Saralas: Session 60

• We are in or near the East elevator room, having defeated 4 sets of animated plate armor
• Korag recommends Min borrow some Deurgar clothes
• We hear Deurgar yelling. They were yelling in terror about a Rabbit.
• I stuff Min's stuff she wants to keep into my pack
• We short rest while Korag and Baerwin go looking for the Militia. They made it in but were attacked on the stairs by a number of Duergar
• I roll 5 hit dice of 8 and regain 52 health
• We hear a tapping at the door. Karthos pulls it open. Standing outside is Bun, covered in blood, and still holding the dagger of stabbing.
• We head down to the elevator room. The elevator is not there, but Bun dives into the hole and a minute later the elevator cage clanks into view. It's large enough to hold 4.
• Korag, Baerwin, and Karthos head down
• The elevator shaft terminates in this room. A large stone wheel next to the iron cage turns constantly. West of the wheel is a duergar encased in a cruel-looking exoskeletal construct, his face a mask of pain. It attacks on sight.
• Korag hits the lever to move the elevator back up
• They are in battle, from below we hear a scream, but also see that the elevator is moving
• We hear echoing thunder roll up from the shaft. "How long will this thing take?" I call
• We come down and there's a dead Duergar in a mech suit. The guys say things went OK but he was super mean.
• There are two doors out of this room, one to the north and one to the east.
• Karthos opens a door to the east. The room is filled with stone tablets, and a Deurgar in long robes and a tall miter hat. The script on the tablets are in Infernal
• Karthos yells "there's a dude in here". He looks just as surprised. But he's not actually a Deurgar, he's a barbed devil
• Baerwin asks what he's doing there. "I'm the keeper of the tablets," he says. "Do we care about this guy?" Baerwin calls back. Then walks to the north door and say "Is this trapped?". The devil assures him it is perfectly safe, and he opens the door.
• They walk through, they hear screaming and the sounds of battle. In the room is a statue of a female deurgar in a scale mail robe. The head is sheared off. Chained to this is an emaciated creature with a bulbous head.
• I open the door to the north and look around. I see the others, and the statue. It's another door to the same room.
• The creature is a mutilited mind flayer that has had its facial tentacles cut off and parts of its brain removed. It recoils, trying to hide behind the statue
• I ask the mind flayer "what is this place and why are you here". "this is a templed dedicated to Deep Duerra, a god of psionics and conquest. Sunblight comes to pray and draw strength from the statue". It was captured in the underdark by the Duergar and Xardardok has been eating it for strength.
• Baerwin heads to the north. He sees bodies and hears Wodna screaming instructions in common. He heads further in.
• Resda asks the mind flayer if it wants to be put out of its misery. Resda stabs it in the head.
• I head north behind Korag and Baerwin
• Smoke fills this cavern. The source of smoke and heat is a huge forge. Flashes of firelight emit from the forge, which pulses with a deep heartbeat. Four guard towers overlook the forge.
• South of the forge is a huge iron platform with a set of stairs leading to the top of the platform. Located on top of the platform is a black ice dragon, which is not yet complete.
• Surrounding the forge we recognize the members of the unseen hand. They are frantically working to arrange strange black ice pillars around the outside of the dragon. They stand about 4 feet tall and are glowing. Wodna is shouting instructions about the placement of the pillars.
• Min wants to blow it up. Wodna overhears and says "there will be no blowing up of the dragon". She points to the west and says if we want to help we can find sunblight holed up his throne room.
• She then looks at Min, and says "What the actual fuck with that rabbit." "He's amazing isn't he?" she responds. She points at piles of dead dwarves around the towers "They were dead before we got here."
• She suspects the Drow may be attacking from the underdark. And then says we probably don't want to be in this room in about 3 minutes.
• While Saralas says "Understood." Korag tries to clarify what she is doing.
• "Don't be in this room unless you want to be cut in half." We head west in the direction she was pointing towards the throne room.
• We come to a series of passageways. Behind two sets of double doors is a corridor with a dozen arrow slits lining its walls. There are several Deurgar here manning the corridor, but they look scared.
• Behind us the pillars flash, burning our shadows into the wall. We head through the doors quickly.
• As Min closes the doors, she sees Wodna yell a demand to the Unseen Hand, who all rush within the perimiter of teh pillers. As soon as the doors are shut, a blinding flash of light shines through the cracks in the doors, under the doors, through the keyhole, everything. A huge sound rolls through the fortress and everything rocks and shakes, and then goes quiet.
• Baerwin opens the door. A huge perfect sphere has been torn out of the building, cutting through everything, exposing the hallway above. Wodna, the Unseen Hand, the black ice dragon are all gone.
• Baerwin closes the door. We are in a cavern, unlit with a jagged ceiling. A strange sight confronts us, as we realize there is something moving in the shadows to the west.
• He lights his glaive and throws it towards the shadows. There are two Deurgar holding an umber hulk by a chain. When the glaive lands the Deurgar drop the chains releasing the umber hulk.
• The hulk and two Deurgar race up to meet the party and we are in battle
• The Deurgar to the north drinks a potion and explodes. The other Deurgar drops the potion, and as the glass breaks it eats through the stone.
• Resda calls forth a starspawn. What is her alignment that she keeps calling forth these strange creatures.
• Baerwin runs after his glaive
• We kill the thing and the deurgar
• Baerwin goes to the arrow slit and yells "Did you see that, we just killed an umber hulk. Think you can beat that?" In answer, a javelin pops out of the arrow slit, cutting him in the face.
• He reacts by casting shatter.
• I call out in Deurgar "The dragon is gone. We're here for Sunblight? Do you want to run with your lives?" They respond angrily "We'll be running with *your* lives!"
• He opens the door and Min runs into the corridor, realizing it is a trap. It's sealed on the other end, and consists entirely of arrow slits with the Deurgar safely behind the walls.
• Karthos explores to the west
• While we are discussing this a thick viscous fluid begins seeping out of the west arrow slit towards the party.
• Karthos lights it up. The floor and fluid ignite, and a fireball erupts from the arrow slit. We hear cursing from the room.