April 23rd, 2017

A Variety of Palaces

The Day of Many Palaces, None Good

No adventure last week due to Easter

The adventurers of the day from left to right:

Nilo playing Kag the “Who has a spell book? Me!” Human Magic-User

Nick playing Merrick the “Crap. What weapon can I sacrifice?” Human Fighter

Chris playing Deckard the “Really?” Human Ex-Fighter Thief

Sarai playing Desorna the Distracted-by-a-Duck Elven Pole-Axe-Maiden Fighter

Hunter playing Strix the abominably clean Elven Magic-User

Zack playing LaVeya the only healer available Human Druid

and, for once, The DM was NOT playing Catherine's character Ydee the Half-Elven Thief as she had vanished last session

After waking up after a quiet night in the sandy chamber that used to belong to the black diamond scorpion queen, the party tried to plan out their next actions before just going and exploring passages because what else was there to do? After exploring a passage to see if it connected to another passage they had bypassed previously, they found a small chamber with a third passage leaving east. Nothing was immediately visible within the room, so some careful exploration was done and Kag found a sealed tube hidden in one of the holes in the wall of the cavern. After having Deckard check it for traps, it was opened and instead of the expected and hoped for scroll there were four small vials of what looked like sandy dust inside. After some guesses, since no one had the identify spell, they were returned to the tube and stored away safely. From there the eastern passage beckoned and the party continued onward.

A bit of wandering further led into another fairly large cave room with multiple passages out of it. The party entered in the north west corner of the room. There were passages out through the north east corner, the eastern wall near the north east corner, the south east corner, and the south west corner. The room was empty and this made the party somewhat suspicious again. The party skipped one rock across the room, though it was not a success as it found one of the crevices in the floor close by them and clattered into the crevice. A second rock was skipped through, though as it got near the center of the room it vanished from sight, though they heard it clattering along for several more seconds. Walking up to the center of the room using spears as prods, one on the floor and one ahead of the party to look for invisible barriers, the party soon discovered that the center 10' of the room was an illusion over a pit of some sort. After lying down and sticking his head through the illusion Merrick saw a smooth stone funnel roughly ten feet across that angled down to a five foot diameter hole in the center of the floor. Deciding not to explore the route deeper into the depths, the party circled around the pit and left through the south west passage to see if it connected back to the room where they had originally entered.

This passage did lead back to the splash down room, and as they entered the room Desorna was landed on and driven into the dirt by something very heavy landing on her back and clawing and biting at her. It tore her up fairly badly with its initial five attacks, and as the party looked more closely it was discovered to be an odd- looking gargoyle. It had four arms instead of the expected two, and it seemed larger than gargoyles were supposed to be. Merrick recovered first and hacked into it with his bastard sword, knocking some chips of stone flying. Kag reacted next and hit it with two magic missiles which seemed to draw its ire. It attacked Kag and tore into him, reducing his hit points by half. The party continued their attacks, some successful and some less so, while it wounded Kag again, reducing him to near collapse. Forgoing attacks, Kag carefully backed away from melee and the two fighters pressed the attack to keep the gargoyle away from their unarmored and bleeding mage. Switching to a blunt weapon, Merrick hit the gargoyle a hard blow with his warhammer. The warhammer's handle shattered under the force of the blow, sending the hammer's head tumbling to the ground in a spray of splinters. Concerned for the potential to destroy his magic bastard sword, Merrick hesitated to draw it before finally yanking it free of its scabbard and attacking with it.

Several rounds of combat passed before the gargoyle finally failed a save against one of Strix's reduce spells. It leapt into the air and hovered overhead, though Desorna was able to hit it with her pole axe before it moved out of close combat range. Deckard was not concerned as he had been firing arrows at the beast the entire combat, so this was just aiming up slightly more in his attacks while those others who could pulled out their slings to attack with. The gargoyle created a ball of fire in each of its hands as it hovered near the roof of the cave, and Kag, thinking quickly, pinned it there with a web spell. The gargoyle used two of the balls of fire to burn the webs away from it and threw the remaining two at Merrick who had moved to stand on the water using his ring of water walking. As the gargoyle threw the fire at Merrick, the fighter yanked of his ring to submerge himself. He wasn't as quick as he needed to be, but still only got mildly singed. Another arrow from Deckard found its mark and the gargoyle decided that it had had enough, scrambling up into one of the crevices in the roof to hide from the party. After it did not reappear, the party left.

They returned to the funnel room and left through the south east passage. A few twists later they entered in the north west corner of a room that stretched 25 feet to the south. Another passage left from the north east corner, but an odd pile of rocks was in the southern end of the room. As the party moved forward to investigate there was a bright flash of light which stunned several of the party members, and a very tall man with dusky skin and wearing robes appeared in the room near Merrick. He said, “Ah, so you are the one who took my lord's armor. Very well.” And with another flash of light the party found themselves standing slightly dazed and confused in a large barred cell while the man, a mage they supposed, stood just outside calmly regarding them. He informed the group that he would have them sent for shortly and departed, leaving them alone in the cell. Merrick, always preparing for the worst, sadly began removing the plate armor and put his old plate mail back on. When a full dozen ornately armored guards came to escort them elsewhere, Merrick was ready. With their escort the party was led through many halls and up many flights of stairs through a marvelously appointed palace to the throne room where another very tall and dusky skinned man sat on a throne while the mage stood beside him and many courtiers were waiting in a crescent on each side of the throne. The elves in the party were frightened and impressed to notice that there were six dragon skulls hanging high on the throne room walls. The man on the throne was likely no push-over!

Some discussion occurred, and the upshot of the conversation was that the party returned the armor and 'volunteered' to perform a service for the sultan. The mage would transport the party to another palace where the party would enter and find a woman, who was shown to them in an illusionary image by the mage, kill her, cut off her head, and return with it. The mage would know when she was dead and would extract the party. If the party failed and lived the sultan would send an efreet, the same one they had met earlier, after them to kill them. He and his mage had located, captured, and interrogated the efreet before locking him away in a new bottle. With few options open to them, the party agreed to volunteer. The sultan summoned a cleric who used the powers of a tome to fully heal the party so they would be ready for their mission on the morrow.

A courtier showed them to their very fancy suite of rooms and later came with slaves bringing a very nice dinner for them. The dinner was the finest they had ever eaten, and though the spices were strange to their uncultured palates, they enjoyed the meal. After a good night's rest the adventurers had an amazingly good breakfast and had time to relax and prepare themselves before being led to the observatory where a large gyroscope was the centerpiece of the large room on top of the tower. The party touched the gyroscope and the mage sent them away.

They found themselves in the rooftop garden on top of another palace in another place. As they looked around they came upon a slave boy tending the garden. The boy was surprised but curious about the party's appearance on the rooftop many stories above the ground. When he identified them as not being natives of this land, Strix panicked and roasted the boy with a burning hands spell, killing him dead. The other adventurers turned on her asking why she had done such a horrible thing, and she babbled that she just wanted to get done and get away because she was terrified. Unhappy with that answer but with few other options the party hid the youngster's scorched body in the bushes and then descended through the doorway to the interior of the palace to begin searching for this woman.

As they came down a hall they ran into a courtier leading a group of four slave workers carrying bags. The courtier began shouting for guards and Kag reacted by hitting him with two magic missiles, killing him and terrifying the slaves who dropped their burdens and ran off. As the party quickly tried to figure out what to do, Kag searched the courtier and took his silver bracelets and neckchain. The end result of the discussion was that Strix cast a rope trick spell and they tossed the body of the courtier into it and followed after, effectively hiding from the guards who did turn up. Grumbling about the bags of fertilizer that had been dropped and spilled on the ground, the guards went looking for the slaves to ask them some questions. After the guards had gone, the party exited the rope trick room and headed down the hall looking for the woman, secure in the knowledge that the courtier's body wouldn't be found until the spell expired and the body fell to the floor.

The party continued on until they came to a four way intersection. As they stopped to look around, Merrick, Deckard, and Desorna all collapsed limp in heaps as a paralysis field engulfed them. The remaining members of the party looked around wildly and saw another tall dusky-skinned man in robes down the hallway to their left who was preparing to cast another spell. Strix misfired a fireball spell down the hall lightly scorching the man but not interrupting his paralysis field spell, which caused Kag to also collapse in a heap. LaVeya cast an obscuring mist to conceal the party and hoped that her companions would get up again quickly as the panicky Strix had used gaseous form to blend in with the mist. Soon Desorna and Merrick were back up again, and moving to the edge of the mist and looking out showed that the mage had left the area. Heavy booted footsteps were heard from the left and forward passages, so Merrick shouldered the paralyzed Deckard and Desorna carried the limp Kag and the party ran down the still-silent right hand passage.

After a short run the party reached a set of double doors, Merrick lowered his shoulder and slammed into the doors, bouncing off from the impact as the doors refused to budge. Shifting his burden, Merrick tried to open the door to discover that it was jammed. Deckard was able to stand again, so Merrick put him down and turned the knob and burst through the jammed door. Once through, Merrick was in a throne room where thirty armed guards stood before him with bows drawn and arrows nocked and ready to fire. Behind them the woman they were looking for and the mage who had the paralysis field spell were watching them. Merrick made a quick prayer for divine intervention to any god who might be listening, and the god of chaos smiled. Another paralysis field ripped through the party, leaving them all collapsed on the floor except for Strix. The elf was now so terrified that when she was told by the sultana to approach the throne and explain the situation, she came forth and groveled as much as she could, offering up the entire story of what they were doing there. Though some of the players of the paralyzed characters were very outspoken in their disbelief about Strix's reaction, their characters were mercifully silent. Using an item to read the mind of the terrified Strix, the court mage confirmed the rambling story and identified the other sultan as one Daarfin. Taking some pity on the obsequious worm called Strix, the sultana merely said that there would be a price to be paid and knocked Strix into a coma with a spell before the court mage teleported them away to an area “where they had come from.”

As the party slowly recovered from their paralysis, they found themselves lying on the grass near a stand of woods and with the sound of a stream nearby. The place did not at all resemble either the relatively barren lands where the sultana ruled, nor the swampy nightmarishness of the Cursed Valley, so though they were uncertain where they were it seemed a much better place than where they had been. After climbing a tree and looking around with his helm of vision, Merrick identified a settlement a couple of hours hike away to the southwest, and the party gathered their belongings and walked toward the settlement which they discovered was Rimwatch View. Happy to be back in familiar and relatively safe territory, the party took their rooms at the new Dancing Pony and collapsed. Strix also all but collapsed in tears when she discovered that the sultana's “price to be paid” was apparently her spellbook which had been taken from her pack. Kag only had half a dozen spells in his book, and none of higher than second level, which meant that his spellbook wasn't of as much use to the 5^th level Strix.

The following day the decision was made to journey back to Twinlake Vale since both LaVeya and Deckard were ready to improve their skills and there was no one in Rimwatch who could train them. An uneventful trip to Twinlake Vale later, the training began and the party relaxed from their latest adventure. The party spent some time talking with the local mages of the Council of Eleven and discovered that they had been in the realm of Trotaria to the north of the vast mountain ranges beyond Lloringhold Bay. They also learned some rumors about the Sultanate and those who ruled it, including the one called the Witch-Queen of Trotaria, who the party had apparently been sent to assassinate. Some other things were done, like getting items identified since no party mage had the appropriate spell for that anymore. Some items were sold and some were traded for a new spellbook for Strix, one that contained seven spell levels of spells: read magic, fireball, and gaseous form.

Fully trained, fully healed, and with a fair spell selection available again the party returned south toward Rimwatch again. But the first night out on Desorna's watch there came a sudden smell of burnt metal and a light brighter than the fire. She turned to discover the efreet standing there and looking angry. He told her that he had been sent by his new master to kill the party. He did offer other alternatives though. The first was that the party could give him as many magic items as it took to please him. The second was that he would transport them to Sultan Daarfin's palace so they could steal his new bottle and destroy it, thereby freeing him.

Feeling like they had little choice in the matter, the party agreed to invade the palace of the sultan and to try to retrieve the bottle. The efreet transported them to a balcony and changed his shape into that of a halfling slave, though one with very red skin. Using the staff of pathfinding, LaVeya led them into the palace and along the most direct path to the location of the bottle. The party avoided one encounter with a group of slaves that they saw further down a hallway. In the dim light the slaves who noticed LaVeya, who had frozen in the center of the hallway instead of trying to hide along the wall like everyone else, thought that she belonged there, and a crisis was avoided.

And there we will continue next week.

Experience per character:

Kag: 508

Merrick: 508
Deckard: 508

Desorna: 406

Strix: 508

LaVeya: 508