Session Sixteen
While the characters were making plans to ambush the wizard Jos Snapjaw came back to lead them to the lizardfolk zone of the castle. There the lizardfolk gave the characters as much info as they had of the inner workings of the castle and which factions controlled which areas.
The party took the willingness of the lizardfolk to fight the bullywugs as a sign to begin a fight. They marched into the bullywug garrison and in a whirlwind of magic and violence killed all the bullywugs within. Gianna’s use of spirit guardians was the highlight of the fight which accounted for at least half of the bullywug deaths. Unfortunately Pharblex Spattergoo, the bullywug shaman was not amongst the dead here, he must have been elsewhere in the castle.
The party looted the bullywug treasury, finding a lot of silver and electrum jewellery along with two potions of healing and a potion of etherealness. Showing the lizardfolk the carnage of the bullywugs and the nearly pristine status of the party galvanised the lizardfolk into action and they and their giant lizards howling into all corners of the castle to hunt the remainder of the bullywugs.
Leaving the lizardfolk to settle their grudges with the bullywugs, the party invaded part of the castle that was held by the cultists. They found a wicked looking dagger cleverly hidden in a statue of Tiamat just as several cultists reacted to their presence and were quickly killed.
Going up the stairs they were presented with a room full of boxes filled with books and encountered several other cultists and killed them in quick order. The party then looked over the rooms they were in which ended up being a library, they estimated the value of the books in the rooms at several tens of thousands of gold pieces to the right buyers, unfortunately the weight of the books was in the thousands of kilos so not very portable and it would take ages to move and to find brokers to sell them. Zoltan used the time to identify the the dagger that they found, it was a dagger of venom.
Session Seventeen
Following the stairs upward brought them to what turned out to be Rezmir’s quarters. Quickly moving through the area the party found that there was a portal in the cave system below the castle and that there was very little else here except for some armour and vestments and regalia of rank. Zoltan noticed that there was a trap on the wardrobe containing the vestments, a very nervous Gren disarmed the acid trap and harvested a couple of acid vials.
Retracing their steps to the main floor the party proceeded to the kitchen area and raided the larder for food and drink. The din of battle largely masked their progress through the kitchen but on their way down the hue and cry had lessened as the savagery of the lizardfolk attack abated for lack of bullywug resistance on the castle grounds.
Cultists that were in the main hall counting treasure heard the party and came to attack them. The party set up in the doorway of the kitchen adjoining the hall to mount their defense.
A pitched battle ensued. Zoltan cast haste on Gren who trapped the entry way with ball bearings caltrops and a bear trap. The party hacked the first few of the attackers down in short order, a couple of the tougher enemies got some good hits hurting Gren who downed a few healing potions as breaks in the fighting allowed.
A second grouping of cultists led by Frulam Mondath joined the fray along with 3 guard drakes. Gianna cast spike growth in order to slow down the second wave’s assault. Caught unawares several cultists of the second wave succumbed almost immediately to the damaging vines and thorns as they tried to advance through the area. The drakes managed to make the doorway despite grievous injuries. Frulam attempted to command Gianna to come to her through the growth but Gianna shook off the compulsion with ease. Gren decided to try a flank around the main courtyard and Frulam came to meet him. Zoltan followed Gren and left Gianna and Eloen to deal with the remaining main force which they did with relative ease and aplomb.
Gren grappled and gagged Frulam while Zoltan threw a couple of Toll the Dead cantrips her way, one of which landed to devastating effect. They managed to kill Frulam relatively easily once she had been gagged.
Eloen angrily tore through Frulam’s effects looking for her dagger, it was not on Frulam’s corpse but Zoltan cast Locate Object and found that it was indeed nearby in the upper areas of the central keep of the castle.
Session Eighteen
After the fight the party realised that the din of fighting had lessened and that there seemed to be no more cultists or bullywugs in the courtyard and that the lizardfolk held the main castle area. They asked the lizardfolk if they could rest in their part of the castle to regain their spells and to recover from the fighting before pressing onward. The lizardfolk agreed, the catch being that they wanted the party to rest on the third floor, being almost tapped out the party argued the point a little. However the lizadfolk won out stating that the cultists would not think to look on the third floor as it was well known that it was blocked off.
The party agreed to clear out the problems on the third floor and they went up. Five giant spiders were the inhabitants of the floor and they began to attack when Zoltan threw a torch at one of them.
Gianna, being a nature cleric, used her ability to charm beasts to stop most of the spiders from attacking. The party dispatched the spiders with not much issue aside from a couple of webbings.
The party managed to get their rest in, towards the end of the rest a cry went up from the courtyard as Azbara Jos noticed his spellbook missing. The next few minutes were a hive of activity as the remaining cultists from the cave system began to send out small search parties looking for interlopers.
Realising that they were going to be discovered the party made a plan with the lizardfolk to cause a distraction while the party snuck into the bullywug barracks. Giving them an option to get to the stables and have the ability, either to cut one of the search parties down or to attack the main force of the cultists from an unexpected angle, or both.
The party, now in the barracks, made for the second floor in order to ambush the nearest search party. It wasn’t long before they were obliged, Eloen made short work of the first cultist in the room by chopping him with her glaive repeatedly. Gren followed up by leaping from the head of the stairs over the middle cultist into the one in the rear knocking him prone and dealing with him quickly. The third and last cultist made to scream but was cut down before he could utter a sound. The search party was dead and the other was on the other side of the castle. The party took the opportunity to make it to the stables and launch an attack on the flank of the main body of the enemy.
Realising that their tactical position was perilous, Rezmir called for cover and the cult leaders began to retreat. Dralmorrer Borngray and his people had by this point found the last of the counted loot and disappeared below the castle, chests in tow.
Rezmir and Jos’ guards formed a rearguard and were joined by the search party from the south east of the castle. Jos decamped immediately and Rezmir performed a fighting retreat, spitting acid at the party while they were engaged in combat with the rearguard.
Gren, not liking the idea of letting Rezmir get away ran after her using his hasted actions to get close and finally engage in hand to hand combat with her. Rezmir proved to be a formidable hand to hand combatant and ended up having a few tricks up her sleeves, she enveloped the area around her in inky darkness and lashed out at Gren with two handed sword that thrummed with dark power knocking him unconscious while she made good her escape.
Gren proved to be quite hard to revive, due to the malevolent nature of the sword strike but he was stabilised and eventually brought back to consciousness. The party chose to go into the central keep in order to lick their wounds and to search for Eloen’s lost dagger.
Session Nineteen
After a quick rest the party ascended the tower and began to search the second floor, Eloen skipped this floor completely and took the stairs up to the third floor, once there four gargoyles crawled into the room from the outside, after a quick battle the gargoyles were dispatched and the party searched the area, a huge piece of celestial viewing equipment dominated the room, a roof that would have been retractable allowed the scholars who used to occupy this castle to use this farseer to observe the skies. Zoltan and Giana both thought that there was some more functionality that the farseer hid. After a few minutes of playing with it Zoltan managed to activate the magical properties of the farseer and was able to cast his vision about the area without having to move.
He used the properties to scout out the entire cavern below the castle, mapping out where resistance would be highest and what was the shortest route to the teleportation circle therein. While he was doing that the rest of the party searched the floor and found 3 intact star scrolls on various media worth a total of 2100GP to a collector of such material.
The party descended to the second floor and searched Borngrey’s quarters, revealing his strongbox which had some coins and gems as well as a dagger inside. Eloen immediately recognised it as her lost dagger and reclaimed it.
The party was finally ready to tackle the cultist area and the caves below. Rummaging through the cultists’ tower revealed not much except for some spartan sleeping quarters and a study area which had some paper and ink suitable for transcribing magic spells, Zoltan took this to bolster his supplies.
Steeling themselves the party delved into the caves, following Zoltan’s map they bypassed the entire southern part of the caves and took the northern route. They ignored a cavern with a lot of gems that also harboured a grey ooze. They descended a 15 foot shelf of rock and made to attack the defenders in parts, they took on Pharblex Spattergoo and his minions first casting spike growth to manage the advance of their foes, it was a nasty surprise when Pharblex cast his own spike growth on the party, fixing them in place. What ensued was nearly a stalemate with only a few enemies being able to attack the party and only a few party members being in a position to retaliate. Zoltan’s use of the shatter spell took care of most of the smaller foes and soon only Parblex and a handful of others were left.
Session Twenty
Gren was beset by a couple of bullywugs who had leapt over most of Gianna’s spike growth they got a couple of lucky hits but were quickly dispatched. Eloen finished off the frogs on her side of the battle. Zoltan seeing no enemies in his sight cast invisibility on himself. Gianna, with her spiritual weapon, began to lay low the cultists who were getting ready to join the fray.
Gren used his ability to climb walls to climb over Gianna’s spike growth towards Pharblex stabbing the remaining bullywugs as he went. It was at this point Gianna dispelled the growth and Pharblex cast thunderwave and pushed Gren back, killing his remaining bullywug ally.
The cultists meanwhile began to crowd the outer ring of Pharblex’ spike growth and Gianna’s spiritual weapon followed them clubbing a couple of them along the way.
Gren attacking a retreating Pharblex was assailed by two more thunderwaves, however he managed to avoid most of the damage by interposing his shield between them. He struck out at Pharblex with his dagger and hit a couple of times.
About this time Pharblex’ spike growth vanished and the cultists poured in. Zoltan killed one with a toll the dead but several dragon cultists including Dralmorrer Borngrey made for Gianna and Eloen.
Gianna cast spiritual guardians and woodland spirits began to swirl. Several of the cultists died before they could move again but more hearty ones managed to attack Eloen and Zoltan. Eloen killed the cultist in front of her and attacked Borngrey. Her strikes hit home but he did not fall immediately, however he was shortly killed by floating spirits.
Gren continued to press Pharblex who retreated, Gren ran around him and planted a trap effectively cutting off Pharblex from his inner sanctum. Pharblex retreated back towards the falling cultists.
One of the cultist dragon wings hit Gianna with a massive blow and knocked her unconscious, Eloen quickly stepped forward and ended the threat from the remaining cultists.
Suddenly, the din of combat ended, the party victorious they took Pharblex’ remains and the remains of the old lizardfolk tribal leader up to snap jaw who thanked them and then lead a party of lizardfolk to cleanse the remains of the bullywug scourge under the castle.
The party quickly killed the ooze and claimed for themselves the gems that the ooze couldn’t digest. They found a trap with six poisonous grenadelike objects which Gren quickly disarmed and took charge of. The party finally went to the portal and saying the command word vanished to parts unknown.
Materialising near a hunting lodge in the high mountains the party began to look around and were set upon by some patrolling trolls leading drakes. They called for their leader Trepsin, a massive four armed troll that asked for the pass sign. Zoltan thinking quickly gave the Tiamat salute and they were allowed to pass into the manor. After wandering the manor for some time a butler confronted them and lead them to his Mistress, Talis.
Talis the White (self-styled) quickly cuts through the party’s attempts at deception revealing that she knows that they aren’t cultists at all. She begins to explain her position in the cult. She is unhappy with the direction that the cult has taken in recent times, believing that they should still be working in the shadows and that the attempt to summon Tiamat is premature.
She also mentions that she is at odds with a dwarf named Varram whom is a staunch supporter of the summoning attempt and has been named the White by the other cultist leaders. When pressed she reveals that the leaders of the cult are called Wyrmspeakers and they are: Severin the Red, Galvan the Blue, Neronvain the Green, Rezmir the Black, and Varram the White.
Talis goes on to explain that the cult has a hoard of treasure in a flying castle near to the town of Parnast and that it is due to leave soon to pick up more treasure from other areas. She offers an evening of rest and wyverns in the morning in order to get to the town before the castle leaves. There is a white dragon that inhabits this castle as well as the usual cultists. There are also Red Wizards on the castle as a liaison.
Talis offers the two Elven plate mail suits in the entry hallway to the party. The party is given rooms in the lodge to rest, recuperate and prepare for the next leg of the journey.
Sessions Eleven to Fifteen
Sessions Twenty One through Twenty Five
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