They appear at the entrance to the tunnel leading in to the floating castle in the large chamber. They see the wagon wheel ruts in the floor and evidence of the earlier battle with Baron Hagenti, but they don’t remember this at first. They see the castle floating in the darkness above the bottomless pit and enter. They once again see the signs of battle, but they merely scratch their heads over it and enter the castle proper. Here, they see the plinths of crystal and the pillars of the portal on the other side of the great chamber. But they notice a symbol of death has been put on the blue crystal plinth. Helbrecht starts casting dispel magic on the symbol, and that triggers the readied actions of the hiding ultraloths and nycaloth commanders. They immediately fling old wood shields with more symbols of death inscribed on them strategically through the room. Only Helbrecht has low enough hit points to be affected and he does indeed die. Felgarn uses an alter fortune to negate that.
The battle is on. Felgarn flies up with greater visage of the deity and draws the attacks of two flying nycaloths. When it comes to John’s turn, he uses time stop and is able to lay out an array of 5 spells including his tricky acid fog-maw of chaos combination that works so well. Then, Baron Hagenti himself shows up and starts to help out with his own spells. Now, the party remembers this dwarf druid who tried to trick them before when they were last here.
The fight goes on for a long time. The ultraloths use their enervation rays to good effect until Croom manages to put up a mass death ward and then takes away the negative levels with a mass restoration. Baron Hagenti, through the course of the fight, manages to use finger of death twice on John, killing him both times, but the clerics are able to revivify him each time. About 10 rounds into the battle, there are suddenly a bunch of newcomers to the battle. A cadre of devils show up: two pit fiends, two paeilyrons, and 4 xerfilstyx’s. They and the yugoloths snarl at each other and are surprised at each other's presence. The party tries to get information about this but they are ignored. Still, they learn that there are two factions each trying to get into Reym. They conclude that the Baron is not working for the devils and is probably an independent agent. During the course of the fight, poor Skilgannon was nothing but a target. He was hit numerous times by ray of enfeeblement, ray of exhaustion and other things that reduced his strength to 0, knocked him unconscious, and so on. He barely got a chance to swing his sword. The pit fiend, at one point, teleported right in front of him and full attacked him down to near death.
At another point in the melee, the paeliryon was able to get rid of Helbrecht’s elemental monolith by charming him after first affecting him with his mind fog aura. The monolith had been death to the ultraloths, though they tried time and again to use suggestion on it, but failing each time. Still, the battle was mostly in the party’s favor as they were able to blast the devils and yugoloths with very powerful magic. Time stop was used several times by both Helbrecht and John, which allowed for the summoning of more maw of chaos that ate up the devils quickly. Near the end, Croom cast implosion and was able to target the Baron with it. The Baron rolled a natural 1 and failed, so he was destroyed immediately. A few moments later the party became aware of a powerful, angry spiritual presence, centered around the Baron's body. But they had no time to worry about it now. That left just the devils. Croom was able to get the last paeliryon with the implosion again. Felgarn had dismissed one pit fiend and John used another time stop to stack up more maw of chaos on the last pit fiend.
When the last foe was destroyed, they looted the Baron’s body, worried about the spiritual presence they were feeling but knowing that there was nothing they could do about it without the Lemegeton. They rushed to put in the key and open the portal. They want to get into Reym to identify the magic items and rest, knowing that the devils can’t teleport there. If they rest on this side, they could be attacked again.
They step through the portal into a large chamber similar to the one they just left. They are able to remove the blue key and run through with it before the portal closes. They immediately notice a yellow crystal plinth in this chamber instead of a blue one. It is empty. They try to put the blue crystal in it, but the portal remains closed. They note the next challenge they must address: finding a way to leave Reym. They also see that the chamber shows signs of old battle, just like the chamber on the other side did. Here they find more destroyed stone golems and old scorch marks on the walls and floor. Even more interestingly, the chamber was obviously sealed up on this side, but that hole was bored through solid stone to the outside. They smell fresh air through it. Finally, even more fascinating to them, all of the spellcaster's feel an awesome presence of pure unadulterated magic in the air around them. It causes the hair to to rise on the back of their necks, and a feeling of great anticipation of ultimate power seems just out of reach. Like listening to a conversation just too far away to make out the words.
Felgarn tries to summon mordenkainen’s magnificent mansion, but nothing happens. They immediately test out other spells, and discover that summoning spells don't work here, nor do any spells having to do with crossing planar boundaries. Helbrecht is particularly dismayed to find that he can't summon elementals here. He feels his doom is upon him now. The party settles for a simple Leomund’s secure shelter to rest in for the night after the long battle.
The next morning they venture out of the chamber they arrived in and see that they are on the edge of a very large ruined city. Nearest to them are larger buildings that could be warehouses of sorts. Leading from their chamber is clearly a large avenue that goes straight to a distant river and docks. They see that this avenue was once quite grand, and nearer to the river it has statues lined on either side. On the other side of the river, they see that the ruins are mostly overgrown with forest. The eager John sees the statues on the road and runs out with his swift phantom steed to inspect them. He is therefore the target of the elder odopi as it attacks. The creature is straight out of nightmare, looking like a giant sphere of hundreds of demonic clawed arms. The center of its body is hidden by the forest of its limbs. Each hand bears a yellow eye in its palm that blinks shut as the behemoth rolls hand-over- hand toward you. It is. however, no match for the might of the party, who are now reaching epic levels.
They recognize the statues for the most part as emperors and go into the stone buildings, finding them to be customs houses. They fly up and spot another horror, a shrieking ten-headed terror flying through the sky like a giant starfish. Each of its necks ended in a scaly horrific humanoid head with green glowing eyes. It, however, is easily destroyed with ranged magic before it can do anything major. They spot the temple of Myrcon and as soon as Skilgannon enters the building, he rouses a third aberrant creature, a zeugalak. It attacks. With its massive HP, it takes a long time to kill and it does a lot of damage. Still the party is victorious in the end. Inside the temple, they see that the ceiling bears a panorama map of the world. They realize the world is a whole lot bigger than they ever imagined. There are vast areas on this map that they have never even conceived of, including massive land masses across distant oceans. They wonder why no one has ever seen more than their known realm. They also come to the realization that perhaps some of the Lemegeton spirits are not in the known realm and are out there somewhere.
They explore the ruined city a bit more, finding a temple of Mac Lyr at the giant docks. Croom casts detect magic and is blinded by the massive magical auras all around him. They speculate about the magic and how it is just out of reach. Helbrecht in particular discovers with a really high Spellcraft check that if one were able to tap into it, one could get free metamagic feats. Naturally, he wants it. But even taking 20 on his spellcraft he can only figure out it will take at least a year of attempts and attuning to get to that point of mastery. They decide to summon the secure shelter inside the temple of Myrcon to rest.
The next morning, they travel on south, following the river for the rest of the day. They spot a village of primitive looking creatures far below them and they fly over it, but they dismiss it as inconsequential when they see the creatures trying to throw rocks at them. That night, after a full day of travel over the expansive forest,they set up their shelter on the river and camp. During first watch eight balhannoths brachiate through the trees and attack them, sensing their magic auras. Croom hears them and wakes everyone up. They land on the roof and John disintegrates a hole and flies up. Unfortunately, he provokes attacks of opportunity and he is grappled. He is further surprised when he discovers that the creatures emanate an antimagic aura. Caught in the antimagic grapple, he is unable to do much at all to resist being carried away into the forest. Helbrecht similarly becomes grappled and is also foiled once by the dimensional lock aura. It takes a lot of effort to finally defeat the creatures. Both Helbrecht and John are nearly killed by them. Helbrecht is knocked unconscious at one point. Hans was able to save John with his lightning ring and polar rays.
The next morning they come to a river junction at midday and decide to follow the southeast branch. Towards the late afternoon they come to a large marsh and then a bit after that, 30 minutes, a massive city half submerged in a lake and spreading through the swamp. The architecture of the city is half in the water, and looks like this is intentional. The buildings are stone, but shaped like nightmare coral reefs that look drooping and cancerous in some places. In other places, the buildings are myriads of spires with twisted crenellations and jagged spikes. Interestingly, it sort of reminds them of discarded shells of ocean creatures that has been left to rot and decay. Their sharp eyes, however, spot some temples shaped like creatures that they recognize: aboleths. They also spot lots of movement. This city isn't an abandoned ruin, it is alive and thriving with aboleths. They decide that they aren’t going there unless they have to. They turn south instead.
After traveling all day, they are attacked again by a nightmare aberration as they are setting up camp. Hans is in the middle of casting leomund’s secure shelter, when the creature nails them with a wail of the banshee, killing Skilgannon who rolls a 1. Next round, it hits them all but Hans with chain lightning. Unfortunately for the creature, John gets a maw of chaos off that dazes the creature 3 rounds in a row and it just gets mauled by the party before it can do anything else. They party discusses the kinds of creatures they have been encountering and have noticed that they all seem to be some kind of aberrant. There's definitely something going on here.
The night passes without event and they fly off again. They see nothing but trees in all directions and start to wonder if they might be missing important things because of the tree cover. They decide to land and travel on foot for a while. After a short time in the woods, they see a ruins up ahead. They notice that these ruins show signs of battle a long, long time ago. They see disintegration holes and scorched stone. These are the ruins is of a sizable town about half the size of Althofen. After traveling a while, Skilgannon hears the wind but sees that the trees aren’t moving. The party has one round to buff when the ragewind, an invisible undead creature made of wind wielding six magical adamantine longswords, attacks. It successfully disarms and trips Skilgannon, and then later Felgarn. Felgarn really hurts it with a mass heal and it does a full attack on him, knocking him near death before it is destroyed. They recover the adamantine longswords and go into the secure shelter. They take a full day to rest and recover.
After everyone has recovered, they head out into city again. They come across a strange octagonal blue building with arches in each side. They notice that nothing grows on the building unlike the other ruined structures. Further, the building is perfectly intact, not a sign of damage is on it. When they approach the building, they see that there are 5 figures inside, one of which is next to a pedestal. Close up, they spot 4 iron golems and a strange human-sized conglomerations of iron, clockwork gears, shearing blades, metallic fists, and other unfamiliar moving parts of iron. Naturally, the constructs attack. The fight goes well for the party. Even when the anaxim, which the strange construct is identified as, flies 200 feet and attacks Helbrecht for casting a maw of chaos, they really have no problem. John’s phantom steed is dispelled when he is 240 feet up, but Helbrecht had a feather fall prepared that easily saves the day as that spell is intended to. The anaxim is destroyed while 200 feet up, so it’s loot scatters about the ruins. The wizards go search while the barbarian and cleric easily deal with the regular iron golems.
Inside the building they find that there is a yellow plinth with 5 slots. They pull out the blue crystal and see that its shade of blue perfectly matches that of the building color. The pedestal also has a yellow color that matches. They assume that this is a teleportal of some kind. They memorize it for teleporting back. John even chalks a “1” on the wall in case there are more of these. They leave the ruined city and continue their trek south for the rest of the day. As they travel, John and Helbrecht confer in secret about some strange behavior they are seeing in Hans.
After two more days of travel, defeating more nightmare creatures along the way, they reach the end of the forest and come across a wizard’s tower. It is made of ordinary granite and has a turret at the top. There is a door, so they go up and knock. A window upstairs opens then closes and a short time later the door opens to reveal a cloud of pale green mist defies the laws of nature, coiling and roiling almost with a mind of its own. Long, dark green spines the size of a rapier blade, up to four at a time, constantly form and dissolve within the cloud. Suddenly, it collapsed in on itself to take on the crude form of a flying eight-limbed creature. The four upper limbs end in long spines, and the four lower limbs end in tiny, four-fingered hands. Its roughly humanoid torso is covered with dark green plates, and its head is a writhing mass of tendrils.
Surprisingly, it tries to communicate with the party. After a few attempts, they settle on using Draconic to talk. He is introduced as Master Adephius the silthilar. He invites them in and shows off his tower, being quite hospitable despite his appearance. He marvels at their pure human form and immediately asks if he can study their forms, but only if they agree and in trade. He offers information for the right to study them. He shows them his lab and the vivisection areas. He offers flesh grafts to them, which intrigues them for a time but they finally refuse those. They are grossed out but have a hard time refusing the possibility of knowledge. He lets them know that his kind does not age, and thus have been around a long, long time. They finally agree to let two of them: Helbrecht who volunteers and Skilgannon who loses the die roll with John (Felgarn can’t volunteer because he may be needed to cast resurrection in the event of an accident). Helbrecht will go first. In exchange, the party can ask 3 questions before they start with Helbrecht, 3 more after, then the rest of the questions after Skilgannon.
The first question is about who entered Reym 20 years ago. Does Master Adephius know anything about this? Indeed he thinks he might: There was a dark-skinned humanoid elf with white hair who appeared in the Reyman capital who went by the name of Octavius Herodonus. He doesn't offer more information than that, so they decide to save their other two questions for different subjects. The next question is about the metamagic of the area. He tells them that yes, it can be accessed, but only after years of study and attunement. The first thing one can do is apply Extend and Enlarge metamagic feats automatically to spells. Then later, Reach and Widen. And finally, the level adjustment for metamagic feats is reduced the longer one stays here. But there is a price for this: the more time you spend here, the more it warps your body and mind to become aberrant. Their last question is about the Lemegeton. He has heard of it, and he knows that three were known to be made. Two were kept in the Reyman capital.
For the next week, Master Adephius vivisects Helbrecht while the two clerics attend, ready to jump in with their divine magic should it be needed. They are needed once to revivify him when his body nearly gives out from the punishment it is receiving with the Master's instruments. The following week is Skilgannon's turn. He fares much worse than Helbrecht did, especially when the Master removes his heart and brain for a while. Finally, however, the nightmare is over. Will Helbrecht and Skilgannon ever be the same after this experience? Only time will tell.
They now talk more freely with Master Adephius. They learn a great deal. First, they learn that though a lot of the Reyman peninsula is abandoned and overrun by the wild (as they have already experienced), each of the five major cities are still occupied and ruled. This staggers the party. They had assumed all this while that they would be entering ruins. They learn that the city of the aboleths is named Ravennus. The other cities are Tarentum ruled by grell, Sybarus, ruled by neogi, Pompeii, ruled by psurlons, and lastly Reym itself, which is split into two factions. The current emperor rules one faction, a mind flayer, while the other are the rebel beholders. The mind flayers have held the palace and have for centuries, giving them the edge in the city. However, 20 years ago, Octavius arrived and worked his way to the emperor's side. Then, he betrayed and slew Emperor Galerius XVI and stole the scepter and rainbow crown. Now, the new emperor, the eldest son, rules and plans his vengeance against Octavius. They also learn that each ruler of the major cities holds a yellow crystal that will open the gate to leave Reym.
The party is truly daunted by the task before them. How can they infiltrate a city of mind flayers, enter the palace guarded by who knows what, and steal the Lemegeton and yellow crystal key from the Reyman Emperor himself? Probably the most powerful mind flayer around. They talk and finally come up with a plan of action. Master Adephius holds no regard for the Emperor and offers to hook the party up with a similar-minded individual in the city proper by the name of Fidelius; a rakshasa. He can only help the party get there and offer an introduction, though. They pay him with Skilgannon's finger, which they cut off. They have acquired a magic skin that will allow Skilgannon to regrow it in a while. The Master agrees and sends messages to Fidelius, who agrees to meet them tomorrow.
Master Adephius teleports them into the foyer of Fidelius’ villa and they are brought in. Adephius leaves shortly after introducing them and they speak. They tell him what they need and try to figure out what to do. They learn that Fidelius wants to be emperor and that the Hive Mother Beholder also is strong and wishes to be empress. Ultimately, they decide that a frontal assault – blunt weapon attack – is their best and only option for getting what they need. Fidelius agrees that if they will attempt to kill the emperor (not merely rob him), then he will help them. They also get his permission to use his villa as a fallback for retreating. Naturally, the party assumes that he will turn on them at his first opportunity, but they must take what help they can find.
They waste no time in devising a plan. Fidelius takes them with a caravan of other aberration petitioners to the palace. There, he tells them, he will create a diversion so the party can be on their own to sneak into the palace and try to find their way to their goal. They see the city for the first time on the trip to the palace. They are disheartened more and more as they see the size of the city and the power of the occupants. The city's size dwarfs that of Arhus, the largest city any of them knew. They could fit dozens of Arhus's inside of Reym. They spot temples galore, circus's, coliseums, merchant quarters, bazaars, and all the usual accoutrements of a massive city. The occupants are all aberrant of some form or another, and it is obvious that a mob would be no match for even their powers. They can only worry about the Imperial guards, who are the best of the best. On the trip they speculate that the barrier around the peninsula trapped the magic inside and this magic has focused and concentrated over the eons to change the people of Reym into this: all beings of incredible magical power, but twisted by it equally.
On the highest hill of the city stands the massive several-mile-long building that is the Imperial Palace. Near it, they see a massive university of magic. To get there, they also noticed a large part of the city was in some kind of disrepair and ruin, with smoke and fires clearly seen in various parts. As they climb the hill to the palace, they see more of the city. A gaping chasm has consumed a large part of the northern city, and they can see the red of lava glowing from within. They wonder at what historical magical battle caused it. At last, they reach the palace along with the thousands of other supplicants.
In the courtyard of the palace, Fidelius starts his diversion – 5-6 flame strikes and firestorms explode through the peasants waiting there hoping for an audience with the emperor. The guards go on full alert and leave their posts and the party uses teleport to quickly get to the doorway and then inside the building. They have to bluff past some regular mind flayers. They succeed getting almost to the throne room when their bluffs fail and they have to fight guards and other mind flayers. They encounter tougher guards, called ulitharids, that stand taller and have longer tentacles. Unfortunately, their luck eventually runs out and the alarm is raised. Croom and Felgarn have tried some divinations. Felgarn used locate object to find the portal key and Croom used find the path to find the treasury. They both succeeded and the party followed Croom through many rooms and corridors. They fight ulitharids over and over again. When they are in the corridors behind the throne room several ambushes have finally been set up. At a big intersection they encounter brain golems and mindshredder zenthals, but the party was able to take them out in a few rounds. The brain golems finally are able to stun Croom and Helbrecht for a few rounds with mind powers but its at the end of the fight and the party simply carries them until it wears off. Croom leads them down a corridor to a door they now believe should be close to the treasury. Wisely, they have hoarded their magic spells and dealt with the guards up to this point with minimal expenditure of their resources.
When they open the door, they enter a room with 6 ulitharids who are defeated easily. They notice that the door to the next room was open and then closed as soon as Skilgannon entered. The ulitharids readied mind blasts that had no effect on the party thanks to mind blank and good defenses. But this fight did have the result of using up some of their spells. As soon as the last ulitharid died, they went to the next room where the ulaphrion (mind-flayer roper) was with two brain golems. The party got split up at this point. Felgarn and Skilgannon advanced to take on the roper and golems while the rest of the casters hung back in the room with the dead ulitharids. At that point, Master Calidius, right-hand of the Emperor and an illithid monk appeared through a dimension door behind the party and charged into the middle of the casters. They were all grouped up at this point and he used his pharoah’s fist to stun them all for a round. He focused all of his attacks on Croom, knowing that the cleric is the most dangerous one among them. He was able to repeatedly use his stunning fist and other feat abilities to keep Croom either stunned or paralyzed. His circle kick was beating on Hans and Helbrecht each time he attacked Croom, too. The fighting went downhill soon after that. Croom was knocked unconscious once but then brought back by Felgarn’s dwindling healing – a mass heal almost changed the odds back, but Master Calidius was relentless and Croom was all but helpless until he was finally killed. Two more brain golems charged into the fight with Skilgannon and Felgarn. They managed to kill the roper before it ate Skilgannon’s brain but he was stunned at least twice during the fight. The monk wreaked havoc in the back while the two were occupied with the golems and roper.
The fight had looked to be turning in the party’s favor until Croom was taken down and Helbrecht not too long after by the monk. Then John got paralyzed and it was all over. Hans was able to hide in a prismatic sphere. Felgarn and Skilgannon did the same in another sphere while they buffed up to take on the monk. Meanwhile John had left behind two maw of chaos spells that destroyed two of the golems while another died on Felgarn’s prismatic sphere. While everyone buffed, Calidius took the bodies of Croom, Helbrecht, and John to the Emperor where Reverend Jeronim rebuffed him – which was necessary since John did manage to remove some of his protections with a mordenkainen’s disjunction. While buffing, Hans managed to kill the last golem, so now it was just the monk, or so the party thought. When they were ready, the prismatic spheres were dropped and they went into the next room. Master Calidius was now fully healed and had some new protections, and Reverend Jeronim was with him. Jeronim used chain dispel on both Felgarn and Skilgannon taking away most of the buffs they spent all that time putting up. It looked like it was going to be the end. Felgarn and Skilgannon shook hands and decided to die trying to destroy the monk and started urging Hans to leave.
Instead, Hans lets out an evil laugh and his form shifts to that of an older man with white hair and beard wearing red robes; a pince-nez on the bridge of his nose. Evil red light glinted in his eyes as he spoke, "It seems that these fine illithids are doing a fantastic job of eliminating a thorn in my lord's side. Allow me, Euronymous, Prince of Death, to help them. Lord Satan and Lady Proserpine send their regards." And Euronymous casts baleful magic at Felgarn and Skilgannon. Fortunately, they dodge aside and turn their attention away from the mind flayers and direct all their attacks at Euronymous, the traitor who had been in their midst for weeks. Felgarn casts a powerful miracle petitioning Duath for revenge, but is at first rebuffed by the peaceful Aspect. Instead, he channels the power of the miracle to destroy all of the yellow crystal keys which will allow exit from Reym. Felgarn shouts to Euronymous, "You may kill us, but you will never escape here now!"
The destruction of the yellow keys has an immediate affect. A moment later a portal opens up and out steps two more powerful-looking mind flayers. One wears a crown and wields a golden scepter and the other, a step behind is obviously a marshal general of some kind in magnificent heavy plate bearing fantastic magic weapons. The two remaining heroes watch as the illithid monk and cleric stops its attack in deference to the emperor, who they notice immediately is absolutely insane with rage. Euronymous and the heroes pause as the Emperor screams at them, "HOW? How is my key destroyed?? How dare you bring this affrontery to ME, Emperor Galerius XVII!! You work for Octavius, don't you?? I will get you! I will destroy you! I will destroy you, Octavius! I have the barrier heart! I can smash this crystal and the barrier will be no more! The imperial armies! My armies! Will march across the world, and there will be no hiding from my mastery! All of the world will be Reym and I WILL NOT BE DENIED!"
Skilgannon charges Euronymous, but his sword does little damage. The monk and warrior illithid charge Felgarn. Felgarn says a last prayer to Duath and casts firestorm at his feat, aiming it to consume him and Skilgannon as well as hoping to bring all the enemies down around him. Unfortunately, with his last breath, he sees Euronymous smile and wave as he teleports away. He gets a small satisfaction as he sees the Emperor scorched badly, his crown melting on his head, but the emperor is not killed. The last thing Felgarn sees is the emperor raving, turning even more purple, holding up a black crystal sphere as if to hurl it to the floor to shatter it...