At the top of the stairs we come up into the main halls of the castle. The servants take one look at us and just… stroll casually away. There are a couple of guys in front of the curtains leading into the throne room.
Guy #1: “I’m Gary.” He leans back against the wall, looking casual. He looks Leira over: “Might I have your name, lady?”
Leira: “Mrs. Sacha the Avatar of Helios.” She pulls Eva forward. “But she’s single.”
Gary: “Well, um–”
Geddy: “I’m single!”
Tavros: “You should really take the night off. Both of you.”
Gary: “You’re here to see the big guy?”
Tavros: “Nothing good is going to come of you hanging around here.”
They trade glances and leave.
We stroll in, and Bouvier is standing on the dais by the throne. He was the Grand Marshall of half of the Sol Povos standing army – the Eastern half. He’s in his military uniform, and he’s wearing a sword: “You’ve got some nerve coming here, Tavros.”
Tavros: “You’ve got a lot of nerve declaring yourself king.”
Bouvier: “Very well. I propose that we settle this in the traditional noble fashion. I challenge you to a duel, one on one.”
Tavros: “I accept.”
Bouvier: “Then I call forth a champion.” A door opens and Verkander Stoneheart steps into the room. He’s the Avatar of Stone, and not – at the moment – kindly disposed towards Tavros.
Tavros: “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
They square off. We discuss summoning Sacha to act as Tavros’ champion, but Verkander is having none of it.
Leira casts Otto’s Irresistble Dance… on Bouvier, who was halfway to an exit.
The stone of the floor seems to flow, and Verkander is in front Tavros. He swings and misses… four times. Just barely, but still…
Tavros: “Come on! I gave you beer! I said I couldn’t support you as a state religion, but I said I’d do what I could to help rebuild the temple! What do you want?” He attacks and also misses.
Geddy activates the Ebony Fly ("Airwolf") and mounts it; he flies it towards Bouvier. The two guards shriek and grab their heads, then run and grab Bouvier and carry him through the doorway, which slams closed behind them.
Leira casts Wail of the Banshee, but it fails to affect Verkander, who attacks again and hits Tavros once. “Rebuild the whole temple!”
Tavros hits him back: “Well, if you don’t need it done immediately, we might come to some sort of arrangement!”
Geddy: “Hey! Eva! Come with me!” He blasts the door open with a power chord. That sets off a Mass Hold Monster trap, and Geddy is momentarily paralyzed.
Verkander attacks again, hitting once: “I want cash advance!”
Tavros misses him completely: “Rip the down payment out of Indra! We didn’t break it! And we need time to get money!”
Geddy shakes off the paralysis and blasts the next door and sets off another trap, which fails to affect either of them.
Leira just watches.
Verkander: “You’re king!” He hits Tavros once more. “You fix! Indra has nae money, only dead bodies!”
Tavros hits him back: “What’s a damned temple cost!?”
Verkander: “Don’t know!”
Tavros: “Well, we could hand you 200,000 right now and get back to you if it takes more! With beer!”
Geddy blows through another door, having passed through an antechamber and a Valet’s chamber. This one was set with an Energy Drain trap, which misses him.
Verkander gets in three more hits, which definitely hurts. Tavros comes in and attacks, but misses this time. “What say you?”
Geddy blows up another door; he’s now standing in Bouvier’s bedroom and looking into the treasure chamber. A Mass Hold Monster spell goes off, and sets off a blaring alarm. Tavros: “Leira! Keep everybody out of here!”
Leira preps Hold Monster for whoever comes into the room next.
Verkander hits Tavros two more times, and knocks him out.
Verkander puts his axe away. “Now we’re even! Terms accepted!”
Leira: “No, because if he dies I’m taking the cost of resurrecting him out of the temple fund.”
Verkander: “FINE!” He casts Cure Moderate Wounds and yanks Tavros back up to his feet. “I accept your terms.”
We hand him 200,000 GP. Verkander: “Beer?”
Geddy has passed two kegs of wine. Tavros retrieves them and hands them off to Verkander, who settles back in a back room. He and Leira catch up with Geddy and Eva, who are looking at a stairwell that goes back down into the rock. Geddy uses his own personal Cure Light Wounds, and a wand to cover the rest of what we need. Tavros also Lays Hands on himself, healing a bit.
We give chase. Geddy casts Invisibility Sphere on the gold in the treasure room, Tavros starts down the stairs, with Leira and Geddy behind him and Eva taking up the rear. We come down the stairs into a long passageway, and there’s a little alcove with a strange, iridescent green crystal that kind of lights the alcove. There’s a skeleton and a chest in there as well. Eva casts Light so we can see.
Geddy considers the green crystal as we pass. It’s like a blacklight.
Tavros: “You think we’re going to need this crystal?”
Geddy: “Not yet.”
Tavros moves down the passage and comes around a corner to find himself facing a pair of doors. “Geddy? You’re up.”
He cues up another power chord, and the door explodes. There’s another door behind it, but then the door reforms. Leira casts False Life on herself. Tavros tries the left-hand door, and the doors vanish, leaving the ones behind them. Left left right left… and we’re back. Left left right left left. Nope, it turns out the doors randomize, we've just been stupidly lucky.
Leira tries Dimension Door, but there’s a Dimensional Lock on this area.
Geddy heads back to the skeleton and the chest. The skeleton was human, and is very very old – crumbling to dust. Geddy opens the chest. Inside he finds several small pieces of a crystal; a bag with 27,000 GP. Geddy grabs the chunks of crystal and returns to the doors.
When we wave the crystal on the doors, one of them has the visage of a horrible evil mind flayer on it, visible in the light of the crystals. We follow the Mind Flayer images, and emerge at the end of the passage. There’s a portcullis, and the two guards are lying on the ground. Their heads have been exploded. Mutant mind flayers are licking up bits of brain. Bouvier is on his knees in front of this horrible elder mind flayer.
“Are you the foolish other king? I have been behind Bouvier this whole time. You did not think he had the wherewithal to mount an attempt on the throne himself, did you?”
Tavros, to himself; Damn it. Now I’m going to have to save Bouvier! He thinks of Jacqueline Bouvier, and draws his sword. The mind flayer Dimension Doors out beside us, and wraps tentacles all over Tavros’ head – ten of them.
Leira drops an Intensified icy Meteor Swarm, and two meteors get past the monster’s spell resistance. It does a ridiculous amount of damage, but the thing doesn’t go down. Geddy walks up to the monster and uses a scroll of Imprisonment… but the Mind Flayer escapes the effect.
Tavros tries to tear loose from the tentacles, but fails. Eva casts Cure Critical Wounds on Tavros. The elder Mind Flayer turns his head to look at Geddy and tries to mentally squish Geddy’s head. Geddy: “He can suck out your brain from a distance!”
Leira drops a second Intensified icy Meteor swarm, and this time all four meteors get past his spell resistance. He tries to be incorporeal, but his timing is off; he drops Tavros and tries to dodge aside, partially succeeding. She follows up with a quickened Intensified frozen fireball, but fails to get past its spell resistance. Geddy drops Freedom of Movement on Tavros.
Tavros turns to attack the beast, but he’s still disoriented from nearly having his brain sucked out and throws his sword past the thing instead. Eva throws another Cure Critical on Tavros.
The Mind Flayer uses a quickened Dimension Door to get to Leira, and wraps her up in tentacles. Leira transports herself behind Tavros; Geddy takes a shot at the thing but misses. Tavros scoops up his sword and takes a five foot step towards the beast. Eva goes to dragon form, which means she’s blocking the passage and also she’s kind of cramped.
It tries to use the distance Brain Suck on Leira, but she resists. She tries a frosty Fireball, but fails to get past its spell resistance. Geddy tries again but misses. Tavros manages to connect with his sword, doing some damage; Eva tries to hit him with weakening gas, but he shrugs it off.
He attacks Tavros with his tentacles again, and wraps up Tavros’ head. However, since Tavros has Freedom of Movement on now, he slips free effortlessly. Leira drops another ice-fireball, and gets past his spell resistance. Geddy tries another power chord, and misses. Tavros attacks, hitting twice, and the thing staggers. Eva hits with a bite and a claw.
He makes one more attempt to eat Leira’s brain…
…and she tags him with another frozen fireball.
The thing hits the ground.
There are zombie mind flayers on the other side of the portcullis; they go still. Bouvier is back there too, still kneeling and swaying. Tavros lifts the portcullis up, and we pull 83,000 GP worth of art, money, and gems. There’s also a ring of invisibility.
Tavros checks Bouvier over and wipes his face off with a wet rag. Bouvier: “Thank you…”
Tavros: “Good Lord, man. How long did that thing have you under its control?”
Bouvier: “...Thing?”
Bouvier has no memory of anything after the King was killed and the armies split. Geddy talks him through what happened.
Basically, after the dark army left Welfort, he moved in to seize the fortified position; his advisors were advising him to seize power, and that’s the last thing he remembers. He does not remember declaring himself king. He has no memory of the mind flayers; they might have been drawn here by the Order of Secrets and their dark experiments.
Tavros brings him up to speed on the current state of affairs.
Bouvier: “You are the last remaining Fontaine? My King… I am here to serve you.”
We get him healed up a little, and sort through what we need to do next to get everything under control. The LaMarke Merchants in Landsend will have a lot of connections, and want a lot of concession. The Wildlanders – a second batch that Durest left in Sander’s Reach – should also be peeled away and turned to Tavros’ direct service.
We return to the throne room to find Verkander waiting for us: “Three hundred, and I fight for you!”
Tavros: “Sure. Another 100,000 will bring us up to your 300,000.”
Verkander: “AND?”
Tavros: “And beer, of course.”
Verkander: “Deal.”
So, we’ve acquired another Avatar, without a long-term commitment. We start checking treasure. We find Bouvier’s diary from his time under control… he’s perfectly appalled by the contents. We check the desk, but since Bouvier and his magic signet are with us, we don't get hit by the traps and instead find some papers that will allow us to seize ill-gotten assets. 189,000 GP worth, in fact. We find more Kingly attire, and Bouvier turns that over to Tavros. $40,000 worth of attire. The next chest is art; we leave it with Bouvier. The two chests of drawers have clothes; we leave that with Bouvier. We open a chest and find a very nice rapier, which we plan to sell. In the valet’s quarters we find a hidden door with money and works of art behind it.
We need to rest, and we do; Bouvier makes his public pledge of loyalty, and we meet briefly with his court to make sure everybody is up to speed on the current state of affairs. Then we teleport out to Landsend.
The keep here is small and worn, but still solid; Landsend relies primarily on Fort Dido for defense. Bouvier has sent an honor guard with us, so we roll up in Kingly style and introduce ourselves. There’s a bit of back-and-forth, and we are taken in to visit Magister McLeod.
Leira: “‘Sup?”
Magister: “What brings you here?”
Tavros: “Any aspiring king must concern himself with trade and commerce, and where better to find it?”
Leira proceeds to charm the magister, who is very impressed with our culture and dignity. Geddy scratches himself, and then – at the Magister’s request – launches into a song for the court to tremendous applause.
We are taken into the court. The LaMarke merchants aren’t what you’d call respectable, but they’re very well connected and Tavrios is prepared to flatter them. We clear up the matter of Bouvier no longer presenting himself as king, and we work out terms where Magister McLeod will become Baron of Landsend and environs; he will not lean on the local populace too hard, so we won’t get a discount on equipment, but he will be able to tax merchant trade and impose certain tariffs at the king’s discretion. This is acceptable, so we have a deal.
We head over Sander’s Reach. It’s a chaotic, lawless mess; Geddy gathers some information. Avina Elton is the warlord captain who’s put herself in charge of the area. She also has an army of 100 regenerating skeletons. She has a rod of control that allows her to control twice her hit dice in skeletons.
Leira blasts the skeletons and Tavros comes in and challenges her to a duel. She accepts, and dies immediately. We take the rod, and hand it off to Geddy. We’ll throw the skeletons at the demons, and take Sander’s Reach for our own.
Tavros is pretty much in charge of the kingdom, except for Duendewood which he's turning over to Mythrandril. We send out messengers to announce the current state of affairs and call for any undecided forces to come to our side. Now is the time! We will need everyone loyal to the kingdom to defeat the demons and prepare to take back Solstar.
But first, we need to defeat Vecna. We're going to want the whole party on that one.
