Seven deadly sessions, Seven deadly...well, you get the picture.
Spoiler: Leaving the JungleWe pick up right after the fight against the Elven raiding party, and the all important looting of bodies! There's a selection of greatspears and chain shirts from the ragers, a wicked set of jagged picks that the Throatcutter was using (Angelena's kidneys twinge at the sight), but there's a few items that really catch the party's attention:
- A small leather charm bag, filled with a snake fang and rabbit fur - A Chronocharm of the Horizon walker
- This wide greatsword has a gruesome grip and hilt - it is made of what looks disturbingly like a spinal cord. Even the blade looks to have been carved from the leg bone of some giant humanoid, yet rings like metal - +1 profane burst Greatsword
- This set of armor is far sturdier than its macabre materials would suggest. Despite being made of yellowed bone, it can repel a steel blade. It is highly disturbing for most to handle however, let alone wear- magical breastplate of some sort
- A heavy leather bag, stitched with arcane symbols. Inside are small polished bones, every inch covered with carved runes. Upon closer inspection, they are spell formulae - A Wizard's spellbook
- A green and white jade ring - Ring of Antivenom
- A fine woven metal headband - Headband of Intellect +2
Sona flies up carefully to look for any sign of a Bonfire, as everyone is more than a little nervous at the thought of having to return all the way back to the ruined keep in the jungle. The road continues north and upwards, into what looks like a series of mesas and canyons. Passing her Vitae check, she feels a tugging sensation towards the north. Everyone uses whatever abilities they have left to try and heal up, and the party limps north. The jungle quickly gives way to bare stone and jagged rock, the road continuing along an elevating raised cliff. Said road abruptly ends with a sheer drop, but a small Bonfire burns at the edge. The party gratefully collapses for the night.
BONFIRE ATTUNED - Canyon's Edge
During the night, Janath slips off to make his own way in this world...when Angelena wakes, she feels a connection between her and Janath break.
In the morning, Kiani the wizard comes across the scene of a recent & bloody battle on the road, and hastens along it - the other worshiper of Pelor the Twins had mentioned must be nearby. Encountering the party, it's a pretty tense meeting (when Puck's first action is to start advancing towards Kiani while muttering, "If I get her before they invite her to the fire, I won't get in trouble..."). After a bunch of dancing back and forth, no one dies and Kiani joins the group, immediately gravitating towards Sammael and Angelena.
Spoiler: The Canyons
Background Music
Gazing out from the cliff edge, this seems to be a maze of Mesas, canyons, and ravines cutting back and forth. These aren't small either, it's a several hundred foot drop down to the bottom, and easily several hundred feet across to the next mesa. There's the sound of what must be a BIG waterfall off to the west (though echoes through the canyons makes it hard to accurately gauge), and the Old Road points north before the cliff drops away. Peering down, there's a very rough and treacherous series of switchbacks leading down the cliffside (more like a series of narrow ledges angling back and forth). Carefully, eeever so carefully the group makes their way down the cliffside.
Talvosh fails his check, and Angelena fails hers HARD. They go tumbling down part of the cliffside before managing to catch themselves on a ledge together. The damage makes Talvosh frenzy though! Buut Angelena uses Air Walk to get out of Talvosh's reach, and then Talvosh passes his save to voluntarily end his frenzy. Everyone makes it down, and travelling across to the next mesa, remember about their super long spool of magic rope. Sammael uses his spider climbing slippers to scramble up and tie off the rope so everyone else has an easier time making it up, and they find the remnants of the road again.
Continuing north, this mesa is gigantic; the party travels for half a day and there's still lots ahead of them. The remains of the road travels quite close to the west edge of the mesa - A knowledge (geography) check reveals that none of this area seems natural. It would have taken a fairly cataclysmic event to shape the surrounding cliffs and ravines like this. However, such musings are interrupted by a strange glint in the sky, approaching rapidly! Initiative!
The Juvenile Steelwing (not as high an attack bonus, lost its razorfeather spray) divebombs the shiniest target, chomping into Puck. The rest of the fight quickly turns into a slugfest - Puck gets Enlarged and manages to trip the Steelwing, and everyone piles around hacking at the metallic bird. Kiani tries to grapple the bird with a Huge fiendish monstrous centipede, but it can't get past the attacks of opportunity. It does eat a bunch of attacks instead of party members though, which is always a plus. Puck gets Fly cast on him, and lives the dream! He flies up and smashes the prone Steelwing into the dirt for a LOT of damage. The Steelwing's crazy AC and damage reduction lets it break free and start flying upwards without dying. Before it can either wheel around for another divebombing (or escape) though, Puck charges straight up and continues the time honored tradition of landing brutal Crits! The Steelwing smashes to the ground, very dead. With some successful Knowledge checks, the group identifies the bird, and realizes that its feathers are quite valuable. Working carefully, they manage to collect and wrap up several hundred feathers, spreading them among the group. A proper crafter could turn them into quite the impressive arrows. Continuing onwards, the road cuts out into open air.
Spoiler: Crossing overDeciding to cross over the gap to the mesa west of them, our heroes devise a plan. Puck flies over (using the spell) to the other side of the cliff while holding onto the end of the rope, and loops it around an outcropping of rock and braces himself. Talvosh holds onto the spool, and after looping a rough harness, traverse Kiani across the 150 ft gap successfully. Next is Angelena, and that goes smoothly as well. Next is Sona's turn, and Talvosh fails his strength check. Sammael and Talvosh make their Reflex saves to dive and catch the spool before it flies over the edge, though, so Sona just gets the lovely experience of freefalling for a couple seconds, then bouncing upwards. As Sammael and Talvosh stand up though, a black blur flickers right in front of Sammael's face. Said flicker was a massive black arrow slamming into Talvosh's shoulder! He barely manages to hold on to the rope, but Sona quickly casts Fly on herself and translocates out of the rope harness. Everyone scans the area for signs of their attacker, but no one spots anything. Then another arrow flashes out of nowhere, this time sinking into Sona for over 2/3 of her health! Sammael notices it came from the northern part of the plateau he's currently on. He squat-runs forward while quaffing his tinctures. Everyone else hunkers down for cover, and Sona flies over to Angelena frantically. Creeping forwards, Sammael manages to spot a strange rippling motion on a small cliffside ledge. Shooting an arrow at it, it turns out to be a small hunter's blind - but it is empty.
The remaining members make it across the gap, and they hustle west until they find a small dip in the rock to hide in for the night. Examining the arrows, they're unusual; one uninterrupted piece of black metal with fins rather than feathers. It would require quite the amount of force to fire these.. Sona hears a faint metallic scrape during the night while on her watch, but nothing comes of it. In the morning though, everyone notices another arrow jutting out of the rock about 40 ft away from where they were sleeping, with a note impaled under it.
Spoiler: The noteLeave! Your kind is not Welcome!
The group cuts west, pretty certain they'll come across the river feeding the (very loud by now) waterfall. Eventually they do just that. Sunken into the rock, it is broad, violent, and deep looking. The rushing rapids look fast enough that even Puck is unsure if he could keep his footing across. Instead, they travel along the river a little further north until they reach a more easily crossed section. Eventually they come across some stone ledges jutting out over the river, leaving a 15 ft gap to cross. With some jump checks, more rope, more successful checks, and one emergency use of translocation anklets, everyone makes it across safely and I don't have to roll the damage for being dragged down rapids and then eventually hurled off a massive waterfall. On the other side is a curious sight...there's a path carved into the stone, leading arrow-straight north and south. There's also 3 sets of obvious humanoid tracks going south. After some debate, the group decides to head north, not wanting to backtrack any more. They travel for the rest of the day, and camp out again without a fire. The next day, after about half a day of travel, they reach the northern edge of this mesa. Using 2 Fly spells, Talvosh and Puck convey everyone across the massive canyon in two trips (there's some joking about a mosquito biting Talvosh in mid-air, and him frenzying and divebombing whichever poor victim he was carrying. Strangely, people prefer Puck). Also, it's official that Sammael surfs on Puck's back Megaman/Rush style. As people are across though, they hear the most enchanting Music...Puck, Angelena, and Kiani fail their Will saves and start wandering towards a nearby chasm. Talvosh gets a hold of Angelena to stop her, and Sammael "helpfully" knocks Kiani down and loosely hogties her. Poor Puck flies over everyone and down into the chasm though. Descending further, Puck sits down in front of the pretty woman singing the lovely song.
The group of harpies fill Puck full of arrows, blasts him with a Scorching ray, and bludgeons him with clubs before he snaps out of it and manages to escape the chasm with alarmingly low hit points. He slams to the ground in front of Angelena and burns a Vitae in preparation for the harpies attacking in force. So close...
Spoiler: The HarpiesDun dun dun
There's a great wailing cacophony of shrieking and cackling laughter, but the harpies take long enough flying out of the chasm that Angelena and Kiani manage to clear their heads from the befuddling song. The first harpy to soar out of the chasm is just a basic mook, so the readied actions of an arrow and a Great Thunderclap sends her tumbling to her mostly assured demise. The rest eventually make it up, and the battle is on. The Spellbinder and the two Archers are the major threat, but none of the harpies are playing fair, flapping back and forth out of reach, above the broad chasm. The Spellbinder throws a Wall of Fire down around part of the party, and the Archers blast away at Puck, hoping to finish off their original prey. Sona manages to hit the Spellbinder and the Archers with a Great Thunderclap, and one archer tumbles back into the chasm, stunned. She regains her wits before pasting on the bottom of the chasm, but she's essentially out of the fight. Kiani summons a Howler Wasp which goes after the harpies, and then gets a club to the head for her troubles. A lane opens up, and Puck rockets forward at the Spellbinder! Unfortunately, she uses Wings of Cover to stop him dead, and then flits backwards and dispels his fly spell. Puck manages to angle himself to eventually land on the small spire of rock partway down the chasm, but that's still 100 feet down. Kiani summons an air elemental, but unfortunately it's too small to be much of a threat. Sammael's arrow shots are also stymied by the Spellbinder's Mirror image, and me rolling an image taking the hit rather than the Spellbinder almost every time during the fight.
Angelena puts up a Wind Wall to try and block the archer, but she just flaps over to one side and keeps plugging away at the party. The Spellbinder conjures another Wall of Fire and scorches Angelena, Kiani, and Talvosh, and Sona hits her with some Magic missiles. Then Angelena gets Air Walk on Talvosh, and he rushes the very surprised Archer, landing a heavy blow (but only one because I was cruel and made him trade pounce away - outdamaging the rest of the party by way too much and I had warned him at character creation it might happen). The archer retreats and shoots Talvosh repeatedly in response, and then the Spellbinder looks over with a cruel smirk...and Dispels Talvosh. The only reason Talvosh doesn't become red paste smeared across the chasm floor is the drop takes long enough for him to burn a Vitae before impact, allowing him to survive the 63 points of damage.Down in the chasm, the archer that had been stunned tries to sing and charm Puck into stepping off the spire to his death...Puck saves, but he doesn't have a ranged weapon. Instead, he makes a massive strength check (at Talvosh's suggestion), rips a large hunk of rock free, and rolls shockingly high to smash the harpy with said chunk of rock! She rolls a 1, and falls to her death (for real this time).
With the party's two heavy hitters out of the fight, things are looking bad, even with Angelena calling a celestial giant eagle to help out. Kiani takes out one of the few remaining minions with Vipergout serpents, and then hits the Spellbinder with Phantasmal Assailants. She fails the initial save, but makes the second, but that's still 4 pts of wisdom and dex damage! Sona blasts back and forth with the archer, blocking her arrow with Wings of Cover, but that allows the Spellbinder to shoot her down with a Scorching Ray killing her. Sammael keeps shooting, and Angelena busts out a Holy Smite, killing the archer and severely wounding the Spellbinder. After blocking a suprise long range critical bowshot from Talvosh WAAY down below with Wings of Cover the harpy lets out a pained shriek of dismay and disappears with a puff of magic. We end the session there, and I hand out another giant chunk of xp. Angelena and Sammael rocket into level 8, Kiani gets partway through level 7, Sona and Talvosh are close to 9, and Puck just squeaks into level 9.
Whee, fun session!
Spoiler: DEATH COUNTLucky number seven