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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pacio49" data-source="post: 2469883" data-attributes="member: 28472">Catching Up to Date, pt 1META -- It happens to the best of us, but the game has now lapped my Story Hour by almost a full year.  I can remember the sessions if I strain, but I just don't have the kind of time to sit around scratching my head.  So, instead of letting Tol Vehara's Story Hour die out, I'm going to bring the Story up to date in broader strokes.  Thank you for your patience. Once we're all caught up, all new sessions will be fully detailed and written out once again. -- pacio49 The party rescued the group that was being hounded by giants. A few of that party died, but among their number was Hank, a Dust Rider whose legs had been absolutely shattered, Marshaya, an elven cleric of Iola in an advanced stage of disease from the Elven Bane (the Blasted Lands' effects on elves), Jonas, an expert cobbler who had taken a rank in Druid and wanted to see the world with his brother who was killed outright by the giants, and Inge Truelute, a dwarf bard.  They got the surviving group members into the Tower, and Queen Zartha of the Fey hit off a nice friendship with Marshaya the dying Cleric.  Inside Karral's Tower proper, they were in another plane, so the progression of the Bane halted, alleviating Marshaya's death sentence.  Hank couldn't bear to move with the crushed bones in his legs, and with Marshaya's help was settling in for some serious long-term care.  Jonas was upset at the loss of his brother, decided that druidry was for the birds, and asked to stay at the Tower. Being a cobbler, he offered his skills in boot and shoe repair and upkeep as it was needed, but he wasn't able to make the trek back to Tol Vehara a week away through hostile country on his own.  Inge offered to join the party and provide services to them as a Bard, which they accepted.So Hank is holed up in the Tower with Marshaya, Jonas is settling in there, and Inge's with the party.The group pumps Inge for information, and she tells them of two legendary gems she knows of in the region which would power up the Tower of Karral.  One is an emerald of such surpassing beauty that it's called the Heart of the Forest, and it's being guarded by a Mature Adult Green Dragoness named Elzarmeksla, who recently attained notoriety in the draconic world because she killed her lifemate during their last mating flight.  She has several of her brood in the region, Green Dragons of different ages and abilities, and the forest she lives in has been 'hers' for longer than the Taint overlay the area.  The party decided that a dragon of that caliber was beyond them, and they were nuts for trying.The second gem they heard of was supposedly up in the middle of a lost Dwarven Hold, from an exiled set of Dwarves, called the Heart of the Mountain.  After some adventuring, they realized that it was in a place called Pain Mountain, so called because a kingdom of Minotaur had taken up residence there with orcs and other darkling races as their servants and slaves which worked the mines for gold, silver, iron, and adamantium.  Pain Mountain seemed the safer course for the party, and off they went.They didn't get too far because the giants who had accosted the refugee group were part of a band of giants commanded by one named Teeb, who had gained power in the region by earning the attention of not just one, but two giantesses, and used that renown to loosely organize the other local giants into his band.   During their trek toward Pain Mountain (or where they thought it might be), they were ambushed by the giants, ogres, and orcs.  It would have been a pretty easy fight except for the fact that they ran into an intelligent human arcanist (wizard) named Maurice Kingalo.  Maurice first appeared for the party by Counterspelling Marcus' fireball. (If you want to upset your party, throw an invisible mage with readied counterspell actions into a group of kobolds and ogres in a nice, tight formation.)Although the ambush was well set up, Arien used the Staff of the Woodlands to best ability with Wall of Thorns ( keep on burning those charges, sweetie!).  Maurice, unfortunately, managed to get away, to Marcus' chagrin.  They had a couple of captured kobolds who offered to take Valar back to their warrens, claiming that Valar was some kind of anticipated hero who would liberate them from slavery (he mentioned his stint in Dorecan Manor helping the other kobolds there to see if they were related).  The kobolds led the party faithfully into the woods, into a trap, and then scampered off as their fellow kobolds ambushed them. Egg on Valar's face.The party finally got the idea that they needed to take out Teeb before they went much farther. They organized a scouting mission that quickly turned into a raid where they made it as far inside as the caverns where the two Giantesses lived.  One was slain immediately, but the other escaped before the denizens of the encampment mobilized a good defense and forced the party to flee.  The party returned to their Tower, dispatched the followers, licked their wounds and then began plotting again.Yovaire had been killed, but Marshaya the elven Cleric had a scroll with True Resurrection on it, so Yovaire came back from the dead. HOWEVER... one slight glitch.  There was a weird resonance with such high level divine magic in the Blasted Lands, and Yovaire came back in the body of a female.  (1 in 20 chance, he rolled a 1... sorry Eridanis).Marshaya further offered to help the party out by arranging for quick transportation back to Teeb's place. The group guessed rightly that Teeb would have buffed up his defenses in the wake of the attack and since he had a lot of kobolds working for him, there would be many traps. Marshaya summoned Phase Spiders and called in some bizarre favor from her past (Laeka began to think that Marshaya was much more than she seemed), so enough Phase Spiders came and provided transport on the Ethereal Plane for the group, popping them in to the room they had left.  As they began to explore Teeb's place, they ran afoul of not mechanical traps, but Glyphs of Warding which alerted the denizens again. This time the party had an element of preplanned surprise, since they were much deeper into the complex than Teeb's armies assumed, and they were able to use the Wall of Thorns to create a single 5' alleyway by which their foes had to approach them, and utilized tactics to essentially pick them off.  The only major wrench in the works was the fact that Maurice Kingalo got in the room from behind them, cast Improved Invisibility on them, and began to make their lives extremely difficult before he was finally taken down (to 0, amid magical darkness... he used his one action to drink his last Cure Critical potion, but he was still caught by the party when the battle was won and the darkness dispelled.Tybok wanted to kill Maurice because Maurice had succeeded in besting the little Wizard, and Tybok carries a grudge. Marcus and Maurice had a semi-civil conversation, and Maurice informed the group that he was in the service of the Temple of Shardal, the Lord of Darkness and Evil, a LE God that formed one of the five major gods of the pantheon of Brace.  Shardal wasn't known to actually have temples, preferring on secret rites in temporary places of power so as to prevent extermination by the forces of Ferenthal, his LG twin brother and arch nemesis in the heavens.Maurice mentioned that the Temple of Shardal in the region was interested in brokering a deal with Teeb and as a token of good faith, Maurice was assigned to assist Teeb magically. Really what he was doing was spying on Teeb and taking note of Teeb's defenses, so that should Teeb prove 'inconvenient', the Temple of Shardal would have inside information on their opponent. He was extremely forthcoming with that information, which made everyone suspicious and Tybok nearly frothing at the mouth.  Marcus decided that Maurice, being in the service of a Lawful Evil God would have some sense of honor, and they brokered a truce, that Maurice wouldn't attack the party again and the party would let Maurice go free.  Maurice agreed.One of the giants in the large cavern group had decided on a particularly wise course of action and surrendered to the party once the rest of the army of kobolds, orcs, ogres, and a couple other giants had been decimated and Maurice neutralized.  An ogre also surrendered.  The party found several humanoid prisoners in a pit near the edge of the large living cavern where the massive battle had just taken place.  They rescued a few children close to succumbing to the Taint and a halfling fighter who claimed to be a Squire in some religious order of Yondalla's paladins, though not a paladin herself.  Once the rescued folks were out of the pit, the giant negotiated with the party. He would lead them to where Teeb was, and help them in the fight, or just stay out of it, if they would leave him alone to live. The ogre that was with them protested, but the giant silenced the ogre's protests by duping him into looking into the pit and then pushing him to his death below.The party followed the giant deeper into the complex, and as they passed through an entry hall full of Teeb's gruesome trophies of war, they noticed a Minotaur chained to the wall and obviously starving to death.  The giant led the group into what Teeb had made into a Throne Room, and saw Teeb wearing a large crown, with an Orc cleric of Gruumsh in attendance and several acolytes and adepts.  In the corner of the room was a pavillion tent with an opulent bed set up, and a half-giant woman was chained to the bed by her ankle.  The party had invisibility up and running so they could check to see that the prisoner giant would lure Teeb away from his stronghold like they planned, but when the giant stood before Teeb on his throne, he betrayed the party (just like a Chaotic Evil would do).Old One-Eye, the cleric of Gruumsh, cast 'Invisibility Purge' because the giant said they were invisible. Unfortunately, that also revealed that Maurice had been flying invisibly behind the party as  well. Nearly spelled out from their major encounter, suddenly betrayed by their prisoner and thrust into a combat situation where the party was spread out and they were facing unknown spellcasters, the appearance of Maurice made everyone groan.As it turned out, however, Maurice kept true to his word of non-interference, and turned his few remaining spells and items onto the Cleric and Adepts.  Valar managed to make an amazing critical hit with his sneak attack and dropped One Eye in a single blow (after a couple of damaging spells from Maurice to One Eye).  The group took heart from Valar's valiant blow, and they rallied well.  Hack and Slash (Laeka and Yovaire) made short work of Teeb, while Arien freed the half-giant woman near the bed.  The woman immediately shifted into a gaseous form and began to drift up and out through crannies in the cavern walls, abandoning the battle.The party was victorious, and Valar's greed afterwards set off several trapped chests that exploded (the chest itself was the trap), damaging the fair rogue.  Laeka took Teeb's crown off and, amazed that it shrank in her hands (and not being notably Lawful), Laeka put it on. The crown fused with her skull, and rendered her unable to communicate a lie. However, whenever anyone within earshot spoke an obvious falsehood, their voice sounded high pitched and squeaky to her, and when she read something that was intentionally false, the writing seemed to shiver on the page.The party grabbed some stuff, decided that killing Teeb was more than enough. They parted ways with Maurice again, and made their way back to the Tower.  Maurice, being no fool, immediately summoned allies from the Temple of Shardal and essentially cleared out the rest of Teebs place for themselves, setting up a relatively hidden stronghold.The group freed the Minotaur, named Ak-Rashkinna, and asked him to drink from the cup of Lawful Neutral. Unbeknownst to them, Ak succeeded on a Sleight of Hand check and mimed drinking from the cup, while not actually doing so. The party brought him back to the tower, and they also rescued a Dire Lion with a Collar of Animal Mastery on it. Since they had killed his master, the collar 'reset' itself to the first person to touch it, which happened to be Arien.  So now the druid set off with her new Dire Lion in tow, vowing to work with it and make him her animal companion when she got to the right level of experience.  Arien quickly named the lion Fluffy, and issued orders to it that it was not to harm the party or the party's animals.The group made it back to the tower, took some time off, and counted up their stuff. [We're still not all the way caught up, but in the next post we will be.--pacio49]</blockquote>

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