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Message: <blockquote data-quote="weem" data-source="post: 4686323" data-attributes="member: 9470">Session 14: Feb 21, 2008Chapter III: Temple BoundTo the Feywild and Back, Part IIThe next morning, Torbor was much more forthcoming. It turns out they were now in the Feywild - something they had guessed the day before. Not only that, but these men were waiting for the fortress to appear. Apparently the locations the fortress "blinks" to are not random, but rather occur in a repeating sequence. With the help of the "Seekers" (intelligent men, followers of Ioun), he said, they had predicted the appearance of the fortress would occur at this location within the next few days. It was one of the reasons that this was the place the group was 'dropped' when they were.They also discovered that the fortress is sentient - it has thoughts and ideas of it's own - it was the fortress who unceremoniously ejected them through a portal. The fortress was also not the only one of its kind, although it is different from the rest in that the sentient being that was contained within its walls is behaving with much more independence than their creators thought was possible. This also lead to their next discovery - the fortress (and others like it) was built by Duergar dwarves hundreds of years ago with the help of other races from below the surface of the feywild - infact, this fortress in particular was built for the exact purpose of moving into and taking the Valley of the Hutaaka.And so it was, a number of connections were finally made. But as the group said, they were met with more questions now in the face of a few answers.The group explained the circumstances surrounding the box they had been carrying and upon pulling it out discovered that a switch had been made on them by Fenwick. They now had his box - a seemingly ordinary box with a low level of magic on it. More than likely it too was a portal key, but it also more than likely did not contain the powerful and mysterious magic their original had... anger ensued.After this long conversation Torbor was visited by one of his scouts with information. He told the group that the scout had witnessed their missing friend fall some distance from where they had landed - he had immediately been grabbed by a group of the reptilian people and rushed away to a small camp half a days journey away. The scout would lead them there so they could rescue him.They quickly made their way to the camp and arrived as the sun set. It was a small outcropping of ruins on a hilltop. With surprise, they jumped into the camp killing all enemies, but all they found were corpses (goat men) and all of Rolands' belongings... but no Roland.No tracks could be discerned from the camp so they moved back towards the clearing.Hours later, as they drew near the clearing, they heard a large booming concussive sound. The scout moved to a nearby tree, crouching down, "Get down!" he yelled.As they did, they were buffeted with a strong force of wind. Tree limbs, and all matter of debris flew by them as they huddled, but eventually the force subsided.They quickly made their way to the clearing ahead where sure enough, the fortress now stood. It did not take up the entire clearing, but rather stood in the dead center, several hundred feet inside the perimeter from any side.The scout moved to the nearest tower, "we must active the towers and protect them!" and the group followed. At the tower they were attacked by the snake people and they could see that these creatures were attacking the other towers as well - they were trying to stop the towers from being activated for some reason.They cleared and activated this tower, but could see another one nearby was being overrun. The group (minus the cleric) ran to help as he remained behind to watch the one they had just cleared. Within range of his bow, he repeatably fired on the enemies form his vantage point. During all of this, debris was still falling from the sky... various foliage and stone from the ruins... but one particularly large piece caught everyone's attention as it descended towards the tower this new fight had been for.Everyone moved as quickly as possible to avoid the falling stone as it tore into the top, destroying the mechanism needed to activate it [random roll here on where it would fall - bad luck for them].They had survived and done what they could and now everyone was gathering within the perimeter, preparing to march into the fortress behind Torbor. He barked out orders in a language they could not comprehend and before they knew it, they were all charging headlong into one of the entrances - 3 PC's following approximately 50-70 goat men, as well as Torbor and his 2 "Seekers".The entire group made their way in to the center chamber (after a few run-ins with the fortress defenses which claimed the life of a number of goat men). This chamber was the control room of the fortress - it was where the fortress would be activated. Based on what they had seen so far, Torbor guessed the fortress was not fully activated (did not have all 8 crystals needed).This chamber was a few hundred feet across and even more in height. In the center stood a column around which stairs spiraled up 10 feet in width. They went all the way up where they ended on a platform. This platform had 4 bridges extending in each direction from the center out towards the walls of the chambers. At the end of each was a slot for a crystal to be placed and a crank that had to be turned 4 times (standard action each turn) in order to activate the crystal. By the time they reached the top, they had 7 rounds to complete the tasks. Crystals were handed out and they split up - the PC's splitting into two to tackle two bridges and NPC's on the rest.However, they were all attacked by snake people as they tried to activate the crystals - so while they tried to defend themselves, they had to also turn the cranks.As if that were not enough, the fortress threw in one of it's last lines of defense, dropping in guardians from the ceiling attached to chains... they were large and while they were crude and slow, it took a lot to chop them down. After a long hard fight, they eventually won with Torbor calling to the fortress to call of its guards (after he activated it) and while the fortress delayed as best it could, it eventually gave in and everyone was finally able to rest after much excitement.</blockquote>

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