Players (Characters)
Scott (Rain)
Jeremy (Grokk)
Catherine (Amber)
Tony (Roland)
Rachel (Horkina)
DM: Tom (Garlen)
The party took the Blue Duke and the pair of dwarves over to the town guard barracks. Alek Tercival sent for Jenya to help in the interrogation. He also agreed to deputize the party -- so long as there were evil forces at work in the town, the party was authorized to act according to their judgement. With that, it was decided that it was time to get information from Vhalantru.
Rain quietly unlocked and opened the front door at House Vhalantru. A pair of half-orcs wielding orc double axes stood at the bottom of a grand staircase. Garlen and Rain injured the pair, and then Grokk took a flying leap and finished one off with a powerful blow from his greataxe. Horkina took down the other just as the door behind her opened to reveal three more mercenaries. A secret door in the entryway opened up, and even more orcs prepared to attack. Amber commanded all of the orcs to hold their position, and then headed upstairs and screamed. Horkina, Rain, Garlen, and Grokk pounded on the nearest group of orcs, and took out another small group that came charging in from the dining room. Roland used ball lightning and his shield guardian to finish off the other three.
Rain ran upstairs to see what Amber was yelling about, and saw two creatures he judged to be shrunken beholders. He jumped right between the pair and Amber set off the fire seeds he'd been carrying, destroying the strange beasts. Four more Gauths moved into the area and fired their eye rays, weakening Amber and wounding Rain. Amber fired off a sunbeam, blinding the enemies, and the rest of the party easily eliminated them. Rain, Garlen, and Roland each looked behind a couple of doors, trying to locate Vhalantru before Roland's ball of lightning and Amber's remaining sunbeams ran out. Rain found a wine cellar and quickly gathered up several bottles, while Garlen found a library filled with elven books. Roland found a staircase and headed up, with Amber, Horkina, and Garlen hurrying behind. Several nearby doors led to bedrooms and bathrooms.
When Garlen opened a door near the end of the hall, he was surprised to find a man who looked just like Rain inside the bedroom. He glanced back to see Rain just coming up the stairs, and surmised the extremely smelly creature was a lookalike of some sort. Roland's ball of electricity wrapped around the creature, and a few swings from Grokk and Garlen and a magic missile from Roland dropped it to the floor. Roland identified it as a doppelganger.
The party split up again to investigate the last few areas in the house. Garlen found a hidden room with a fountain in the middle, and Rain found an illusory wall leading to a room with six lifelike statues. It was suspected that the statues may have been adventurers turned to stone, so Amber stepped forward to cast Break Enchantment, and nearly fell into a pit. Roland flew through the illusory floor and noted that the shaft was at least 50 feet deep and led to a large cylindrical room. Amber returned one of the statues to living form, and after asking her a few questions, directed her to the Quiet Grove and promised to rescue the rest of her party as soon as possible.
Amber climbed on Grokk's back and the party spiderclimbed down the pit. Three half-orc zombies stood guarding another vertical shaft. When Horkina killed one, a farastu demodand erupted from its corpse. Roland's bolt of lightning killed the other two zombies, releasing two more demodands. Rain, Grokk, Horkina, and Garlen flanked and slaughtered the fiends, and the party spiderclimbed further down.
Halfway down the shaft, a passage branched off horizontally. The passage was blocked by a 9-foot diameter circular door made of iron, adamantine, bone, and darkwood. The door had a stylized beholder etched into it, with colored crystals in place of each smaller eye and a large transparent crystal in place of its center eye. The bottom of the shaft opened into a pair of rooms, with a similar door leading west and one leading north. Horkina kicked the door and was hit by a ray of force from one of the beholder eye crystals. Rain deftly twisted the crystals so they'd fire their rays off to the side, and then carefully tapped the center crystal, skillfully making the door open.
Three large dogs with burning eyes, chain barding, and jeweled collars wrestled around in the next room. Roland shot the trio with lightning. Garlen and Grokk tag-teamed one and brought it down, while Rain and Horkina surrounded and smashed another. Amber used the Light of Venya to brighten up the room. Garlen tumbled behind the final hound and stabbed it in a very sensitive spot, causing it to howl in pain. A few more swings brought the hounds down, and Rain quickly grabbed their gem-studded collars.
Three more of the beholder doors led out from this room, along with a plain iron door. Rain opened the plain iron door to reveal a throne room. The throne was carved in the shape of a fire giant. A furry, orange-haired woman wielding a flaming and icy greatsword hissed out "Flameless Ones, have you come to pay tribute to Ti'irok Coalfire?" Rain said "yes, of course" as a large, orange wolf-like creature stepped out from behind the throne and morphed into its furry humanoid form. Roland protected the party from fire while the male haraknin spoke: "the tribute is ten thousand gold... and... what have you done to our hounds? It will be another five thousand gold per hound, to pay for your foolishness!" Rain pointed to Grokk and called out "you can kiss my orc's butt", provoking the haraknin into drawing their weapons. The woman stepped forward and slashed into the half-elf provocateur. Garlen jumped behind her to provide flanking while Grokk smashed her companion with his axe. A Moon Bolt from Amber weakened the woman significantly, and Horkina and Rain landed a few more blows. She hit Rain once more before tumbling through the group, attempting to retreat. Garlen tumbled in front of her, and a magic missile from Roland dropped her.
Amber provided Rain with some healing while he moved around the throne. He noticed a large stone doorway that looked like it was meant for giants. Grokk pushed the door open to reveal a room with two large iron chests. Rain opened them up and the party came away with over 40,000 gold pieces, as well as several geodes, miscellaneous small treasures, and an adamantine battleaxe.
After Rain made a few futile attempts to unlock another of the beholder doors, Horkina smashed away the stone frame with her maul, providing a passageway into the room. This room was obviously set up for a human woman -- the bottom portion of the spherical room had a wooden floor built in to flatten it out, chests filled with dresses and hairpieces lined the walls, and a small bed and chair occupied the center of the room. Horkina provided the same door-opening service a few more times, eventually leading to a large square brick room. Several bricks had been removed from the north wall, providing little cubbyholes for several treasures. Rain noticed a pair of stone golems embedded in the floor, so the party prepared to attack them as Rain grabbed an emerald-studded platinum crown from the wall. The golems stood up and were quickly brought back down by a series of powerful blows.
Roland reached level 14.
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