Adventures in Oerth- The Bane of Vecna: Book Two, Chapter Four

The Search for the Beacon

Dramatis Personae:

Aurora Isilime, the Valley Elf Bard of Valor and Bae'qeshel of Lolth, the Silver Tongued Siren

Eurydice, Aurora's faerie dragon familiar

Pharin Braz'Dracon, the Brass Dragon-Drow Conjurationist Wizard and Priest of Lolth, the Dark Conjurer

Sarlockh, Pharin's choldrith familiar

Vilrath, Pharin's flesh golem

Skye Vindhalle, the Air Genasi Druid

Dervish, the Kasathe Fighter and Dragon Blood Sorcerer

Willow Liadon, the Eladrin Arcane Trickster

Oryn Talus, the ancient and mysterious halfling who has employed the party; also know as Cinder, the ancient power that is said to destroy every world

Lan El'Mandragoran, the Human Paladin of Pelor

Lothar, the Sovani Smith and semi-Cleric of Moradin, High Priest of Lolth, Cleric of Istus, forced Cleric of Asmodeus; Kas Reincarnated 

Aerathema, the Wood Elf Druid

Ralliakkan, the Drow Rogue

Andolin Braz'Dracon, the Brass Dragon-Drow Fighter and Beast Master

BarraZotreth, Andolin's displacer beast animal companion

Narg, there's really no way to describe Narg, Narg is just Narg
Elder Vish, Dervish's friend and mentor from his world

NOTE: Things will be mostly from Aurora's perspective. Anything in italics is from a third person since the bard can't be everywhere at once.

***** Lacysnows 13, CY 710, bunker in Highfolk

       As we walked through this bunker, Dervish triggered a trap, making the walls smack him and Vish. It was fucking hilarious. At that point, Vish decided it was time to try to wake up Willow to look for these stupid fucking traps. Really could use Ralliakkan here. 

       Just as Vish woke Willow, something was triggered, and I was back home in the Vale. My family was alive, and the beautiful valley was restored to its original glory. For the first time in a long time, I felt at peace, like everything was as it should be. 

       Pharin, Aurora, Willow, and Vish all believed they were safe at home until Andolin used his psychic powers to snap everyone out of it. 

       I felt something press on my mind, and I was back in the bunker. While being trapped in my mind fucking sucks, it would have been nice to stay for a little while. After taking a moment to sort out our thoughts, we continued on. Andolin decided that it would be faster for us to just use animals, so he pulled a jackal out of a bag of tricks. It instantly turned and snarled at us. Andolin knocked it prone for a moment, but it recovered quickly and lunged at Willow. She filleted it. 

       Then two bears appeared- I'm pretty sure those weren't from the bag of tricks this time. Vish killed one instantly, but the other one managed to badly wound Dervish, and it started eating his head. Why couldn't that ever happen to Douchebag? I hit it with a bead of blazing and stabbed it with Luna, but not enough to drop it. Andolin and Willow finished it off. I really hope the fucking Beacon is fucking here. 

       A couple more hours went by with us finding no traps before Willow found one that was almost invisible. She actually managed to disarm the fucking thing without setting it off! But she failed on the next fucking trap. The entire room began to shake violently, so we fucking ran, with Willow doing quick searches along the way, disarming what she could. We ran into a section, and suddenly Dervish, Vish, and Willow began turning to stone. I fixed the jackasses before they fully turned to stone. 

       Eventually, we reached a barred door that had a Cinder rune on it. Andolin pulled out Cinder's dagger and touched it to the symbol, and the door opened. We walked into an ancient dwarven dwelling, in a ridiculously large cavern that seemed to have been created by a single energy burst. There was a throne in the room that had a weird looking crystal on the top of it. Dervish decided to be a dumbass and sit on the throne without letting us properly inspect it first. As soon as his ass his the throne, a weird mist seeped out of the pot Narg gave me, going straight into Dervish. He insisted he felt fine, but I was pretty sure he was completely full of shit. 

       I sat down and used my legend lore spell to gain as much information as I could about this fucking place. As I started getting the information back from my spell, Dervish started reciting it in unison. Yeah.. there's definitely nothing wrong with the idiot. We were in the antechamber of a stronghold of Moradin that had been abandoned long ago by the dwarves and their God. Four thousand years ago a war erupted and four outsiders had to intervene. I think the war was between Vecna and Moradin, but the wording of the legends wasn't exactly precise. 

       There was a forge section in this chamber that we were completely cut off from, so Andolin walked up to it and beseeched Moradin to grant us entrance in the name of Lolth. He rattled off ancient treaties that he thought would work, but since Moradin abandoned this place four fucking thousand years ago, it was nothing but wishful fucking thinking. Andolin then produced his smithing hammer and asked Moradin to bless it.

       We heard this weirdass wooshing sound at that request, and Dervish said he saw someone. Andolin and I thought maybe if Dervish sat on the throne and asked Moradin to let us in, that might work, but the jackass refused. Eurydice told me she thought something else was controlling Dervish, which would make sense, who knows what that fucking throne did to him. A thudding noise came from outside of the chamber, which Dervish used as an excuse to turn fucking invisible. 

       Considering what an idiot he was, Andolin and I decided to fake that we thought he'd left. That would make him slip up. After a few moments, he reappeared, and the door exploded inward. A figure stepped into the dust, a humanoid that held two hammers. The dust cleared and settled, and we found Lothar standing in front of us. Andolin decided to give Lothar an existential crisis and tell him he's a fucking contruct- which, of course, Lothar didn't believe. Honestly, if it hadn't been Aerathema who told us about it, I likely wouldn't have bought it. 

       While Andolin was giving Lothar a headache, Dervish investigated the throne and found Oryn's sigil on it. Andolin decided that the best way to approach this was to have Barra claw the fucking throne. I don't understand these boys sometimes... okay fine, most of the time. As soon as Barra's claw connected with the throne, energy began to flow, and we found ourselves in an ancient dwarven city. 

       We were on a small platform that led to a network of pathways and buildings, and there was magic everywhere. The plants and foliage were still alive and flourishing, and somehow the sun was able to reach this city, even though we quite clearly underground. The path in front of us led to the massive metal gates to the city, and it was lined with statues and suits of armor, that were in remarkably good shape, considering their age. 

       As we reached the armor, we heard creaking and one of the statues lunged at Dervish, missing him completely. Dervish responded with a strike of his own... which also missed horribly. Those two were completely fucking uncoordinated. Willow dashed in and stabbed the statue on Dervish, then moved away again. Andolin began casting something, while the two kasathe kept chipping away at the statues as they animated and attacked.

       The first statue that had gone for Dervish managed to drop the idiot with a whip. I contemplated leaving him there for a minute, but he was kind of useful, so I revived the jackass. We all worked at them, stabbing, slashing, and slowly chipping them away, piece by piece. After a few moments, I summoned my shadow twin to help with the fight. Then Andolin called out that we needed to disable one without destroying it. We managed to get a few down without shattering them, but it was a little more annoying to do that. 

       A little column of dust appeared where each statue we'd managed not to destroy had been prior to our arrival, and Willow heard mumbling coming from inside of one of them. Dervish and Vish reached into one of the columns of dust and pulled out a female gnome. Andolin pulled an elderly male dwarf and a female goliath out of the other two. The last armor we hadn't destroyed had what looked like a soul gem glowing inside of it. We tried to free the trapped soul, and while we did see a little wisp of a soul flutter out, nothing else happened. The area seemed relatively safe, so we decided to camp and talk to the poor fuckers we'd just released. 

       Grax Thunderhorn, a halfling assassin had been released from the soul gem, and he found himself standing on the platform above the statue area- where the others had started. He decided to sneak down to the group camping below.

       Willow and I looked up and saw a halfling come slinking into camp, failing miserably at hiding. Turns out he was in the soul gem. We invited him to join us, and I eagerly pulled out my notebook, getting the stories from these four people about how they came to be stuck in those statues. They were fascinating. 

       Dervish had been acting weird since whatever was in that pot Narg gave me went into him. Andolin had the idea of putting him in an iron flak to get the spirit, or whatever it was, out of him. Didn't work. 

       Once we were all well rested, we decided to approach the colossal metal gates to the city. Andolin instantly set off one of the traps on them, and a bunch of rocks landed on top of him. Ass deserves it. Of course, that wasn't the only fucking trap on these stupid gates. Grax set off two of them while he and Willow searched for them, and Willow was able to disable a shitload of them. Then Grax found a petrification trap, and I had to turn him back to flesh- apparently, this guy gets turned to stone a lot. Right after I finished fixing Grax, Willow set off another trap and vanished. Willow had been sent to Elysium, and with the interplanar travel on lockdown, she couldn't return to the party.

       We found another trap fucking 200 feet up, and the halfling couldn't fucking fly. I decided to give Eurydice another storm giant's strength potion, and we tied a rope to Grax, with Eurydice holding the other end. My cat-sized violet faerie dragon was carrying a rope with a halfling attached to it... Oh, the song I'm going to write about that will be epic. 

       Grax disabled the first trap he found, but the second one had more petrification powder in it... Seriously, this dude just loves being stoned or something. Eurydice dropped the rope holding him, dove down to him, I cast the restoration spell needed to fix him through her, and she snatched the rope back up. My little faerie dragon is seriously fucking bad ass. 

       Andolin decided to just start throwing rocks at the traps. Disabling all of these was taking for-fucking-ever. Then we found a trap that required life force to disable. Dervish thought we should try my pot from Narg, but the soul isn't in it anymore, it's in fucking Dervish- I think. Andolin pulled an axe beak out of a bag of tricks and Lothar chucked it at the trap. Then he threw a jackal at another trap, just barely missing. It ran scared- unfortunately for it, there was nothing but death behind us. Next was a tiger, which set off a couple of traps. It looked like there were only two traps left at this point. They had a mastiff set one off, and summoned a giant boar for the last one, but it missed. Eurydice drug Grax to that trap... instead of turning to stone, he got paralyzed. I sighed at this unlucky halfling as I cast the restoration spell through Eurydice. 

       Then a red ball began to glow in the center of the door, growing quickly. We dimension doored the fuck away and ran. It blew up, and I was fucking glad we'd ran. A second attempt did it again. But third time was the charm.

       At any point during this Pharin/Andolin could have used the Dagger of Cinder to unlock the doors and disable every trap...

       The city was massive and in remarkably good condition for a long abandoned place. We made our way through it, passing old market stalls, buildings, and whatnot until we reached what we thought was the center of town. There was a large, round building with tons of windows, and we could make out what sounded like a forge inside. It was a round building, about 500 feet in diameter- we thought it was a prison, and it seemed to be shaped like a ribcage. Dervish suddenly began spouting off information about this place... information he had absolutely no business knowing. When that idiot starts acting like there's some intelligence in there, you know something is very very wrong. 

       A point on the building started to glow, just like the trap on the gates, and Lothar yelled: "run!" He hung back to deal with the trap though, which went well until one actually hit him. His ribcage was badly broken after that hit, I knew it would take some serious healing magic to fix him. Dervish opened a dimension door right in front of the building, and Andolin had Barra whip a tentacle through it and touch the building. She barely got her tentacle back through when a massive hole was blown in the building- an explosion meant for her. This complicated things. 

       As we began debating on how the fuck to get into this stupid building, Ralliakkan appeared. Cinder hadn't killed her! She turned off the traps temporarily. They were called Death Spires, weapons from the Ancient Wars that were said to be powerful enough to annihilate entire regions. 

       Inside the building was enough space to comfortably seat at least a thousand people, this seemed to be the city's meeting place when it still had inhabitants. Grax found sigils on the floor, there were about fifty different ones. The spirit in Dervish said they were a path and he knew the pattern to follow it properly. He led Ralliakkan to a panel to have her deactivate the traps; she had to use Narg and Alucard's blood to shut everything down. 

       Once everything was shut down, Ralliakkan showed me the parting gift Cinder had given her. She had a nasty looking wound that he'd used soul rot on. Only a couple of things- that I didn't have with me- could cure that. If we didn't get out of here soon, she would literally wither away to nothingness. 

       After a few minutes, we heard a soft rumble, and it suddenly seemed like we were standing on a lake that was as reflective as a mirror. At that point, the soul in Dervish- which Ralliakkan had told us was a fragment of Alucard's soul- left Dervish; he was the battery to activate the Beacon. 

       The soul fragment went into the Dagger, and Pharin decided it would be a good idea to offer it a draw from the Deck of Many Things. It drew the Skull card- the one that calls an aspect of Death to you, which you then have to fight... 

       An aspect of death appeared amongst us and went right for Dervish and Vish. It savagely ripped into both of them, before turning to Ralliakkan and dishing out another nasty blow to her. Andolin tried to put it in an iron flask, which did nothing. Ralliakkan destroyed the damned thing, but at cost to herself. She was barely hanging on, and there was nothing I could do.

       While I internally lamented that I couldn't help my friend, the room began lighting up, and the stone in the center glowed brightly. The Beacon was on, it just needed spells now. It felt like it took for-fucking-ever for us to decide which spells to put into it. Eventually, we settled on Bless, Godsblood, Divine Disconnect, and Power Word Heal. I was hoping throwing the healing spell in there would help Ralliakkan. Godsblood would turn all water in the world into holy water and give us a couple more boons against undead. Divine Disconnect would cut off the cults from their gods, at least for a little while. Andolin tasked Ralliakkan to get the blood of as many gods as she could, only gods whose blood was included in the spell would be able to reach their followers once the spell went off.

       During our debate, the temperature had been steadily rising. Cinder was coming. Andolin/Pharin and Dervish's mages began setting up the circles for the spells, while Dervish, Vish, Grax, and I went out to face him. I really hoped that we'd be able to get out of here before he showed up. Ralliakkan gave us three sticks- one of white oak, one of black oak, and one of regular oak. She told us to break them, they'd help us against Cinder.

       The four of us hid in the doorway of the building because as we got out there, fireballs began getting launched at us. It was fucking annoying. I felt the tingle of powerful magic as they began the ritual to put these spells in the Beacon. A wave of fire rippled toward us, announcing Cinder's arrival. Just as he showed up, I felt Bless be cast through the Beacon.

       Dervish broke the white oak stick, and snow blanketed the area. Vish broke the regular oak stick and the earth lashed out and gripped Cinder. Then I broke the black oak stick and smoke filled our vision. So we had Cinder trapped in the snow, but we couldn't fucking see him with all the smoke. It would be fucking nice if they'd come with fucking instructions. It took nearly a minute before we heard the earthen chains break from inside the cloud. While we waited, I felt Godsblood go off. Soon the water would "poison" everyone's blood with holy water. Suck it Kas.

       Webs began shooting around the smoke, and when it disappeared, we were greeted by a very angry halfling. Cinder wasn't quite as intimidating to look at when he was that small- but we wouldn't underestimate him. Dervish and Vish began launching arrows at Cinder, which did fucking nothing. I tried to banish him, but the fucker deflected it and nearly turned the spell on me. The tingle of magic hit me again as Divine Disconnect went off. All that was left now was Power Word Heal.

       Lightning began arcing everywhere, it sounded like a huge earthquake was trying to rip the world in half. Cinder began channeling the lightning, and Pharin was just barely able to wrest control back. It was time for Power Word Heal, so I summoned my shadow twin and sent her in to cast the spell. Eurydice would also be there for me to cast it through her. While this was happening, Cinder did something that deafened both Dervish and I, and we were both stunned for a moment. Vish shot at Cinder and splashed him with sovereign glue... That pissed Cinder off. He grabbed Vish and threw him in the glue; Vish later told us that it felt like his soul almost got eaten. Grax randomly popped up- I'd forgotten he was there since he was so fucking helpful cowering in the corner- and hit Cinder with a nasty looking cat 'o nine tails before disappearing again.

       The final spell was taking longer to weave into the Beacon, so Pharin did some weird ass shout at it, that made the building rumble, and we could hear it clearly outside; his voice was much deeper and very gravelly. Lothar was in the middle of the circle since he was a conduit for the gods, and a massive shockwave emanated from him, knocking everyone inside and out over. Everything was blanketed in energy and a blinding white light momentarily dominated our vision, as the Beacon finished activating.

       Unfortunately, my double Power Word Heal refreshed Cinder... This may have backfired a little bit. Dervish tried to hit him with an antimagic field- Cinder dispelled it. Dervish tried and failed again. Then Vilrath, Pharin's flesh golem, appeared and literally ate Cinder; but of course, Cinder got right back out. Cinder was trying to drain power from the Beacon, so Pharin had the other mages get the circle going again to loc Cinder out. They set the circle to be powered by the Beacon, in hopes that this would work. Before they could make it work, Cinder severed the connection and appeared in the center of the circle. Three of the mages ran in terror. Pharin attempted to banish Cinder- twice- and failed- twice.

       Pharin then attempted to use the fragment of Alucard's soul that was in the Beacon to power an iron flask to make it strong enough to contain him. The circle began crackling... and Cinder absorbed the soul fragment. In trying to weaken Cinder, we gave him more power. It was clear that we could not stop Cinder, so Pharin teleported us to the Forgotten City. Cinder tried to counter it, but Pharin used a staff to block him. The staff exploded, and I felt myself slip into the darkness of unconsciousness.

       Everyone except for Pharin/Andolin and Grax was dropped by the blast; Scottie was completely vaporized. I was a little surprised that Pharin revived me, and everyone else except poor Scottie; we needed a stronger spell for that.

       Pharin decided he wanted to resurrect Haas using the Beacon here. He hoped that because we hadn't put any spells into it when we first activated it, we'd be able to add them now. I needed four hours to get the spell. The daft drow also thought we should try to put Cinder outside of time to give ourselves more time to prepare for Cinder's inevitable arrival.
       

Maps by Anna B. Meyer

Adventures in Oerth- The Bane of Vecna: Book Two, Chapter Three

A Gift for Lolth

Dramatis Personae:

Aurora Isilime, the Valley Elf Bard of Valor and Bae'qeshel of Lolth, the Silver Tongued Siren, who is the last Vale Elf

Eurydice, Aurora's faerie dragon familiar

Pharin Braz'Dracon, the Brass Dragon-Drow Conjurationist Wizard and Priest of Lolth, the Dark Conjurer

Sarlockh, Pharin's choldrith familiar

Vilrath, Pharin's flesh golem

Dervish, the Kasathe Fighter and Dragon Blood Sorcerer

Willow Liadon, the Eladrin Arcane Trickster

Oryn Talus, the ancient and mysterious halfling who has employed the party; also know as Cinder, the ancient power that is said to destroy every world

Lan El'Mandragoran, the Human Paladin of Pelor

Lothar, the Sovani Smith and semi-Cleric of Moradin, High Priest of Lolth, Cleric of Istus, forced Cleric of Asmodeus; Kas Reincarnated 

Aerathema, the Wood Elf Druid

Ralliakkan, the Drow Rogue

Andolin Braz'Dracon, the Brass Dragon-Drow Fighter and Beast Master

BarraZotreth, Andolin's displacer beast animal companion

Narg, there's really no way to describe Narg, Narg is just Narg
Elder Vish, Dervish's friend and mentor from his world

NOTE: Things will be mostly from Aurora's perspective. Anything in italics is from a third person since the bard can't be everywhere at once.

***** Lacysnows 11, CY 710, Airship 

       I went to heal Alyssandra, but there was some sort of magic on her that prevented me from doing so. There was this fucking protective magic on her soul that was blocking me, so all I could determine was that the magic she used to kill one of the Lothars was draining her life force. All we could do was make her comfortable- if she was even aware of us.

       A while later, Pharin heard from his bodyguards that they'd found an illithlich, but the Cult of Kas had found it too, so we had to go rescue it or something. We were transported to this weird ass greyscape, with no actual details, aside from a single figure, holding a gun. It hit Pharin in the shoulder with an anti-magic bullet- the fucker was prepared to deal with Douchebag. Unfortunately we needed his magic to get the fuck out of this place, so I begrudgingly dug the bullet out of his arm. Gods I hate that drow. Dervish decided to "help," but he only got in my fucking way, and got himself shot in the process. I imbued some wine with healing magic and thrust it at both of the idiots, just as the gunslinger killed one of Douchebag's bodyguards. At that point we kinda gave up and escaped. I had to res the stupid bodyguard when we got back.

       A couple hours later- because we can't fucking have any fucking time to unwind between this madness- storm clouds formed around the nearest beacon and fucking lightning started hitting the ship. We were having trouble keeping the shields up, so Pharin decided to use a spell that made the ship look like an illusion... causing Dervish's people to flip the fuck out. Apparently being an idiot is common among his fucking people. We put all of Dervish's mages on creating and maintaining an elemental shield to absorb the lightning. It was hitting us about every thirty seconds or so. I ended up having to conduct fucking repairs on the stupid ship because every other caster was maintaining that shield. 

       When the shield eventually went down, Scottie- Dervish's abjurationist who was the best at making and maintaining our shields- asked Douchebag for salt, so Pharin decided to just conjure a fuckload out of a mine. Then he sent the dirt off the ship... and if I hadn't been paying attention, it would have literally covered the little town we were above. I set out a Bigby's Hand to catch it all. Apparently, Scottie needed the salt to help reduce the damage we took from the lightning strikes. 

       Later that night, about an hour after I got out of reverie, the darkness outside seemed muddled briefly, like blurry almost. Before I could think much on that, a massive explosion erupted ahead of us, and a huge shockwave rocked the ship. Willow, Ralliakkan, and Lyathfikash emerged with a fucking tarrasque and a horde of demons on their tails. 

       Pharin had the ship sweep down to get them, we scooped them up in a net, and hurried to get back in the air. Unfortunately for us, one of the demons was able to jump aboard before we got much distance between us and them. And of fucking course, it was a fucking Demon Lord- Baphomet. Vish was paralyzed with fear, and Dervish ran back into the Mansion. Fucking cowards. 

       The Demon Lord waved his hand at Douchebag, dispelling all of the buffs he'd placed upon himself. At least something can still shut his ass down. I used my Lolth Blade to twin myself, sending her into melee with him- I didn't want to get right up in his face. But of course, nothing ever goes according to fucking plan. My shadow twin stumbled as she swung her shadowed Lolth Blade at him, and he fucking yanked it out of her hand. With any other item, against any other thing, this wouldn't have mattered, but somehow, when this fuck hole took her sword, the real one vanished from my hand. That's not fucking good...

       With my Lolth Blade in hand, Baphomet made a gesture, and suddenly we were in the fucking Abyss. Ralliakkan activated something that slapped our terrified kasathe out of their stupor- along with her brother, who I hadn't noticed was also scared of the Demon Lord. Then Douchebag had a really bad, but really good idea. Since we were already in the Abyss, in the Endless Maze- Baphomet's domain- he decided to try to shift the entire ship over to the Demonweb Pits. He needed more power to do this though, evidently whatever Baphomet had done to him had shut down his ability to cast anything, so I reluctantly let him use Eurydice as a magical battery. I just hoped he wouldn't completely fucking destroy her. 

       My shadow twin struggled with Baphomet, but she couldn't get my Lolth Blade back from this fucker. I thought bitch slapping him with Bigby's Hand would be fun, but the stupid thing missed. This was just not my fucking fight. Vish and Willow got up to him and both managed to get in a couple decent hits before Baphomet decided to grab Dervish and Vish. Now that Pharin had made me aware of the lock that kept him from casting, I was able to dispel the fucking thing. My shadow twin managed to wrestle my sword back, and I swooped down to grab it myself- I couldn't risk losing the damned thing. 

       Willow seemed to hurt it pretty fucking bad, and I noticed Ralliakkan had begun climbing the Demon Lord. It was fucking hilarious watching this drow scale a Demon Lord who had his hands full of kasathe. He did not look amused. He swatted at Ralliakkan with Dervish, missing, but managed to connect with Vish. Willow was still bringing on the pain, and my twin managed to bitch slap it with her Bigby's Hand, though she missed with her Luna. I tried to stupefy Baphomet, but of course, it didn't work, and my fucking Hand missed. 

       As Baphomet went for Willow, apparently the eladrin was irritating him more than the drow on his back, a shockwave bloomed out of the ship, sending Willow flying- but she had a broom, so she got back. The shockwave did destroy both mine and my twin's Bigby's Hands though. Scottie waved his hand at Baphomet, and glyphs appeared on its skin. Then the rest of the mages sent a blast of pure arcane energy right into his chest, while Ralliakkan bound him to the ship. We all began beating the fuck out of him while Douchebag worked on shifting us to the Demonweb Pits. 

      Lolth greeted us when we arrived in the Demonweb Pits. She was absolutely delighted by her gift of a Demon Lord; now she could absorb Baphomet's portfolio and grow even more powerful. Lolth asked us to bring Alyssandra to her, so Douchebag had the Mansion spit her out, and he floated her over to the Demon Queen. He also gave her Andolin, and she said she'd send him back to us when he was better. She said she would restore Alyssandra, but in exchange she wanted Scottie. To my surprise, Scottie agreed, and he vanished instantly. Lolth was also curious about Willow, so I gave an amazing performance of her life story- and I only made up some of it... okay, a decent amount of it... fine, most of it, but if I didn't embellish it would have been fucking boring as shit. After my tale, Lolth invited us all to stay the night in her domain.

***** Lacysnows 12, Airship

       We returned to about the same time we left and were able to continue traveling peacefully for a while. I finished the song I'd been working on, and it was seriously the best song in the world. I was also very pleased to discover that Pharin hadn't completely destroyed Eurydice when he used her to get us to Lolth.

       I attempted to clear the clouds that were still filling the sky, but I couldn't make anything happen. Whatever did this had more power than I could muster on my own.

       We'd been traveling for about ten hours when the ship suddenly began sinking slowly. Something was draining our power. It was as if the magic was being unwoven strand by strand. Then Scottie appeared on the deck and told us the Null was a distraction from the Beacon. His eyes flashed and for just a moment, we saw the symbol of Oghma in them. He said he had an idea, and told Douchebag that is he used what Scottie was about to do for his own personal gain, or tries to harm him in any way, Dervish got to kill him. Then he stabbed himself in the heart, blood sprayed across Pharin, and he vanished.

       I sighed and began setting up the circle for a resurrection spell. I'd need it when he reappeared.

       Ralliakkan and Willow noticed a black dot moving up ahead of us, Ralliakkan jumped off the ship to investigate, coming back really quickly, and told us something about the dot just felt wrong. Ralliakkan told us we needed to hide, so we turned the ship invisible and raised the shield. Then a hole was punched into the ship, somehow getting through our shield, and Sarlockh began screaming in my head. Whatever the fuck had hit us was hurting her somehow. The ship started plummeting to the ground, so I quickly sent Dervish to find whatever the fuck was causing this. It was a fucking bullet fragment, just like the one I'd had to dig out of Pharin yesterday. Dervish had to chop out a chunk of the mast to get all the fragments out, just in time to prevent us from crashing.

       Another shot hit the ship and we went skidding to a stop, but thankfully we were just above the ground, so our crash didn't destroy the damn thing. Two more shots rang out and Ralliakkan went flying. Just as we began to head toward the gunslinger, two of the mage's heads kind of exploded. One was dead and the other mortally wounded. Guess it was a good thing I was setting up this res circle. Then I got hit hard by one of those stupid bullets. I dug it out and healed myself on my way to him, and as soon as I was close enough, I dropped two firestorms on him. The fucker dodged Every. Single. Fucking. One. 

       Eurydice, Willow, and Vish all decided to use their fucking Wands of Wonder on him. Willow ended up dropping a fireball on him- which he fucking dodged- Eurydice cast a spell to slow him down- which he fucking avoided- and Vish dropped an elephant on top of him... That was Willow's job. Then Dervish scared the stupid elephant. 

       Of course, somehow that fucking gunslinger ended up on top of the elephant, instead of mashed into the ground under it. I hate this guy. He shot Dervish right in the chest and he collapsed, looking dead. But fucking revivify did nothing. Vish flew to the gunslinger and began beating on him, and Willow followed, misty stepping behind him. I tried to neutralize poison on Dervish, and thankfully that fucking worked. 

       Something was wrong with Ralliakkan. She randomly stopped dead in her tracks and started speaking ancient drow- then she took off flying. It was fucking weird. Pharin and Ralliakkan had merged together and turned into the Avatar of Lolth. They managed to merge just in time for the Sultan to arrive- as the Avatar of Vecna.

       The gunslinger stabbed Vish twice, then shot both Willow and I. Willow cried out that she couldn't see or hear, so I hit her with a spell to neutralize poison and, thank Gods, it worked. I caught a glimpse of the gunslinger's sword hilt, and realized I'd seen it before... he had fucking Excalibur! We needed to get that fucking sword. That was the moment he jumped off the elephant and vanished in a puff of smoke. I fucking hate this guy. 

       Dervish spotted him 500 feet away in a fucking tree. When we caught up, he told us he was just paid to distract us and fucking vanished again. I really need to kill this fuckwad. 

       We hurried to go find out what he was distracting us from, it was probably bad, especially since Douchebag and Ralliakkan weren't with us. 

       We reached Douchebag and Ralliakkan just in time to see Pharin expelled from Ralliakkan as a fucking ethereal dragon- then he imploded. A web appeared and Andolin stepped out and snapped a rod in the Sultan's direction. He did something that made the Sultan grab his head in pain for a moment, and the second the Sultan looked up, he tried to dominate Dervish, Willow, and I, but with a flick of his fingers, Andolin ended it. The Sultan actually looked scared.

       Dervish flew above the Sultan and opened a portable hole full of adamantine, dumping it on him. I hit the heap of metal with a lighting bolt, while Willow and Eurydice pulled out their fucking Wands of Wonder. Willow dropped a stinking cloud on the metal heap, then Eurydice dropped darkness on it. Willow did it again, but I couldn't tell what she'd done this time. She'd casted detect thoughts, and the Sultan invaded her mind, making her want to kill Andolin. Suddenly Andolin was using a hold person spell on Willow- I don't know how he was accessing Pharin's magic, but that was pretty fucking cool. 

       Then Dervish and I were hit with commands by the Sultan, and as we turned toward Andolin, he held us in place too. Fucking weird. 

       The adamantine ingots exploded out from the center, and the Sultan directed them all at Andolin. He missed, and the ingots just sort of swirled around the Sultan instead. The desire to kill Andolin subsided, and we were all released from the hold. 

       To make this fight even more bullshitty, the fucking vampires started showing up- and my firestorms didn't hurt them. Fuckers had learned what pyros Douchebag and I tended to be. Andolin threw the Sultan into some of the vampires as they surrounded us. From what we could tell, the Sultan was near death. 

       The fucking vampires said we were coming with them to find the Beacon. We told them we needed to res Scottie first, to buy ourselves some time, and he was revived. That was mildly annoying, I'd hoped to come up with a plan while working on bringing out shield master back. The vampires said they were going to use us as trap fodder. Good fucking luck, dudes. We're way too fucking stubborn for that shit. 

       As we were reluctantly following the stupid vampires, I got an urgent sending from Gabrielle. She said something was attacking and burning the countryside. I assumed it was Cinder, and told her so, and to call Narg. When I told the others, Pharin decided to actually be helpful for once, activating Cinder's dagger to attempt to draw him to us. I hoped it would work, and that my people would survive. 

       We entered the town of Highfolk, and it was completely empty. It had been abandoned for a long time, everything was run down and decrepit. I felt the urge to try to find out what happened here so their story would be told. But I didn't think the vamps would give me that opportunity. I realized Ralliakkan was nowhere to be seen, so I figured she was up to something. Hopefully, if we needed her she'd save our asses. 

       The vamps led us to a locked door, and Willow picked the lock without checking for traps... She was sprayed in the face with acid, then another trap hit her, and her lock pick broke. This was going fucking great. I fixed the lock pick, and she got the door unlocked- setting off a trap that turned 100 of the vampires at our backs to stone. Wish it had hit all of them, but we'll take what we can get. 

       Considering the number of traps we'd found just by opening the fucking door, I pulled out my Horn of Valhalla and summoned some berserkers to scout the hall for traps for us. Better them than us, right? Four died right away from a big ass trap. Willow found the triggers for four more traps and managed to disable them without killing my minions. 

       Over the next few hours, we fell into a pattern of send berserker down the hall, find trap, it dies, rinse and repeat. Thankfully I have a fuckload of these horns, so I was able to keep summoning more. We were searching every inch of the place, as slowly as possible- trying to kill time. Dervish kept saying if we didn't take the time to search it all now, we'd just have to take the time later. It was honestly getting on my nerves, but we needed to kill time. The vampires were actually pretty amused by our bullshit. 

       Eventually, we came upon a parlor room of sorts that had a small keyhole in the wall. Willow didn't find the trap, so she set it off instead. It just barely missed her. Now that she was aware of it, she was able to disable it. Then she spent forever working on the lock- apparently, it was some sort of epic lock Ralliakkan had told her about. When she finally picked the lock, the wall fell away to reveal another hallway. 

       Willow spotted a panel that had seemingly appeared and sent one of my berserkers toward it. The hall collapsed under him. In the next room we found, Willow found another panel, so we sent a berserker toward it, he punched the wall and died. I had to summon a new batch of berserkers with that, my first eight were now gone. I'd feel bad, but... meh. 

       In another panel, we found a folded piece of paper. Willow held it out with a mage hand, and Douchebag used a spyglass to read it. It read: "I learned exploding runes today!" Then it fucking exploded. The next panel contained more exploding runes, killing a berserker. As did the next one. The next berserker, having watched three of his buddies now die, refused to go punch the wall when Dervish demanded it. Instead, he attacked Dervish. It was kind of hilarious until Dervish killed him. 

       Much later, Willow found a rabbit's foot in a panel, which hit her with an orange beam and knocked her out. I couldn't wake her magically, so Dervish tried to kiss her awake... he's definitely not her true love. At that point, Ralliakkan appeared and started bitching at us for being jackasses. 

       To save my last berserker, I chucked an iron cooking pot that Narg had given me down the hall, and it triggered a pit trap. We were now facing a long hallway, with a big ass pit in the middle of it that had a fucking gravity spell in it. It appeared to be a dead end. I sent my berserker down the hall, and he almost made it back. He slipped, and Eurydice polymorphed him to help him... but he turned him into a fucking hummingbird, so he still died. Dervish summoned a lizard- which also died. 

       Ralliakkan told us to get rid of them vamps, so Dervish went into jackass mode. He started flying just above their heads, drawing them to follow him. At that, their leader, a douchey monk, said "execute it now" and all magic shut down. The stupid gravity pit was still functioning though.

       Andolin told them that the Beacon definitely wasn't here, and said we must have missed something, turning all of the vamps around to begin the search anew. He managed to get them to go out the door. Dervish started running back to the door when he saw Andolin, and the monk- pissed off by our bullshit- grabbed Dervish, kicked him, and sent him flying through the doorway. Andolin breathed fire at the vamps before slamming and locking the door. Cracks appeared in the doorway as soon as it was shut- the vampires were going to break it down fast. They ran back to us as fast as they could. 

       Ralliakkan got to the end of the hall and started working on the wall on the other side- of course, there was a hidden panel down there. After a few moments, she got the wall to open, revealing another fucking hallway. At that point we heard a crash echo through the halls- the vampires had made it through the door. Ralliakkan turned off the stupid gravity trap so we could get across. Vish carried the unconscious Willow across, with Dervish, Andolin, and I following. I had a feeling I would need that cooking pot of Narg's, so I gave Eurydice a strength potion and sent her to retrieve it. 

       Once we were across, the gravity trap was turned back on. Ralliakkan said she'd stay behind to keep them off of us, so Andolin sealed up the hall behind us. Through the rings, she told us Cinder was there... then we think he killed her. 

Map by Anna B. Meyer