The Seventh Layer of the Mad Mage's Tower
General Summary
Before the Mad Mage could begin his proposal, Arwyn shot an arrow, and the group watched as it harmlessly bounced off his shield, a Globe of Invulnerability now made obvious by the strike. Folen, too, annoyed with the elf mage's tone and arrogance, fired an arrow uselessly before wandering around the area, content to be more of nuissance than anything. Before Oritris could fully commit to making his offer, barely getting a few phrases out, Xand reached his hand out and casted Sacred Flame, which launched the mage into an angry tirade, giving kill orders.
Hearing the screams of creatures from behind them in the halls, the party and their allies fell back, but Akmal remained in the room trying to bait out Oritris's ego in an effort to gain more information. Before teleporting out to await the survivors, the mage merely smiled before giving the warlock one order: Kill the elves and then, we'll talk.
Because Xand had split and Folen had come to his aid, the two had ended up cornered by an alchemical golem. Unable to escape, Folen was struck down and felled, nearly killed if not for the shining black bead that had been gifted to him by the God of Death, Murvos. Approached in his final moments and asked if it was the time to be restored, Folen allowed the deity to fulfill his favor, restoring the Eladrin to life just in time for him to recover some ground and back away allowing for Xand to kill the golem. Realizing his mortality and being too close to his goal of bringing back his lost love, Folen left the party to rejoin with the Arvanion soldiers at the base of the tower as he wished to survive all of this.
Understanding and letting him go, Swan had left the others upstairs in order to gather supplies. However, when she returned, it was only to see Dolel and Arwyn arguing over how to deal with a captured researcher that looked to be mixed with the genetics of a lizard. While Xand threatened him with torture, the man, who had been rather cooperative and was clearly in adoration of Oritris, did confirm and call out a bluff given by Swan, eliminating one of the Crescent members the group had suspected of releasing the mage. Compelled then by Dolel and through enchantment, he confessed to seeing Filluria, the champion of peace and treaties amongst the Crescent, attending to the lab. While Arwyn was shaken and shocked by this killing the researcher before Xand could torture him, the others in the group absorbed the info, reconsidering things and taking into account that perhaps transmutation or illusion magic could have been involved.
Left with nothing else but to move on, the wounded group and their allies- now one member less- decided to take a small break to recover as Swan distributed some much needed supplies she had recovered. With many potions of healing downed and the remaining ones distributed to hopefully ward off being felled in the fight to come, the group rallied themselves before arriving at the mage's observatory.
Again, with Xand not giving him a chance to speak and entice the group, Oritris gave orders for their deaths summoning large water weirds from the deep pools of his observatory. Surrounded and beset on all sides by boiling waters, the party struggled to avoid being drowned.
Splitting from the party before using a Potion of Enlarge, Xand destroyed the wall separating Oritris' from the battle, only to find the mage rather relaxed. However, at being interrupted, Oritris simply cast a spell.
In a blink of an eye, everything changed. Xand was now trapped within a Wall of Force, boxed in on all sides while the mage was now on the opposite side of the room surrounded by mist-like versions of himself floating about and seemingly confident in standing out in the open. While visible, barely anyone could reach him as the weirds nearly constricted and drowned Captain Belmont and another scalded the group with boiling water. In an effort to weaken him, both Dolel and Arwyn focused their energies on Oritris while Akmal attempted to try and break the concentration the mage had on the Wall of Force through a wand-powered, seventh circled Magic Missile.
However, none of their efforts got the mage to drop the wall. As the group eliminated the weirds, Swan inadvertently felled the mage with a deadly shot forcing her to heal him to make sure that he didn't have a chance to reawaken elsewhere while yelling at Belmont to knock him out. However, just as the captain was about to, Oritris offered to spare the Arvonian soldiers at the base of the tower in exchange for the Captain letting him go. Stunned and halted by that, Belmont held back but not before Swan dashed forward to knock the mage out.
While the group was victorious and exhausted, scalded and shaken, the captains manacled and even placed heavy armor on Oritris in order to keep him from casting spells. Through Sending, Swan ordered the soldiers to prepare to leave and with a threat from Dolel that the party was not allowed to loot the books under pain of death in their sleep, both Akmal and Xand got around to taking what they could. A while later and at the base of the tower, with mostly everyone gone, Belmont had carried down a barrel of explosive material from the alchemical floor enough to collapse the tower and was waiting for everyone to leave before setting it off. While the elves argued with him once they saw unable to do anything because of the presence of the other soldiers, it wasn't until Swan arrived and pleaded with him to leave the place be that he relented, listening to her argument that the Rhäelian people should be allowed the chance to use Oritris' studies to recover and that if he destroyed this place now, the lives that were lost were all for nothing.
Heading back to the rendezvous point, with Dolel in charge of Oritris and Arwyn instead walking alongside the Blight Company, the group voiced their concerns at Dolel's lies and overall suspicious behavior. Satisfied that there was no aura of divination around them, the group revealed their findings of an ancient curse on Rhäehal and the location of an archaelogist that could corroborate their statements with a testimony.
Utilizing the Potion of Mind Reading and with Swan allowing Arwyn access to her mind, the Captain was witness to the same vision that was seen and images and thoughts in regard to the coven of witches and the lies that Prince Chase'in was leading a rebellion. Overwhelmed, but seemingly believing and thankful for the information, Arwyn promised to keep Swan and the others updated and in return, she warned them to take the Arvanoian soldiers and leave with them not on foot (to find another way out of Rhäehal) as she believes that Dolel will not them leave to return home. Assuring her that the soldiers were safe with them, the party split paths heading off to the airship as the elves returned to the capital. With the truth now revealed and the next steps forward now unsure but seemingly dangerous, the Blight Company and their allies know only one thing: they need to return to Arvanoc.
Report Date
04 Oct 2021
Loot
Swan
Potion of Watchful Rest (2x)
Potion of Water Breathing (2x)
Potion of Comprehension (2x)
Potion of Invisibility (2x)
Potion of Growth
Magical stones (100lbs; 1000gp)
Brimstone (100lbs; 1000gp)
Akmal
Potion of Hill Giant Strength
Potion of Fire Breath
Adamantium tanks (3x; Filled; 500lbs ea;5000gp ea)
(Forbidden Knowledge Book)
(Forbidden Knowledge Book)
Xand
Potion of Fire Resistance
Dragon Skull
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