Campaign VII Session 5 & 6 Summary

**Ord VII Session 5 & 6 Summary**

As party’s respite ends two of the spectral Ironblood
Clanwardens commence the third bought against the challengers.  The casters blanket the arena in fire and ice
while the melee specter attempts to drain Wildslayer using necromantic energy.  The battle is eventually hard won by the
party and the presiding specter gives a vigorous applause of approval upon
their victory.  He introduces himself as
Brufid, Clanwarden of the Ironblood, and presents the group with their key to
the palace in the main district.  He
invites the group to stay as long as they wish as the manor is well taken care
of by the animated armors, but they do not have any food to offer as it has
been centuries since anything here has needed to eat.  The group rests easy and the next day they
notice the two defeated Clanwardens have also recorporated into their spectral
forms.  They introduce themselves as
Dunuil and Thusuda of the Ironblood and converse with the group about what they
are doing here.

After resting, Wildslayer pulls aside Thusuda and inquires
about powerful magic items and where they may be found.  She tells him that in the Halls of Study,
connected to the Forge are the laboratories of the Archmages of their time and
that they had created some very powerful items when they were alive.  Wildslayer takes this information back to his
companions and they decide to head there after scavenging for a large amount of
metal to trade with Scaldrax on their return trip through the Forge.  Going back the way they came, through the
Farm District, the group encounters a plant lord of the fungal forest but
defeat it before it is able to summon more plant creatures to fight the
group.

The group finds a still working cart near a moss covered
farm house and rest for the night, they do a mediocre job of covering up
evidence of where they are held up and rest.
Just as they are waking up and preparing spells, Cadwick and Caidence
hear a rumbling outside and only seconds later a whole side of the building
topples over as a massive shambling mound rolls through it.  At the same time the doors are burst through
by several fungal thralls and they spray their mindrot spores all over the
party.  The group is badly wounded and
have been caught off guard decide to retreat and try to outrun the
monstrosity.  Wildslayer grabs the party
one by one, while Kadwick and the other historians follow and are able to
outrun the slow moving plant creatures and rest for a few moments to recuperate.

The group then decides to be a bit stealthier and follow the
sides of the cavern back to the Forge level.
As they reach the Forge once again they head for the exit to the Halls
of Study, where they heard the drilling/screaming noise before.  The group hears footsteps further down
towards the Main District but not towards the Halls.  They decide to take a look and find a clean
cut pathway all the way to the Halls but no evidence of who did it.  Caidence looks for signs of movement further
into the Halls and finds that no one has moved around for centuries.  As the group comes up into the cavern opening
they find this level to be far less damaged than the others.  There are 5 house sized buildings in a row
with 5 sequential tunnels going behind each.

The group investigates each building and discovers that they
are each a clerical office for each of the 5 archmages of the city when it was
active.  Each tunnel leads to the
laboratories dedicated to the study of air, water, fire, earth, and
life/death.  The group investigates the
life/death laboratory first and finds only a few trinkets left over as this
archmage was primarily studying their crops and various magical blights that
would ale them.  Next, they head for the
air laboratory, where they find 2 more chambers within and scattered notes
about this archmage’s artifacts he was working on.

In the first chamber, they look in to see a large dome has
been hollowed out and a raging thunderstorm is perpetually occurring.  In the center lightning strikes every few
seconds a small rod, as small creatures from within the storm clouds
watch.  As Cork sticks his head in to see
what’s happening, one of the small figures in the cloud points and a lightning
bolt strikes Cork, magnetizing him and making his hair stand up on end.  The gremlin like figures travel along the
bolts of lightning instantaneously and the group ponders for a while on how to
get at this item.  Cadwick casts
protection from lightning on Cork and Cork proceeds to run in, taking barrage
after barrage of lightning from the gremlins and the naturally occurring lightning,
sustaining a heavy amount of damage.  The
rest of the group seeing that he is so injured go into the chamber to try to
draw the gremlins attention and are able to kill a few, giving Cork the
opportunity to escape.  Once outside, the
gremlins do not follow and the group takes some time to heal and inspect the
item.

From the notes found, the group determines that this is
known as The Lightning Rod, an artifact which has the ability to cast a variety
of lighting type of spells.  In addition,
it gives the wielder resistance to lightning damage and may funnel nearby
lightning attacks into the wand to regain charges, but still damaging the
wielder.  The group decides that Cork
should have this as Cadwick is primarily a fire mage.

In the further chamber of this lab the group takes caution
as they expect to find another item referred to as the Staff of the Raven’s
Eye.  A small tunnel leads into an
opening where the group encounters a large Eye Golem and its Occulato
servants.  A blinding light stuns and
damages the vision of much of the party and the battle goes slowly as the group
keeps fighting off blindness and the massive hits of the golem.  Cadwick and Caidence end up separating to get
the Occulato away from the group fighting the Golem and eventually they overtake
it.  They claim their prize, a black
feathery staff with a large raven’s eye, still alive and looking around below
an upward facing talon at the top.

Wildslayer and Cadwick take an interest in wielding the
staff and upon finding the archmages notes determine that, he was trying to
control the aven creatures of the surface world.  It gives the ability to summon aven
creatures, casts misty step in the form of a flock of ravens, and the crowning
ability called “Aven Dominance”.  This
ability, not seeming to be finished has a small chance of taking control of all
aven creatures within a large area, but the vast majority of the time it just
makes them hostile to the caster.  In
addition, the archmage notes that he always felt distracted while holding it,
as every once in a while, a small black raven would caw just in the corner of
his eye, but when he’d look he would not find anything.  The group decides to rest for a few days as
these encounters have taken their toll and hope to attune to the new items.

Session 5 & 6 Journal