Session 3/31/07

                Ayotunde and Altaer use their knowledge of the outer planes to identify the various demonic statues that decorate the room.  The statues are of a vrock, hezrou, succubus, and a few lesser demons, all of which seem to be pointing towards the tomb of Goramnus in deference.  The party has been weakened and fatigued by the day’s battles, and they agree to hole up in the hidden crevasse near the room with four serpent altars to rest. The night passes without incident, but during the early morning watch Jack hears some suspicious creeping and shuffling sounds in the room beyond.

                Faerisa 21: As the party prepares to move out and explore the temple further, they come under attack from a group of hobgoblin monks and drow.  An angry drow rider and a scroll-wielding arcane guard lead the attack, and the monks burst out from hiding just as Klar and Jack emerge from shelter.  The arcane guard blasts the party with a fireball from his scroll and then joins the fray with his spiked chain.  The battle initially goes well for the denizens of the Underlands, but Klar, Jack and Dvalin rally the front line and manage to kill all but one of the hobgoblin Doom Fist monks.  The monks fight bravely and with cunning, and their tunics are woven with a great red fist on the chest.  Cyndele bravely charges and skewers the drow arcane guard, leaving an opening for the others.  Breaking through their enemies’ ranks, the party fights off the drow rider and arcane guard, leaving only a single Doom Fist disciple fleeing in their wake.  However, the battle consumed much of their daily resources, and several of them carry minor wounds forward as Klar aggressively tracks the fleeing monk.

                Klar follows his quarry to the east and south, towards a wide corridor that the party has not yet investigated.  The monk has fled down toward the sleeping quarters and barracks of the temple, and he yells in Undercommon as he runs, alerting another group of drow guards to the party’s presence.  The adventurers are intercepted in the corridor by another group of drow; these dark elves are reinforced by four drow zombies which Lanthurrae must have animated before her own death.  Ayotunde channels the holy power of Shandae to destroy the zombies, and more green tendrils of earth energy wrap up the undead and dissolve their flesh and bones.  With the undead soldiers eliminated, the party is able to easily rout the remaining drow forces.

                During their investigation and searching of the barracks in the southeast quadrant of the temple, the group comes upon a skulking gargoyle who leaps from the shadows to attack with claws, bite and horns.  The stony beast is a tough foe with thick hide, but several hard blows from Jack and Klar as well as Altaer’s magic cause it to cower and parley.  The gargoyle tells the party of a conflict between the drow and a pair of draconic explorers who arrived here some months ago: a yuan-ti called Shenn and his companion, a black dragon known as Garranach.  The two companions control the northeast section of the temple and have been waging a guerilla battle of attrition against the drow, hoping to take control of the four serpent altars nearby.  Once the party has gained this information from the gargoyle, they goad it into resuming its attacks and quickly dispatch the craven, evil creature.  It crumbles into a pile of steaming flesh and bones as it dies.

                Armed with this new knowledge of what lies ahead, the companions form up and head north towards Shenn’s and Garranach’s lair.  However, they come upon a room with a crumbling spiral passage leading into the deeper dark, and are set upon by two hungry, crazed dire bats.  As the bats bite and harass the group, the temple’s last band of Stiletto Crew wererats bursts from a western door and pincers the party between two threats.  A wererat druid, cloaked in dark gray and wearing a horse’s skull as a mask, directs the attack from the rear rank.  A furious battle ensues, but Jack and Cyndele manage to grievously wound one bat, sending it fleeing into the dark just as Altaer kills the other with his fiery dragon-headed magic missiles.  The wererats fall to Ayotunde’s silvered longspear and Klar’s silvered glaive, though the druid puts up an extended struggle before he falls.  Though several party members sustain bites and scratches from the wererats, none of them are infected with lycanthropy.  The party again finds itself exhausted and out of energy from their struggles against their foes, and they elect to rest for the remainder of the day in a boarded up guard room to the southeast before challenging the yuan-ti and dragon.

Faerisa 22:  After an undisturbed evening of rest, the party has awakened and is preparing to move north when a quiet knocking at their barracks door can be heard.  Dvalin cautiously opens the door and comes face-to-face with the cobra-hooded and golden-eyed yuan-ti called Shenn.  The reptilian humanoid claims he has come to bargain with the party, who he deems “too powerful for him to defeat with (his) meager skills.”  Shenn praises the adventurers for defeating Lanthurrae and her drow guardians, and asks only that they leave the places of power in the Temple intact for his research purposes.  He only wants to peacefully study the ancient magic of Slaughterguard, he claims.  If the party will only leave the altars intact and return the serpent relics they removed, he is willing to give them free run of the complex and help them defeat its remaining guardians.  Shenn’s offer seems genuine, yet the party is mistrustful of the yuan-ti’s motives.  They ask for some time to talk amongst themselves, and Shenn agrees, saying he will wait in the nearby corridor.

The group plots against Shenn, deciding he cannot be trusted.  The yuan-ti must have overheard their quiet conversation, because he manages to slip away despite being guarded by the watchful Klar.  Once it is obvious that Shenn has vacated the area, the party heads north with weapons drawn and blood on their minds.  They advance into a partly ruined chamber in the northeast, which contains an animated tapestry of a great sacrificial ziggurat used by Mu-Tahn-Laa in the days of old Slaughtergarde.  This chamber is the home of Shenn and a small black dragon, Garranach, who both attack in earnest.  Altaer casts enlarge person upon Jack, who pins Shenn up against the north wall with a series of scything swings.  The last blow from Jack cleanly severs the yuan-ti’s hooded head, causing it to bounce against the wall as Shenn’s serpentine body falls to the ground.  The dragon Garranach is proud and haughty, and she arrogantly taunts the adventurers as she swoops around the large chamber blasting them with her acid breath.  However, Klar also soon becomes the receipient of an enlarge person spell, and between his flashing double-axe and the party’s missile weapons, the dragon is soon turning to flee.  As Garranach flies towards a passage to the deep Underlands, Dvalin puts an arrow through her right eye, nailing the small dragon to the east wall she was fleeing towards.  Garranach twitches and is no more. 

After collecting the treasure from their fallen foes (including a pair of bracers of armor +2 hidden in a pile of collapsed wall rubble near the tapestry, the group comes to a decision: they were tasked by Captain Harreck to destroy the evil altars of Slaughtergarde Temple, and that is what they will do.  Moving systematically from the serpent altar room into Lanthurrae’s chambers, and from there into the room with the evil baptismal font, they cause a huge racket as they smash and destroy each altar in turn.  As they ruin these ancient sites of demonic power, Ayotunde, Jack and Altaer in particular seem to notice the pall of evil lessen within the temple.  The group stays together, heading back towards Goramnus’ tomb to reduce the demon statues there to a pile of rubble.  As they do so, the fiery demon arches guarding the west and south passages from the tomb flicker and fade, their power destroyed by the party’s efforts.

Heading immediately down the south passage, the companions arrive in a 40’ square room which contains a familiar sight: a small clockwork beetle guardian – the same one they viewed through the scrying mirrors of Slaughtergarde Laboratory some weeks ago.  The guardian attacks mindlessly, using a spinning sawblade and pressure darts fired from its midsection, but it is no match for the combined strength of all six adventurers.  As the electrum clockwork beetle falls to pieces from Klar’s double-axe, it drops a stylized claw medallion which radiates faint abjuration magic.  Altaer snatches up the medallion for further study, though it serves no obvious or apparent purpose.

Azarr Kul's Ambition