Players (Characters)
Scott (Rain)
Jeremy (Grokk)
Catherine (Amber)
Tony (Roland)
Rachel (Horkina)
DM: Tom (Garlen)
The Rubble Rousers returned to Cauldron, triumphant in their quest. Amber's concern about the lich on Occipitus led her to cast a divination to find the phylactery. Ehlonna's response was thus:
From whirling book to Smoking Eye
Between collide the land and sky
Beware unholy flaming doom
and in the tower, seek his room
Several equipment upgrades later, the party planeshifted directly into the flying book room in the Cathedral of Feathers, surmising this must be the "whirling book" being spoken of. They set out to the east, heading toward the skull mountain with its smoking eye.
Rain spotted a group of Babau ahead, and yelled out a warning to the party. Garlen stepped to the side, pulled out his new demonbane bow, and fired three cold iron arrows at the leader. All three arrows struck, one critically, and the foul demon was struck down. Garlen yelled tauntingly as Amber smote four more Babau with holy energy. One of the wounded babau managed to dispel the blindness on the group, and the others teleported to flank Rain and Garlen. Swings from Horkina and Rain dropped the lead pair. Roland tried to light one on fire, but missed badly, so Grokk and Garlen finished it off. The final remaining babau, having witnessed the wholesale slaughter of his traveling group, fled.
A short distance later, the group spotted a Leonal Guardinal moving through some ruins. Roland addressed it in Celestial, asking its name and purpose on Occipitus. "I am called Hamaklalia, and I have been trapped on Occipitus for hundreds of years. So long as this is the fate I'm consigned to, I will continue to fight against the evil creatures that live here", he responded. Roland explained his new rulership of Occipitus and his hope to return it to Celestia, and then handed a scroll to Hamaklalia to allow him to return to Elysium. A few miles ahead, the group came upon a hilltop where the plasma layer touched down in an eddy. Roland stepped closer while everyone else stayed back. A ball of plasma moved toward him, dealing a small amount of damage through his energy resistance. The plasma followed him for a few feet as he fled, but eventually floated away. Amber, still airborne, spotted the top of a tower beyond the hill.
The tower stood about a hundred feet tall, tilted somewhat on edge. Two small segments of what used to be castle walls were still attached. Roland flew to the top of one wall and spotted a pair of stone golems on the other side. Amber created some explosive berries and handed them to Garlen, and also gave him a substantial amount of fire resistance. Garlen ran up to the stone golems, and Amber called out "someone set up you the bomb", causing all of the berries to explode. The stone golems crumbled into debris, but Garlen deftly avoided the flame.
The lower level of the tower looked like a smashed armory. Rain ran to grab a sword in the middle of the floor, nearly falling into a pit cleverly concealed by an illusion. Amber threw a rock and discovered the sword, too, was an illusion. Roland used his flight ability to inspect the pit, discovering poisoned spikes 50 feet down, and then the party moved up the spiral staircase to the next level. Above, dozens of fiendish scorpions of differing sizes filled the room. A lightning bolt from Roland destroyed half of their number. Grokk, Horkina, Rain and Garlen each killed a few, while Amber and Redtail smashed one. Roland grabbed several books and scrolls from a side room, and the group headed up the stairs.
Roland approached the door, concentrating to detect undead, and Rain looked for traps. Through the door was a powerful undead aura. Amber aligned the group's weapons, and suddenly an aura of silence covered the area next to the door. The Lich knew we'd come. Roland attempted to dispel the silence, Amber cast a magic circle against evil on Horkina, and the group charged in. Horkina, Rain, and Garlen surrounded the lich, and Roland stepped to the edge of the silent zone before casting a sound lance for maximum damage. The lich reached for Horkina, but she easily sidestepped his evil touch. A leaping attack from Grokk and a few strikes from Horkina's Maul of the Titans finished it off. Amber sprayed its corpse with holy light and then searched the room for magical auras. A silver box sitting in a glass case atop a silk pillow radiated magic, as did a single book. Roland identified the silver box as an explosive trap and the book as the lich's phylactery. The party smashed the phylactery and went home with the box and various magical items, including a vermin-bane sword.
The next morning, the Rubble Rousers gathered at the Quiet Grove for a breakfast feast with James. Just before starting the feast, Rain and Amber noticed a half-orc and two humans flying over the back wall of the temple. Rain pointed his bow at the human wearing robes and attempted to disrupt his spell, but to no avail -- a cone of icy cold sprayed over the party. A human woman fired off a spell of unholy blight, injuring most of the party. Amber blasted the half-orc with a moon bolt, significantly dropping his strength. The half-orc, who was surrouned by an aura of silence, flew down to Amber. He struck her with his greatsword, leaving her barely standing. Rain, Horkina, and Garlen surrounded him and attacked, wounding him severely. Roland flew up and away, sending his familiar between the two spellcasters and then transposing Grokk to that position. The man wearing robes walked across the air and fired another cone of cold at Roland, while the woman fired a searing bolt of light at Amber. Amber moved outside the temple and James followed to provide her with some healing, while Grokk assaulted the woman with his axe. The half-orc slightly wounded Rain, and then felt Horkina's wrath as she dropped him with her next swing. Rain and Horkina climbed the roof and surrounded the man, and a bolt of lightning from Roland finished off both spellcasters.
Amber was not happy with the assassination attempt in her own temple. With help from Jenya, she was able to get one of the assassins to respond to a speak with dead spell. The assassin had been sent by "the veiled lady", which Jenya recognized as an appellation for Wee Jas. She also related that the local temple of Wee Jas had undergone significant construction work, and now cast a shadow over the shrine to Pelor for a significant part of the day.
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