Session XVII: The Descent into Drezen Report

General Summary

Inside Castle Drezen, the party examines their provided map and decides to the south to go to the Vault would be the best bet. Opening the double doors, they find a decent size room with four exits out of the room. There is a large steel door to the south, a large steel door to the southwest, and a double set of doors to the west. Keeping themselves together, they find a 20x30 room that has one door to the west. It is most obviously not a vault, especially with a door to the west that leads out. It is devoid of all furniture and looks completely unused.   They open the door to the west and find a large hallway with multiple exits, with a wall opening to the west, as well as double doors. To the south, the party sees a lot of rubble on the ground. It definitely looks like the map is not accurate to the current structure of the citadel. They hear something large coming from the south, investigating the light.   Coming around from the south, a large demon, a Vrock comes around the corner as the party extinguishes their light sources, and stick around in the bubble. They decide to ambush the Vrock from invisibility. lets loose an arrow into the Vrock, while casts communal protection from evil on the party members close to her. casts ray of enfeeblement on the Vrock, which weakens it. casts divine power, while casts gravity bow, and moves away. can't see, so he skips to as Yuhia moves up and does damage against the Vrock. releases his ioun torch above his head.   lets the party know about the capabilities of the demon, and casts glitterdust on the two Vrocks. The Vrock closest to screeches, and stuns and . moves up and does some damage against the Vrock, dealing a significant amount of damage. The other Vrock teleports behind the party and uses his spore ability, which infects and Emily. Emily moves away and the Vrock does some damage against the teleporting Vrock.   moves up and strikes at the Vrock. moves away, and then casts web bolt, which it easily breaks out of the grapple effect. The screeching Vrock then unloads on , getting some talon damage. responds with a hefty strike. The teleporting Vrock screeches, stunning the party. The south Vrock deals a little bit of damage. The other Vrock then steps back and casts mirror image.   then unloads on the south Vrock, while steps back and starts inspire courage again. then unloads on the Vrock, killing it. then attempts to cast magic missile against the Vrock, and it impacts his Spell Resistance. charges and he completely whiffs, hitting the ground below the Vrock. The Vrock responds with a claw to face, and releases spores on him as well.   then releases some arrows against the Vrock, but it impacts his images. then releases a starknife against the Vrock, which impacts one of the demon's images. moves over and heals up Emily. then throws an arcane bolt against the demon, and it impacts his spell resistance, while swings and hits an image. The Vrock takes a step back and casts heroism, while releases some arrows, hitting the demon twice, while taking out another image. throws another starknife and deals some damage. moves up to and heals him up a bit.   then casts arcane bolt, removing the last image from the Vrock, and unloads on the demon. The Vrock then responds by swiping at , dealing some damage. hits the Vrock solidly twice, while also throws another starknife. then moves up and attacks the demon, dealing some damage. attempts to swipe at the demon, but misses. The Vrock then responds with an attack on and sporing in their face, dealing some damage. deals more significant damage against the Vrock, and it then disappears.   The party then collects themselves and heals up, while casts invisibility sphere to move on under stealth. The party decides to head to the west out of the room. They find a large room with three large Half-Fiend Minotaur waiting in the room. then moves up, whispering to the party that he's about to attack. pulls out a rod of cold iron and casts pellet blast, damaging two of the fiends. casts divine favor, while unloads a shot on a Minotaur. casts holy smite on two of the Minotaurs, which upsets the balance of the Minotaur about to attack. then uses glitterdust on the south Minotaur and fails. then moves up and waits for the Minotaur to attack.   then unloads her bow on the blind Minotaur, killing it outright. The other Minotaur charges , dealing a significant amount of damage. The fiend in front of swings at her, and uses absorb blow to prevent some damage. responds to the charge with a bastard sword to the face. then uses grease on the north demon, while unloads on the minotaur to the north.   then unloads on the Minotaur, dropping it in one volley. then slices up the other Minotaur, dealing significant damage, while moves up on the other Minotaur, and releases an arcane bolt on the demon, while shanks the last Minotaur, ending the combat.   The party takes stock of the dimensions of the room, and examine the map. They think that the southwest door would have something behind it. They head into what looks like what used to be an armory, but now looks like its just a bunch of wood shards. They decide to instead go to the south out of the room, and examine it, opening the doors to a beautiful court that lies in disarray. They are decorated with murals of angels and templars engaged in all manner of foul acts. examines the west, and it looks like she has found a recent addition to the hall. Instead, the party decides to head to the North, but they find that the door is locked. They try using the chime of opening three times on the door, but it fails as well. then steps up and starts bashing down the door while they use the chime of opening on the door. They continue bashing down the door for a solid minute, before the door finally gives way, revealing another room to the north, and an enemy waiting on the other side.   On the other side, they see a Thoxel Demon.   starts off by casting gravity bow, while uses inspire courage. walks over and gives the touch of good, while steps inside, and opens the other door from the other side. A ready Thoxel demon charges from the side, hitting some decent damage. Another Thoxel pulls out a longbow and shoots at , but misses. The other Thoxel fails to hold the longbow appropriately.   then casts mythic slow on the demons and moves away. then releases a few shots at the guy up front, vaporizing the demon from existence. then throws a starknife at another demon, dealing a significant amount of damage. then moves over to and gives her another touch of good, while unloads on the Thoxel demon nearby, doing some damage. The Thoxel continues to fumble with his bow. then opens up on the demon in the back, but seriously misses. then releases a starknife against the slow demon in the back.   then moves up and uses touch of good on , and responds by adding a significant amount of damage on the Thoxel nearby. The Thoxel nearby him does stick his two-bladed sword into , while the demon in the back hits and empties an arcane bolt into the creature attacking and downs it. then empties a bunch of arrows into one of the demons, sending it to its home plane, while does a significant amount of damage, while charges the final demon, and ends its existence on the Material Plane.   The party collects themselves, and heads to the east to find out if the room is a storage room. Heading into the room, the party finds a bunch of smashed shelves, wood shards, and general emptiness. They then take the west door, opening the double doors which seem to go upstairs. At the top of the stairs, there are more double doors. They are locked. beats down the door until it gives way. It leads to an overhang showing a bunch of ballista arranged in a pattern aimed towards the north west. The party decides to head along the outside wall to the storage room listed on the map, and they find a door to the north and a door to the south. They open the door to the south, and they find a bunch of smashed furniture and an empty storage room, then they open the door to the north.   This room is furnished as a study/bedroom, but it looks like the room's inhabitant left the area quickly, and recently. They discover that the room was once home to a powerful priestess of Deskari. takes the books and pockets them to learn more later. They then head back around the tower and bash down some outer doors that heads up. They head up the stairs and find another set of double doors. They open the doors, revealing a quite large area that is just a mess. An open area terrace with a set of treasure in the corner. It looks like the treasure has multiple auras, and it might be real, so they approach it carefully. puts it together that this might have been where Soltengrebbe's horde, which includes a bunch of items, and lots of gold. They also discover there is another bit of stairs to the top of the tower.   At the top of the tower, they find a summoning circle that is currently inactive, and its no longer functional because it was managed. uses rune trace, and its purpose was used to summon divine creatures. They move back down the stairs to the main level. goes back to where she found the wall. She becomes insistent on destroying the wall, but the party pulls her away to go to other areas and explore. They head back to the main room, and head to the west hallway. In the hallway, they find double doors to the east and west. They check the double doors to the left are barred from both sides, with melted metal ingrained into the door. attempts to unlock the main door which shows the main sallyport area. is unable to open the lock, but she doesn't succeed even at her best.   At the end of the hall back where is exploring, they find a single door. They find a throughway through sections of the fortress. Beyond the next door, they find a guard room which shows area of disuse. Continuing through, they find a central hallway that seems to actually be used. explores the west, and they find an entryway where there used to be a ballista, but it has since been covered in bones. They party then explores to the south, and then they open the door, and it is a large room that used to have someone inside. heads inside, and is greeted by someone that shows up and charges her.   This huge barbarian woman rages and then charges . She swings her greatsword at and deals a significant damage to her. moves into the room, and takes a significant amount of damage from Jestak as she moves into the room. uses inspire courage. tries to speak to the raging barbarian, but ultimately can't understand her, but fails and instead smites the barbarian, dealing non-lethal damage. then moves in and takes an attack of opportunity as he moves in, taking some serious damage. responds with his own strike against Jestak.   then pulls back and then attempts to grease the kellid's sword, but she pulls it out of the way. Jestak then reels back and attempts to damage , but ultimately fails, while moves back and unloads on the barbarian. uses loremaster to determine defenses, and finds out her name: Jestak. then does non-lethal damage, damaging the barbarian even more.   attempts to swing at the barbarian, but misses. then casts admonishing ray, dealing a bunch of non-lethal damage. Jestak responds by hitting with lots of damage, while uses Absorb Blow to prevent some damage. unloads a non-lethal volley, but misses all but one shot. then unloads one starknife into the barbarian, but only does a little bit of non-lethal damage, dropping the barbarian unconscious.   The party discusses the option to bring Jestak back to the paladins for imprisonment. The party starts healing the barbarian and up, and they try to tie up the barbarian, then bring her up into 's rope trick. The barbarian wakes up, and the party climbs in and takes a rest. She explains that if she brought the party's heads to Staunton Vhane that she would be spared Staunton's blade. convinces the barbarian to help the paladins. frees the barbarian and Jestak pledges her loyalty to the party.