Session 36 - Can You Feel the Noose Tightening?

27th of Uktar, 1371 DR
Since the green light emanatin' from the scroll seemed dangerous, we decided to avoid it and went through the smaller door in the room. We followed a short hall to another door beyond which we could hear a woman cryin'. Inside the bedroom was a beautiful red-headed woman sobbin' uncontrollably. As she stood, completely nude save for a veil, she began to sway and gyrate. We realized two things. First, this was, in fact, Lahaka (Ekyam’s sister). Second, she was some kind of strange Undead creature.

We, sadly, dispatched her quickly and without any harm to us thanks to Egwaine's timely turnin'. Upon further examination, Egwaine estimated she'd been dead for a year or more - pretty much the exact time she went missin'.

We entered another room that had some kind of low, green fog coverin' the floor and the room was split by a curtain. When Alabron went to check out the room behind the curtain, a bizarre, blob-like Demon spillin' out of one of them wax-covered vats blasted him (and Storn) with a Cone of Cold. Behind the blob demon was a Symbol of Fear spilling green worms from its eyes and mouth into the room.

Poor Alabron was not only affected by the Symbol of Fear, but he was also nauseated by the Stinking Cloud the blob demon dropped in the room. Mel promptly dispelled the Stinking Cloud allowin' Tyree to run into the room and tear down the curtain. I moved in and blasted the beast with a Magic Missile spell, but was unable to penetrate its spell resistance. Egwaine cast Resurgence on Storn (also affected by the Symbol of Fear), but he was too terrified and continued his headlong flight back to the Coenobe.

Rumple moved into a good flankin' position and paid for it when the blob bit him and lashed him with one of its tendrils. Another tendril smacked Tyree in the face. As Tyree completed the flanking maneuver, Rumple drove his rapier deep into the demon's fleshy body and was rewarded by a high-pitched, warblin' scream. Tyree took advantage of its distraction to slash it twice. Mel missed with a Lesser Orb of Electricity and suddenly, a planar gateway started to open back in the bedroom! I missed the demon with an Orb of Force and Egwaine (at my urgin') dispelled the Gate.

The blob demon bit Rumple again and slammed Tyree with both its tentacles. Rumple hit it right back and Mel managed to hit it with a trio of Scorching Rays, but they were all deflected by the monster's spell resistance. Tyree landed a brutal strike and followed it up with yet another deadly slash. With all the movement goin' on, there was no way I'd hit it with an orb spell, so I focused by will and hammered it with another Magic Missile spell. This time I managed to pierce the demon's spell resistance, pepperin' it with force energy. Meanwhile, Egwaine moved in and tapped Rumple with the Wand of Cure Moderate Wounds.

The blob demon tore into Tyree, hittin' him with moth tendrils and nearly bitin' his arm off with its bite! Once again, Rumple drove his rapier into the demon all the way up to the hilt. Realizin' "Elven High Magic" was no match for the blob demon, Mel ran off to make sure Alabron and Storn were safe. Tyree hit the beast again and I, now confident I could hurt the demon, blasted it with an Empowered Magic Missile - again bustin' through its spell resistance. As Egwaine moved to heal Tyree with her wand, she identified the demon as an Alkilith (I still prefer blob demon).

The Alkilith transformed itself into a Clodukill spell (hurtin' but not killin' Egwaine, Rumple, and Tyree), but that didn't prevent Rumple's magic rapier from finishin' it off.

After recollectin' everyone (Mel had to use a Dimension Door to get reunited because of a run-in with the stadium guards), we discovered a long hallway lit by candles that eventually led to Raknian's estate. We turned back to avoid leaving the stadium and decided to deal with other two mysterious vats. Luckily, they only contained worm swarms which we dealt with in the usual fashion.

While back at the Coenobe, we met with Ekyam and gave him the bad news about his sister. Egwaine managed to talk him out of doin' anythin' rash and stickin' with us to bring justice to Raknian. Some stupid Damaran guard wanted to warn us that Raknian was out to get us (no shit) and then wanted our help gettin' him out of the stadium. We had him escort our manager out of the place and then gave him some advice for extricatin' himself.

Somewhere in all this, some of us were attacked by a disembodied demon blob tentacle. We also discovered that Raknian was forcing the Snow Leopards to stay in the Coenobe and had basically tricked the other disqualified teams into stickin' around. We also found that several teams had been given wine tainted with worms! Egwaine managed to save a pair of Woodchuckers from a horrible death and we prepared ourselves to meet Pitchblade tomorrow.

For myself, all this spellcastin' has helped me make several breakthroughs. I mave managed to eek out a bit more power from my Magic Missile spells, but I fear I have reached the limits of what my pet spell can offer. Perhaps there are other ways to modify it...

I have also discovered a way to summon forth a larger quantity of force energy in a passive mode. In this form, I am able to shape the force energy into a wall. It won't last long, but it is basically an impenetrable, invisible wall while it is there. That should open up some interestin' tactical opportunities on the battlefield.

Session 35 - The Sinister Situation Sub-Stadium

27th of Uktar, 1371 DR
After puttin' the Squirmers to the torch, we headed down the hallway past the dead gods' banner to a set of double doors. Rumple could hear voices on the other side and it sounded like they knew we were comin'. So we kicked in the doors and started the fun.

Not so fun, as it turns out. The room (a gladiatorial trainin' room of some kind) was jam-packed with Undead! There were six Squirmers, two pregnant Squirmers (never seen anything like that before), and at least a half-dozen gaunt beats that literally radiated hate and anger (Egwaine called 'em Wights). There was also some Undead critter that had a long, grotesque, purple tongue (a Mohrg) which, we were informed, are very dangerous.

Despite their numbers, we defeated the pile of Undead fairly easily, although there were a couple of surprises. For instance, the pregnant Squirmers were pregnant with hugs swarms of worms! They dropped their broods as soon as they got close to us. The Squirmers have also learned to flick worms at us. This seems to hit much more often than when they try to claw at us through our armor. So, there was a tense moment when a worm wriggled its way into Storn's neck. Storn, however, whipped out a dagger and stabbed himself without a moment's hesitation. When he pulled the dagger out, amidst a gout of blood, there was the disgustin' creature writhin' on the point of his knife.

Everythin' else was fairly standard fair. We used the doorway for cover and to limit the number of Undead that could assault us at once. Mel soften the Undead up with a massive Fireball and then Alabron, Storn, and Tyree killed Undead left and right with brutal chops of their weapons. I killed a pair of Wights with Empowered Magic Missiles and managed worms with the Wand of Burnin' Hands. Rumple actually proved to be a passable archer, killin' several Undead with his bow. Egwaine, of course, was constantly at work in the background; reinforcin', healin', and gettin' worms off of people. We slaughtered the Undead and the worms and drove off the Mohrg.

Now, the two Wights I killed were the ones that seemed to be guardin' a large, wax-sealed vat like the one we found in Dourstone Mine back home. We debated what to do about it for quite some time until Rumple heard somethin' go "bampf" behind the other set of double doors. We barely had time to set ourselves when a Fiendish Dire Tiger burst into the room!

I think several of us believed this was one of the Pitchblade animals, so we beat it like a rented mule. It took a nasty swipe at Storn who fell back into the room so that all of us could get shots at it. I hit it hard with an Orb of Force augmented with my Hellcat Gauntlets. Mel blasted it with a pair of Scorchin' Rays. And then Alobron went and took it out of the fight with a Ray of Stupidity. I wished I'd remembered he was gonna do that. Could have saved myself a spell. Then, when Tyree dismembered the big cat, it simply vanished in a puff of acrid smoke. It had been a summoned creature!

Through the next set of double doors was the Mohrg (healed of its damage), eight Tieflin' warriors, and some kind of Cleric. Again, using the features of the room to our advantage, we tore into these deranged, evil, cultists.

The Morgh, for all its potential danger, turned out to be easy enough to deal with. It tried to paralyze a couple of people with its disgustin' tongue, but they managed to resist its horrid toxins. Hell, it only drew blood twice on Alabron. One was an admittedly forceful strike, but then it was dead for good.

Rumple, again, put his bow to good use. He killed one Tieflin' with a pair of arrows while the fellow was just realizin' a fight was on him. He placed two more arrows in another Tieflin', peppered the leader once, and struck the killin' blow against the Mohrg.

The Tieflings were just cannon-fodder and spent the fight missin' us with their greataxes and tryin' to extinguish themselves.

Alobron used a Fly spell to give himself some mobility. At first he hovered above Storn, helpin' to drive back the Tieflins, but when the Mohrg fell back into the room, Alobron was able to give chase. He kept the Undead horror pinned in a corner, landin' a couple of powerful blows with this falchion.

Mel called forth a piece of "Elven High Magic" I was truly impressed with. He called it Firebrand and it brought forth bursts of fire that nearly filled the room. It didn't kill anyone outright, but it caused horrible burns to all the Tieflings and caused them to scatter to avoid further damage. The Cleric must have had some sort of fire protection spell active since he just stood his ground, chucklin'.

Storn killed four Tieflins and struck the killin' blow against the leader. Tyree killed a Tieflin' and struck a tellin' blow against the leader. Egwaine reinforced us all with a Mass Shield of Faith and kept Storn in the figjht with her healin'.

I used an Empowered Magic Missile at exactly the right time to ruin the leader's Doom spell and hurt him a lot (my missiles blowin' right through his Brooch of Shieldin'). Two more Magic Missile spells helped kill the Cleric. I spent the rest of my time teasin' Mel. For an Elf, he's easily excitable.

When all was done, we had a large amount of booty and, on a strange alter, (one of?) the Apostolic Scroll! We spent a good ten minutes tryin' to figure out how to claim the scroll so we could remove it from evil's hands, but the scroll was protected by some sort of "temporal stasis field" (or so says Mel) that we were unable to penetrate. After studyin' the magic forces at work, Mel declared that we would just have to leave it here for now. Without some absurdly powerful magic, he says we have no way of claimin', movin', or even touchin' the scroll without killin' ourselves in the process.

I guess we'll have to just kill every villain down here to make sure no one else can touch it either.