2025/10/24: Investigating the Vale of Hermonides Part 4

Buzz, Kelsey, Knight, Malakai, Nimbus, Everett, Othar   The party conspired to find the best way to stealthily close with the storm giant. They settled on a screen spell, to make an illusion of the party on one side of the room while they invisibly headed up the other. From previous experience, Seneca suggested that this kind of giant is very observant but very stupid, and attacks that do well against stone are likely to be better against it. Seneca stepped forward to start her duel with the giant, with Buzz laying down an energy repulsion wall as directed to help her out.   Othar and Kelsey got hit by stray lightning, but the party otherwise made it to the far side without incident.   The giant was about 30 feet tall and very grey and craggy.   Othar opened the sneak attack with a darkfire sun. He proceeded to pass out from the internal strain. The giant certainly felt that, though, and the party was glad the blast petered out before it reached them.   The giant was supernaturally evasive and extraordinarily damage-resistant, on top of being protected from magic, but the warriors and magical firepower piled on, and he died in short order. Kelsey went to retrieve the borrowed magic items from Seneca, who was still very staticky from all the lightning.   The party headed on into the next tunnel. They carried on through several more, then passed a side passage that led to a room with something strange inside. Standing in a display case was a woman. From mid-chest up she was either very well-crafted or practically real, but everything below that was spiky clockwork.   They activated the trap. Everybody but Buzz and Knight, who stayed outside the room in hopes of pulling people out if something terrible happened, got teleported into a gothic cathedral arena to fight an enormous horde of undead and spiky crab monster things.   While that fight got started, Buzz detected that the teleport trap was a resetting one, but it didn't reset instantly. He and Knight had about 30 seconds to get the loot! Knight abandoned their attempt to pull out their scrying mirror and the two of them dove into the room for a looting spree.   Some 30 seconds after the timer started, the trapped crew climbed aboard a glowing zone in the cleared arena and reappeared in the original room. They were promptly greeted by a stretchy group hug from Knight. Then, without letting go, Knight and Buzz ushered them all to the exit. (They confirmed that Knight and Buzz had retrieved the clockwork lady, who was now in Knight's internal inventory.)   Seneca confirmed that those traps were somewhat familiar, but she'd never seen what was on the other side before. The people who get hit by those traps usually don't come back. And no wonder, given the number of enemies!   The group proceeded and went down another pit to another floor. Carrying along through the caves, the group heard growling from ahead, and Seneca summoned a wall of soulfire that blocked a shadowy nightmare dire wolf that launched itself at them from the darkness.   Seneca recommended the party bypass it. She said it was annoying to fight. This time the party went along with it and ran. Their next encounter was a book sitting atop a pillar in a cross passage, with light shining down upon it. The floor around it was 10'x10' marble plates.   Vrex ended up retrieving the book from the trapped room using an arrow and fishing line. It was highly magical and was a "Golem Master's Class Book". Buzz gifted Vrex a pair of boots of speed and Kelsey let him borrow a highly magical bow and a bunch of very scary arrows.   The party continued on and found a room that one would expect to have an encounter, but none was visible. There were some splotches scattered around with blue flames like from burning alcohol. Knight and Nimbus could detect something evil on the ceiling. Othar asked if he should blast it, then went for it as soon as Knight nodded. Whatever it was mostly resisted the magic and tossed blue fire as a counterattack, though it didn't hit the party. It opted to stay hidden.   Nimbus opened the subsequent fight by climbing right up the wall and trying to pull the thing out of its hidey-hole. While she was on her way up, Everett's sunbeam revealed that there was a giant crevasse across the top of the tall room, and the enemy was using it for cover. Something giant-sized started hopping around up there, and a giant wall of fire split the room.   And then Vrex used Kelsey's seeking bow and four arrows of slaying to kill the hidden dragon from around a corner with one hit.   When the flying members of the party went up there to check for loot, they found a bulky, pearlescent white dragon clinging to life. Nimbus stabilized and paralyzed it. Buzz used Abram's communicator to try to talk to it.   There were two voices. One was hissing and screeching, saying awful things. The other was a weird, high-pitched whimpering sound, asking for him not to kill it. Buzz was unable to get an explanation from the latter about the former, given the volume. He theorized that the dragon was possessed, and he asked Knight to check if there were two souls inside. Knight didn't detect two, exactly, but did detect a spirit inside the dragon, which wasn't normal. They gave Buzz a nod. He stepped over, put his hand on the dragon's snout, and said "By the power of Chaz-Achk-Thuum's mighty balls, spirit begone!" (Or something to that effect. The god liked it.)   Dragon-wraith thing made of liquid darkness forced out by phoenix gate. The party killed it.   Further talks with the frost dragon revealed he was looking for a cave, found the wrong cave, and got possessed. Then the possessing wraith-thing teleported him down here.   The frost dragon's name is Nagrar. Seneca shrank him so he could be brought with the party. They stuck him with Vrex in the back.