Players (Characters)
Scott (Rain)
Jeremy (Grokk)
Catherine (Amber)
Tony (Roland)
Rachel (Horkina)
DM: Tom (Garlen)
The party took the crazed derro back to headquarters and began to interrogate him. A small tremor hit on the way. The derro resisted the strength of a zone of truth spell, but did not seem to be holding back. He claimed to be allied with the Cagewrights, but indicated he served "chaos" and that he wanted there to be no mayor so that chaos would reign. He tried to draw a map that ended up looking like a dragon, and then added bunny ears and flaming breath and started rambling about burning things. Another tremor shook the town as he named off a few Cagewrights during his insane ramblings. Roland signalled Rain to finish off the derro with a blow to the head.
Amber and Jenya each cast a divination spell to try to understand the tremors, while Roland surmised the volcano was preparing to erupt. Amber asked for the source, and heard this:
"Cages below shake foundations above
drawing the power of flame
the shackled tree and shackled souls
prepare the gate to open"
Jenya asked what should be done about the tremors, and heard:
"Cages below lead to bones above
when the foundation of flame awakens
a bowl of souls becomes first prize
unless the Cauldron is emptied"
It seemed clear the city would need to be evacuated. Since many of the nobles and clergy were gathered along with the leader of the town guard, a plan was quickly hatched. The town would be evacuated in quadrants with the guards getting word out and sending people toward the nearest gate, informing everyone to stay away from the east due to that being the natural direction for lava flow.
The party headed outdoors, where they were quickly met by a large mob. The mob leaders were yelling out "there they are! Those rubble rousers have roused enough trouble!" Roland's spell to calm their emotions failed, but Amber surrounded the group with a stone wall. James spoke to them, reminding them of the evils the party had overcome and the great things they'd done for the city. His words were moving, and the mob quickly calmed. Horkina smashed the stone wall into pieces and sent the citizens on their way with a warning to hurry up and evacuate.
Roland and Garlen suggested that the area closest to the lake should be evacuated first, so the party headed for the lake and split up to circle it more quickly. Because Rary's Telepathic Bond was still active, the two subgroups could coordinate easily. Amber, Rain, and Grokk heard a man yelling at his brother to leave the house. His brother, holding a baby on a high-up balcony, refused to leave -- "we've lived here for so long, we can't give this place up!" Grokk spider-climbed the wall and grabbed the baby, handing her to Amber to take safely to the ground. Grokk lifted the man up and carried him to the ground, admonishing him to get out of town quickly. He said his son was still inside, but by this time, Rain had already located the boy and told him Grokk had some girl scout cookies outside.
Meanwhile, Roland, Horkina, Garlen, and James found a pack of horses (and a few other animals) clogging the street near the Surefoot Livery. The animal handlers had abandoned the place, and the animals were running wild. Garlen got one of the horses to move over to him, but a few dozen others continued to rampage. Roland noticed most of the animals were following one particularly large horse, so Garlen focused his attention on that beast, catching its attention and leading it up the road. The rest of the pack followed. One of the local guards took over, leading the pack out of town.
As the group reassembled at the north end of the lake, a huge beast flew out of the boiling water. This beast was unusual, even for a Morkoth -- it obviously had some fiendish blood. Rain stepped to the shoreline and fired several arrows at the beast, and Garlen rained arrows on the evil outsider, bringing it to a nearly-dead state. Amber dropped a holy smite to finish it off. A group of citizens who had been standing nearby decided this was a sign they really should evacuate, and they began to head out.
The party split up into the same groups and began to evacuate the north quarter of town. Grokk's Group noticed a massive fissure where several civilians had fallen, but none of this group was carrying rope. The fissure walls began to cave in, signalling it would not stay open for long. Amber flew into the fissure and cast a healing spell on most of the civilians, bringing the unconscious ones back to their feet. Rain and Grokk spider-climbed down, with Rain grabbing two small children and Grokk grabbing four children and two adults. They both climbed out of the fissure while Roland hurried to meet the group with some rope. It soon became clear rope wasn't needed. Grokk grabbed on to all but two of the remaining civilians and Roland cast a fly spell on him. He flew upward with the last two clinging to his legs.
Garlen spotted a strange bulge in the ground near a crowded intersection, and realized it was a pocket of explosive gas building up. Roland placed a wall of force to one side of the bulge while Horkina cleared the intersection. A few seconds later, the gas exploded, blowing holes in several nearby buildings but not harming anyone due to the well-placed wall of force.
Rain's group noticed a group of people standing stationary, some stopped in mid-stride, with a look of utter fear on their faces. Amber, from above, could see what had happened -- some lava had filled an intersection and its crust had cooled, but two people had fallen through the shaky crust. Amber cast a large healing spell on everyone in the area. Grokk called out "Grokk help" as he flew in and grabbed hold of a very frightened man. The other civilians waited cautiously as Super Grokk flew each one to safety. Rain pulled out some chalk and marked the ground with warning messages to keep others from falling into the same trap.
When the group came back together, Roland cast another fly spell on Grokk and gave the entire party fire resistance. Heading east, Roland's group came upon a collapsed house. Garlen spotted a man stumbling out of the wreckage and hurried over to hear him say "my family..." just before collapsing. James stepped out into the pile of rubble and cast a healing spell to help anyone who was still buried. Roland, with his knowledge of architecture, guided Horkina and his Shield Guardian as they dug through the rubble and recovered the entire family.
Another tremor sent a huge pile of rubble rolling down the city toward the lake. Six civilians, as well as Grokk, Amber, and Rain, were directly in its path. Grokk flew up and grabbed hold of three people while Amber placed a wall of stone in order to deflect the rubble away from the remaining few. Rain called out for them to run toward him. One of them put his head down and ran a little bit too fast, beyond the edge of the deflecting wall. A beam struck him in the head, but Amber used a Close Wounds spell to keep him alive. Grokk glared at him and said "watch out for crapalanche, dillholes." Horkina, Grokk, and the Shield Guardian used some of the loose debris to build a small walkway over this new rubble pile so that people would still have an escape route.
A large wooden house had just caught fire. Roland flew in to the second floor and found two people who'd fallen unconscious due to the smoke. James cast another mass cure spell to bring everyone inside back to consciousness while Horkina and Garlen searched the bottom floor. Roland sent his people out through a window, where the Shield Guardian lifted them to safely. Horkina dragged two others out while Roland flew to Orak's Bathhouse and retrieved his Decanter of Endless Water, using it to extinguish the flames.
A fire elemental emerged from a nearby fissure. Rain tumbled behind it, and Grokk made a flying leap, smashing into it with his axe. Amber fired a Lucent Lance, but ended up shooting the ground. The fire elemental tried to smash Grokk but inflicted only minor wounds. Grokk continued to pound the fiery figure with his axe, doing so much damage Rain exclaimed "hibbety jibbety!"
As the clouds overhead swirled more and more, Roland realized a portal to Carceri was forming. Already the boundary between the planes was weakening, and a few Farastu demodands had broken through and fallen to the ground. A pack of four stood wounded as half of the party approached. Garlen fired an arrow but did very little damage. One used his ray of enfeeblement on the Shield Guardian, and the pack went invisible and began attacking. Roland used a delayed blast fireball to kill two and seriously damage the others. James made one of the enemies visible again. Garlen used Lion's Charge to slash one into bits. The remaining demodand's Fear spell was wasted on the fear-immune party, and the Shield Guardian finished it off with a smack from its stone hands.
As the last few civilians streamed out of the city, the party gathered back together and followed the group. Rain spotted a huge red dragon which had, at the same moment, spotted the magical equipment the party was carrying. The legendary dragon Hookface began flying straight at the party. Rain, Grokk, Horkina and Garlen fired arrows at the approaching beast. When it got within range, Roland hit it with a Ray of Dizziness and Grokk, still flying, charged it and landed a powerful critical hit directly on its skull. Amber dispelled Hookface's protective spells, and the dragon realized it was time to flee. As it flew away, Grokk smashed its underbelly with his axe. Roland then summoned a storm of hailstones that pummelled the dragon to death.
The party reached level 16.
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