Rise of the Runelords

After looting Delavine's chamber and casting a detect magic and a couple oif quick identifies, you decided to go back to the Shimmering Halls to wait and rest.  Delvahine was still out there and you did not want to remain here lest she decided to return for vengeance.  Once you reached the Shimmering Halls, you noticed many more mirrors were broken and the room where you found Vraxeris had been further ransacked.  You found a defensible room and waited the day out.

After the clerics were able to regain their spells, you again ventured into the central room.  You figured this was the runeforge pool mentioned and decided to use the items recovered so far - the mirror shards and sex toy - to create a rune-forged weapon (somehow). Malloric stepped up first and dropped the shard he was carrying.  The colors in teh prismatic waters changed with one becoming brighter and a mist started to form over the water.  He dropped the other component into the pool and one other color brightened, almost completely obscuring the others.  The pool 'boiled' with mist.  Malloric hesitantly held out one of his bows.  The mists reached up and encircled the weapon.  The bow felt heavy as if the mists were trying to pull it into the water.  As you all watched, several runes - similar to those on his bastard sword and Pirozzi's spear - appeared on the bow.  As soon as they were formed, the mists retreated and the water appeared to have returned to 'normal.'  Henrik, Balros, Wolfgar, Golian, and D'Argo followed with the same results.  As D'Argo was finishing, you felt a rumble in the hall.  The statue of Karzoug, across the room from you was starting to crack.  The cracks grew larger and more and more stone fell to the floor.  Very quickly, the statue began to move, lumbering slowly towards you and the pool. 

Several launched magical attacks which merely bounced off the creature.  Malloric fired several arrows and noticed that most if not all the damage was being deflected.  He told Henrik, who called for Wolfgar to come meet him.  When Wolfgar reached Henrik, they rummaged quickly through the party weapons and armed Wolfgar with the magic adamantine war-hammer.  You formed a line to meet its progress.  It stopped once to cast a slow on the group. D'Argo countered shortly after with a haste.  The statue stopped some feet short of the front line and with its reach, brought a massive fist down onto Henrik. You returned blows, with many missing. Wolfgar landed a solid hit and was a bit surprised as all the damage seemed to penetrate the creatures defenses.  Balros moved up, drawing one, massive, staggering attack.  That allowed others to get closer.  Again, only Wolfgar was able to do any significant damage.  The creature focused its attacks on the dwarf and with two heavy fist slams, opened some nasty wounds on Wolfgar.  Edwin and Pirozzi were kept busy curing and thinking that if this went on too much longer, they would not be able to keep up.  D'Argo assisted by casting a stoneskin on Wolfgar and using haste spells to counteract the beasts slow attacks.

After a few rounds of Wolfgar's yo-yoing hit points, the create was poised to  land two more slams on him when it froze in mid strike.  A now familiar voice emanated from the creature.  It was Karzoug.  He said:

“You. Again. I can’t help but be inspired by your optimism, but alas, your weapons will never reach Xin-Shalast. Your fate is death, here in Runeforge.”

The creature then crumbled to dust. You decided to go into the passage behind where the statue had been, with some hoping that you would find Karzoug and be able to end this once and for all.

Entering this hall was the same as the others.  Some disappeared sooner than others, but you all waited on the other side until all were reunited.  Unlike the first two, this passage came to and end with a large door studded with gems on the right wall.  Golian took some time to examine it and decided it was safe.  As soon as he tried to unlock it, the door was thrust forward on a massive piston that crushed Golian, Balros and Wolfgar against teh far wall.  To door reset as fast as it sprung out.  You aministered some potions and curative spells and decided that was not the way.  A little searching revealed a secret door at the end of the hall.  You entered and found a long hall of polished wood inlaid with silver and gold runes, ending in a greenish mist lit by flickering silver lights.  You approached and could hear sounds of water - most likely fountain of sorts.  Golian could peer through the mist and saw a small pool and a whale fountain with a column of water coming from its blowhole.  You entered to take a better look, when you realized that Golian had disappeared.  You looked around in the mist, which obscured your vision until someone tripped on something on the goruind that had not been there before.  You bent down to find all Golian's equipment laying in a heap.  D'Argo quickly pointed out that that is what happens if someone has been balefully poly morphed.  You quickly searched for your lost comrade but found nothing. 

Then a voice. "Look, more fleshies."

Followed by another, "Are you sure its not the silver man." 

And still another, ""No, they're fleshies for sure." 

Looking for the source, you spotted small imp like creatures moving about in the pool and fountain spray.

Another voice, "You're not going to hurt us?" 

And another "The silver man hurts us."

And still another, "But they are fleshies, not the silver man."

After a few minutes of conversation, you determined a few things. First, they were not evil. Second, Golian had likely been turned into a goldfish and could be found in one of a number of pools in the complex. Third, that the Silver Man was a magic user who literally had skin of silver and cast fire-based spells.  You bid the mephits good bye and headed off.  You soon reached another pool.  Looking into it you could see dozens of goldfish.  D'Argo put his finger into the pool and the fish scattered - all but one.  That one swam around his finger in circles.  "Golian?" asked D'Argo.  "If that's you, do something."  The fish began to swim in the opposite direction.  There was a little debate about what to do. Edwin said he had a break enchantment spell prepared. Someone suggested a dispel magic.  D'Argo confirmed that a dispel would not work and something strong was needed.  Malloric scooped the Golian/fish out of the pool and placed it on the floor.  Edwin cast but was unable to overcome the poly morph.  D'Argo said that you would have about 24 hours to try again before Golian was at risk of losing his mind and becoming a goldfish for ever.  There was some debate about polymorping him again later to 'reset' the clock, but even that would have to wait.  You went back to the room with the mephits and Henrik was easily able to persuade them to look after the goldfish.  And you moved on.

You entered several rooms.  They were a pretty standard wizardly 'research labs' except for the fact that each one had an umber of small animals (rabbits, snakes, monkeys, etc.) in cages and on the main table in each room was a dead animal that had had part of its body turned to silver.  Continuing and leaving another pool room, you stumbled onto another lab.

This one was occupied by a tall, striking man with silver skin.  He quickly cast two spells with no obvious effect.  Balros and Wolfgar ran in to him.  Others cast some preparatory spells.  The Silver Man cast another two spells quickly and now there were eight of him.  Balros and Wolfgar soon ran into a invisible wall just in front of the mage.  D'Argo saw that and grabbed Malloric, Henrik and Edwin and dimension door'd to the other side of the wall to be with the mage.  Malloric readied his bow and waited for D'Argo to get rid if the images.  His magic missiles bounced away harmlessly.  Henrik charged and Malloric let loose.  It took a few rounds to get rid of the images and any blows that did land, sounded like they landed on hard metal and were partially deflected.  The Silver Mage lowered his staff and shot a ray at Malloric, who was being the most successful at eliminating images.  Malloric resisted the effect.  Wolfgar had made it to a door at the end of the wall of force and was trying to get through.  Others on the 'safe' side of the wall were taking the time to prepare.  The Silver Man cast a dimension door and joined Pirozzi and Balros, leaving the others on the other side of the wall.  PIrozzi threw a maximized fireball, scorching the Silver Man.  He responded by lowering his staff and hitting Pirozzi with another ray.  Pirozzi was able to resist the worse of the effect and only took moderate damage.  Balros charged and Wolfgar soon joined him.  Pirozzi cast a silence in the area with forced the Silver Mage to retreat with Balros and Wolfgar on his heels.  The mage was able to outdistance them as the two noticed the Silver Mage was not actually walking, but flying.  Before they could reach him he dimensioned door'd away.

You moved looking for him and entered a room with another exit on the far wall.  However, in the room were ten, solid gold statues in combat poses.  you decided not to risk it with the memory of the last animated statue still fresh.  You explored another direction and found more labs along the way.  You also found that this complex was something of a mirror image and the passages led back to the mephits in their fountain.  You headed back to the gold statues.  You cautiously moved into the room. Nothing.  A closer look at the statues showed them to not have expressions of anger or battle, but rather fear and pain.  You kept on going to find another door. A door made of solid gold.  It took several tries to open it.  When you did, you were met by an amazing sight.  A large room paneled in polished darkwood and inlaid with gold and platinum runes.  Several beams of silver light emanated from a large central pool and looked as though they held up the domed ceiling.  The pool was filled with a deep blue liquid with flashes of lightning in the water and occasional gouts of fire and loud thunder.  Under all the noise, you could hear shrieks of pain that seemed to come from vague shapes writhing in the waters.  Hovering over the far end of the pool was the Silver Man.

You let loose with the magics and a few moved in.  Those who entered quickly found a greased area just on the Silver Man's side of the door. Edwin cast air walk on Henrik who started to make his way in.  Pirozzi forced the Silver Man toe withdraw again to get out of an area of silence.  Wolfgar had reached the Silver Man and hit him hard with the adamantine hammer.  The Silver Man responded by again lowering his staff.  This time there was no resisting. Wolfgar felt a massive push and was launched into the pool.  Even though the water was shallow, he was surrounded by the vague figures.  He was able to resist their lure as he climbed out.  Henrik had reached the mage, having been enlarged by D'Argo on the way.  Calling on the faith of St Cuthbert, Henrik grappled the Silver Man.  This was the beginning of a quick end.  The Silver Man squirmed free once, long enough to cast a spell, but was quickly grappled again, pinned, and pummeled and bound into submission.  He was stripped of his belongings and questioned.  He was not very forthcoming.