22 Norstan 1120

Aggressive Negotiations

The party rested that night camped out on Akhnar's beach.

In the morning Karu felt ill. Tika concluded that he must have contracted a disease from the touch of the abyssal ghouls the night before and cured him with remove disease and lesser restoration. Then it was time to discuss strategy.

Knowing for certain that the lich was really Akhnar, the party had to figure that they did not have the power between them to destroy him. Simply attacking, therefore, was not going to help. But Loki's idea, voiced the night before, held promise: if the party could get their hands on Akhnar's phylactery, the object on which his immortality depended, they could use that to negotiate their release without having to fight the lich.

The first step in that process would be to gain entry to Akhnar's tower. A quick walk around the outside showed no sign of any door at the beach level, and only a few windows in each of the upper stories. They had 100 feet of silk rope and 50 feet of hemp rope, but nobody had thought to carry a grappling hook or any other climbing gear. A quick poll also revealed that nobody in the party had any significant climbing ability. Even the cliffside, which was much rougher than the smooth walls of the tower, was beyond their skill.

Magical aide would clearly be needed. The obvious choice was a fly spell, but Ash didn't know that one and had no scroll or wand to fall back on. Tika considered summoning a flying creature but was reluctant to expend a high-powered spell slot for a menial task. The weight of the rope alone met the capacity of mage hand, leaving no way to secure it. Then Tika remembered a seldom-used low-level spell, updraft, that would allow her to lift herself up to 100 feet and make a single, short lateral movement before drifting down again.

Tika took the long rope and updrafted herself to the top of the tower. There she was able to secure the rope and drop the tail down to her team, who then climbed up one at a time.

The top of the tower was flat and nearly featureless. There was a notched ledge along the perimeter and a tiny stone column in the center with a heavy iron door. The group approached the door and checked it for traps.

As Vondran examined the door a pair of large, vaguely humanoid creatures appeared on the rooftop. They had ram-like heads and long, spined tails and carried huge pole arms. Tika recognized them as bulezau, a form of demon commonly used as foot soldiers in the Abyssal armies.

Ash got off a pair of scorching rays that definitely hit the bulezau but failed to do any damage. Tika cast a quick magic circle against evil to boost the party's defenses just as the bulezau charged her and Vondran, each scoring a vicious hit with its horns. Vondran counterattacked with the Arm of Telomir and hit twice but did no damage.

After a sonic scorching ray from Ash failed to overcome the demons' spell resistance, Tika cast align weapon (good) to make the group's weapons effective against the bulezau's resistances. Vondran, remembering the strategy that worked well against the arrow demons, grappled the nearest bulezau and held it long enough for Karu to get in a sudden strike. Ash followed up with sonic magic missiles and Tika used righteous might to gain combat advantage.

Vondran's bold tactic, grappling a demon larger than himself, proved risky. He held the demon while Karu and Loki landed damaging blows, but the creature got its horns into place for a crippling gore that dropped Vondran on the ground, bleeding and unconscious. Ash also paid a price for her spell damage when the other bulezau charged her and bull rushed her off the edge of the roof. Fortunately the soft sand cushioned her fall and Ash took surprisingly little damage from it. She sent Tak scurrying up the rope and then used baleful transposition to trade places with the weasel and return to the battle.

Tika, having bulked up with righteous might, found herself instead acting as combat medic. She healed Vondran to get him on his feet before the bulezau could dismember him; then Loki, who had been hit hard by the huge ranseurs the demons wielded; then Karu, who paid the price for being too close; then Vondran again when he was nearly split open by another ranseur attack. Her enlarged body made a reasonably effective shield and allowed her to keep the fighting team alive.

The first bulezau fell to Vondran's harpoon, with lots of help from Karu and Loki. Ash's spell attacks were hit or miss; one in particular missed badly and hit Karu with an empowered sonic scorching ray instead. Fortunately the team was able to take down the second demon before any further mishaps hurt them.

With the demons taken care of, the group again turned their attention to the door. Vondran had found no traps on it so Karu picked the lock and they pulled it open. A cloud of paralyzing gas spewed forth from a trap they had failed to detect, catching Vondran and Karu and rendering them helpless for several long minutes. Luckily the rest of the party had kept back and were unaffected.

Inside the doorway was nothing but blackness. Not the blackness of an empty room, but rather a totally void space. The group figured it had to be a teleporter of some sort; once Karu and Vondran had recovered they stepped through.

Sure enough, they came out the other side into a large space partitioned into five bedrooms and a small common area. A second black-filled archway stood in the center across from their entry point. Before the party could explore, a shimmering image of Akhnar appeared amongst them.

"My apologies for the demons on the roof," the image said. "Eirenye has an odd way of getting to know people, and I find that it's best to let her indulge herself now and then.

"I had these quarters built for your use. After all, we're civilized people -- there's no reason to expect you to camp out in a cave or on the beach for the rest of your natural lives. I've also provided a recreational space on the next level down, which you can reach through the second archway. I'll check in on you again when you've had time to get settled."

Tika had a number of questions for Akhnar, chief among them being the cause of his obvious fear, but the image disappeared before she could ask any of them. At least the lich had left them a good meal -- the table in the common area was loaded with fresh food, which Loki quickly pronounced delicious.

The "recreational space" mentioned by Akhnar proved to be a library and sparring area on a separate level of the tower. This level also had a second archway, but it lacked the void field of a teleporter and was simply a decoration for all practical purposes. As Ash examined it, though, the inside suddenly filled with blackness. She rounded up the party and they stepped through.

On the other side was a luxurious bedroom area. Fine tapestries lined the walls, quality carpets covered the floor. And in the corner, stretched out on a huge round bed and surrounded by lush pillows, was a beautiful and nearly-naked woman who confirmed Tika's spoken presumption that she was Eirenye.

Eirenye spoke to the group in sexual innuendos, suggesting that they disrobe and join her on the bed for various activities. When the entire party declined, she seemed puzzled and perhaps a little annoyed. Still she kept inviting Vondran to remove his armor, Tika to come lie down with her or punish her with a good spanking, Loki to show her what else he could do with a mind blade ... nobody in the party was unwelcome in her bed, it would seem.

Tika and Ash looked more closely at Eirenye and her image began to dissolve into something decidedly demonic: pale skin, horns, what appeared to be the remains of burned-off wings, and four long quilled tails that writhed slowly behind her.

Then, as they watched, one of those tails lashed out at Ash. She was struck and felt something get injected into her system, but whatever it was had no perceivable effect. Vondran saw the attack and snapped into action with his harpoon, but like the bulezau Eirenye proved highly resistant to damage from it.

Tika reckoned that Eirenye must be a lilitu, a creature evolved from a succubus by undergoing a magical ritual, and cast align weapon (good) again to help the party's weapons get past her defenses.

Eirenye flailed at the group with her tails, trying to reduce their will with her Wisdom-sapping poison. Vondran moved in and grappled her, holding her tightly so that Karu could get in a sudden strike and Loki a psychic strike. Ash also contributed a pair of empowered magic missile spells.

The onslaught put Eirenye in a decidedly less playful mood. She demanded to know what the party wanted, and Tika had a ready answer: the location of Akhnar's phylactery. The lilitu considered for far less time than a loyal consort probably should have, then revealed that the phylactery was hidden inside Akhnar's pipe organ, behind a panel in the rear of the manual. At the party's request she enabled the teleport arch for them to take them to Akhnar's study, where the organ was, in exchange for her life.

Before rushing into combat with a lich who could destroy an island and create a demiplane, the group worked out a strategy. Tika stepped through the archway first to find Akhnar at his organ, playing the instrument. She cast holy storm and stepped aside to clear the opening. Loki followed and brandished his double-bladed mind blade.

Akhnar stopped his recital, stepped a pace or two aside from the organ, and cast globe of invulnerability on himself to prevent the holy storm from doing him any harm. Ash and Vondran entered the fray, with Vondran charging Akhnar and hitting him with the harpoon but doing no damage. Meanwhile, Karu used his ki power to turn invisible and ran through the archway, through the rain area, and behind the organ. If Akhnar saw this he gave no indication.

Tika bluffed casting another spell to hold Akhnar's attention during Karu's invisible dash for the organ and Loki threw his mind blade. With a look of near boredom on his face, Akhnar then cast a stinking cloud and disabled Ash and Loki. Vondran escaped the putrid vapors and grabbed Akhnar in a grapple, but the lich stunned him with a stilled darkbolt that struck from behind and caused Vondran to lose his grip.

Meanwhile, Karu used his ninja skills to locate the panel in the back of the organ and disable the poisoned needle trap that guarded it. He removed the panel and found inside a small crystal case containing a few strips of parchment with arcane symbols on them: Akhnar's phylactery.

Before Akhnar could make another move, though, Karu came out from behind the organ holding the phylactery and threatened to smash it on the stone floor if Akhnar made another move against the party. Clearly unhappy about it, Akhnar dispelled the stinking cloud and entered into negotiations with Tika for the return of his phylactery.

His attitude was no longer friendly, making it difficult for Tika to get any useful information. Akhnar allowed that what he had learned of Azazel indicated that he would simply crush any perceived competition -- as in, a resident lich or illithid elder brain -- regardless of any service that may have been done, deliberately or otherwise, for him. The Material Plane was doomed to become Azazel's, and Akhnar wanted no part of that. Despite probing questions from Tika he declined to say anything more he may have learned about Azazel, insisting instead that the group leave as they wished so that he could hide the entrance to his demiplane again.

Once it became clear their leverage would extend no further, the party did exactly that. The portal opened by Akhnar dropped them in the middle of Marhaven, to the surprise of more than a few common citizens. Still, they had faced a legendary force and come out of it relatively unscathed; that was worth something.

<MR>
4/2/08