Guard Captain Ritssler (Jason Statham) arrives at the gate and scolds the guard who detained the party. He offers to escort the party to King Agrilus to report their findings, but the party needs an hour to investigate Ketri’s workshop to ask about the gnome spy Agamon. The party points out the evidence points strongly towards Agamon and possibly Ketri being involved in the theft, so she tries to be helpful. Ketri was expecting her cousin Agamon back a week ago from a month-long trip to moonstair for crafting supplies. She suspects he bunked off as he is a bit of a slacker. He definitely did not have the ability to craft a construct like the bird. Ketri says she didn’t craft it but could examine it if they brought it. She says Agamon has a key to the external cellar, which they investigate. Nagwen spots a well-hidden teleport circle , which is apparently news to Ketri, and a cubby next to it that smells faintly of animal fur. They also see some adamantine rods that Sengo pilfers as backups for plane shifting to the Astral plane. Ketri agrees it’s best if she comes to see the King to present her cousin in the best light.
King Agrilus looks up with a hopeful look as they enter the throne room. He is nervous. Commander Wintrope (Christopher Lee) is just telling the king “The army is mobilised and ready to move against the dwarves at your command.” The party informs the King of their progress but although the evidence does involve them in the thefts, they only have the horn, and someone else is behind the plot. They persuade the King to wait until after the wedding to take revenge against the dwarves, because there’s no urgency in that, and they will continue the search for the items by using the scrying pool in the cloud castle. The King asks Ix if he would take work as his court wizard for the duration of the visit of the King of Dactris. Agrilus is missing his wizard (dead) and Rod of Command (stolen) and crown (he’s working on a quick replacement) and wants to keep up appearances for the wedding of his daughter to Prince Hanum of Dactris. Steward Ognatius reports to the party that he has been reading through the contents of the dead wizard’s study and has found that the wizard had looked into the origin of Agrilus’ Rod and found it was part of a set owned by emperor up until the empire split 100 years ago. Agrilus’ grandfather, an Imperial general must have taken the rod, but there was also a Crown and an Orb. The crown of Command seems to currently be in the possession of the King of Dactris.
Julius recalls the party instantly to the vault in the dwarven stronghold where he has created a shrine to his god. Julius rests (to regain his spell) while the party prepares by swapping some spells with Satrogur. When ready, Satrogur calls the cloud castle to the mountain with Control Weather, though as the cloud is forming over the mountain he says it feels like he is being opposed and doesn’t know how long they have. He teleports them to the top of the mountain again, and they cross the ice-bridge using the ranger’s pass-without-trace. They see evidence of giants once again living in the castle, and peeking through a window, Terren spots a huge Fire Giant lying on cot, unable to move and barely able to breath, coughing now and then. They believe it to be affected by the rust mould spores they found in the throne room of the castle. They decide to knock loudly on the front door, and bargain. The cloud giant that comes to answer the door is suspicious of them. Luckily Serma thought to hide the giant axe that she stole (under some snow) before he turns up. (Inspiration!)
With performance and persuasion, the party manages to get the giant to listen rather than squash them, and they offer to heal the dying fire giant in return for use of the scrying pool. He replies “You got one change, and if you fluff it, I snuff ya.” Luckily minor restoration does the trick and the Fire giant is breathing easily again after a few minutes. While the giants (1 cloud, 2 frost, 1 fire) suspiciously watch them, they use the scrying pool to search for some things:
- King Agrilus’ Rod of Command: This is in blackness, possibly the inside of a bag of holding, because they can’t see anything outside the inside.
- The Orb of Command: This is also in a bag of holding.
- The Crown of Command: This is on the head of the King of Dactris, who is riding with an entourage of about 200 personal guards towards Riventa for the wedding. Next to him is his wizard, Zi-mab. They don’t appear to be wearing bags of holding.
- The Gnome, Agamon: His remains are a day’s travel from Riventa, probably a week or two decayed, cleanly decapitated. No cart nearby. He was probably dead when someone in Agamon’s form gave the bird construct to Satrogur.
- The Bag of Holding containing the Rod of Command: The astral plane is the backdrop to a large rock, with a ship docked to it. There is a mining operation next to it being carried out by insectoid Yugoloths. On the deck of the ship is an Ultroloth, and on his hip is a bag of holding. A winged yugoloth stands menacingly at the top of the dig, and as rocks are ferried out one bumps the edge and he hisses “careful now, or you’ll wake the guardians”.
It’s been an hour and although the giant is curious he’s had enough, and tells them to never sneak around here again. Just then, a loud crack from the front gate indicates the ice bridge has fallen. Julius can recall the party, but the giant axe is outside the front door. The giant follows them outside and makes sure they go. They sit in a circle and Serma holds the axe under the snow as they teleport back to the dwarven stronghold.
They rest once more so that Julius can regain his spell, and it is now evening, 2 days before the King of Dactris arrives. They ask Satrogur to plane shift them to the astral plane, and they find themselves in darkness with points of light around them. A larger light some way off is again slowly drawing them towards it. They are holding hands and focusing on the rock with the ship docked to it, that they all saw in the scrying pool. The person with the most focus pulls the hardest, dragging everyone else along at warp speed, though it takes 3 hours, with a changeover each hour after the person leading is exhausted. They avoid some angelic looking creature, some spectres, and also narrowly avoid plunging into a red color pool at breakneck speed. Then, from several miles off, they see the rock, it is 2 miles across, and it is the head of a dead god: Zantras the Kingmaker. They encountered a leftover fragment of his power in Barovia where it infected Phoebe with the lure of power over others. The mining operation is in the middle of his forehead.
They stealthily fly in low, up the face of the ancient god. Serma accidentally hits an outcropping and alerts a many-eyed bat creature nearby. “Intruder!” it calls, but she dispatches it in a split second with two quick swings of her axe. They are still over a mile off and nothing appears to have heard. They stop at the eyebrow, looking carefully at the ship docked 600 feet away in the middle of the forehead. The perceptive among them notice four more bat things patrolling around the perimeter, and two dog-like Canoloths near the ship. They stealthily take out the bat things as they pass in the patrol, and sneak up once again passing-without-trace. There are some bolted hatches on the side of the ship, but Terren manages to slide a tool in to release the bolt and peek. Inside the ship are the Ultroloth, and a furry Arcanoloth. They prepare a surprise…
Terren flings the hatch open, and Julius casts Banish, Ix casts Hold Monster. The Yugoloths are resistant to magic and the magic is disrupted. Others from the party attack through the hatch too, focusing on the Arcanoloth, which seems to be resistant to many types of damage (but not radiant) and immune to acid. The Ultroloth looks at the party and his glittering golden eye entrances Nagwen for a moment before he wrenches his eyes away from it. The Ultroloth tries to enchant the party with mass suggestion, cast at level 7. It has no mouth, and the words appear in the party’s thoughts “Fighting me is pointless. You should bargain instead.” But, Ix manages to succeed in counterspelling! The Ultroloth does disappear after this though. The arcanoloth is not so lucky, and although it is naturally tough, it is unable to withstand more than 6 seconds of damage as Ix casts Haste on Valrick and Serma, and everyone piles on.
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