Session Writeup 4/18 (Owyn's player wrote this)
Cut to the Prime Material Plane of Aedorea on the continent of Eo:
Vork has been waiting more than a month for his companions to emerge
from the Egg of Rodnak. The loyal ranger is puzzled at first and then
begins to worry that his friends are dead and will never return. Vork
wanders the continent in search of the others for several more months,
eventually taking the Intrepid back to Evander when he hears that
Guinevere has been crowned Queen and is also apparently with child.
The Prophecy of Zumaloken seems to be speeding to its conclusion
despite the group's earlier efforts. Despondent about the loss of his
lady love – the new queen – to Vincent's clutches, Vork heads to Rohn
to clear his head. In the eighth month of his companions' absence,
the Flood begins… Rohn is engulfed in surging tidewaters and Vork is
forced to take the Intrepid back towards the higher ground of the
Crone Mountains. He returns to the Egg of Rodnak in Magg Mal's cave,
puzzles out the entry code on the artifact, and enters the prison
dimension in which the others may still be trapped.
Suddenly Vork is falling fast through open sky. Lacking a potion of
fly or any other ability to slow or stop his freefall, the ranger
splashes down near one of the smaller islands with a hideous impact.
Only his inner strength and resolve allow him to survive the fall, but
he desperately surfaces and swims to the small isle. As he pulls
himself up onto the beach Vork notices the same odd statues of
Carceran Granite that the other party members previously saw. Under
the night sky Vork makes his way to Brekke's cavern and discovers
signs of the party's passing. He reunites with his lost friends when
they emerge from Ganex's psychoportive shelter to happily greet him.
Unfortunately the happiness of their reunion is dashed by Vork's
report of eight months' time having passed in the Prime. Owyn, Ganex
and Bernie are well aware of the consequences of the Prophecy of
Zumaloken, and the flood that Vork has reported seems to be a clear
indicator that their efforts to stop Vincent have been for naught.
They resolve to quickly find a way out of this prison dimension, where
a single day apparently sees the passage of four months on the Prime!
The group's discussion is interrupted by the arrival of a huge
construct resembling a six-legged stone cat with four huge hammers for
hands. The construct attacks immediately, demanding that "all
prisoners must return to their cells." Its attacks prove potent and
its armor and spell resistance is thick, so the party escapes via
Ganex's dimension door and returns to Brekke's stronghold nearby.
After a brief strategic discussion with the giantess, the party forms
a plan to recover the Carceran Keystone from Hrolvar's island. Owyn
studies Brekke's maps of the area and pinpoints a good spot for
teleportation. Though `porting into the unknown area – the edge of a
desert on the main isle – is a bit risky, the gnome successfully
transports the group to the spot he designated. The four companions
find themselves on the edge of a desert filled with bones and bone
dust. A dry breeze blows through the macabre landscape, kicking up
bone fragments and dust constantly.
Though it slows their passage by a factor of one half, Owyn hides the
group from the sight of the desert's guardians by creating a major
image (illusion) of dust devils and windswept debris to cover their
movements. This tactic proves its worth when a horrible entropic
reaper mounted on a nightmare appears in the distance. The rider and
his mount seem to notice that something is amiss, but Owyn sends out
an illusion of four skeletal soldiers towards the reaper. This
convinces the dangerous undead to continue on its way, since it saw
what it expected to see. When they are halfway across the desert,
Vork calls a halt to the march and the party rests to regain its strength.
After a brief rest, Vork picks out the fastest path to the city in the
center of the desert. Unfortunately, this path leads right through a
huge crater of bones more than three miles wide at its widest spot.
However, Owyn's mass fly spell will provide just enough time to cross
the crater if everyone flies at full speed. Owyn casts the spell and
the four friends take flight, but they soon attract the notice of the
crater's primary guardian. A roiling mass of bones rises up into the
vague shape of a gargantuan skeletal serpent – a boneyard. Fortune is
on the party's side, though, as the boneyard cannot maintain a flying
pace as fast as theirs. Fleeing the enormous undead beast at full
speed, the four adventurers cross the crater and find themselves only
a few miles outside the high walls of a city on a hill. A series of
makeshift, bedraggled tent towns lies outside the walls, and all
manner of pathetic beings make their homes here. A cadre of blind
grimlock guardians keeps watch over a winding path up to the city proper.
Ganex approaches the blind guardians and manages to talk his way past
them by mentioning that the party is here on behalf of the "mighty
Magg Mal, daughter of Hrolvar." The inner keep is full of spellscale
dragonkin – human sized reptilian creatures skilled in the ways of
magic. The helpful spellscales call the city itself Hrolvar, and
claim it is named for their slumbering master, the great wyrm Hrolvar.
The party browses the well stocked merchant district and gets
directions to a library, which is just past the apothecarium outside
the district. Once inside the library, Ganex charms a spellscale
librarian and discovers that a huge pile of debris and treasure
allegedly lies past the "coils of Hrolvar" deeper in the city. The
sleeping dragon's body is so large that it is a feature of the city's
geography itself!
Heading down into the heart of the city, the party comes upon the
coils of Hrolvar – literally the coils of his mighty tail as he lies
sleeping. Before they can begin to traverse the coils, a patrol of
blind guardians (grimlocks) shows up and demands to see the party's
pass. Owyn reaches into his pocket, muttering "Oh yes, of course. I
have it right here…" and begins casting chain lightning. As he points
at the grimlock leader and the spell goes off, battle begins. Though
the blind guardians are mighty barbarians and employ their rage to
good effect, they are no match for the party's might. Bernie rushes
in and is quickly surrounded, and the goblin falls beneath the
grimlocks' axes, bleeding but not dead. Owyn takes advantage of
Ganex's levitation power to rise into the air away from danger and
blast the grimlocks at a distance. Between Ganex, Vork and Owyn the
guardians quickly fall, six of the eight taken down by a well placed
cone of cold from the levitating gnome. With the patrol defeated and
their valuable gear looted for later sale, the party now seems free to
explore the coils of Hrolvar at their leisure and find the Carceran
Keystone.