He certainly put us in our place, but it had the feeling of a suicide mission from the start, with the VCs and mysterious Decemvirate guy being so cagey about how we were suppose to get back or why they were only sending 5 guys to take on a Runelord.
Taking so long to disable the Runes ultimately worked against us, but I don't think it would have made a difference. He still would have killed us with a maximized and empowered Horrid Wilting. That's between 126-153 damage or 63-76 for a save, depending on his current caster level. I played the fighter and rolled a 3 on my fort save. Needless to say I died instantly, but as Branel said he could just do it again if he wanted, thanks to his Pearl of Power. They wouldn't be many characters in any party that could survive that kind of fire power.
Here's a photo of our little encounter. Not surprising that it took 2+ hours just to get through 5 turns.
