Session XVIII: The Wandering of Drezen Report

General Summary

Jestak joins the party and helps.   After the party wakes up, the party proceeded to explore more of the area. They happened upon a temple in which a few crusaders seemingly were worshipping some kind of god that looked like Iomedae, which they realized pretty quickly that it was a Succubus named Janeamine that was posing as Iomedae. The party dispatched the demon, and rescued the templars, sending them back to camp to recover. After that, they discovered a false vault that seemingly had nothing in it, but instead it had a secret door leading to a secret vault. Inside, it looked like they have happened upon the real vault, with the Sword of Valor on the mantle, but it was all an illusion. When they approached, mimics popped up and started attacking the party. After a battle, the party found out that there were some stuff in here that was real, but the Sword of Valor was not real, and was moved somewhere else.   After the party cleared out the vault, they headed to the west and found an armory with a set of some good items. From there, the party proceeded to open the walls between the armory and Staunton Vhane's chambers. There proceeded to have a battle which led to Joran Vhane, Staunton's brother, to join the battle. Staunton Vhane and Joran Vhane was defeated, and the party was able to find Staunton's Journal, as well as a cache of a lot of different supplies that Staunton Vhane had accrued. Joran Vhane joins the party and follows them.  

And now we resume our regularly recorded WotR...

The party begins pouring over the journal, and then discussing what their next moves are. They want to notify the army of that they are still alive, but they still want to find the Sword of Valor as soon as possible. First, they open the door to the south room leading out of the workshop, and they find a clean-looking bathroom. They then head up to the north door and look inside. It is a large room with a double door on the north side. They open the double doors and discover not that it is a storage room, but it is stairs down. They feel this evil energy that is coming out of the basement, and they decide to close it up, and figure that one out later.   They head over to the main room and explore the east doors leaving out of the main hall, and a hallway to the south. They open up the doors and find a chapel. There is a huge statue of a squat swarf with a massive hammer and shield at the forefront of the small chapel, flanked by tapestries depicting forges. Inside, they also find Graven Guardians that attack them as soon as they enter. moves up and uses a sling bullet, but it doesn't do as much damage as they hoped. Jestak then charges one of the Graven Guardians, dealing some damage to the statue. finds out the Graven Guardians can't attack members of Deskari, but instead he just starts inspire courage. shoots from long range, dealing very little damage. moves up behind Jestak, while a Graven Guardian casts haste and moves up. then moves up and slashes at the Graven Guardian, dealing a little bit of damage.   A Graven Guardian then moves up and slashes at Jestak twice, dealing some damage, while the other one moves up and flanks Jestak, dealing some more damage. Joran Vhane then moves up to and casts bear's endurance, while uses telekinetic volley on another guardian, while Jestak strikes and destroys one of the guardians, while she heals with renewed vigor. chips away a little at one of the guardians, while casts gravity bow. then uses touch of good on Jestak. The hasted guardian then swings at , dealing some damage, which she negates with absorb blow. responds with a strike back, doing a small chip of damage. The other guardian swings at Jestak and misses. Joran Vhane then casts cure moderate wounds, and moves up and touches Jestak, healing her. then launches a telekinetic volley against the hasted guardian, while Jestak smashes up the other guardian more.   then moves up and throws at one of the guardians and misses, and moves in with fleet charge to get into position, but does very little damage on the first strike, but follows up with a few decent strikes which take down the guardian. then gets behind the other guardian, flanking with while the guardian does some damage. responds with a little bit of damage in response. Joran Vhane then heals up a bit. then continues his volley against the guardian, doing a little bit of damage. Jestak then moves up and swings with massive damage, while chips away at the final guardian, and so does also chips away at the guardian.   The party then collects themselves, with Joran Vhane healing up the group a bit, and then the party moves on to the double doors down the hallway to the south, back tracking a little bit. Jestak batters down the door while Joran Vhane notes that the door could have just been unlocked with a key the party has. They head inside, they notice a portcullis control lever. They decide to raise the portcullis for an easy exit when needed. After that, the party heads to the east, which looks to be an unused dining hall. Jestak decides to consume some of the food in this hall. They head further to the east, which leads to another empty room with barrels and stores of food and supplies. Continuing through to the other side, they find what looks to be a hub room with multiple exits. They decide to check out the south door first. Inside, they find some demons, which attack the party on sight.   Starting off the battle, casts slow, which one of the Ghoul gets slowed. Jestak charges one of the Ghouls, and does a bunch of damage. uses fleet charge to get into the room and do some damage on the Ghoul, then unloads on the Nabasu, dealing some damage. The other Ghoul then moves up and swipes at , but he dodges out of the way. The Nabasu uses death-stealing gaze which drains and for some negative levels, and then uses mass hold person, which paralyzes , , and .   Another Ghoul breaks down a door, and charges Jestak, dealing some damage. The slowed Ghoul then damages Jestak, also dealing some damage. Joran Vhane then uses dispel magic on , but it fails. Another Ghoul then moves out and attacks , but misses. then moves up and uses remove paralysis, which frees from paralysis, while wriggles out of the hold. Jestak unloads his attacks on the Ghoul, killing it outright, and damaging the other. then moves over, gets swiped at by a Ghoul, and then wipes the Nabasu off the map, while gets damaged significantly.   uses reposition on to get him out of the door, while Joran Vhane moves up and does some damage against the Ghoul. then uses mythic remove paralysis to remove paralysis from , which then responds with a scorching ray on a Ghoul, damaging him a bit. Jestak continues her rage, smacking out another Ghoul, and then continues her onslaught against another Ghoul, destroying it, while the remaining Ghoul moves up and damages for a little bit of damage. then moves up and damages the last Ghoul, while Joran moves up and damages the Ghoul, with destroys the last Ghoul.   After the party collects themselves, heads down the hallway and notices it leads to the outside, and points out a potential storeroom off of the previous hub area. The party opens the door to an empty store room, and then heads to the north, finding another long hallway. They head to the west, finding a bunch of supplies in food and supplies. Jestak confirms that there's plenty of good jerky in there, but is not convinced. They head through the next door on the hall, finding a store room of fresh water, then skipping over to the east, finding another empty room with a parapet to the outside. To the north, they find another door, which, it normally wouldn't be open to the outside, but the wall is destroyed. Heading to the main hallway, they head to the north, finding an old store closet that used to house some ammunition. They continue through the hallway, finding a cleaning closet, very unused. Heading out to the destroyed room, they find some stairs up to the west. The stairs lead up to a closet and a set of double doors. Opening the closet, they find a room of siege ammunition.   Heading in to the double doors, they find a military bunk which is pretty empty. They find a latrine which is empty. To the south, they find another door which has nothing in it, except for a really nice bed. Backtracking to the main area, they head to the front entrance and unlock the front door, heading into the sallyport. They find the main front doors and open them, leading them to the outside, with a long bridge leading across the entire moat, offering the main sole entrance. They see a bunch of statutes, and shoots some magic missiles at two of the statues to test their capabilities. He then continues down the bridge, shooting more at statues. Jestak wants to help, but the party decides to stop them. Finally, lets Jestak loose on one of the statues, and she ends up destroying it. They successfully make it down the hallway to massive stone doors, which they open, leading to an entryway with a long porticullis. They head through the west and east door, finding an empty room. On either side, they find a lever, which they open both to raise the porticullis. opens a door which leads to the outside towards an unmanned scorpion, while opens the door to the outside.   The party decides to take a quick walk towards the paladin army and update Irabeth Tirabade. Jestak introduces herself to Irabeth Tirabade heartily, and Jestak introduces the party to the art of naming swords, which scoffs at. updates Irabeth Tirabade on the fact that Staunton Vhane is dead, and Irabeth Tirabade inquires about the body. The party shows her his blade that Staunton Vhane wielded. They also notify Irabeth Tirabade that the job is not yet done, and Irabeth Tirabade lets them go rest. They decide to consult the books on the nature of the shadow demon in the basement, and discuss with Joran Vhane on the nature of the shadow forge.   In the morning, the party descends to the bottom floor of castle Drezen. It is almost two levels down, which ends the stair hallway with two double doors. They open to a large room with a porticullis around the main entrance with double doors leading into the main chamber. Around the main wall, there are eight chambers barred off, and two side passages, with a set of double doors to the north. They decide to check out the west side passage, which has a bedroom inside. It used to have people sleeping in here, but they do not live here any longer. The party feels like the light from the world has gone when they are in this room. They head to the other side passage and look inside. and notices something off with the wall in the south east. notices a latch to open the secret door.   As the door opens, they feel waves of intense heat as the wall descends. They are standing above a high terrace overlooking the room. At the far end of the chamber is a set of double doors, with a large chamber inside with walls that seem to glow red hot. In the center of the room, they find a massive forget hat is made of black and red metal, with two creatures currently tending the fire.   The party notices the Salamanders tending the fire. As the door closes, casts communal resist energy, fire on the party. They notice the lift is currently on the same level as the party. As the party heads through the hallway, the commotion attracts the attention of the Salamanders. starts off the battle by hitting the far Salamander, and hits some shots into the salamanders. jumps down and takes some damage as she flubs the jump. One of the Salamanders heads behind the forge, while Jestak charges the other one from on top, slashing at the Salamander. Another Salamander moves up to , and she responds with a readied attack, while the Salamander responds with an attack and grab back. then moves up and uses liberating command on , which frees her, while the using telekinetic volley on the other Salamander. moves up to the lift and stops, looking over the edge.   The Salamander next to Jestak then spears and tail slaps her, grappling her as well. then moves up and uses inspire courage, buffing the party. Another Salamander then appears from a side passage, moving up to flank Jestak, while moves into the room quickly, taking a pot shot at the Salamander grappling Jestak, dealing some damage, then unloads a full attack against the same creature, dealing a significant amount of damage. slashes at the Salamander in front of her, dealing a significant amount of damage, while another one moves up to her and attempts to tail slap but misses. The other one attempts to damage but misses. then casts liberating command on Jestak, which she uses to break out of the grapple, and then follows up with a slow, which slows two of the Salamanders. jumps down and flubs the fall, taking some damage, and then damaging the one flanking Jestak.   The slowed Salamander on Jestak deals some damage, and moves up to chip away at one of the Salamander, and then uses deadly throw to deal some more damage. The slowed Salamander then responds by damaging Jestak with their spear. then unloads some attacks on a Salamander, dealing some damage, while hacks away at the Salamander in front of her. One of the Salamander misses in retaliation, while Jestak slashes at one of the Salamanders, ending its life. The Salamander in front of attacks and grapples her, while uses liberating command on , but it does not free her, and he then flings one bullet at a Salamander, dealing a little bit of damage.   then slashes at the Salamander that he is flanking with Jestak, dealing some damage. then uses his starknife on another Salamander, whittling away at its health. The Salamander respons by attacking Jestak , but misses. then responds by dealing a significant amount of damage on one of the Salamanders, dealing some damage. responds by hacking at the grappling Salamander, while the one that is behind that one attempts to tail slap , but missing. Jestak then unloads more damage on the slowed Salamander, ending its life. The Salamander grappling then continues to damage her with grapple. then damages the grappling Salamander, dealing some damage with gallant inspiration.   then unloads a bunch of ammo into a Salamander, taking it down. then gets out of the way for Jestak, which the Salamander responds by following around the forge, but missing. Jestak then follows around and slashes at the Salamander, downing the last Salamander.   The party then starts to work on figuring out the forge. They find out dispel chaos and dispel evil is needed to end the corruption forge's effect.