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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pogre" data-source="post: 2182993" data-attributes="member: 6588">Thanks for the poem Wulf!ZandyriumEpisode 39Justinius glumly trudged forward through the fiery wall and cast invisibility purge. The spell caster plaguing the party appeared suddenly before them and cast a spell trying to dominate Thoren. Through some miracle, Thoren shrugged off the spell and slammed the demon in front of him with a couple of major blows. Githraldul loosed his bow on the caster and five arrows later; the fire mage fell over graveyard dead. The demon, seemingly freed from an unknown obligation teleported away.The group dragged Heinrich and Ginny’s corpses away from the path and made camp.“You can raise them, right?” Wassabe asked Justinius.“If Gravitas Morte deems it,” Justinius answered.“So you are going to try?” Githraldul probed.“I will admit to being conflicted, but Heinrich specifically stated he felt he still had a mission to fulfill before going to his deity. So yes, I am going to attempt the ritual in the morning. Fortunately, Heinrich had the materials with him when we left and they seem relatively unscathed.” Justinius pulled his prayer cloth out and began a near-silent chant.The following morning Justinius performed the ritual and Heinrich and Ginny returned to life. Justinius then healed Githraldul’s burns and Thoren’s wounds and made a surprise announcement, “I am leaving.”“What?” Wassabe was genuinely shocked.“I feel a call to my temple. I need to meditate, to rest, to research, to re-establish my faith,” Justinius explained.“I understand,” Heinrich said meekly. His voice was raw and cracked from his recent experience.“What about Rothlor?” Wassabe asked.“I will be available to you in other ways,” Justinius tried to reassure Wassabe. “This is a mission you will have to finish without me.”Mercutio teleported Justinius back to the gates of Zandyrium and returned moments later.The group continued down the road, ahead in the road they see a number of run down structures. An immense ogre woman was cooking food in an open kitchen for a pair of men in uniforms with flames on them. Another pair of soldiers stood guard over a number of humanoids in cages.The group came up with a quick plan. They jumped the guards, created a blade barrier in front of the open kitchen and managed to free the 21 prisoners inside. Much to their relief Rothlor was one of the prisoners.“There is a very powerful cleric in that building,” Rothlor warned.Following a quick debate, the group decided they could not leave the cleric behind. Rothlor corralled the other prisoners and moved them away from the area. Heinrich lowered the blade barrier and the adventurers saw that the kitchen’s back wall was pushed over and the huge ogre matron was gone. All agreed she probably had warned the cleric in the building, but decided to continue with the assault any way.Thoren knocked the door to the building in and instantly everything broke loose. There was not one, but two major clerics in addition to the ogre matron. The adventurers were clearly outclassed,and in the matter of a few seconds two members of the party were unconscious. Heinrich desperately grabbed a scroll out of his pack and cast Earthquake. The building collapsed and gave the party time to retreat with their wounded.The next day the adventurers agreed Justinius might have had a good idea and returned to Zandyrium for a long rest.To be continued…GM Notes: The adventurers (characters) were tired and I sensed the players might be as well. They accomplished the mission of freeing Rothlor, but at a huge cost. Many of you may have recognized the early parts of a Dungeon magazine adventure here, but I let the whole thing go. It was not fitting in that well with the themes of my campaign, and the pcs were a bit under-magicked by this time for their level. The last two combats had both been near TPKs – something as you know, I never shy away from. I decided to give them a gift they had not received during this entire campaign: time.At first there was some confusion – “you mean like a week of down time?” they asked. “No,” I answered. “Take as much time as you want.” “And you’re not going to screw us for it?” they asked. “Nope, but we will hit the ground running afterwards.”So their pcs have been slaving in their labs – researching, making contacts, creating magic items, creating new spells, creating a new PrC, etc. They used approximately 70 days of game time and come back to the table – tanned, rested, and ready to go I suspect. I think it is kind of neat that a gift of down time is such a big deal in my campaign at this time. Things heat up again tonight – I’ll try to get some decent pictures!Thanks for reading!pogre</blockquote>

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