In the town square at night, everyone is dealing with the aftermath. Bodies are being shrouded, and taken up to the church on the hill behind the town. Sister Euberi announces a service at daybreak for the dead to ensure they are with Aster. The new king Hanum of Dactris is furious that the party cannot resurrect his father. Julius placates him somewhat with a complicated religious explanation of the difficulties of resurrection, and the promise that they could try again (but the party does not expect it will be possible, due to the Pearl of Aster in the valley consuming departed souls). King Hanum sends word to his home Dactris for help, and will depart for home tomorrow morning. He is suspicious of the magic used by Ix that may have accidentally killed his father in the mid-air roc collision but cannot act upon it right now and is visibly suppressing his rage. He does realise the party’s ability and offers a reward for the return of the crown.
The party notices that the dead cloud giant is not the one they saw in the cloud castle, but looks similar. The wounded frost giant chained up in the town square is muttering to itself, bemoaning its fate. Nagwen interrogates the Frost Giant in Giantish, and despite failing to intimidate it, manages to get it to spill some information in the hope of being freed. He was the indentured soldier of the dead cloud giant (Tredom) , and now just wants to flee south, rather than have anything to do with the cloud castle. The cloud giant in the castle (Goruthan) is the older brother, and planned to steal the crown, sending his younger brother on the mission. Nagwen wants to free him to keep his end of the agreement but the party advises he wait.
On the way to see King Agrilus before bed, the alarm set on the teleportation circle in the basement of Ketri’s workshop is triggered. The party rush down to the town, preparing spells (like a double Haste on Valrick and Nagwen) on the way. At the end of the street they see the workshop lying in ruins as emerging from it is a much larger, stronger version of the ultroloth, this time with greenish skin, batlike wings, a rod and orb in each hand, and the faint shadow of a crown floating above his head.
Its booming voice in their heads rings “I have begun my ascension. Ultimately I owe this glory to you, my unwitting allies, for freeing the vestige of Zantras from Barovia, which I was able to follow through the Astral Plane to find the remains of Zantras. Now that I have taken his divine spark, I will ascend. I am ready for my crown. Tell me where it is, and I will grant you boons as my first priests.”
As it approaches, two gargoyle-like nycaloths and two wardog-like canoloths emerge behind it. The ultroloth’s presence is awesome, and the party must save or be charmed. They all roll over 20, including multiple naturals! The party attacks, landing some arrows and a fireball, but it is resistant. As a reaction, magical darkness envelops the fiends. A psychic scream rips through the party’s minds, but they are partially protected by Julius’ spell! Ix dispels the darkness, and Julius summons a radiant defender that starts to attack the oncoming fiends.
The Nycaloths fly over and start smashing the party with great axes. A canoloth snakes out a thorned tongue and pulls in Valrick. Valrick activates his brilliant helm twice firing off prismatic rays everywhere! Electricity, fire, do a little damage to the fiends, while poison does not seem to have any affect, but an Indigo beam does restrain the Ultroloth, because it failed a save. What it didn’t realise is the effect gets worse with each save, eventually leaving it petrified! And it has to save successfully 3 times to escape!
The fight settles into a rhythm for 3 rounds, with the hasted fighters dealing enormous amounts of damage, Terren successfully sneaking, but failing every single attack roll, even with advantage, Julius doing a little radiant damage, the fiends dealing some damage, the Ultroloth attempting to cast spells like Blade Barrier, and being counterspelled by Ix.The one spell that gets through is a mass suggestion: “Surely one of you can tell me where the crown is…” Julius fails to save and blurts out “It’s probably with the giants, but I’m not sure where they are.” The Ultroloth is expending legendary saves to escape the Indigo ray, and also casting dimension door to teleport away, but is being foiled with counterspells and it is taking too long to become mobile again. All of the other fiends have been destroyed, and the Ultroloth has just been tripped by Valrick the gnome (it failed the strength check). It was about to fly away when Nagwen unleashed a volley of deadly arrows at it, and Nagwen’s drake attacked it for the final killing blow. Terren leaps from the shadows with his rapier drawn, just as it dies.
The party immediately grab the orb and rod, and the Ultroloth’s bag of holding, which had many soul gems, a brass ship’s wheel, and its silver githyanki sabre (which Terren could certainly make use of).
The party immediately head up to the castle to report to the King that the fiend that was after his rod was also after the other king’s crown, and they defeated it. They may be able to track down his rod, but if not, perhaps he would be interested in the crown? The party is hiding the fact they already have his rod… and it’s possible they would start a war between kingdoms by giving the other king’s crown to their current employer. But their immediate plan is to get the crown back from the cloud giant, and they get permission to free the captive frost giant to help them. The giant mentions that Goruthan was doing a lot of scrying before coming up with the plan to steal the crown. He was probably trying to sell it to the now-dead Ultroloth?
Comments
Post a Comment