Day 124: Sunday the 20th, Abadius, 4708
I awoke to a very cold feeling about me. Colder than I had ever felt before, not the negative forty winter or the blast freezers. The feeling passed after a few minutes, when I crawled out of bed, but I could tell that things had changed. The rest of the tower was empty, so I got my gear together and headed out to where the rest of the group were. I asked everyone else if they had woken up with a chill, and without warning, Faunra blasted me with her Ray of Frost spell. I didn't feel it at all. I asked her when she had enchanted me and she told me that it was the heart of the ice dragon that had done this.
Everyone was already dressed and ready to start their enchantments. So we hastily packed up our towers and got ourselves ready to go. We stood in a circle, the four of us, and we started our enhancements. Faunra even handed me the metamagic rod of extend to help extend the capabilities of our progress. Magic and psychic abilities flew at a rapid pace for the next thirty seconds as we did whatever we could to get ourselves ready. I was completely taken aback by how practiced and professional we were getting with this.
Then Jonathan rushed off with his arms trailing behind him. Faunra shrugged and followed him, and Dame Rebekah rushed off after her. I ran to catch up and we jumped through the teleporters to get back to the main circle. We were there in under twelve seconds, just outside of the next hallway in a clockwise rotation from where we entered. The corridor in front of us was intricately carved with designs of sleeping men and women being tended by cherubs and angelic musicians. We slowed down on our pace and came to a circular domed chamber with grinning skull decorations.
Jonathan pointed out that there were undead here, and six bodies rose up. Jonathan noted that they were getting up and defending this area against us. Dame Rebekah smiled and cast a spell on her longsword, saying that she had this. Faunra and I both disappeared with the same basic spell. Hers from study and dedication, me from blundering into it. The mummies stood up fully and looked at the (now) two intruders, one of whom was right in their midst. Dame Rebekah slashed through three of them in one fell swoop, causing the last one to disintegrate into the dust that it was obviously composed of. One of the five remaining ones lashed out with a fist, bouncing off of Dame Rebekah's shield without effect.
Faunra reappeared from a different location, to maximize her line of fire, and launched off a series of five arrows, one of which had her trademark carrier effect of a second launched arrow. I was about to move when Jonathan let loose a skipping lightning bolt that completely disintegrating the rest into the same dust as the one that disintegrated from Dame Rebekah's slash earlier. With the threat out of the way, I moved forward to the set of double doors at the back to check them for traps. Jonathan, Dame Rebekah, and Faunra all moved forward with deliberation.
I gave a quick double radio chirp to announce that we could move on. I was being even more skittish about being seen as Faunra had discovered a wand of Clairvoyance among the last wizard's effects and the fact that Divination was something that was practiced by all of the Runelords meant that me being sneaky was my best bet. We pushed forward into a room with large four-way bridge with a one-hundred-and-fifty-foot-deep pit that had carvings for sarcophagi. Before I could ask for a suggestion, Jonathan whipped off to the right and everyone else followed him, so I joined them.
In this room was something that I had never really expected. It looked like a freakish experiment dreamed up in Lovecraft's mind. There was a cold in the air that the dragon's blessing didn't stop, but didn't quite get to the point of getting damage. Dame Rebekah was pissed off at this royally, and let loose a sunbeam from her palm that I never expected. She started blasting at one crystal pillar until it exploded. We were outside of the radius of its but the pillar exploded furiously, doing damage to the other one.
Out of the closing aperture that the negative energy was flying through came something that looked like something that i had remembered from the movie Eragon now. A giant shadowy bat, that came screaming out of portal before it closed. Dame Rebekah was Johnny on the Spot and blasted the thing right in the face with her Sunbeam, AGAIN! The thing thrashed around like it was blinded and in pain. Faunra took the opportunity to launch a bevy of arrows into it, wounding it even further. Jonathan finished it off with a launched hunk of crystal. The thing dissipated back to nothingness.
Jonathan pointed out that there was a secret cubby on the back wall and I rushed over to check it. I opened it up to find a bevy of books and scrolls. I summoned up the cataloging crew and ordered them to continue their task from the previous day. We moved back to the deep pit and the place seemed a lot less dangerous. Jonathan again urged us to the next room to the right.
It was a butchery. An Abattoir. Jonathan sniffed and just rushed through the door to the East. We all followed into the next room. It was a study of a type, with another bunch of books. Jonathan quickly rushed off to the left and opened up a door. We followed but saw that he had already launched off one of his marbles. Faunra popped up to the door and dropped a mud laden arrow into the atrocity in the room. I pulled up and fired off a round from my rifle into the now blinded thing. Dame Rebekah pulled up last and shined her sunbeam at the thing and disintegrating it.
The room was an autopsy room, with signs that the removed pieces being eaten. Apparently Jonathan had seen the thing about to take a bite of the liver before he blasted it. I set the servants to collecting this grisly room's contents for whatever we could utilize, or at least prevent the inhabitants from getting behind us and using against us. I wasn't certain if the damage that we had done so far would help us when we got to this corridor's commander. Maybe they'd have something similar to the Wrath's where the defeater would get some kind of power. Everyone looked at me and Jonathan dumped a potion of invisibility back on me, saying that my secrecy was our best weapon, before rushing off towards the other door.
The rest of us followed quickly behind him as he opened up doors ahead of us and pushed through to the next chamber on our path and waited at the next door. Jonathan quietly asked me if I could give them all any enhancements for the next fight, before opening the door. Faunra launched off five arrows and a Snow-ball, Jonathan let loose with another Sith Lightning, and Dame Rebekah let loose with a sunbeam.
I looked into the room and saw that everything was gone, just a fine dust falling after the onslaught. I looked at the others invisibly and asked what they had found. Jonathan shrugged, saying that these undead were fairly weak. Faunra smiled and said that they were dealt with simply with applied force. Dame Rebekah said that she was just happy that they were dealt with quickly, that she only had one Sunbeam left. Jonathan sniffed the air and led us into a secret chamber. That secret chamber had another secret door.
Jonathan noted that this was the dangerous part, and asked if there was anything else that we should do before we went on to this room. Faunra enhanced her bow with the bow's own power and her own, Dame Rebekah got ready to launch her last sunbeam, and I got ready to unload on whomever was in the room, after opening the door for everyone. We leapt into the room.
By the time I could get a look into the room, everything was in disarray. I wasn't even needed to do anything, as the leader was dead and disintegrating from the solar beam and this summoned ally was now dissipating into foul mist. Faunra spoke up and told us all that the wizard was actually a lich and that it had a phylactery somewhere. I asked if there was any way to tell what it was. Faunra said it was kind of hit or miss, but it had to be in this dimension. Jonathan noted that there was a trapdoor in the corner and Dame Rebekah said that they expected that there would at least be traps in the vicinity of the phylactery.
I looked over the secret door and did an inspection for traps. I almost didn't catch it but there was a magical trap enchanting the three sarcophagi in the room. I got my happy ass out of there and asked Jonathan to open up the three sarcophagi telekinetically. The first one opened and the carved skeletons reached out and shrieked. I could sense the negative energy wash through that room. The first sarcophagi had almost a dozen books. I bet that they were spellbooks, but we'd have to check them later. I had the unseen crafters come in for the cataloguing. Jonathan opened up the second coffin, and it contained gems, linen, a magical bottle and a magical scarab, along with another spellbook. The final coffin was empty and Dame Rebekah said that this one detected as evil.
Jonathan used it to smash apart the other sarcophagi violently. And then after the others were destroyed, he repeatedly used it to bash equipment and other things in the room where we defeated the lich itself. The he took the broken pieces and smashed them against each other until both Dame Rebekah and I could declare that it registered as neither evil or magical anymore. We gathered up everything and started heading back. When we got back to the four-way bridge, there was one way that we had not gone yet. We decided to head that way, to completely clear out the complex.
We headed there and Jonathan got ready, declaring that there was a golem on the other side of this door. We stiffened up and barged in, the haste effect still continuing so we didn't want to waste it. I threw up the door and my rifle came up immediately with it. I dropped three rounds into the golem and it shattered. Jonathan looked at my rifle again and smiled. I shrugged and said that the golem must have gotten weak with age. Jonathan rushed in to check the rest of the tomb. We got everything collected, and I told everyone that I expected that we were half way through the Haste Spell.
Everyone wanted to go into the next hall. We rushed back to the main chamber and into the next one. Supposedly the chamber of Pride. Faunra indicated that she didn't like this hall at all when she stepped into the corridor. Dame Rebekah comforted her. Everyone sent me ahead to check for traps. Jonathan had said that this place smelled lousy with them. The first one I found was actually the bejeweled door, set with pistons to slam down on whomever might try to use it. I disarmed it handily. The Unseen Craftsmen went about collecting the gems.
We encountered a silvery mist at the end of the first hallway that Jonathan didn't like the look of, so he used some ability to cause air to blow away the mist. We quickly went through to the room beyond to see a room paved in ivory tiles with engraved runes. There was a large silver basin that had a whale ice sculpture with water spraying in the blowhole. In the pool we found find a group of water mephits.
They started to insult us when one of them asked if Faunra was really Faunra. She told it that she was and it turned out that they were old friends, that one of the mephits was the one who was stuck with her for a long time. Faunra told them that we needed to deal with whomever was in this chamber, but that she'd be glad to come back to talk to them when we were done. They said that the metal man was bad and that the statues in the pools had golems in them. Another one spoke up and said that the mists are linked to the golem and the biggest pool are made of magic. Faunra thanked them, and we rushed on.
We made our way to the next room to the East, which had a pool. Thanks to the mephits and Jonathan's necklace, we knew that the statue was a golem before it even moved. We leapt upon the golem and between Jonathan and Dame Rebekah, the statue was destroyed. We rushed on to continue our raid.
There were some rooms where it looked like there was some raw materials and Faunra noted that we needed to figure out a way to come back to this place. I asked her if she would explain later and she said that she would. We made our way to the next pool and this time Faunra and Jonathan were the ones who destroyed the golem with extreme burst violence. There was a door at the other side of this room and we decided to rush into it.
Jonathan kicked in the door and Faunra and I immediately peppered the only standing person in there. A man who was coated in Mithril metal. My three shots fired out and two of them struck him in the chest, while the third bullet tracked up and struck the guy in the middle of the forehead. The bullet penetrated but the guy didn't drop. Faunra dropped him with her bevy of arrows. The guy dropped unconscious and Dame Rebekah stepped up to drop her sword through his neck. Jonathan went about checking all of the animals getting set up to let them out of their cages, but saw that there were two more doors. We went to the left as we are used to, and we all stacked up as usual.
We opened the door to see a gigantic boar faced demon. Jonathan charged at it. It took a swipe at him, and he dodged it easily. Then Jonathan struck back. I don't think I've ever seen anything so furious. Six hits to the thing. More than a punch every a second with his enhanced cesti. The Demon exploded into viscera and winking lights. I honestly wondered what I was really doing with this party at this point. I definitely didn't stack up to Jonathan at this point in any measurable way. We moved through the rapidly disappearing gore to the last room.
We came to a massive room with pool that Faunra whistled at. She immediately told us that this pool had the potential to recharge or repair magical items. I didn't like the room at all. I could keep myself in good enough condition, but everyone else except Jonathan started to get disorientated. We ushered them out of the room and we all talked. Faunra asked if we could get a couple samples of the water, and Jonathan gladly formed a scoop and lifted up a gallon of the water. When we brought it out of the pool, it lost its magical abilities, but Faunra wanted to keep it anyway. We transferred it to a jug.
We backtracked through the other side of the complex and finished off the last two of the stone golems. When we got back to the mephits they asked if we could take the fountain with us. Jonathan shrugged and lifted up the whole fountain. The mephits were amused. We made our way back to the Halls of Wrath and took the pool with us. It took a couple of tries but we figured it out. There were eight of the Warriors of Wrath who were acting as guards. I asked if we were done for the day and the others all shook their head, saying that we should try to clear out the rest of the wings, lest we take more days here.
We went back through the Halls of Wrath and went over to the Halls of Conjuration. Now that we were there, both Faunra and Jonathan were leery of going in. I noted that we needed to push on, like they said, so we can get back home. They grudgingly agreed that we needed to get this done. I was really glad that Jonathan had enhanced us with his air bubble stuff, because we couldn't smell the effluent of the corridor that we were heading down. It was like the Magnimar sewers, if Magnimar had sewers.
Faunra took twelve seconds to cast a spell of flight onto both Dame Rebekah and myself. She had already cast one on herself early in the day, she explained, and Jonathan lifted off the ground of his own ability. We all floated through the disgusting mess, steering clear of the floors and pools. Amusingly, as we passed, since the Haste enchantment had worn off, I started using my cleaning cantrip as we went to clean up the walls. Faunra and Dame Rebekah caught on and started purifying the water and using prestidigitation to clean up the rooms as we moved along. Even Jonathan got in on it, by creating scoops of huge amounts of water and moving them along.
We came to a room with three levers and four pipes. We happened to see chunky junk come out from the pipes and I was wondered aloud why they had been importing the filth. Faunra snickered that it was just like the conjurers to not even be able to do that on their own. We all floated over and started cleaning the area of the wall with the levers. None of us wanted to touch that filth. When we got done, we saw a placard for each. The leftmost lever was up and said access control. Jonathan tried to pull it down and failed. Faunra tried and failed. I only managed to get it pulled with a bit of intelligent prying.
We heard groans throughout the sewer and noticed that the grates that we could see had retracted up. We moved to the middle one, and its placard said Portal Control. Dame Rebekah walked up to it and pulled up on it. She couldn't succeed on her own. I went to help, to no avail. I yelled out that we needed some WD-40. Faunra asked what that was. I told her that it was an oil like substance that helped things move. Faunra wryly asked, like grease? I stood back stupidly, and cast grease into the mechanism.
Dame Rebekah tried the handle again and it handily pulled up. The sludge from the pipes stopped. Then they struck. Jonathan pointed them out and pointed out that there was an invisible thing flying about the room, spying on us. Jonathan launched out a weak Sith lighting just to mark where the three were before they attacked. The lightning didn't hurt them, but it did point them out. I saw two Golgathan and yelled out that the Golgathan were attacking.
Faunra looked at me oddly and asked me what I meant as a sentient pile of shit dropped from the ceiling, far away from where Jonathan had struck with lightning, and it attacked Dame Rebekah. The slams stopped when they hit Dame Rebekah's shield. Dame Rebekah responded with three expert slashes of her sword, doing vicious damage to the viscous villain. Faunra spotted the other one that was in the pool, and launched a volley at them. The thing disappeared from where it was and reappeared to fall on just the other side of Dame Rebekah, managing to slam her. The thing had an acrid effect on the ground, but nothing to Dame Rebekah, due to her earlier spell.
I didn't think that I could reasonably fire into this shit show, so I reached forward with ill intent towards the fecal foe. I crushed it in my enhanced gauntlet twice and the coprolitic competitor dissolved under my grasp as so much… Jonathan telekinetically lifted the deceased dung demon and slammed it into its crap chum, causing them both to splat. I started up heavily with the cleaning cantrips with Faunra helping and Dame Rebekah Creating Water as well. Jonathan asked if we wanted to check the last lever and I said sure.
The last Lever's plaque said Cleaning Cycle. I created grease to cause the lever to pull easier. We got together and stood at ready while Dame Rebekah pulled the lever. A torrent of water fell and a large water elemental rushed down and started cleaning the place. Faunra spoke to it in Aquan and it noted that it was tasked with cleaning this place. She had apparently asked if it would prevent us from killing those who were polluting this place. The Water elemental told her no and that it would keep in mind that we were trying to help it.
We moved on to another place where Jonathan fished out a corpse from a pool. There was a bag of holding (unknown type) and a magical rod. We grabbed it for cataloging and continued on. When we came to the next pool, it looked to be the retention pond for the whole system. The most fucked up squids I had ever seen popped up out of the water. Out of reflex, I dropped three rounds into the lead one and Faunra dropped five arrows into the other one. The one I shot wiggled its tentacles around and we felt an aura of chaos wash over us. It mildly tingled, but I think that Dame Rebekah got it worse. She lashed out with her Burst of Light and the things both recoiled, with vicious burns tearing into their body.
Jonathan finished them off with his leaping lightning. Just like fish when lightning hits them, they popped. We checked everyone over and Dame Rebekah said that she was fine, and that we should continue on. We came up to a pair of double doors and took a breather to get ready. I cast the Haste spell again, utilizing Faunra's rod of extend to give us even more time to utilize the spell. Dame Rebekah utilized her spell that allowed her to tap into some ancient ancestry that she might not have been aware of to increase her ability to help others. Faunra chose to Vanish from sight, and Jonathan dosed me with another potion of Invisibility. We really need to stock up on them. With us all ready, Jonathan kicked open the doors.
It was a large room that had a metal catwalk. There were four pipes in the corners and a large pool in the center of the room. Each of the pipes had a different color… liquid… in it. The liquid from the four, five-foot diameter pipes flowed through the air to a larger, fifth pipe that was higher up on the wall. In the center of the room, floating on a Thanos Chair, was a beyond morbidly obese man with nipple rings and an exposed blackened heart. To each their own I guess.
Faunra whispered out that he was obviously a mage and the guy started talking, saying that the four of us would die to sate his lord's hunger. I shrugged and said then let's hope he likes to eat hot lead. Dame Rebekah took that as my invitation to start, and she cast her burst of radiance spell in front of his eyes, blinding and damaging the corpulent conjurer. A black tendril lashed out at her from the pipe to the right of us, and I lit into it without thinking. The tendril exploded with fire, and I heard Faunra do the same with a half dozen twangs of her bowstring. I looked back towards the stout sorcerer to see two arrows stuck out of him. He laughed out, "Cantrips, you think to beat me with cantrips?"
Then Jonathan bashed into him with heavily launched skull, and then the jawbone flew behind it to nail the overweight wizard's neck. Clean decapitating his head, dropping it down into the pool below. I looked around and saw the shifty quasit blindly peering around the corner of the throne. Apparently, it had been hit by Dame Rebekah's Burst of Radiance spell and against all odds, effected by it. It took one shot from there to kill it and have it fall into the pool at the bottom of the room. Jonathan plinked away at the oozes in the other pipes and the rest of us took the time to check Fat Thanos' throne.
There was a secret compartment (unlocked), with a bunch of items, including a spellbook with a section scrawled in the front cover about what items to add to the Runepool to forge the right weapons. If this fat ass was right, we'd need mirrors from the illusionist's realm and some "toys" from Delvahine's room. That would make a certain type of Runeforged weapon, one that would be good against Special K. I'm gonna steal that from Lexx. I don't care. I need to query our resident Arcana expert about these Runeforged Weapons, as to anything that might help us better.
By the time Jonathan was done with disposing of the oozes, Faunra asked him to gather up some of the liquid from the mixed pool. He did and we booked it out of the room again. I asked the others if they wanted to take on an apparent "lust" dungeon in our current state and they disagreed, saying that it would be better to verify our knowledge from everything that we have found and find out what else we need. When we got out to the center room, I asked if they thought that it would be easy to check out the Abjurer's room, since it was already plundered and such. They all agreed and we walked over to it.
When we walked into the hall, we saw that there were scorch marks from misfired spells and what not all along the walls. A loud booming voice came out telling us to stop, that we would be killed or what not. I laughed at the others until we got into the next room and saw what my brain told me was a trap. A silver rod was jammed into the floor and crackling. I offered that we needed to back out and observe for a minute or two to see what it does. After about forty-five seconds, a magical pulse flooded the room. Then the rod started to build power again. I asked Faunra what the pulse did, and she told me that it destroyed magic wherever the pulse touched. I nodded and asked for everyone else to step out of the room.
I went in to try to disarm this trap. I figured out that it pulses every five minutes. I didn't want to leave it to affect us later if we had to rush, so I disarmed it and pulled the useless silver rod out of the ground. The pulse didn't go off so I guessed that I was successful. We walked into the rest of the room and came upon a great pool with silvery liquid. There was enough to fill a gallon and a half of liquid and Jonathan scooped it out like he always does.
We went into the last room in this area and found another dangerous ooze. Jonathan lashed out with a blast of Arctic Cold from his hand twice, one big blast, and one quick following blast, and Faunra finished it off with her conjured snowball. Jonathan floated over to a section of wall beyond the fallen fiendish foe and opened up a secret panel, which had some ancient potion bottles in it. I shrugged and we finished off the exploration of the chamber.
I noted that it looked like whenever a hall was no longer in use, it started to be reabsorbed into the rock. Faunra told me that this had dire consequences if true. I asked her what she meant, and she told me that this was an Thassilonian relic that would be gone. I added that it had been corrupted millennia ago, and that it might be best to start building a new legacy. She kind of nodded but I could tell that she wasn't happy about it. We all quietly headed back to the Halls of Wrath to collect our thoughts.
When we had gotten back, I asked everyone if this was a common thing. Dame Rebekah asked me what, and I told her the stopping after less than fifteen minutes of intense action. Dame Rebekah asked me if I wanted to go rush into the Halls of Lust for some other reason. I shook my head and just noted that when I was on the ship, we prepared for war with the intention of being at it for hours. Dame Rebekah seemed to understand, and told me that we were more doing the surgical work. I told her that I could understand it, but that even the siege of Sandpoint was something that didn't even count as a siege back where I was from.
Faunra asked how long a siege was back where I was from. I told her that the longest that I could think of was twenty-one years, and a more famous one was said to last at least a decade. They looked at me oddly. I added that without magic or higher technology, forces just surrounded a city or town and starved the people into submitting. Dame Rebekah asked how that worked. I told her that the entire enemy, or besieging army would surround the city or town and just prevent others from going in or out. Then it would be a battle of attrition for who's supplies held out the longest. Sometimes the town broke, and sometimes the siege broke.
I added that even in kinetic wars, they lasted years back where I was from. I added that there were people who had been born to those who were in the war. Dame Rebekah nodded, saying that the World Wound was like that. I nodded, saying that a hell pit where the infinite forces of hell kept coming would lend itself to a very protracted siege. Dame Rebekah asked if I could do anything to help with it. I told her that we could solve that issue after we dealt with Special K. I explained to them, on similar means, to Echidna, that I wasn't going to use that entity's name in public, and that the Special K reference was to a figment of someone's imagination. They all liked it.
I spent a lot of time going over various books and tomes that we had found, trying to piece together all that we had discovered. Faunra spent her time going over all of the goods that we had, and trying to piece together all of what we needed from the various halls to fully make the weapons. Jonathan went out to spend some time sparing with his new restaurant staff, I guess. Dame Rebekah went to go meditate and see if there was anything that she could help with.
All in all, this was a very exciting and action filled morning. I decided to head back to the Halls of Greed to check out the rooms. Jonathan had gone through and moved all deceased bodies to the rooms where we had found random bits of raw materials. The bodies were slowly disassembling themselves into their component pieces. I shuddered and went to an empty room. I took out a few copper pieces and focused on turning them into wiring. Slowly, they did. This was great! If I could find a way to reproduce this back in Sandpoint, we could have our very own creation forges.
I resolved to talk to Faunra about this after I had apologized about being an asshole about this place disappearing. I noted that if we cleared this place out fully, we could get the Pathfinders in here in mass and that they could open it back up. Especially if they can reproduce a way to get here easier. I took a skip over to the abjuration halls and summoned up three work crews of unseen servants to start (quietly) carving out the former hall into a nice bunkhouse, with a large septic system heading to the hall of conjuration. No reason not to use it if I had it.
I left the former halls of Abjuration and I took my two wires with me back to the Halls of Wrath. The gate guards looked at me oddly, but escorted me to the area with all of the others. Jonathan was still practicing with his new abilities and Dame Rebekah was still trying to assist Faunra. I went back to my studies. It seems like there is a catch to unleashing the Runeforged weapons true potential, in that they have to match the wielder's personality. I'll bring that up and what we need if the person wants an item that matches them or if they want an item that will be more useful against Special K.