May 17, 2009 - The Stormhammers slay Tarkilar, find the last 3 wands, and save Cauldron from flooding.
While Huron, Vico and Brigs were retrieving wand #4 in Session 15 - Orcs Outside, Snake Eyes decides to head back up to town and hand over the first four wands so they can start reducing the flood waters. He decides to give the wands to Kristof of the Church of Pelor, since Snake Eyes is a member of that church. Kristof thanks him and rushes off to the mayor's office, and soon he and members of the Church of Bahamut are down by the lake performing the ritual that will lower the flood waters. Snake Eyes notices with alarm that the water is raising almost to the level of his new house. He heads back down to meet up with the others.
Vico, Brigs and Huron meet up with Snake Eyes (and Yggdrasil, who is AFK again.) and they look at their options. They decide to check out a small series of doors facing the lake, since they appear to be small rooms. They find a large barracks with a bunch of empty beds, ironically after spending yet another night in the first barracks, which Bonesaw burned to ash and cinders long ago. They next investigate a jail, though there is no one inside. While searching, Brigs is the only one to notice (because of his height) that scratched on the underside of one of the cell beds is a rough message. They lift the bed off the floor and spend a few minutes trying to decipher what the message could mean, but aren't able to figure it out. They write the message down and stick it in the bag of holding and continue onwards.
They open a set of double doors to find a large open chamber with three statues on each side of the room and a table on the far end. A cloth bag is on the table, as well as a wooden lockbox with what looks like a wooden wand haft sticking out of it. The statues all seem to be solid stone and carved with weapons and shields. The party spends a few moments in the doorway, suspicious of the room. Huron goes to move in and spots some discoloration on the floor leading up to the table.
Shaun: So that means either those squares are trapped...or every other square is trapped and those are the only safe ones.
After a few minutes hesitation, they eventually enter and Huron goes up to the table, making sure not to walk on the suspicious squares. As he steps up to the table, a pressure plate sinks under his feet and the discolored floor area falls into the floor on hinges, but no one was standing on them. They hear stones fall down and land with a plop into liquid of some kind. Vico lights a torch and drops it down, it falls about 20 feet and then sizzles into the liquid. Meanwhile, Huron sticks the wand into his pack for safekeeping.
Snake Eyes decides he's had enough of this room and leaves. To his surprise he moves into the hallway and walks into some transparent, acidic gel/slime that is filling the hallway. The others turn and see him suspending in mid-air, writhing around. Brigs makes a dungeoneering check and realizes it must be a gelatinous cube, a slime monster that is nearly invisible and tries to engulf and consume living creatures. They back into the room just as the chestplates of two of the statues slide open and automated crossbow turrets start firing at them. Huron and Vico start hacking apart the crossbow turrets while Brigs blasts the cube.
The cube lumbers forward into the room and falls with a plop into the pit, which has a large pool of acid at the bottom. Snake Eyes starts getting burned by the digestive acids of the cube, but activates his cape of the mountebank and teleports to the edge of the pit. He and Brigs watch as the cube slowly dissipates into the acid pit. Vico smashes one of the turrets to bits. Huron charges at the other one but critically fails, falling prone and dropping his weapon. Brigs tips over the table to use as cover, but then rolls a natural 1 and his magic explodes around him, pushing Huron along the floor and the table into the pit. They finish off the last turret without any other difficulty.
Snake Eyes: (at the cube) Your mother was so fat it took up 5 dimensions!
Snake Eyes goes to run out of the room and runs into the cube AGAIN (it had sunk down into essentially a pipe in the acid pit and reflowed up to its perch location in the hall, and dropped down again.). It moves into the room and lashes out at Brigs, who had approached to get ready to run past when it fell again - however it misses. Snake Eyes rips himself out of the cube, noticing a glass case floating inside the cube with a flute inside it. Huron notices a winch tucked in the corner of the room and uses it, which raises the trapped floor panels and locks them in place. The cube meanders into the room and attacks Vico, who blocks it with his magic aura. Huron then steps over to the activation panels and triggers the floor trap, sending the cube plummeting into the pit once again. Huron pulls the floor trap shut again, and Snake Eyes flees to the barracks, noticing that the open floor hatch in the hallway also shuts when the trapped floor does. After quick meeting, they decide to get the flute. Vico & Huron position themselves by the door, and Brigs and Snake Eyes stand at the back and step on the trigger plates. (Snake Eyes does a flip onto it.) The cube drops down and they all attack and wound it, except for Brigs who rolls another natural 1 and pushes Snake Eyes away and flattens Huron & Vico into the wall. The Cube slides in and attacks them, but is quickly destroyed. They retrieve the flute from the gooey remains and Snake Eyes takes it.
They head past the kitchen and enter a hall that splits in two directions. They head left, and find a small room full of various treasure and valuables. They throw it all in the bag of holding. In the middle of the room is a set of rusty, decrepit armor. When they step near a voice says in dwarven (insert riddle). Snake Eyes quickly and easily answers "honor" and the rusty armor transforms into a set of thick, rune-etched full plate armor. They put it in the bag for Lover.
Across the hall is a locked set of double doors. Snake Eyes opens it, inside is a small space enclosed by thick heavy curtains. Brigs decides to peek underneath one of the curtains. He sees a large hall with a number of pillars, and each pillar has large mirrors hanging on each side. He catches a glimpse of his reflection in the nearest mirror and vanishes! The party is shocked but figure it's just Brigs using kind of invisibility magic. Brigs meanwhile finds himself in a dusty, dark hallway. It's very tomb-like and stale, and after some quick exploration he discovers that the small hall has no visible exits. He finds a corpse of a mage with a wand stuck in the tattered remains of his clothing, and takes the wand.
The others move into the room, and Huron sees himself in the same mirror that Brigs looked at. Huron vanishes from the mirror room and ends up in the stale chamber, and Brigs finds himself back in the main room. The Stormhammers start figuring out that the various mirrors attack anyone who steps near them, either by teleporting them around the room, switching them with whoever is in the limbo room, or by physically draining their energy. They also soon hear the crazed growling of something, which turns out to be a rabid, gaunt and starving gnoll that had been trapped in the limbo room and released when Brigs switched places with it. Snake Eyes distracts the gnoll by throwing it the head of Triel, and the gnoll savagely starts ripping and eating the skin and flesh of the decapitated head. Huron and Vico smash a few mirrors by charging and using small burst attacks respectively. Both close their eyes to avoid looking at the mirrors.
Snake Eyes finds himself teleported across the hall by another set of heavy curtains, so he quickly ducks through to avoid looking at the mirrors. Waiting for him on the other side are two boneshard skeletons, guarding a strange altar - a statue of an aquatic humanoid pressing its fists up against a mirror. The two skeletons immediately step forward and attack Snake Eyes, who counters by using a power that slides one out through the curtains next to an intact mirror (though unfortunately the mirrors do not attack the skeletons.)
Brigs and Vico set to work on the skeleton, having smashed all the nearby mirrors. Huron is stuck in the limbo room for a turn or two, before Snake Eyes notices that one of the monster's fists is missing in real life, but not in the reflection. In the mirror, the monster's reflection is pressing its palm face up against the surface of the glass. Snake Eyes hops up on the altar and presses his hand against the reflection's, and Huron is teleported back into the room. He runs up and they quickly finish off the skeletons.
Through the curtains, a side door leads into a sizable room which looks like it has been ransacked. Countless books and papers litter the floor, and an idol of Bane sits in a bowl of water on a small table. The Stormhammers search the books and papers and find various notes describing a massive, evil ritual. The cult plans on flooding Cauldron by stealing the wands and the decanter of endless water, and killing thousands of innocent people, and using the innocent deaths as an offering. They peruse the notes for further details but are unable to find anything else relating to the ritual or flood waters.
Proceeding, they find a set of stairs leading deeper into the earth. The smell of fetid water and death immediately wafts up from the stairs. Upon descending, the Stormhammers find a human cleric in black robes standing on a platform in the center of the room, which is large and circular and sloping towards the center. The decanter of endless water sits on the platform, steadily pouring water out into the growing pool. Around the pool of water are various symbols and words in a large circle - the party recognizes some of the symbols as representing landmarks in Cauldron, such as the town hall and the various churches. The man (Tarkilar) shouts at the party that they will not stop him from freeing his dark lord, before raising his hands and raising about seven zombies from the rotten water. The Stormhammers don't attack right away, and Tarkilar takes the initiative by sending the zombies and two stronger, aquatic zombies to attack. He also summons a field of bones on the stairs where the party is standing, harming and hindering them. Fortunately for the party, Brigs botches his next spell and pushes the party away from the affected area.
Huron & Vico leap to the attack, Huron using daring charge to provoke a few attacks and dish out a heavy attack. Tarkilar responds with a nova plague spell that damages both meleer's. He then sacrifices one of his undead minions to heal a large chunk of hit points. Huron & Vico also discover that Tarkilar has an undead-buffing aura that makes anyone standing near him to take extra damage from undead attacks. Meanwhile, Brigs fires off some spells but is assaulted by one of the water zombies, who grabs Brigs and starts biting and mauling him. Snake Eyes blasts Tarkilar with a buff power that heals an ally anytime they damage Tarkilar. Tarkilar seems to have unholy luck, as something like 6 of the party's 8 daily powers miss him. Huron takes a crit from Tarkilar's morningstar and extra damage from some spiked bracers he activates. He falls below zero hit points, but his Silver Phoenix rage lets him heal immediately and stay up. Soon Huron & Vico are both bloodied and taking ongoing necrotic damage, before Snake Eyes dominates Tarkilar, preventing him from healing again or attacking - Snake Eyes makes him attack himself (he misses) and then move, provoking attacks from both Huron & Vico, and then finally throw his morningstar away before falling down face first in the water. This is the end for Tarkilar, and they finish him off the next round, bringing him (by chance) exactly to zero hit points. Snake Eyes grabs the decanter but combat doesn't end, because as soon as Tarkilar falls unconscious, the zombies fall apart, but from an alcove in the corner of the room a giant T-Rex skeleton comes lumbering out and attacks!
It rushes up to Snake Eyes and bites at him, seizing him in its jaws. Vico grabs Tarkilar's unconscious body and takes off towards the stairs. Brigs and Huron start attacking the skeleton, but soon change their tactics - Huron climbs up onto the skeleton's back and starts hacking away, while Brigs uses a lightning-jump power to blast up onto its back. Meanwhile in its mouth, Snake Eyes manages to heal himself and escape, but is bitten again. The next round the skeleton tries to chomp down on him but Snake Eyes manages to keep the jaws part (endure! endure!). He then slithers out of the jaws again. Vico (with Tarkilar) reaches the stairs and dodges the T-Rex as it lunges forward and tries to bite him. He grabs Tarkilar and slashes his throat open before messily impaling the cleric through the chest. The T-Rex bites again before shuddering and falling limp, head stuck in the doorway, body sprawled over the stairs. The Stormhammers grab Tarkilar's bracers before posing with the skeleton, and also retrieve the 6th and 7th wands of control water from the corpse.
They stagger back to town and hand over the last three wands to Kristof, who joins the other clerics from the Church of Bahamut. They work for another 5 hours before finally managing to reduce the lake waters to safe levels. While watching the clerics do their work, the Stormhammers are approached by Orak, who asks about his decanter. They give it back to him and he thanks them profusely, giving them a 400(? possibly 600? I forget) gp reward, as well as saying that any of them can stop by for free baths, fragrances, soaps - the works - whenever they want. The party goes back to the Tipped Tankard to sleep, planning to go speak with the mayor and Churches tomorrow to wrap things up and get their reward(s).
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