[Horde] Chapter Three: Session Twenty-One
Appearing Characters: Arthak Saurfang, Azgadaan, Caria Felsoul, Dal'rend Blackhand, Halno, Kilnar Goldensword, Levia Blackflight, Nallorath, Nyxxa, Sadras, Slazsazach, Vaerux
December 19th
The group is getting ready to take a long rest in the midst of the basement of Kilnar’s manor. After contemplating, Nyxxa calls everyone to talk about Caria.
Nyxxa nods.
Nyxxa looks at Levia.
She nods at Azgadaan and Arthak.
Nyxxa nods.
Arthak draws Traitor’s Gift and hands it over. Nyxxa thanks him.
With the blade in hand, Nyxxa approaches Caria’s frozen, stone body.
Arthak sits down, lights a cigarette, and watches. Nyxxa swings, and connects with the head. However, it doesn’t cut through immediately. Nyxxa continues swinging, hacking into the stone statue. Eventually it gives, starting to crack.
Nyxxa, unfortunately, can’t shut him up.
Nyxxa doesn’t devour a part of Caria’s soul, and she cuts through the statue. It splinters and crumbles to the ground. The warglaives clatter on the ground, and Nyxxa retrieves them.
They are incredibly powerful. They feel powerful. Almost like there’s a hum emanating from them. Nyxxa puts them away, and she quickly examines Arthak’s weapon to ensure they are undamaged before she hands it back over.
Arthak asks to see the warglaives, and Nyxxa complies. They are not created with any sort of metal that he had ever seen. They are legendary magic items, and there is much magical enchantment upon them, and they are +3 magic weapons for sure. The edges of the weapons had also glowed white hot in the past.
Arthak hands them back.
As they set up a makeshift camp, Azgadaan pulls Arthak aside.
Azgadaan asks the group if they should manacle their new captive for the night, and it’s agreed that they likely should.
Azgadaan asks their captive, Nallorath, how he’s doing and then has him chained. He is clearly very scared, and he ends up laying down on the ground where he is left and tries to sleep. Azgadaan also summons a large vehicle to block the hallway.
Halno takes all the watches, with an individual backing him up on each one. Azgadaan was first.
Throughout the course of the night, approximately 1.5 hours into the first watch, something catches Halno’s eye. As he glances up and sees something flitting in the air. It’s small, and it looks to be a small, white bird of some kind. It lands on one of the pillars.
Halno commands his new undead to unleash arrows at the bird.
Five arrows are unleashed, and there is a flash of silvery magic. Then there is a splat of blood, and there is an arrow sticking out of whatever the creature was as it tumbles down.
Azgadaan goes to investigate, and he finds a small bird with a rotund and large chest with a long tail. It’s a dove.
However, Azgadaan finds something clenched in its talons. Azgadaan pulls it away, and he finds a small pinch of green dust. It’s ground jade, about 10gp worth. Halno identifies it likely as being for the magic mouth spell.
Azgadaan tosses the pouch of jade dust to Halno.
The later watches don’t encounter anything, and it rolls into the next day.
December 20th
As soon as he wakes up, Azgadaan ritual casts water breathing. Nallorath had not slept at all that night, and had definitely seen his former friends and companions raise as undead and shoot a dove.
As Azgadaan approaches, he jumps severely. There are dark circles under his eyes.
Nallorath nods and stands up, shaking. Azgadaan makes breakfast. Sadras is eyeing up the new skeletal servants suspiciously and not happily.
They then crank the wheel and start to flood the chamber so they can get by the golem. Nallorath is in a clear panic as he follows.
As they go into the water, Arthak is just completely weighted down and just walks along the bottom. As does Halno and his skeletons.
However, as they are walking through, one of the skeletons is blasted back by a surge of water, and they realize the water is surging all around them.
Halno hits one of the water weirds with a chill touch. Arthak enters a rage and then hucks a javelin at some of the rippling water. It misses, but his second javelin connects.
Another water weird whips out at Sadras and it begins to drag her away.
One of Halno’s skeletons tries to fire an arrow after the retreating water weird.
Nyxxa goes to intercept the water weird that appeared behind them, and the very large water weird surges forward. It misses Arthak but crushes one of the skeletons.
Azgadaan opens the rest of his dust of dryness on the large water weird, and a bunch of the water immediately disappears, damaging the water weird and causing a big opening of dry air. Arthak rides the reflooding, but another skeleton is crushed by the tidal wave.
Levia casts shield of faith on Nyxxa, and Nallorath is cowering. The skeletal guard captain hits the water weird Nyxxa was engaging. The skeleton spellbreaker stays to cover Nallorath.
Nyxxa unsheaths her new blades and slashes into the water weird. The blades light up with hot white fire, almost boiling the water, and she feels the energy she is carving from the water weird flow into her body.
The monstrous water weird lashes out at Azgadaan and Arthak. It misses Azgadaan, but hits Arthak and grapples and restrains him. It then starts to retreat with Arthak in tow, passing Sadras. Sadras rages and swings wildly at her grappler.
The skeletal guard captain misses its target.
Arthak struggles against the water weird and strikes into it twice, killing it. Now freed, Arthak goes for the water weird that has Sadras, slashing into it. He action surges and finishes it off, freeing Sadras.
The remaining water weird misses Nyxxa. Azgadaan readies an action in case the water weird escapes, and Halno uses chill touch. Nyxxa finishes it off with her glaives.
They continue on to the golem chamber, and it seems to be deactivated. They make it back to the crossroads, and Azgadaan checks to make sure the shark is still in the tank. It is.
They discuss their next plans, and they take some time to rest quickly as Azgadaan summons a submersible for the large aquarium they need to traverse. Halno strips some of the valuables off his skeletons as they have to hold onto the outside. Arthak also has to hang on to the outside to make room for the other living individuals plus Halno. Arthak ties himself and the skeletons to the submarine.
They then move forward into the massive aquarium. It’s rather well-lit with a soft white light. There are some pseudo-decorations, such as stones, on the bottom, and some of them are in the vague shape of a cave.
The group heads right, and Arthak glances around, taking stock of the area. Some of the fish have stopped and are now just watching him.
As he glances up, that's when he sees more fish swimming above him. These ones are a bit larger, and they are circling. Then he hears some stones from his left, near the cave. The stones shift, and he glimpses a creature, and the glint of something metallic. At that very moment, the stones directly beneath them begin to shift, and they see a large, yellow eye below.
There are two large, slitted, yellow eyes from about 50 feet toward the center of the room, and there is a clicking sound. Sliding from the stones in an attempt to hide is a strange creature. It is holding a weapon in a humanoid-like claw, and it’s about 12 feet long from head to tail. Its upper torso seems to be about 3/4s of that. It has a snake-like body, and its frills curl back and reveal a spectrum of different colors. It brandishes a long, vicious, and beautiful trident.
A small creature then propels itself forward from the humanoid creature’s side, and the circling sharks from above drive while the massive creature below surges up.
The aquatic dog-like creature rushes at one of the skeletons, which are defending themselves. Everyone inside the submarine just bides their time because they can’t see anything going on outside.
Azgadaan punches it, and then banks it through the exit they were going to. He spins it upside down to block the exit as much as possible so the larger creatures can’t follow.
The serpentine humanoid shouts and hisses and brandishes its trident at the group, and all the sharks dart after.
Arthak unties himself and the skeletons and starts to swim out of the situation. He action surges to get beyond the vessel. There is a long ramp on the other side that leads out of the aquarium. Sadras opens the hatch, letting water start to fill the vessel, and she swims out.
Four reef sharks swim down in pursuit of the group. The skeletons go to try and get past the sharks to get in. One of the skeletons gets several bones removed.
The massive shark tries to ram past the submarine as the rest of the group works to disembark. Azgadaan slams his maul into one of the reef sharks, and the water fills with red, killing it.
The giant shark continues to attack the submarine.
Halno disembarks and uses a lightning bolt across the reef sharks and the humanoid creature, but all three of the remaining sharks are fried.
The giant shark rams the submarine again, and in its thrashing destroys a skeleton. The group escapes, and the humanoid creature tries to surge after them, but a collar around its neck sparks, holding it back. It hisses and clicks after them, and it hurls other tridents it has on its person at the group, hitting Arthak.
The submarine continues to shudder and groan as the massive shark rips into it, and the group escapes. Azgadaan had grabbed one of the tridents, which seems to have been made from coral.
Azgadaan asks if everyone is alright and they examine their wounds.
Eventually, the humanoid creature and its fish-dog vanish from sight.
Levia speaks to Arthak using tongues, asking if he needs healing. He confirms, and she heals his wounds. Sadras expresses she kind of wanted to actually fight the creatures, and Azgadaan comments if they picked the wrong route they likely could on the way back.
The group passes into a long chamber which seems to be comfortably warm. It’s well lit with everburning torches that cast a soft glow, and there are a few seats and racks of metal poles. The racks are currently holding what appear to be long, white cloths. There are about a dozen, and there is steam rising off them.
The group takes a moment and Azgadaan ritually casts detect magic. Nyxxa checks in on Nallorath, who winces as she approaches.
Nyxxa asks if he had any injuries, and he asks what the creature was. She doesn’t know.
He shakes his head.
The man is clearly extremely shaken. Nyxxa can practically hear his heart beat. She takes a deep breath.
He tries to do so, but just can’t. It doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, and Nyxxa returns to the group, asking Levia if there’s anything they can do.
As Azgadaan casts detect magic, he senses the stands and flames are magic, but the towels themselves are not. The stands are transmutation, and the continual flames are evocation. There are basins of water, which radiate with conjuration magic. On the far side of the room is a beautiful set of double doors.
The group heads through the doors, Arthak opening them. The doors open and swing wide. As he looks inside, they immediately hear the sound of running water. However, it’s a magnificent chamber that is lined with bookshelves and tables and ewers that have tea sets on them. In the center there is a beautiful fountain. In the center, at the edge of the fountain, is a beautiful archway, and at the head of the fountain is Kilnar. Her hand is outstretched, and a beautiful dove is sitting on her arm. There is a small bridge behind her, and a stream of water that goes between each side.
In a voice that rings with magic, Kilnar speaks.
Her other hand has a long sword with an ornate, twisting design.
Kilnar sighs.
She raises her sword, and they note her eyes are glittering with magic. Lines of arcane energy ripple up and down her flesh, crawling onto her elegant robes. She spins the rapier around, and she holds it in front of her face. There is a harmonious sound, and the metal begins to vibrate. As she brings the rapier around in a half moon, an after image appears of sheer arcane energy--almost like the rapier is lagging.
Kilnar takes a single step to her left, and she brings the rapier up in an elegant dance-like maneuver, and her foot slides along the ground, and magic illuminates in an ornate glyph. She had activated a glyph of haste.
Kilnar dodges with her hasted action and then simply drops into a stance, a slight grin on her face.
There is magic all throughout the room, but no one can sense the exact location.
Halno uses blight on Kilnar, and she uses her reaction to reduce the damage, the blade absorbing the magic.
Nyxxa puts on detect magic, and she too senses a great deal of magic around her. She sees a glyph in front of Arthak, and others around the room in a 30 foot area. Nyxxa informs Arthak of the presence of the glyph in front of him, and jumps over the water feature in front of her. A water weird attacks. Nyxxa slashes at it, carving into the creature and activating the fire on her blades. She then calls out the locations of a few other glyphs.
Arthak rages and then jumps to the side of the glyph. He then drinks a potion of haste and closes with Kilnar, avoiding another glyph. He then strikes at Kilnar, but she dodges.
Nallorath mumbles to himself and then shoves through the group and starts shouting apologies to Kilnar. He sprints directly into the room, and as soon as his feet hit the glyph, there is a rumbling noise and a cacophonous blast erupts forth. The two remaining skeletons are obliterated.
Azgadaan runs in after Nallorath and uses dispel magic on Kilnar.
As he holds his hand out and points his hand at Kilnar. Her eyes widen, and she gasps. She spins her blade to try and handle the spell, but as it collides, there is a flash.
When the flash disappears, Kilnar is still standing there, but her dress, her hair, and everything has stopped. Where she was standing is just a statue of ice. Completely unmoving. The dove also disappears in a burst of energy.
Sadras runs in and rages on the water weird. In front of Arthak another water weird leaps from the water and attacks him, but it misses.
More water weirds appear, and the battle continues. Nallorath continues to try and run to Kilnar, and he steps on another glyph, which turns him into a sheep. He continues to bleat at the statue of Kilnar.
The weirds continue their assault, and Arthak and Levia are dragged into the water. However, much to their fortune, Levia and Arthak can breathe underwater.
Azgadaan tries to help Levia out of the water and fend off the water weird. Nyxxa comes to back him up, and she carves into the weird.
The three water weirds on Arthak continue to try and squeeze the life out of him. Halno jumps into the water and tries to use vampiric touch on one of the weirds, but it unfortunately fails. Arthak struggles and flails to get the water weirds, and one dies, but there are still two there.
Nallorath continues to bleat at the statue of Kilnar, and the remaining two water weirds pummel on Arthak. Sadras runs at the water weirds and jumps into the water. Sadras crits on the water weird.
Nyxxa kills the water weird that was on Levia.
Halno finishes off a water weird with his vampiric touch and then blinks out of the water. Arthak is able to finish off the last water weird.
As the fighting winds down, the study is eerily silent. Azgadaan informs the group of the remaining runes, and Nyxxa investigates the simulacrum. She is wearing the dress-like armor she had, and Azgadaan recognizes the spell. It’s a duplicate that is created magically that can perform just about anything the base caster can. It’s expensive and difficult, and takes a long time, but the creature is almost identical to the original.
Other things of interest on her is a sword on her person, some jewelry, bracers, and her armor. The bracers and sword are both magical. Between Azgadaan and Nyxxa, they can tell what those are. The bracers are bracers of defense, while the blade is a magical lesser rapier of speed.
Azgadaan suggests Nyxxa wear the bracers, and Azgadaan also pries the jewelry off her. It’s worth about 2,500gp in the jewelry alone. There are a lot of books lining the shelves, but a great deal are also missing.
The group does a sweep of the room, and Azgadaan marks the glyphs by making the floor difficult terrain.
They look around and find the remains of a destroyed teleportation circle. Halno retrieves some of the books in the study, many of which are valuable and interesting. Azgadaan gets some books on bestiaries, and some interesting research that Kilnar had done in the past, including info on the serpentine creature and her attempts to communicate with it. Curiously, it speaks an ancient elven language, and she had attempted to communicate with it, but the individual she had captured was not forthcoming with the info. She knew, however, that it was male. Some pieces of the research are missing. There’s also some info on the fish-dog with it, and its saliva is exceptionally sticky. She seems to have had the creature and its pet for over 40 years.
Halno also finds a spellbook. As he opens it, he is interested to find it only contains ritual spells. It appears to be written in the pristine handwriting of Kilnar’s. There are some notes written that seem to be by Kilnar, but then there are more that are written by a similar but different hand. One was penned earlier, but the other was later.
The former section seems to be orders to prevent anyone who enters here from leaving if possible, to give their life if needed, and to buy her as much time as required. The second section is fresher, and mentions that the Magistrix has certainly had time at this point, and her only remaining goal is to defeat anyone that enters the sanctum. As far as she’s concerned, she already completed her mission.
Halno relays what he found.
She points at the miserable sheep by Kilnar.
They spend some time resting, and Sadras suggests they can keep exploring given nothing else but the water weirds seem to be there. They start to make plans to perhaps go through the mansion later as well. Ultimately, the manor is a good base once brought into line, and they can potentially find a way to study the abyssal generator as well.
The group starts to head out, and they can see the slow ramp back down into the aquarium. At the bottom, waiting, is the serpentine creature coiled in plain view.
Nyxxa looks down, and the creature makes eye contact with her, his jaw curling.
The creature snarls.
Nyxxa does.
The creature laughs.
Halno looks at the collar the creature has on, and it seems like it’s a magical device that creates an invisible caged zone.
There’s really no reason to trust the creature, he seems violent and aggressive, but the hatred he has for Kilnar vastly outweighs that. Unless he was confident he could kill them all easily, he would likely remain true to his bargain.
The group agrees to assist the creature in finding his way back to the sea.
After some discussion, Azgadaan removes the collar with dispel magic. The collar sparks and is rendered inert. He immediately tears the collar free, and tears the similar collar off the fish-hound.
The group follows Slazsazach into the aquarium. Many of the fish are watching them, and the naga gestures to one of the passages he passes. He says something in another language, which likely indicates that’s the direction of the generator.
The group goes back through the passage and turns off the prismatic wall generator. Azgadaan also stops by the shark tank, and he tries to polymorph the shark in it.. However, it passes, and the shark stops and looks at Azgadaan.
Azgadaan ritual casts detect magic, but he sees no magic around the chest.
Azgadaan informs the group that he’s going to jump in to grab the chest and teleport out. He does so, but when he jumps in, he is restrained, and the shark immediately swarms, gnawing at him. Azgadaan dimension doors out.
The water starts to ooze up out of the side of the pool, but then it retreats upon losing track of its prey.
They get out of the mansion without any other issues, and the prismatic wall on the outside is down. However, they notice something else. Up above, the wall that shields the city itself, the first of the elf gates, seems to be gone. While it is very early morning, there are some fires out, and there appears to be a mist in the air above the group. It’s very thin, and around the area of Stormreaver Spire. It’s a reddish color, but it’s not thick.
However, there are signs of a celebration. Mead and ale horns and bones are about, and there seems to be glass devices that are empty, but the same sorts of devices were once holding the mist, and now, there’s none in them.
Amongst the groups here, the ones that helped bring the wall down are still here, and Dal’rend is among them. He smiles at Arthak and makes his way over.
He gestures to the sky.
