Duendewood: The Ambush, Part 2

We pick up in the midst of the battle.

Azrael drops Acid Fog on a bunch of the harpies in the air. The spell isn't that damaging, but they can't see through it and they have to push through it to move, so movement is SLOW.

Ruin starts walking towards the harpy that has him charmed, coming towards the bottom of the acid fog, while Geddy (still up in the tree on a branch) heals himself of a substantial portion of his wounds.

The Harpy priestess, who was flying above the fog, moves over to Geddy and tries to curse him; he is unaffected.

A hulking corpse comes over and tries to attack Ruin, but misses; one of the harpy archers puts a couple of arrows in him. The other harpies swarm around, but fail to connect with either Martini or Ruin.

Eva the young gold dragon comes winging through, becoming briefly visible as she passes through the harpy priestess' Invisibility Purge aura, and blasts fire across the priestess and two of the harpies.

Azrael moves in and finishes off the Harpy Priestess.

The hulking corpses try to grapple Ruin and Martini. Ruin shoves his attacker away, but Martini get grabbed. The harpies around Ruin take to the sky, but the ones around Martini just cluster around to watch the corpse try to mangle her.

The Apparatus that we've come here to steal... erm, commandeer... continues past us. The wizards inside launch a lightning bolt at Geddy, who takes it on his gnomish chin. He is still clinging to the tree branch. One of the Harpy Archers shoots him, and Geddy finally falls out of the tree, unconscious. The archer turns her other two shots to Eva, the dragon.

One of the harpy archers fires at Ruin, but only hits him once. Eva drops down to guard her Uncle Geddy, and breaths fire on a couple of harpies.

Azrael drops an empowered Fireball on the harpies that are flying above Ruin. The harpy archer avoids the worst of it, but the others... four of the five die immediately. He follows up with a quickened Magic Missile, and Ruin carves chunks out of the hulking corpse beside him.

Martini uses Dimension Door to escape being grappled, and places herself on top of the Apparatus. She's out of the field, so she's invisible again. More hulking corpses move in on Ruin, flanking him. They attack, but fail to connect with him.

The last harpy stuck in the fog falls from the air as acid eats into its flesh.

With Geddy down, the harpies start singing again. Azrael resists; Ruin and Martini are both charmed again. The apparatus continues forward, trundling away from us.

The two harpy archers start singing as well, but Azrael resists them as well.

Eva heals Geddy back to consciousness, if not strength; and Azrael drops another empowered Fireball on a bunch of harpies. Only one harpy survives.

Geddy drops more healing on himself, and stands up. One of the harpies runs away, still singing; the apparatus keeps moving with Martini on the back of it. They waste a Phantasmal Killer spell on Geddy, but he's Death Warded, so that's no use.

One of the hulking corpses finally manages to hit Ruin, which snaps him out of the charm.

The harpy archers fire at Ruin, but miss.

Eva moves over and sprays fire across two of the hulking corpses, carefully not hitting Ruin. The one that Ruin wounded earlier collapses.

Azrael considers the harpy that flew away to the southwest; he can still hear its song. But since he can't actually see it, he uses an empowered scorching ray on one of the Hulking Corpses; he also drops Web in front of the Apparatus of Kwalish, possibly slowing it down.

Ruin unloads on the hulking corpse that Eva lit up, and cuts it down. Geddy activates the ebony fly and goes hunting for the harpy that's hiding to the southwest (but still singing).

The Harpy Archers move back and try to attack Eva again, this time only hitting twice.

The remaining melee-range Hulking Corpse tries to grab Ruin again, and this time succeeds.

The two remaining Harpy Archers attack Eva, who's the only one who's both visible and not closely entangled with one of their allies. They put four arrows into our young dragon companion, doing a LOT of damage. Eva changes position, and bathes them in fire breath.

Ruin uses his Dimension Door ability to escape the grapple, and yells "Neener neener neener!" or something similar at the two remaining Hulking Corpses in an attempt to lure them into charging right into our pit trap.

Geddy is homing in on the hidden (but still singing) harpy.

The two hulking corpses charge towards Ruin and fall into the pit; Eva steps aside to let one of them go by. Eva flames the two Harpy Archers, immolating one of them.

Ruin cuts down one of the Hulking Corpses in the pit.

Geddy locates the harpy, and hits it with Tasha's Hideous Laughter but doesn't bring it down.

The remaining harpy archer tries to finish off Eva, and doesn't quite manage it. She throws more fire at it, and it... dissolves into ash.

Ruin chases after the Apparatus and put himself under it. Martini sprints off from where was standing near the last remaining harpy, catching up with the Apparatus again.

Geddy returns to Eva, hovering above her on his Ebony Fly.

The Appratus continues forward, and the wizards inside drop Tasha's Hideous Laughter on Ruin and Martini, taking them both down. Geddy comes towards us on the Fly, and casts Greater Dispel Magic on Martini. Martini no longer thinks this is funny, and stands up again.

One of the wizards targets Ruin and Martini with Confusion, but neither is confused.

Eva heals herself a bit, but hangs back where she is. Ruin is not confused, but *is* still busy laughing; Martini moves under the Apparatus and attempts to open the anus-door. (It's actually a porthole, but given where it is located on Apparatus, well...) She flips up and plants her slippers of spider climbing on the bottom, and goes to work on the lock as the Apparatus moved forward.

Geddy dispels Hideous Laughter, and Ruin is no longer amused.

The wizards cast Laughter again, and Ruin goes right back down.

Azrael throws another Web spell, to slow the Apparatus. Ruin continues laughing, and Martini finally manages to get the door open.

Geddy begins singing to inspire us with courage.

The Apparatus come to a stop, and all four wizards lean out the bottom and tag Martini with Magic Missile.

Eva moves up, continuing to heal herself. Azrael restores his Greater Invisibility, which had worn off, and launches an empowered fireball into the Apparatus. He scorches the uphostery and the wizards alike, but doesn't quite kill them; they've been bolstered with False Life.

Martini starts stabbing into the Apparatus. Martini is a meatgrinder, a sewing machine of death. Of the four wizards inside, only one survives.

Geddy flies closer, still singing, forty feet in the air.

The last wizard throws one more Confusion spell. Martini is confused. (Ruin, of course, is still busy laughing.) Eva just moves over, reaches up, and yanks the last wizard out of the apparatus.

We spend a bit of time figuring out how to operate this thing; then we head into the impossibly deep lake that is Mar Dento, circling around to avoid the Titan's Reach area where the Hierophant is probably awaiting the arrival of the Apparatus. We head down into the water at about the point when the Hierophant would be expecting it to arrive at Titan's Reach. We find the bottom of Mar Dentro and the hole at the base of Titan's Reach, where the geological "fingers" come back together in a hole that goes all the way down through the bottom of the world, until it turns out that we've descended so long that we're now ascending. We come out on a sea bottom, and decide to come up to the surface.

We're looking at the coast of Fanaxia. We're in the northern bay.

It's late May. So, OOC, there's a definite chance that we're going to have to rescue our Solari characters from this place -- and dear ye immortal gods, Ruin may yet have to explain himself to Tavros. We descend again, and follow the finger-tendrils up to the surface (instead of just going straight up) and find ourselves at "The Fingers" which mark the end of the Grand Gulf in Fanaxia.

The Grand Gulch is huge, and deep, and we follow the tracks all the way up the river to Lake Ovoguia; the stone fingers twist together into a sort of arm, that seems to be reaching into the underwater extension of Mount Ovoguia; the plants here are growing in the shape of an eye, and there's an underwater cave in the center.

We enter the cave, and come out of an underground lake into a cavern. The floor of the cavern is marked with the Eye of Vecna; there's a trail of these sigils, leading to an ancient staircase that leads up. 

OOC, we break there.