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Menexenus's Age of Worms Campaign Journal
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<blockquote data-quote="Menexenus" data-source="post: 3692936" data-attributes="member: 8951"><p><strong>Session 40: Antyress Redpike and Icosiel's Razor</strong></p><p></p><p><em>12th of Harvester</em>. 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.</p><p></p><p> 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.</p><p></p><p> 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.</p><p></p><p> 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!"</p><p></p><p> 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.</p><p></p><p> 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."</p><p></p><p> 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.</p><p></p><p> 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.</p><p></p><p> 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.</p><p></p><p> 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. </p><p></p><p> 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. </p><p></p><p>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." </p><p></p><p> 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.</p><p></p><p> 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.</p><p></p><p> The party chose to walk back to Diamond Lake. They arrived in town just before dawn.</p><p> </p><p> <em>13th of Harvester</em>. 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.</p><p> </p><p> <em>14th of Harvester</em>. 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.</p><p> </p><p> <em>15th of Harvester</em>. 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. </p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p> 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.</p><p></p><p> 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.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Menexenus, post: 3692936, member: 8951"] [b]Session 40: Antyress Redpike and Icosiel's Razor[/b] [I]12th of Harvester[/I]. 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. [I]13th of Harvester[/I]. 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. [I]14th of Harvester[/I]. 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. [I]15th of Harvester[/I]. 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. [/QUOTE]
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