1150/06/27 Gyswyl School of Abjuration
6/20/1150 – This morning, they leave to the north to recover their horses and wagon. The horses aren’t in the best shape, so they stop at the town to get them supplemental feed and tend to their needs. They also decide to donate some arms and armor, and a lot of the copper from their stash to the town. Lughausen also generously lets the others take a share of this loot.
As they leave the south gate, Lughausen decides to cast a divination spell and asks if traveling west overland would be better to the fate of humanity than taking the southern road. He sees an omen: a rabbit suddenly runs swiftly down the road, making great time. Then it turns off the road into the grass, where it suddenly gets entangled. At that moment, a hawk swoops down and grabs it and flies off.
They agree then that the southern road is their safest course of action. They travel all day without event, seeing nothing but lands that were probably patrolled and kept free of threats by the hobgoblins. They find a decent place to camp.
6/21/1150 – They travel for most of this next day until they see the great wall of Ap Wys come into view on the horizon. The road goes up to the wall where there are two towers and a gate. However, the stone of the towers looks like it was heated to slag, and gate was melted closed. There doesn’t appear to be an easy way to open it. They consider climbing it, but then after seeing the smaller road traveling southwest along the wall directly towards Gyswyl, elect to take that instead. This road is neglected, and they search for tracks yields no result. No one has been on this road for ages. It is smaller and not as nice as the great road was (though that was in poor shape overall).
In the early afternoon they spot something up on the top of the wall. They look like nests, and shortly after that, movement there can be seen. Great winged creatures launch themselves and swoop down the party. It is wyverns looking for a meal!
Yannic hits a bunch with a fireball, and a few ranged attacks are made by Peril and Kayleth, and then the wyverns are amidst the party striking with bits and poisoned stingers. The party fights from horseback for most of the fight, and the well-trained mounts do not panic. They wyverns hurt the heroes considerably during the melee. Kayleth is severely rent by the poison and bite to the point where she is knocked unconscious. The rest of the heroes also are severely wounded but prevail as one-by-one, the wyverns are killed.
They take a short rest and consider the possibility that there might be loot or eggs in the nests. Khragg volunteers to climb the 100-ft wall. He slips a few times but manages to reach the top. He is rewarded with two eggs which he stows away and then easily climbs back down.
They only travel a few more hours before they find a good place to camp.
6/22/1150 – After another few hours of travel along the wall, they see up ahead something dark and foreboding. A thick forest of green is ahead, right where they think the city of Gyswyl should be. They can see the wall turning to the right and a gaping hole where perhaps towers and a gate once stood. The entire forest is wreathed in a fog. As they get closer, they detect an acrid smell. Thick undergrowth, thickets and thorns, fills the small gaps between the close-growing trees. They can just spot the ruins of buildings in there. The whole town is encased in this growth.
Yannic speculates about magic gone awry at the school causing this. Peril doesn’t believe that the forest is fey in origin. They get more a sense of malice from it. They reach the edge of it and dismount their horses. They will leave them here and go on foot. Kayleth also feels uneasy here. The thickets are so overgrown that passage through would be quite painful. However, there appears to be a path meandering through the thickets. They elect to push on.
The path takes them around the city center, never going towards it. They cross over former roads and paths. They can just see the skeletal hulks of ruined buildings. They pass huge chunks of stone embedded in craters on the ground. Pieces of the great wall and towers, perhaps. After a while they finally come to the end of the path. They find themselves in front of a ruined temple. The light here is particularly emerald green and the fog and acrid smell are thick.
They enter the temple ruin and find an elf sitting on the dais in the back. He says to them, “Are you here? Have you returned to this place once again? I know you will return. Do you not recognize me? No? I see nothing but ignorance. A shame. I had hoped my wait would be over.”
Yannic steps forward, brandishing the map of Ap Wys. He tells the elf that they are looking for the School, and want to explore. He asks a few questions about this place. However, the elf doesn’t answer. Kayleth steps forward and apologizes for Yannic, insulting him a bit in the process. They exchange a few words. Khragg gets closer and also asks a question.
Before the elf can answer, Berg, who has been using his divine sense, suddenly shouts, “Khragg, time to charge! Dragon!” And all hell breaks loose. The elf scowls and shouts, “This is my place now. You cannot stay if you are not him.” Then vines animate and grasp at the party, securing a hold on half the party. Berg, who has a new ring of free action and Khragg escape to charge the elf. The elf shimmers and turns into a green dragon. Only a few of Khragg’s swings connect, and the dragon casually slams him with a tail in response. He also puffs up his presence and Peril becomes very frightened. Kayleth casts the wrath of nature and throws some rocks at him, also animating vines and roots to grab at him too. The dragon bites and claws at Khragg doing great damage.
The lair of the dragon appears to be under its complete control. During the combat a wall of thorns erupts out of nowhere, and a mind-numbing fog charms Peril to be the dragon’s ally for a round. Yannic resists this the second time it is used. The wall of thorns knocks Kayleth unconscious because she and everyone else had taken great damage when the dragon finally used its poison breath weapon. Lughausen uses his new bard instrument to grant him the ability to fly, which he uses to reach Kayleth to heal her. Khragg too is taken down by the dragon’s attacks, and Lughausen must reach him before he dies. However, the dragon swings his tail at Lughausen’s movement nearly killing him except for the power of death ward. Ultimately the dragon is slain with Berg’s smites after a great deal of damage was done by the rest of the party.
Khragg is restored to consciousness and gets to his feet after scrabbling in the dirt a bit first. They decide to take a short rest and search the area. The wall of thorns, fog, and acrid smell are already fading with the dragon’s defeat.
They first take a short rest to recover from the battle. Afterwards, they search the ruin to see if there was a dragon hoard. Behind the main chamber is an antechamber which has a pile of coins and other loot. In that hoard they find a bag of forty 100gp diamonds that will immediately be useful for the revivify and for stoneskin and greater restoration. There is also a nice set of boots, a pair of bracers, and several potions. Since the day is nearly over anyway and they are exhausted, they choose to camp for the night, bringing the horses and wagon in to the ruined temple. Lughausen identifies the items: Boots of the Winterlands, Bracers of Defense, and potions of superior healing, clairvoyance, and frost giant strength.
6/23/1150 - In the morning, Khragg wakes up screaming. He had a nightmare. He shares some background with the rest. Before he met Berg he was a soldier in an army led by his mentor, a dwarf by the name of Ulfgar Frostbeard. The dwarf was the only one who welcomed Khragg, a normally shunned half-orc, into the community and gave him respect. There was a terrible battle that was lost. The leader of the opposition was Karzhad, the same foe that has come up with Wodemar’s stories. To Khragg, Karzhad meant defeat amidst complete chaos. Ulfgar was lost. Whether he is dead or alive is unknown to Khragg. He demands from the party information about his whereabouts but they are unable to help. He says his dream was about Karzhad. He then asks Lughausen about a woman with ebony skin and milk-white hair. She is identified as Arawn, Aspect of Death. She told him that he is caught in a net and Lughausen warns that this is indeed a bad omen.
They speculate now about who the dragon was talking about when it said it was waiting. Was it Karzhad? They consider a speak with dead spell, but decide against it since the dragon certainly wouldn’t cooperate.
They have no choice but to set out. The forest is even more passable than the night before. The evil magic of the dragon is leaving this area, causing the woods to be normal again. They push on south and after a very short distance encounter a road, overgrown still, and the walls and towers of a massive fortress. The nearest tower has gates on it that have been blasted off, and while it is ruined, it is somewhat intact. They enter the tunnel and see the usual defensive accoutrements. Towards the middle end of the tunnel is another small door, blasted open revealing stairs up. They choose to go up first instead of into the fortress courtyard.
The tower is typical. There are rooms that were once armories, guardrooms, and the like. The stairs are in the part that remains so they are able to go all the way to the roof, which they do. From here, they have a great vantage point for the whole city.
They can tell again that the city is entirely overgrown. Whether entirely because of the dragon or not is unclear. The huge walls of the country of Ap Wys are at the south and west sides of the city. They can see also that there were once towers much like those that were in Wohlen. However, while the Wohlen towers were lightly destroyed, these have been completely smashed, leaving a humongous gaping hole. Through that they can see the conflux of two rivers meeting. On the far shore, they see another ruined town, but these ruins look much, much older than the ones here. Beyond the town is a hill, and on top of the hill they can just see a grand building built of black stone. It is ominous and magnificent. Fourteen massive towers rise at the edges of the structure, ending in spiked points. Lughausen identifies it as the High Temple of Arawn. It is intact, a place of ancient history. Wars were fought on its doorstep, and there it stands just within site. Khragg audibly gasps and looks at it intently after Lughausen identifies it. They may be visiting it later.
Turning their attention to the fortress they are in, they look in the courtyard and see a massive 100-ft diameter crater. A dark hole in the ground in the very center of the fortress. Dark, yet there is a distinct orange glow emanating from it. Looking at it and wondering what it could be, they realize from this high vantage point that whatever caused the crater was not an outside impact. It was caused by something underground exploding outward. They can see clear signs of a blast emanating outward. All the rubble is scattered out onto the surface. They can also see the evidence of a blast wave of immense power going outward from this point through the entire city. The ruined buildings all have their debris on the far side from the crater. Berg curses because he knows they will be going down in there.
They go down and enter the courtyard. Immediately the sharp-eyed notice sudden movement. Hidden in the ruined buildings, sword-wraiths emerge and attack with longbows and longswords. Ancient uniforms hang ragged from their forms. They were probably some sort of guard here long ago. They party must fight them. The commander summons more after he is wounded, and these manage to surround Khragg. He is severely wounded by the time all the wraiths are defeated. Yannic, too, suffers large wounds. They take a short rest.
Afterward, Kayleth wild shapes into a bat so she can scout the crater. She goes down 80 feet and finds herself in a large round chamber with a massive 50-ft magic circle in the middle. The source of the orange glow is that circle. There are no foes present so she retreats back and they all come down via two ropes tied end to end.
Now that they are all in the room, they learn more. There are nine small 3-foot daises around the big circle. The entire wall and floor of the chamber is blackened except opposite each dais where the negative outline of a human form can be seen. Each form is in a defensive posture, hands up, head turned, ducking a little. The wall and floor in these shaded areas is yellow marble and orange brick.
Lughausen investigates the big circle. He uses an identify ritual and learns that this is artifact level abjuration power. He is not sure what its purpose was, but to activate it requires the combined focus of nine master-level abjurers.
There are two iron double doors out of this chamber. The first is open and rusted, the second one opposite that is in pristine shape and locked closed. They go through the rusted one first and find a corridor going a short distance and ending in a massive cave-in. They turn to the other door and Peril searches it for traps. He finds that it is indeed magically trapped with a glyph of warding. It is up to Yannic to try and disarm it with his arcane knowledge. He fails and the glyph triggers blinding him. A magic mouth appears and says: "Greetings! This is a restricted area. The blindness is a warning, proceed no further! Close the door and return to your dorm for discipline by your masters."
Lughausen again does a ritual identify, by the end of which Yannic’s vision is restored, on the door. It is arcane locked. It takes a knock spell from Yannic to open it. Beyond is a corridor filled with a wall of roiling mist and fog. Again, they study it carefully and learn that it is part of a powerful guards and wards spell. The mist will cause confusion. Kayleth successfully dispels it. But they later learn that the mist returns after 10 minutes.
They traverse the corridor and manage to open the first door they find after much effort. The door is also arcane locked. Beyond is a corridor with a series of small rooms. Each door to these has a barred window in it. They see that each room contains an identical stone summoning circle in it. There are eight rooms in total. In the very last one, they find that the circle has an occupant. It is a horned devil. It says to them "So you've returned to try again? You will get nowhere as usual, my friend, until you free me. Then we shall see…"
They try to question it, speculating that whoever locked it here is long dead. Was it the same person that the dragon was waiting for? The best they can get out of the creature is this: "I will not fall for your tricks again." "You've tried this before, to no avail." He sniffs at the corridor and says, "Ah, I smell familiar blood".
They decide that they cannot abide a devil in this world and choose to break the circle and destroy it. They get through the locked door and Khragg steps up to swing at it. It is ready with its fork and tail, wounding Khragg first. The rest of the party focuses their attacks and soon the devil is destroyed. As they take a short rest they learn about the fog returning.
The next door they find and force their way through the magical locks leads to a laboratory of some kind. Many workbenches fill the room but everything has been smashed and destroyed. There are a few bodies here wearing what were once orange robes. There are two other doors out of this room, but after failing to get through with mundane means, they elect to leave them and conserve magic. They are getting frustrated with all the arcane locks. Lughausen casts speak with dead on one of the bodies and asks it about getting through the locked doors. It says, “With the school-issued keys”. He asks it where its key is, and it says, “In my pouch”. But there is clearly no key here now.
They choose to use their magics on the next door in the main corridor instead of these in the room. This opens to another corridor. The first door they are able to get through opens to a trashed storeroom. No keys are found here after careful searching. They must spend another dispel magic to eliminate the fog because it has returned again.
They are unsuccessful in opening the next two doors but manage the next. This leads to a short corridor ending in double stone doors. They get through those as well and find a practice chamber with wooden targets and old scorch-marks all over. Another set of double stone doors leads to another chamber, larger but like this one.
Returning to the corridor they succeed in the next four doors. They find three small bedrooms with ancient rotting cots, desks, and trunks full of moldy clothes. More searching reveals not a single key. The fourth door reveals a workshop with benches for woodworking, jewelry-making, and even tailoring. In a trunk they find an ornate orange robe, clearly unfinished, but of very good quality that is in better shape than what they have seen so far. Peril takes it.
At the end of the corridor, they again find a pair of iron double doors. Magic must be used to get through the doors and to again remove the magical fog. Many spells have been used in the process of just getting through doors and down corridors. They get through these doors and find a massive room filled with four very large summoning circles. Large enough for Large or Huge creatures. But each of them is empty.
They think this place is good for a long rest, so they take it.
6/24/1150 – Khragg wakes up with a haunted look on his face. He mutters about Karzhad wanting to end the world. Lughausen decides to cast a divination spell to ask his Aspect Epolde about their best course of action to get what they need from this place. He gets this answer:
Search for the hidden, not the obvious.
Ready your best skills and persist
The power needs must be drained along the way
So rest and preparation is your best course.
Yannic also has been thinking about the guards and wards spell. They learn that the spell fills the corridors with the fog that causes disorientation about direction. Doors are all arcane locked. Several doors can be completely masked with illusion. Stairs are filled with webs. Magic mouths, dancing lights, gusts of wind, and stinking cloud can also be placed.
Armed with this knowledge, they think they must focus on finding hidden doors. They elect to go back to the main corridor first. Fortune is with them and they do indeed spot an illusory wall masking another door just a ways beyond the door they were just through. They open that and follow another corridor that ends in yet another locked door. Another knock spell and another dispel magic have been expended to get here. Beyond the door at the end of the corridor, however, is a prize.
It is a library. They notice right away that the layers of dust here are much less than the rest of the area. The place has clearly been tidied up. Many of the shelves are empty, but there are a good amount of books here. Some investigating even reveals a good number of magical spell scrolls containing wizard spells. Lughausen determines that the books here would be useful for research into the subjects of abjuration and magical history. Is the library going to give them critical information about the Cataclysm. It is hard to say without spending the time looking at all the books. Plus, there are a large amount of empty shelves suggesting that the library isn’t complete. They decide to do their next long rest here so he can research. They push on.
They return to the corridor to go straight to an area they haven’t explored yet. Kayleth must use another dispel magic to eliminate the fog. It reveals a dead end. Not believing it for a moment, they search and discover that the left (north) wall is an illusion. Behind that is a pair of ornate double doors. It takes a knock spell to unlock it after Peril fails with his tools. The magic is powerful. When the door is opened a magic mouth appeared and says this:
"Greetings! This is a supremely restricted area! Unauthorized access will result in death. All countermeasures are active."
The party steels their nerves and enters the corridor beyond. Knowing that certain death awaits them does not daunt them one bit. At the end of the corridor is another double door, but this time they break it down with muscle. Beyond is a room with a clay golem. It immediately touches glyphs upon the wall and it is surrounded by a fiery shield, then with the next glyph it suddenly has three mirror images. The party rushes in to attack it. The golem, following its instructions, moves up to the first door nearly dead after a barrage of attacks from the heroes. Its slams did some damage as well to Khragg and Berg. But when it steps on a tile near the entry door, another glyph of warding flares up and explodes with acid. This acid burns the heroes yet repairs the golem. It triggers a second glyph before a well-placed crossbow bolt from Peril ends its existence. They must rest for an hour before proceeding. The next room is filled with fog like the corridors, but it is yellow. Lughausen identifies it as a stinking cloud, very dangerous. They must use another dispel magic to remove it so they can proceed.
Another door from that room leads to a room that is almost their undoing. The walls of this third room glisten with green slime. They gingerly cross the room to the far door, avoiding the walls, and the areas of the ceiling where the slime is. This door is again arcane locked and they must use another spell, this time dispel magic to open it. When Khragg opens this door, a magical symbol appears. Peril failed to find it when he searched for traps. This symbol causes everyone but Peril and Kayleth to go insane. The heroes gibber and start running in random directions. They run into walls and get covered in the burning acidic slime that starts to eat them alive. Yannic almost runs straight into the corridor that was revealed – that is filled with the fog. Ominous booming and crashing noises can be heard. Fortunately, Peril had been ready at the door to grab Yannic and prevent him from running that way.
Peril manages to grapple and physically drag the insane heroes one-by-one out of the room back into the previous room. Kayleth assists by healing where she can. Then they block the doors so the insane ones can’t wander off. They have taken severe burns from the slime before Peril and Kayleth sacrifice arrows and crossbow bolts to scrape it off. After a minute, the heroes snap out of the insanity and regain their senses. They take a short rest to recover from their ordeal.
They return to the corridor and must expend another dispel magic to remove the magical fog of confusion from the guards and wards spell. A corridor is revealed. Peril searches it and finds that it is indeed trapped. He throws a dagger in to demonstrate. Whirling blades sweep out from multiple slots all up and down the long corridor. They study the blades for a time, debating trying to get the green slime on the blades to destroy them and other things. Finally, Berg realizes that the blades have a pattern that can be observed and exploited. One by one, the heroes take their chances and dash in, trying to avoid the blades. The corridor goes for 60 feet and turns. After another 20 feet the ground becomes broken and difficult to walk upon. Pillars of stone crash up and down. The blades spin even faster once they miss their targets. Many wounds are taken as the party has to pause and figure out their movements. Lughausen uses his new bandore to grant himself the ability to fly, but still he is attacked by blades.
They move through the pillars slowly, then at the end of the corridor, which is a door, Peril arrives first to try and open it, but a rune of fear flares up and frightens him. He runs back into the pillars. It is a struggle for heroes to press forward as the pillars come crashing down and the rune keeps them from progressing forward. They have to shake off the fear, which takes precious time. Finally, the door is opened and one-by-one they get through. Berg is the last to make it. They slam the door after trying to dispel the rune to no avail.
They find themselves in a surprisingly cozy lounge. There are tables, chairs, and shelves filled with games of skill and chance. It seems as if the wizards had this place where they could relax in the middle of all the traps and defenses. Perhaps guards were here at one point. They collapse to the ground to rest.
6/25/1150 – In the morning, Khragg wakes up looking angry. Furious even. He mutters about Karzhad some more but refuses to speak about why he is in the mood he is in. They open the door out of the room after searching it for traps. A long 20-ft wide corridor is beyond. Lining the walls are ten statues of wizards, each different and in various poses of dramatic spellcasting. Suspicious, they search for traps but find none. Lughausen detects magic and believes it may be more glyphs of warding. Khragg steps in and triggers a burning hands spell from the first statue. He is burned. They send Peril down the hall. He triggers each of the glyphs and nimbly dodges all but 2 of the remaining 9 glyph traps. The flames from all the burning hands would have seriously hurt the slow.
The next door is thoroughly searched, especially when it is revealed that the door has no lock. The first of such doors they have seen here. Beyond is a square 30x30 room with another door in the opposite diagonal of the room. Peril crawls along the floor searching for more traps yet finds none. Beyond the door is a nearly identical 30x30 foot room with a door in the opposite diagonal corner. Another search reveals nothing. They enter a third room, just like the first. Lughausen is suspicious and casts a find traps spell. The magic reveals to him that there is indeed a trap here, but it is not about illusions which is what their first thought was, but about movement.
Going through the door out of that room, however, teleports them back to the second room. Aha, the movement is revealed. They had thought it might be about rotating rooms, but they had felt nothing. They spend hours searching and beating their heads on the wall, trying to figure out how to proceed. They find no secret doors. An attempt to stone shape a new door to the room they can see beyond the teleporting door fails. Lughausen determines that an antimagic field is present in the very stone of the walls, and a Mordenkainen’s private sanctum spell is in place to keep out divination and teleportation magic out of here.
Khragg takes out a maul and starts beating on the wall. Even though it will take a very long time judging by how slow the progress is, he can do nothing else because of the frustration. Lughausen uses divine guidance and bardic inspiration to think about the problem and is certain that it has to do with a pattern or sequence of doors. They try elaborate ways of walking backwards, along walls, and then going back and forth through the same door.
Near their wits end, they stumble upon it. They must go through the door out of the 2nd to the 3rd room, through the door that teleports them back to the second room, back down to the third, and then immediately make a u-turn and go through that door again. The door turns blue and they find themselves finally in the 4th room. But then the door out of that room teleports them back to the third room. They scream in frustration, but at least they know that there is a pattern that they must fine.
After much trial and error and frustration, they stumble upon the final pattern. The key is with the doors turning different colors indicating that they have successfully completed a sequence to allow them to proceed to the next room, and to also embrace the teleporting as part of the sequence.
At the last door out of here, they do not rush. They search it again carefully and then open it. A room of a different shape is revealed. At last! But it is empty. Peril crawls along the floor again but this time it turns out to be a good thing he did. The room is filled with pit traps. He navigates through them carefully, disabling them as he goes and revealing a safe path to the team. The door out of this room is more ornate but Peril is able to defeat the lock.
Another fog-filled corridor must be dispelled by Kayleth so they can proceed. At the end of this corridor are more elaborate double doors and it takes another knock spell from Yannic to get them through. Khragg opens the door. Again, Peril failed to notice a magical symbol on this door. This one flares up and pure despair and hopelessness floods out. Kayleth and Peril fall victim to its power. The room beyond is circular and a stone golem stirs…
Khragg and Berg charge in and begin their attacks. A moment later, the golem touches two glyphs of warding, triggering spells of blur and haste upon it. Yannic decides his best course of action is to cast dispel magic upon the golem to remove those effects. Lughausen uses a spiritual weapon and also attacks with his warhammer. Meanwhile Kayleth and Peril sit in the hallway filled with hopelessness, doing nothing except play with daggers and tie nooses in ropes.
The golem tries again to touch another glyph and gets hasted again, but that only lasts a round before Yannic again dispels it, and then the golem is destroyed. They take a short rest, during which Kayleth and Peril recover. They search the doors and open them to find a grand hallway filled with statues, busts, paintings, and other artwork. The collection doesn’t appear to have a theme of any kind. Careful searching reveals no traps or tricks. These are just valuables that were put here to be kept safe.
The hall ends in another set of double doors that they carefully search and then open with a knock spell. This room contains four elementals wearing plate armor and wielding weapons. These are elemental myrmidons, and they have a plan of attack. When Khragg rushes in, he triggers another glyph of warding that releases a slow spell upon the party. It hits Yannic and Peril the worst who can’t shake it off anytime soon. The elemental warriors swing multiple times with their weapons, unleashing powerful attacks every now and then. Both Berg and Khragg are soon nearly dead. Kayleth and Lughausen must use their healing, and Berg soon uses his lay on hands power. Yannic has cast a storm sphere from which he unleashes lightning bolts in his slowed state. Peril’s crossbow bolts miss repeatedly because of the good armor the foes wear. No one is knocked unconscious, however, and soon the elementals start falling, the earth one last. They decide that they are too wounded at this point and stay in this room to take a long rest.
6/26/1150 – In the morning, Khragg has awoken with yet another nightmare. He reveals to the party a strange silver disk, about the size of the palm of his hand, yet thin. He shows it to Lughausen and asks him to identify it. Lughausen does with a ritual and tells Khragg that it is a token of Arawn and that he is now a pilgrim. Khragg is suspicious and thinks that Lughausen is withholding information. Lughausen also tells him that it is not the disk that is causing his nightmares…it is something within himself.
Khragg is not happy with this answer and vows to not sleep. They turn to the door out of the room and do the usual searching and attempt to pick the lock. Another knock spell is used and another long hall is revealed, but this one ends in a shimmering wall of light that shifts through the colors of the rainbow. They identify it as a prismatic wall, a ninth-level spell. Yannic’s arcane lore is enough to reveal much about the spell. It can be defeated by casting spells or doing damage of certain types against each layer in succession. They go through their spells and dole out tasks. Each of Berg, Yannic, Kayleth, and Lughausen must cast spells of the appropriate type. Khragg will also help by using the cold of his sword to get through the first red layer. However, in order to do this, they must rest another full day so they can prepare the correct spells.
To pass the time, Yannic scribes three spells into his spellbook, which takes most of the waking time. The rest take their time to carefully search the entire vault area from the first double doors with the magic mouth inwards for secret doors. They find none. Finally, it is time to rest again.
6/27/1150 – First thing in the morning, Lughausen offers to cast divination and ask a question about the silver disk for Khragg. He asks if any harm will come to Khragg if they take their time completing this dungeon under the school and not go to the High Temple of Arawn. For after much discussion during their downtime, they have determined that they must go to the High Temple. Reinforcing this is the dream that Khragg had just this past night. He tells them that they must go to the High Temple to find answers. Answers to many things and not just about Ulfgar his mentor and Karzhad his enemy.
Lughausen tells him that he is being nagged by a goddess and there is nothing that can be done except to do the goddess’s will. He tells Khragg that refusing to sleep would be a bad idea. He won’t be really harmed by waiting. Khragg reluctantly agrees to not fight the dreams. He also suggests that the next sleep, Lughausen hold the disk, to which he agrees.
They cast the spells upon the prismatic wall and it dissipates. Beyond is more of the same hall and another door with an arcane lock. Another knock spell must be used. Beyond is a large room with an iron golem in it. At first, only Khragg and Berg enter while the rest stay in the previous room. They read actions and use ranged attacks during the time it takes the golem to close the distance. But it breathes a cone of poison that gets Khragg, Berg, and Kayleth. Then, thinking that he might do better inside, Lughausen entered and seemingly at random, the golem chose to attack him out of all the others. His great sword did substantial damage to Lughausen in a moment, and then having been severely wounded, the golem moved and triggered another glyph of warding. This one contained a fireball spell that damaged the party and at the same time healed the golem. Lughausen is nearly killed and must withdraw. The golem manages to trigger two more fireball glyphs before it is finally taken down into scrap metal. They must take a short rest and use hit dice to recover.
They open the door out of this room to reveal yet another large chamber. However, in the north wall is an elaborate pair of double iron doors. Standing in front of these doors is an angelic celestial, that they discern is a deva. It watches them impassively but does not attack.
They address him, asking him questions about his intentions and what he is doing there. The deva at first only speaks a little, saying "You may call me Guardian, if you wish some form of address."
Yannic asks him if he knows about what happened outside in the world. His first assumption is that the deva has been down here all this time since the Cataclysm. The deva says that he is aware of the outside world. He tries to reason with the deva but gets nowhere.
Any question they ask about the vault gets no response except that he is not permitted to speak of the vault, or of the one who commanded him. They learn that he was commanded by someone only 9 months ago to guard this vault. His instructions were quite explicit and clear. They do surmise that the spell that was cast upon him (from his wording) is probably planar binding that when cast at 9th level can be made to last a year and a day.
Khragg immediately assumes that Karzhad is the one who placed the good celestial here as a trap. That he has already been in this vault and left the deva here to trap those who follow. The deva admits freely that his presence there is very deliberate. He is intended to challenge the moral code of and determination of heroes who might attempt to enter. Those with evil intent will have no compunction about fighting him to gain entry. Attacking and defeating him says something about those who came to the one who commanded him.
They also ask him if he will die if they defeat him. He says he does not know. The party’s arcane knowledge comes up short here, but Lughausen remembers that at the end of most summoning spells, the creature just disappears. They ask about other means of getting by him such as riddles or games and he just shakes his head.
They hit upon the idea of casting dispel magic upon the actual planar binding spell and he informs them that he is instructed to construe such an attempt as an attack and will react accordingly.
Khragg is ready to attack. He is determined to get through this to get to Karzhad. Finally, the rest agree. The deva is ready, and he flies into their midst with blinding speed. He faces Lughausen and says, “So be it. But I know evil is present” and swings with his mace, attempting to kill Lughausen. This takes the party a bit by surprise. However, they recover and join the fight. Lughausen responds to the attacks of the deva by casting a sanctuary spell upon himself for protection. The deva is quickly defeated and falls to the ground lifeless, his mace clattering to the ground. They have slain a good celestial being.
They move on and open the vault. Inside they find that it is not at full capacity, but there are a large number of interesting items. But first is a piece of paper folded up on the floor in the very middle. Khragg goes in first to read it.
They spend the rest of the day sorting through the items and casting identify rituals. Amongst the items are 8 robes of abjuration masters, and 10 vestments of high-ranking priests of Duath. With them come arcane focus crystals, and holy symbol focus amulets in the shape of Duath’s shield. Identify of these items reveals that they are something more than just spellcasting focuses, but it is unclear what they grant the wearer. The party assumes that these might be what is needed to bypass the shielding around Zell. They also recover a magical vicious longspear that the note says belonged to or was made in honor of Gurrag. Berg says he knows who this is: Stormcloak of Nuath. They get supreme healing potions, a pile of scrolls, gems, and a horn of blasting, mantle of spell resistance, cloak of protection, and most interesting a rod of absorption and wand of binding. They spend some time handing out the items. They level up to 10th level.