Session Summary #19

[Nathan Sherman]

Session #19

Cast of Characters
Theren Moonshadow, a Moon Elf Bard played by Payson
Lutheo, a Halfling Paladin played by Dale
Otep, a Half Orc Fighter played by Nelson
Akronos, a Human Wizard played by Alec
Ceress, a Saurien Monk played by Graham
Q'Tahna, NPC, a Myrian ranger guild from the Nengeli tribe

The last session ended with the party in the crypt of the ancient ancient Myrian pyramid after their battle with two Forvalaka outside. That battle ended with them dropping one quickly and the second running out of sight over the top of the pyramid.

They have explored two chambers and found both to have stacks of bones in a crazy patterns. The party has three touches burning to insure that the party members that don't have dark vision can still see and function in these pitch black catacombs.

In the third and norther chamber that they enter, the discover that a ramp slopes downward going east out of that last room for 25 feet, then turns south for another 25 feet decent before entering a 25x25 room. In that room there is a section of the room that has the floor broken out on the south side. Theren casts invisibility on Otep to insure their toughest fighter will have the drop on any opponents they come up on.

There is a 15 foot drop into a natural cavern below. The landing area below is about 40 by 30 before it slopes down to the west and opens up into a huge cavern opening. Otep jumps down but lands poorly and hurts himself in the fall. Not being deterred, he picks himself up and continues into the cavern.

Theren takes out his rope and sits on the edge of the drop off and helps Lutheo safely climb down. Ceress follows him with the ease of a trained monk.

With Otep well into the cavern and Lutheo and Ceress following, Akronos gets ready to descend down the rope that Theren is holding for him. At that moment, they get rushed from behind by two Forvalaka. They both attack Theren and with their powerful claws they drop him in one quick rush. Being unconscious, Theren looses concentration on his invisibility spell and Otep become visible again.

Akronos dislikes remaining up on the ledge with the two killer Forvalakas so he uses Misty Step to quickly catch up the rest of the party that is still alive.  In the darkness Otep and Ceress rush back to the aid of the fallen and abandoned Theren and climbs back up the rock face to fight the Forvalakas.  Akronos curses one of the Forvalakas to think that Enemies Abound, intending to have it attack the other Forvalaka since he does not see where Ceress and Otep went and believes only the Forvalakas are still up on the ledge.

As Otep and Ceress battle on the ledge, Ceress recognizes both of these as the Forvalakas that attacked them outside on the pyramid. Apparently they left one for dead but didn't make sure he wasn't able to get back up and its partner must have revived it to come and attack the party from behind.

Meanwhile another Forvalaka comes out of the shadows from deep within the cave and viciously attacks Akronos, bringing him close to death in just two clawed attacks.  Lutheo bravely engages and tries to take the attention by stabbing the Forvalaka powerfully.

Up on the ledge, the two Forvalaka trade blows with Ceress and Otep. The Forvalaka drop Ceress and then Otep drops one of the Forvalaka, leaving a one on one battle.

Down in the cave the Forvalaka makes short work of Akronos, shredding his unarmored, book-learned body in short time despite Lutheo's distracting attacks.

As both Otep and Lutheo start to run out of tricks, the battle slows down to a grinding slug fest, but eventually one and then the other Forvalaka are dispatched. During that finale of the battle, Akronos, Theren and Ceress all stabilize in their slow progress of bleeding out. Lutheo uses his powers to heal them enough to regain consciousness and the party sets about licking their wounds.

They bring all of the bodies back up into the hallway and insure that each one is fully dead, not just unconscious. Theren creates an illusion that the passage has suffered a cave in to deter any enemies from venturing in and finding them resting. They search the bodies of the dead and find four potions and one magical cloak on them.

After they have completed a short rest and are feeling much better from their beating they decide to explore the large cavern, at least a little bit to see if they can find the skull of the conclave member easily before retreating.

They cautiously enter the cave, much more strategically than last time. The enter as a group and find that there are are lots of bones littering the floor and three rock pillars in the center of the cavern extending to the ceiling. Some of the bones still have remains on them. Some appear to be human but most are animals from the jungle. The stench is bad down here.

To the right and down a ways is a large stone shelf with imagery etched along the edge of it. On the shelf is a dust covered corpse, splayed out in a ritualistic fashion. It has obviously been abused or tortured to death. The dust and bones debris on the floor around it shows that nothing has walked within reach of the stone shelf in a very, very long time.

The images around the edge of the shelf are not the typical Myrian glyphs, they are definitely foreign. These are old, but maybe not as old as the temple. They are images of sacrifices by the full moon. Images of torture, burning, freezing, and summoning demonic creatures to nibble at the flesh of the victims being scarified.

After checking the magical finger again they find that it is definitely pointing to these remains. They must be one of the lost conclave members, either Taramandan or Illanor. Akrons focuses and discovers that the remains do glow with the same magical energy that they have found in the other conclave members remains as well as the banishment pit and the Avisarr gem stone.

They take the head off of the body and decide that since they have what they have come for, there is no need to search the rest of the cavern and see what is in there or risk their lives if they find anything else that wants to fight them given their exhausted abilities.

After they died, the Forvalaka reverted the the human forms that they were before they contracted this wereleopard lycanthropy, apparently Myrians infected with the curse of lycanthropy. Their heads are a little deformed from living for years with lycanthropy. Theren decides to cut one off to give to Q'tahna as a souvenir of his encounter with the dreaded Forvalaka.

They quickly leave the tomb and reenter the light of day. They start heading through the jungle back towards their flying contraption and encounter Q'tahna waiting for them. Q'tahna is trilled to see that they survived the the tomb and is appalled but still pleased to have the head of a dreaded Forvalaka.

Q'tahna leads the party back to the clearing where they stashed the flying contraption but they find that the little Felchkun monkeys have scavenged parts off of the contraption. Fortunately, Theren had stashed the Dasjani stone in their bag of holding and he sets about rebuilding a smaller and less stable version of their flying contraption.

That evening, Lutheo develops a fever and tosses and turns all night long. He didn't get hardly any rest and the next morning so he is exhausted and looking haggard. The party realizes that he was one of the few that was bitten by the Forvalaka during the battle and that he must be feeling some of the effects of that bite.

After a shaky false start that almost ended in disaster, they get the balance right on the new contraption and slowly lift into the air...

This is where Session #19 ended. The party has recovered the skull of a fourth member of the Conclave of Freedom and they are starting to precariously fly over the jungle, heading back towards the ocean where they hope to get their hired ship to pick them up.