Kingdom on the Brink - Session 36

General Summary

The group gets ready to enter the cave, Hendred takes several moments, the party starts to talk to Hendred and she gets flashbacks from her previous time there (envisioning her dead party members). Hendred gathers herself and starts to guide the group through the caves, they hear a growling sound reverberate and Duromar sneaks up to peak ahead. He sees there's two Shadow Beasts, a Deathwisp, and a Grick Alpha, They see Duromar and the group prepares for combat. The party moves up and begins to buff themselves (Hendred casts shield of Faith, Duromar begins his bladesong and haste, Stormsong cast mirror image), Duromar then moves to engage one of the Shadow Beasts. The Shadow Beast and the Deathwisp move and attempt to strike Duromar but he casts shield and blocks their attacks. Hendred casts sacred flame but is dodged, the Grick Alpha moves up and dodges and Del Varis begins to trade blows with the second Shadow Beast (Sustaining a decent amount of damage). Hendred heals Del Varis and attempts to hit the Deathwisp but is unsuccessful. Gareth strikes the Deathwisp several times and Stormsong levitates and hurls several firebolts at the Shadow Beasts, Gareth dodges the Deathwisp and it teleports away and the Grick Alpha hit Hendred with its tail. Del Varis exchanges more blows with the Shadow Beast and Duromar chases down the Deathwisp, holding his own with it and the Shadow Beast that flanked him. Stormsong twins several more Firebolts and Gareth engages the Grick alpha, The Deathwisp teleports and engages Gareth dealing severe necrotic damage and the Grick Alpha Follows it up and critically hits Gareth which downs him, the Grick takes a bite out of Gareth's guts which put him on the edge of death. This proves to be too much for Gareth and he succumbs to his wounds, the party pushes back and Del Varis stuns one of the Shadow Beasts, the enemy side runs out of steam and Duromar speeds around the battlefield dealing the final blows to what's left. Hendred revivifies Gareth and as he comes to he asks the group if they know what a taco is, Del Varis punches Gareth and heals him as he starts to ask Gareth a lot of questions about his experience. Duromar and Stormsong begin to search the area, seeing it's an extremely old and abandoned expedition site they find 300 GP of diamonds but little else. Del Varis continues his questioning and prodding of Gareth, taking extremely detailed notes, Gareth mentioned an extremely chill angelic figure and something about them having taco Tuesday. Hendred continues to guide the group further into the cave.

The party finds another open chamber and as they move forward Gareth stops the party and points out a bear trap, he throws a rock which triggers the trap and the group continues forward, Del Varis triggers another Bear trap but is unhindered. The party skirts the walls as the path has become flooded with water which hinders movement and gets deeper the further from the walls they get. They see the tentacles of an Aboleth and another fight ensues, the Aboleth attempts to perform an action on Stormsong but she resists and it goes under water. The party spreads out to different areas of the chamber, Del Varis and Duromar head to dry land in the center, Stormsong hovers on her broom and Hendred and Gareth staying to the walls. The Aboleth rises again and swipes several times at Hendred, Duromar hits it with a fireball, the Aboleth uses it's exceptional speed to hit Hendred several more times in between getting hit. As the Aboleth is attacking Hendred the rest of the party comes under fire from plants that can spit poison, Stormsong launches another fireball that hits the Aboleth and a the poison spitting plant. Duromar runs over to Hendred and casts dimension door, teleporting them both to the land in the center, Duromar had wanted to teleport closer to Kalzoz's Sanctum but Hendred couldn't remember the way in the heat of the moment. Gareth is the only one left in range so the Aboleth focuses on him, Del Varis jumps and lands on top of the Aboleth and performs several rapid punches, the Aboleth quickly dies with the help from Gareth and Stormsong. Del Varis jumps off and the party reconvenes at the dry land in the center, Duromar and Stormsong burn the rest of the poison spitting plants and then cast tiny hut and they long rest. The next day Hendred remembers which way they need to go and they continue on, they pass several walls that have old, hand drawn, depictions of a black dragon which sends chills through Hendred.

The party finds themselves in fairly open and structurally (if very old) built up area, before them they see two wraiths. Hendred blesses the party and Duromar, Del Varis, and Gareth move up, as they do this a cloaker appears on the wall and projects 3 separate images. Duromar launches several magic missiles at it and then follows up with a stab which destroy the three illusions. Stormsong starts twinning Firebolts at both the Wraiths, a bone swarm rapidly approaches the party and starts to swirl around Gareth, leaving him grappled. The Cloaker attempts to hit Duromar but is blocked by a shield spell, Duromar and Del Varis quickly deal with one wraith and leave the other stunned, this allows Stormsong to destroy it with her firebolts. Hendred is hesitant to help Gareth because she might hit him so she focuses on the Cloaker, Gareth is able to break free of the bone swarm and evades its attacks. The Bone Swarm moves up and attacks Hendred, Duromar finishes off the Cloaker and moves to Help Hendred, the combined fire of the party quickly smashes the bone swarm. The party spreads out and explores, Duromar activates a torch which spews flames at him, a skeleton statue then catches Duromar's attention and he gets close to admire it, it launches poison darts at him. Hendred, Gareth, and Stormsong ascend the raised stage area and begins to survey the room. Del Varis activates the same fire trap Duromar went through, Gareth wonders if it will go off from above and looks over the edge and he gets lightly burnt. Del Varis sees a similar device and activates it, he decides he wants to try and detach it (even after seeing it's firmly on the wall) and beats it with his club, this causes a massive explosion which he manages to partially evade. Some writing on the wall behind Hendred catches her attention, it leaves her furious.

 “The foolish toil looking for power, to escape their mortal shackles, this place is a monument to their stupidity. The power here is insignificant, let it be known that no mortal can achieve true power. Let it be known the nine usurping dragons are but mere playthings to true greatness. Cast off the lies, the gods can die. Praise be to Nadranth, the first and greatest.”

Hendred begins to strike the writing with her warhammer, this catches the party's attention and the approach her, trying to figure out what's going on. As they are watching Hendred stops, heaving from the physical exertion, she turns around and is taken by surprise (as well as the rest of the party) to see a warforged construct had approached her. It voiced its surprise to see her again, Hendred asks "again?" and says it's been a long time, and says she has different people with her now, and asks where the others are. The entire party is perplexed and begin to ask it questions: What is its purpose? - to guard the Phlactory, Is it here? - no. It once again asks where the group that originally came with Hendred was, Hendred is still perplexed, the warforged takes out a crystal and illusions pop out and a scene plays. It depicts a much younger Hendred with other adventurers fighting and losing, spells going off, failing defenses, and eventually a rout, this leaves Hendred shaken and she begins to stumble back. Gareth goes to comfort Hendred but the rest of the party continues to ask the warforged more questions, the group then begins to argue on what to call it and what else they should ask it. After a moment they realize the warforged and Del Varis had disappeared and they begin to search for them, as they do this a part of the ceiling collapses on them but they dig themselves out and continue the search. They find a room with Del Varis looking at a structure with swirling magic in the center, he throws a knife at it which chips away but the structure still stands. Several party members approach and resist some sort of magical pull, Stormsong's familiar doesn't and begins to walk towards the swirling magic, Stormsong dismisses it. The group looks around and sees there are quite a few items on display. Hendred and Stormsong take the warforged and begin to leave, Gareth, Duromar, and Del Varis start to take items off their displays. This causes several pulses of magic and Gareth feels the desire to approach the swirling magic, Duromar realizes it's a orb of annihilation and tells Gareth to stop, but he keeps going and touches it causing a wave of magic to surge through him. Duromar runs to him and casts dimension door and they both leave the area, Del Varis stays and keeps grabbing items which cause the orb of annihilation to screech and quickly explode. Del Varis manages to survive thanks to his monk abilities and a his brooch of shielding and takes all the items and heads back to the main room. Hendred is upset and wants to leave, the phlactory isn't here, the group asks the warforged if there's anything else here, he mentions a mirror in one of the small rooms. The group investigates, as they enter Stormsong and Gareth resist a pull but Duromar gets sucked into the mirror, he figures out it's a mirror of life trapping and decides to see if a he could banish himself out. After making a check to work his way out of the demiplane he finds himself in a room with a ceiling about to collapse and he misty steps just in time. Del Varis approaches the mirror and gets sucked in as well, but Duromar shatters the mirror and frees him, Hendred shouts at the party that it's time to leave and the group heads back to the airship. 

The group identifies all the magic items and divides them up on their way back to Strongfare. Back in Strongfare the group continues to help prepare the defenses: Gareth and Duromar train soldiers, Stormsong trains some people in the magic initiate feat, Hendred continues to aid the sick and hungry, Del Varis is nowhere to be found. during this time Hendred notices a disease she hasn't seen before and tries to gather information on it, but everyone else is just as clueless on it. She studies it and the majority of people die from it, but there's been a few times the people who had it would disappear. late at night as she's conducting an autopsy she notices that there's rapid swelling and as she investigates further the corpses eyes open and it sits up, there's a brief struggle and it flees. This shakes Hendred and she gathers the party to let them know what had happened.

It's the early morning on the 1st day of Nyroth 

Rewards Granted

Daern’s instant fortess
Elemetal Gem Blue
Iron Bands of Bilarro
Pearl of power
Ring of the Ram
Staff of Healing
Dust of disappearance
Shield +2
Amulet of the devout +2

Frostbrand longsword

Missions/Quests Completed

Explored Kalzoz's sanctum

Character(s) interacted with

Clyde/Rusty? the warforged

Notes

End of the 40th day of Terseg

	Male population	Female population
total	427,100	427,600
under 15	107,300	107,400
15 - 55	214,300	214,000
over 55	105,500	106,200
sick/injured - 20,000	Malnourished - 50,000	Mage initiates - 451
Professional fighting force - 129,000
Healing doses - 300 doses (dose equals 1d4+1)		Dead 5,300

Report Date

12 Nov 2022

Secondary Location

Eastbrook