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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