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They were a lot more murder hobo-ish than you guys as well
I wouldn’t put it past her to seek out Sorshen, convince her that you will have saved her ass from Alaznist in the future, and perform a few services for her in exchange for a few millennia of temporal stasis. That ... doesn't sound like a safe thing to attempt with a younger, unrepentantly horrific Sorshen.
Sure, it worked out fine for you. My star-crossed love for Audrahni is now even star-crossedder!
Three quarters, wouldn't it be? A 20th level spell gets dispelled on a 31 -- which means a roll of 6 or higher for the Greater Dispel Magic.
As for «the most insane thing ever published», Nyrissa was indeed much, much worse. It depends on a lot of factors, though. I've read of at least one other party, with a different balance of characters, steamrolling over Nyrissa. Remember that we went against her mostly unbuffed, at the end of a long day of dungeon crawling, without having a good sense of her abilities, with one frontliner optimized against evil foes (which she wasn't), and no one especially optimized to neutralize a powerful solo caster (which she was). None of that need necessarily have been the case. Although we had a lot of buffs ripped away from us when we entered the fight against Alaznist, we were still fresh other than that buffing, meaning that we had a ton of Greater Dispel Magics to hurl around, we had ki points and bardic music to burn, heal spells at the ready, etc. We knew exactly what we were going to go up against -- a powerful evoker, probably with a bunch of high level melee screening minions. Even with a lot of our buffs ripped away, many of those that remained were helpful; we'd all had four Resist Energies and four Protection from Energies cast on us apiece, for example, so it's not shocking that we retained some of them after the mass dispelling. And we'd been expecting powerful casters to be End Bosses since at least book three, which surely affected some of our spell selection and character design. And, of course, you're entirely right that some of it depended on pure dumb luck. Blown saves against Nyrissa -- I think every single one of us died or was otherwise taken out of the fight at least once. At least a bit of luck in the spells we kept vs. Alaznist -- imagine that fight if it was the same set-up except you hadn't kept Greater Magic Weapon, Szarlej hadn't kept Nine Lives, and I hadn't kept Sonic Form. Or if every time anyone tried a Greater Dispel Magic, they rolled a 3, and Szarlej missed the concentration check on that Mass Heal, and one of us got blinded and feebleminded by the Qlippoth.
From my perspective -- HIGHLIGHTS Playing a character from first to twentieth level. I haven't done that in a looong time. Fifteen years? I even got to use the capstone ability for my class! Getting a chance to revisit and play the previous, much-loved character that I ran through Shattered Star for a while (a GM change to the AP, I think.) The NPCs -- particularly Audrahni, Sorshen, Lullaby Vancaskerkin, Viralane, and the nameless librarian in the Peacock Temple. Also fun were Sheila Heidmarch (nice to see her again!), the Peacock Cultists in the temple, and Ninuron. And I'm always happy to see Shalelu (who may have been a GM addition.) Time travel! And all the associated weirdness. Fighting multiple Runelords. Secrets of Roderick's Cove was pretty fun all around, in part because of how bumbling, incompetent, and clueless we were at low levels. We had no idea what was going on! Xanesha. Seeing her again brought back delightfully traumatic memories of battling the unrevised, original version of her (twice!) many years ago in Rise of the Runelords. The "tour of Varisia" in Runeplague. Also the defense of Zincher's home. Our running battles against Xanderghul in The Temple of the Peacock Spirit, and the deific Final Form (apparently a GM innovation). *Not* fighting Belimarius. Fixing the damage to time. NOT AS GOOD Thybidos disintegrating after his apology made that whole sequence seem a little pointless. Unlike the Magnimar, Riddleport, and Korvosa sequences, the Kaer Maga sequence in Runeplague didn't give any flavor of the town. The Plane of Shadow sequence in The City Outside Time seemed a bit unnecessary. I'd have rather gotten to the City more quickly and had more adventures there. The whole Storval Deep / Court of Judgement sequence in Rise of New Thassilon seemed a bit unnecessary. Although I had one of my most exciting encounters in that sequence, it all seemed a bit beside the point, plotwise.
I was a player in Olwen's game. It was, overall, a great AP! I have some more detailed thoughts about what I considered highlights (and a couple of things I didn't like as much), but I have to run off right now for a while, so I'll post those in a bit.
Honestly, it turned out to be less difficult than we expected. It was a long fight, and there were definitely a few hairy moments, especially in the first round or two, but we never had the oh-crap-we-could-all-seriously-die-here periods that we had in our epic battle against Nyrissa at the end of Kingmaker.
Dear Diary, When the Runelord perished, the Qlippoth vanished from the cavern. Reality began folding in on itself. We tried to find a way to escape, but Time Closed In And we appeared outside Hollow Mountain. But to our shock, the Gulf of Varisia was not visible. The mountain was no longer on an island, but among the fields and hills of the mainland. We had been transported thousands of years in the past, before Earthfall. We had fixed our own timeline, but been expelled from it, back before Alaznist's first attempts at meddling with time. We won. Yay? I am separated from Audrahni by a gulf of millennia. At least I know that she lives. Will live. Will have a life, although it may be without me. I do not know if I will ever find my way back to her. I do not know if I will ever find my way back.
Dear Diary, Much to our surprise, the Qlippoth promptly attacked everybody, both ourselves and Alaznist and her allies, hurling beams of disintegration around the room like they were on sale at the market. One Storm Giant was brought near death, but otherwise everyone was able to evade the bulk of their effects. The one that struck me made me temporarily larger, for reasons I cannot fathom. Wind, Akkumsah, and the Storm Giants managed to defeat the remaining Sinspawn and the Clockwork Goliath, but not without receiving so many grievous wounds that they were both of them on the brink of perishing. Happily, Szarlej, concentrating with all his might, just barely managed to ignore the combined distractions of the Rune Giant and the Qlippoth and cast a spell of Mass Heal upon them, which likely prevented the battle from taking a dire turn. Akkumsah turned her attentions to Alaznist, who had managed to supplement her Mirror Images with a Displacement by this time, while her ranseur hurled lightning bolts at us. Nonetheless, in spite of the difficulties, the monk landed a blow, which did not pierce the Runelord's defenses. I attempted to assist with sonic attacks, but she was well-defended against those in some way, and they did no damage. It was hard not to notice that, well into the battle, we had done no damage to Alaznist at all. The Qlippoth chose this moment to reveal its true, even more hideous form, which blinded Wind and all the Storm Giants, and made their minds feeble. Szarlej, or Azriel, or both, dispelled Alaznist's defenses once again, and Akkumsah was able to pummel her with blows, at last dealing damage to our ultimate foe, Everyone but Azriel stepped in to assist. And I think it was around this point the the final Rune Giant was dispatched; I honestly cannot recall how she died. The Qlippoth then attempted to cast an Imprisonment upon Alaznist! She was able to resist it, however. Alaznist, beset on all sides, managed to cast a Time Stop. She healed herself completely, replaced her Displacement, and fled to a different part of the cavern. It was to be the Runelord's last great spell. While Wind the Roc battled solo against the great Qlippoth, the rest of us pursued her. We quickly had her surrounded again. My attempt to slay her with music failed, but the physical assaults of Azriel and Akkumsah proved her undoing. In a final act of defiance, she slashed Szarlej with her ranseur, and then Akkumsah knocked her out. And I, as I had vowed, ripped her heart out of her chest and devoured it. To Be Continued ...
Dear Diary, It was at this point I began to employ a tactic which, I am not too humble to say, I believe may have turned the tide of the battle for us. Every time I was able, I waited until Alaznist attempted to cast a spell, and then I tried to counter it with a Greater Dispel Magic. I believe that, over the course of the battle, I prevented her from casting a Maximized Chain Lightning, a Maximized Disintegrate, a Wish, a Time Stop, and a Finger Of Death. Even so, she hurled quickened spells upon us, and on the occasions when for one reason or another I was unable to counter her, her spells were potent indeed. Meanwhile, I assisted my allies where I could by Inspiring their Courage and providing Gallant Inspirations and Saving Finales, while my Shadowbard attacked with Weird Words, to mixed effect. Akkumsah had charged solo into the melee, and soon was surrounded by both Sinspawn Slayers, who proved unexpectedly tough, and the Clockwork Goliath, whose cannonballs had done little to that point, but who proved to be a fearsome melee foe. While one of the Sinspawn soon perished at Akkumsah's hands, between the three of them they were able to bring her unconscious. Meanwhile, Szarlej cast a Greater Dispel Magic of his own, which annihilated many of Alaznist's defenses save for a Mirror Image, and then cast a spell of flight to escape the other Rune Giant. It was around this point that Azriel appeared, turned into an earth elemental and hid within the rock, and began summoning Storm Giants, eventually calling three of them to our aid. To roc Wind flew forward to assist with the melee battle. Szarlej being unable to reach Akkumsah in time, I flew down and healed her, and Alaznist used the opportunity to cast a Mythic Maximized Chain Lightning. Once again, it had less efect than she had hoped, but we knew that if she cast enough of them, they would eventually pierce our defenses. It was about then that the Qlippoth appeared. Massive, hideous, it burst forth from the lava even as the molten rock burned through its resistance to fire. We all thought that the battle was about to turn against us once again ... To Be Continued.
Dear Diary, Things went very poorly for us at first. The transit through the portal to Alaznist's realm temporarily caught Azriel in some unknown space between realms, and it wrenched away many of the carefully cast spells we had prepared ourselves with. I lost, among others, Haste, False Life, See Invisible, Stoneskin, Brilliant Inspiration, Freedom of Movement, Tongues, Message, Glibness, Fins to Feet, Protection from Evil, Protection from Cold, Protection from Acid, and Resist Cold, Acid, and Electricity. Fortunately, some of the ones that remained to me, Including Sonic Form, Fly, Shadowbard, Mirror Image, and Protection from Fire and Electricity, proved very useful indeed. When we arrived, it was at a stone island in the middle of a lake of lava, with a bridge leading to Alaznist's golden throne. She was waiting there for us, along with two Rune Giants, two Sinspawn Slayers, and a Clockwork Goliath. Our words were short; we enjoined battle immediately. It began with an attempt to wrest the timeline itself back and forth, with Alaznist ultimately proving victorious and acting before any of the rest of us could do so. She led with a Time Stop that allowed her to layer buff spells on herself, Haste the Rune Giants, and catch Szarlej in a Crushing Fist. I managed to escape being caught in a cage of force, but my attempt to dispel the magical fist around Szarlej failed. He managed to escape thanks to a spell of Nine Lives he had retained, but soon after one of the Rune Giants swept him straight into the lava lake with an Awesome Blow. It was not an auspicious start. We got our first piece of good fortune when I managed to sing so beautifully that one of the Rune Giants immediately died of sheer joy. Alaznist threw a Mythic Meteor Swarm at Akkumsah and myself, but between the monk's evasions and my remaining spells, it did little damage. As Szarlej climbed out of the lake of lava, still burning, clinging to the side of the rocky island, Akkumsah and I swept forward and the battle began in earnest ... To Be Continued.
Dear Diary, My goodness, time runs strangely in this place! I feel as if I have been in some sort of strange stasis for months, even though I know that hardly any time at all has passed since my previous diary entry. After dealing with the behemoth, we explored a bit further and found a firepit which we soon gleaned might be a teleportation device. Being, as usual, bolder than my comrades, I went through first and, as usual, found myself face to face with deadly monsters intent on my destruction. It was also a flamey teleporter that tried to burn me. So hot and dry! Ugh. This time, the monstrosities in question were a pair of fiendish Thessalhydras, who soon summoned a demon to come to their aid. Fortunately, my friends came through soon after me (for once), and though the beasts assaulted us with spells of Horrid Wilting, Destruction, and their innumerable melee attacks, we prevailed in reasonable fashion. I was able to test out one of my new spells, Sonic Form, which proved to be of great effect in combat. We poked around and found little of note until we chanced upon a secret door. Unable to figure out how to open it, we bashed our way through. Beyond it, we found another secret door. This trapped us in a room that tried to freeze us to death while pretending to burn us to death, but fortunately we were protected against both types of damage and were able to ignore the trap. From there, we soon discovered yet *another* secret door (paranoid much, Alaznist?), behind which was a Balor demon guarding some kind of portal. However, it chanced that the Balor was the Runelord we had rescued in the library during our time jaunts, much changed! Good deeds sometimes do have good ends. He dimly remembered us, and was well-disposed enough to tell us that Alaznist lurked through the portal he guarded, and that while he would not attack us before we tried to get through, he could not help but do so if we tried. At this point, we decided to take the time to rest and plan our assault upon Alaznist. Knowing she would be the most difficult foe we had ever faced, we took the time to recover our spells, and cast all the defenses we had at hand upon ourselves. They may prove crucial against the master evoker, although I fear they will not last long. Azriel tried to take us to an extradimensional space to rest, but his spell behaved oddly and when he sent a summoned eagle through to test it, it got, er, mangled. We determined that we are outside of time, in a place time formed in the way an oyster forms a pearl around an irritant -- and we are the irritant. Anyway, nothing bothered us in the night, and suitably armed for combat, we attempted to Dimension Door past the Balor -- uselessly. I attempted to immobilize him with my Overwhelming Presence -- uselessly. Finally, we just ran past him, and I think he deliberately moved a bit slowly, because we were all in the portal by the time he was able to act. The flames of the portal once more sucked all the moisture from my skin, although thanks to our spells it did no damage. Beyond lies our ultimate test...
Dear Diary, As we travelled through time, the Sceptre of Ages was wrenched from the grasp of Azriel (or rather from his jaw, since he was in the form of a dinosaur), and we were given visions of the timelines that are and were and will be ... which is how I know that in this one, my love lies dead. I will devour Alaznist's heart. I will break the world and time in my own way if I have to, to bring Audrahni back. I will burn down the world if I fail. But, as I was saying. We arrived in what could only be the stronghold of Alaznist herself. Immediately we were assaulted by giants perched upon one of her hellflumes. They assaulted us with fire and savage flaming darts, and we responded with fists and teeth and spells. A clever spell of Szarlej's (Polar Midnight) by happenstance worked well with one of mine (Hold Person), for anyone remaining motionless within Szarlej's spell was soon frozen helpless. Between this, making the giants throw up, and Azriel and Akkumsah's usual effective attacks, we prevailed. Going deeper into the place, we found an abandoned room where we picked up some items of magic, and then came across a titanic behemoth trapped behind a wall of force. When it saw us, it flew into a rage and began to batter down the barrier. While that was occurring, a mass of demons in another room took note of our presence and began an assault. The behemoth soon broke through the barrier, and things rapidly began to go pear-shaped. The party was split, with Szarlej and I on one side of the giant monster and Azriel and Akkumsah on the other, with the demons. They were getting the worst of it, and soon Azriel was staggered by some kind of magic bullet while the behemoth chomped him near to death. He went ethereal to escape disaster. I manage to incapacitate a few of the demons with enchantments, and then turned my attention to the behemoth. While it was immune to much, unlike the portalbeast it was NOT immune to sonic attacks, and I soon began to damage it. Szarlej absorbed a full attack from the monster and barely flinched, then plowed his spear into its guts, while Akkumsah, after dealing with the demons that were left, wrought great damage to it on the other side. That was when we discovered that it is unkillable. Without a wish or a miracle, the best we could hope to do was tear it in so many pieces that it would take it a significant amount of time to regenerate itself. So that is what we did.
Dear Diary, If I focus on her death, I will never finish this record of events. So. Deep breath. Feel the water flowing past the gills. Our fourth jaunt back in time was to a library where some Runelord was making plans to betray the other Runelords. I could not remember his name if you paid me. Anyway, true history said he succeeded, so our task was to keep him alive when the Runelord of Sloth (tipped off by Alaznist?) threw a couple of dragons and a silence spell at him. It was relatively easy. I forced the dragons to bow to my Overwhelming Presence (ALL SHALL LOVE ME AND DESPAIR), and my colleagues slew them while they lay there helpless. Then we buffed up the extremely rude Runelord for his planned betrayal, and the wound in time was healed. Next, we arrived in a cave where future-Alaznist opened a portal to a Qlippoth Lord of Secrets so that he would tell past-Alaznist the secrets of fleshwarping. This proved to be one of the most dangerous jaunts for me personally, because the portal itself was a hideous beast that trampled over us and swallowed me whole, and proved to be immune to sonic attacks. That limited my options to almost nothing, and when Szarlej was devoured, too, it seemed certain that we would be dissolved in the acid of its stomach. I focused all my efforts on healing us, and barely managed to keep the two of us alive until our friends tore apart the portalbeast. Unfortunately, just as it was torn apart, the Qlippoth Lord stepped out and began driving us to madness with its hideous presence. The roc Wind was permanently warped and deformed by the sight of it. After I used a Bard's Escape to place us all in strategic locations, including a storm giant summoned by Azriel, we were able to slay (drive away? I'm not sure they can be slain in this way) the Qlippoth Lord. Unfortunately, Wind's problems were unhealed when we returned to Sthethlos, leaving Azriel with a grave dilemma. An expensive Miracle could cure Wind, or he could go the cheaper route of slitting her throat and bringing her back from the dead. He opted for, um, thriftiness. Well. Or next adventure in time took us to the laying of the foundation stone for the Cyphergate. Alaznist had sabotaged it, which would eventually lead to the destruction of Riddleport at, to be honest, our hands. But I managed to convince the giants, denizens of Leng, and half-elf working on the project that we had come from the future to prevent disaster (they seemed to think I had been sent by Karzoug, and I was happy to let them think so -- in an extremely roundabout way, it's even vaguely true.) Then, while I faffed about trying to dispel Alaznist's enchantment, my fellows much more efficiently heaved the rock off the scaffolding -- once I had convinced the giants to help them, for my friends are not very good at talking to people or socializing or not being horribly rude or anything of that nature -- and shattered it. Presumably a new one was built later. Finally, we went to the site where Sorshen attempted to protect herself from Earthfall. While the sky caught fire outside the windows, Alaznist held Sorshen prisoner in some kind of trap of animate blood. And two extratemporal beings appeared for good measure, one aiding us and one attacking us! While Szarlej and I freed Sorshen from the trap, Akkumsah battled the strange time being, and Azriel and Wind wrested the Sceptre of Ages from the grasp of Alaznist! We all succeeded at our tasks, but as past-Sorshen threw herself into safety, Alaznist vowed revenge upon us and drew us in with her as she was hurled from the room ...
Dear Diary, audrahni is dead again the timeline has been restored to its natural state, and in that state, she perished as I remembered but I will bring her back as soon as I am done devouring alaznist's heart for putting audrahni through this
Dear Diary, To continue. The third wound in time brought us to the Azlanti invasion of Thassilon, on the site that would eventually become Korvosa. We found ourselves seeing a sight few have witnessed and survived, the Oliphaunt of Jandelay laying waste to the city and the armies of both sides. The Oliphaunt of Jandelay is ... big. And terrifying. I am not really getting across what an ink-squirtingly frightening sight it was, a quarter of the size of Korvosa itself, trampling towards us with footfalls like earthquakes as lightning fell from the sky. We found ourselves by a portal that we quickly deduced led to the modern era; Alaznist had snatched the Oliphaunt out of the past itself to lay waste to the present which now lay in our future and did I mention headaches? Anyway, to save Korvosa-that-is-and-will-be, the portal had to be destroyed. HOW to destroy it was a puzzling question, but we combined our knowledge of magic and the vagaries of planar travel to come up with a few possibilities. We assaulted it in various ways -- with weapons, with dispellings, and in my case by tinkering with the components that powered it. Meanwhile the Oliphaunt drew nearer and nearer. Lightning smashed into us, the ground shook and threw us to the earth, leaving us stunned, as we tried to destroy the portal before the behemoth reached it ... and us. But through that shimmering hole in time, we saw a figure in red throw energies that undid our efforts; Alaznist, in the present-future, fighting against our work in the past-present! Er, past. or whatever. Anyway, we redoubled our efforts, and managed to crack the portal and disperse its energies just before tusks the size of buildings ran us through. BIG buildings. And back we went to Sthethelos.
Dear Diary, All right, so. We decided to fix the damage to the timestream in chronological order, oldest first. This meant our first trip back in time took us back to Emperor Xin's chambers, where he first forged the SIhedron. We appeared to find him locked in battle with Alaznist, and his ooze-servant Mezlans stealing the Sihedron components. We took it upon ourselves to defeat them and free the SIhedron shards. Fortunately, the time dragon Ninuron had volunteered to accompany us, and his first attack, a cone of crackling electricity, brought the Mezlans a good deal of the way towards death, and his follow up disintegration destroyed one entirely. We began picking them off with our usual attacks, but their counteroffensive proved deadly -- Szarlej was first weakened by physical attacks, then was blasted unconscious by a lightning bolt. I gave him a small amount of healing, but a second lightning bolt fried him to annihilation. He disappeared. We were worried he was gone forever, blasted from the timeline altogether, but he had been whisked back to Sthethelos. We began to be nervous about what we knew was a limited window of time to fix things, as they regenerated against our attacks, but I managed to recall that acid could bring them to a final death. I had some vials on hand, and thanks to a spell of Azriel's and a talent of Akkumsahs's, we were able to defeat them in due course, and found ourselves back in Sthethelos with one of the time wounds healed. Ninuron, unfortunately, became lost in the timestream along the way back, no doubt sent to where we first met him, which I guess is shortly after he first met us oh my sweet Naderi this time business gives me a headache. In any event, we will have his assistance no more, but I am very glad we had it the once. Buoyed by our success, we went to the second time wound, and found ourselves back in Xin's chambers, this time on the night of his assassination. Alaznist was there sucking the power out of the Sihedron through magic conduits. After a bit of experimentation and thought, we figured out how to destroy them, and were beginning to do so when the Rune Giant assassin arrived and attacked Xin, who immediately destroyed everything in a retributive strike, and we found ourselves back in Sthethelos, the time wound unhealed. We decided we would have a better chance if we prevented the giant from attacking Xin until we had destroyed the conduits, something Akkumsah would be able to do rapidly once Szarlej enchanted her blade, and the others could assist with.. So we went back, and found ourselves in Xin's chambers YET AGAIN. I suborned the giant's mind with a Suggestion that he not attack until I told him to, while my fellows destroyed the conduits in short order ... and then we were immediately whisked away, before I had a chance to give new orders to the Rune Giant, changing history in a different way, so the TIME WOUND REMAINED UNHEALED. So we went back for a THIRD try and found ourselves in Xin's chambers a FOURTH time and this time I commanded the Rune Giant to attack as soon as we disappeared, and that FINALLY WORKED AND IF I NEVER SEE XIN'S CHAMBERS AGAIN IT WILL BE TOO SOON.
We've had an exciting couple of sessions. Name: Ice Cracking in the Afternoon Sunlight
Name: Laslo Grigorovich Budynek
Name: Nasim ibn Asad ibn Shahzad al-Fahim
Name: Szarlej
Dear Diary, I never. Ever. In my life. Want to see the inside of Emperor Xin's chambers ever again.
Dear Diary, (I hope Audrahni still lives. What does that mean, in a place where time runs so strangely?) The conversation with Karzoug went about as well as could be expected. He demanded we free him and showed no interest in helping us. Not until I screamed Zinlun's skull into dust in front of him did he change his tune. But at last he agreed, and after we freed him to join the river of souls, he shared with us the ritual that would activate the Cyphergate. Next, obviously, we went to Riddleport, last of Varisia's great cities to survive, and enacted the ritual we had learned. The Cypergate began spinning -- it is, in fact, a circle, partway buried in the ground, not a mere arch. As it spun faster and faster, and the runes upon it glowed, a strange tongue came out through the portal that opened within it and attacked us. We continued with the ritual and then we were removed from time We came to upon a strange shore, where we once again met the Steward of Sthethlos. For the final time? We had arrived in the dimension of time, and our charge was to repair the damage wrought by Alaznist. Not only was this necessary to save Varisia; it was necessary to re-establish ourselves as beings who exist within the arch of time. At present, we appear to be nonpersons. We traveled to a bizarre island populated with all many of strange beings. A gorge had been burned into it, Alaznist's actions writ in the shape of time itself. We went to a dome where seven holes in time writhed in place, and an enormous being, the master of the Steward, told us the price we must pay to continue. One of our deaths. One among us would be imprisoned for eternity in a moment of time. After we all looked at each other uncomfortably for a while, I recalled that some of us still had a get-out-of-death-free card from Pharasma for our services to her. We flipped a gold piece, and I made the offering of my life. The ground crawled up and clawed its way into my throat and I stood there dead and paralyzed forever, for an eternity, for a time I could not comprehend, and then Pharasma's gift took hold and I stepped free while still staying there, dead and not dead, but able to move on. It was not a pleasant experience. I cannot recommend it.
Dear Diary, Well. That was ... terribly exciting. Shortly after I emerged from the sarcophagus in a new room, I was assaulted by the Demilich Zinlun and his Fossil Golem minions. I worried from the first that my comrades would be unable to join me unless the lid were back on the sarcophagus on my end, and this indeed proved to be the case. Unfortunately, one of the very first things Zinlun threw at me was a spell of Reverse Gravity that rocketed both me and the 300 pound sarcophagus lid to the ceiling, far from where it needed to be and difficult for me to either lift, move, or secure while I was fighting for my life. I was, naturally, a little nervous to be facing creatures that would be resistant or immune to nearly all my spells. Happily, I am not without either wiles or resources, and with the cunning use of Mirror Image Vanish Fins to Feet Heroism Freedom of Movement Saving Finale Gallant Inspiration See Invisibility Shadowbard Inspire Courage Inspire Heroics Weird Words Secrets of the Grave A Black Soul Shard A Mirror of Guardian Reflection 2 Scrolls of Heal a Scroll of Fly and a Greater Aegis of Recovery, I was able to win the day without too much trouble.
Meanwhile, my fellows were attempting to join me, and spent most of their time lying down in the sarcophagus on their end in various configurations trying to get it to work, which of course it didn't. After many such attempts, they tried to use a Dimension Door to teleport to where they thought I might be, but they got it wrong, sent themselves into a wall, and were ejected back into the Storval Deep. I will refrain from comment. At long last, after defeating the undead, I was able to get the lid back on the coffin and my friends were able to rejoin me. We rested in Azriel's magical fairyland, and then Szarlej used divine spells to ensure that the demilich would return no more. After returning to Xin-Ederrasil to check in with the rest of the group, Szarlej opened a gate to the realms that lie after death so we could seek the soul of Karzoug and commence part two of our insanely convoluted plan. At the front door, a sphinx leapt off a pedestal and killed me. No, really. I can't even. Anyway, Szarlej brought me back with a Breath of Life, and we proceeded inside the strange building where we had tracked down Karzoug's soul. Inside, we tussled with some invisible Daemons, and then, after passing through a portal that blasted us with acid, we found ourselves in a strange courtroom filled with Daemons, their lord judging the souls of Karzoug and Xanderghul. While I tried to determine what was going on, Xanderghul was judged, found wanting, and sent to burn in a brazier. The Judge asked us to submit to judgement, and when I asked exactly what that meant, he commanded his minions to capture us. While Akkumsah and Szarlej assaulted the judge, and Azriel summoned a Storm Giant, I used Mass Suggestion and then Overwhelming Presence to incapacitate the minions. Before I was finished, though, the Judge tried to slay me with a Finger of Death (rude!) and one of the minions tagged me with an enervation. By then, however, my friends had surrounded the Judge, and though he put up a ferocious fight, at one point even slaying Azriel and feasting upon his soul (once again, though, Szarlej was able to bring him back with a Breath of Life), with fists, spear, claws, talons, giant sword, spells, and weird words, we were able to bring him down. And now we must speak with Karzoug.
Dear Diary, So. We found ourselves in a Magnimar besieged by monsters and soon to fall. At least we were reunited with some old friends -- the SIhedron heroes, Sheila Heidmarch and some of her allies -- along with some new faces -- someone names "Ameiko" leading a gaggle of refugees. Dr. Variel was also there! He would have remained in Korvosa, but apparently a giant elephant is sitting on it. Kaer Maga, according to another report, is under the rule of a Demon Lord. Ameiko brought with her the sad news that the "Heroes of Fort Rannick" had died securing the retreat. Many in our group took that hard, although I frankly had no idea who those people were. And also among the was Audrahni. Alive. And she threw herself into my arms and Well. I rather lost track of what was going on for some time after that. By the time I came up for a breath of water -- er, air rather, in this case, I suppose -- the group had decided to decamp to Xin-Edessaril, which being a city newly arrived to the timeline was probably still undestroyed, and had come up with the most ludicrously convoluted scheme for fixing the timeline that I have ever heard in my life. Apparently, the idea was that we would find and kill someone named Zinlun (who according to Dr. Variel was some kind of arch-nemesis of Karzoug) after which we would locate Karzoug's soul and use this to win his favor so that he would teach us the secrets of the Cyphergate (which, according to Xanderghul's notes, Karzoug was the only person who knew) in order to travel through time (a function of the Cyphergate again according to Xanderghul's notes) NOT to fix the timeline but to wrest the Sceptre of Ages away from Alaznist (which the Sihedron heroes apparently saw us doing in a vision, hence the plan) and use THAT to fix the timeline. Honestly. I spend a bit of time away from the planning session and this is what they come up with? Using teleports and Azriel's plant-walking powers to get to Xin-Edessaril, we quickly made a deal with Belimarius to protect the refugees (so few! perhaps thirty!) while these matters were dealt with. Since Zinlun's last known location was at the bottom of the Storval Deep, I obviously volunteered, must as it pained me to be wrenched away from Audrahni so soon after reuniting with her. I would have liked to at least spend the night, but time was of the essence. The Storval Deep is of such great depth that even I needed magic to survive the pressure (I am, after all, a shallow-water mermaid; hence I have buoyancy sacs). Teleports were used, powerful spells were cast, a boat was found to take us close to the site, and off we dove into the water. Once near the bottom, I asked around and was able to convince a friendly angler fish to take us directly to the location -- the first time I have used my ability to talk to fish in a useful way since this whole mess began. There we found a large inverted symbol of Greed (basically, a giant middle finger aimed at Karzoug), and were attacked by some kind of undead tentacle monster thing. I was able to paralyze it in short order, though, and Azriel smashed it into fragments with little difficulty. By placing a rock in a hole, we activated a secret entrance, and soon were swimming through a dungeon that was once again in the shape of an inverted Greed symbol. It was full of dead clones of Karzoug, some of whom animated and attacked us. This Zinlun fellow REALLY has a hate-on for Karzoug. We avoided a "rocks fall, everyone dies" trap thanks to Szarlej's clever use of a wall of stone, but got caught in one that dispelled much of our magic! We would have been in a good deal of trouble had we not anticipated this possibility and had extra "survive under water" spells on hand. We were a bit stumped going forward until we noticed a small hole in the wall that I enlarged with my Lyre of Building. Unfortunately, this released a golem made of mithril. A bit of a problem, but between Akkumsah's adamantine weapon and my deadly sonic screams, it was soon defeated. We proceeded further into a room filled with freezing tar, so Szarlej protected us from the cold. In the center of the room was a sarcophagus, and upon removing the lid we saw the Thassilonian inscription, "Someting something dread repose something something enlightenment" (I forget the exact wording.) We puzzled over this for quite some time while we killed the horrible worm creatures that emerged from the tar. After trying many useless things, FINALLY I lay in the sarcophagus while the others put the lid back on. At first I thought nothing had happened, but when too much time had passed and I heaved the lid off, I found myself in a location entirely new...
Dear Diary, AUDRAHNI IS NOT DEAD oh my goodness
Yeah, things got pretty beached up while you were away, Viv.
Dear Diary (A.I.S.D.), Well. This has been quite an interesting few days. We determined that the creature was not attacking the children, so we called over to them asking what was going on. The creature flew over to me and bombarded my mind with a series of confusing images -- apparently it was convinced that was had somehow created this insane location and trapped it there. I tried to convince it otherwise, but it grew increasingly agitated; eventually I charmed it to calm it down. Unfortunately, this convinced the children that we were in league with it, and they spent some time terrified of our intentions. We got ourselves together (Szarlej had ended up upside-down on the other side of the platform!), and eventually the cleric created a stone bridge across platforms so we could walk over and talk the to children. We managed to calm them down, and learned that they were from Crystallan -- or Xin-Edderasil, as it is actually named -- and had been sent here by an evil ritual cast by cultists of Doloras. How could anyone do that to poor little fingerlings! They were barely older than fry! The children also gave us the crucial information that the platforms could be moved by an effort of will. With this insight, we were able to put the fractured puzzle pieces back together, and found ourselves transported into the city proper. The once-glorious city was in a sad state, with many buildings boarded up or burned. The children urged us to follow them, and led us to a barricaded house where a number of citizens were huddled for their protection. Upon talking to them, we learned that until very recently, the city had been cycling through the same week over and over -- for 10,000 years! A few months ago, however, the cycle was broken and time began to proceed. But at the same time, the city began disintegrating under the temporal pressure. It had broken apart into warring factions: Rune Giants in one area, Belimarius and her guard in another, the cult of Doloras in a third. We asked if there were any way to halt the destruction of the city, and were told that there were rumors of a "Heart of Altruism" that might fix the problem. The best source for information on that -- and for the historical information we sought -- was likely, we were informed, to be the library under the control of the cult. We made our way there, and as we went the changing nature of flickering time in the city drove Szarlej and me insane for a while. We attacked Azriel in our madness, but no permanent harm was done before we threw off the effects. At the library, we were greeted by cultists who told us that the High Master of the cult was very eager to talk with us indeed. He was seeking for a means to escape the city (hence his experiment with the children), and was quite interested in talking to people who had managed to pierce the barrier. He offered us a deal -- he would allow us use of the library if we gave him the secret of the ritual we had used to arrive ... and the pendant of the first tears we had picked up in the Shadow Plane. We thought he was honest with his dealings with us, but I did not like the idea of giving such a powerful artifact to the head of an evil cult. Frankly, I did not like the evil cult which sent innocent children to an unknown fate against their will. So we pretended to agree to the deal, and then attacked. The fight was brief and brutal. I managed to incapacitate the leader with a spell of Terrible Remorse, and as he cried his anguish to his goddess, Szarlej encased him in a Grasping Hand. His cultists did me some damage, but with the leader unable to do much, we soon overwhelmed them. We first researched the Heart of Altruism. At first we failed to find useful information, but then the Steward of Sthethelos, aged almost beyond recognition, appeared and told us that since we had not failed here, we could not do so, and pointed us towards the book we needed. She vanished, warning us to avoid the whisperers in the trees, whatever that means. We discovered that the city had gotten stuck in time when Karzoug booby-trapped Belimarius' Runewell as she sought to avoid Earthfall. The Runewell, however, could be undone by an act of pure altruism -- namely, willingly throwing an artifact into its depths. Turns out it was a good thing we kept the pendant! (We could have used our Philosopher's Stone instead, perhaps, but thought the evil artifact should be the one to go.) The Runewell was located in a demi-plane that could be accessed from Belimarius' throne room. We then spent a day looking through the history books and comparing them with what we remembered, trying to determine where Alaznist had changed the past. We found seven key points -- including the assassination of Xin, the Azlanti invasion of Thassilon, and a number of others. From there, we went to see Belimarius. As with the cultists, we were expected, and escorted immediately to the presence of the Runelord of Envy. There, we saw a surprising sight -- the Sihedron heroes, Viv, Laslo, Draco, and Nasim, frozen in time along with the Sihedron itself, used as decorations! (And also the entombed previous Runelord of Greed, on display. Runelords are an odd bunch.) Their attempt to penetrate the city some months ago had caused the destabilization of the time bubble and gotten them stuck. We explained the situation the Belimarus, and she was happy to let us go through to the demiplane to try to resolve it. So, that was easier than expected. When we got to the Runewell plane, we were assaulted by illusions, which all of us penetrated easily. But there was one creature there which was no illusion; a colossal electrical undead. (Belimarius failed to warn us of this, which seems kind of stupid when our mission could very well end up saving her life.) Fighting it was rough going at first. It lead with a necromantic wail that would have killed Szarlej and Wind outright had they not absorbed the eldritch energies of Zutha's death. That seems so long ago now. It began pummeling Azriel, and did him terrible harm. We began fighting back, though, and after several spells bounced off of it, I managed to leave it dizzied and unable to act thanks to the secrets of the dirge bards. After that, it was mostly a matter of wearing away at it until Akkumsah was able to fell it with a deadly touch. After healing and preparing for the worst (who knew what destroying the Runewell would do), we threw the pendant into the well and... Found ourselves, and the Sihedron heroes, back in Magnimar -- but a Magnimar under siege, nearly fallen to Sinspawn and other horrors. The chronological fiddling of Alaznist had come to its head, and all of Varisia was falling beneath her heel. We must fix the timestream, or all will be lost.
Dear Diary (A.I.S.D.), We decided to take another month off to prepare for our next mad venture. Azriel crafted many items of puissant power for himself, and the rest of us did a lot of shopping using the money we had looted from the Temple of the Peacock Spirit. For some reason, something bars us from traveling beyond the confines of Varisia (more temporal tinkering?), so our purchase options were somewhat limited by what was available in Magnimar, Korvosa, and Riddleport. Happily, though, just before we left, an extremely potent magical headband came on the market which allowed me to significantly increase my allure and the magical abilities related to it. Between that and a Tome we found in the Temple which had similar effects, my charms have become much harder to resist. Sorshen is still prettier, but I'd be willing to bet that I'm a better singer than she is. ALL SHALL LOVE ME AND DESPAIR!
All that having been accomplished, we set out for the Shadow Plane using another magical implement from the Temple -- since we were, after all, enacting a plan of Xanderghul's, he happily had done some of the preparatory work for us. We arrived in a dim land, leeched of light and color, shifting at the edges like the half-seen horrors that lurk in the corner of your eye. And we were immediately set upon by three icicle-clad kytons. They were in the middle of enacting some horrific ritual that involved torturing a pair of fetchlings, and were displeased at being interrupted. They beset us with potent freezing magics, and I was nearly killed in the first few instants, before I had time to even react! I spent the next few moments healing myself and seeking cover while my comrades took down one of the kytons, then rejoined the fray and blasted a second with sonic agony while Akkumsah and Azriel beat the other to death. It was a difficult fight, but we managed to get them down and, once Akkumsah stopped their regenerative powers with her holy silver fists, keep them down. We attempted to heal their prisoners, and found that one of them was already dead. The other, after we had rescued and restored her, proved to be a professional Shadow Plane guide! A bit of luck on our part. Since we had saved her life, she agreed to take us to the excessively dangerous area we needed to go, for only double her normal fee. She also gave us some helpful tips -- e.g. don't fly, because awful horrible things lurk in the permanent hurricane overhead which kill dead anyone who ventures there. Is it possible that the air is even worse than the land? Why do our travels never take us underwater? She naturally attempted to dissuade us from going, and we were naturally far too insane to take her sound advice, so off we went for half a day's travel through the horrible, bitterly cold land. I can survive the frigid ocean's depth, and even I found it a bit much. Our guide left us at the series of tunnels surrounding the place where we wanted to go -- the palace of the Kyton Lord Incariax. We entered the tunnels and were immediately trapped within a magical Maze that slashed us with razor-sharp shards of ice. All of us wandered through it, separate and alone, until Azriel was finally able to dispel it. From then on, we proceeded apace through the tunnels. We met another pair of eye-bleeding kytons and handily dispatched them before they could use us for their "experiments". We avoided a puddle of supercooled water and then chanced upon a nine-headed troll who had something we very much needed -- one of the amulets that allowed access to the palace! She at first thought we were there to deliver some canopic jars we had ordered, so I attempted to negotiate a deal whereby we would obtain the jars for her in exchange for the amulet. Unfortunately, she was too dim to see the benefits of this, and just as I was about to give up and throw a Charm at her, she attacked. She proved far less of a foe than her size and strength would seem to indicate, and we were once more victorious. At that point, after our exhausting overland journey, we decided to rest. Azriel was able to create a portal to a warm magic meadow, with a pool!!!! Oh my goodness. I hope we never have to sleep in a tent made of webs again. In the morning, we proceeded into the antechamber of the palace, looked over by a giant diamond-eyed statue of Incariax. We got started finding and attuning to a ley-line and beginning the ritual, hoping no one would notice us during the many hours that would take. Fortunately, no one did. We performed the extremely difficult ritual imperfectly but well enough to work, and opened a portal to Crystallan. We walked through and things got weird. Wrenched back and forth between the dimensions, barely able to take in what was happening, we finally landed upon some kind of floating platform bearing a map of the city. And before us, some monstrous, four-armed, faceless creature stood looming over a pair of children who were trapped along with us. Naturally, I did what any bard would do in such a situation, and shouted out: Hey! Creature!
And there I shall leave things for now.
Dear Diary (A.I.S.D.), So. We appear to have killed a god. Wow. On the other side of the door, the resurrected Xanderghul was seated on a throne, guarded by a wall of clanking, whirring gears. He held up a hand to stay our attacks, and said he wished to talk. I said we would hear him out. And surreptitiously cast a spell of Haste upon our group. He explained that he wished us to ally with him in the fight against the true enemy, Alaznist. He had concocted a plan to counteract her meddling with the flow of time, a ritual by which he could enter the time-locked city of Crystillan. There, he said, would be found documents that reflected the original, unchanged nature of reality, which could be used to reverse Alaznist's actions. I cast a few more buff spells on myself, which would prove extremely useful later. To be honest, his appeal was not, in many ways, dissimilar from the proposal Sorshen put to us. But there was to my mind, one crucial difference. Sorshen's minions, never assaulted, robbed, or killed me. Xanderghul's did. When we were tired of listening, we attacked. I must admit, the battle went surprisingly well, largely because of a spell Szarlej cast early on. Even without being able to see the invisible wizard, the cleric managed to grapple him in a Grasping Hand of force. This proved a potent strategy against the spellcaster, who found himself unable to cast most of his more powerful magics. It did not go completely smoothly. The walls of gears turned into mighty golems that exploded when they were disabled, and a blade of force that Xanderghul summoned before he was grappled slashed through or ranks. Well, slashed through Akkumsah, mostly. Our foes' assaults were concentrated on her, and they actually brought her past the gates of death but then time jumped and they killed her stone dead but then time jumped and they slew her mercilessly. Time's favor did her no good, she had already been in need of Pharasma's favor, and I guess the Steward of Sthethelos just doesn't like her as much as she likes Azriel. Fortunately, Szarlej was able to quickly revive Akkumsah with a Breath of Life. Troubling, but the golems were soon destroyed, I plucked the violet feather from the immortality-granting Peacock Shrine behind the throne, and the blows of Azriel and Akkumsah soon killed the grappled Runelord, whose soul screamed its way to death. I was greatly relieved, since I was by that point nearly out of resources. My throat was sore from singing, my spells nearly exhausted, and my magical implements almost all used. So that is, of course when a god appeared and tried to murder us. The Peacock Spirit itself manifested in the room across the hall. Fortunately for us, Szarlej took immediate stock of its flaming appearance and grace us all with resistance to fire. Immediately after, an explosion rocked the room and a wall of fire sprang up in the hall, but thanks to his quick action, we took little harm. Szarlej definitely gets MVP for these battles, I think. We raced to get into position to fight it, and found it a potent foe, capable of truly mythic feats of strength, skill, and magic. I used up my last traces of power hurling spells at it, one of which left it briefly staggered, but the rest of which did no good. I threw my last precious seconds of bardic music inspiring my friends and calling down doom on the Peacock Spirit. Meanwhile, my friends stepped in to do battle. It was difficult to land a blow on the god, and for a moment it held Szarlej grappled and I thought the cleric's end was nigh. Szarlej escaped from that, but not long after lay bleeding his life out on the ground (I was able to get to him with a healing potion in time.) It slashed us with its talons and cast potent and deadly spells of Harm. But with heroic efforts and nearly every trick up our sleeve, we were able to best the god, Azriel bringing it low with a decisive blow. It exploded in fire as it vanished, and once again Szarlej's preparation saved us all. After the death (banishment? disappearance?) of the Peacock Spirit, the temple shuddered ominously. I was able to slow the damage with the Lyre of Building, but only for a limited period of time. We looted Xanderghul's quarters and repaired to the teleporter room, where Szarlej brought us to the surface. Sarai elected to stay in the valley. I hugged her goodbye, which she found surprising. When Azriel tried to use his powers to leave the valley, he found himself unable to reach any lands outside of Varisia itself. Absalom was closed to us, and other lands we tried. Eventually we returned to Magnimar. We have decided to take no more than a month to prepare for our next step -- enacting Xanderghul's plan to travel to Crystallan. We cannot tarry too long, as Alaznist's plans are clearly approaching some dire end. It will take a strange ritual involving travel to the Plane of Shadow. It does not sound at all safe. But then, what is, these days?
Dear Diary (A.I. S. D.), After descending the stairs, we soon encountered a pair of roguish, shadowy servants of the Runelord. I attempted to enspell them to convince them to take us directly to Xanderghul, but I only successfully ensorcelled one of them. While we fought the other, the spellbound one began to make a beeline towards the Runelord, and I followed after. Unfortunately, this led directly past another pair of servants. We were able to defeat all the underlings with relative ease, but I was left somewhat injured and debilitated by their strikes. Shortly thereafter, however, the final servant led us to a confused Xanderghul ... or rather, to an illusory image of him while he lurked close by. Knowing we were about to face the master of illusion, however, several of us had prepared with spells of True Seeing, and were able to quickly penetrate the ruse. A battle immediately began, with Xanderghul hurling Prismatic Sprays and other mighty magics at us -- in the process eliminating his own shadowy servant. We were able to resist his spells, for the most part, but were forced to use many of our own resources to do so -- a goodly portion of Szarlej's healing, my spells and bardic performances, and the force of Akkumsah's ki. By using such tactics, however, we were able to gain the upper hand, and forced Xanderghul back into his library, where his librarian joined him in battle, tossing a Cone of Cold at us, and other spells as well. Knowing that the final Peacock Shrine would resurrect Xanderghul if he perished, we tried to beat him into unconsciousness -- but either we miscalculated, or he had prepared himself against such tactics, because as soon as he fell he vanished into violet mist. Hoping to question the librarian, we managed to knock her unconscious. Here began a race against time. Our spells of True Seeing were our best defense against the Runelord, but they would fade, unable to be replaced, in a period that could be measured in minutes rather than hours. To better use our time, we split our party into two groups. Azriel used his earth elemental form's ability to pass through stone walls to race around the floor looking for hidden rooms, aided by Akkumsah's excellent perception. Meanwhile, I roused and interrogated the librarian while Szarlej healed my wounds (something I was sorely in need of by that point.) The librarian suggested that we trade question for question, and I agreed. From her we soon learned that Xanderghul was most likely to reappear in his "Resurrection Chamber", that she did not know precisely where it was but that it could somehow be accessed from his bedroom, and that the floor had not one but several(!) Peacock Shrines. Her questions, to my surprise, had entirely to do with names -- what our names were, how we had obtained them, why we did not change them, etc. Her final question was whether she had a name, and sensing by this time that it was something she deeply wanted, I gave her one -- Sarai. Sarai broke into a sunny smile and thanked me for giving her something that her creator had never bothered to, and promptly expressed a wish to join our group! I welcomed her. This is an important reminder to me that kindness can win friendship as well as spells can, and in a more lasting, more real way. Spells are still pretty good, though. Meanwhile, Azriel and Akkumsah had come across the multiple Peacock Shrines sitting in a set of rooms off a hallway. We quickly decided that the greatest likelihood was that they were ALL fake, and that the true Shrine was most likely in this "Resurrection Chamber" Sarai had told us about. Because ... if you had a Shrine that made you immortal, would you just leave it in a room off a hallway? In plain sight? Even with a few decoys around it? The much less important one on the floor above was in a room so secret we couldn't find the door! In the shell game, the ball isn't under any of the cups. The ball is in the huckster's pocket. As the minutes ticked down, we stole to Xanderghul's bedroom and searched for a way to his hidden redoubt. It wasn't long before we discovered a secret elevator, which slowly (oh, so slowly!) lowered us another level down. There, we found a chamber with a door locked by a complicated seven-part lock, not dissimilar to the Sihedron puzzle which had hidden Sir Roderick's gauntlets. We determined that it could be unlocked with the feathers from the Peacock Shrines, but we did not have all of them, and the remaining locks were beyond our ability to pick. Not for the first time, we mourned the lack of Dr. Variel in our group -- as deranged and monomaniacal as he was, the elf knew his way around a lock. At any rate, for lack of a better idea, we bashed our way through the door. It was shockingly tough, and took us nearly a full minute, even with our most powerful bruisers unleashing their full might upon it, their courage inspired and their blows enhanced with magic. Beyond the door, we found a funnel-shaped corridor lit by prismatic lights. Nervous of this, we sent a summoned goat in before us, but no harm came to it. So we entered, and upon reaching the door at the other side, we pushed it open ...
Dear Diary (A.I.S.D.), The rest of that floor was sized for giants and, unsurprisingly, we soon ran into some. We first faced a pair of rock-throwing Fire Giants, and they were soon joined by a Shadow Giant bard. As you might guess, a fight broke out, and Akkumsah's usual nimble dodging proved of little use against them. Even after I had turned the monk invisible, she would have been crushed and sizzled beneath a thrown molten boulder had not the favor of Pharasma turned aside the rock in mid-air! Fortunately, we were able to turn the fight around after that, and even with Akkumsah drained of energy by the Shadow Giant's whip, we were able to defeat them. The rest of the floor was empty of life, although we stumbled across a broken teleporter and a strange rune which tried to invade Akkumsah's mind. We found much evidence that until recently, the rooms had been locked in time, and the giants we found there had probably been held there insensate since before the fall of Thassilon. One thing we did *not* find on first look, however, was a Peacock Shrine. Suspecting that there was one on the floor, we scoured the area for secret entrances, but we found nothing until we sent Azriel, in earth elemental form, through the very walls. He soon came across a hidden room with a Peacock Shrine in it, just as we had suspected, and Akkumsah disarmed it shortly thereafter. Then we descended down a long flight of stairs to the next floor, and it would not be long before we encountered the Runelord of Illusion himself ...
Dear Diary (A.I.S.D.), We proceeded through the secret door, which took us down a spiral stair which led deep into the very depths of the earth. At the bottom, we encountered a set of odd, two-bodied jailers, who demanded that we surrender our weapons and take ourselves to the cells. Noting that they seemed stupid and easily misled, I convinced them that we were inspectors there to prepare the Temple for the return of its lord. They showed us around a bit and introduced us to their prisoner, an Agathion named Hobbin, but refused to allow us to pass further in. I asked to speak with their manager. Unfortunately, their manager, a three-faced woman, proved not to be so easily fooled. Seeing through my lies, she demanded that the jailers take us prisoner. We objected to this, and a fight broke out. They proved to be fearsome foes, capable of skillful, rapid attacks aided by their natural magic. Poor Azriel got the worst of it, and a blow from a scimitar cleaved his body entirely in two but then time jumped and it felled him unconscious. Szarlej healed him, only for Azriel to be brought to the brink of unconsciousness again almost immediately, only to be healed again by Szarlej. Slowly we wore away at our foes, however, with me helping by screaming them to death, and we were eventually victorious. Before we had a chance to recover, however, the room was filled with a cloud of noxious poison gas. We fled into the next room to find it blighted by a magical darkness, with a foe striking us from the shadows. When I dispelled the darkness, we beheld a gigantic snake man who attacked us with blades. Azriel once again took the worst of it, but a curious thing happened. When a blow would have taken the druid's head off, the Steward of Sthethlos suddenly appeared and blocked it with her hourglass. She said it was not yet his time, for she was fated to meet him in the future. Freaky. After that, we soon defeated the snake man, and freed the prisoner Hobbin. Hobbin had been cursed by a magical robe and was a shadow of his former self, but gave us an important piece of information -- the "Peacock Spirit" is most likely none other than Xanderghul himself! We are here to fight a god. That's unnerving. Promising to free Hobbin from his curse when we could cast the appropriate spells the following day, we continued on. The entire floor of the Temple was a prison and torture chamber, full of ancient corpses of the followers of Pharasma. I felt that Audrahni would have wanted us to inter the bodies respectfully, and when we did so we felt their spirits pass on, and the goddess bestowed upon us a blessing. I am grateful to Pharasma, who I cannot help but see as akin to my own Naderi and my beloved's Ashava. Death goddesses all. We came across another Peacock Shrine, and decided that Akkumsah was the best equipped to deal with disarming it. It was magically trapped, and threw her into a pit of acid. Over and over and over. It was pretty hilarious, actually. Eventually Akkumsah removed the appropriate feather, and we went on. Little of note happened on the rest of that floor, however. We camped out for the night and freed Hobbin from his curse in the morning; he thanked us and aided us as best he could with spells, and then departed. Then we descended down another set of stairs. There, we immediately encountered a pair of horrors -- giants who appeared to have been turned inside out. Fortunately, they were not actually all that difficult to defeat, but I shudder to think what we might encounter next.
P.S. Akkumsah has suggested that we must stop blithely wandering in to the middle of vast enemy fortresses until we are completely surrounded by our foes, as we have done at least three times now, but I fail to see what the problem is. We did fine, every single time. We're fine. It's fine.
Dear Diary (A.I.S.D.), I felt a little bad after my semi-unprovoked attacks on the garrison, so I resolved that for the rest of the day, I would start by talking rather than fighting. It didn't go so well, honestly. We started out by talking, true, but then we inevitably ended up fighting anyway. We pushed deeper into the valley, and spied a gorgeous building which we took to be the Temple of the Peacock Spirit itself. Before we went there, however, we elected to travel down to a peninsula on a lake which we thought was a likely spot for one of the Peacock Shrines (we were not mistaken in this). On the way there, we encountered some violent trees who said we did not belong there. We attempted to convince them otherwise, but it was to no avail, and when they promised to water the grass with our blood, a fight proved inevitable. I ... did not fare as well as my better armored, doughtier colleagues, and after being trampled and bashed around a bit I ended up knocked comatose. We prevailed, though, and with a bit of healing I was fine. A little embarrassing to be defeated by a tree, though. We made our way out to the peninsula, where there was a lovely garden filled with, as Akkumsah accidentally discovered, poisonous fruit. My spells allowed me to see a pair of otherworldly creatures floating about invisibly. We engaged them in conversation, and they invited us to regard the garden and meditate within in, but forbade us to touch the Peacock Shrine which, as we expected, was located therein. We asked if they might like to be freed to return to their home plane, but they had no interest in that. So I attempted to fascinate them with a song so that my friends could investigate the shrine, but while I succeeded with one, the other resisted my charms, and, as you may have guessed, a fight broke out. They threw magical fire and distracting illusions at us, injuring Akkumsah and Wind badly and stunning Azriel with their figments. Well, I was *not* about to let them overshadow *my* performance, so I broke him out of that right quick! (Everyone should be paying attention to me when I am singing. That is the proper way of things.) After a while, we defeated them, and Akkumsah disarmed the shrine, which granted powerful resistance to magic for those within the valley. By this time, we were quite tired, so we camped for the night in the garden. I meditated a bit there, and possibly because of this, I became invisible! This lasted for quite some time, which would be both to our benefit and our cost. We went to the Temple itself in the morning, with me remaining invisible and silent in the hopes of gaining advantage. To our surprise, when we tried the door, it was opened from within and we were greeted by a woman (buoyancy sacs) who we had last seen beneath the Hollow Mountain -- one of the opera singer's associates. She invited us within, and said the head Priestess of the Temple wished to speak with us! We decided we might as well hear what she had to say. Inside the Temple, the Priestess greeted us in front of another Peacock Shrine, and I suggested that, since I had gone invisible and undetected, I would disarm it while they joined her for breakfast and engaged her in conversation. This, as it turned out, consisted of her trying to convert my friends to the worship of the Peacock Spirit, a religion she claimed was in favor of all that was beautiful in the world, dedicated to the preservation and renewal of all that was wondrous to behold. Somewhat an odd doctrine for a demonstrably evil cult that shortly thereafter attempted to slay us with Unholy Blights, but I get ahead of myself. At that time, she claimed that our previous clashes with their religion had been misunderstandings, although she did not go so far as to explain exactly what the misunderstanding had been. Meanwhile, I snuck up to the Temple's Peacock Shrine and, after examining it, deactivated that spell that gave powerful regenerative properties to those within the Temple. Unfortunately, they were immediately aware this had happened, called betrayal, and attacked. Since my friends were surrounded by almost the entirety of the cult at the time, this was a problem. Azriel, who is sometimes ... less than brave in situations where he believes we may be overmatched, immediately tried to flee. This has served him well sometimes in the past, as when we fought the Horned Fangs beneath Roderick's Cove, but was perhaps a bit peremptory here. The battle was, I admit, a fierce one, with the Head Priestess hurling powerful deadly magics at Akkumsah, a horde of lesser clerics slowly damaging us with lesser spells, and even more monks who, while no match for our skills, threatened to overwhelm us with sheer weight of numbers. But we have mighty magics of our own now, and our front-line fighters are a force of nature. While we almost all took significant damage in the fray -- and the roc Wind was battered into unconsciousness early on -- once Akkumsah was able to battle her way to the High Priestess and take her out of the fight, the tide soon turned and we were, once again, victorious. I suppose we have the Temple to explore now. I spotted a secret door behind an illusion, and suspect it may lead us deeper within ...
Dear Diary (A.I.S.D.), AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! I do not like the cultists of the Peacock Spirit. The cultists of the Peacock Spirit have assaulted my, robbed me, rained death and ruin down upon a crowd of celebrating innocents, and KILLED ME IN MY SLEEP. Today I struck a blow back against them as only a singing enchantress from the ocean's depths can. I feel so ALIVE. I should backtrack. Where was I? Oh, yes, The Hounds of Tindalos disappeared when the time rift was healed. (I am still angry at my comrades for abandoning me to die. They seemed not to care very much about it when I emerged from the depths. No "my goodness, Ice, are you all right?" or "how did you manage such a daring solo escape?" More along the lines of, "Oh, are you back, then?") We talked with the purple dragon, who left us his valuable hoard to use. That was nice of him! He then departed to places unknown. After that, we began our research into the Peacock Temple. Long story short, a week of research made it clear that it is a hidden temple founded by Xanderghul, given fearsome protections by seven powerful shrines. It is locked against most forms of teleportation, but a ritual -- the same one which used a different way allows the Peacock cultists to make their annoying escapes -- can take you directly there. After making appropriate preparations (including creating a *very* expensive lens required by the ritual) and disguising ourselves as Peacock Cultists as best we could, we enacted the Viridian Rite. I headed the ritual again, as it called for a good deal of singing, and was left exhausted by the process. We appeared in a chamber somewhere in the Kodar mountains, and were greeted by a medusa who asked us our business. I was able to lie glibly enough to convince her to let us be at first, which let us use magic to cure my exhaustion. And a good thing, too, because when we emerged from the chamber, our ruse disintegrated. We later learned that a curse had been set in place to affect all who were not Peacock Cultists, and Szarlej was not able to throw off its effects. A second medusa noticed and attacked us. Fortunately, we were able to defeat them without too much difficulty. The Temple, as it turns out, is not a single building but a vast complex in a bucolic valley (with a river! I got to swim again! Oh, it was so pleasant.) We first went to a garrison crewed by more medusas and an otherplanar being who is, apparently, one of the gods' mistakes. We bluffed our way past them, so did not engage. We may wish to return there, though, in case the building contains a Peacock Shrine. Moving further into the valley, we came upon a large fort split in two sides across the river. One side was inhabited by wereoboars and the other by hobgoblins. They were enmeshed in some kind of ridiculous feud and both sides attempted to gain our aid. We went with the wereboars, and pretended to go along with their plans, while magically assuring the hobgobilns that we would work with them instead. As we crossed the bridge over the river between the two halves of the fort, I noticed that all the wereboars had assembled into a nice group on one side. I encouraged Szarlej to cast a Flame Strike, but he declined. So I cast confusion on them and walked to the other side of the bridge. While the wereboars promptly started killing each other in their confusion, I greeted the hobgoblins, who were assembled to tell us their plan. So I cast confusion on them as well. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. That didn't go quite as smoothly, I will admit -- a wizard among them spotted my intent and tried to disrupt my spell with a lightning bolt. I managed to cast it anyway, but there were also a few alchemist hobgoblins in a different room who were not affected. But Szarlej and Azriel created magic stone walls on both sides of the bridge, so for the most part we were able to let our enemies murder each other, hobgoblins and wereboars alike. It turns out this was a good thing. As we fought those who escaped the confusion for one reason or another, we learned that the protections granted by the Peacock Shrines were very effective against both weapons and magical energies. If we'd had to fight them all at once, it would have gone poorly for us. As it was, there was a fierce battle. Akkumsah traded blows against the bomb throwers while Wind and Azriel used magic and might to slay a stray wereboar. Szarlej struck a mighty blow with his longspear which killed a bomb-throwing hobgoblin with a single strike. I continued to cast incapacitating spells. We took some damage, but in the end we handily won the day. Kill ME, will you? Hmph. That wizard did disappear, however, never to be seen again. I hope he is not warning others further within the temple of our presence. It would probably be best if we assume we have lost any element of surprise. While we explored the fort, we found one of the Peacock Shrines we'd heard tell of. Attempting to deactivate it improperly set off chains of lightning, but fortunately Akkumsah is well empowered to evade such attacks. She soon had the thing dismantled enough to turn it off. It seems it's the one that rendered all our weapon attacks of significantly less use, so its loss is a great boon to our cause. This seems like a good time to take stock of how I have progressed since unwittingly becoming an adventurer. My worst vocal performance is now extraordinary. If I survive adventuring, I should have a good career as a singer. I am capable of suborning the minds of both the living and the dead in ways which would be the envy of any mermaid of my tribe. I have helped defeat a third of a risen Runelord. I have been out of the sea so long that I have grown almost used to walking on land, and can now tell the difference between male and female land-dwellers nearly all the time. If I hit exactly the right pitch, I can explode people's heads. The flip side, of course, is that I am in constant danger and throwing myself into situations I would have considered sheer madness not long ago. I regular fight monsters both deadly and bizarre. And Audhrahni is, at least for now, once again dead. Life is so strange now. So very, very strange.
Dear Diary (A.I.S.D.), We made our way back to Korvosa -- both to celebrate our victory, and to see if we could reconnect with Sorshen to discuss our next step. And indeed, while Szarlej was advising us on the best alcohol to imbibe, Sorshen arrived to join us, presenting us with a gift of honeycakes to add to the celebration. She admitted that our efforts against Krune and Zutha had been something of a test -- a fact that we had surmised sometime before. Now, she told us, it was time for us to try our hand against a more dangerous foe. Xanderghul, Runelord of Pride and master of illusion. Sorshen told us that he was biding his time in the Temple of the Peacock Spirit, which probably meant he had not been revived unscathed, since as prideful a man as he would not hide his face from the world unless he had to. Unfortunately, she could not tell us where the temple was, other than somewhere in the Kodar Mountains, or how to gain entrance to it. She recommended we look in the library at Jorgenfist, uncovered some years ago by ... people. (Who?) The problems with the flow of time appear to be getting worse. Both we and Sorshen are troubled by this. For her part, Sorshen said she would draw Xanderghul's attention away from us by announcing her presence to the world, attracting his assassins to herself. We agreed to her plan. She remains cagey about her intentions for this "New Thassilon", and I sometimes wonder if she will be our ultimate foe after Alaznist is dealt with. But our purposes accord for now; I in particular have a bone to pick with the zealots of the Peacock order. They killed me once! (I got better.) Azriel walked us through the trees to Jorgenfist, and there we were greeted by a strange sight. Everything but us was frozen and inanimate, as if time had stopped -- plants, animals, birds, objects, people, all fixed and immovable. While we wondered what was going on, a purple dragon(!) began appearing and disappearing before us, asking strange questions and making bizarre and disconnected statements -- which was apparently, exactly how we appeared to him. We were not the only ones cast adrift in time. We finally managed to have a discussion with the dragon, who told us he had met us before in memories or dreams, in Sthethelos, the heart of the Plane of Time, whose Steward we had met. It is possible these events occurred in the dragon's past and our future. More time stuff. My poor hurting head. Ow. There was apparently a rift in time that had opened at Jorgenfist, trapping the dragon and us. We agreed that we would help each other, so we descended into the depths of the library to find the rift and set him free. The library was in an odd state. Ghosts of many pasts drifted through its walls, giants and scholars and things stranger still. Corridors stopped at dead ends where the times when they existed intersected with the periods when they had not yet been built. We walked the large halls erected by the stone giants in the distant past, and wondered at the strangeness of it. Before long, we were attacked by some kind of stone giant king who abruptly turned into a crystalline "Time Dimensional" -- a creature that spontaneously forms in places where time is broken. Its mastery of time made it very difficult to damage, and the fight was a long slog of attacks and counterattacks. I hung back and cast spells to hinder it and aid my allies. We did defeat it, but not without most of us sustaining considerable damage. We moved on through the halls, with time lashing out at us along the way -- a room where Azriel's roc Wind was hurtled into old age, another where an incomplete magical cauldron hurled eldritch energies at us. We passed through a room pulsing in a nauseating rhythm and at last passed into the central library. We found it guarded by an automated assassin, but it only did a bit of damage before Szarlej plunged his longspear into a weak spot and destroyed it. In the library, we found a book not frozen in time -- The Book of Serpents, Ash, and Acorns. Half of its pages were missing. As I leafed through it, I found myself convinced that it was crucial that we remove this book from the library complex. So I picked it up, Hasted the group, and began to take it out. Soon after we set out, however, we encountered a Hound of Tindalos. Some fought the beast, but I had a more crucial mission, so I lowered my smoked goggles to protect against its gaze attacks and hurried on. I cast a Mirror Image just in case, and this proved prescient, for another Hound made itself visible as it attacked me. And then another Hound, and another. I deduced that they were trying to keep me from getting the book out of the library, so I did my best to stay ahead of them. I made myself invisible to avoid their assaults. Meanwhile, my comrades, after dispatching one Hound ... used a door between dimensions to leave. All of them. With three Hounds remaining in pursuit of me. A number which had, not long ago, nearly slain all of us fighting together. So, yes, they left me behind to die. Huh. A frantic pursuit ensued. The Hounds began conversing in a language I could not understand (I knew I should have cast Tongues, but now I didn't have the time to spare for it.) One was able to pinpoint my location, and I suppose barked it out to the others, who attacked me and tried to block my path. They were skilled at fighting the invisible, and I took some damage from their bites. However, I still had a potion of Flight on hand, so I was able to fly over their heads in the large giant-built corridors. The chase continued, but with the speed of flight enhanced by Haste, I was able to outdistance them and make my way to the surface where my comrades-in-arms were busily waiting around doing nothing whatsoever to help me. Seriously, as the land-dwellers say, WTF? As soon as I emerged back to the surface world, the book vanished and time resumed its forward motion, the scholars around us surprised to see us appear suddenly in their midst. We had, apparently, healed the time rift. I, um ... really hope the Hounds of Tindalos are not still below, wreaking havoc among the scholars ...
Dear Diary (A.I.S.D.), I apologize that it's been so long since I've written in you, but we've been quite, quite busy! We decided to take something like a month to prepare for our first true battle with a Runelord, even only a partially constituted one. Azriel crafted many mighty objects of magic for us, and we purchased scrolls, potions, weapons, armor, everything we could think of to help us against an undead necromancer. Then we spent days hashing out a plan wherein I would use a magical instrument we had found in the Brotherhood of the Seal to construct a building on the Ritual site, so that we would trap Zutha in a zone of magical silence where his spells would be of no use. Most of our preparations, and the entirety of our plan, proved to be completely useless (including a rather expensive scroll of Spell Turning I had purchased). A few, however, turned out to be crucial. You never can tell, I suppose. I should note that Dr. Variel did not join us on the most recent of our adventures. We flatly forbade him to read the Book of Bones, and as a result harsh words were exchanged. I am sure we will reconcile soon, though -- the fate of the world may be at stake! But it did mean that I ended up performing the entire Ritual myself. In any case, the rest of us traveled to the strange isle where the Ritual had to take place. Azriel tapped into the ley lines while I built our battleground, we all cast the spells upon ourselves which would last beyond the duration of the Ritual, and I began chanting. More than an hour later, further, shorter duration spells were cast, until we were bristling with potent magic. I myself had braced for the battle -- and these came from potions, scrolls, other magic items, my own spells and abilities, and spells cast by others upon me -- with Fins to Feet, False Life, Heroism, Spell Turning, Glibness, Mirror Image, Death Ward, Exquisite Accompaniment, Shield of Faith, Inspire Courage, Flight, and a dose of Ambrosia! And I was not even the most prepared among us! Just after the final words of the Ritual were spoken, Szarlej cast his carefully prepared spell of Silence ... And the power of the Ritual blew the reconstituted Zutha straight up 30 feet in the air, right through the stone roof of the building and out of the silenced zone! We were not taken aback for long, though, for we had been well aware that the plan might not work for any number of reasons. Our first crucial preparation -- the spells of Flight we had cast upon ourselves -- came into play immediate as we pursued Zutha into the air. Szarlej spit poison at him, which did no good. And before we could surround the Runelord fragment, he began to fence himself with defensive spells and tagged Szarlej with a Finger of Death, which fortunately the doughty cleric mostly shrugged off. But soon after, after taking a small amount of damage, the Runelord vanished from our sight! And here, the most important preparation of all made itself evident. Akkumsah had cast a spell of True Seeing upon herself, and saw straight through all of the Runelords defenses -- the invisibility, the mirror images, the displacement in space. She turned into lightning to blast Zutha, but that did nothing. However, since she had pointed out the location of Zutha to the rest of us, I was able to cast a spell of Glitterdust -- another key preparation I had made for this fight -- and he became visible to all. The melee fighters rapidly surrounded Zutha, who for most still proved difficult to hit for Azriel, Wind, and Szarlej. He tried to fell Azriel with a blow of his scythe, but missed. I cast a spell that left him staggered ... And then Akkumsah tore him apart. Her eyes unfooled by any of the Runelord's ruses, her fists glowing with magic that targeted the undead and the pure power of ki, in a single flurry of blows Akkumsah sent the undead Runelord of Gluttony to his final death. Eerie necromantic energies flowed through us as his form dissolved into shadows. The preparations had taken a month. The Ritual more than an hour. The battle took twelve seconds.
Dear Diary, (AudrahniIsStillDead) Well, today was a bit humbling. The rotating room eventually began rotating while Akkumsah and Azriel were in it, with the rest of us unable to join them in time. It rotated them to a room that stabbed them with spikes, then stopped. I must say that these Brothers of the Seal seem to have set up their dwelling to be unfriendly to visitors. But they seem to all be dead now -- more on that later. Karma, I suppose? We finally decided to break through the walls to proceed forward, and after setting off another trap (a fireball which only targeted Akkumsah, who evaded it easily), we finally came around to a room with a pit that led to the lower reaches of the place. That is when we encountered the first undead, a pair of odd flying creatures with bows made of bone. The room had been desecrated, and if we were suspicious of the claim of "filth fever" before, we now knew it to be a lie. Something was terribly amiss here. I'm pleased to say I did well against these undead, incapacitating one and severely damaging the other with a painful song, because in the subsequent, far more dangerous encounter, I was all but useless. We made our way down the stairs to a large room where an ambush awaited us. We later put together that the "monk" I had charmed above had been a disguised drider sorceress, and her travel below had done nothing but warn the necromancer of our presence, allow him to remove the charm from his minion, and prompt him to prepare for our arrival. But at the time, all we knew is that we were beset by ghouls. Ghouls who paralyzed me with their touch before I even fully realized they were there. A state I would remain in for almost the whole of the fight. I used one of the few tricks I could employ while unable to move or speak, using a gout of water to push away a ghoul who otherwise would have been in position to kill me with ease, but after that I had no tactics I could use. The ghouls were soon joined by a set of what we eventually learned were totenmaskes -- doppleganger-like creatures who had taken the form of monks -- as well as the drider sorceress and the necromancer Erigantus. The battle that ensued was touch and go for quite some time. While Akkumsah and Azriel (in the form of an earth elemental) battled the undead immediately surrounding us (and protected me from having my throat slit), Szarlej flew across the room to bring the battle to the necromancer. They exchanged spells -- a Finger of Death that failed to kill Szarlej, a Flame Strike that did little damage to the necromancer, and then a Grasping Hand that left Szarlej grappled for the remainder of combat. Meanwhile, the sorceress sizzled us with lightning bolts. I've no idea how I survived; no fewer than three hit me while I was unable to move. While Akkumsah mopped up the undead, Azriel moved closer and began a summoning -- one which, alas, would be interrupted by a lightning bolt and never appear. Szarlej, meanwhile, unable to cast spells or strike with his longspear, began channeling positive energy against the undead and the dhampir necromancer, and when he could no longer do so, using his ring of forcefangs to pummel the evil wizard with missiles of force. These tactics would prove decisive for our eventual victory -- Szarlej, while grappled and held still, did more against the necromancer than anyone else! But while the necromancer continued to hurl foul spells at us, one convincing Azriel that his skin was sloughing off, Akkumsah, having dispensed with the undead, moved in to attack the drider. At first she did little, confused by the many mirror images surrounding the sorceress, but soon they were gone and the blows of her mighty fists began landing. Azriel, meanwhile, used an earth elemental's affinity with stone to hide in the wall for his next summoning, eventually producing a rain of poisonous frogs that bedeviled the necromancer and interfered with his spellcasting. When the paralysis at last wore off, I tried to blind the necromancer (and failed), and retreated to heal. We were all sorely injured, and I could not have stood another blow. But when I returned, Akkumsah had slain the drider, and the necromancer was on his last legs. He tried to kill me with an illusory monster, but I was not fooled, and Szarlej sent a final round of force missiles to finish him off. I had achieved almost nothing. But we won, and I suppose that is the important thing. We found the Book of Bones on the necromancer, and have begun our preparations to take on Zutha. We have decided to take what time we need to prepare, as he is likely to be a dangerous foe indeed. Alas, we were too late to save the Brotherhood of the Seal, and whatever lay at the heart of their monastery has been desecrated and broken. I hope that won't cause any problems for anyone later on.
Dear Diary, (AudrahniIsStillDead) Well, the events of today went ... oddly. In one case very badly, as there was another death in our group (albeit temporary, as they seem to be for most of us these days.) But mostly just odd. The fight against the Time Flayer went fairly typically, though. Honestly, it didn't do very well against us, although it managed to carve up Szarlej quite a bit with its ice sword (Szarlej had a bad day of it in general.) Although it had numerous tricks with time that it employed to fight us, we overcame it soon enough with our by-now well honed teamwork and tactics. The world unfroze around us, somewhat to the surprise of those who saw us suddenly injured or (in the case of Azriel) transformed into an earth elemental. Time Flayers, as it turns out, come from the future to prevent people in the past from doing things that they would do in the future which would mess with the time stream. The whole concept makes my head hurt. After the fight, we got strong drinks and discussed the vagaries of time travel with Sorshen. That made my head hurt even more. Somewhat later, we went to watch the key event at the end of the festival -- the ritual burning of a wooden statue of Queen Ileosa. That is where things went very wrong. The crowd, as it turns out, was seeded with cultists of the Order of the Peacock, intent on assassinating Sorshen. Pegging us as her defenders, they assaulted us. And soon after, from the burning statue, a titanic firebird they had called from beyond began to rain destruction down upon the panicked crowd. This fight did not go smoothly for us. The cultists themselves were tough but easy enough for my comrades to best, Akkumsah, Dr. Variel, and Azriel all slaying them handily. I did not fare so well against them. After I had inspired and hastened my friends, one of the cultists smashed her fist into me, stunning me. As soon as I had recovered from her blow, she stunned me again, this time knocking me down. Akkumsah finally came over and slew my assailant for me, but then Azriel summoned a storm of sleet to assault the firebird. Which ignored it completely, so all it did was spoil the line of sight to any spells I might have cast. For most of the fight, I managed to do exactly nothing. Meanwhile, as everyone fought the cultists, the firebird threw down lightning upon us, causing grievous destruction. And as the final cultists were perishing, Szarlej, having enabled himself to fly, decided to take the beast on all by himself. It assaulted him with its beak and claws and in fewer than six seconds he died but then time jumped and he died but then time jumped and he died but then time jumped and he died. Not even time's favor could save him. Sorshen managed to give the firebird a Reckless Infatuation with Akkumsah, presumably to keep it at a distance from herself, but nothing else was having much effect. We were all damaged from the fight thus far, while it had not taken a single blow. Azriel advised retreat. I attempted to Charm it and failed, but at that point we realized that if Akkumsah, already fast and hastened, fled from the creature, then Sorshen's spell would compel it to follow, and it would be able to do little else. In the breathing room this gave us, I tried to Charm it again, and this time was successful. It proved to speak perfect Thassilonian, and we began a conversation. This is where things got odd. We conversed with lightning crashing down on us, an effect the bird apparently had no control over, so we were periodically electrocuted as we tried to negotiate. We soon learned that the bird was bound to slay Sorshen, who by that time had vanished, and it could not leave until that was accomplished. Various alternatives we proposed to the bird were turned down, as it had been given an unbreakable command by the Peacock Spirit. So we hatched a plan. While Akkumsah, inside a building to avoid the lightning, kept it happily tethered to the square thanks to Reckless Infatuation, and city guards, responding to the crisis, kept the citizens away after we consulted with them, the rest of us left with a promise that we would find Sorshen and kill her on its behalf. Instead, we gathered various spells that let us lie with impunity and sculpt corpses into different forms -- and we paid to raise Szarlej from the dead while we were at it. Soon we returned bearing "Sorshen's" corpse made from one of the dead cultists. The firebird, fooled by our magically enhanced lies, pronounced itself satisfied. And then did not leave. It was still Infatuated with Akkumsah. Szarlej attempted to dispel the spell. And failed. I attempted to overcome Sorshen's enchantment with the effects of my own. And failed. Finally, we left AGAIN, bought a scroll of Unadulterated Loathing, and used it to counter the spell. And the bird at last flew away. I rather expected that it would return to its own plane, but I suppose it had no way of doing so. So I guess it's just ... out there. now. So that happened. Once the bird was gone, Sorshen reappeared, and gave us some parting gifts before our journey to Kaer Maga. After a night of rest, Azriel used his magic to transport us there. We paid to be guided through the tunnels in the cliff that led to the Shrine of the Seal. I must say I am uncomfortable with that much weight of stone above and around me. It is very unlike water. Azriel offered to turn into a water elemental so that I could swim in him if the claustrophobia overcame me, which I thought was sweet. Finding the door to the Shrine locked, Dr. Variel began to pick it, but it was immediately opened by a monk who told us the shrine was closed. He said that the place had been beset with filth fever, and had no awareness that anything was wrong. Very strange. He was adamant that we could not enter, so I Charmed him. He let us in, and then Dimension Doored away to consult with his superiors regarding what to do about us. That is worrisome. Something is amiss here, and whoever returns with him may very well mean us ill. We explored briefly and found a room that seems meant to rotate, but we could find no mechanism for making it do so. And that is where things stand, with us befuddled and confused in the midst of things we do not comprehend. So, you know, the usual.
Come on Virginia, don't be so strong --
So slip out of the armor and into a thong,
Well, I’ve heard it before and I know what you’ll say:
You got touched by a god and she told you to pray,
I know you must be worried ‘bout your levels and your reputation,
They say there's a Heaven in some Outer Plane;
Well, your goddess told you all that I could give you was a desecration.
Come on Virginia, don't be so strong --
Dear Diary: A correction -- it is the Order of the Peacock, not the Order of the Phoenix. Harry Potter and his friends have not, to my knowledge, been behind any plots against the Runelord of Lust.
Dear Diary: (Audrahni is still dead.) As we camped on the Storval Plateau, where Azriel had brought us with mighty magics, we experienced two visitations. The first was from a woman with an hourglass who said she hailed from Sthethos -- a time traveller who had met us before in her past, which is to say our future (time travel is confusing.) Time froze except for her and ourselves when she arrived. She said she would meet us again, if we lived, and warned that we had attracted the attention of time's guardians and predators. She left us with gifts; not physical objects, but an increase of our personal power. The second was a sending from Sorshen, who told us where to meet her in Korvosa. A meeting with a Runelord -- no small thing! When we arrived in Korvosa, a festival was underway, celebrating the death of the evil queen who had seized power there a decade or so before. We met Sorshen at the base of what was once a great statue -- of her -- but now only a foot remained. I cannot help but think that the meeting place was chosen as an unsubtle reminder of her might. I will be frank. I do not trust Sorshen entirely. I am dubious of the plans she mentioned to found a nation of "New Thassilon". (Where will this nation be? What will those who already inhabit the area have to say about it? Why should we believe she will do any better than her first cruel rule?) And she at times seemed disdainful of modern life, at one point bemoaning the lack of mint-soaked napkins for her fingers. Nonetheless, I do believe that her enemies are also our enemies, and she has proven to be a fount of useful information on that subject. I do not need to trust her entirely to consider her an ally, and a supremely valuable one at that. At least for now. Later, we will see if her ultimate plans are malevolent or benign. As we took in the sights of the festival, she revealed that she, too had been attacked by the Order of the Phoenix, and that the cult of Yamasoth was likely allied with Alaznist. She said that other than Karzoug (truly dead) and Belimarius (not a threat for some reason -- uninterested?), all the other Runelords might return, and soon. We traded theories that Alaznist might be behind the changes to the timeline, and when we described the scepter from our vision she worried it might be the "Scepter of Ages" -- apparently very bad news if Alaznist has her hands on it. She thought the titanic monster that had been predicted sounded like the Oliphaunt of Jandelay, and that if so, its entry into Golarion would be a disaster of unimaginable scale. By far the most useful information she has given us thus far, though, has been about the potential return of the gluttonous and undead Runelord Zutha. The Book of Bones, a third of his phylactery, is now in the hands of one Erigantus of the Brotherhood of the Seal in Kaer Maga. But if we go to the Shrine of the Seal and obtain the book before he enacts whatever plans he has for it, we can take the book to Xin's risen island and use a ritual to bring Zutha a mere third of the way back -- a state in which it will be much easier to slay him than if he comes forth in his full glory. We took part in the festival a bit while we chatted, seeing the sights and watching a play. I noticed that open performances were allowed, so I took the stage and gave my second public performance, one of the filthy songs Lullaby taught me in Riddleport -- which this time, if I may say so, was extraordinary. The audience certainly seemed to enjoy it. I may yet have a post-adventuring career. Azriel participated in a game where he was tasked with pinning a crown on a greased pig. While not as great a grappler as he is in tiger form, he did an admirable job. I won 10 quatloos betting on him. (I am not sure what a quatloo is.) I fear I must put this diary down for the moment, however, because a Time Flayer has just appeared before us, freezing everyone, including Sorshen, in an instant of time except for myself and my comrades. Time's guardians and predators indeed. It looks like another battle lies before us ...
Dear Diary: Audrahni is still dead. For once, however, I am starting to have hope that this may not be a permanent condition. ... ... It turns out I spoke too soon about the ease with which we defeated the cultists. That was only the first wave, meant to distract us or cause us to commit our resources to the wrong battlefield. Soon a second wave emerged which would prove to be a much greater challenge. While more cultists engaged my friends on the ground floor, another set gained access to the top floor I had been set to guard. And this group came more prepared; they were muffled by a silence spell, which negated many of my best tactics and periodically cut us off from magical communication with the rest of the group. They were accompanied by a larger qlippoth of greater might and horror. And, I would later learn, behind them came a priestess of Yamasoth who was the leader of their group. The sight of the qlippoth reduced half the guards to vomiting nausea, and then it filled the hallway with a deadly fog of acid, forcing us to retreat back to the antechamber to Zincher's bedroom. Two guards, the house captain, and myself entered that room. I would be the only one to leave it alive. From what I understand, after having forced us to retreat, the qlippoth transported itself downstairs and assaulted my comrades, soon joined by another of the same breed. It wrought grievous damage against them, unleashing another cloud of acid fog upon the lower floor, and with its savage mouths brought Akkumsah close to death -- although she would come closer still later. On the upper floor, the guard who wasn't nauseated and I took the front line to protect the helpless guards behind us. He did brave work, decapitating a cultist with a single mighty blow of his guisarme. But then their priestess followed after, and with a single spell dropped the guard into a pit that swallowed him like a hungry maw. I tried to put her out of action with a spell of Terrible Remorse, but she shrugged it off. Demanding to know where the scrolls of true resurrection were, she sealed us in the room with a wall of stone. Meanwhile, downstairs, the cultists and one qlippoth had been slain but the other damaged Akkumsah so badly that she was forced to flee up the stairs -- only to meet the same qlippoth at the top, transported through magic! As Akkumsah fled back down, Wind and Azriel came up to the top floor and fought a cultist in the acid fog. In Zincher's rooms, the priestess and I engaged in a deadly one on one battle. She summoned the energies of her vile deity -- which slew the remaining guards in the room -- and threw spell after spell at me, opening spiked pits and eventually silencing me once again. I evaded her magic with a potion of invisibility and another of levitation that let me escape the pits, and managed to tag her with a few notes of deadly sound. Meanwhile, Akkumsah tried to open a window to use magic to whisk herself away, but the qlippoth caught up with her and felled her, unconscious and within inches of death. As I floated out of a pit, Azriel used a curious druidic ability to walk through houseplants to enter the room in the form of an earth elemental ... and promptly fell into a pit. But he soon turned into an air elemental and flew out, having suffered only minor harm. The priestess threw some kind of blight at us, but being designed to slay the good, it did us little damage (Azriel and I remain neutrals in the great war of good vs. evil.) Being silenced at this point, I had few options available, so I leapt upon Zincher's bed and activated the trap which filled the rest of the room with poison arrows. They somehow all managed to miss her entirely but then time jumped and they struck her flesh, which did not kill her but damaged her enough that she elected to flee with a Word of Recall, never having found the secret room with the scrolls. Stepping out of the silenced region, I checked in with everyone, and heard back from all except Akkumsah, who last we heard had been fleeing from a qlippoth a floor below. We used a scroll of Dimension Door to travel down and found the monster carrying our unconscious friend away (to implant eggs, perhaps?) I was able to heal Akkumsah back to consciousness, but then the monster's horrific nature overwhelmed me and I could do little but inspire the others. However, between Lullaby Vancaskerkin and myself providing inspiration, first Azriel, and then after some healing Akkumsah, managed to bring the monster down. Our group survived, albeit Akkumsah only by the grace of the gods. Half of Zincher's original guards died in the battle. The place was a terrible mess. When Zincher came back, he was horrified by the savagery of the assault, but relieved that both his beloved axebeaks and his scrolls remained untouched. In gratitude for our help, he gave us one of the scolls and some magic weapons that had been used in his arena. That led me to a conversation with the rest of the group. I pled with them to use the scroll to resurrect Audrahni, arguing that if we kept her with us she might be safe from further time slips. They made a convincing argument, however, that while they were willing to use the scroll this way, now was not the time; bringing her back to travel with us when we face such danger would likely only lead to her death again. Looking around the wreckage, it was difficult to argue. We agreed that once we had defeated the ultimate cause of the danger we found ourselves repeatedly facing, we would bring her back. So Audrahni is still dead. But there is hope. We spent the rest of the night getting drunk with Lullaby. Afterwards, we decamped to the wilderness, where we hoped the Hounds of Tindalos could not find us. But strange events continued to follow us, as i will relate soon ... |