Session 25 – Cloudy With a Chance of Pain

The party successfully navigated to the Phalar ruins without running into any of the Lich Queen’s forces. Their luck ran out once they got there, however.

Near the entrance to the underground complex, they were stopped by two doom knights and a handful of skeletal warriors.

Tiv stepped forward and presented her holy symbol to turn the enemies. One of the skeletal warriors immediately fell to pieces, but the others seemed unfazed.

Jack stepped forward and blew his horn of blasting, after which Murchad charged forward to draw the attention of several enemies.  The other half their force attacked the party members staying the rear.  In the middle of the battle, one of the doom knights hit Dwårfy, and he immediately grew weak.

The party eventually dispatched all the enemies and chanced an hour’s rest on the surface to employ some healing while Dwårfy rested and recovered.

Delving into the ancient catacombs, the party immediately encountered a pack of ghouls. Tiv stepped forward and turned undead immediately, causing all the ghouls to disintegrate.

Vedica looked for traps on the one of the doors. There were none, but upon opening it, the party faced two ghouls and a wight. Combat immediately ensued. Tiv once again turned undead, causing the wight and one ghoul to disintegrate.  Vedica fired her bow at the remaining ghoul, and Ceangal unleashed a bolt from his sword of lightning, missing it, but with great panache. The rest of the party missed their attacks, and Tiv sent a sling stone flying, killing the ghoul.

The party found that the wight was carrying an elven shortsword +1. Vedica opted to take the sword, but when she picked it up, she could hear it speaking to her in her mind. Unfortunately, Vedica doesn’t speak Elfish, so the sword was passed to Ceangal, the only member of the party who does.

The sword, whose name is Gipt, expressed happiness at being once again in the hands of the living, but it wasn’t sure if being back in elven hands made things even better, if those hands were Drow. Ceangal explained to the sword his mission and some background, which seemed to comfort it a bit.

Heading down the corridor, Murchad stepped on a shifting plate that opened a pit trap. He tried to grab the ledge to keep himself from falling, but he failed to do so. It took a little while for his friends to fish him out of the bottom of the pit.

Continuing down the branching corridor, full of obsidian statues in niches, Murchad’s eyes were caught by a statue down a side-branch start to move. As he took a split second to register what he was seeing, he heard the statue behind him also start to move and take a swing at him. He was swift enough to duck out of the way, however.

The party engaged in combat with the two statues, although the tight space did not allow for all to easily access their targets. Still, before long, both statues were shattered, and the party continued on their way, with Vedica checking for traps as they slowly crept along the winding corridors. The intelligent sword told them that the obelisk would be roughly centrally located in the complex.

Murchad decided to preemptively hit a statue, in case it would come to life. It didn’t, but while the party was watching him do that, a statue they hadn’t noticed came around a corner and attacked the party from behind. The party managed to handily dispatch it, however.

While looking for traps in the next room, Vedica found a ladder back to the surface, some gold coins, and a cloak of elvenkind, which was given to Ceangal.

After another short battle with a statue, and an uncovered pit trap, the party stumbled upon a locked room with two ghouls and a wight. Tiv turned undead and disintegrated all the ghouls in one go. A dangerous lightning trap was discovered – and disarmed – by Vedica before the party found a scroll of protection from undead. 

Inside the octagonal chamber in the next room, the party saw a glowing, obsidian obelisk roughly three feet high. Near it was a lich, a lieutenant of the Lich Queen.  Jack blew his horn of blasting, and the rest of the party also attacked. On his first attack, the lich filled the room with cloudkill, catching everyone in the party except for Vedica. The party fought hard, and managed to kill him shortly before he was able to unleash a fireball.

While they waited an hour for the cloudkill to disperse, they barricaded themselves in the previous room to heal and rest up, and Tiv took the occasion to memorize the scroll (which disintegrated in her hands after it was successfully locked in her mind).  They debated whether to explore farther to collect more items and perhaps also liberate Gipt’s sibling sword, but in the end they opted to just take the obelisk and return the way they came so that they wouldn’t encounter any more statues, traps, or enemies.

They next need to press onward into the Swamp of Ineffable Gloom in order to sink the obelisk in the Lake of Tears.

From a distance, Vegvisir, who did not have such an easy time finding the ruins, watches the six adventurers hauling the obelisk out of the entrance. He takes some time to decide whether to approach the rest now and help them dispose of the obelisk or to follow them from a distance to determine whether or not it’s safe to approach…