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Week 51 - Screechy, we barely knew ye. RIP.

And so, with a part of the spirit of Balakarde accompanying, our heroes set off across the wormcrawl fissure to find the next bit. But first! A wandering monster! A mindkiller scorpion senses the party and moves to attack, but Flash takes care of it with a couple of maximised Bolts of Glory. This becomes important in a minute.

Thessalar’s Fortress
This pinnacle of rock soars nearly 2,000 feet above the surrounding canyon floor, yet remains nearly an equal distance from the rim above. An immense bridge of stone connects the top of this spire to the canyon rim about 3,000 feet to the west, the steep slope of this bridge featuring well-worn stairs to aid descents from above to this mesa. The mesa itself is caught in a disorienting zone between near-constant layers of clouds above and below, giving it an otherworldly feel. Perched on the eastern edge of this mesa is a strange, squat fortress made of red marble, its low walls smooth and polished. There are few sharp corners on this keep, giving it an almost organic look.
Thessalhydra
A four-legged, pincer-tailed, thirty-five foot long monster lumbers into view with a rumbling, bone-shaking roar. The beast is red with a darker orange underbelly, and looks vaguely draconic in shape save that in place of a head it has an enormous central maw surrounded by a ring of eight snakelike heads.
Balakarde’s spirit informs the party that another fragment of his spirit lies within that fortress. The party send Elvis over to have a look. The fortress has an open yard, in which are a pair of stange monsters. The party decide to Fly in, under cover of a Invisibility Sphere, and beat the crap out of them. Flash will take one, everyone else, the other.

I screwed this up: these creatures are abberations, not undead, and Flash’s Bolt of Glory should not have been as effective as it was.

The current tenant of the fortress is an ancient world-traveling lich named Thessalar. Long obsessed with the miracle of life, Thessalar ironically turned to undeath as a way to continue his disturbing and often monstrous experiments into the nature of the living organism. The architect of numerous monstrous creations in his time, Thessalar claims authorship of dozens of magical beasts including the chuul, the owlbear, the grick, the rust monster, and the mimic, although his claims for some of these monsters are doubtful at best.
Well, Flash drops two Maximized Bolts of Glory into his, killing it very dead. The party begin beating up the other. Then a figure pops into view - unmistakably a lich. This lich calls “Stop! Stop this fighting! Who are you, and why do you disurb my work?”. As he does so, the monster that they were fighting backs down.

Flash, of course takes the initiative. They are looking for a fragment of soul (And why not be honest? They are going to kill him anyway.). Thesallar replies that he knows of this soul fragment, and will give it to the party if they will fetch hime a shrubbery perform a simple quest. Mend and Frith note two things of note:

  1. Mend notes that the Lich is actually an image, no doubt via a Project Image spell. This spell requires line-of-sight.
  2. Frith notes that the Lich is definitely lying and this sould business is news to him. He simply wants a quest done, and has no intention of honouring his end of the bargain.

Flash asks the nature of the quest. The lich requires that another resident of the fissure, a beautiful winged snake-woman who lives to the south in a tower shaped like a claw, be brought to him alive. Alive! He only wants to talk to her, it seems, but she refuses to see him.

The party go into a huddle. The lich is obviously inside the not-very-large fort, projecting the image through a window, so they decide to go etheral, walk through the walls, and clobber him.

— † —

So they go etheral. And walk through the walls. Thessalar sees them do it, and readies an action. When Frith dismisses the spell, he lets loose a Wail of the Banshee.

Well. Some of our heroes have a Death Ward in effect. Gauthkan is not present (he has exchanged places for the night with a monk in a red shirt).

But Screechy … well, Screechy fails his save. Big time. And dies.

Let us pause a moment, then, to remember the life and times of this innocent owlbear. Cruelly orphaned while still a chick, raised by Frith and granted awakening by kindly druids, ferocious barbarian, grappler of dragons. Felled by a Lich, with a ninth-level spell.

Farewell, brave Screechy, and Rest in Peace.

Gauthkan’s comic relief also cops it.

Thessalar then uses a Quickened Wall of Force to protect himself from the cleric, leaving himself and Mend behind it.

Then, in a classic team play, Flash dispells the wall of force, and Frith Greater Turns the Lich, rolling well and destroying him.

— † —

Out-Of-Game info
If destroyed, Thessalar’s spirit returns to his phylactery kept in a distant lair hundreds of miles away, and turns his attentions elsewhere. He’s survived for hundreds of years, and in that span has been defeated no fewer than six times— he does not make a habit of returning for revenge against foes that have already proven their ability to defeat him, especially since he has duplicate copies of his spellbooks at his hidden true lair.
The party loot, recovering some good shit including a Glove of Storing with a Portable Hole in it which, contrary to all known physical laws, has not ripped a hole through to the astral plane. Then they turn their attention to the thingy that the lich was working on.

The thingy is a cylindrical force wall (nothing so crude as a cauldron, when you are a 20th level caster) containing a writhing mass of body parts. It seems the lich was working on perfecting his aberrations. Our heroes drop the force wall, and the contents promptly form themselves into a monster like the ones out in the courtyard, but a little meaner.

But once again, in a splendid team play, Flash casts Slime Wave, and Frith casts Repulsion. Although the creature recovers from ordinary battle damage at a ferocious rate, green slime is another matter altogether and there is nothing needing doing but to watch it dissolve. Unfortunately, this creature also spits acid, a big gob of the stuff badly corroding Flash’s and Frith’s shiny armour. Hopefully Mend will have a chance to fix it.

And as the monster irrevocably dissolves into goo, the spirit haunting it opts instead to haunt one of Flash’s dragonshards. Interestingly, this spirirt fragment is quite diferent from the other. The fragment haunting the purse is Balakarde’s thirst to know, his scholarly side. But Balakarde was more than a scholar - he was a fighter, a deadly campaigner and veteran of a score of adventures. More, he was implacably determined to bring a halt to the Age of Worms, to slay Dragotha. It is this side of him - Balakarde the Slayer - that haunted the raging chaos of the Lich’s work, which now haunts the dragonshard. It also gives advice to the bearer - mainly “Look Out” (+4 initiative).

There is little else of interest in here. The final part of Balakarde’s spirit is “tahtaway”.

— † —

Well! One bit remains! What happens when you complete the set? Or will our party go the old “Screw this, let’s just charge off and get killed by Dragotha!”? As always, till next week!

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