Having returned from the Shrine of Kyuss empty-handed, the party prepares for the final battle in the Champion Games. Rancik, Arthur, Vasco and Nabiros have to fight Auric’s warband. Auric (the buffed up fighter the party had seen back in their first days in Diamond Lake), Khellek (Auric’s gangly wizard friend) and three particularly tough flesh golems, do intense and clever battle. Auric and the ‘Leatherworks’ battle the party in full frontal assult, with Auric taking on Rancik head-to-head, while Arthur and Nabiros working their way around and through the flesh golems. Khellek, at 40 feet above the floor of the games, blasts the party with fireballs, rays of enfeeblement, magic missiles, confusion and fear, but Vasco counter-spells and uses his own lightning bolt and web to put an end to him. Rancik lets Auric live, though just barely at -9. Tirra (the last of Auric’s warband) looks on from the crowd during the fight, and rushes out to help Auric and the dead Khellek at the end of the fight. She feigns public humiliation at the defeat, but the party remember that she, like them, will get a share of the winnings the Thieves’ Guild had bet against Auric.
Almost the entire Free City gathered here to watch the game. The crowd explodes into chaos. 18,000 souls rise to their feet cheering Rancik and his band, chanting each of their names over and over. Vasco watches Racknain (the former gladiator and currently the head of the city arena and the games themselves) and sees that he looks dumbfounded at Auric’s defeat but quickly recovers. He leaves the arena (and the city). Talabir Welik (the game’s moderators) hands out the Champion's Belt and the cash prize.
The party only partially revels in the victory. Arthur, suffered great damage (also going into the negatives from toe-to-toe combat with the flesh golems, announces soon after the game that he is taking his winnings and leaving the group and entering into the thickness of the Thieves Guild. Rancik is summoned to the big temple of Wee Jas immediately after the games, and reports there the next day, sending an odd message by an acolyte from the temple that he is bound up with the consequences of power, fate and death and though can not continue, urges Vasco and Nabiros to carry on, reminding them of his vision and the importance these issues of Kyuss. Enclosed in a package is Zosiel’s diadem of wisdom (+2), which Vasco carefully and respectfully receives, shares Rancik’s intuition that this, like Vasco's mysterious talismain, is magic from the cairn of the Wind Dukes that may somehow be important, not something to be locked up in a temple or magic shop.
Vasco and Nabiros the next, heavy in their hearts from the departure of their two adventuring friends, go to the home of the slain Eligos, who had given them so much help in the Free City to date. How was he murdered, and why? There, they meet an interesting new ally, an 11th level paladin who was a very close friend of Eligos and who was deeply saddened by Eligos’ murder. The paladin had just come from an encounter with Racknain, whom he had successfully challenged fleeing the city. Before letting the weasily Racknain and his murderous guard Okoral flee, he seized from them some items that he found they had taken from the Shrine of Kyuss that Eligos told him the Diamond Lakers had penetrated. There are several of the things that had been cleared out the night before.
- Apostolic Scrolls, which the paladin had been reviewing
- the powerfully warded trunk, which the paladin had a cleric friend cast dispel evil on. The paladin said that the dead zombie corpse of a young woman had been trapped inside, along with the following:
- three aquamarines worth 500gp each
- seven blocks of exotic incense worth 200gp each
- potion of cure moderate wounds
- scroll of death ward
- two scrolls of ethereal jaunt
- three doses of dust of tracelessness
- two blocks of incense of meditation
- want of restoration (36 charges)
- a Muryland’s spoon
- three vials of oil of gentle repose, two of which now contain a Kyuss worm
End of Champion Games Treasure:
GP: Thieves Guild - 7,500 gp
wager from first day battle - 7500 gp
winnings from first day battle - 1500gp, bronze trophy (100gp)
winnings from second day battle: - 5000gp, silver trophy (500gp)
winnings from third battle: - 10,000gp, gold trophy (1000 gp)
winning the Champion Games - 20,000gp, Champion’s Belt (2000gp)
Vasco: manages to pocket’s the two rings off Khellek’s deceased fingers: ring of protection +1, silver Seeker ring work 200 gp, and makes a bundle of his three wands (wand of glitterdust (3 charges), wand of mage armor (CL5, 15 charges), wand of scorching ray (CL 8, 35 charges)).
Nabiros: boldly take’s Auric’s gauntlets of ogre power right off Auric’s unconscious body, holding them high in the air after his defeat.
DM note: The GP needs to be split 4 ways (Arthur, Rancik, Nabiros, Vasco) but the magic can be split 2-ways between Vasco and Nabiros, with the 2 new players coming to the field with their own magic.
