Rise of the Runelords

After a good night sleep and yet another great breakfast, you were feeling good about the day.  Someone suggested heading to the haunted gladiator arena (Heptarcic Locus).  "Eh, why not." was the general consensus.  You headed that direction.  After a couple hours of walking you encountered a patrol of frost giants.  You held your ground and they threw ineffective rocks as they approached.  When they were close enough you let loos with spells and arrows doing some serious damage.  The apparent leader was positioning himself near one of his fellows when he soon found himself alone and surrounded by Golian, Balros, Wolfgar and Henrick.  The giant bellowed something and Wolfgar yelled to the group "Watch out!"  The giant took one last series of mighty swings with his large battle axe, nearly splitting Golian in two.  He was dead before he hit the ground.  The giant didn't last another 30 seconds.

Dejected, the group fashioned a litter and slunk back to the safety of the Skulk tunnels.  It took a few days, but Golian was raised in Radigast and a few extra handfuls of diamonds were purchased for future use.  You also learned that teleporting may soon not be an option as some research has determined that Zin Xalast may be a sort of demi-plane.  If that is the case, once fully on that plane, teleports out of it will not work as many communication type spells and scrying may fail.  Something to be wary of.

Once ready to go again, you made your way to the Locus.  Entry was easy as was moving around the massive structure.  The first combat came as you passed through a tunnel from the mezzanine to the open center and seats.  About a dozen wraiths emerged from shadows and attacked.  A few took constitution drain before Edwin easily destroyed them.  You started to move much more slowly while Henrik concentrated on detecting them (evil) before you go too close.  He was able to give you ample warning before the next fight.  More prepared, the party took less damage and constitution drain.  The lost strength was quickly returned thanks to Pirozzi.

Cautiously continuing, Henrik again stopped the group saying he sensed evil around a corner of one of two passages from the main fighting floor into the inner workings of the structure.  You all moved up to get a look and saw a large, clearly outer-planer creature standing far back in the passage.  As you positioned to  start the attack, two large, dark figures emerged from the shadows and attacked. Each of you shivered from the shill from the wraiths, Henrik even more.  Their claws swept through your armor as if you weren't wearing any.  The physical damage was more than tolerable, but the cold of the strikes drained large amounts of constitution with each attack making the prospects of surviving less likely with each attack suffered. Edwin had to work hard to turn these.

Malloric took his next shot at the creature in the tunnel and was surprised that his arrow passed straight through it.  Almost immediately as the wraiths were destroyed, a handful of outer planar creatures consisting of bone appeared out of the blue.  Their first action was to cordon off your escape with two walls of ice.  The others attempted some sort of fear effect, to which you were immune.  Edwin responded by surrounding the group with a blade barrier to help keep the devils at bay.  Meanwhile the large creature spotted in the hall did nothing.  Two of the bone devils found room within your ranks and teleported themselves in side the circle of blades.   You resorted to melee.  After a few seconds of confusion, reorganizing your locations within the blade barrier, and trading a few swipes with the devils, the original beast appeared outside the blade barrier.  A few of you nearly lost hope as you realized that the original creature was still standing in the tunnel.  There were now two. The bone devils inside the barrier teleported out as if telepathically knowing what was coming next.  The ice devil let loose with a cone of cold and some of the other devils teleported into the spaces left by their compatriots. More melee.

You focused your melee attacks on the devils inside while D'Argo and Pirozzi alternated between those inside and out. The iced devil seemed rather content to let you battle his minions as it threw its spear at party members.  Each time after hitting, it would return to its icy clutches moments later.  You were soon able to damage/destroy enough of the bone devils for Edwin to drop the blade barrier.  You surrounded the ice devil and it turned into a straight melee.  However, it was a close fight as some of you had lost half or more of your original constitution and the devil was very strong and quite proficient with its spear, even in close quarters.  You then turned your attention to the original beast which had not moved.

Another arrow flew straight through the creature.  D'Argo suggested that it might be an illusion.  While you moved closer, it took no menacing actions.  In fact it took no actions whatsoever.  An illusion.  You searched the area and found some treasure in a back room including another sihedron ring.

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After looting as much as you could of the dragon's hoard before it was inclined to return, you hid out in the tunnels for a bit before deciding to 'take care of' the abominable snowmen.  On your way there you had a nuisance encounter with a half a dozen hill giants.  There were dead before they knew what was happening.

A few miles closer to the snowmen dome, Balros noticed a blob on the road some distance in front of you.  As you approached, he said it looked like it might be a pile of dead giants.  Cautiously approaching even closer, Balros soon grabbed Wolfgar, who was walking next to him.  "It's squirming?"  As all were peering to get a better look, the mass of flesh that was the pile of giants started to move.  Beneath it were the remains of at least a couple giants.  The group started to spread out and move closer, again to Edwin's opposition.  The beast opened the melee with a stinking cloud that caught most of the group, knocking them out for several rounds.

Those who could move did so very slowly.  The beast cast another spell which all shrugged off as some sort of compulsion. Pirozzi started launching magic missiles finding only that the creature had spell resistance.  Many of his spell failed to have any effect.  Wolfgar was the first to approach and was surprised at the amount of reach the beast had as it took a bite out him.  The damage delivered was not that worrisome.  Rather it was the associated Wisdom drain.  Golian was working his way around the beast and Henrik and Balros were approaching from the front. The beast dramatically slowed their approach with a grease spell. 

Edwin, Malloric and D'Argo were able to focus again.  Edwin went to help Henrik and Balros.  Malloric started doing what he does best and D'Argo too found his spells had little effect.  Edwin was able to pull Henrik from the greased area while Balros had already extricated himself.  Wolfgar was swinging away and taking more Wisdom drain from each bite. Pirozzi gave up on direct damage and instead started casting restorations on Wolfgar to keep him alive. Balros entered melee and was son unconscious from Wisdom drain. Henrik approached as Malloric scored a massive arrow strike.  From where the arrow hit the beast a short gout of foul smelling liquid (digestive juices?) shot back toward him falling just short of hitting Henrik.

As the group was surrounding it, it returned to spellcasting and created many mirror images and targeting a few individuals with some sort of compulsion which you were easily able to avoid.  Malloric was the most effective at eliminating images as the arcane casters had a hard time affecting the beast with magic missiles.  Soon the images were gone and Golian had finally maneuvered into the right spot. He struck the beast, scoring two massive blows.  To his horror, from each wound spewed large amounts of this nasty smelling, greenish-black liquid.  He did the best he could to step out of the way, but was still covered.  The acidic liquid started eating into his armor and  exposed flesh.  The beast was killed shortly after.

You healed and moved on to the snowmen.  After the customary "You go away now" speech from the snowmen, you attacked. It was a pretty straight forward assault.  The only real  challenge was maneuvering on the pile of rubble, on which of course they seemed to have no problems.  You looted a cave you found and retreated to the building that Morgiv showed you to some days before.

Preparing for rest and setting watches, a booming giant voice came from the darkness, "Chosen Ones, are you in there?"  You quickly and quietly prepared for a fight. "Chosen Ones, I have something of yours," came the voice again.  Wolfgar yelled back, "Yeah, we're here.  What do you want?"

From around a large arch way, came Morgiv, being held by the scruff of his neck. As the arm holding Morgiv off the ground continued, you were relieved to find  it belonged to Gyukyak, your Stone Giant ally (or closest thing to it). "I found this skulking around the giant camp.  It says it know you. Do you want it?" 

Lowering weapons, Wolfgar replied, "Yup, that's ours.  You can set him down."  The giant did so and informed you that Morgiv was found sneaking around the giant camp stores and could easily have been killed and eaten.  You were also told that the patrols have been upped. He assumes that whatever you have been up to have irritated the wrong people (or right people depending on perspective.)  He said he knows about the attack on the dragon only because there are now three flying around day and night - the blue, a red and another he is not sure of.  You asked about the spires and what it is like.  He didn't know, but asked if you had rings as he has noticed that all those that come from the tower were the same kind of ring.  He does not know if is a password kind of thing, or some protection needed, just that they all have them.  He described the rings and you realized you have one - taken from the vampiric tentacle creature.  You thanked him for returning Morgiv and spent the night.

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