2025/07/04: Horrors Under Snake Mountain Aftermath

Part 1

Buzz, Et-Kehri, Malakai, Terana, Othar, Union   Terana is apparently taking over care of Egwin and Yiea, as per whispered guidance from above. The kids supposedly need to get more powerful.   For simplicity, the NPCs did their own loot distribution separately. They handled that while Terana and co. recovered and did their own part of the looting.   The leader of the NPC party (the head of House Avanthus) offered to open the warded spellbooks in the loot pile in exchange for copies of the spells. The party agreed. Mr. Avanthus was able to bypass the wards entirely via some item or innate quality he had, but he warned the party that if the locked spellbooks were closed again, they would need the passwords or other authorization to get back in.   Mr. Avanthus handled the researcher lady and the horde of newly non-evil humans, badgers, elves, etc. He left the blackened skeleton to the party to do something about. Buzz sent the trolls Ba'alzamon's way (to become part of the Horde), while the ogre magi went to Othar's lands.   The skeleton is made of obsidian. Terana went to talk to Sith about getting the Dread out of the dungeon, not wanting to know if the skeleton was undead. Malakai went to investigate it, followed by Buzz and Othar. Et-Kehri continued cleaning the Dread: Apparently the green and blue spots he found earlier are just marks on the beast's hide, not gems or the like.   The skeleton was accompanied by a very concerning sword. A mix of entropic, necromantic, and some other things hitting everything nearby. The sword does detect as evil. The skeleton, surprisingly, does not. Saveon had good feelings about the dead man, which was perhaps a bad sign as far as his morality went. Divination revealed more.   "The Tyrant King of Haskar: Gruskell the Obsidian, Inventor of Golem Armor, Wielder of Halrath the Wounding Blade. An ancient Immortal King whose obsessions led his kingdom to great heights and eventual ruin."   It was discovered that Gruskell was truly immortal; he was still regenerating, even after being reduced to a skeleton. After some debate over whether to kill him while he was vulnerable or let him regenerate and talk to him, the trio opted to call Blythe and let him regenerate. If anyone could put him down after he was no longer incapacitated, it was Blythe.   Union was busy talking to his new cat sword. Terana joined him and Et-Kehri back on the ship. Et-Kehri discovered that the entire boat was made of these tiny interlocked crystals. The hydra parts were flesh and bone, the temple was made of these crystals, and the intervening parts were a mix of both, interweaved together. The crystals are kind of clear, kind of reflective, and kind of dark blue. The color turns lighter when a light source is brought nearby, and this is only partially due to the reflection. The crystals are very odd, extremely resilient, and apparently resonate with titan stuff.   From the look of things, the temple was placed on the hydra's back when it was smaller and as the hydra grew, its flesh grew around the temple and sort of became one with it. Terana joined in Et-Kehri's cleaning efforts with her swords and Cloth of Cleaning.   Gruskell's flesh was the same color and material as his bones: Obsidian. He'd regenerated his lungs (or what passed for them) by the time Blythe arrived riding an armored and spelled-up ancient black dragon. The dragon transformed back into Blythe's staff as they landed.   Malakai explained the situation. Blythe did some divination/soul-checking/spirit-talking. The old king does still want power (it's one of his main things), he is capable of learning. He has the title of "tyrant" for a reason. He basically took cursed solcite, forged it into a body, added some divine immortality buffs, and bonded himself with a sword that won't let him die. He has layers of immortality. He also has multiple souls in there, so it's even harder to do anything to him! Blythe couldn't tell whether he was a horribly unlucky idiot or pure genius. He may have made soul-pudding out of himself somehow, which is great defense but may have weird effects on his mentality?   Anyway, Blythe looted the tyrant. The party handed him off to her for research, investigation, and containment. He seemed very intriguing and she wanted to pick his brain.   Buzz took the sword (with telekinesis; he wasn't touching that thing) and flew toward Castle Fallingstar. Orb took responsibility for the sword. The rest of the party set up to rest on the Dread.   The night passed in the Stygian darkness. Under Lume's light, the cleaned areas of the hydra were bright, shining blue, which only made the contrast with the crusty darkness of the rest more dramatic.   Union took over Danger Noodle from Terana. Terana was pretty full up on animals. (She'd released her connection to a boar she'd been forced into taking in order to bond with the Dread.)   In the morning of the 26th, a little light was able to reflect down into the dark, turning the place a bit green. With the teleport ward down, Blythe teleported the Dread and all those on it to off the coast of Leithien. A few minutes later, the Ragnarok flew in and landed on the Dread. The crew was a bit worse for wear after the spider attacks, but they were alive, and they had kept a bunch of the robo-spider corpses. (Whether they had kept them on purpose or were just lazy about pushing them overboard is up in the air.)   Gruskell (Groos-kell) had regenerated enough to communicate by the morning. He was informed that something had tried to eat him and lost, and that he was now the property of the queen of the Isle of Necromancy. He was mostly content to stare out at the waves.   As previously scheduled, Knight returned to the party, having finished his check-in and research. Terana and Et-Kehri opted to stay on the Dread, Terana to manage him and check in with Humphery and Et-Kehri because he was enjoying cleaning the ship. The party did make a brief visit to the slightly defunct Temple of Lund to turn in the last quest. Othar was randomly chosen as the one to turn it in. He received a small clay jar (like a mustard jar) with the symbol of Lund (crossed(?) sheaves of grain) on the side. He could feel there was something in it. Inside was a whitish-grey semi-liquid substance with a medicinal smell. Othar was advised to "apply as needed". It "might" refill slowly. (Written down as the "Salve of Lund".)   The newly minted priest-snake of Lund also requested the return of the Tablets of Lund in return for further reward. That would take negotiation with Buzz later. He and Terana weren't present for the rewards; he was rememorizing, she was overseeing the Dread.    

Part 2

Buzz, Nimbus, Malakai, Knight, Othar, Union   The Ragnarok found itself heading up toward the Werelian mountains. They were near a city when the guiding crystal shut off. South of the Werelian mountains, still in Alvidar, near the Alvidarian city of Blotch.   Malakai gave a quick explanation of the mission to Nimbus.   Blotch is a non-walled city with relatively few buildings, but the buildings are large and mostly made of wood. Not whitewashed like many Alvidarian buildings. A lot of the architecture here is raw lumber. The designs tend to be tall and vaguely spiky. Lots of tall, very pointy ceilings, flagpoles, and other things that would make flying around the city at high speed dangerous. Especially if you had an allergy to wooden stakes for some reason. This place may have had vampire problems in the past.   The largest building in the place seems to be a casino. Shocking to find in Alvidar. It's called the Casino Royale. It's an eight-story building with light spells forming the name of the casino on its roof.   Some triangulation by exiting the crystal's turn-off radius and moving around pointed the party toward the city itself. It seemed it was time for an urban adventure.   Malakai asked who couldn't fly. Buzz offered Nimbus and Union jetpacks.   Othar promised to behave himself here in happy paladin land, though he gave no promises in regard to body count.   The party landed north of the city. Area with standing stones on a hill outside the city. Road into the city. Old fortress church about three stories tall to the west of the standing stone hill. It's fairly cold out, with just a hint of snow, slightly unseasonal but we're near the mountains so it's fine probably. Quite cold compared to Leithien, in any case. Knight layered his winter wolf-pelt cloak on top of his normal cloak.   There are semi-fortified wooden fences around the buildings, but no wall. The buildings here are mostly residences. Still, not a soul was in sight. Knight detected living souls inside the buildings nearby. Asking if the buildings were fake, recently constructed, the engineers in the party identified that while some fortifications looked new, others looked old. This place was likely attacked regularly.   Roughly midday.   Othar detected scents of humans, wolves (lots of wolves), woodsmoke, and more. He kept the details to himself. Buzz headed for the local temple, making sure his sword blessed by Ranthael was visible on his back, and Nimbus, Malakai, and Knight followed him. The temple, when they reached it, was heavily reinforced and seemed to be dedicated to the whole Alvidarian pantheon. Buzz used the giant knockers on the door to knock.   Three well-armored men answered the door. One of them, the youngest, said "Oh no, it must be getting real now." Buzz introduced himself and the party as adventurers and made clear that he wanted to talk to whoever was in charge to get clearance to work in the area for the mission.   Inside the church were eight more armored men, all armed with polearms. Clearly, no one wanted to get scratched or bitten here. Deeper in the temple, on the pews, were more people, apparently civilians. (Craftspeople and families.) Paladin-types were near the altar, led by what was likely the priest.   The joke "which high priest" gave the paladins some in-joke chuckles. In response to Buzz asking to talk to the high priest.   Buzz alluded to the mission details. "An organization that uses children as power sources." That wasn't part of the problems the paladins had been aware of. They'd been getting Detect Evil pings and occasional werewolf sightings, and everyone was on edge.   The party was invited to a meeting the local authorities were holding to figure out how to deal with the local problems. The meeting was being held in the casino. When the party went outside, the sky was grey and overcast, and the Ragnarok was nowhere to be seen. Malakai called them on comms; from where they were, the sky was clear. Something was strange. Buzz pulled out the tricorder, but all it detected was a couple of red dots toward the edges, and those disappeared almost immediately. Buzz pointed this out, and the paladin next to him tried to detect evil in that direction. He could just barely recognize something over there. He said this is the sort of thing they'd been dealing with for a week.   Othar's Eye of True Motive detected that the paladins and clerics really wanted to be pointed at something they could kill, but fortunately they weren't pointed at him (yet).   The group made it to the casino without incident. The inside was fairly nicely furnished and even had several one-armed bandits.