Min/Max Boards

As everyone stares at the huge monsters in front of them they notice that all they do is growl aggressively, but don’t make any moves towards the party, yet.
 
Eli looks back and forth between the two large monsters, watching to see what they do and preparing to manifest an attack.
 
Tinyra raises her sword and checks to make sure the spear is still floating next to her.
 
Leroy places his hand on the sword in his hilt and readies himself.
 
Niobe uses a turn undead to activate Divine Shield. She also turns on law devotion.
 
Arving debates NOT coming out of the rod, but decides it’s probably a dick move to leave her companions to fight the monsters alone.
 
Just before it looks like the monsters will move there is a voice that booms, “Halt,”  and a Lich appears standing between the two monsters.  Also Derek, Arvin and Boots appear standing with the group.  The Lich cocks its head and looks at their sudden appearance before looking at the party, “Why are you here?”
 
Niobe- “We’re looking for the remains of one Balakarde, an explorer. We are sent by Talon and Lashonna. I am Niobe Kochevnik, a paladin.”
 
The Lich nods his head slowly as he listens to Niobe, “I am Thessalar.  I think I know who you are talking about.  He didn’t fare very well when he came here.  His spirit I believe was shattered.”  He reaches a hand up to scratch his chin taking on a thoughtful look, “What makes you think a part of his spirit is here?”
 
Niobe- “Something has been drawing us here since we arrived. I think it tried to possess me, but failed.”
 
Thessalar, “hmmm, possible.  More likely you sense his presence somehow.  There is probably a piece of his spirit here.  Well I cannot have you wandering around my lab searching for it.  Why do you need it?”
 
Niobe- “We think it will help us in destroying the Dracolich Dregotha.”
 
Thessalar nods slowly, “well I could see my way into finding his spirit and giving it to you if you would help me with a problem I am having.”
 
“What kind of problem?” Leroy asks, nervous for the answer.
 
Thessalar, “well you see my love, Zulshyn, has locked herself in her tower and will not let me in to see her.  If you will go and retrieve her for me I will give you the piece of the spirit that you are looking for.”
 
Arvin starts looking around for the rod, because fuck THIS noise.
 
Leroy looks at the lich, “So me understands this, ye want us to go to a tower, highest point me presumes, go to your lover, convince her that she needs to be seen by ye, and then no one dies in all of this, and force ye lovers to be happy.”
 
Tinyra blinks and looks from Leroy to the Lich and then growls slightly.
 
Eli places the palm of his hand into his face.
 
Brak audibly groans.
 
Niobe drops her sword and spear to her sides, and her wings droop. “Are you serious?”
 
Suddenly Clifford appears and the Lich looks at Clifford then the party, “any more of you going to suddenly show up?”  then looks to Niobe, “yes I am serious.”
 
Leroy gets a slight smile on his face “Why is yer lover mad? Did ye force her to marry you? Because we be experts in this area.”
 
Niobe rolls her eyes so hard they almost fall out of her head. She then screws up her face, pinches her eyes shut, and repeats Leroy’s questions. “Yes, why is she mad at you?”
 
Derek runs his hand over his face and mutters something under his breath about being interplanar agony aunts.
 
Thessalar, “I have only attacked a few times trying to get her to come out.  She will help me create beautiful thessalmonsters.”
 
Leroy’s smile disappears and quickly whispers in Niobe’s ears so the lich doesnt hear him “Oh. Domestic issue. We may need to stay out of this lass. Me hates domestic issues.”
 
Derek “Do you perhaps have a gift that we could take with us to convey your sincerity to her? Flowers? Candies, perhaps?” He almost succeeds at not sounding overly sarcastic.
 
Brak, quietly- “Promises you don’t intend to keep?”
 
Arvin gives a deep deep sigh. “Perhaps before we go, you could also explain if the attacking part is considered romantic in your culture.”
 
Niobe- “I would also recommend a gift!”
 
Thessalar, “she should be honored that I would use her to help create beautiful creatures like my Thessalhydra’s here.”
 
Niobe- “Should she, though? Have you asked?”
 
Leroy seeing a moment to seize “Actually yes, she should be! Just like saving a hundred souls in return to send one to the depths of a locker.” He says matter of factly.
 
Arvin lunges at him, trying to tackle him to the ground before he can keep going. “Ignore him,” she says, trying to get a grip on the slippery pirate.. “He’s addled by all the time travel. Do you know why your lady doesn’t seem excited by this,... grand offer?”
 
Leroy squirms out of the hold and brushes himself off and smiles at Arvin.
She rolls her eyes and calls him an extremely insulting name in aquatic, having to do with virility and also octopuses somehow. (it’s a metaphor)
 
Niobe sidesteps the wrestling match. Trying to keep the frustration out of her voice, “Tell us about her. Is she a wizard? Another lich? Some lower-planar creature? What is your history with her?”
 
Brak- “And where is she?”
 
Thessalar, “She is a Lillend.  Not sure why she is here, or what her abilities are.  She is just beautiful and would make beautiful monsters for me.  What else do I need to know about her?”
 
Niobe focuses her newfound knowledge on relationships. “I think part of your problem is that, generally, attacking someone does not endear them to you, and attempting to entrap- ahem- or imprison them makes them actively hostile. Have you thought of that?”
 
Thessalar takes on an exasperated look, “I don’t care about that, will you retrieve her or not?  I have work to do.”
 
Brak- “Where is she?”
 
Thessalar points to the south, “south and a little east of here there is a tower.  She lives in that tower.”
 
Derek, rolling his eyes and sounding more teenagerish than he ever has since anyone met him “Well, we may as well go ask. Worst case, she says no. And polymorphs us into rocks.”
 
Brak- “Yeah, okay, give us a few minutes, alright?”
 
Thessalar starts to tap his foot and crosses his arms waiting for them.
 
Brak turns around and pulls out his crystal ball to do a little scrying around the tower they’re looking for.  He is unable to find the tower because it is in the fissure still and is being blocked by whatever is blocking his ability to see anything in the fissure.
 
Brak curses elegantly in Goblin, and puts away his crystal ball. “We gotta walk, I guess.” He turns around. “How far away is it?”
 
Thessalar, “around three miles.”
 
Brak grumbles, they’ve only walked like 12 miles today so far. “Fine, lets get going before the portcullises return from the future.” He heads outside and takes off.
 
Thessalar waves for you all to leave and then looks to his monsters, “let them leave.” then disappears.
 
Niobe backs out, weapons up but wings still sagging a bit. Once she jumps and floats gently down the slopes of the mountain, cause that’s more entertaining than walking.
 
Brak floats other people down the mountain as needed.
 
Derek turns his back on the draconic abominations and stalks after Brak.
 
It takes another hour for the party to travel the three miles, considering they have to go down a mountain, then back up another one in order to finally get to the tower.  The entire time Niobe feels like she is going away from where she needs to be.
 
Clifford, as they’re walking - “I wonder if the Lillend can find the spirit. If she can, maybe we kill the Lich for her instead. He seems like a jerk.”
 
Niobe perks up at this comment.
 
Brak- “Clifford, you just made my day.”
 
Tinyra grumbles, “should have just killed him and then come to see the Lillend.”
 
Leroy puts his hands behind his head, and states “Well if we had attacked him, we be up a creek with no paddle. Me thinks we did the right thing to not kill him.”
 
Eli just shakes his head and then writes, do you really think we can trust a lich to keep its word?
 
Derek snorts, as though this was too obvious to consider..
 
Leroy looks at the note and states “No, but me wouldnt like to take one on and find out he cant be killed.”
 
Eli writes, everything can be killed.
 
Leroy looks at the new note and nods “Yes true, but knowing our luck, one of us would die before he would be killed.”
 
Brak exposits stuff about lillends to the party so they know what they’re walking toward.
 
As they get to the tower they see what looks like an exotic and artistic looking large dome with a gracefully hooked spire rising up over the top like a claw.
 
Clifford takes in a deep breath and lets out a long howl that means in doggish, “Hellooooo we want to talk to yoooooou.”
 
Female voice, “and why do you want to talk with me?”
 
Niobe sighs. “The lich on the next mountain over sends us here to retrieve you for him. He’s pretty obsessed with you, it’s gross.”
 
“He wants you to make monsters with him, whatever that means,” Arvin adds.
 
Niobe looks aghast- “Oh, I hadn’t even thought of it like that, that’s even more disgusting.”
 
Female voice, “that is not likely to get me to let you in.”
 
Derek calls out. “Quite understandable. In lieu of that, we were wondering if you have the ability to find the spirit, or fragments thereof, of…” he turns to Niobe “What was his name?”
 
Niobe, loudly enough for Presumably Zulshyn the Lillend to hear, “Balakarde.”
 
Derek, loudly.  “Yes, him.”
 
Female voice, “hold on.”
 
It takes a few minutes then the doors are open and the party sees a vision of beauty, if beauty was an attractive woman with wings and was also a snake from the waist down.  She has a wonderful voice that is easier to make out now that the door is open, “are you going to try and kill me, or take me to that lich?” she asks as she looks at each of the party members.
 
Niobe- “We thought of a way to do neither of those while walking over here.”
 
She nods slowly, “I am Zulshyn, come in.” waives for them to come in and leads them into a sort of living area.”  there are multiple pieces of art around the room.  Four of them pop to everyone as a set of powerful stained glass horsemen that look as if they could be the four riders of the apocalypse.
 
Niobe enters, and sets her spear and shield to Non-Hostile.
 
Derek follows, putting up his bow.
 
Tinyra puts away her weapons as she enters the building.
 
Brak keeps out his staff, since he now has the Look of a Wizard to maintain.
 
Clifford comes in, and starts sniffing around.
 
Niobe- “Thank you for letting us in. I am Niobe Kochevnik, a paladin, and these are my companions…” Niobe introduces everyone in turn and briefly describes the Quest to Zulshyn. “...which brings us to your neighbor, who asked that we bring you to him. We do not intend to do so.”
 
“We don’t like people who try to control other people for their own ends,” Arvin says with a very pointed look at Leroy. “Especially men who don’t let women make choices.”
 
Zulshyn, “well I can understand most of that.  I am just here hiding from my former employers while working to find a way to remain as safe as possible in this tower.  As you have seen I am mostly surrounded by enemies here.”
 
Derek makes a noncommittal noise “Yes, hiding in a dracolich’s labyrinth does seem an odd choice.”
 
Clifford sneezes. “Yeah, this home doesn’t seem very safe. Maybe you should leave with us when we go home.” He also approaches Zulshyn to sniff her tail and then flop next to her if she doesn’t seem upset by it.
 
Zulshyn, “The spell that prevents scrying here is why I chose it,” Looking to Clifford and giving a slightly confused look as he sniffs her and is talking to her, “well where is your home and how would that be safer then somewhere that I cannot be scryed.”
 
Leroy just ponders the options lay before them, though he says nothing for the time being.
 
Brak- “If there is one of the outer planes where you would be safer, I can move you there.”
 
Clifford - “Hall of Shadows can’t be scryed.”
 
Zulshyn, “I don’t know of any plane that would be safer.  I have not heard of a Hall of Shadows.”
 
Niobe- “Aside from the Lich, who are you hiding from?”
 
Zulshyn, “That is a lot to share with people I have just meet.”  She looks into Niobe’s eyes, “tell me what will you do with my secrets?”
 
Niobe focuses her Earnestness and the Honesty and Honor of a Paladin. “Nothing. We are asking you for help, and so we would help you in turn.”
 
Derek, neutrally. “We gather a lot of useless information on our wanderings.”
 
Tinyra, “They have been accepting of mine and have not treated me unfairly.  You are safe sharing them.”
 
Clifford grumbles something about “kicking mom’s butt”.
 
Zulshyn looks from each of the party members as they answer and then raises an eyebrow as she actually pays attention and realizes that Tinyra is a succubus not hiding who she is, “well I suppose.  Do you know what the infinite staircase is?”
 
Leroy shakes his head.
 
Niobe frowns and shrugs.
 
Brak- “I do. It’s a series of pathways planewalkers can use to move between the outer planes.”
 
Clifford - “Not a very good for a doggie paradise.”
Zulshyn, “I was a caretaker and guardian on the staircase, until I did something that was not deemed appropriate for a guardian.  I have been hiding here on the material plane ever since then.  I don’t think there will be anywhere in the planes that is safe for me unless you know of somewhere that is safe from scrying.  How sure are you that the hall you speak of is safe.  If you succeed in destroying the dracolich I am sure the spells protecting here will be gone and scrying and the like will work again here.”
 
Clifford - I think Talon said it’s got like 10 feet of lead around it. Or something.”
 
Brak- “The guy who owns the place says he’s a demigod, and a couple of things he’s done makes us believe him. It’s probably as safe as any place besides the stone bubbles in the lower levels of Pandemonium.”
 
Niobe realizes that onces she got inside the tower the feeling that was drawing her to the north is now drawing her towards the upper floors of the tower and to the north at the same time.
 
Niobe, suddenly- “Zulshyn, do you know if a fragment of the soul of Balakarde is here?”
 
Zulshyn nods, “there is a fragment here.  It is in a piece of art that I made.  It turned it into a rather powerful item.  There are three pieces of his soul here.  It attached itself to the art as I was creating a small statue of Balakarde.  Seems he felt I was doing a good job of it.”
 
Derek “Convenient.”
 
“Super convenient..” Leroy ponders out loud
 
Niobe- “Can you contact him?”
 
Zulshyn shakes her head, “I have felt and seen a path towards the other parts of his soul when holding the statue, but I don’t get anything else from it.”
 
Niobe- “The lich claimed to have a piece of Balakarde’s soul. Do you know how many other pieces there are?”
 
Clifford - “ DId you know Balakarde?”
 
Zulshyn, “I did not.  I just saw him coming into the fissure and saw when he died.  I made the art to commemorate his stupid bravery.  When I am holding the piece I have I can only feel two other pieces, both are in the direction of the lich’s fortress.”
 
Clifford - “Maybe the rest of his spirit would like the art too and go to it if we brought it with us when we go kill the lich?
 
Niobe smiles- “You see what I’m getting at.”
 
Zulshyn, “I will not part with it easily.  If you go and Kill the Lich and come back I will consider negotiating a price for it with you.  I know it is not much of a life, but it is what I have right now and you are going to change my life significantly if you are successful in your mission here.”
 
Clifford - “This place has been much bigger than I thought, we could take Zulshyn to the Hall of Shadows and then come back. After the lich is dead, I mean. We’ll probably need to rest anyway.”
 
Brak- “Yes, we could.”
 
Niobe- “Zulshyn, on my honor as a paladin, we would bring the statue back to you and help you hide in a place safer than this.”
 
Zulshyn shakes her head, “I am not sure you will survive to be able to bring it back.  That is why I would like to see if you are strong enough to make it through more.  If you die trying to get part of his soul from the lich then I lose my statue.”
 
Derek sighs “Well, let us go and prove our bonafides, then. Just have to make our own recommendations…”
 
Brak- “In that case, what kind of monsters has the lich brought against you? What spells has he cast?
 
Eli makes a gesture of walking back and forth, then shakes his head and sighs as well.
 
Zulshyn, “mostly his thessalhydra’s, sometimes he brings other monsters he creates.  But he has not been back to attack in a few years.  Until you showed up I thought he might have finally got the point.”
 
Brak- “Then everyone should prepare themselves. I can’t scry because of the magic in the valley, so unfortunately we’ll just have to teleport in, nearly blind.”
 
Eli just shrugs.
 
Derek readies his bow. “Whenever you are ready, Master Brak”
 
Niobe returns Fjolhaefur and her shield to Kill.
 
Tinyra sets her spear to float and draws her sword, “I say we attack as soon as we arrive.”
 
Arvin casts Resist Energy 30 Acid on everyone, and Luminous armor on herself.
 
Brak- “Indeed. I shall count down, so anyone who has effects that end quickly can activate them just prior to teleportation. Please gather around.”
 
Clifford sets his teeth to silver.
 
Leroy pulls his sword out and ensures it is ready to go.
 
Brak counts down from 12, giving everyone two rounds to activate things and gather around.
 
Niobe activates Divine Shield and law devotion at the six-second mark.
 
BAMF!
 
Surprise Round!
 
Derek shoots two arrows from his electric quiver at the abomination stage right, and starts observing it for weaknesses.
 
Leroy walks up to the abomination on the left and attacks it!
 
Eli manifests a full wild surge mind blast on the blue Thessalhydra.  He manages to not daze himself.  It fails it save and doesn’t look happy.
 
Clifford leaps at the critter in front of him and starts tearing in. He rips it apart.
 
 
 
Arvin summons 3 large elementals, placing them around the remaining monstrosity. The elementals attack for 19, 26, 31, 22, 24, 20, 17, 14  (all miss)
 
Niobe takes a step to her left so she can stab at the red thessalahydra without also stabbing Leroy, as tempting as that is. She stabs at it four times, and connects on all but the last.
 
Tinyra stands by watching the surrounding remaining monster.
 
There is a loud crashing sound from inside the fortress.
 
Round 1!
 
Brak attempts a baleful teleport against the red thessalahydra, expending his psionic focus. He teleports away little bits of flesh from all over the thessalahydra, like a poor man’s disintegrate. He then regains his psionic focus...cause he’s not flying.
 
Derek rapidly looses arrows at the remaining thessalhydra.Three hit, and it dies.
 
Leroy moves up a bit past the elementals.  He can see the bars leading into the building, but cannot make out anything inside as the bars are too close together.
 
Eli stands by watching.
 
Clifford looks around, a bit surprised something so scary looking died so easily. He scratched his neck.
 
Arvin instructs the elementals to stand in a line in front of the explorers. She’ll have them sink into the earth if we start moving.
 
Niobe just looks around (especially up) to see if there is anything that is going to dramatically burst through the castle walls at them from above.
 
Tinyra continues to stand by watching for the Lich.
 
Thessalhydra Green comes bursting through the walls leaving wreckage everywhere.
 
Round 2!
 
Brak swaps the staff of power for the staff of transmutation and fires a disintegrate at this guy. Its maw is agape as the green lazor beam shoots right into its gullet, getting past all of its resistances, but the thessalahydra nevertheless survives!
 
Derek hides in plain sight, and rapidly shoots the ‘hydra. He only hits it once.
 
Eli manifests a full wild surge mind thrust at the new Thessalhydra.  Manages not to daze himself.  The Thessalhydra saves and takes no damage.
 
Clifford, a bit surprised that this one is still alive, shrugs and moves in to start brawling.
 
The elementals position themselves and whack the new menace. They do not hit it.
 
Arvin casts mass snakes swiftness on everyone.  The elementals still do no damage to green, but hopefully keep it’s attention.
 
Niobe takes a flying leap around one of the elementals in order to get close enough to stab the last thessalahydra, and she connects on her attack.  Just as the Thessalhydra dies, Niobe feels like something happened to her spear.
 
Clifford bites again, but misses.
 
Derek whips off another arrow, but sees that the critter is dead before it hits. He grumbles at the waste.
 
Tinyra stands and waits as Niobe and Derek kill the Hydra.  Then just as everyone sees the Lich step out and cast a spell Tinyra disappears.  The Lich looks extremely pissed.
 
Round 3!
 
Brak casts greater dispel magic on the lich, just to see what defenses he can wreck. He watches the lich to see how enraged the guy gets.
 
Derek, assuming that his hide action from last round is still in effect, rapidly shoots the lich. His first two shots hit, and hit hard.
 
Eli manifests full wild surge mind thrust on the lich.  He manages to not daze himself, but the lich saves and takes no damage.
 
Clifford looks at the swarm around the lich, but elbows his way in anyway using a psionic power. He then attempts to tear it to pieces. He succeeds.
 
Derek “Is that sufficient to kill an undead mage?”
 
Brak- “No, he will have a phylactery somewhere, keeping his soul. All we’ve done is make him angry.”
 
Eli writes, we should probably look around for its phylactery, destroy that to make sure it cannot come back.

The party having spent the entire day buying things, and getting upgraded items are invited to join Talon for dinner that evening to discuss their way forward with the Dracolich, pending Leroy’s need to vent about now being divorced from Tinyra.
 
Leroy sitting at the table, looks to his non ring wearing finger, and goes “Well me is happy with this.” He smiles then tucks his napkin into his pirate blouse.
 
Derek pats his mouth with his napkin and says “Congratulations, Captain. Have you and Mistress Tinyra tested whether you can be more than a mile apart yet?”
 
Tinyra sips at her wine, “I tested that and found that I am not stuck just feeding on him.”  Said with a slight snarl, “Now we just have to keep him away from wishes and maybe that will not happen to another poor unfortunate soul.”
 
Brak blearily sits at what is probably a child’s booster seat at the table and eats his food silently, what with all the learning. He’s a little fried.
 
Leroy looks to his first mate then to Tinyra and smiles “All is right in the world then it seems.” He looks to Tinyra again and just is gleeful “Well me did give up the deck to Master Derek, so there will be no wishes coming from me mouth anytime soon.”
 
Niobe also just sits and eats, noting that even removing the rings is a double edged sword.
 
Leroy eats a bit and takes a small swig of his rum. Because pirates love rum!
 
Derek, for the sake of exposition, asks “What is our next task?”
 
Eli manifests mass missive, We go to the wormcrawl fissure and attempt to kill a dracolich.
 
Brak wakes up. “Clifford and I did some scrying this morning, and we identified a place where we can teleport to without necessarily alerting everyone from miles around. We couldn’t see directly into the Fissure itself, as there was natural fog, which most magic doesn’t see through. The area is infested with human bandits- some of whom ride wyverns, interestingly and, goblinoids of various descriptions. What lies in the Fissure? Couldn’t say.”
 
Clifford - “I am sure the dracolich is there now though.”
 
Leroy puts the mug down and looksto Brak “Excellent Master Brak! How soon shall the crew be settin sail to this place?”
 
Brak- “I would like to wait until the morning so I can renew my spells and psionic powers.”
 
Eli nods agreement with Brak.
 
Leroy nods to Brak “Then let it be so! Also give me time to finish some rum before tomorrow.” with that he takes another small swig and eats a bit.
 
Tinyra blinks and shakes her head.
 
Niobe, to the room at large- “ I have a spell called righteous aura that I want to cast, that will boost my combat abilities a bit. The only thing is that is also casts the spell daylight on me. So anything that can’t stand daylight will be in trouble, but it’ll also be a giant signal to anything within miles of where we are. So once it’s cast, there’s no sneaking around. I hope you’re all okay with this.”
 
Derek, cutting his steak, “Will it adversely affect the dracolich or other undead that we will face?”
 
Clifford smiles and sticks out his tongue in a doggy laugh. “Bright shiny Niobe!”
 
Niobe- “I’ll affect some undead, I don’t know about the dracolich.”
 
Brak- “It does depend on the undead. It can’t hurt….us….so long as we’re prepared to attract attention.”
 
Leroy takes another sip of his rum and then says “well me has never been one for sneakin around and all.”
 
Niobe- “Also, if I get killed while the spell’s running, I’ll explode. So there is that, too.”
 
Leroy spits his rum out hearing this “Ye will do what now?!” he says in a panicky voice.
 
Niobe can’t help but be more than a bit amused at Leroy’s discomfort. “If It get killed while the spell is active, I’ll explode. It’ll cure any of you that are nearby, and will damage anything else, especially undead.”
 
Leroy slams the cup down, spilling some rum but does not care “Ye can not do that Mistress Niobe. Ye be vital to helpin me save me crew and me could not stand the thought of losing you.” he says worried and a bit angry. “As captain, me forbids you dying in anyway shape or form.”
 
Niobe- “Where’s your ship, Captain?”
 
Brak grins nastily, cause that’s the only way he knows how to grin.
 
Leroy quietly glares to Niobe “It be in a harbor waitin fer me. Ye know this.”
 
Niobe had her moment of cruelty, which she must now set aside, cause Paladin. “I can still be resurrected. I’ve been dead before. It doesn’t have to be permanent.”
 
Leroy shakes his head “And ye dont understand, me does not want to see you die in anyway shape or form. This is the way.”
 
Clifford repeats, “This is the woof.”
 
Niobe feels like she just missed something. “I’m not going to try to die, Leroy. But I guess you’ll just have a compelling reason to bring me back if I do, won’t you?”
 
Leroy flashes her a sly smile “Me does not need to tell you the reason, but me would go to the locker and back to bring you back to life it came to it.” he says cooly
 
Niobe remains unaffected by Leroy’s blandishments, although she doesn’t look quite as hostile as she has since the whole “I was gonna kidnap you, but it’s okay, I have a good reason” fiasco came to light. She takes a drink of her evening mimosa.
 
Tinyra grips her drink tighter as she listens to Leroy and Niobe talk about Leroy’s problems.
 
Derek rolls his eyes and mutters “Well, now that that’s settled…”
 
Leroy looks at first mate Derek, then takes a sip of his rum.
 
Brak excuses himself to spend a couple more hours reading books about Davey Jones, cause that’s the other thing he was supposed to research today.
 
Leroy looks to Brak “Where ye be goin Master Brak?”
 
Brak- “Once we’re done with the dracolich, we’re going to go find Davey Jones, aren’t we? We should know what we’re up against, and who knows if we’ll have a chance to come back here.”
 
Leroy smiles at Brak “Ye could ask your captain about him and share a drink with us. Me can fill ya in about ol Davey Jones.”
 
Brak sits back down, and gestures expansively. “Inform away, good captain.”
 
Leroy sips more from his rum and lets an ahhh sound from his rum “This is what me knows about Captain Davy Jones, of the Flying Dutchman, passed down to me from me own father like captain, Captain Irongut. Long ago the seas were a harsh mistress and whenever a ship started to sink, the Flying Dutchman would appear to claim the souls of the crew of the ship. They would either serve as the henchmen or die to Davy Jones and be sank to his locker. AKA pirate hell.” He sips his rum again “Well thats how its supposed to go. Ships were afraid to go into deep water seas in fear of the kraken he controlled if ye ran into the Duchmann unannounced or the captain of the ship didn't pay up to a debt he had with the good captain. That was until the day he came to me Captain’s ship. Me captain..” his voice begins to quiver with sadness and tears begin to well up in his eyes, “Was slaughtered in front of me and the crew was rounded up. Me tried to fight him but I was no match for his swordsmanship. So he told me that day he be taken me crew, must pay the 1000gp per head and show proof of the first woman me fell in love with to present to him. Then could me save the crew from the locker and me would have to take their place.” a small tear falls from his eye. “He then set me on a row boat and me had to watch the Kraken bring the ship down to the locker as he dived with his crew underwater.” He takes another sip of his rum. “His crew is not undead but twisted by the sea to resemble sea creatures or sea like items. He is a man with a squid head, and he's really good at sword fighting. Nuffin more than that to him.”
 
Niobe stares at Leroy, trying to determine how much of this is bullshit. “You could have just said all this,” she says, quietly.
 
As far as Niobe can tell he is telling the truth, at least what he believes to be the truth.  Leroy does have some weird views of what reality is.
 
Leroy looks to Niobe and says quietly to her “A man does not speak about the loss of his father, as the pain is too great for him to bear to remember failin him.” he finishes his rum and pours more.
 
Niobe says nothing, but has to wipe a tear from her eye.
 
Leroy slowly reaches out to her face and makes sure the tear is gone “No reason to cry lass, you did not know.” he sits back down, eats a little bit and takes another sip of his rum.
 
Everyone is sure that Leroy is being honest.  Niobe can tell that he is being honest, but also exaggerating his story a little more than what might be the complete truth of the matter.
 
Eli shakes his head and starts working on his food.
 
At this point Talon, Akara and a few face the group have not met yet join them and sit down to start in on the dinner that is already being served.
 
Talon, “I hope you were able to get what you all needed.”
 
Derek finishes his dinner roll. “I think after a night’s rest, we will be as ready as we can be.”
 
Niobe clears her throat- “Yes, we will. Just a matter of deciding on some tactics.”
 
Leroy sips more of his rum “No dying. Agreed? Agreed.” He says loudly
 
Talon cocks his head to the side slightly and looks at Leroy, “Not sure that can be a guarantee anyone can give.  This is a 1,500 year old Dracolich you are going up against.”
 
Leroy looks to Talon and says cooly “Master Talon, you missed a vital conversation earlier. Ye had to be there to understand.” and sips more rum.
 
Talon raises an eyebrow, “that doesn’t change the fact that death is possible for anyone here.  Maximizing you ability to damage undead will help a lot.”
 
Leroy thinks about it “What weapon composition will hurt undead?”
 
Brak- “Anything that will bypass their resistance to damage. Typically magical weapons. Plus Derek already has a weapon crystal that renders the undead vulnerable to his ambushes. We really need to keep the dracolich from flying.”
 
Leroy sips more rum. “So me mettaline sword can be turned to crystal and that will help?”
 
Derek takes a moment to parse Leory’s question and then shakes his head “It’s a crystal that is magically fused to one’s weapon to give it a particular attribute. I’m sure Talon could sell you one. They are removable, if you no longer want those attributes on your sword.”
 
Leroy snaps his finger “damn, thought it was worth a shot.”
 
Talon, “What Crystal are you talking about?”
 
Derek “A greater crystal of true death, for a weapon.”
 
Talon leans over to whisper to one of the men at the table, then looks to the party, “we can loan you enough for all your weapons, If you want to keep them it will cost you 9k for each.”
 
Brak passes. “If I’m actually attacking someone with a weapon that means we’re all dead anyway.”
 
Niobe- “I’ll borrow one from you, it can’t hurt. I’ll have to pay for it when we get back.”
 
Tinyra, “I would like two of them if possible.  I will pay to keep them.”
 
Eli shakes his head.
 
Brak- “Well now that we know the Captain’s tragic backstory, I’m off to research just how big this Kraken will be, and then I’m sleeping before our big day tomorrow.”
 
Talon, “I am sure the research could wait.  I can have some pertinent books set aside for you before you get back.  We have some scholars running around here.”
 
Leroy spreads his hands out as far as he can. “This big Master Brak.”
 
Brak squints (not that you can really see this, Brak does not observe social niceties and wears his hat at the table, so his eyes are shaded)- “How many miles away were you when you saw it?”
 
Leroy looks back, takes a sip of his rum, then looks to Brak “The ship was at least a 100 feet long and the mast was 80 feet tall. The tentacles rose to that height when me saw it and easily covered a majority of it.”
 
Brak looks like he’s doing some calculations in his head. “That actually helps, thank you.”
 
Leroy nods his head and slurs his word a tiny bit “yersh welcome Mashter Brak.” and takes another gulp of his rum.
 
Brak attempts to excuse himself again. “I can’t speak for the rest of you, but I need some sleep before we do this. I have a copy of the spell sunburst on a scroll, which we can use at the appropriate time, and hopefully Arvin can prepare it a few times as well.”
 
Leroy looks at his cup and thinks about what has happened, he finishes the rum up. “Me shoulds sleeps soonish ash well.” He says.
 
Derek also rises from the table. “See you all in the morning.” He returns to his room to wax his bowstrings or whatever.
 
Niobe finishes her dinner and heads back to her room to clean weapons and armor and stuff. She makes sure her door is firmly locked.
 
Leroy watches the world swirl in front of him and passes out at the table, begins to dry heave but doesnt puke. Because he is a champ.
 
Talon shakes his head, and then has a few men carry Leroy to his room.
 
The party has a restful night and wakes up the morning of day 217
 
DAY 217.
 
Let the morning buff routines begin!
 
Niobe casts divine insight, using her rod of extend. Duration- 14 hours or until used. She has two more uses of her rod of extend for the day.
 
Brak casts overland flight (17 hours) and anticipate teleportation greater (17 hours), and then manifests adapt body (19 hours), mind blank (24 hours), moment of prescience (19 hours or until used), specified energy adaption- fire (resist fire 30, 190 minutes), and specified energy adaption- acid (resist acid 30, 190 minutes). Brak is now down 41 pp from max.  He casts Superior Resistance on Derek. He also decides to risk some charges from the stoneskin wand and casts stoneskin on Niobe, Derek, Tinyra, Clifford, and Leroy, although he waits to do this until just before they teleport out. (All now have DR 10/adamantine for 70 minutes).
 
Derek feels much more resistant. “My thanks, Master Brak”.
 
Clifford goes to find Talon and says, “Do you know if one of those crystals would attach to my bracers? The bracers affect my claws and teeth, and I can’t really think of any way to attach a crystal directly to my teeth.” He grins.
 
Talon, “They connect magically to an item.  To use the greater item your weapons have to be +3.  So it might attach to your bracers affecting your claws and teeth.  I have never tried.  What kind of bracers are they?”
 
Clifford - “They’re bracers of natural weapons. The enchantments on it don’t go much to power, it’s only +1. Is there a lesser crystal that could get me some of the effects, like ghost touch or allowing critical damage?”
 
Talon, “the Lesser crystal will give you ghost touch and additional damage, it will not allow the critical damage like the greater crystal will.”
 
Clifford, ‘Still sounds useful. Let’s see if it will work to attach it to my bracers!”
 
Once Talon’s assistants bring the crystal, Clifford uses Far Hand to attach it to his bracers. It attaches, and sparkles prettily. Clifford barks happily. He puts on his hat and sets his ioun stone spinning, and puts on his extra broach. He then prances around, making sure all his various sparkly equipment shines brightly.
 
Leroy drinks water and puts some food in his stomach.  It takes Leroy an hour of sipping water and slowly eating food to start feeling better.  He still has quite the headache.
 
Talon trades the rod of security the party has for one that doesn’t have four more days before it will let them use it again.

Derek appears standing uncomfortably close to Leroy.
 
Derek adroitly slides away to not-in-stabbing distance, looks around at the surroundings and says “I see we didn’t die by cultist. And I’m going to assume that we found the library, thanks to that horrific vision.”
 
Brak- “Apparently the library was the fountain.”
 
Derek rolls his eyes. “Of course it was. Why wouldn’t a library be a fountain?” He mutters imprecations under his breath. “My apologies for not seeing that terrible island to the end.”
 
Eli snorts with amusement.
 
Various party members mumble variations of “Nah, don’t worry about it, we’re all coming and going.”
 
Niobe- “It’s on to the next terrible island, then?”
 
Leroy has his arms crossed against his chest, but smiles at the sight of his first mate “First Mate Derek, me eyes are happy to see ye once again!”
 
Derek nods “And you as well Captain. Which terrible island is next, Mistress Niobe?”
 
Niobe- “I’m just being sarcastic.”
 
Brak- “It’s a terrible city full of giants being attacked by dragons.”
 
You hear a quiet “pionk” noise and Clifford now looks like this:

Derek briefly closes his eyes as if he suddenly has a very bad headache. “Excellent. We haven’t had one of those yet.”
 
Leroy shakes his head at Brak “Master Brak, me thoughts that was the vision of the city where we died.”
 
Brak- “Was it? Don’t think so. Lashonna was in the vision, alive, and she is most definitely not alive now.”
 
Leroy ponders on this “but didnt we see her in the cave with master Talon? Before we sailed here gloriously on the ship?”
 
Brak- “She’s a vampire, Captain.”
 
Talon looks at Leroy, “In the vision we saw her die.  Some time after that she was turned.”
 
Leroy looks to Talon “So, shes really gone, that was a vision and me felt like acid and stuff peelin me skin back like what me did in the galley with the potatoes?”
 
Talon, “It was an interesting vision.  You were not physically there, your mind experienced it so it felt like you were.  She is really a vampire now.  She was something better before she was turned into a vampire.  I doubt it was her choice then.”
 
Leroy snorts “Like me being married to the she devil thing?” he says jokingly
 
Talon raises an eyebrow but says nothing.
 
Tinyra growls, “Your poor choice of words.”
 
Niobe crosses her arms in a show of solidarity with Tinyra. She gives Leroy a Look.
 
Leroy just glares with a smirk “What? She-devil? Married? What be me choice of poor wording?”
 
Derek breaks in. “Captain, Mistress Tiniyra, please. You, especially, Captain, be polite. There is nothing to be gained by antagonizing an ally. Especially an unwilling, magically bound one.”
 
“One could make the argument” Arvin says. “That it was Leroy’s choice to make a dumb wish and the person who really got stuck here is her.”
 
Niobe adjusts her Look to indicate that she agrees with Arvin.
 
Tinyra moves off to find something else to look at.  She appears to be struggling with something.
 
Derek nods “Yes, true.” He mutters  “Also unhelpful, Mistress Arvin.”
 
Since Arvin respects Derek far more than Leroy, she nods and concedes his point.
 
Leroy shows his hands up in the air “Fine. Fine. Me will play nice.” Leroy smiles a bit with a smirk, “Yet she not the one Davey Jones will accept when we leave this island.”
 
Derek rubs his forehead. “We will burn that bridge when we get to it Captain. And only a very few people would want to be turned into bloodsucking undead. Especially good-aligned ones.”
 
Talon, “I believe that she wouldn’t have made that choice.  After seeing the vision and with some of what I know of her history.”
 
Eli writes, when was the last time Tinyra feed?
 
Derek replies “Probably not recently enough. Captain, your wife may be hungry. Please feed her properly before we set out again.” He’s looking so over this adult drama already.
 
Niobe looks like she would really, really like to say something or even sneer, but she avoids doing so.
 
Brak, more than a little nastily- “Yeah, Captain, time’s wasting,”
 
Niobe sets Fjolhaefur and her shield to Kill, and waits.
 
Eli writes, are we going to try and talk to the giant or go in swinging?
 
Niobe, somewhat through gritted teeth- “If we don’t need to kill him we shouldn’t, but there’s no reason not to go in there prepared.”
 
“Do we have time for a Heroe’s Feast?” Arvin asks. “It’s not a full rest, but it’s better than nothing.
 
Leroy looks to Tinyra and then to the group “When she gets hungry, she can get fed.” he uncrosses his arms and begins to walk on the sand, “Until then, she starves.” he says coldly
 
Derek slaps his hand over his face. “Captain…”
 
Leroy looks over his shoulder to Derek “First Mate Derek, me knows what ye will say, me needs to be nicer and to feed the one who can save our arses in a fight, however she played me emotions in the beginning, she has fed off others, and knowing me luck, we will find baddies to kill soon enough, she will feed again.”
 
Derek shakes his head “Mistress Tinyra, are you in good condition for a fight?”
 
Tinyra looks to Derek, “I will survive.”
 
Leroy smiles as he hears this.
 
Arvin rolls her eyes and tries her best not to give him a death glare as she prepares hero’s feast.
 
Party is now immune to poison and fear for 24 hours, has 18 extra hit points and a +1 bonus to attack rolls and will saves. All diseases, sickness and nausea are cured, including Arvin’s gut reaction to Leroy’s grandstanding.
 
Brak- “Gather around, then, let’s get this over with.” He prepares the wand of teleportation.
 
The party gathers around, close enough to fool people in thinking they like each other.
 
Brak uses the wand!
 
The party arrives in a large chamber that seems to be a combination of bedroom and study.  Against the far wall lie numerous furs and cushions heaped in a haphazard nest.  The walls are covered with strange runes and markings, and a large stack of oversized books lies on a cluttered desk to the north.  There is a frost giant working quickly as he goes through books.  His back is to the party and doesn’t seem to notice them arriving.
 
Derek hides in plain sight anyway, and moves about 40 feet to the party’s right.
 
Niobe, putting on her best Diplomancy- “Hey!”
 
The giant drops his book and spins around looking straight at Niobe, “how...How did you get in here?”
 
Niobe- “Magic, “ She opens her mouth to say more, when....
 
Leroy looks at the giant and speaks in giant to him “We are friend and mean no harm.”
 
The giant glares at Leroy, “that is arguable, especially since you appeared in my room like a thief in the night while we are being attacked by dragons.”
 
Leroy smiles again, speaking in giant “we bring no harm, we are in search of answers. Me is captain Sparrow, and just trying to ease the tension.”
 
Giant, “You are failing.  What are you here for?”  Slowly he starts looking around at the party as he seems to be judging his chances with the group.
 
Leroy looks to the giant again and says “We are looking for a vampire lady named Lashonna, capture her and run like the wind to a guy named Talon.” in giant.
 
The giant shakes his head, “No one here by that name, and I don’t know anyone by the name of Talon.”
 
Leroy shrugs “then, how about getting rid of magic rings placed upon me because someone wished to be married to another person against their will from a deck of many things?”
 
The giant now just looks confused and then looks at the rest of the group, “you all let him speak for you?”
 
Niobe- “We are here to take the object the dragons are likely attacking you to retrieve.”
 
The giant nods slowly, “ahh, you are trying to get through the door down stairs,” he waives in the direction of where Brak’s scrying failed to give them anything, “well I have been trying to get into that room for years.”
 
Leroy leans his head back and says lowly “faaaaiiillll…”
 
Brak- “Fascinating. Tell us what you’ve already tried. Shall we go see the door?”
 
Since he seems friendly, Clifford has been strolling up to the giant and puts his head under the giant’s hand. “Look, he’s the right size to pet me when I’m this big!” He stands still hoping for pets.
 
The giant blinks caught off guard and then pets Clifford, “Um, yeah.  I have tried a lot.  We can go to the door, I get first pick of what treasure is in there though.”
 
Brak- “As long as your first pick isn’t the object we seek, you will have no trouble from us.” He turns around and floats down the stairs, presuming the giant will accompany them.
 
Giant, “if that becomes the case we can discuss the object.  Unless you are willing to tell me what it is you are looking for.”
 
Brak- “It is a large stone casket, carved on the sides with various monsters…” Brak describes the stone box. “We believe it is the phylactery of the dracolich controlling the dragons attacking your city.”
 
The giant blinks a few times, “I have no desire to possess the phylactery of a dracolich.  It is definitely yours.”  he waves towards the stairs and starts to lead the party.
 
The stairs descend into an oddly-shaped room with a ceiling vaulting forty feet overhead.  Great stone double doors exit to the northeast.  These are covered in a detailed bas-relief depicting a human form trapped in a trapezohedral shape.  All around this form wraithe dozens of carved worms.  A strange pale golden shimmering seems to dance at times over these doors, and set into the center of each is a single small keyhole.
 
Derek puts on his spellsight spectacles and looks at the door from behind the party.  The door doesn’t appear to be magical, but there is a strong magic field around the chamber.
 
Niobe detects evil.  No evil that she can detect, except for Tinyra and the Giant.
 
Brak attempts spellcraft and knowledge arcana checks!  He is pretty sure it is a dimensional lock effect.
 
Clifford says ‘it looks like a good door, so maybe it will open for someone good.” He trots up to the door and sits down in front of it. “Open please, we need to get inside.”
 
Suddenly there is what appears to be a spirit standing in front of Clifford.  “Well met.  You have come far in your quest to stop the abomination that rises even as we speak, and I have been down long roads in other worlds learning who and what I am.  Now, here at this juncture, our paths cross.  An age ago the Vaati fought a great battle against the forces of Chaos not far from here.  Miska the Wolf-Spider was imprisoned, the Queen of Chaos banished, and the Rod of Law was broken into the Rod of Seven Parts and cast across the cosmos.  Tombs were built to inter their honored dead, but the Vaati did not abandon the field of battle entirely.  Certain guardians were left behind to watch and wait for the reemergene of Chaos.  One of these guardians was an order of mortal druids.  The Vaati taught these druids their secrets, and when they left for other realism, this order grew powerful.  They became the order of the Storm, and they defeated Kyuss nearly fifteen centuries ago.  Kyuss was banished, locked away in a stony prison, but now he threatens once agian.
   Over Long years, the secret watchers joined with the cultures around them.  These guardians forgot their cause, and traditions were abandoned.  My family , the land family, named for their sacred attachment to the hallowed grounds of the Vaati fallen, were among the last of these watchers.  Though the blood of the Vaati ran thin in my veins, it still called to me and allowed me access to the tomb of lcosiol until my destiny was fulfilled and I fell to a trap.  Likewise, your coming to the Whispering Cairn was no accident.  I can smell the mark of the Vaati within you, heroes.  You may be the last of a long line, the only surviving heirs to the Vaati legacy.  As such, I have come to advise you.
   Kyuss’ strength lies in his prison.  When he became a god, he became trapped in the focus of his divine apotheosis-a massive monolith of stone affixed to the peak of the Spire of Long Shadows.  Dragotha stole this monolith long ago and brought it to his lair in the Rift Canyon.  Over the centuries, the presence of Kyuss’ monolith transformed this portion of the canyon into what is known today as the Wormcrawl Fissure.  Once, after Dragotha was murdered by the Chromatic Dragon and returned to unlife by the Wormgod, Kyuss managed to escape his prison.  With Dragotha as the general of his undead armies, the Worm god rose from the rift and attempted to begin the Age of Worms, but the Order of the Storm was ready.
   You know of this battle.  And now you know that in the room beyond lies Dragotha’s phylactery and they shall come to claim it.  You must be quick.  If you destroy the phylactery, Dragotha can be truly slain, but as his lifeforce escapes, he may be able to reclaim some of it from the beyond-destroying the phylactery may make him more dangerous than ever before.  Yet I see little choice.
   I must now go.  You shall not see me again, I think, until you join me on the other side.  Good luck, my friends, and farewell…”
 
After he finishes with his long briefing that Leroy ignored, there is a faight smile seen across the ghost’s lips before he fades away and the door behind him makes a loud sound as the locks release and the door cracks open slightly.
 
Niobe heads to the door. Arvin follows her. Niobe heaves the doors open dramatically.
 
Brak thinks- “Wait, Tiamat killed Dragotha personally? Dude’s tough.”
 
Brak turns to the giant, a look of both triumph (crossed with a sneer) on his face- “Did you try just asking?”
 
Giant looking slightly shocked, “that has never happened.”
 
Leroy’s face just remains blank “Me needs te cliff notes, me spaced out there.”
 
Clifford contemplates waiting outside, but figures that since he drank the fountain his knowledge might actually be needs, and trots inside.
 
Derek slips in with the group, hiddenly.
 
Brak floats after everyone else.
 
The party enters a room with a vaulted ceiling that is lost in the shadows above.  Flaking stairs rise ten feet to a platform across the room.  Atop it stands the statue of a rampant dragon, wings spread, foreclaws extended, and mouth agape.  Its chest is open, revealing its rib cage, wherein floats a ruby-red box, its faces carved with leering dragons.  Dark striations of rock travel vertically through the walls, creating the illusion of pulsing blood veins in the light given off by the glowing red box.  A susurrus echoes through the chamber like dark secrets long hidden.  As the doors swing wide, the flickering light pulses once, and then fades.  At the stairs stand two huge undead giants that start walking meanisingly towards the party.
 
Round 1!
 
Brak immediately casts nerveskitter upon seeing the giants.
 
Clifford ensilvers his teeth and claws, and charges the giant on the left!
 
Tinyra casts Flame Strike on the Giant that Clifford is not attacking.  It fails its save and takes a good bit of damage.
 
Niobe activates law devotion and then charges, using a Guided Missile 1.0 (law devotion, divine might, power attack, valorous spear).
 
Brak swaps to the Staff of Power and fires off...a fireball, detonating it behind the giants so they get it and the party doesn’t.
 
Derek clicks his tongue inaudibly and moves close enough to fire an arrow at the remaining giant.
 
Eli manifests Disintegrate, Psionic at the remaining giant.  It fails its save, and then turns into dust.
 
Leroy smacks his gloves together, like he had just got done working hard.
 
The frost giant is moving around behind the party searching the room for anything of value.  Ignores the fighting and anything else the party is doing.
 
Brak spins around and give a sidelong look at the giant….but a deal is a deal. He looks around the room, ignoring the obvious pulsating Object of Power in the middle of the room.  He doesn’t see anything else of interest in the room.
 
Now that the party is done with the guardians they can hear a whispering sound filling the room.
 
Niobe listens at the whispering, trying to make it out.  She is not able to make out any of the whispering.
 
Niobe, Derek, Arvin, Tinyra, Clifford and Eli all hear something big moving down the stairs towards the room they are in.
 
Derek asks “Master Brak, do you have a disintegrate spell available?”
 
Brak, who was not paying attention- “What? Oh, yes, hang on.” He swaps out the Staff of Power for the staff of Transmutation. I have about a dozen of them, if needed. But we may not want to destroy it immediately.”
 
Tinyra, “we might not have time for that.”
 
The frost giant starts cursing as there is nothing of value he can find in the room.
 
Niobe looks back the way they came to see what’s approaching. “If we’re going to steal it, we need to get moving.”
 
Niobe catches a glimpse of what appears to be a Gargantuan red dragon coming down the stairs.
 
Derek “Are you wanting to take it back to Talon, perchance?”
 
Niobe- “Close the doors!” She moves to try and drag one of the doors shut.
 
Arvin turns into the largest earth elemental she can manage and helps.
 
Tinyra, “I think getting to the Phylactery and getting out of here would be a better idea.
 
Frost giant helps to close the other door then push against it to try and keep it closed.
 
Brak lands on the phlyactery. “Gather around, and bring the rod of security!”
 
Eli moves quickly to join Brak. Arvin does whatever is most helpful.
 
Derek dashes over to Brak with the Rod and hands it up to him.
 
Niobe- “Arvin, throw me a rod of immovability!”
 
Arvin tosses it to her.
 
Tinyra flaps her wings and lands up next to the group.
 
Before Niobe can get one of the rods the door crashes open from the force of the dragon hitting into the room. It turns its attention to the Frost Giant and quickly grabs it in his two foreclaws and bits into him.
 
Niobe flies over to the group and grabs on. Arvin and boots are there already
 
Presumably Leroy does as well.
 
Clifford shrinks and runs over as well.
 
Brak activates the wand and teleports back to Talon’s hideout.
 
The last thing the party sees before they teleport away is the dragon ripping the frost giant into pieces, though the frost giant seems to take the beating long enough to keep the dragon from seeing what the party just did.
 
Brak extends his middle finger at the dragon as they teleport out.
 
Talon looks at the party as they arrive maybe thirty minutes after they had left, “That didn’t take long.”
 
As soon as the party arrives Brak feels that the phylactery is attempting to drain his energy from him.
 
Derek “What can we say? Sometimes things just go more smoothly than expected.”
 
Clifford - “The door was very nice. Pretty talkative, though.”
 
Derek “It said something about the dracolich’s power escaping and being reclaimed if the Phylactery is broken. Is there any reason we couldn’t put that in an iron flask?”
 
Brak- “The phylactery? It only holds creatures, not objects”
 
Derek “No, the power.”
 
Talon, “I am not sure, when the power escapes it is not the whole creature.  But the dracolich will not be able to sense where his phylactery is or where the power is if we destroy it here.  He will just feel that it has been destroyed.”
 
Brak- “But if we destroy it now, he will know that he needs to build a new one, which he can then hide somewhere that we will never find it. If we keep it, at least for the time being, he can’t make another one, and we can plan our attack.”
 
Talon nods, “It would be best that you go to destroy him as soon as we destroy the phylactery.  Not giving him time to build a new one.  You do have time to make plans and recover first though.”
 
Brak- “Correct. We have some planning, training, and scrying to do.” He hops off the phylactery. “Best to not touch that thing, I think.”
 
Brak- “Talon, if I can use the rod of security as a spell key to plane shift us here, then we don’t need your wand.”
 
Talon nods to Brak, “The red skull in the rod will let you come back when you need to.  Also the reason I loaned you the wand was because you didn’t have time to rest and might have needed you magic for something else.  I will take it back once you are rested.”
 
Brak- “As you like.”
 
Talon, “If you will let me, I will take the phylactery, figure out how to destroy it and will destroy it when you are ready to continue after the Dracolich.”
 
Brak- “We certainly shouldn’t carry it around. A few Mordenkainen’s Disjunctions followed by a lot of disintegration would be a good place to start. Don’t touch it, it was trying to energy drain me.”
 
Talon, “thank you for the warning.”  He shows his hands, “lets see if gloves block it, or divine presence can be affected.  I will have someone take you to rooms we have assigned for your use, and in the morning we can discuss what you want to do next.”
 
The party retreats to their rooms and does whatever the needful is for the night. Since this is the first opportunity they’ve had in about 16 hours.
 
Niobe tries to figure out how to sleep with wings suitable for a giant eagle. Probably on her face. She also does some prayers to various Lawful Good deities.
 
Arvin feeds herself and checks Boots for any remaining wounds. Then she does some druid meditation and a bath, and dreams about the sea.
 
Derek does clothing and weapons maintenance while lamenting the lack of good tailors in this demiplane. And takes a bath.
 
Brak breaks out Strahd’s spellbook, cackles a little bit to himself that Strahd is trapped in an Iron Flask right now.
 
Clifford jumps on his bed for a bit then circles 3 times before going to sleep.

Surprise Round Continued!
 
Arvin suddenly appears in the middle of the combat, seeing that something bad is happening as it appears that the group is surrounded. There’s a lot of swearing, all of it in Aquatic.
 
Krekie attacks Eli from his invisible position behind him.  Eli looks shocked and Krekie is still nowhere to be seen.
 
Malhazar attacks Niobe with his large Falchion.  Hitting her three times and doing a little damage. Niobe is Not Amused at being caught without Fjolhaefur in hand….but she does have this neato magical adamantine battle axe in hand.
 
Black Fire attacks Clifford.  Hitting him twice and causing a some damage, surprisingly resistant to the fire on the horses hooves. Clifford smiles a metallic grin.
 
Nalhazzarath attacks Niobe.  Only managing to hit her once.
 
Niobe- “Clifford, I could use some help on this giant red guy with the curvy sword!”
 
Darl uses the hand of vecna to cast Blasphemy.  Eli, Brak, and Boots are all Dazed and Weakened from the effects of the spell.
 
Jalagar and Sabir attack Tinyra.  They don’t manage to hit once.
 
Round 1!
 
Eli does nothing since he is dazed.
 
Tinyra attacks the Tiefling in front of her with her floating spear and rapier.  The Tiefling looks pretty bad off after getting pummeled, then he suddenly disappears.
 
Krekie invisibly attacks Eli again.  Eli is looking a little worn down after that one hit.
 
Malhazar continues to attack Niobe.  She can’t block or dodge the first swing, but managed to get away from the next three.
 
Leroy has not taken his eyes off the man that started him on his long dark path of being misled. He bolts from Tinyra’s side and runs to the man getting in his face with his sword out “Matey,” Leroy says angrily in the mans face. “We be having a finality to me situation, and some blood you took from me long ago.” he plunges his sword at the man.
 
Black Fire continues to attack Clifford.  Managing to hit Clifford with all attacks, not doing much damage though.
 
Nalhazzarath continues his attacks on Niobe.  Managing to hit her twice but not cause much damage and not stun her.
 
She is not at all pleased at being surrounded, and fends off his attacks as best she can. After the second hit the cornugon lands, the gray sparkly effect fades from her skin.
 
Darl growls at Leroy and starts to attack him back. Leroy dodges them all and laughs in his face.
 
Brak is dazed and does nothing! He is fairly put out about this.
 
Niobe, seeing how much of a beating she is taking, and how fast, decides to strategically relocate herself.
 
Sabir the remaining Tiefling attacks Tinyra, and misses her completely.
 
 
Arvin, scanning the battlefield quickly decides the person in the most trouble is Eli, so she runs over and casts True Seeing on him. Then cursing the rod and also the DM for not giving her time to put her armor of light on, she braces for a possible attack.
 
Clifford mauls the fire horsey! But then it disappears. Clifford growls.
 
Round 2!
 
Eli reaches out and grabs Arvin before flapping his wings and taking off straight up into the air.  Holding on to Arvin and looking around the room until he sees the creature that had been sneak attacking him.  As he catches sight of him he manifests a full wild surge mind thrust at Krekie.  He manages not to daze himself.  Krekie fails its save and falls to the ground just before disappearing.  Not that anyone else saw it happen.
 
Tinyra turns and attacks the remaining Tiefling.  Fumbling with her first attack she fails to keep the pressure on.
 
Malhazar moves to start attacking Tinyra.  Hitting her once with little effect.
 
Leroy grins and lunges four hits at Darl!
 
Nalhazzarath turns and starts attacking Clifford.  Hitting three times but fails to stun Clifford.
 
Darl attacks Leroy again.
 
Niobe does the following: drops the adamantine battle axe, as cool as it is, digs Fjolhaefur out of her handy haversack really fast, and then Lays Hands upon herself, healing, like, almost all the damage.
 
Brak manifests temporal acceleration. During his extra round, he flies over to get a better angle at Darl (looking like a blur from the outside), and manifests true seeing. Once he returns to normal time, he casts dimensional anchor on Darl.
 
Sabir continues his attacks on Tinyra.  Only managing to hit once.
 
Arvin decides the party doesn’t need mass healing, and opts to drop an huge earth elemental behind Darl for Flanking Purposes. The earth elemental whacks at him twice, then moves out of the way on command.
 
Brak grumbles that now there’s a huge earth elemental in his way.
 
Clifford bites Mal, but then stumbles when going for another bite.
 
Round 3!
 
Eli manifests a full wild surge mind thrust at the final Tiefling.  Manages to not daze himself.  Tiefling fails its save.  The Tiefling looks hurt just before it disappears.
 
Tinyra turns to attack Malhazar.  She only manages to hit him once, and not that effective of a hit.
 
Malhazar curses as he turns from Tinyra and uses an ability.  He appears to have cast some kind of spell.  Though no one is affected by it that anyone can tell.
 
Leroy once again attacks Darl. “Me will see ye dead for lying to me so long ago!” he shouts.  Darl is hit by all the attacks, looks near death before disappearing.
 
Nalhazzarath looks around before disappearing.
 
Brak is enraged that someone dispelled his dimensional anchor! He whips around looking for a likely candidate.
 
Leroy becomes mad ‘Ye man hood tuckin chicken shit scurvydawg!’ he shouts “come back and fight like a man!’
 
Niobe extends Fjolhaefur to Kill, flies at Malhazar, her left wing tickling Clifford’s nose right as she stabs at the efreeti. She’s only using a Guided Missile 1.0, but still rams Fjolhaefur into his side pretty effectively.
 
He looks hurt, then disappears.
 
Niobe, a little irritated. “Did we kill any of them?”
 
Brak- “I don’t think so.”
 
Eli floats to the ground and places Arvin down before manifesting mass missive, the rogue that was sneak attacking me looked like it might have died before it disappeared.
 
Niobe goes to retrieve her now second-favorite weapon, the adamantine battle axe, and finishes lopping the nightmare beast’s tusks off. She then puts away the axe.
 
Clifford harumphs. “They ran away so fast I couldn’t hardly do anything.”
 
Brak- “But they didn’t get what they came for, did they? Nothing lost?”
 
Eli manifests a wild surge body Adjustment, manages to not daze himself, and heals himself significantly.
 
Niobe- “Are we waiting for anything, or can we head back to the fey creatures that sent us to collect this stuff?”
 
Leroy puts his sword away and just frowns “He got away, that damn bastard got away.” he turns to the group, “Aye me says we just leave.” he sounds dejected.
 
Tinyra, “I think we should just head back to them and see what is next.”
 
“Sure,” Arvin says. “May as well.” She goes to comfort boots who is presumably not paralyzed any more.
 
Brak- “I have a scroll with teleport on it, if you all don’t want to risk getting ambushed by them again. Boots and Clifford will need to shrink down small, though.”
 
Niobe- “Yeah, let’s do it.”
 
Clifford shrinks. So does boots.
 
Tinyra, “sounds good to me.”
 
Eli nods agreement.
 
Everyone gathers around with all the items we have proving we did the things, and BAMF! Right back too where they started in this realm.  As they arrive the four Fey are there again.
 
Niobe scoots a little ways from the group and looks around, waiting for trouble.
 
Tylanthros, “we are impressed.  You managed the trials and without killing the Roc King.”  He then waives to the side and suddenly there is a fountain there, “and so you have earned the right to return the lore of the Order of Storms to the world.  The Age of Worms is upon us, and what the powers of old began so long ago now falls to you to complete.  Drink deep and remember.  Dream the dreams of the ages.”  They slowly fade away after he finishes speaking.
 
Brak- “I don’t like any of this.”
 
“Me neither,” Arvin says. “And quite frankly, don’t take this the wrong way, I’m not here to make these kinds of decisions. I’m here to help keep you dorks from dying so we can maybe get home someday. I don’t do orders and gods and whatnot. The ocean is my only deity and she’s not here.”
 
Clifford is already heading over to the fountain, panting.
 
Brak flies over to inspect the fountain.
 
Tinyra, “do we want to fill the jar that Talon asked us to fill?”
 
Brak grumbles about Talon. “Might as well.”
 
Eli walks up to the fountain and looks it over.
 
Leroy gets a bit shifty.
 
Tinyra joins them at the fountain and fills the glass with some of the liquid from the fountain.
 
Niobe retrieves a metal flask from her haversack and dumps out the salt water they were saving for the next time they needed a buffed water elemental. She then fills it with water from the fountain as well.
 
Eli writes, should we all just drink from it?
 
Clifford looks up from his lapping up the water. “Was I supposed to wait?”
 
As Clifford looks up everyone starts to feel a strange sensation going over their bodies.  Suddenly the party finds themselves standing inside a large canyon.  They can hear the sound of battle in the distance.  In the distance they can see cities smoke in ruin and the sky is cast with a dark pallor.  The cacophonous moans of the undead ride the wind.  The immediate area of them is clear for the time, though they can see armies that consist of huge numbers of humanoids fighting against what seems like an endless wave of undead.  A small group of somber druids stand before the party.  Leroy, Niobe, Eli, Tinyra, Arvin, and Clifford recognize the four druids at the forefront of this group as the druids that will eventually become the wild watchers they met while conducting the trials.
 
Leroy looks at the armies “What is this battle?” He asks outloud.
 
Niobe detects evil. Her spear and shield are set to Kill, and her hackles are up.
 
Brak tries to determine if this is a collective hallucination or something. He’s not paying attention to much else.
 
Tylanthros steps forward, his face gaunt with hardship, and his robes matted with blood.  He shows no sign of recognizing the party and speaks, “The heroes of prophecy.  Your timing is perfect.  We can hold them no longer, but we have been successful in our task.”  The man indicates the dozen or so druids who stand behind him.  These druids cluster around a large package, a strange container with its sides carved in the shapes of leering demonic and draconic faces.  “Dragotha’s phylactery is ours, yet at a great price.  His minions even now come for us to reclaim it, and soon he himself shall learn of its theft.  We must hide it forever from his reach, for I fear its destruction at this juncture would only drive him to an unstoppable frenzy.  But if we can take it from this land, he will sense its loss.  He will abandon the army of kyuss and they will be lost, without leadership.  You must hold off the spawn that even now scramble at the edges of the cliffs around us.  Our trusted ally will stall his aerial forces while you must hold off the rest of his spawn long enough for us to transport the phylactery.”
   As the druid mentions an ally, a familiar figure steps forward, a young and vivacious woman dressed in ornate silver armor who can be none other than Lashonna, her eyes bright and burning with determination.  She speaks to you, but there is no sense of recognition in her eyes. “I shall engage Dragotha and his children myself, but I cannot defend against his Swords.  They come too, scrambling up to our location even now, along with-something else.  Something most unnatural-an abomination. You must hold them off, for all is lost if you fail.”
   With that final pronouncement, Lashonna spreads wide her arms and transforms into a magnificent silver dragon.  With a single tremendous beat of her wings, she launches into the air and soars off toward the distant dracolich.  As she wings away, Tylanthros speaks again.  “We go now, to hide the phylactery within its cradle in Kongen-Thulnir.  Save us from the Swords of Kyuss, or the Age of Worms shall doom us all!”
 
Niobe squints at her and detects evil.  She is not evil. Niobe finds this curious.
 
Clifford shrugs, embiggens himself, and starts trotting to the edge of the cliff to gnaw on some undead. Or whatever.
 
Leroy takes his sword out, knowing hes about to get into another fight.
 
Brak flies around using the wand of stoneskin on Niobe, since hers got used up last time.
 
Arvin casts Mass Owls Wisdom on everyone. She also lets boot back to Huge and puts on his healing collar, and casts Greater magic fang on him and clifford’s bites.
 
As the druids leave they party sees an army of undead come down the cliff at unatural speed and are on the party before they can get much done.
 
Round 1!
Brak uses an immediate action to cast nerveskitter, giving him an initiative bonus.
 
Arvin decides fuck it and turns into a medium red dragon wyrmling. She launches herself into the air, careful to fly low enough not to get involved in any ariel fighting overhead.
 
Brak- “...huh.”
 
Clifford looks up and barks at Arvin.
 
Tinyra starts swing at the undead closest to her, manages to hit it a few times, but here weapons don’t do much damage to it.
 
Brak swaps the staff of frost out for the staff of power, and then drops a fireball…..right on top of Clifford, hoping that Clifford’s fire resistance equipment works.
 
Brak- “Sorry Clifford!”
 
Clifford, completely unharmed after dropping and rolling,, barks “No problem!” at Brak.
 
Eli looks around and manifests Planar Embrace, and then flys up next to Arvin. She gives him a friendly dragon growl
 
Leroy swings at the orange undead thing in front of him.
 
Clifford tries to bite at one of the thingies, and manages to slip on the dirt.
 
Niobe swiftly activates law devotion, and then starts stabbing! She only kills one, and that after three hits.
 
Twenty four of the Swords of Kyuss all start swinging at the party as they manage range.
 
Clifford looks significantly hurt after being hit 8 times, and he whines.
 
Round 2!
 
In the distance the party can see Lashonna’s battle against Dragotha go badly as her body falls from the sky to be lost in the distance as it goes below the horizon.
 
Arvin casts Rain of roses, after yelling apologies to Tinyra and telling her to get out if she can. An 80 foot high column of swirling roses appears, cutting everything evil
 
Tinyra attacks the monster next to her again, barely able to hit it and doing hardly any damage to it.  She also doesn’t look that great at the moment.
 
Brak manifests temporal acceleration, and uses the free round to create a fortress of ectoplasm: 18 10’10 panels, situated to be 40’ high walls surrounding him, except for a 10’ wide door. He uses the extra time to move around a bit. Then he cast Regroup, teleporting everyone inside his fortress o’ ectoplasm.
 
Eli manifests Disintegrate, Psionic with a full wild surge on the undead attacking Leroy.  Overloads and dazes himself.
 
Clifford pokes the ectoplasm to see if he can hit people through it. It’s pretty tough to move through. He whines a bit and casts Animal Affinity to give himself more HP.
 
Niobe spends a turn undead to give everyone fast healing 3 for 11 rounds.
 
Four Blue Dragons and Eight undead Red Dragons all do fly by breath attacks on the Party.  Their breath weapons kill everyone except Tinyra.  She manages to live long enough for the hordes to overrun her.
 
A short time later the party wakes up around the Fountain.  They still feel the pain of dying in the battle they just faced.  The well is empty, only water remaining is that which the party collected in their flasks.  They can tell that they are now on the same island they originally were on and the the entire island has be returned to the material plane.
 
Arvin rolls over, coughs, and lets out a stream of curses. These one’s are all in aquatic, but you definitely hear the name Chris.
 
Clifford whines and cowers.
 
Niobe- “Ow….that was worse than the first time.”
 
Leroy jumps off the floor and begins to freak out “Get the acid off, get them off me!” he says while flailing his arms around his body thinking acid is on him.
 
Eli sits up and holds his head, then manifests a mass, missive to the party.  If that was the war 1,500 years ago, imagine how bad it will be if they bring the worm god back to life.
 
Brak sits up and looks around. “I’ll just move back to Acheron. It’s terrible enough there he probably wouldn’t bother invading.”
 
Niobe goes over to Clifford, enveloping him in her No Fear aura, and gives him some pets. Clifford leans into Niobe and wags his tail a bit.
 
Tinyra, “why does it seem like there is an endless amount of minions to kill us in the near future.”
 
“We’ve been cursed by the Small God of Stupid Chaos,” Arvin says wearily. “It’s gonna be a thing for a while.”

Clifford seems a little lost in the sauce at the moment but still with the party.  One second the party is walking towards the sound, the next second there is a strange light from the rod of security and suddenly Leroy, Arvin, and Boots are back.
 
Derek completely ignores them continuing to stalk toward the sound.
 
Brak floats toward the sound as well.
 
Niobe, since she doesn’t know what a will save is, casts break enchantment on Derek. “Derek, plug your ears or something!”  Niobe can feel that the spell she is using has no effect on what is affecting her companions.  She gets the feeling that there is no way her spell could touch this.
 
“Mmm… alright.” Derek continues walking, but he does fish out some wax from his disguise kit and uses it to plug his ears. It has no effect.
 
Leroy, Arvin and Boots start to feel the uncontrollable urge to go to the sound and a feeling of crushing despair coming over them.
 
Leroy moves slowly towards the sounds “Me cant resist the sound, me must goto it.” he mumbles.
 
Leroy, Arvin, Boots, Derek, Brak, and Clifford- -2 on attack rolls, saving throws, ability checks, skill checks and weapon damage rolls
 
Niobe- “Aaghghhhhhhhhh it didn’t work.” She tries to get ahead of the affected types. “Hey! Hey! If you can plug you ears, or have a spell that protects you, cast it!”
 
Brak partially snaps out of it and looks at Niobe. “It probably won’t work, but I’ll give it a try.” He manifests mind blank, and no longer has an uncontrollable urge to follow the music, but still kind of wants to. And he still feels crushingly despairing.
 
Leroy walking to the sound, takes his fingers and tries to plug his ears as much as he can.
 
Tinyra pulls her spear out and starts it dancing, then draws her scimitar, “one of the trials was to end a mournful song, we may as well continue towards it and see if whatever is there is something we can stop.”
 
Arvin wildshapes into a unicorn, giving herself immunity to charm and compulsion to see if that helps.  She still has the strong urge to go toward the song and still suffers the negative effects from the spell
 
Niobe casts protection from evil on Derek and..sigh...Leroy (19 minute duration). “I just don’t want it compelling us to do anything else.”
 
Eli shifts around slightly as he starts to move forward.  Trying to keep a little in front of the people that are still trying to walk to the song.
 
Niobe- “But maybe we just hurry up and not delay the inevitable.” She also casts protection from evil on Clifford.
 
Arvin manages to cast Mass Owl’s wisdom (36 minutes) on the party. She stays close to Boots to keep him in her magic circle.
 
Niobe herds everyone without a protection from evil on themselves so that they’re close to Arvin, and then starts hurrying a little, looking for things that might try and go bump.
 
The party comes across a large black twisted tree that appears to be giving the sound.  It has multiple limbs that are twisting and moving.
 
Niobe- “Brak, is this another octopus tree?” She already has her spear and shield set to Kill, and activates law devotion.
 
Leroy looks at the tree, and mumbles “Its so pretty.”
 
Arvin does not think the tree is pretty at all, and is VERY annoyed that she feels compelled to walk to it.
 
Brak, kind of absent mindedly- “Looks like it….”
 
Round 1!
 
Leroy looks at the tree, wanting to touch it, mutters out loud “Me is gonna touch it, with me sword.” he draws his sword, walks up to it and attacks it!
 
Tinyra flys up and attacks the tree.  Once with her rapier the second time with her sword.  She misses with both attacks.
 
Eli attempts to do a full wild surge mind thrust at the Tree.  He manages to not daze himself. The tree fails its save.  The damage doesn’t seem to faze the creature that much.
 
Derek draws three arrows from his electric quiver and rapidly fires them at the tree. He is appalled when all of them miss.
 
Niobe charges and leaps into the air a solid 30’ away from the tree, flapping her wings just once in route to ramming Fjolhaefur as far as she can through it. She uses a slightly downgraded Guided Missile 3.0. (Awesome charging leaping smiting power attack with divine might, law devotion, rhino rush, and a valorous spear.) The sound of shattering wood echoes through the forest.
 
“I do not like land trees,” Arvin says to no one.
The Song ends and all the ill effects that overcome the party end as well.  Niobe gets a feeling of dread washing over her but she is able to shrug it off.
 
Leroy shakes his head back and forth “Whew!” he whoops, “Thank ye lass for killin this tree thing.”
 
Derek “Nicely done.”
 
Niobe yanks Fjolhaefur out of the tree.  “Thank you both,” she says, but only glances at Derek. “Let's get this done.” She pokes around a bit at the base of the tree.
 
Cifford does a big shake.
 
Derek looks around. “Well… the song has been stopped. Was that the extent of this task? Should we take part of the tree with us for proof?”
 
Tinyra, “I doubt taking a part of the tree as proof would hurt.”
 
Derek nods, picks up the largest straight splinter he can find, and puts in in the Quiver of Ehlonna.
 
Brak looks around a bit to re-orient himself to where they are on the island. “I think our next task is thataway.” He points to the southeast.
 
Derek strides out to the front of the pack, in the direction Brak indicated.
 
Brak flies as high as he can above the party without having to pick through branches constantly.
 
Niobe walks, cause a 20’+ wingspan and trees don’t go together.
 
Leroy follows Niobe walking, just smiling.  As he follows behind Niobe the ring on his finger suddenly becomes painfully hot and there is suddenly a shape pain in his head from a blinding headache that came from nowhere.
 
Tinyra snarls at Leroy as she watches him smile at Niobe, then blinks at the impulse and then glares at the ring on her finger.
 
Clifford walks, occasionally jumping up to walk on the branches just for the fun of it.
 
Arvin seems very out of it, almost like she’s having trouble shaking the effects of the song.
 
Eli taps his foot for a few seconds and then moves over to look around the remains of the tree.
 
Niobe, knowing Leroy is being her, despite being immune to fear AND knowing she could hit him so hard that he would explode, almost throws up in her mouth.
 
Leroy falls to the ground grabbing his head screams bloody murder “AAAAHAH ME FREAKIN HEAD!” he has tears appear in his eyes.  The pain only lasts a few seconds before his mind clears up after he stops thinking about Niobe.
 
Leroy looks at his ring and then snarls “We need to rid me of this ring quickly.” his mood becomes sour and refuses to talk.
 
Eli shakes his head and moves away from Leroy laying on the ground and joins the party.
 
Niobe turns around when the screaming starts, looks at Leroy, looks curiously at Tinyra, and tries to suppress a smile as she turns and keeps walking.
 
It takes about two hours before the party sees the weathered walls of a keep that are torn and ragged.  They appear to have been battered down on more than one occasion, their chipped stone blocks rebuilt haphazardly into makeshift structures with little integrity.  Four crumbling towers overlook the outer courtyard.  The archway providing entrance into the compound looms empty, its iron portcullis now nothing more than a heap of twisting black metal lying on the ground nearby.  Before the party can get to close a group of six gargoyles come wheeling down from the sky and land on the ground around the party one of them says, “are you here to speak with the lord of the manor?”
 
Derek replies “Is the lord of the manor the one called Krathanos?”
 
The gargoyle nods in answer.
 
Brak- “Then yes.”
 
Another gargoyle says, “then we will escort you in.”
 
The gargoyle’s escort the party into the large empty keep, up to a chair in the middle where a titan sits.  To the right of the party there are three cages holding three large gorilla-like creatures.  Each of the creatures has four arms.  Krathanos stands and looks at the party, “what brings you to my home?”
 
Niobe- “Greetings, I am Niobe the Paladin. We visit your home because we endeavor to prevent the release of the Worm-God Kyuss, and if the guardians of this plane are telling us the truth, we need your help to do that.”
 
Krathanos laughs, “Oh you have come for my belt have you.”  his amusement is obviously fake, “you cannot have it.”
 
Niobe- “We have. But why do you assume that we could or would not return it to you once we no longer need it?”
 
Krathanos shrugs, “because I don’t care if you would.  You are not getting it.  I would not help the Vecna followers, I will not help you.”
 
Leroy looks away from Krathanos and towards Tinyra, just after hearing the name of Vecna.
 
Derek “That seems fine to me. I’m all in favor of leaving the key to an evil god’s reappearence in the hands of someone who will never give it up.”
 
Niobe- “And who has the power to keep a rather strong group from taking it from them. My compliments to you, sir.”
 
Derek “Lord Krathanos, if you would, why is your belt important to this… quest? I ask purely out of curiosity.”
 
Krathanos shrugs, “saw me and ran in fear.  The quest is given by the guardians, I care nothing of their desires or reasons.  I just work towards finding my way out of here to go back to the prime material plane.”
 
Niobe detects evil on Krathanos.  Pretty evil.
 
Derek, blandly, “As do we all.”
 
Niobe- “Where on the Prime Material Plane would you go?”
 
Krathanos, “I would consolidate my power and take the lands that once belonged to me back.  You all might make perfect slaves to help that happen.”
 
Derek runs his hand through his hair “Unfortunately, we are otherwise occupied at the moment. And we are somewhat behind the Cultists of Vecna in our tasks. Perhaps another time.”
 
Krathanos sighs and casts a spell on the party.  Raising his hand and sending out four 2-foot-diameter spheres flying forward.  One at Arvin, two at Clifford and one at boots.  He misses Arvin and Clifford with one of the balls.  The other two hit.
 
Clifford yawns, having taken no fire damage.
 
Brak manifests specified energy adaption-fire as an immediate action so he doesn’t die crispily. He now has fire resistance 30.
 
Arvin activates her Shadow cloak and disappears.
 
Niobe stands fast as fire washes around her, singeing her feathers and the edges of her hair. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
 
Tinyra cocks her head and looks at the Titan as the fire pretty much washing off her.
 
Leroy cringes from the heat of the fire washing over him, reminding him of the pain from the ring and wishing it would come back.
 
Eli blinks and feels a little crispy.
 
Arvin as an immediate action, activates boot’s collar of healing and gives him back 50 health.
 
Round 1!
 
Brak decides to start out simple and hit the orange gargoyle with a cone of cold from the staff of frost. Arvin yells for him to tell her about titans. He decides to stay near the ground, cause gargoyles can fly, and aerial combat is not his cup of tea.
 
Brak wracks his brain for information!
 
Leroy, with a death wish, charges at Krathanos and attacks him!
 
Red Gargoyle moves up and attacks Derek.  Hit him twice
 
Orange and purple Gargolye’s attack boots.  6, 10, 10, and 8 damage to boots.
 
Green Gargoyle attacks Eli.  Only managing to hit Eli once.
 
Pink and blue Gargoyle’s attack Clifford.
 
Niobe charges Krathanos with a Guided Missile...lets say about Mk 2.6 (Awesome charging leaping smiting power attack, with rhino rush and valorous spear, but not law devotion or divine might, since this is looking like it’s going to be a long day.) When he doesn’t die, she says…”Huh.”
 
Derek boots himself 20 feet away from the gargoyle drooling on him and hides in plain sight.
 
The Gargoyle looks confused as Derek disappears.
 
Eli manifests a full wild surge death urge on the Green Gargoyle in front of him.  Manages to not daze himself.  It fails its save and gets a glazed look in its eyes.
 
Clifford sets about mauling the gargoyle next to him.
 
Tinyra moves up and lands behind Leroy and casts cure critical wounds on him. 
 
Arvin, taking advantage of her invisibility, slips to the back of the room and casts Resist Electricity 30 on everyone as she does so. Boots Monches on the orange gargoyle a bit, before also moving back to give Arvin some cover when she reappears.
 
Krathanos looks at Niobe with a surprised look on his face before he starts to attack her.
 
She raises her shield and takes four monstrous hammer blows.
 
Round 2!
 
Brak is fixated on the girallons, who will later be a nuisance he doesn’t want to deal with. He dimension hops past the gargoyles to a place where he can catch all the rest of them in a cone of cold. And then fires a cone of cold, killing all the girallons still trapped in their cages.
 
Leroy feeling better from being healed, lets loose a full attack on Krathanos! But completely misses, standing next to a huge dude….
 
Red Gargoyle moves forward and attacks Niobe.  It misses horribly.
 
Orange and Purple Gargoyles attack Boots.  Only one hits Boots and doesn’t do that much damage.
 
Green Gargoyle steps back from Eli and starts to attack itself, not quite killing itself but doing significant damage.
 
Pink and Blue Gargoyle’s attack Clifford.  Both fumbling their attacks and missing Clifford completely.
 
Niobe full attacks Krathanos, stabbing at him with Fjolhaefur four times. Only the first attack connects, and isn’t enough to kill the titan.
 
Derek sneak attacks the red gargoyle, firing two arrows at him from the electric quiver.
 
Eli looks to the blue gargoyle and manifests a full wild surge mind thrust.  Manages to not daze himself.  Gargoyle fails its save.  It looks damaged, but still standing.
 
Clifford goes after the gargoyle in front of him again, getting in several strikes before getting a firm grip on its head, rearing up, and slamming the gargoyle’s body into the other one next to it. The first gargoyle’s body breaks away from the body as it hits. He then tears into the second gargoyle, killing it as well.
 
Tinyra casts cure critical wounds on Niobe.
 
Arvin, who is now visible, casts Mass Snake’s Striking, giving everyone in the party an instant melee or ranged attack. Boots monches orange with both his turn, and the extra one.
 
Niobe takes another stab at Krathanos, and cause he needs to die before he can hit her again, she includes her half-celestial smite evil in her attack.
 
Clifford looks for a new target and finds one more gargoyle in reach. He bites!
 
Derek looses another arrow at the red gargoyle. And kills it neatly.
 
Round 3!
 
Brak finally starts paying attention to everyone else. He sees the two gargoyles fighting Boots, and decides to try and disintegrate one of them. He swaps the staff of frost for the staff of transmutation, and shoots a green LAZOR at purple gargoyle. It’s hurt, but not dead.
 
Leroy turns and runs at green gargoyle and smacks it with his sword!
 
Orange and Purple Gargoyles continue their attacks on Boots.  The two of them hit boots 4 times and cause minor damage to him.
 
Green takes a few steps back from Leroy and attacks itself again, this time manages to finish off the job of killing itself.
 
Niobe decides to charge the orange gargoyle, but with very few of the typical add-ons. (Just leaping power attack and a valorous spear. That’s all.) She smacks into hit and hits solidly, but not enough to kill it.
 
Derek, assuming that Niobe hasn’t stolen his kill before he can steal it from Boots, and shoots at the orange gargoyle. His first arrow kills it, and the second hits and kills the purple gargoyle instead. The third arrow just hits for decoration.
 
Clifford runs in a circle, sniffing everyone to make sure everyone is dead and/or alive as they should be.
 
Derek puts his bow away. “Well. that was exciting.” He loots the golden belt off the titan’s corpse and stashes it in his vest. “I hope this is the right belt…”

The party is still sitting around their found treasure, when suddenly Derek and Leroy are no longer standing around.
 
If Niobe was sitting at a table, she would have placed her utensils carefully down on the table and sighed heavily.
 
Brak stands up quickly. “Not here too.”
 
Eli looks around slowly.
 
Tinyra, “seriously.  Are we cursed...wait don’t answer that.”
 
Niobe mumbles- “Well, YOU are.”
 
Brak- “This begs the question of why we should fix Leroy’s problems for him. He’s probably speaking to Vecna now.”
 
Tinyra nods to Niobe, “unfortunately.”
 
Brak checks the weather to see if he will be blown out to see if he pops up to do some looking around.  There is amazingly no weather effects one the island.  Like the eye of the storm is stuck centered on the island.
 
Brak thus rises up a few dozen feet to see what he can see inland.  Brak can clearly make out the entire island.  He notices a pool, An area that has numerous spindly stone stalagmites, an area that looks like it used to be a camp that someone might have been staying at, an area with a collection of what might have once been impressive statues, and a circular disc lays in the ground to the north.  Near the statues there appears to be a pedestal.  He cannot make out much detail of it, but it could be of interest.
 
Niobe stands around and lets a breeze rustle her hair and feathers. She considers the utility of an adamantine greataxe as a backup weapon.
 
Brak notes that the eye of the storm isn’t circular, but he attributes it to magical influence. He floats down to the others, and describes what he saw.
 
Niobe- “The old camp sounds like as good a place to start as any.”
 
Eli shrugs.
 
Tinyra, “I am a little interested in the pedestal.”
 
Brak- “Agreed. Those tend to be places of power.”
 
Niobe and Brak head north to the closest item of interest.
 
The party comes to an area where the ruins are complicated with a new feature; numerous spindly stone stalagmites fill the area.  The rocky growths are carved with strange slash-like glyphs along vertical lines, but seem to have no other purpose.  A small tangle of green glowing crystal grows from the base of a stalagmite near the center of this area.
 
Niobe detect evil. There is evil coming from some of the stalagmites. Niobe points these out to the party.
 
Brak examines the slash marks via decipher script, and then the crystals via spellcraft.  He believes they are druidic writings, but cannot make any of them out.
 
Brak- “Arvin, can you read any of this?”
 
Arvin starts to read, but the DM decides to be a goober.
 
Surprise round !
 
Stalagmites suddenly have strands that spring from the ground and start to streak out towards the party.
 
Pink Roper attempts to grapple Niobe.  Four of the stands take hold of Niobe and the Roper starts to pull on her.
 
Blue Roper also attempts to grapple Niobe.  Five strands take hold of Niobe and that one also starts to pull on Niobe.  Blue Roper wins and pulls Niobe ten feet closer.
 
“What in the infernal landlocked hell is THIS?” Arvin yells at Brak.
 
Red and Red Blue Roper attempt to catch hold of Boots.  All of the strands catch boots and start to tug on him.  Boots is able to stand his ground.
 
Purple and Yellow Roper attempt to catch hold of Clifford.  All of the strands catch Clifford and he manages to stand his ground as they pull on him.
 
Orange Roper attempts to catch hold of Arvin. All catching hold of Arvin.  She manages to hold her ground.
 
Green attempts to catch hold of Eli.  All catch Eli, but he manages to hold his ground.
 
Brak summons knowledge of ropers from the depths of his brain and starts shouting things at the party. “They’re called ropers, and all they do is what they’re doing now!”
 
 
Round 1!
 
Tinyra flaps over to the blue Roper and attempts to touch it, casting Slay Living.  The Roper attaches one strand on Tinyra right before it dies.  The strands from Blue Roper drop off Tinyra and Niobe.
 
Niobe- “Ha! Nice.”
 
Clifford mauls the roper to his left, tearing it to bits. He flips around and starts in on the one behind him too.
 
“Oh hell no,” Arvin says, and turns INTO A DIRE BEAR.  She rears up and roars, then swipes at Orange Roper, whacking him once.
 
Boots rips around and bites red twice.
 
Brak dimension hops straight up 40’ to get out of the green roper’s tendril range, and then uses his staff of transmutation to try and disintegrate (via LAZOR) the other roper grappling Niobe. It poofs out of existence, into a tiny pile of dust.
 
Eli manifests Psychic Crush on Green Roper.  It fails its save and falls unconscious.
 
Purple Roper attempts to pull on Clifford more.
 
Red and Red Blue Roper attempt to continue to pull on Boots.  Both manage to pull Boots in close enough to attempt to bite boots.
 
Orange Roper attempts to pull Arvin closer and manages to pull her 10 feet closer.
 
Niobe takes a couple of steps to get around Tinyra and then attacks the red roper (red roper). She uses law devotion and divine might, but has to stand on the corpse of blue roper to get a good stab in, and thus slips on the second thrust of Fjolhaefur.
 
Round 2!
 
Tinyra draws her spear and attempts to attack the Red Roper.  Managing to kill the already almost dead Roper.
 
Clifford shreds the roper in front of him and turns to the one attacking Arvin, hitting it s few times.
 
Arvin figures what the heck, if you’re going to be a bear, be a bear, and full attacks the roper again.
 
Boots tail slaps red blue once
 
Brak, seeing that the orange roper is about to be torn to pieces, turns around to see what the last roper is up to. Doesn’t matter what it is, he disapproves. He swaps out his staff of transmutation for his staff of power and then fires some magic missiles at the red-blue roper.
 
Eli performs another Psychic Crush, this time on Orange.  It fails and falls unconscious.
 
Red Blue Roper continues to try pulling on boots.
 
Niobe executes a beautiful wing assisted flying leap up and over Tinyra and Boots to land on Boot’s far side. Then she stabs the roper.
 
Round 3!
 
Tinyra moves forward to attack the remaining Roper.  Hitting it for very little damage.
 
Clifford squeezes past Niobe and bites the remaining roper. It dies.
 
Brak lands and swaps the staff of power for the staff of frost. “Let’s be a bit more careful, shall we?”
 
Eli writes out, How do we be more careful?  They were pretty well camouflaged.  Will Arvin still be able to read some of the glyphs on them?
 
“I’ll give it a shot,” Arvin says, and does so. Still in bear form, which looks extremely silly.  She is able to determine that the glyphs cover several different topics.  Some of the eating habits of sharks, and others are simply gibberish.  The outer stalagmites have narratives like chapters in an ongoing history book.  The closer to the center she gets the more chaotic and nonsensical the patterns get.  She is also able to determine that all the Stalagmites were once Ropers.  The ones they faced are the only ones that were still alive.  There are also green crystals growing at the base of the central most stalagmite.
 
Brak takes another look at the green crystals.  He can determine there is a magical property to the crystals.  They appear to be connected with conjuration magic, similar to a teleport spell.
 
Brak mentions this to everyone.
 
Tinyra takes a look at the crystals and then points, “look there, it looks like one of the crystals has been removed from here.”
 
Brak- “Let’s explore the rest of the island before we start pulling crystals and travelling to other planes. Again.”
 
Tinyra, “traveling to other plans again?  You mean like you all going to dungeonland?”
 
Brak- “Precisely.”
 
Eli shutters.
 
Niobe flaps up onto a convenient wall and looks around. “Let’s inspect the pool, if we’re done here.”
 
Brak- “I think we’ve learned as much as we can from here for the moment.”
 
The party doesn’t run into anything of interest on their movement through the ruins to the pool.
 
Niobe flaps from wall to wall cause it’s amusing, and then keeps a lookout once they arrive.
 
Brak floats over the pool and looks to see what’s in it, hoping that what’s in it is not a kraken.
 
The party comes up on a murky tidal pool thick with moldering driftwood and clumps of seaweed filling the bowl shaped opening in the ruins.  Growing from this tangle of wood and water is an immense black plant.  Its roots coil out through the surrounding water and its twisted trunks support eight rubbery-looking dark branches that sway gently in the wind.  Everyone is able to notice that there appear to be red glowing crystals growing in the bottom of the pool.
 
Arvin keeps her distance, as she tries to figure out what the plant is
 
Niobe detects evil….and also stays at guided missile range.    There is evil coming from the plant.
 
Surprise round !
 
The Tentacles suddenly shoot out and attack Niobe, Tinyra, Eli and Brak.
 
Brak- “Why do we always go to the worst places? Ow! Crap!” He curses as he’s bludgeoned thoroughly by the tentacles.
 
Round 1!
 
Tinyra flaps her wings and flys back watching the monster holding off.
 
Eli manifests a full mind thrust without using his wild surge ability.  The Tree fails its save and shutters slightly from being hit.
 
Niobe has had it with these weird tentacle plant things in this weird little island, and so executes a Guided Missile Mk 3 (awesome charging smiting power attack with law devotion, divine might, and rhino rush and valorous spear). She rams Fjolhaefur through the tree and blasts a hole from one side to the other, the sound of shattering wood echoing across the island.
 
Eli claps.
 
Arvin lets out a low respectful whistle. “Niobe, you really need a catch phrase for situations like this.”
 
Clifford shakes off his fear, and whistle-howls at Niobe’s hole-in-the-monster.
 
Niobe takes a breath and grabs onto a splintered bit of wood so as to avoid falling in the water. She flaps her wings once and lands on the shore, trying to suppress a grin.
 
Niobe breaks into a smile- “Thanks. I wouldn’t even know what to say.”
 
As the party looks around they notice there are bodies of Sailors, pirates, and explorers all around the area.
 
Brak, a little disappointed on the inside that he didn’t get to cast cone of cold, looks around for what might be nearby. “We should search some of these poor souls. To see what clues they may have for us.”
 
Brak floats down to look at the red crystals.  He gets the same impression from these crystals that he got from the other crystals.
 
Brak manifests body adjustment on himself and heals 44 hp.
 
Arvin notices that one of these crystals has been removed as well.  While searching the bodies she finds a longsword in a scabbard that both look in excellent condition for the area.  There is also a set of clothing, slippers and a strand of beads.  All in excellent condition, probably magical.
 
Brak, to Arvin- “My impression is that these crystals have largely the same function as the green ones. Perhaps just the other direction.”
 
“Red ones make you alive and evil and green ones make you dead?” Arvin says. “That was a lot of dead rock back there.”
 
Brak- “I mean perhaps one crystal takes you to wherever you go, and one will bring you back.”
 
“Oh that makes sense,” Arvin says. “Yes I think you are right. What was up with that creepy tree though?”
 
Clifford - “We should be sure to take both with us, then. Don’t want to get trapped. Again.”
 
Brak- “The hell if I know.” He wracks all of his brain, not just the knowledge- nature part of his brain, about what the tree might have been.  He is still not sure what it was.  He knows of something called an Octopus Tree, but this one was very different from the ones he heard about.

As the party walks through the halls to meet with Lashonna, Leroy and Derek catch up to join them.

Leroy looks to Derek, “First mate,” Leroy says, “If me seems quiet me is taking in the whole time travel craziness.” then gives him a nod.

Derek nods back “I think I would need a much better headband of intellect to make heads or tails of it, myself, Captain.”

Brak- “Clifford did a much better job than any of us determining the various permutations of what could or could have happened.”

Talon stops as he arrives at a set of doors and turns to the party, “The waiting area I sent Lashonna to is behind here.  Are you ready?”

Brak look around in case anyone starts waving their arms that theyr’e not. “Yes, let’s proceed.”

Talon opens the door and leads the party in.  Looking to Lashonna he says, “these are the people I would send to the Library to help resolve the problems you see coming.”

Polite greetings all around from the Party.

Lashonna, “I have a fragment from Balakarde’s journal.  I can also use a piece of hair I have from Heskin to give you a look at what he is doing right now.”

Brak- “That is as good a place to start as any.”

Lashonna pulls out a small lock of hair tied with a gold wire on a fine gold chain.  She also pulls out a scroll and starts to cast a spell.  A small bowl of water on the table starts to shimmer as the surface ripples.
   A tumultuous scene fades into view, along with the howling sound of an oceanic tempest.  The image clears to show a deathly pale man lashed to a ship’s mast with several coils of rope.  Although details beyond a ten-foot-radius around Heskin are hazy and unclear, it is obvious that the ship is caught in a tremendous storm-the decks are awash in foamy water as both waves and driving sheets of rain torment the terrified man.  Sounds of gruff sailors shouting commands and curses in Orc can be heard under the raging tumult of the storm, and now and then, frantic orc sailors move quickly into view and then back into obscurity as they busy themselves at securing the ship.  At one point, two lithe, cloaked figures drop to the deck from the rigging on either side of Heskin.  They are identically dressed in tightly wrapped silken scarves, small devilish horns sprouting from their heads.  The cloaked figures spare condescending glances at Heskin, their eyes glowing faintly with infernal fire before they move out of sight toward the ship’s unseen bow.  Soon thereafter, a blazing red-skinned humanoid with an immense, bulging frame strides almost casually through the scene.  The rain sizzles into steam as it strikes his burning skin.  As he reaches Heskin, he looks down at the man and then looks toward the bow, crying out, “Darl!  It looks like your pet might be taking on water!”  With that, the creature explodes into a tremendous belly laugh.  A few moments later, another two figures step into view.  The smaller of the two is a shifty-eyed humanoid bird who wears a hooded cloak and carries a repeating crossbow.  The other is a towering man clothed in flowing blue robes trimmed with eye designs.  His cowl protects his face from the wind and his hands are obscured by long, rain soaked sleeves.  He squats before Heskin and speaks to him in a low voice, “Only a few hours more, Heskin, and we shall see if you live or die.”
   Suddenly, the blue-robed man’s head whips around to look directly into the scrying sensor.  His face is pale but commanding, and twists into a snarl as he stands.  “It seems we have guests, my friends,” he says.  “Perhaps allies of this cur?”  He turns back to the bound man, and as he does he pulls back his left sleeve, revealing a rotten, black-nailed appendage that seems to writhe and twitch with its own life.  “We can’t have your friends watching us, so it seems your journey comes to an early end, Hesken!”  The putrid hand unfurls and reaches out to caress Heskin’s brow.  Heskin shrieks in mortal pain as the fingertip freezes the skin it touches into an angry black scar.  The blue-robed man then makes a fist and utters a single unintelligible word.  As he utters the word, Hesken’s eyes bulge, the cords in his neck throb, and he slumps against his bonds, dead.  The scrying link is broken , and the water boils away to nothing.

Brak recognizes the bird as a Kenku, the red skinned humanoid as an efreeti, and the two horned humanoids as tieflings.  He recognizes the hand as the hand of Vecna.  At this time Arvin and boots are led into the room as well.  Lashonna takes a seat, heavily.  Looking disturbed.  Leroy feels that he should know the man in the blue-robes, but cannot quite place the face.

Brak waxes encyclopedic for everyone’s benefit: “If you don’t know what they are, that bird- man is a creature called a kenku. It’s a people who tend to be rogues and assassins, living on the edges of what most of you would consider civilized society.”

Brak continues- “The large red humanoid was an efreet, a type of genie (from the inner planes), and the horned humanoids are tieflings, which I’m sure Niobe can tell you all about, and, most importantly, the pale man with the rotten left hand wields the Hand of Vecna, companion to our own artifact. The Hand and Eye were torn from Vecna when his lieutenant Kas betrayed and attacked him. They killed each other in the ensuing combat- for a given value of killed when speaking of the most powerful lich wizard ever known and a vampire warlord- but Kas cut out Vecna’s eye and cut off his hand. We would be wise not to let the Hand’s wielder get ahold of the Eye.”

He pauses. “On the one hand, we now know that Hesken is dead, and so can’t scry on him ourselves, but we have several other targets to scry on. Which will be useful. Lashonna, are you familiar with anyone else we saw?”

Lashonna, “I know a little about Darl Quethos.  The one with the hand.  I don’t know enough to scry any of them.”

Brak- “Please tell us.”

Lashonna, “he is a powerful priest of Vecna.  I am not sure why he seeks the library, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he is working with Dragotha to return his phylactery.”

Brak- “Based on the storm they were sailing through, could you tell if they were trying to find the island in the Nyr Dyr you spoke of to Talon?”

Lashonna, “I believe they were.  There is a permanent storm around that island.  It takes a talented seaman to make it through that storm.”

Leroy perks up to this comment “Lass, me is Captain Leroy Sparrow. If any storm can be sailed through, it be me to steer and command such a vessel.” he says boastly and puffing his chest out.

Brak- “Presumably we would have some catching up to do were we to start chasing them.”

Talon, “I have Leroy’s boat from your pirate adventure in a dock close by, if you want that.”

Leroy looks to Talon with eyes wide and a smile on his face “AYE LAD,” he screams in pure excitement and joy “ME SHIP IS NEEDIN HER CAPTAIN, ME WILL SAIL WITH ME CREW” he then makes a fist pump in the air.

Eli writes, It might be easier to teleport then just use your ship Leroy.

Leroy looks to the note and shakes his head, “No we can sail Master Eli, trust in yer captain.”

“It would seem,” Arvin says carefully. “That since they know someone was spying on them, it would be a good idea to get there as soon as possible.”

Leroy shoots her a glare, “I. Want. Me. Boat. Mistriss. Arvin.” Leroy hisses

“More than you want the success of the mission?” Arvin snarks.

Leroy retorts back “Aye, At least with me doin the sailin, we can guarantee safe passage through any storm. No teleport magic thingy can change me mind.”

Eli raises an eyebrow and just watches Leroy.

Brak ignores yet another Leroy-induced drama. “Lashonna, do you have a map indicating where the Nyr Dyv is relative to where we will be upon exiting the Hall of Shadows?”

Lashonna, “I don’t know where this boat is at, but I can show you on a map where you need to go.”

Talon, “I can get you where you need to go for the boat, or show you to a location you can travel from by other means if you chose to get to Nyr Dyv.”

Brak- “Show us all of it.”

Talon waves at a wall, and slowly a map of the world appears.  On the map there is a point marked Nyr Dyv for the part.  Then there is also a city marked Deepwater on the map with the words ‘Leroy’s boat’ written under the name of the city.  “That is the city where I will take you all to start this journey when you are ready.”

Leroy raises his hand and looks at everyone “yer captain be ready.” he says gleefully.

Brak examines the map to check the distances between Deepwater and Nyr Dyv, and also if there looks to be a navigable route from one to the other.  He finds the route to be rather straightforward.  Also he can determine that at most it would take them two days to get there.

Brak notes that it is within teleportation distance, if it comes to that. He sincerely hopes that they don’t run into any kraken in route, as he’s heard that’s a thing on the Prime Material Plane.

Arvin thinks they will 100% run into a Kraken en route.

Leroy is shaking from excitement. The thought of sailing brings him great happiness in his soul.

Brak- “Anything else you can tell us about anyone we saw, Lashonna?”

Lashonna shakes her head, “I am not sure about any of them, except that they are dangerous and will be working hard to get to the island and to the source of knowledge locked away in the library as quickly as possible.  Might lead them to make mistakes.”

Niobe- “Then the question is- again- where to first?”

“Lass the only place we be goin is to the ship.” Leroy states with confidence. “Ye will all be safe, me has sailed more times around the seven seas than me can remember, me has sailed through storms, hurricanes, battles, and more. We will be fine.” Leroy says witha  smile.

Niobe gives him a Look. “What about your crew? Remember? Davy Jones and all that?”

Leroy looks to her and gets really serious “Aye, Me crew can be saved still, but if me new crew needs to help on the storm, then yer captain is here to serve.” he bows to her.

Arvin manages to Very Loudly roll her eyes.

Brak- “If we can time travel, the question is irrelevant. We can choose.”

Eli silently sighs.

Derek looks over the rims of his spellsight spectacles. “Captain, didn’t you say that once we rescue your other crew, you’ll have to stay behind?”

Leroy looks to Derek “Aye,” he says sadly, “Me has told Davey Jones, in order to save me ol captain and me crew from the locker, 100k gold pieces, proof that me found love in this world, and me would take their places.” he looks to the floor.

Talon looks to the group, “I will not be able to return you to your time without information from the library.”

Derek snorts softly. “Then we must go to the island first, else we won’t be able to get there at all.” He pushes the spectacles back up his nose and then runs his hand through this hair.

Arvin sighs, “Well that’s fair. Do you have any information about this ocean I could look at?”

Leroy claps his hands together and rubs them “Welp, looks like we are sailing.” he says.

Lashonna, “I don’t know much about oceans or sea travel.”

Talon, “we have books you can look through and take with you if you need.”

Brak- “The more information, the better, so yes, please.”

Talon steps off to the side and talks with Akara in a quiet tone for a few seconds.  After which, Akara heads out of the room.

Derek quietly goes to buy a couple more items that he thinks will be useful: a greater fiendslaying crystal and a ring of water walking.

Lashonna, “so you will go to the island and get the information about Dragotha’s phylactery?”

Brak- “Yes, plus whatever Talon needs. And speaking of, tell us about Dragotha. Obviously a lich, if he has a phylactery. But what else?”

Lashonna, “Dragotha is a Gargantuan wyrm red dragon dracolich.  He has been alive for over 1,500 years and was Kyuss’ right hand minion.  If he gets his phylactery back he will surely increase his efforts to bring Kyuss back.”

Brak- “Fantastic. As in, he was alive for over 1500 years and then became a dracolich? Or he’s been a dracolich for over 1500 years?”

Lashonna, “He has been a dracolich for over 1,500 years.  1,500 years ago was when his phylactery was taken and hidden.”

Brak- “Ah. And he serves Kyuss because….why? I would think a dracolich that powerful would be unwilling to serve anyone.”

Lashonna, “I don’t know why.  Just that he does.”

Brak smirks. “Maybe we’ll ask. And who is Kyuss? I’ve never heard of him. Or it.”

Lashonna, “Kyuss is known as the worm that walks.  He is the god of worms, or the worm god.  He was believed to exist in a time of great evil, when humanity dabbled with the blasphemous arts and served the dark gods.  He was either a mortal necromancer of considerable talent or an evil god’s ranking priest.  Before he became a god himself.”

Derek has returned just in time to hear this last part. “So we should prevent this. Alright, sure. Or does Talon want this god in an iron flask as well?”

Talon, “I would prefer less gods in the world.  I will not say no to your assistance in stopping him from being returned if you are willing.”

Derek tilts his head, considering. “Well. We’ll burn that bridge when we get to it. I’d rather not commit to such an enterprise before we’ve finished the tasks we have in front of us.”

He looks around to the rest of the group. “Do you think we have enough information at this point? The proper supplies?”

Brak- “I am as prepared as I can be for the moment.”

Niobe flexes her wings a bit- “So am I.”

Leroy shakes his head “Aye, Me is always ready.”

Lashonna looks to Talon, “I am leaving then.  I have spent enough time here.”  she gives a side long look at first Niobe then to Tinyra before leaving the room.”

Niobe raises an eyebrow, but says nothing.

Talon watches Lashonna leave and then looks to the party, “anything more, where would you like to be sent?”

Tinyra narrows her eyes staring at the door that Lashonna left out of.

Niobe- “I wonder what her problem is.”

Derek answers Talon “A close as is reasonable to the location of the ship. I think”

Talon looks to Niobe, “You are a Paladin, she is a vampire dragon.  She will never be comfortable around you.”  Then looking at Derek, “we can get you to the port where the ship is docked.”

Niobe- “Well. That certainly changes some things.” She feels a bit silly for not having detected evil on everything as soon as they walked in. She would blame the week they spent in Ravenloft for getting her out of the habit, but being a paladin, she knows deep down that that is just an excuse, and resolves to do better.

Talon, “Just be cautious when interacting with her.  She does still want to prevent the coming of the worm god as far as I can tell.  She runs her city, and that could be bad for her city if the worm god returns.”

Niobe- “What city? Deepwater?”

Talon, “Alhaster.  It is another coastal city.”

Niobe- “I’ll be sure to avoid it.”

Derek taps one finger on the opposite arm. “Alright then, if we are all prepared, let’s go.”  He is emphatically not bouncing with impatience.

Brak- “Agreed. I’m keen to see a sailing ship. Not the boat we had in Dungeonland.”

Leroy is getting more excited about sailing again. “Aye me ship is grand and sailable, we will be fine.”

Eli raises an eyebrow looking at Leroy.

Akara comes back with a few followers.  They have a few handfuls of books that they offer to Arvin.

Talon, “If you would all get in close I can teleport you all to the docks.”

Leroy is the first one near Talon.

Everyone squeezes in, pretending that they like each other. Clifford loves this.

Niobe doesn’t mind Derek, Eli and Tinyra, likes Clifford and Arvin, is ambivalent about Brak and Boots, and makes sure to be on the opposite side as Leroy.

Talon pulls out a small coin and tosses it to Leroy.

Leroy catches the coin and then asks “Whats this?”

Just as Leroy catches the coin the entire party disappears and is now standing in front of a familiar boat with the ocean behind it.

Arvin immediately goes to the shoreline, puts her feet in the water and bends down to take a little sip. Boots stands behind her protectively. (Arvin rolls 30 on knowledge nature as to the kind of ocean, potential creatures, etc) Then she reluctantly boards the boat. She doesn’t find much that could qualify as threats for the area they are heading to.  At least no animal or monster threats.

Leroy shouts like an excited female high pitch toned. He rushes to his boat, runs up the gangplank, and runs to the wheel. He runs his hand over it and feels the rush in his body. He smiles.

Brak, despite wearing a broad-brimmed hat, shades his eyes and looks around the area to see what’s what.

Clifford looks around, and runs straight off the dock into the water. SPLASH!

Leroy begins a mad dash about his ship, checking every deck, for supplies, cannons, cannon balls, everything that they will need for sailing the sea.  He finds a fully supplied ship.

Niobe stretches in the sunlight a bit, enjoying being on the Prime Material again.

Derek looks around alertly, seeing if their sudden appearance had caused any alarm. He takes a deep breath and makes a face at the smell of sea wrack and dead fish. He gets on the ship anyway.

Eli casually strolls up onto the ship and looks around.

Tinyra makes her way onto the ship and finds a corner of the deck to relax at.  She has changed form to look like a human.  Same face and build, just no wings or other signs to identify her as demon.

Niobe flaps her wings and flies up to do an orbit of the area, and then lands on the boat. She sets her shield and Fjolhaefur to Nonthreatening.

Brak eventually climbs aboard as well.

Leroy runs back up to the main deck to find the crew and begins to give out orders “all hands hoy! Bring up the gangplank, set the main sail, pull the starboard ropes, pull the port ropes, weigh in the anchor, lets go!” and starts grabbing the ropes and begins to loosen the sails.

Niobe- “Which one is the main sail?”

Arvin is still staring at the sea, taking in as much information as she can, and enjoying the familiar smell

Derek  looks around with interest.“I’m afraid you’ll have to teach us captain. Or we’ll have to hire actual sailors.”

Leroy in the span of minutes points to the ship parts, the ropes that control the main sail in the middle, the ropes from the right and left side of the ship, shows them how to tie knots for the sails not to come loose, everything.

After the few comments from the party the sails, ropes and anchor all start moving on their own. Magically obeying Leroy’s commands.

Derek blinks  “Convenient”

Brak- “Did the ship do that last time you had it?”

Eli shakes his head.

Leroy is not paying attention, is making sure everything is going to schedule and preparations are made before set sailing. “First mate, make sure the ropes are tight, Master Brak, to the crows nest to spot for storms and ships, Mistress Tinyra check the cannons, Mistress Niobe, check the sails for rips, Master Eli, help with the sails.” He walks to the wheel with the compass out.

Clifford swims over to the ship and pulls himself onto the deck. He then shakes out his coat, probably soaking half the party.

Derek shrugs and goes over to the nearest rope, smacking it to see how well it vibrates.

Tinyra ignores Leroy.

Eli watches the sails do their own thing and shrugs.

Leroy looks to the crew, “avast mateys!” he walks to the main deck and calls for them to gather, “are all preparations made and this crew set to sail for our island?” he asks.

Derek salutes lazily “The ship seems to have done all the preparations for us, Captain.”

“Excellent report first mate!” Leroy exclaims. “The wind is to our backs and the tide is favorable. TIME TO SET SAIL!”

Leroy is able to get the ship going. The first day goes by without incident.  They are well underway and appear to be making good time.

Niobe flies up to the crow’s nest and spreads her wings. She later steals some rope, ties it around her waist, and tries to see if she can be a kite, just based off the ship’s speed. She occasionally looks out for pirates and krakens and dragon turtles and such.

Arvin turns into a water elemental for a while and swims underneath the ship. Later below decks where no one can see, she spends some time casting Detect Magic to see what is propelling it.

Leroy is at the wheel of the ship and looks amongst the crew and sea. His heart is filled with love again and pain. 

Brak claims a berth for himself and spends most of his time belowdecks, cause it is BRIGHT outside.

Leroy assigns the night watches: first shift is Leroy and Eli, second is Niobe and Clifford, Third is Brak and Tinyra, Fourth is Derek and Arvin

Brak swaps shifts with Derek and doesn’t tell the Captain, because that’s how things are done.

Eli just sighs.

Clifford turns into a werewolf lord to climb up to the crow’s nest, and then turns himself into a small size dog so he can sit in Niobe’s lap. He also now looks like a corgi.

Niobe gives him skritches! And she thinks corgis are adorable. She also detects evil on the boat, just in case.  No evil.

The night goes by with no incident or anyone noticing anything until half way through the third shift.  Then it is almost too late when Tinyra and Derek realize they have almost entered the storm that is supposed to be surrounding the island they are going to.  Within two minutes of noticing the edge of the storm the ship is starting to rock.

Derek shouts for everyone to wake up, and then gets the bright idea to frantically ring the ship’s bell.

Niobe, Boots, and Leroy sleep through the start of the storm.  Arvin and Brak wake up from the violent shaking of the ship.  Eli falls off what he is sleeping on and crashes to the deck and wakes up.\

Arvin gets up to the deck and attempts to cast control winds.

Brak- “Ahh hell.” He casts overland flight, but doesn’t take off, and then makes sure all his stuff is secured to his person, with the staff of power in hand.

Eli finds a place to grip onto the ship as hard as he can.

It takes a minute of Derek shouting for those that sleep through the initial thrusts of the storm.  At this point it is starting to violently rock the ship.

Leroy rolls out and hears yelling “What in the name of blimey is going on!?” he gets his boots on races up to the deck.

Niobe buckles her belt and grabs her spear and shield and makes her way to the deck, although they’re still set to non-threatening. She clenches her wings close so as not to get blown off the ship.

Clifford is already on the deck, as a medium corgi. He doesn’t want to fall off, so he becomes a Huge Corgi.

Leroy gets to the main deck and sees the storm “Oh Bloody Hell!” he screams and runs to the wheel to hold it steady. He tries to shout out orders to everyone “TIGHTEN THE ROPES, HOLD ONTO SOMETHING AND DONT LET GO!”

Derek finds the safety ropes that Leroy totally told them about and ties one around his waist. He tosses other ropes to other people. Clifford goes over to sit with Derek, and uses Far Hand to tie the rope around himself.

Tinyra secures herself to ship as well.

Brak gets as far as a doorway, sees that going outside would be foolish, and so grabs a wall.

Leroy begins to steer the ship and fights hard against the winds and the sea. The battle begins!

Leroy is able to steer the ship for an hour through the storm.  Keeping the ship on track as the storm starts to get worse.

After an hour Leroy starts to lose control and the ship starts to tip violently. 

Arvin grabs her belongings, and dives overboard and turns into a water elemental to try and help steady the ship from below.

Leroy feels the ship pulling against him “OH HOLD ON SHIP, CAPTAIN CANT LOSE YE NOW!” he screams. “KEEPING HOLDING ON TO SOMETHING STURDY MATEYS!!!” He bellows

Niobe- “Leroy, do you need help!?” She plants Fjolhaefur in a safe spot, tip buried in the deck, and clambers up toward the till.

Leroy looks to Niobe and shouts “Aye! Get up here and help hold the wheel!”

Niobe gets to the deck, hair dramatically rain-soaked and wind-blown, and tries to help Leroy right the ship, but she can’t get a good grip on the till and isn’t too helpful at first.

Derek makes his way up as well and tries, but fails to add his strength to the mix

Clifford decides to shrink, run down to the bottom of the boat, and then make himself as large as possible to act as ballast. He also barks encouragement at Arvin, who is on the other side of the hull from him.

Since he can’t think of anything better to do, Brak runs and flies around the ship, looking for hull breaches and such. If there is a bilge pump he operates it.

Despite everyone's effort there are multiple loud crashing sounds.  The ship is moving mostly in a straight line but at this point has hit several rocks.  There are now four huge gaping holes in the ship's hull.  Water is fast rushing into the ship.

“FUCKING HELL! MY SHIP!” Leroy screams in rage. “FIRST MATE CHECK THE DECKS BELOW! YOU TOO MASTER BRAK!”

Brak attempts to seal the breaches with walls of ectoplasm.  He is able to get two of the breaches sealed. 
Derek goes below and finds the bilge pump. He darts working it to remove the water that came in.

Clifford barks “There are 4 holes down here! It’s very wet!”  He leans against as many of the holes as he can cover with his furry fluff.

The ship hits a few more rocks and now has no bottom hull left and has stopped forward momentum.  The ship is sinking quickly and breaking apart in the shores.

Leroy mutters under his breath “no shit its wet, its water.” and then says “EXCELLENT REPORT CLIFFORD GOOD DOG!”

Brak flies and swims over to Clifford (propelled by overland flight) and dimension doors both of them up to the main deck. Once up there he looks around for a landing place on solid ground. Clifford manifests Freedom of Movement.

Leroy continues his best to control the ship.

Boots slips into the water, and he and arvin start trying to catch anyone they can to put on Boot’s back.

Derek makes his way up, using his new ring to walk on top of the water. “Sorry Captain, it's time to abandon ship!”

“ALL HANDS! ABANDON SHIP! First mate, make sure the crew gets off first then i'll jump off!” Leroy shouts.

Niobe, wings still, uhh, furled, attempts to climb down and at least grab Fjolhaefur. Then it’s back through the berthings to her gear. She grabs as much as she can carry, making sure to get the metal bottle that holds the Eye, and heads back up to the main deck.

Leroy, Derek, Brak, Niobe, Boots, and clifford all lose their footing as the deck shifts violently under them.  Leroy and Tinyra lose consciousness when they hit the water from the violence of their fall.

Arvin starts looking for them both.

Clifford jumps/rolls into the water, then starts paddling around like a furry buoy. “Grab on!” He says to… everyone. He paddles toward Leroy and Tinyra, looking for them.

Brak just off the deck just enough to not get hit by anything, and flies over to Boots. Boots plucks him out of the water.

Niobe trips, drops everything but Fjolhaefur, her shield, and the bottle with the Eye, and heads outside. She takes a running leap, propelled with her wings, off the ship.

Eli manages to keep up and swimming, but barely able to keep above water. Arvin swims over to him and tosses him onto boot’s back.

Derek jumps down to the water and fights to get to the nearest struggling person.

Brak- “Who’s missing?” He keeps looking around for a landing spot on stable ground.

No one is able to see Tinyra or Leroy. ARvin dives again

Niobe gets over to Boots, Clifford, and the conscious types. She latches onto whoever is handy.

Brak manifests adapt body, so now he can breathe underwater.

The party tries desperately to get out of the storm.  Arvin and Boots are able to maintain consciousness but lose everyone else, including each other.  Brak manages to not drown, but hits enough rocks that he goes unconscious.  Niobe and Eli both lose their fight with staying above water and lose consciousness before seeing where they are.  Clifford and Derek manage to maintain their bearing and actually get to the island.

Niobe, Eli, Tinyra, Brak, Leroy all wake up tied up.  Still in their clothing and armor, they see what looks like a pile of all their other belongings stacked in a corner. 

“Welp,” Leroy says weakly “At least me got us to the island.” he smiles weakly.

Brak looks at him for a moment, and then pukes sea water on Leroy’s shoes.

Niobe looks around to see if there are any guards in the area.

It is easy for Niobe to find the guards.  There are nine Orcs standing around the party looking at them.  Eli and Tinyra are already glaring back at the Orcs.

Niobe detects evil on the orcs long enough to get a sense of how powerfully evil they are.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Derek, Clifford, Arvin and Boots are on a separate part of the island. Clifford runs around looking for the others, and howls sadly when he can’t find them.

Derek is hacking storm surge out of his lungs. “Clifford, hush. We can’t let any enemies know we’re here.” He looks around “Mistress Arvin, are you well?”

Arvin has turned back into human and is slumped against Boots. “I think so. You?”

Derek sits back and pats the ground beside him in an invitation to Cliffird. “Well enough. I should have gotten a ring of water breathing instead.” Clifford shrinks down to medium size and flops sadly by Derek. Derek pats his head.

Arvin nods. “We need to find a safe place to recover, and then we need to look for the others. If they’re not around here, they’re either in the ocean or far enough away we can’t help them right now. “

Derek coughs again. “Agreed. In a moment.”

Arvin pats his shoulder sympathetically. “Hell of a way to finally get back in the ocean,” she sighs.

Brak emerges from the Rod of Security, having become a much more powerful wizard through who knows how much retraining, and is yet more intelligent, having acquired a tome of clear thought. He also considers that the group has really, really long days.

Eli comes out of his rod, now more irresistible then he was before.  Strong presence with no voice still.

Derek, Leroy and Arvin are off trying to figure out exactly what they want to purchase with all their new wealth.  Though Leroy might be spending the time trying to get someone to remove his curse despite being told there is nothing that can be done right now.

Brak considers that that is something that Leroy would definitely do.

Niobe emerges from her rod, also with a yet more magnetic personality, not quite blazing with holy power. She says she lost some skills with her spear, but is better all around at being a paladin.

Off to a corner of the large vault Talon and Akara sit talking while looking over a few books.

Niobe and Brak head over there and have a seat

Eli moves with them.

Tinyra comes and joins the group also.

Talon waves for them to sit as he looks to Akara, “Odin might be reasonable, if we can talk to them at the right time.  I think it would require finding neutral ground for the conversation.”  Then looks the party, “Everything working out so far?”

Akara just offers Talon a nod, gen gives a nod to the part as well before looking back into her book.

Niobe- “So far, yes. Talon, you started us on this journey, so you tell me: why and how did we end up in Dungeonland?”

Talon, “You touched a magic item that was connected to dungeonland.  There are more than one of those little white rabbit statues and other mirrors littered throughout time that can drag a person to dungeonland.  It is how the wizard there keeps his strength.  Without fresh bodies he would die.”

Brak- “A white rabbit statue is how I wound up there as well. The place appeared to implode when we killed the wizard. Is that not the case?”

Talon, “It might be destroyed.  The problem is Dungeonland doesn’t move through time at the same rate the rest of the planes do.  So it is destroyed at one point in the future, or possibly the past.  There are other points in time where it is still there.”

Brak mumbles “Perfect...”

Niobe- “Hmmm. Actually, why did you recruit us in the first place?”

Talon, “I recognized you.  When you helped Erlan.  That was the first time I ever saw you.  I believe the first time you saw me was when I asked you to help with the light house.”

Brak- “And so you knew, or at least had some idea, that they would meet Leroy, get to Dungeonland, meet me, travel to Ravenloft, and wind up here.”

Talon shakes his head slowly, “I knew nothing of Dungeonland then.  I knew that at some point you would end up in Ravenloft.  I did not know when or how.  I also could tell that you didn’t recognize me and did not want to change how you would do things in the future.  It was important for Erlan to survive that encounter.  If I said something you might not have ended up there.”

Niobe looks around to make sure that Leroy isn’t within earshot- “We actually found the Eye of Vecna in Dungeonland, right when we met Brak. Does that fact mean anything to you?”

Talon, “No.  Knowing that you found it lets me know that somehow either the eye here, or the one in your possession will get back to followers of Vecna.  If it doesn’t then I would not be running into people who possess it now.”

Niobe- “Was the Wizard in Dungeonland a follower of Vecna?”

Talon, “I don’t know.  I have never been to Dungeonland.  As far as I can tell you end up there in the future.  You would probably be able to answer that question better than I can.”

Brak- “You’re not missing anything.”

Niobe- “How many years away, and in what direction are we, from when you recruited us for the lighthouse?”

Talon, “We are far to the west.  On the sword coast.  Practically the opposite side of the continent from where I met you.  Nearly 100 years ago.”

Niobe- “So we’re 100 years in the future, compared to the war against the giants.”

Talon nods, “but I can get you back to your time, or at least close to it.”

Niobe- “I can’t speak for anyone else, but I would like to go back at some point.”

Eli nods agreement.

Talon, “Of course.  I need more information to do.  If you go to the library and bring me back,”  he pulls out a small glass vial and sets it on the table, “that filled with the liquid you will find there, I think I will be able to get what I need to finish helping you.”  Talon gets a far off look before looking back to Niobe, “I have looked into this library a little bit.  It is not a traditional library in the normal sense, but it can give you knowledge you need.  I think that will help me finish figuring out what I need to get you home.”

Niobe- “Where is this library? Here?”

Talon, “for that you will need to talk with Lashonna.  There is some more information she can give you as well.  I will be there with you to help if you feel she doesn’t give you enough to get you there.  I believe she said the island of Tilagos is where you will have to get too.  We can go talk to her after this if you want.”

Brak- “Let’s do that later, we need more contextual information.”

Niobe nods. “I have some other nagging questions as well. Are you responsible for me turning into a half-celestial?”

Talon, “I believe that I am.  I can feel a connection to you.  So can Akara.  The same magic used to change Akara was used to change you.  So I figure that at some point I will change you with that magic.”

Niobe- “You said you’re not Loki, but are you divine or semi-divine in any way that you know of? Or maybe will you be?”

Talon, “I am now.  I stole a piece of Nerull’s divinity.  I have taken up a few dominions.”

Brak sneers, but in an amused way. “I can see why the Aesir would be nervous. If you can do it to Nerull, why not to them?”

Clifford wandered over a while ago, and looks like he is trying to concentrate very hard, tilting his head back and forth.

Talon nods, “I could, but at the same time it would not be easy.  I believe they fear that I might.”

Clifford - “So…. we are 100 years in future of where most of the pack came from, but you talked to us from this time while we were in dungeonland? How long ago was that from your perspective?”

Talon, “I have not talked to you in dungeonland yet.”

Clifford - “oh, should I not have said that?” he looks chagrined.

Brak- “Now he knows that he will need to. Us telling him that he will could just as well be what lets him know to look for the place and find us.”

Talon, “I have been looking for dungeonland for quite some time.  I will continue to look.  Even though I have you here now, and know that I will get you back to the past.  I will continue to work towards the same goals so as not to destroy time.”

Clifford looks a bit concerned at “destroy time” but continues. “So, we just met you in Ravenloft, but you’re now a bunch older, is Ravenloft in a different time than we are now? Or have you come back to this era from the future?”

Talon, “There are ways to get to Ravenloft in the pocket dimension it was in from different times.  Erlan was there at the same time I was.  I was there at the same time as you.  So it was the present for me.  For Erlan and his parents they were in his future.  You all were in your future, but had come back in time from farther in the future.”

Clifford- “What time was it when you got out of Ravenloft?”

Talon, “Yesterday morning.  I came back here shortly after you beat Strahd.  You all stayed another night before returning.”

Clifford - “I meant young you. Wait, that means you got trapped in Ravenloft twice from different time periods, and both versions of you returned when we beat Stradh?”

Talon, “Erlan was kind of trapped in Ravenloft.  He and his parents were able to escape using magic that brought them there.  Magic that I don’t know.  I was trapped there, I went there hunting Dracula.  I knew you would be there and hoped that you would be able to beat Strahd.”

Clifford - “So when Erlan and his parents left, they went back to when? More than 100 years ago, so that you could meet us in the lighthouse some time after you went back?”

Talon, “yes, Erlan and his parents left Ravenloft and ended up back in their present time.  It was more than 100 years ago.”

Clifford looks excited. “Okay okay, so the Talon the pack met at the lighthouse was the Talon from that time, and you’re the Talon from 100 years in the future where we are now, and the Talon we talked to in dungeonland is you from further in the future.”

Talon, “Yes, I will eventually figure out how to reach out to dungeonland and talk to your past selves.”

Clifford - “Okay so, that means that the eye we got in dungeonland…. It could have come from any time period. And we gave you the eye… at some point before now.”

Niobe- “Which means we must travel back in time again first so that we CAN give it to someone. And whoever we give it to must lose it so that we can find it again and decide to give it to Talon.”

Clifford - “Not necessarily. If the Eye we have is from far in the future, they could just be using the present’s eye.”

Talon, “I am not exactly sure how the eye thing is going to work out.  Something will happen, and there will be a time where two eyes exist for the same time.”

Brak- “We can’t leave the Eye here, because it’s already in the next room.”

Talon, “and right now there are three eyes in existence here.”

Brak- “The one Niobe carries, which is -presumably- the one from the far future, brought back. The one in the next room-”

Niobe- “Which I’m supposed to give to you 100 years ago, from your perspective,”

Brak- “And the other one you have seen.”

Talon looks down, “I am sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”  shakes his head slowly, “Time travel is a pain.”  Takes a deep breath, “this is my assumption right now.  There is a young eye, a middle aged eye and an old eye.  The old eye should be put in the cage here.  The middle aged eye should be send to find its way to dungeonland, the youngest eyes should go back with you.  That doesn’t mean it will work.  Then you should return here after you go through time the proper way and take this eye to wherever you think it needs to go to be destroyed.  If there is a way we can destroy it.”

Clifford - ‘That’s if the eye we have is from probably the past, and we lose it at some point… then the cultists are using it in the present, and it goes to dungeonland… hmmm”

Talon, “I think you could take the youngest eye to the past and use that to save Leroy’s life from Vecna.”

Niobe- “Wait, you mean trade the eye to someone in exchange for Leroy’s life? This is an artifact of great evil.”

Talon nods and looks to Niobe, “But what is more important, saving the lives you can, or worrying about what has already happened.”  he shakes his head slowly, “I don’t know the easy answer here.  Leroy made some bad choices, but the eye will move and be free.  With or without the eye, those that would get it will still do evil, I am not sure that they will do more or less evil without it.  I am not even sure it will be necessary to trade it to save Leroy.  It could get lost before that comes to a head.”

Niobe- “I will certainly not trade it to save Leroy. His troubles with Davy Jones are separate from his troubles with the cultists of Vecna.

Clifford - “So both our eye and the one in the cage are post dungeonland. The one the cultists have could either be post cage, or pre dungeonland. Or potentially, if we lose and regain it, post dungeonland and pre-cage. If the one the cultist have is post-cage, we failed to destroy it, lost it, and it got tossed back in time somehow. Perhaps by giving it to Vecna in the past. Also there is presumably a 4th Eye somewhere in this present that we have no idea where it is.”

Talon, “No reason you cannot use it as a trap for a cultist of Vecna.  Might not save Leroy, or could lead you to taking down an entire cell of Vecna cultists.”

It’s Niobe’s turn to sneer. “What, we walk around shouting, ‘Hey, Cultists of Vecna, here’s the Eye, come and get it!’ ?”

Talon, “No, I am sure they will come to you.  It will draw them to you.”

Clifford continues, mostly ignoring them as he concentrates very hard trying to figure this out. “If it’s pre-dungeonland, the cultists probably just have the present’s eye, and they will lose it to dungeonland at some point without our interference, most likely.”

Brak- “Then, perhaps to reduce the various quantum instabilities inherent in this, we keep hold of the Eye, regardless what else happens. That eliminates some possibilities, at least those that can be foreseen.”

Eli sits writing in his book, drawing graphs as he tries to chart possible timelines.

Clifford - ‘I hope they have the present eye, that seems the easiest to understand. But it does mean we probably can’t get it from them, unless we lose it to dungeonland later.”

Clifford continues, “Last possibility, they have the post- dungeonland, pre-cage eye, which means we lose it somehow in the past, and regain it, then bring it here to stay. That might makes sense for a reason that Niobe decides we can’t hang onto it, maybe if we tried to send it to the angels but we couldn’t and it got stolen at that point? In that case, I think the present’s eye is still out there, and no one knows where it is.”

Niobe is now fully paying attention to Clifford. “So with no way of really knowing  which eye we have, the only thing we can do is what makes the most sense, without trying to fulfill some pre-determined timeline. Kind of overwhelming.”

Talon, “we should trust that what will happen in this regard is what will happen.  If not we could spend the rest of our lives discussing it.” looking to Niobe, “it is overwhelming and to easy to overthink it.”

Niobe- “And so we’re right back to where we started. I’m taking the eye to Mount Celestia, hopefully for safe keeping. And whether that works out or not, we must stay on the lookout for the Eye again.”

Clifford - “If the ones the cultists have is post-cage, someone needs to take it from them. If it’s pre dungeonland, we can try to take it but it will just end up in dungeonland somehow, so probably no reason to go take it from them. If it’s post dungeonland, pre cage, we’ll lose it and need to take it back from them, but no action is needed until we lose it. So two out of three possibilities mean we leave the cultist’s eye alone. And the post cage possibility, while someone needs to act on it, we can wait until we actually know if it’s the post cage one first. So we don’t need to take the eye from the cultists until we’re sure which eye it is.”

Brak- “What we actually do next, whether intentionally or not, will reveal most of that. And if
Niobe insists on depositing the eye on Mount Celestia, the reaction of the archons there will tell us much. If they display no knowledge, then that is when we lose the eye ‘properly’. If they tell us to come back twenty years ago, or twenty years from now, or anything else, we know to hold on to it for the moment.”

Talon, “As good a plan as any.”

Clifford sighs. “Also two out of three options mean we’ll lose the eye, and two out of three mean we’ll need to regain it.”

Brak- “And that pits us against the cult of a god of secrets and wizardry. I happen to specialize in fighting wizards.”

Talon, “You can always find assistance in that fight here.”

Akara, “I will always help to put an evil god and their minions in check.”

Brak- “I suspect that two out of three of your options mean we will regain the eye whether we mean to or not. We’ll either seek it out and therefore find it, or, already knowing that we need to find it will seek it out.”

Clifford lays down and covers his head with his paws. “I really hope it’s the simple option, that the cultists have the present eye, will lose it to dungeonland, we hang onto it until we go back to the past and then put it in the cage. I’d rather there not be a 4th one in this time period.”

Brak looks like he wishes he had a cigar to puff on.

Talon pulls out a cigar and offers it to Brak.

Brak’s eyebrows jump, but he takes the offered cigar. “You read my mind. Perhaps I should have protected against that.” He smirks.

Talon nods slowly, “I suppress it most times, some thoughts still get through from time to time.”

Niobe- “So for simpler matters. Is there a physical door we can use to enter and exit the Hall of Shadows? If so, where and when will it put us?”

Talon looks to Niobe, “We own a warehouse in Abyssal way.  It is a city in the Undermountain.  That is the only physical entrance and exit to the Hall of Shadows.”

Niobe- “And if I walked through that door, would I be 100 years in the future, relative to when you recruit us for the lighthouse?”

Talon, “yes, the pocket dimension we created for the hall of shadows is anchored in time.  It is dangerous to create a pocket dimension that is not anchored in time.  The white rabbit and Strahd had to use very powerful magic artifacts and spells to cause their pocket dimensions to become free floating in time for no better term.”

Clifford - “How long in the past did you build this place? As in, if we end up in the past again, could we come here?”

Talon, “the hall was just starting when I left deepwater to go to assassinate the giant king during the giant wars.  We did not have the power to make a pocket dimension, but we did own the warehouse in Abyssal Way.”

Clifford - “So assuming we go back to any time after the pack met you at the light house, this place exists.”

Talon, “yes in one form or another.”

Brak- “We should avoid coming here just to relax, and should only do so if we need to do something like drop of an Eye of Vecna.”

Talon shrugs, “You will always be welcome in the Hall.  It is your choice to come or not as you feel necessary.”

Brak- “Thank you, but that isn’t the issue, it is complicating what is already a complicated set of problems. I presume that we will run into you else where...and else when...during our travels, and so we should either give you an object or establish some phrase or know some questions to ask so we can determine when in your own timeline you are.”

Niobe- “And also to avoid running into ourselves.”

Talon, “I have traveled in a straight line up to this point.  So if you determine what year you are in, the version of me you meet there will be from that point in history.”

Niobe- “Talon, what happened to you that made you change your name? You talk about your youthful self as if he is a different person.”

Talon takes on a thoughtful look, “What do you know of mental disorders?”

Niobe gives a look of “Not a bit”.

Talon nods, “do you remember when you were a child?”

Niobe- “Some, but since I was killed and reincarnated many of my memories before are hazier than they used to be. I remember enough, though. It was not pleasant.”

Talon looks to the whole party, “do any of you remember as children having friends that you invented in your own mind?”

Clifford - “Ooooh totally, Greyguts the Snarley was such a great pal!”

Brak- “I certainly did. Blues are outcasts among goblins.”

Eli nods and looks at Talon curiously.

Talon, “Erlan’s parents were high elves.  They were the oldest children of two very powerful family lines.  They were married in hopes of bringing those families together and unite the powerful families.  It was a scandal when they gave birth to a black skin child.  As Erlan grew it was obvious that he was the child of both parents and not a half-drow.  The thought was that the union was cursed.  Erlan’s parents and their family spent their fortune trying to figure out what curse caused this to happen.  There was no curse.  It just happened.  Erlan had a friend he created in his mind.  Me.  His parents got tired of trying to fix him and one day nearly beat him to death.  He died that day.  I did not.  His parents didn’t survive long after.  That is why I talk of him as a different person.”

Niobe- “That’s terrible.”

Brak- “All the more reason not to like elves.”

Clifford finally removes his paws from his face and goes to lean on Talon, looking at him with sad eyes.

Talon offers Clifford a gentle pat on his head, “It is a fact of my life, I am very different from Erlan.  I don’t have much feelings in regard to those events except a dull anger from the day I took control.  I could simply be a mental disorder, but it seems perminate to me.”

Niobe sits quietly for a respectful length of time before continuing. “So we’ll at least try to drop off the Eye with the Archons, then off to solve all of Leroy’s personal problems, and then what? What of this worm god and Dregotha?”

Talon, “The worm god is a very low level deity.  However if the cult succeeds in bringing him back it will be bad.  The goal of going to the library is for them to get knowledge that they can use to secure their power before bringing him back to this world.  That is part of why I would like you to go to the library.  If when you get back you feel that you need to go back to the past I will send you back straight away.  If you are willing I would like to have you help finish off the threat of the worm god.”

Brak- “What library is this, and where is it?”

Talon, “for that I think we should go and continue this conversation with Lashonna. I expect that after the library you will want to discuss further dealings with the worm god amongst your party.  Know that if you don’t want to stay to deal with it I can get others to help in that fight if necessary.”

Brak stands up and stretches his legs. “I don’t mind talking to her.”

Talon, “are there any other questions you would like answered before we go talk to her?”

Niobe- “Yeah, I have one. How does keeping Strahd in a flask help with keeping various lower planar creatures off the Prime Material plane?”

Brak- “I have wondered why they baatezu and tanar’ri did not immediately attack each other in the temple in Ravenloft. They’ve been immortal enemies since before there were mortals.”

Talon answering Niobe’s question first, “It does nothing for keeping them off the Prime Material plane.  They are evil creatures that if not kept in some way will come back and bother the world again.  I have killed Dracula at least two other times.  The first time he got away to his coffin.  The second time I destroyed all his coffins and thought he had nowhere to go.  I devised the iron flask plan after that to keep him from regenerating.  When a vampire gets old and powerful enough they somehow can still regenerate after death without being in their coffin.”  Looking to Brak, “as for the baatezu and tanar’ri, they were summoned by Dracula to protect his orbs.  They worked together because Dracula’s will was strong enough to make them work together.”

Brak- “Strong enough to simultaneously dominate a balor and a pit fiend, plus all their minions? That’s respectable, I suppose. What were you doing with the orb when we saw you?”

Talon, “I was locked in a battle of wills with the orb.  The more orbs that Dracula had operating, the easier it was for him to dominate multiple other creatures and gave him more power.  Once I was able to break his will on the orb I could destroy it.  After that it destroyed some of his power.  Made it a little easier to keep him from escaping when we were fighting.”

Brak- “Was this possible because of the divine power you stole from Nerull? I can see Dracula’s will being spread thinner, and therefore easier to break, the more orbs and the more summoned minions he has, but still it would be supreme of necessity.”

Talon, “No, though Nerull’s divinity helped.  I could have done it without it.  Though I think it would have been a lot harder.  I was stuck unable to move.  Not sure I would have been able to activate the cube if I had not had the divinity.  Which would have changed the tactics I used.”

Brak- “Hmm.”

Talon, “The fight of wills at the orbs and the fight against Dracula are what alerted Odin to my presence.  If I had not done all that they would not have come there looking for me.”

Clifford - “You said Tinyra can break the orbs too, right? Why is she able to, and will doing so get their attention too? Or are there no more orbs?””

Talon, “Dracula summoned those monsters after I started attacking the orb.  There was one orb left when I faced Dracula.  If you had found it, Tinyra could have used her doom spell that she can do at will.  It would have locked her into a contest of wills with the orb.  Dracula would have sensed it and probably summoned more demons and devils to fight you, but I doubt he could have summoned enough that you would not have been able to defend Tinyra while she contested the orb.”

Clifford - “So trapping the vampires in flasks and your goal of letting fewer lower planar folks into the prime material aren’t related?”

Talon, “They are related.  We all live in this world.  If something is not done to prevent these evils from running rampant there will be no world to live in.  We are the shadow that stands against the darkness.”

Clifford - “So the flasks are for trapping summoners, or just for any powerful being who is causing trouble?”

Brak- “An iron flask can trap almost any summoned creature.”

Talon nods to Brak, and looks to Clifford, “to trap any being that cannot be simply destroyed.  I wish there had been a way to trap Strahd without letting Tinyra’s mother free, but there were no other iron flasks available.”

Niobe- “Yes, she was...interesting to meet.”

Clifford -”Oh, I was confused because I didn’t think vampires counted as demons or devils, and also she seemed pretty powerful too. That makes sense.”

Talon, “she can get captured again, and she is not one who will actively keep thousands of souls trapped in an eternal damnation.”

Brak- “It just has to be a creature not on it’s native plane.”

Clifford - “Uh, should we take some flasks with us when we go?”

Talon, “I can arrange for you to have a few empty flasks.”

Niobe- “Do you, Tinyra, or you, Talon, have any idea if Malcanthet will come after us? Or is she going to be busy in the Abyss?”

Tinyra, “I was never around my mother much.  I am sure she will be angry and want revenge.”

Niobe- “Revenge for releasing her? Or….do we have to go put her in the flask in the first place? Ugh.”

Talon, “It depends on how long until you go back to the past.  I am sure if you live long enough to get here again, you will run into her again.”  Talon looks to Niobe, “I am not sure who put her in the flask, but I promise, not everything that happens to you is because of you.”

Niobe chuckles mirthlessly. “Maybe we can get the cult of Vecna to trap her in the past. That would be a good way for them to lose the Eye.”

Talon looks thoughtful and slowly nods, “that doesn’t sound like a bad idea.  Any more questions now, or should we go talk with Lashonna.”

Brak- “Lets go talk with Lashonna.”

Talon nods and stands, “I promise you can come back with any more questions you have after that conversation.  We will also make sure that you are fully equipped with what you might need for your journey before you leave.”

The party makes it through the night without incident.  When they wake and after completing their morning rituals and preparations for the day they hear sounds coming from the main crypt area.  As the party moves they can see Ismark and Ireena move around with one other man they have not met before.  They appear to be looking for something when they see the party they start to move their direction.  The three of them greet the party and thank them profusely for helping save them and the kingdom of Ravenloft from Strahd.  They explain that everyone is starting to remember who they were before ravenloft was first pulled into the dimensional pocket.  Ireena notes that it is eerie remembering so many lives that have passed in this tortured place.  They introduce the third member of the group as Sergei.  He asks the party to join them outside of his Tomb as it just feels weird being inside the Tomb where he was buried.  Once outside they inform the party that there are villagers from Vallaki who have come to the castle in order to find some relief and have been combing through the castle all night.  None have come down here afraid of the crypts, despite having seen multiple vampires and werewolves fleeing from the area now that the mist and Strahd is no longer keeping them here.  They hand the party a small bundle containing items from the castle that might be of value to them.  Stating to be careful with the wrapped book because they are sure it is Strahd’s spell book and that there are traps on it.  There is also a Crystal ball, and six more Bracers and Amulets that look identical to each other.  Once they have explained all this they ask the party if they have questions or need anything.

Derek takes the items and carefully chucks them into whatever pocket of his vest still has room.

Brak’s morning ritual now includes manifesting mind blank, personal on himself.

Derek holds out the sword and the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind to Sergei, and pulls out the crown as well. “I believe, Master Sergei, that these belong to you.”

Sergei looks to the items Derek is offering him before shaking his head, “You have done much for this kingdom.  Keep them, I hope that they will help you in your future journeys as they have here.”

Derek carefully doesn’t mention that they’ve been no use at all. “Very well, if you insist.” He puts the sword and crown away. “To what god is the holy symbol devoted?”

Leroy mutters under his breath “I could tell you which god it isnt.”

Sergei, “It actually predates any established churches in Barovia.  Legend has it was delivered to a paladin named Lugdana by a giant raven - or an angel in the form of a giant raven.  Lugdana used the holy symbol to root out and destroy nests of vampires until her death.  The high priests of Ravenloft kept and wore the holy symbol after her passing.”

Brak had one eyebrow going up at the beginning of Sergei’s comment, but then drops said eyebrow when he says “in Barovia”. “Hence the name, Ravenloft,” he mutters.

“A raven drops off a holy symbol to a paladin, then flies away to be seen… nevermore.” Leroy says.

Derek regards the holy symbol. “Hm. That seems like a treasure that should not leave the land.” Under his breath he mutters “... though a holy symbol that doesn’t involve a god would be useful. If contradictory...”

Niobe- “I agree. A place like this is ripe for one of Strahd’s minions to try and re-establish the same domination over Barovia that he did. Are there any priest of Ravenloft left to give it to?” She has her spear and shield set to “inoffensive”.

Sergei, “I am not sure if it doesn’t represent a god, it could just be so old that no one really remembers the god that it is from.  If you insist I think we can find a priest of faith here still to get to hold it, or maybe now that we are free of the demi-plane we can get another paladin to come act as defender of our faith there.”

Ismark and Ireena nod agreement to the statement.

Derek nods and hands over the holy symbol. “Do your best, Master Sergei.”

Sergei, “I will.  This land deserves the best that we can give it.  There is much to do.  Is there anything we can do for you all, something that will help to thank you for freeing us?”

Niobe- “I require nothing but the satisfaction of a job well done. I can’t speak for my compatriots, though.”

Derek  “Some place to rest and take stock of what we have would benefit us all, I think.”

Sergei waives a hand around them, “well my home is yours.  As my brother is gone, it is now mine in truth.  As long as I live here you are free to come and stay whenever you are here.  It may be awhile before the castle is truly ready to have guests, but let's try not to use the crypts as an inn anymore.”

Derek snorts “As you wish, milord. But truly, yours was the only place in the land that felt uncontaminated with evil. You’ll have to excuse us for wanting that much respite.”

Sergei, “I hold no ill will for that.  I am glad that it was a good respite.  Hopefully the land will no longer be a harbor for such evils.  When you are ready we can move on from here.”

Niobe- “Lead on, good sir.”


Clifford has become very fluffy.

As Sergei escorts the party through the castle they come to the room where Talon fought against Strahd’s master and find three men looking around the room.  When they enter the men all look at Sergei and the party.  At the same time all three men ask “Where is he, where did he go?”  They share annoyed looks with each other before looking back to the party waiting for answers. One steps forward while the other two move to a more supportive role.  The one that stepped to the front is dressed in dark clothing wearing a wide-brimmed hat that casts a shadow over his face making it impossible to make out his features.  Another stands tall with his arms crossed over his chest.  He wears a vest and pants and has a sword strapped at his waist.  His red hair and beard go down to his waist.  The last man looks almost the same as the second except for the hammer that he holds at his side and being dressed in just a loin cloth.

Niobe- “Lord Sergei, do you know these men?” Her weapons remain set to “inoffensive”.

Sergei shakes his head, “I do not.”

Niobe shrugs- “I am Niobe, a paladin. Well met, and who might you be?” She hazards a detect evil as she says this, as a convenient time to test drive it.  No evil...from anyone except Tinyra. Niobe is rather pleased not to get a headache from using that.

The man in the wide-brimmed hat starts to tap his foot, “Talon, where is he.  We know he was here.”

Derek, blandly “Who are you again?”

Niobe says nothing.

Bra, who also wears a broad-brimmed hat, but to keep the sun out of his eyes, stares at them a little sideways, and examines them closely for telltale signs of their identities.  He is not able to spot anything that helps identify them.

Clifford, who is currently large size, selects the guy with a hammer to trot up to and sit in front of, wagging his tail and sniffing.

Leroy eyes the man, then rests his hand on his rapier “Lad, we have not seen Talon in awhile, disappeared before me eyes. What be ye business with him?” he asks the man.

Tinyra cocks her head watching the three thinking there is something she should know about them, but cannot place it.

The hammer wielding man watches Clifford with a slightly surprised look on his face before reaching out and petting him. Clifford smiles and leans into the pets.

The sword wielding man looks to the leader and says, “I am not sure we made it here as fast as we thought.  I can not sense him anywhere close to us.  Not sure he is still on this plane.”

Leroy looks to the man that spoke, “Me did not lie, he vanished before me eyes.”

The man with the hat shakes his head slowly, “It is important that we find him.  He is meddling with things that are better left untouched.”

Clifford then trots over to the man with that hat, grabs at the hat with his teeth and bounces backward, clearly playing.

Derek raises an eyebrow. “Is that so? Like what, for example?”

The man steps back suddenly able to keep from getting his hat removed. Clifford bounces around him, barking playfully and wagging his tail, pausing every so often to lean forward in doggy-play-ready position.

Leroy, Eli, Tinyra and Clifford all notice that the man only has one eye.  The other appears to be an empty socket.

Brak, listening intently- “As it happens, we are fairly accomplished adventurers, and so speaking plainly may be more helpful than being coy.”

The man holding the hammer, “he speaks the truth.  It wouldn’t hurt to give them a little more information.”

The man with the hat lowers his head and then raises it far enough that everyone can see that he only has one eye.  The other is an empty socket, “Talon thinks to meddle in the affairs of gods.  His intentions could lead to a war that no one wants.”

Clifford stops bothering him and moves on to sword dude for attention.

Leroy motions to Eli to come to him.

Eli moves over and stands next to Leroy offering a slight nod and listening.

Leroy leans to Eli and says “He is not the evil guy me thought he would be, he has both of his hands.” and then nods to Eli

Derek mutters “Who wants a war.” Out loud he says “I see. Well, best of luck with that.”

Eli looks to the man with the hat then back to Leroy and writes, I don’t know much about religious figures.  Ask Niobe or Tinyra who he is.

Tinyra still seems to be looking at them like she should know them, but doesn’t.

The man in the hat nods to the group, “if he is gone we will not keep you longer.”  Turning to his two minions and looking at the one with the sword, “outside, summon the Bifrost, we return home.”

Leroy reads the note then nods “Now be the time for that.” he looks at Tinyra and Niobe “They be still mad with yer captain.”

Niobe looks like she wants to offer to help, without committing everyone to another epic planes-spanning quest. At least not until next weekend. “Gentlemen, if later we learn of Talon’s whereabouts, if you tell us who you are we may be able to let you know.”

The man looks back to Niobe as they start to leave, “I am Odin.  Pray to me, and I will hear.”  They start to make their way out.

Niobe is nonplussed.

Leroy jaw drops at the sound of Odin’s name.

Brak- “I need a drink.”

Derek makes a face. “Hells no.” He looks at the group. “Shall we leave?”

Tinyra snaps her fingers, “I should have put that together.”  then looks to Brak, “might need a few drinks.”

Brak- “It’s not like the gods send one avatar to any one place often, much less three of them.”

“Aye, at least it be a god we didnt have to fight or deal with.” Leroy stutters out

“Yet,” Arvin says darkly. “And what was with that one guy in no clothes? Land people are so strange.”

Eli nods agreement with Derek.

We make our way out of Castle Ravenloft! The party walks and talks at the same time, guided by Sergei.

Clifford - “Isn’t that a human deity?”

“Not one of mine,” Arvin grumbles.

Brak- “Yes, all of them were, and from the same pantheon.”

Clifford looks perplexed. “Do human deities often show up?”

Brak- “Not ever. You could go several lifetimes without seeing one, unless you went to them; their abodes are on the plane of Ysgard.”

Leroy states “Not if things are to be get real messed up Clifford.”

Derek sneers. “Same as any other deity; usually only if they are summoned. They must have come on their own, though, as the entire area wasn’t obliterated.”

Tinyra, “That is not comforting at all.”

Clifford scratches his neck. “So… Talon must be pretty important himself. Is he a deity?”

Brak considers this- “That is not something I had considered before, but it would explain a great many things about him. Although his presence at Vallaki in the guise of a hapless youth several days ago would then be...odd.”

Leroy sarcastically says “Maybe we should pray to Talon and have him show up?” while shrugging to the group.

Eli writes, you think that is why Talon left so fast each time he did anything.

Clifford - “Because it makes his deity-ness obvious? At least to other deities?”

“Or because he’s on the run,” Arvin says.

Derek “It doesn’t matter. Let us leave.”

Niobe- “I’m with Derek. We can deal with the Norsemen if we run into Talon again.”

Eli nods his agreement again.

Clifford shrugs, leaving it up to the party.

Leroy folds his hands into a prayer motion, then says loudly “Talon, hear my prayers, please come to me and give me guidance.”  Nothing appears to happen.

Brak makes sure to keep at least 20’ between him and Leroy.

Niobe keeps at least 20’ between her and Leroy all the time anyway.

Leroy looks to the group, “well me tried.”

Eli just shakes his head.

After the party finishes their conversations and leave the castle they find Akara waiting for them.  She offers them a smile, “I am glad to see that you were successful.”  Then holds her hand out to the party, “If you would join me, I will take you to the Hall of Shadows.  There we can help you with just about anything you need.”

Niobe, unusually tactless- “Akara, what god do you serve?”

Akara makes a face at the question and then says, “he is not a god.”  She takes a deep breath, “though I guess that also depends on your description of a god.  I work with more than serve Talon.”

Niobe- “Who is he, really? Did he grant you your wings?”

Akara, “What do you mean by really?”  then she nods slowly, “he did.  Though it was more casting a very powerful spell in order to help in a time of need.”

Niobe- “When we left the Prime Material plane, I had a strange vision, and a voice telling me about some spark of divinity inside me. At first I thought it might be pregnancy- which would have been uncomfortable- but turned out to be transforming from a human into a half-celestial. I have yet to figure out who granted it to me.”

Akara shrugs, “those might be questions better asked of Talon.  I don’t know if he did the same for you that he did for me.”

Niobe bristles a little bit. “Well. Now I want to go find him.”

Akara, “where do you think I would take you?  He lives in the Hall of Shadows.  If he is not there when we get there he will return at some point.”

Brak- “Where is the Hall of Shadows?”

Akara, “It was built in a city in Undermountain.  It however is not just there.  It shifts between planes and demi-planes.  You cannot easily get there unless you have the right means of travel.”  She pulls out a small red crystal skull and shows it to the party, “though you already have the item you need to help you get there.”

Derek shakes his head. “Then let us go.”

Akara waves for everyone to come close, “I can teleport us there.”

Brak grumbles a bit at not being able to do it himself, but holds on for the ride.

As the party arrives in a large cavern that has a huge tree in the middle of it.  The tree reaches up almost to the ceiling where there is a huge spider web strung across the ceiling just above the tip of the tree.  From around the spiderweb small areas give off light that is as bright as a noon day sun and gives off the same level of warmth.  It appears that this light is probably what keeps the tree alive.  Akara leads the party to a side room that has a very heavy looking vault door that currently hangs open.  Once inside the party sees Talon standing in front of a glass display that holds a single eye floating in the middle suspended by magic.  Talon stands next to a tall elven looking woman wearing a gold-trimmed gown that looks as if it is the height of fashion.
 
Talon, “No, Lashonna, I don’t understand how it is still out there and we continue to run into wielders of the eye.”
 
Lashonna, “You have had the eye here for years now, and yet it seems that there are two.  As far as I know there should only be one.”
 
Talon shakes his head slowly and looks back to Lashonna, “we have this conversation every time you come here.  I understand, there is nothing we can do and if we ever manage to get the second one then maybe I can figure out what is going on.  What really brings you here today.”
 
Lashonna sighs, “You know that Vecna and the cult of the Kyuss are pushing harder in the last few years.  We are in danger.”
 
Talon, “there is always some danger.  What specifically are you worried about?”
 
Akara motions for the party to stay with her and wait for the conversation to finish.
 
Lashonna, “Dragotha intends to release Kyuss from his prison.  He wants to usher in the Age of Worms.  It has taken Dragotha nearly 1,500 years to reach this point.  If he is removed now it will be centuries before anything has another chance to try and release the Worm god again.  The problem is that Dragotha does not know where his phylactery is.  It must be destroyed so that he can be destroyed.  I have a servant, Balakarde, that left for the Wormcrawl Fisure, against my advice, intending to learn more about Dragotha.  He never returned, but at least he had the foresight to leave his journal fragments with me.  His journal and his disappearance have become something of a minor obsession of mine, I must confess.  I have spent the last sixteen years, on and off, studying the lore of Kyuss, of Dragotha, and associated matters.  And while I have not managed to determine where Dragotha’s phylactery is hidden, I do believe I know where that information might be found
           As Balakarde mentions in his journal, the Age of Worms and Kyuss’ resurrection was stopped fifteen centuries ago by the Order of the Storm.  Historians believe that the Order died out not long after this victory, hunted down and destroyed by the last surviving members of the cult of Kyuss.  These records are incorrect.  The Order instead retreated to their stronghold on a romote island in the Nyr Dyv called Tilagos.
           On this island there is a library of sorts, a repository of the Order’s lore.  It has been sought for centuries by wizards, scholars, and explorers, for it is said to be filled with hundreds of years of history, memories, dreams, and of course secrets.  Secrets are so valuable and seems the longer they are kept, the more they are worth.  If a written account of the secret of what happened to Dragotha’s phylactery exists, it must certainly be there.
           Of course, there are complications” she pauses briefly, “there always are, right?” and before Talon can stay anything she continues.  “Before they built this library, the Order of the Storm drove a lasting bargain with primal elemental forces.  They sacrificed their lives to whisk the island’s interior off the Material Plane.  In its place is a barren rock surrounded by an ever-raging storm of such intensity that ships that approach within ten miles are invariably lost.  The island itself appears on no maps, but the stories hint that the druids left a way for those in need to reach their secrets while at the same time warding the place away from the prying eyes of Kyuss’ undead fanatics.
           Worse, I am afraid others have learned this as well, in part as an unfortunate result of my own research.  I have a fair amount of competition in the area of gathering and keeping secrets,” at this comment Talon cocks his head to the side, though he remains patient.  “and invariably word gets out that I’ve made a discovery.  My enemies are always quick to nip at my heels.  I speak, in particular, of a simpering dog of a man name Heskin who once served me.  I am afraid Heskin has been wooed from my side with promises of wealth and power and has taken word of this discovery to a disreputable man indeed, a powerful priest of Vecna named Darl Quethos.”
 
As Lashonna finishes Talon sighs, “I will look into this.  I must see if we have any agents available to go to this library.  Go back to the waiting room.” Talon looks over at the party from Lashonna, “I have some other business I need to attend to now and will see about getting someone to follow Darl as soon as possible.”
 
Lashonna growls, “Why not go yourself, if this waits too long then it could mean disaster for more than just my home kingdom.  You will not be safe here in your underground domain.”
 
Talon, “I cannot act directly without consequence.  Any more than you can act directly without consequence to your interests.  This must be approached carefully.  I know people I trust that might take this up.  Go back to the waiting room.  I will be with you shortly.
 
Lashonna curses and turns walking briskly past the party, hardly giving them a glance as she moves.  After she is gone Talon moves forward to the party, “I am glad to see you ok, were you able to capture Strahd?”

Leroy quickly looks to Niobe and mouths the words “Do not mention the eye.”

Niobe pointedly ignores Leroy.

Arvin says nothing and says it very loudly in Leroy’s direction. If “shut up” were a posture, that’s what she would be doing.

Derek holds up the Iron Flask. “In here. Some gods from another plane were looking for you.”

Talon looks at Leroy and then back at the eye in his display case.  Shakes his head slowly and then looks to Derek, “May I have the flask?” Nodding slowly, “Yes I suspected there would be.  Did they cause you problems and do you know which gods they were?”

Derek hands over the flask. “The leader called himself ‘Odin’. Brak recognized their home plane.”

Brak- “In appearance, there were Odin All Father, Thor, the Norsemen’s god of thunder, and Heimdall, controller of the Bifrost bridge. Beings that powerful can mask their own shapes with ease, though.”

Talon takes the flask and starts to move towards a wall of bookshelves, “True enough Brak.  In this case I believe that was probably correct.  They are not likely to pretend to be someone else, and few would pretend to be them.”  At the shelf he places the flask in a place marked ‘Strahd’ next to another flask marked ‘Dracula’  There are easily a few dozen other flasks with various names under them.

“Thor could have pretended to have some clothes,” Arvin mutters.

Derek looks amused “Maybe he swims frequently and finds it more convenient.

Brak- “They seemed keen to find you. Are you Loki, their god of mischief?”

Talon shakes his head, “I am not Loki.  I am not a god.”

Niobe- “Then who -or what- are you?” She’s sensing motives on Talon.

Leroy folds his hands into a prayer stance. Then mutters under his breath “Odin here my prayer, I have found Talon.”

Talon looks at Leroy and then to the party, “he thinks that will work?”  Then shakes his head slowly, “of course he does.”

Derek shrugs “That god invited us to do so.”

Talon, “I more meant he thinks it will work here.  This place is disguised in such a way that the gods will not be able to find it.  Your prayers will not leave here to their ears.”

Niobe- “And what is this place? The Hall of Shadows, yes, Akara told us.”

Talon looks to Niobe, “I am sorry for not answering your first question.  I am Talon.  You might have to be more specific with your question, but I think you want to know what I am if I am not a god.  I am someone that is in the middle of doing things that a few gods do not like.  This place is protected simply.  I have lined all the walls with lead.  Divine scrying cannot see inside, and an added benefit it helps to prevent your words from reaching divine ears. Simple but expensive solution.  Yes this is the Hall of Shadows.”

Derek, in an aside to Leroy, “Captain, don’t be rude. It is not done to betray one’s employer, especially if the other party hasn’t offered a better deal.”

Leroy looks to Derek and tips his captain hat at him, “Pirate.” then winks then glances at Talon “besides, he hasnt made payment to us for this nonsense. I like me booty large.”

Derek rolls his eyes. “Not for the vampire, yet, but he did equip us quite generously.”

Niobe- “What kind of task have you put yourself to that three different gods- all from one pantheon- are looking for you?”

Talon, “They might be looking for me because I stole a piece of Nerull’s divinity.”

“That would do it,” Arvin mutters.

“Well he might have equipped us, but still booty be botty first mate, and i like to make sure we all get paid.” Leroy says.

Niobe, nonplussed, thinks “That’s not the answer I was expecting.”

Leroy looks to Talon and asks “So if ye lined this thing with lead, and no gods can hear prayers, that means all dietys and gods?”

Brak- “Why would the Norse care? Nerull has nothing to do with them.”

Talon nods to Leroy and looks to Brak, “because they don’t know what I am going to do next.”

Derek looks like he’s realized something “Ah, a case of if you could do it to one of them you could do it to any of them?”

Brak- “What do you plan to do in the long term? Stealing pieces of divinity isn’t actually a good retirement plan.”

Talon, “I plan to.  Though slowly and with care.  There is a balance that could be destroyed.  I don’t have a retirement plan.”

Niobe, who is not into “balance” but more into The Ultimate Victory of Good Over Evil- “What balance are you talking about?”

Talon, “Let’s say I manage to completely remove Nerull as a deity.  There will be a void there that will be filled by the other gods.  It is more likely that an evil god will fill that void.  Do it too often and suddenly there is an evil god with enough power to completely overthrow a good one.  Now the worlds and planes will suffer more because of it.  There cannot be Good without Evil, or Chaos without Law.  Though it is more complicated than simply saying that.”

Derek suddenly looks more like a sulky teenager than he ever has this entire time. “This may be the stupidest thing I have ever heard. What’s the point?’

Talon, “Currently, My goal is to prevent Demons and Devils from having free access to all planes of existence.  They do enough damage on their own planes.”

Brak, quietly- “The Blood War keeps them occupied.” More loudly, “And who is that elf you were talking to? And what is this eye you have here?”

Talon, “That is the eye of Vecna.  Or at least one of them.  There seems to be two of them currently.  Not sure how that is yet.  She is someone concerned with a cult that is trying to bring back an ancient god.  If they succeed, it could be bad.”

Brak- “According to legend, Vecna lost only one of his eyes when Kas attacked him.” Brak flagrantly says the word “Vecna” as if he’s some rando wizard no one’s ever heard of.

Leroy begins to sweat, and does nothing or says nothing about the eye.

Clifford tilts his head at Niobe, but says nothing.

Talon nods to Brak, “yes and that is why I am confused.  Just a week ago we ran into someone using the eye.  He escaped.  I came back here and checked.  The eye was still here. No one has been able to remove it from my stronghold.”

Leroy laughs very nervously and then looks for a corner to hide in.

Talon looks to Leroy, “Vecna cannot see or touch you here.”

“I DONT WANT TO HEAR HIS NAME! I DONT WANT TO HEAR ANY TALK OF HIS EYE OR ANYTHING! MAKE IT STOP!” Leroy goes into the fetal position and rocks back and forth.

Arvin gives a heavy sigh, then takes a blanket out of her pack and throws it over Leroy, it covers his curled up form completely.

Clifford goes to sit next to Leroy and leans on him.

Eli blinks watching Leroy’s reaction.

Niobe stares at Leroy, mouth agape.

Brak- “What year was it when you all left your planet on the Prime Material Plane, and what year is it now, as far as you know?”

Derek looks like he has a headache. “By whose calendar? Every city has a different one, as do the various tribes.”

Talon, “as far as I can tell you have all been missing for about two hundred years.  I spent a year after coming back from the giant wars trying to figure out what happened to you all.  I found the village where you fought the werewolves and a small statue of a white rabbit that had been burned out.  From there I couldn’t find out what happened to you.”

Niobe exhales at this.

Brak- “Time did strange things in Dungeonland….on the plus side, that means anyone who would have any reason to dislike me is dead. Which is nice.”

Talon nods slowly, “I have been trying to look into that as well.  Time travel is hard on people.  Time moves in a straight line.  But only for the person experiencing it.  The first time I met all of you was not the first time you all met me.”

Leroy continues to rock back and forth muttering out words little by little as if he has gone mad “two.. Hundred… they… been… in.. locker… for… two… hundred..”

Brak- “Yes, we met a much younger version of you outside Vallaki, a couple of days before we attacked Strahd’s castle.”

Talon nods, “Yes.  That was the first time I saw your group.  Years later I recognized Leroy, Niobe, Eli and Derek.  I assumed that since I saw you all trying to help in that village you might help the city I could not help.  Thank you for that.  I hope you were able to get sufficient reward from them.”  He then looks at Leroy, “I might have a way to get you back to your time.  There might be no need for anyone to spend two hundred years in a locker.”  At this Talon looks a little confused.

Leroy stops rocking and looks to Talon, “Meanin, me crew can be saved from him and the Locker?”

Talon shrugs, “meaning you can go back and try instead of try now some two hundred years later.”

Leroy looks to Talon, “send me now. Me has the gold, and the woman. He must honor the deal he made with me when he spared me life that day.” he sounds frantic and desperate.

Talon, “I cannot send you back right now.  There is however a possibility.  You all heard my conversation with Lashonna?” asked almost as a statement.

Leroy grabs Talon by his shoulders and looks at him with despair in his eyes “If we did, what are ye askin for from us?”

Talon side steps Leroy’s attempt to grab him.

Derek “We did.”

Brak- “Talon, can you give us a few moments? We need to discuss this.”

Talon nods to Brak, “also if you would,” raises a hand to point to a table down the way from them, “place anything you need identified there.  I will have a few mages start working on that for you.”  He looks to Derek, “consider it payment for the effort you have put in so far.”  Give him a slight smile before stepping away to give them space, leaving them alone in the room they are in.

Brak manifests fly so that when the party makes an American football-style huddle he’s up at shoulder level.

Niobe spreads her wings wide so that there will be no lip reading from across the room.

Niobe, quietly- “First things first. Leroy, calmly, tell us what this is about lockers and two hundred years. More details than forcing me and Tinyra into marriage.”

Tinyra, “I still want to be done with this marriage.”

Eli settles back and looks through his bags to see if he has anything good to much on while listening to Leroy.

Leroy looks to the group and then sighs “Talon said we be gone for two hundred years, meaning for two hundred years me first crew me served with as first mate was killed with me captain in front of me eyes by Davey Jones. He sent them there with promise to release them souls at 1,000gp a head, a total of 100,000 gp. I have 68,000 gp so far. Then he said me must find me first love and bring her with me to make payment. The woman and crew go free, me goes to the locker to free them all and me captain. Me was drunk when a dark priest met me, made me sign a blood letter pact with you know who and was promised you know who would destroy Davey Jones. You know who visited me twice saying to deliver him you know what to him or else. Some voice said me doesnt have to and so here we be at.”

Niobe’s face is unreadable.

Brak cause he’s a little cruel- “ ‘You know who being Vecna. And you know what being his Eye.”

Leroy shoots an evil look at Brak “Yes, master smart ass.”

Clifford - “I don’t know much about blood pacts. What are the consequences of not holding up your end?”

Eli writes, we have the eye from one point in time, Talon has the eye from another.  Do we know which is the older eye?  Or even how to determine which is the older eye.

Brak- “Not yet.”

Leroy shrugs “Me dont know. It was never told me. The second vision when he came to me with blood out the eyes said me was his play thing and me was his to destroy with the other voice saying me didnt have to do that.”

Clifford scratches his neck. “ We could ask Talon when he got the eye. Ours is from 200 years ago, yes?”

Eli, you remember when he came to us in the cave.  He said we were further in the future than just 200 years.  We have already started to come back in time again.

Brak- “One thing at a time. Leroy, if we kill Davey Jones, whoever he is, instead of Vecna doing it, the blood pact is null and void. Yes?”

Leroy shrugs “More of the blood pact letter the priest for you know who said was for the eye. Me needs to kill Davey Jones to save me other crew.”

Brak- “So you signed a blood pact for nothing. You get nothing out of the bargain.”

“In fairness me was drunk, and it was forced upon me at that point.” Leroy adds

Tinyra, “You seem to be drunk a lot.” in a dead flat tone.

Leroy shoots her a look “If ye lost yer only father figure in this world and friends at the time, ye would drink too. Besides its pirate code to drink.”

Brak- “So kill Davey Jones is task number one. Task number zero is figure out how to uncurse Tinyra and Leroy, yes?”

Tinyra, “Thank you.  Though getting back to the time when Leroy was sent to the future might be better then doing it now.  Better to not leave those souls to suffer all that time.”

Clifford says, “So… we don’t need the eye at all?”

Brak- “No, unless we have to leave it somewhere for Talon to find a hundred years ago. Or from now. Or something. We’ll ask him next. Do we need to go find and kill the priest with whom you signed the blood pact? Like make him sign it as complete, on pain of lots and lots of pain?”

Leroy looks to Brak “Me has not seen him since that night in that inn room. He disappeared.”

Derek “Would you recognize him if you saw him again?”

Leroy nods to Derek “Of course first mate!”

Derek “Then be alert for him wherever we go. Killing a priest will not be difficult, especially if he does not expect it.”

Eli, especially if we can get the drop on him.

Derek raises his eyebrows at Eli, as if to say “have you forgotten what I do” but realizes that he's been careful to never say what he does, even though everyone can probably tell. He ends up looking slightly embarrassed.

Eli offers Derek a shrug.

Leroy nods “Aye, it will be since the time me has joined you all, it been bout a year since that night, and year after the crew was taken from Davey Jones.”

Brak- “Then if we can control when and where we reappear, we can all get a look at him, if not ambush him 15 minutes after he walks away with the signed pact. How do we get to Davey Jones to get your crew?”

“Or just go early and pull Leroy out of the bar so he doesn’t make it?” Arvin suggests.

Brak- “Then we’re causing paradoxes for no reason. Maybe.”

Leroy looks to Arvin and Brak “To get to Davey Jones, I have the coordinates on a map to where he makes break on surface. We need a ship to get there. For the bar, me knows the bar and can tell you when it happens.”

Niobe- “Coordinates on your oh-so-interesting map?”

Leroy shakes his head to Niobe “mistress Niobe not that map. That map be as helpful as a potato fighting a dragon. Different map.”

Eli snorts.

Niobe- “Good.” She actually smiles at him a bit.

Derek “Let us ask Talon if he has any idea how to break the bond between Mistress Tinyra and the Captain. If we have to we can make it part of the price for helping him with his god-theiving. Let us also get all of the treasure we acquired identified, appraised, distributed as it will be of the most advantage, and whatever we decide we don’t need, sold.”

Tinyra, “I would like that.”

Leroy nods and agrees “Me seconds that.”

Brak- “Then item two: do we tell Talon we have the Eye? I say yes.”

Eli writes, Might be the best way to determine which is the older eye.  I doubt we'll ever be able to destroy the younger one.

Niobe- “I’m not leaving it with him, whatever happens. I’m taking it to Mount Celestia and handing it over to the Archons there.”

Leroy says “Me is with the lass on this.”

Derek “We are agreed then.” He looks over at the table Talon indicated “I will begin setting out our unidentified items.”

Niobe- “I’ll tell Talon, then.”

There are a few mages standing there waiting, carefully not looking at the party.

Derek strolls over and starts piling things higher and higher on the table.

Eli nods.

Niobe goes over to the table and dumps out whatever it is she carries that is unidentified.

Tinyra takes a seat by the table, watching the mages work on the items.  Trusting Niobe to handle the getting her uncursed part.

Niobe goes to find Talon. “

She minds Talon a room over waiting and reading.  He looks up at Niobe as she enters, looking behind her to see if anyone else comes with her.

Niobe- “We have several things to tell you. First, I carry the Eye of Vecna. If there is a way to figure out whether mine is older than yours or younger, we would like to know, but we will leave here with it and place it with the Archons on Mount Celestia.”

Talon looks thoughtful, “That could explain a few things.”  he closes his book and stands up, “I can see some reasons for doing that.  I think you might want to go check the eye yourself.  I cannot open the case it is in.”  He stands and waves for her to come over, “you helped me seal it in its place.”

Niobe crunches her eyes shut. “How long ago?”

Talon, “around 200 years ago.”  as they reach the case he touches it.  His hand seems to be pushed back before he can even touch it, “It was a nice spell that you used.  It also has remained very well hidden here.”  waves for her to attempt to open the case.

Niobe- “I don’t think I should, in case the presence of both Eyes causes some reaction.”

She sighs. “So I either have to carry the Eye until we loop back to meeting centuries ago, or I will find it again later.”

Talon, “If this is the younger eye, you should take it back.  At some point it gets lose again.  If you leave the older one here in this field it will be safe until you come for it again.”  He points to a nearby room, “we can have them examined separately to determine which is older.”

Niobe- “Something happens in the future to make me believe this is the safest place to keep the Eye, but now I do not. So I’ll pass. As part of our payment for helping you, we need your help in removing the curse that binds Tinyra to Leroy.”

Talon nods, “done.”

Niobe- “Thank you. I see your assistants are identifying all of our stuff, so I’ll see what we have.”

Talon, “Are you still interested in getting sent back to your timeline?”

Niobe- “Yes. I think we have to be.”

Talon nods, “The library that Lashonna talked of has answers that I need to help with that.  It also might have answers that you need about the eye, and maybe other questions you or your group have.”

Niobe- “I’m sure we’ll have plenty. And Brak will probably have lots of research he wants to do.”

Talon nods, “I will talk to Lashonna.  She can wait for a while longer.  You work with your party and let me know what else you need after everything is identified.  Almost everything you need from a normal large city is available within these walls.  Ask for me again when you are ready to talk with Lashonna and we can find out where you need to go to find this Library.”

Niobe- “Thank you.” She head over to see what is coming of the identifications.

Eli writes, we might want to deal with whatever is in our Iron Flask before going too far if we plan to use it again.  I remember someone mentioning something was inside it when we identified it.  There is the balcony we were on before coming down here.  Just below where we fought the vampires.  Might be big enough.

Niobe shrugs and uses detect evil on the flask  No evil from the flask, it also seems to prevent Niobe from detecting what is inside it to know if it is evil or not.  Also there is a blinding amount of evil around her now.  The castles permeates with it.

Niobe groans with a splitting headache. “The flask has some non-detection thing on it, so I get nothing at all. Ahhh, ow.”

Tinyra, “Ouch?” looking at Niobe, “do you need healing now?”

Niobe, doubled over and just about to barf, “No, the evil in here is overwhelming, give me a minute.”

Tinyra nods, “this place is as evil as my homeland.”

Brak- “Moreso than mine, though.”

Niobe, still mostly doubled over, “Sounds like giving whatever it is not enough room to do whatever it wants would be a good idea. Or we take it down to the torture chamber and open it.”

Tinyra, “I think I can manage to place myself between the party and it.  Then you all can hit it hard so that it doesn’t have time to do anything.”

Brak- “You sound like you know what’s in it.”

Tinyra shakes her head, “I don’t.  But do you really think it will be something good?”

Brak snorts.

Tinyra shrugs, “and if it is good then we are just being over cautious.”

Leroy looks to Niobe, he wants to help her but doesnt want to upset Tinyra, so he folds his arms over his chest and looks concerned.

Niobe ignores him. “So torture chamber? I don’t want to head back up to the top of the tower.”

Tinyra nods agreement.

Eli shrugs.

“Master Brak,” Leroy says, “do ye think we should head to the room with the goblet and hour glass to use the magic to transport to Stradh?” he asks.

Derek stands guard at the edge of the group.

Brak- “I say we go find Strahd’s coffin first.”

Leroy nods to Brak “Then lets get all of our arses to the goblet of magic, then.” he says. “The poem said the one stone to the master’s lair thingy.”

Eli writes, what if he left before he was forced to turn to gas?

Leroy walks to Eli and reads his note “Thar be only one thing to do to find out, go there and pray for the best?”

The party is able to get back to the goblet and torture chamber realatively easily and don’t run into anyone on the way.

Leroy looks to the goblet and then looks to Brak, “Master Brak, Can ye read the poem again?”

Tinyra, “do we want to make sure the flask is ready before we go to Strahd’s coffin?”

Leroy looks to Tinyra “Lass, we can do that when we get there, if it not be for an hour past since we smoked him, then we will have time to asses it.”

Brak goes to read the poem again.

Cast a stone into the fire:
Violet leads to the mountain spire
Orange to the castle’s peak
Red if lore is what you seek
Green to where the coffins hide
Indigo to the master’s bride
Blue to ancient magic’s womb
Yellow to the master’s tomb


Brak- “We did see Talon capture the other elder vampire with his Iron Flask, we could do worse than have that handy as well. And perhaps we should head to the library as well. We need better information.

Eli nods agreement.

Derek examines the tip of his bow “If we are to release what’s in it, we should do so soon, in case it can’t be negotiated with.”

Leroy strokes his beard and then says “What it be me crew? Yellow or Green stone we cast?”

Derek opines “Minions’ coffins first, and the library.”

Brak- “Let’s empty the Iron Flask, first.”

Tinyra, “where do we want to do it?”

Niobe- “The next room, it was plenty large.”

Leroy shakes his head, “Aye then, we will open the flask in the torture room then,” he says “but our time be runnin short on the matter.”


We all pile into the torture chamber!

Niobe flies off to the far corner to ready a Guided Missile, while Brak flies up and prepares to turn whatever it is inside out, or something.

Tinyra offers to be the one to open it, and cast righteous might on herself.

“No lass,” Leroy says to Tinyra “if anyone to be the one to open this flask, it be Captain Leroy,” then snorts, “besides im sure some of ye wish for me to die.”

Niobe says nothing, but she also says nothing.

Tinyra shakes her head, “it is more a matter of wishing you would think things through.  Who has the flask?”

Leroy shakes his head “i dont have to think, I’m Captain” he smirks. “ First Mate Derek, hand me the flask.” he says and holds his hand out.

Derek pulls the  flask out of one of his vest pockets and hands it to Leroy. He joins Eli away from where Leroy is opening the flask.


Leroy looks to Derek “If the worse is to happen, ye be captain, take me money and head for a seaport. Ask for a captain to continue Captain Leroy’s mission.”

Tinyra narrows her eyes but does nothing waiting for the bottle to be opened.

Leroy turns his head from Derek to Tinyra “Lass ye be happy if i die. Dont lie.” he doesnt smile or anything. “Are ye ready for this?” he asks the group.

Niobe says nothing, but activates Law Devotion.

Leroy says “Well then, lets see if this works,” he pulls the stopper from the flask and turns it upside down.

Smoke comes out of the bottle and coalesse into the form of a beautiful woman with wings.  The moment she completely takes form she locks eyes with Tinyra, “daughter.  What are you doing here.”

Tinyra just freezes.  Here eyes locked with the womans and a look of fear crossing her face.

Leroy just mouths oh fuck.

Niobe is caught between collapsing in laughter and figuring out whether to charge.

Leroy spats out in complete shock and fear “DAUGHTER!?”

The woman snaps her fingers and behind her three more demons appear.

Derek calls from the balcony “Excuse me, madam, are we to understand that you are related to our companion?”

Clifford perks his ears and looks at Tinyra, “Are we fighting your mom? Or is she joining our pack too?”

Round 1!

Arvin yells. “Tinyra, get as far away from them as you can! The hallway would be best.”

Tinyra shakes her head and throws her spear up to start it fighting on its own, “Kill her clifford, fast.”  Fear coming from her voice as she draws her rapier and attempts to attack.  She misses completely.

Derek calls “Now, Mistress Tinyra, let’s not be hasty.”

“NOT A WORD FIRST MATE!” Leroy screams, wanting nothing to be revealed.

Derek answers “Captain, we’ve just done the lady a favor, surely this doesn’t have to end in bloodshed.”

Brak eyeballs the various demons who have just arrived, as well as the one who referred to a known succubus as her daughter, and makes a knowledge the planes check.  Brak recognizes Tinyra’s mother as malcanthet.  The queen of Succubi and the patron of hedonists and those who use their charmes to control and ruin those around them.  Her beauty is so perversely intense that it can drain the life from good creatures that try to attack or touch her.  She can control a creature’s will in a few ways; she possesses many enchantment spell-like abilities, her sting drains wisdom and results in domination, and even her gaze can wipe away free will and make a person her eternal thrall.  He is not able to recall anything about the Lilitu, not even sure he knows their names.

Malcanthet returns the favor and starts to attack her daughter, “well well well, not that I am surprised you turned on your own kind.”  Hitting Tinyra three times.  The electricity from her whip attacks plays uselessly across Tinyra despite the rest of the attacks being effective.  Tinyra’s DR helps her stave off some of it.

Leroy shouts back to Derek “I Just dont want her to find out her daughter is married!” in pure terror, then realizes what he just said and winces.

A pained expression crosses Derek’s face and he mutters “Brilliant, Captain.”

“Too scared First mate!” Leroy says out loud.

Arvin casts Rain of Roses on the room. Malcanthet is not effected.  Tinyra and the Lilitu are effected.  The Lilitu are sickened also, but Tinyra avoids those effects.

Brak- “Clifford, I’m going to move you closer, hold still!” He manifests Dimension Swap on himself and Clifford, and they, indeed, swap places teleportationally, placing Clifford in convenient chewing distance of the lilitu. Clifford barks “Thank you!”

Red Lilitu turns and attacks Clifford. Clifford is completely unharmed by the attack, and grins silverly. Clifford says, “Brak, silver or cold iron for these ones?”

Green Lilitu moves forward and attacks Leroy.

Blue Lilitu moves to attack Boots.

Brak- “Cold iron!”

Niobe, being in totally the wrong place for this, flies up and over the melee to get herself set up to nuke Malcanthet next round. She gets set up above the stage on the north side of the torture chamber.

Leroy looks to Malcanthet and says “Stop your attack on your daughter and me wife and me crew!” he says to her.  Malcanthet ignores Leroy.

Leroy attacks Malchanthet!

Eli manifests Death Urge with a +2 wild surge.  Manages not to daze himself.  It fails its save and gets a glazed look in its eyes.

Derek hides himself in the shadows, and rapidly fires three arrows from his electric quiver at Tinyra’s mother. But somehow misses all of them.

Clifford’s teeth change to a duller color, and he attacks the Lilitu in front of him fiercely.

Round 2!

Tinyra attempts to attack her mother again.  An still misses.

Malchanthet continues to attack her daughter.  Only hitting twice and Tinyra’s DR helps to prevent her from taking much damage.

“HIT YOUR MOM LIKE YOU MEAN IT!” Leroy says to Tinyra

Arvin drops a 500lb  Elder Tojanida right on top of Mal. It bites and claws her, but misses 

Brak considers what’s going on. “Derek, you want to stay there, or move over here?”

Derek “I will stay here, Master Brak, thank you.”

Red Lilitu continues to attack Clifford.

Brak uses the Staff of Power to cast heightened hold monster on the green lilitu.

Green Lilitu is held fast and does not move.

Blue Lilitu attacks itself six times, hits and kills itself.

Niobe, seeing no opportunity to nuke Malcanthet, takes a five foot step and attacks the red lilitu four times. She power attacks and uses divine might.

Leroy turns from mother in law to green Lilitu and attacks it four times!

Eli manifests Psychic Crush on Malcanthet.  Using a +4 wild surge.  Manages not to daze himself.  Fails to get past Malcanthet’s SR and does nothing to her.

Derek rapidly fires three electric arrows at the green lilitu. Since she’s immobile, all hit, and she is suddenly and thoroughly dead.

“Excellent shot first mate!” leroy shouts to Derek

Clifford steps over the fallen creature and attacks Melchanthet. He stumbles on the body, though, and isn’t able to attack.

Round 3!

Tinyra again attempts to attack her mother and still misses with each attack.

Malcanthet changes her attacks to the Tojanda. 

Arvin casts Mass Snake’s Swiftness, everybody gets an immediate melee/ranged attack. The Tojanda moves back at her command, leaving a path for Niobe. It also takes a bite out of the succubus. The wisdom damage is too much for it however and it falls unconscious. Arvin unsummons it. She also stops the rain of roses.

Derek fires arrows, but misses both shots.

Leroy lunges his rapier at his mother in law, but misses completely

Niobe is too far away to do anything, tragically.

Brak is busy focusing on using a psionic power, and so doesn’t do anything either.

Clifford attempts to bite, but misses.

Brak, seeing that Niobe is in the worst possible place: too close to charge, but too far away to full attack, does a dimensional reshuffle to place her where she needs to be. He also sighs at getting involved in Leroy’s family drama.

Brak- “Sorry Boots, this’ll be a surprise…” He swaps Boots and Niobe...giving her a short, but clear line of charge.

Niobe flaps her wings hard to get just out of the water and charges Malcanthet. She slams into the demon queen like a titan, who, having wound up hard, swings and hits a golf ball with all it’s might, and causes the golf ball to fly over the horizon.

She bounces off of Clifford in passing and slams into the far wall.

Leroy watches his mother in law fly through the air and strolls after her, shrugging along the way, he walks to her and tries to hiut her but misses.

Eli again attempts a psychic crush on Malcanthet.  Manages to not daze himself.  This time gets past her SR.  Malcanthet saves.  The ability still causes some damage.

Niobe- “Clifford, you’re in my way, doggo!”

Derek fires another two electric arrows at the demoness, but misses.

Clifford glances back at Niobe, and then moves himself out of the way. He manages to bite her once.

Round 4!

Tinyra casts restoration on herself since her attacks have been useless this entire time.

Malcanthet looks around at the party and then at Tinyra, “this is not done daughter.  I know to which god you have turned to.  You will pay for turning your back on the family.” then teleports away.

Leroy lets a sigh out, “That was close.” he mutters.

Tinyra glares at where Malcanthet was and then slowly looks around at the room, “not at all who I expected to be in there.”

Leroy looks to Tinyra “Well she seems lovely,” he says sarcastically

Brak snorts.

Tinyra shakes her head.

Leroy ponders a second and then ask Tinyra “What did she mean by god you turned to?”

Clifford yawns. “Didn’t Tinyra say she doesn’t know what god picked her?”

Tinyra shrugs, “I don’t know.  I don’t know what god has blessed me with the abilities I have.  I was chosen and I am trying to find out by who.”

Niobe flaps her wings and gets out of the water. She flies over and lands on the stage.

Derek snorts “Well, nothing like having yet another powerful demon out for our blood. Let’s get to those coffins, now, before we run out of time.”

Tinyra, “Strahd’s first, or the others?”

Derek “The others if we don’t want to be mobbed by vampire underlings.”

Leroy shakes his head then walks up to Tinyra “Are ye at least okay Lass?” he asks her with genuine concern

Brak- “The library. We still have about 45 minutes until any of the vampires will be corporeal again. We need to know if the land itself can host Strahd as his coffin, in which case destroying his actual coffin is irrelevant, or if not.”

Tinyra, “If he is in his coffin will that matter if we put him in the bottle?”

Brak shrugs. “Then we can check his coffin first. But if he can just use the land, why would he go back there?”

Clifford - “Can we put the coffin and Stradh in the bottle?”

Tinyra, “comfort?”

Leroy sloshes through the water to the goblet. “Let me ask ye all the question, Green or yellow stone?”

Niobe is more disgusted at having sloshed around in waist deep, probably corpse-filled water then she would have been, say, a year ago.

Tinyra flies over and then squeezes through the door.  Wanting to not get small if this ends up bad.

Clifford follows, shaking off the water on him onto everyone else.

Derek enters the room as well, and plants himself in the corner, waiting for some one to pick a gem.

Once everyone is in the room, and properly situated, prepared, armed, and whatever else they want to be, they Brak floats up and grabs….the yellow gem.  He figures that the gem needs to be thrown into the brazier and once dones so everyone needs to touch the brazier to teleport.

“Master Brak, Are ye sure yellow?” Leroy asks

Brak- “No.” Brak instructs the party on what to do. Waiting for everyone to grab on, he tosses the yellow gem into the brazier.

As the flame in the brazier changes color the party feels a shift.  Suddenly they are in a tomb that looks the same as the tomb of Strahd’s brother, only the feeling of evil is worse.  In front of them stands Strahd on the opposite side of his Coffin, staring back at them, “I have been waiting for you.”  To either side of Strahd stand two Horned Devils and behind them are Three Erinyes.