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Campaign Excerpt: Exploring at the Black Anvil Complex
Elena explored the part of the complex that she was in and was able to escape via a plane-shift spell. The rest of the party
returned to the great hall where the statues/devil battle had been. Recrossing the hallway required no special act to do. At the
other end they found a red hand print on the wall which, upon touching, transported the individual back to the "hub" room: the diamond
shaped chamber with the three portals.
They explored each of the portals there and found that all of them led to the same place. Elena contacted
the group and suggested that they meet up with her, outside the complex, and use a Gate spell to get to the place that she had been,
hoping that it would be closer to our goal. The group agreed and returned to the upper complex where the sacrificial alters were.
From there they used a shadow-walk spell to evade the devils outside and return, in time, to Bluewater.
Kith-Tal departed from the group and
later the party discovered that he was performing an atonement to heal the damage done to him by passing through the first
archway, his message said he would not rejoin the adventurers until a weeks (ten days) time had past.
Praedariot tried to remove the curse
of the salt from Al-Rathis, but was not able to. Elena acquired
a gate scroll from the college of wizardry in Bluewater, and Al-Rathis and Elena traveled to
Vainegal to see if perhaps he could remove the curse of the Salt.
They tried to do a sending to Sasha again, but it failed.
Vainegal said that the curse could not be undone without some kind of heavenly intervention since it
had been willingly accepted. Once again he offered to transport the party to a place closer to the Anvil Gate. The party deliberated.
Praedariot refused to deal with Vainegal, but they thought of an alternate solution. The party decided to take Vainegal up on his offer
and then have Elena scry and gate those not willing to accept Vainegal's help to where the party was.
They rejoined with the Daer-Koch priests and
paladins, sans Kith-Tal, and most of the group went to Vainegal's lair. On the bluff outside there waited a wight bearing a box.
They spoke to Vainegal through the wight and he who told them of the dangers that lay ahead. From the box each took a wafer and
placed it in their mouths, there was also a large scroll which Ayoi took.
Vainegal transported the party to the diamond "hub" chamber and Elena used the gate scroll to
bring the rest of the party there once she was contacted via a sending spell. Ayoi used the scroll to reconfigure one of the
rooms gates. Then, Elena and Al-Rathis traveled through it first, already aware of the danger on the other side.
Beyond was a room, forty feet square, with two adamantine
golems who grasped mighty adamantine levers. Should a lever become pulled then the room would be inundated with life draining
magic and a disintegration field. A single door exited the room, directly across from its portal entrance, stylized to look
like a bunch of comely, intertwined nagas.
Before the golems could pull their levers Al-Rathis ran over to one and attempted to burst it's
mechanism. With a truly epic heave he bent the ten-inch thick adamantine bar of the lever so that it could not be pulled. Elena
used her magic to put small resilient-sphere spells in the path of the other lever so it too could not be moved. The rest of the
party entered. The golems "spoke" a brief warning, attempted to pull their levers and then attacked with their powerful fists.
Most of the party could neither hit nor hurt the golems, so it was left to Al-Rathis and
Tellzan to dismantle them. The activity though stirred up
the thick dust that was on the floor and Bornaeon, cleric of Daer-Koch was infected with advanced mummy-rot. Praedariot was barely
able to save him in time.
With the golems made inert and a create water spell employed to reduce the dust in the room, the party was out of
immediate danger. The next task Vainegal described was that the door would pose a riddle; one of many hundreds, so Vainegal
could not simply provide an answer ahead of time. Having answered it the party would be given access to the private apartments
of Vainegal, wherein there is a portal to the Anvil Gate.
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