Synopsis: Return to Castanamir's Island

As the Chimera sailed southwest the senior members of the party -- Aria, Strontium, and Quinn -- briefed the others on their first visit to Castanamir's island. Over eight months had passed since then, so there was no telling what the party would find waiting for them.

They had left instructions at the temporary Adventurers' Guild offices to hold any messages for pick-up and stocked up on healing potions before leaving the city. Any further provisioning would require significant effort and planning.

Two cold, windy days later the party sighted the column of dense fog that marked the inner perimeter defense of Castanamir's island and the bouys that marked the dead calm that ringed that. They rowed through the windless region to just inside the fog, knowing that the Chimera would be too large to approach any closer. They dropped anchor, leaving the ship concealed in the mist, and swam the remaining distance to shore.

The fog cleared a dozen feet from shore, revealing the same rocky edge and rough soil that they remembered from before. The image of the villa loomed in the distance atop the crest of the island with a rough, unkempt path leading up from the beach. The heroes walked past a few withered bushes and bits of flotsam and headed up toward their new home.

What they failed to notice, however, was that hiding among the flotsam were a pair of bizarre bush-like creatures. As the party began to climb the hill the creatures attacked their flanks, striking at Strontium and Audas and holding them fast

The party quickly noted that these were not plants in any way; what had appeared as branches were actually reddish-skinned arms ending in sharp-clawed hands. In the palm of each hand was a sickly yellow eye. None of the group recognized the form, but it was clearly an aberration.

Melian threw his trident and struck the creature holding Strontium but did no discernable damage to its hide. Audas saved himself by using his flee the scene ability to escape the creature's grasp and take a position a safe distance away where he could use his eldritch blast effectively. Strontium, focused intently and fighting the dozens of claws gripping him, managed a still empowered magic missile on his assailant but was unable to escape. The claws pulled at him and the creature engulfed him.

The creatures proved difficult to damage. Aria's gloves adapted quickly and allowed her to chip away at the enemy's strength but even Caenus found their damage reduction annoyingly effective. Strontium, taking damage from the creature's stomach acid and crushing muscles, fought back with a greater missile storm focused entirely on the creature that held him. When Audas followed that up with an empowered baneful chain the monster died and Strontium was able to free himself.

Even as the first creature fell the second had its claws on Caenus, holding him fast and trying to swallow him. Mrs. Wilkins' mind tricks proved ineffective, so it fell to Aria's fists and Strontium and Audas's magic to dispatch the beast.

As they healed their wounds and made their way up the rocky path to the summit the party pondered the meaning of that assault. The creatures had been strong and tough -- far beyond anything they'd encountered in their previous visit. Had someone else taken up residence at the villa?

They reached the illusionary walls. Strontium, Aria and Quinn explained to their comrades how the villa worked and everyone managed to disbelieve the illusion and proceed inside. Quinn cast a small light spell on the stone slab to open the door. This time there was no squabbling about whether or not to enter; the entire party crossed the threshold quickly.

The first few areas of the villa showed no sign of any new occupant. The party found things exactly as they had left them, down to the barricade of furniture erected by the halflings Doblin and Jobro and the pile of trash in the dining room that had become the nest of a rat swarm. The halflings' spent traps remained in place in the kitchen and Castanamir's magic ever-full pantry and cold room were undisturbed and fully stocked.

As they entered the game room -- Castanamir's name for the room that summoned aberrant monsters for combat -- something clearly had changed. The air had an acrid smell to it and there were pits and scars in the walls and floor as if from energy strikes. The heroes were careful not to pick up any of the weapons because they knew that would trigger a summoning, yet as they examined the room there was a flash of dark energy and a vicious-looking scaly creature appeared just behind them. The burst felt to Audas like eldritch energy, and when he got a look at the attacker he recognized it as an ethereal defiler.

The creature struck out at Caenus immediately with a viscious claw and Caenus felt another burst of vile energy assault him. Aria moved in quickly with a stunning fist attack that stopped the creature in its tracks. Audas provided a vitriolic blast and Quinn went for broke with a drown spell. The defiler's lungs filled with water and it went down immediately, giving Caenus an opportunity for a quick coup de grace.

No sooner had the creature fallen, however, then another burst of foul energy ripped through the party announcing the arrival of another ethereal defiler. Aria attempted another stunning fist but this one failed to impress the new adversary. Mrs. Wilkins attempted an overwhelm but again found the aberration to be a difficult target for mind affects. Even Strontium's usually-reliable lesser missile storm fizzled in the face of this threat.

Physical attacks proved only slightly more effective. The creature had amazingly tough hide and potent damage reduction. Aria missed blow after blow and while Caenus did land even his aberration bane weapon inflicted only minor wounds.

Melian had an idea and reached out with a bare hand. He discovered quickly that the creature's tainted energy was a spell-like ability that could be stolen. His sneak attack allowed him to steal the ability, making it unavailable to the creature for a full minute. Sensing the loss of its key combat ability and facing a large group, the creature retreated back to the Ethereal Plane.

The heroes continued their exploration of the house. The servant and guest rooms were in the same state as before, and the hidden entrance leading to Castanamir's chambers seemed untouched. At least one other thing was the same, too: as the party entered the library a bored-looking Bradvig took one glance at them and sighed, "Oh ... it's you again."

The simulacrum was in no better humor than when they had last seen him, which briefly sparked another half-hearted debate about ending his suffering. Instead they questioned the neurotic being about visitors since their departure, about Azazel and elder aboleths, and about their plan to take up residence in the villa. Bradvig knew nothing useful about Azazel ("Oh, no, gods forbid he should leave anything that interesting where I could read it!"), had seen no one since the party's last visit, and acknowledged that while bound by orders not to allow any materials to be removed from the library he was hardly in a position to repel the party at their current level.

Having reached something resemblin an accord with the captive librarian the heroes worked quickly through the rest of the villa. The chapel, bedroom, and trophy room were exactly as they had left them. With each room, however, the party's group intuition grew that there would be a nasty surprise in Castanamir's private lab. Before entering the final room they took plenty of time to prepare for a hard fight. Mrs. Wilkins hasted everyone and then fortified herself with greater invisibility, true seeing, and freedom of movement. Quinn cast aura of vitality and brilliant aura to beef up the whole group and increase the effectiveness of their weapons. Thus prepared, they burst into the room and found themselves facing a huge, ancient-looking beholder.

The creature, which seemed to be studying a book, spotted them as they filed in and rotated its central eye to catch the whole group in its anti-magic ray but took no offensive action. Aria wasted no time, however, in running forward and leaping onto the desk to pummel the beholder. Caenus joined her, swatting at it with his halberd from the floor. At the same time Strontium and Audas moved wide of the magic-suppressing field and cast offensive spells at it.

The beholder, however, did not retaliate. The party watched it withdraw to a corner of the room as its wounds closed and healed themselves and the anti-magic ray engulfed them again. This time the party took notice and opened a dialog with the monster.

Its name, it said, was Udrastin. Several months ago it had been shunted into this plane from the Far Realm by an anomaly that appeared and vanished suddenly. It was effectively trapped, its body too large to fit into the doorway portals and its disintegrate ray unable to tunnel through the extradimensional walls of the lab. It had spent the time reading the books and notes in the library but Udrastin was a psion, not a wizard, and found nothing that could help him return to the Far Realm.

The party could not do that for him either, of course, but they did tell Udrastin the story of Chandrakar's escape into the Realm by way of the portal to Limbo (The Outlands). Partly out of surprise at finding a non-hostile beholder and partly out of desire to get Udrastin off the Material Plane and out of the villa, the heroes offered to convey the beholder to the plane of his choice. Udrastin accepted and chose the Astral Plane, figuring that it was the most likely place for him to find a way back to the Far Realm.

Quinn, Strontium and Caenus used the amulet of the planes to take Udrastin to the Astral Plane and, after a few missteps, return to the villa. In the meantime Melian and Mrs. Wilkins searched the lab for anything helpful. Behind the desk they found a hidden wall safe that would have been well beyond a third-level rogue's ability to detect. Inside that was a thick, leather-bound notebook full of handwritten pages.

Partway through the notebook was a sketch of a stone, oblong in shape and enscribed with what the notes labeled "unrecognized runes" -- the galadiir, drawn apparently from a description. Another note asked, "Where is it? Who has it?"

Most of the pages beyond that sketch contained complex arcane formulae. Strontium examined it and recognized it as the beginnings of a new spell. It had several properties in common with the Imprisonment spell, he noted, and seemed to be designed to use the galadiir as an arcane focus. The spell was incomplete, though, and beyond his ability to finish at the moment. Clearly, however, Castanamir had been working on the problem of how to use the galadiir to re-imprison Azazel even though he didn't have the gem in hand.

Having conquered the villa and found a valuable piece of the puzzle, the heroes focused on cleaning up and making the villa their new home.