February 9th, 2013

Fortress of the Stone Giants

Players present: Elora (Sally), Azalyn (Shelley), Bastian (Casey), Orden (Mike), Sirilenda (Melissa), Vale (Dean)

This is the first session we played since Matt and Arren were able to join us. We had left off underneath the Jorgenfist fortress, deep in the lower library level, after the heroes had defeated two stone golems and a veritable army of zombies. 

Scanderig

The group resumed in the room of the battle with the zombies, and were recovering and healing when they were surprise-attacked by a large metallic monster called a scanderig! The creature emerged from the floor like it was swimming in water, attacked Orden and attempted to sunder his armor (only inflicting minor damage). The group retaliated and forced the scanderig to retreat back into the ground, leaving the group only mildly wounded, but very puzzled.

They continued further into the library level and came upon a long tall corridor that was covered in carved Thassilonian runes. The west end of the hall ended in a large bronze door that was emblazoned with a large, silver plated version of the seven pointed star known as the Sihedron. The door had a small, seven pointed indentation in the center, which seemed to be a keyhole. The heroes decided the safest way to open the door would be to have Sirilenda cast open at the door from a distance, however doing so triggered the summoning of a mysterious creature from another dimension! This creature, known as a shining child, was soon joined by the scanderig. The shining child used its special abilities to permanently blind most of the group and provided an entertaining and frustrating fight. Both the shining child and the scanderig were slain.

Shining Child

After the combat ended, the group retreated to a secluded room of the cavern complex and rested. Orden and Bastian were able to cast heal and remove blindness on the blind party members to restore their sight. They retraced their steps back through the now mostly empty library level to reach the large Sihedron-emblazoned bronze doors. This time they attempted to physically force the doors, but once again the doors did not budge, and once again a shining child was summoned! The group was a little more prepared this time, and dispatched the shining child with only a few blindings. Orden and Bastian were prepared with extra remove blindness spells, so the party was seeing again in short order. The group had voted and decided to leave the door alone, when Orden ran up to the door and pushed on it again! Once more they were forced to fight a shining child, but this time there were no extra remove blindness spells to use once the fight was over. 

The group retreated back to their hiding place and rested, healed, and then returned to the corridor. This time they headed east down the corridor, and passed through a doorway into a chamber to face off against a pair of monstrous creatures knows as hounds of Tindalos. This combat was over quickly, and the heroes pressed forward to another set of smaller double doors.

Opening these doors revealed a dense wall of fog, and Bastian, who was standing in front, was hit by a green ray of disintegrate! Luckily he made his save and was not turned to ash, but the group immediately came under heavy attack from a spellcaster they decided must be Mokmurian, the stone giant wizard and master of Jorgenfist! The battle was prolonged, but the group was able to triumph without too much peril.

Karzoug

Just as Elora fired the killing arrow, Mokmurian's face was replaced by a human one, who regarded the heroes with a look of contempt and delivered a classic villain expository speech! He told them he was Karzoug, ruler of Xin-Shalast, and that all their efforts were really just speeding his return (presumably from the grave?). His last comment was a dismissive assessment of the group: "So these are the heroes of the age. Is this the best you could manage in 10,000 years?"