Campaign Journal #7 - Water and Fire

Month of Patchwall

4th Day – After the Hags

• Rested on the west bank of the hag lake after dispatching the evil creatures.

5th Day – Schemes of Water

• We found an underwater cave beneath the lake. A man and a woman bearing Water Temple symbols were shackled to the cave wall. The man was muttering incoherently, and the woman could speak but was completely sapped of her strength.


• Carried the two with us over to the east bank of the lake. Korthalis heard some talking coming from the north branch of the cave network.


• Discovered a group of Water Temple guards practicing their archery. They didn’t seem wary of us because of our temple garb.


• Their captain believed that we were there to speak with the high priestess, and escorted us part of the way to her throne room.


• Oli forged a note explaining that we were going to help the Water Temple with their plans.


• Met with Kelashein (human priest), Nilbool (Kuo-toa) and Oomkaan (Kuo-toa with demonic heritage). Nilbool explained the plan of sending a strike force against the Fire Temple in an attempt to cripple the most powerful temple.


• Oli overheard Oomkaan whisper to Kelashein not to trust us. Kelashein did not react to his warning.


• Rested that night in the throne room. Night passed without incident.

6th Day – The Longest Day

• The strike force assembled early in the morning. It consisted of Nilbool, Urlurg (Kuo-toan Monitor), four Kuo-toan warriors and our party.


• Using magic, we walked across the surface of the crater lake to what Nilbool identified as the Eastern Bridge Complex.


• Nilbool negotiated with the bridge captain, Eeridik (lycanthropic rat) for our safe passage through his complex.


• Crossed the seal marking the south entrance to the Fire Temple. It was trapped but the monitor easily evaded the danger.


• Fought two salamanders and a hell hound guarding the temple door.


• Entered the temple and discovered Tessimon standing on a platform hovering over a massive pit engulfed in flames. She seemed to be aware of our intentions.


• Vannay and the kuo-toa noticed a group of invisible men flanking the barghest we initially encountered in the Northern Bridge Complex.


• The battle was evenly matched, but we gained the upper hand after a time. All the forces of fire were slain with no losses on our side.


• We turned on the kuo-toa, but Nilbool and Urlurg managed to escape with a teleport.


• It was then that the second wave of Fire Temple guards attacked. They were led by a gnome, Firre Oranac. The guards were riding large hellhounds and wielding lances.


• In our already weakened state this battle was difficult, but we put them down after some fierce melee and several arrows from Delvanos’ powerful bow.


• Vannay created his shelter, and we prepared to bed down for the night.


• Our sleep was interrupted by Eeredik and two dragon trolls entering the temple. They were retrieving the fallen high priestess, Tessimon.


• Delvanos led the negotiations with the bridge captain, but most everyone contributed. In the end, he left most of her items and kept her body.


• We bedded down again to get some well deserved rest.

7th Day – The Eastern Bridge

• The next morning we made our plans to assault the Eastern Bridge Complex and recover Tessimon’s corpse.


• We began the short trek north to the complex and discovered they had a scout watching for us.


• We made our way into the main portion of the complex and an invisible wall of force split our party in two. The front half of the group did battle with the invisible Eeridik, the tattooed monk and one of the dragon trolls. The rear half battled the other troll.


• When the dragon trolls fell, both the monk and Eeridik escaped down the northern passage.


• Eeridik caused a massive demon spider called a bebilith to appear. Then he began taunting us to come face him.


• Deciding that we were already depleted on spells and health, we made our way back to the Fire Temple to sleep.


• The night passed without incident.

8th Day – Bushwhack

• Vannay used his divination magic to scout out the complex before we moved on the complex again.


• Eeridik could not be found, but the monk and a troglodyte priest were seen in the main room.


• We launched our assault on them, and we quickly put them down. Then we waited for Eeridik to return.


• He never had a chance this time around. He was killed quickly.


• We discovered a note on his body from Varachan. It explained that our party was “hemmed in” by the forces surrounding us.


• The lake was being watched by the Water Temple.


• North of the complex was the bugbear clan.


• South of the complex was the powerful sound beasts. Vannay thought these might be destrachans.


• We decided on the southern route, which would lead us to the South Gate and out of the temple.


• Tragedy struck our party when we were searching the living quarters of the bridge guardians. Oli was turned to stone by a vicious trap on the chest in Eeridik’s room.


• We camped that night in the Fire Temple, and the night passed without incident.

9th Day – Forces of Fire

• Our first task was the destruction of the temple altar.


• Uthgar smashed it several times with his urgosh and every time it seemed as if the altar was trying to stop him.


• After the altar was smashed the entire room became engulfed in smoke and began to collapse. We exited with all due haste.


• Making our way south through the temple, we encountered a group of fiery spiders called rasts and fought several bigger than average mephits in a room filled with smoke.


• We found a stone column with a brazier on it at the southern entrance to the temple, but decided to leave it be.


• Upon exiting the temple, we were ambushed by five deadly spider creatures, who dropped down on us.


• They grappled several of our party and began drinking our blood. Nearly all of us were severely weakened by this permanent blood loss, but we killed them.


• We made camp at this point.

10th Day – Tarren and the Big Dead Bear

• The next morning we began traveling generally south and west.


• In a cave filled with fungi, spores and other underground flora, we met Tarren. He did register as evil, when Victor checked but he didn’t seem threatening.


• He seemed particularly sad about the passing of his bear companion, Kimbo.


• Tarren said that he had no allegiance to the temple, and he would give us information for a price. We negotiated the price and he did share some very useful information.


• The temples and their corresponding bridges are purposefully kept apart from one another. This encourages fighting between the factions.


• The priests of the Outer Fane apparently do not worship the Elder Elemental Eye. Their symbol is the black obex.


• In the center of the Outer Fane is a black tower. The Doomdreamers reside here. This is the inner fane.


• The high priest of the Outer Fane, Hedrack is looking for something or someone.


• The leaders of the Doomdreamers are known as the Triad.


• The Triad consists of three beings.


• The Third is the child of Yan-C-Bin, the Prince of Evil Air.


• Yan-C-Bin is one of four children of the Elder Eye.


• The Second is an aboleth.


• The First is a very old human.


• For his helpful information, Delvanos gave him more money than the original bargain.


• After this we moved on and encountered one of the destrachans.


• Victor protected the party with silence, and the battle was much easier than expected.


• After this we found a scrap of a dwarven journal. It mentioned that the resting place of the “eye” was near.


• We entered the forge that the Kuluth-Dun clan used, and it was haunted by an old dwarven spirit. The ghostly being, known as a blade spirit, used its powers to attack us with several dwarven axes at once.


• We continued the journey and found ourselves in a difficult battle against what appeared to be several cloakers. We found out that only two of them were real, and the rest had been created out of the shadows.


• One of them managed to envelop Uthgar, and we had difficulty killing it without killing our companion.


• We rested again knowing that the South Gate was very close.

11th Day – Insects from Hell

• We made our way towards the exit early the next morning. Our hopes of exiting through the “spectre room” were stymied, because the passageway was filled with stone.


• Uthgar went to the platform overlooking the southern entrance and saw two men sitting near the door. One of them was Kellial, the gate captain who had bargained for his life on the promise of not returning to the temple.


• The party prepared to attack the two men. Delvanos and Korthalis positioned themselves on the platform, while the rest of the party stood in the barbican.


• We began the attack, but the two men were completely unresponsive.


• When Victor moved to grapple Kellial, the deposed captain began to speak in a voice that was not his. Vannay recognized the voice as that of Hedrack.


• He referred to our group as young initiates, whose destruction in the temple was worship to his god.


• He warned us that if we continued our attack on the temple, the town of Rastor would be “brought low”.


• Some of the more observant party members noticed scratches and welts on the exposed skin of the men. Vannay saw something crawling under the skin of one of the men.


• The men opened their mouths and thousands of ruby red wasps began issuing forth. Vannay recognized them as hellwasps.


• The swarms were impervious to our weapons, and they caused dizziness and nausea when we were in their midst. Some of us were poisoned by their attacks.


• Vannay managed to deal considerable damage with a cone of cold before nearly being killed by the wasps. Delvanos’ lightning arrows were effective as well.


• After an inauspicious beginning (a jump/fall off the platform), Korthalis took the brunt of their attacks. He spared the other weakened party members from being overcome.


• Uthgar moved to open the gate to the outside, but it was trapped with a chain lightning. Everyone including the wasps were hit hard by the electrical charge.


• After healing Vannay, Delvanos jumped gracefully off the platform and saved Victor from certain death with his curing ability.


• Vannay destroyed one of the swarms with his magic missiles.


• Victor, now safely healed, called upon hid god and smote the hellborn wasps with the swift judgement of Kord.


• The battle ended with some of us still poisoned, but everyone alive.

Outside News - Our long delve into the mines has not allowed us to keep track of the events transpiring outside of the ridge mines.