Episode 7 (part 3) - Into the Ziggurat of Kyuss

Searching around the summit of the temple, the party finds secret doors around the temple and decide to descend the small access stairs found on the other side.  Huddling on the stairs on the inside of the secret doors, Nadroc takes a moment to buff himself.  Yldar wraps himself in his cloak of the bat and flaps around in bat form into the chambre below.  He weaves erratically around a large room with grand 30' ceiling supported by stone pillars.  In the rooms’ centre, however, is a chilling evil, that the bat instinctively avoid.  Bat-Yldar senses nothing living or moving around in the room, so on his report, the whole group descend cautiously into the main hall.  They discover that the palpably evil in the centre of the room is the vestige of some kind of enormous blast that blew several pillars down and opened a massive and deep pit.  The group quietly, cautiously exploring around the edges of the pit, trying to figure out how deep it might be and what created it. That it was some kind of blast created at the floor of the room itself was sussed by Zeek, who starts tossing things down the pit.  The bottom is not clearly discerned.  The noise of the falling ever-burning torches and stone rubble attracts something that was floating below.  Walking on wind, three large green nagas – not undead, but terrible aberrations whose faces and bodies twisted by Kyuss’s power – float out of the pit casting powerful enervation and scorching rays, their gaze tearing at the minds of the party, nearly enfeebling them on several occasions.  A swift and powerful response by the party brings silence to the chamber again.

 The party, buffs not entirely faded from battling the nagas, move to the door at the north side of the chambre.  Zeek opens the door and the party sets eyes on a man they will not soon forget.  The room is glowing a sickly green, illuminated from behind what appears to be a glass wall containing thousands of writhing and active green Kyuss worms.  Standing ready in front of the wall, a spell cracking at his fingertips, is a elvish looking Outsider.  Clearly delighted at the site of these newcomers to the long empty ziggurat, he announces himself as Kelvos the Wormtouched, a ghaele eladrin who had come to Kuluth-Mar before Kyuss had ascended to godhood.  He could not defeat the great Kyuss even as a mortal, but he will delight in dispatching the group.  Then a destructive wave blasts forth from his readied hands.  In a flash, Nadroc, who had been standing back from the door, but in Kelvos’ sight, is completely obliterated.  His gear crumples to the ground and no other trace remains of the wind duke relic.

The party is stunned and shocked, but doesn’t have time to grieve, as two fallen angels, sword archons with flaming blades forearms, fly out of the room.  They separate the party by a nearly impenetrable wall of blades, and then work to destroy them.

Kelvos teleports out of the room, and appears right in front of Vasco.  Spell after destructive spell cast by Kelvos against Vasco absorbed by the scarab of protection Manzorian gave him in exchange for the Rod of Law fragment.  Kelvos attention turns also to Zeek and Maeron, who are the victims of a prismatic spray that causes Zeek to be poisoned, and Maeron to completely loose her mind.  One of the archons manages to commands Yldar, who had been paralyzed (along with Zeeks’ companion) for most of the battle, to go and break the glass ‘worm wall’.  Yldar walks forward into Kelvos’ room to do the archon’s bidding. By some miracle, with Yldar, Maeron, Zeek’s companion, and Nadroc all out of commission, Vasco and Zeek manage to deal the final fateful blow to Kelvos and the angels (a cone of cold and a lightning bolt).  With mere seconds before the butt of Yldars bow would smash through the wall, the command is broken by the archon’s defeat.  As they collapse from exhaustion of a battle that destroyed Nadroc, permanently made Maeron insane, and very nearly killed the others, a third vision is had.

A handsome man dressed in flowing robes, and a strange, six-armed, alien-like creature stand in front of victims chained terrible devices.  A deep light from within the hollow eye sockets of the creature illuminate a jeweled gold box that he presents the man.  From it, the man extracts a writhing green worm, whose sight brings him a look of exaltation.

They collect Kelvos’ weapons, and decide to teleport back with the scroll given to them by Manzorian, resurrect Nadroc, restore Maeron’s sanity.  Arriving back in Magepoint, they seek out Agath of Thurnch, the cleric scholar ally of Manzorian and Celeste, who is the caretaker of the library-temple, who had also returned Eligos to life.  Maeron is restored by Greater restoration (7th lvl cleric) and Nadroc has the benefit of true resurrection (9th lvl cleric), for which he charges 5,000 gp and 25,000 gp respectively.  The party sells the powerful weapons and treasure found in the temple to pay for these services.  They take time to reflect on their encounter and build their skills, as all but Yldar (who is catching up from a previous death) and Nadroc (whose premature death precluded his gaining certain experience) advance to level 13.  They must pay 2,275gp for each of two scrolls of greater teleport they need to return to the Spire at Kuluth-Mar.

Episode 7 (part 2): The Spire at Kuluth-Mar

Manzorian left his assistant with two tasks.  The first was to facilitate the party having access to the magical Fountain of Fortunes’ Folly – a powerful artifact that can give and take power and abilities.  While having a drink is rebuffed by Nadroc and Vasco, the others decide to take a chance on its magic.  Zeek and his companions, and Yldar gain minor abilities and treasures in exchange for a few permanently lost hit points.   Maeron, however, has a amazingly unlikely and fortunate contact with a powerful outsider from another plane.  The potently magic drink momentarily links Maeron with a powerful Solar on another plane.  Taking notice of her, and seeing the world-shaping importance of her future, the Solar offers to intervene in her affairs one time, on her request.  She is left inspired and empowered by the encounter, knowing that quite literally a powerful angel is watching her.


The other task of Manzorian’s assistant was to facilitate payment of the requested magic items in exchange for the Rod of Law fragment that the party is willing to give Manzorian.  Each member takes their requested treasure, gratefully adding it to their arsenal, hoping that it along with the blessing of the Wind Dukes, will aid them in their trip to the far off Kuluth Mar.  They know that magic and blessings alone will got get them through, but that research is needed.  Doing geographic research for the area, the find that the valley of Kuluth-Mar as been abandoned by humanoids, and that aberrations and other horrors have taken over the valley.  Something or someone named Balaxuus and a band of trolls that work with it, are known to be threats living in the outskirts of the ruined city.  So few have survived brief sojourns to the valley, and so little else is known.  However, their research on the Kyuss worm itself does prove fruitful.  They find that if the Kyuss worm touches the skin, within moments it will burrow in to the body, work its way to the brain, and consume the living into an undead Kyuss spawn.  It may be neutralized by Remove Curse or Remove Disease.  It can be slowed by dispel evil or neutralize poison.  These facts were learned from the singularly depressing yet morbidly intriguing journals of the cleric Anadan the Reader.

After a week of studies, shopping and other preparations, they party is led to the picture room by Manzorian’s assistant Cymria.  There Manzorian gives them a scroll of mass teleport to return home.  A blue glowing field connects them with the photo on the wall, and the last image they see is of Manzorian still completing the spell, casually turning and walking out of the room.  A moment later, an they are all standing in the sweaty, humid, thick air of the far away jungle valley of the ancient ruined city of Kuluth-Mar.

 After a few minutes of typical discussion and banter standing in the lush jungle, they decide to proceed cautiously towards the city, which they can see not far off.  The ruined buildings of the city are surrounded by a massive black stone ring wall, and inside the spire rises up into the sky.  The jungle is eerily alive with an unfamiliar hum of life, and inside the rings – though a place of Kyuss’s terrible history, seems somehow safer.  Yldar moves forward and scales the 30' tall wall, which he finds is made of an impossibly black, glossy obsidian.  At the top of the wall, and circling all around it is a Draconic inscription “Kyuss Forever Bound”.  On entering the ruined city, the entire party experiences a powerful vision of a young Kyuss, seated on a throne at the apex of the ziggurat at the centre of the city and in the shadow of a large spire that towers above it.  Thousands of supporters surround him in the vibrant city chanting and crying their patronage, and then the vision fades.  It leaves the party with the feeling of having had a very significant experience.

Yldar scales down the other side of the wall, and finds that the entire ground is writing with tiny, slow-moving Kyuss worms.  The party follows him in, and being careful not lingering for any length of time, should the worms work their way through their boots, they make their way from the north towards Kuluth-Mar’s ziggurat; the large, central temple below the towering spire.

 They approach the north face of the temple and ascend towards the spire.  Soon, a maddenly loud ‘skittering’ fills the air, and two enormous, rotten, worm-invested beetles, each larger than several men, come around from the other sides of the temple and flank them.  The beetles’ sound is maddening and their mandibles have a hard bite.  As the party forms to defend themselves one notices a heavily armoured knight, walking confidently and slowly into the battle.  The beetles, his dogs of war, continue to attack while the knight closes in to engage.  The party is well organized, rested and resourceful dispatch the knight, whose eyes are massive Kyuss worms, stretching out to bite while his unholy bastard sword clangs violently against the party’s defenses.  No worms manage to infect them and the party collect themselves after the battle to discuss how to proceed.

Up.

Up into the sky is the towering spire, and Nardoc draws on the wind dukes power to fly up towards the top where they party had seen a glint.  As he is rising higher and higher, the party encounters another powerful vision.  They see the spire restored, at the glint at the speak is a 15' tall 3' thick trapezoidal monolith of black rock.  Something is seen writhing inside when an enormous red dragon rips the monolith away from the spire and flies north.  The vision fades, and Nadroc finds only the crumbling ruins of the spire that had held it.