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Previously on War for the Lost Plane

Starring:
Kaelan, level 16 tiefling Monster Slayer Ranger/Fiend Warlock
Scarlet, level 16 human Oath of Devotion Paladin
Gillian, level 16 triton Champion Fighter, College of Lore Bard
Kethra, level 16 half-elf Assassin Rogue
TIM, level 16 warforged War Domain Cleric

We emerge from the water onto a larger room in the temple. What was once a grand-looking staging area is now little more than ruin. It holds only one occupant. A body.

The Creator.

Rycresh appears next to us in an instant. “No! No, no no,” he mutters as he approaches, reverently. A beacon of light shines from above the elderly elven body. A projected image of the Creator appears.

It speaks, though it appears to be a recorded message, for trusted friends only. A dead man’s switch.

The message reveals the location of a secret lair near the Verdant Spire, the damn tower we had first appeared in, guarded by a stone giant. The hidden home holds “memory orbs” we can use to gain insight into what happened to this plane, and how we can fix the invasion of demons and angels.

Before we can process all this, another image appears. This one we’ve seen before. Irathon, the leader of the demonic army. My hands fly to my crossbows.

“It is so good to see you again, little ones. And you’ve done so well. After weeks of searching, you lead us so much closer to what we seek. And now our little game is concluded.”

The party reunited at the island’s tiny, but active volcano. Kethra identified the magical pendant she had swiped from the Marid, gaining an item that could grant various water-breathing, fish-transforming powers.

We had been informed by the surviving island stewards that the volcano normally spews lava at a regular pace. But when we arrived, only small rivets of lava poured out, with great black smoke billowing from the top, accompanied by ground-shaking earthquakes. Was the volcano sick?

We sent Styx the imp flying up into the toxic fumes, as he was immune to poison. Styx saw that a 30-ft wide boulder blocked the top like a plug, turning the lava flow into a trickle, and making the entire island more and more unstable.

Gillian had the clever idea of using Animate Objects to move the boulder. She had to get close enough to see it, however. We watched as she impressively scaled the cliffs and withstood the fumes to reach the top, while TIM failed repeatedly to climb the mountain, rolling down the cliffs. He made it about halfway before finally giving up.

At the top, Gillian had to crack the boulder in half in order to animate it. Thunderwave came through here, twice, until a giant crack began to appear. She cast Animate Object, lifting half the boulder into the air, while the other half sank into the pool of lava underneath.

D&D

We were expecting a possible lava-geyser when removing the boulder. We did not expect a rock-lava monster! The gigantic beast emerged from the now-open volcano, lava spewing from its mouth and firing out of its body like mini-fireballs.

Gillian and TIM were hit by its explosive entry. In response, she pulled an action-hero move, running down the mountain, grabbing TIM, and casting Dimension Door to reach the bottom.

Thankfully the volcano creature wasn’t interested in attacking us. It ambled over to a corner of the volcano and made two burning slash marks in the rock – the symbol we needed! We recorded it and high-tailed it out of there, while the creature returned to its home.

With all the symbols in our journal, we traveled to Summit Temple, the last known location of the Creator.

Turns out the coastal temple had fallen into the ocean. Kethra used her marid pendant to give us all water breathing, and we dived underwater to find the temple door (minus Styx, who still had PTSD from the kelp-marid encounter).

Near the temple door we found a control panel with a series of symbols – far more than we had found. We punched our symbols in but nothing happened. We looked back at the poem and tried pushing the symbols in that order, then in reverse order. Still nothing happened.

Kethra figured it out. The clue was in the start of the poem: “count down the code.” Each symbol had a different number of marks, from one to five. Kethra pushed them in order of the 5-mark symbol to the single mark, and the door to the now-underwater temple opened.

The temple had not been flooded – until the door opened, sucking water and us inside. We weren’t too nervous because of the water-breathing, though only the entry way was now full of water. Nearby stairs led up further into the temple, and into dry land. There, we saw a body.

Rycresh appeared, and gasped. He gingerly approached the elf corpse. It was the Creator. Our goal this entire time was to find him, get answers, and hopefully get the hell out of here. And he was dead.

Rycresh approaching triggered a magical projection that appeared over his body. A dead man’s switch coded for friends only. The Creator revealed that he has a hidden home near the Verdant Spire – the tower we first were summoned into, guarded by a stone giant. There he has magical orbs that record all his memories. We could hopefully use those to gain more information.

Unfortunately we weren’t the only ones listening. As the Creator’s image faded away, another appeared – Irathon, the leader of the demon army. She thanked us for triggering the projection and gaining the hidden lair information. She disappeared once again, leaving us with two powerful demons to content with, a marilith and an amnizu.

D&D

The marilith teleported right in front of us, striking out with swords, crossbows, and her snake tail. Kaelan was caught in the tail, and used Misty Step to escape, running north to try and find the hidden amnizu. The others engaged the six-armed marilith, but TIM completely shut her down by throwing the Slumber Rug at her. She failed the CHA saving throw, dropping gently to the ground. Ha!

We didn’t fare so well against the amnizu, however. It strode out in front of Kaelan, attempting to control him with Dominate Monster. Using Dark One’s Own Luck he was able to resist, but firing at the amnizu prompted it to momentarily charm Kaelan into shooting Kethra.

Horrified, Kaelan ran around a corner to the back to get out of line of sight of his companions. Unfortunately that prompted an Attack of Opportunity from the amnizu. It critically hit on its Disruptive Touch, dealing over 80 damage. Oof! Kaelan had only a handful of HP left, and on the amnizu’s turn, it finished him off using his Poisoned Mind attack. Our first party member of the campaign goes down!

The amnizu then strode up confidently to the rest of the party, ready to… free its ally? Cast more spells? Laugh like Jabba the Hut? We’ll have to find out next week!

MVPC – TIM & Gillian

Post-session live discussion:

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