Session 24

Members

 * Alli
 * Eriden
 * Euphemia Waterspot
 * Lloyd Dragonsbane

Timeline
Day 56-57

The Adventure
We begin our adventure back in base camp. The Kender camp followers have started to make the place feel like home. A large boar was roasted over a fire and everyone had eaten their fill, and slept through an uneventful day. The Kender, being responsible camp followers, let the party know that they were low on water.

Off in the distance the volcanic home of malystryx loomed over the horizon. Since the Red Marauder's demise, her remaining minions carry on the evil she spread across the land while trying to fill the power vacuum left behind from her death. Will it be the fire giants? Probably not, as their king was killed last session.

As the party awoke, in the early evening, they saw a strange cloud on the horizon. Eriden immediately tagged it as unnatural, and recognized it as the cloud of a storm giant. Slowly descending to 600 feet, the party saw a large rock, apparently thrown from the cloud, land in their midst. It had a crudely written message, scratched into the surface. A request for a meeting.

Tentatively taking no action, the party waited as the storm cloud descended further. It touched down, and a large giant stepped off. Eriden recognized him as Krombaalt the Mighty. A benevolent and wise king of of the local storm giants. Krombaalt had been watching the party from the clouds, and knew they survived an encounter in the volcano. Thinking they might be able to aid him in killing off the rival king of the fire giants, he offered them a deal: The head of the fire giant king in exchange for one of their legendary Stormcloud Towers.

The party wanted to quickly agree, but realized that they could not provide the head of Snurr, the fire giant king, as it had been turned to dust, along with the rest of his body, when Euphemia disintegrated him. The party offered the iron crown instead, but that was turned down, Krombaalt telling them that it was hot Snurr's real crown. In the end, he believed them and asked for the true crown of the fire kings and the head of Frumpy, the fire giant queen.

With dusk falling, the party headed out to the volcano. Gylian was able to help with the door again, but the sentry quickly rang the gong and tried to escape. He was slowed by Eupemia's ray of frost and cut down before making it 30 feet, but the damage had been done. Before they could get further, Lloyd saw a previously unnoticed detail. The pillars in the entry tunnel were not necessary for holding up the ceiling. Suspecting that it might be a trap, the party studied them, and found some small nozzles. Euphemia managed to plug some of them, and then winked out of existence. This startled the party, but they relaxed as she popped out of invisibility a minute later. During this time Eriden failed to notice anything and sat in a corner.

Just as Euphemia appeared again, an Azer poked his head out and yelled to start the flame traps. Flames surrounded Euphemia, as the entire hallway erupted. Euphemia managed to make it behind a metal curtain, but was separated from the rest of the party. Lloyd stepped into the Ethereal Plane managed to see her off in the distance. Knowing that the sorceress was in danger, Alli recklessly ran through the flames, but managed to lose her way, getting her tail singed in the process. This time, the Azer did manage to escape to a room further down the hallway, where he closed the door and leaned against it to keep it closed. This turned out to be his final error, as Alli kicked it in and crushed him.

To the east, huge doors opened, and two fire giants and Frumpy, the queen attacked. The Azers came from the north, and Frumpy's 'pets', a pair of fiendish dire weasels rushed the party. Alli was surrounded and had most of the lesser enemies tied up, until she took some bit hits and was near falling. She moved to the back of the hall, and the mages laid into the giants. After Lloyd blinded one of them, they all stepped back into the queen's chamber. The blind one quickly dropped, but the queen managed to shake off her blindness, and grabbed a huge mirror from the wall.

Pointing it at Euphemia, she made a command and a beam shot out, dragging the sorceress into the mirror. While stuck in the extra-dimensional space of the soul mirror, Euphemia could do nothing except contemplate the nature of her wild magic. Eriden laid out the giant queen, and chopped her head off as a prize for Krombaalt the Mighty.

With the fight over, Lloyd managed to free Euphemia. He also found a starving Azer in a different cell, and let him out. Both he and Alli got burned by the Azer, but he couldn't help it. It is in his nature to be hot. Searching the room, the party found a few chests of loot. The Azer gave the party a simple description of the rest of the first floor, and accompanied them to the king's treasury. He also gave them a heads up about a huge construct that the king had made to guard his treasure.

Sensing the trap, Lloyd opened with Evard's Black Tentacles, and Eriden unloaded on the construct. The whole party quickly realized how formidable this enemy was. It's tremendous constitution held save it from much of lloyd's next sunbursts. The party lamented that Euphemia was out of her disintegration spells as they slowly beat on the Volcanic Iron Golem. After bathing the entire room in Volcanic Breath, Alli and Lloyd decided that it was best to attack from cover.

A massive hit to Eriden knocked him to near death. As he went down, he realized that the cleric of Dun Eamon had sold him potions of delusion, and not the actual potions of greater healing that he had tried to purchase. With seconds to spare, Gylian dropped his entire load of Lay on Hands and healed him. The last Volcanic Breath of the golem nearly dropped him again, and it did knock Eupmenia out. She fell from the top of the cave as her spider slippers lost power. Quickly looting the iron chests of the treasury, the party realized that they had stumbled across some legendary loot.

Euphemia came across a second piece of the Regalia of henderbeard. The Irrefutable Robes of Henderbeard. Lloyd looked on jealously at the purple robes, and made a point to study more about this fabled Henderbeard.

Eriden found a suit of magic armor, and tentatively asked if he could take it. Alli was probably eating an apple or a carrot, and the casters were involved in talking about the robes. Eriden quietly stepped aside and just threw on the Deathcut armor and considered the discussion finished.

Beat up and depleted of resources, the party limped back to their camp, and were greeted by the storm giant king. They handed over the real crown and Frumpy's head, and got their new flying tower in return. Alli quickly decided that she would build a stable outside the tower, so as not to have to remodel the dining room. The Kender were banned from entering, but still allowed on the cloud. We ended our session with a talk about how it would probably be better to mount the giant sized rod of magic missiles on the rampart.

XP
Current level: 11

Loot
Thundercloud Tower

Queen’s Treasury

 * 120 pp
 * 1,000-gp gem
 * 4 Pieces of jewelry, each worth 250 gp
 * Rod of Magic Missile (giant sized, 10 pounds).
 * Four tapestries of precious metal, each worth 500 gp.
 * The skin of the displacer beast pack lord on the floor has seen better days but still is worth 200 gp.
 * Pair of crystal goblets (50 gp)
 * Gold-inlaid scabbard studded with gems (400 gp)
 * Platinum necklace set with a star opal (500 gp)
 * Old dragon mask with red crystal eyes (750 gp)
 * 5 Pieces of jewelry (250 gp each)
 * 10 Gold rings (80 gp each)
 * 2 Potions of vitality.

King’s Treasury

 * Chest 1 contains the Irrefutable Robes of Henderbeard, a folded portable hole, and 320 pp.
 * Chest 2 contains a rare (+2) Wand of the Warmage, Wand of Magic Detection, a golden crown set with gems (2,000 gp), a crystal gong affixed to a gold stand (500 gp), and 1,000 gp.
 * Chest 3 contains a suit of +1 Deathcut studded leather armor resting atop a bed of 1,000 gp.
 * Chest 4 holds a mithral tiara set with an astral diamond (5,000 gp), a gold statuette depicting Corellon and Lolth embracing (7,500 gp), two matching platinum bracers (1,000 gp for the set), and 1,000 gp.
 * Chest 5 contains 17 gems (250 gp each) scattered among 1,000 gp.

✧The chances are high that there is more loot to be had from these giants, but nobody wanted to wait around and search. It should be there when you go back.

All loot added to the loot page.