Emerald Spire 17.0 - Zdislav's Demise

The next morning, the group woke up. As they collected their things, they heard a figure running past them. It turned out to be Dave, the Splinter member who also happened to be a fan of Marin's performances. He stopped to talk to them for a moment, giving them some insight into the layout of the former Splinter base here in the spire cellars. When that was done, the group thanked him as he left. Before they set out for the day, Ismail cured Marin's magically-inflicted blindness.
Resolving to return to Zdislav's lair, the group used their spire keys to teleport. Unfortunately, the group was once again split with Marin and Amara ending up in the mining room while Kormon and Ismail stood in the audience chamber. Marin and Amara made their way back towards the other two, where Ismail and Kormon flipped a timely lever to open their way.
Returning to the central machine room, they found no sign of Zdislav so they continued to investigate. Avoiding the whirling blade traps, they took a new path using a lever-activated revolving door that led them back towards the junk room they had seen before. Once again, Marin blithely entered and announced their presence: Zdislav was there, along with an emerald automaton and the two repaired junkbots. Zdislav's magic seemed to put him at an advantage as the group tried to half-way retreat and use the revolving door to their advantage. However, Zdislav also had a control lever at his disposal and a back-and-forth game ensued as the adventurers continually swapped places with the robots. Kormon fell prey to the same spell that had blinded Marin previously, but Ismail had thought ahead and had prepared the cure multiple times. The robots were all summarily destroyed or trapped in the adjacent hallway by the adventurers, leaving nothing to protect the raving artificer. Zdislav attempted to turn invisible to escape, but Amara cast Glitterdust to prevent his deception; trapped and cornered, the group beat Zdislav into unconsciousness.
As the man lay bleeding, Marin began to stabilize him. Ismail demanded to know why and asserted that there was no sense keeping him alive: the man was insane and needed to die. Kormon agreed and passed the task to Ismail; Marin stepped back and Ismail finished the job, muttering that his friend had been avenged.Category:Emerald Spire