GoCorral

This session was attended by Trajan, Avery, Will, and Ben. Avery introduced his new character in this session.

Renewal and a Bear that Cares

Worried about how to bring Torin and Amalius back to life, Aldarian and Tagenadi had resorted to desperate measures. Fortunately, before they went through with their deal with Vecna, Hektor arrived! Hektor had stayed with the official Alliance members, but found Tagenadi, Torin, Amalius, and Aldarian more capable of pushing back the Xorians than the Alliance itself. Thus Hektor wanted to help both the Alliance and the Exiles to better prevent the war from eventually reaching the soil of his homeland, Aractrash.

Hektor offered to resurrect Torin and Amalius using his vast wealth and connections if all swore to assist in preventing the war with Xoria from spreading to Aractrash. Tagenadi and Aldarian accepted. They teleported to Aractrash and promptly had the two dead members raised.

While at Yuettencal, the party was approached by a group of clerics. They bore holy symbols of Dionysus, Nyx, Eris, Phobos, and Pan. Those of Pan delivered a message to the party, “Pan has spoken to us and asked us to speak with you. He is also against the Xorians as you are, but as the gods are not able to act directly, he requires your assistance. There is a great warrior of Pan’s following that has been slumbering for the past fifty years. We wish you to awaken him so that he may aid in the defeat of the Xorian Empire.”
Hektor asked, “Where can we find this great warrior?”
“He is a druid living in the Panda Grove of Satronwook. He won the great drinking contest fifty-one years ago and has taken on the form of the golden panda ever since. We can take you to the grove and he will join your cause.”
“A panda? What?”

Puzzled but interested the party decided to go to the Panda Grove. They left Tagenadi at Dalleer as they weren’t sure how a druid would receive an undead servant of Hades (Also because Jamie wasn’t there for this session). They sought out the greatest Panda in the Grove. They found him seated by some bamboo occasionally taking bites from a stalk he held in his hand.

Hektor spoke first, “Uh… Great Panda! We come to you from Pan to ask for your assistance!”
The Panda with the golden circle looked quizzically at each of the party members in turn. He took another bite of bamboo.
Amalius spoke, “Please, we need your help against the Xorian threat.”
The Panda rose to stand on his two back feet. Slowly his fur receded into his skin as his body reshaped itself. In the space of just a few seconds the Panda turned from a bear into an ancient elf clothed in dragonscales. “Who are you? What has happened in the world since I started my vacation?”
“We are freedom fighters in a war against the evil Xorian Kingdom that continues to expand far beyond its natural reach,” said Hektor.
“The Xorians? Yes, they were expanding when first I left the active world. But what is this to me? Mortals always fight each other when Ares demands. It is the way of the world. I do not take sides. People fight and people die. That is natural and good.”
“Natural and good? These are people’s lives!” Hektor turned to the others, “Why are we wasting our time here? He clearly doesn’t care about the world.”
Amalius said, “Hold on a minute. What’s your name great druid?”
“My name is Eathirilu Treeheart.”
Amalius introduced himself and the others then said, “And don’t you know about the dragovinian vampires?”
“What? No, I’ve never heard of those.”
“They are a deathless race of undead that can go out in the sunlight and drink the blood of mortals. They have taken over the Xorian Empire and spread its influence even further. Their evil deeds serve their dark god, Blendegad, a dragon which seeks to usurp the throne of the Olympians. Zeus would’ve cast Blendegad down and set the world to rights, but he lies in a death-sleep due to a poisonous attack by the Dahak monster. Ares has taken up the mantle of Zeus, but he aids the Xorians as he has always loved their warring ways. Blendegad grows stronger with every city he conquers and if he takes them all then the undead menace will consume Cimmeria forever. Do you see now why we need your help? This is not a natural war between kingdoms and city-states. This is a war with the undead. This is a war between righteousness and the vilest evil this world has ever known.”
“I do see now.” Eathirilu looked at the ground and did not speak for a several seconds, then he looked up and whistled. A two-legged reptilian beast came crashing through the forest and sat down by Eathirilu. “This is my raptor, Jack, and we will join you to defeat the Xorians.” Eathirilu took a bite from the bamboo branch he still held. His face soured as he realized his now elven body couldn’t digest it.
Hektor said, “Hold on a minute! We haven’t decided if we’re letting this guy join us. Really? A panda that’s sat on its butt this whole time while the rest of the world has been fighting? How do we know he’s responsible?”
Amalius said, “Let’s put it to a vote then. I say he’s in.”
Aldarian said, “We’re getting help from worse places. I vote yes.”
Torin said, “Initially I was thinking the same thing as you Hektor, but I agree with the others. We need all the help we can get to defeat Xoria.”
“Fine. I just hope we don’t regret it.”
Amalius said, “Alright! Eathirilu, our current mission is to find an artifact kept at the Lich Shade in the Shacklack Desert. We think this artifact will give us the power we need to turn the tide of the war.”
“Lets go get it then.”

A Giant’s Freedom

The party spent a few days resting before teleporting off to the Lich Shade once again. Someone had the idea to cast find the path to find the lich’s treasury. That way they could be sure they were headed in the right direction. They teleported past the big zombie beasts again and thumbed their noses at the will-o’-wisps. Prior to the ghost’s room everyone got death ward cast on them. None of the ghost’s abilities pierced the death ward. It tried attacking each of the party members in turn, but too late it realized it could harm none of them. The onslaught of magical damage coming from the party eventually killed the ghost.

Aldarian swept all the silver in the room into the two portable holes the party had and they continued. Then next door opened onto a spiral staircase going down. They followed the staircase down for two hundred feet and reached a new level. A short corridor went out from the stairs to a large dark triangular room with columns supporting the twenty foot ceiling. Find the path indicated the ceiling past the second row of columns as the way to reach the Lich’s treasury. Eathirilu cast true seeing and saw a large black and purple blob with black, purple, and red tendrils coming off of it hiding in the darkness. He informed the rest of the party and the blob charged.

During the crazy fight the group quickly realized that the beast had some power over time. They’d deal it a big hit of damage past its magic resistance, but then find time reversed and the damage healed. It used this ability numerous times throughout the fight. The beasty spent most of the fight trying to grab onto people with its tendrils and suck the life out of them. Eathirilu turned into a big dinosaur and kept the beasty away from most of the rest of the party. Eventually all the blasting spells wore the ooze down. During the battle a ghostly hand went around touching people inappropriately and making them shiver. Torin recognized the hand as a ghostly ghoul hand that would paralyze someone if they possessed a weak consitution.

After slaying the blob beasty it dissolved into a black goo on the floor. The party was very low on spells, but decided to explore the room before leaving to rest up. Eathirilu detected another undead still lurking behind a column. He summoned some T-Rexes and attacked the undead devourer. Devourers are undead that trap a body and soul inside of them and feed on that soul to cast spells like ghostly ghoul hands. Eathirilu ripped the devourer apart and the soul freed from within was a sand giant named Barakah. He plopped out on the floor of Lich Shade, finally freed from his imprisonment.

Hektor claimed responsibility for freeing Barakah, so the giant swore fealty to Hektor and the Aractrashan cause. They talked with the giant a bit and learned that he had come in here over two hundred years ago with a few of his friends to clear out the Lich Shade. Unfortunately they had gotten their souls trapped. Hektor offered to help Barakah find what had become of his sand giant people. Barakah agreed.

The party left the tomb to heal up and recover spells. Barakah and Hektor toured a few of the old haunts of the sand giants, but found no evidence of their existence. The giant feared his attack on the Lich Shade had angered the Bane, indirectly causing his people to be wiped from existence. Barakah asked Hektor for two months leave to find what become of his people. Hektor accepted and they arranged to meet after two months.

Don’t Look

The party journeyed into the tomb the next day and went up the secret door in the ceiling. It led to a diamond shaped room guarded by a skeleton dragon and a zombie dragon. The party blasted the two dragons and managed to kill them before the dragons counterattacked.

They walked through the next hallway, with find the path directing them around a few traps. The spell also told them not to look at the opposite wall in the next room. Amalius cheated a little bit and had his psicrystal peek at the wall. On it was a red symbol that looked awfully like a symbol of pain. The psicrystal also saw a large carving of a skeleton on the left wall and a corridor leading out of the room at the back right corner.

The party deliberately looked down at their feet and walked into the room. The party heard some stone grinding to their left and Amalius glanced up to look at it. He saw the skeleton carving pulling itself out of the wall, but Amalius also accidentally glanced at the symbol and doubled over in pain. He quickly cast false sensory input to turn his pain into pleasure, but found himself just as incapacitated by that. Torin cast a wall of stone to block the symbol. By then the stone skeleton had pulled itself out of the wall. Eathirilu went toe to toe with the skeleton in his dinosaur form. The two of them slugged at each other for a minute or two. The party correctly identified the skeleton as a stone golem that no spells would harm. The golem would’ve defeated Eathirilu, but Torin healed him up whenever he got low. With a battle of attrition the dinosaur defeated the statue.

Find the path warned of more traps in the next hallway and another thing that shouldn’t be looked at on the opposite wall in the next room. Psicrystal looked around again and saw a fountain in the middle of the room and a black symbol of death on the opposite wall. Torin walled the symbol off again and the party investigated the fountain. Experimentation with summoned monsters revealed that the fountain turned summoned monkeys into geese if they drank the water, but not if they touched it. The party filled three waterskins and two wine bottles with the magic liquid. Hektor made sure the water still detected as magic when out of the fountain and the party laughed at their good fortune.