Sunday, 26 Lamashan

If our goal was to introduce chaos, confusion, and distraction to the city, why that’s practically our (very long) middle name.

Scrying our favorite giant, we found that there is close to chaos up north around the Lamia temple. He reported the body, and discovered they were already quite aware. They seem like anything but cool and in control. They did not kill the messenger, but they did not exactly welcome him either. They expected him to tell them what happened and how. “You were in charge of security!” they said accusingly, and when he had no explanation forthcoming, instructed him to wait in a small room whose door was secured from the outside while the investigation was completed. “At sunset,” they promised, “you will be taken up to the mountain.” From the expression on his face, he clearly did not interpret this to mean he was going to be treated to a relaxing vacation and stimulating massage.

Although we may have, in a sense, tormented him with whispered messages and strange happenings, we’d taken a liking to him. We couldn’t let him be taken to the mountain, where he’d likely be killed, or worse, transformed. From a practical standpoint, we probably also did not want him telling people on the mountain that voices were speaking to him. So Takkad and Sabin windwalked to his cell and checked it out. The door was unlocked, so I suppose technically that was not a cell, but two harridans stood guard outside to prevent anyone from disturbing him in his contemplation.

In other words, a very stealthy teleportation was entirely possible.

Since I could do both major image and teleport, I went along to provide the means for the rescue operation. Takkad and Sabin came along in case anything went wrong. I borrowed a ring of invisibility so that all three of us, Takkad, Sabin, and myself could be invisible. We became invisible, turned to gaseous form, and then travelled to and entered the cell. By previous agreement, I went to (invisible) solid form first, and created the illusion of a giant. The illusion offered these solemn but quietly spoken words: “There are those who would see you live.” The giant startled, and I said, “The choice is yours, but take my hand if you wish to leave now.” I put my hand in the right position within the image, and after a bit of uncertainty, he grabbed it. I quietly uttered the spell, and teleported us to the arena without any harridans being harmed at all.

Once there, I said (while still invisible), “This place is safe, but you will probably need to leave Xin Shalast.”

“Thanks,” he responded, still a little uncertainly.

The rest of the group was there in gas form and observed him quickly assess his surroundings before heading for an exit from the arena. As he cautiously made his way to one side of the arena, Takkad and Sabin returned and we returned to our hideout.

Takkad sniggered that he’d added Alasnist graffiti to the cell. When I pointed out that poor decisions and practical jokes was supposed to be my forte, he got defensive and said it wasn’t impractical – it would help foment rebellion and divert attention away from us, which was very practical.

Whatever.

We could only imagine the anger and frustration the Lamia would feel upon discovering their guest had left! Hee hee. However, in my more somber moments I also realized we’d pretty much relegated our favorite giant to a life on the run, since they would believe he was complicit not only in his escape, but in the murder of the priestesses too. Perhaps we’d done nothing more than delay his death, but I suppose that’s not such a small gift.

We decided to talk to Margive about the rebellion plan he’d overheard. Where do they meet? (Always different.) Can you show us? (yes).

With this, Takkad announced our favorite giant had left the arena and starting rooting around in these passages. He was actually heading rather directly for Margive’s abode, which was not part of the plan.

We quickly explained to Margive that a giant was only a few hundred feet away right now, and he needed to hide. While we did not think the giant would harm him, we deemed it prudent to be cautious. He blended into the shadows as he does so well, while the rest of us hid in the shadows or went invisible.

I was completely surprised by what happened next, though. The giant cautiously entered Margive’s home and whispered, “Margive? Are you here?” And Margive replied! “I am here, friend,” as he made himself visible.

“I have found a much better place for the meeting tonight. Tell them the alliance will meet at the arena tonight.”

Margive has more connections than we gave him credit for! “Our” giant was actually a leader (the leader?) in the giant rebellion that we’d been so anxious to assist. I broke the silence by saying, “There are those who would see you live” as I made myself apparent. As others also became visible, he clearly recognized my voice and clearly had the same thought about Margive that I’d just had. “We seem to be working towards a common cause.”

Takkad suggested to him that the recent deaths of the lamia and apparently missing dragon might make tonight a very good night to lead his brethren out of the city. He agreed. And we offered the same advice to Margive. “We are going to the highest buildings in an attempt to stop Karzoug from gaining more power. If the coming night and day find us successful, tonight will be an excellent time to leave. If we fail, it may be your last opportunity to leave.”

We did not add, out loud, that their leaving will also provide distraction to those above as we attempt to assault those positions. We will truly be helping each other by dividing the rulers’ attentions.

We decided to windwalk to the higher echelons now to use the last of our windwalk ability today and allow Takkad to utilize those spell slots differently for tomorrow. We took this time to inspect Karzoug’s mountainous face, but we noted no particular magic or secret openings in the face. Takkad and Sabin decided it was appropriate to install a little granite graffiti.

Whatever. Seems immature and unnecessary to me.

I did the now-traditional rope trick, and we retired for the evening.

Moonday, 27 Lamashan

Takkad asked the Quill about what to expect. It told him “many guards, many wards, insane creatures not of this world.” If that was a surprise to anyone, they didn’t let on.

Kane and Avia needed to use amulets, upon which we cast obscure object to deter the scrying, and we advanced towards the biggest spire. This spire seemed to mostly be a ramp up into the heights of the building. It certainly was ornate enough, but the ramp was nice and wide (maybe forty feet or so wide). We ascended alertly and while we didn’t find anything during our cautious ascent, we must have gone up 2000 feet or more.

But near the top, we did hear a voice that we did not recognize: “Ready lads! Here they come!” Apparently we were expected. I had thought I might confuse them a bit with ridiculous replies, so I called out, “Yes! Have you any bananas?”. I was not within range to see their faces, but I have to believe that the several seconds of pause after that was spent with them looking at each other in utter confusion. Without waiting for any particular response, I cast Haste on our group since it sounded very much like we would not avoid battle, and at this particular moment everyone was close enough to be included in the spell.

There were five of them, with one clearly being the leader (both by demeanor and appearance.) He was a storm giant; the other four appeared to be cloud giants.

“They like to appear right next to you; be ready!” called out their leader. Hmm. Clearly Karzoug has passed on his observations of us to his guard. How annoying.

Kane tried to intimidate them. It was about as effective as asking for bananas. But Sabin had a much more effective action. He cast mass suggestion on them, and suggested they’d rather drop their weapons and go down to the front gates of the city. Three of the giants blinked, and appeared to do so.

These were some of the largest giants we’ve encountered, and the reach on them was unbelievable. Without the ability to teleport in, our fighters had to wade in offering their bodies up for free just to get close enough to hit. Once there they did significant damage, but the price of the approach almost was too much for Nolin. I called up a wall of force to protect him as he got hammered at one point, but our clerics managed to quickly heal him (and others). I employed my Mages Sword at one point, but it was late in the battle and it only got a couple of swings. I don’t think it ever connected before its target died and it raced back to hover pointlessly in front of me.

When the leader realized a sizeable portion of his force really was going to walk to the edge of the city, he smartly said to them, “Well, would you mind smacking these guys as you go?” And although they’d dropped their weapons, an unarmed smack from a cloud giant still carries a wallop. I took one of those and it almost knocked me off my feet.

Truly, we killed the leader and remaining cloud giant in something like only a half minute, but the fighting as fierce and the damage great. If they’d had healers like we did, the battle might have gone differently. We may want to identify and target healers early in any future battles; Karzoug will probably do the same favor for us.

And Kane put a normal mundane spell to deadly use when he cast Create Water in front of the giants heading down the ramp to the city’s edge. In this climate, of course, the water froze almost instantly, and resulting lack of traction caused two of the giants to slip over the edge of the ramp and fall to their presumed deaths.

From the two corpses we created up top, we did retrieve

[1660] Full plate (giant sized) +2
[1661] sihedron ring
[1662] Full plate (giant sized) +4
[1663] sihedron ring
[1664] Masterwork Great Sword [giant sized]
[1665] Morningstar [giant sized]

We now turned to the upper hallways that we’d laid claim to. The walls here were decorated; no expense was spared. Doors ranged from appearing to be solid gold, to, at the very least, masterfully built. The first door we opened seemed to yield … Karzoug!

He verbally taunted us, and Avia detected no evil. Still, we advanced upon him. I tried a fireball, but it had no effect. We began to think it might just be a really talkative illusion when he said, “Well, Sabin, let’s get it started.” And a black ray shot from the figure to Sabin.

A death ray.

Sabin moved as quickly as I’ve ever seen him, but the ray still grazed him and wounded him significantly. And with that, Karzoug disappeared. Yes, an illusion, but one with some spellcasting abilities. Some sort of projection, or automaton? I’ll have to search our spellbooks to try to identify what it was. But clearly we will be running into some more powerful magic, and we will need to be cautious of that.

More doors await us.