Episode 21

This was a short adventure night.  Everyone hit level 9- so we had to spend some time letting the group level.  Then we also got started a little late.  While it was a short week I thought it would be a good chance to set some things up for the next week, where we would be able to go a little later.  I knew 1 member of the group was going to be gone so originally I had planned on doing a 1-off where they got to play the badguys- while it would have been fun I was concerned it might take more time than we had, but not enough for 2 sessions.  So I just fleshed out a few extra parts of the regular campaign and moved on.

Episode 21:

The party was left in Oberrons Grove with with Mal'Inia's heart in a Cold Iron box and the Anchor stone to close the dimensional rift.  After talking with Oberron (the black unicorn lord of the good dark fey) they decided to leave the Anchor Stone with him.  In the parties opinion it was not really there business whether the rift stayed open or not.  So the Duke and Oberron would have to hash that out between each other.  That seemed a little odd to me, if they leave the anchor stone with Oberron they are effectively saying it will stay open, because the Duke would have to go in and get it from the heart of Oberrons encampment... so while they did not "take a stance" they really only left 1 option on the table.

At this point they had to lean on Oberron's military forces 1 more time.  Mal'Inia's forces were gathered near the rift to stop the party from getting through to the other side with their mistresses heart in tow.  So the good dark fey would attack the evil ones while the party used Damones magic to get as close to the rift as possible.  This of course was all done with Sam's corpse still along for the ride.  They got in close and crossed a barrier near the rift that ended their invisibility.  What waited for them were 4 of Mal'Inias elite guards- buffed to the 9's since the party had triggered a silent alarm a few rounds earlier.

The elite guards were 2 8th level fighters and 2 Eldritch Knights.  Turns out an Eldritch Knight can be a massive bad ass.  They were universalists, so they had hand of the apprentice.  Which means they were flinging their long swords at 30 paces and slamming them with empowered magic missles as well.  They were a lot more effective than I thought  they would be, simply because it was so hard to engage them in melee, they could always scoot and blast with a +17 damage longsword toss.  Well the fight took a few rounds and the party left through the rift once they saw that the Dark Fey army saw them and were headed their way in a hurry.  The party went through the rift so fast that they forgot to loot the bad guys.  And they had some decent gear.

On the other side of the rift it was snowing, it turns out the what seemed like 9 days to the party in the Twilight Kingdom was closer to 3 months back in Proveria.  One they were on the other side of the rift Urz stabbed Mal'Inias heart with a Cold Iron dagger and a shockwave knocked them all to the ground.  Mal'Inia was now dead.

Heading down the path they met back with the Dukes military commander, Colonel Christoph, who thought the heroes were dead, since they had been gone so long.  Well word of the dukes recovery was spreading and the party was in a hurry to get back to Wisthaven so that they could ressurect Sam, before he had been dead too long.  Nabbing some of the supplies at the camp they headed south to Wisthaven, and spoke with their friend Bertrand, the High Priest of Tyr.  He agreed to resurrect Sam, for a nominal donation (16,000 for res and removing negative levels).  The party agreed and as Sam was waking from the sleep of ages he was handed a magic item and asked to identify it.

As the party spent time in the city they found out that there had been insurgencies cropping up while the war with the Dark Fey was being fought.  Specifically there was some trouble down at the sunlight keep.  Realizing bad things were a foot they pooled their gold and prepared to drop some enchantments on things in order to ease their burden in the fights to come.  Then they decided to see the Duke.

The ferry to the Dukes Island was closed for the day, so Sam cast fly on everyone and they jetted across the bay to go and meet with him.  After some small talk the Duke mentioned the King never provided him aid in the conflict with the Dark Fey, he then asked if Urz and his tribe would be willing to lend him aid if war with the King was coming.  Urz agreed- so long as he could get a few slaves out of the deal (he is a half-Orc).  Then Urz decided to get flung out of a catapult, but he was okay- only took 20d6 of damage.

The next day they went to go check on Ismana and see what she had been up to for the past several months.  It turns out she had been kidnapped by a man named Lord Pelegrin, the same name on a "magic vault" they had received from Ismana on their last mission for her.  There was a note in her room that said "If you want to see her again, come find me".  It also turns out that Ismana was constructing a deep water vessel from the materials the party had been collecting for her over the past several missions.

With that the night drew to a close, there was a lot to be done and a ton of loose ends that would eventually lead somewhere.... I hope.

Until Next Time!

-Ubercroz