Abyss Modified Session 36: The Tower in the Other World

Xanaphia, Orion, Thelrum, and Drifting Cloud returned to the flying ship after dealing with the beacon in the light house. They found Acererak and Ladwin interrogating a disheveled dark elf, Vizeran, who they were blaming for this whole problem with the demon swarms. Godric and Syre looked on very confused as the interrogation had been taking place in front of them. Their henchmen Ralph watched on in terror as well from an illusionary barrel he made. They talked with Acererak and found out the drow wizard had stolen Gromph’s spellbook and had been working with agents in the Underdark to summon all the demon lords to the same place, but something went wrong with the spell, it ejected the demons onto the surface world where they have been causing all sorts of problems.

Drifting Cloud called the Companion with his sending spell to ask if this Acererak was cool to be hanging out with them. The companion was confused by the question and teleported to the ship. He and Acererak gave each other a look, nodded, and set into a plan to help fix what went wrong in the spell. The group sailed the ship to the Sunset Mountains and followed the blip on their map to a strange swampy pond with three pathways that met in the middle. The party went to investigate leaving their employer and Acererak on board with Ladwin, Ixxon the imp, and Ralph the young halfling mage they pseudo adopted.

The party stood around using magic to determine what was going on at the crossroads for a bit until the sun set behind the mountains and a gateway appeared before them, leading to some desolate looking realm. they hesitantly entered and saw a large broken and ruined city with a central tower that had broken in numerous places, floating hundreds of feet above its original base. Thelrum used levitate to ignore the base of the tower and take everyone up to the top. He took Syre first and they discovered the top of the tower gave way to a flat platform with stairs down that appeared to have lost the higher levels as well as a marilith, a demon with six arms and a snake bottom. She was having a one-sided conversation with someone about the group not having arrived, possibly with a variant of the sending spell. The creature went on to explain her group was excellent at their job and would not fail. By this point the rest of the party had been taxied up and Drifting Cloud and Godric decided some trickery was in order. They approached the marilith and asked if she would be interested in purchasing some fine yeti meat they were willing to supply. The marilith was confused, but interested until one of her allies, an undead boneclaw came up from a flight of stairs situated in the center of the tower.

Combat was had, Thelrum banished the first boneclaw and a second one followed up the stairs and the Marilith resisted the spell. Godric pushed the marilith down the stairs and Orion was grabbed by the boneclaw. Drifting Cloud summoned a swarm of scarabs on the stairs, hitting both the feet of the boneclaw and the marilith. Orion was able to jump out of the way after pummeling the undead into the bug pile. Xanaphia and Syre used spells and threw around inspiration to the party. Eventually the marilith fell to the party and the banished boneclaw returned to its own realm via the magic of the spell. The group let the bugs clear out of the stairs and traveled down them, finding a strange doorway with shimmering energy inside of it. 

Through the doorway they found large chamber filled with odd walkways, multiple tables covered in historical documents, and a large wooden door on the opposite side of the chamber from where they entered. As they started rummaging through the room, they found out a few things. The ruined city was Andorel, it had disappeared and been stuck on the plane of shadow and been shunted around the cosmos for a few hundred years. It had been a city of mages before its destruction. They also discovered a strange scratching coming from the other side of the door. Thelrum used arcane lock to seal the door and Godric laid on the floor and looked underneath the door and saw massive strange feet on the other side, he tickled them with mage hand. The creature on the other side screeched and broke the door open. it failed to hit Godric with its massive claws. The creature looked similar to a bone devil and was some kind of guardian of this chamber. Thelrum banished it as well and another two showed up and they could hear noises from the back of the next chamber. As the party fought against the two strange bone creatures they were ambushed by three cloaked figures, bodaks, which tried to use their gaze attacks to kill the party. Many lightning bolts were thrown, many punches were made, and songs were sung. Eventually the party was victorious and decided to figure out what was on the next room.

They found two doors on opposite walls as well as a large pit with a writhing pile of teeth, gristle, and bones. The party threw some fire spells down at it but it seemed to have little effect. They checked the east door and found a room with a large brain eating monster in a glass jar and hundreds of empty smaller jars that once held brains. They locked that door and went to the western door. They found a hall leading north to a celestial map of foreign skies, which happened to be the heavens of Eberron. To the south was a closed door, which opened as they approached. At this point Godric had the idea to pull a prank on the strange pile of bones and teeth and relieved himself over the edge. At the same time the rest of the group found the last beacon of Mystra and lit it with holy fire.

The large pit filled with celestial fire, Godric assumed it was his donation that did it while the rest of the group came back to find him pulling his pants back up. The building started shaking so they fled. They feather fell to the ground and made it a good deal away from the structure before it hit the ground. They noticed a strange cocoon like structure made of bone slowly floating down from the sky and when they touched it a strange man in red robes with a long white beard woke up. They found out he was Elminster, a mage from their world, who had no idea about the demons. They gave him some jerky and he volunteered to help. He went through the portal with them and skeptically joined the group of mages working on the scroll to try to fix everything, or at least get all the demon lords into the same place. He had had some history with both the Companion as well as Acererak in this time line, and rather not talk about.

Now the group prepares, if the scrollwork goes according to plan, they will summon all the demon lords into the same place. With their blessings of Mystra they stand a great chance at turning the demonic horde.