May 7th, 2017

Return to the Castle in the Sky


A somewhat delayed start as we had to wait to reach quorum. Then it happened and everything began.
The adventurers of the day from left to right:
Nick playing Merrick the Human Fighter
Original Matt playing Nova Halfnote III the Halfling Cleric then playing the Human Spellsword after the druid showed up.
Thomas playing the Elven Fighter who isn't Desorna's anything.
Chris playing Deckard the Human Ex-Fighter Thief
Sarai playing Desorna the Elven Fighter
Zack playing LaVeya the Human Druid
And the DM once again playing Ydee, Catherine's Half-Elven Thief
The party began in the large town of Ruinheath where they acquired supplies and made connections for their journey to the Castle to find enough treasure to appease the recently awakened Great One, an archaic black dragon. With twenty two days remaining before the deadline, the party was hoping to acquire a large fortune in a short time to avoid seeing the Great One rampaging across the lands.
Two days were spent in town waiting for the remainder of the party to gather, and in the intervening days the party received some assistance from the local church with a total of eight potions distributed among the party. So fortified, the party continued on their way.
The adventurers made it to the standing circle without any problems, and from there they were transported to the Castle. Quickly claiming the amulets from the secret chamber, they descended toward the entrance to the Proving Grounds. Difficulties came along the way when they were attacked by bugbears as they went down the floors of the tower.
First attacked by three bugbears and during that fight two other bugbears and a bugbear berserker joined the fight. The battle was tough, but the party was victorious in the end, scavenging some coins and a silver amulet off of the bodies they proceeded onwards.
Once into the Proving Grounds the party continued onward following the map Desorna had made to reach the room of the transport chimes. Three tones were played and the party were in the Halls of Wandering, level two of the Proving Grounds. Following the map further they returned to the room where Ivy lived and they asked her some questions about the situation they found themselves in.
Ivy was confused as to why they would have chosen to awaken Tynaroth the Dark Star. The party was equally surprised that Ivy knew who they were talking about. Ivy gave them some of the basic bare bones background that she had about the Great One. Tynaroth was called the Dark Star because she had supposedly swallowed a star in her earlier days, destroying it completely. It was said that she was trying to simply sleep until the time of The Prophecy, though Ivy knew nothing about the prophecy at all except that it apparently existed. There was a ritual that allowed Tynaroth to hibernate throughout time until the time of The Prophecy had come, and the ritual apparently was very difficult and expensive to do, which is why she demanded tribute or she would unleash her fury upon all the nearby areas and have her servants collect all the valuables left behind.
With this new knowledge, the party understood a tiny bit more why they had these expectations on them, and from there they asked Ivy if she could direct them to areas where great amounts of treasure could be found, though that question was later refined to where they might go to collect such treasures and have a chance of returning alive. Ivy suggested levels five and six of the Proving Grounds, though the party could not access those areas yet due to there being a magical lock that required the party to collect three ribbons through tests to be able to bypass the lock. Realizing that Arden, who had earned the red ribbon from one of the tests, was no longer in the party, the characters realized that they would have to regain the red ribbon and earn the third ribbon too. Merrick still possessed the orange ribbon from the second level, so that did not need to be repeated.
In an effort to have redundancy with the ribbons, the party decided to go through the area of impenetrable darkness to find the frog token to perhaps get a second copy of the orange ribbon into the party's possession. The party blundered through the darkness and managed by luck to find a way through to a room where light functioned again. In this room was a large creature that looked like a four armed gargoyle made from black granite. The battle was on and after several party members were injured the creature collapsed dead and its body shattered into fragments that tore through the party.
Beyond this room the party found another hallway to their right and a door to their immediate left. Opening this door they for a moment thought they had found a short passage leading to a swamp. After the ten foot long hallway there was a thirty by thirty chamber with a twenty five or so foot diameter pool in the center of it and semi-real but mostly illusionary vines and swamp plants surrounding it. A quick investigation into the pool saw some ripples crossing the surface. The party prepared themselves as best as they could, but the froghemoth that attacked from the pool took them by surprise.
With its first leap to attack the froghemoth seriously injured Desorna and then popped the other elven fighter into its mouth. From that bad start the battle remained tough, but finally after a lot of blood had been spilled the adventurers were victorious. Searching around the walls of the room revealed nothing of interest, though a frog token was taken from the corpse of the froghemoth.
Once the party was done, they tried to make their way back to the darkness but couldn't remember the way they had come. They blundered through the lit passageways until they came through a door into a ten by ten room with a door opposite the way they had entered. Desorna yanked on the handle of the other door opening the pit trap under their feet that dropped them to the fourth floor. The spellsword used a feather fall spell to save herself from a painful impact, and the druid took her favorite second skin by shapeshifting into a crow. The others didn't take too much damage and they found themselves in a thirty by thirty room with a door in the center of each wall. They ended up departing through the door in the right hand wall and wandered down a long hall, ignoring a door on the right side of the hallway. At the end of the hall they found another door straight ahead, and they passed through this one finding themselves in a twenty by thirty room with a door in the near corner of the right hand wall and three trolls ready to attack!
The battle with the trolls was tough and led to a lot of blood being shed, though the trolls were finally killed. Once they were killed the party searched them, but took two long in the process as two of the trolls recovered enough to attack again. The party fairly quickly killed them again and then used oil to torch them with extreme prejudice. Once the trolls were dead dead, the party searched the room and found a secret panel, the opening of which revealed a familiar set of eight tuning forks and a small mallet. Playing the notes BAA the party was transported back to the Halls of Wandering and level two. From there they returned to the room where Ivy lived and prepared to rest for the night so their druid could regain her spells and heal the group. And there we ended for the night, with nineteen days remaining until their deadline was up.
Experience per character:
Merrick: 2654
Original Matt's Characters: Nova: 825. Spellsword 1829
Thomas' Fighter: 2254
Deckard: 2654
Desorna: 2254
LaVeya: 2454
Ydee: 1327

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