Session 47: Entering the Inner Fane Report

General Summary

After slaying the bugbear guards and the evil priestess Naquent, the heroes advanced upon a double door down a corridor to the east. Beyond was a long rectangular room, two levels, with stairs descending either side of a pool. As Tymaret and Barbados walked down the stairs something in the water caught Tym's eye. Moments later a large turtle-like creature, a Tojanda, lept to the water's edge and attacked the two warriors. The creature grappled Tymaret in its claw and suffered blows from Barbados, faerie fire and hex spells. While Tym, still grappled, slashed at the beast, it spun and 'ejected' a stream of acid ink at Barbados dealing mighty damage. But with a few more attacks from the party, the creature slipped back into the deep.
  Leaving the Water Door room, the group returned to the vestry wherein Myka was able to pick a complex lock on a carved wooden box atop a pedestal. Inside was a Torch of Revealing (now the party has two) and two more lumps of Dreaming Charcoal. With these items they returned to rest in the Horned Devil's guest chambers. Hedrack's lifeless body was retrieved along the way.
  While, resting, Varachan called. He had been following the party's progress as best he could and believed the fate of the Doomdreamer's plan now rested on knife's edge. Varachan concurred that perhaps the best strategy was to charm a raised Hedrack and use him to breach the Inner Fane. After confronting its denizen's, and after their hoped defeat, the heroes could advance on the old Temple. It is there that several Doomdreamers and at least one of the Triad, seek elemental nodes of power and elemental gems to complete the Orb of Oblivion and usher Tharizdun's return.
  Steeled by such responsibility, the heroes moved toward the Inner Fane, through secret doors revealed by Varachan and stood upon a ledge overlooking the blasted landscape of the inner crater, rocks and sulferous smoke surrounding a black tower, set within a rift of lava, as a spike driven into a wound. Tymaret pushed Hedrack's body off the ledge and it tumbled, broken and bloodied to the rock-strewn floor below.
  The party lowered themselves with Tymaret's rope, only Myka slipping the last 10 feet. Within moments of reaching the crater floor the party was attacked by Black Wights, undead with metal armour and the sign of Tharizdun branded on their foreheads. The party was spread out and the wights attacked, one draining life from Orlac, another leaping to the rocks to slash at Barbados, but within a few feints and thrusts the wights were dead (again).
  At this point, it was time to enact the plan: Orlac murmured and gestured over Hedrack's corpse and within the hour the evil priest coughed and sputtered to life, a thing almost dead. Myka and Emmanuel Woodsmoke immediately cast charm person and hex upon it, a figure more thing than human. Hedrack was charmed and raised himself slowly on unsteady legs. Myka took him by the shoulder and the party moved to the bridge spanning the wound and leading to the Black Tower's only door.
  Hedrack seemed to be communicating with the door, nodding his head, perhaps mouthing words. Myka felt her conscious mind probed by some sentient force. The being, if that's what it was, tried to push deeper into the Tabaxi's thoughts, but he was able to shield himself from such prying. The door slowly slid into the tower base to reveal a round room.
  In the room were two dragon-dinosaur creatures, guardians, who eyed the party, but let them enter. A large purplish stone bulged from the ceiling of the room, the stone supported by a metal framework along the walls and ceiling and as the party ascended the stairs to the next level the stone continued, emerging from the floor and continuing through that ceiling as well, now perhaps 30 feet in width at its top. Surrounding the strangely beguiling stone were six doorways, seemingly to nowhere, as they stood without wall or chamber beyond them. The only other object in the room was a ebony bureau. Emmanuel opened this to reveal 10 small bottles of liquid. One he tasted had a scent of cinnamon and he looked, for a moment, with fascination at the stone in the room's centre, but then the feeling was gone. Tymaret swept up the other nine bottles.
  The stairway continued up.

Rewards Granted

Monsters:
Tojanda (Large Elemental): 2900 XP (NB: this XP awarded after the battle, so do not count again if you already added this)
Black Wights x3: 3300 XP
  Adventure Advancement:
2000 XP
  Total per PC: 1,640 XP