Rook in the meantime has tired of having half of his vision disturbed by visions from some one else's perspective. He continues to get glimpses into someone else's life. A life within a palatial mansion, with hooded servants who bring him sacrifices. Rook tells the others he is ready to rip the eye out. Together they concoct a plan to immediately heal him after he removes the eye.
Eye Surgery
The others surround Rook as he begins to dig the eye out of its socket. As soon as he removes the eye it returns to the size of a grapefruit. Black with a deep orange glow within. Smallfang heals the damage Rook has done as best he can and then Hope steps in to help Rook regenerate the missing eye. Soon enough, Rook blinks and looks at the world through both of his own eyes.
After talking among themselves and the Sword Of Kas, they begin to realize that they are now heading towards opposing a god, or perhaps gods. Rook is determined to come to the aid of the Raven Queen. Rook creates the illusion of a shrine to both Bahamut and The Raven Queen, back to back. Both Rook and Smallfang kneel and pray to their respective gods, asking for advice and direction.
Praying To The Gods For Help
The statue of Bahamut comes to life, its stone head turning to gaze upon Smallfang. It speaks with a deep resonant voice and tells Smallfang that Vecna's plans must not be allowed to come to fruition. Vecna has already succeeded in relegating Falazure, Bahamut's brother, to the confines of his own demiplane. Lost in his own insanity from the enchanted eye Vecna tricked him into taking, Falazure will no longer oppose Vecna for control of the claim to be the god of death. Vecna now seeks to kill The Raven Queen. When she is dead no one but Vecna will control the souls of the dead. He can create a never ending army of undead to sweep over the known planes. Once he has accomplished this he will become an all powerful god. Subservient to no one.
Bahamut tells Smallfang that Vecna is even now gathering shards of a long ago defeated primordial, one of the few objects that can kill a deity. Perhaps it is not too late.
The others stop their deliberations on whether or not to take on the remnants of Venca and replace them back into their separate bags of holding. Making sure that no one person is holding all the remnants, lest they be more easily taken.
Approaching the dais, they, one by one, enter the portal at the bottom of the sarcophagus.
Into Elemental Chaos
On the other side of the portal they find themselves in a plane of swirling clouds of red and orange. The black cracked rock they stand on floats in this vast sea of starless sky, along with a multitude of rocky islands that litter the sky around them. As they walk towards an odd feature in the sky they finally approach close enough to make out a large ship floating in the air. It is moored down by 4 massive chains which are anchored within a stronghold which resides on a far off rocky land floating off in the swirling mists of this plane.Off to one side of the group, a great portion of the sky is dominated by a large spiraling vortex. The surrounding clouds, the color of fire and blood, twist and fall into the black of the center of the vortex. Judging by some of the rocks that slowly move around the elemental whirlpool, the elemental vortex must be enormous as well as far off.
They quietly approach the floating ship. It is made of dark wood and the swirly glow of some sort of energy emanates from multiple places on its deck above. Katya's Sword Of Kas grumbles from within its scabbard. He wishes to see what is going on. Katya reluctantly unsheathes the sword and tucks it beside her within her belt. The sword excitedly exclaims he is pleased to see they are on the Elemental Chaos and that, surely the swirling vortex off in the distance must be an entrance into the Abyss. The ship above is one of the few ways to navigate into the Abyss.
The Sword Of Kas, who refuses to answer by any nickname Katya attempts to give it, excitedly tries to convince Katya that their mission lies ahead, in the Abyss. For surely, that is where Vecna lies, unaware that his demise approaches closer and closer with each of the group's steps.
Aboard The Shevaithan
The group decides to board the ship and investigate. Rook flies straight up and moves cautiously near the railing. From there he drops a rope for some of the others. Hope casts fly on herself and Adrasteia. Katya and Smallfang climb up the rope. Once near the deck of the ship Rook and Adrasteia watch as they see two creatures, long limbed and bearing silvery armor, talking to each other. Rook casts comprehend language and he listens to the two creatures talk.The two githyanki speak of the crew of the ship growing tired of waiting. The cargo is stowed and ready for transport. If it wasn't for the captain's weakness for flesh, they would be on their way by now. One of the gith, wonders aloud why they cannot take over the ship if the captain is unworthy. The other gives an exasperated sigh as he explains, as if to an idiot, that only the captain bears the crystal. Until the captain returns they can do nothing except wait.
As the two creatures leave, Rook and Adrasteia climb on deck. Rook casts an illusion to turn them into the images of the creatures they have just witnessed. They now look like githyanki.
They move about and see that upon the ship sits a large tiered structure, similar to a fortess, that stands in the middle of the large deck. At the stern of ship lies three teleportation cirlces and a fourth lies in the middle of the ship. Only the middle stern circle glows with arcane energy. Aft of the middle circle lies an enormous crystal orb of roiling red energy. It is suspended in the air by a series of ropes which cradle the orb. The orb has two sibling identical orbs to the starboard and port of the ship, each in their own cradle of thick ropes.
Rook and Adrasteia, freeze as they hear voices approach from a large staircase which descends from the fortress in the middle of the ship. Rook feigns muteness by showing the gith officers an illusion of a severed tongue within his mouth. The gith laugh heartily and move along. The two adventurers quietly call up the others.
The Battle For The Shevaithan
22,600 XP
The group gathers on the main deck of the ship and they investigate and debate their next move.
The Sword Of Kas shouts to Katya to turn around. Katya turns just in time to parry a silver sword slicing towards her as she sees several githyanki begin to surround the party.
Hope uses a burst of hypnotic pattern which dazes and stops a large part of the attacking party. Many githyanki stand motionless and useless. But this doesn't stop the others. Many of the githyanki jump vast distances to position themselves as they attack descending out of the air. Some jump from the railings of the fortress in the middle of the ship to descend upon the group.
Katya is soon dropped unconscious from one to many sword hits but is soon revived by Smallfang.
As the adventurers begin to whittle the numbers down, one being held by an illusory stockade breaks loose and breaks for the teleportation circle at the stern. Just as the teleportation circle is activating Smallfang charges ahead and tackles the gith. Both Smallfang and the gith are teleported away from the ship as the others wait nervously.
Arriving At The Death Gate
Smallfang and the gith reappear on one of the rocky outcrops floating in this world. They stand at the courtyard to the stone fortress to which the ship is anchored. Striding from the massive front gate is a red skinned balor. The balor stands 20 foot tall with wings which span the same as his height. At his waist is a flaming whip. He laughs as he sees the lone dragonborn come to stand in front of the balor guardian.
Smallfang immediately activates the teleportation circle once more and he stands again on the deck of the ship in front of his companions.
"Uh....there's a balor down there."
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