Session 70 - Eye of Avarice

General Summary

Into the Eye

As you step into the column of light atop the anima focus, an intense surge of heat engulfs you, enveloping your body in an infernal embrace as flames consume your body. The heat is so intense and immediate that you do not have time to scream. You just… stop being. Blackness swallows you. You realize that you’re not dead when a profound sense of unease washes over you. Dead people don’t feel such things, do they? The darkness is not as absolute as you thought it was as vague shapes start to take form around you. The air is thick and heavy, carrying an otherworldly scent that you can't quite place. The sky above is a swirling canvas of strange colors, with dark hues dominating the horizon. The sun, if it can be called that, emits a feeble, sickly glow, casting long, eerie shadows over the desolate landscape. You find yourself standing on uneven ground, a desolate plateau that stretches as far as the eye can see. Jagged rocks and alien vegetation litter the landscape, and the ground seems to pulse with a faint, unnatural energy. The very land appears to be alive, but not in any way you are familiar with. As you peer into the distance, you catch glimpses of strange, nightmarish structures that defy all laws of architecture you know. They loom on the horizon like haunting sentinels, distorted and angular, as if constructed by a demented mind. The geometry is all wrong, causing your head to ache with the effort of comprehending it. (*Some of you recognize this place as Leng.*) In the sky, peculiar and ominous shapes drift by – ethereal beings or grotesque creatures, you can't tell. They have a dreamlike quality, flickering in and out of existence as if they belong to a realm between reality and nightmare. The silence is deafening, but you feel an unsettling presence lurking just out of sight. Unseen eyes seem to watch you from the shadows, and the sense of being observed sends shivers down your spine. But the most unsettling aspect of this world is the pervasive feeling of insignificance it evokes. You can't help but feel like a meaningless speck in the grand scheme of this nightmare. The overwhelming vastness and indifference of the cosmos press down on your mind, threatening to drive you to the brink of madness. But before the sensation overtakes you, the ground splits and cracks beneath you and a column of flames engulfs you for a second time. You feel yourself falling through the flames, falling down, falling forward. The flames do not consume you, and there is no blackness. No pain. Just heat as you fall. You see walls of living flames stretch endlessly into the distance, their luminescent brilliance casting a fiery glow upon the landscape. The air crackles with the energy of an unbridled conflagration, and a chorus of crackling embers fills your ears. Waves of heat wash over you like an unyielding tide, yet somehow, your skin remains unscathed as if protected by an invisible shield. This is a realm of intense contradictions—both awe-inspiring and perilous. Molten rivers of lava meander through the landscape, carving fiery paths through the scorched earth. The ground beneath your feet seems to pulse with an unseen heartbeat, resonating with the rhythmic flow of the fiery currents. The colors here are as vibrant as they are menacing—red-hot, yellow-gold, and orange hues blend together, forming a mesmerizing display of elemental might. Somewhere amidst the searing landscape, you catch a glimpse of a small dome floating between the flames and lava. The sphere grows as you fall toward it. Falling doesn’t even seem to be the right word for it. You continue to move forward, but your inability to control your descent gives you the sensation of falling. The growing stone dome has a smooth exterior, charred black from its molten environment. You rush toward an opening in the side - a large cave perhaps? As soon as you enter the dome, whatever protective field surrounded you disappears. You speed forward toward a stone platform, and while the air around you feels much more comfortable, the heat from the lava 100 feet beneath you reminds you of what lies beyond the dome. You arrive at the platform and pass through a ripple of blue energy between two glowing pillars. Your feet find purchase beneath you, and as you look back at the field of energy you passed through you see an image reflected on it - the city of Xin-Shalast. But before you can take a good look at it, you hear a crack of thunder.

The Welcoming Committee

Much like Jayvielle and Kilgor had sensed Karzoug inside the Eye of Avarice, the Runelord of Greed sensed them as well. Two storm giants flanked the entrance, unleashing chain-lighting attacks as soon as the heroes set foot on the landing. As if that wasn't enough, a gargantuan creature named the Avatar of Destruction roared and began to approach the party. Karzoug launched a meteor strike from his throne across the Eye, exploding and filling the landing with flame and debris. A cloudkill spell was dropped on them for good measure. All this before the heroes could even draw their blades. The party split up to keep from being blown up en masse. Kilgor, Jayvielle, and an Arcaine-fuelled Mite began playing c-c-combo breaker on the female storm giant before she could drop another giant storm on them. Seeing the dismantling happening across the platform, the male storm giant decided that chivalry was not quite dead and began summoning his own storm to stop the intruders from intruding any further, specifically in his direction.

The Avatar of Destruction launched spikes at Jatsu, Kumiko and Quilith who were still keeping their distance. The beast began a precarious balancing act, advancing across narrow platforms to reach them slowly. Karzoug took it upon himself to maintain his "do not play nice" policy and burst a rain of arrows on them. This attack felled Kumiko, who barely clung to life while several dozen arrows introduced large wounds to her body. Jatsu was still on his feet, but not by much. Quilith floated in shadowy form, unaffected by the attack. That changed when Karzoug used mage's disjunction to shut off all magic around them. Things were looking bad for the Saviors of Sandpoint. But things turned around quickly after the storm giant's dead body fell into the lava beneath the platform and Mite leaped in front of the forty-foot-tall rampaging house with teeth. The beast tried to take a bite out of Mite, but thanks to Jatsu's protective magic (and possibly the magical pharmaceuticals pumping through the goblin's body), the creature was struck blind. Try as it might, it could not land a blow which only set it up for a devastating c-c-combo breaker of Jayvielle and Kilgor's poetic ballet of death. The Avatar of Destruction never saw the grippli explode through its head, sending the creature's corpse into the lava below. This... did not sit well with the Runelord of Greed. Karzoug pulled up his sleeve to reveal the remaining Temporal Bracer of Leng. "I will not be stopped by peasant trash like you. You are beneath me," he whispered, channelled arcane energy into the green gem on the bracer. The bracer changed the wizard. After ten thousand years as a ghost in his demiplane, Karzoug was attuned to the Eye of Avarice. So much so that he began assimilating parts of the Eye, including the remaining storm giant, into his body. He became a twenty-foot-tall golden metallic angel, whose face had been replaced with a large green gem cut similar to the one on the Temporal Bracer of Leng. In one facet of the gem was Karzoug's face. In the other was the former owner of the Bracer, Maximus Merilander.

To make matters worse, a spectral hourglass appeared behind the new Avatar of Greed and emptied quickly. The heroes went to work. The Avatar of Greed attacked with multiple spells at once, using a modified Basilisk Gaze to turn Mite and Jatsu to solid gold. But things began to turn around when Quilith's lava assault and Kumiko's Evil Eye hex put the Avatar in a bad spot, forcing it to reset. This weakened the Eye and strengthened the Avatar of Greed, but restored Mite and Jatsu from their petrified state. And that's when Faith came through in a very big way. First, the snow globe Kumiko carried came to life and the Spirit of Christmas that she carried with her, Saint Nicholas, came to her in her hour of need. He gave her the Gift of her Evil Eye Hex, then disappeared saying "The Power of Christmas compels you..."

Not to be outdone, Jatsu whispered a prayer to Desna for aid. Apparently, the Goddess of Fortune had had enough of the Avatar's shenanigans and huge butterfly wings appeared behind the Avatar, forcing them from their lofty flying position back down to the ground. Right into the waiting arms of the c-c-combo breakers Jayvielle and Kilgor. The Avatar of Greed was a master of Transmutation magic. However, one of his opposing schools was enchantment. And with Kumiko's Evil Eye Hex and a vulnerability to enchantment, the Avatar of Greed's assault was stopped by one spell - Irresistible Dance. The spirit of the Runelord of Greed and the Arcane Assassin began to waltz inside the green crystal, while the Avatar of Greed broke into some interpretive dance that philosophers could best describe as "Carlton-Like." This indignation did not last long, and death quickly followed. The Avatar of Greed, Karzoug the Runelord of Greed, and Maximus Merilander of House Merilander were dead.

Campaign

Rise of the Runelords

Protagonists