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The Banewarrens, Part 3

Players/Characters Present:
John Sikking - Basil Amantes (Ftr7)
Bruce Barnett - Bonzimir Amantes (Rog4/Hlf3)
Barbara Muth - Nereida Amantes (Clr7) and Elida (KSK4)
Chris Wood - Felix Amantes (Psi7)
Peter Drake - Demetrios Amantes (Wiz4/Hum3)

Photos of the game can be found here: Banewarrens Photos

The Starborn started off our latest session by wondering if they should inform Flavia about the Pactlords of the Quann. Deciding they should, they sent her a note at the Ghostly Minstrel asking to meet with her. When no answer came back, they discussed trying to get a better system of communication, then returned to the Abandoned Manor House and the Banewarrens. 

At the entrance to the Warrens, Bonzimir discovered a jury-rigged alarm system (a trip wire and lots of balanced pots and cooking gear). He disarmed it and the party moved in as stealthily as they could, deciding to move directly toward where they had heard the sounds before. Although the party moved with some stealth, they did so with torches blazing, so the GQT had plenty of warning. Plus, the Starborn searched the corridor carefully, giving the enemy plenty of time to buff up.

The fight started with an illusion of the floor erupting behind the party, creating an earth elemental. The party moved to attack this threat (amazingly, no one hit it, so no one got to make saving throw). The elemental "missed" crushing Demetrios, and illusory stones flew around the room. Meanwhile, a second (minor) illusion of a gnoll warrior charged down the hall, making the Starborn feel that they were trapped. Nereida dispelled the elemental, thinking it was summoned. As spells flew and the goblins moved up to launch their missiles, only Bonzimir realized that the party was wasting its power on illusions. 

But then, the real attacks began. Roaring, Ios Halfhorn, a minotaur, charged out of the gloom, delivering a devastating horn-attack to Elida, nearly killing her. A flurry of attacks responded, the most devastating of which was Demetrios's fireball. 

(GM's Note: Demetrios is an evocation specialist and has the Astromancy feat from When the Sky Falls. With a successful Startide Flux check, he can cast one 9d6 fireball each day.)

Injury only made Ios more furious, and he launched a powerful series of hasted attacks on Basil, nearly killing him. Ios's ally, a lamia monk, ran into the room, dodging Attacks of Opportunity and attacking Nereida. Over the next two turns, he drained her of 11 points of Wisdom (and the ability to cast spells). He told her "No one will keep us from the Grail!"

Basil and Bonzimir managed to slay Ios while Demetrios's lightning bolt and Felix's Energy Ray badly injured the lamia. Seeing the minotaur down and his enemies closing in, the lamia fled. Almost, he got away, but swift action on the party's part brought him down in the carved tunnel to the north.

(GM's Note: When Nereida tried to dispel what she assumed to be a summoned earth elemental, I realized that I really didn't know whether a summoned creature could be dispelled. I suppose it must be, but luckily, the point was moot!) 

As the party licked its wounds and looted the slain, a weird aberration appeared behind Basil - a floating, toothy sphere with large horns and flailing tentacles. It nearly finished what Ios had started. Basil was paralyzed before he even knew the creature was there. Luckily for Basil, Nereida had had a few rounds to use her Wand of Cure Light Wounds on him. Knowing that Basil could not survive a second round of attacks, Demetrios responded by flooding the region with darkness and yelling for his brother to evade the thing. Out of spells, Nereida retreated north into the corridor. The monster exited the magical darkness, deciding to attack Bonzimir (it liked the mental "taste" of his thoughts). 

The monster (let us call it "The Thought Stalker") spoke to the Starborn, taunting and commenting on their sweet auras of fear. Spells, rapiers and psionics slammed into the Thought Stalker, but it rapidly healed. It only slightly harmed Bonzimir before Demetrios dropped a fireball on it. This injured it badly, so it immediately fled, swearing bloody revenge and disappearing. Demetrios judged that it had slipped into a nearby dimension, probably the ethereal or astral.

The Company of the Starborn retreated from the Banewarrens once again, having once again never gotten into any of the rooms south of the Great Machine. Carrying Basil on an improvised stretcher, they headed immediately for the Great Church, where they asked for help. Since they were on a mission for the Church and had long been faithful tithers, the Brother Healer agreed to restore Nereida for merely the cost of the material components. Basil, he declared, would recover on his own.

That afternoon, on their way back to their house, the Amantes saw an edition of the Daily News which featured their own role in the chaos of a few days before (the appearance of the avatar of Chaos), complete with a picture of Demetrios. The Amantes were uneasy with their growing notoreity. After resting and recovering spells, the Company set out the next morning to sell the items recovered from the GQT. In the market, they saw another copy of the Daily News with tales of the monster murdering people in the city and eating their brains. This began a discussion about whether they had a moral responsibility to track down the Thought Stalker and kill it.

Demetrios was of the opinion that in a vast city like Echoriath, there was no way they could track the creature, and if they did, they had no way to keep it from simply slipping off to the ethereal plane. Nereida steadfastly insisted that they did have responsiblity, having been charged by both the Church and the IP with stopping the release of Banes (the party correctly assumes that the Thought Stalker is one of Danar's banes). The discussion was left unfinished, but since they thought it likely that the monster might return to the Banewarrens, they went and spoke to Donna Mara at the Great Church, explaining the problem and their hope that they might kill the monster if only they could stop it from shifting planes.

On the way, they were stopped by Brother Fabitor, worried at their lack of progress (it'd been four days) in finding Kalerecent. The party rather gravely informed the Brother of their own efforts and two party deaths. Mollified, Fabitor urged them to do their best as quickly as possible.

Donna Mara, by now a trusted friend of the Company's, took them to see the Church's chief arcanist, Mirror Master Terestir Malacon. Malacon, a thoughtful, birdlike man, heard their story and provided them with a golden disk inscribed with a dimensional anchor spell. He summoned this out of a nearby mirror, causing Demetrios to drool with envy.

Returning next to the Banewarrens, the PC's investigated the rest of the Broken Seal area. They discovered the evacuated cells of the Thought Stalker and the Avatar of Chaos. The former had been kept in a block of eternal ice, while the latter had been strapped into a magical coffin of sorts. Both had apparently been released and ignored by the Pactlord team. The Pactlords had destroyed the seal on the Warded Doors which held in the creatures, thus releasing them.

They discovered a room with a large pit. Massive chains hung from the ceiling into the pit, as if to restrain some huge creature. Just then, a huge creature emerged from the pit. An enormous, green-skinned giant, easily twenty-five fee tall, began to climb up onto the ledge nearby. One look at an angry storm giant was enough that Bonzimir slammed the door shut and yelled for the entire party to run. Which they did, heading north without knowning where they were headed. As they reached the passage to the Great Machine, the door behind them flew open, revealing a female lamia, trying to flee away from the intruders. At her back, naturally, was the storm giant.

When both sides recovered from mutual shock, the lamia was shot with magical attacks. She fled into the pit, leaping out to grab one of the chains and ordering the giant to protect her. Felix skewered her with a psionic bolt and she fell to her death, just as the giant climbed up to the ledge. Once again Bonzimir used the only defense he could think of...he slammed the door shut.

Almost simultaneously, a howling wind filled the space beyond the door, which rattled and shook as if battered by a hurricane. Could this be the fury of the giant, unable to escape from its imprisonment? A few minutes later, the wind died down and the Starborn investigated. All they found was the corpse of the lamia in the pit. The storm giant was gone without a trace.

Next, they investigated one of the rooms off of the Great Machine room. To their horror and astonishment, it was guarded by a huge iron golem, which rushed forward and tried to kill Bonzimir. Its massive fist slammed into a wall just above the halfling's head, showering him with stone and mortar. Then, the ancient machine simply...collapsed. Nearly thirty centuries of disuse and lack of maintenance was more than its parts could withstand. As it collapsed, it released a wave of magical chaos which blinded Demetrios and made Nereida highly dexterous...for about 30 minutes.

The golem guarded a room with yet another Warded Door (this one intact). The Starborn decided not to break the seal to the door, but to leave it alone.

Next, they searched the northern rooms, discovering the murdered bodies of Kalerecent and Rsanir. Demetrios spent a lot of time analyzing the properties of the Great Machine and was able to determine (rolled a 20 on the Knowledge (Arcana) roll) that it was intended to seal the Banewarrens, but had never been finished. He also determined that it was missing some vital piece not present in any of the rooms they had seen.

And... that's where we left our heroes, mourning over the mangled bodies of Kalerecent and Rsanir, and unsure of how to proceed. 

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What is the missing piece of the Great Machine? Where is it?

Can the Great Church raise Kalerecent and Rsanir? Will they?

When and where will the Thought Stalker kill again?

Was the storm giant an illusion? Or was it one of Danar's banes, now escaped?

If the Pactlords had a Ring of Wishes to pass the Sealed Door, where is the Pactlord with the ring? 

How can the Starborn get past the Sealed Door?

Tune in next time! 

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