Author: Blameless

DELTA

The battle goes well enough against the desert critters, but more pour in. Injured Tanagra cuts her way through scorpions, gnolls, and jackelweres while Max channels Pelor’s good health to keep her working. Though small, Tambourine flies at the best elevation to stab gnolls and claims several kills.

Gamble banes the two gnolls who are baffled by Andrakis’s mirror images. Andrakis shadow blades the gnolls, but he is isolated from the group and collecting adds. Wild magic favors him with the good fortune of a visiting monodrone which he befriends. The monodrone competently defends itself so Andrakis, rapidly running out of mirror images, excuses himself to the ethereal plane to catch his breath just in time to not witness a cyclops smack the monodrone over the horizon with his great club.

Ivor inflicts wounds both spiritually and martially. He attempts to draw the surrounding peril to his own nearly indestructible self and sentinals anything that does not comply. Unfortunately, “nearly indestructible” is not nearly enough and a cyclops bonks him into the ground with a greatclub. Max shoulders through a clog of critters to get to Ivor and lays on some hands. Ivor refreshes his shield of faith, gets a healing word from Gamble, and resumes taunting.

Reinforcements arrive for the desert critters, but Delta might be on its own for a while. Possibly for an eternity.

CHARLIE

Ander shockingly grasps the dust devil and escapes its proximity while his force ballista knocks a zombie away from Ten and into Ash. Barika wants to be where Ander does not and gets a close up look at Ten’s moonbeam radiantly cleaning the dust devil. Barika finishes off the dust devil and Ten’s moonbeam flicks over to one of the zombies raised by staff waving, cackling Gghuarrlongh The Undying who pops back from the portal on Gghrondeneuxs the dracolich. Gghuarrlongh The Undying does a quick hang to watch his zombies get battered and shoved before retiring once more into the portal. A loud pop is heard from out in the desert.

Ash advantageously joins his vicious longbow to Sqyylarr’s action surged greatclub pummeling versus the fire elemental blinded by same. Sqyylarr gets a fine hit on the fire elemental and gets splashed with fire. Sqyylarr is so often on fire that her clothing fills with desert sand from smothered rolling. The fire elemental humiliatingly stands on her smoldering proneness for maximum ignition. Barika ice cones the fire elemental. Watc magic missiles it. Ash gets the final shot on the fire elemental. Flaming Sqyylarr finds the last zombie and slays it before one last stop, drop, and roll.

FOXTROT

Armin shoots Bram from atop a mesa to the north. Bram moves toward him with misty step and thorn whips him off the cliff. Once most of the party has committed to run at Armin, he annoyingly teleports back to the wagon train onto a tanker.

Wall, not a natural sprinter, goes for Hans instead with a critical hammering, and Briar finishes the job with an ensnaring strike that ensnares Hansel “Hans” Ormanheit, traitorous secret Quori, forever. Armin yells in anguish but finds little sympathy in present company. Wall quaffs a healing potion to cheers Hans’s demise.

Briar, a natural sprinter, runs for Armin who is nefariously fiddling with something on the tanker. Bram transforms into a fiendish giant spider. Khalang mind spikes Armin, and that psychic damage seems especially effective. Urim casts a fresh spiritual sun mace to thwack Armin.

ALPHA

Nala chops down the last lamia, Moth and Tango finish the last two hyenas, Snory inflicts wounds with touched death on the last Ogre, and Scram fills his face with errant Jim’s magic missiles. But a replacement lamia and ogre arrive as a foreboding howl fills the air. Nala is in bad shape so Snory transfers life to keep her going and retreats to where Scram is scorching rays at the lamia. Tango sneakily severs many of the lamia’s vitals before slipping away.

An objectively unpleasant looking critter appears on the embankment overlooking the battle in the canyon. It howls, frightening most everyone.

FOXTROT

While Alpha, Delta, and Charlie advance east to contact the unknown forces bent on acquisition of the caravan’s invaluable cache of vis, Foxtrot settles in for an easy day of Uno in cantonment. Before the cards are even shuffled, Portent addresses the caravan from the aft porch of the bookmobile. It seems there is a traitor in their midst. Recently promoted Briar Quicksilver grapples Armin Ormanheit arrestingly. Armin and Hansel “Hans” Ormanheit, now in the presumably more authenticate form of icky, four-armed Quori, pop away to nearby desert chimneys, flank the caravan, and goad them derisively. It seems the “Brothers Ormanheit” were Quori infiltrators all along, dramatically revealed by the ingenious ruse of Portent and Xalver’s feigned intelligence leak. Ssatschia had his suspicions all along owing to their unconcealable Quori accent.

Bramrigg “Bram” Stonewander and Waldorf “Wall” Boulderbreaker charge south for Hans aided by Urim Lazenby’s Pelor-powered spiritual sun mace. Bram force-pulls Hans off the chimney so Wall can hammer on him. Toffee and Bear Briar split off for Armin to the north. Gohiru Khalang observes the unguarded tankers in between the divided party and hangs back, a tactic justified when Armin and Hans dimension hop away from their pursuers back to the wagons. A force field hop-blocks Armin stopping him short of the book mobile.

Shaking off Khalang’s insured witchbolt, Hans savages Toffee with point blank crossbow bolts. More arms mean more pain for Toffee, knocked out until Briar’s righteous hands lay some health on him. Hans gets his numerous arms twisted up trying to murder Toffee leaving him stunned and exhausted. Wall second winds and runs down Armin but is similarly discombobulated by her own hammer swing.

ALPHA

Clearing canyons to the southeast, Alpha comes suddenly upon a few giant hyenas and a pair of ogres. Moth menaces them with his shortsword as Scram’s considerable fireball explodes, bloodying pretty much all of them. The ogres reckon Tango is easy prey so the party rushes in to peel them off. Nala methodically chops down the burnt hyenas, working her way counterclockwise around a column in the narrow canyon. The sound of rapidly dying ogres and hyenas attracts the attention of couple of lamia and a third ogre intent on pounding Nala into the desert floor. Scram tosses another fireball which softens up the clog around Nala. Snory and Ssatschia clerically maintain Nala’s greatsword swinging condition. Lucky Tango and critically darting Moth work through the hyenas clockwise around the column. The rising pile of ogre, hyena, and lamia bodies filling the canyon bodes well for Alpha’s dominance until the commotion attracts the attention of things hissing and howling throughout the canyons.

DELTA

On the search for an army of dodecaheathens, all Delta can find is an army of gnolls, jackelweres, and giant scorpions presenting a unified resistance. Hopefully the dodecaheathens are having the same difficulty. Andrakis becomes surprisingly frightened of Ivor Starag, either because Ivor is standing in the middle of the desert inviting all challengers to hurt him or because of the unpredictable effects of wild magic, maybe a little of both. Gamble Watt strikes an injurious power chord on his radical lute opening hostilities on a gnoll and scorpion to the right. That gives Tambourine, Max, and Tanagra a place to start eradicating and the battle is joined. Tambourine is lulled to sleep by a jackelweres until Max scoops her up on his shoulder. The situation seems otherwise manageable until a couple of boulders sail over the dunes at Andrakis and Tanagra. Tanagra gets crushed by the boulder which brings Ivor running. Andrakis is on his game and confounds the gnolls with his mirror images. Bardically inspiring Gamble dodges a boulder. Ivor invites a boulder into his taunting gob. A mass of jackelweres, scorpions, gnolls, and boulder-hucking cyclops roll over the horizon.

CHARLIE

An enormous dust cloud over the desert approaches Charlie as Charlie approaches the enormous dust cloud, dense in the middle from a dust devil, glowing yellow and orange on the left from a fire elemental, and busy on the right from a swirling air elemental. Oh, also a huge dracolich with a skeletal rider possessed of too many laughing heads rising above the storm. Tenebrous “Ten” Shae knows that, to survive a dragon, the party will require a lot of advantageous avoidance to survive; he shares a circle of power with his cohort. Ash calmly selects his finest arrow, takes his time knocking it into the bow, thoughtfully draws the bow, and mindfully plugs that steady-aimed, sneaky arrow right into rider Gghuarrlongh The Undying. Ander, not to be outdone, flips a coin that unfolds into a force ballista and combos that with a firebolt into Gghuarrlongh The Undying. Watc releases his largest ever fireball which is disappointingly avoided by the elementals and dracolich. Sqyylarr has a run at the fire elemental who sets her alight. She stops, she drops, and she rolls out the fire but gets beaten by the dracolich’s tail. The dust devil sits on Ten and Ander and launches Ten into the air elemental. Gghuarrlongh The Undying swings a bone staff around meaningfully and, with accompanying cackle, summons up a clutch of death dogs. Barika breaks a hand trying to chop a death dog. Ten repairs Barika’s hand with a healing word so she will not be at such a disadvantage and summons a twilight sanctuary that will temporarily boost the party’s health. Ash and Ander skillfully break contact with the death dogs. Watc encompasses the battle in a fireball which helps with a couple of the death dogs. Sqyylarr makes use of her artificed maul, Smash, to blind the air elemental. Gghuarrlongh The Undying flies Gghrondeneuxs the dracolich through a golden portal abandoning the elementals to fend for themselves.

Charlie Company reports back to Portent Order at Xalver’s caravan book mobile. Ander makes a first pass at explaining their encounter with Tophe and his incarcerated pops, Tharizdun, especially as it relates to the burned hole in Ander’s garment and person caused by returning to the material plane with a pocket full of celestial slag. Ander’s executive summary: the caravan has one season to kill a god. Ash supplies the relevant details Ander might have omitted, being unrelated to celestial slag. Portent and Im seem to exchange a lot of subtextual glances. Concerned that some of Charlie Company may lack moral clarity, Portent Order emphasizes that, at the risk of all existence, under no circumstances will any vis be rendered unto Tophe. Never.

Xalver recounts the relevant, but abridged, legend of nuclear family unit Pelor, Ioun, and Tharizdun discovering the Living Gate and really, really wanting to peer through to the other side. Tharizdun distracted the gate guardian allowing the three a burdensome knowledge of what was beyond. Despite pinky swearing to leave that gate be, Tharizdun subsequently got hold of some bad shard and went coo-coo for crystallines. He slew the guardian which allowed evil to seep through. Pelor and Ioun were forced to imprison Tharizdun and cauterize the gate, but not before the introduction of polarized entities Opeth and Pohet, aligned good and evil, respectively. Because Tharizdun a.k.a. The Elemental Eye a.k.a. The Chained God is imprisoned with his power intact, conditional release is not possible and would represent destruction of all civilization. Therefore, Portent re-emphasizes for those with short little spans of attention, there will never ever be vis for Tharizdun. Like, ever.

In the last bit of debrief, Portent, Vesper, and Xalver probe to what extent Tophe is aware of Charlie Company’s location and purpose. Ash points out how Tophe laughably overestimated the party’s capabilities, knowledge, and authority and seemed a little surprised to find them at Frith & Inle.

The book mobile sees heavy use the next few days, parked with the caravan on the outskirts of Llorkh. Portent calls a battalion formation to announce he will thin the caravan; non-essential employees will shelter in place at Silverymoon and Mithral Hall. The caravan will continue its mission with Alpha, Charlie, Delta, and Foxtrot companies along with security and logistics. Equipment comprises three tankers, Xalver’s book mobile, supply wagons, and spellguard.

In the dark of night and without notice, Portent orders the departure from Llorkh to the southeast into the Greypeak Mountains and toward the Anauroch Great Sand Sea. En route, Portent summons Ssatschia for an individual debriefing of Alpha’s recent adventuring. Despite the diminutive external dimensions and crowds of people utilizing the book mobile, Ssatschia finds an expansive and comfortable interior space equipped no worse than a university library, nicely furnished, and a steady 72 degrees at 50% relative humidity. Ssatschia takes his comfortable time relating the disruption of the illicit basilisk breeding mill that all started with the discovery of this very book mobile found stricken on the road to Llorkh. Xalver interrupts the convo to conspicuously announce that the caravan will arrive at the High Ice north of Anauroch in one week. Portent, clearly irritated by Xalver’s indiscretion, admonishes Ssatschia to keep that little tidbit under his proverbial hat.

Some time later, Portent summons Ivor to the book mobile to recount Delta’s adventures in the dark hole discovered in a Llorkh house. Ivor normally disparages creature comforts but will have a seat since it’s Portent asking. He recalls the ropes, the dragon books, the mushroomed dwarven adventurers, the zombie plants, and most importantly, a handsome great robe of useful items. The whole thing ended with the push of a button. Very nice. Xalver interrupts the convo to conspicuously announce that the caravan will arrive at the Swords Region south of Anauroch in one week. Portent, clearly irritated by Xalver’s indiscretion, admonishes Ivor to keep that little tidbit under his proverbial hat.

Some time later, Portent summons Armin, but not his brother Hans, to the book mobile to recount Foxtrot’s adventures tracking artificer Kwalish’s historic path to a monastery of the distressed body. It seems like a terrible oversight to exclude Hans, but Armin does his best to recount the adventures on a floating island occupied by monks who exchanged flayed faces and then on to a city drowned in goo. Xalver interrupts the convo to conspicuously announce that the caravan will arrive at the Black Road near the Empire of Shadows in one week. Portent, clearly irritated by Xalver’s indiscretion, admonishes Armin to keep that little tidbit under his proverbial hat.

The caravan marches on without deviating even when hit by a great sandstorm that endures four days. The sandstorm dissipates as the caravan arrives at a major east-west road. Scouts are deployed as the caravan turns east for a day. The scouts return early in the morning and report urgently to the book mobile. Portent again calls a battalion formation and announces that three coordinated attacks are anticipated. To the northeast, Charlie will engage a dust cloud that may indicate approaching riders or something worse. To the east, Delta will engage a force of dodecaheathen eyeless servants of the Quori incursion. To the southeast, Alpha will engage large creatures approaching through the canyons. Foxtrot will stay with the caravan to engage whatever gets through following the inevitable demise of the other companies. Dismissed!

Rested from the basilisk fight below the fortress outside of Llorkh, Alpha Company emotionally prepares to return to the surface where Larry’s bandits might be waiting to relieve the party of its loots. Ssatschia has attuned the book of healing, and Snory animates the one unstoned humanoid. Nobel nominee Ssatschia doles out individual doses of restoration potion in discarded Marley’s Marvelous Mead bottles and leaves one at the feet of each petrified bandit.

In the fortress, the three baby basilisk heads are harvested. Tango loots from a chest some excellent mithril scale armor [25gp] which goes to Snory. Tango hatches a plan to lure any ambushing bandits in with some loudly feigned complaints of lameness. The ploy works too well. Larry generously arrives with some deer meat and offers to help. He is appreciative of the restoration potions Ssatschia set out and greets Moth’s new dog, recently restored.

The mutual ambush situation turns more awkward when Larry exits and confers with Big Al, the other known bandit leader. Scram exchanges threats, verbatim, with the bandit leaders and Tango offers to remove Big Al’s kidneys. But it is Tango’s kidneys on the line when he scales the fortress wall to surprise flank the bandits and gets grappled by a swavain basilisk. As his final unmineralized duty, he heroically puts hand crossbow bolts into the basilisk and, with prodigious screaming, distracts the attention of the surrounding bandits away from the fortress gate where Moth emerges and, noticing the huge basilisk, joins in the scream. The open hostility is comforting and alleviates the awkwardness.

Scram launches a fireball right out of the gate killing four bandits and wounding three more including bosses Larry and Big Al. Moth, Ssatschia, and Nala punishingly surround Larry. Despite Tango’s moxie, the grappling swavain basilisk secretes its petrification juices on him which at least gives him some relief from the numerous crossbow bolts flying at him. Big Al charges in to help Larry but botches and flings his weapon away. His retreat attracts an opportune infliction of wounds from Ssatschia and a hit by Moth. Isolated Larry is beaten down by Nala, Moth, And Ssatschia. Scram makes another epic attempt at summoning a shadow spawn but gets a sleet storm instead. Big Al embarrassingly slips on the ice and retributively stabs at Scram from the obscurity of the sleet storm. Nala runs down Larry’s other brother Darryl and Moth runs down a crossbowing bandit. Snory tolls Big Al’s death which frees Scram to pop off some unusually effective Jim’s magic missiles. Ssatschia and Nala hold off the basilisk, inflicting wounds both magical and martial with a kiss of Nala’s fire breath. Snory gets the final piece of swavain basilisk with an infliction of wounds touched with death. Moth conquers her own bandit. Nala picks off the red mohawk dude who cannot flee her javelin of warning and critically hucked hand axe.

Ssatschia restores Tango with the book of healing. Nala collects the swavain basilisk head.

It seems that the bandits were engaged in an enterprise to crossbreed the swavain basilisk, Doug, with their brood mare common basilisk, Maria. Once the babies were formed, Maria went mama bear on her keepers. Is there a more difficult way to make a living than breeding basilisks?

Alpha Company pokes around the octagonal room of sundry books and barrels. Some barrels contain provisions, but at least one that Scram opens contains a biting swarm of rats. Nala blenders her greatsword around the barrel grinding up the rats. Tango finishes the swarm and chastises Scram for opening barrels.

Ssatschia listens at the door to the north and hears stone-on-stone dragging and thumping. The party readies violence. Ssatschia bursts through the door into the midst of ambling stone skeletons. Turning undead destroys two of them. Snory follows and destructively turns two more. Scram firebolts out number five and the last skeleton must pay Ssatschia’s death tolls. Snory collects a sample.

The room’s original purpose appears librarian in nature. A tent, a month-extinguished campfire, decomposing food, and the candid “statues” of three campers suggest the recent presence of adventurers meeting basilisks. Carelessly strewn books suggest a non-academic vocation for the petrified adventurers. The abundance of valuables [75 gp, 3 healing potions, 3 brewed basilisk potions of 2 uses each] within a locked chest, picked open by self-compensated [sleight of 5 gp] Tango, attests to a much more lucrative vocation than academia. A single non-petrified corpse, not dissimilar to the petrified others, appears to have dropped a book of healing [15 of 20 charges remaining]. Snory spoons the corpse for a chat and learns he was here attempting to restore his bandit cohorts, petrified by a basilisk from that west door, for gang leaders Big Al and Larry. Larry, being a highly unusual name in this region, most likely identifies the hunter camped along the road with the brothers Darryl.

Despite Scram repeating appeals to explore west for the possibility of a 100 gold piece basilisk head, Moth and Nala take a southward door into some natural caverns ominously decorated with spider webs. While Snory is delayed by a sudden urge to grab some regional bandit maps off a table, the party engages three spiders that unsurprisingly drop from the high ceiling. Nala is momentarily held by webs but breaks away and retorts with some fatal dragonborn firebreathing and greatswording followed by some surged javelin throwing. Birdman Scram unnerves a spider so badly it manages to tangle itself. Moth, a little short to reach the ones on the ceiling, nevertheless gets several hits in. Tango’s uncanny ability to sneak shortsword attacks even in plain sight gets most of the work done, and his deft fingers liberate the gold and potion contents of another chest.

Snory, catching up from the wrong direction, tolls death on a spider fleeing the battle which alerts several more lurking spiders. The nearby party charges to the rescue and exterminates the clutter of spiders. Nala expertly frees Snory from the web.

The delay finally exceeds Scram’s patience. Mimicking the clink-clink of the 100 gold pieces he will soon collect, he dashes away back to the basilisk door. Not entirely certain what just happened, Tango tracks Scram and the party catches up.

Through the door indicated by the deceased bandit, the party threads its way through a passage into a disarrayed altar room. Tango hears the distinct hissing growl of a threatened and alert basilisk in a south tunnel and gazingly runs right at it. Tango gets his sneaky lick in, but predictably begins turning to stone. Ssatschia blesses the melee inclined party members to help ward the basilisk’s gaze. Satisfied with Tango’s deteriorating predicament, the basilisk goes to work on Nala next with bite and tail slap. Nala returns mighty greatsword slashes. But don’t count Tango out; he gets another sneak attack in before falling over on his stone feet. In a process that fantasy epidemiologists still don’t understand, prone Tango’s stone turning goes into remission. Scram’s advanced witchbolt fatally drains away what is left of the basilisk.

Not likely to be disturbed in a known basilisk lair, the party take a much-needed snooze. Medically proficient Snory removes the 100 gold piece head for Scram and the glands and organs needed for brewing basilisk potions.

Fresh off a mission to recover the Mask of the Sorceress from the Lost Dungeon of the Demon Cultists, Alpha Company makes its way south through the High Forest to convalesce at the Meadmaker Inn. An evening of good eats, good brew, and good games ends with a new provisional team member, swashbuckling rogue Wallace T. “Tango” Francis.

A conveniently located and inventoried popup boutique alleviates the party’s spoils in exchange for several uncommon magic items.

Alpha sets out south to rendezvous with the caravan for its next mission. At an intersection with the major route into Llorkh to the east, they come upon a couple of stricken wagons. The first is a mobile library curated by Xalver as anyone in the caravan might realize. The second wagon is a mobile brewery destroyed along with its Charlie Company spellguard occupants. Hounds, apparently mid-feast on the slain spellguard, attack from the surrounding forest.

The hounds are no match for Alpha at all, nor would they have been a match for the slain spellguard. A cadre of Llorkh town guard, lead by Zekiel, jog up to the scene followed immediately by battalion commander Vesper Othuro here to investigate the whereabouts of Charlie Company. Xalver and his kobold assistant Bock unexpectedly pop out of a smuggler compartment concealed in the floor of the mobile library.

The Llorkh guards reckon the wagons were assaulted by basilisks operating from a fort to the north as recently reported by local hunters. Not that it would interest a bunch of do-gooders like Alpha Company, but basilisks fetch a 100 gold piece bounty. Tango and Xalver debate the abstract value of books and brush up on basilisk knowledge which omits any predilection for knocking down breweries, but it does mention a stinky potion for reversing the effects of petrification brewed from the most disgusting parts of the basilisk. Xalver offers the party a couple of valuable greater restoration scrolls that will accomplish the same task without all the stench. Lizardman cleric Ssatschia and filthy cleric Snory determine that the spellguard are beyond revival so Snory spoons up with the least degraded of them to speak with dead. They learn that several valuables are missing and the perpetrators of the attack were in fact bandits, casting much suspicion on the conveniently arriving Llorkh guards. Vesper Othuro reckons Alpha Company will have to get to the bottom of all this, whether the trouble was caused by bandits dressed as guards, bandits dressed as basilisks, or basilisks dressed as bandits dressed as guards. Once the scene is secured, Alpha Company detours north to see what’s what.

Not far up the road Tango finds a camp of friendly hunters. Larry Gamestalker and his brother Darryl and his other brother Darryl were the same hunters who reported the basilisk(s) to town guard Zekiel. That checks out. They would not mind coming along to the fort to observe the Alpha fools try to take on a basilisk, but their request is declined.

Miles farther north the party arrives at a smallish appearing structure in some disrepair. Rogue Tango sneaks up to the entrance and sees a camp inside, some candid statues, some barrels, oh, and a little baby basilisk. He reports back to the waiting party for some tactical brainstorming. Kenku wizard Scram knows exactly what to do, but his unfortunately-cast summon of demons goes wrong and his death is feigned instead. Snory drags him off to a tree for an hour while the rest of the party scouts around the back of the surprisingly small edifice.

Ssatschia reckons a lot of the structure is below ground and extends well beyond the building walls. A dire wolf charges in, interrupting the exploration. With Ssatschia’s blessing, Tango and dragonborn fighter Nala attack the creature. Moth reaches into her bag of tricks hoping for some dire wolf parity but instead retrieves a weasel. Sensing Moth’s disappointment, the determined weasel fatally bites the dire wolf.

The party continues around the structure to a convenient window. Ssatschia peeps in and finds himself gaze-to-gaze with one of three baby basilisks, but he fortunately gets away with it. The party hastens back to awakening Scram, tightly swaddled by Snory until calm. Tango suggests using Snory’s animated zombie as a distraction to aim the baby basilisks away from the entrance. The zombie abides, leading the baby basilisks toward a far corner. The party successfully assaults the baby basilisks with the zombie’s unwilling bravery forever commemorated in statue form in the corner. The basilisks are collected for later gland extraction and bounty collection.

Tango, intending to block a door in the floor, inadvertently sets off three simultaneous crossbow traps. The party elects to explore the cellar, convinced that the mother basilisk would least likely be below a seriously trapped door. They descend into a granite cobblestone corridor lit by magically continual flames. Around the first corner they find an octagonal room with barrels of provisions and potable water.

High above the astral sea on a floating platform, Charlie Company confronts imprisoned, evil, chaotic Tharizdun, problem child of Ioun and Pelor, problem parent of Tophe whose immortal purpose is to acquire enough vis to break his wrongfully imprisoned pops out of this deific pokey.

Watc examines the blue crystal shard Briar finds jammed into the energy confinement orb. The crystal appears to be living. The party mobs around the crystal while Ash watches over, bow at the ready, to observe what might likely be the final moments of Charlie Company.

Briar and Ander parle with Tharizdun while Barika and Sqyylarr subtly prepare to defend against any violent fallout. Tharizdun makes particular note of Ander’s undeferential tone and promises Ander will be among the first under his boot heel. 

Watc reaches a hand out for the crystal in case there is some piezo convo to be had and finds herself overwhelmed by a miasma of voices, unable to remove her hand from the crystal. A casting of comprehend languages clears up the noise and Watc, no longer paralyzed by babble, makes contact with the psionic hive of Pohet. 

Pohet are loyal to Tharizdun for liberating them from the astral gate, the same act that caused Pelor and Ioun to imprison him here for reckless endangerment of existence, and presently seek only to liberate him quid pro quo, though admittedly powerless to do so at this point. Pohet seem to have no concept of good and evil, nor experience justice and injustice. Pohet have a twin hive known to some as Opeth who have cooperated with Quastarte, seemingly on the opposite side of this vis controversy. The presently-observed chocolate-in-my-peanut-butter arrangement of orb-bound Tharizdun and stuck-in Pohet a.k.a.The Dreaming Madness are the nascence of the entirely sovereign Tophe currently sponsoring this educational projection to the astral sea.

Despite some measure of empathy for Pohet, assisting their goals could be problematic for Charlie Company if the result is to unleash a chaotically evil god upon existence explicitly in defiance of Pelor and Ioun. Ander, with the most to lose if seething Tharizdun were released, nevertheless keeps an open mind and collects a small fracture of crystal which Pohet releases to him for later conversation. Although Ander reckons removal of the crystal would not compromise the integrity of the prison orb, the party leaves the arrangement alone for now and returns to the arch.

The party awakens back on the material plane, back in the temple of Firth a.k.a. Pelor, back in the presence of Brother Im and purpose-driven Tophe. Injuries incurred during the field trip are no longer felt, although Ander’s pocket full of celestial slag has been replaced by third degree burns and a smoldering hole in his favorite leather duster. Tophe is satisfied that Charlie Company now possess complete knowledge and therefore holds them personally responsible for successfully representing his interests to their masters, the greedy hoarders of the blood, with results due in one season. And with that, Tophe departs.

One season seems long enough to allow time to first visit a little justice on Brother Hlessi who suspiciously perhaps locked the party in the temple basement and slew all the bandits himself. Sqyylarr, with assistance from Ash, tracks Hlessi into the snowy forest where the track suddenly ends with a jump onto an uber hawk. Briar scans the sky for anything flying around with a rabbit on board. Watc checks for a classic backtrack. Ash scans the overhanging trees, confident that they are being watched. Ander hits up Barika and Sqyylarr for some help with a side hustle when they get back to the caravan. A magical fog drops over the party.

Briar escapes the fog by walking out of it and comes face-to-face with a fangy, shriveled vampire wearing Brother Hlessi’s robes. Briar may not fully understand what is going on with this individual, but is confident that a couple of non-lethal smacks with the flat side of his axe will get to the bottom of it. Ash, with a little more lethal conviction, puts some arrows into Vampire Hlessi which inspires a subtle decision. Ash evades into the woods. Barika dashes out of the north side of the fog. Watc points south. Barika dashes back into the fog and out again next to Vampire Hlessi who roshambos her in the chest. Ander runs down the escaping mist-form Vampire Hlessi and sprays him with a flame turret. The already misty Vampire Hlessi mists away into the greater mist of fog. Sqyylarr and Briar, detecting his evilness, corner the double mist part of the fog that is Vampire Hlessi. 

Briar is surprised by the sudden arrows critically sticking out of him and pointing back at Ash. Ander bravely steps to traitor Ash who evades his shocking grasp and puts a couple of arrows into Ander for his trouble. An army of wolves swoops in from the northwest chasing Watc into the fog. Watc singes rather than immolates Vampire Hlessi who corporally steps out of the fog at that moment. 

Sqyylarr, gratified to finally run down something that can be hit with a maul, hits Vampire Hlessi several times with a maul. Shifted Briar catches up as well forcing Vampire Hlessi to retreat right into Barika who fatally chops him unto un-undead mist. The fog dispels, Ash contritely surrenders, and Ander cures his arrow-filled, slag-burned wounds. The wolves, unfriendly even to wolf-raised Barika, persist despite Vampire Hlessi’s absence. Briar and Sqyylarr and Barika are surrounded by biting wolves, and then by Watc’s fireball, and then by wolf corpses. Briar and very tired Sqyylarr slay the last two surviving wolves.

Ash offers to buy Briar a beer. Bygones.

Tophe conspicuously wields a large spear with a blue crystal tip that seems inherently dangerous. He also conspicuously wields a lot of confidence and commends Charlie Company on its successes versus his herald, although credit for Cohoreth’s beheading is more attributable to Tophe. It seems a Wretched Hive of Thieves a.k.a. Quastarte on this insignificant world a.k.a. Toril is naughtily hoarding The Blood a.k.a. Vis from places of dire need for example to release Tophe’s mad, imprisoned father a.k.a. Tharizdun. 

Briar retorts that Charlie Company, though agents of Quastarte, can’t possibly be accused of keeping the vis from Tophe since they themselves were unwittingly protecting an empty tanker when totally trying to whack Cohoreth. That makes sense to Tophe; no one is safe from Quastarte’s lies. 

Charlie Company makes itself agreeable, entertaining Tophe’s grievances until he wanders off to visit his grandparent’s altar. Ash therefore reckons that Tophe is the son of Tharizdun who is the son of Pelor and Ioun who, according to legend, found a living gate in the astral sea which Tharizdun later destroyed releasing all kinds of mad crazy. Tharizdun a.k.a. The Chained God was subsequently imprisoned for said atrocities. 

Brother Im strongly councils against any attack on Tophe, and Portent Order has no particular guidance in response to Watc’s sending spell. Tophe returns, finds no diplomatic progress has been made, and decides to teach these simpletons a lesson by sending them to a dreamscape on a prison platform above the astral sea.

A central orb imprisoning some sort of being is chained radially to surrounding columns topped by watching, electric blue birds or their skeletonized forms. A large secant of damage cuts through the platform where columns and chains have been destroyed although the skeletal birds remain. 

The party finds itself at the end of a spiral trail of broken shards leading to the orb. Ash aids himself with a jump spell, but it seems unnecessary in this low gravity situation so the party leaps its way toward the orb platform where the lesson will undoubtedly become apparent. Ambushing aberrant astral spiders with disturbingly disymmetric distributions of legs interspersed with stingers, claws, and more than the usual number of mouths-pincer sets attack from below the shards. Sqyylarr and Barika back-to-back themselves into the thick of it. Ash extracts himself from the thick of it but backs into a little tree that whomps him unexpectedly. Ander leaps straight up to safety before falling back into danger, but tosses his force ballista where it knocks an astral spider right off him. Though the monsters are unusual, the usual methods of violence are effective enough in destroying them. Briar patches up Watc, Ash cures his own wounds, and there is no further difficulty getting to the edge of the platform.

Ash inquires of the bird guardians whether they might elucidate the party as to the point of all this. The birds comprehend the question but are content to simply observe their lack of answer in silence. Briar reckons that Tharizdun must have been imprisoned here by his own parents. Watc investigates the damage to the platform and determines that eons of all manner of attacks have eroded the construction to its current condition, but in fact the damage is actually self repairing at an imperceptibly slow rate.

Ash and Briar deferentially ease past the birds where bits of slagged chain and other debris are strewn around the circle. The birds move to prevent the similar admission of Sqyylarr and Watc yet Ash gets by without hassle. A sensation of Sqyylarr and Watc indicates their shared ambivalence to the universal struggle between good and evil is the cause of their exclusion. As bits of chain slag form into golems and begin to whirlwind around Ash and Briar, Sqyylarr and Watc each embraces goodness sufficiently to enter. Ash extracts himself from the ouchy spinning and sends back arrows. Naturally-good Barika leaps to action and critically, brutally smashes a golem. Ander hastens Sqyylarr so she can keep up with Barika and his turret critically, brutally hits a golem which Barika finishes off.

Sqyylarr approaches the orb prison and reports a strange sensation. Watc checks her for symptoms but finds nothing medically unusual, just the normal battle damage she needs to feel alive. Ash approaches and realizes the sensation is magical suppression. The imprisoned being, who looks like a child now that they are up close, asks his visitors to identify themselves. Ash returns the inquiry. Tharizdun is the Chained God, betrayed by his parents but no longer alone. He recounts his experience in liberating so many wondrous critters from beyond the gate, especially his new crystalline bestie. Briar, wandering around to the far side of the orb, wonders if he means the bit of blue crystal bridging the gap to the orb physically and, perhaps more worrying, logically. 

Once recovered by a short rest, Charlie Company eagerly returns to the west area of the undercroft where the chambers revert to a natural cavern rather than worked habitat. Briar slides down a ten foot ledge to an eerily quiet, unexplored area. To the right, Sqyylarr watches a case of icy stairs leaving up from a ransacked supply room. Straight ahead, Watc examines an altar of Ioun, an unexpected find right where the altar of Inle ought to be. Ash points out some newer desecrating markings on the altar and invites Brother Im to look with his eyes but not his hands. Brother Im identifies the altar as definitely dedicated to Inle, never heard of this Ioun fellow, and recognizes the desecration as Frithian-ish. Brother Im explains that Inle is worshipped almost exclusively below ground, above only during an eclipse. More jealous Frith is worshipped almost exclusively above ground, below only during a full moon. The desecration here specifically alludes to a sun, or son, of Frith and really needs to be cleaned away somewhat urgently. Ash, convinced the runes are inherently dangerous, bids him to wait.

Ander attempts to dispel any magic from the altar and confirms the danger is not magical. The runes are painted on with a rusty pigment which Ander attempts to remove with a rope end doused in a dilute acidic solution. A spectral wraith appears at the first disturbance of the runes and inquires as to Ander’s religious predilections. Unsatisfied by Ander’s reply, more menacing specters appear in the crowded chamber. 

Sqyylarr eagerly charges in from the other room and utterly destroys a specter. Two vampires emerge right where Sqyylarr was, grab enraged Barika in the narrow passage where no one else can get by to help her, and rake the dickens out of her with their claws. Barika fights back, chopping at her embracer, but the vampire simply bites her, siphoning her life force. Ash interposes himself to protect nonviolent Brother Im sheltering against a wall. Briar shifts and covers the spectral wraith boss. Ander shockingly grasps away from the specters. Watc ignites a couple of fireballs in the small chamber, popping a few specters and fortuitously revealing a third vampire lurking on the ceiling.

Briar and Ander destroy the wraith. Sqyylarr finishes off the ceiling vampire. Barika, soloing two vampires, gets the worst of the fight and will not last much longer. Ash shoots Barika’s grappler off her. Ander’s force ballista knocks the other away from her. With more room to maneuver, Briar misty steps in and Sqyylarr mauls out the last vampire.

Barika and Sqyylarr take a replenishing rest while Ash searches the altar and finds a wand. Watc identifies it as a wand of the warmage [+2] which goes to Ander. Ander collects 6 vampire fangs and incinerates the vampire remains into collectible ash. 

Brother Im lingers at the altar for a little religious observance. Ash waits just outside the altar chamber to protect him. The rest of the party, mindful of the three heroic weapons that might still be found, returns to the bat pit where a third, unexplored passage leads away north.

Briar carefully scooches along a narrow ledge around the bat pit and throws a rope end back to Sqyylarr. They pull the line tight for a steadying support and anchor Ander with a second rope in case it all goes wrong. It all goes wrong. Ander falls into the bats, dangling from Sqyylarr. The bats swirl thickly around them, flying off to less disturbed Ander-free parts of the undercroft. Sqyylarr hauls Ander out for a second attempt. The second attempt goes almost as poorly. Sqyylarr hauls Ander out for a third, successful attempt. Barika eyeballs dense Watc and jumps the line to go next. She only falls once and, retrieved by Sqyylarr, makes a second, successful attempt. Sqyylarr ties onto 280 pound Watc who spider climbs around the pit wall to the other side. Relieved Sqyylarr crosses the ledge without trouble.

Into the chamber beyond, the subparty gratifying locates three sarcophagi arranged along three sides of the chamber. Each displays a heroic implement: a tower shield, a longsword, and a silver bow. Briar clears the bow for traps and picks it up. Curious Ander touches a sarcophagus with his mechanical hand and that seems to instigate some scratching from inside. The entombed scratcher does not answer shouted queries. The sarcophagus seems intact enough to preclude rodentia infiltration. The generational time passed since the tale of the three heroes seems to preclude the possibility of mortal survival. Briar signals a vote and the ballots come back unanimously for status quo. Ander grabs the shield, Barika the sword, and they beat feet out of the chamber of creepy scratching.

The liberated weapons are identified: a battering shield [+1 AC with 3 charge to boost any push by an additional 10’ or prone], a corpse slayer longsword [+1 with +1d8 versus undead and imposes disadvantage on saves until end of turn versus undead], and a silvered vicious longbow [critical hit is +7].

As Brother Im has completed his devotions, the party reckons the visit to the undercroft is at a successful conclusion. What remains is to ascertain Brother Hlessi’s part in the attempt to trap the party in the undercroft, and the stairs up from the supply room might offer an opportunity to sneak on unexpecting Brother Hlessi in the act of something nefarious.

The icy stairs prove to be far more formidable than any room full of undead without a cleric. After several humiliations and injuries, Sqyylarr alone manages to get enough footing on the stairs to force open a grate at the top. The party emerges in the cold outside air next to the temple of Frith where Briar had sent the bandits to timeout. If that punishment was intended to be humane it failed; all four bandits are found deceased on the temple floor, apparently all with crushed clavicles. Ash locates fresh tracks in the snow, arriving, murdering, departing. One thing Ash can say with certainty is these tracks were not made by the formidable eight foot tall fellow standing large and in charge right there by the temple gates, blindfolded and holding a considerable spear. Even unflappable Brother Im takes notice.

Tall Fellow proclaims, Once again he announces my coming! By “announce”, he seems to mean the bundle he rolls at the party. And by “he”, he seems to mean the head of Cohoreth the Herald rolling within the bundle.