Aurora Isilime, the Valley Elf Bard; "The Silver Tongued Siren;" who has more instruments than she can carry
Pharin, the Drow Wizard; "The Dark Conjurer;" summoner of demon bunnies, and Andolin's twin
Skye Vindhalle, the Air Genasi Druid and saver of demon bunnies
Dervish, the Kasathe Fighter
Nanu, the NightmOrc Fighter who is late, slayer of innocent bystanders
Pimbin, the Halfling Shadow Monk of Nerull
Pimbin, the Halfling Shadow Monk of Nerull
Lan El'Mandragoran, the Human Paladin
Ralliakkan, the Drow Rogue
Andolin, the Half Brass Dragon, Half Drow Fighter/Ranger, and Pharin's twin
Andolin, the Half Brass Dragon, Half Drow Fighter/Ranger, and Pharin's twin
Pieces of Vecna acquired: Head, Hand, Eye, and Arm
Other components being kept out of the cult's hands: Book of Vile Darkness, Fang of Kas, and the sword hilt
***** Day 1 in Kester
When the group awoke the next morning, they had a foul, bad feeling, similar to what they felt when they encountered the Book of Vile Darkness. While they were puzzling over what this could mean, since Lothar should have been in isolation with the book, Lan walked into their room. The paladin had a slim book in his hand, and the foul feeling was emanating from that. It turned out that Lothar had ripped two pages out of the Book and given them to Lan to bring to the group; pages can be ripped out of the book, and they just regenerate the next day. The first page had a list of what pieces of Vecna there are, and exactly what spell components the cult needed to bring the lich back.
While the group was discussing the pieces, Pharin announced he planned to dip the pieces they currently had- the Head and the Hand- in lead and make them mithrilmantine boxes to help conceal them from both cults. He told the group he needed to stay in Kester at least until the festival ended to have time to make the boxes; which worked perfectly since there was a series of five gladiatorial fights, and the grand prize was a component the cult needed to revive the lich: the Talisman of Ultimate Evil. The party decided to find out what the fights entailed and join as many of the preliminaries as they could. As they were discussing the fights, Ralliakkan joined the group, and provided Aurora with the diamonds needed to use her Raise Dead spell, so she could revive any of the party who fell in the contests.
After the group was done discussing the fights, Ralliakkan and Lan told the group that both the Arm and the Eye were currently in Kester. Lan took Skye and Dervish with him to go after the arm, and Aurora joined Ralliakkan to go after the Eye. Andolin, Pharin, Nanu, and Pimbin decided to go shopping in the Underdark bizarre.
***** Aurora and Ralliakkan
After following Ralliakkan for about two hours, making so many twists and turns down the streets of Kester that I lost track of where we were, we walked up to the cheapest brothel I've ever seen. Ralliakkan was able to walk straight past the pair of orcs guarding the doors, but they decided to hassle me instead... I hate orcs. I attempted to convince them to let me in, I was not paying 5,000 gold to go into a brothel THAT cheap. I also didn't have that much gold, but that's beside the point. Eventually I was able to charm one of them into knocking the other one out and let me in for free.
By the time I had made it past the stupid orcs, Ralliakkan was nowhere to be seen. I described her to people and was pointed towards a room, that had a black haired female drow in it, but not the one I was looking for. It turned out Ralliakkan was in the next room over... When I came in the room behind her, I saw a very young looking male drow tied to a chair in the middle of a circle, surrounded by wards. She asked me if I wanted to remove the Eye, or extract information from the boy; I chose the latter, it had been a while since I had been able to use those talents.
Thanks to the stupid Eye, I was unable to charm the damned drow, leaving me with only one option: torture. I've been well trained in torture, as a bard you never know what kind of skills you'll need, so the college I attended in the Vale teaches you a bit of everything. The only thing I was able to get out of the lad was that the Eye wasn't working, thanks to the circle Ralliakkan had put him in. I did some of my best work, but I could not get anything from the boy. Once Ralliakkan returned, that was it for the boy, she scooped the Eye out, and it ate his soul.
There were two vampires waiting outside the room for us when we emerged, these ones in red cloaks instead of the usual red lacquered armor they usually wear. Ralliakkan threw an item that contained a Daylight spell at them, and I grabbed her, using Dimension Door to get us outside. We took off toward the inn, running as quickly as we could.
We had been running for two hours, and were almost back to the inn, when they caught up to us- again in the cloaks. In a single fluid movement, moving with the speed and grace of a dancer, Ralliakkan sliced both of the vampires to small pieces, then continued running toward the inn. That is the first time I've ever been attracted to a drow. When we got back to the room, she said she was going to go contain the Eye, and used some sort of magic portal.
***** Lan, Skye, and Dervish
Lan had arranged to purchase the Arm from someone in town, so when he arrived with Skye and Dervish, they were presented with a large, ornate box. Once Lan confirmed that the Arm was in the box, he payed them a small fortune for it. The seller had planned to betray Lan though, so as soon as his payment was taken the seller's guards all drew crossbows and trained them on Lan. Skye and Dervish instantly prepared for a fight, but Lan is as good at convincing people to do things as Aurora; the seller had his guards drop their bows. The seller's agents attempted to tail the group, but they managed to evade them. Skye went back to the inn with the Arm, while Lan and Dervish went shopping.
***** Pharin, Andolin, Nanu, and Pimbin
Kester, being a city of scoundrels, is full of pickpockets, most of which are pretty good at what they do. Others, are simply stupid and attempt to rob a nightmorc. This time they did not drop him down a sewer grate, but instead he tripped over an instrument cart. Pharin had Dancing Lights swarm him, and make the fool run in terror. The rest of their shopping trip was relatively uneventful, no other thieves were daft enough to try to rob Nanu.
*****
The group found out the details of the fights taking place over the next four nights, there was a bare knuckle fight that night, a ranged fight the next night, followed by a magic fight, and finally a subterfuge fight. The winners of each of these, and the fight from the night before, which had been a warrior knight-type fight, would face each other in a final combat to win the talisman. After much deliberation they decided that Andolin would join the bare knuckle fight, Dervish would enter the ranged, Pharin the magic, and Pimbin the subterfuge. They considered having multiple people in each fight to increase their chances, but decided it could end up being detrimental to them, since it would ensure at least one teammate would die.
Andolin easily sliced through his opponents that night and was declared the winner of the bare knuckled fight, his prize was a portable fortress.
***** Day two in Kester
The majority of the group went shopping that day for supplies to aid them in the fights, with the exception of Skye and Aurora. Skye had been told by city officials that if she wanted to help the city, she should take care of the rat problem. Since she knew that Aurora had a Flute of Rodent Control, she recruited her to assist, and the two spent that day planning how to exterminate that many rats. Skye eventually decided that they should buy a Bag of Devouring, and charm the rats into that; after much searching the two found one, and since they wanted to watch Dervish's fight, they decided to start this project in the morning.
Dervish found the ranged fights to be challenging, but he managed to slice through each of them in the end. He seemed to barely win the last one, peppering his opponent with arrows, leaving her a pincushion in the end. His prize was a Mantle of Displacement.
***** Day three in Kester
With the exception of Aurora and Skye, everyone went shopping again the next day. The bard and the druid set to work exterminating rats, and Aurora charmed them so well that they were literally dancing in the streets. By the time they went to meet the group for Pharin's fight, they had killed over 108,000 rats.
Pharin attempted to disguise himself as a crazy, elderly wizard for his fight, but with wizards age usually brings about power, so his ploy made him the fan favorite. Fortunately he realized his mistake in time, and revealed himself for his true age; he attempted, and succeeded, to convince the crowd he was fairly feeble minded, beating his first opponent to death with a broom, and dropping Andolin's portable fortress on top of the other one... Pharin won a mantle of spell resistance for his efforts.
***** Day four in Kester
Again everyone went shopping except Aurora and Skye that day. The pair spent their day charming rats again, this time only killing 22,000. When they went to the officials for payment, they did not believe that the two had actually killed all those rats. Apparently Skye had only decided to do this to help people, not for money. I wasted two days I could have been getting drunk on helping her kill stupid rats for no reason other than that she's nice.
By the time Pimbin had to be at the arena for the subterfuge fight, his opponent had killed every other contestant in the match. The odds were favoring him too much, so Aurora convinced the crowd that his opponent was actually Ralliakkan, swinging the odds to a more profitable angle for the group. His fight was the most grueling of them all, and he only won because Pharin invoked Haasenpfeffer. While Haas did not actually show up, because he was still frolicking with Jayce's soul, Pimbin was raised and given the opportunity to backstab and finish off his opponent. The halfling won a figurine of wondrous power, the one shaped like a horse, that gives its user a nightmare steed.
The group had prevailed over all who stood before them, Pharin, Andolin, Dervish, and Pimbin were to face a mysterious opponent known as "The Barbarian" the next day. Everyone assumed it was Jarrid, since Lan had said the cult had a champion in the fights, and they had not seen any other contestants that seemed linked to the cult.
***** Day 1 in Kester
When the group awoke the next morning, they had a foul, bad feeling, similar to what they felt when they encountered the Book of Vile Darkness. While they were puzzling over what this could mean, since Lothar should have been in isolation with the book, Lan walked into their room. The paladin had a slim book in his hand, and the foul feeling was emanating from that. It turned out that Lothar had ripped two pages out of the Book and given them to Lan to bring to the group; pages can be ripped out of the book, and they just regenerate the next day. The first page had a list of what pieces of Vecna there are, and exactly what spell components the cult needed to bring the lich back.
While the group was discussing the pieces, Pharin announced he planned to dip the pieces they currently had- the Head and the Hand- in lead and make them mithrilmantine boxes to help conceal them from both cults. He told the group he needed to stay in Kester at least until the festival ended to have time to make the boxes; which worked perfectly since there was a series of five gladiatorial fights, and the grand prize was a component the cult needed to revive the lich: the Talisman of Ultimate Evil. The party decided to find out what the fights entailed and join as many of the preliminaries as they could. As they were discussing the fights, Ralliakkan joined the group, and provided Aurora with the diamonds needed to use her Raise Dead spell, so she could revive any of the party who fell in the contests.
After the group was done discussing the fights, Ralliakkan and Lan told the group that both the Arm and the Eye were currently in Kester. Lan took Skye and Dervish with him to go after the arm, and Aurora joined Ralliakkan to go after the Eye. Andolin, Pharin, Nanu, and Pimbin decided to go shopping in the Underdark bizarre.
***** Aurora and Ralliakkan
After following Ralliakkan for about two hours, making so many twists and turns down the streets of Kester that I lost track of where we were, we walked up to the cheapest brothel I've ever seen. Ralliakkan was able to walk straight past the pair of orcs guarding the doors, but they decided to hassle me instead... I hate orcs. I attempted to convince them to let me in, I was not paying 5,000 gold to go into a brothel THAT cheap. I also didn't have that much gold, but that's beside the point. Eventually I was able to charm one of them into knocking the other one out and let me in for free.
By the time I had made it past the stupid orcs, Ralliakkan was nowhere to be seen. I described her to people and was pointed towards a room, that had a black haired female drow in it, but not the one I was looking for. It turned out Ralliakkan was in the next room over... When I came in the room behind her, I saw a very young looking male drow tied to a chair in the middle of a circle, surrounded by wards. She asked me if I wanted to remove the Eye, or extract information from the boy; I chose the latter, it had been a while since I had been able to use those talents.
Thanks to the stupid Eye, I was unable to charm the damned drow, leaving me with only one option: torture. I've been well trained in torture, as a bard you never know what kind of skills you'll need, so the college I attended in the Vale teaches you a bit of everything. The only thing I was able to get out of the lad was that the Eye wasn't working, thanks to the circle Ralliakkan had put him in. I did some of my best work, but I could not get anything from the boy. Once Ralliakkan returned, that was it for the boy, she scooped the Eye out, and it ate his soul.
There were two vampires waiting outside the room for us when we emerged, these ones in red cloaks instead of the usual red lacquered armor they usually wear. Ralliakkan threw an item that contained a Daylight spell at them, and I grabbed her, using Dimension Door to get us outside. We took off toward the inn, running as quickly as we could.
We had been running for two hours, and were almost back to the inn, when they caught up to us- again in the cloaks. In a single fluid movement, moving with the speed and grace of a dancer, Ralliakkan sliced both of the vampires to small pieces, then continued running toward the inn. That is the first time I've ever been attracted to a drow. When we got back to the room, she said she was going to go contain the Eye, and used some sort of magic portal.
***** Lan, Skye, and Dervish
Lan had arranged to purchase the Arm from someone in town, so when he arrived with Skye and Dervish, they were presented with a large, ornate box. Once Lan confirmed that the Arm was in the box, he payed them a small fortune for it. The seller had planned to betray Lan though, so as soon as his payment was taken the seller's guards all drew crossbows and trained them on Lan. Skye and Dervish instantly prepared for a fight, but Lan is as good at convincing people to do things as Aurora; the seller had his guards drop their bows. The seller's agents attempted to tail the group, but they managed to evade them. Skye went back to the inn with the Arm, while Lan and Dervish went shopping.
***** Pharin, Andolin, Nanu, and Pimbin
Kester, being a city of scoundrels, is full of pickpockets, most of which are pretty good at what they do. Others, are simply stupid and attempt to rob a nightmorc. This time they did not drop him down a sewer grate, but instead he tripped over an instrument cart. Pharin had Dancing Lights swarm him, and make the fool run in terror. The rest of their shopping trip was relatively uneventful, no other thieves were daft enough to try to rob Nanu.
*****
The group found out the details of the fights taking place over the next four nights, there was a bare knuckle fight that night, a ranged fight the next night, followed by a magic fight, and finally a subterfuge fight. The winners of each of these, and the fight from the night before, which had been a warrior knight-type fight, would face each other in a final combat to win the talisman. After much deliberation they decided that Andolin would join the bare knuckle fight, Dervish would enter the ranged, Pharin the magic, and Pimbin the subterfuge. They considered having multiple people in each fight to increase their chances, but decided it could end up being detrimental to them, since it would ensure at least one teammate would die.
Andolin easily sliced through his opponents that night and was declared the winner of the bare knuckled fight, his prize was a portable fortress.
***** Day two in Kester
The majority of the group went shopping that day for supplies to aid them in the fights, with the exception of Skye and Aurora. Skye had been told by city officials that if she wanted to help the city, she should take care of the rat problem. Since she knew that Aurora had a Flute of Rodent Control, she recruited her to assist, and the two spent that day planning how to exterminate that many rats. Skye eventually decided that they should buy a Bag of Devouring, and charm the rats into that; after much searching the two found one, and since they wanted to watch Dervish's fight, they decided to start this project in the morning.
Dervish found the ranged fights to be challenging, but he managed to slice through each of them in the end. He seemed to barely win the last one, peppering his opponent with arrows, leaving her a pincushion in the end. His prize was a Mantle of Displacement.
***** Day three in Kester
With the exception of Aurora and Skye, everyone went shopping again the next day. The bard and the druid set to work exterminating rats, and Aurora charmed them so well that they were literally dancing in the streets. By the time they went to meet the group for Pharin's fight, they had killed over 108,000 rats.
Pharin attempted to disguise himself as a crazy, elderly wizard for his fight, but with wizards age usually brings about power, so his ploy made him the fan favorite. Fortunately he realized his mistake in time, and revealed himself for his true age; he attempted, and succeeded, to convince the crowd he was fairly feeble minded, beating his first opponent to death with a broom, and dropping Andolin's portable fortress on top of the other one... Pharin won a mantle of spell resistance for his efforts.
***** Day four in Kester
Again everyone went shopping except Aurora and Skye that day. The pair spent their day charming rats again, this time only killing 22,000. When they went to the officials for payment, they did not believe that the two had actually killed all those rats. Apparently Skye had only decided to do this to help people, not for money. I wasted two days I could have been getting drunk on helping her kill stupid rats for no reason other than that she's nice.
By the time Pimbin had to be at the arena for the subterfuge fight, his opponent had killed every other contestant in the match. The odds were favoring him too much, so Aurora convinced the crowd that his opponent was actually Ralliakkan, swinging the odds to a more profitable angle for the group. His fight was the most grueling of them all, and he only won because Pharin invoked Haasenpfeffer. While Haas did not actually show up, because he was still frolicking with Jayce's soul, Pimbin was raised and given the opportunity to backstab and finish off his opponent. The halfling won a figurine of wondrous power, the one shaped like a horse, that gives its user a nightmare steed.
The group had prevailed over all who stood before them, Pharin, Andolin, Dervish, and Pimbin were to face a mysterious opponent known as "The Barbarian" the next day. Everyone assumed it was Jarrid, since Lan had said the cult had a champion in the fights, and they had not seen any other contestants that seemed linked to the cult.
