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Daglan: Part 2 - The Rod, the Crown, and the Anvil
Tarmare the 8th and 9th, year 12880
Theo spent the night studying and magically identifying the rod that Taren recovered from Daglan's tower (with her Wish). He found out that it can be used to travel to other planes and discovered the method for reaching the place where the Crown of Souls is hidden (not to mention the method for returning from that place). He also discovered that the rod has another use, but he will not be able to discover more of that usage for quite some time.
Two days passed, while Taren went to her charge to restore the stone giants thing and while Theo stored magical energies. Theo meditated in the temple of Arden, where he would be safe from Daglan and spend some time discussing the Runestone of healing project. The rest of us wore black rings to prevent Daglan from scrying on us.
Then we all went to retrieve the crown. Theo performed the complex sequence with the rod, and we found ourselves in a black place with a normal-seeming wooden door floating in the blackness, just as Taren had seen through the scrying glass. Like the blue place that Chance and Theo had gone into not long ago, movement in this place was totally subjective and was done by thinking. Since Taren was the only one who had actually seen the crown in this place, she was therefore the only one who could think herself there, and the rest of the party had to follow her. So the entire party was forced to poke along at the speed of Taren's intelligence.
Reaching the crown, they found it to be also just as Taren had seen in the scrying glass. It was floating in the blackness, surrounded by eight rings of light, each of which rotated around the crown to form a complex sphere-like pattern that was difficult to penetrate. One thing had changed, however, since Taren used the scrying glass to view the crown. There was now a doorway on the other side of the crown, which seemed to lead right into Daglan's tower, mist and all. Occasionally, it would make a thunderous noise which was very intimidating. This was apparently Daglan's solution to losing the rod.
Swinging a black anti-magic ring on the end of a string, Chance tried to use it to destroy the sphere, but instead, the black ring disappeared upon contact.
Studying the whirling colors, Theo was able to recognize the gyroscope of colors spinning around the Crown of Souls as a powerful version of a spell he had heard of - prismatic sphere, he called it. However, instead of each ring being a different color, each with a different effect (insanity, disintegration, transportation to another plane, etc.), each of these rotating rings contained all the colors and all the effects of each color.
We all tried to decipher the pattern of their spinning and, though Theo could come close, none of us could really understand it and no one wanted to risk the results of failure. After pondering for some time, a booming voice from out of the air said "I am here."
Chance spoke for some time with this invisible creature he had summoned. It insisted that it was unable to penetrate the whirling sphere. Then Chance remembered the strange rod that we had seen in the Iron City and what Theo had said about the a rod of cancellation being one of two things that could destroy a prismatic sphere. He commanded the being to find that rod and bring it to him.
We waited and waited for the creatures return. After about twelve hours had passed, Theo remembered how time had passed differently in that blue place where he and Chance had gone. We decided to go back and wait in Tel Akbar. We all grabbed hold of the rod and twisted it counterclockwise in the way that Theo had found out would take us back to where we came from. Theo had maintained a portal just in case we came out somewhere where we didn't want to be. We suddenly found ourselves very high above the earth and falling, though we didn't realize how quickly until Theo cast his portal and it went screaming past and quickly disappeared above us. Taren quickly turned the rod counterclockwise again. Suddenly we found ourselves much closer to the earth, only about twenty feet up and still falling.
After picking ourselves up, rubbing our aching and bruised bones, we looked around to find ourselves on an endless prairie. It was surprisingly warm and the same time of day as when we had left for the black place. Theodophilus immediately began meditating so that he would be able to take us to Tel Akbar.
We heard some strange bird calls in the distance. After about an hour and a half, Taren noticed a dust cloud in the distance. She was about interrupt the conversation to mention it, when everyone found out the cause. We were set upon by a group of strange black creatures made of teeth and claws. We had run into these creatures once before - on an island west of Hannah, but the only way we had been able to deal with their incredible quickness then was to lead them into the surf where they were slowed down. This time, the creatures attacked and downed Theo right away. After healing him, Taren cast a Wall of Fire around the party, which scared off (or killed) any of the creatures that were caught outside it and made dealing with the ones inside much easier.
Soon after Theo awoke, he was able to dimensionally fold us back to the cold winter of Tel Akbar. Entering the gates, the guards checked our permits and were busy checking the permits of the people coming in behind us, when a great booming voice came out of mid air in the middle of the street saying "I am here." It was the being Chance had sent to find the rod of cancellation. The rod appeared in the middle of the street and Chance quickly told the being to go away. Trying to be inconspicuous was impossible at this point, as the guards came down the street to find out what was going on. Chance and Theo were grilled for some time about having possibly just cast offensive magic inside Tel Akbar before being "rescued" by Roger Beckerhart, an old man who claimed to be a master of law, who helped them talk their way out of the predicament.
After Theo had time to rejuvenate his powers, we returned to the black place and the Crown of Souls. The Rod of Cancellation worked to destroy all but 3 of the rings, but then it disappeared. Chance carefully studied the remaining rings, then slipped between them to bring out the Crown of Souls. We immediately placed a black ring upon the crown, and put it inside the iron box that we had acquired last time the crown was in our possession.
We then went back to the ordinary looking door floating in the blackness and used it to enter Daglan's tower. We found ourselves in the key puzzle room with the floors of ice, however, the room was in its active lightning-charged state and we were quickly in pain. We quickly dove out of the room and flipped the lever to stop the lightning.
Continuing on our way toward the book (in which Taren had seen that a way could be found to destroy the Crown), we found that the hallway leading to the closed book filled with poison. Then, as we examined the book looking for a way to enter it, the ceiling began to heat and slowly melt into lava.
At this point, we made the mistake of letting Chance wear the crown, thinking that perhaps wearing the crown was the key to entering the book. He seemed to be thinking about how to open the book... It soon became clear that he was stalling. Taren tried to take the crown from his head, but failed. It took Sanjian knocking Chance out and the placement of a black ring upon the crown before it could be removed from Chance's head.
Then, with the ceiling melting into lava above us, Sanjian decided to take the chance and open the book. As he touched it, the black tendrils swept up his arms and into them up to the shoulder. He pried it open to the sound of screaming and anguished souls and as he looked into it, his body turned to ash and was sucked into the book.
We were not sure if Sanjian was alive, but we were sure that we wouldn't be if we stayed in that room, so we each followed the same procedure. Taren, carrying the Crown of Souls in her pack, took the time to cast Protection from evil on herself, so she and Bolas were the last to follow.
Each of us found ourselves in a different room with no apparent exit except to smash through the walls. Eventually, we were all together except for Taren. Taren had found herself in a room with gigantic statues of knights standing on either side of the room like pillars. The only door had a wall of lava behind it. In searching for another exit, she had found that one of the walls would come away and in searching for a mechanism to make it do so, she had found a system of pulleys. After bashing through the wall to reunite with Taren, we soon discovered that these pulleys operated certain bridges and mechanisms in the area that allowed us to make our way to the room that Taren had seen, where the Crown of Souls could be destroyed.
As we neared our destination, we heard explosions of rock, leading us to believe that Daglan could be close behind. Finally, we reached the room we were searching for. It contained a forge, an anvil, and various metal working tools - things with which only Bolas and Sanjian were familiar. After some thought and a little experimentation, Sanjian decided that the way to destroy the Crown was to reenact its creation, but backwards. So, with Taren crushing the gems after Sanjian extracted them, Theo casting dispel magic, Chance finding the missing gold from which it had been cut, and Sanjian pounding and unshaping, the Crown of Souls soon became a lump of metal. However, just before the process was finished, we were interrupted by Daglan.
Theo had cast Web into the room beyond, so as soon as Daglan dispelled it, we knew he was there. Then Theo used his spell storage ring to cast a Wall of iron in front of Daglan, buying us a little more time, in which Taren cast Protection from evil on Theo. Daglan quickly dispelled the wall as well and followed with an extraordinarily powerful magical missile which nearly knocked Sanjian over.
Seeing that Sanjian would be his main target and our key to destroying the Crown of Souls, Taren quickly went to him and let him use her ioune stone, setting it to float about him explaining to him that all he had to do was wish it to work and he could take absolutely no harm from an attack, but it would work only three times and then it would be worthless.
Bolas set to work lighting his lantern which summons a fire elemental. There was no telling when the fire elemental would emerge.
Chance threw a black ring at Daglan, which bounced off to the side. At nearly the same time, Theo cast a lightning bolt at Daglan and it seemed to actually damage him instead of bouncing off as most things do.
Chance then tried to use Bolas' hammer to blind Daglan.
Unbeknownst to the rest of the party, Sanjian was being accosted by a creature from his worst nightmares (a phantasmal killer). He ignored it to quickly finish his work and used two charges of the ioune stone to keep himself alive as the creature reached into his body and he felt his heart skip a beat.
Hordes of undead were beginning to group behind Daglan, so Taren threw up a Wall of fire behind him and then began stoneshaping the doorway closed so that he wouldn't be able to see into the room to cast more spells. It took longer than usual to finish casting the spell. Before she could seal off the doorway, Daglan cast a chain lightning spell which hit everyone in the room, knocking out Bolas and Chance and nearly killing the whole party.
Then the room was sealed off, the unshaping of the Crown of Souls was finished, and we were ready to leave. We had to leave the fire elemental lantern because it was too hot to handle and because Bolas was unconscious, so the emerging fire elemental would be uncontrollable.
At Taren's suggestion, we used the rod to travel back to the black space where the crown used to be kept. There we used the remaining rings of prismatic sphere to destroy the lump of gold that used to be the Crown of Souls. A final irony that Daglan's own trap should destroy the artifact made to house his soul.
Gambling that time moves differently in the black place (from our earlier experiences), we took the time to relax and have Theo heal us all. While Theo took time to rejuvenate, Taren prayed for Baeast to grant her a spell to help defeat Daglan and the rest of the party prepared as best they could for their next battle with the evil undead necromancer.
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