Game summary for May 19, 2015, Carrion Crown Adventure Path campaign, Shadows of Gallowspire adventure; PCs included Dario Malavasi (human afflicted dire werewolf oracle), Radimir Dragomirov (human cleric), and Thrain (graveknight dwarf slayer), accompanied by NPC companion Nyssa Pagonis (human cleric).
Old and frail, Zedd had no ability to resist his murder. That he volunteered himself was no consolation as his spirit was ripped from his corpse. Zedd was a priest of Irori, a god standing for self-perfection and achieving the highest mortal potential. Zedd had opted for the fast track to power, anathema to everything he had known and preached all these years. He wasn’t sure what he expected when he died. He suspected Irori would desert and forsake him, but why was it so dark? And quiet? Zedd began to wonder where he was or even how long he had been there. He seemed to lack utterly any physical form. He had no sensation of movement or touch, he just hung in a field of black. Had it been minutes? Hours? Days?
The pitiful crumpled body of Zedd sprawled out on the floor in the pulsing light of the Lazurite Focus. He looked little better than a sack of bones. His murderous friends gathered round, a bit of their own souls dying as their companions had just done.
Was it the quiet? Perhaps the empty void. Zedd screamed in frustration as time dragged on. At least he felt like he should be screaming. He could not hear himself, nor could he even locate a mouth or even face for such a sound to emanate from. He screamed some more, he assumed. Panicked yelling with no body is not really tiring, but it takes its toll on the mind. Zedd’s mind told him he should experience something, but instead nothing. And so it continued. Zedd began to question if he were dead. Perhaps he was trapped? He set his mind to escape. He pondered spells, he pondered solutions. His mind went in circles and nothing did he learn or come up with.
The party had spread out the portable hole to retrieve the Lazurite Focus and allow the vampires access to and from their coffins. It started as a flickering, a greenish light from deep within the hole.
Whispers! Thank the gods, he heard whispers! There was SOMETHING after all! It didn’t matter any longer if they belonged to something dangerous, Zedd called out. Or at least he tried. No sound escaped his seemingly spiritual form. He listened, trying to make sense of the whispers. What were they saying? He focused and concentrated desperate to make sense of the words! Try as he might, they were too soft, too distorted. After a time, he thought, perhaps, they are not whispers. Perhaps instead he heard… waves?
Salt? Was that what Dario smelled? No, brine. Brackish, salty water. From where? The flickering light became a glow, and a figure emerged from the portable hole limned in unholy green.
Definitely waves. Many waves. An infinite amount of waves, crashing in the darkness. Fresh horror wracked Zedd’s unsettled mind; he had been here before. At least, he had sensed this before! His mind whimpered and tried to flee as a single word seared itself in his thoughts: DAGON!
The Seasage Effigy, the very Face of Dagon, hovered on its own bathed in green light and emitting the reek of rotted depths and salty decay. It pulsed. The Lazurite Focus pulsed. Zedd’s body flinched hard enough to break bones.
Faint light as a colossal form crashed through the ocean surface to tower into the air, its face only feet from Zedd. Before, Zedd was afraid but knew his experiences were in his mind. Now, now was he facing one of the greatest demonic horrors in history on its terms in its home plane? Something cracked. Zedd jabbered. At least, he thought about it and would have had he had lips to jibber.
“You have returned. A gift. A sacrifice of your own making, without your god to protect you. You have no concept of what you have done. But you shall learn. I accept your offering, my son.”
Gurgling. Blood and seawater trickled from Zedd’s throat, and then it erupted like a geyser! Black mist flowed from his orifices as mingled brine and gore spewed out. The mist circled the Face of Dagon and pulsed in staccato rhythm with the Face and the Lazurite Focus. Green flames erupted in Zedd’s face, burning his eye sockets empty from deep within.
Once the warmth of Irori’s love and honor filled Zedd’s soul. It drove him, spurned him on. Shocking cold, like a fish from unreachable depths, lanced through him in agony and Dagon let himself in. Some part of Zedd resisted. Had he still been alive, maybe. Had he still been loved by Irori, maybe. Had his mind not already fractured in his ordeal, perhaps. Zedd was weak and the demon lord oh so strong. He was damned. His soul was claimed by Dagon, and he knew unspeakable horrors awaited him in eternity. He sought to flee and felt himself rising, then hurtling through the air, speeding back toward his body. He knew if he were to meet true death, Dagon’s torments would begin. He knew if he disobeyed his master, his soul would be called home. Zedd knew one thing for certain, he would not die again and would not fail his master. He would do ANYTHING to avoid his fate, the fate his lust had led him to choose for himself. He laughed, mostly at himself, at what he had now unleashed upon the world.
Green flames shot across Zedd’s thrashing body, and crazed laughter like a man who had long ago said goodbye to his wits, expelled itself from his throat. Tiny pinpricks of green flame blazed in hollow black eye sockets as tears of seawater flowed down his sallow dead cheeks. Dagon’s spawn took its first tentative steps bathed in the unholy lights of the Lazurite Focus and the Seasage Effigy.
Having slain a lich and its golems, the team went through a northern door to find a partially collapsed room filled with crumbling floors, funerary urns, and pools of acid. Thrain made his way around the edge trying to reach one of two other obvious doors. He opened it and found a room filled with vapor and numerous drug-addled Renchurch novices. Suddenly, the urns began hurtling through the air to crash into one another! From within, misty red tentacled mihstu poured forth and attacked Thrain and Dario! Likewise, the high Renchurch novices noticed Thrain and charged.
Dario, Radimir, and Nyssa were stuck in the alchemy room, unable to push past the misty mihstu. Suddenly, a bank of acidic fog filled the room, searing their flesh. Thrain began slaying mihstu while Dario pushed into the room, slid on the slime and fell into the acid! Radimir used air walk to avoid slipping and tied a rope to the door hinges for Dario. The rope hit the acid and disintegrated.
Thrain underwent a barrage of attacks, surrounded on all sides. Meanwhile, an omox demon emerged and tried to kill Dario! Radimir hit it with the Raven’s Head while Nyssa began an inspiring oratory. Thrain finally dropped the mihstu and was able to focus on the novices that were landing a few shots in here and there. Dario extracted himself from the acid and cast a toppling wall of iron which splatted the omox into the acid and provided a solid, non-slick, surface for the werewolf. Radimir cast align weapon and greater magic weapon on Dario’s lucerne hammer, and the holy power burned his hands! He held tight as the demon emerged.
The tide turned as Thrain landed several critical hits and slaughtered novices left and right. The demon was beaten to death by the hammer and mace of Dario and Radimir, and soon the battle was won. The team searched the area and found a few magical trinkets and a preserved gnome in an urn full of honey!
