Session 55 - Heavy Metal

General Summary

29 Erastus (July), 4725   After the demise of Damaris Glimmerstone and the grim revelations he delivered, Brother Maercal arrived at the Egorian manor bearing magical supplies for the journey ahead. Scrolls of mass cure serious wounds, potions of healing, wands of lesser restoration and infernal healing, each item chosen with an eye toward what lay ahead. The party, aware that their path would soon lead to Cocytus, the frigid seventh layer of Hell, also pooled their gold for a wand of endure elements.   The old priest gave more than blessings. He provided maps and horses, guiding them toward their next contact: Wulfram the Mad, an arcane recluse said to dwell in a place known only as the Metalstorm, roughly 100 miles southeast near the ruined coast of Point Harrow. Yet even with mounts, the journey was uncertain. The roads were old, broken by farmland gone to seed, and threaded with overgrown paths no longer marked by stone or sign.   Fortunately, Cal had other means. With a murmured incantation, he summoned a conjured carriage pulled by illusory horses and helmed by an invisible coachman to ferry the party in comfort across the countryside.   The landscape grew stranger as they traveled. Shattered homesteads leaned like dying men, windows dark but recently disturbed. Fields of overgrown grain whispered even when the wind lay still. On their first night, sheltered within a protective dome, Oathgar kept watch while others slept. Just before midnight, a ship-sized silhouette appeared - black, silent, and gliding across the land. In its wake, grass withered in a perfect line one hundred feet wide, and a lingering scent of necrotic decay hung in the air.   On the second night, their sanctuary was tested again. Around the second hour, shadows coalesced into a false sky, and a terrible sound-wet, sliding, organic-seemed to rise from every side. The interior of the dome began to ripple, vision grew staticky and distorted, but the sensation ceased the instant Tike awoke. The night passed without further incident, but unease lingered.   By the third day, a low grinding hum greeted them long before the horizon changed. The sound deepened, becoming a shriek of tortured steel that pierced marrow and rattled the senses. When they finally crested a ridge, they saw it.   The Metalstorm dominates the horizon, a vast sphere of churning, razor-edged debris, hundreds of feet high, blotting out sky and sea alike. Shards of iron, steel, and glinting alloys tore through the air in a continuous, roaring cyclone. Some fragments flashed like dagger-sized flecks of sunlight. Others, hulking as shipwrecks, slammed together in grinding collisions that sent molten sparks raining down like artificial lightning.   Even the bravest of the horses reared and fled.   But Cal studied the monstrosity. He traced the arc of its spin and noted a pattern-a hollow core, dead calm within the storm. The outer shell of flying death, he estimated, was 750 feet thick. His spell, dimension door, reached just past that. Barely. It would take all his will, and a margin of error of only ten feet.   Without hesitation, he raised his whip.   The air cracked open with a rush of pressure, and a swirling black vortex, glimmering with hidden stars, formed in midair. The party exchanged glances, then stepped through.   For a breathless moment, silence.   Then, stone underfoot. Air. Stillness.   They were inside.   The eye of the Metalstorm was hollow, just as Cal had hoped. The air hummed with stray magic. Ahead, a sound like hooves echoed, not normal ones, but something stranger. From cave to cave thundered an endless stream of impossible horses: some crystalline, some ethereal, others flickering through multiple realities. Their colors shifted wildly, and many had the wrong number of legs. The creatures raced in a fixed loop, as if trapped by a broken spell.   Cal’s first attempt to alter the loop resulted in a trampling that left him bloody and groaning in the dust. But Tike and Oathgar, using magic-augmented boots, launched into the stampede with daring precision. Cal recovered, then reached out with fresh focus, warping the arcane loop just enough to part the stampede for safe passage.   At last, the storm broke above them.   From the inner edge of the sphere, the cliffs dropped into the sea. And from the water rose a column of glassy crystal. The spire climbed a thousand feet into the sky, impossibly smooth save for one detail: a solitary ledge with a jutting metal rod. At its summit, perched like a forgotten crown, was a mighty fortress made of polished iron.   Through Oathgar’s spyglass, the crystal seemed to move. A wide mouth slowly formed in the glass.   And grinned at them.

Rewards Granted

Shopping

• Tike Myson: Ioun stone (pink rhomboid)
• Cal: Runestone of Power (2nd Level)

Brother Maercal's Magic Supplies

• Potion of Cure Serious Wounds:(minimum caster level 5).
• Scroll of Mass Cure Serious Wounds: (minimum caster level 13; 7th-level cleric spell)
• Scroll of Restoration: (minimum caster level 7; 4th-level cleric spell)
• Scroll of Remove Curse: (minimum caster level 5; 3rd-level cleric spell)
• Wand of Lesser Restoration (10 charges)
• Wand of Infernal Healing (50 charges): (1st-level spell, minimum caster level 1)

XP

• Each character earned 5,066 XP for this session.
• Current total: 137,886/145,000 XP.

Notes

• Brother Maercal arrived with supplies and healing gear after Damaris Glimmerstone’s death.
• The party prepared for travel to Point Harrow, seeking Wulfram the Mad.
• Cal summoned a magical phantom carriage for faster, more comfortable travel.
• Night 1: Oathgar witnessed a massive, silent shape flattening grass in a perfect 100-ft line.
• Night 2: Distorted sky and worm-like sounds surrounded the dome. The effect ended when Tike awoke.
• Day 3: The party encountered the Metalstorm, a half-mile-wide sphere of spinning blades, armor, and debris.
• Cal detected a hollow core inside the storm and estimated the walls at 750 feet thick.
• Using dimension door, Cal opened a black vortex and teleported the party inside with just 10 feet of margin.
• Inside, they discovered a calm eye of the storm and looping herds of chaotic stampeding horses.
• Cal was trampled, but Tike and Oathgar crossed using magical movement. Cal later bent the spell loop to allow safe passage.
• Emerging from the storm’s center, they saw the remnants of Point Harrow: a massive crystal spire rising from the sea.
• High above, an iron fortress crowned the spire.
• A metal rod jutted from a ledge halfway up, and the spire itself seemed to grin when watched through a spyglass.