City of Progress - Campaign Journal: Chapter 3 (The Soul Keeper)

[Nibbens]

For those of you just joining in, get acquainted with the gist of the story here
For those you you who missed the last chapter, tune in here

At the table were:

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Beable Bamford - Halfling siege mage and Golem Lord for Rab's Progress, and his trusty Golem "mouse" (carrying a ginormous cannon inside of it).
Galarend - Human Shining Knight Paladin and General of Rab's Progress' standing army. He is never far away from hits trusty steed "Bolba."
Bolba: A huge flying Triceratops decked out in spiked full-plate armor. (yes, it flies. I approved a permanency of a Fly spell in his case due to particular circumstances.)) By the way, he is totally sentient, has a sense of humor and can speak in a very low and slow voice.
Their tag-along NPC and follower of Galarend; Dungle, a Dwarf Fighter.
Lady Wisteria - Human verdant Sorcerer who is the Rab's Progress' herbalist and "tea-master." (In the front yard of her home stands the only tree in all of the city - a huge oak tree)

As Galarend stepped through the color plane the 4 dwarves reacted badly to his presence, but he was able to calm them down. Slowly but surely he introduced himself and individually introduced the party members so the dwarves wouldn't die of fright.
While Galarend didn't mention exactly why they were there, he listed to their plight eagerly and received a great deal of information: 1) The dwarves believed they had only been in the plane of shadow for about a month, to which Galarend did inform them that they were instead missing for the greater part of 900 years. This resulted in one of them being downcast for the rest of the discussion (as he was just married to his wife, and she would be dead now due to time shenanigans). 2) They were never able to interact with the dwarves that the Party had already encountered (near the entrance to the forge), but there was the blacksmith near the actually smithy itself who never left his work of keeping the forge lit. They were able to interact with him, until about two weeks ago (according to their sensation of time), after which it was like he didn't even hear them anymore. 3) The whole thing happened when a "skeleton" had appeared in the store room behind them. They managed to kill it once, thinking that it would bring them back from the Shadow Plane - but when they did it's armor seemed to be acting as a phylactery of some kind - regenerating the skeleton in a few days after it's death. They were not transported back to the Prime Material when they did it either.
This information prompted a slew of knowledge checks - Beable was able to garner some info on what it might be with a Knowledge:Arcane check of about 40 and some change. He detected that it was a Graveknight.

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This particular Graveknight template was slapped on top of a demon of some kind - it escapes me now, but suffice to say that it was about CR9 with the ability to summon 2 bone devils, and could at will Ice Wall, Persistent Image, Cone of cold, Ice Storm and greater teleport.

My PC's reacted badly, with Beable calling me several vulgar names. I could only smile.
Before starting to encounter it, they decided to co check out the blacksmith in the adjacent room. They could hear him hammering as they walked down the hallway. Turning the corner, they noticed the forge was half in/half out of a color zone. They approached, and the Blacksmith didn't react at all - only when Galarend insisted did it get any sort of response from him.
They were able to glean a bit of info from the smith: 1) The secret to the forge was such that it must be kept hot - for once it goes out the ability to smelt Prism Adamantine would be gone. 2) The only person in the world who knew how to make P.A. was him. 3) He was aware of how long it had actually been (900+ years) since being transported to the Shadow Plane. 4) When Galarend inquired into the secrets, the dwarf reacted as though the knowledge was too powerful and dangerous to give to just anyone. He'd rather the secret die with him - and he was going to make sure it happened. 5) When they pressed about the Graveknight, he knew about it and stated that the fires in his forge were enough to destroy the armor it wears, and should snap this pocket of prime material plane out of the shadow plane to back where it belongs.
Galarend nodded and said that they would do that, and he asked if there was anything that he needed before they left. He responded with saying "Go get me that hammer over there," pointing towards a patch of prime material in which stood several pieces of smithing equipment. Galarend picked up the hammer, surprise that he could interact with it and tried to bring it back to him - only to realize that it disappeared when he crossed into pockets of shadow plane.
The blacksmith told him to throw it instead. So Galarend picked it back up and tossed it to him. It disappeared through the shadow and reappeared in the color in which the blacksmith caught it singlehandedly - this raised the eyebrows of everyone.
Going back to the room with the 4 dwarves they decided to take on the Graveknight, and got a rough drawing of the store room from the dwarves there. The dwarves wished them luck and they opened the door.
Inside they were accosted by multiple persistent images of the Graveknight and Mouse "barked" a cannonball at one, making it dissipate- to counter this situation Lady Wistera began casting True Sight on everyone, and protection from evil on herself. Beable prepped everyone with Firebrand, and Galarend popped a buff as well as they ventured further into the room.
Galarend called out to the GK but received an irritated response saying that the dwarves torment wasn't over - they would never rest. They went back and forth a few times, to which the GK eventually responded with some cliche' villain line with semblance of "enough talking."
Galarend was using the talking to roll a perception check to determine where the voice was coming from, thinking he found it, he had Bolba charge the persistent image all the way in the back of the room - and he slammed into the wall, nearly shattering it and hurting himself in the process.
At this point the room exploded into action - 2 walls of ice were created, one separating Bolba from the group, the last one separating Dungle and Lady Wisteria from Beable, Mouse and Galarend. 2 bone devils appeared next to Lady Wisteria, and the Graveknight appeared and began hacking at Galarend.
Lady Wisteria pulled off quickened force punch and a second normal force punch to the bone devils flanking her after getting hit by one of the devils attacks. In one round Bolba charged and bashed through the wall of ice to get to Galarend. Galarend himself missed every attack on the GraveKnight, while Beable did a lighting spell to bash through the ice wall near Lady Wisteria.
Soon after the disintegrates were flying from Beable and Lady Wisteria, trying to fry the bone devils, but met a tough Spell Resistence and saves all around.
Galarend activated an ability (it escapes me now) which acts sort of a divine enlarge person to survive a Devastating Blast from the GraveKnight which washed over him as well as Bolba, Mouse, and Beable.
Lady Wisteria cast Wall of Thorns surrounding one Bone Devil, which he responded by greater teleporting out, and was able to kill one by another force punch when it got too close.
After another Galarend remembered what he was going to do, he dispel magicked the GK, and Mouse cannonballed blasted him into near smithereens, Galarend was able to finish him off with a crit. Even though his normal damage would have killed it, he was insistent of rolling the damage.
Cursing the Pally of Iomdae, the Graveknight disappeared into his armor - and the bone devils vanished also.

Click here for the next session!

[Robodobbie]

Galarend activated an ability (it escapes me now)
***Righteous Might***