Convergence Sessions 21 - 30

General Summary

Session 21 The party engaged the hag in combat and quickly realized the face they were speaking to was an illusion. Further, the blink dog with her was revealed to be the disguised form of an ancient topaz dragon that had allied itself with Priscilla. The dragon quickly realized the party at full might would be too much for it to handle and once and quickly moved to remove players from the field by plucking up Zel and Buttons and dropping them off the side of the tower. Fortunately, some quick thinking from Zel caught them before they hit the ground, but it took them some time to make it back up the side of the tower with Zel's draconic wings sprouted from his harness.
Even with those two removed temporarily and the aid of corrupted treants, the battle against the dragon was slowly tilting in the party's favor, thanks in large part to Leona keeping everyone in fighting shape and the party's resilience against Priscilla's mind controlling attempts. Things took a turn when the Orthon hunting Allston made an appearance and began targeting the gnome almost exclusively. Things only became dire when Priscilla opted to reveal herself by casting weird, flooding the field with illusory copies of herself and worming her way into each of the PCs minds. The spell forced several PCs to succumb to madness and slowly chipped away at their mental fortitude. This might have spelled the end for the party had Leona not mustered her divine intervention ability, which revealed Priscilla's true location as well as blinding and damaging her for a time. With a clear target, Echoless conjured a meteor swarm to strike both Priscilla and the dragon, gravely wounding both.
Despite this, the battle was still a chaotic tossup for some time. Priscilla and the dragon were too mobile for Zel to pin down, and by the time he finally caught up to the hag, the madness incurred from weird forced him to flee. Similarly, Eladan was also stricken with terror and attempted to fly off the tower, but the damage incurred by the spell caused him to careen to the ground below. Miraculously, he survived. In the end, almost everyone was knocked unconscious save for Leona and Zel, the former of whom was able to keep getting everyone back up. Ultimately, Buttons struck the killing blow on the dragon and poetically, Echoless struck down Priscilla. As for the Orthon, his confrontation ended when he dropped a dimensionally-shackled unconscious Buttons and barely-holding-on Allston off the side of the tower but failed to kill them when Buttons miraculously awoke and was able to mitigate any fall damage. The rest of the flying-enabled party quickly descended after them and the Orthon vanished.
With the fight finally over, the party reconvened and discovered that the remaining cards of the Deck of Many Things was among Priscilla's possessions. As for the three obsidian orbs affecting the tower, the party found that they could be destroyed and opted to do so with a meteor swarm from a distance, thus disabling the beam and destroying a hefty chunk of the tower as well as the horde of slaadi that were slowly making their way up. With that, Hyrsam was able to open a portal to them and brought them back to his domain while a number of his fairies moved in with satchels and bags in order to "help rebuild," so he claimed. The party chatted for a bit; Allston and Eladan mulled over the idea of trying to make a bargain for a devil-killing weapon and a fairy servant respectively, but neither were willing to commit to the abstract terms the fey often demanded for their deals. When Eladan offered the Eye Of Vecna, Hyrsam quickly banished them from his realm, returning them to the courtyard of the White Tower…
XP earned: 11,000 each
Session 22 The party took some well earned relaxation time at the tavern, though they found it to be in a particularly glum mood. They quickly learned that things have not been going well back on the material plane, and the slaadi horde had already destroyed a number of cities with the assistance of massive creatures: elder elementals. Nevertheless, with the help of Ferdinand, the tavern's mood was lifted and the party was able to catch up with Ysbetta, whose Night's Song party had also just returned from their scouting mission to the Shadowfell. Allston began tinkering with a new idea at the labs to create a rune attachment for his crossbow that would add spell effects to the arrows and was even able to get the lead wizard at the labs to agree to assist. Meanwhile, Zel and Eladan visited Agatha, the former to do something with the topaz dragon blood he sourced and the other for drugs. Eladan was given some doses of Fate's Hair, which bestowed upon him a vision of the City of Brass in flames and lorded over by Logira. Buttons was also pointed towards the Fire Plane when Mist of Morning described to him a story she read about a legendary harp being lost by an arrogant bard to an Efreeti of the Charcoal Palace Court.
Finally, they retired to get some much needed rest. At least they had hoped. Before they could truly settle in, a commotion down in the main hall drew their attention. There they found a group of representatives from Veldford demanding that the Alliance send additional aid as a giant monster had been sighted lumbering towards the city. A similar fate had already befallen two other cities. Aefaren supported sending a team to fight the beast, while Christoph argued it didn't matter in the grand scheme of things. Ultimately, the party agreed with Christoph, believing they would not be able to defeat the elemental in their current state. With that, they finally got to rest, but the city of Veldford did indeed fall in the night.
In the morning, the party picked up with the downtime activities they had begun the previous night. At Agatha's, they learned some juicy gossip that Christoph had been experimenting with draconic ingredients in his private study, which prompted them to see if they couldn't break in. Naturally, the gargoyle that served as Christoph's door did not budge for them; at least until Christoph himself emerged, informing them that they were due for a proper meeting to go over what the party had discovered and what the next steps were. The meeting was brief and got the party caught up on world events. Afterwards, Aefaren asked them to walk out into the mountain passes with him. There, he inquired about their interest in Christoph's private labs and revealed he too would like them to poke around. He has become increasingly wary of Christoph's political motivations and wishes to see if there is proof to backup his misgivings. To that end, he revealed all that he knew of Christoph's security and agreed to act as a distraction while the party investigated. With that, they all returned to the Tower mulling over the best means of breaking in…
XP earned: none
Session 23 The party enacted their plan to infiltrate Christoph's private quarters. They pinged Ferdinand for aid with his telepathic bond spell, bumping into Mul in the process, who's help they politely declined. Echoless accompanied Aefaren to the meeting with Christoph to help with the talking and keep an eye on the archmage for any signs of suspicion. With that, they flew invisibly up to Christoph's balcony. Leona used an anti-magic field to disable any magical sensors and locks, and Buttons Sword of Sharpness made quick work of the now defunct rune-key lock.
Inside, they found a host of botanical ingredients, plants, and alchemy stations, including a potion of longevity currently being brewed and an unfinished potion of dragon's majesty. The gardens were currently being tended to by a small homunculus, whom everyone was able to sneak by save for Leona who did not have the benefit of invisibility. Unfortunately, she was spotted when she attempted to move by it, and while engulfing the construct in her anti-magic field knocked it out, it was still able to get a message off to Christoph who sent Rahnorok to investigate. The spectral dragon was unable to get a visual on the hidden party members, but his inability to jump to the sconces currently dampened by Leona made it clear something was up. He deployed the dragonbone golem in the enchanting labs, but it too found nothing. With no immediately clear threat, he returned to the meeting.
With a moment to breathe, the party was able to investigate Christoph's lab and summoning room, finding all sorts of bizarre and somewhat threatening artifacts, including the Axe of the Dwarvish Lords and Blackrazor. Additionally, they found a mummified hand belonging to Lazaros, a skull bearing Shepherd's brand, and Christoph's clones. In the summoning room, Zel rifled through a number of chests and managed to set off a glyph of warding in the process, causing him to be teleported to an anti-magic dungeon elsewhere in the complex. Unfortunately, this spelled the beginning of the end for the party's exploits, as Rahnorok quickly arrived to see who had sprung the trap and informed Christoph. Echoless bought the party a few moments by subtly counterspelling Christoph's attempts to teleport, but that only went so far.
Allston was able to make it up to the top floor of the tower: Christoph's residence. Here he found his logs as well as the source of much of the Tower's power: an orb of dragonkind that was the source of Rahnorok. Tampering with it did cause a deadly symbol to trigger, and not long after that, Christoph appeared. Allston handed off the log he nabbed to Mr Buttons who attempted to jump out of the tower with, but he was grabbed by the dragonbone golem. Allston very nearly was able to make it out the window, but Christoph utilized the time-stop spell in order to wrangle the disparate PCs and retrieve his log. When the dust settled, he scolded the party for their lack of trust and issued an ultimatum: fall in line or get out, essentially. He did at least shed some light on some of the things the party found, but ultimately they were unable to find definitive proof of Christoph colluding with Aurum like Aefaren had suspected. However, on their way out, Zel of all people recognized that the Foci map in Christoph's study revealed the location of the Tower in the Eordwall mountains by highlighting all the MAD access points.
Despite all this, the Party and the Alliance reconvened to move forward on disabling the extraplanar Spires. The party was given a re-tooled Rod of Neutralization and the cleansed Harbinger for their next journey, which was determined to be the Plane of Fire…
XP earned: 1,000 each
Session 24 The party spent a couple days prepping for their expedition to the City of Brass. Potions of Fire Resistance were purchased from Agatha and Allston crafted his own. Leona purchased armor of resistance and allowed Guiden to take the Armor of Invulnerability to study. Tria also sold them a couple scrolls. Buttons and Mist of Morning did some digging through Cristoph's library to learn what they could about the city but didn't find anything particularly groundbreaking. During the interim, Leona assisted Ezra Donneur on an expedition to find a certain mountain flower that was used in regenerative salves by goliath shamen. Because of information he gleamed during the foray, Ezra was able to deduce where the White Tower was located.
When they were ready, the party Plane Shifted to the Plane of Fire, finding themselves on the outskirts of the City of Brass. There, they found that the martial law enacted upon the city reported by the scouts had elevated to a full-blown lockdown and no extraplanar visitors were being allowed into the city. The party was able to learn some information on the lockdown from a perturbed farmer waiting to get in who mentioned Kossuth "the king of fire" for being the reason behind the lockdown. Eladan was able to "convince" an efreeti guard to let them in and succeeded in having him go fetch them an application. While they waited, they met a group of warriors from a far-off volcanic kingdom who were also trying to get into the city in order to find a way to stop fire elementals from attacking their settlements, whom the group ended up befriending. Unfortunately, after a long wait, their application came back denied. Ultimately, the party utilized Eladan's Nightmare to ethereally pass through the walls (though he was very retiscent to lend aid).
Once inside, the party started poking around for any leads they could find on how to go about getting to the central Spire, which was currently surrounded by a cloud of swirling volcanic ash and spewing forth a great red beam, much like the feywild spire. They found themselves in a local coffee shop (in which they all got to experience the joys of coffee for the first time. Their new friends seemed to be quite familiar with the beverage, interestingly) and learned through the locals that priests of Kossuth were calling the phenomena happening with the Spire "The Cleansing Fire" and was nothing to worry about. They got directions to the nearest temple and set off that way.
Unfortunately, their way was blocked by a checkpoint and the group did not have official papers. Thinking quickly, they ducked into an open-air café where Buttons carefully transplanted the seal on their "denied" paper and placed in on the old scouts' writ. Meanwhile, Eladan chatted with a dragonborn nobleman who seemed to ask very pointed questions of them, but ultimately pointed them towards his home in Avencina should they be willing to show him their wares sometime. With a quick cross-reference of their papers with that of a poor druidic fellow searching for his wolf that wandered through a dimensional gate, they were able to pass through the checkpoint, though the presiding captain did personally go over their credentials.
Growing weary from their travels in the intense heat, they opted to stop at an inn on the Street of Steel to rest before continuing on to the temple. As they rested however, Mr. Buttons was awoken by the sound of an Efreeti guard being murdered. Poking his head out the window, he witnessed a young genasi woman removing a magical dagger from the body before noticing Buttons and fleeing. Naturally, Buttons decided to give chase…
XP earned: 1,000 each
Session 25 Mr Buttons gave chase to the mysterious assailant, but upon finding she could not outrun him, she simply became invisible instead, ultimately losing him in the crowded streets. With that, he returned to the inn, stopping briefly to collect the efreeti soldier gear left behind (of which Zel very much wanted to wear but was ultimately dissuaded from). From there, they continued on their journey to find the Temple of Kossuth they were pointed towards. As they approached, Zel and Allston wandered off to see what else was around, and Eladan, Buttons, Leona, and Echoless investigated the temple, speaking with the priests and examining their artifacts and texts frescoed on the walls. They learned that Kossuth was a more abstract being (doesn't present himself with a body, usually) and the Cleansing Fire is going to "provide a fresh start to the mortal worlds" and that "the plane of fire will act as the torch." Eladan was also able to schmooze his way into seeing the priest's private communal fire (the great basin open to the public was a cool, "symbolic" fire) and he was able to infer that it was similar to Allfire, even briefly detecting a presence within it.
Meanwhile, Zel and Allston met a friendly fire giant browsing crafting materials with an oversized cart and found that some highly exotic metals and materials were up for sale. Upon speaking with the giant, Zel learned of a dragon corpse that had been put on display outside the Charcoal Palace, which he decided he needed to see immediately. Fortunately, the rest of the group also deigned to keep heading towards the Palace, and the group was reunited on the Street of Steel.
Shortly after, Buttons and Leona realized they were being tailed. Buttons circled back and the pursuer stuck to him. The group was able to catch her in a vice, and she was revealed to be Nephali, a genasi freedom fighter. They learned her weapon was capable of absorbing its victims essence and that her goal was to take down the efreeti princes. Realizing they all sought to enter the Charcoal Palace, they agreed to go back to her base, meet her friends, and concoct a plan.
Meeting in a shuttered tavern, Nephali gave them a little more backstory on what they were doing and what happened to her father. Echoless in particular seemed to connect with her motives and had a long conversation with her. She informed them she had an idea to break into the Palace, but required 3 items and about a week to fabricate the necessary backstories. If the party could help her retrieve a chunk of cold iron ore, a scroll of magic aura, and a efreeti nobles writ of passage into the Palace, they could all get in and accomplish their own objectives. With that, they set off to track down the cold iron in the Fire Springs. Eladan was able to beguile his way into purchasing an ingot, but their transaction was noticed by the efreeti guards. Ultimately, they let them go about their business (taking the word of the bewitched azer attendant), but unbeknownst to the party, their transaction was reported to the guard commander, who was already harboring suspicions of the party's movements…
XP earned: 1,000 each
Session 26 The party opted to try to tackle getting the scroll of magic aura in the same day as the iron and took a carriage to Avencia to go find the wizard. On the way, Echoless prompted a discussion on Nephali and the path she was on, siting her own experiences as a cause for concern for the girl. Zel was surprisingly tender about this and Leona assured her that they would talk with Nephali more about this and her probably cursed dagger. During the trip they also noticed that many of the efreeti guards were keeping a close eye on their movement.
Once at the bazaar where the wizards tower was located (seemingly condemned), the party poked around to see what they could find first. Buttons encountered a mysterious man with a darkly obscured face who spoke only in gestures who sold him a weird mirror for one gold piece. He also purchased a few doses of Liquid Fire from a shady dealer who was trying a bit too hard to be edgy. Allston purchased hot sauces from a weirdly dapper dragonborn. Finally moving onto the tower, they found it to be shuttered. According to some passersby, it had been that way for some time. Allston was able to pick the lock (despite its magical augmentations), and inside they found the elusive scribe wizard Ehrandil. He was retiscent to deal with the party as he feared discovery (he had been "evicted" from the city when the lockdown occurred), but ultimately agreed to let Allston copy one of his scrolls. While he was busy with that, the rest of the party set back out to return to Nephali's hideout.
Unfortunately, they were stopped by the efreeti commander of the guard, who politely but firmly insisted that they hand over their paperwork for purchasing the cold iron ingot, which is guards had reported earlier in the day. The party insisted that they were unaware princely authorization was required and that the azer had simply sold it to them, the commander insisted that the ingot be handed over to them and a refund would be worked out for the party. Not wanting to give up the ore but not willing to risk a confrontation, Eladan used wish to cast wind walk, allowing the party to shake their pursuers; and because they were in disguises, they were able to continue to move about the city despite their old personas now being "wanted" by the city.
Lastly came the matter of the writ of passage. The group spent a couple days in preparation, with Leona scouting out the areas the noble frequented. She learned that he had a taste for the finer things in life and liked to be seen spending lots of money. From this an idea was formed: they would set up a stall and offer some sort of a good or service that the noble wouldn't be able to resist. Ultimately, they landed on a massage parlor. Zel got some practice in on Resistance members and turned out to be something of a natural. In the morning, they set off to execute their ruse.
Echoless and Eladan laid on the charm to pull the noble into their trap where Leona lightly negged him about the trap. Once inside, Buttons gave him Liquid Fire laced wine which put him in a fugue state. While Zel worked on him, Allston was able to snag the writ from his attendant holding the bag. With that, the party was ready to return to Nephali and get set to break into the Charcoal Palace…
XP earned: 1000 each
Session 27 The party, along with Nepheli, met up with the fire giant smith Trulvig to begin their plan to infiltrate the Charcoal Palace. They would pose as presenters of a gift crafted by the giant and give the Efreeti Princes enchanted rings that would put them in a fugue state. They reached the gates without issue and were presented with the macabre sight of a square filled with gibbets, stockades, and gallows; all displaying the bodies of those who were deemed enemies of the Princes. Most noticeably was the body of a brass dragon draped over the main gates of the Palace. Allston was particularly drawn to a few bodies that were toting complex, metallic prosthetics, even going so far to bribe a guard to let him take them when they left.
Unfortunately, security had been tightened since Nepheli made her scouting run. Since the party had escaped with the cold iron, efreeti casting detect magic and true seeing had been placed at the entrances of the keep, which would easily reveal their disguise. Accepting this, the party tried to talk their way out, claiming that they had always lived here and were indeed hirelings of Trulvig. When the commander of the guard demanded to see their residential papers, Eladan opted instead to twin spell a suggestion to the commander and the true seeing guard to let them pass without a fuss. This gave them opportunity enough to at least get into palace.
They moved quickly to meet the Princes, being escorted by an attendant to their public reception room on the far end of the Palace past the central spire. There, each party member presented a ring to one of the Princes, all of whom accepted them without question. Once on, they were put in a magical fugue state from the cold iron and enchantments. As an extra precaution, Mr. Buttons even applied sovereign glue to the insides of the rings to keep them permanently attached. The guards in the room drew their weapons in response and the party moved to dispatch them, sealing the doors and preventing any word from escaping the room. Two of the princes were able to put up some kind of defense but were ultimately dispatched in the commotion, one by Nepheli and Heart Eater and the other by Zel. When the dust cleared, Nepheli was prepared to execute the rest of the Princes. Echoless and Leona again tried to talk her down, insisting that it would cause more problems for the city and that the murder of defenseless men wasn't ok. They even compromised on allowing the top Prince to be killed, as he possessed magic that could undo the enchantments. Echoless only offered the caveat that Nepheli use the Holy Avenger rather than Heart Eater, to which Nepheli refused. Moving fast, Echoless paralyzed her and Leona cast remove curse on the blade, breaking Nepheli's attunement to it. With her mind free of the blades influence, she still found herself wishing to kill the Prince for practical reasons, but didn't care how the deed was done. And so Echoless made the killing blow instead, hoping to steer Nepheli away from the same path she fell on all those years ago.
With that business taken care of, the party retrieved the Prince's signet rings that would grant them access to the central spire and their true goal. Nepheli and Trulvig bid them farewell and moved to run interference against the reprisal that was surely on its way.
Upon opening the doors to the Spire, they found that the entire base level was filled with primal, burning fire from the Sea of Flames. Eladan donned his mask to make himself immune to fire, and he and Pyrois were able to find and throw a large lever that sealed the floor, cutting off the flames. Once inside, the party closed the doors behind them and took a moment to address wounds incurred from the battle. From there, they moved on to the second floor, where they found an inky void of darkness behind the next door. It consumed all light and was all but impenetrable, save for Leona's true sight, which allowed her to see the room behind. What she found was a multi-leveled chapel with numerous, unlit braziers. More troublingly, were the multitude of Shadows lurking within the darkness, waiting for the party to enter. With Leona guiding them, they entered the room hand in hand, with the door shutting ominously behind them…
XP earned: 5,400 each (award boon after next long rest)
Session 28 The party quickly realized that the braziers needed to be lit to illuminate the room and ward off the shadows. With Leona guiding them (and using a fire storm to light several at once), they were able to light the room enough to see where they were going. Leona's use of turn undead and other powerful divine spells made it so the shadows couldn't really touch the rest of the party. Ultimately, Zel and Buttons bludgeoned their way through the sealed door on the far side of the room rather than attempt to light the remaining fires.
On the next floor, the group was stopped by a party of angels led by a Planetar, who introduced himself as Kossuth's appointed guardian. He was tasked to guard the way with his life and he would not waiver. He proclaimed that is was Kossuth's will that the world be burned away to allow a new to grow; that the realm of mortals was inundated with suffering and cruelty and needed to be made anew. However, some of the deva's in his command were willing to listen to what the party had to say. The party highlighted the Alliance and how factions that would normally attack on sight are working together and that even immortal entities like the angels (Hyrsam specifically) were looking to stop the coming Collision. Ultimately, four of the angels renounced their oaths and withdrew from the room, leaving the Planetar and two Devas to contend with the party, of whom they were able to do little against (the planetar was even killed twice, the second time being fully disintegrated by Echoless).
Beyond the angels, the final door was sealed with another contraption that required another card from the Deck of Many Things to be drawn. Allston again volunteered, this time drawing the Fates card, allowing him to undo one past event between now and his death.
At the very top of the tower, the party met a familiar sight: a massive beam of fire and energy orbited by three obsidian boulders. As they approached, they were met by the spire's guardian, Logira. He confirmed that Kossuth is a much older identity by which the denizens of the Plane of Fire knew him. Otherwise, he offered one last time to allow Eladan to join him, to which he expectedly declined. Wasting no more words, Logira engaged the party in battle. The party found it difficult to do meaningful damage to the god of fire, being outright immune to fire damage and resistant to necrotic and radiant. His armor and mobility also made it difficult for the likes of Zel and Buttons to reliably land blows. Meanwhile, Logria influenced his power over the realm to conjure burning walls of fire and elementals to command the battlefield. He primarily fought in melee and was able to deal a great amount of damage to Echoless and Zel, also tagging the rest with blasts from his Crown of Stars spell and flare attacks.
As the battle wore on, Leona was able to get the full party back to top form with a Mass Heal, but that all but depleted here healing potential. Even using her vulnerability effect was only minorly effective as Logira proved adept at avoiding the brunt of most damaging spells and attacks. Despite this, the party was slowly wearing him down as he drew upon more and more of his power to put down the party. Allston was able to pull his focus away from the other combatants with a surprisingly potent blow from Bigby's Hand, to which Logira proclaimed he "would be a thorn in his side no longer." To which Allston replied "I'm gonna be a big dick in your butt!" With that Logira, moved to strike down the insolent gnome and then focus on terminating the rest of the party. He was aware that they were slowly wearing him down and that he needed to start removing players from the battlefield as quickly as possible…
XP earned: 5,500 each
Session 29 The battle continued to drag on. Despite Logira's attempts to take down the healers, they were always able to get each other up just long enough to pop off another mass healing word or other such spell. Despite this, a meteor swarm from Logira brought all but Mr. Buttons to the brink, and calculated strokes brought down Allston, Echoless, Eladan, and Zel; the latter of whom Logira confirmed the kill of, letting him fall to the ground and then driving his trident through his chest. Fortunately for the barbarian, Leona rolled a natural 20 on her death save and was back on her feet next round (after being extinguished by Echoless with her decanter, as she had still been burning from the elemental attacks).
Some other notable battle highlights: Allston was struck down shortly after his taunting. Zel moved to administer a health potion, but Allston's still active blink effect made that tedious. Zel very nearly got disintegrated, as did Leona. Leona was saved from being fully disintegrated by a well-placed counterspell from Echoless and Eladan. Eladan, after failing to land a single guiding bolt the entire combat, finally landed one at the very end and dealt a solid amount of damage. Buttons hit Logira with a slaying arrow that didn't take him down, but did reveal that his HP was in the double digits.
All the while, Logira continue to be worn down, but which way the battle finally swung remained very much up in the air. That is until Leona called out to Fos and beseeched her aid in the battle. The heavens opened and healing light washed over the party, bringing them all more or less back up to full health. For the first time since the battle began, Logira's fury turned to fear; he simply had expended too much energy fighting the party and didn't have enough left to bring them down again.
He gave it a valiant effort, setting off sunbursts and flares and fighting fiercely with his trident, but in the end (and in a cosmic twist of irony) he was felled by Allston and a barrage of magic missiles. In a flash of fire and smoke, the god of fire's aspect was no more. But his father's words still rang in Eladan's head. In a moment of inquisitiveness, Eladan reached out and was able to sense Logira's presence still without them, albeit distant. And in that moment, he attempted to enact what his father had offered before: to merge their consciousnesses together. Eladan began to glow fiercely, as if burning from the inside. He stepped into the column of Allfire and vanished in a flash; leaving behind only his mortal gear. Eladan as the party knew him was no more.
After Eladan disappeared, the fiery column died down to a modest blaze and the obsidian orbs orbiting it dropped heavily to the roof top entirely inert. With that, the party was able to hear the sounds of commotion coming from beneath them. There was some quick dialog about going back into the keep for the Ollamh Harp Buttons has been after, but he was talked out of it. They scooped up Eladan's stuff and teleported back to Nepheli's safehouse (Allston made a quick detour to pick up the arm he "purchased"). There, they found Nepheli and Trulvig bruised but ultimately unharmed. In their escape, Nepheli was able to steal a Ring of Elemental Command for the Jabalnaar travelers, and Trulvig recovered the Ollamh Harp. Additionally, Nepheli seemed ok with the party keeping her blade and even offered hers and Trulvig's help if they ever needed it. With that, the party plane shifted back to the White Tower.
Back in the cold mountain air,the party encountered a wounded Kruzikmaar accompanied by Bran the Badger. Kruzikmaar had been wounded in a fight with Yolgorah and he was furious with the party. He threatened to kill Zel if he did not right the wrong he had set in motion. Afterward, the party made for the bar. There they encountered Mul and Ferdinand, the sole survivors of the Water Spire mission. Christoph found them later and confirmed that they were the second team back.
The following day, the party went about tying up some loose ends. Buttons got a new invisibility shirt, Zel got blighting poison from Agatha and gave her some new ingredients to play with (sea serpent scales and white dragon eye). Allston checked in on his projects being worked on by the tower workshop and brought in the prosthetic arm and Heart Eater for examination, the latter of which Christoph agreed to let him study in his personal lab (under supervision, of course). As the day went on, news came in from the other away teams: All had been successful, but the entire Earth Spire team was killed, and the Shadowfell Spire team lost two. With those casualties, there were only enough adventurers to fill 3 away teams going forward for the remaining Spires. There was an idea floated of sending the Alliance's undead members to the Negative Plane, but before definitive plans could be laid, the meeting was interrupted by an unexpected visitor: Rolf of the Night's Song. He came with a simple message, Venatrix needed help. This was confirmed when Zel used his sending stone with her, and her only response was a meek "help…"
XP earned: 22,500 each
Session 30 Rolf explained what he and Venatrix had been up to: hunting Heralds of Aevilok and combating extraplanar monsters brought forth from the ensuing chaos of the dome over Eodur. They had managed to find a stronghold of the Heralds, but when they moved to investigate, Amalgam took control of Venatrix and turned on Rolf. He was captured and kept in their dungeon for several days until Ven's Flying Carpet helped him escape. Now he sought the Alliance's help to find Venatrix and help her.
Christoph believed a rescue mission was inadvisable, but Aefaren believed it was worthwhile; if not to save a life but to prevent such a powerful demon from falling into the hands of the enemy and possibly disabling the Herald's ability to summon the Elder Elementals, as they were continuing to do so across the province. Brynn recommended sending another team to help, fearing that sending the party could be playing into a trap. Ultimately though, at the urging of Echoless, they decided to join Rolf and go after her.
They spend the rest of the night resting up and making preperations. Allston and Christoph took some time to study the prosthetic arm and Heart Eater (which Leona's use of legend lore revealed it as a weapon forged by the efreeti to fight the giants way back when. It was also inhabited by sentient being that constantly hungered for life essence). Bran got sauced in the tavern in badger form and pumped druidic energy into the Tower's gardens (including coffee beans Leona planted taking a load off from his arduous escapades with the other druids. Buttons stole a lock of hair from Mul's chambers so the group could scry on him, Zel slept with Ysbetta, and Echoless and Leona had a heartfelt conversation on the Tower's battlements; the former expressing regret over "letting" Venatrix make a deal with Amalgam but the latter encouraging her for respecting her friends autonomy.
In the morning, they set off to Mudan via MAD to make the journey into the Oran foothills where the stronghold would be found. They quickly left the city by way of wind walk and found that the Slaadi horde was within a couple days' march of the city walls, though they themselves were able to bypass them with little effort. They also came across a small hamlet completely frozen over by an eldritch storm; a phenomena no doubt caused by the Dome. After a few hours of travel, they came to their destination. Bran scouted out the manor in bird form and ultimately the party agreed that the sewer spillway was their best means of quietly entering the keep, as the exterior was heavily guarded by slaadi.
Inside the sewer, the party encountered four gray slaadi who moved to intercept them. When it became clear they would not overpower the party, they attempted to go alert the keep, but the party was able to cut them down. In the dungeon proper, the party moved up into the manor to find the way barred. Echoless and Zel used dimmension door to bypass the block and found themselves in a store room with two Heralds and a floor covered in a gritty, sand-like substance…
XP earned: 3,000 each

Report Date

13 Dec 2022