2023/01/26: Side Adventure - A Call From Renedge Part Two Report
General Summary
Ba'alzamon, Union, Thalin, Nimbus, Everett, Bael, Et-Kehri
The party got beat up in the last few rooms, so Ba'alzamon called in more help. This time he got Et-Kehri, in the middle of returning from a grocery run. Ba'alzamon offered to teach him Summon Red Meat to make up for any possible spoilage. The party all introduced themselves to each other.
Someone's working with powerful magic items, which is apparently somehow resulting in the walls making the sounds of children screaming. Each room that's cleared by the party results in the grate at the end of the hallway loosening, so hopefully once the last room is cleared we'll be able to go down and find out what they're doing down there.
Suddenly, a group of 8-9 foot tall pale doctor-looking humanoids appeared in the middle of the room, wielding various "medical tools". They're all horribly ugly and wrong-looking. Dion instantly activated a spell that let him punch fireballs, wounding several of them, but they activated very quickly as well and chanted something that immobilized him against a wall. Bael, still enlarged by a magic item, dashed in and battered the doctors, badly wounding one and finishing off the severely wounded one. Thalin charged in with his lance, to little effect. Union used "Concealing Amorphia" and made himself much harder to see and hit, surrounded by an amorphous shell that misdirects light. Ba'alzamon cast Ishmael's Magic Missile and blasted two with 120 magic missiles each, killing one and seriously wounding the other. Et-Kehri, Nimbus, and Everett were surprised by the sudden appearance of the doctors and didn't have a chance to immediately react.
One of the doctors latched a grapple device around Bael's head, apparently trying to extract Bael's brain for "research purposes". The other used his various tools to disable Bael's legs. While the actual effects were minimal thanks to Bael's unusual biology, the scene was exceptionally gory and disturbing for everyone else. Nimbus stepped into melee and battered their joints and pressure points with martial arts, but wasn't able to fully bring either down. Bael responded to the assault on his brainpan with a windblade. It bisected the one with the brain-extractor and damaged the other. Thalin stabbed the remaining doctor with his longsword, getting him in the gut but failing to kill him. Union tried and failed to land a backstab. Ba'alzamon cast quick on Bael, giving him a burst of speed that he used to shred the doctor holding onto his legs. The doctors faded along with their gear.
The party set to closing the holes in Bael's body and healing him. Et-Kehri shattered the hold effect on Dion with a contest of wills.
The party decided this was their cue to get moving. Heading into the next room, they found a room filled with flashing lights and magic circles of various colors. In the back of the room is a magic circle with a glowing purple object of some sort floating around. It's the source of some of the light. The circle seems to be similar to those found in the other rooms of the dungeon. The other lights in the room seem to be directing some sort of energy into the item in the circle. The energy beams appear to be coming from small crystals in the walls.
After some extensive consideration, the group sent Thalin in with his psionic dampening field up, bullet time and feet of the bunny cast on him, and shifting shadows and fog covering the room. He got fried a little by the psionic energy beams, but far less than he would have been without those effects. The glass orb inside the magic circle didn't want to move, so Thalin carved a hole in it, pulled out the large scrap of cloth inside, and ran back out. Everett healed him up. The lasers kept going, but the party decided the cloth was probably all they needed from that room.
The party investigated the cloth. It seemed to have some semblance of a will, but wasn't fully conscious or sentient.
The group moved on to the last room. Inside, there is some sort of weird blacklight ritual circle. In the middle of the circle is what looks like a misshapen sphere of annihilation. The room is 30'x30', and the sphere takes up most of it. The various spellcraft experts in the party determined that the runes were creating an instant death field.
The party did some considering and an augury, then Ba'alzamon relocated the death field to another dimension for a few seconds while Union and Et-Kehri tried to pull the strange rock out telekinetically and Bael ran in to grab it and pull it out of the field. The telekinetic attempt failed, but Bael's run succeeded. Bael noticed that the rock felt both hot and cold in his hand simultaneously.
Et-Kehri murmured "You guys are so cool," and was very surprised when both Bael and Ba'alzamon heard and thanked him.
The party took a look at the rock. Tossing a pebble at it just resulted in the pebble disintegrating. The rock is about baseball-sized.
Bael suspected that if he had normal pain receptors, he would be screaming in pain.
Bael went and used the rock as an eraser, erasing the matter of the nearly-broken grate leading into the final area.
The area beyond it was older and somewhat decrepit. It led into a long, dark hallway. The hallway was supernaturally dark, preventing vision in all directions. Ba'alzamon tossed a light grenade in, and the darkness swallowed it whole. The group roped themselves together and proceeded, with Bael (with Et-Kehri on his shoulder) leading the way. An interminably long time later, with even sound cutting out partway through, the party found a door. The door was locked, and for once it wasn't the same lock as the one Union "retrieved". Union and Nimbus eventually got it open. Inside the room was just more absolute darkness. The party determined that before they went in, they should get ready for a fight.
Et-Kehri cast whispered secrets, focusing on the thing imprisoned in the next room. Those whispers that were intelligible are as follows:
"Erythnuil the traitor"
"Powerful, evil, stealing from the planet"
"Divine titan blood spell caster"
"Channeling power for years, tortures the souls for sport"
Dion hadn't heard of Erythnuil, but he suspects that may be the person who captured him. Or in retrospect, the name does sound somewhat familiar... If he's correct, Erythnuil is a "guy in the know", one who makes deals and then manipulates the deals for his own ends.
The party buffed up and went in. In the center of the room was a large titan with grey skin and purple accents. His eyes had an evil glow.
Dion opened the fight by raining lightning on the traitor's head. It was eaten by a force field that popped up to stop it. Bael ran in to attack the evil titan, but his attacks missed or were deflected; he found that the force field only appeared to get in the way if his attacks would have hit. Thalin charged into melee as well, connecting solidly with the force field but again not getting through. Nimbus joined them and prepared to defend them and those behind them.
Ba'alzamon withdrew and passed out a hoard of buffs. Among them were attack boosts that let Bael do some 30,000 damage in one round of attacks. And only after that finished did the titan's shield drop. (He looked appropriately surprised.)
Erythnuil started his own combat routine by punching those around him. Those around him responded with a shield, literal facetanking, and a barrage of pressure point strikes that crippled his defenses (-189 to saves!). Union hit him with an ability that prevented teleportation. Everett hit him with eyebite and tossed a vial with bestow curse, crippling his natural attributes.
The titan called down an absurdly powerful bolt of lightning. It struck Ba'alzamon's shield of sorcery first, popping the shield but having its damage crippled, the remainder of which was eaten by the coruscating shields around the party members. And then Et-Kehri carried out his part of the plan, hitting Erythnuil (and Thalin, Bael, and Nimbus) with Void Expulsion, crippling the titan's spellcasting and throwing him 120 feet into the distance.
The titan tried to teleport back to the party using some device or ability, discovered that he'd been teleport-locked, growled, and started stalking back towards the party. He was met partway there by a Bael to the face.
Bael tore into the titan, ending his sequence with a palm strike with the matter eraser rock. It didn't seem to do much to incapacitate him, but it did leave a notable hole in his chest. Thalin followed up with a charging barrage of lance strikes to Erythnuil's chest, and Nimbus sprayed him down with paralysis darts from the launchers hidden in her sleeves.
Finally, the titan fell dead, and the mission was complete. The party looked over the loot and then set out for home, pausing only long enough for Ba'alzamon to burn the asylum to cinders on the way out.
Rewards Granted
4 xp, cloth of psychic armor, Death Heart, shadow rod
Missions/Quests Completed
The party destroyed the threat that was causing Renedge indigestion.
Character(s) interacted with
Dion the Irda Rune Caster, Erythnuil the Traitor
Union
Et-Kehri
Bael
Ba'alzamon Dreamender
Nimbus Zhayress
Report Date
26 Jan 2023
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