Wednesday, December 6, 2023

Necronomicon Found

The large Grave Knight strode out of the water toward Erevel who sprung her sudden strike on it.  To Erevel's surprise the monster then attacked Ciprian and nearly laid him out.

Erevel then attacked and had a critical but found that the Sonic damage no longer affected the monster!  Ciprian moved backward and cast a Greater Dispel Magic from a scroll.  The Grave Knight shrank back down to normal size before the party's eyes.

Ursina seeing her opening moved to Erevel and gave her healing while Gavril moved into position to flank with the demon.  His attack also landed as the thing seemed easier to hit now.

Armania's demon attacked with full damage and Armania herself was able to swipe the GreatAxe from the Knight.  Agna then fired more ghost touch arrows which also did full damage.

The Grave Knight, missing its Axe, pulled out a Morning Star and attacked Erevel but for significantly less damage.  Erevel returned the favor and called for everyone to attack as the thing must be almost dead.

Ciprian tried his new wand of magic missiles but they curved around the monster.  Ursina seeing her opening moved toward the creature but as she did its arms extended an extra five feet and Ursina felt the pain.  Undaunted she whipped out her holy book and dropped the Grave Knight to the floor.

The party breathed a huge sigh of relief and Ciprian immediately suggested some healing as he was a little faint.  He then began searching for information on Grave Knights while Agna cut off the head of the monster.

While this was going on Armania found that the Great Axe was +2, the bracers it wore were Longarm Bracers.  Ciprian found that the Grave Knight being was stored in its armor and the armor would rebuild the Knight.  Just breaking or destroying the armor was not enough it must be Disintegrated or thrown in a volcano to stop the effect.  The armor had the symbol of Rovagug etched into it and Ciprian remembered that the group had seen a vision of a woman calling out to Rovagug just as a meteor or something else had collapsed part of the city.

"Looks like a good reason to buy that scroll from Hoshbagh," Armania declared.

"I'm going to find the Big Bad Book," Ciprian stated. He went to the eastern passage where they had teleported and there on the ground lay the Necronomicon.  Ciprian picked it up and stored it in his Bag of Holding and then rejoined the group.

"Where shall we go now?" Agna queried.

"Lets go to the north that is where the Knight came from this time," Gavril suggested.

The party headed north where the passage turned northeast.  The passage began twisting around like the previous passage.  The walls were covered with graffiti which Gavril finally decided was ancient Kelish mixed with some other language.  The gist of the writings seemed to be predictions of catastrophes. 

The passage rose and fell randomly and there were again cracks or crevices in the floor that had to be negotiated eventually the group found themselves entering another chamber.  The group entered to a balcony overlooking a dusty basalt chamber twenty feet below.  The ceiling was twenty feet above the level of the balcony.  Four massive columns of hewn stone towered up to the fortyfoot-high ceiling of the hall. Cut out from one corner was a cylindrical shaft that rose far beyond the boundaries of the chamber. The party began to circle the balcony clockwise toward the cylindrical shaft.  On the ground level, a passage wound to the east from where the party entered.  The columns bore images of alien cityscapes so exactingly incised that the art almost seemed to shimmer and dance when illuminated. Deep axe gouges marred various columns near the balcony where they could be easily reached.

Ciprian used his levitate to rise up in the cylindrical column.  It narrowed to a 10 foot opening that continued upwards.  He recalled that the second sealed entry to the underground was about that large.  The group may have found a second entrance.  As they continued around the balcony the party saw underneath the area where they entered, two withered corpses standing 10 feet tall.  Each dry, hovering corpse’s chest was a prison of jagged ribs.  The corpse's were essentially ignoring the party and seemed to be waiting for something to enter from below.  Ciprian identified them as Devourers who could drain levels.

"Lets check out the other passage where the Grave Knight entered from before. We don't want to leave any unexplored path behind us," Armania suggested.

The rest of the party agreed and they made for the drowned passage once again. Taking the southeast path they again found it became a flurry of twisting, rising and falling passages that soon split to the southwest and continued south east.  Taking the southwest passage they wandered in it for about an hour before it ended at a blank wall.  Finding nothing out of the ordinary, no apparent hidden doors or passages they returned and followed the southeast passage until began to open up.

Erevel edged forward and saw eight thin columns that seemed insufficient to hold up the ceiling of this trapezoidal room.  Across the room a set of battered two-foot-thick metal doors stands open at the top of a low dais.  As she moved slowly further into the chamber, Erevel saw along the back wall three alcoves in which stood statues of cone-bodied creatures with savage pincers. As she entered the main chamber the statues began waving their appendages.  Erevel stopped and called for aid.  Ciprian came forward and said that these statues were images of Yith and called for Kaklatath.  He identified them as Graven Guardians that were faith bound.

Kaklatath came forward, studied the images and declared that they had been put here as guardians, probably of the doors across the room.  

"I would not enter further into the chamber, they may attack anyone approaching the doors. If you can restore me to my body I would more than likely be able to convince them to let us cross the room."

Since they group could only see one other exit, to the north(?) they moved slowly and cautiously near to the wall of the chamber, past two of the guardians and exited.

DM's Notes: The party earned 6400 XP for the night and are now at 14th level.

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