Game-Summaries:10/5/2019 Recollections

Recollections by Rezik

When Arch asked me to help train a troupe of future evokes (Twilight Mages), I didn’t think it would be so time consuming. Thankfully they have been learning quickly and are adept at casting truly earth shattering magic.

I was checking on Gramph and my clones’ when suddenly I was aware of five someone’s entering the spire. It turned out to be Cassio, Zanna, Sarya, Ember and Dereth.

The group were flustered and in a rush, screaming about perversions of magic and needing to get Great Wastes quickly.

I figured I should join them and told them to circle around me, teleporting us to the Great Wastes.

When we arrived, another alarm sounded. It looks like my Baron Zevane project might be working. I turned to the group and mumbled something about it being too hot and recalled back to the Spire.

Recollections by Kaylorr

Another day, another Giant. Here I was minding my own business taking inventory of all of my Kwik-Aids in The Vault when I hear a sudden commotion and witness Cassio being lead towards the War Room by some new squire of his. I think his name was Amos and Cassio seemed to be relishing in his new mentor duties. Anyway, my curiosity gets the best of me and I end up following and meeting up with Zanna, Sarya, Ember, and Dereth. Amos immediately informs us all that something major is happening in the Great Wastes and has triggered an alert to all of the Reds. To give Cassio a lead and I guess feed his ego, Amos disabled the alarm and gave us an hour to deal with the the situation before all of the Reds descended upon the Great Wastes. Knowing time is of the essence, we track down the closest person who would be able to teleport us, Rezik...who then immediately leaves us with no way back home.

As we got ourselves together we noticed a massive, angry, wall of lightning and chaos. The strange thing about this storm was how it was fixed on a singular point and stationary and each lightning strike left an imprint of an eye in the sand. Realizing this was the cause of the alert, we scan the horizon and notice a tiny village right on the outskirts of the storm. Obviously we make a beeline towards the village to see if they can answer the many questions our group is known to have in situations such as these. Dereth was able to recognize that this tiny outpost is one of the many Desert Nomads that travel the Great Wastes and upon entering we see that none of them seemed to be all that overly concerned about the raging typhoon that is right outside. After making pleasantries, we come to learn the storm is being generated by Dessa, Storm Guardian of Astoria and the nomads here make their living in cultivating massive amounts of goat cheese. The Nomads here inform us that this is the first time they have seen a storm of this magnitude and a party traveled through only a day prior to our arrival. As an offering to Dessa we agree to buy a half keg of their famed goat cheese and make our way to the Astorian Arch that leads to Dessa's domain. The storm is a lot worse than we expected and what should have been a 20 minute walk took us almost an hour. Finally reaching our objective, we stumble upon a a collection of Drow corpses strewn about, some who were carrying a sigil of a hand. Dereth again was able to recognize this symbol as being part of the Dark Seldarine and we hypothsize that their presence could be the cause of this the raging storm. In a massive show of lightning, Dessa showed herself and confirmed our suspicions of this sudden assault by the Drow. They forced their way through the gate to enter her domain and wreak on Astoria. We offer our services to purge their presence and cleanse whatever perversions they are doing to her sanctum. As a gift of good faith, she bestows a belt to our group which we offer to Sarya and the moment she puts it on we all notice a great surge of strength and empowerment emanating from her. Like 29 units of something that gives us better strength.

With that we enter Astoria and are greeted with a massive hall. Above the entrance we see a plaque that read, "Enter the Temple of the Storm Giant King, Stronmaus. Announce Stronmaus’s Gift as You Enter and be Joyful." Inside, we find an additional three rooms described below

West - Hall of Mirth – "Receive the Joyful Signs of Stronmaus and let only Annam’s Children See Our True Face" - speak Mirth before entering - 8 separate masks lined the walls. Once we entered, we grew to giant size and the masks gave us visions of past giant lords lives and deeds. Room protected by disintegration rays which we found out about the hard way. (Garnet got dusted)

East - Hall of Portent – "When Stronmaus Speaks Heed the Omen as You See It" - Speak Portent before entering - images and scenes danced and replayed themselves like birds. entering we were beset upon by quick successions of images that looked to be a foretelling of our incoming fight. Dereth and Cassio were the only ones that were able to overcome the overwhelming images playing out in our heads.

North Room - Hall of Honor – "Watch for the Presage of Annam’s Return and Prepare" - Speak honor before entering- huge room with 3 statues of giants lined on each side. Main room that lead towards the giants' tombs. Our inevitable entrance towards the Drow and their exploits. Each statue lists the respective giants deeds and story of their life play out.

Realizing out battle against time, we make our way deeper into the Hall of Honor, where we manage to open the doors leading to the tombs. Almost immediately, we spring the trap the drow have set up for our arrival. Cassio manages to dispel the cover of darkness they cast on us with Daylight and we find ourselves to be face to face with the remaining drow party. Mages stood in a circle, casting what I later learned to be a more advanced type of necromancy. A dragolith, a lich, another archmage of some sort taunted us on the other side of a Prismatic Wall blocking out way into the tomb. One giant was already brought back and Dereth and I realize in horror that these Drow are bringing back the giants to feed the Immortal Army. Time is not our friend on this day as we see the mages continue their ritual to being a second giant back to fight for the Immortals. I believe it was Zanna or Dereth who learned that the mages were empowered and led by Kiaransalee, a revanancer of some sort. I have never heard of such magic and heard it's a more volatile and dangerous form of necromancy.

Cassio, being the foolish hero that he was, decides to walk through the Prismatic Wall and comes out relatively unscathed minus the petrification that he suffered. I get him up and he does what Cassio does in times such as these. Smash things with reckless abandon. Sarya, Zanna, and Dereth also get through through while Ember and I stay to deal with the wall as well as fight/support from range. The fight was long and tested all of our capabilities in every way possible. The Drow tried so hard and got so far, but in the end, it didn't really matter as they were defeated and their ritual finally interrupted. We ended up staying another day so Dereth can purify and cleanse Astoria and Dessa blesses each of us permanently. While in Astoria, Sarya's new belt emanates an aura that improves our strength, we can understand Giantish, and we find communicating with giants to be easier. Dessa also warns us that their are other Giant domains that can may be under attack from the Drow. We should look into scouting the Hill, Cloud, Storm, and Stone giant domains in case the Drow are trying to make another move to bolster their numbers for this Army of Immortals.

Our mission earns us each a new title of "Jotenheimer." What it stands for I can't seem to recall but it's a definite upgrade to Equi hostis.

P.S. Pelor also blessed me with divine wings and I can fly \[T]/ Praise the sun!