Lands of Mystery, Day 9

## Synopsis:

The Party was allowed a chance to rest, as the Highborne Elder chose to take their place in the Arena-roster, single-handedly fighting off a group of Grimtotem slaves with his magics.

In the time the Party was mending their wounds and preparing for their own fight in the arena, Yang'li was looking for them, and ended up captured by Lady Salamanya as well.

When the time came to plan their escape, the Elder explained that he had secretly siphoned small amounts of Arcane into a Highborne doll for years. If the magical energies within the Doll is unleashed, the shear arcane force would fry any Ogre Guards in its path, but the amount of magical energy would kill whoever held the Doll while they were in the dungeon's Anti-Magic Zone.

Astrae demanded to see the Doll, wanting to play with it, and snatched it out of the Elder's hands. Through a freak accident, all the siphoned energies within the Doll were transferred over to Astrae. The Party was surprised, and the Elder endlessly fascinated by the hidden powers within the young Elf. He determined that a sacrifice was no longer needed, as Astrae could now unleash the powers at will.

First, they just needed to arm themselves with weapons from the Arena.

The Party was lead into the gladiatorial ring, faced off against an opposite team of imprisoned adventurers. It became a mad dash to be the first Party to reach the weapons that had been dumped into the Arena, though Markrgrl managed to slow down the enemy team by placing a wall of ice in front of them.

With the enemy team unarmed, the Arena became a massacre, and the Party was victorious.

Their next challenger was a familiar face; Ranger Fabion, apparently imprisoned by the Naga Siren as well when he was looking for Salarya in the wilds of Feralas. Despite Lady Salamanya's hopes to plant seeds of dread inside Salarya at having to slay her own companion, Salarya was rather indifferent about it, claiming "He was a bit of a bore anyway."

Yang'li actually prevented bloodshed *(for once)* by using her voodoo to Hex Fabion into a frog. The battle was ended, but the audience was furious at the anti-climactic ending, booing the Party. Lady Salamanya watched on in anger, hidden behind an Arcane Barrier to prevent attacks from the gladiators in the ring.

It was at this point, Salarya collected some of the Faerie Dragon dust she had caught on her body earlier, sprinkling the anti-magic dust on one of her arrows. The Anti-Magic Arrow managed to pierce through the barrier, and struck Lady Salamanya in the chest, destroying the whole barrier in the process.

A riot sparked through the district, and the slave-uprising begun. The Party began their escape, but were stopped in their tracks by a line of a dozen Ogre Elite Guards.

This was when Astrae decided to use the arcane magics that had been stored within her body, though the shear amount of magic seemed to have made her sick, her stomach bloated. During the pressure of the situation, however, Astrae unleashed the arcane beam of magics through her flatulence, obliterating the Ogres in the rumbling blast.

The Party pressed on through the swarms of fleeing slaves, into the Dire Maul Armory to find their confiscated equipment. While re-arming themselves, Salarya noticed a hidden escape-shaft in the ceiling.

Thankfully Astrae managed to find a Grappling-hook inside the Armory, and used it to bring the Party up into the secret shaft before they were found by the Ogres. They were lead into a dark tunnel, full of underground-roots, enchanted by Lady Salamanya to come to life, hissing like snakes.

As the Party cut their way through the dark tunnel of living roots, Salamanya's voice was taunting them, creeping out some of the party with the unnerving atmosphere, while others (Salarya) were just bored by the cliché'd snake-woman.

When they finally emerged from the tunnels, they noticed some of their own Party acting strangely. Astrae decided to extinguish Rumika's torch, and Agapo suddenly began attacking his own allies. Through casting an Immolation-blast like a flare through the darkness, Denise discovered that Lady Salamanya was lurking in the shadows, puppeteering the Party through her Charm-spells.

Battle erupted against the Naga Siren, in one of the most deadly fights the Party had faced yet, as the Siren's Charm randomly picked out their own fighters to start fighting amongst themselves. In the end, only Markrgrl and Astrae were left standing, the rest of the Party unconscious through either Lady Salamanya's swords, or from their own mind-controlled infighting.

As the dust settled, it turned out that the Naga Siren had been slain in the end, dying from her wounds as her tail wrapped around a clutch of corrupted Murloc eggs. Markrgrl began the process of cleansing the eggs from their corruption, to take them for himself, while Astrae began to heal the downed Party to bring them back to health.

As they awoke, and saw Lady Salamanya's death, they realized they had finally been freed from slavery. A tired but jolly celebration was had, before the Party exchanged farewells as friends, companions and partners, before they all went their separate ways to new adventures.

**The End.** *(For Season 1!)*

## Party Experience:

* Today: 540xp
* Total: 1260xp

**DING!** The Party has leveled up. *(Highest level player: Level 4)*

## Trivia:

* **Player-Characters this session**: Agapo, Astrae, Denise, Markrgrl, Mei-Li, Rumika, Salarya, Yang'li.
* This session was the finale for Season 1 (which has been postponed for way too long.) Season 2 of DDO will return after the launch of Legion, with the introduction of the Broken Isles and the Demon Hunters. (Though there will likely be some Mini-DDOs before then!)
* The Party stumbled across a young sleeping Void Hound in the Dire Maul treasury. After Astrae read its mind to look at its dreams, she discovered it had been captured while looking for a distant relative. Agapo's player theorized this was Immol'thar.
* What did the Characters do after the Adventure? Look here.