Expedition 145: Free the Healer

### Summary:

Ellie leads a group of the compact into the Shadowfel to free the goddess Saren'rae. We sneak past a roc, vampire lords and spawn, golems, a dragon turtle, and two angels, only actually fighting twice, and manage to solve the final riddle just in time, giving us the chance to attempt a legendary skill challenge that takes all of our combined efforts to make it through.

### Detailed Description:

Confidence, a chaotic character, accepts blessings from three lawful gods - Auton, Nerulla, and Oluceps. This will apparently have interesting future consequences.

Make our preparations based on the wish book we received detailing our path. Boris reminds us to get water breathing just before we go. We sail to refuge, drop down through the inky water to the tower, past the forbidding signs, and go through the portal to the shadowfel.

We arrive in a brass tower, and with some excellent perception, Ellie distinguishes the swamp we want in the distance, though we see the undead roc circling in the air above the tower. We debate luring it to the tower to fight, but eventually decide to try sneak across the desert, and successfully do so. The swamp is full of grasping trees and biting flies, but it doesn't seriously inconvenience us.

The next phase is through a winding mountain path, where every sound starts echoing endlessly. We encounter a patch of lich lichen, clearly being tended, and humanoid footsteps leading to a cliff and disappearing, so we don't linger. Further down the path, we are attacked by two gargoyles and a Yuan-ti warlock, Addera, whose patron she describes as "The Endless Hunger." Some are pulled and grappled over the edge of the canyon, falling down into a nest of poisonous snakes. With blastrod and broadwings Ranag takes down Addera, while the rest deal with  the gargoyles and snakes

We stabilize her, question her about the city, which she calls "Suffering," and find out it is ruled by three vampire lords: Lord Sunder, Lord Arec, and Lord Domral. Addera was exiled for killing one of Arec's servants. We give her some food and help store the giant snake meat, an in exchange she leads us through the rest of the mountains, but we decide not to take her further.

We spy an orchard matching the book, and head there, sneaking past vampire spawn in the trees. The entrance to the tunnel is covered by a massive stone cap, with celestial carvings we cannot read. Finn and Ranag work, with stonecunning and brute strength, and in perfect sync, managing to lift the cap just enough to allow the others to scamper through. A vampire spawn hears and comes to investigate, but only gets off one attack before Finn grabs Ranag and dimension doors them inside.

We sneak through the tunnels following the book's path, and encounter a horrifying stitched flesh golem. It fills the tunnel, so we move up to attack it. It summons willowisps that heal it, and creates horrifying reflections of us out of its flesh to frighten us. The willowisps also explode with lightning on death, healing the golem more. Bea calls on Auton's aid, expertly dissecting the golem, her fiery bite disabling its regeneration, and with her new maneuvers killing and pushing a wisp away so it does not revive. Finn steps up and deals with the last wisp in a similar way.

We enter a chamber with a dragon turtle, a blade pinned beneath its foot. Ellie bonds the blade, and we proceed.

We come across a hallway filled with 40ft of spike traps. We hop in bags of holding and Finn sword walks us across, in a stunning feat of acrobatics, the difficulty only matched by Finn's disappointment in realizing no one saw it happen.

Ellie summons the sword, and the turtle wakes and comes for us - we hear it roaring and digging through the earth. We pass through a chamber of swordsman statues, with riddles solved for us in the book, and reach a ruby studded gate. The sword is slightly too small, but the right shape, so we pour water in the keyhole and freeze it, then grind the sword in successfully.

We pass a chamber with an ordered steel angel of law fighting an chaotica, acidic, fiery, phoenix, and enter a room full of sarcophagi, labeled with names and ages. The turtle is tunneling towards us, as we attempt to lever open sarcophagi and understand the book's instructions. We partially solve it, but take a blast of fire from the turtle before we piece together the solution.

We enter the place of Saren-rae's coffin, and attempt a legendary skill challenge to piece her back together. With everyone's talents, Finn's inspiration, Bea's healing potions, Ranag's innate spells, and Ellie/Confidence's extraordinary talents, we restore the goddess.

Saren-rae gives us boons, and we return to Vrall, with the Blade of Ra'al.