Good!Party: The Battle of the High Grove

Looking forward to September (in game): Tavros, Leira, and Geddy went south and recruited the Wildlanders and got Sacha turned into the Avatar. Up north, Lamont has made agreement with the followers of Appollyon and has been harrying the druids and turning them into demonic zombie druids. He’s also been deporting the more militant anti-human elves. We have also saved the refugee mages. Meanwhile, Giles is also trying to declare himself King in the East and has recruited one of the solari forces and the LaMarke merchants and some wildlanders that were down in Sander’s Reach. We have the crime lords on our side, and the Iron Company. Jenny, meanwhile, has Maodeus’ old army: wildlanders and beasts and like that. The order of Vecna remain missing, along with Maodeus, Hierophant Malafar. Durest is holed up in the Elemental temple. The Tarrasque has destroyed five towns but is still somewhat contained by the landscape; he can move into the larger Sol Povos if it can get through Summerwind. 

In September, the Tarrasque finally does smash through Summerwind, and can go more or less anywhere; that has also destroyed one of the unaligned Solari forces. The Elvish Revolutionaries branch out and take Esterpond, and a group of Solari defeat them Drisnan spring but essentially sacrifice themselves in the process. Giles destroys the Elvish revolutionaries in Brookmarsh, and recruits another band of Solari. Meanwhile, Lamont strikes a deal with the centaurs and convinces half of them to join his cause. The other half head back south towards their homeland. 

Vigo and Dante point out that we now have one of the largest forces left in the kingdom, even if they are a bit spread out. The tarrasque is going to be a huge problem, and we probably need to kill it. Meanwhile, Ezra Cardon has shown up at Caristhium, and says he has a way to find the Dark One’s true name. He said there would a storm in eight days and he’d meet us down by the lake when that happens. 

So the plan is to send Thierry (bard), Sacha (Avatar), and Clovis (High Priest of Helios) will go north and deal with one band of Elvish revolutionaries and then try to recruit the nearest batch of Solari; Tavros, Ruin, Leira, and Marshall will go try to take on the Tarrasque; Geddy, Eva, and Martini will go seek the True Name of the Dark One who calls itself Vecna. We’re also going to turn the magic engine over to the wizards to try and replicate, but not until next month. Right now, they’re heading down to reinforce the Solari in the southern cities and keep them safe from Tarrasque – or help them evacuate. 

So, with all that planned for the future, we return to our heroes and the druids. A few days after the party, Zoriel introduces himself. He was one of Saladhel’s old apprentices. He thinks that Septimus is going to try to destroy the Altar in the High Grove. All of the Hierophants are buried there; destroying the altar would destroy many of the elder druids and weaken the magic of the others. Also, the Altar could be used to summon all the druids, not just the ones we have here. Septimus stopped sending out his murder parties a few days ago, so he’ll probably be coming soon and probably in force. 

We gather the rest of the druids and prepare to depart for the Grove. 

Zoriel pulls Ruin aside. Saladhel had foresight, and knew that he would die, and told Zoriel that he would only have a short time and that there was a message that Zoriel must share with Ruin:  “There is throughout the cosmos a balance in all things. At some point Ruin will have to face his choice.”  

He departs, and after a bit of preparation we tree-walk to the Grove. There’s a circle of sacred trees so giant that they basically make a sort of tree-cavern. At the center of the area is the altar, which is… glowing. On the altar is a glowing gemstone, and hovering above it is the old Hierophant Saladhel, doing the force ghost thing. He was the one that Ruin chose to sacrifice to retain the other Hierophant in Fanaxia. The altar is surrounded by an invisible barrier, and nobody – including Ruin – can approach it. 

Martini convinces Marshall that it will break if he just runs through it. It seems like maybe enough power might be able to break through this barrier, but if Marshall in snake form can’t manage it then the druids definitely can’t. Ruin tries to Dimension Door through it and also fails. We stay here for about a week.

After a few days, Septimus shows up with his demonic zombie druids and some other followers, who seem to be priests of Appolyon.  

We start painting our forces with Death Ward. The druids start summoning animals.

Septimus comes up, and he has brought devils with him: four horned devils at his side, and a pit fiend leading the other half of his forces. He’s monologuing about how he’s going to destroy the altar and subjugate the druids as the druids once did to his people. Long ago, the druids drove the dark elves out of Duendewood. The High Priest An’drow brought them back out, but there’s a lot of remembered anger there, which is probably why they were willing to side with Lamont. 

The pit fiend, along with a bunch of priests and one of the zombie-druids teleport over to one of the trees and begin a ritual to start draining energy from the tree and corrupting it. It may be about to become an evil zombie treant. The horned devils move up with three priests and a zombie and start the same process on another tree. Ruin teleports our three heroes over to the pit fiend and its buddies, and Martini promptly disintegrates one of the priests. Zombie Druid tries Finger of Death, but we’re warded. Marshall casts Banishment at the Pit Fiend, gets past his spell resistance, but the pit fiend laughs him off. The two lower-lever Appollyon-worships… one casts Righteous Might and other keeps working on the tree-eviling ritual. The one who broke off grows to twice his size. The Pit fiend casts a quicked Fireball, which Ruin ignores; Marshall shrugs off the worst of it. It then casts Mass Hold Monster, which paralyzes Martini momentarily. He then flies over to Martini. 

Ruin carves through the Righteous Might priest. The undead druid calls a lightning bolt on Martini. Marshall turns into a colossal snake. The Pit Fiend does a double-take that you have to see to believe. The Pit Fiend and drops a meteor shower on Ruin and Marshall, targeting Ruin with the meteors and hitting them both with the flames. Ruin takes the brunt of the attack in meteor impacts. The meteors then explode, and Martini dodges the damage completely; Ruin would have taken some damage, but he’s very resistant to fire and doesn’t. Pit Fiend: “Impressive.” 

Martini starts stabbing with the Dagger of Death, but misses. Ruin zips out of reach of the pit fiend and attacks the other priest, damaging him but not killing him. Marshal the Colossal Snake grapples the pit fiend and winds all the way around him, to his surprise and disgust. Marshall immediately starts constricting him. This is VERY CLEARLY a new experience for the pit fiend.

Unfortunately, the tree just turned into an evil Elder Treant. The druids immediately start trying to calm the thing down. 

Ruin, it should be mentioned, is pissed. He kills the priest and the zombie druid both. 

Ruin and the Pit Fiend both heal a bit. The Pit Fiend, while shocked, is no dummy. He tries Power Word Stun and zaps Marshall for a couple of rounds. The elder treant attempts to smash Ruin, but Ruin dodges aside and is not smushed. Then it slams down again, and Ruin is badly smooshed. He heals a bit, though. The Pit Fiend tries a quickened fireball on the group. Martini and Ruin ignore it, but Marshall is stunned and takes all the damage. The Fiend then turns on Martini with claws and teeth and tail and stumbles, and misses. Ruin moves in and the fiend takes a swipe at him but misses. Ruin counterattacks and does some damage. Martini stabs several time, doing good damage now that Ruin is flanking the thing with her. 

The Elder Treant is about to smash Martini, but one of our elder druids has dispelled some of the evil; it turns back into a tree. Marshall is still stunned. Ruin heals a bit, and the Pit Fiend straightens. It casts Mass Hold Monster again, stunning Martini but not Marshall, and then drops a Fireball on everybody. Ruin shrugs it off; Marshall and Martini take damage. She shakes off her paralysis and stabs him again. 

Unfortunately, the Horned Devils and their crew have evilified the second treant and it is now marching towards the altar. This appears to be Septimus’ whole plan as far as smashing the altar goes. Septimus and the troops have moved in, but they’re engaged with the druids and the current real threat is the damned elder treant that the other demon-team animated. 

Also, Septimus appears effectively invulnerable; when someone attacks him, the zombie druids take the damage for him. 

We’ll have to take out the second team of demons and priests, and the go after the zombie druids to clear the way to Septimus.