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Session 71 started just outside the Aklo Doors, but it didn't take long for the party to decide it was time to test the wall of force again.
This time, the party was hesitant to drop all of their disintegrates, as they realized there must be some other method of getting through the wall. Remembering that the wall seemed to be 'artifact-tier,' Cordelia pulled out their little runeforged dagger and tried stabbing the wall, leaving a little hole . . . that didn't heal. They started stabbing over and over, and soon enough the rest of the party joined in, smashing through the wall with their full set of runeforged weapons. Then, they opened the door.
Ceoptra: "I welcome you, heroes. Please, sit, let us speak a moment before you continue your ordeal."
The party remained tense, but figured talking was a better outcome than an immediate fight, and took seats on rugs across the room from her.
She had quite a lot to say, apologizing for how Lucretia, Khalib, and Karzoug had underestimated them and talked down to them this whole time, how they had failed to appreciate the value of the world that had produced them. By this point, she'd managed to accumulate quite a lot of knowledge about all of the PCs, with the possible exception of Yllemsa, and made some reference to this. She even acknowledged them as equals, which no one else had done from the Thassilonian faction.
She asked them if they still intended to restore Xin-Shalast, and they said they did. She asked if they would take responsibility for Xin-Shalast after they deprived it of its rulers, and they agreed that they would.
Ceoptra: "Then know that I say this without enmity in my heart, but I cannot abide a coup d'etat. Prove to me you have the strength to face Karzoug, or else all of this slaughter will have been for nothing."
Cordelia: "Are you going to insist that we kill you to prove it?"
Ceoptra: "Defeat me however you may. Do that, and I'll put my life in your hands."
The party made it clear they didn't like this kind of test, but they all stood, picked up their weapons, and rolled initiative. They also noticed that Ceoptra drew a large hourglass filled with red sand before battle began.
Cordelia didn't waste any time, casting greater arcane sight to identify all of the magical effects in the room (and identifying the hourglass as an hourglass of temporal acceleration, aka time stop in a can. Nualia caught the whole party with some buffs, and things were off to a great start, with Ithil dealing 100 points of damage to the hungerer.
It wasn't until Yllemsa charged that things got tricky - as passed Nualia, Ceoptra cast an enhanced mythic blade barrier that hurt Yllemsa, Nualia, and Cordelia quite badly, though Yllemsa managed to jab the hungerer for quite a bit of damage.
The rest of the fight quite interesting, but I'll sum it up simply: Isis (the cloud giant) was overwhelmed by all of the melee fighters at once while Haast and Cordelia struggled against Ceoptra. Ceoptra killed Cordelia easily and managed to keep Haast and then Yllemsa at bay with quickened mythic dispel magic brutal full-attacks. However, Ithil managed to crit her twice with his special monstrous humanoid-hunting bow, and Ceoptra only survived due to her mythic abilities.
Once reduced to 0hp, her attendant unconscious and her pet hungerer dead, Ceoptra submitted herself.
Cordelia: "Are you a psychopomp?"
They only tilted their head.
Cordelia: "... hello?"
???: "Hello, Cordelia."
Cordelia: "See now, this is awkward. You know my name, but I don't know yours."
Saloc: "You can call me Saloc."
Cordelia: "Alright, Saloc. I suppose I'm dead?"
Saloc: "For the time being, but not really."
Cordelia: "Not my time yet?"
Saloc: "It might be. But you won't be staying for a long time yet."
Cordelia: "What do-"
Nualia (Distantly): "And I command thee, Cordelia, rise again, and continue your struggle!"
At this point, Cordelia received a notification of sorts.
Nualia Tobyn, oracle from Sandpoint, wishes to resurrect you. Do you accept?
Cordelia: "Oh, damn, that's my ride. I'll be seeing you, though."
At that, Saloc laughed.
Saloc: "And I'll see you too, Cordelia, be it tomorrow or at world's end."
Ithil: "So is Isis like your girlfriend or friend or like . . . a slave or something?"
Ceoptra: "She is my handmaiden."
Haast & Ithil, in unison: "That doesn't answer the question."
Yllemsa, a second later: "She's dodging the question!"
Ceoptra sighed. "Is this really of consequence?"
Ithil: "Not really, she's just like the most beautiful person in the world probably."
Ceoptra: "Of course she is, she's mine."
Cordelia's player (OOC): "WHY DOES SHE SAY IT LIKE THAT?!"
Haast: "You're right though, we do have something more important to discuss. Like the total destruction of Xin-Shalast / a second Cataclysm."
Ceoptra: "What are you talking about?"
Haast: "A prophecy. There was a prophecy about us that said that, on the day of Karzoug's defeat, Xin-Shalast would be destroyed and nightmares would ravage the land. Does that ring any bells for you?"
Ceoptra: "It doesn't. Who made this prophecy?"
Haast: "Mesmerina, the prophetess of Lissala."
Ceoptra: "Well, that's concerning. Do you have a record of this prophecy?"
The party showed her the letter they received, re-reading it all together.
As they examined it together, Cordelia was revived in a flash of light, and immediately started launching into questions for Ceoptra, like, "HEY what's your damage?" and "WHY would you try to murderize my Mom?" and "So what's up with that soul gem thing in the prison cells?"
Cordelia, upon realizing what was going on though, agreed to hold their questions until Ceoptra could provide any knowledge she had related to the prophecy.
Ceoptra described, to the best of her knowledge, the mechanics of Karzoug's return - the sihedron ritual, the anima focus, the soul lens and runewell, and finally, the Runewell's filling as the trigger for the Leng Device's activation. Realizing that they may have accidentally disabled it, the party returned to the Leng Device.
There they found the burned and blinded corpse of the Thing from Beyond Time. Cordelia, interested to know why it had appeared in the Pinnacle, called upon it with speak with soul while the rest of the party investigated the device. Unfortunately, none of them rolled all that high to investigate it, and Cordelia is the one with the divinations, so they mostly stood and discussed possibilities until they settled on a hypothesis - what if Karzoug had been duped and, while he was locked in the Eye of Avarice, the Denizens of Leng had instead connected the Cataclysm, or maybe even Leng itself, to the Device. After all, 10,000 years had passed, and the team who had constructed the Device must not be the team working on it now.
Unfortunately, Cordelia had a difficult time communicating with the Thing, as it refused to speak plainly with her. However, they did manage to get a few pieces of information - that it had entered this plane accidentally, and that it had been severed from its home plane before a painful pulse killed it. However, it could feel something wrong with this place, something that had lured it through the portal in the first place.
Once Cordelia started to assist the party in investigating the device, they were able to work with Ceoptra to get a gist of the problem - the device was calibrated tens of thousands of years before the fall of Thassilon! In fact, it was calibrated to such ancient history that they couldn't be sure of what had happened, but finally recognized why the gods (and demon lords) had been afraid, but no mortal creatures were aware of any danger - whatever threat lie beyond the Device's portal, it would be something familiar only to the gods.
Yllemsa: "You don't think it's... it's the whole mountain, right? Like, the Old One supposedly petrified in the mountain?"
Haast: "It's probably the mountain."
Cordelia: "Oh it's like an egg! They're just gonna hatch a boy."
Haast: "And that's . . . bad. We can't let this thing go off."
Ceoptra concurred with this - the runewell couldn't be allowed to fill. However, she confessed, several months ago she sent out no fewer than 70 lamia agents into the world to infiltrate the surrounding countries and begin to harvest greed. The estimate she'd sent the party through Lucretia had been a ruse to relax them - she suspected there were only days left before Karzoug's return, and that was only because they had intentionally avoided killing Karzoug's forces on their way here. There was no way to call off all that harvesting with the time available.
Along with Ceoptra, the party devised 3 potential strategies:
1. Kill Karzoug. With no Karzoug to rise, the contingency should never trigger, and the runewell may even fall dormant.
2. Destroy the soul lens so no more greed may enter the runewell unless it's harvested inside the Eye of Avarice itself.
3. Find another transmuter to challenge Karzoug for the title Runelord of Greed, then lock him in temporal stasis to keep him out of the way.
Due to the difficulty of finding another transmuter who could stand up to Karzoug, and the party's desire to prevent the runewell from de-activating (so they could use it to fuel the Leng Device after, hopefully, re-calibrating it), the party opted for the second option.
The party agreed (after some contentious debate): They would destroy the soul lens, and only kill Karzoug if it was necessary. Then, they would leave Cordelia, Lucretia, and Ceoptra to groom a new Runelord to one day bind themself to the runewell.
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Session 72: It's finally come time to take on Karzoug. The party filled out the remainder of the map while walking around with Ceoptra, asking a few more questions. Pretty quickly though, the party decided they were set, and decided to settle down for the night. They asked Nualia and Aneka to dream a message to Ayruzi and Brodert to let them know the Occlusion Field would drop tomorrow morning.
Brodert (as soon as he arrived): "Why don't they have any furniture? Has - has everyone just been standing around?"
Not that long thereafter, Ayruzi arrived as well via a combination of plane shift and wind walk. They announced they'd been given new orders from Heaven - to observe the events of the next few days so Heaven could be prepared to respond if events continued in the direction they appeared to be headed. Thus, while they wouldn't be putting themselves in harm's way, they brought blessings specifically to aid the party's endeavor.
Firstly, Ayruzi cast impart mind on Yllemsa's weapon, granting it a special purpose (Defeat Humans) and special ability (+2 luck bonus on attacks, skills, and checks) as well as the ability to cast teleport 1/day.
Second, they enchanted any weapons the party had less than +4 with greater magic weapon.
Lastly, they prepared a great deal of restoration and resurrection-type spells, in the event not everyone made it out alive, and brought the components necessary to use them.
The party ascended the steps of the Anima Focus, getting extremely dizzy in the process. They dropped a metric ton of buffs, including Brodert's protection from spells and a scroll of foresight and moment of prescience to really eke out every possible advantage they could.
They leapt into the fires of the Anima Focus and were consumed.
For a moment, you are by yourself. But you are not alone.
Ithil, you feel arms, gentle and kind, wrapping over your shoulders from behind, like someone is leaning on you. You hear a still, small voice, and recognize it. It is your mother. “I knew you would find your way, Ithil,” she says. “Cut him down. Let new life reach this forgotten place.”
Yllemsa, the voice you hear is not so kind. Her anticipation fills you, as if excitement and rage alone could crush your heart. When you look down at your hands, your weapon, it is her long, twisted nails, her ranseur that you see. “Finally, after 10,000 years of waiting, Karzoug will get what he deserves. He will fall, and we will rise, Yllemsa. Rip out his heart.”
Cordelia, you do not hear a voice, at least at first. Instead you see someone sitting before you, a strange creature like a stag standing upright, with no face. You know it’s watching you though, because small, golden rings, imprinted with eyes, orbit around its horns, always watching you. For a moment, you only look at it, and it only looks at you, until in your mind you hear its words: “You realize now, don’t you, that this is only the beginning. The Runelords thought they could escape their fates, but fate never forgot them. Send them to me, Cordelia. Let the universe know the value of a great Runelord’s soul.”
Haast, perhaps it should come as no surprise that you are alone. Your drive, your power, your desires are your own. You’ve exceeded your mother and your father. You killed the champion Lucretia wanted you to become. The Black Knight’s will bends to your own. This is not a climax, a final act for you. You’re going to kill Karzoug, or trap him here forever. And then you’re going to become even stronger.
Then, they appeared in the Eye.
Nualia won initiative, cast particulate form and quickened prayer, and moved up the stairs.
Karzoug opened with clashing rocks, knocking down everyone but Nualia, Ithil, and Cerberus. Then, with a quickened time stop, he re-positioned over the Runewell. Unfortunately, he rolled max bonus turns, and protected himself with fiery body, echolocation, protection from energy (cold), shield, deflection, spell turning[7], resist energy (electricity), and temporal regression.
Cordelia picked themself up, cast barrow haze on one storm giant and quickened stinking cloud on the other.
Yllemsa picked themself up and moved up the stairs, making it almost to the runewell of greed.
The storm giants moved out of their clouds - one switched to a halberd, while the other used chain lightning and managed to deal all of 1 damage to 1 character.
Ithil just picked himself up and attacked the same giant at Cerberus. Cerberus, currently being Gargantuan (Evolution Surge: Large; Evolution: Huge; Legendary Proportions), started tearing away at the northern giant, tripping it.
The Rune Warden moved to protect the Runewell and cast dominate person on Nualia. She passed.
The Runewell Dragon cast stoneskin and also moved to protect the runewell, meaning Karzoug, the dragon, and the Rune Warden were all clustered around it.
Finally, Haast stood and cast quickened greater invisibility and enchanted his weapon.
Karzoug cast borrowed time and quickened haste, then immediately took advantage of his extra time to time stop, again rolling max turns. He put a wall of suppression between Yllemsa and Nualia, then put a prismatic wall immediately in front of Yllemsa, blocking their view of the Runewell. He used his extra time to fly all the way to the edge of the platform the party appeared on, behind Haast, Cordelia, and Ithil, hoping to bait them all into a wail of the banshee. Finding he had more time than expected, he cast heart of the mammoth on himself for some extra bonuses.
Cordelia noticed they couldn't see any magic auras on Karzoug with greater arcane sight and Haast concluded he must be using mind blank, so Cordelia cast greater dispel magic on Karzoug. Unfortunately, the spell was reflected, and stripped off Cordelia's own mind blank, foresight, greater arcane sight and particulate form (the particulate form ended up being a mistake; they should have lost overland flight instead. Oops).
Yllemsa maneuvered under the prismatic wall and approached the Runewell from below, staying out of range of the dragon and jabbing it with their weapon.
One storm giant shot Ithil for good damage while the other just tried to stand. That one made a swing but whiffed.
Ithil full-attacked the giant along with Cerberus, tripping them again and leaving them with very low HP. Here is where I think things started to go wrong - Ithil totally ignored Karzoug nearby, and, like Cordelia, didn't bother to move.
The Runewell Dragon took a step back and took a shot with enervation against Yllemsa, but spell resistance ate it.
Then the Rune Warden decided it was time to eat as many AoOs as it took to get to Yllemsa - he took a gnarly 96 damage, but then hit them with an Improved Awesome Blow straight through the prismatic wall. Spell Resistance stopped 4 layers, and Yllemsa made their save versus 2 more, but the 7th level got them, dispelling all of their spells. They only managed to avoid falling into lava by rolling onto the stairs, but with their most powerful buffs gone, they were quickly in a bad spot.
Haast flew upward and cast empowered pyrotechnic eruption on the south storm giant to soften it up for Cerberus.
Karzoug, unable to track Haast down and with Cordelia and Cerberus split up, decided to use his wail anyway, targeting only Cordelia and Ithil. Ithil failed, dropping to -89. Cordelia only passed due to being a dhampir. Then he gave a quickened slow to remove Cerberus's haste.
Cordelia cast barrow haze around Karzoug and ghost walked.
Yllemsa cast monstrous physique ii to turn into a four-armed gargoyle and flew over the wall of suppression (I also forgot being prone following Awesome Blow - it literally never came up before this point in the campaign).
Cerberus finished off the storm giant and moved into melee with the southern storm giant . . . and that storm giant's attempt to switch weapons resulted in - you know it - being tripped. Gargantuan animal companions are pretty good at tripping as it turns out.
The runewell dragon cast displacement and flew over the wall, landing beside Cordelia after picking them up with echolocation.
Realizing no one was approaching the runewell, the Rune Warden walked over the prismatic wall and cast mass charm person to no effect.
Haast, realizing that Karzoug's fiery form probably meant he was now vulnerable to cold, cast cone of cold where Karzoug had been, but couldn't immediately see the result.
Karzoug, now able to locate Haast with echolocation, cast greater dispel magic to no effect, then cast quickened glitterdust to help the Warden and Dragon deal with Haast in the future. He stayed there, hoping to group the party up for a next-turn temporal regression into horrid wilting.
Cordelia, quite afraid of the dragon, hit it with ill omen and Misfortune.
Yllemsa rushed on past Cordelia and the dragon to hit Karzoug a single time.
The southern storm giant took a swing at Cerberus, and dealt OK damage, but was killed immediately afterwards thanks to a combination of pyrotechnic eruption and getting crit.
The runewell dragon full-attacked, but didn't manage to kill Cordelia due to all of the rolling-twice (or thrice), take the lower result, though Cordelia was dropped to a precarious 30hp.
The Rune Warden double-moved into melee with Nualia, hoping to prevent her from doing any more supportive casting.
Haast recalled his cone of cold and hit Karzoug with a spell-combat spellstrike empowered vampiric touch full attack, dealing 90ish damage (about 135 damage so far).
The party is in a bit of a tight spot, and they haven't started destroying the soul lens, but Cordelia is planning to dimension door as many people as possible to the Runewell next turn, now that everyone has moved to the other side of the prismatic wall. Nualia, Yllemsa, and Cerberus are the only ones who go before the dragon however, so we'll see how that plan shakes out.