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

We left the gateway device to crackle and sputter on its own, and passed by the image of Karzough, which was still in the antechamber glaring at us. He made some snarky comment about how we had done him a favor by killing off the workers from within, but obviously his goon force of followers could have easily done the same long before now if that was his desire.

I guess Karzough likes his grapes sour.

In the hallway we paused to discuss our next move: the small door directly ahead looked appealing, as did the the larger doors we passed on the way from the throne room.

A moment later our course was decided for us as an unearthly howl echoed out from Karzough’s direction. Sedjewick said, “That’s a large extra-planar hound of some sort, and it sounds really pissed off!”

We ran to the door ahead and quickly stepped inside the oddly shaped room beyond. We were obviously on the outer rim of the spire, as was evident by the curving wall and window looking out to Mhar Massif. Other than a handful of discarded items the room was empty.

More howls came from the hallway, along with the shouts and clatter of alarm and combat.

Wait, combat? Why would Karzough’s forces want to fight something he summoned to chase after us? Unless…

The sounds and yelling moved off to the left and so we peeked out the door to see a sticky black vapor clinging near the floor and a lot of blood.

We could hear a group of harridans fighting something in the throne room, and so we took the opportunity to pass through the nearby set of double doors.

Karzough was there in another square antechamber, and he looked seriously unhappy.

“What did you fools release into my realm?”

Ah, so he did not summon whatever it was… but then where did it come from? Was the gateway device now randomly pulling in creatures from other planes?

We had intended to ignore these images of Karzough, but Trask couldn’t resist and quipped, “Have you met your new champion?” as he pointed at Nolin.

It took Karzough less than a second to realize that the Rune of Greed was on the cheek of the same person who also boasted the Rune of Wrath, and his face turned a very bright red as he ranted, “Why… what? This is an outrage! You, you are not worthy to bear the symbol of Greed!”

To which Nolin calmly replied, “I’m collecting all seven.”

That was too much for Karzough, who cast Baleful Polymorph on Nolin, but he simply shrugged it off. It was encouraging to see him waste a spell for which we had Rune-forged weapons to counter.

Large rooms on either side looked like barracks for the harridans, who had clearly left in a hurry. A door at the opposite side led to a hallway and an empty lab, plus a lot of interconnected and unused storage rooms.

While Sabin and I searched these rooms, Sedjewick had occupied Karzough by asking about how the runelords managed to overthrow the emperor, and Trask had crept over to the throne room and saw the scattered remains of ten harridans. The double doors from this room, which were closed when we left, were open.

We left Karzough to reminisce over old times on his own while we moved through the throne room.

We saw the hound at the same moment it saw us, and it came bounding in toward us. I cast Prayer, Sedjewick sang, and Kane exclaimed something not polite as his attempt to Banish the creature failed.

Trask used his own form of banishment by hitting it with a fireball, and we all attacked it using whatever means we could. It had already been wounded by its encounter with Karzough’s minions, and so we were able to slay it quickly.

Sabin cut its head off, which Nolin then took and tossed into the room where Karzough was waiting, and said, “I am going to send you the bill for this.”

== Moonday, Lamashan 27, 4708; Spires of Xin Shalast; mid day ==

Presently we opened the small door on the north side of the throne room and entered a small room with a set of double doors at the far end. Beyond these doors was a huge chamber with massive furs (from mammoths) organized in mounds upon the floor. A golden arch was on an adjacent wall at the far side of the room, but of more immediate interest were the eight storm giants that stood at attention, with either piles of large rocks at their sides or large bows in their hands.

Trask put up a Wall of Force, dividing the room in two and isolating the two nearest giants from their allies.

A giant shot me with an oversized arrow, which hurt a lot, but the wall of force protected us from the giants shooting at us from the far side.

Sabin created Black Tentacles on the far side to try and ensnare some giants, but they were simply too large and strong for this tactic to work.

One of the nearby giants bellowed, “I have had enough of this nonsense, die!” as he charged Nolin. Once again we all took a hand at combat (even me) while Kane kept an eye and ear open to the throne room to prevent us from being flanked.

Nolin, Avia and Sabin traded mighty blows with our two giants, while Kane and I made sure all of us were in good health. The giants had no such support.

A giant on the far side banged heavily on a pair of double doors and yelled, “Assist, assist!”

Trask set a wall of flame against that wall, making it unpleasantly hot for anyone to come through that way.

Sedjewick sang a song of discord, and some of the giants on the far side began to fight one another with good results.

Avia killed the first giant and Sabin quickly followed suit with the second when Kane announced that cloud giants were in the throne room. I sealed off that doorway with a Wall of Stone.

We found each of our giants wore a ring with a star on it, which were similar in nature to our sihedron rings.

[1680] +3 deflection bonus, +3 resistance, endure elements, change the appearance of armor
[1681] another star ring

They also wore magic plate mail, but it was large and heavy, and we left them for later.

By now the cloud giants had broken through the wall of stone, and so I placed a circular Blade Barrier in the adjacent room in such a way that anyone trying to get at us had to pass through it twice. Trask added to the challenge with another wall of flame.

One giant tried to pass the gauntlet, but emerged as a fine spray of charred giant flesh.

Another two bravely entered the blade barrier room, but seemed reluctant to push through to the other side until a loud voice shouted, “You are the Wardens of Wind, go forward!”

One of them “went forward” and was turned into warm liquid goo, after which the other giant wet himself and then whimpered with fright and indecision. It eventually worked up enough courage to charge at us, and might have made it too had Nolin not been there to great it with his great sword.

A third managed to get into the side room, and prepared itself to charge past the second set of barriers.

Meanwhile, the storm giants on the far side of the room had managed to kill one another off in a nonsensical frenzy of violence that transcended the original effect of Sedjewick’s song. One storm giant remained, and he flashed us a large (mostly) toothless grin.

Having been denied easy access to us via the throne room, the remaining cloud giants burst through the wall of flame into the main room, but the wall of force stood between them and us.

I lobbed a couple of fireballs (via a necklace we had collected some time before) at the giants, and Trask created a Mage’s Sword and began to hack at them as well.

I created a cloud of mist around the giants (not a great choice, given that these were cloud giants), who returned the favor by floating up and casting a fog bank around us around us.

Trask used a staff to blow the mists away and then killed the remaining storm giant with his magical sword.

The remaining cloud giant behind us finally charged through the blade barrier and wall of flame, but Sabin had braced a spear in its path, and it impaled itself and perished.

We still have a handful of cloud giants on the other side of the wall of force, floating above and in the mists, but I am taking a quick moment to update my journal with these events.