A Journal Bearing the Adventures of Pathfinders

Gozren 1st  4715

Well, we failed in our goal to stop Ardathanatus from getting his armor made...I suppose we’ll have to settle for looting it later.  With Pyraxis dead, and both Drax and I utterly spent on resources, we had no choice but to rest. It was suggested to go to the Sarenrae shrine, but we also decided that a short rest wouldn’t do much for us. There was some panic as we realized how much trouble we were in and just how short of time we had to still raise Jasper. Now with two bodies that needed it our deadline just seemed to loom even more. Pyraxis was killed by a boogeyman. I have no idea what that means. Elle seemed disconcerted, but I manacled and secured Pyraxis in a way I hope even he couldn’t break out. If he should happen to rise or if his mouth starts to disappear… I just don’t know what to expect. Better safe than Sorry.

Fortunately while we were looting Pyraxis of his shards (Drax seemed quite fascinated with the claws that Pyraxis himself never actually uses…) we discovered some scrolls we had found. The scroll of Resurrection most importantly. Without a priest or cleric, I was convinced that the spell was beyond our ability, but Elle proved me wrong. Knowing the scroll wouldn’t be used if she failed, she gave it a try and succeeded in bringing back our rocky friend. Despite his desire to try out ‘death’... he didn’t seem to enjoy the experience much. Hopefully he doesn’t get a second chance anytime soon. Strangely the first thing he did was devour a note that Elle had left for him… the last time I heard about a stone creature with words shoved in it’s head was a golem… Now I’m beginning to wonder if Oread’s are actually a thing….

After our rest and with everyone fully healed, we returned to the third level. As we had suspected, the armor was done and the Ifrit was gone. So whatever threat Ardathanatus was going to pose… it undoubtedly will be worse now. Unfortunately unavoidable.

Searching the library where we found the bogeyman we found a secret room. It wasn’t very large, only about 10x10 with a table in there. There we found a scroll of Planar Ally… so maybe with the right casting we can get our Coutl friend Tsikinal to come. It’s still outside my grasp… though the Commune I suppose I could do… Greater restoration? I suspect we’ll be glad we had that but again.. It’s no use to me. But who knows, Elle just cast a Resurrection! The other books were written in Infernal and Drax translated them for me. It was called “Secret of the Darkfire.” The pictures seemed to be caricatures of Groteus, Desna and Yamasoth that Qlippoth god… and a random elf. Before long I was able to deduce that it must be Ardathanatus. The whole story read like a thinly veiled confession for his crimes a hundred years ago. There was definitely a tone of remorse… but honestly I don’t feel much compassion for him. He seems to be claiming madness as an excuse… but here he is again, doing the same thing. Priests of all sorts are dead and he’s in the center of it. I’m still inclined to send him to Pharasma and let him plead his case to her. The fact that the other book seems to indicate that he believes undeath to be a natural evolution of life and a superior form… makes me think that meeting wouldn't go well for him.

On that note, Elle asks if clerics can be liches… Unfortunately they can. The church of Urgathoa has plenty of them even if wizards are the most common route. The scrolls indicate that he approves of undead… I really hope it’s hypothetical. I really don’t want to fight a lich today. They’re some of the hardest to truly kill.

Having taken our various extracts we wandered the halls looking for the bogeyman. I have my ‘See Invisible’ going, but kept the shield potion for a little later. We came across a room that was essentially a torture chamber. Torture and more actually… Elle found alchemical tools that are used to remove a person’s brains and put it in an alchemical golem… which I think i’m afraid to ask what that is…

Rounding a corner we find our second set of stairs that go down a level… I wonder how far this place descends?? This room was decorated to show the space beyond the sky with some really strange anthropomorphic stars and suns and random celestial bodies.

The next room… things went sideways again. We entered it and found 2 Kytons torturing a naked man on a table… though they weren’t really Kyton’s. They were actually animate nightmares. Considering the nightmare I had after the Bogeyman escaped… I don’t this is a coincidence. I drink my deathward extract just in case. This is where things went wrong. Pyraxis got a few good hits in and Elle bombed one quite well, the dreams went on the offensive. Pyraxis was hit with some kind of fear effect and took off running, while Elle and Drax became confused and started slapping at each other. How or why they didn’t annihilate each other, i don’t really understand. I suspect had I been caught between them it would have been bombs and fire whips….. Fortunately they didn’t kill each other.

Unfortunately… that left me in the room with two animate dreams. Only one really wanted to attack me. I suspect Elle and Pyraxis softened it up quite a bit, still I did everything I could to keep it from flanking me. I was doing rather well actually even if the damage I did to them was slight. Then they got an ally too. A weird misshapen hunchback thing that near as I could tell was human, even if just barely. Honestly it was the first human combatant ’d seen down here since the werebears… so I’m thinking either he or the naked guy may be the priest of Nethys that we need to take alive. I ignored him and kept working on the dreams. After what seemed liked forever, Elle and Drax  rejoined the fight and things swung our way again. The hunchback threw a lightning bolt at me AND a spiritual dagger… so now more than ever I’m thinking he’s the priest of Nethys. I heard Elle come to the same conclusion and remind Drax not to kill him… which is very difficult for him. He’s not really ‘non-lethal’ type of guy. Still, between bombs and sword, we drop the dreams and I tried to grapple the flying imp. That failed utterly and felt like magical interference. Then Drax shot a blast of earth at his head and dropped him unconscious. He should be out for awhile…  

Now to find out who the naked guy is.

Still in the place:

So, there was an unconscious hunchback on the floor and a naked man on a sacrificial table. What in the world is going on in this place.

Elle gives the naked man a potion, and it works, but only partially. The man is awake but seems to be damaged in the head. Elle uses her wand of restoring, twice unfortunately, before the man is able to coherently respond to us. Though only to tell us his name is Geen. Elle is forced to use her wand again which causes it to disintigrate.

So now that Geen is able to talk to us, he regales us with the tale of how he got there. He remembered the medusa turning on the other priests and our hunchback friend is Zolarum. Artathanitus, no wait. I’m just going to call him Arty, Arty wanted them all alive.

I was not able to hold in a smug smile when he mentioned how the cleric of Iomedae was dead.

Beyond him he knows of one other priest, a cleric of Arestil named Nildis here. Nildis surrendered before Geen was knocked out.

Geen himself is a cleric of Zonkathon.

Elle gets to work on the manacles holding Geen down while Colin and I search the room. We are unable to find anything. As both us and Elle are finishing up, Pyraxis came back.

Side note, as a group we should really look into some kind of mental protection.

The small chest in the corner, once opened by my multi talented Elle, contained Geen’s gear which he, thankfully, redressed in.

Colin both secures and searches Zolarum finding a magical cloak, some scrolls, a couple wands, a nice looking dagger, another Grotus key, a key for the manacles, and an amulet. The cloak is apparently a magical displacement cloak, of which I am apparently the only one who can use it. Neat.

Geen offers to take Zolarum up to the tower to watch him while we continue here. Speaking of Zolarum, the room he came from is a tiny room with a bunch of stuff I don’t really care about. To the west is a an alcove with a small window that seems to shimmer with energy and overlooks the ocean. Turns out the “window” is a magical wall of force.

Colin also manages to find a red leather book on a nightstand that appears to be magical. As we are still protected by my love’s alchemical extracts we decide to simply mark the room and come back to search it later. We move on.

Back down the hallway to where it turned East, leading slightly further to a door. After making sure it was not trapped or locked, we entered the room. An average sized place with a large desk and leather chair, a chest by that, a cabnet containing cudgels and manacles, oh and a very large creature with red skin a massive fanged mouth in the middle of it’s chest.

A Baragara if you were curious.

So of course, we fight it. During the fight it attempts to eat me, grabbing me and shoving me inside it’s chest mouth. Not something I’d ever thought I’d have to say or write. Elle, my dearest, is able to manifest what definitely seems to be the spirit of her young friend, this time fully under Elle’s control. I am so proud of her. Also, I’m covered in chest mouth slime. Another thing I never thought I’d ever have to write.

We are finally able to kill it, apparently for good as it doesn’t vanish. Which of course means it wasn’t a summoned creature.

Inside the room, after taking quick look, we find some stuff in the chest, four scrolls, magical leather armor, a magical bow, a small quiver of arrows and a finely crafted heavy mace.

Beyond the room is two hallways of prison cells. All empty except for the last one which contains an old man. However the door is secured, the stone of the wall seeming to have somehow grown over the door itself holding it in place. Pyraxis is eventually able to break it down.

We seem to have found Nildis, the Arestil priest Geen mentioned. Turns out Arty told Nildis that he would be the first victim of the polymorph plague once the doomsday door has been re-focused to Sekatar-Seraktis. Which is the Abyssal realm of the Yamasoth.

When asked if he could make it to the surface Nildis says that Arestil doesn’t answer him anymore. When questioned why we got the response that Arestil was dead to Nildis. I mean, I can understand feeling dejection with a god but still this seems, wrong.

Nildis tells us that Arty brought his minions back with him from Hollow Mtn, an island of the coast of Varisia. Not only the red caps and giants, but other creatures and some kind of chameleon people.

As we are talking, Elle pulls me aside and asks if I am alright. She seems to think that my so called father has some hold on me. I assure her everything is fine and we move on.

We decide to move back to the Grotus door that was humming and vibrating. When Elle opens it a deafening roar (in Colin’s case, literally) echoes out, the force of which slams us all backwards. So now we are all hurting and Colin is deaf and what do we have to show for it? A solid stone wall. And we know it’s very solid since Pyraxis can’t look through it. You can’t tell, but I’m sighing right now.

So back to the torture room and the stairs near there. We traverse down only to have it lead us to a cliff with waves upon waves below us. On the far side is another ledge holding a chest surrounded by gold and silverwear and other treasures.

As we are looking for a way across six large Sea Drakes, larger than normal, come up and demand tribute from us before allowing us to leave. If we were at full strength, maybe we would take them, but...we are no where near full strength. So, we pay them the two thousand gold they demand, speaking only draconic of course, and we head back up the stairs.

All the way back to the other other set of stairs down, this one leading to a square room. A door sits in the wall to the east and all over the other walls are carved niches. A central pillar in the room has been carved with Thassalonian runes, apparently asking Grotus to bless this level of the dungeon as a place of rest. In each of the corners are lit braziers.

Elle finds some writing on the door and realizes it’s a magical trap. Is there anything my love can’t do? Apparently dispell this trap as it goes off, the force of which hitting all of us but almost dropping my lady.

Obviously we spend a bit of time healing and I’m realizing something. Either I’m healthier than most people or healing magics don’t affect me as well. It seems to take many more resources to get me to where I’m feeling “fine” than it does the others. Something to look into another time.
We quickly search the room, Colin finding a section of the wall that seems to be slightly discolored. Elle recognizing it as the after effects of a wall that has been stoneshaped by magic.

Back through the door that went boom we enter another square room. A hallway branches to the north and east and another Grotus rest pillar sits in the middle of the room. This time instead of braziers in the corners are coffins. What? Ok, I’m told they are sarcophagi though I don’t know what the difference is.

Colin approaches the one in the south west corner and when he does, four shadowy forms burst out and attacks us. They appear to be shadows and though we beat them, Elle is severely drained of her physical strength.

We used our limited resources to heal those who were weakened by the shadows. Notably, despite Colin being hit many times, he had not been weakened by their attacks at all- a gift from his heritage. It was evident he realized this halfway through the fight as his actions changed from careful dodging and maneuvering to boldly stepping up and striking. These beings seem to be unable to harm him- an enormous break in our favor for once.

We moved on with our exploration. I looked through the stone into the next room we approached and saw it was a mausoleum of sorts- many niches filled with hundreds or thousands of bones. We bypassed searching for now, to save our active spells. We did realize the bones were so old they would crumble to dust upon a touch.

Sarala called a halt to our procession as she spotted a very powerful magical trap, which Colin identified as some kind of transmutation effect. She moved to disarm it after we moved to a safe distance and after she assured Drax she would be fine, and she was. We moved on and found an open room with six sarcophagi in it. After seeing his immunity to shadow attacks, we decided it would be best for Colin to be the one to look into it, and he did, finding only bones.
We moved on to find a room decorated in Thassilonian runes. The ones among us literate in the ancient language read it as “Present a key to the end times, and speak the Groetan invocations favoring the dead, and be counted as acolytes of the harbinger of the last days”. Walls then flashed with a pale blue light, and creatures emerged that Elle identified as Groetan candles- Will O Wisps from Thassilonian times. They were apparently immune to magic. That did not present a problem for me, but their elusiveness did. They did electrical damage with their attacks and I was forced to flee the room, but not before I again saw Colin laughing off the attacks. This again underscored that his preparation and canniness were to be learned from and emulated, along with the lessons of caution and wariness that I noted before.

As I was close to falling and perhaps dying again, I needed to seek safety, and I knew instinctively knoew exactly where I could do so. We had just seen a portion of a tunnel that had collapsed and exposed the earth behind it, and I knew I could seek refuge there. However, a Will O Wisp followed me, and I knew I could not climb the rubble to reach the patch of earth without it most likely killing me. However, I was saved as Elle had followed me and distracted the creature, while giving me a potion to keep me on our feet. Our teamwork may still need work- but I think it is definitely improving. She and I were able to dispatch the Wisp that had followed me and then returned to reinforce Drax and Colin. They were at something of a stalemate- they creatures were not hurting them much, but they were having a hard time hitting the elusive Wisps. I got into flanking position and one by one we were able to take them down.

After the fight was over I asked the group to follow me back to the section of bare earth, as I had to confirm my suspicion. It was indeed as I had thought- I could now move through the element of my heritage, although somewhat slowly. Though it will not be particularly useful in this place as we are surrounded by a cage of stone, it will open up tactical possibilities in the future.

We searched the room and found Bracers, and Amulet, a Ring, Medallion, and a Stone. Colin and Elle were only able to identify the Amulet and the Stone, and Colin took the stone to use for good luck. Unfortunately it appears that the stone masked what it was really was- some kind of cursed item that weighed heavily upon Colin, and was something he could not rid himself of. Despite this misfortune, we did pick up the scattered coinage on the floor, which was substantial.

We continued on to a new room filled with sarcophagi. This time, opening one did wake the restless dead, as a horde of mummies came out as from both this chamber and adjoining chambers. We used careful positioning, and destroyed them en masse through Drax’s explosions and Elles bombs that were particularly inimical to undead. After destroying the horde, we moved on and found a singularly powerful mummy who urged us several time to stop. But upon attacking us, I chose to follow Colin’s lead and dispatch the enemy rather than parlay. The lesson of the boogeyman has been well-learned.

Something AWESOME coming shortly!

Gozren 1st  4715 cont.


This has been a frustratingly long day. The battle with Ardathanatus was well under way and we were losing badly. Pyraxis, Elle and myself were on the wrong side of the blade barrier. Pyraxis was in bad shape and had ducked around a corner. He still had trick up his sleeve I’d find out later.


Elle tried to use her new magic staff with little effect. I think she was using it correctly (more than I could have) but the spells weren’t affecting him. My own spells focus more on a range of touch… and my distance spells weren’t working on him either. I couldn’t see enough under the armor to know if he was Elf or Undead (or both) but Disrupt undead had no effect. My options were painfully low.  I was reduced to offering Drax advice while we watched them trade blows back and forth… and Ardathanatus could (and did) heal himself regularly.


The Doomsday Door was continually sapping my life, but my judgement was replenishing it as we went. My only other option was to leap through the Blade Barrier… but I REALLY didn’t want to. Every scenario I played through my mind had me dying if I tried that. Either from the barrier itself, or from Ardathanatus shortly after.


Pyraxis it turned out used some of that unworked stone to burrow through the walls… until he reached the worked stone in the battle room. That didn’t stop him though and we could hear him pounding away until he broke through.


Drax was nearly beaten himself and I have little doubt that Ardathanatus would coup de grace him when he fell. I felt bad that Elle would have to watch this, but I couldn’t get anything to work. The best I could do was silence the room so that Ardathanatus couldn’t heal himself anymore. I suspect it worked, but I wasn’t really getting any deafer.


Drax must have heard my earlier advice because then in what I assume was a last ditch effort, he unleashed the most unholy torrent of burning lava I have ever seen before keeling over, and Ardathanatus was annihilated. Completely and totally annihilated.  Then the Doomsday Door opened wide.


What came out, I can’t describe fully. There were tentacles and eyes and… Even now it hurts to think about. It’s size was immense but it’s shape… wasn’t ‘right’. Pyraxis burst into the room only to jump back into the wall. Elle was stunned at the sight of it and Drax was mercifully spared that memory. I was still able to function (perhaps it uttered some weird sound?)  but was still on the wrong side of the Barrier, not that I believe fighting it would have ended well.


This thing… I can only assume was Qlippoth… probably a Qlippoth Lord… Quite frankly our research would indicate it was probably Yamasoth itself. Regardless fortune favored us for a change and it scuttled forward and wrapped what remained of the elf and his armor and dragged it back through the door and it then slammed shut. I am going to make an active decision to NOT imagine what kind of afterlife that Elf is going to have.


With the battle won, Pyraxis rushed to help Drax. It didn’t look like he was bleeding out, merely unconscious, but Pyraxis didn’t take that chance. The result was that Drax was certainly stabilized… but Pyraxis himself suffered enough burns treating our comrade that he succumbed to his own wounds and dropped down. He on the other hand DID appear to be dying and we were STILL on the wrong side of the wall. In moments Pyraxis seemed to stabilize himself and I started making camp while we waited out the barrier.


It took what seemed like forever. Elle naturally rushed to Drax’s side also suffering the fire, while I tried to get Pyraxis on his feet. Elle had used magic to search for secret doors, but there weren’t any. It appeared that our opponent already had the shard and now Drax had it.


Honestly, this was kind of funny, at first.  He is currently envious of everyone and everything… as predicted. His self-confidence is gone and everyone is better at everything than he is and they all have better stuff. Like I said, this was fun at first but gets old fast. Sometimes deafness is a blessing.



There was debate about whether we should rest or retreat. I felt that we may have skipped something important, and while I was in decent shape to keep fighting, Pyraxis and Drax did not look good. In the end we agreed that were done here. The Sea Drakes were still a thing, but not one we would fight… and the place was more than cleared out enough. We had the shard and Jasper was quickly rotting. It was time to go home.

Pyraxis wanted to fly our ebony fly with Jasper to Sandpoint, but Drax seemed confident that his ship would be back the next afternoon. Using my magic Fan feather token, we would actually make better time getting all the way back to Magnimar than merely Sandpoint… and we know there are priests at home that can raise him. Provided of course that he hasn’t been judged and sent on his way… I really can’t imagine the line is very long Groteus followers.


Gozren 2nd  4715


Well the ship arrived shortly after noon and we’re off. The sailors seem skittish because of the speeds we’re going, and I’m staying near the center of the ship near the masts again. Fortunately I found a new use for my Inner Strength. While it is normally a last ditch effort to heal me (better than my normal healing spells,) this one goes further. It was able to cure my deafness. On the plus side… that makes me happy. On the downside… I now have to listen to Drax barter away everything he can get his hands on that is instantly substandard the moment he has it… I’ll be getting my hammer back before we dock from one of the sailors, don’t doubt that.


Elle has been trying to smooth over group cohesion. Apparently she is still rattled by outburst and doesn’t want Drax and I at each other’s throats when he’s uncursed. I had hoped Elle and I were alright after our chat the night before, but she’s still concerned. Honestly, I know it’s been two days…. But it feels like at least thirteen weeks since that blow up. I’ve made my points known, I’m willing to let it all go. Hopefully the others do as well. It’s agreed we need some down time. At least a night of drinking and relaxing to restore some of the groups friendships, I just hope we have the time… Also, there is the matter of the Shadow Lodge thieves. I still intend to not only retrieve our property, but use these fools to send a message to anyone stupid enough to try again.

There is another concerning conversation I need to have with Draxthious. It won’t be fun, and it may lead to more discomfort… but i hope it’ll be for the best.

We hit the port and after making sure the rogue priest Zolerim was well secured in the brig, we made immediately for the Desnan temple to see to Jasper. For the right price, they raised him successfully. I told him almost everything, to the disapproval of several others in the Vanguard. However, I felt he deserved to know what we knew after his fully knowing sacrifice. We would not have succeeded without his help. He had many questions about the Doomsday and I answered them as much as I could, while emphasizing the extreme danger it represented. He gave assurances that he had no interest in using it to cause a regional catastrophe as it did not merit enough of a threat. We did not give him the keys even though he was interested in them, as it was clear the priests could not protect them at this time. He asked us to repatriate them later. I gave him the expensive mithral holy symbol of Groetus we found, the Crown of the Masked Abbot (he may be able to trade it for a position at the Abbey if he brings it back in triumph) and about 1,000 gold in change I got from selling my armor (after I determined it was just holding me back). Unfortunately he will not accompany us anymore, he will be trying to restart the abbey. We wished him well and parted ways.

We collected our reward from the Desnans for rescuing the abbey, several scrolls.

We stopped at the Calistrian temple on the way back to the lodge to return the sliver of the chair. We got a very expensive healing wand as a reward, as well as 30 days of half price service at the temple. We probably will not have time to take advantage.

Next we went to address the Draxious’s curse. As curses go, this one was not nearly as bad as the others. If one has patience, they can listen to him complain interminably without issue. At the manor, we gave our report to Sheila. Penny had procured this stone and the next already! I wondered if her team would be impacted by the absence of Koriah- that did not seem to be the case. Drax put the stone in and was cured of the curse; after describing what the shard could do, we decided it best rested with Elle. The next stone was also turned over to us- it radiated so much cold it needed special precautions to handle.
Sheila said Penny found out how to reform the Sihedron when all the shards were recovered- The altar in the Crow was being moved to the Irespan, where a ritual had to be performed.

We then turned our attention to fixing our enormous mistake, and as Colin put it, issuing a warning to those who would come after the Shards. We used my stone to try to pick up the trail of the ones stolen from us. The vision was inconclusive- only a graveyard we could not recognize. We decided to do some investigation- Elle and I went to speak to our contact at the Watch- Cassidy. She said they tracked Colin’s assailants back to the Beacon’s Point, and it seemed likely the Nightscales were behind the attack- the most powerful and vicious Varisian gang. We were warned to be very careful in dealing with them. She said they had an alchemist working for them now who we may be interested in.

Drax and Colin went to talk with the Shadow Lodge member that betrayed us, our former guard. Colin came back with bloody knuckles and said it seemed that some mercenary group out of Ustalav had ended up with shards. Colin suspected vampires.
We decided to sell our loot from the Abbey to better equip before tackling this problem. We did so and that night used the shard again- this time we recognized the wagon was on Lost Coast Road. We set out on Drax’s ship using a token to achieve great speed again, and set up near the abbey and waited for the wagon to approach.

Gozren 2nd  4715 cont.

We arrived back at Windsong Abbey. We set up a camp in the ruins of the village along the path waiting for what I believe to be our vampiric opponents. It was a long fretful night, but they never came.


Gozren 3rd 4715

The next morning we used the shard to scrye them again. The shards were once again in the same nondescript cemetery.. This confounded us for a while. Unless all cemeteries looks the same (they don’t), and they didn’t turn around in the middle of the day and return to it (Pyraxis checked every hour to see if they were still on the road), then they must be using magic to hide.

The pride shard has the ability to cast major image once a day, but it requires concentration...and that doesn’t feel legitimate to keep that up all day long. We reexamined our maps and noticed that between Sandpoint and Windsong there was another path traveling inland. Since the Coast road DOES end here, and here is devastated… it’s not unreasonable to think they turned off. We decided to head back and scout out the best we could.

Elle  was able to make the best time with the Ebony Fly. I have Pyraxis’ extremely clumsy and awkward wings… Flight is good, but I’ll still have to fight on the ground I suspect. Pyraxis walked though I think he could do that earthgliding thing if he needed to.  When we reached the crossroad, I saw the wagon tracks. Most caravans don’t go this way, and they were fairly fresh. Elle soon found them ahead, but we had to decide what to do about it. Our choices were this. 1) Push on till we catch them … hopefully before night falls and fight them while exhausted. Or 2) Rest now and try to catch up the following morning.  We decided to push on rather than lose them.

I still remember Dagmire joking with Syfer years back. It doesn’t matter how well you plan, he would say. No matter how you tried to avoid it… You always ended up finding the coffins when the sun was JUUUUUST above the horizon. It was funny at the time, less so after he was killed by a vampire. Today his wisdom struck true again. When we arrived at the illusory cemetery I judged it to be less than ten minutes before sunset.

The others couldn’t see through the illusion and seemed to be more tired than I was surprisingly… perhaps the thought of staking something had my blood up. However there was the wagon under an illusion and it was surrounded by over a dozen… less than a score of zombies. My ‘Hide from Undead’ spell would hide us from them at least till I struck. I snuck in (perhaps not too quietly) hoping to catch them asleep… and I made a grave error. Inside the wagon was a varisian harrower. Something I’d heard of but rarely seen… an undead cleric (I assume vampire, but not 100% sure, and something that I never did see who stabbed at my back… Oh, and SEVEN COFFINS. Under no circumstance did I ever suspect there were SEVEN vampires. One or two certainly… Maybe a human guard to drive the wagon… (on second thought I never did see any horses, I wonder if the zombies pull the wagon?)

Everyone IN the wagon saw through my illusion easily enough. The harrower did most of the talking, and I didn’t like what she said. Typical threats about killing me… or more. Basically I was going to die anyway, but if I gave up quickly I could be turned into something more useful. Despite the horde of coffins, I assume she means a zombie. I attacked.

I did better than I probably should have. The new armor and Elle’s buffing extracts are protecting me well, but I was still glad to hear the battle outside end and Pyraxis join me in the wagon. With the odds improved and flanking possible, we did much better. Pyraxis started hurling coffins out to watch those inside burst in flames… and acid. Though that may have been Elle helping the sun along.

Unfortunately as soon as the tide started to turn the harrower reached into the master vampire coffin and the cleric reached out toward our invisible foe and they all teleported away. Unfortunate, but we still had five Vampire spawns to destroy before the sunset. Also, we found our shards again. All in all, I’m counting this as a win. We rested where we could and return to the ship the next day.

Gozren 5th, 4715

We’re almost to Sandpoint, should arrive this evening. Something rather surprising happened today. We received a visitor while at sea. A mephit by the looks of it who was asking for pathfinders specifically. Obviously a trap of some sort, I stepped up to draw it’s attention.

His name was Beshka and he was a minion of the efreet that was bound to Ardathanatos. He was pleased that we killed the elf and offered us a reward. It was a short sword that I could tell was quite powerful. It had smooth obsidian pommel with a gem that seemed almost lava. No crossguard in the Osiriani style, but the blade was smooth one edge and the other shaped like flame. The blade was an orangish color that faded to yellow on the edges giving the impression of heat. Identifying it was beyond me.

Elle however saw that it was doubly enchanted luckblade, with some good fortune added on it. Ironically no actual flame powers or protection from fire as it’s appearance indicated to me,  and Elle was quick to hand it back to me. I’ve not used a short sword in a while… but it certainly does seem worth the extra practice. Easily the equal of Silverfang and superior against non-undead.

I am still suspicious of the generosity. Efreeti are not known for kindness… and a large part of me still thinks we should have ended that evil while we had the chance…

5 - 4 - 4715

We arrive in Sandpoint in the evening and begin looking for Kazmir and Carria, checking the taverns on our way to the temple. We manage to find him at the Rusty Dragon, a quaint little place of interesting design and slightly above average faire.

I’ll be honest here, I wasn’t really paying attention. The topics of conversation tended to irk me and I spent my time looking around and at the menu.

My love asks Kaz if he's still got his connection to his deity and I totally missed his response. The man then talks about the others we met and rescued and here is where I really zoned out.
He and Elle start talking about faith and religion and other things that mildly irk me.

We decide to head back to Magnimar talking as we go about giving Kaz one of the Groten keys but decide not to. Honestly I don’t think anyone but us should have any of them. An apocolypse door is not something to be taken lightly and right now I don’t trust anyone else to safeguard them.

Elle checks her shard for the my next one's location, seeing a spur shaped tower of blue grey metal springing up from the ground out of a huge cavernous rift. On the sides of the cavern, at about twenty foot intervals, are wooden bridges crossing the expanse. It seems to be that something has established a mine there. Lovely.

6 - 4 - 4715

We arrive back in Magnimar just before evening and immediately drop our prisoner off before heading to Hydemarch manor to confer with Shiela.

Side note, I wouldn’t mind Elle and I owning a house like the Manor one day, some place big enough to do what we need to and raise ...sorry, I’ll move on now.

We tell Shiela about what we know of the location of the next shard and she goes to look at her books, our description apparently triggering a memory. She chooses one and points out where she thinks it is, The Guilt Spur, which is an old Thasalonian ruins deep into the storval plain in Varisia. Cause thinking to hide the shard in a ruin from the time it was created is so surprising. I’m being sarcastic but I bet we could save some time if we just searched the Thasalonian ruins that are known throughout the land.

The Guilt Spur is located deep into the plains of Varisia in a mountain range and Shiela suggests we buy a teleport to the mountains. However that is too expensive so we plan on taking my boat to Riddleport with a feather token or two.

9 - 4 - 4715

We arrived on the eighth actually, spent the night in Riddleport, and then left on the ninth.

17 - 4 - 4715

We made it to the Storval Stair Mountain range. I’m beginning to think the teleport wasn’t too expensive after all.

29 - 4 - 4715

Yeah, the teleport wouldn’t have been too expensive.

Around ten thirty in the morning we enter a wide valley with a wooden structure at the bottom, dwarfed by a green blue spur springing up from the ground. Around the spur are stockades and wooden towers. There is a ledge in the back on which sit three giant ballistae, and each of those switchbacks (or ledges) on the back wall is apx thirty feet up. Manning these towers are giants, one on each tower.

At about 100 paces out, as we are attempting to sneak closer, one of the giant spots us and grabs at his mammoth tusk horn I am able blast him but he survives and sounds the alarm. Then he and the giant opposite him ontop of the barricade both open the gates. Out of which two mastadon riding giants come rushing out. Combat is once again joined.

After clearing the Giants manning the gate, we moved to engage the ballista that were firing down on us. Drax used his powers to propel himself up the Cliffside to get to them, while I used my much slower wings to ascend. Colin and Elle took the ground path up. Several of the giants had already been incinerated by the time I made it up. I saw that one of the giants had list the mammoths (who had been drenched in oil) on fire and went them running down the path. I hoped Elle and Colin would be able to avoid them.

We drove the last giant into a stone building and Drax went in after him. I flew to the roof to make my own entrance in a place they were not prepared for. My first shot to gauge the strength of the stone told me what I needed to know, and I I prepared to enter through the roof I heard Drax calling out to stand down. As this would be a first, I immediately suspected some kind of mind altering magic, but erring on the side of caution, I joined up with the Drax and the others who had now caught up.

The female leader of the Fire Giants had called for a parlay. She offered free access to the areas below the fort in exchange for us eliminating her rival, Jubbek. Apparently he was a Stone giant (hill?) who was elevated to his position when a massive Blue dragon “Khadocestria” arrived from Belkzen and appointed him over his former leaders. The dragon was wrathful and Jubbek was akin in temperament, and he forced all the giants to bend a knee to Jubbek. She described Jubbek as pathetic and stupid, but was a furious fighter with unmatched fury, and with much magic on him. She said Jubbek and the dragon were last seen several weeks ago, when they opened a hole into the Guiltspar and some creatures Drax identified as Skullrippers (Runelord Creations) came up. . If we killed Jubbek, the rest of the Fire Giants would depart, and we could keep whatever we found. After some debate, we agreed to the terms.

Some Fire Giants escorted us to the stairs into the Deeper Dungeon. Elle pointed out the part of the prophecy we had heard from the troll back in Kaer Maga that talked about the “Queen of Blue from Distant skies…The seas will rise and men will drown.” Even though I think prophecies are typically tools of the con artists, this one was eerily precise and, unfortunately, seemingly accurate.
We entered the dungeon and left our escorts behind. Standing guard at the first chamber were several giants loyal to Jubbek. Our bluff did not work, but we quickly dispatched them. We proceeded on and found a cavern with a pillar of granite, with 7 sides with a rune on each face. Colin used a wand to read it: “who sleeps in Guiltspar’s shadow shall know this fear, and what waits beyond shall…”

We continued on to a hallway with grisly décor-body parties of humanoids were placed on spikes and chains. We came upon three Hill Giants all of who had been mutilated in some way. We found this area to be rife with pit traps, but we were able to avoid them as we eliminated these giants.

Gozren 29th 4715

When we passed through the door, it became obvious where those pit traps went. Inside the large room, where all three doors led, were paths over 40 foot deep pits full of bones, shards, and general slurry of disgustingness. In one there were two hill giants and a fire giant, all with their hands cut off in general misery. The second pit held seven trolls, who if they learned to work together could have pyramided their way out. Finally the third pit held a single hill giant with broken and twisted ankles. That was later information though. First we had to deal with three rift drakes.

They were large, ugly and spikey and Elle apparently recognized them by description. Apparently their bites leave you bleeding and trip with its tail. Oh and they spit acid clouds. We tried to split their number and enter through two doors, with mixed results. Elle and Pyraxis did the most damage, but they also took the most. I believe Pyraxis actually dropped all three. Then things got weird.

Apparently Pyraxis felt it against his moral code to leave the captured giants in their torment. I only protect the innocent. We also had spells that only had minutes left on them… and fighting 7 trolls in a spike pit was insanity. Not to mention the other 4 giants.

Pyraxis’ philosophy seemed to be that if they were enemies of Jubbek, then they may aid us. I saw it differently. If they were enemies of ours… I didn’t want to prolong the fight… and if they were enemies of Jubbek, then they were still pretty much useless without their hands. I saw no benefit to this. We questioned the fire giant who I saw was quite evil, and his response was appropriately evil. His life sucks, so if we get him out, then why shouldn’t ours suck too. Then it was less ‘rescue’ and more ‘put them out of their misery’... but even that would take too long.

We settled on dealing with most of them later when we had more time…. But he still wanted to talk to the lone hill giant in the far pit. I give this one to Pyraxis… He may have found the only innocent in fifty miles. Apparently his name was Togbad and had been punished here by Jubbek for helping some humans escape his fighting pits. If we helped him, he’d help us… though he probably would have given us information even if we hadn’t offered to help him. I didn’t check his aura… but I don’t think he’s actually smart enough to lie to me. His words rang true and Elle immediately adopted him. Once out, simple potions and wands wouldn’t heal his legs, but our restoration scroll would. It stung a little to use such a valuable resource on a giant when we’re fighting giants… but at this point, even I admitted it was the right thing to do. At least two Paladins I know would be proud…

As we left the room, Togbad pointed out some traps we hadn’t found yet, and put on some of the half-plate we had in his size. He couldn't’ use the great sword… but we had clubs scattered around too that he liked. I cast ‘Tough Crowd’ on all of us, so hopefully he won’t get charmed to turn on us.

The doors to the left were the sleeping quarters he said, and the double doors to the front… were Jubbek’s throne room. This was looking like the shorted dungeon we’ve found yet. When we opened the doors, we were… severely outnumbered and out powered. Four sweaty hill giants dressed in makeshift Shoanti garb, Four of the concubines we’d heard about, A Smilodon that was large even for that… and Jubbek, wielding a morningstar with what appears to be the wrath shard attached to it. Even with Togbad on our side… that was a LOT of giants.

The battle was fast and furious. Especially furious for Jubbek. He seemed to grow redder before our eyes and when one of his women got in his way, he smashed her head clean off. We were vastly outnumbered and soon surrounded. We gained first blood by killing at least one, maybe two of them but it went downhill fast after that. Elle was whipping her bombs around to great effect since there were so many giants so close together. However, as soon as one hit the giant cat, Jubbek charged toward her. Pyraxis moved to intercept and was surrounded by pain… After he drew their attention, it didn’t take long for him to drop. Elle couldn’t get to him to heal him and I had no options there. Togbad took the initiative and grabbed his body and spun it around behind him to safety… and that pretty much cost him his life. Four giants unloaded on him, and finally one of the concubines got the kill. I was starting to like the big guy.

My intention was to charge Jubbek though my allies… but they were fading fast. As soon as Pyraxis was on his feet we retreated to the trap room and set up a bottleneck. Jubbek was first in line and Pyraxis was able to hurl him down a pit. Then strangely all the remaining giants seemed to line up and wait their turn to smash us. Which, is what a bottleneck is meant to do… but frankly I’m surprised more didn’t just wander away or kick back and relax till it was their time… but even the concubines climbed down from their balconies to get in line. Pyraxis dropped again, Elle got him to safety while I held the line. I got at least one more of them before Pyraxis was back in the fight… by now the cat was in line… and Jubbek banged through the door and focused on Pyraxis. We switched opponents and I took the fight to Jubbek but he swatted me away pretty easy and tried to get Elle… and then Pyraxis…

After the cat was killed, Pyraxis moved toward the giants and away from Jubbek… I think he was actually getting concerned about the giant king. Not that I blame him, It was rough fight for everyone. I’m pretty sure one of them dropped Pyraxis again… but I was losing count. It probably isn’t healthy to lose consciousness that often.. But I’ve had days like that myself… with no noticeable behavioral differences…

Eventually… Jubbek died… and the fighters died… and then the women retreated deeper into the complex. I’m guessing fear of Jubbek was what kept them fighting, and none of us were eager to chase them down.

29 - 4 - 4715

So, that was a hard fight.  I’m surprised I came out of it as well as I did.

We get ready to loot the bodies, my other shard still embedded in Jubbek's morning star.

As I reach for the shard my love stops me and suggests I put the stone in the shard first. Which only makes sense.  That way, even for a brief time, I don’t succumb to the wrath. So I do at which point the shard is covered in fire turning into a continious blue flame. I rather like it.

While the stone is fully into the shard, I do have to spend some time cutting the leather holding it to the weapon.  Once I am able to free it, the shard yields it’s secrets to me.  It's able to cast a fireball as well as making it easier to resist certain spells and increasing the amount of damage I am able to do with some of my effects.

While I was getting the shard out Elle spent the time helping the others heal up, taking time after them to heal herself as well.

Jubbek’s room was a disgusting place. He had severed troll limb trophies, golden rocs in flight paintings, a mastadon thingy that seemed rather expensive. The throne itself stinks to high hell but there is a pouch in the side with gold and potions.

On the first upper ledge behind the throne there is  large dented chest covered with a boulder, which after a couple attempts, Pyraxis manages to move.  Inside are fancy furs, an iron box welded to a chain, inside of which is three bags containing 1000 silver each, another bag with 1002 gold, as well as a stout iron bound chest with a heavy iron rod shoved through it, a huge jug with a silver handle, a cider keg with a lot of copper, an arrow, and a small cork box containing a scroll tucked into a ring.

Inside the iron bar locked box was seven gold plated dwarf skulls. The arrow was an arrow of ooze slaying while the rod that was in the box is a rod of enemy detection, allowing the detection of enemies that would want to hurt the weilder. Coilin is unable to determine what the ring is.

The next level ledge up appears to be the sleeping area and it is very very messy as it would be with giants bedding and doing hell knows what else.  Reluctantly we begin searching.

Side note: My Elle is apparently impressed with my ability to use my flames to propel myself through the air-essentially flying.  Though truth be told, it’s the first time I’ve had such success with the maneuver.  It must be her inspiring presence.

We find a small mithril dagger, a medium magical hand axe, a selection of long iron bars bent into knots, a silver tankard engraved with rams attacking stirges, a iron bottle with a magical elixir, a mummified horse's head with one silver tooth, a masterwork manacle attached to a wooden pillar, two huge kegs of cider, a half plate horse barding, twenty one pots of honey, one of which contains a mummified dwarf finger wearing a magical ring of minor spell storing with a webbing spell and a spell to make one’s touch deliver an electric jolt. We also find a minorly magical hand axe and an elixer of love.

We next discussed what to do with the creatures still stuck in the pits.  Unfortunately that decision is a bit too morally complicated at the moment so we decide to decide later.

So we go back to the double doors that Togbad called the sleeping room. Colin opened the door and we found six hill giants ready to fight.

The room arches up to a vaulted ceiling as a ramp to the east curves along the back wall, and immediately to our left as we enter is a large sinkhole.  I was able to completely destroy another giant with a massive lava blast.

After the fight we find a master hide armor, a large hat made of mice (not hides, actual mice) with three large garnets in it, and a poorly cured dire bear pelt.

There is some discussion as to leaving now since we have the shard or continuing on but displaying the wisdom his age provides, Colin suggests using the Wrath stone to find the next one.

I do and find out two things, one the shard is on a different plane, two we need to do down, as in straight down.  It's confusing but it's what we got.

We decide to go back to the room with the column in it and attempt to get a full night’s rest in preparation for the possible and even probable fight against the blue dragon.

During the rest we discover that the remaining ring was a powerful ring of protection which we make Pyraxis take, hopefully making it so he can't be hit as often.  That boy keeps getting hurt.

Before resting Elle, Pyraxis, and Colin want to use Elle’s ability to speak with the dead on Togbad to find out if he wants to come back and the circumstances of how and who he saved.  I tag along because boredom.

I may have dozed off while they were talking to it.   The conversations go well into the night before I have to step in and tell everyone to go to sleep.

In the morning we debate taking Jubbek's head to the giantess, or going further down and taking on the dragon, at which point Colin and Elle compare notes on dragons.

Elle is able to provide us with a number of extracts to hopefully increase our chances of defeating the dragon.

We head through the stone doors in the "throne room" and after a quick traverse through a cavern find an iron door blocked by a large boulder.  As the room opens up there are two fire giants there. After we decimate them we attempt to move the boulder, well Colin and Pyraxis try and eventually succeed but it was HEAVY.
We quickly search the room before moving through the iron door into a circular chamber with no floor. The ceiling raises to a point above us.Where the floor should be is a mist, a blue green mist, which Colin eventually recognizes as a Mage’s Sanctum spell.

I am eventually able to burn away the spell (another ability I hadn’t had a chance to use yet but learned from a questionable source) and below where the mist was is a room and in the center of which is a twenty foot high curving shelf.  The base is about fifty feet down with drying blood all over the floor.

Whatever Drax did to the “Mage’s Sanctum” did not last long, as it reappeared again after few long moments. We decided to descend to see what was worth hiding down there. Drax and Elle descended first, since Colin did not like my idea of he and I disruptively entering like a falling boulder. Drax mentioned a peculiar vision he had had when he passed the misty threshold of wizards killing each other, but the rest of us did not experience it. After we all landed, we were ambushed by Skullrippers. There must have been some magic afoot, as it looked as though these things certain to kill us, and I took to the air again, grabbing Elle and Colin and headed up, knowing that Drax was best prepared to withstand their assault amount while still having his own capability of fleeing.

After a few moments, the induced panic subsided. Elle was wriggling around demanding I release her. Not wanting to drop her right onto a Skullripper, I threw her through what I deemed to be an illusionary wall…as she slammed face first into it, I remembered why I seek to avoid three-dimensional fights. Colin was dropped in a more conventional manner. As I descended, I saw a Ripper grab Elle, and Drax immediately burned it up. We managed to then dispatch the second one.

We searched this library and gathered up several valuable scrolls. There were two dead cloakers in the room that I pointed out to Colin- he had only seen them from below before. We were then approached by a Curator, an apparition that demanded we replace what we took. I could see Elle and Colin were having none of it, playing for time, but their assault did seem to surprise Drax, who seemed slightly annoyed that they worked so well together.

We ventured deeper into the dungeon and found that iron doors barred most of the room, which allowed me to gaze inside many of them before we entered and provide a preview of what lay inside.

First room we proceeded to had statues of warrior women with real swords made from Siccatite. We continued on to a room with a shelf of crystal balls and a sphinx half buried in an old lava flow. Colin picked up an undamaged crystal ball and froze for just a moment; he said he had a vision of him standing in front of an unfathomable entity, an Outer god known as Nylarhotep. He alone was privy to this vision.

The next room had a great ball of fire roiling in the center, sending licks of flame out into the room. Drax, seeming almost giddy, said he would make sure the way was clear while we waited in safety. I stood behind a cast iron door as we heard the room continually erupt in firing explosions. I watched in fascination as the door in front of me, (separating us from the explosions) actually began to deform from the heat, then explode in white hot shrapnel inward toward us. Colin and Elle were well to the side, and I managed to hit the ground to avoid the inferno. Drax called out the “all clear” a few moments after that last explosion, without showing any signs of discomfort.

The next room had a large wheeled contraption- a massive stone carriage with a serpent theme. Elle and Colin determined it was a Juggernaught, a divinely powered golemic creation from Garund used by Serpent Folk as weapons.
The next room had a 60 foot vaulted ceiling with 8 alcoves containing statutes. 4 large glass jars stood in the center, filled with green mist that mostly concealed the contents. Elle thought she was a Phase Spider in the first one, the second may contain an Aurumvorax (a fierce badger like creature), the third a Silver Dragon, and the last a Roper. Colin detected for alignment in the Silver Dragon vat and detected both good and evil.

Elle found a magical trap in the next door and disarmed it. On the other side was a massive dark pool. A gap in the ceiling poured an unending stream of water into it. Upon approach, two Elder water elementals burst out and attacked us. After dispatching them and generating much steam, we continued on.

Next room was up a set of stairs. We found a large bas relief that depicted a normal cityscape, but also depicted that the city and everything that occurred in it was manipulated by tendrils extending from underneath the city, belonging to huge writhing creatures that existed beyond the sight of the citizens. The appeared to be aboleths. The room also contained two jars that may contain aboleths. We found a few magic items that were focused on moving and fighting in water. Colin detected magic in the room and found a strong source of magic on the ledge, and a moderate one at the ceiling.

Gozren 29th

We opened the next set of doors and found ourselves in a black chapel. On either side of the altar with pillars that depicted Nightgaunts. Faceless emaciated gargoyle looking things that haunt the realms of dreams carrying away victims into nightmares. There are a lot of faceless things here… definitely fitting the madness theme. The moment I got too close, I was hit with another vision. Both nightgaunts leaped at me and flew me away…. Flying me high and then dropping me. Just before landing I snapped out of it. On principle I wanted to smash the pillars… but after some discussion determining that nobody REALLY knew what was… and was not ‘load bearing’... we agreed it wasn’t worth the risk.

The next room contained the corpse of the librarian we had already dispatched. Long, LONG dead… his skeleton only existed because the room had been sealed. I crushed his skull to be on the safe side… even though he was already ONE kind of undead, better safe than sorry. He had a handy haversack and a cloak of diplomacy. The cloak seems useful, but we’re already cloaked up pretty well. Mine seemed a little jealous of my inspecting it… that is a little disconcerting. It was a good cloak, but not compared to what we already had. Finally we found a spellbook. A very powerful spellbook. Honestly, I’m surprised we don’t find more of these. Most of the wizards I’ve traveled with, tend to carry their ‘important’ book with them to rememorize each morning… but so many other adventuring wizards I’ve killed…. Ironically, THIS one had many many bookshelves to hide it on, but still died clutching the sack… but so many on the road just don’t seem to be prepared to rememorize…

Things get weird from here. The next room had a painting of a mansion on the wall that always seemed distorted around the edges. No matter how far we went, the room seemed to stretch with us. Surprisingly it was NOT illusion. It was some sort of conjuration magic… we would walk much further than seemed possible and eventually found another Thassalonian library dedicated to the Guiltspur… However I didn’t find any maps after a quick search. That would have been nice. Otherwise, it was very well stocked, but detecting magic was pointless inside this conjuration spell. I assume we’re inside some kind of demiplane or magical mansion or something. Eventually we hit wall with a painted on door, and after Pyraxis looked ‘through’ it, saw that there was half a room that was collapsed on the other side. Pyraxis wanted to smash through and search the rubble, but we decided that may be a waste of spells.

Eventually we got all the way back and found another painted door. Pyraxis seemed concerned about all the wall viewing he was doing, as it’s apparently a limited resource. His first instinct was to bust through… but when I pushed on the painted door, it swung open. I suggested going back to search the last one… but apparently an easy to open door just isn’t interesting to him.

The next room things seem back to normal, except for a window of a snow peaked mountain…. It seems to be around noon, but I know it’s much later than that. Drax was hit with the vision this time as the scene shifted to a hellscape with a bunch of frog-like demon things called Moon beasts leading a bunch of slaves and a ‘jackal-headed leviathan’ swung around to stare at us. Strangely we all saw the vision this time, though it shook up Drax a bit more.

This led into a room full of columns. Generally five feet apart, and I can safely say that no dragon squeezed through here. The columns were all those same faceless angels though most held stone swords instead of Siccite. However not all. I saw two with real swords and tried to skirt the edges to avoid waking them. It didn’t work. They attacked and Drax blasted one. I attacked the other with a decent hit that rattled my sword arm. Had it been a weapon NOT forged by an elder Efritt and heavily enchanted… it may have broke on the first strike. It wasn’t a problem for Drax though and the angels were done fast.

Beyond there was a room that concerned me. It was VAST. Thirty feet down to open water… and various pylons of various height and spaces scattered about. My opinion is that it looks like a giant bridge that has long collapsed. Something similar to the Bridge in Magnimar… just on a smaller scale. Regardless, I think it was beyond me. Between my Boots of Springing, my Belt of Tumbling, and my natural athleticism…. I’m pretty acrobatic, even in Full Plate. But these were jumps between 20-40 feet and sometimes going from a fifteen foot spire to a thirty… That, was asking a lot. Drax flew off to investigate and when he returned he claimed it went on for at least 120-150 feet. I would have to be carried by Pyraxis it seemed. Also there is a monster in the water that defied description and cast magic that he resisted…

Flying over the area, I saw something myself, but couldn’t identify it. Some kind of bulbous something and I also felt it’s magic fail to connect. Then it was gone. When we spotted an island, Drax suggested stopping to heal. He was the only actually injured at the time, but I was certainly willing to hit him with the wand a few times. I only got two charges off before the monster attacked.

Even after seeing it, I still had no idea what it was. Some kind of reptilian head on top of a mass of writhing tentacles it breathed out a cloud of foul narcotics at us. Drax and I both succumbed, but Pyraxis just can’t find a drug that will affect him. The rest is kind of a blur and I found myself smacking myself and shooting two arrows toward Pyraxis… didn’t hit him,... didn’t even come close. By the time I came to my senses, Pyraxis had sunk into the island and was punching through it to flail wildly at the monster to some actual effect. I was wearing the magic helm, so I drew Silverfang (my go-to piercing weapon for water combat) and dove into the water. I stabbed it twice, but the steel didn’t pierce it’s skin. Growing quickly concerned, I switched back to the Luckblade… also a piercing weapon it turns out, and attacked again, but it was too fast for me. Drax was eventually able to destroy this too with a lava attack and gave me the name ‘Mother of Oblivion… Not something I’m familiar with, and something I intend to look up later. Last time I heard of a tentacle monster that powerful was the ‘Turtleback Ferry’ incident that The elf/dwarf Nuari told us about… Though he never said anything about a reptile head.

We had a small break after that… thanks to some adamantine doors. We found a pit that fell another 30 feet down that led to a set of doors. I discovered a magical trap but couldn’t disarm it. Drax was able to burn away the magic.. Which is good. I was going to try dispeling it, but I’m not too confident with that spell yet. Unfortunately, we still had a door to deal with, and the lock was quite beyond me.

This was a door Pyraxis didn’t want to try busting down, so he tried to find another route through the walls to bypass it. On a separate note, if we can take the doors with us… I know a few blacksmiths who would pay a killing for them… Drax and I played a few hands of cards as we waited for him to try and open the other side.. But when he came back it seemed impossible. The only solution I saw was to pickaxe our way through the wall about 5-10 feet and have Pyraxis punch his way out there… In the time I was trying that, He decided to give punching it down a try. Adamantine fist vs. Adamantine Door… he actually did better than I was doing on the wall and busted the lock.

Inside was ANOTHER cathedral… six to eight faceless angel statues standing guarding, though not attacking. We could feel a strong wind sucking and blowing at us, but it wasn’t bother us too much. Till we went farther in. Near a giant statue of a faceless sphinx, was a nearly invisible mass of tentacles and mouths and … stuff I couldn’t recognize. I knew it was a Flying Polyp. Apparently I know NOTHING about them… because why would I!! I’m pretty sure the madness is starting to sink in down here because now we’re fighting FLYING POLYPS! The battle was a blur of sucking, blowing, and thrashing, but it eventually fell. I think there were a few hits on it, but I don’t remember who felled the FLYING POLYP!!

30 - 4 - 4715

There isn’t not much that unnerves me. The faceless nature of this place would be one of those things. The flying polyp things are dead and we find ourselves standing in front of, you guessed it, a faceless sphynx statue made of a strange black stone. Elle examines the statue to see if its' a construct or golem or something however it seems to be just a statue, We then search the room, Elle using a wand to detect secret doors while Colin checks out the statue, Neither of them found anything.

We gather at the doors with the castle on a hill engraved onto them that I feel like I should recognize,but I don’t. Elle suggests we heal up before going through which is a sound suggestion, I’m no slouch in the “just take it” department when it comes to pain and wounds, but even I could tell something was wrong.

There is no trap on the doors so we open them and move through into a short hallway. Which then opens up to an octagon shaped room with six black metal doors on the sides, (one is broken to rubble) with a vast pit in the center. In the pit there is a massive amount of fog sitting about 30 feet down with strange sounds coming out A ten foot wide path surrounds it, on the far side is an alcove with a fountain in it, the ceiling is unseeable and the walls are covered in blue crystals that sparkle like stars up into the distance,

Pyraxis tosses a stone into the pit but no one hears it land.

Colin detects magic on the cloud and discovers that it's not only conjuration magic but the pit is a link between this plane and another with a strange magical connection to the fountain. The plane is a nightmare plane of Leng, full of nightmares.

We move to the right (after a conversation I do no like) and as we start the humming gets massively louder, only now with a vibration felt.

We move to the first door on this side and Elle see's no traps, door opens and the sound gets louder, a massive tower of blue-green crystal sits in the center with blue green crystals on the sides and lightning coming from them to the central pillar,

The humming/vibration is horrifying now.

The crystals seem to be a refined skymetal called Abyssiam, also named "fever stone", naturally a source of incredible amounts of energy, those who stay around it continuosly get sick since the stone is radioactive,

Colin wants to make weapons out of the crystals and Elle tells him that's a no no.

Elle says the stones are powering something. maybe the entire dungeon, We decide to close the doors and move on, Elle looking for traps,

We open the door to a small room with an ovoid tan stone floating in the center of the room, has a gap in the stone where it looks like a key may fit in.
we don’t have a key so we move to the next door, the last one on this side, no traps found by Elle, We open the door to find a set of three statues (one in each alcove) of a faceless lady with the one in the center being twice a s large as the other ones, a grate in the center made of a blue green metal similar to the crystals of a couple rooms ago,

Colin checks for magic and finds that all statues are magical as the grate in the center.
one of the statues has a Nelfish face and the opposite of it is an angel, Per Colin they are detecting as both good and evil,

the angel and the demon are arguing about whose brazier should get dumped out and how they got put there but there is no agreement with them, Colin says that the angel might be lying but the demon seems to be telling the truth,

Colin asks me to burn the magic away but we are warned that it will be the same as dumping out the brazier, we (I) decide to free the demon and Elle empties the angel's brazier, it's smoke vanishes, and a huge demon comes out of the ashes remaining.

The demon comes out and apologizes for its appearance, I speak in abyssal and it gets offended, but I apologize in celestial and it accepts, it seems the lich switched the demon and the deva's minds and then trapped them in the brazier, what we have is a deva in a demon's body,

Elle brings up that the ones who join in our task usually suffer horrible fates,

The deva/demon says the lich is horribly evil and like to torment it's enemies,

Deva/demon says his name is Aevaenthial, and he volunteers to help us in this place,

The demva flies over the pit while the rest of us check out the fountain. Coliin checks out the fountain with magic, finds that there is a ritual to open the portal to allow passage from this side however things from the other side can pass over

The next door is broken leading to a larger room with two pillars holding up the ceiling and broken bone scorpion statue in the back, the room is completely cleaned out. The door appears to be rent open by massive claws and apparent electricity burns,

We move to the next door, our demva behind us, no traps and Colin opens it to a 25 foot long hallway opening to a room with stairs leading up, supported by four pillars, the room extends beyond our sight so we move closer. On the back to the far west side is a pale green curtain, two large faces are carved into the north and south wall with the north wall grinning and the south scowling, their mouths lead into small alcove, the back wall has a pale green curtain hanging on the back wall, Colin pokes it with a sword and it turns into a falling wave of green slime, Colin, Elle, and myself manage to jump back and not get any on us,

It's a green slime and it's pretty dangerous but it burns so so so very well,

On the other side of the "curtain" is two more pillars, an old dusty throne upon which are, one the seat, a gem encrusted skull, on the left armrest is a black horned mask and a deep purple rod leans against the chair's back,

We spend a little time for Elle to identify the other items.

As Pyraxis grabs the rod the skull shakes, a red cloud erupts underneath it holding it up
I'm guessing we have to attack it, so I do, channelling lava into a powerful blast to destroy it.....it was a demi-lich. Neat.

behind the throne is another face alcove this one of abject fear

On the throne is a magical saphire that seems to be a key to an artifact.

I check the back fear alcove and find a shimmering mostly transparent field of energy in the mouth, The other alcove faces have the same thing, it's a portal to another place

We move to the last door we have yet to check and open it to find a number of rigid alcoves with broken sarcophagi, it's contents being eaten by a strange creature in the back. who immediately cowers and begs for mercy, it's a Leng dead

We decide to hear him out and he tells us of a temple Leng he says that the ghouls in the temple will help us and there are beasts the temple that were theirs but are no longer due to the intervention of a creature.
He says the dragon went to the stone room, stayed there an hour, came out went to the crystal room, had dust on her, then gave something to the fountain, then went into the mist and hasn't come back

A short time after the dragon entered the mist another creature came, a sparkly skull floating on a dust cloud went into the stone room and then came out,

He then says something about the bone pit by the temple and says we don't want to go there,
We head over to the stone room but Elle keeps me back for a minute to talk,

Elle and I take the saphire key into the room with the stone, she puts it in and suddenly the saphire lights up sending light and around then into the stone with swirls of light looking similar to a brain, Elle touches it before I can and seems to be mentally transported somewhere

Elle learns the procedure to enter the portal to Leng and finally leaves away from the stone,
The portal is opened by casting Nightmare spell on the fountain then tossing abyssam stone into it then submerge part of our body into the fountain and we will be able then to enter the cloud portal,

We gather around the fountain with the demva and the undead thing, and Elle does her thing with the rod and the dust and we head into the mist/portal after getting ourselves wet with the magicked fountain.

As we made the jump, reality itself seems to wash away. We saw a brief visage of a coiling, wormish body thousands of feet across as we fell- but thankfully reality reformed around us as we found ourselves standing on an outcropping on the side of a massive, icy mountain. As the freezing wind howled around us, we were attacked by a swarm of Nightgaunts. Drax flew off to engage half their number in the air, while the rest us, including our angelic ally and our ghoulish associate, made a stand on the outcropping. The creatures were not too durable, and they fled after suffering terrible losses.

The outcropping led into a chamber embedded in the mountain. The portion open to the elements had more of the large, faceless sphinx statues lined up around an avenue leading to massive stone doors into the mountain's interior. We sent Morcroft the ghoul ahead of us to give him a chance to honor the deal he struck. After searching the area, we followed the path he took past the stone doors into the next chamber after a few minutes. True to his word, he had grouped his fellow ghouls in the corner and they took no action against us. They resided in a chamber filled with the remnants of meals consisting of humanoids of all types. We questioned them about the exits to this chamber and found that one was to their food source, one was a to the "Crossoroads Bone Pit" where resided "large creatures that would eat us", and another door deeper into the temple they were not allowed to go through.

We did quick look through their feeding chamber. It consisted of hooks with bodies hanging from them and sarcophagi they would check daily- apparently some would have corpses appear for them to feast on. Only one sarcophagi was occupied- by a small froglike creature, destined to be no more than a tiny pile of bones by the time the ghouls finished.

We decided to bypass the Boneyard and enter the temple. The ghouls rather politely asked us to bring back whatever we killed so they could eat it. Colin asked Drax to check his shard now that we were on this plane- to see if we could get a better idea where the shard lay. Drax got a vision of an enormous Blue dragon, bedecked in jewelry, sitting on a large pile of coin.

We set out into the temple and quickly found a secret door into a small room with another statue of the "Black Pharoah." Drax decided to try putting his newly acquired Nightmare Staff in the hands of the statue to see what happened. The staff disappeared, and a gust of wind blew him back out of the room. Apparently he had another vision when that happened. I do hope it was worth the price we could have gotten for the staff, but I did not question his instincts in this regard.

We continued through the remaining doors. We entered a vast temple with a 100 foot high ceiling. It had more enormous Sphinx statues and and immense stone bowl sitting in front of a huge tunnel. Froglike, tentacled corpses of bizarre beasts littered the floor here, recently perished---most likely the work of the dragon. Four remained alive and willing to fight. In the pot, a green glow emanated, illuminating something black and writhing within. As we began to fight the beasts, Elle quickly moved past them as they completely ignored her and as she ignored Drax's entreaties. She moved to stand beside the pot. Suddenly a huge black tentacle erupted and grabbed her and pulled her in. Drax moved to save her blasting at the enormous shape within the pot and appearing to score a direct hit. As Elle appeared to be in dire straits, I flew to help her, leaving Colin to the fight with the beast. Knowing that he has had ample experience fighting solo against a horde of enemies, it seemed like Elle needed help much more.

The Thing had pulled Elle down into some kind of acidic stew. I saw Drax miss with his second shot, becomingly increasingly distraught. I was weighing my option between diving into the mix after her or trying to tip the pot over, when our Angelic ally in the shape of a demon strode forth and smashed two enormous strikes into the pot directly into the thing, killing it and forcing it to release Elle. Drax grabbed her and though she was in terrible shape, she yet lived. Drax seemed quite sincere when the thanked our new ally, and said that he was owed a debt. Our friend in turn assured him that nothing more was owed, as we had acted to free him from eternal imprisonment.

After healing Elle's massive damage, we continued on till we exited the mountain, coming to a cliffside nest. Here we found the Blue Dragon of Drax's visions. He greeted us by saying "You would be those I dreamed about. I can smell the other shards on you." He then threatened us and told to relinquish our shards for our lives, we took the draughts Elle had prepared for us for exactly this encounter.

Combat ensued as he breathed lighting, not at us, but at the ceiling. An electrical storm persisted high above our heads, and as the fight continued, it continually ripped bolts of electricity at Drax. Most likely Drax was chosen as he opened the battle with a scorching blast that left enormous burns over the Dragon's body. Colin and I ran up to it, both taking damage as it bit us. Elle threw a bomb at it and hit it- and it disappeared. Our ally, apparently able to still see it, let us know it remained exactly where we had last seen it. The fight continued on, but with a few moments he then told us the dragon had fled, leaving behind his hoard. It was a great partial victory- we forced him to withdraw and leave his treasure behind, but we had been prepared for him. Next time, he would likely be prepared for us- and next time looked to be very soon, as Drax got a vision through his shard of where the Dragon fled.

4/30/4715

Went back to Tentacle room, found dragon. It summoned Lillends. Didn’t want to fight good things so I tried to get away. 2 died. Aevaenthial knocked one out. Wall of ice separated us from Pyraxis. He and Drax got lightninged… turned out to be an illusion dragon. I was too slow to help much.

Next room had the real dragon. I charged it and it hurt…

Drax got lightninged to death, Elle locked us out till dragon was dead. I stabbed it.

When dead I took the sloth shard. I’ve felt REALLY sick ever since. Too much magic that hates each other for one person to wield. Can barely move and can hardly act. Problem for later

Aevaenthial left for home.

Elle worked magic and fixed Drax.

We switched rings. I have freedom of movement… Elle tested it, and it works.

We went to investigate bone pit

There were 5 gugs. We killed them.



More details later… maybe….

We finished scoping out and collecting the rest of the huge dragon horde into our haversacks and holes. We also took some souvenirs from the dragon itself- a tooth for each of us (and one for Penny) and some scales.  After identifying items and healing up, we went to jump off the point of the cliff our ghoul friend had told us about.  Wary of jumping to our deaths, we decided to take turns leaping so we could hit the ground sequentially, rather than as a group.  Or perhaps it was so some of us had a chance of catching the others- I was not clear on the plan.  

As we fell, we felt the same sense of vertigo and saw a glimpse of the writhing mountain.  Fortunately the impact felt no more than a few feet into the fountain.  We collected ourselves and decided to look at the statue where our Rod of Nightmares had disappeared, but we could not determine how to recover it.

Colin and Elle wanted to take some time to ask the machine questions again.  Colin asked about Undeath and the origins of it, Elle asked about the Sihedron star.  We learned it was broken by the ruler of Thassilonian when his lesser runelords rebelled against him.  

We slept in the library/study, and then made our way to the top level of the dungeon.  We determined that we would not be able to raise our giant friend.  We set him up on the throne and cremated him, leaving his skeleton to occupy that chair for eternity.  

We went to meet the Fire Giants who we had parleyed with upon arrival to this place.  They were true to their word-  especially after seeing us walk in with Jubbek's head and the dragons teeth displayed.  The leader ordered they withdraw and left the place to us, she being quite pleased with her position being solidified.  They left several valuables to us as well- I would have thought the place would have been cleared out.  Perhaps they did not think they would see us again.

From then, it was a 26 day journey overland back to Riddleport.  Though it was uneventful, the weight of completing our quest now hung over us.  I spent the time reading the magical manual that detailed many different ways to augment one's strength.  Though I'm not fond of cheating and relying on magic for such things, the benefits were too high to ignore.  The others could not understand my stance in this regard, but they accepted it.   After arriving at Riddleport, we booked passage to Magnimar, and we arrived home after a four day journey on the 31st of Desnus.

When we hit port, Elle and Drax broke off and said they would meet us at the manor in a few hours.  Colin and I went back to the manor to inform Sheila that we had at long last finally completed our quest for the Shards.  Sheila gave Colin the stone for his shard to relieve him of the burden of the Shard of Sloth, but we realized that the influence of three competing shards still negatively affected him.

We asked Sheila questions about what the next steps would be, and she said that she would invite in one of her experts, a newly renowned Pathfinder chronicler- and then in a most startling and joyous turn we heard a voice we were very well familiar with-our own Penny had returned!  Colin and I were both quite pleased to see her safe again.  Apparently her entire group- named the Scholarship of the Open Road- had completed their quest for the stones almost a month ago and been waiting here for us.  Penny told us a few highlights of her experiences with their group- apparently she had been turned to stone and shattered!- but we also talked about what the next steps would be.

Sheila told us the goal was to reforge the Sihedron and give it to a powerful member of the organization.  The Pathfinder Society believes that other Runelords will continue to rise.  Although two have risen in very recent times and been defeated, the danger is much greater for two reasons-  Runelords the world has just seen were not among the most powerful, and also they worked individudally.  If they continue to rise,  two or more Runelords working together would be almost unstoppable.  The power of the Sihedron was needed to meet this potential threat.

When Elle returned it was Penny's turn to be startled- it appeared as though Sorshen incarnate had crashed our meeting.  After Colin and I repeatedly reassured her, a most joyous reunion ensued!

Sheila produced a box designed to hold our shards and asked us to turn them over for safekeeping.  She presented the box to us, and though I knew I would turn in my shard, I knew from prior conversations that the collection of all the shards from us might be more than a matter of simple asking.

31- 5 - 4715

So after finishing some things with Elle and I’s new home, no you can’t see it we want our privacy, I finally walked into Shiela’s place. Holy Hell (and yes I know I’m going to get in trouble for saying it that way) Penny was there! She had personally brought the last ioun stone needed to stabilize the Sloth shard.

It really was good to see her again, especially since it meant that Elle and I wouldn’t have to elope as it were and could have the ceremony itself.

Of course that was neither here nor there, we had more pressing matters to attend to. Namely the shards and whether they should be put back together. I continuiously said no, it was too dangerous, it was a trap, it definitely shouldn’t be done where a bunch of innocent people were standing. All sound logical arguments.

I was repeatedly told that rejoining the shards (which were apparently broken apart by Zin himself which does not make me feel any better though seems to calm the others. Thank Penny for that tidbit of information) was the only way to make a weapon capable of defeating the Rune Lords who were apparently coming back. Sheila had learned of two that already had and were defeated, which kinda lends credence to my argument but unfortunately I was alone. I promised them I would in fact tell them “I told you so” when I was proven to be right.

Elle gave up her shard shortly after I did and they were all sealed into a special case to be stored and secured for the joining “festival” in a couple days.

We were then dismissed, heh, and spent the next few hours catching up with our dear friend and Elle’s half sister. Oh we talked, shared stories, tales of our adventures. Apparently Penny actually died as well. They, her group that is, were fighting a medusa and Penny got turned to stone and shattered. Shiela’s husband, who is in the group, used a wish from his Luckblade to bring her back to life.

Side note, I owe that man a feast.


1 - 6 - 4715

In the morning, with the rising of the sun, I married the most amazing woman in the world. It was and will continue to be one of if not -the- greatest day of my life.

No I’m not giving you details, this is a Pathfinder report and that is my private life.

In the evening we attended a meeting of all the prominant people to be involved with the ceremony to rebuild the...crown? I think when it’s formed it looks like crown and that has somethign to do with the prophecy that has been dogging us since the beginning. Another reason not to join the shards but does anyone listen to me?

There is some good news. We are informed that -we- the Vanguard, will be the ones in charge of weilding the weapon once it’s together. Crown? Weapon? What ever, still a bad idea.

Penny is to be officially recording the event and a number of prominant mages, including that asshole from the acadamy, will be there to put it back together.

A brief outline of the day including thanks to Elle asking, an evacuation plan for when things go bad. I know I didn’t say “if” things go bad. So the plan? The Vanguard stands between trouble and civilains. No shit.

After that we are all dismissed and we decide to get some rest, well some of them, before the long day tomorrow.

6/2/4715

Today is the day.

Most of us still seem unhappy or at least apprehensive about today’s events. Even Penny seemed concerned about the prophecy at this point. She was still in favor of combining the star… ‘for the greater good’. I wished I shared her confidence. The risk vs. reward still seems reckless to me.
Penny had a scroll on her that allowed a Divination. Not one of her spells, but apparently ‘tricking magic’ runs in the family. The response was suitably cryptic. It seemed to push toward Penny’s idea of ‘It’s dangerous but necessary’. Elle was able to narrow down 'flood' to 'Earthquake causing a Tidal Wave'.  Now we moved into damage control mode.
The city festival was by far the stupidest part of the whole thing. Thousands of people flooding the docks and bridge sections. The Mayor has not endeared himself to at least Drax or myself on this decision. He’s gone from trying to defend his nation… to making it a target and the thought makes me sick to my stomach.  
One bright side is that apparently the Wayfarer Vanguard have their own souvenir dolls… or ‘action figures’. Everyone seemed excited and stunned to see their likeness in these dolls and I suspect we all have a complete set… and have probably signed more than a few for festival children on our way to the City Watch. We can’t stop the assembly… but maybe we can set up an evacuation 'If' disaster comes.

We went to the City Watch at the Arvensoar hoping to meet our contacts… but those in true authority were already setting up security at the Irrespan. I suppose that's a good thing.. But didn't suit our immediate needs. The officer in charge was fairly helpful. I told her straightforward about the divination and that there was a threat we were taking seriously. I almost felt bad for her. She really wanted to disbelieve us on principle, but our reputation was strong enough that she couldn’t ignore it completely. Still… we were asking the impossible and we all knew it.  IF disaster came and the flood happens… people were sure to die.

Penny did her her part in Dockway to lure as many vendors and party goers to the Capital District's higher ground… while we were the bait. The four of us performed a telling of our exploits 'in honor of the day', while Drax did a fiery puppet show. We included the T-rex, the Dark Rider, and the giant dragon.  The people were quite impressed.

I'm not sure how I would like to be a celebrity. I always preferred to stick to the shadows and fade away before dawn… this is 'new' to me. Though I have enough enemies around that I really hate the idea of leaving such a trail of breadcrumbs for them…

When the joining began with a long drawn out speech by the Mayor… who proceeded to brag himself up and mispronounce all of our names. Drax found it amusing… I was mildly insulted. On the other hand… this is PRECISELY the type of thing I love for other people to claim all the credit for.

The ceremony itself was amazing. The seven casters all joined their pieces together in order and we could literally SEE the magic in all it's prismatic glory surging from the bridge and from the mages and suck into the Sihedron. Once complete… it was more solid than I expected. I haven't seen it closely yet, but it appears that the Ioun holes are back and the center is solid… so Not a crown at all..

We didn't have much time to notice when the sky started darkening…. The bridge started shaking… and two giant Shriezyx spiders came crawling out of the Irespan to attack. I charged to protect the casters from one side, while Drax grabbed for the star. Elle called out that they are afraid of Fire… so this shouldn’t last too long.

Drax moved for the Sihedron superhumanly fast, grabbing it and attempting to store it in his belt.  He hit the Shriezyx with a blast of fire that caused it to skitter back into its hole.  Colin and I moved to engage the other Shriezyk as the crown rapidly moved off the Irespan, not quite giving into panic.  The exhausted mages who completed the ritual were carefully escorted away by the member of the Scholarship.  We were able to destroy the two creatures without too much difficulty, but the trouble was only beginning.  As the Irespan emptied we saw dark clouds gathering at the horizon, at the same time we saw monuments across the city light up in a glowing green light, emitting a background humming noise.  

Sheila gathered us together and told us that we should investigate what is happening with the monuments while the Scholarship escorted the wizards back to Heidemarch manor.  We decided to start with the closest monuments and move on from there.  

After investigating the first few nearby, it became apparent that the monuments were not part of the threat we faced.  They were installed after the fall of Thassilon and thus unrelated to the Sihedron.  If anything, they appear to be part of some secret city defense system.  Performing a simple ritual at each glowing monument bestowed some boon on the supplicants useful to those who would be defending or saving a city.  This is a fascinating discovery- I wonder how many in Magnimar knew of this?  But we barely had time to digest this information before new perils from the Sihedron ritual were revealed.

Enroute to a monument, we noticed a most disturbing site-  along the coast, the waters had receded almost entirely, leaving the harbor with little to no water!  Although this seemed to me to be the opposite of the flood we were warned about, several of the others pointed out that this was but the prelude to a massive influx of water.  Indeed within short minutes Magnimar was faced with a wall of water 10 feet higher than high tide-  and it came smashing into the city’s coast.  Many weaker structures faltered and collapsed, and after the water rushed in, it rushed back out, pulling many struggling citizens with it.  The Vanguard began rescue efforts, individually but in unison, trying to save as many as we could from being sucked out to sea.  As we deposited those we rescued on high ground-nearby stone buildings- we saw a second massive wave come.  And then a third, and fourth.  As the fourth receded, we heard frantic panicked screaming (as opposed to the wails for help that permeated most of the city’s coast)  and we moved to investigate what sounded like a new threat.  

Four giant mechanical eels were in the center of a street, methodically attacking the stone buildings that still stood and doing great damage.  Several of the buildings had the civilians on the roof who had fled to high ground to escape the water, and it was from them we heard the screaming.  Elle realized that the creatures were not alive, but instead were mechanical beings.  She got the particular look in her eye, and I think I may have heard her laughing as the unleashed explosive wrath on this things, methodically blowing several of them to pieces.  Colin and I held the line on a roof protecting the civilians and managed to dispatch the one coming at us.

The fifth and final wave then came in.  We finished up our rescue efforts as the city began to organize its own efforts.  After saving all that we could find, we decided to go back to the manor.  Drax examined the Sihedron as we made our way back.  He touched the center, and it moved to assume a position behind his head.  It revealed all its secrets and powers to him- and it was truly amazing artifact.  He described its powers to us and the abilities it granted to its bearers made the toils and sacrifices we endured.

Elle spotted a weather disturbance over the sales bazaar, and said it appeared to be the effect of a Control Weather spell. We hurried over to the bazaar to deal with the newest threat to the city. Arriving, we found a monstrous creature at the edge of the water- head of a woman, body of some kind of monstrous sea creature, with three wolf heads along her midsection. She ignored us until Colin spoke to her in another language, and as I understand it, she said she had been gone a very long time, and would destroy the city until she found her mistress- Sorshen, as it turned out. Colin volunteered that Sorshen was right here, and stepped aside to reveal Elle (much to Drax's displeasure). This was not the first time Elle attempted the impersonation, and despite a great effort, it was also a failure, as the other efforts would be. Although the thing was initially fooled, the more Elle talked the more suspicious it became. It finally realized the ruse and called forth two sea creatures to assault us. As it seemed to be a very formidable caster, I wanted to get beside her to be as disruptive as I could. However, as I flew up to her I was hit by a spell that stunned me and left me incoherent- long enough for her to escape. Though Drax was not pleased with Colin volunteering Elle for the ruse, we were no worse off- the same result would have ensued had we not attempted the ruse.

After securing the bazaar with few to no civilian casualties, we returned to the manor. Sheila laid down the new plan: The Vanguard would assault the new island that had raised off the coast using the power of the Sihedron, while the Scholarship- including Penny- would tackle other matters. It was another bittersweet farewell, but having the original Vanguard back, even for just these few days, brought me a great sense of fulfillment and satisfaction in all we had achieved.

2 - 6 - 4715

There is a quick debate on going to THE island tonight or in the morning and it's decided we will go in the morning.
That night Colin and Pyraxis take some time to help the people in the flooded area. Elle is taken home to rest while I go find my ship. That Captain is amazing and my ship is still good!
Side note, Elle's and my house is slightly water damaged but still pretty good.
The rest of the night is uneventful

3 - 6 - 4715

We do some shopping in the morning on our way to my ship. While traveling the others want to stop by the statues so they can try and get a temp magical effect placed on them. I don’t bother.
Early in the afternoon we take off, starting the journey.

5 - 6 - 4715

At apx 2pm dark clouds begin moving strangely above us. Before us rising up is a massive obsidion tower which seems to be coming from the island. We stop 500ft away from the island per the captains suggestion and take a dinghy into the island the rest of the way.

The island is actually a series of islands covered in what looks like a damaged city, with strange circle and liniear buildings.The place is covered in detrius from sea as well as the stench of decay.

We enter into a ruin and it's ruined completely. No more evidence of being lived, though we do find some places that seem to be well well well preserved. Possibly magic?

Despite all the crap growing down here we find hints of how splendid this place used to be. stone benches, machinery that floats, in one area there are floating bronze plates that are spinning slowly,broken statues are all over.

As we are walking we are ambushed by four armed partially mecahanical lizard things. Seem to be Charda's that normally hide far far far far far far underground.

There are twenty of them. Oh and a frog demon came up from behind.

We finally win and decide to check out the ruined room with the floating bronze plates.

We find a wand but Colin can't figure out what it is.

Elle hands out potions to us and we start moving around the large large large tower in the center heading to the north.

We come across a series of shattered glass globes covered in barnacles floating above the cobblestone.

We continue around and around towards the sw coming into a bunch of toppled pillers, floating statues, and a zigguraut.

Oh and the statues seem to have some gold on them, constantly churning about among the toppled pillers.

Colin takes off on his fly to look at the statues, I carry Elle up.

Elle gets nailed by a sharp piece of metal from somewhere. Good job, husband of the year for sure. After she gets healed we continue on and this time I take two hits for her. All the statues are of the peacock spirit, an ancient religion.

There is nothing else of import on the outside of the center isle, but the rest of the group wants to check out the broken isles outside the center one. So we decide to search them allllllll. I’m not looking forward to that.

On the sixth piece we find three HUGE crabs....giggity.

We are finally able to defeat them....

6/6/4715

After the battle, we searched until we were all tired… and Elle was barely conscious so we rested without incident. The Crab dinner was decent, breakfast was iffy. I’m not entirely sure if it was the lack of butter or if the crabs were mutant demonic beasts in nature… but they didn’t taste like normal crab. Hopefully that won’t be an issue later.

After breakfast we commenced searching the chain of islands. Though, I still think of it as one big island. I’m fairly certain that’s how it was intended. I don’t know if the chain was caused by the sinking to far… or not rising enough… or if the island itself actually did break apart years ago, but my instincts tell me that this wasn’t built separate like this.

That in itself is interesting. Seeing these Thassalonian ruins like this… not as an underground lair or laboratory… but as a living breathing city? It’s difficult to tell from the ruins, exactly what the buildings were for, but there were a lot of them, and the preservation magic still exists in places. We found a few potions and a couple of wands that were still useful, the rest was mostly broken staves and wands from the ancient days. Possibly still valuable to a collector somewhere… enough age makes all things valuable to someone.

Speaking of which, we met someone in our journey. He spoke only in Thassalonian naturally, so I assume he’s a native of the island. Which of course is concerning on multiple levels. We didn’t get a good look since he was covered in a robe. He wielded a silver staff that had a shield on top with rays leaping from it. Regrettably I hear that magic missles shot out of them.

I tried to talk to him… I really did. I explained that the we were simply exploring the cause of the massive flooding after the island had risen after thousands of years. I was wearing the Sihedron at the time, and he recognized it. Unfortunately, he knows more than he’s saying. He pointed at me and said that I was responsible. I chose to assume he means ‘whoever put the star together’ and that means I can cash in my ‘Told you so’ later. I’m not sure if I could have kept the conversation going or not, but apparently the others didn’t have much confidence and started downing their extracts.

I have mixed feelings on that. On one hand, our new acquaintance took this as a sign of preparing for war. On the other, a few moments later I wished I’d have had some of those protections. His first move was to introduce us to some of the most ugly monstrosities I’ve ever heard of. Humanoid shaped… barely. They had octopus like heads with tentacles that kept grabbing for you and large lobster like claws.

They got the drop on me, and the mage cast an acid fog on the whole crew. The others scattered out of the burning, but I stayed inside. The daemon I was fighting… i had hoped it would burn too, but it didn’t. I did however have the Sihedron set to heal me continuously so I thought I could take it.

I wasn’t entirely wrong. It took a LONG time to kill that thing and I could hear Drax yell for the Sihedron. Apparently the mage was immune to his fire and he wanted the bonus to his ‘magic’. As soon as I got out of the cloud I shot it to him, but it was longer than I’d liked. Pyraxis was trying to fight the mage while Drax and Elle… it sounded like we're fighting the squidheads… that Acid cloud did a lot to hide my view of the battle. Which was another reason I chose to stay inside as long as I did.

Pyraxis thought the mage wasn’t really there, so I used a true seeing spell. Sure enough the mage we were fighting was an illusion. I couldn’t see the ‘real’ version… it was the dragon fight all over again. I called for Drax to dispel the illusion, but he was busy and distracted with something else. The mage dropped another cloud on me that made a little sick, but nothing too bad. Apparently a cloudkill… so it could have been much worse.

Drax did shoot me back the sihedron though when I tried to dispel it myself… and it worked! The hooded figure was gone and we were alone with the two clouds. Drax got rid of the cloudkill and we scattered around looking for our attacker. I suspected he could be in the tower or another island… that dragon certainly didn’t have line of sight to us… but I was wrong. He was there, and he was invisible. He tried a black tentacle spell that bothered Elle a bit, but couldn’t overcome my new ring.

I got one good hit on him with my sword, and Pyraxis quickly got into flanking… and then he dimensioned doored away. He spouted threats about meeting him again… but I really hate when enemies gloat AND run away. It just doesn’t work for me…

It was still early, so we continued on our way. After we had actively searched for over ten hours, I think we were all feeling it. There was a lot of coins and a couple metal scroll disks, but nothing worth recording here. We were all tired by then and instead of pushing to exhaustion with active enemies about, we found a place that seemed defensive and rested.

Then we woken up by Elle screaming at us. We were attacked in the middle of the night by… something spat out of hell. It was some kind of woman with a snake tail and six arms… each wielding swords. She had more swords than i do… and used them all at once. I have been outnumbered before… I’ve been flanked… I have never in my life faced an opponent like this!

I was not awake for how it ended…. I got a couple hits in, but I was drastically outclassed. First I was disarmed, then I… think I was killed again??

Although Colin suffered a number of serious, very bloody wounds by the demon's whirlwind of swords, he did cling to life- though not by much. He bought us enough time to get composed and mount an effective defense- and after our side suffered a few more hits from the demon, Drax ended her.

We brought Colin back to consciousness and had to reassure him several times that he did not again pass.

We finished up our sleep at a much higher and less comfortable alert level, and then continued to explore the islands on the outer ring of this formation. We continued to find relics and ancient treasure, including magical items, interspersed through the dead ruins. Near the end of the day, as we were exploring what felt like the 800th ruined building, we noticed a large water filled depression that looked suspicious- in that most of the island had already dried out. We saw some strange tracs about, and quickly found out what they belonged to, as we were swarmed by Saguaghin. We quickly found out it was not just these territorial sea savages objecting to our presence, but that they were commanded by the wolf-ringed sea witch that we encountered on the shore of Magnimar days earlier. This time, she stayed till the bitter end, although she seemed to fight Drax to a draw for a period of time, eventually he burned through whatever protections she had and killed her, as we finished off the mer-men and a few of her more powerful henchmen. Her dying declaration was that we would perish to another threat, presumably, the one who commanded her.

We spent the night on the boat, figuring that we would be able to put some distance between the threats as well as have a few more sets of eyes on watch. Thankfully, Drax's boat was not assaulted, and in the morning we took the long boat to the center island and approached the black monolith that dominated the center isle.

7 - 6 - 4715

The tower is in front of us. That black crystal monstrosity. There is an archway to the front of us with no apparent way through, it seems a solid wall.

As we approach it three men things come out from the pond to our left, each carrying longspears. The one in the middle speaks in a language we don't know.

Colin tries to step forward to the archway and the middle gillman (like the guy we found in that one cave so many years, or was it only months?, ago) raps his spear on the ground and motions him back,

Since we have no way of knowing what these things are saying, though their actions seem pretty clear, Colin uses a wand of comprehend language allowing him to understand them, though they still won't be able to understand us. And apparently the castle temple thing is sacred to them. Which means there is no way I can see at the moment as to how we can get into it without fighting them.

Pyraxis manages to walk to the edge of the pond to our far left side and stick his hand in the water.
The gillman closest to Pyraxis attempts to cast a magic spell at him though thankfully, it does not work. There is some quick conversation between the gillmen and Pyraxis makes a scene of throwing his claws on the ground and walking toward the closest gillman.

As this happens the one in the middle motions for Elle to come forward but I step in front of her. This is obviously a trick and I’m not about to let my wife just walk into it, despite the comments she’s made about how ripped they are. The last one motions for Colin to come forward causing Colin to cast detect alignment. Just the act of casting unnerves them and they call out and seven more come out of the lake. For the record, they are evil which does indeed make this a lot easier.

After a quick bit of fighting with one of the new ones Pyraxis says they are illusions and the others agree, but....damn it all, they look real to me. I mean it’s possible that there is some magic clouding my friends eyes making them think the others aren’t real and thus ignore them. I however won’t take that chance. They will all die.

So umm, after I explode the two original ones closest to me the "illusion" ones vanish. Apparently the others were right. More insteringly is that the gillmen turn into huge fish tentacle creatures that Elle calls Aboleths. Which is creepy so I disintigrate the last one.

Colin and Pyraxis want to use their water breathing items to go down deep into the pond to see how far down it goes, and maybe if there is a way to get past the archway down there. Apparently Elle wants my Pearl to go in with them. Sure, I’ll stay up here alone and watch the ropes.

While they are down there Pyraxis apparently unties himself to go after wands he finds on the bottom and Elle panics because she can't see what Pyraxis sees, only him untying himself. So from where I am all I see is her rope go crazy and Pyraxis goes slack. Yeah, I quickly pull Elle out and only then find out what she saw. A few seconds later, Colin and Pyraxis come back,

Turns out those are powerful magic missle wands and the creatures also had armoring magical bracers on them.

Colin and Elle start debating the nature of the Abeloths and from past experience I know this could take a long time to solve. So I walk over and touch the wall in the archway. Which activates a trap, growing spikes from the surface and shooting them straight out though thankfully I manage to dodge them.

I get a small chastisement from Elle for not waiting and activating yet another trap before she has a chance to look for them.

She doesn't find any more traps but Colin finds that is is magic (no duh).

I try Dimension door with the sehedrin but it doesn't get through the door either.

Elle remembers that in the past the crystal making up the fortress wall in times of needing to lock the door would just grow over the entrances. That appears to be what is going on here. Lovely, a smart castle.

Pyraxis manages to shatter the wall with his second attempt. Sometimes I am surprised that I still get surprised by his sheer strength.

The inside is ruined, cracked crystal statues, the floor broken, debries everywhere.

Three orbs of light appear in front of us,each forming into golden female figures made out of golden light, the composition of the them seeming to be math calculations similar to what I’ve seen in Elle’s alchemy books. They then become three beautiful elven females, all identical with long blond hair and toned and tanned skin.

When they speak they each use a third word, one at a time, asking us what brings us here to the halls of Xin.

Elle says we are here to stop the rise of the runelords they scoff because she looks like Soresha.

After a brief misstep on Elle's part, seriously sweety not the time to pretend to be one of the people who betrayed Xin, the math elves agree that Elle is a carbon genetic twin to the former Runelord. Whatever that means, but Elle seems intrigued about it. I’m assuming it has something to with alchemy.

They tell us that the Runelords are not here and have not been here for a while and that we should look elsewhere and this place is only for Xin however he can't be seen at the moment and we should leave and wait until he is ready to see us.

By the way, these math elves appear to be axiomites, creatures who embody the concept of Law. I’m not a fan.

After a quick conversation with me, and yes I’ll take credit for this, they agree that the only way for us to get in is to go through them.

Yeah, I love that star sehedrin thing. During the fight Elle died but since she had the sehedrin on her when it happened, cast the spell true reseruction and she came back instantly. She then cast dimension door from the star and got the hell out of there. Which is good because I was about to lose it.

After the fight, Elle spends a few minutes (being hugged by me) letting the star heal her.
Colin and Pyraxis notice that the crystal walls are growing back over the opening of the archway as welll as having been over the inner door as well, so I grab Elle and fire boost my way back inside. Not taking any chances on the group getting stuck seperated.

Pyraxis tries a couple time to get through the wall on his own but this one seems to be stronger then the one covering the archway. So Colin and I help him out by striking the wall at the same time it which works as the wall shatters.

On the other side we see an enormous room of jagged black crystal with a similar material throne growing in the center of this massive hall. One hundred foot high ceilings and far side walls we can barely see even though the place is well lit. Two lines of auto constructs lead to the throne. The floor is clear crystal and shows the room below us. A room which is mostly filled with deep water as well as lots of tiny glowing fish and what seems to be a never ending supply of more auto constructs. To the west of the throne is a section of the floor that appears to be black crystal and not the clear crystal, the section seeming to be about a twenty foot square.

Sitting upon the throne is a bent, wizened motionless figure. By the way, the throne is about one hundred and fifty feet from the door where we are. Told you that this place was huge.

Elle does a quick cursury exam of the constructs and of course they are immune fire. What else is new.

As we approach the man on the throne, we see he's been thoroughly destroyed, his legs blasted off, arm blasted off, robe in tatters, and all in all he’s just in pieces. However this appears to be freshly done as the embers from his blasted limbs are still smoking.

Now the creepy.

We walk slowly up to the body and as Elle goes to touch him, he speaks.

Though more accurately, when he sees Elle above him he gets angry and stands (somehow even though his legs are gone it’s like he’s standing where they would be) and as he does the room changes to an outside court with King Xin talking to a crowd of people of all nations. Thassalon, Varision, all the like. He spouts about seeds and drops a diamond into the ground which grows into the castle. Then time passes, all 10 thousand years, then a vision of this city rising from the sea and an army of clockwork soldiers marching on and destroying Magnimar before replacing with a clockwork city in Xin’s image.

When the vision vanishes, Xin becomes a skeletal ghost mage type thing, tells his minions to attack the "assassins" and then stretches into mist.

I did say it was time for the creepy.

Six of the constructs awaken and turn toward us, each wielding great axes. The Xin thing flies into the throat of one to our left furthest away. He does however get angry at the constructs that dont' wake up promising to take care of them after he kills us.

After a slightly painful few seconds, we drop them all including the Xin bot.

6/7/4715

Well, this makes it official in my mind. There has never been an all powerful wizard who rules over an empire who shouldn’t have been killed before casting his first spell. I know it’s not a popular opinion with the Quink girls, but the ideas of the Xin and the seven virtues always felt ‘off’ to me. The idea that he set up this glorified utopia and every single person he’d chosen to carry on would go evil and pervert a wonderful system… seemed unlikely. Also the fact that he established an actual EMPIRE doesn't make me think he did it to willing subjects.

Now as we fight against a powerful undead wizard who can’t be stopped… I feel a little vindicated. It’s not a particularly good feeling. He’s an apparition. Which… is problematic. A haunt can be cleansed, maybe not by us, but by someone. A lich can be destroyed. A ghost can be put right again…. But an apparition? I’ve only heard of them in rumors, but this one is tied to the entire fortress, if not the entire island. He also has plans to destroy Magnimar and conquer the land with a clockwork army… so yeah, Evil all around and the only way I can think to remove this evil is to destroy the island. Which I don’t have the ability to do. Drax… probably doesn’t either.

Probably…

Maybe breaking the Sihedron would do it? But we don’t know how to do THAT either. It needed Xin’s life force to do it in the past… Maybe use the Apparition??? I’m rambling now. Back to task.

After healing up from the Xin fight, we search the throne room. There are multiple doors that have been sealed off with the crystal defense mechanism… along with a set of stairs that go both up and down.

By which I of course, mean to a level above us and below us. The lower level still seems flooded, but we’ve found some efficient ways of dealing with that… but it’s also full of clockwork army, so I’m hoping to avoid that one.

Setting Elle on the throne with the Sehidron failed to open the doors. I thought it a valid idea that an Azlanti with the star may be able to rule the castle… but such is not the case.

We pick a door and Pyraxis busted his way in. Inside we found a large table set for dinner… set well. Not in an ‘Island just erupted from the bottomless depths kind of way. So either this was set recently, or there is some really powerful magic being used for severely mundane things… like ‘keep the table neat’. Being Thassalon, I’m hesitant to gamble on which it was.

Well, then chaos erupted, but not from the twelve clockworks that were standing ‘guard’, but from heat blasts from above. The party was separated into three groups by walls of force and routinely blasted. The pain was pretty rough, but I dove under the table hoping it would provide some shielding. I unfortunately had nothing that would bring down a wall of force and was forced to hope for the best. Something must have happened, because Elle made it back to my area… apparently blind, while Drax blasted the planar creatures that were causing the heat blasts.

Planar I could work with… Coming out from under the table I tried my new Banishment spell. Mostly reserved for something Drax’s progenitor may send to torment us… but works for these things too. Sometimes. I shot two, and one was banished. I’ll call it a win.

I really thought Pyraxis was going to die this time. His battle was not going well. Then we remembered that even if we… our weapons… and our magic couldn’t get to him on the other side of that wall… the Sihedron could. I think that made the difference and he was able to get the upper hand on his monster and get out.

Elle on the other hand seemed to turn into a ghost form seriously freaking us out. That Ghost friend of hers… This blatant acceptance of Avi is going to be the death of her. Now she seems to be getting a bit TOO close to the veil for my tastes… It wore off, but not soon enough.

The next room held a statue of Lissala. The ‘original’ version according to a very excited Elle. They had faces instead of Sihedrons. We then held a debate with no particular winner. As stated above, my opinion isn’t popular. She claims that the worship of Lissala was perverted over the years… I wonder if it wasn’t the other way around. After all, She was never really a ‘good’ goddess. Neutral at best… and as the goddess of Rune Magic, EVERY SINGLE historically prominent user of her gifts has turned into a completely evil conqueror… I find the artifacts here fascinating in a historical context… but that’s about it.

In this room we were attacked by actual runes. Like, squiggly writing that crawled off the wall and physically attacked us. Drax hated them, so I assume they were immune to fire, and they were hard to hit, but we managed.

The next room was another throne of crystal with glyphs and a spinning disk in front of it. Apparently this is one of Xin’s Spellwells. Apparently Xin could sit here and prepare all his spells for a particular school of magic. Drax feels this is very inefficient, and i have to agree. It’s fascinating… again in an historical perspective… but having to wander around your castle to each chair as opposed to an hour in a well stocked library seems like poor planning. Maybe if they were all in one room?? The room is an odd pointed shape, so I wonder if the others somehow end up looking like a Sihedron?? Doesn’t seem likely based on our current exploration.

Apparently being an alchemist is not close enough to a wizard to count. I didn’t really think it would be, but she can copy spells into her formula book, so I was curious. I wonder what would have happened if a traditional prepared spellcaster had tried it.

The next room, (again, every room needs to be broken into by Pyraxis. He’s ALMOST looking bored of it, but now I think he’s just trying to break his best time,) held a thin bronze and copper orarry. It also held a podium… that scurried up to us and offered Elle the gem resting on it. After some examination we’ve determined that it’s the victim of a magic jar spell. Now we’re torn. Whatever it is, we assume it’s powerful. Do we release it now (as it’s cruel to leave something in a gem)... but what if it’s evil? Xin has had many many enemies, and most of the ones we know are pretty powerful evil stuff… But if it’s good like the Demva, we aren’t sure what to do.

For the time, we’re going to hold on to it. If we face Xin and start losing badly, we’ll use this as a trump card. Whatever is trapped in there, may attack us if we free it… but if we free it in front of Xin, then it will probably attack him first. Even if we DO get killed, that trump card may still help us sink the island and save Magnimar.

If we don’t need it?? We’ll take it back with us and try to do more research or have some diviniations done.. Or something when the fate of the world isn’t at stake.