Everyone saves or is immune to the confusion...except for poor Spotter, who rolls horribly and is reduced to inane babbling. There's a bunch of readied attacks, but the party stays bunched up relatively tightly except for Puck sliding up and enlarging. There is no sound other than the rain sliding down, and Spotter's maddened word-soup (which we joke about a
confused war forged suffering from a computer virus). He rolls "attack the nearest creature" but Puck manages to sweep his feet out from him, which means his arrows bounce off of Angelena's armor.
Then an absolutely murderous voice scrapes against Angelena's mind.
PPPRRRIIIEESSSTTEEESSS
The sheer malice almost makes her ill, but the
Greater Dispel is more alarming as it tears her buffs to shreds. Slightly alarmed, Angelena shuffles up to stand next to Sona and Puck...safety in numbers and all that. However, that's when several spectral hands/tentacles reach up through the ground and claw at the trio's ankles. They miss Sona, and Puck is immune, but as Angelena just lost her
Life's Grace, she takes 6 points of CON drain. With that, the party all decide to make haste to the stairs leading down to the creature's lair (Puck physically grabbing Angelena and carrying her). The whole gang makes it to the stairs, except for poor Spotter (whom I feel bad about taking out of the fight so early, but sometimes dice are cruel). He does manage to roll on the chart to chase after them at least. A couple more buffs go out as they're descending the stairs, specifically
Life's grace on Sona and Talvosh, and
Death Ward on Angelena. The stone roots are back, and have actually grown partially across the bottom of the stairs! Talvosh hacks his way in, and Puck starts the same, while Sona throws a
Glitterdust into one side of the chamber in hopes of catching an invisible baddie - no luck. While Angelena is finishing her buffs, she's unfortunately right up next to the wall, and a ghostly claw brush her neck and eats another 4 points of Constitution! She's down to around 2 hit points if I remember correctly, so Sona moves close to keep her safe with
Wings of Cover.
Talvosh is in the room, and can see another one of those Umbral Displacer beasts within his dark vision. He charges with a roar, the beast's attack of opportunity bouncing off because of
Life's grace. The orc warrior makes it through the incorporeal miss chance and reduces the shadow to wisps of smoke with a single blow! He also realizes that there are two other creatures in the room - another Umbral displacer beast, and a humanoid figure that he recognizes. It looks like Drokon, the wandering Swordsage they had encountered way back in the Jungle - the one Puck had beaten in a duel, and who had helped them discover one of the first ways to use Vitae. But it looks like Drokon if someone had tortured and warped his limbs and body to obscenely gaunt and stretched proportions, and his image jitters and shudders in place. He's a Dread Wraith now.
YOU Talvosh feels that horribly familiar attention thundering against his mind, and then the shattering glass of a
Greater Dispel removing his protections. Ruh roh, Shaggy. The dread wraith and umbral displacer beast float over to give Talvosh the bad touch - he saves against the wraith, but he takes 7 pts of Strength damage...so he's almost lost the boost from his frenzy and rage. Progress!
Puck finishes chopping through the roots, and Sona and Angelena move into the room with Angelena's latest buff going:
Invisibility Purge. What's revealed in one corner of the room is a swirling mass of greasy mists, with countless screaming faces flowing in and out of existence. The Advanced Evolved Caller in Darkness realizes that it can be seen, and dozens of eyes roll to fix themselves on the party.
It's not happy. It starts throwing around chained
Ego whips (I gave it the ability to chain a power 3/day because reasons), but only Talvosh and Angelena are vulnerable. The second dread wraith floats out of the wall after Angelena and Sona, revealing itself to be a tortured caricature of the necromancer that the party had killed her so long ago. It's attempt to consume Angelena and Sona's life is thwarted though.
Angelena
restores her con drain so she doesn't die, and Sona blasts the wraith with
Wings of Flurry. Talvosh makes short work of the spectral foes surrounding him, while Puck hacks away at the dread wraith. The Dark Presence tries a
Death Urge on Talvosh, but he saves...one day I'll get that power to work on someone, and it will be
glorious.
An opening! Talvosh rushes the Presence and cleaves deep into the roiling clouds. Angelena
ghost touches Puck's weapon, and he rushes forward with a bellow of "WE SEE YOU NOW!" He slashes the creature for heavy damage, and activates his brutal surge ability just to force an attack of opportunity from Talvosh. The surprised creature is rocketed backwards, and cut into again by the orc. Meanwhile, Sona blocks the Dread Wraith again (perhaps forgetting that
Life's grace makes her immune to its touch), and finally blows him apart.
The Dark Presence is more than a little enraged at the creatures that can SEE it, and are HURTING it. It tears and rips at the party's psyches again, and even making the save deals enough Charisma damage to drop Talvosh - but he uses Mad Foam Rager to delay the damage long enough to cut a chunk off the creature again.
Angelena steps up, it's time to finish this undead monstrosity...with a
Bolt of Glory!
The Bolt of light blasts towards the monster! And Angelena rolls a
three. Puck slashes it a final time (it was down to 2 hit points), and the Dark Presence lets out a glass-shattering howl and bursts into nothingness. Talvosh promptly falls into a coma.
VICTORY!