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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Menexenus" data-source="post: 3404165" data-attributes="member: 8951">Session 25: The Apostle Awakens7th of Richfest.  The session began in the middle of a fight in a sub-basement beneath the Greyhawk Arena.  Most of the party was in an ancient training room where the party had just killed a skeleton animated by a purple worm (known as a Mohrg).  Tarric had moved into an adjoining silent room to fight a summoned Girallon along with the last remaining Spawn of Kyuss.  This silent room was illuminated by a beam of green light that cut the room in half.  The beam emanated from a stone altar with a scroll lying on it on the far side of the room.  The beam stopped (as far as the party could tell) on a pair of double doors illuminated with horrific visions of Kyuss on the opposite side of the room.    Tarric fought the Girallon with great skill, but was knocked unconscious when the beast hit him twice and commenced rending his flesh.  In response, Celeste used the Wand of Cure Moderate Wounds and moved into the silent area in order to deliver the spell.  Killick tumbled into the room to flank the beast.  Alexander stayed at a safe distance and pelted it with Magic Missiles.  Thorash seemed intrigued by the scroll lying on the altar.  Katawan seemed intrigued by the double doors.    Then another beast appeared where the Girallon had only a few seconds earlier.  This time it was a Fiendish Wolverine.  It charged in attacking Killick.  The Girallon also unleashed its fury on Killick, now that Tarric was down, but to little effect.  The Girallon was finally felled by some blows from Killick's magical Shillelagh.  Another creature was summoned from the room beyond the silent room - a Fiendish Hyena.  It also charged Killick, doing no damage.  At about the same time, a tiny sparrow clutching a small piece of parchment flew quickly over the party's heads.  Alexander saw it fly down the hall and dart into the secret door that Celeste had exposed earlier.      Alees chose to move forward to check out the smaller room from which the summoned creatures were coming.  She could barely see the form of the enemy spell caster in the corner of the room, but she found herself unable to enter the room for some reason.  Katawan helped to heal Tarric and then moved up to help against the summoned Wolverine and Hyena.  Meanwhile, Thorash discovered that the scroll on the altar was protected somehow from his grasp.  He then tried to take out a mirror to deflect the green beam, but the beam passed right through.  Alexander moved into the silent room and opened the double doors.  This allowed the party to see that the green beam continued down a short hallway to create a wall of translucent energy.  On the other side of this energy, the party could see only part of a giant slumbering worm.    Meanwhile, in the far room from which the creatures were being summoned, the evil spellcaster moved up to deliver a touch spell on Alees.  Although Alees's body was wracked with pain as cold, black energy coursed through her, she did not succumb to the attack.  Alees could now clearly see that the evil spellcaster had horns, cloven hooves, and carried a club that glowed blue with energy.  After the attack, Alees found that she was now free to move into the room.  (Apparently, the cleric's attack on her had allowed her to enter.)  Killick (who had been standing right behind Alees, after the party finished off the two summoned creatures) found himself suddenly able to enter the room as well.  Tarric ran up to join in the fray, but found that the ward still kept him at bay.       Katawan ran up and delivered a kick to the green energy field surrounding the worm.  His kick had no effect on the energy field, but the cold, sickly energy that infused Katawan when he made contact with it definitely damaged him.  He warned others not to strike it.  Thorash attempted to Dispel the magical effects in the silent room, but his efforts seemed to make no difference.    The evil cleric spat curses at Killick and Alees in some unholy language.  Alees used a tanglefoot bag to root the evil spellcaster to the ground.  Then Killick and Alees ran up to him and started beating on him.  Alees attempted to feint the cleric in order to deliver sneak attacks.  Killick used his quarterstaff to deliver multiple blows.  The cleric cast another spell that made his hand crackle with foul black energy.  He tried to touch Killick with it, but Killick's whirling quarterstaff kept the blow from landing.  Meanwhile, the rest of the party, unable to join the combat against the spellcaster, tried various other creative things in the other room.  Katawan tried punching the stone altar.  Thorash used his stonecunning to ascertain that destroying the altar would take too long to be worth trying.  Tarric tried hitting the green energy field with his holy mace to see if it would have a different effect, but the same sickly energy coursed through his body, causing him further damage.  Alexander kept a safe distance away outside the zone of Silence, waiting for an opportunity to cast Magic Missile at an opponent.    Finally, the tiefling cleric realized that his death was nigh.  He uttered one more curse in his alien tongue before closing his eyes and concentrating.  Suddenly, the rest of the party saw the beam of green energy wink out.  The green energy field surrounding the worm dissipated and was suddenly gone.  Tarric, who now found himself standing next to a wall of wormflesh, gave it a smack with his mace.  The giant worm roared in pain.  Thorash tried casting Dismissal on it, but the creature remained.  Finally, its segments writhed and struggled, and those who were not in silence heard the great crash of stone breaking.  Then, with unearthly speed, the worm crawled up and out.  Daylight streamed down into the area where the worm used to be.  The party could now see that the worm had been held in a hollowed out sphere of rock just below the Arena.  Katawan used his Rope of Climbing and firmly attached it to one of the protruding stones at the surface level.  He gave it a hard tug to ensure that it would hold his weight.      Alexander flew up after the worm.  Because it was still so early in the morning, there were relatively few people in the stands - maybe 50 to 100.  Presumably these people had gained entrance to the Arena early in an attempt to get the best seats for the show scheduled to begin at noon.  Alexander flew up as high as he could and waved his hands, telling the people to flee.  The spectators seemed to need little prodding from Alexander.  The sight of a gargantuan yellowish-green worm bursting forth from the floor of the arena seemed to be enough to motivate them to leave.  The spectators were definitely moving towards the exits in a panicked fashion.  Meanwhile, Tarric began climbing up Katawan's rope, bringing him almost to ground level.      Killick explored another room beyond the tiefling cleric's room.  He pulled open a curtain and saw a horrific mosaic image of a skull filled with green worms.  He felt irrational panic welling up in his mind, but he was able to overcome the magical effect.  Just then an amorphous blob with tentacles rose out of a large chest-high urn sitting in the middle of the room.  As the thing had no mouth, it communicated with Killick telepathically that he had made a grievous error and would now die for it.  When Alees tried to come to Killick's aid, Killick insisted that she should fall back.  The blob shot a Cone of Cold at Killick that had no effect due to his superb reflexes.  It also cast some sort of spell that made one of its tentacles glow with sickly green energy, but it found itself unable to touch him with that tentacle.  While Killick blocked the blob from moving forward, Alees worked on opening an ornate trunk with horrific scenes painted on all 4 sides in the cleric's room.  As the latch popped open, Alees felt her soul being pulled into the pictures on the sides of the trunk.  But her will was strong.  However, she became worried when she saw a green worm burst forth from one of her fingers.  It melted into goo as soon as it hit the floor.  Inside the trunk, Alees found a cache of magical items.  However, none of them seemed to be the worm-killing device that she had been hoping for.  Alees dragged the trunk and its contents to her party-mates.  Killick withdrew after her.  The blobby thing that Killick had been fighting did not pursue.    Meanwhile, up in the Arena, the Apostle of Kyuss tried biting Alexander but missed.  Alexander tried casting Magic Missiles at the worm, but the missiles just dissipated when they struck the worm's rubbery hide.  Tarric climbed up to stand next to the Worm and drew his weapon.  Then the Apostle struck at Alexander again.  This time the wizard was swallowed hole.  Tarric could see Alexander's form writhing within the worm for a short time, then it went still.  Tarric attacked the Apostle with his sword slicing into it, but doing less damage than he thought he should have.  For his efforts, the Apostle simply swallowed him, too.    Celeste was now visible because she had fired an ineffectual Searing Light at the worm.  As she saw Tarric being swallowed up above, she yelled, "NO!" and then disappeared.  The rest of the party could see a flurry of energy beams striking the Worm in the Arena above.  But finally they heard Celeste's tortured voice yell down to the party warning them not to get close to the Apostle because it could swallow them whole.  She sadly informed the party that Tarric and Alexander were already dead.</blockquote>

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