Rise of the Runelords

D'Argo surprised everyone by moving into the room first and laid down an cone of acid. Malloric took a few quick shots at another of the nearby creatures. The rest moved in a little more cautiously. The creatures reacted and swarmed DArgo, who began to think his moving into a room of extra-planar/universe thieves was not such a good idea after all.  Pirozzi helped out by lobbing a powerful fireball.  The rest moved in.  The creatures started to fall rapidly. As they did, an arc of electricity would spark from the odd device and strike the corpse, turning it to ash.  Each time this happened the image wavered and warped, blurred and then came back into focus.  The creatures healed very quickly so the few that were finally remaining had nearly returned to full health.  Still they were no match from the many weapon blows and more area spells.  After the last of them fell and was turned to ash, the device began to spark wildly. Random, flaying arms of electricity started waving about the room.  Some came close but did no damage.  The arcs started to connect to each other and were soon all connected and grounded to a spot on the floor.  There was a flash of light and a crackle of electric power.  Left standing at the spot was a large dog-like creature.  Someone said, "Haven't we seen one of those before."

D'Argo replied, "Not me." as he fired a disintegrate that landed short.  "How'd I miss that?" he mumbled.  The beast shook itself as if a little dazed and then focused as it clearly used some ability and directed its attention on the group.  Malloric moved up to fire arrows driving several deep into the beast.  Balros, Golian, Wolfgar and Henrik followed.  The beast just waited.  Malloric took a few more steps to get just close enough and caught the beast's gaze.  Deep, bloodless wounds opened all over his body. The wounds didn't kill him, but the shock from the massive damage nearly did.  Golian yelled, "Now I remember. Don't look at it! Remember right before we fought Mokmurian? That room with three of these things?  They were much smaller."  There was a collective "Oh yeah."  Followed by a "Bet this is gonna hurt."  The creature snapped at those who moved into melee.  Many of your blows missed as you were diverting your gaze.  Malloric, kept his eye on it in order to pepper it with arrows. He soon questioned the wisdom of that as more wounds covered his body.  Edwin moved to him to cure.  The beast withdrew to the far end of the room and disappeared.  "We must have scared it off.?" D'Argo cast a spell and replied "Nope, it's still there." Wolfgar took the cue and cast invisibility purge so all could again see it.  You moved in again.  The creature concentrated and a billowing cloud of fog appeared obscuring vision for all but Golian.  You heard the beast scrambling over the device and move around to the middle of the room.  "Pirozzi yelled, "Hey, it's out here!" as several more took damage from rending wounds. Several more spells failed against the beasts inherent resistance, but you were soon able to beat it down.

You spent the rest of the day as you were getting low on resources after the fight with Viorian and the giants, two sort of fights with Karzoug and this one.  The next morning you decided to head back to the statue and lens on the other side of the spire with a stop at the second room where you encountered Karzoug (image?) because someone remembered there were other doors out of that room.  The plan was to open the doors quickly and have casters readied with dispell magics, which D'Argo assured you could get rid of the image.  The door was opened, dispels cast, and Karzoug remained.  Then the confusion began.  Malloric ran into the room to another door and threw it open while Balros stepped up to one of the first doors and closed it.  "I thought we were not going in." Pirozzi asked quizzically.  Golian replied, "I thought the plan was to go in."  Someone else said, "I thought were were supposed to get rid of Karzoug's image.  Malloric brought everyone's focus back when he yelled, "We have company in here!"  One of the casters let loose another dispel, this time with the desired result.  All filed into the room to find Malloric firing arrows through a doorway at three lamia. Henrik moved in first, followed by the other melee. Casters stayed back to support with spells. Before the others could follow Henrick though , one of the lamia cast a blade barrier across the doorway isolating Henrick in the room with them.  Another hit him with a flame strike and another reached out to deliver a harm spell which he resisted completely.  Balros looked at D'Argo, "He's gonna need help."  D'Argo quickly replied, "Got it. Meet at that door." 

He grabbed a hold of four of you and teleported into the room, leaving Pirozzi and Edwin behind.  They were fine with that as they could see through the barrier enough to lend support. Golain failed against a harmful tough and skulked back into the center of the group to take a potion.  Wolfgar cured him.  Henrik smote one nearly killing her and the rest dished out damage as fast as you could. 

About this time, another door into the main room opened and a lamia moved out and stood right next to Pirozzi and Edwin.  Two more could be seen in the room beyond and one surrounded the three of them with a blade barrier.   "Oh shit!" was heard by everyone.  More flame strikes and harms followed.  D'Argo cast his own projected image to be at the other door and caught the two in black tentacles. Only one was able to immediately free herself.  The tentacles really slowed them down. Acid bolts, empowered scorching rays, and other spells flew from the casters.  Soon the lamia were defeated, but not after doing serious damage.

You spent the rest of the day searching the entire spire and realized you had now cleared the place.  It was back to the statue and lens to ponder the next step.  Pirozzi summoned a monkey which was grappled and had it's hand cut slightly.  Pirozzi directed it to smear its blood on the lens in placed where the dried blood was.  You noticed the little guy look a little stunned as if suffering from vertigo.  That lasted a nearly a minute.  Golian remarked that maybe the rune-forged weapons might be of use.  Pirozzi took his long spear and touched the green crystal lens.  He reacted in a similar manner.  However, he was able to replay the experience.  He reported that he saw the room as if looking through the lens but everything was very out of focus causing him to feel dizzy. Everything that is but the flame in the brazier right in front of the statue.  You spent the remainder of the day resting and discussing strategy for the morrow.

You all gathered around the brazier and spent nearly a minute casting preparatory spells.  Balros was the first to go.  He stepped into the brazier and was immediately and instantly turned to ash.