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5 Shyrdus 1120
Showdown
The magical attack on the center of Marhaven (Maelstrom) had to be Rorin's doing. The exclusive use of conjuration spells and the summoning of pseudonatural creatures were his trademarks, after all. The question that dogged the party as they prepared to hunt the alienist down was how Rorin had managed to unleash so many spells from a distant location in such a short time. With no answer and limited resources to research, the party had to conclude that Azazel had assisted in some way. In the end it made little difference; the party still had only one course of action to pursue. With Garrick among them, happy to be out of jail and in company that had proven safe, the heroes used their last scroll of discern location to divine the whereabouts of Rorin. Strontium read the scroll and learned that Rorin was in his castle on the Astral Plane. They took hands and used their amulet of the planes to shift into Astral space. In that dimensionless zone they focused on Rorin's castle and found themselves hurtling in a specific direction. For four days the party zoomed across the silvery space until they spotted a low stone building resting on a pool of deep blue. The structure was fully closed, a quick circling revealed, and had only one apparent entrance: a pair of strong iron doors on one side of the perfectly round building. Melian examined the doors and discovered that they were arcane locked. Audas tried to devour magic but failed to overcome Rorin's caster level. Melian tried to work around it and managed to click the door open. Caenus then kicked it in and triggered a stinking cloud trap. Audas was disabled by the spell and the group had to wait for it to wear off before proceeding. A well-furnished entry hall held nothing of interest, so the party pushed on through a hallway to the left. The hall doubled back on itself twice before leading to a door at the end. As Melian approached that door, however, he suddenly found himself teleported back to a spot near the beginning of the serpentine hallway. He ran back to rejoin the group and this time Audas used his bamf ability to teleport himself, Melian, and Caenus to the area in front of the door. Melian picked the sturdy lock on the door and opened it only to have the door disintegrate into dust. From the room beyond a pair of dark-colored, metallic, skeletal-looking creatures floated out toware the party and assailed them with a blast of negative energy. Audas tried to respond with an eldritch chain but the invocation failed in his hands -- these creatures had spell immunity. Aria, figuring the teleport affect must be on the floor, took a running start and leapt toward the battle only to find herself landing in the hallway by the entrance. Quinn tried to wild shape into a rhinocerous to attack the walls directly but there wasn't enough room in the narrow passage and the ability failed. Realizing that they could not fight effectively in the cramped quarters, the party retreated back into the hallway. The creatures followed, blasting again with negative energy and fighting Caenus hand to hand as the others retreated behind him. Audas tried his vitriolic chain and found it effective, though Caenus was disappointed to find that his greataxe barely scratched the opponents' tough metallic bodies. Even in the longer section of the hall there wasn't room for the entire party to see and act. Strontium and Garrick ended up just retreating out of the way while Caenus and Audas did most of the fighting. Aria used the teleporter to come up behind the monsters and help Caenus. Quin, seeing that Audas's vitriolic blast worked, tried an arc of lightning with success. Another of those, coupled with a final blast from Audas, destroyed the creatures. A close examination of the remains showed that they were made from an odd sort of metal that seemed to have some properties of shadowstuff. Strontium had read about shadesteel golems before but never seen one; he kept a sample of the metal to analyze later and the party moved on. A simple sitting room led to a large ballroom. Within that expansive space the party found multiple exits. As they examined the first, however, another trap sprang on them. A trap door in the ceiling opened and a huge glob of green goop dropped onto the floor. A chill ran through the spines of all of the arcanists as they recognized an arcane ooze. The entryway they'd come through was blocked by a wall of force. There was nowhere any of the heroes could go that wasn't within range of the ooze's spell siphoning power; the only choice was to beat the ooze to death as quickly as possible. That was at first easier said than done, however, as the ooze siphoned spells from Melian and Garrick and grew stronger on the energy. Quinn, divine spellcaster, used ice flowers do damage the thing and then joined the rest of the group in beating on the creature with weapons. It grabbed onto Melian and briefly engulfed him but then Aria landed a flurry of blows that caused the ooze to dissolve into lifeless slime. The ooze had not presented any great physical threat, but the loss of resources was severe. Melian had lost three of his hightest-level spell slots and Garrick two of his. For a moment the party considered a rest, but decided that Rorin would use that delay to either escape or fortify his position. Assuming he wasn't already gone. As the party searched the next area, which proved to be the dining room and kitchen, Strontium's attitude turned grim. The dishes were all neatly put away, the foodstuffs in the pantry down to a bare minimum, and there was no sign at all of recent activity. It appeared as though Rorin may have already abandoned the place. When they found several bedrooms in a similar state -- beds stripped and wardrobes bare -- it seemed all but certain that they had missed their quarry by days. Still, they pressed on. Beyond the bedrooms they found a small room with an adamantine door. Melian picked the lock on this to reveal a spiral staircase leading down. He and Audas headed down the stairs first and tripped another stinking cloud trap, becoming sickened in the process. Rather than turn back, however, they pushed on to the bottom of the stairs. With a light from Quinn tossed down behind them the wretching heroes found themselves in a strange spot. The stairs ended abruptly about 30 feet above a rushing stream of filthy water. There was a door at their level some 45 feet away but no apparent way to get to it. The rest of the party came down and began devising a means to climb across to the far door. Strontium went so far as to tie off a rope to the center spire fo the stairs. Then Quinn had an idea and reached out with her trident to probe the space around the foot of the stair. The trident struck something solid -- there was an invisible floor of some kind over the water. The party laughed and set off across the strange passage. When the last of them stepped off onto the invisible floor, however, the force effect gave way and dumped the entire group into the rushing water. All but Strontium, who was still tied off to the stairway, and Garrick, whom Strontium caught neatly as he passed, were carried off by the rushing water into a dark, muddy chamber beyond. Inside that dark chamber the muddy water swirled around a black glob in the center. That glob moved and attacked as soon as Aria started to cross the room. It was an elder black pudding, a mindless scavenger looking for food. Aria struck the thing four times before Caenus rushed in with his greataxe and gave it a mighty chop. Rather than sustaining damage, however, the pudding divided neatly into two and continued to fight. Knowing that his mind-bending spells would be useless against the black pudding, Garrick cast spider climb on himself, took the rope, and began working on a way to get the party to that higher door. Strontium let himself slide down into the lower chamber with the rest of the group and let fly with a lesser missile storm to destroy one half of the pudding. The other half knocked Caenus unconscious with a clubbing attack but was killed by Aria. By the time Caenus had recovered Garrick had the door open and the rope tied off for climbing. The party ascended and found nothing on the other side but a platform containing a round hole filled with clean water. Again Strontium cursed, thinking they'd discovered nothing more than a fresh water supply and that Rorin was gone. Then they remembered that Rorin, being an aquatic elf, would need to spend time in water every day -- his true quarters could well be underwater. Aria swam down and peeked out the bottom of the tunnel and confirmed that, indeed, Rorin was there along with two other humanoid figures. Quinn cast aura of vitality as she had before their first encounter with Rorin, enhancing everyone's Strength, Dexterity and Constitution. Strontium also fortified himself with dragon skin and cast water breathing on himself because his cloak of the manta ray would not work in fresh water. Caenus, also normally dependent on a cloak, used Mrs. Wilkins' gills of Hamachi to ensure he could breathe the water. Buffed and ready, the party dove down to engage Rorin. Just before the end of the tunnel, however, they felt an odd sensation: the aura of vitality spell seemed to vanish as they passed a point about 10 feet above the tunnel's bottom. Strontium recognized an Otiluke's dispelling screen as he passed through it and was relieved that his water breathing spell survived. Quinn had used her last 5th-level slot to cast the aura of vitality, so there was nothing to be done about losing it. Instead the party pushed on to engage the enemy. Rorin and his allies were clearly expecting the group. The allies, two aventi men in fighting armor and bearing double-ended spears, positioned themselves ahead of Rorin and were ready to intercept Caenus and Quinn on their initial charge. Rorin used one of his most powerful spells right off the bat: utterdark, a 9th-level spell that left the entire area cloaked in darkness that no darkvision or magical effect could counter but that all evil creatures could see in clearly. The heroes realized that this would cripple them if left in place. Audas attempted to devour magic but failed to affect it; Garrick used his only remaining 6th-level slot on a greater dispel magic and also failed. Strontium in desperation used his Alacritous Cogitation feat to cast dispel magic in a 5th-level slot and thankfully succeeded, causing the darkness to dissipate immediately and removing the enemy's huge advantage. Aria charged at Rorin between the two fighters, thinking she would have a clear shot at the mage, but found her path blocked by the nearly-invisible tentacles of a pair of shabboaths. One struck and held her briefly, losing its grip quickly but still managing to keep her from Rorin. Caenus and Quinn exchanged blows with the fighters, landing good hits but taking severe punishment in return as the aventi put on an exhibition of skillful spear-handling. Audas grabbed Melian and bamfed behind Rorin, following their plan to use Melian's spell stealing ability to prevent Rorin from escaping by time stop again. The shabboaths, however, used their long reach and powerful grappling ability to interfere with the plan by hitting and holding them both. Audas was able to bamf out of their grip but the constructs would just grab them both again. Then, just as things seemed more or less evenly matched, an elder water elemental appeared to do Rorin's bidding. Garrick stepped in and proved that the party was wise to include him. He cast dominate person on one of the aventi and told him to attack Rorin. Then he cast the same spell on the other aventi and told it to attack the water elemental. Both fighters failed to resist the beguiler's magic and obediently took off to follow their new orders. Rorin was blindsided by Garrick's tactic. His own fighter closed in and grabbed him in a grapple, allowing Melian to slip in behind and perform a sneak attack. His original plan had been to steal time stop, but that spell was too high a level for Melian; instead he took freedom of movement, the one spell that might have allowed Rorin to slip free, and cast it on himself to gain immunity from the shabboath's grasp. Aria closed in as well and hit Rorin with a Stunning Fist. The wizard recovered from that and attempted to teleport himself out of danger but the spell failed thanks to the fighter's grapple hold and Audas prevented Rorin from trying anything else with a fatal empowered vitriolic chain. Rorin's death did not eliminate the summoned elemental, however. Garrick sent both of his new pets after the elemental and they fought it hard, but they were wounded from their fighting before the spells and the elemental crushed them with mighty blows before succumbing to the combined might of the rest of the party. A search of the area turned up a passage to Rorin's personal quarters. There, as in the rest of the house, the party found signs of hasty packing and removal of valuables. There were traveling spellbooks, for instance, but not the larger collection of spells and research material that any wizard of Rorin's level would have and no material on Azazel or any special magical knowledge Rorin may have gotten from the elder aboleth. Rorin had prepared for the worst. The party helped themselves to the best of the late Rorin's possessions and returned home. There was no need to go seeking Azazel's other minions, they realized. After this, the minions would most assuredly find them.
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