2023/07/05: Infiltrating Necrosa's Bases Report
General Summary
Knight, Buzz, Lillith, Union, Zaran, Kal'vus, Ik-chuk, Illease
The party is still trying to get past the telepathic stalagmites. Union used his ascension crystal some 200 feet back from the stalagmites. He found himself in a white room, meeting with a dark figure with undefinable features.
The being didn't like thinking about itself at all, let alone in the first person. It said the stalagmite things are "leftovers", but hard-to-remove ones. The answer to their question is likely just the opposite of the concept of the word in the question. Also, they only ask living mortals. They don't bother with "post-mortal" beings, whether corpses or immortals.
Kal'vus decided to use the concept of his afterlife as his password. He walked forward and felt the minds of the stalagmites examining the concept, rolling it over and inspecting it. It was sort of the correct answer, and so they sort of let him through. He got through but felt badly drained. Fight, courage, life force, etc. The stalagmites were very harsh art critics. One moment of inattention or lost concentration would be punished.
Lillith played song "Existence" by Audiomachine. Buzz tried to go through once that started. He projected his own image, the hydrogen atom. He only took a bit of damage.
Knight, meanwhile, called Eldrin up on his mirror. Eldrin was still in his office, drinking some of the good alcohol he got from New Hallownest. Eldrin answered cheerfully. Knight quickly asked if Eldrin knew the Old One word for the opposite of doob-gnis. It turned out that Eldrin had just been thinking on that after the last call. The word is "adjar-kaya", but with the second half as a sort of extended murder-sacrifice screaming. Knight gave him a quick thanks and said he'd call back later.
Knight informed the rest of the party near him, then headed through in shade form while the music was still playing. He felt a little drawn out while he was inspected, but got through without issues. Most of the rest of the party were able to get through by using the word as well, though Lillith stumbled a bit while trying to play and imagine the word in the face of such intense inspection, and she got drained a little.
Fortunately, no one died, and Zaran was able to cure everyone.
On the other side, Knight tried to call Eldrin back but found his mirror wasn't working. He suggested everyone check their equipment. After some experimentation, it seemed that anything tapping into the ethereal plane or using arcane magic failed completely. Union, when he tried to summon his soulblade, instead summoned the titan sword. Knight's soulblade couldn't be summoned, and his dream nail couldn't cut a path into a dream realm, but the dream nail was still as sharp as ever.
Next room was a wide hallway with some sand and debris. ~20x20x60. At far end was a heavy iron-banded door covered in scary glowing runes that were probably death wards. Lillith, as a spellfilcher, skillfully disabled one ward at a time, scooting along as the wards rotated around the door. It was like trying to undo a lock that was on a conveyor belt, but she managed.
Next room was carved of natural stone. Floor was tiled, with each tile having an indentation containing multiple rapidly spinning rings. Some tiles were absent, and below, a ways down, was another floor of these tiles. There were seven passages going out of other parts of the room. A pair of liches wandered out of one of the passages, carrying lots of books and papers, and went into one of the others without apparently noticing the party.
The party followed the lead of the liches and skirted the edges. First passage led to a black swirling vortex. Probably a portal. Lillith suspected it was sucking magic in. The party elected to skip that path for now.
The next portal ended in the same sort of thing, as did the next two. The fifth passage, larger than the others, led to a summoning circle-runed vault door. Collectively, Zaran, Knight, and Union determined that this was a physically written out gate spell. Knight recognized some of the runes from encounters with drow, and the others were able to determine that this was a gate to the Abyss, to a very particular place. Where that place was (or who it was pointed to) was unclear. Fortunately, it was inactive, and apparently needed to be charged to activate. Lillith set to decoding the whole thing to open the vault.
Inside, the plain stone hallway gave way to blue-green fuzzy algae that glowed faintly. Spores floated in the air. The party stepped inside quickly, because the door turned out to close automatically. Knight switched to shade form (so he didn't need to breathe) and recommended everyone use whatever breathing protection they had. Buzz pulled out a set of rebreathers and handed his spares out to Union and Lillith. Kal'vus wouldn't have been able to use one, with his beak, and Zaran was tough enough to probably not care (and he was more the type to ride the wave anyway).
In here, magic seemed to work fine.
The party continued down the hallway. As they went, they heard crackling energy ahead, like a magical power station. Hexagonal room. Four giant towers in middle of room, which is 100 feet tall and about 300 feet wide. Towers topped with orbs that have lightning zapping between them and occasionally around the room. Four-armed vrock with humanish hands but with talons and six fingers (and a thumb) each. He had one arm stretched toward each of the towers, with purple energy flashing between. He's just over 24 feet tall. He has multicolored purplish clothes, with lots of spell component pouches.
His eyes open as the party enters the room. The eyes are filled with magical power, and he's looking right at the group.
They'd found the boss fight first.
Knight dashed ahead and a bit to the side, trying to get in range for Void tendril attacks and out of the way of line attacks. Lillith started playing Astabalanium (by Essbee), improving everyone's defenses. Buzz cast armor of heroes on himself, Illease, and Ik-chuk. Ik-chuk went invisible and darted into the room somewhere. Illease did something and the blue-green fungus started to grow up around the demon, entangling it. Zaran cast a holy aura, bolstering the defense of the remaining party members, then charged forward, tilting left where Knight went right.
The demon started off by activating a powerful fear aura. It was pretty much ignored; the sound of epic music overwhelmed it. Then the demon launched a colossal blast of lightning at the whole party, with a separate giant lightning claw going for Knight. Knight got zapped a bit, but his magic resistance kept the hand from closing around him. Zaran got zapped by the main blast, but his fortitude and magic items meant it only slightly singed him. Everyone else was saved by magical defenses.
Union manifested improved concealing amorpha and separated from the group. Kal'vus charged toward the demon. He wasn't able to reach melee range quite yet, but he launched a ranged wind attack at the monster's staff to disarm him and prepared to parry any attacks in return. The staff went flying, and the electric claw that had been chasing Knight dissipated.
The demon tried to move forward, but Illease's entangling had been successful. Then a wizard ghost came partially out of the vrock's chest and used telekinesis to grab Knight and smash him into the ground. In a stroke of luck, Knight was caught in a position that let him brace on landing, and his armor perfectly absorbed the impact that remained. As the telekinesis released, Knight dashed forward again, lashing out with Void tendrils from the surroundings to entangle and drain the demon. The entangling worked, but the drain was ignored.
Lillith added dancing to her music, and with her incredible skill in dancing, suddenly everyone was dancing and dodging to the beat.
Demon vomited seven wizards after Buzz shot him with a ray of salvation. The wizard souls the demon had absorbed had been revived, though they were underfed and unconscious. The demon looked somewhat smaller. About 20 feet tall.
("Scientific progress goes bonk." Apparently the demon had a great chance of ignoring this via MR. He crit-failed.)
Ik-chuk appeared behind the demon and started stabbing, but the few swings that connected just bounced off. Illease hit him with faerie fire and was relieved and disappointed to see that it was a regular one, not the thermonuclear version from before. Zaran tossed a feeblemind at the demon, but this time the magic resistance worked.
Demon was still stuck and thoroughly entangled, but let out a striking sonic shriek and then, seeing Knight as his main opponent (because Knight had a bunch of souls, so the demon assumed everyone else was a minion), he threw a lightning-hadouken at Knight. The enormous nonmagical blast blackened the far wall after Knight's blackblink carried him out of the way.
Union tried to sprint over to the demon, but had to stop for breath most of the way there. Kal'vus, already close and moving fast, dove in a flyby attack at the demon's neck. It hit hard. The defensive lightning damage Kal'vus took in return was paltry by comparison.
The demon pulled out a javelin with its secondary arms and, despite the attacks by Kal'vus, tossed that at Knight too. This time, Knight had no special defenses left, and the javelin buried itself in his immaterial chest. Knight was glad he had no organs; he was able to shrug it off even as it stayed stuck in place. He responded by flying in with his sword. He didn't go all-in, not wanting to kill himself on the defensive arcs after all the damage his body had already taken, but he still landed thirteen effective hits before dashing back towards the rest of the party in hopes of healing.
Lillith danced forward, abandoning her music in favor of a rod of cancellation. Buzz followed up with a barrage of radiance/force/soulfire projectiles. Only a few got through the resistances, but the demon prince looked exhausted and burned in the aftermath. He was clearly on his last legs.
Not enough for Ik-chuk's follow-up swings to get through and end him, but still.
Illease launched a salvo of magically enhanced pine needles. They didn't do much, but they contributed. Zaran flew forward and cast mass heal, rejuvenating Knight and Kal'vus to full health.
The demon prince summoned an epic lightning storm (sorcerer's spell tempest) in what was clearly a final effort. He was willing to burn through 245 levels of spells to get it past Lillith's item, which she'd been reading since the beginning for just such a massive spell. clash of wills. Bidding war between Lillith and demon over whether he could cast the spell. Bidding levels of spells wasted and if the demon wins, he loses half of what he bid and the spell goes off. If he loses, he loses everything he bid and the spell fizzles.
The demon lost. ("I said no.")
(Buzz: "Why do I smell burned elf?")
Union stepped in, empowered his soulblade with time-space anchor, and tapped the demon with it. There would be no escape today.
And then Kal'vus made a return pass and took the demon's head off.
(Kal'vus: "That'll teach him not to pay attention." "He lost his head in the heat of battle.")
While Lillith and Knight looked over the corpse, Buzz healed himself, Lillith, and the unconscious wizards with cauterize wounds, which burned away the goop. The wizards weren't ready to wake up yet, though. Buzz used a wish to get them comfortably clothed (and thus not showing their wrinkly selves to the poor party), and then he used his second and final casting of phoenix gate to help them miraculously recover. And as they started to become conscious again, he walked over with his Keurig and gave them good room-temperature chicken soup. (He offered some to the rest of the party too.) The wizards went from fuddy-duddy old men to stern professionals.
Demon Lord Varakus. Wizards are the Order Nocturnus. A cabal of wizards who unfortunately "met" this demon. Been used for spell power for several centuries. They want spellbooks. They seem to want to leave on their own as soon as possible, but the party suggests that's not likely to be viable.
The lightning towers are still active, though mostly drained. They seem to have a positive feedback loop going, gradually generating stronger and stronger lightning. Can't be looted at the moment, but maybe later after the base is cleared out.
After some discussion, the party decided the safest option was to leave the wizards in the newly secured vault while the party cleared the rest of the place. Escorting them out is a dangerous and time-consuming proposition, and taking them with in the clearing is even more dangerous.
Left them in the vault, with Buzz building them a stone hut and leaving them a Keurig. He also left a rod of blasting and Knight left the key staff of runes.
All other passages led to those swirling dark portals. A look through Knight's spyglass showed two groups of liches, one in white robes and one in black, conversing. Knight's Compass of Dream's just spun in circles.
The party considered their options, and decided lying in wait for the liches in this arcane dead zone was a good bet, at least for the moment. Among other things, it avoided the concern that if Zaran walked through one of the dispelling screens, he'd turn back into full dragon form and immediately be crushed to death.
Rewards Granted
Staff (blue-greyish), x2 giant sashes, demon lord's head
XP: Union 7, Kal'vus 5, other PCs 3. Illease and Ik-chuk probably leveled up.
Character(s) interacted with
Illease the Dryad, Ik-chuk, Demon Lord Varakus, the Order Nocturnus
Notes
Kal'vus's made afterlife: Place where warriors can fight and improve and train forever. Pleasant place.
Kal'vus
Union
Zaran
Lillith
Buzz Gizmo
Knight of Darkhome
Report Date
05 Jul 2023
Primary Location
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