Fanaxia: The Battle for Liberation

 We're leveling up, and Ruin has added another level of Barbarian. Tavros is a paladin for RP purposes, but mechanically he's just adding Fighter levels at this point. His natural armor grows stronger. Geddy, meanwhile, is improving his various social skills and his performing arts.

We've also had a chance to go over the things we learned from looking through Vecna's mirror.

So... the bargain is struck. Hecate, Behemoth's Marilith assistant, leads us to a basement and explains that this will lead us to the shadow worm, and that Earthquake in the right spot will force it up. We need to focus on the worm no matter who shows up to assist it. Once it falls, the demons will come to our aid.

Geddy has used one of his Wishes to acquire a baliset; as we pass we find a shrine to Justinius J Justinius, a gnomish deity. The doorway sort of ripples as a man walks out of nowhere into the room; he looks around the room appraisingly, then places an amazing blue baliset in the place of honor.

Geddy immediately zips into the room, disappearing from the rest of us, and reappears with this lute: Richenbacher's Electric Baliset. It can make sonic attacks based on his Perform roll, either at a single target or in a cone. This allows him to attack while still playing.

We rest in the basement; and on our twenty-fourth day in Fanaxia we emerge to do battle. We open with our preparations spells: Shield, Death Ward, Hide from Undead (Leira, Geddy, Azrael, Martini), Displacement (Tavros, Ruin, Alexej). Azrael also Enlarges Alexej. Martini makes herself and Azrael invisible. We've also applied Silversheen to our blades.

Marshall detects evil and we move over to what looks like a giant worm home. Once we've got everything set up, Marshall casts Earthquake. The ground heaves and groans.

The Shadow Worm emerges. It's colossal, bigger than anything we've ever seen. It attacks with a cone of cold (quickened). It's a big chunk, but Tavros is immune and Ruin is resistant. It follows up with Hold Monster, paralyzing Leira and Martini.

Tavros charges in, taking a hit on the way, and smacks it fairly hard; it's heavily armored, though. Martini shakes off the Hold and retreats. Azrael drops Meteor Swarm but doesn't get through his spell resistance much.  The Scorching Rays are equally ineffective.

Ruin charges around the back to set up a flank, and attacks. So does Geddy. Marshall moves in next, surounded by his swirling snake-blades, and tries to cut into the worm. He is himself a giant snake right now. Unfortunately, the magic blades aren't magic enough to get through the spell resistance.

Geddy takes to the air and starts singing; the worm screams, and then casts Quickened Haste on itself. It immediately attacks Tavros twice, and misses; it then tries to sting him and also misses. Tavros riposts, and carves into its scaly hide. Azrael's spells again prove ineffective. Ruin manages to cut it, and Alexej does as well.

We hear the castle door open, and the Nightwalker comes sprinting out to assist his Dreadworm. A Nightwing is following.

Marshall casts Firestorm on the shadow worm, but fails to get through its spell resistance. Neither does the Blade Barrier. Geddy plays a Power Chord, and it hits him but fails to penetrate.

Leira drops Sunburst on the Nightwalker and the Nightwing. She gets past both their spell resistances. The Nightwing is blinded and badly burned; the Nightwalker is just somewhat burned.

Cimaron emerges from castle as well. The worm attacks Tavros again, this time more carefully, and manages to bite him and promptly swallows him. Fortunately, we're all death warded; otherwise Tavros would be losing levels. Instead it's just acid and bludgeoning. Tavros is basically unconscious. It follows up with a Cone of Cold. Leira and Azrael dodge the worst of it, and Martini avoids it entirely. She uses Dimension Door to move herself and Leira out of range of that cone of cold. Azrael attacks with Meteor Swarm (hitting with two) and Empowered Fireball (missing).

Ruin attacks again, hitting it twice. Alexej follows up, hitting some more, and staggering the thing.

The Nightwalkers are moving up, but aren't quite close enough to reach us; ditto the Nightwing. Marshall casts Forbiddance, which will block them from shifting planes but also lays down a consecrated area that will damage them as they pass through.

Geddy tries his Power Chord again, but doesn't get though this time either.

More Nightwalkers come pouring out of the building, and Leira drops Sunburst again. Unfortunately, they've all got spell resistance, and she only tags one of them -- and for limited damage.

Simaron comes charging through and casts Confusion or Ruin, and gets through his spell resistance -- but Ruin shakes it off. Tavros dies in the shadow worm's unholy digestive tract. It tags Ruin with its stinger but doesn't poison him, then bites him twice -- once super-effectively. It swallows Ruin's corpse as well.

Martini pulls her longbow and takes a shot at the worm. Azrael drops a couple of Fireballs, and one of them gets through; Alexej follows up by stabbing the beast some more -- "Kill the beast while it's wounded!" -- drops it.

As soon as the dread worm falls, the west wing of the castle lights up; and then the barrier shatters. Demons pout out of every opening. Behemoth emerges from one of the towers. Squads of demons follow Hecate into combat. Massive retrievers crawl over the hedges.

Before long we are left alone in the eerie silence of the back courtyard. Marshall snakes in and retrieves Ruin and Tavros... or their corpses, anyway. He resurrects Tavros, and Ruin is... sort of just barely even a corpse anymore.

We search the castle, and find Simaron's cache of treasure: 140,000 GP in coins and artworks. 35,000 in other magic items. A Maul of the Titans, worth 25,000. A Rod of Alertness, which Ruin would be very interested in - 85,000. Gem of Seeing, worth 75,000; basically True Seeing for 30 minutes per day. Manuals +1 Health, +4 Health, and +4 Dex. Alexej pulls out something he thinks is a guisarme, but it's just a stick. Azrael leaps on it. The staff is a staff of magus; Azrael says he is now invincible. It can absorb spells, among other things.

Day dawns with light rain and a cloudy but illuminated sky. The demons have retreated to the castle and appear to be sated after their violence. There was a *lot* of collateral damage. The lizardfolk are gone; villages around the swamp are gone as well. The devastation was at least localized. Kroni's corpse and the corpse of a small child are both lying in front of the castle gate.

We go and examine the body. Those are horribly dessicated vampires that haven't eaten in years, and are helpless husks. We could give them blood, or... we could use Speak With Dead.

Problem is, we can't contact his soul. We probably couldn't have brought it back, either; it's either protected, or trapped, or something. We try it on Kroni, and get a very MPD Sacha/Kroni.

Leira is SO EXCITED.

Question for Sacha: "Do you have knowledge of any of Kroni's memories?"

"No, but I can feel two bodies..."

"Where are you right now?"

Sacha tells us, probably in the Wellfort area. We probably need to bring this body back with blood, it would pull Kroni out of Sacha and into this body. That would probably be an issue in itself, since he's probably a demigod level being.

...We're going to have to kill him. Damn it.

The marsh is very different; there is now lush green grass surrounding an enormous tree with the black-singed skin of a great white dragon is laid across its limbs. The clearing is expanding quickly, reclaiming the marsh and swamp. Zilv is gone; another man walks out of the swamp with a pair of lutes strapped across his back.

It's the guy that Geddy saw earlier. He pauses: "Are you by any chance part of the church of Urgroth?"

Us: "No."

Him: "You look kind of like heroes. I am Bryce Lamont, heir to throne of Fanaxia. Is there... anything left?"

He's wearing a duplicate of both Richenbacher's lute and Geddy's old lute.

Us: "Don't go to the castle."

Him: "Magiknights?"

Us: "Um... maybe not?"

Geddy breaks into song and brings him up to speed. He sort of collapses on a tree stump.

Him: "I've been away for so long. The priests... I had to, or they would have found me."

There's definitely some weirdness going on with the timeline and the lutes; Bryce remembers a gnomish mentor who bears a suspicious resemblance to Geddy. He apparently just passed away.

He feels horrible about the loss of the Magiknights. He's apparently been hiding in the swamp and taking advantage of its Vecna-created enchantments. We walk him back towards the castle, and kind of bring him up to speed.

We convince Bryce to talk to Crowe; after a couple of hours, Crowe agrees to assume the mantle of Priest of Amun. The amulet doesn't kill him; he glows briefly, and his biggest ship suddenly turns into a massive oceanborn citadel with a couple of Solars to guard it.

Bryce and Duchess Durand get on well, and she's reassured that he's not particularly militant. After a day or two of this, Alexej comes to us and announces that he has decided to stay in Fanax and re-found the magiknights along with the local bard and lady Merrowin the druid. He also wants to find Braum and Joseph and bring them out to be the official cooks of the magiknights.

Killing Kroni -- here -- is our last bit of unfinished business. We hunt down enough diamond dust to resurrect Ruin as well; we're going to need him to fight Kroni. We sell off the Maul of the Titans, but Ruin claims the Rod of Alertness and Martini holds onto the Gem of Seeing. Azrael keeps the Staff of Magus.