June 14th, 2013

Sins of the Saviors

Players present: Elora (Sally), Azalyn (Shelley), Bastian (Casey), Sirilenda (Melissa), Derani (Rachel), Kage (Arren)

After scouring the halls of Gluttony the heroes discovered a series of cleverly hidden secret doors which ended at a necromantic laboratory, with recent "experiments" still waiting on a pair of cold slabs. A search of that room revealed another secret door, this one in the floor of the chamber, leading down to a small room containing three plinths, two of which supported stone sarcophagi. The carved surface the sarcophagi resembled hundreds of tiny cavorting skeletons, and each one radiated strong necromantic magic.

Bastian pried the lid of one sarcophagus open, activating a magical trap, which filled the chamber with hundreds negative energy rays. The occupants of the cramped space, Bastian and Orden, suffered some wounds but quickly healed. They opened the remaining sarcophagus without further injury.

The contents of the stone coffins included several spell books andl a small fortune in gold and gems. The group gathered up the loot and resumed their search for Azaven's phylactery. With no remaining areas of the Gluttony complex to explore, they turned to the Revelation Quill for guidance.

Orden scribbled out several questions for the Peacock Spirit that answered the Quill. They learned that Azaven's phylactery no longer resided within the halls of Runeforge, but where exactly it lay not even the Peacock spirit seemed to know. They did learn though that it is shaped like a sarcophagus.

Without further leads to the phylactery's location, the heroes headed back to the slime drenched Halls of Envy. They delved further into the twisting tunnels, and discovered a large chamber containing three levers labeled in ancient Thassilonian. Perhaps wisely they left the levers untouched and proceeded further in to a set of large double doors.

Bastian opened the doors to reveal a chamber containing four vats of colored ooze surrounding a larger central vat. A corpulent human with a knot of writhing black tentacles sprouting from his chest sat motionless on a floating stone throne. His half-lidded eyes regarded them dully as they entered. The heroes questioned him about runeforged weapons, and he slurred out his responses, directing them back to Vraxeris in the Halls of Pride. The man, Jordimandus, then excused them and urged them to depart.

The party prepared to leave, but Elora posed one more question, which apparently rankled Jordimandus and stirred him to action. He began casting a spell, but the party, constantly expecting attack, anticipated his actions and struck peremptorily. During the ensuing barrage of spells, arrows, and flaming blades, a hidden attacker revealed himself behind the heroes: none other than Azaven the lich!

Omox demon

Orden provoked the lich, not realizing he possessed a paralyzing touch, and ended up immobilized. Jordimandus summoned a pair of Omox demons to harry the heroes, and one of them dragged Orden's helpless body down into the river of slime. Azalyn cut Azaven to ribbons, but just before the final cut Azaven's contingency activated, teleporting him away.

Without support from Azaven, Jordimandus soon fell to the might of the heroes. Orden managed to free himself while the rest of the party slew the Omox demons.

The heroes looted the bodies, then prepared to continue investigating the Halls of Envy...

With Shelley's recent delivery (welcome to the world, Emma Myers!), she and Casey are taking a break from gaming. As such, we will be taking a hiatus from Rise of the Runelords for at least a few weeks, until the Myers are ready to resume. In the interim, Mike will be starting his Kingmaker campaign so I will be sure to make some posts about those sessions.

June 7th, 2013

Sins of the Saviors

Players present: Elora (Sally), Azalyn (Shelley), Bastian (Casey), Sirilenda (Melissa)

With the return of Orden, the group retreated to Sandpoint to revive their fallen members. They knew that they had a short period of time to recuperate before the lich, Azaven, would be able to use his phylactery to regenerate. Also, they still had not found the runeforged weapons supposedly housed in the Runeforge complex. Exploring the remaining halls of that place would be more difficult with an angered lich looming in the shadows, so they hurriedly made their preparations to return.

Clay Golem

The heroes plunged back into the depths of Runeforge, returning to the Halls of Gluttony with the goal of discovering Azaven's phylactery. They first came upon an ancient burial chamber, stocked with dozens of perfectly preserved Thassilonian wine bottles. The armored clay golem guardian of the tomb immediately noted their entrance and attacked without warning, but provided little challenge for the seasoned adventurers. Azalyn's flaming greatsword carved the soft flesh of the construct easily, despite its additional armor. Orden quickly gathered up the bottles after sampling one of the vintages, which proved of excellent quality.

From the crypt the group moved on to the laboratories, where they found mangled corpses and body parts strewn about, and gore smeared on the walls. Closer inspection by Sirilenda revealed the skilled ministrations of a master necromancer at work, but this revelation did little to lessen their revulsion at the scene. The bodies appeared surprisingly fresh, as if the victims had been killed just minutes prior. They soon left the laboratories behind in search of the phylactery.

Nightwing

After the macabre tableau of the laboratories, the heroes returned to a previously explored room containing a rippling curtain of black energy suspended between two crystal pillars. Azalyn, with a death ward cast by Orden, approached one of the pillars and began smashing it with her sword. After two solid hits, the pillar exploded in a burst of razor edged shards, which damaged the other pillar but did not shatter it. The curtain of energy faded, but before disappearing completely, a hole in the fabric of reality opened up to the negative energy plane, and disgorged a monstrous denizen of the outer planes. The huge bat-like creature, which Orden recognized as a Nightwing, filled almost the entire room. 

The group retreated in hopes that the confines of the room would pen the creature in, but its long neck allowed for surprising reach. Elora feathered the creature with arrows while Azalyn, after sustaining severe wounds, withdrew. Bastian then charged the beast, but did not make striking distance before being mangled to death in its massive jaw. Elora felled the creature just as Orden revived Bastian using breath of life. 


The heroes, bloodied but alive, stanched their wounds and prepared to continue the search for the phylactery...