Session 44 (Noon December 24th 216B) Invasion plan for the top floor of the spider temple are simple. The party will fly up and Swiftwind and the trolls will be used as shock troops to take the two doors. The rest of the party will storm in and take the floor once a doorway has been cleared. At least that is the plan. Immediately upon reaching the passages the plan falls apart as the group is hit by two waves of stunning ultrasonics. Apparently the Desmondu have an amazingly effective stun ability. Everyone except Swiftwind, the trolls, and Murgen are knocked out. Murgen gets Korvath and Jaenelle out of the area so they can recover. Swiftwind is already inside the hallway and does not realize that the rest of the party (mostly invisible) is now passed out and not actually backing him up. Swiftwind holds the door against two Desmondu and then beats a hasty retreat when the trolls at the other door get taken down and the beholder makes an appearance. Swiftwind throws himself off the ledge onto the cracked tile floor 80 feet below. Bleeding profusely from a dozen wounds and franticly looking for healing he finally has to chug a potion and takes cover beneath a staircase as the Desmondu rain arrows down on him from above. About this time Alex recovers and seeing his friends plight he grabs another troll from the cavern floor and stuffs him into the doorway above as distraction. The distraction only works for a few seconds but it is long enough for some of the party to recover. There is a discussion above. The beholder is threatening one of the Desmondu with death if he doesn't stand in the foyer and use his stunning power when the group comes in. The Desmondu insists that he isn't paid enough to justify this danger. Jaenelle flies up and seeing a Desmondu in the foyer she suggests he make a break for the door. He makes it less than a step before the beholder drops him. Herunaro recovers and decided to go for the suicidal mage charge. He flies into the room provoking from most of the remaining Desmondu. And flies right into a antimagic cone. Quick on his feet he dives to the side of the beholders eyeray and runs down a hallway next to the beholder. Faster then you would think possible he dissolves ten feet of stone steps up to the beholder and says "tag you are it" discharging the last of his disintegrate spells into the beholder and leaving a pile of brown dust. The remaining Desmondu are quickly subdued and questioned. They are pretty much all willing slavers and the group decides to kill them since there are still other threats in the building and you wouldn't want to fight these guys again. One of the Desmondu from the battle appears had his throat slit when no one was looking and the remaining two slavers receive the same fate. The bodies are given to the two trolls that remain alive and they seem quite happy with their lot in life. Searching the upper level the party finds a lot of disturbing things about beholders. For example they enjoy cutting up people and placing things inside them and then sewing them up, letting them heal, and petrifying them. Pretty much everything on the floor is broken up to find, keys, and a pair of small boxes containing some magic and piles of gems. The take from the top floor alone is in the tens of thousands. Back downstairs the party takes out a group of Salamanders working "inside" a forge smelting materials for the beholders. In a store room nearby over a thousand pounds of silver ingots are recovered. The party also find a hundred or so gold bars and a couple platinum bars weighing 5 pounds each. The portable hole has to be emptied to fit all the loot from the forge. After the new silver bottom is laid in things are transferred back to the hole. Exploration the part of the temple that is not flooded the group stumbles upon a Vrock that charms Herunaro and Alex and then tries to kill them. Alex was just pretending to be charmed and holds it off long enough that the rest of the party show up. The Vrock seems to teleport away, but apparently the Vrock even has trouble teleporting down here because after "teleporting" he was still in the room with the party. At least until his soul departed a few seconds later. The rest of the spider temple is ransacked thoroughly and the group decide to go home after setting some insidious traps for returning Beholders. Another group of prisoners are freed before the party recalls that the first group warned that one of the lizardmen was a mind flayer in disguise. The remaining trolls are suggested that they all want to eat lizard meat and set free upon the lizardmen's trail. December 25th 216B (Xmas) The party rest up. Many items are identified. Jaenelle belabors that all the magical bags are bursting. There is a problem with a birth in the Desmondu community. 2 out of a litter of 7 seem to have no reaction to their environment. Korvath tries to heal one but fails. Divination on the problem reveals an ominous silence. Even Jaenelle says she can not get anything from the Goddess. December 26th 216B The group decide to go back above ground and see what is going on. They successfully arrive at the plainsman school and hear rumors of terrorist attacks in Lothia. Heading to Ipsus they learn much, much more. The artificers guild was attacked. A dozen or so mages were killed when a Gate was opened inside the fortress and metal constructs swarmed artificers near the gate. Several wizards were not raisable. Only one of the metal cats was destroyed. (by a pair of devoted defenders) The cats seemed to work in darkness and silence. Divination on the gateway indicate that it was opened from a ash world with no inhabitants. A Lothian recon team tracks the terrorists back to the plane of world crossings. The trackers indicate that at least one of the creatures originated from Rigus. The world crossing town nearest to Acheron. The group is asked if they could gather additional information on the attacks. Jaas's temple indicates that the metal cats appear to be made from a material native to the plane of Acheron. Since Rigus is where Acheron connects to all other worlds the party is asked about going there and seeing what they can find. Acheron is the home of several gods including Jaas, but the temple indicates the cats have not been seen on the levels at which Jaas resides. Ifox's shop is closed. Ifox and several of his artifices were slain in separate attacks from the attack on the artificer's guild. Lothia is in a state of war and the Artificers guild is only producing items for the military currently. Despite the chaotic markets Jaenelle is able to sell almost a hundred thousand worth of goods. (filling orders that will not be filled no that the artificers guild is closed to non-military personnel) There is also a trip to Dibs to sell goods that do not go over well in Lothia. (Chime of interruption, etc) Constantine has stepped down as god of death. Joleth is returned and is building a temple in Ipsus. His new symbol is a sword and turnip. Shandra admits that it was one of the demands that Constantine made of Joleth upon his release from the gem where his soul was trapped. According to Shandra Jaas agreed to reinstate Constantine status in the magic domain as duke of illusion in return for him completely and irrevocably surrendering the death domain. All parties agreed to halt further hostilities. Herunaro decided to return the carpet and two elves to the elf whom had been convicted of the crime of stealing them. He had seen the elf in Ipsus and gave Jaenelle a likeness to scry upon. The elf was seen buying some of the items the party had just sold and a meeting was arranged. There was much rejoicing at the thieves capture and the elf gave Herunaro a ring as thanks. Immediately after the elf left Jaenelle used object reading on the ring and declared "That elf is an agent of Constantine!" Jaenelle couldn't learn anything further about him and the party learned that the elf wasn't the person they thought they were scrying on. The ring given to Herunaro did appear to be a ring of wishes. (one charge remaining but the ring appears non-magical) Current theory is that the priest who served Olidammara was actually a priest serving Constantine who led the elves into danger. But what was Constantine's real interest besides getting the party away from Ipsus for a month? The session ended with the party encountering the mysterious cats on one of their forays into the city. SESSION END December 26th 216B NEXT TIME : Here kitty kitty... EXPERIENCE TOTALS (Session 44) ----------------- Korvath Alex Herunaro Swiftwind Jaenelle Murgen 93566 93272 93371 88242 93647 46414