the Watchers had assured them that all the demiplane's denizens would be returned to Oerth. This seemed to sway Krathanos somewhat. He said he would give them his precious belt if they would give him Talon. He said she would make a pretty pet who could entertain him for many long years. Although the party was very reluctant to agree to Krathanos's terms, he seemed to assume that this deal was so generous that the party could not refuse. He was completely oblivious to their reluctance, and moved toward Talon with the clear intent of grabbing her. The party forcefully interposed themselves between her and the titan and made clear that they were refusing his deal. This sent Krathanos into a pompous rage. How could such insects dare refuse him, especially when he was being so generous with them? His magnificent belt for a measly girl? How could they refuse, unless it was their intent to insult him? They would have to pay for their insolence. He drew his enormous warhammer and began pounding people with it.
When Krathanos connected with his warhammer, he did tremendous damage. The party also discovered that he was nearly invulnerable to spells. So they had no choice but to withdraw. Alexander stayed behind to occupy the titan with spells and give the rest of his comrades time to escape. But Krathanos seemed to have little interest in pursuit. He realized that the party would have to come back to him if they wanted his belt, so he was willing to bide his time. The party withdrew to its secluded treetop sanctuary to rest and recover spells.
5th of Reaping. The party devised a plan and made an assault on Krathanos's keep the following day. However, when the gargoyles did not come out to engage the party as they had the previous day, this seemed to undermine the party's plan. They pressed the attack anyway. To their chagrine, they discovered that Krathanos was a master of the Chain Lightning spell. Not only could he hurl it from an enormous distance, but he could do it an unlimited number of times per day. Consequently, some of the party members were significantly wounded by the time that they made it to the keep itself. Just as the melee combat got underway, Alexander called the retreat. He realized that the party was fighting in suboptimal conditions and that the party would be better off retooling their combat plan and approaching again on a subsequent day. The rest of the party reluctantly heeded his call to withdraw. Krathanos seemed to find this turn of events extraordinarily amusing. He allowed the party to retreat without continuing to assault them with Chain Lightning. As they fled, he called out to them saying that he hadn't had as much fun in centuries and insisting that they return again the following day so that he could have more fun. The party returned to their treetop lair and plotted.
6th of Reaping. The party made a second assault on Krathanos's keep. This time they flew in invisibly so that they could avoid the killing field of Chain Lightning that they had endured the previous day. Once they were all in position, they unleashed their attacks as planned. Surprisingly, their attack plans focused almost entirely on a low-level spell that they had almost forgotten about since their journeyman days - Melf's Acid Arrow. The maximized it, quickened it, and empowered it, shooting it at the titan again and again and again. Apparently, Melf's Acid Arrow was immune to the titan's spell resistance, so the acid just kept eating away at his flesh until - less than 30 seconds into the fight - the titan was dead. The acid continued eating away at his corpse. The last thing to dissolve was the look of disbelief on the titan's face that such a puny spell had defeated him. As soon as Krathanos fell, his gargoyle and girallon minions fled. Alexander summoned a Floating Disk to carry Krathanos's enormous, emerald-studded belt back to the place where they had entered the demiplane. Needless to say, they also looted his other belongings and found a number of other valuable-looking treasures most of which he had stored in a bag he kept tied around his belt.
After a long march, the party members arrived back at the obsidian circle where they had entered the demiplane. As soon as they all stepped onto it again, the Watchers re-appeared. Tylanthros stepped forward and said, "Indeed you are the Heroes of Legend, for you have completed the tasks. Soon you will drink from the fountain and you will have the knowledge you seek and our purpose here will be at an end. Last Resort will be no more, and we, its Watchers, will cease to exist also. Before we go, we wish to give you our standards." He twisted around, grabbed the flag that rose behind his back, wrenched it free from his belt and handed it to Katawan. He continued, "When you wear my standard, you will be protected from fire and may cast Flame Strike once per day." Another watcher removed his standard and stepped forward, handing it to Norvelle. Tylanthros continued saying, "Beskawahn's standard protects its bearer from cold and allows him to breathe underwater at will." A third watcher removed his standard and stepped forward, handing it to Killick. Tylanthros said, "Thadimar's standard protects its bearer from electricity and allows its bearer to cast Air Walk once per day." The last watcher removed his standard and stepped forward, handing it to Tarric. Tylanthros said, "Sayren-Lei's banner protects its wearer from acid and allows its bearer to cast Stoneskin once per day." Finally, Tylanthros approached Alexander and handed him his ornate mithril spear, carved to look like intertwined thorns. He said, "Lastly, I give you my spear. I will not be needing it where I travel now." Suddenly, Tylanthros stepped aside, revealing a simple stone fountain gurgling with pure, clear water that hadn't been there a moment before. He said, "This fountain represents the knowledge you seek. Drink from it and all that you desire to know will be revealed to you." Alexander stepped forward and drank deeply, without hesitation. And Last Resort was no more.