Abyss Modified Session 33: Into the Dragons Lair

          Our adventure started off right where it left off, chaos. Orion failed her first death saving throw and two imps appeared on the scene, one by Godric, the other by Professor Pulldiver. The imps both were confused that two groups working for the Companion both went to the same site and panicked when they saw the dragon and started clawing at the wall of force. Pulldiver’s Delvers took their turn. The Professor ran foreword past Anchor and Thudds, who both stood at the ready waiting for orders, and used an item given to him by his boss, breaking the talisman. Cold motes of unlife filled the two slain dragons and they rose up skeletal and turned on their mother. Thelrum hit Big Momma with a fireball, also melting the wall of ice behind her. When the ice melted, he could just see the form of a shield guardian bearing the same rune on its chest that matched an amulet on the dragon. Dinak continued shooting the dragon and trying to remain unnoticed, which was counterproductive. Drifting Cloud ran into the center of the room and used mass healing word, giving both Xanaphia and Orion a new lease on life, albeit still in a danger zone. Syre still had her magic circle active and attempted dissonant whispers on the dragon, but it resisted the spell. Xanaphia stood up and also blasted at the dragon with magic, having a hard time hitting the target. Haskan charged up to the dragon and missed with his attacks. Godric also charged to meet his foe, blasting with eldritch blasts until he could get into range. The dragon moved closer to the group, engaging them in a rage, a whirlwind of claws and bites, it was bad enough the group killed her children, but they brought them back from the dead as skeletons and mocked her. The group could see that the shield guardian was also taking the hits the dragon was, dampening the blows.

View of the carnage 

          As the party and the dead dragons teamed up on Big Momma she took to the air, knocking a few of them down and damaging them. As the dragon maneuvered a few of the party members noticed that down the hall there were more of the elementals making their way towards them rapidly. Xanaphia lined up a great lightning bolt and fried the shield guardian in the process, damaged an elemental, and angered the dragon further. Drifting Cloud yelled at the Professor that he needed to help out more and the Professor yelled back he was controlling two undead dragons. The elementals surrounded Haskan and Orion, knocking out Orion and wounding Haskan. Thelrum used his sword dancing spell and attacked two of the elementals and the dragon, causing one of the elementals to start cracking, he also dropped the wall of force at the back of the chamber. Enraged, the dragon brought her attacks down on Godric, removing him from the battle.

The ice walls were elemental creatures

          The party looked on in horror as the dragon prepared its breath weapon again and brought it down on most of them. Godric’s life force left him and the rest of the group became pelted with shards of ice. Everyone was pretty badly hurt and both Dinak and Drifting Cloud became focused on healing, Dinak using his healing spirit spell and Drifting Cloud bringing all his magics to bare. He also attempted to have Anubis help out with some timely divine intervention, but it was not his day. A daring plan was stormed up to get around the dragon and get Godric’s body, knowing that even if they could not bring him back now, he had a bag of holding on him with most of their loot. Orion downed the potion of storm giant strength and ran across the chamber, grabbed Godric, ran about half way back and threw him towards Drifting Cloud. Godric’s body flew and slid on its face about fifteen feet, while out of the range of the dragon, and came to a rest among the party. Drifting Cloud quickly used revivify and reconnected Godric’s soul to his body. Many of the other members of the group had fled out the chamber once they saw how bad things had gotten. They found a staircase leading down with a closed ornate door.

Post breath weapon scatterings 

Things were looking terrible for the party, the elementals were closing in, the dragon was wildly sending fog clouds and stalactites at the party between her attacks and trying to focus down on dangerous foes. Thelrum used banishment, and for a moment the party was safe. They watched as the elementals sank back into the floor. Thelrum concentrated on the spell while Xanaphia started blasting away at the throne room dais where she could see gold and some strange metallic sphere under the ice. Spending almost a minute doing this. Haskan sat where the dragon has disappeared and started sharpening his blades, waiting for the beast to return, Orion watched from the doorway just in case. Everyone else was in the lower chamber looking at the door. They pushed it open, it was not locked or trapped and found themselves within a treasure trove of enormous potential. A huge sized staff crackling with energy sat in one alcove, a giant dormant brazier sat in another. The party lit the brazier with their Mystra energy they had gotten from the last shrine. Drifting Cloud called the Companion and asked if it was ok to let the Professor take the staff, because he really wanted it. The companion responded to let the Delvers take the staff and send them to another location

The professor grabbed the staff and it shrank from giant sized to about eight feet long, still crackling with energy. The party decided to send Pulldiver’s Delvers to Thay, not wanting to deal with the red wizards themselves. The party chose to head to the Moonshae isles to the west. We are going to pick up from there next time, seeing what happens when the dragon gets back and how the party gets out of the horde.

Abyss Modified Session 32: Castle in the Clouds

          Off their last victory, the group decided to hit up the convenient temple that was in the ruins of a cloud giant city, and also happened to the closest. Thelrum the tortle abjuration wizard, Syre the yuan-ti whisper bard, Haskan the dragonborn zealot barbarian, Dinak the drow gloom stalker ranger, Godric the half elf bard warlock, Xanaphia the human wild mage, Orion the tiefling monk of the long death, and Drifting Cloud the tabaxi grave cleric of Anubis made their way towards the flying city. There was a quick craft check and the fabrication of a bone scythe on the way. Orion also borrowed some of Godric’s sovereign glue to attach a demon’s horn to his own broken horn stump, it worked well.

They noticed in the clouds a group of shapes headed the same way they were going and found themselves at a landing platform meant for surface folk visiting the could kingdom. The city was constructed for creatures that neared twenty-five feet in height, larger than rational buildings lined the oversized cobblestone streets, with doors over thirty feet tall and roofs nearing almost one hundred feet.  A troll, a human with spectacles and scholars’ garb, and another armored human with a large sword stood on an ancient large flagstone with three gryphons milling about nearby. Thelrum went down and eavesdropped on the group while the rest of the party made their way down from their airship, leaving Ralph and Ixxon in command. It seemed the troll and the guy with the sword were the body guards of a strange individual named Professor Aldein Pulldiver.

The professor was running around and tasting soil samples while the others were on guard duty. The troll turned and pointed at Thelrum and stated “turtle” and the Professor claimed it was nonsense, because they were currently very high up in the sky and turtles lived on the ground. Thelrum said hi and the rest of the group caught up. Professor Pulldiver told them he was investigating the giant city, which was the third giant city he had been to on his daring adventures, looking for a magic item depicted on a scroll he procured and showed the party. The scroll showed a giant wielding a staff made of lighting that seemed to control the clouds and storms. He and his crew sought the staff to help combat the growing demon issues going on down below.

The party quickly assumed this guy was either a fake or crazy, watching him jump around and taking and tasting more soil samples, claiming he was looking for air soil. They agreed to travel with him as additional guards, figuring the Mystra temple they needed to find would most likely be where this weapon was as well. Professor Pulldiver introduced his associates of the Pulldiver Delvers, Thudds, the large troll gentleman that smashed its hands into the ground when he heard his namesake, and Anchor, the armored human with a great sword and was very quiet, mostly grunting at the party or nodding. Professor Pulldiver knew his quarry, the staff, should be in the treasury if it was anywhere on this floating city in the clouds. The party fell into a marching formation, now being eleven strong, and made their way towards the castle.

Drifting Cloud saw movement as they made their way across the city, a figure made of ice and stone was, of all things, repairing the damage to one of the buildings. When he brought attention to it the rest of the party did not see it, it had disappeared. Thelrum mentioned that many powerful mages had magical guardians to take care of basic tasks, the same way Ralph could now use unseen servant. Professor Pulldiver agreed and went into a tale about mages on the plane of water, and got distracted by a large ceramic pot outside a building, noting the fabulous carvings across the surface. The party gave each other side glances.

Professor Pulldiver screeched loudly and ran towards a building labeled, as both Thelrum and Godric had comprehend languages rocking, Smithy. Thudds charged the door, knocking it open large enough for the party to enter. Anchor stayed outside to guard and Syre opted to stay by and observe him, not trusting him alone. The rest of the group explored the ancient forge, finding a bandoleer of potions of resistance to fire, a giants tooth that turned out to be a luck stone, and a sentinel shield. Xanaphia did some additional searching and found a potion of cold resistance as well. Pulldiver told the group he had no need for these trinkets, but did look near the anvil and the furnace, finding some sky mithril, the group took some, it was somehow even lighter than normal mithril. They left the smithy and noticed a few more of the ice and stone elementals, which melded into the walls when they were noticed. The group also passed a golem creature watering a solitary tree, they said hi and it waved.

The group heard rustling from one of the nearby buildings and went to investigate. Haskan kicked the door open and revealed five demonic cambions stealing things from the house, more of a shed. The cambions were misshapen, a sign of the demonic powers flowing within them, and they attacked the party for interrupting them. Godric walked into the room and calmly sliced into one of the cambions, using eldritch smite, bard dervish dice, booming blade, and almost cut the poor guy in half. The cambion fell to the ground, went “Hey!” and blood shot out of his wound anime style. Syre attempted to intimidate the rest of the cambions pointing out the fallen warrior, two ran into the next room. Orion noticed one of them putting a giant skull into some kind of black fabric and launching into an attack, on the sly trying to collect more skulls. Haskan got hit with a spear, so he pulled it out and threw it back at the attacker, and then charged him. Dinak launched arrows into the necks of two of the cambions, Thelrum made great use of his dragon’s breath spell. Xanaphia used multiple chromatic orbs, seeing these creatures had numerous elemental resistances. Anchor attempted to strike the cambions but kept missing with almost theatrical and comedic proportions, Professor Pulldiver hid outside and kept telling the party that they were doing great, and Thudds had difficulty getting into the fray so he attempted to break down one of the walls. The cambions fell to the might of the party.

The group looked into the bodies and found they were dissipating into an orange muck, leaving behind their scale shirts and their spears. Orion looked at the strange bag the cambion had and found it was a portable hole with a strange potion and the giant skull. It turned out the potion was of storm giant strength and the skull had belonged to a cloud giant. Drifting Cloud used speak with dead to attempt to figure out what the giant knew. They had five questions, one of which they would allow the professor to ask. For their first question, they asked if the skull, when alive had seen where the item on the scroll was kept, and showed it the scroll with the staff depiction. The giant said it was under the castle. They asked if there were any traps in the castle, it answered no. Third they asked where the temple to Mystra was and it told them under the castle. They asked how they could gain control over the flying city and were told if they killed the guardians, they could command the city. Professor Pulldiver asked what the guardians were and was told dragons. With this information they made their way further into the city towards the castle.

On their way they found a library and excitedly made their way among the stacks, only to find everything was written on large cylindrical cones and flat tablets. Godric did find a story called “Among the Clouds” which chronicled the relationship between two cloud giant lovers from rival kingdoms but devolved into smut.

The party found the gates of the castle, claws of some enormous beast had carved into the stone terrible gashes. The party looked around and found fist sized white scales as well. they figured they were up against at least an adult white dragon. They noticed iced over chambers and the temperature started dropping, forcing a few to adopt their cold weather gear. The throne room is where they ran into trouble.

The start of the battle

Two white dragons, one sized large and familiar, the other huge sized and less familiar stood on the far side of the frozen throne room, gold coins and a broken throne were trapped within the ice. The large dragon looked like the white dragon that rescued its sibling from the party a few weeks back, the huge one must have been either the mother or an older sibling. Dinak started the fray by shooting the huge dragon multiple times, then backing up. Drifting Cloud tried to get into a better position while Xanaphia blasted the large dragon with a chromatic orb, growing a feather beard again with her wild surge. Godric entered the fray by blasting the bigger one with eldritch blast and hex while approaching across the chamber and Haskan charged up as well starting his rage. Syre cast greater invisibility before cursing her party for not attempting to talk first and ran off to the western side of the room. The large dragon spewed frost at the party, only hitting a few of them within the cone and the huge sized dragon engaged Haskan, taking very big bites out of him. Orion ran up to the huge dragon, launching into a suite of attacks and attempting to stun it, forcing it to use a legendary resistance. Thudds and Anchor charged the dragons, Thudds heading to the large dragon and realizing he could not reach it. Anchor attacked the huge dragon and was able to take a big hit out of hit. Professor Pulldiver on the other hand hid behind a pillar. Thelrum blasted one of the dragons with arcane energy.

Big Momma's arrival

Dinak pulled further into the hallway, trying to fire into the melee without being noticed. In his distraction he did not notice what was affectionately called “Big Momma”. Bigg Momma engulfed DInak with a bite attack, almost halving him in the process. the party all turned and saw a gargantuan white dragon blocking the way they came, and filling that area with a wall of ice. Once the ancient white dragon showed up Professor Pulldiver knew it was time to leave, he dropped the guise of human and returned to his backwards handed Rakshasa form and called for Thudds and Anchor to run. Anchor removed his human guise as well, becoming an ogre mage, or oni. Thudds just ran. The Pulldiver’s Delvers made to retreat out the back exit of the chamber but Thelrum blocked the door with a wall of force, hoping to force them to help with the fight. The party focused their attacks on the two dragons that were already hurt, to get them out of the picture so they could deal with the new threat. Big Momma watched as the party killed her two children, right in front of her, so she blasted them with her breath attack, catching most of the group in the cone. Luckily Syre put of a circle of power, lessening the blow. Both Xanaphia and Orion fell to the frost breath, both now holding on with death saves. The rest of the group did not fare much better, with only Haskan making his saving throw. We ended the night there, and I am excited and terrified to see how this interaction resolves.

sessions end (the giant hag is a spiritual weapon)

 

Abyss Modified Session 31: Golden Fire

Our adventure started where the last one left off, with a bit of change. Haskan, a dragonborn barbarian had been hired by the Companion and made his way to the fallen sky temple. He encountered a small child waving at him from an airship, that child pointed him to the entrance of a strange cave. Once within, Haskan was able to follow the trail of wreckage left in the party’s wake. Burnt and battered corpses, a broken zombie beholder, multiple bodies of strange masked skull creatures, and even a strange magical portal that lead to a hallway of sundered books and a torn blood-stained carpet. He could hear the sound of battle down in further chambers and rushed past empty display cases and a desiccated husk strapped to a table. within the next room he could see a group of adventurers killing a giant strange green sock puppet looking monster.

The party turned and saw a muscular dragonborn with weapons drawn and exchanged greetings. He teamed up with Drifting Cloud, Dinak, Buttercup, Orion, and Xanaphia to explore the strange fallen city. The group looked around for any signs of danger in the room they were in and could hear a much larger monster in the southern chamber just off the room they were in and there was a quieter door to the east. They looked into the south room and saw a phaerimm cracking open animal specimen jars and devouring the contents. They chose to lock that door and head quickly to the east.

They found themselves in a long hallway lined with doors every twenty feet. Dinak listened at the first door and listened very well, hearing something paging through a book. Drifting Cloud knocked on the door and the group heard a loud pop, as someone teleported. They looked in the room to see pages floating to the ground and could hear movement in the next room. Drifting Cloud called out that they just came to talk, they were just exploring the city and whatever the creature was called them intruders and with a snap of two skeletal fingers two large red furred gorillas studded with bones appeared at the end of the hallway. Combat was joined and one of the beasts teleported behind Dinak, the other was stopped by Orion and started trading blows. Dinak summoned a swarm of wolves to vex the demons, and it worked. Drifting Cloud cast a few spells to support his friends and the door behind him opened, the speaker from before was another one of the masked creatures and it attempted to paralyze the cat folk. Drifting Cloud was able to dodge and Haskan rushed over to start swinging away at the figure. Buttercup was able to dodge, fly in, stab, and retreat from the demons, sowing confusion. Xanaphia experimented with her spells, trying to find one the creatures would take the entire effect of, noting they had resistances. The Grave Flayer, the masked monster, stunned Haskan and closed the door, teleporting away. The two demons fell and the party rushed to another door, knocking it down and finding the grave flayer behind it. they destroyed him and broke his mask.

Ixxion, their imp companion, came out of hiding and told he party they did a good job, but would need to be careful, the next bit of hallway had an even bigger monster in it, it should be dead and is floating in formaldehyde. The party cracked the door and looked into the next room, and as expected a large glass tank just a bit smaller than the room was full to the brim with a terrible smelling liquid and within was a large whale sized Phaerimm. Discussions were had on the merits of breaking the tank, the dangers of fire in a small space with explosive liquids, would they drown, if the creature was still even dangerous, and should they just leave out the other door of the chamber, ignoring this room entirely. Drifting Cloud used his eyes of the grave and confirmed the creature was dead, but not undead. The group quickly left the chamber, finding themselves on a platform leading out into the larger part of the city, it had seemed they had only been in a small entryway complex.

They looked out at the city at large, once beautiful, now ruins with giant green phaerimm floating around in the upper reaches. It looked like the city had been encased in a large pyramid shaped shield of force, possibly an old mythal to protect it and many of the phaerimm were picking at the edges, well out of range to sense the party. Faintly across the city they could see a large structure with a faint golden glow. Ixxon took the party to the old armory in hopes of finding something to help fight against the monsters ahead. The building was wrecked. Inside the group took shelter from the wandering Phaerimm and the other demons and undead in the streets. the group found the place was well looted and everything seemed broken. Buttercup found a strange lever, once pulled revealed a spiral staircase under some of the wreckage. Drifting Cloud zoomed down and found a hidden chamber full of petrified humanoids, weapons still in their hands, cowering from whatever had been raiding the city as it fell. He checked with eyes of the grave again, finding they were not undead, and the group checked to see what they had. They found a strange thunder whip (a magic whip that lets the wielder cast thunder wave at third level from the point of impact once per day), a flame tongue dagger (adding 2d6 fire damage), and a longsword of the clouds (similar to flame tongue but lightning). Feeling somewhat better equipped the group made their way towards the golden light.

After a few close calls and quite a bit of sneaking the group found themselves at a large stairway leading up to a large temple complex. They ran up the stairs as fast as they could, watching the sky for any sign of attack. The temple was the only building in good repair, it seemed the magic of Mystra kept it safe. Directly across from the entrance they saw two angelic statues, one serpentine, one more dragon like, flanking a brazier of golden flame. The group approached and the statues greeted them, telling them the flame of Mystra needed to be rekindled, the magic keeping it going was weakened by the cities fall and would need the heart of a magical creature to gain its old strength. The group looked at Ixxon and he informed them his heart was way to small for that.

A large form loomed in the front entrance, a misshapen fomorian giant that had fused somewhat with one of the phaerimm, its leg seemed to be one of the creatures. The group leapt into action, Dinak summoning more wolves to slow it down. Orion charged in with Haskan and they attacked the giant before it could get further into the room. The party noticed a few of the spells seeming to have a lesser effect on the creature, it seemed to be absorbing some the essence of the magic. Ixxon hid behind the statues, Drifting Cloud summoned his guardian of the faith, a large Anubis and a flying khopesh and tore into the giant. The giant looked at Dinak, inflicting grievous internal damage and wrecking his focus, the giant also started absorbing the summoned wolves. Buttercup ran in, stabbed the giant in the face, and flew off again. The giant took a few swings at Orion, scoring large hits. Haskan let out a breath of lightning into the giant and Orion hit back, killing the monster. The party quickly removed its heart and threw it into the flames. Golden energy surged out in a dome, filling the inside of the chamber and extending outward. The group ran out of the temple and washed as the dome crushed the undead and the phaerimm into the walls, destroying them. The group was invited to attune with the flame, each gaining a bonus on fighting demons in the coming battles. (+4 damage per hit on demonic foes)

The guardians thanked the party and told them about the other temples across the land. The guardians also healed them of all afflictions and teleported them outside by their airship. They saw Ralph who told them it was not his fault. They looked at the blood red sky and could see behind the sun another green orb hanging in the sky. They noticed another imp on the railing of the ship, he said the Companion wanted them to know the time table had changed and that Demogorgon had taken over Waterdeep and they should hurry before all was too late. We ended there for the night.

Abyss Modified Session 30: Imp in a Jar

The session started with the party getting ready to take a short rest, the strange monsters they fought last time did quite a number on a few of the party members. Dinak, Orion, Xanaphia, Buttercup, Godric, and Drifting Cloud used a few abilities to help regain health and expended a few hit dice. As the rest came to an end a ghostly face came through the door, it appeared to be an incorporeal humanoid and it floated to the center of the room. As the group looked curiously at it the banshee wailed, causing instant distress and knocking Godric back into being unconscious. The group made lightning quick work of her and felt deep booms far lower in the complex. They all turned to see the locked door turn to ash as seven tall lanky robed figures became visible in the clearing ash, behind them they dragged a beholder zombie. Xanaphia threw a fireball into the next room, immolating six of the bugbears instantly. The beholder zombie shot off an eye ray, hitting Drifting cloud, who found himself unable to move. The rest of the party dogpiled the beast and the bugbear, sending it back into deaths embrace.

The group picked themselves back up, Drifting Cloud broke out of the paralyzed effect, healed Godric, and examined the bodies. It seemed the bugbear creatures were living in the southern room, piles of rags and ruined beds and one much larger bed pile filled the space. As the group was exploring another adventurer was sent to help them, an elven ranger named Wolfbane arrived behind them, introduced himself, and began helping them loot the place. The group picked up the morning stars the bugbears wielded and discovered the bodies were desiccated husks, just bits of meat on the skeletal structure. They examined the other two doors on the northern side, one led to a broken portal room with a portal both on the floor and ceiling and the other room had collapsed, rubble burying everything inside with just another one of the bugbears lifeless and pinned. They looked into the last room on the south eastern side and discovered another portal room, this one intact. The group determined the portal would take them somewhere within the ruins, using their arcane experiences. After some debating, they all jumped into the portal.

They found themselves within a well lit and right side up chamber with no doors and four unlit braziers on ten-foot-tall stone pillars, one in each corner. After some goofing around Xanaphia lit them up and the secret door opened in the southern wall, leading into a long hallway lined with shelves and books. Godric attempted to pull one off the shelf and the books all attacked. Dinak used a ranger spell and launched a spray of arrows down the hallway. Wolfbane also launched a barrage of arrows into the corridor, impaling many of the books as well. As the group pushed through the wave of books, Drifting Cloud noticed a carpet on the far side of the corridor and hedged his bet that it was alive. He was right, the rug avoided his radiant blast and engulfed him. the party dealt with the rest of the books, puns flying every which way, and then turned to free their friend from the clutches of the rug, the only issue was every hit against the rug hurt their friend as well. They figured he was tougher than the rug and pummeled them both. Orion gave Drifting Cloud a potion and the group apologized, or at least a few of them apologized for Hurting him. Drifting Cloud licked his wounds as they traveled on.

They used the far door and carefully entered a strange room full of display cases. Within one of the cases they saw a weird pot with a face on it and Godric used misty step to lay flat within the case and take all the things out of it. The teleported back out of the case and the pot opened. There was an imp inside. They gave it some food and asked it why it was in the pot. Ixxon, the imp, explained he was placed in the jar before some kind of accident was to destroy the place. He told them about the really nice bugbear friends he had, his job of organizing the books, and his best friend was a magic rug. The party filled him in on a few harsh truths, gave him jerky, and he offered to lead them out of the no longer flying city. He seemed nice, for a devil, and took to the party easily. They asked if he liked kids, hoping he would be Ralph’s babysitter while they went on other adventures. They asked where the other doors in this room led, he told them one door took them deeper into the city, another led to the golem making room, another led to the living quarters where a few of the nice wizards used to live. They took the deeper door and found a room with medical equipment, two more doors, and a body strapped to a table. The body, which was horribly desiccated, happened to be wearing the same clothing as the banshee they fought earlier. The southern door had still wet blood seeping out from under it. They used the non-creepy blood door. Ixxon told them to keep traveling deeper into the fallen city, they would find the vaults on the lower levels and a way out. The party was excited about the idea of forgotten treasure and a way both out and into the temple, which Ixxon also knew how to find.

Within the next room they saw broken glass cylinders, more doors, and a large sized floating long green angry sock monster with four stringy clawed hands and thousands of razor-sharp teeth in its gaping maw. Godric felt compelled to approach, his steps bringing him right up to the maw of this creature. Before he could be eaten the party launched into action, putting magic and arrows into the monster, a phaerimm, and breaking its magical hold on Godric. Their combined efforts put the creature to rest and we ended there for the night. The party is now level 10.