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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Voadam" data-source="post: 3972259" data-attributes="member: 2209">The group consisted of Mason (vow of poverty druid/warshaper/master of many forms/partial water elemental template), Malachi (fighter/paladin/templar of St. Cuthbert), Jonas (rogue/wizard/arcane trickster/archmage); Gumar (elven fighter with an archer build); and Ragnar (dwarven fighter/cleric) all 16th level.Here is my email summary that I sent for our yahoo group so we could remember the highlights:Having killed the monstrous spider mount and seen the drau priestessflee the party moved to investigate the tower. It was filled withwebs and venomous spiders that Jonas quickly burned away revealing ablood altar before the carved image of a great spider with an elvenwoman's head. They were smashed using Malachi's adamantine hammerand the party withdrew.Jonas used the cube hop spell to teleport to Kolyarol but Ragnar'shand slipped at the last moment and he was left behind, though theparty was not sure if he was teleported elsewhere. There was muchconsternation about where Ragnar was lost to, their inability tofind each other immediately, and what they would do without theircleric in facing the fortress.The party arrived on a great ancient battlefield and camped for thenight. Spectral dead hobgoblin soldiers appeared multiple times inthe night, energy draining Jonas before being banished by Malachi.Traveling overland the party came to the edge of the cube thenheaded back to the center to survey how large it was. They cameacross a battle raging between what looked like paladins and clericsand ant things that were identified as expansionist creatures ofouter planar law. Upon teleporting in to aid the humans Truthpierced the illusion of the humans revealing them as toad men withflickering chaotic auras. Malachi declared them monsters and led theparty to attack the chaos marauders.After defeating the beings of Chaos in a huge fight the ant manformian myrmarch telepathically offers to bring the party to itsHive Queen to reward them for saving him. The party goes and is ableto shelter in the hive with promises not to be enslaved. Gumaraccepts the Queen's offered jelly and her telepathic communicationsbecome easier for him to receive, he worries about being susceptibleto her domination now though. The party asks for information on theIron Fortress and the Queen provides the myrmarch to take them thereas well as some information on activities that have occurred there,including the fortress lord's pact with native steel predators,détente with the formian hive and the fortress, rust dragons onanother side of the cube, devil and archons seen flying around, andthe lord's fire giant hound master scouts who use telepathic hellhound packs to flush out their prey.The next day the myrmarch took them to a shelter outside of thefortress and the party made plans, sending in Jonas to scoutethereally. He made it inside noticing golem and predator guardiansand quickly descended underground as a ghost. He knew the wholefortress was enchanted and suppressed invisibility and undergroundhad other unknown magics as well. He found a few empty rooms and agreat forge room where massive flames were used by huge andmonstrous four armed devil smiths who were assisted by ghostlymortal smiths attached to their being through soul gems. They wereworking on a great scimitar. Pieces were scattered about on a halfdozen anvils, some with arcane effects ongoing, the blade itself wason the anvil in front of the massive furnace. Two azer were there aswell, though they did not participate as smiths. Guardian dragonnes(half lion dragons) observed the foundry from pillars in thecorners, and a sword golem bigger than any golem Jonas had seenstood atop a dais, apparently guarding the stairway down from above.Jonas observed as a thin but tall winged dragon man enteredaccompanied by a harsh looking dwerg woman. The dragon man talkedwith one of the azer for a bit and then left. Jonas fled at thatpoint, concluding he had seen Imperagon and the Sword of Fiery Mightbeing reforged.The party planned and prepared using disguise magic to impersonatethe lord, the drau and others, fire protections all around, andpreparing to directly teleport in and creating a plan B if theycould not. Jonas' teleport was blocked and so plan B went intooperation, cramming everyone into a magical secret chest of Jonas'which he pocketed, then he entered the fortress ethereally again.Upon arriving Jonas found the previously empty room was occupied,with a praying azer. Jonas considered then positioned himself behindthe azer. He materialized and disintegrated the diabolic priest,zapping him in the back and leaving only dust and the priest's gear.Jonas then opened the chest and freed the party.The party strode into the foundry, their disguises buying themenough time to close with the devil smiths and attack with surprise.One Azer fled upstairs to sound the alarm at the telepathic commandof the devil smiths while the dragonnes leapt to the attack, only tobe cut down by Gumar's arrowstorms before they could pounce or dotheir roar attacks. A huge elder fire elemental emerged from thefurnace at the smiths command and started to beat on the party,while it appeared more still resided in the furnace. Malachi wasengaged with one smith who disarmed him at one point, while Jonasand Mason engaged the other. Thankfully the golem did not move fromguarding the stairway against intruders coming down. The smiths weredefeated, Malachi managed to smash some soul gems, Jonasdisintegrated an adamantine banding on the blade anvil and Mason wasable to free the blade despite setting off a symbol of death indoing so. The fire elemental beat on the party but the loads of fireprotections helped a lot. Mason grabbed a devil smith with attachedsoul gems and dragged it along. Jonas grabbed a pair of arcane swordpieces and stuffed them into his bag of holding but left the othersand shadow walked the party out before the reinforcements they heardcame down the stairway.Upon arriving a hundred or so miles away on Kolyarol Jonas thenteleported the party back to the shattered altar tower near thelion's gate to the Outlands. The soul gems were smashed and thedevil body left behind.At the lion's gate the party observed the appearance of a nastylooking horned devil with a spiked chain who took up position atopthe Lion's gate and searched around waiting. Jonas used his lastteleport to take the party directly to in front of the gate wherethe rest of the party rushed through dragging the archmage withthem. The devil lashed out with his chain at GiantMason, who wasimmune to the potent supernatural stunning of the devil's attack andmerely took massive damage from the devil's blows.Upon emerging back on the Legion's Stairs Jonas shadow walked theparty onto the shadow plane and traversed back to the mortal world,arriving in a semi-tropical island city state called Freeport, acenter of maritime trade and home to a fleet of "privateers" formerpirates now raiding under a thin veneer of legitimacy for whatevergovernments hire them to plunder their enemies' ships.The sword blade tears Jonas' bag of holding spilling out all itscontents and they make an improvised wrapping to secure the bladesafely in Gumar's magical bag of holding. Jonas investigates theirloot and discovers the ring of the azer he disintegrated is a ringof fire elemental control that can take a quest to unlock itspowers. They go to a tavern, find out where they are and discusswhat to do next.The party decides to teleport to Ostohar, tell the dwarves whathappened, and sell the ring to them as they are some of the fewpeople interested in such a thing, see if Ragnar's temple can securepart of the Sword fragment, and figure out two other areas to splitthe fragments away in. Malachi sends off his silver raven messengeritem asking Voadam to meet them at a tavern in Freeport at the nextfull moon.Everyone gains a level and becomes 17th level.</blockquote>

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