Echoes of Time Sessions 11 - 20

General Summary

Session 11 Whilst the rest of the party idled at the docks, Ximon found himself face-to-face with the Aboleth itself, who rather easily put him under its sway. For the next two nights, Ximon unwittingly assisted in the abductions of Alette So-Leonte as well as several of the Countess' Royal Guards.
The group did find some success however, in freeing the Keep Steward Marco Norris from his indoctrination by casting Greater Restoration on him. Freed from the compulsion, he was able to remember snippets of what happened to him and the creature that did it. Now with a personal stake, he pulled some strings to allow the party into the restricted section of the library to see if they could dig up any relevant information.
They were able to find old references to the Aboleth and its supposed machinations. While in the library, Eladan also learned some interesting lore on the ancient primordial gods. Venatrix found an old tome on demonology and devil summoning that made some reference to Night Hags. Rolf suggested they "take" the book.
Armed with this knowledge, and several trips to the Lunar Forum, the group decided to confront the Night Hag Priscilla that night and deal with the Aboleth tomorrow. Unfortunately, it did not go as planned. Ximon was set to watch the twins, but was compelled by the Aboleth to leave for the city. Thus, Priscilla was free to haunt the twins uninterrupted.
With that failure, the party decided to regroup and try again the following night. Ximon was now nowhere to be found, and Venatrix instead watched the twins. But while everyone was so busy watching FreeDom for signs of nightmares, Priscilla targeted Oswin that night instead, preventing him from regaining the magical energy necessary to restore his party members. On the plus side, FreeDom was able to regain their spells.
All the while, Mul kept tabs on the party, spying on them under the guys of a seemly elven woman, a polite old man, and a hunter. The party finally nabbed him while he was in hunter form, as they caught him following them into the woods again attempting to nab Priscilla. They once again chained him to FreeDom's ladder and gagged him, forcing him to write on parchment his responses to their questions. He responded unusually helpfully, but it quickly became clear that he was stalling for time when the Aboleth itself appeared in the tree branches above them…
XP earned: 1,200 each
Session 12 The party quickly learned that the "Aboleth" above them was merely an illusion that dissipated the moment an attack was thrown at it. However, it achieved its purpose of distracting the party long enough for Mul to escape. With him gone, the party went back to dealing with the Night Hag issue.
After another trip to the Lunar Forum, the gang was at a bit of an impasse. The idea was to use a scroll of see invisibility and target her with force damage, but some party members were skeptical about how effective this would be long term. Oswin floated the idea of using Raven's crystal to summon the Yochlol, but that too was shot down as there was no guarantee this was something she could actually help with. Ultimately, the group decided to all sleep in a common room and have Ximon wake up whoever was haunted.
Except for Eladan of course, who wanted his own room. And as it was, later that night, Priscilla came in the flesh to his room and offered him a deal: she would leave the party alone in exchange for the demonology book the group "acquired" from the Archives. Eladan politely declined and proceeded to nearly burn down the inn.
In the morning, at Rolf's urging, the party decided it was time to tackle the Aboleth problem once and for all. After receiving a spell of water breathing from the Lunar Forum, the group + Rolf chartered a boat and dove into the deepest part of the lake.
After descending nearly a mile beneath the surface, the party came across a deep trench in the lake bed. Following it led them to what seemed to be ancient, alien ruins. At the deepest part of the trench, they found an old "tower" of sorts defended by two Chuuls. The group made short work of the Chuuls and descended into the lair of the Aboleth…
XP earned: 400 each
Session 13 The party made their way into the lair of the Aboleth, where they were faced with blank-faced thralls and several chuuls, as well as illusory visions of the Aboleth itself. FreeDom and Eladan doubled back to fend off chuuls that were coming up behind them.
After much hardship, they made it into the deepest chamber and faced the Aboleth itself. But before they could attack, the Aboleth convinced Ximon to join up with it, in exchange for help in dealing with his revenant condition as well as support against the dragon.
Thus began a battle between Aboleth, Mul, and Ximon against Venatrix, Oswin, Echoless, and Rolf. Eventually, Ximon turned against the Aboleth and rejoined the party, but the battle was still hard-won. Echoless ended up delivering the killing blow to the Aboleth as it tried to flee. Mul teleported away and Oswin lost his life.
The party returned to the surface via portaling to find that Rolf, Echoless, and Oswin (sort of), had been contaminated with some kind of disease that inflicted pain on them while they were out of the water…
XP earned: 2,600 each
Session 14 The group wraps up their loose ends in Fendelen. Rolf took the demonology book as planned, but there was a slight snag in the voices in Venatrix's head compelled her to keep it. She was however able to resist the compulsion and gave him the book. Otherwise, FreeDom got their enchanted shields, Eladan learned a bit about enchanting, Ximon found Mul's chambers in the Aboleth Lair, Echoless and Eladan accidentally wound up in the Plane of Water for a hot second, and the group made some new friends. But one cloud hung over the groups head: Oswin was unable to be revived and was interred in the Cathedral's crypts.
After a week of downtime, the group began trekking west to Crucible where they intended to catch a ship to the Lunar Forum. On the road, they hit some unfortunate complications. Firstly, there was an increase in bats seemingly watching them, they stumbled across a couple of hill giants (but were able to avoid them), were cussed out of Spalding, and found the next town over, Runswick, a smoking crater of ash.
The party set up camp on the outskirts of the village and were promptly confronted by a patrol of Crucible soldiers demanding answers for the burned down town. A fight ensued, and the lead Paladin Solomon surrendered when some of his soldiers were killed. We leave off with the party deciding what to do with their assailants…
Session 15 The group surprisingly allowed Solomon and his men to leave. They returned to their outpost to the north of Runswick and sent a raven back to their superiors about what they encountered. Travelling on, they stumbled across a Dragon's Fang trap: a herd of bison stampeding to attract the attention of a purple worm hunting in the area. The party slew the worm and attracted the attention of Dauntless, the tiefling in charge of a Fangs Squad.
Dauntless offered the party a place with the Dragon's Fangs, but they politely declined. As an offer of good will, Dauntless offered to have his associate, a tabaxi monk, escort them to Crucible so that they could pass through the Dragon's Fangs' checkpoints without issue (and the tabaxi could check out the situation in Crucible, as Ximon mentioned the dragon to them).
In an attempt to make haste to Crucible, the party travelled through the night, only stopping when they could see the city's lights off in the distance. However, they parked in a pair of wyverns' hunting territory, and they were attacked. Fortunately, the party made short work of them and made for Crucible at dawn.
By the light of day, the party found something troubling: the city seemed to be wreathed in fog and Ximon could sense the dragon somewhere beyond. Fortunately, the tabaxi knew of a hidden way into the city, and led the group to a hidden tunnel of elven origin. They encountered some danger and traps along the way, but ultimately found themselves in the cellar of a tavern in central Crucible. From their, the party split off to investigate the city, Ximon and the tabaxi towards the docks to investigate the dragon, Eladan and Echoless towards the library, and Venatrix to the Night's Song compound (Freeth and Dom stayed at the tavern)…
XP earned: 4,500 each
Session 16 After reconvening at the Noble Lion Tavern in the Gold District of Crucible from their various city exploits (Venatrix went to the Night's Song and had an interesting conversation with the vampire Bartimaeus, Echoless and Eladan found some juicy lore on Logira in the Library of Cere, and Ximon and Buttons scoped out the docks), the party discussed their options. After some back and forth about pursuing leads on a string of murders, teleportation circles on the fritz, missing priests, and a supposed artifact that could help defeat the undead horde currently surrounding the city, the party decided on first helping out the Night's Song and then pursuing Echoless' artifact.
At the Night's Song compound, the party was able to examine the teleportation circles and found that they should be working perfectly, but something was causing outside interference.
After the Night's Song, the party went to the Parthenium to look for the man last seen with Echoless' amulet. After a thorough investigation, the party had nothing. So they went to the Lunar Forum to help them search for the man via scrying. That didn't work either. But then Filip of the Forum offered the idea of casting the spell find object and gave a scroll to Echoless. Using it, she determined it was in the tunnels beneath the city nearly two miles west.
At a dead sprint, the party ran into the nearest tunnel entrance they could find (in an annoyed dwarven smith's basement) and managed to make it nearly a mile towards the artifact before the spell ended. While navigating through the tunnels, headed in the most direct path they could find to where they believed the artifact to lay, they were assaulted by assassins, who nearly dropped a few party members in one shot…
XP earned: 3,000 each
Session 17 After dealing with the assassins, the party scoured the tunnels in the undercity of Crucible in search for Echoless' "family heirloom". They were able to navigate the sewers fairly well, and managed to find a House of Phantoms' supply cache (where they killed the last assassin as he tried to escape their clutches) and found a map of the tunnels.
After finding their way into a confluence of homeless and downtrodden beneath a major market square in the city above, the party stumbled across a public execution being lead by none other than the Cult of Rapture. Before they could sneak around, a fight broke out as the lieutenant of the merc captain being executed attacked the cultists. After some brief explanations and thanks were given, the lieutenant, a sexually ambivalent wood elf ranger named Evan, was offered to help the party with their quest for saving the captain's life.
Deeper into the tunnels, the party stumbled across a secret entrance to an old elven temple, to which they gracefully smashed their way in. Inside they faced shadows, wraiths, and animated statues, but eventually they found their way to the central chamber where Garav and his followers were waiting.
Not wanting to wait for exposition, Echoless immediately used telekinesis to steal back the amulet and attack. Garav and his followers were no match for the party and were quickly defeated. Echoless humored Garav and allowed him to ask a question, where he nearly revealed his and her involvement with the horde of undead and Waypointe. In response, she drove a dagger through his throat.
The party then departed the ruin, but the group had lingering questions. Finally, Echoless revealed that she and Garav had in fact accidentally unleashed the horde of undead with the amulet. With this news, Ximon teleported away with barely contained fury.
He returned to the ruin, where he had a surviving cleric revive Garav so he could ask questions. Garav explained how he met Echoless, how she had shown interest in joining the Cult of Rapture, how they found the location of the sealed doors, and how she revealed that she had acquired the supposed key to unlock them. Ximon then demanded Garav be there to right the wrong he had wrought. Garav enthusiastically "agreed", and Ximon went on his way to contemplate on his own while the rest of the party returned to the Noble Lion Inn…
XP earned: 3,000 each
Session 18 The party, save for Ximon, seemed to generally be ok with Echoless' actions and all proceeded to chill at the Noble Lion Tavern for the rest of the evening. While in the middle of getting drunk, a stout little elf named Fleet informed them that their presence was requested by General Laidir of Crucible's army to discuss the undead horde around them.
At the meeting in the Palace of Chronicles the next day, Laidir gave each party member in attendance 500 gold as well as an orb of direction as a forward on a potentially lucrative partnership if they assist in the defense of Crucible should an invasion occur.
With the rest of the day theirs, the party humored Buttons and helped in search for Jemma and Cameron Havik, running into a crazed man with an efreeti bottle in the process (the Lunar Forum quietly confiscated the bottle before anything ridiculous happened). They were unable to find Cameron at the Temple but did find Jemma at the Lunar Forum's campus. She hesitantly joined up with them and agreed to help them track down her brother.
They found Cameron in the outer city taking on 4 guys at once after encountering 3 goblins in a trench coat asking for "a coin". Despite his impressive entrance, Cameron proceeded to do very little; being very stubborn on the idea of leaving. Eventually he gave in, and the party returned to the Noble Lion Tavern with the intent of re-entering the tunnels beneath the city and meeting up with the Dragon's Fangs in the Silent Vale.
The party was able to find their way relatively easily, following the marks they made along the way, until they entered a chamber containing two Ropers, who proceeded to attack the party. After getting tossed about by the tentacled horrors, the party was eventually victorious.
Meanwhile, Ximon went about his business, purchasing new clothes and searching for beneficial magic items. However, he was soon set upon by two assassins (one a rogue and one a sorcerer) of the House of Phantoms, sent on behest of Garav Arashammad. Despite a valiant attempt, Ximon was slain and his body taken back to Garav.
As the party continued, some flirtations were made and conversations were had, and all seemed well until the party ran almost directly into a horde of zombies jam packed into the corridor beyond. Sarword, who had joined up again with the party, attempted to burn through them with his ability to destroy undead, but despite being able to carve a path through the zombies, he was quickly confronted by far more powerful undead; Shepherd's wights, who immediately moved to engage…
XP earned: 2,600 each
Session 19 The party was able to push past the undead plug in the tunnels to find themselves in the cave they originally entered. However, they found the clearing covered in fog and absolutely full of zombies. They tried to push through, but were discovered by the wights in charge of the zombie horde and were waylaid by more zombies, wights, deathlocks, and two demonic vrocks (that were ushered into Shepherd's forces when they came across them in Luma Forest).
The party eventually decided it was in their best interests to regroup back in the cave and seal off the entrance. After doing so, they rested in the cave for the night, the undead seeming content to prevent them from leaving. After some interesting conversation, they finally returned to the city. Returning to the Noble Lion Tavern, the party found Rolf of the Night's Song waiting for them, wishing to take Venatrix back to the manor to speak with Overseer Ilia, who had just returned. She and Buttons went with him, while the rest went shopping at the Lunar Forum and then went to inform General Laidir of what they discovered.
At the Night's Song, Venatrix informed the Overseer about Echoless' amulet, which she implored Ven to retrieve for the Night's Song, with or without Echoless' consent. She also informed Ven that their spies had spotted House of Phantom agents carrying a man of Ximon's description out of a small archive in the outer wards. On the other group's way to the general, they were stopped by Archmage Palios Pseftis, who offered to teleport them out of the city. The party seemed willing to acquiesce, but there was something odd about Pseftis. Despite this, they agreed to meet with him back at the tavern that evening when the full party was reunited.
At the tavern, the group ended up refusing Palios, at least for the moment, as after some deliberation, the group decided to follow the lead on Ximon first…
XP earned: 4,500 each
Session 20 The party set out first thing to follow the lead on Ximon's whereabouts, stopping briefly to engage in an eating competition they stumbled across, where they met a strangely scrawny, silver-haired elf named Xoddrosdam (a disguised silver dragon) who politely offered to guide the party to the archive Ximon was last seen at.
From there, the party tracked the subtle marks of passage left by the assassins that took Ximon across the rooftops of several blocks, vaulting over ledges and spanning gaps in the roof (only sometimes falling). After getting sidetracked in a dinner theatre tavern called "The Dancing Mare" and toying with the affections of the owner, the party continued on and encountered a weirdly chill homeless man going by the name of Jessie. Jessie turned out to be a lookout for the Phantoms and the party promptly subdued him and coerced him through magic into revealing where Ximon had gone.
This turned out to be an unused warehouse accessible only by the roof. Inside were two more assassins, who were caught quite off guard by their door being blown off its hinges by a powerful shatter spell, and a lumbering flesh golem. After defeating the lot of them, the party travelled down once again into the old elven tunnels that run beneath Crucible. In the tunnels, they discovered a tavern of sorts set up in an intersection, where they received some steely looks to say the least. As they continued on, they suddenly found themselves surrounded by a full party of Phantoms who were none to happy that they were down here…
Buttons aside: Mr. Buttons went to check up on Jemma and Cameron Havik at the Lunar Forum. The latter had come up with an idea to get out of the city, but it would likely require breaking into the Lunar Forum's secure vaults. Mr. Buttons went back to run this by the party and eventually was able to track them to the tunnels with the help of a surprisingly chipper silver-haired elf and a tied-up Phantom who had already spilled the beans, so why not tell this weird cat guy too. He reconvenes with the party just in time to see them being ambushed…
XP earned: 3,500 each

Report Date

13 Dec 2022