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
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.
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.
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| Map by Anna B. Meyer |
