== Moonday, Lamashan 27, 4708; Spires of Xin Shalast; afternoon ==

The nearby giants were hiding up in the clouds near the ceiling, and so Avia flew up and bumped into one. It punched her in surprise, and she sliced it open.

Kane then dispelled the fog cloud and we could see the three storm giants hovering on their side of the room (one now bleeding messily onto the floor below).

We knew additional cloud giants were nearby, but fear of the blade barrier room appeared to be enough (for now) to hold them at bay.

Sabin and Nolin both flew up to join Avia and began the systematic battle of attrition with the giants, which is a good strategy for us because typically we have healing support and our foes do not.

And indeed I was quite busy keeping our three fighters well enough to stand toe to toe with three very large giants wielding ludicrously huge morningstars.

Sedjewick thought to trick the cloud giants into remaining where they were by calling out “All clear!” imitating one of the storm giants.

“All clear where? I see one standing right there.”

Unfortunately several of us were quite visible from the other room.

“It’ll be clear in a minute — I am just swatting some flies,” one of the storm giants called in answer.

As usual with giants, they cannot for the life of them imagine that they could ever be defeated by anyone smaller than themselves. This worked to our advantage, because they never fled even when it was clear they were having their asses handed to them.

In short order the three storm giants were dead.

Sedjewick then placed an image of a blade barrier surrounding the four cloud giants. All three blanched at this, and one soiled himself.

Sabin yelled out, “Drop your weapons and surrender to your betters and we will let you live!” They dropped their weapons.

I glared at them and said, “Now leave this place and go to the city.”

They seemed reluctant to do so until I gestured toward Nolin and said, “The Champion of Greed wills it!”

Nolin stepped forward and said, “Indeed I do, but first, where is Karzoug?”

“Oh, you are now the champion of greed. We didn’t know the old one had been replaced. I’m sorry, sir, but we do not know where Karzoug is, but his apprentice is in the giant cells.”

And with that the foursome left, with many a bowing and fumbling about.

Two of the dead were wearing sihedron rings (which we took) plus magical armor and various weapons (which we did not).

[1682] sihedron ring
[1683] sihedron ring

We stripped the giant corpses and piled the armor before the doors, and then turned our attention to the room.

Furs were piled about on the floor (some scorched by various fire effects, and most sodden from all of the fog and mist), a pair of double doors was in the far wall, and to our right was an arch.

It was a golden arch marked with thousands of runes, and beyond that a large alcove. Mostly the runes made boasts about Karzoug, but some were about transmutation magic, and one set said, “All who pass this arch are his.”

Well that certainly put a damper on any thoughts on passing through to the alcove.

Sedjewick stared at the archway with that look he sometimes gets, and said that it was a portal to Karzoug’s private chambers.

Interesting, and something to think about…

== Moonday, Lamashan 27, 4708; Spires of Xin Shalast; evening ==

The sound of heavy foot steps pulled us away from the arch, and someone was yelling (and clearly annoyed), “What do you mean the champion ordered you to the city? Why did she…”

We heard a giant mumbling something, followed by…

“He? What do you mean, ‘he’? Never mind — you go get Khalib. We need the Ceoptra, but she is unavailable.”

This was followed by more shouting and a great deal of thumping about and slamming of doors.

“Where was this imposter?”

“He wasn’t an imposter: he had the rune!”

And with that the door was pushed open and a giant was met with a blast from a Glyph of Warding, courtesy of Kane.

Oh dear, it was one of the giants we had sent on his way earlier. I stared at him angrily and said, “How dare you disobey the champion of Greed?”

He looked sheepishly about and clearly did not want to enter, but was shoved aside by another giant.

Behind them someone ordered, “Go on, kill them!”

I replied, “You dare attack the champion of Greed? Think of what Karzoug will do to you!”

They paused, clearly conflicted, but the fear of whoever was behind them now overcame their fear of whatever Karzoug might or might not do to them later.

In came the giants, and a rune giant close behind. Behind them, through the doorway Sabin could see a human stalking toward us, most likely Khalib, and Sabin attempted Feeblemind on him.

Meanwhile the giants engaged our fighters, and we fell into our usual hack, slash and heal routine, but with an eye out for the human. The rune giant made the fighting more difficult, but it also afforded Trask a chance to use Chain Lightening to zap it (to no affect) and Khalib behind (to good affect, if his cry of pain was any indication).

One of the giants fell by the time Khalib entered to face us, but if he thought to stay safely away from melee and hit us with ranged spells, Avia cleared up that misconception, as she ran over and cut into him deeply with her sword.

Trask fireballed two giants, and Sabin lunged at Khalib, slaying him.

We continued to hack away at the giants, with spells and weapons, until at last they were all killed.

Khalib, while seemingly a pushover, had quite a few interesting possessions.

[1684] staff of size alteration and magic weapon (10 charges)
[1685] amulet of +2 natural armor
[1686] sihedron ring
[1687] robes (like arch magi, but +4 INT rather than resists)
[1688] gold ivory statue of himself
[1689] speel book of all known spells (except enchantment and illusion)
[1690] container full of gem dust

By now we were tired and low on spells, and so we returned to the small room where we hid from the hound, and then using Rope Trick we set up camp.

== Toilday, Lamashan 28, 4708; Spires of Xin Shalast; morning ==

Nothing had changed when we left our Rope Trick refuge in the morning and made our way through the throne room into the main entry hall (a new area for us, but devoid of anything interesting). We then passed through another set of double doors into the arch room, which had been the scene of our yesterday’s battles.

We once again looked at the portal beneath the archway and then passed through the double doors to our left.

These led to a vast chamber which occupied nearly half of this level of the spire. The outer wall and several interior hallways with many doors arced around to the southeast.

Right before us was a huge golden pagoda-style structure. A gigantic twenty foot tall gold statue of Karzoug stood to the south, facing away from the entrance towards a brazier burning with a smokeless fire.

The statue held a large iron frame, and set in the frame was a large green crystal, sparling and glittering in the light of the brazier.

The crystal was blindingly magical.

Within the pagoda, against the far wall, a pair of statues stood guard over a ten foot long sarcophagus.

We decided to save this promising bit of architecture until after we explored the more mundane area to the south.

The arching hallways with many doors were cells for the inhabitants and servants who lived in the spire. Each was relatively small (for giants) and spartan. A handful showed signs of recent occupation, but most were empty, for which we were thankful. Had the spire been fully occupied we might not have survived this long.

Halfway along the center row of cells we found something more interesting: a large triangular room with more elaborate furnishings than the others, plus a bookshelf filled with interesting tomes.

Sedjewick and I scanned the book titles and found a long series that made up the diary of Khalib. We leafed through the more recent entries and discovered that he had been Karzoug’s right hand man, but there had been a falling out of sorts.

It was Khalib who was to have awakened Karzoug from his stasis after the fall of the ancient kingdoms, but Khalib’s own apprentices had turned on him, trapping him in a long sleep of his own.

Mokmurian had recently discovered Xin Shalast, and was fumbling around the spire looking for loot knowledge when he encountered the same projections of Karzoug that had menaced us. Karzoug quickly took control of Mokmurian, and so it was he, and not Khalib, who set the in motion the revival of Karzoug.

Karzoug does not tolerate failure, and so he left Khalib in his prison of sleep until we began to cause problems for him and he needed all the allies at his disposal.

Khalib was none to happy to discover all of this after he awoke, and his resentment and bitterness had been boiling over ever since.

We were interrupted from our research by a loud, “Whoa, who is this?”

A pair of giants had stumbled upon us.

The other said, “I got this” and moved around the cells to try and flank us, and so I put up a Blade Barrier behind to make his approach a little more interesting.

Meanwhile Nolin stepped forward and demanded to know why the giants were disturbing the champion of greed. The giant insisted that, “You and your lot belong back in your own area!”

Trask blasted the giant with a set of Magic Missiles and yelled, “He said back off!”

The other giant was now running towards us from behind, and so Kane created a patch of ice before the blade barrier, causing the giant to slip directly into the wall of whirling blades.

Sedjewick goaded, “So you really got this?”

“Yes, I do,” the giant retorted angrily, as Rigel deftly stabbed it with her rapier.

I cast Prayer and Kane gave the rear giant a bit of bad luck, which was further embellished by Sabin hacking into it viciously.

Nolin and Avia set themselves against the other giant, who was dealing as much damage as he took.

As usual this became an extremely uneven exchange because Kane and I kept our fighters healthy while the giants eventually succumbed to their ever deepening wounds.

Each giant wore a ring.

[1691] sihedron ring
[1692] sihedron ring

We returned to the pagoda and prepared for the worse while Nolin and Sabin lifted the lid from the sarcophagus. It was empty. In fact the whole pagoda was empty.

Puzzled, we returned to perusing Khalib’s diary to see if it contained anything helpful. It did indeed!

Karzoug had created a plain on which he could hide during the fall of his kingdomm, and he had taken his runewell with him. The green gem served as a nexus between other plains and Karzoug’s plain of refuge, and it focused the souls of those who died while bearing the mark of greed into the runewell. This in turn increased Karzoug’s power. It seems that Karzoug’s refuge also served as his prison while he lacked sufficient power to escape.

Mokmurian had been used to find and mark as many victims as he could to feed the runewell, and now Karzoug was nearly powerful enough to escape.

I now know what needs to be done.

== Toilday, Lamashan 28, 4708; Spires of Xin Shalast; morning ==

I took aim at the green crystal with my domineering crossbow and hit it, but the bolt bounced harmlessly off.

I turned to Sabin and said, “We need to destroy the gem.”

Sabin strode forward and smote it with his domineering adamantine ax, and something unexpected happened.

Rather than shatter, or deflect the blow, the space before the green gem puckered and warped as a portal opened up. Beyond was a vast space, easily a couple hundred feet across, with smoky white walls and a well of water.

Clearly this portal leads to Karzoug. I am sure of it: the gem acts as a nexus to his plain, and we must enter it to face Karzoug and finish what we started so long ago.

We have taken a few moments to prepare and form a basic plan, and I have finished casting True Seeing and am about to peer through the void to see what lies in wait.