Campaign 4, Session 22

After resting and recovering from the ordeal with Caen, the group headed back into the Spire.

The group elected to rest and restore their spells after the encounter with Caen. In the morning, they headed back into the Spire, using their tokens to transport down to the sixth level, the former abode of Zargolash. The group ended up split up: Christie, Guiliman, and Mongoose ended up in an excavated room with a pech and a cockatrice, meanwhile, Hans and Jimmy ended up in the "throne room" of Zargolash where they had fought him previously. Christie talked to the Pech, learning that he served a master of the Spire who was not Zargolash or the lich Noul'zadan, and eventually the Pech created a hole in the wall, wanting to be left alone to it's mining, and they were able to rejoin the others before the Pech sealed it up again.   Inside the throne room, they found it much as they had left it, but did discover a set of levers, black and red, on the throne's armrest. The group manipulated these controls to try and head north, eventually making it into a hallway that led to a staircase going down and another set of controls. Working the controls further, they opened a different hallway, which lead to a room pouring out steam, fiendish leopards, and a creature called an Aghash, a hideous planar being with a large eye rimmed with fangs. The leopards were evil creatures, fiendish in nature, but the party disposed of them easily. Christie made Guiliman grow large, and he quickly slaughtered one. The Aghash however, seemingly fixated on Guiliman, cursed him, stealing away his charisma and charm. When the group slayed the being, he returned to his home plane, much like the leopard, but left behind a half dozen topaz gems. To get to the gems, they had to fix the fountain, still emitting dangerous steam. Christie's attempt to repair the spellwork ended with her getting sprayed, but Hans was able to do it properly, and then the fountain began to spray normal, cool, drinkable water. A door to the west was investigated by Jimmy, but the door led to the Pech, and the group elected to leave the creature alone.   Heading down several staircases to the next level, they found a room with two iron racks shaped like serpents and dozens of lit candles, Jimmy correctly identified this as a magical trap. While there was magical writing on the racks, no one was able to decipher it. Unfortunately, Jimmy's attempt to repair the trap resulted in it triggering, filling the whole room with an explosive fireball. The group made their way through the door to the west, where they ended up in a room with barricades and troglodytes throwing javelins, and lots and lots of rubble making it hard to traverse. Eventually, through magical tricks and acrobatics, Guiliman and Jimmy got on the other side of the barricades and took the fight to them in melee, some of the troglodytes also elected to jump the barricade and try to engage Hans and Mongoose in melee. The group recognized that these creatures were under a demonic influence, they kept crying out to a being known as Tolgid, who they recognized as a demon lord. Eventually, the group defeated all the troglodytes, brave Hans even getting a rare kill with his dagger.