Dungeons and Dragons! Part 7!!

The party traveled to Nurid, a town in which other adventurers had visited a week and half ago, fighting off both an infestation of fey and their witch overlord as well as an attack by the Tiavar assassins. The town has since seen ghost like entities rising from the ground and heading off to the old abandoned keep. The town was not troubled by this, just concerned that it might lead to bad tourism. The party spoke with the half orc bartender and the mayor to get more information about the phenomenon leading them to investigate the graveyard south west of town. They found out the whole area had been consecrated by clerics and logically there should be no undead restless spirits causing problems. About this time the party noticed a goblin child (Geb) living in the chapel attached to the graveyard. While they gave him rations and attention the necromancer/wizard took it upon himself to make four skeletal helpers and tossed clothing on them to hide their skeletal frames. The party was debating on adopting the goblin Ged, but realized that sunlight was fading. They gathered their horses, both physical and spectral and went up into the forest to inspect the woodsman’s house as well as the keep. They had the stablemaster with them to watch over the horses and give them background information. They found the hut of the old woodsman overgrown with plants and empty. They found piles of iron nails outside the building as well. Gleaning only terrifying information about the past of the ex-homeowner they moved on the keep. They found it mostly unguarded except for a helm wearing giant spider that was very friendly and told them about the wolves in the kitchen. They investigated further into the keep finding signs of other people within the keep and found a fish man in his tub of water. He was there to lend his oracular powers to the old witch and eat the magic shrimp that appeared every so often. The party heard noise and found a tiny monkey man in fine leather armor and hat rummaging through the master bedroom. They cornered him and he gave them bogus treasure and lied about his reasons for being there. After convincing them of his intentions he jumped onto his hawk and flew off into the night. In the distance a loud gong like sound pierced the now set night, and ghosts could be seen in the distance. The cleric made a circle of protection around a gem that coalesced out of the blood stains to keep away the spirits when they arrived. The gem of blood spun and the ghosts gathered confused and angry of not being able to touch the gem. They saw the ghost of the lady of the keep wielding her great sword. The barbarian in the group grew tired of the waiting and struck the gem with his new wounding axe dealing some necrotic damage as well as causing the gem to explode into a spray of blood, covering the ghosts, which all started laughing and disappeared. In the silence that grew an iron great sword fell from nothing and the wizard gave it to one of his skeletal servants. The party investigated the rest of the keep and headed into the basement, finding a fissure leading into the broken dungeon. They followed the path and found the dead witch and her dead familiar. The quasit familiar was dead and desiccated so the rogue took it along. Leaving the keep most of the characters decided to stay behind while three other characters ran back to town to find it full of giant crystals, strange mages, deformed giants, and crystal worms. The party attempted to assassinate one of the mages and were able to drive him off. The giants used their baleful eye attacks and were able to injure the party and scare them off from approaching. Shatter was used to great effect hurting both the giant crystals and the monsters. The bard used crown of madness to control one of the giants and the other seemed fixated on attacking the necromancer and his skeletal swarm. The skeleton wielding the iron blood sword had odd effects, the blade cut smoothly, leaving a trail of black soot. When the giant was hit with the sword his flesh died where the blade touched. The party was able to destroy the giants and knock over the crystal tower as well as dispelling the magic with in it courtesy of the bard rolling well on her dispel magic check. They saw reinforcements from the other growing towers and ran back to the hut in the woods to rest. The necromancer made more friends and the party saw the more terrible things happening in town. They snuck in after resting and temporarily disabled one of the other towers while the mages were almost done fixing the first broken crystal. The bard used hypnotic pattern on giants to knock them out of the fight and the necromancer had his skeleton with the scary sword sever more of the crystal tower. The party ran off to the cemetery to get more of their own reinforcements in the form of skeletons and met a strange wizard like man that was with the enemy forces. The psychic magic user informed the party the war party from Nabesh was attempting to hit Rhadamanthus with this invasion but showed up too far south. He seemed to specialize in necromancy and illusion and when prodded by the rogue, attempted to slay him with a life draining spell for pestering him endlessly. He teleported away and the party was left to decide what to do and chose to head to the fort in town that was being built and saw the crystal they paralyzed up and running as well as a large rift in the sky with crystal crafts coming through it and hovering above parts of the town. The party found that in the fort the psychic magic user was monologuing to the surviving townsfolk about their new situation and the glory of Nabesh. In a rage the rogue attempted to stab the mind mage in the back and as he sunk the blade inside him found the mage had switched places with one of the townsfolk. He saw the mage stand up in the group of townsfolk and shot him in the eye with an arrow, killing another random townsfolk he changed places with. The mind mage sent the rogue to another realm temporarily with a banishment spell. The bard saw a wizard ally in the crowd unconscious so he healed him. Rigel, the wizard ally took offense to the mind mage and shot him with a lightning bolt, the necromancer shot the mind mage with magic missiles as well. The mind mage had enough and animated the two corpses as zombies and teleported away, leaving the party to kill the zombies as the rogue arrived from his quick other worldly travel. Rigel had the survivors gather and with a scroll teleported them to the abandoned keep on the hill. With their spyglass they were able to observe the arrival of a fleet of smaller warships and a ship the size of a small city. The party rallied the survivors and went off to attack one of the air ships to take control of it while the dwarves and a wizard blew up the portal. They fought against a group of three medium sized crystal men with swords and two large crystal men with great swords. The ship was piloted by a wizard that became hypnotized by one of the bards and the ship fell from one hundred feet in the sky to about fifteen feet and resting on top the bar and bouncing off one of the crystal towers. The party was able to overwhelm the crew from one of the crystal flying ships and have started making their way to the big city sized ship, noting the giant sculpture on top. The mage also lost the skeleton that was holding the ghost sword but found the goblin child Geb playing squire with a hound archon. The party took their borrowed skiff and rammed it into the side of the flying city, sending the tiefling to scout ahead. He saw armed groups of humanoids loading up more skiffs for war, most looked different from the Nabesh natives, they were from other lands with crystals jutting out of their foreheads. There were fomorian guards as well as crystal skulls maintaining order in the city within the chaos. The party could not decide which way to go and eventually raided an empty guard house after divining there were four energy sources keeping the city aloft and one controlling all of them. The closest source was under them so they climbed down a hidden ladder finding the energy source was alive, and a demon made of crystal. The rogue became confused and started arguing with the walls, the wizard sent down his familiar which became stunned with magic and broke on the floor. The party attacked the demon as it started squishing the life out of the rogue. They made quick work of it and the entire structure trembled slightly as the three remaining power sources rebalanced. The party traveled down the east tunnel finding the path to the center of the structure and traveled north, passing harmless crystal scarecrow like creatures working in labs. In the central tunnel they bumped into a crystal skull floating invisibly and blew it up. They found an elevator and took it to the main chamber, encountering a man covered in crystal armor sitting alone. The party instantly attacked him and he called for reinforcements and threw a crystal firestorm at them, which the bard countered. His summoned support was one fomorian giant, two crystal knights, and four crystal skulls. As they joined the fray he devoured one of the skulls to get health back. The party set up walls of fire and terrible magics to combat the force brought against them, the rogue and wizard both fell at points but were healed by their allies. The crystal leader jumped into the crystal wall, becoming a carving on its surface and makings its way to its main weapon, a crystal dinosaur. The party descended on his dinosaur like starving rats to a wounded bear and combat was quick. The leader teleported away, letting his city fall from the sky, leaving the party to find ways to retreat. They made it safely home with a quick explanation of events at the start of their next adventure.