Session 23 - The Third-Longest Combat Scene Ever Finally Ends Report
General Summary
Finally feeling, for at least a fleeting moment, as if they have the upper hand, the party (minus Greystoke and Jethix, in their sniper's perch above) rush down the darkened hallway towards to rush the enemy besieging them. Their valiant bravery results in only limited success, as the Canoloth blocking their path seemingly had no difficulty piercing the magickal darkness or even the magickal invisibility of some as it lashed out with it's grotesquely long (and strong!) tongue, trying to keep the party bottled up. Luckily, our brave adventurers proved too many in number for the demon to fend off, and slowly they were able to force their way past and back into the light. This also was a bit of a pyrrhic victory, as they found the remains of the goblin demon dogs from earlier poised to try and tear their entrails from their soon-to-be-limp corpses. In the end, though, they all turned out to be paper tigers (paper demons?), even the huge battle-axe wielding Nycaloth. Still battered from the previous battle, much of their magic and strength spent, they fell one by one to sword, arrow, or spell. They put up a good fight, whether it was the treacherous Royal Librarian herself phasing in and out of reality as she threw her final spells at our heroes, or the magickally-triplicated Nycaloth threatening to cleave Greystoke in two. Only the Canoloth was truly durable, taking blow after blow from Reynaud and Lu before finally winking out of existence when its health was spent. Luckily, and mostly accidentally, our brave adventurers prevented the enemy from summoning reinforcements and vanquished the last of their foes one by one. Finally alone inside the echoing stone structure that they were told was a library, but which turned out to be not much more than a storage unit or seldom-used outbuilding for the library proper, the party hunkered down for a longer rest, and to determine where to go from here. Forcing their way outside onto the grounds, they find the remains of the battle which transpired out there even as they were fighting for their lives within, with most of the elves which escorted them into the countryside dead, along with several others presumably from their would-be saviours, along with the dead body of one of the stone giants accompanying them. Jack the sprite is dispatched to contact that rescue party at the rendezvous point arranged during the battle, and meanwhile Gharldain's head is removed from her body in hopes of speaking with it later. Jack successfully makes arrangements to meet the Corrisoi the next day, and the party hikes about an hour away from the ersatz library to a defensible point nearby with good visibility. Watchful eyes pay close attention to the building all night long, expecting some sort of activity or reinforcement to arrive, but none ever does. The next morning, largely healed-up but lacking the horses which brought them into the countryside (apparently spooked and scattered during the battle), they begin the long and mostly-uphill hike to the rendezvous point. The trek is completed without interruption or issue, thanks to the guidance of Lord-Greystoke-survival-guy, and eventually the party finds itself climbing the face of a small mountain towards an also-small cave high in its face. Jack is once again sent ahead to announce the party's arrival, and our heroes find the Corrisoi encamped inside the cave. Apparently lacking the plentiful magickal heal-meisters the party is used to traveling with, they are in various stages of injury or recovery, as is one of the stone giants who accompanied them in their assault. Apparently they are expecting aid to arrive the next day, although it seems not all of them might survive the night and the lingering effects of whatever demonic magic the enemy used on them. The party negotiates to be allowed the use of magic inside the giant's cave, however, and manages to apply enough divine energy to stave off death and get most of them back on their feet. Once that is done serious discussions can, and do, commence regarding what the H-E-hockeysticks is going on. The Corrisoi, it seems, are working on an interrelated set of commissions which includes keeping Reynaud from being whacked by whatever cult-adjacent parties are at work inside the Elvish nation - this commission apparently arranged and paid for by one of his uncles. They are also working for other parties, whom they will not name, which seem to be staunchly anti-cultist, or at least anti-continued-breathing-of-the-pro-cultists. While very, very protective of their motives or sources, the Corrisoi are almost refreshingly open with sharing other information. The party learns a great deal about what Gharldain has recently been up to, many of those details helping to make sense of other facts the party has picked up along the way. They end up with a working theory for 'good-list/bad-list' from the names they found forever ago in the Journal of Evil Ritualtude, and also an idea of where they might go looking for more info on what Gharldain was up to. It is at about this point that the party decides they need to interrogate their would-be-betray-ette by the means of a Speak With Dead spell. Jethix takes considerable pains to impersonate her also-dead lieutenant, and also to phrase his questions carefully, in order to improve his chances of getting truthful answers. He manages to get some rather obscure details out of her regarding her aims, plans, and source of her desire to turn the party into worm food. Putting this '2' and the '2' provided by the Corissoi together, the party surmises that Gharldain may be in possession of details about the cult, evidence incriminating someone one the 'bad list' or possibly even another part of the silivered rod they have been slowly collecting in order to save the world with (somehow, they think, probably). After toying with the idea of commissioning the Corrisoi to do some sort of work for them, they settle on the idea of simply asking for favors - first, to be led to this mysterious place where Gharldain was seen just prior to leading our heroes to their now-rescheduled doom, and second, to be given passage our of IlnCrasi before anybody realized they have ruthlessly slaughtered a high-ranking royal official (evil schemes and demonic alliances notwithstanding). The first favor arranged, and the second promised when they need it, the party is led out of the cave and down the mountain by one of the Corrisoi towards a peaceful, amost idyllic part of the forest a half day's south, and within sight of a simple log cabin purportedly inhabited by a now-retired Elvish official. Apparently this person was a friend of Gharldain's, and apparently she brazenly abused that friendship by hiding something on or near his property. Jack-the-ever-perceptive is dispatched yet again to survey the area, and reports a seemingly-empty building and an elderly Elf off fishing in a stream some distance away. Making the most of what might be limited time, our group of heroes makes their way down into the vale and towards the house, intent on discovering what the evil librarian was doing there. After tossing the cabin itself and finding little of interest other than the resident's own belongings (which were left in place, including an especially tempting magickal blade - anybody but Malcolm likely would've swiped it), various magickal detections and solid Investigation rolls locate some sort of shaft hidden underneath the building, accessible only by a hidden panel. Expecting it to be an entrance to something, the party sends Reynaud down to investigate only to discover it is literally only a shaft, a vertical dead-end about thirty feet down. Not willing to accept this, he roots around and set off some sort of magickal trap, freezing his armor to his skin and his eyelashes to his forehead. After being hauled up, and upon further investigation, it seems that the 'bottom' of the shaft is actually some sort of chest with identical dimensions, a false floor of sorts. The party manages to wrestle it up with rope and brute strength, and carry it off a ways into the woods to poke at it further. They quickly discover, thanks to the work of the fighter's excellent Arcana rolls, that is is covered in magickal glyphs which will likely erase the party and the surrounding countryside if trifled with. A long conversation ensues regarding what course of action to take, but no one seems to have a solid idea which does not involve a significant amount of waiting to memorize new spells and a substantial likelihood of those spells triggering the aforementioned erasure as opposed to avoiding it. After a bit of prompting from the DM on a subject completely separate from the problem at-hand, Jethix realizes that the party is in possession of a magickal item (not the one the DM was hinting at) which might be capable of working around the problem (not the problem the DM was hinting towards a solution to). As if often the case, this worked out marvelously both for the purposes of solving the party's problem and ensuring some solid character growth for Jethix in the near future. Slipping on a magickal charm bracelet, Jethix willed himself into the presence of his Patron-o-Warlock-iness and audaciously requested help solving the problem of opening the chest. After being chastised for not fulfilling his pact well enough or often enough (apparently Jethix's patron is a bit of an obsequious ass), he offered to grant Jethix's request in exchange for Jethix arranging the death of someone dearly deserving it (details at Jethix's discretion) within the next fortnight. Eager to do all he could to help his stalwart friends do the right thing, defeat the evil cultists and save the world (ok, my turn to be obsequious, in case you couldn't tell), Jethix agreed and in return requested that his patron rip the magic temporarily away from the chest so that it could be safely opened. The otherworldly creature snapped its fingers and sent Jethix back to the real world, the chest seemingly no different. Quick experimentation proved an anti-magic field was in play, though, and not knowing exactly how long it might last the party made short work of forcing the chest open, looting it, and running far far away. A few scant moments later they were able to safely watch the chest and the countryside surrounding it deleted from existence as fire magick, thunder magick and death magick all collided in spectacular fashion. Examining their newly-found treasure, their interest was immediately drawn to three sections of rod, sadly not silvered but ornately carved and seemingly meant to be combined into a single long staff or stick. On further inspection it also seemed like to attach to the ornately-carved staff head the party had been hauling around seemingly forever, the so-called Headwater. Intent on discovering how these various parts and pieces were meant to be assembled and what might result from such an assembly, Azur'el finally got the parts put together properly and then had an errant thought about invoking the resulting item. He was immediately sent flying away into the air an tremendous speed, the landscape beneath him whizzing by and, eventually and more concerningly, whizzing closer as he began to lose altitude. Invoking various magicks provided by his deity he was able to slow his descent and more-or-less control his landing in the forest, still within the confines of the IlnCrasi hinterland but no-telling-how-far from his friends and comrades. Still other magicks, messaging magicks this time, helped him contact the rest of the group and come up with a plan for finding one another. Sadly, this plan was not efficacious until dark, when the magickal signals they had devised were able to be seen in the darkness. Once this was the case, however, a few hours of stumbling in the dark towards each other resulted in the party finally finding their errant priest. The party, at this point, decided to bunk down for the night, thinking that on the morrow they would find their way back to their Corrisoi associates and arrange to sneak out of the country before their well-justified-if-anyone-would-listen-treachery against the crown...
Rewards Granted
Party XP, lump sum over the course of the last three sessions, is 12,600. This includes various and assorted combats, major party goals like meeting with the Royal Librarian Gharldain (never mind how it worked out) and acquiring the Breakwater (never mind you don't know how it's good for yet besides flinging half-Elvish priests across the landscape). Minor party goals of 'finding a use for loot', 'Keeping the assassins away from Reynaud', and 'finding the lost priest in the woods' are included as well. Bonus XP rolled over from previous sessions: Session 21 - Silvered Spires and Silver Tongues
Missions/Quests Completed
Survived the ambush-that-would-not-end Met up with the Corrissoi Succeeded in failing to anger the Stone Giants with 'their strange magicks' Found the Breakwater and other assorted loot Found the priest after he played skip-the-rock (he was the rock) with the local countryside as his pond
Character(s) interacted with
Darin of the Corrisoi Unnamed Corrisoi guide who led the party to the cabin
