DestinyBlog

This week’s recap may feel like something is missing, and there is. Within the past two weeks, the other 1/2 of the party has adventured throughout the weeks with the DM via email. I will leave it up to them, if they feel like it, to post any comments to fill in the gaps.

I am also starting to name sections within the recaps. It will help with reading the posts later.

– Session Recap –

**Shadow War**
While walking to the location of where the shadows converge, suddenly Avriyael and Isthmia are swooped up by some huge invisible claws. With an obvious futility of struggling, we decide to wait and see what happens. With a bend upwards of the claws, we find ourselves on top of a colossal shadow dragon. The immediate thought is, oh shit, but it quickly turns to curiosity when the fact emerges that we aren’t dead. We also find ourselves on the shadow’s back with Vystal and Shawnee. With little more than a brief description, the regrouped members of the party (Avriyael, Isthmia, & Thogar) are told that we must help the shadow dragon’s reclaim an ancestral pyramid from a demon that has taken it over. Apparently the colossal dragons are too big to enter the location needed to reclaim the pyramid so they have requested (this term is used lightly) the help of the party to dispatch the demon. A quick religion check reveals the demon to be one of 12 that were originaly humans from a quiet and peaceful village. For some reason, they cracked and performed evil tortuous rituals on some of the other villagers and were eventually hanged for their crimes. The powers that be in the abyss chose to give them a live back as demons so they could travel from plane to plane wreaking havoc and chaos. At this point, one had chosen the plane of shadow and may be the “power” referenced earlier that is keeping the gate open. So, even though we were forced into helping the shadow dragons, it would lead to the same goal, and apparently the same location. Throughout the next few minutes, we all noticed that we were not with just a single colossal dragon, but rather what appeared to be an army of shadow dragons phasing in and out. A single out of place shadow dragon was flying beside us. It appeared to be a wyrmling. As we would find out, this wyrmling named Shar would accompany us into the pyramid, being the only shadow dragon capable of fitting where we were headed. (Note: Since Methkarten had died, the player would control Shar for the duration of the day). As we neared the pyramid, we noticed an extremely bright light eminating from our destination. This was to be expected since the shadow plane appears as a negative of the prime material plane. Normally, the shadow gate was a void of pitch-black, so therefor in the shadow plane it was a beacon of light. The pyramid there was obviously our destination and was also obviously a beacon to all of the shadows of the plane. This shed light (no pun intended) on why all the shadows were converging here. Suddenly the colossal dragon we were riding, and Shar, took a deep dive straight for the pyramid entrance. At the same time, the shadow dragon army went on the offensive against the enormous lines of shadows. We approached the ground and were stopped by what the DM called a “3g landing” and were quickly shaken off by the dragon. It then turned and started to fend our position off as many shadows (of specific types we were not sure) started to attack. Not wanting to allow ourselves to remain in the middle of a shadow war, we quickly entered the pyramid.

**Within the Pyramid**
As was expected, early down the first corridor within the pyramid we were attacked by 4 greater shadows. They were able to get a single round off before Isthmia and cause some minor attribute damage to a few party members. Then Isthmia pressed forward with a Greater Turning. She was able to stun 2 and destroy another. (non-standard rules are used for turning. Maybe the DM will post some comments on the turning rules we use). Unfortunately, this left her as the obvious target for the 4th. The next round came for the remaining free shadow and Isthmia was its target. Making it through various attacks of opportunity left it still capable to deliver a blow of 6 con damage and cause her to lose concentration on the stunned shadows. It was then quickly dispatched by attacks from the rest of the party, and the 2 no longer stunned shadows were also dispatched quickly after. Knowing they would be fighting this type of creature, Isthmia and Vystal had memorized numerous restorations and lesser restorations. After restoring all of the party’s attribute damage, we continued down the corridor. As we arrived at a 4-way junction, we were led by Shar and Thogar. As the two lead characters entered the junction, a forcecage appeared around them blocking all access into and out of the junction. A smaller demon also appeared within the cage which the combined strength of a shadow dragon and a dwarven paladin dispatched quickly.

**Without the fighters**
Unable to remove Shar and Thogar from the forcecage, the rest of the party decided to find a way around. A huge earth elemental was summoned and was given a quick task of removing rock around the cage so the party could pass by. It was also given the task of using that rock to close up the entrance so no enemies could come in from behind. I didn’t feel like telling them the obvious of “shadows can pass through rock.” So, our party, reduced by 2 decided to procede forward. A bit down the forward corridor we found ourselves in a room with a huge sarcophogous and no exits except the entrance. Avriyael moved close to the door and peaked around to scout for any enemies. Two skeletons were lining the door but they did not appear real. Their bones were calcified in an odd manner. So the party decided to proceed forward. Avriyael and Shawnee moved closer to the sarcophogous and were forced to start making fortitude saves. We thought it was some trap on the sarcophogous. After a few checks, we found ourselves with constitution damage again. We both backed off and then Vystal and Shawnee decided to scout the outside of the room. They started making fortitude checks as well and we soon found out there was a huge 3foot worm hiding behind the sarcophogous. It immediately attacked Vystal and was successful on a bite attack. This caused Vystal to start calcifying, causing 8 points of con drain. Shawnee and Isthmia assumed it was a standard energy drain, and Isthmia decided to cast death ward on Shawnee. Unfortunately that didn’t help since it wasn’t an energy drain. It was a different effect and therefor death ward had no effect. After Avriyael punctured it like a pin-cushion, and a quick fierce battle later, we stood with constitution woulds and an almost dead Vystal. A heal brought Shawnee back up to full and a restoration was required for Vystal. Again, it was a good thing we memorized restoration. With the worm threat gone, the remaining party put all effort into removing the lid from the sarcophogous. In one half, there was a small pile of loot, and in the other half there was a large hole leading down into the darkness. Not wanting to continue down without the fighters, we chose to explore the right and left passage around the force cage first. Both passages, right and left, led down about 150 ft with various alcoves on the side until they each turned 90 degrees. At the bend in each passage, the alcoves continued, but a few feet down, the ceiling turned into a smooth black. A detect magic spell revealed it was transmutation. A few tests with arrows also revealed that anything entering the ceiling didn’t come back. Each passage looked like a trap so the party chose not to go down either remaining passage. After almost giving up and waiting for the forcecage to run its course, the party came upon an idea to remove the forcecage. They summoned another earth elemental and dug out a small trench in the ceiling next to the black ceiling (obviously some ceiling of disintegration). To our luck, and surprise, the ceiling started oozing into the trench. We started to dig a river towards the forcecage, but once the black reached the bend, it dropped and fell 1/2 way to the ground before disappearing. Obviously, the river itself wasn’t going to work, so we had the elemental build a quick bowl out of the surrounding rock (the rock that was containing the black disintegration) and had it catch the ooze in it. Keeping it at a higher level, the elemental moved the bowl full of the black towards the forcecage and dribbled it down the side of the cage. This worked and was able to make a hole big enough for Shar and Thogar to exit.

**Into the Pit**
With the fighters removed from the forcecage, a quick debate rose about resting before continuing. The party chose not to since time seemed critical and decided to go down the hole. Dropping a light stick down the hole for distance, we decided to tie a rope to the lid of the sarcophogous for support and started down the hole. Shar was first, not really needing a rope. When he arrived at the bottom, he saw a small room with one apparent exit and what appeared to be some sort of metal minotaur. The minotaur wasn’t moving, but Shar was still cautious and stood in place. Party members decended. Thogar, Shawnee, & Vystal made it to the bottom, but were still bunched up right at the bottom. Isthmia was on the rope above and needed room to get down so Shawnee moved 5 feet further to the side which caused the Minotaur to spring into action and attack. As we expected, this was a construct of some sorts (Brass golem as we found out later). We knew it had high damage reduction, but our only means of winning was to continue to hit it hard and fast. Avriyael was still on the rope some 150 ft above. Vystal summoned a large earth elemental hoping its strength could help, but it had such trouble hitting in the first place, it was rather ineffective. Getting heavily hit by the construct’s axe of wounding, Shawnee was having troubles continueing in the fight having been hit 4 times, so Isthmia stepped up and cast lesser restoration defensively to heal the con damage. About this same time, Vystal had summoned another earth elemental, but this time it was huge. Unfortunately, the spell requires the amount of space available for the summoning, otherwise the summoned creature gets shunted to the nearest open space. Since this room was too small because of the large elemental already there, this new summoned elemental was shunted into the hole above the room. Realizing that this created a basically useless summons, Vystal ordered the elemental to quickly retrieve Avriyael, still 120+ ft above. 2 rounds later (much quicker than coming down the rope) the elemental dropped Avriyael into the room. After a complete many-shot miss of adamantite arrows, the next round of rapid shot adamantine arrows (and the magic lightning attached to the arrows, which we found slowed the construct) dispatched the construct easily.

**Out of spells**
After the construct, we realized we were in a fairly good location to rest. There was still a quick debate about the urgency needed to continue, but the party realized that a party with casters that have no spells and clerics with no restorations or healings is as good as dead if they continue, so we decided to rest.

– End of Session –

– Session Recap –
After the week of waiting, Lord General Tyronne. Discussions basically lead nowhere, but further researched information lends us a direction the party should follow. Apparently it may not be an evil force that maintains the gate. Normally the gate would have already closed, but some of the Academy’s sages agree that it may be of possible god-like levels. They also agree that in order to close it, whatever is holding it open must come through. After teleporting back to Queenstown, the party notices the beacon (see previous sessions) has been lit. Since Thogar was not with the rest of the party, he had already left for the beacon a day before, but since there was no easy way to get there, a teleport by the rest of the party matched the timing of Thogar to arrive at the beacon. We find that a quetzalcoatl (sp?) has lit the beacon and asks for our help to stop the spread of the shadows from the desert. It also tells us the shadows will overwhelm this world within only a few weeks. Since this was the party’s intention anyway, we agree, but we first decide to find some additional information about the various artifacts we were pursueing. Casting a few legend lores tells us that we need to enter the shadow plane (where the gate is open to) in order to continue our quest. For the first time, the party is actually capable of such a feat and the decision is made to have Isthmia cast Plane Shift to take the party to the shadow plane’s side of the gate. Unfortunately, Plane Shift is not exact and the party ends up over 300 miles away still in the mountains. As is normal in the shadow plane, everything is in greys, but we see something very unusual. There are lines of moving black in the sky, obviously moving towards the gate. Before we can do much, 2 dread wraiths attack, but are dispatched after only a few seconds with minor injuries to the party. Without horses, it is deemed impossible to travel by foot since it would take too much time. It is decided that Methkarten and Avriyael will try teleporting the party to the temple next to the gate. Unfortunately, this ended up in the party being separated. With bad teleport rolls on both sides, and as we will find out later that the temple doesn’t exist in the shadow plane, Methkarten, Vystal, & Shawnee arrive in a “similar” temple and Avriyael, Isthmia, & Thogar arrive about 80 miles away from the gate. Hearing chanting coming form down the hall, Meth scouts around in the temple with a greater invisibility spell on and discovers they are in Parisha’s temple. Parisha, Rhyla, and 2 clerics are performing some ritual. Seeing they are not necessarily prepared for battle, the three of them decide to pro-actively attack Parisha rather than reactive like the party usually is. While the temple battle is commencing, Avriyael and her group simply start to trudge toward the gate. At the battle, Vystal makes great use of huge earth elementals and tries grappling and pinning Rhyla and Parisha. Becuase of a botched dispel magic by one of Parisha’s clerics, Rhyla escapes a pinning but is soon pinned again by another huge earth elemental. The elemental then runs head-long into an acid pit in the center of the temple (common to these evil temples) taking Rhyla with it. Elation is given by the party in thinking that we had finally killed an arch-nemesis, but our celebration was short lived. We found out that creatures in gaseous form are unable to move through or enter liquid. When vampires die, they turn to gaseous form. We thought we had Rhyla, but we forgot vampires can turn into gaseous form at will, so she did and the earth elemental lost track of her in the acid. Thinking not everything was lost, Methkarten caps the acid with ice for 12 rounds in a hope that Rhyla would be dead by that time. It was not long enough. Parisha had left and returned with the relic crossbow they had and in a last effort was able to mind-control Methkarten. She gave him a simple command, teleport, which he did. Where he is, and what his fate is, we do not know, but we assume he will be back to try and kill us as a vampire any session…Then, if that wasn’t bad enough, Rhyla comes popping up out of the acid (damn rings vs. acid) beats up on Vystal and Shawnee a little and then leaves…Adding insult to injury. We were down a wizard and the party was separated. When Vystal and Shawnee exit the temple, they find they are nowhere near the desert, but rather many hundreds of miles north of it. They are far enough away they do not even see the black line of shadows. Fortunately they do know where to go and we hope to meet up as a party again somewhere near the gate.
– End of Session –