ADVENTURE 24: FOR THE LOVE OF LOLTH
PC Roster:
Cramer Appleknocker, gnome cleric 8
Jhasspok, lizardman 3/barbarian 2/fighter 3
Khari Hammerslammer, dwarf fighter 8
Marlo Pendragon, human sorcerer 8
Utred "Buckets" Butterflinger, dwarf barbarian 8
Game Session Date: 4 June 2020
- - -
There was an obelisk in the middle of the town square. "We will meet here at midnight," said Llolnida Alyxyra Bel'vior and none of the slaves made the mistake of believing it to be a mere suggestion. Matron Bel'vior pointed to an enormous building at the end of the street. "In there you will find the current leader of this frost giant kingdom, if you wish to try to get them to join your cause." The mockery in her voice evinced her belief the five arena slaves would have no success at that particular endeavor. "Midnight," she reminded them, then disappeared as quickly as she'd
teleported the group across the miles.
"She's awfully sure of herself," sneered Marlo in distaste. The sorcerer pulled the
circlet of persuasion from her pack and plopped it onto her head. "Come on - let's go prove her wrong!" Cramer gave the obelisk a thoughtful scrutiny as he followed in the sorcerer's wake.
Storming up to the vast dwelling the Mortal Queen had indicated, the slaves couldn't help but notice the size disparities in the buildings they passed; some were at human scale while others towered above their neighbors, easily twice as high yet still remaining a single story, judging by the 15-foot-tall doors. Apparently frost giants lived intermingled with creatures more the slaves' size.
Marlo knocked loudly on the door of the indicated building with her fist. The doors were opened from the inside by a pair of male frost giants, looking down in surprise at their unusual visitors - especially Jhasspok; apparently they didn't get a whole lot of lizardfolk guests out of the blue. "We wish an audience with the Queen," Marlo said boldly to the giants, noting the weapons at their belts were larger than her entire body.
"Enter, then, and take a seat at the table," replied one of the bearded guards, indicating a giant-sized table and chairs between the front door and the back of the room, where a slender frost giant woman sat on a massive throne. She was flanked by canines on either side: a pair of winter wolves at her left and a much larger rime hound at her right. All three looked at the strangers with hungry eyes but none made a move towards them. Jhasspok stared right back at the winter wolves as he crawled up into an oversize wooden chair; across from him Marlo did the same. The dwarves sat across from each other in the next-closest chairs, while Cramer opted to lean against the leg of a chair rather than try to climb all that way up.
"Welcome," said
Queen Sigvor in a silky voice. "To what do we owe the honor of your visit?"
Marlo went right into her spiel, explaining about the impending drow attack from the Underdark, focused primarily upon Greenvale but expanding across the neighboring realms. She didn't try to appeal to the frost giants to help their Greenvale neighbors out of the goodness of their hearts - she knew that was likely a losing proposition - but she did try to play up the imperiousness of the drow cause and their belief they could overpower any force set against them. Better, she thought, if the frost giants came to their own conclusion it was in their best interests to ally against the drow menace. Marlo specifically did not mention they had traveled here in the company of the Mortal Queen whose armies would be attacking the surface world in two months' time.
"Interesting," replied Queen Sigvor when Marlo had finished her tale. "While I prefer peace with the little races, most of the tribes would rather make use of the chaos of a war with the drow to their own advantage. All I can guarantee is that I will do what I can to keep the frost giant forces neutral in the coming conflict. We will not come to your aid, but neither will we ally with the drow."
Marlo realized this was about as good as she was going to get. "We thank you, Your Majesty," she said. "As we are strangers to your kingdom, may we ask you about the obelisk we saw outside?" The heroes had been unnerved by its appearance; while it bore no runes or markings - it was a simple, four-sided structure that tapered to a point - Cramer's
detect evil spell cast in curiosity as they passed it indicated only one of the four sides had radiated evil.
"It predates our rulership of this land," admitted Queen Sigvor, "and even Rimefjord itself - it's older than even the Desolate Wastes. Some believe it to be a shrine to some nameless god of destruction. Whatever it is made of seems to reflect magic; a wizard once attempted to
disintegrate the obelisk and was himself
disintegrated instead."
Cramer's eyebrows raised at this as he wondered as to its possible origins. "What can you tell us of the Desolate Wastes, Your Highness?" he asked. (And in the little gnome's case, "Your Highness" was a statement of fact as much as an honorific to a frost giantess.)
"About 1,000 years ago, holy fire rained down upon the lands to the south. This lasted for a full nine months and ever since, any who die, or any dead brought into the desert, rise to join the Undying Crusade." Cramer gulped and thanked the frost giant queen for the explanation; despite their current predicament, he was glad they chose the tundra over the desert!
"We will take up no more of your time, Your Majesty," replied Marlo, crawling down from the enormous chair much to the amusement of the queen's guards. "Many thanks for your hospitality." The five heroes were escorted back to the front door and released back outside.
"We're likely to have a busy night," said Cramer. "Might want to rest up until then." They found a back alley and activated the
ironsilk tent, camping out for the rest of the day and well into the evening. Then Cramer and Marlo, well rested, went about the mental assessments that verified they were able to hold a full day's assortment of spells, in the gnome's case the specific spells for which he had prayed to Fharlanghn to obtain. Well before midnight they returned to the obelisk, their gear all packed away.
"Weird lookin' thing," Khari observed. It was tan in coloration and made of a substance that wasn't quite worked metal and wasn't quite stone - as both dwarves could attest.
"Ah, on time I see - very good," purred the Mortal Queen as she stepped forward from the shadows. "Are you ready for your mission?"
"We're ready to get out from under your
quest spells," grumbled Cramer.
"Then we both want the same thing," smiled Matron Bel'vior. "I will open the obelisk and you will go down into the dungeon below and fetch me the thousand-faceted sphere you'll find inside." Jhasspok nodded silently to himself, proud of the fact he still remembered what Utred had told him "faceted" meant. (And a thousand, Jhasspok recalled, was even bigger than a hundred.) "Bring it back to me here and then we can go our separate ways." She voiced a command word and one of the sides of the obelisk slid into the ground. There was a three-foot-diameter hole in the middle of the floor of the four-foot square cross-section of the structure's interior; a ladder could be seen going down into darkness.
Utred peered down into the vertical shaft. "'Bout fifty feet down," he told the others. The five slaves mentally increased the illumination of their
slave-light cloaks to their maximum.
"I'll go first," offered Marlo, forgoing the use of the ladder and
levitating down the vertical shaft using the power of her magic boots. At the bottom she saw a 20-foot-long stairway leading further down, deeper below the surface of the ground. The rectangular chamber at the bottom of the stairs had an archway along its southern face, with numerous symbols engraved in the stone all around it.
"Let's get this over with," grumbled Cramer, climbing down the ladder. The dwarves followed, with Jhasspok heading down last. He caught up with the others examining the various symbols. "These are holy symbols from various gods," Cramer observed. "And unholy symbols," he amended, noticing the distinctive emblems of
Vecna,
Erythnul, and
Gruumsh.
"That one's Lolth's," Jhasspok pointed out; before he met Cramer, the cleric of Fharlanghn, Lolth had been the only deity of whom the lizardfolk had been aware, having been hatched and raised as a slave to the drow for all of his five years. For his part, Cramer cast a
magic circle against evil spell upon himself.
"Okay, before we do anything else, let's warn the Dragon King about what we're being forced to do," suggested Cramer. He cast a
sending spell, directing the following message across the miles to reach the ears of Dragon King Ixenilowan: "Forced by drow Matron Bel'vior to retrieve relic specifically to counter your involvement in upcoming drow invasion. Plan accordingly - possibly flee?"
"So now what?" asked Khari.
"He'll get the message, and part of the magic allows him to automatically respond." The gnome stiffened, apparently receiving the red dragon's response.
"Well?" asked the dwarven fighter.
"He says, 'Sounds like your problem,'" Cramer replied despondently. It didn't sound like the ancient red dragon was overly concerned about anything some mere drow could do to him, even if she was the leader of an entire Underdark city. "No help from that front, I'm afraid."
"Let's go," suggested Marlo, stepping through the archway with no ill effects. The others followed her into a larger chamber. There were two alcoves carved into each side wall; two were empty save for a pile of rubble and broken stones, while the other two contained intricately carved statues. A pair of stone double doors stood shut at the far side of the room.
"No crystal sphere-thing," observed Khari, looking all about the room.
"Probably behind them doors," hazarded Utred.
"Yeah, and you just know as soon as we open these doors these two statues are going to animate and attack," pointed out Cramer. Marlo cast a
detect magic spell and examined the doors. With her magically-enhanced vision, she was able to instantly detect the abjuration effect suffusing the entire chamber, the transmutation auras permeating the two statues, and - belatedly - the necromantic energy pouring out of the various symbols around the archway beneath which the heroes had passed. Fortunately, whatever action might trigger the necromantic energy, none of the heroes had set it off just yet.
Marlo explained what in the room was magical, leading Cramer to examine the closest of the statues. It was a centaur of some sort, only instead of hands its arms ended in a pair of spiked chains. The detail in the chains - with the open spaces in the center of each link - led the gnome to believe this was no simple carving, but a creature (a construct of some type, given its angular build) turned to stone. The only question was whether the stone statue would animate as a stone statue when it attacked or return to its pre-petrified state first.
Utred and Khari examined the rubble in the southeastern alcove. Some of the chunks of broken rock had been carved into some sort of shape; Utred was the first to realize it too had once been a statue of some living creature, long since broken into chunks. That led him to believe these statues would remain stone statues when they animated, but Cramer disagreed. "Not necessarily," he explained. "They could attack in the flesh, then return to a stone configuration when they were slain."
"That likely?" Khari asked.
"I'm not sure," admitted the gnome. "But it's definitely possible." Khari checked out the other pile of rubble but it had been broken into too fine of a pile of gravel to make identification possible.
The other intact statue was of some sort of humanoid frog-man. "A slaad," Cramer said. "Hard to tell what type though, without seeing its true colors." He explained the slaads came in different colors, like dragons, with each color of slaad having different powers and abilities.
"Well, we're going to have to go through the doors eventually," pointed out Marlo, casting an
invisibility spell on herself in preparation for combat once these statues were activated. Cramer cast an
aid spell on Khari.
"We ready to open 'em?" asked Utred, his
Elderwood flaming longsword out and ready to strike.
"Hang on, I got a better idea," said Khari - and then slipped under the stone floor, using the power of his
earthglide warhammer to step through the solid rock below the door and pop up on the other side. He was now at the top of another short set of stairs leading down into another large chamber very much like the one he'd just exited: four alcoves (although this chamber held three statues instead of just the two) and, instead of a set of doors at the far end, another alcove - upon which stood the multifaceted spheroid they'd been sent to fetch.
Looking warily about, to ensure the statues weren't going to come to sudden life on him, Khari approached the back alcove. Sure enough, that
had to be the relic they'd been sent to acquire for the Mortal Queen. The Hammerslammer dwarf knew as soon as he touched it the three statues would animate and try to kill him - and, for all he knew, so would the other two in the first chamber. So he opted not to even touch it...especially once the unseen voice in his head said, <Turn back, mortal, lest you face your death.>
Khari pivoted at once and headed for the nearest statue, figuring he could at least give a decent report to the others about what they'd likely be facing in here; Cramer seemed to know quite a bit about extraplanar creatures. The statue looked like an elven woman from the waist up, with her hips and legs replaced by the body of a snake. Feathered wings rose up from behind her shoulders.
Weird, Khari decided.
Across from the lillend statue was another winged figure, this one the size of a shapely human woman but whose wings were rather batlike in build instead of feathered like the snake-woman's. Khari remembered this particular type of demon: Cramer had called it a succubus when they found it guarding one of the villages they'd been sent to loot from the Writhing Gate.
The last statue was of a rather large dog-headed man wielding a greatsword. On a whim, Khari checked out the empty alcove, expecting to see a pile of rocks and hoping he could figure out what the creature had been, but it was truly empty. Reaching a hand out into the empty space, Khari bumped into something that he couldn't see, even with his dwarven darkvision. Unnerved at the concept of an invisible statue, the dwarven fighter decided that was enough exploring and skedaddled out of the room, earth gliding through the stone and returning to the first chamber of statues, where he reported what he'd seen to the others.
"Good call on not touching the relic," Cramer said. Then, musing over the descriptions of the statues Khari had seen, he said, "It sounds like a lillend, a succubus, a hound archon, and a hellcat - all creatures from the outer planes, some good, some evil. I wonder why these particular statues were chosen?"
"More to the point, are we ready to go in?" Utred asked. He didn't know about anyone else, but Utred was ready to go in.
"I have a question," piped up Jhasspok, who had been in silent contemplation as Khari made his report.
"Yes?" asked Marlo.
"If Khari shows me how to work his hammer, couldn't I just go into the other room and fetch the stone? I can run the fastest, and then I could glide back through the floor like Khari does. Then we could just run away. The statues are all too big to follow us up the ladder to the obbalish."
"Obelisk," corrected Cramer, unable to help himself. "Hmmm...."
"If he does that, he'll activate the statues for sure," pointed out Utred. "Including these two out here, more'n likely. Might be best if we take these two out first. Then if he wants to go grab the relic, he might get out before they can follow. 'Course, for all we know, they can open these doors just fine and we'll still be fightin' them all off anyways."
"I have a
hold portal spell on a scroll," offered up Marlo.
"Let me see if I can take this centaur fellow out first," Cramer decided, heading toward the zelekhut statue. "It's some kind of inevitable; I forget what this actual type is called." He cast a
stone shape spell onto the centaurian statue, trying to "melt" it into some kind of formless blob without any sharp edges with which to attack. However, even in its petrified form, the zelekhut had an innate resistance against spellcraft and in this case the gnome's spell had absolutely no effect. But the attempted spell
did qualify as an attack upon one of the guardians of the place, which caused both it and the green slaad to revert to their non-stone forms and move to attack the interlopers.
The green slaad began combat by tossing a
fireball into the middle of the room, encompassing Jhasspok, Cramer, and Utred, its intended targets, as well as the
invisible Marlo who just happened to be within range, unknown to the frog-thing. Of the four, Utred took the brunt of the damage from the flames, which in turn stoked the internal fires of his rage. In retaliation, he sprinted across the chamber and brought his longsword crashing into the slaad's side. Idly, he noted the green flames sizzling across the weapon's blade didn't seem to have much of an effect upon the humanoid frog.
Unaware of the creature's resistance to fire, Marlo popped back into visibility as she cast an
empowered scorching ray spell at the slaad and the strength of her spell blistered the warty skin of the outsider, proving it wasn't actually immune to fire, merely resistant. Jhasspok, in the meantime, decided somebody had better take care of the centaur thing, for it was no longer made of stone but a shiny, gleaming metal. The lizardfolk reminded himself not to try to bite it, instead swinging his battleaxe hard against its side - where it made an impressive clanging noise but not much else.
Cramer cast a
bless spell on the group, aiding them in their future attacks against this pair of mismatched enemies. Khari charged the green slaad, bringing his warhammer crashing into the creature's thigh. But that left Jhasspok facing the zelekhut all on his own and the inevitable's choice of targets was thus made exceedingly simple. Its spiked chains went flashing out, ripping holes in Jhasspok's scaly hide; the lizardfolk hissed involuntarily in pain.
The slaad's claws went slashing out at the pair of dwarves attacking it, missing Khari but catching Utred and allowing him to pull the dwarven barbarian forward so it could bite him with its mouth of wicked-looking teeth. Utred dropped his longsword and pulled the greataxe from his back, swinging it in full fury at the green toad-thing towering above him. Marlo changed tactics, switching over to an
empowered magic missile spell, sending her darts of force energy smashing into the amphibian monstrosity's hide.
Jhasspok swung again with his battleaxe, invoking the special power it had to aid him in striking his enemies at the cost of lowering the power of his swing. After all, the lizardfolk mused, if he couldn't even manage to hit his target then it didn't matter how much strength was behind his blow. The axe's blade hit true but bounced harmlessly off the zelekhut's metal hide, failing to even leave a scratch on the surface. Fortunately, this time the nimble reptile managed to dodge under the spiked chains that came swinging in his direction in response.
Cramer activated his
ring of invisibility and moved forward to aid the dwarves in their fight against the green slaad. Khari hit the slaad again with his warhammer, this time focusing upon the beast's left knee. It retaliated against both dwarves, once more missing Khari while catching Utred just fine with its sharp claws and pointed teeth. But then with a powerful blow, Utred brought the slaad down to its knees, the barbarian's greataxe cleaving deep into the amphibian's flesh. It held itself from falling prone with a steadying hand on the stone floor of the chamber but it was quite obvious the slaad was not long for this world.
Finally noticing the lizardfolk struggling alone against the zelekhut - and not having very much luck against it - Marlo pulled Truffles from her pocket and cast a spell upon him, then flung him forward to activate it upon the centaurian inevitable. Truffles bounded up, unnoticed by the zelekhut, and reached forward with a webbed forefoot to try to trigger the
empowered shocking grasp spell his mistress had imbued upon him. The spell fizzled harmlessly against the inevitable's spell resistance and Truffles scurried back to Marlo, his mission a failure but at least successfully attempted.
Jhasspok swung his battleaxe futilely against the zelekhut's armored hide, once again failing to do anything meaningful to bring the enemy down. But the twin spiked chains each got past the lizardfolk's defenses, ripping off scales and causing the reptile's red blood to flow freely down his body. He wasn't sure how much more of this punishment he could take but he was also sure he wasn't going to move from his current position, for he had the thing still pinned inside its alcove, unable to reach the other arena slaves.
Cramer by now had reached Utred and placed a hand upon the dwarf's back, channeling a
cure critical wounds spell into the barbarian's body, healing up the worst of the slaad's bite- and claw-marks. Khari, in the meantime, finished off the slaad with an overhand swing of his warhammer straight down onto the nearly-prone enemy's head, crushing its skull. It turned back to stone immediately, then fell to pieces as Khari gave it a good smashing, just to be sure it was dead.
Utred looked down at the slain and shattered slaad in disappointment and looked about for another opponent. He raced across the chamber, making a bee-line for the zelekhut. He powered in next to Jhasspok and sent his greataxe crashing down upon the construct's metal hide; the lizardfolk was simultaneously both pleased and irritated to see the dwarf's weapon leave a quite noticeable dent in the gleaming side of the zelekhut's body.
Marlo sent a pair of
empowered scorching rays at the zelekhut, the twin blasts of flames blasting right over Utred's head to strike the inevitable. Then Khari raced up to Jhasspok's other side and added his warhammer to the arsenal attacking the zelekhut, but he was having the same trouble Jhasspok had been dealing with: an inability to actually deal any damage to the four-legged construct, despite successfully bringing his weapon crashing into its side.
Cramer channeled a
cure serious wounds into Jhasspok, reaching out to touch the lizardfolk's tail as the reptile dodged about, trying to find a good angle from which to strike the infuriating zelekhut. Jhasspok barely noticed his wounds healing up at the gnome's touch, so focused was he on trying to do something, anything, to help bring this centaur-thing down.
But he needn't have bothered; another
empowered scorching ray spell from Marlo did the trick and the zelekhut fell to the ground, shattering as its now-stone body struck the solid floor of the chamber.
"Everybody okay?" asked Cramer, applying healing spells to those who needed them, then casting a
fly spell upon himself, anticipating a need to move much quicker than his stubby little gnomish legs could get him in the very near future.
"Are we sure about this grab-and-run ploy?" asked Marlo hesitantly. She didn't like the idea of sending Jhasspok - or anyone, really - into a room with four statues that would animate and try to kill him, especially not when the others wouldn't be available to help fight off the enemies. So a compromise was made: they'd open the doors, Jhasspok would go get the relic, and then they'd all flee together, the dwarves ready to slam the doors shut and hopefully hold them closed before high-tailing it themselves. The best thing about the layout of the cavern was the set of stairs leading to the double doors was narrow enough that only one of the four statue-guardians could try to open the doors and gain access to the fleeing heroes.
The doors opened by sliding sideways along grooves cut in the floor and ceiling. Utred and Khari muscled them open and Jhasspok advanced warily, keeping his eyes on the three statues he could see. As he approached the back alcove, he too felt a whispering voice in his head: <Turn back, mortal, lest you face your death.> Jhasspok ignored it, looked back at the doors to see the other slaves in readiness, glanced over at the statues to make sure they were still immobile stone, and grabbed up the multifaceted gem the size of a cannonball.
Quick as a wink, the lizardfolk spun in place and sped back the way he'd come, his tail held out straight behind him for balance as he fled past his friends and all the way through the archway with the numerous god-symbols engraved all around it. Then he looked back to see what had transpired behind him.
The hound archon had been the first to make it to the stairs; Cramer cast a
spiritual weapon spell to try to keep it at bay. Khari had pulled out his shortbow, anticipating having to fight from a distance for a change, and let fly with an arrow that caught the dog-faced humanoid in the shoulder. It swung its greatsword at Utred, hitting the burly dwarf as Marlo cast an
empowered scorching ray at the celestial. Cramer's floating force-quarterstaff struck the archon again, even as the gnome ducked low and struck the celestial on the knee with his mace. Now that the hound archon had closed the distance, Khari dropped his bow and swung at the dog-headed man with his warhammer, a weapon with which he was much more proficient.
But then the succubus took flight, flitting over the hound archon's head and past the assembled heroes, heading toward Jhasspok. Utred managed to tag her with the tip of his greataxe as she fled past but the damage she took from the blow was minimal. From further back in the line toward the stone doors, the lillend cast a
sound burst, stunning only Khari but inflicting a teeth-rattling blast of sonics against Cramer, Utred, and Marlo as well.
Seeing his fellow dwarf freeze up and knowing all too well what that meant (for
sound burst was a particular favorite combat spell of Cramer's), Utred grabbed Khari by the arm and dragged him back away from the doorway. Then he diverted his attention to the succubus, swinging at her again with his greataxe. Marlo kept her focus on the approaching hound archon,
empowering a
magic missile spell and sending it blasting towards the celestial, to strike his broad chest in a flurry of sparks.
Jhasspok, seeing the "everybody run to the obelisk" part of the plan had somehow gone horribly awry, rolled the relic over towards the stairs leading back up to the ladder which led to the surface and sped back to join his friends in combat. He charged the succubus and actually hit her, but the female demon's body was protected against such physical blows and the frustrated lizardfolk found his attacks to be as useless as those he'd wasted upon the zelekhut.
The hound archon stooped low and attacked Cramer, perhaps realizing by taking out the gnomish cleric he'd also be getting rid of the
spiritual quarterstaff still smashing down upon his head. Cramer flew out of the stairwell, landed over in a back corner of the first chamber, and cast a
cure serious wounds spell on himself. Khari shook himself out of his immobility with a look of fury and, assuming the succubus had been the one to stun him, swung at her with his warhammer. The winged demon, however, was busy attacking Utred and couldn't spare the time to ward off the dwarven fighter's hammer-blows, trusting in the toughness of her fiendish form to deal with such bothersome attacks.
Utred finally recalled the original plan and closed the stone doors, leaving only the succubus out in the first chamber to have to deal with. Marlo cast her
hold portal spell from the scroll, the only one of its kind she had. But the magic worked, for despite the muffled pounding of the hound archon's steel weapon the stone doors held.
Jhasspok again swung at the succubus, hitting her with his axe-head but not having any effect upon her other than as a general distraction; he got the feeling he was little more than a buzzing fly bothering her. Cramer attacked the demon with his mace, having used up all of his attack spells; at least his
spiritual quarterstaff had made it through the doors before they'd been shut and sealed and he redeployed it against the succubus. Khari swung his warhammer at the winged demon and she retaliated with her claws, raking then across the dwarf's face, drawing blood. But having seen to the closing of the doors, Utred picked up his greataxe again and with a mighty blow cut the demon down out of the air. She fell to the ground and shattered, her body once again nothing more than stone.
"
Now can we leave?" asked Jhasspok, running back to fetch the relic he'd cast aside. The others followed, one by one climbing up the ladder back to the surface.
And there, waiting for them, was the Mortal Queen. "I'll take that," she said, smirking. Jhasspok handed it over to her without a word.
"We've upheld our part of the deal," Cramer pointed out to the drow Matron. "Remove these
quest spells from us at once!"
Matron Bel'vior's eyes narrowed in anger. "You would do well," she advised, "to recall to whom you are speaking,
slave!" But her mood lightened as she glanced at the multifaceted sphere before her. "In any case, the
quest spells dissipated as soon as the relic was handed over to me. They are already gone." Cramer tried to sense if what she said was true, but felt no different from when the
quest spell was still active on him. Still, it made sense that the spell would be gone once they'd performed what the spell was compelling them to do.
"What does that thing even do?" demanded Marlo, curious despite herself. She wanted to know if it was the
orb of red dragonkind, as Cramer had surmised.
Matron Bel'vior didn't even bother keeping these arena slaves in the dark - what could they do, after all, against one with her power? "This," she smirked, "is the literal Vengeance of the Gods. It's a soul prison for a creature called the Tarrasque. Once I figure out how to release the beast I will send it to destroy Greenvale, wiping the blot against Lolth out of existence forevermore." She smirked at her five unwitting dupes. "The gods have
symbols of death in place to slay instantly anyone entering the relic's resting place who wishes to unleash the Tarrasque upon the world; thus, I was forced to send in those who knew nothing of the relic's true power."
If anything, her smirk grew even wider and more insulting. "And so, when Greenvale and all of its wretched inhabitants are ground into powder by the Tarrasque, you may pride yourselves in the knowledge that it was you that granted me this power. In this, you have truly become some of Lolth's most devoted servants!" Then she stepped back into the shadows and was gone.
- - -
I was not a fan of this adventure and neither was Harry. It didn't help that we rolled like crap all night, but it also rankled that I couldn't hit the stupid zelekhut hardly at all (even when I rolled halfway decently) and when I did I couldn't deal it enough damage to get past its damage reduction; the same thing held true for the succubus. And Harry was right there in the same boat with me. Together, our PCs just got ground up like mince meat (the enemies certainly had no trouble hitting me at least), so we forced Dan to have Cramer to do little more than keep healing us so we wouldn't die. That left pretty much only Vicki and Joey to actually handle any combat, so it turned out to be "The Marlo and Utred Hour" with the other three of us as not much more than spectators.
Logan, for his part, was unhappy that Harry and I were grumbling about how not-fun this all was. He'd thrown CR-appropriate foes at us before and had us run right over them, often slaying them before they had a chance to do much, and thus for this adventure he beefed up the competition and wasn't pleased at all the grumbling he was receiving for having put our 8th-level PCs up against two chambers filled with CR 11 encounters. Of course, he'd also given us two
flaming whips in the previous adventure that would have aided us greatly in this fight (they attack against the foe's touch AC!), but they had been taken by Marlo and Utred, neither of whom was using them in this fight. And, of course, had Jhasspok attacked the green slaad instead of the zelekhut (or allowed the zelekhut to exit the alcove so we could flank it) he'd have been much better off, but I didn't do that. So grumpiness prevailed.
Logan used the "Giant Lairs" Paizo Flip-Mat for the frost giant encounter and built the "Dungeon of the Tarrasque Soul Prison" out of WotC's Dungeon Tiles.