October 25, 2009 - The party sneaks into the main temple and finds Zenith, who isn't alone, and doesn't go quietly.
Huron, Vico, "Edward", Yggdrasil, Briggs, Cram
Rested up from their battle with Dhorlot, the party gingerly leave the dragon's cave and creep up to the main walkway, which is a 20' wide ledge overlooking a deep abyss. It proceeds for a bit before sloping up a small crest, over which they can hear the ominous noise of hundreds of kuo-toa heartbeats, amongst praying and chanting in their strange language. They crawl up the crest and peek over and spot close to a thousand kuo-toas below them. The ledge turns into a widening long set of stairs leading down to the cavern floor. The platform also extends into a wide bridge high above the floor, which is supported by massive stone statues of Blibdoolpoolp, much like the one the party encountered earlier. Across the bridge, which is long (probably about 400 feet) is a massive ziggurat/temple carved from black stone, with a doorway onto the bridge.
The kuo-toas all seem busy chanting and praying, and don't notice the party up above, who discuss options (such as throwing a fireball down and seeing how many it kills). Their plans are stopped by the appearance of scruffy looking dwarf in rusted armor who appears on the other side of the bridge, walking out onto the stone ledge accompanied by four dark-robed figures. The dwarf looks down on the throng of kuo-toas beneath him and starts shouting gibberish, complete babble at the figures below, who roar and stamp their feet loudly. After a few minutes of this, the dwarf turns and walks back into the temple. A few moments later, the kuo-toas quiet and seem to enter a meditative trance
The party figures that this is their chance to sneak across the bridge. They assess their options, and Cram casts Tenser's Floating Disk so Vico and Brigs can simply ride on it and glide across silently. He also considers casting the Silence ritual, but discards that idea when he realizes how long it takes to cast. They are a little concerned about Yggdrasil, who has the lowest Stealth bonus at +4. However, there is no reason for concern, as Yggdrasil silently picks his way across and aces his rolls. Vico and Brigs also assist him from atop the disk, studying the bridge for loose stones and obstacles. They reach the door and hurry inside.
They enter a watery room, with large pools of dark water flanking a stone floor path. The path splits around an altar which extends over another pool of water, and a door leads farther into the temple across the room. Atop the altar is a humanoid shape, which is thrashing and writhing but seems to be strapped down and restrained. From their position, the party isn't able to make out any details about the figure. They shut the door, and Yggdrasil and Vico move up to the figure, Yggdrasil readying healing to try to help it. When they draw near, they see that the figure used to be human...but has been transformed into a monstrous figure with a mouth stretched into an insane grin over sharp fangs. Sensing them nearby, the figure strains against its bonds and snaps the leather straps and leaps up to attack.
Vico and Yggdrasil start attacking the creature, who counterattacks with a cacophany of insane whispers and babble, staggering them and dazing them. It then teleports off the central platform to the side. Vico and Yggdrasil try to shrug off the confusion, but are assaulted mentally by insane voices and gibberish coming from the air around them. Off the platform, the others aren't affected, and Brigs, Cram and Edward start throwing spells at the creature, while Huron advances towards him. However, their attack is interrupted when a horrifying THING drops from the ceiling and lands in front of them, a writhing, slithering blob of twitching eyes and gaping maws. To make matters worse, a huge lobster-creature rises out of the water next to them and starts clawing/pinching at them.
Suddenly, Yggdrasil recognizes something familiar about this setup. His mind goes back to when they found small idols sitting in bowls of water in both Triel and Tarkilar's rooms, and when they fought Tarkilar, who was filling a cavern with water while standing on a central island platform.
DM: (hands out section of previous session recap) Justin: This is cyclical!! Did you read this Mike? Mike: I don't care, I'm going to kill them!
The party soon realizes the hideous flesh blob (a gibbering beast) is constantly spewing forth maddening whispers and garble, which wears at their concentration and willpower, making it hard to focus and act normally while near it. Vico and Yggdrasil also learn that standing on the platform also subjects people to similar inner whispers, eroding their sanity, and the humanoid creature's mental attacks do the same thing. Vico falls victim to a number of these attacks, and loses control of himself temporarily and attacks Yggdrasil. They decide quickly to get off the platform after that. The entire party, though subjected to constant mental confusion and dazing, quickly regroups and dispatches the monsters, even after a second lobster beast rises out of the other water pool and attacks. At one point Edward is seized by one of the lobster-creature's pincers, but he activates his mountebank cloak and teleports to safety.
They focus fire on the gibbering beast and get rid of its dazing, difficult-terrain-causing aura, which makes the rest of the fight go much smoother. They finish off the other foes without any real trouble. Afterwards, Yggdrasil and Edward examine the altar, and deduce that in addition to having some evil connection to Tarkilar's attempted ritual, the kuo-toas would strap people down on the altar and force them to be subjected to the maddening whispers endlessly until they went insane. The two of them spent a minute consecrating the altar and ridding it of its evil energies, and then did rock paper scissors to see whose god they would dedicate the altar to. They compromised and dedicated it to both the Warforged God and Pelor.
Proceeding into the next room, they emerge onto a landing in a dark, damp chamber with hundreds of stone faces adorning the walls, the faces in hideous screams or grimaces, water trickling out of their mouths. On the ceiling are dozens of humanoid corpses with the tops of their heads removed, which are muttering (!) and twitching. Below them on the floor, slick with damp, fetid water, is a hideous throne made of patched together skin and scalps. Sitting on the throne is the tattered, disheveled dwarf they had seen earlier, holding a large hammer in one hand and a fist-sized glowing sphere in the other. Standing to his sides are the four dark-robed figures who were with the dwarf on the bridge. Next to the throne are tattered battle standards with dwarven symbols on them. The party recognizes the symbols as being the crest of the Splintershield clan, and that hanging them upside down is a grave insult. The dwarf slowly glances up at them and says in a raspy voice "Have you come to set me free?"
The four robed figures throw off their robes - one is another insane humanoid creature like in the previous room, another is a bloated, warped figure with a staff, and the remaining two are hunched over, almost spider-like, each with four arms clutching bone daggers. (Huron: BONE??) The Stormhammers (do they parley or leap to the attack? I don't remember).
Zenith quickly removes any doubt regarding his sanity - he's completely insane. He alternates between shouting odd, prophetic warnings at individual party members in a deep, raspy voice, and shouting battle commands in a typical dwarven accent/dialect at his companions, whom he seems to regard as friends, referring to the fat one as "Kalo", the wretched one as "Grue", and the dagger wielders as "Taves" and "___". As the fight escalates, the Stormhammers notice that on the tattered rags the creatures are wearing, there is the occasional symbol of Cauldron - they realize that these must be former soldiers or guards, captured and corrupted.
Briggs: (getting Zenith's attention) He's not Kalo...I'M KALO! Everyone Else: ...wow. Just wow.
The wretched creature and the fat bloated one both unleash ranged, mentally dazing attacks at various party members, and teleport around in and out of harm's way. Meanwhile, the four-armed dagger wielders start slashing and flanking whoever is nearby, sneak attacking anyone they have combat advantage against. The party spreads out to deal with all the threats, realizing too late what a lethal combination being dazed by the fat one is when paired with four sneak attack dagger stabs from the little ones. Edward is caught off guard and nearly killed by one vicious round of dagger attacks. He teleports to the balcony and retreats (slowly, as he is dazed) down the corridor to heal.
Zenith wanders about, attacking any Stormhammer within reach and spouting his crazed predictions. However, when the party kills one of his "friends" he cries out in vengeance and dashes over to exact revenge against the person who dealt the killing blow. Zenith's fat monster companion "Kalo" also unleashes an aoe blast of energy that throws out more dazed statuses on the party.
However, the battle swings largely in the Stormhammers' favor because of a power that Yggdrasil uses early in the fight, granting every Stormhammer (except Vico, who was out of range) a shield of divine energy which reduces the damage they take. This shield ends up preventing a shitload of damage as the fight continues. Edward also manages to distract Zenith by coming back into the room after shapechanging to look like Davked. Zenith spots him and is bewildered momentarily.
Once all of Zenith's companions have been slain, Zenith utters an oath of revenge and hurls the glowing sphere he's been holding to the floor, which shatters and forms into an otherworldly spirit of revenge, which immediately joins the attack. However, the Stormhammers aren't impressed and kill it almost instantly. They beat Zenith down until he's nearly collapsing, and knock him unconscious. Before he falls, he collapses to his knees and grins, and says in the raspy, non-dwarfish voice "Yesss....all is...proceding...as planned." He then topples over.
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