SnuggleBunny approaches the few members of the TrollSkull Champions Guild who were in the manor at the time, implores them to help him.
The land of his Fey home of Cendriane, has become corrupt. He was drawn home by his queen, The Lady Of Swans, to show him the corruption and seek help.
The group follows towards the small village of Abemore, the village previously visited and then corrupted by the Hag Sisters. In the forest nearby, there is a giant twisted tree in the middle of a swampy part of the forest.
It is defended by a couple of Orge Howdahs, with several darklings riding on top of the ogres. The darklings toss buckets of Shocker Lizards, down towards the group.
Also, the group decides to kill a Flail Snail just minding its own business.
Defeating these creatures they pass to the Fey through the twisted tree.
Once in the Feywild, they see the forest has turned dark and putrid. Following SnuggleBunny, they move through the forest but are hit multiple times by spikey nuts, poisonous spores, and Treants.
Ok it is fatal for SnuggleBunny 😓
It is nearly fatal for the others until a dryad intervenes and escorts them to the safety of her dryad home, which she shares with her brethren
Her name is Mother Stagg. She introduces them to Mother Skunk and Mother Mole as well.
They see the corpse of SnuggleBunny and ask if he is recently dead, as they can restore him to health....but before she can finish her sentance, Levius interrupts and says that SnuggleBunny is long dead. Loooong dead. Nothing that can be done
The three dryads are pleased that the group has arrived to overcome Banrion, an evil unicorn which has been sent here to corrupt the FeyWild.
Perhaps they can capture him and the Mothers can cure the unicorn, or at least they must try.
The group is given woven willow crowns which will allow them to pass safely through the forest. They will send along a satyr, Oliotor, to show them the way. As the Mothers cannot reach Banrion, as Banrion takes refuge across a chasm of running water, which they cannot cross.
The group accepts the willow crown from the dryads, Mother Stagg, Mother Skunk and Mother Mole. The crowns will allow them to traverse the forest safely as they can see the traps and be able to avoid them.
At the base of the ruined tower, the group finds an ancient altar surrounding an even more ancient very foreign and alien control console. The altar depicts an important humanoid figure standing near a vast machine with silver wires running through several other smaller humanoid figures, and finally towards the console. Hundreds of others surround the scene in either worship or surrender.
They find four odd gems which fit into the console's control panel. After rearranging the gems a few times they seemingly activate the panel. After a little nervous manipulation, they realize that they can manipulate time in the near vicinity. They travel back in time, the tower's toppling reversed, to what seems the construction effort of completing the tower, which surrounds the still seemingly ancient console.
After surprising a few workers they decide to return to their current time, to when the fallen tower can act as a bridge.
And then they spit gunk at her. Blinding her.
Ashissa is able to wash the bile off of her eyes and she continues to dart across the bridge until she reaches the other side, facing even more of these creatures.
Meanwhile, the others, Bones and Lockheed, decide to fly acroos, while taking out more than a few of the miremals.
Ashissa, is being swarmed by the miremals, until she is confronted by Banrion. The evil unicorn tells her that the group should withdraw back to the Sisters and tell them to leave these good fey alone.
Then he charges and impales her, dropping her unconscious. She falls, her crown falling off her head.
Before Lockheed is able to finish off Banrion, the group is able to deduce that what they are seeing is an illusion. The woven willow crowns from the dryads is the cause. While wearing the crowns, any good fey and good land are seen as corrupt and evil.
The dryad sisters are actually hags. The Clotfinger hags.
Lockheed is able to capture Olitor and finds that he is actually a snivelling redcap.
Banrion begs the group to help him rid the land of the evil hags but he can send them home if they wish.
Returning to to the Trollskull Manor, the group goes about their daily business of crafting and training.
Bones goes to various guilds, libraries and academies to research the odd crystal components that they had found the in the fallen tower in the Feywild.
But word gets out about his finds and the group is approached by a gnome, Anaxie Zephries.
He tells them that he believes the components the group has found belongs to an ancient powerful machine. It was rumored that Mad King Lum had such a machine which he carried at the front of his army and was unstoppable.
He is willing to pay handsomely for more components which he believes he has tracked down the whereabouts of.
The group is also approached by Sir Ursas, a famous paladin. He scoffs at Anaxie's academic efforts. He wishes the components for a more noble purpose: to defeat the archdevil, Zariel, who he was unable to defeat many years ago.
The group decides to think on it and eventually approach Anaxie. He shows them a device he calls Luk, which seems to run on similar magic(?) that the components are made of. He believes that with the aid of Luk they can travel in time and place in order to go to places that might have more components.
He has sent groups to The Tomb Of Horrors in hopes that they can return with more components, but alas none has returned. He thinks that the solution is to travel to when the Tomb of Horrors was being constructed. Thus they could retrieve the components before the tomb became fully active and deadly.
He is working on other possible locations in time and place, now that he thinks Luk can be repaired enough to perform such travel.
Bones is able to repair the mechanical construct enough that they can now travel in time and place. According to Luk they are able to travel only to times and places that are less susceptible to time disturbances. Thus they may get close to the time and place but not always exactly where and when they wish to arrive.
The group decides that Luk's capability would serve them better at the moment to return to the Feywild just after they have left in order to destroy the Hags which are corrupting the land.
There they encounter a land which has fallen further into decay and approach the hags in their own lair. They fight creepy plants that wish to hang them, mud golems and finally the hags themselves.
The hags reveal their real selves once they realize the group is overpowering their golems but once Talia kills the trapped sacrificial cleric trapped in their lair's tree, the hags no longer have the same resistance and begin to fear their defeat.
Once one of the hag sisters is defeated the others retreat. One of them picking up a fox, cradling it as they disappear into the woods.
The group returns again to Trollskull Manor.
Together the seek out knowledge on hags that can know more about hags before hunting them down. They wish to know what the fate awaits the young Jaina Ringer, the girl who was taken from her village on her 13th birthday. Perhaps she can be saved yet.
At the Mage's Guild, Master Theya finds them fascinating and tells them all he knows about Hags. They find that the hags, having now lost their 3rd, will not have enough power for a coven. The young Jaina will not be a full hag until she makes a sacrifice under the full moon, to the godess Cegilune, at the age of 16 years.
He tells them that they will have made magical totems to protect them. The tree they had encountered with the satyr trapped within was a Hallow Tree. The satyr trapped within was probably a cleric to another god trapped and kept alive as the tree grew through him and around him. It provided protection against certain types of harm. They will have also created nearby portals for escape.
If they've fled, they have either fled to another location which they have prepared, or if they have no more prepared lairs they will attempt to create a new one but this takes years.
Master Theya also provides knowledge about the horrific magical items they have discovered within the hag's lair. Some useful. Some disturbing.
Later, the gnome cartographer, Anaxie Zephries, finds the group and tells them he has found yet another possible location for the recovery of components to the Machine Of Mad Lum. It is quite possible that the flying castle of the ice giant, Blagothkus, was powered by such magic.
It is said that some crazy adventurers crashed the castle and killed Blagothkus centuries ago. Skyreach Castle has long since been excavated and picked over but if the group goes back to shortly after it crashed, perhaps they can find and retrieve the components.
After some deliberation between going South to Chult or North to the Spine of the World, the group decides north and prepares by buying the necessary equipment.
After Bones prepares Luk, the mechanical compainion, with the coordinates, each of the group places their hand on Luk and they are transported back in time and place. They arrive on a frozen and barren wasteland in perpetual dusk.
After travelling and finding Ashissa is definitely not built for the extreme cold of the north, they take refuge in their tent only to be disturbed in the middle of the night by a remorhaz, a giant ice worm. They kill it and use the intense heat of its body to warm the tent for Ashissa.
The next day they travel until they reach the cliffs of a massive glacier. After finding their way to the top, they find a small and decrepit cabin and a strange man inside whipping himself in worship to the god Auril. Many of his extremities blackened and rotted with frostbite.
He welcomes them and is going to perform a sacrifice to Auril by killing a young yeti, but the Lockheed kills him. They, after a bit of resistance from Talia, release the yeti, hoping it finds its way home.
Scouring the cabin they find a spellbook in worship to Aruil.
Leaving the cabin, perched near the edge of the glacier's plane, Lockheed is able to locate themselves on the map they found. The main feature he sees on the glacier is a vast structure which the group deduces is the giant's longhouse. But according to the map, the giant's crashed ice castle, Castle Skyreach, should be a couple of days march along the edge of the glacier.
After travelling for awhile, they notice what seems to be a white dragon flying near the only mountainous peak on the main glacier. Soon they can see other smaller creatures moving about near the mountain. Reaching a deep ice chasm, they see a long rope bridge. Ashissa crosses quickly while the others begin to fly across. They are blocked by several black robed figures wearing dragon masks. They demand that the group follow them but the group decides otherwise.
The fight quickly results in Paris plummeting unconscious to the bottom of the chasm. Lockheed and Ashissa begin to head down to rescue Paris while still fending off these Dragon Cultists. Reviving Paris at the bottom of the chasm, they look up to see the face of a white dragon demanding that they are to come to him, or face his wrath.
They leave along the base of the glacier, heading to the ice castle.
Arriving at night, they rest as best they can. Scouting ahead they run into a dwarf standing watch. Fobom, realizing he has failed at his post, implores to the group to just leave. There's nothing here for them. Besides this place is haunted. Several dwarves have gone missing and they catch glimpses of some sort of creature haunting the long nights around the castle.
Soon Fobom's captain, a stout dwarf named Reidmok, arrives and the group learns that he doesn't want to upset the precarious balance of power between the giants, dwarves, orcs and the dragon cultists. He tells them to go about their business and he and Fobom will claim they have never seen the group.
The group scours the outside of the castle eventually finding an entrance. They travel through the immense and broken castle eventually stopping in a large chamber with fallen walls and crumbling pillars.
Immediately they are attacked by what they eventually learn are dwarves turned to vampire spawn. After dispatching the vampire spawn they catch glimpses of an elven vampire, always in their periphery and quickly disappearing.
They then find their way into a large chamber with an ice wall covered in giant runes. (giant in that their both large and written in giant, sometimes called Joton). While the rest of the group either rests or investigates the runes, Ashissa takes watch down the hall which approaches this chamber. She sees the figure of the elven vampire slowly approach out of the darkness but Ashissa feels a comfortable calm as she knows the creature means no harm. In fact, she knows this creature to be simply misunderstood and is their friend.
The group notices something off about Ashissa and inquire. Once Ashissa tells them the creature following them is not a threat and perhaps a friend, the group looks at each other and simply groan, "Charmed".
After some further deliberation, Lockheed boldly approaches a rune and presses what he has translated to "Open".
The rumbling sound of the enormous slab of ice wall, retracting beside the group fills the chamber revealing a giant entombed in a casket of clear ice. She is adorned with finery that befits a queen. The spirit voice of Queen Escarlotta fills the groups minds. They are warned that she disagrees with her husband Blagothkus, in that he can unite the giants against the dragons by feigning to help the dragons in their goal to raise Tiamat. No good can come of this. She tells them that the giants wish to resurrect Castle Skyreach and use it towards this goal.
The group can help release her and destroy the castle by retrieving the unique magical controls which lie beyond her casket.
Finding their way past the Ice Giant's ice casket is no simple task. Bones wanders around the casket using his blow torch, only to calculate it will takes days to melt through the several tens of feet of compact ice walls.
The group moves around the casket looking for secret passages. The only thing of note is a square block of ice which seems to be broken in a regular pattern, but the pattern is jumbled. The group puzzles over this for way too long until eventually the projected image of Escarlotta's casket disappears revealing a vast vaulted chamber with ice pillars behind.
Relying on Lockheed's darkvision, he moves ahead of the party into the darkened chamber. At one end of the chamber he finds at the top of a large ice dais, with steps as tall as he is, lays the ice casket that they had seen the image of back in the previous room. The Ice Giant speaks to them asking them to release her and make it so that the other giants may not repair the ice castle. The Guardians protect the talismans that empower the ice castle.
Against a wall stand statues of giants wielding double bladed axes. The group cautiously approaches and carefully investigates. Bones and Talia discover thin silver wire embedded and coiled around the statue's base. Bones recognizes this as the same wire which accompanies the type of magic components he has been studying. Talia, a lover of anything shiny, decides she wants it. Pulling out a blade she attempts to cut it. A loud metallic ping sounds in the vast chamber but the wire is unharmed and still intact.
But the statues activate.
They easily stride towards the group and begin swinging. Talia is felled and as her body collapses, her soul, in the form of a silvery mist, is pulled out of her body and swirls around the giant as he continues to attack the rest. Both giant guardians emit an aura which pulls at the groups souls inflicting damage simply being near them. Talia is eventually revived and she retreats to a safe distance. She hides behind one of the bases of the guardians only to see an elven vampire smiling at her. She feels the pull of her mind trying to convince her that the vampire is her friend. Talia is able to resist the charm but she nods to the vampire and agrees to friendship, in a bid for self preservation.
Eventually, a hard fought battle results in the giant guardians falling, reverting to their statue form and shattering upon the floor. Glowing among the remains of their bodies are components similar to the ones Bones had previously retrieved.
The party desparately needs a rest so they setup their tent and rest. The are aware of the vampire lurking out in the darkness but their rest is disturbed by the rumbling sound of distant impacts, like the fist of god againts the top of the ice castle. Ice chunks fall from the ceiling in an ever increasing amount. The group immediately flees back the way they came. During their escape they see close behind them, the elven vampire. They pause only long enough the see a massive chunk of ice wall collapse between them and the vampire. Not entirely sure if the vampire was crushed in the collapse or not, they continue fleeing the collapsing castle.
Once they escape the collapsing castle, flying out into the open air, they see the cause of the damage. The white dragon they had previously seen sits atop the castle and is viciously attacking the castle trying to destroy it, perhaps to kill those inside.
Lockheed, his rage against a different white dragon, rises to a boil within and he flies straight at the dragon and pulls out the hag dust that was found earlier. He throws it at the eyes of the dragon and the dragon instantly and permanently goes blind. The dragon, in panic and rage, breaths out its cold breath but Lockheed realizes it is attacking randomly.
On the ground outside the fallen castle, are two giants who stand with a large group of assembled dwarves. But they make no move as they see Lockheed attacking....and winning against the dragon.
But the Cult of the Dragon members do not stand idle. They attack.
The battle consists of Talia and Ashissa dealing with the cultists while Lockheed attacking the dragon. (Bones, who pops in and out of the bag of holding on Lockheeds waist, takes pot shots at the cultists as well)
When the cultists are depleted and the white dragon falls dead upon the castle, the Giants give a loud shout of joy!
With the dragon defeated the two giants, who watched an took joy in the dragon's defeat, invite the group back to their Jarl's longhouse. He will want to talk with them. They travel across the frozen plain for the better part of the day.
When they finally arrive at the giant's village they enter the massive structure in the center of the village. The Jarl's longhouse. The two giants, Togos and Brumir, open the massive doors and usher the group inside. As they walk down the center all the carousing giants stop what they are doing and glare at the tiny intruders. The disdain they have for the little ones is palpable. At the far end of the longhouse sits Brunvild, the current jarl.
He demands that the group hand over any items they have taken from SkyReach and tell them how they got in. SkyReach Castle is the property of the giants.
Bones confidently approaches Brunvild, "Hey Brunvild. It's me. It's been awhile".
Bones, who had released the spirit of Escarlotts, the queen of castle SkyReach, has as a reward granted Bones a blessing. He can easily befriend and charm a giant of his choosing. Brunvild pauses and searches his mind.
"Um...hey! Um....I seem to have forgotten your name." Soon they are reminiscing about old times. Brunvild introduces the longhouse giants to Bones, "Bonesy". The others in the group are to be treated as guests. This doesn't go over too well. The rules of the longhouse are quite clear: any non-giants must prove themselves worthy in order to not soil the sanctified ground of the longhouse.
The group is given a choice:
- Retrieve the head of Gru-Nar Bloodhandle, the current tribal leader of the local orcs, as he could be starting to entertain the thoughts of rebellion.
OR
- wrestle the giant's current wrestling champion, Ulfgar.
The group debates as they are offered drink by some of the snickering giants. Spirit Mead immediately goes to the head of Lockheed. Paris decides to wrestle their champion.
Ulfgar steps out from behind several giants. He is several heads taller than the other giants. The other giants give a roar of excitement as they push Ulfgar forward.
The two face off and begin. Immediately Paris charges but Ulfgar simply pins Paris to the ground. The two trade blows over and over, all the while Paris remains pinned under the giant. This goes on for way to long as the giants begin to loose their excitement and finally lose interest.
Lockheed on the other hand, several Spirit Meads in, continues to yell his support, "Kick his ass!".
Finally, a blow from Paris lands and pushes Ulfgar back into several giants. The entire longhouse is silent until it erupts into shouts of joy and surprise. The group is happily accepted into the longhouse.
During talks over spirit mead, the group learns that the giants use the orcs against the dwarves to keep them in check and the giants are only temporarily aligned with the Cult of the Dragon, in hopes that it can unite all of giant kind. This was the dream of Blagothkus. With Blagothkus dead, few are inclined to follow that dream.
The next morning comes harshly to those that partook of too much spirit mead. Giant bodies are asleep wherever they fell. One by one the group wakes and they decide that they will rid the orc threat of rebellion for the giants. The giants are excited for their new additions to the longhouse to further show their greatness and send them out to battle with cheers and drunk well-wishes.
They again travel across the glacier plain, this time with Ulfgar, their newly befriended giant. He is a welcome addition of muscle, with unfortunately little addition of intellect, to the group. Paris creates a makeshift howdah on top of Ulfgar's shoulders.
When they arrive at the orc village some of the group begin to strategize, but Paris tells Ulfgar to attack. So much for strategy. The group attacks.
First the guards atop the walls fall and eventually the gates fall as well under the pummeling of Ulfgar. Once inside the group decimates any resistance, which is mainly in the form of an orc shaman protected by numerous orc warriors. Eventually they reach the tribal chief, Gru-Nar.
Once Gru-Nar is felled, Lockheed in a rage begins to kill the entire village, females and children included. The group witnessing this decides they are all in and soon the burning village is a bloodbath.
Leaving the village behind them, burning brightly in the northern darkness, they head back to the giant's village. Ulfgar pulls behind him, a sledge piled high with orc heads. Atop the pyramid of gore sits the head of Gru-Nar Bloodhandle.
Returning to the giant's village with their bounty of orc heads they open the doors to the massive longhouse. The cold snow wind blows in as they step inside pulling the sledge of horror behind them.
All of the giants stop what they are doing and focus on the multitude of orc heads. Then they all begin to talk and exclaim at once. What did they do? Why did they kill seemingly ALL of the orcs? Whose going to be keep the dwarves in line now? Stupid dwarves and their tiny mines and tunnels.
Some of the giants stop the group and demand an explaination. Why did they kill all of the orcs? They were never supposed to do that. The group responds saying they were tasked with retrieving the head of Gru-Nar and the giants also said the only good orc is a dead orc......so here are a bunch of good dead orcs.
Brunvild, steps in and pulls Bones, his long dear friend (Bones has him permanently charmed), and they discuss things. Finally, Brunvild agrees to pay the group for Gru-Nar's head, as per their agreement. He will do his bes to keep the other giants calm and figure things outs.
With that a smaller giant with a rough ledger approaches them and shows them to the treasure room. He scoops a small, to the giant, chest's worth of coins and hands it over. The group meanwhile listens to the other giants preoccupied with debate over their new and unfortunate situation.
The group has a little time machine which can roll back time. As they stand in the giants' treasure room they try to figure out what Luek-0 is a capable of. Bones finally figures that they should travel as a group back in time just a little. The posessions they have now, including their new treasure chest, will come with them.
They roll back time.
They find themselves, Ulfgar included, back outside the longhouse with the sledge of orc heads. Ulfgar is confused and seems nauseous. This time they decide to leave the sledge outside and just bring in the frozen head of Gru-Nar.
The cold snow wind blows in as they step inside.
The giants shout with excitement and joy at the sight of the head of the rebel leader Gru-Nar. The group is offered their promised treasure. They are again shown to the treasure room. This time they are offered a treasure...sacks worth of coins.
They roll back time.
They find themselves, Ulfgar included, back outside the longhouse with the sledge of orc heads. Ulfgar is confused and vomits profusely. This time they decide to leave the sledge outside and just bring in the frozen head of Gru-Nar.
The cold snow wind blows in as they step inside.
The giants shout with excitement and joy at the sight of the head of the rebel leader Gru-Nar. The group is offered their promised treasure. They are again shown to the treasure room but they ask if the giants have any gems at all. Gems travel better.
After receiving a treasure sacks worth of gems they decide to conserve time travel charges and they say their goodbyes to the giants. Taking the sledge with them they decide to travel north to the dwarven mines, in order to warn the dwarves of their impending danger.
Traveling across the frozen plain, during the early morning hours, they see two travelling giants off in the far distance. Bones decides to enchant one of the small baby orc heads. Handing the dead screaming baby orc head (?!?!) to Ulfgar, they tell Ulfgar to throw it as far as he can. Then they run.
Hidden by distance and the dim morning light they watch as the two giants approach where the screaming orb baby head has come to rest and they can only laugh to themselves imagining the looks on their faces.
At the drwarven mines they are unsuccesful in instigating the dwarves to battle the giants, even though they are told they will have the element of surprise and the giants will not have any orcs as a defense.
With that they all hold on to Luek-0 and they are all transported in place and time back to the Trollskull Manor in Waterdeep.
After everyone attends to their personal matters for a few days, they decide to head off to their next destination....The Tomb Of Horrors (Under Construction)
Returning home to the Trollskull Manor the group takes a few days to arrange their affairs, craft their wares and prepare for the next destination...
The Tomb Of Horrors.
Once the group talks with Anaxie Zephries, the gnome cartographer who has researched and tracked down some of the components to the Infernal Machine Of Mad Lum, Bones programs in when and where they are headed. With a 'bamph' they are in the hot and humid jungles of Chult.
They track their way through the thick jungle, with the aid of their new found giant friend Ulfgar, until they come to a large clearing where they see a large group of dwarves and umber hulks hauling massive black stones out of a small hill and arranging them on the top of the hill.
Approaching the hill they see three entrances. They approach the first and most accessible. Inside they find a nicely furnished office. Moghadam asks them if they are here for work and tells them that they are more than welcome to take their place inside and begin to work. The group tells him that first they must feed their giant.
Leaving the office, after Paris steals some papers off of the architect's desk, they move past a long tunnel entrance where workers are decorating the hallway's walls and they finally come to a smaller hallway where two dwarves are herding two umber hulks into their pen. Paris approaches them and tells them that they are to give up the umber hulks for Ulfgar's meal. The dwarves immediately command the umber hulks to defend themselves as the dwarves flee.
After injuring the umber hulks enough, Bones is able to push them off of the cliff to their death. The dwarves have evidently warned the other workers who tell the adventurers that they are simple workers here and will pose no threat to them. They return to their work looking both scared of the group and of what might happen if they stop working.
Moving down the long dark hallway they come to the end where there is a balor imprisoned against the wall. After some investigation and questioning of the balor they see that he is bound against the wall by the now familiar thin silver wire. Behind the balor is a carved face with a wide open mouth, which every so often breaths in and they can see the lifeforce from the balor being sucked inside the mouth.
The balor implores the group to release him and he will deliver whatever is in his power to the group. He tells them that all the vast treasure hidden in the temple can be theirs. He only asks that they leave the priest of Vecna, Phenex, to him so he may exact his revenge. The group bargains with the devil until he gives them his name. Mehnrat.
The group tells him they will consider his offer and then continue through a tunnel at the bottom of a pit trap under construction, passing a person coming back out with buckets of what might be blood-paint.
Moving through the various rooms of the temple, they encounter girallons, four-armed gorilla-like creatures that inspect any newcomers to see if they have wrist-band passes. Since they do not they attack, wielding the torches and tools they had held for the artisans working inside the temple.
The group eventually even tries to pass themselves off as single creature, as they have a single wrist-band but that only works for a few moments.
Eventually word gets around that the group is killing off the girallons. The workers tell the adventurers that they had been lured here with promises of extremely well-paid artisan work. Once there though, they find they cannot leave and have become slaves. They are working on a strategy to escape. They have been constructing a golem from a manual they had been able to keep secret from the cultists here, but as it is only a portion of the manual they cannot complete the creature to aid them to escape.
Moving through the hallway they find a small unfinished tunnel which leads them to the source of the ever increasingly loud chanting. They find themselves in a dark church with dozens of members chanting in unison. At the head of the church is an incubus, Phenex the priest of Vecna, who leads the chanting, like a conductor. The entire church is covered in symbols of Vecna.
As soon as the group enters the church, Phenex invites them to join in their worship. As he does, they feel an urge to join in. Ashissa and Lockheed join in the chant, somehow knowing the words and sounds. The others are attacked by armor wearing giralons. Phenex, in the meanwhile concentrates on holding the worshipers to their ceremony. They can see the members inside the church sweating and looking on the brink of collapse from exhaustion. In fact, one member does collapse under the stress and their body is immediately transformed into a rough pillar of black stone. This would then explain the several black stone pillars scattered throughout the church.
The party is able to finally revive the others from their evil chant while trying to fend off the girallons. They also find another ally within the church.
Pentival, a gold half-dragon, who had up to this time been enchanted to join the ceremony but now wants to complete his mission of killing Phenex and stopping the ceremony. He strides up to Phenex but the incubus is able to charm the half-dragon and turns him against the adventurers.
They eventually overcome the girallons and bring back Pentival to his sense but by then Phenex the evil priest steps into the ethereal plane to escape.
Lockheed's rage against all dragon creatures surfaces again and he attacks Pentival and since Pentival was near death for the past number of days, is easily killed.
Bones, looking at the map that Paris had stolen from Moghadam's office, he tells the group that the temple continues further. Looking at the blueprints he finds a secret passageway. This leads to more pit traps that may be incomplete but still have skeletons at their bottoms. The group flies past these and continues on.
They find an incredibly long and smooth passage. The walls, floors and ceiling are of a smooth marble like stone with almost no seems in between. They passage a large door and on the other side is a massive fiery pit. Once past the door though, the entire hallway tips forward. They all begin sliding down towards the fiery pit.
Ashissa is able to find purchase to hold on to while Lockheed slides towards and finally through the fiery portal and disappears. Bones is able to grab on to Leuk-0 as he slides and activates the mechanical companion's ability to roll back time a few minutes.
Lockheed, is spit out of the portal and they find themselves back on the other side of the door. Away from the portal.
Lockheed tells them that on the other side is the Abyss.
Using the stolen blueprints from the tomb's architect, Moghadam, they are able to find secret passages that leads them to a rough tunnel which opens up into a hidden chamber. Within the chamber are three treasure chests: one gold, one silver and one oak.
Lockheed directs his specter to look into the chests. After a bit of miming, they conclude that there is treasure within the chests, as well as a collection of bones. After strategizing on how best to open the chests they open all of them and step back. As the chests are opened, the bones within begin to pour out and assemble themselves into 3 different skeletal monstrosities. A huge skeleton warrior, a skeletal juggernaut and a skeletal swarm.
During the battle they hear shouting from the far end of the chamber. Lockheed again sends his specter out to investigate. The specter returns and mimes that he has found a prisoner shackled in a small room below the chamber. So during the battle, while Bones stands in the main room taking on the massive skeleton warrior, Ashissa takes on the skeletal swarm and Lockheed deals with the skeletal juggernaut, they occasionally hear from the prisoner that he would love it if they could not forget about him.
Lockheed is finally able to fell the juggernaut as it collapses in a scattering of bones in the tunnel he is in. They then begin to reassemble into skeletons which continue the attack.
When finally they are able to defeat the skeletons they rush to the treasure chests to divide the booty. All the while, a small voice is imploring them to please release him from his shackles. The group half heartedly reassures him that they have to deal with the treasure first.
When they finally tend to the prisoner, they discover a relatively young man who was an apprentice alchemist who had come here in hopes of earning money as an artisan in the construction. It was quickly discovered that he, during his experimentation with alchemy, had transformed his blood into a magical component. Ever since, he has been imprisoned and continually drained of his blood for use in the construction and decoration of the tomb.
After a bit of questioning they discover that this is, or more accurately will become, Nolzur, a famous alchemist. They debate the best way of not altering the timeline while trying to profit, in the future, off of aiding Nolzur.
Leaving they come across the imprisoned balor who at first asks their aid in releasing him. He gives promise after promise until he realizes they are not going to release him and in fact had let Phenex, the high priest to Vecna, escape. His pleas turn to threats and vile insults. Lockheed, in a rage, Eldritch blasts the demon again and again. The demon, who has had much of his lifeforce drained into the tomb, quickly succumbs and is sucked into the gaping maw of the stone face behind him.
They leave, collecting up their giant companion, Ulfgar, they travel to Waterdeep in the current timeline. They leave Nolzur with his promises of leaving a gift for them, awaiting them in the future. They also decide to visit their street on which will eventually reside the Trollskull Manor. They arrive to find the street in the midst of cleaning up what seems to be widespread destruction. They learn that not a tenday ago, trolls had broken into the city and this street took the brunt of the damage as it is where the trolls where faced and eventually defeated by several heroes. A small group of citizens of the street are collecting signatures for a petition to change the name of the street to Trollskull Alley.
After returning to their own time and the current Trollskull Manor, the group finds that Anaxie has discovered another possible lead on some components.
Apparently, years ago a gnome Arina Newton, had several books pulled from The Great Library. They all had to do with ancient and alien magical artifacts. She and her family were known to live in the hills east of the Mere Of Dead Men.
Even though they can go to the location without time travelling, they refuse to give Leuk-0 back to Anaxie. They gather in the Trollskull Manor main room and, with each laying a hand on Leuk-0, Bones sets them travelling.
They arrive in the rolling hills just East of the Mere of Deadmen. Flying up to get an aerial view of the land, Lockheed spots an old worn path in the grass leading them to a small metal door in the side of a hill.
The door is small and Ashissa and especially Lockheed have to squeeze through. Bones proudly strides through, boney head held high. On the other side is a corridor lined with what seem to be steel plates. At the end of the corridor is a larger door. In the middle of the steel door is a large round door handle, which Lockheed spins to open the door. There is a rush of air which blows past them as the door opens.
Inside are corridors and passages all lined with metal plates with almost imperceptible seems between. One of the corridors leads to a vast room with a massive gear turning in the middle.
Leuk-0 informs the group that sadly he seems to be cut off from the weave of time and space and is unble to use his functions within the walls of this complex.
As soon as they step into the room the central cog spits out several magic missles. This repeats over and over until they are finally able to each stand on a sigil on the rotating cog. Standing on all the sigils also opens up sliding doors which leads the way further into the complex.
Following another corridor they find a small room behind a locked hatch. Inside they find what would seem to be a shrine. Several old candles are melted to an altar. Amidst the candles are small toys, a wand of smiles, pictures of a gnome family and a clockwork doll.
It doesn't take Bones long at all to fix the aged clockwork doll. It awakens and asks if they would like to play with her. Lockheed wants nothing to do with the clearly evil doll. Bones though tinkers and experiments finding out what the doll knows and is able to do. Finally he asks it what it's name is. It tells them that its owner, a little girl, only referred to her as "Dolly".
In one corner of a corridor they find a larger glowing component. This is similar to previous components but it glows a mild blue color. Once Bones installs this into Leuk-0, Bones is able to use Leuk-0 to slow time for short bursts.
They continue to the next room which is an even large gear turning along their path. Above the gear clock hands swing around the center of the gear sweeping a large dangerous arc. Below the gear seems a several foot drop to a floor littered with refuse.
As the group navigates walking across the room with the moving gear they hear the sound of chittering insects. A half dozen giant bombadier beetles emerge from below the gear and crawl up the walls and the gear until the group is surrounded. They spit an fiery acid mixture which blinds Ashissa. Eventually they are all killed and the group moves on.
The next room has a lever in the middle of the small circular room. After expirmenting they find that the lever has a couple of positions which open and close a series of doors to other rooms that have similar levers. Each of these levers open and close others doors. Eventually they find the combination which leads them to a room containing small treasures as well as a key and a vertical tunnel which leads upwards to another level of the complex, but having to pass through the wirling blades of air circulation fams.
They decide to take a rest before moving on.
Moving on, Lockheed casts fly on the group while Bones uses the new component in Leuk-0 to slow time each time they approach the massive fan blades and they now can simply fly pass the slowly turning blades.
Now in the next level of the complex the first thing the group sees is a smaller cogged wheel in the middle of the floor. It is similar to the ones in the middle of some of the sealed doors. This one though glows an emerald green. Lockheed grabs it to turn it and immediately disappears.
Lockheed reappears alone in a small room with an identical cogged wheel in the middle of the room. Though now neither wheel glows. He moves out of the room and finds a long dead adventurers body in a small hallway as well as a lever. He turns the lever and hears a massive door open somewhere close.
Bones and Lockheed yell at eachother through the massive steel walls and find each other. They stare at each other across a massive cogged wheel inscribed with magical sigils.
Both hesitate to cross the massive gear not eager to find out what danger this one presents.
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