February 24th 217B Having cleaned out Sultan's base of power in Sangtha the party returns to Ipsus to makes plans and examine items collected from the Sultan. Back in Ipsus the group is held up by protests against the sky-bridge being erected at a nearby shopping center using undead labor. The protesters are crying out slogans. "Right to a living wage", "If the workers are dead, how do I make a living?", etc. The group does get to the inn alright and wake up early the next morning. Swiftwind is upset that the group keeps getting distracted rather than tracking down the Dreamer. As soon as the others are up Swiftwind insists that they head straight to Sangtha and look for the Dreamer, and Swiftwind pleads that people stay on focus for a change. February 25th 217B In Sangtha the group is immediately caught in a fierce sandstorm that relentlessly tears at the group. Through the blinding onslaught the group sees that the square in which they had fought the Balor is desolate. Herunaro takes shelter between Berrik and Qualental and creates a protective shelter out of ice in which the group can hear one another. Inside the ice castle, the group discusses the implications of the sandstorm. Until recently the city was supposed to be shielded from such storms. Swiftwind thinks the group should still go straight to the Cult of sleep. Herunaro proposes the group goes and takes out the Sultan's dam. Fresh water would do a lot to restore the city and restoring the natural rivers and streams might settle the sandstorm. Herunaro wins the argument due to his natural force of personality. First the group needs some information on the dam's location. The group returns to the Sultan's Palace. In the palace they find the Imp from the other day and ask it for help in return for position of high power in the new structure of government. Ten minutes later the group is knee deep in maps two of which are exactly what they need. The group uses magic to make themselves flying and invisible before teleporting out to the dam. Teleporting to the dam they have moved beyond the range of the sandstorm. The dam is a huge production with several guard houses as well as a small aqueduct system for filling the government water wagons from which the Sultan made his fortune. The guards out in the desert barracks are desiccated figures magically re-animated, Seeing only 3 score enemies the group decide to go ahead with the plan. Theringil calls upon a earthquake. The aqueduct system collapses as do guard buildings, but the dam itself stands despite extensive damage. Water does leak from where the aqueduct ripped out of the edifice. Herunaro decides that the dam still needs help falling apart. He casts disintegrate on the center of the dam but it does not make it all the way through. The dam must have been a lot thicker than it appeared. He disintegrates again and punches a hole clear through the wall. The dam shudders and water spews out washing away several wagons and any guards not smart enough to have already fled the ravine. Then startlingly the dam's leak slows down and stops. Herunaro blasts another hole and the same thing happens. Puzzled Theringil flies over the dam and sees something in the water in the other side, The creature appears to be a snake but when it surfaces it has a woman's head. Theringil fills the head with arrows and the dam stops healing. Qualental lifts the naga out of water and curses as he realizes that the nagas had very little need for jewelry, clothes, or equipment since they have no way to carry them. Throwing down the figure in disgust the group waits until the dam collapses in a muddy froth rushing towards Sangtha. The party then returns to Sangtha thirty miles away and Swiftwind sighs with relief despite being plunged back into the sandstorm. "Now can we check out the Dreamer? And shouldn't we do something to warn the city about the approaching flood?" Herunaro looks supervised for a moment then says he will take care of it and disappears with Theringil while Swiftwind sits cursing elves and their flightiness. Berrik stands by and nods approvingly at Swiftwind occasionally suggesting additional epithets when Swiftwind's stream of curses flag. Near the cult a fight breaks out at an in and Swiftwind has to absolutely prohibit the others for going and getting involved. Finally tired of waiting for the elves the warriors head inside the cult to get out of the storm. The building appears to be a manor built on a cathedral built on part of an older ruin. The entry hall is huge, dozens of forms recline on cots spread around the room. Two elves in adorned robes sit at a table in the middle of the room. The table is covered with vials and incense. The elves greet the party in the local tongue. When the party responds in Elvin pleasure flashes across both elves' faces. The two elves, Sebastian and Lyriam, tell a story of capture and imprisonment. The elves show that they are chained to the table. The cult bought the elves in the slave market and use them since they are immune to the magical sleep spell that suffuses the bottom floors of the building. Swiftwind frees the elves and tells the elves of the threat from the rising river. A few minutes later the group has a basic idea of the layout of the building. Swiftwind has freed the servants and prisoners from the basement with the exception of two informers other prisoners point out. The elves then point out that if the dreamer is anywhere she may be what the locals refer to the Sleeping Goddess, but no one ever disturbs her. By now Herunaro and Theringil return. Herunaro is glowing with mischief. They speak with the other two elves briefly and agree to take them home if the party survives meeting the Dreamer. Lead by Lyriam the party heads to the back of the building. Herunaro dispels a couple wards on the way. Sebastian spends time walking the sleepers and informing them that their time has expired or if that fails warns them of the impending flood. With a little backup from Qualental the elves get most of the sleepers out of the lower floors. The group finally arrives at the most ancient part of the building clearly millennia older than anything the group has seen elsewhere. A pair of huge doors stand closed and after a few minutes Herunaro casting spells he nods that they are free from further magic. The group opens the door and is greeted with a shimmering wall of pure energy. Herunaro looks at the prismatic wall for a bit before gasping that it is slightly curved. Another minute and a few calculations later Herunaro states that it would take a team of Elvin archmages ritual casting to make a prismatic sphere as large as this one. Finishing his analysis he shrugs and states the group does not have half the spells needed to dismiss the spell safely and removing the spell would only anger whatever cast this. But he has always had an idea he want to try to see if he can get around this. Getting permission from the others, Herunaro slowly tunnels through the floor into the next room. After successfully bypassing the spell he looks pleases with himself and mutters. ".. and the masters said a sorcerer would never counter one of these things. *heh*" In side the prismatic sphere the groups finds the floating goddess. She is the epitome of light and beauty. She is twelve feet tall and inhumanly slim she is an idealized figure impossible by human standards. She is robed in a dress of fog that enticingly becomes almost transparent as it is tugged by ethereal winds. She has ivory skin and platinum blond hair that trails the floor several feet behind her. The chamber appears to have clouds and wind. The goddess is floating gently in breezes the party can not feel and rather that watch the party she seems more interested in the clouds she is playing with and shaping. After noticing the party the goddess tells the group to go away and immediately goes back to her cloud shaping. A few minutes later she looks up again and notices that the party is still. Surprised that they didn't understand earlier she tells them to go away a bit more forcefully and angrily dismisses their arguments that the universe is in peril. She does not care about the fate of the universe. Once again the sleeping goddess order the party away before asking who sent them and why they do not obey. She seems disturbed that the elves are able to disobey her. The party continues to try to bring her around to discussing the Bastion and the fate of the universe and she flies into a tantrum. Electricity coruscates down her body and The clouds near her form into images from the character's nightmares. Once again she says, "I am unwilling to leave the dream and since you seem unwilling to leave I will now remove you." The Dreamer brings up a host of defensive magics while the party discusses their options. While the group is talking the Dreamer is forming nightmarish shapes out of cloud matter. Harvesting dreams she focuses on harvesting Swiftwind and Berrik's dreams. Swiftwind nightmare starts as a night hag but that angers the Dreamer and she instead forms a pack of Dire Tigers. For Berrik she creates an image of the Fiendish Triceratops Rex from the Cathezar's lair, but much larger and as it would have been when alive. Pleased with the dream harvest the Dreamer enhances the nightmares making them black, flickering, and giving them angles that do not seem to fit into three dimensions. With that she orders them to attack. Berrik is howling in rage charging the Dinosaur. "I aint a fraid of this wee critter!" As Berrik charges the cats circle Swiftwind splitting up the party and making a tactical withdrawal impossible. Swiftwind gets Mauled by the tigers but hoping to find another way out of this he tumbles to the only other doorway in the chamber and he opens it only to find a room with statues of the Dreamer. Upon the door being opened the statues animate and attack. The party is pressed hard. Swiftwind and Berrik are taken down by their nightmares without any marks appearing on their bodies. Qualental holds the tunnel entrance the party used to reach the dreamer. Eliminating the cats while the party spellcasters try to regain the bodies of their allies. Herunaro retrieves Swiftwind even as Theringil's spells bounce off of the Dreamer. The Dreamer shunts Qualental into another dimension making a strategic retreat even tougher. Theringil finds that Swiftwind is just comatose and with a clever use of heal he restores Swiftwind to fighting. Swarms of iron golumns have now joined the battle and do phenomenal damage to the party. Spells continue to bounce off of the Dreamer. Berrik is also brought back online and the fight begins looking up as Qualental escapes his extra dimensional prison. Qualental rejoins combat but has trouble tripping enemies due to their impossible levels of strength. The Dreamer and her constructs are all phenomenally strong, must stronger than something their build should be. They smash party members left and right for incredible amounts of bludgeoning damage. The Dreamer continues to crank out spells like there is no tomorrow. And the party's best attacks seem to do almost nothing to hurt her. Theringil also gets Mazed but manages to escape after only seconds due to his natural affinity for dimensional travel. Force cages restrict the warriors left and right and Herunaro is kept busy springing people out via disintegrate. The Dreamer finally get annoyed at Herunaro undoing her work and throws a disintegrate at him only to have it counter spelled by Theringil seconds before Herunaro would have finished turning into dust. Herunaro yells, "I love you Theringil" and halfway across the room Berrik stops fighting long enough to scream, "I knew it!". The dreamer calls off several of her golumns as they get too damaged. Yet more come to assist through the prismatic circle. Theringil starts dispensing heals like they are water droplets in a desert. Every heal he puts out is soaked up immediately, but it is through his heroic efforts that the party is finally able to drive off the statues and turn on the Dreamer. Theringil is disarmed by the dreamer whom lashed out with her 15 foot long tresses. The fine platinum hair is soon slicked with blood from party members as it proves very capable of sliding inside of armor and shredding bone and muscle alike. The Dreamer disembowels Qualental with a disintegrates and disarms fighters left and right. Herunaro is kept busy re-arming warriors using mage hand to float weapons back as fast as the Dreamer can disarm them. Theringil alternated greater holds on her with heals on the party. Swiftwind keeps trying to reason with her protesting that he does not want to kill her but the Dreamer's only response is to smile enigmatically and state "But I could never be truly at risk." As she is distracted Herunaro blasts her with a spell and Berrik uses the opportunity to hit her critically spraying clear droplets of blood everywhere like rain. She screams and disappears. Then the room begins to spin and open. The party had only fought a projection. the real dreamer is immense. Far below the group she lays incased in an cocoon with something like embryonic fluid suspending her. Her flesh is rotting from aeons of suspension and neglect, algae grows over her skin, her eyes are crusted shut and when she stirs and opens them the flesh tears with the unexpected strain. The cocoon bobs up into the room and she looks at the party through bleeding eyes. Her blood runs red this time, She tries to stir but her once powerful form only twitches feebly as atrophied muscles stir after aeons of neglect. She finally is able to speak but teeth fall rottenly out of her skull as she does. "You have come a long way. At one time I would have thought none of your kind could ever stand against one of us and have a chance. For your valor I will answer your questions." But first I should make amends to the plainsman for a lesser dream of me apparently caused him grief sometime in the past." With that she conjures up a ring platinum ringed with fire opals. "The man from whom that nightmarish vision of me escaped created this. I feel that by giving it to you I may make some small amends." The party then asks a number of questions and as weak as she appears she answers questions on the Bastion, its creator, his prison, and his jailor. She says the Bastion had a key but the key was broken and what remains of it is possessed by Demios and Nyogtha both of whom now had forces in the Bastion. There may be a third way though, Dionysus might have had a personal back door. He never publicly admitted to having one, but I know he did have another way in and that was why he was never destroyed. They were always afraid they would need his knowledge or that the key might be destroyed. Go forth to the lowest layers of Pandemonium. You need to get to Phlegethos and at the bottommost chamber Eco waits. But even if you are able to get in the Bastion you may not succeed for Nyogtha would be almost impossible to defeat even for an army of my people, and my people are dead. The only hope you have is to use the connection between Ashardalon and Dydd to draw the Dragon out and fight it. Ashardalon is mortal, even if barely so. His hunger is what destroys the universe even now. In the battle with Dydd, even as he rent her apart her allies removed his heart leaving him incomplete. Without completion he requires more and more spiritual energy to preserve his weakening form, and to get that he will drain the well of souls. Each one destroyed is a million lifetimes that can never be. You must stop him... " The party's entreaties for more information she leaves ignored. "You have it in your means to learn everything else that you need. With the power you showed here today you have a chance. May you not fail. And if you see Dionysus tell him I am sorry for everything. Maybe if there was another chance, things wouldn't have ended so badly" SESSION END Evening of February 25th 217B NEXT TIME : Finding Eco. ITEMS ----- Platinum ring with fire opals (gift from the dreamer) EXPERIENCE TOTALS (Session 62) ----------------- Herunaro Swiftwind Berrik Qualental Theringil 170759 157625 166720 170721 170713