Session 133

After resting for the night in Tarmadon, the group decided to get back to the task at hand, hunting down Andozar's Soulstone so they could deal with him once and for all. They briefly considered using the Ring of Teleportation to reach Araphor, as they had been there before; but teleportation can be unpredictable if you are not well acquainted with a location, and they had only been to Araphor once. Despite being nearly 2,000 miles away, they decided to walk. The journey was harsh to start with, as they needed to trek through the Yzerid for a bit, leaving them quite tired. However, after exiting the desert and entering the more moderate temperatures of the Rordan Then forest south of Araphor and Geledon, the group spent weeks navigating the wilderness until they came upon a sudden shift in the color of the trees, with the pines turning from forest green to a strange pale yellow color. They proceeded without much care, but were soon surrounded by a strange haze. Most were able to fight off its effects, but after wandering a bit, they all noticed Skinner had suddenly vanished. They looked around until they eventually came upon him thrashing around on the ground wildly, throwing fistfuls of pine needles into the air and grunting in a mix of rage and fear. They approached, hoping to break him free of whatever had taken hold of him, when he suddenly sprung up and got on all fours, staring at them rabidly. He suddenly lunged, swinging at Dain, who deflected the punch with a Shield. However, Merrick was not so quick to react as Skinner cold-clocked him across the face. Dain rushed in and quickly incanted a spell, using Lesser Restoration on Skinner, causing the terrifying visions he had been seeing to suddenly vanish. Skinner looked around at his companions in confusion, and they asked what happened. He described that he had seen the trees closing in on him, leaning over him, and vines slithering towards him and restraining him, yanking him back and forth as his heart raced in fear and anxiety. He had seen glowing eyes in the trees, which turned out to be the players looking for him, and when they approached, he had seen terrifying shadowy figures reaching towards him, so he lashed out in defense. The group picked up the pace, making their way through the forest, barely managing to fight off its effects for several days, until they emerged on the northern edge of the forest. Looking to the west, they noticed smoke, and as they crested the top of a hill, they could see that it was coming from Geledon...

Approaching the town, they could see that the smoke was coming from ruined buildings, with no active fires. Atop the massive rock that gives the town its name, they could see that the lighthouse was cut clean in half and the top was nowhere to be seen. Proceeding through the streets, they saw nothing but devastation, with scorch marks and debris everywhere, but curiously no bodies. Reaching the top of the hill, they investigated the damage and determined that whatever damaged the lighthouse did so with magic, and the scorch marks everywhere were due to evocation magic of some sort. However, there didn't seem to be enough around them to piece together what happened. Skinner seemed to recall hearing a rumor in the inn in Tarmadon of Geledon being attacked by "a girl", but couldn't remember more detail than that. However, Skinner had another skill that could be employed here, as he began a ritual to peer into the sands of Matroka. Completing the ritual, sands began to swirl around them as they began to see phantom images of townsfolk and mercenaries running about in a panic as there were explosions around them. They saw a group of mercenaries pointing weapons down the street they had come from when a sudden wave of energy hurtled toward them, cutting them in half, and continuing behind to slice the lighthouse in half. Several panicked mercenaries and townsfolk rushed into a nearby building, which was immediately hit by a Fireball, blasting it apart. As the ritual ended, they still could not see the source of the destruction. Proceeding down the street, Skinner tried again, seeing more destruction, as some sort of powerful beam of energy struck a house with a family inside, punching through before a cascading explosion tore apart the building. Several people fell dead around them, but still no source of the attackers. Skinner walked further, coming to the very place they had been attacked by Andozar's Enthralled some time ago on their way to the Dreaming Wastes for the first time, and performed the ritual one last time. Again they saw destruction, but this time, they finally glimpsed the source, as several figures rounded a corner, with the first, Vargas, his eyes glowing pink, launched a large boulder which flattened a number of innocent people. Next, Mahani came out of nowhere and touched several people, turning them to stone. Then, Sindri emerged in his bulked out form with his magical sword and shield and charged forth, cutting down a number of mercenaries trying to fight them off. After absorbing the shock of these events, a final figure emerged from behind the corner after launching the beam of energy they had seen destroy the house before -- Sabine. The four moved up the street, launching devastating spells as they moved, until Skinner's ritual ended and they all disappeared. The group was horrified by these events, hoping they had been wrong in their suspicions when they first saw the devastation. Obviously, Andozar was responsible, but for what cause? After some suggestions, they came to the conclusion that due to the lack of bodies, perhaps Andozar had done this to gather even more souls -- though for what purpose, who could say? With nothing else they could do here, they left the city, proceeding towards Araphor.

Arriving at Araphor, Summer could see a group of people spot them from a distance and immediately gather to welcome them, as they had done last time, putting on a show playing music with children running around and people working on seemingly pointless things as the group approached. It was a strange display, and while the group tried to figure out what to make of this behavior, Summer noticed a figure watching the group from behind a building. Finding this suspicious, Summer pointed it out to Dain, who immediately decided to use Vortex Warp to teleport the man directly next to him, upon which Skinner punched him in the face in full view of the village folk, who were startled and horrified. The man dropped immediately, bleeding from the mouth, and the villagers angrily questioned Skinner as to why he had done that. Skinner blurted out the first excuse that came to mind, that a strange man had suddenly appeared in front of him and startled him, so he punched! The villagers were extremely put off by this and began to disperse. As Dain healed the man and he groggily awoke, he asked why they had done that. Dain tried to explain that he had wanted to question the man as to why he was watching them. The man seemed belligerent and asked if they forcibly teleported everyone they wanted to talk to, and Dain rationalized his behavior by pointing out a disturbing fact he had noticed -- the man's eyes were glowing pink. The man tried to explain that it's just how his eyes were and he was watching because he was curious but didn't want to get involved in the welcome wagon, as he wasn't a people person. The group didn't buy it and led the man to an alleyway, where they physically restrained him and interrogated him, with Merrick even producing a knife and dragging it along the man's skin, which didn't seem to impress the man, who called himself Geth. Merrick even went so far as to ask if the man knew Andozar, which the man denied -- though Merrick could easily tell he was lying through his teeth. Their questioning seemed to go nowhere, so eventually Dain decided to release him, and he began to dash away. The group questioned the wisdom of letting him go, but they decided that what was done was done. Just then, however, Summer noticed something strange... seams in the dirt in the alleyway. Inspecting them closer, she wedged her knife into the seams and pried open a trap door which led to some sort of crawlspace beneath them. Disturbed, Merrick decided to conjure his Arcane Eye to explore the tunnels.

Sending the eye down into the cramped tunnels, he began to look around the dark passageway, where he saw a number of branching paths leading who knows where. He saw a number of cracks of light suggesting other trapdoors, and while passing a branching path and quickly looking, he did a double take when he noticed a man shimmying through it. Investigating, he saw a Letheni man with glowing pink eyes making his way towards a hole in the passage with a ladder leading deep downwards. He followed the man down the ladder and into what appeared to be a catacombs beneath the village, which he found strange, as the Letheni typically do not bury their dead in tombs, preferring natural burials to fertilize trees. The man led him through a series of maze-like tunnels until they came upon some doors leading to a room where the man entered. Following him, Merrick saw a small room with several other men standing over another who was bound and gagged, with a sack over his head. The man was on his knees in front of a large hole that went so deep into the ground, Merrick could not see the bottom. One of the men in nicer dress seemed to be reading from some sort of book with arcane symbology on its binding, and there was a cloth nearby covering some dried blood. The bound man was weeping, and a few other thug-looking types stood in the room ensuring he could not escape. Merrick relayed this to the group, and after some deliberation, they decided to descend into the crawlspace and make their way to these catacombs, following Merrick's directions until they located the room with the hostage. At the door, they could hear chanting, and they tried to get to a better spot to hear, but Dain forgot to oil the Steel Defender, and its joints gave off a squeal, alerting the men inside the room, who went quiet. Merrick could see through the Arcane Eye that they were aware of something being out in the hallway, and the group scrambled to make themselves scarce before they opened the door to the hallway. Summer vanished into the shadows of the hallway while Merrick became invisible. Meanwhile, Dain opened a Dimension Door and brought Skinner through, reappearing at the ladder to the catacombs. After the thugs searched the hallways for a bit, short swords drawn, they went back to the room, closed the door, and locked it. After a moment, the man began chanting again, and Dain and Skinner made their way back, whereupon Dain used his Thieve's Tools to open the locked door, and Skinner cautiously nudged the door open enough to see inside. Seeing the captive man, Dain used Vortex Warp to teleport the man outside of the room while Merrick dropped a Sickening Radiance inside, expecting a battle -- however, the men screamed as the radiant energy scorched their skin, quickly liquefying them, before they collapsed into a gory mess on the ground. Merrick cringed, not realizing they weren't dealing with more dangerous folk for a change, but they decided to go inside. They got a better look at the hole, which seemed to be very deep. Inspecting the corpse of the leader who had been reading from the ritual book, they found a Sending Stone. Skinner took a look at his ritual book and realized it appeared to have some sort of modified Soulbinding ritual involving forcing the spectral Flow of a person as they die into an occupied Soulstone, which confused him. With Dain's help, he used Sending to commune with Kogano, asking about the ritual, and he confirmed what they feared -- the ritual seemed to be a "feeding" ritual to sustain Andozar's Soulstone by "feeding" it spectral Flow. So it was confirmed... Andozar's Soulstone was nearby. After freeing the man and questioning him, they sent him on his way, and set about exploring the rest of the catacombs. They found a preparation room for bodies which had materials for embalming, but also for rapidly decomposing bodies, as well as a number of old bones in the room -- clearly for preparing the bones to be interred in the catacombs' loculi.

As they continued to explore, they eventually found a random wall where Summer noticed some mushrooms growing along the wall, the only ones they had seen down there. Given Andozar's affinity for mushrooms, they decided to investigate more closely, and realized the mushrooms were similar to ones seen outside the entrance to Andozar's lair. Meanwhile, Summer noticed some faded Letheni writing on the wall, which simply read "*What Was Lost?*" Figuring this had to do with Andozar, Merrick made the connection to Andozar's wife, Sibyl, and said her name. The stone wall began to slide to the side, and revealed a passage leading down some stairs. Cautiously entering, they descended the stairs and came around a corner to a long hallway. As they walked forward, they saw a skeleton facing forward with its arms outstretched, and deep scratch marks in the stone to suggest that it had fought to avoid being dragged backwards. Proceeding past this, the group began to feel anxiety and could see something dark writhing around at the edge of their vision, as their gut instincts screamed at them not to turn around. They cautiously walked down the hallway, but Merrick couldn't resist the temptation and decided to conjure his Arcane Eye to see what was behind them. As soon as it manifested, he saw a black mass behind them, and saw a number of black tentacle arms shoot forward and grab him, wrestling him to the ground, where they began to drag him backwards. Merrick used Misty Step to escape, but the arms quickly caught up and grabbed him again. Skinner, startled and wanting to help, turned to assist Merrick, but in doing so looked at the black mass himself, causing them to grab him. Ahead, Dain and Summer heard the voices of people familiar to them taunting them to turn around, with Dain hearing Sabine, and Summer hearing Adamar. Dain knew this must be a trick, but given his bond to Sabine, couldn't risk not checking, and was promptly grabbed by the dark hands as he turned to look. Skinner managed to wrestle out of the hands' grip as he sliced through the ones holding Merrick with his blades. Running down the hall, Skinner sliced through the hands holding Dain as well, and they all rushed forward to the end of the hallway, turning, where they saw a small room ahead. Dashing to it, they turned around to see that the black mass was gone. They breathed a sigh of relief, but too soon, for the entryway they had come from let loose a massive stone door which slid shut behind them, trapping them in the room.

Looking around the room, the far door had 3 sconces with nothing in their dishes above it. In the center was a stone table with a large and a small basin, with some sort of white powder in the smaller basin, as well as six holes containing vials of various colored liquids in them, and a fancy ruby button. They investigated, briefly experimenting with the sconces and putting liquids in the basin and dropping in powder, before Skinner got daring and decided to press the button to see what would happen. Suddenly, an image appeared depicting a man somberly walking away from a gambling table having lost, disappointed in himself. Confused, they inspected the vials further, and upon picking them up, realized that holding them caused various emotions to flash through them. They quickly made the connection and decided to combine two of the liquids in the basin after a single one hadn't worked. They combined two they thought matched the complex emotion depicted in the illusion, but when no sconce lit, and a corner of the room darkened, they realized they needed to choose more carefully. Pressing the button again, they were presented with an image of an image of a man sipping tea calmly on a porch while smiling; and decided to combine the emotions of joy and calm to produce contentment, which they began to feel momentarily before a sconce lit up. With renewed confidence, they pressed the button again and were shown a man furiously pounding on a door, screaming wildly. They combined anger and fear to produce aggression, and another sconce lit as the emotion washed over them. For the final image, they saw a man staring up at a terrifying dark creature and looking on in abject horror before turning and running in fear. They quickly determined to combine disgust and fear to produce horror, and as this emotion washed over them, the final sconce lit. As the darkness in the corner of the room disappeared, the stone door opened up for them.

Proceeding down the hallway, the stone passage gave way to a natural cavern, where they could see stone pillars shoring up the cavern ceiling with hundreds of votive candles barely illuminating the area and the shrieks of bats above. They could see a door ahead, but between them and the door was some sort of strange boulder. As they began to wonder what the boulder was there for, Skinner saw something none of the others could, as eight spirits began to float towards this boulder. Skinner got a sinking feeling as these spirits flew into the boulder, disappearing inside of it. After a moment, the cracks in the boulder began to give off an ethereal green glow as the boulder began to move. Suddenly, a massive arm swung out from the boulder and crashed into the ground with terrible force. They watched in awe as the boulder unfolded into a massive 30 ft. tall humanoid construct with eight glowing spots on it that Skinner believed might be Akronite. As they took in the sight of this terrible creation, it began to stomp towards them...