Session 140: The Thunder Dome

General Summary

14th Sydenstar 836PD   Reaching the top of Inys Lloeren, the Unbroken have a moment after their latest rift incursion to inspect the island in some peace. They find that the entire top of the floating rock is under the protection of a magical dome.   The rainbow like forcefield is held in position through several rune covered pillars and is generated from the centre through a crystal atop of an ornate shrine. This is the fabled Tolmon Shrine, an ancient site for where the most powerful of ritualistic magic can only be performed. It’s the best place where the Unbroken can attempt their Soul Bearing ritual with the Bronze Shackle.   As the party survey the site, Raphael and Felictas feel a faint presence of strong evil register on their divine senses like a noxious odour, pressing against the dome. Zeni’s divining third eye allows her to see through the layers of the planes, she sees large clawed hands scratching at the pillars that hold the dome.   Arthur finds inspiration in the soothing music Fluff had been playing when they stopped to admire the top. He examines the pillars and the shrine, and deduces that with the magic they’ve been casting it’s added cumulative pressure on the planar barriers, allowing something greater to be able to pass through.   The party can stop casting magic now to reduce the interference with the protective spell that covers this island, but Arthur’s calculated that the Everspring would not rejuvenate in time and this planar pressure would still reside when they conduct the Soul Ritual.   If they don’t relieve the pressure by triggering the rift now, then they would risk facing this grave threat when they conduct the Soul Ritual. If they do trigger now, then they can give time for the protective barriers to effectively ‘reset’ and face a comparatively lower threat with the ritual.   Steeling themselves for the worse that’s to come following the previous deeply unpleasant incursions, the Unbroken cast their magical preparations until the barriers break.   Felictas and Fluff share their healing magics across the group, Raphael wreathes himself in the icy armour of agathys. With each spell, the claw marks across the pillars start to bleed through the planes into reality. As Simeon and Orlando bless their fellow party members, a skin crawling screech resonates from the clawed pillars, the dome momentarily flickers off and in that brief blink of the barrier breaking and remaking, a roaring rift opens with a burning gust of flame.   A huge demon with a head the size of a boulder, adorned with two great horns that pierce through the rift like siege arrows. Its blood red skin is wreathed in fire, with leathery wings that stretch across the entire width of the dome. Wielding a flaming whip and a longsword wreathed in dark lightning, Felictas recognises this fiend as a Balor Lord of the Abyss, and for a lingering moment, a sense of dread spikes the Paladin’s heart.   Hair trigger Orlando peppers the Balor as soon as it fully stood out from the rift. The Balor Lord thrilled with the immediate violence cracks its fiery whip around the gnome, pulling him close to then smash his small body into the ground.   The Balor teleports in a puff of black smoke behind the close trio of Felictas, Simeon and Arthur. Seeing the Cleric, the demon lord swings its lightning longsword overhead to try and cleave the aasimar in two. However, its reach is too long and the sword crashes into the roof of the dome.   Felictas moves centre to take the Balor’s focus, vowing enmity in the Lawbearer’s name against the chaotic fiend. A radiant symbol of scales burns into the demon’s chest, providing a clear target for the Paladin to smite with his glowing longsword.   The Balor Lord attempts to dominate the mind of Felictas, but the quick Zeni counterspells the demon’s foul magic.   Simeon summons up his 4 duplicates spaced around the dome, the fiery aura around the Balor is intense enough to burn those close to it. Feeling the heat, the Cleric promptly swaps with one of his new duplicates. He wisely pulls Arthur out of reach of the Balor’s flaming body as well.   The Balor evokes a fire storm down on the party, Raph and Zeni feel the full burn of the roaring infernal flame. Whilst Simeon quickly gets through his duplicates as he swaps places with the second one to avoid the storm. Arthur abjures to absorb elements on the fire, whilst the other members also avoid the worst of the fire through their quick reflexes.   Raph curses the Balor with a hex, and joins Felictas to directly engage the fiend, striking with Frostweaver. The Winter Knight's sword bursts with the full power of winter's eldritch smite, the fey cold cutting through the demon flesh’s usual resilience.   Enraged by the cold’s sting, infernal fire erupts and surges in a blast wave from the Balor Lord. Simeon nears the last of his duplicates to escape, Orlando and Fluff manage to find cover by one of the pillars whilst the rest of the party are set on fire by the demon’s anger.   As the wave of fire abates, the party see the wounds on the demon begin to regenerate. However, Arthur’s chill touch puts a halt to the healing, and he quickly misty steps behind cover to escape any retribution.   Simeon and Fluff keep their distance and dutifully support their comrades through the healing magic they wield, and the steady battle rhythm of music to keep their courage up.   Zeni, with her coat still aflame, sends a small surge of lightning that hastes Felictas. The now lightning quick Vengeance Paladin unleashes a flurry of smiteful sword strikes into the Balor’s red flesh. Raph and Orlando add to the overwhelming assault with the respective full cold smites of Winter and the roaring radiant runes of creation, blowing the demon’s unhealing wounds further wide.   Grievously wounded and surrounded, the Balor Lord flies to the top of the dome to escape the assailing Paladins. Then like a meteor strike, it dives straight into the ground creating a massive explosion of rock and flame. The entire surface under the dome is ablaze and the ground around the Tolmon Shrine is reduced to rubble.   Raph encases himself in the icy Tomb of Levistus, protecting him from the fiery explosion but rendering him trapped. Fluff is knocked unconscious by the flaming rocks that erupted from the strike. The rest of the party barely survived the demon’s strike, as they painfully right themselves off the scorched earth.   The Balor Lord itself stumbles from the crater it made, the demon’s red skin is now covered completely in black from the pouring ichor of its profuse wounds.   Zeni, barely clinging to consciousness, is fuelled by the innate rage of the tempest at seeing her comrades laid low amongst this razed and defiled sacred site. She channels the storm within her, turning the dome into a plasma ball as white-hot lightning arcs off her to strike the arcane barriers. With a deafening crack she casts the Balor Lord down with a thunderous chromatic orb, detonating the fiend’s chest apart to reveal its flaming heart.   The dying demon curses in abyssal. “If I must return to the abyss; I will not return alone!”. In its death throes, the fiendish heart goes supernova in bright white heat, exploding across the dome.   Hellfire roars through the dome, Simeon expends the last of his duplicates to avoid the death burst. Raph protected by his icy entombment is soon freed of it by the fiery blast. Arthur, Orlando and Felictas are instantly knocked unconscious, their unmoving bodies set aflame.   Even the raging storm around Zeni can only protect so far when being in the point blank of the explosion. As the stormborn falls unconscious, she reflects that she’d have a good story of battle to tell Thrasturn…