Campaign VII Session 9 Summary

Ord VII Session 9
Summary

As the group rushes inside they close and re-lock the main
castle door.  Inside they find an
untouched throne room with a large stalagmite which has the king’s throne
carved into it.  As everyone starts to
look around, the dampened sounds of drilling are heard from the outside of the
castle doors.  The Duregar have returned
but are not able to make any progress getting through what must be magically
enhanced doors.  The group rests easy and
then begin searching the castle for the fate of King Ironblood’s legendary
armor.  The first floor contains two
rooms filled with meticulous records indicating that after the disaster struck,
the food stores were being emptied in an evacuation.  Caidence explores the room behind the throne
which is a larger strategy room filled with maps and pointing out all the
secret hidden pathways leading out of the city from each level.  The last logs recorded took place hours after
the disaster and were a plan of action for the King to go down to the Burrows
district and help lead his people out using the hidden pathways.

The next two levels the group discovers are the
kitchen/living quarters and the armory.
Cadwick scans the area for magical auras and finds a Cloak of
Arachnida.  The fourth floor is the
library, which the group spends some time researching the local flora/fauna as
well as some documented natural portals to the elemental planes of earth and
water.  The fifth floor contains a
multitude of shrines to the deities and primordial beings of Ord.  Father Cork informs the rest that the worship
of any being other than the Empyrean Titans is heretical and that they should
destroy the rest of the altars.  Cork
goes to the shrine of Parun gives prayer.
At that moment, Wildslayer, Caidence and Cadwick each ear a voice in
their minds, “come, my children.”  The
three, justifiably confused get a sense of direction as a kind, female voice
becons them closer to an idol of a Seraphim.

“Hear me my children, for it has been so long since this
form has had any visitors.”  The group skeptically
asks who or what this voice is, appearing from a small statue of a Seraphim
with its hands outstretched as if to embrace.
“I am Ahuramazd, the Strength of Unity, and you are the fruits of my
labor.”  She goes on to explain that it
was her efforts in the design of humanity which enabled them to be able to
reproduce with other species so that they could spread their strength to
all.  This was done primarily to usurp
the power of the Giants and Dragons which had once ruled over all of Ord.  “But here, the Dwarves could or perhaps would
not hear me and were content to let the lands of the overworld be overrun with
Giants while they hid in their underground kingdoms.”

As Cork finishes his prayers, he says to Krandar, we should
really just smash each of these heretical idols and begins moving toward the
rest of the group.  Caidence, hearing
this, takes her bag and snatches up the idol of Ahuramazd and the three stand
in awkward silence as they try to figure out what they should do.  As Cork is able to smash the altar of Iztor,
Krandar bids for him to stop, as in this land many Dwarves are open to the
worship of the primordial beings of the universe, including himself, a cleric
of Joudstor.  This is enough to stop Cork
from smashing the rest of the idols and the group continues upward.

At the top of the castle on the sixth floor, a mage like
laboratory has been setup with a large Dwarven rune circle in the middle.  Caidence and Cadwick put their knowledge of
the Dwarven language and magical runes together and determine that the rune
circle will allow a Dwarf touching it to teleport a group one way to one of the
receiving circles on each of the other districts of the city.  The group decides that using this method to
get to the Burrows would be much easier and quicker then going out through the
front gate and likely through the rest of the Duregar warriors.  Caidence, Cadwick, Cork and Wildslayer take
the first teleport to the Burrows and tell Krandar, to take the other
historians with their mounts a few minutes after so that they can make sure the
surrounding area is safe.

The first group teleport down to find a dark eerily silent
street lined with living quarters.  Cork
casts a light spell on his belt and the group sets more light up further to get
their bearings.  Cadwick sends his
fiendish owl familiar to go scout around.
 A few moments later, the owl
hears a large flapping sound as an undead monstrosity flaps towards it.  A winged form connected by several skulls
sends out a necrotic wave which kills the familiar as it heads toward the light
from the main group.  As it arrives it
sends its paralyzing waves and swoops in biting at the group.  The party prevails but fear they have
attracted the attention of other denizens of this district.

Going further up the main street the group sees that a large
mob of skeletons are heading their way, the ancient residents of the
Burrows.  Meatpie loosens up the streets
and Cadwick uses his mold earth spells to create a trench so that they could
funnel in the skeletons.  Wildslayer
takes the front joined by Cadwick’s newly summoned giant eagles from the staff
of the raven’s eye.  The rest of the
group stays behind the trench and prepares for the mob to arrive.  Just as Wildslayer swings at the first group
of skeletons, Cork is suddenly teleported into one of the nearby buildings and
to his surprise sees himself still there, sneakily giving a mocking wave to the
now trapped real Cork.  As Cork turns
around he finds himself locked in a reinforced living quarters with windows
barred with iron.  As he heads for the
door, several Dwarven skulls with spider like appendages come out from hiding
behind various objects and attack.

Putting faith in Parun’s favor, Cork casts his
rod of wonder at the center of the room, creating a fireball spell which heavily
damages the undead.  Meanwhile, fake Cork
screams at the same time “they’re coming!” and points in the opposite direction
of the explosion as the skeletons trudge toward Wildslayer to distract the
other members of the party.  The real
Cork uses his channeling ability to give misfortune to the skeleton crabs and
picks the lock in the reinforced room.  At
this moment Cork realizes that he is under some sort of illusion and appears to
be a skeleton wearing the robes of a jester.
Meanwhile as fake pretends to be helping the rest of the group he causes
a delayed blast fireball to hit them as he misty steps away.  Cork eventually gets out and under the
illusion is able to help out the group again.
The undead jester causes havoc as he misty steps back and forth while
telling awful jokes but the party eventually defeats him.  As the jester’s form crumbles he gleefully
says “I’ll be seeing you again!”