Session 9 - Katalii's Spell

Nedra studied the scrolls they had found in the Observatory while the rest of the group experimented with the huge round stone which was set into a track in the floor. Nedra tried twice to successfully cast the spell. She failed both times, but in one of the attempts she saw a bright light burst from her chest towards the stars on the dome of the room. After experimenting unsuccessfully in the observatory, the party mounted the stairs to the tower. At the top was a long hallway, clearly extra-dimensional and too large to fit inside the tower which held it. As they proceeded down the hall, they sprang an elaborate trap which pummeled them with strong winds and psychic torment. They battered their way through the door at the far side and escaped into a room which had obviously been the site of a disaster. There were blast marks centered in the middle of the room and a burned silhouette of a woman on one wall. The party deduced that it must have been Katalii herself. There were also four skeletons in the room, three armed men, likely mercenaries, and a dead scholar in expensive clothes. The scholar they found to be Dyaspagon. He had a hand-written note on his body.

> The trap has done its deadly work. Two of our guards died in the hall and the remaining three made it with me into this room. They all died soon after. Beorhisto, who has called me friend, is a coward. He ran as soon as the trap sprang, taking with him the page torn from the journal of Katalii. I do not begrudge him. He is a good man, but a man of little nerve. No doubt his own guilt will torment him. I suspect he fled to either his tower in the Astral sea or his homeland in the Feywild.
>
>

> I am grievously wounded, I shall not survive. My regret is that we were not able to discover the secret of Katalii's spell. Farewell.
>
>

In the center of the floor was a magical circle engraved into the stone. It was comprised of text which the party recognized as the clues they had been using to decipher the Page of Katalii. Much of the text had been destroyed in the blast, but the party found some new clues. As they sat and thought they started to piece together the puzzle of the spell and decided to return to the observatory. As they left the tower spell room there was a deafening sucking noise and the entire tower collapsed in on itself leaving a rift in the dimension.

Back in the observatory, Kuber and Augustus pieced together the clues and traced a pattern between the stars on the Page of Katalii. Jeddak quickly recognized the constellation as corresponding to the archer on the huge stone wheel. They rolled the wheel along its track until the archer was on top. Nedra sat in meditation briefly and then stood in the center of the arcane circle and invoked the scroll. She felt as if she had almost succeeded, but then the powerful spell began to slip away from her. At the last moment, the spirit of Katalii asserted itself within her and she felt white hot energy burst forth from her chest as a beam, pointing to a green star in the dome. She felt permanently weakened by the spell and collapsed to the floor (HP max reduced), but in her mind she could see the location of the mysterious green star. The party rested for a while, basking in the knowledge that they had succeeded where Beorhisto and Dyaspagon had failed. Then they climbed the stairs, and stepped through the rift of the imploded tower into the astral plane.

The party headed for Beorhisto's Tower to retrieve the Outland Cutlass. Once their had their boat, they sped towards the green star. Along the way they were attacked by GIthyanki pirates, but fought them off. After some time, they saw the green star looming ahead of them. There was a small moon circling it and the Outland Cutlass floated to the ground on it. The moon was desolate, covered with sand dunes and hot dusty wind and pale unsettling green light from the star. In the distance was a gigantic stone pyramid and the Dogs of War headed towards it. It was black, and unnaturally smooth. Nedra transformed into a spider and towed the party up the side. There was a small opening at the top and the party dropped inside.