The World of Telvar

Next we traveled north of Trun and reached the hill where disaster had struck the Seapoint Lightning back in 2173. A quick review: the Seapoint Lightning formed after the Hafney Hill disaster. They intended to return to Hafney Hill, but misdirected and ended up at this demon-worshipping hill instead. They were attacked by a witch and weird demon things with swordlike arms. Lightning bolts rained down and annihilated much of the party, but they defeated the small force and escaped with some members alive.

It was day, and there were no storms on the horizon, so we had our stealthy Morgan and Albee check it out. There was a circle of stones but little else. We discovered from an overly hyperactive blue jay that there were lots of bad “possum” on the hill. Half-expecting demon possum, Albee woke one up in its tree and chatted with it, discovering that humans come when the moon is big.

The full moon was in ten days, so we decided to wait it out, camped in the bowl of the valley between Trun and the hill (though not directly in the path).

Balinor and Nakumanu were on watch when disaster struck. They both resisted some sort of spell effect and heard a weird noise. Nakumanu woke up Felix and Balinor began waking up Cassian.

Then a Fireball hit the party, blowing everyone up. Chiaro became “charro,” killed instantly by the flames. Nakumanu went down in severe trouble. Bogomel was left standing but unable to move due to flame wounds. Less trashed were Donald, Balinor, Felix, Morgan and Cassian. Kain was unaffected due to his protection, and Albee dropped from the nearby tree, unharmed.

Well, it woke everyone up.

Kain’s wolf Smoky smelled nothing, so we moved upwind (toward Trun, as it turned out). Morgan, Balinor, and several others moved to find our assailant. Suddenly, a huge humanoid appeared in front of us and demanded our surrender. It looked exactly like the “gaunt” from the ogre mage adventure (a gaunt is a near godlike being of evil).

When Balinor mumbled something, it said that it must finish us off and disappeared.

We retreated back to camp to protect the fallen, and spread out. That proved poor when the creature appeared behind Morgan and ran him through, killing him instantly. The creature then disappeared.

Balinor complained loudly and the creature appeared in front of Balinor. It demanded our surrender. Balinor began unhooking his hammers and crossbow and slowly placed them on the ground while Cassian healed Bogomel and Nakumanu.

The creature became impatient and told Balinor to undo his belt. At that moment, Albee yelled, “Tumble Balinor!” and through the wire ball at the creature.

Unfortunately, the ball went wild and dropped somewhere nearby. Balinor immediately attacked and hit with his magical hammer, inflicting what he thought was some small amount of damage to the creature.

Felix raced toward the creature and swung at it from behind, pasting it. Cassian had almost finished healing Nakumanu and Bogomel. Kain tried the Bracelet of Polymorph on the gaunt, but was unsuccessful.

The gaunt activated a hideous innate ability, rusting Balinor’s armor instantly and locking him in place. The “gaunt” was starting to sound really close to the demon Caxathoros that we barely killed in the Castle of Diamond.

Felix swung and missed, and suddenly a Flamestrike descended from the sky striking Balinor, Felix, and the creature. The thing was unaffected, Felix was scratched, but Balinor was completely trashed, sustaining a 6x flame wound (he was completely unable to move).

The creature turned to face the relatively uninjured Felix and swung his longsword, holding the fighter at bay. Donald dropped a Slow spell on him, amazingly successfully. The creature attempted to Dispel the effect, but failed. Things looked bad as no one could effectively fight the creature, when Albee saved the day.

The monk activated his token of heavy crossbow, and a Tugutan crossbow appeared that fired 6 +2 bolts instantly doing massive damage to the creature. The demon said that it would finish us later and turned into mist. Felix used Peacemaker’s abilities to track it and swung right through the mist with the +5 short sword. Kain tried to Dispel the mist, but was unable to locate it and the thing got away.

Then a Hold spell hit Felix, freezing him in place. Albee tore off after the “cleric” with the wolf Smoky. They quickly disappeared from sight.

Kain freed Felix with a Remove Paralysis while Cassian, Donald, and Bogomel went to help Albee. The monk had run through the forest and spotted an old crone moving with unnatural speed.

The crone turned and activated something and threw a Fireball at Albee and the wolf. Albee dodged it, and the wolf survived the explosion. Albee ran at her and tried to hit her, but found her to be incredibly difficult to hit despite a lack of armor. Smoky had better luck and attacked her successfully.

At that moment, a group of possum jumped at Smoky and took him down. Albee continued to avoid Command spells, three of them, from the crone. Finally, the fourth Command “Retreat!” worked, and Albee went zooming back toward the party. He passed the advancing trio and told them to “kill her!” They found the wolf lying bleeding on the ground, but no sign of the crone. Cassian dropped a Cure Serious to bring the wolf up to fighting health, and the trio retreated back to the party. At that moment the unknowing Kain set off to help them, leaving only Felix guarding the immobile Nakumanu, Balinor, and the two dead bodies.

Then twelve of the sword-arm demons showed up, advancing slowly on Felix. Felix was forced to guard Nakumanu, which proved unfortunate. The creatures swarmed over Felix, who messily killed one before going down under the heap. Nakumanu risked his life to draw out holy water to pour on the demons, but fell before he could complete the action.

Kain arrived as the creatures were killing Felix. He threw an Entangle and caught the creatures, but they were still killing Felix. Donald dropped a Web and caught all but one of the creatures, which was still try to finish off the barely conscious fighter.

Bogomel tried to free Nakumanu and Felix from the Web along with Cassian. Then a Hold spell caught Cassian, Kain, and Bogomel, freezing Bogomel in his tracks.

Donald Magic Missiled the creature, saving Felix.

Then additional disaster struck. Another Fireball hit the Web area, killing everything in it—the demons, Felix, and Nakumanu all perished.

Albee and the wolf charged after the crone again, hoping that she was somewhere upwind. Donald had an idea and grabbed the Horn of Valhalla off Nakumanu to bring it to the immobile Balinor to blow.

Suddenly Morgan woke up from death, the Jawbone used. Kain went to help him, pulling out his Cure scroll. Donald tied the Horn to Balinor’s neck and ran to help Albee.

Then a Wall of Fire appeared in front of the monk, who skittered to a stop and ran around it. Balinor began blowing the Horn.

Albee found the crone and attacked. The crone swung her staff and missed, but Albee was having similar trouble. The wolf hit again though.

The warriors from Valhalla appeared before Balinor. Unfortunately, Balinor was having severe difficulty getting the Horn out of his mouth.

Morgan was cured and rose along with Kain to go help the monk. Albee was still battling the witch. The wolf hit the witch again, but sensed the possum approaching again.

The possum dropped the wolf, freeing the witch to activate the item and Fireball Albee again.

Albee was finally hit by the fireball, but was still standing, and miraculously the wolf was still alive.

Balinor finally spat the Horn out of his mouth, and commanded the warriors to kill the crone. When they started running toward the Wall of Fire, Balinor yelled, “AROUND the firewall!” They changed direction.

The warriors passed Kain, Donald, and Morgan and reached the witch. Kain yelled a Command “Die!” at her, and, amazingly, she dropped. The warriors immediately swung and did tremendous damage to her with their two-handed swords.

Well, that was abrupt. Morgan dragged the body of the crone back to the main party and Balinor ordered the warriors to go. When they didn’t immediately leave, Balinor knew he was in trouble.

The warriors walked up to Balinor, and trashed him. He fell, and they went back through the portal.

Balinor did live, though he was incapacitated.

Four dead party members, though Morgan was still alive. Everyone except for Kain was completely trashed.

Albee went to a nearby farm to get a cart to put the bodies in. He met the farmer, and said, “Hey, we’re in trouble, I’m a member of the Nevronian Church…” Bad move. Someone tried to hit him with a shovel, but Albee turned around and dropped the farmer.

The man he was talking to pulled a crossbow, and tried to shoot him, but missed. Albee snapped his neck, killing him instantly. The third farmer hit Albee with a pitchfork, nearly dropping the monk. Albee then killed him with his spear.

The monk returned with cart, saying he had killed all SIX farmers. Hmm.

The party started staggering to Restenford. Cassian’s hawk delivered a message to Quentin in Restenford, who flew to help us. We put Felix in the Bag of Holding and gave him to Quentin, who aided us in transporting the dead people to Barnacus for Raising.

As Felix awoke in Barnacus, he saw the concerned Archbishop, and then, in the corner, our death wish morgue monk, shaking his head sadly, and wincing when Quentin reported that “the other two would arrive in a few days.” All three were successfully Raised and took no permanent damage. This was particularly amazing in the case of Chiaro, who had dropped below –30 after the SECOND Fireball.

In Restenford, Kain discovered to his dismay that the crone’s sole had inexplicably departed. This was explained by the Archbishop.

The crone was actually the high priestess of the demon-worshippers, and due to the lack of coherence among chaotic evil religions, the whole thing disintegrated. The Duke of Kroten (Benct), despite being a real loser, does hate the demon-worshippers as opponents to his control over his subjects, and will not oppose our actions. He has probably already gotten men up there and is doing what he needs to do.

Fortunately for the Defenders, the crone didn’t trust her men and kept her treasure on her. We found about 15,000 gp in jewelry and gems, and three magic items.

The crone had scrolls of Cure Light x2, Raise Dead, Sanctuary/Withdraw/Airwalk, and Blade Barrier. She also had a Ring of MARSUPIAL CONTROL, to go with the Ring of Toad Control, a staff+3, and a Belt of Fire Manipulation.

The Belt has about 20 charges, and uses 1 or 2 for its abilities, which include such gems as Fireball, Fire Wall, Burning Hands, etc. A truly nifty item. It is rechargeable, but only for prohibitive amounts of money (low thousands of gp for a charge).

XP ranged from 300 for Felix and Bogomel (1000 for the first time dead people) to about 2500 for Donald and Albee.

Donald trained to 7th level, gaining 4 hp to raise his total to 37. Nakumanu gained 4th level and 5 hp to stand at 30.

Gaining 7th level is extremely cool for Donald. He immediately learned Charm Monster (!) and Polymorph Self, though he completely blew Massmorph. Furthermore, he is expecting several 4th level spells from Wicker.

Then the extent of our disaster struck us. The Fireballs had hit about 90% of our equipment. We were extremely lucky as most of our containers survived, and all that was lost ultimately was 1 +1 arrow, two quality bows, and all of our potions were superheated (unknown whether they survived or not). We’ll talk to the alchemist to check that out.

Balinor’s plate+2 was saved, barely, by the armorer in Barnacus.

Amazingly, we ended up in the black, with about 6000 gp remaining. We also have the high priestess’ holy symbol, which has 3 cw of adamantite in it. We’re unsure of what to do with this.

We still have to pay salvage tax on our items. The scroll of Blade Barrier paid for our Raises. We then have to choose which of the other big scrolls to give up (I suspect we’ll try to keep the Raise Dead scroll). We also have to chose between the staff+3 and the Belt.

Until next time!

Joel/Balinor