== Moonday, Lamashan 27, 4708; Spires of Xin Shalast; late morning ==

Having faced down the image of Karzoug and survived to write about it, we moved to the stone door in the far side of the chamber. Kane touched it and it slid open.

Beyond was a large hall with two rows of columns stretching to a massive throne at the far side.

While the hall was huge, it was the decor that took my breath away. Glittering in a brilliant gold light were gems and silver inlay lining the wall. Set in a checkerboard pattern of stone was a path of bright red rubies leading to the throne.

The throne itself was giant sized and made of onyx and set with gems and precious metals. Exotic furs were draped about it.

Standing on the dais of the throne was a very large female human (not a giant). She was dressed in full plate and carried a large gold scimitar. And, quite naturally, the rune of greed was tattooed upon her left cheek.

“You dare to desecrate this chamber? I am the wielder of Chellon, come and face me!”

We then noticed a pair of tattooed fire giants that were rushing towards us, and so we backed further into the ante chamber to make them come to us one at a time.

Rigel shot an arrow at one, and I cast Destruction on the other. Sabin hit the nearest one, who in reprisal hit Avia.

The woman ran towards us, but suddenly bounced off an invisible Force Wall, which Trask had strategically placed between her and us.

“No!”, She screamed, “I am the Champion of Greed!”

Standing framed by the doorway Nolin pulled up his head band, revealing the rune of rath emblazoned there, and replied, “And I am the Champion of Wrath!”

Usually when one says someone turns red with rage there is a good bit of metaphor in the phrase. Not so here. The woman hissed like a huge snake, “Alasnist!”, and throwing herself at the wall found it was only ten feet high. She began to climb over it.

Meanwhile the rest of us continued our attacks on the two giants, and between the physical and magical onslaught, both perished just as the woman charged Nolin.

She was blinded by rage, and failed to consider that we were many while she was one, and we were obviously healing our wounds during combat, while she was not.

“You of all people,” she sputtered at Nolin, “dare to be here!”

She died rather quickly, and while it was a group effort, it was Nolin who landed the killing blow, and the Rune of Greed transferred from the woman’s face to Nolin’s left cheek. Mercifully it and the Rune of Wrath appeared to coexist on the same person without ill effect.

Later Sedjewick determined that the Rune of Greed granted its bearer complete immunity to mind effecting magic, plus a considerable (+32) resistance to transmutation spells. Unfortunately it also made Nolin vulnerable to domineering weapons, such as those we wielded.

We then turned our attention to her material possessions. Sedjewick was already staring at her golden scimitar, and looking up at us said, “Do you know what this is?”

[1666] Chellan. One of the legendary artifacts of the time of the Runelords, and one of the seven weapons of the Runelord champions — the Sword of Greed. Although made of gold, it had the hardness of adamantine. Legend says it can turn its victims into gem (rather than stone).

It defied all of our attempts to discern any details about itself.

Her other possessions included:

[1667] 5 potions of Cure Serious Wounds (Nolin used 1, so now 4)
[1668] 2 potions of Fly (Nolin)
[1669] potion of haste (Takkad)
[1670] +5 large full golden plate
[1671] +5 large steel shield
[1672] periapt of health
[1673] +4 belt of giant strength (Kane)
[1674] minor cloak of displacement
[1675] ring of Freedom of Movement
[1676] sihedron ring
[1677] scarab of protection — +20 spell resistance, absorbs negative energy or death [10 charges] (Avia)

The giants carried rather mundane gear, which we left for later.

[1678] 2 giant great swords
[1679] 2 plate mail

The throne room had a large set of double doors along the same wall from which we entered and a small door to the north. A hallway led south along a circular wall, which we assumed was the outside circular wall of the spire.

We pulled Rigel away from the throne, where she had been sitting in sort of a daze and chanting “Mine, mine, mine!” over and over to herself, and followed the corridor south.

We passed another set of double doors to our left (the east) and leaving them for latered followed the curve and arrived in a straight hallway heading north. A small door was to the south, and another door at the end of a dog leg to the east.

Sabin opened the door and there was Karzoug.

“Oh, Sabin, nice of you to drop in, have you not died yet? You are wasting my time as well as my minions.”

Sabin passed an ax through the image and Trask attempted to dispel it, but failed, and so after returning his taunts, we simply closed the door and waited a few minutes.

The door was opened, and there was Karzoug’s image, as annoying as ever.

We saw a pair of double doors to the south of his room, and so we hurriedly passed through (mostly) ignoring his parting comment of, “Have a nice death.”

We closed the double doors behind us and saw… something strange. A long hall was lined with boxes of blinking lights and thick wires connecting them all and leading to the back of the room. There an alcove held moving image of Xin Shalast, but not the ruinous city of today, but the fully populated and glorious city of ten thousand years ago.

The air smelled like thunderstorms.

Vaguely humanoid creatures in dirty leather robes walked from machine to machine, tending the mysterious equipment.

Kane said in a low voice, tinged with malice, “These are extra planars, they do not belong here.”

I thought this must be a temporal portal that Karzoug intended to use to bring his armies and followers forward to when he would arise, and shared my suspicions with my companions.

As we moved further in, one of the creatures came forward and, in Thassilonian said, “You must not interfere.” It held out its hand, and we noticed that the dozen or so creatures were all armed with knives.

Sabin asked, “Why are you here?”

“We mind the machine. The machine servers its purpose. You are not giant. You are not Runelord. You should not be here.”

We tried to find out the purpose of the machine, but all it said was, “We serve a higher purpose, and you shall not interfere.”

And with that a number of other creatures looked up at us with ill intent clearly on their minds.

I created a blade barrier between the bulk of the creatures and us, and we set about destroying the equipment and severing the cables.

Our work was rewarded by various minor explosions, and what appeared to be a lessening in clarity of the image at the far end of the room.

The creatures called out in alarm, and worked frantically at the equipment on their side of the barrier. The image cleared.

We continued our sabotage, but now some of the creatures launched themselves at us, crying out, “Leave that alone, it is beyond you!”

We killed them and continued to hack away at the machinery, either enduring the explosive damage or using ranged weapons and avoiding it.

Popping and crackling sounds came from the image as once again it became less distinct.

More of the creatures ceased their work and attacked us, but having to pass through the blade barrier seriously injured them, making them easy to fend off and kill.

Fewer workers resulted in further degradation of the image, and despite the explosions and attack of the creatures, we relentlessly attacked the machinery.

I summoned a water elemental near the device projecting the image and ordered it to destroy the equipment. The creatures attacked it, but it took a few of them with it before returning to its home plane.

More creatures passed through the barrier, and Kane channeled against evil outsiders, causing many of them to drop dead.

More damage, more explosions, more cries of dismay from the few surviving creatures, and then a persistent mechanical whine from the machinery.

One of the handful of remaining humanoids called out, “Remember the reward on the other side. Go! To the death!” They charged through the barrier.

And die they did.

Now there was no image of Xin Shalast — just a gray swirl of static.

We tried a few attacks against the device that had projected the image, but it seemed immune to our efforts.

Nolin and Sabin are worried that the thing might destroy itself in an enormous explosion, killing us all, and perhaps they are right.

We should leave.

At any rate, Karzoug will not be able to use the device as it is now even if it does not explode.

Moonday, 27 Lamashan (still)

I wonder if we will have a chance to sleep before we truly meet Karzoug. I would love to recover some spells, but if we do, then he does too.

After “defeating” the taunting image of Karzoug, we turned our attention to one of the doors “behind” him. The stone door opened at a mere touch into what appeared to be a fantastic throne room. Opulent. Opulent to the point of practically blinding Rigel. Brilliantly lit, and every inlaid gem, every strip of silver or gold decoration on the wall made the room simply glow. There was, of course, a person in this room — a large but still human female fighter, flanked by two large giant (and that is not redundant.) The fighter was upon the throne and appeared to have the rune of greed engraved upon her cheek.

Ah. The champion of greed. This should go well when she realizes the champion of wrath is here now too.

She challenged us to come face (heh) her but it was the giants who made the first move towards us. This allowed me to subtly place an invisible wall of force between her and the giants and us. The ceiling here was also awe inspiring – certainly more than the 10 feet tall I’d made the wall of force, but I didn’t want her to run around it.

As the fighters began to whack on the giants, I hasted everyone. Takkad threw a destruction ray on one of the giants who seemed very displeased with that. Meanwhile, I got the satisfaction of seeing our Amazon friend run smack into the wall of force and scream “but I am the champion of Greed!” With that, Nolin pulled off his headband and screamed “and I am the champion of Wrath!”

Whoa. Hee hee. Awesome. Perfect timing.

The female warrior seemed to go almost berserk, and tried to scale the wall of force to get at Nolin. Successfully, I might add; she was probably about 7 or 8 feet tall so she could easily scale the wall. I briefly considered it cancelling it just to make her fall on the ground, but although the buffoonery would have been fun, i decided chain lightning might actually be more helpful to the task at hand.

So I lit up the giants … and they seemed unaffected. Shoot. That’s what I get for strategizing. Shoulda gone with my gut.

So this weird dance began, with most of the party engaging the weakening giants while Nolin drew the rapt attention of Greed’s champion. (She had a name, I’m sure, but she’s dead now so who cares [foreshadow much?]). Nolin was able to get some good whacks on a giant before having to turn his attention to the woman. Ultimately, Sabin and Avia laid the killing blows on the giants, but Nolin got three good hits on Greed in one flurry and two more in another before she fell. And as with Alasnist’s champion, the rune on her face disappeared and reappeared on Nolin. A headband was going to be sufficient anymore, with marks on both his forehead and his cheek.

This rune, Sedgwick later told us, made him immune to mind-affecting magic and gave him fantastic spell resistance to transmutation spells. It also, however, made him vulnerable to domineering weapons such as those we wielded.

His eyes also lit up at the sight of her golden scimitar.

[1666] Chelan – one of the the 7 swords of sin. Had the ability to turn victims to gems upon striking. Although made of gold, it had the hardness of adamantine. Collector once owned this, but … odd, it must have been stolen.

Or perhaps her body lay here before us.

We could learn nothing more.

Other tribute that the champion of Greed and her giant minions left for us:

[1667] 5 potions of cure serious (Nolin used 1, so 4)
[1668] 2 potions of fly (Nolin)
[1669] 1 potion of haste (Takkad)
[1670] +5 large full golden plate
[1671] +5 great shield
[1672] periapt of health (immunity to disease)
[1673] belt of strength +4 (Kane, who gave his +2 to Rigel)
[1674] minor cloak of displacement
[1675] ring – freedom of movement
[1676] sihedron ring
[1677] scarab of protection (+20 spell resistance, absorbs energy
or death) 10 charges
[1678] 2 great swords (giant)
[1679] full plate mail (giant)

We did not take the giant equipment since it was both unusable by us and non-magic.

Done opening our presents, the party moved south to an open corridor. I stuck with Rigel, who was searching for traps and secret doors. We passed several non-secret doors, which I objected to to no avail. I argued we could potentially be leaving enemies to attack us from behind, but I guess nobody considered that a viable threat. I understand the urgency in getting to Karzoug, but that’s not a reason to throw caution to the wind.

Finally we opened one at the end of the corridor and hey, whaddya know. There stood a Karzoug .. or another image of him. Karzoug engaged in what I’m sure seemed, to him, to be witty banter before shooting magic missiles at Takkad. Sabin attacked .. but of course passed right through him. I tried a dispel, but failed.

I’ve done some thought on this. The only illusory spell I know of (although do not master) that can allow you to cast spells from it is Project Image. There are a couple of things that are disturbing, if I am right.

First, that is a 7th level spell. That would indicate that Karzoug is at least the equivalent of, say, myself. But I feel like he’s probably more skilled than I, which would suggest he has (at least) 8th level spells that perhaps we have not seen yet.

The other thing is that to use that spell requires sight of the site. That is, either he’s in the room with us invisibly (unlikely) or he’s scrying (more likely). Either option, though, is a little disconcerting.

However every image he projects is one less 7th level spell for him. I suggest that if we come across another and Avia doesn’t detect evil, we just leave the room. The spell only lasts for a minute or two, and then we can re-enter. Instead of him making us burn our spells, we can make him burn his.

Anyway, Takkad, Sabin, and Sedgwick inspected the double doors in this room, discerned nothing dangerous about them, and opened them.

Inside we found an odd sight. At the far end of the room, appearing as though in a fog or perhaps a portal, were actual moving scenes of what appeared to be Xin Shalast in glory days past. Was Karzoug planning to bring forward his armies and minions?

Scurrying about making adjustments on instruments near the walls were some strange humanoid (but not human) beings. Kane muttered “extra planars”. There was maybe 20 or so of them. Several now looked up and took notice of us. Sabin asked the nearest one, in Thassilonian,

“Why are you here?”

We mind the machine.

“What does it do?”

It does its purpose. You are not giant or rune lord or flung. Stand back.

When we did not, some appeared to take an aggressive stance. That was all the excuse Takkad needed to create a blade barrier. Meanwhile the fighters starting moving toward the machinery on their side of the barrier, cutting and hacking at it. The “flung” hastily repaired, or adjusted for the damage. It became apparent that the damage we might do would be undone by the “flung”s efforts, so we directed more effort at destroying them directly.

There was more damage done by the occasional explosion than by the creatures themselves. Eventually Sedgwick sang a song of dischord which caused them to fight among themselves. Takkad brought in a water elemental to attack the machinery close to the image. The image continued to weaken and flicker, and finally at one point, the remaining “flung” decided to become suicidal, and ran through the blade barrier to try to get to us.

Eventually all were slain, and we continued to hack on the cables and machinery. We found that the image eventually faded to a hazy area in the room, with increasing explosions from the machinery. Nolin expressed concern that the whole room might blow up. I’ve no idea if that is possible or not, but he seems greatly concerned. In any case, the machine is not, I believe, usable for its original purpose any longer.