Kodrus and Ghostouch collapse after a short distance of travel further down the passage. Garret and Whosis rest in the passage guarding them while Ilmak paces. Suddenly a light traces down the passageway and illuminates Ilmak the swordmage, drawing him into it and dissolving him. He disappears leaving only a circle of arcane scrawlings written in burnt dust. The party stands in shock as they realize that he has their food provisions and the amulet that offered their only hope of escape should they find their way out of Shubgottia to another plane.
Travel for a day and a half has made them thirsty and their prisoner drinks from a nearby fountain only to slowly fall to the ground and die from it's poisoned waters. Up ahead in the corridor they see some small turtle-like demons crawling along the passageway. As they contemplate eating one of them, a giant horned creature with batlike wings swoops down and impales one of them with it's claws and begins eating it.
They slowly approach and kill the second creature offering it peacefully to the large monstrous creature. He addresses them and they tell him that they are servants of Baphomet. He tells them he has no interest in helping them. Garret the cleric convinces him that he is not a servant of Baphomet and learns in discussion that his name is Thrax and he is a devil from baator that has been trapped in Shubgottia for some time. He wanders the passageways of this part of the maze eating the creatures it traps there. The devil declines the party's overatures to come with them and takes the corpse of the poisoned prisoner before flying off to consume it.
As they head further along the passage, they find a well with smoky mist pouring out of it. The mist is so thick they cannot pass by the well in the hallway without moving through it. Whosis sends his ferret familiar stinky pete into the mist and it retreats claiming to have seen ghosts. Ghostouch is freed and volunteers to pass through and Kodrus follows close behind.
Ghostouch stares into the bottomless well and appears transfixed before throwing himself into it. Kodrus falls into a bloodlust and attacks Whosis Kid. Whosis Kid draws Kodrus out of the mist where he collapses dizzy to the ground.
Whosis and Garrret tether themselves to Kodrus as a dead anchor and move through the mist carefully then they pull Kodrus' limp form through after them. When they get him to the other side a bloody black goo pours from this eyes and mouth and he awakens dazed after a short rest.
A little ways further down the way they find some Xorn and abyssal maws feeding on the remains of another party. The only surviving member is an Eladrin who says he is in the abyss searching for a generation of Eladrin children that were trapped by Aseroth when he took the tower in the silent vale away and hid it in the abyss. He says that an evil creature called Pale Night lives in Shubgottia and hunts the children for pleasure. He has failed in his quest, but asks the party to fulfill it if they are able and gives them a magical waterskin that had endless water and gives the favor of the Elven god Correllon to any who pour it's waters on an altar in his temple.
When they arrive back at the intersection with only one remaining path to try to escape from the magical trap, the four remaining party members encounter two ogres who serve Baphoment. Kodrus again claims to serve Baphomet and so they ask to lead him to the Lyktion. The party follows and after many hours of travel they reach a T-intersection where the left hand path leads to Baphomet and the passage to the right leads to the fortress of Pale Night.
The party backstabs the ogres, as they wish to travel back toward Pale Night's lair. A battle ensues and they fight furiously with the two ogres. During the battle, Garrick the Mad appears heroically through a magical portal he opened with the idol of Tanar'ri and comes to their aid. Once the ogres are defeated, Veszafein also appears dramatically out of a wall of shadows that appears out of nowhere.
Before they can advance further towards Pale Night''s lair they are attacked by three powerful Tanar'ri: A brass golem in the form of Baphomet himself, and immolith made from the cursed undead soul of the Babau they slayed in the second session, and the cerebrilith they encountered at the crossroads in the first session.
Kodrus flees at first then returns to his friends' aid when he realizes that they cannot outrun their foes. The cerebrilith and golem are taken out easily but the immolith grasps the cleric and holds him closely to him, burning him in his flames. All that come to Garret's assistance are also burned by the fires smoldering around the undead demonic elemental. Garret sees the magical waterskin glow in the fire's light and he take it out and pours it on the creatures, banishing it.
They continue battered and weakend along the passageway toward Pale Night's lair for many hours. Finally they find a dead end with two giant obsidian doors and some small altars and alcoves cut into the walls. Exploring the alcoves they find a secret passageway leading dow a stair to a small room. Hidden in the room is a treasure cache including the Sword of Kas the Bloody-Handed, a magical vorpal weapon crafted by Vecna the lich long ago. The sword was weilded by his liutenant, a vampire named Kas, who eventually betrayed him and gave the sword to Kord and Dol Dorn, who used it to destroy the evil lich.
They approached the doorway and used a knock ritual. The doors slid open and from the mist emerged a small gorilla like carnage demon followed by a huge minotaur demon called a Gorristro. The gorristo stomped on Whosis kid, who was knocked to a bloody pulp and swept up by Kodrus and Garret who carried him to safety.
Veszafein and Garrick cast darkness and web spells to slow the Gorristro while they attacked with spells and the vorpal weapon to little effect. Whosis was revived by the cleric and charged again into battle against the demon, retreating again once it had freed itself from the magical trap of the web spell.
They retreated into the alcove hitting the gorristro with everything they had as he clawed at them through the narrow passeway and tore at the opening to enlarge it enought for him to squeeze through. After what seemed like an eternity of fighting, just before he tore open a great hole in the wall Kodrus took the vorpal Sword of Kas and beheaded the terrifying creature valiantly.
Clearing the gore and dust away they hacked their way through the corpse of the demon collapse along the entrance to the alcove. Moving through the giant obsidian doors they saw that ahead the mist was clear on the ceiling above them and that a moutain of petrified skulls and bones formed a ramp that lead all the way up to the top of the 1000 foot walls of the labyrinth.
They scaled the mountain of remains, taking a long rest on the way. When they reached the top they could see a the giant labyrinth of Shubgottia extending in every direction as far as the eye could see. Above them strange lights strobbed in the sky. They were standing on a plateau of petrified remains and in the middle of the plateau about a mile away was a great palace in the shape of a skeletal hand.
In the distance they could see the bronze Lyktion, the tower of science, where Baphoment crafts new species of demons. Docked at the top of the tower was a huge metallic floating spider the size of a great sailing ship. Off in other directions other strange masses and things that looked like floating enormous jellyfish drifted in the sky.
When they approached the skeletal palace they saw that on the plateau strange skeletal crab-like creatures, some large and some small scurried about. When they reached the main gate the found to Mezzoloth guards who welcomed them as servants of Pale Night. Thinking they mistakenly had been received as her servants they entered the palace.
Inside they found Pale Night, a ghostly figure, and an Obyrith, one of the most powerful and ancient creatures of the abyss, the mother of all demons. Pale Night was imprisoned Shubgottia by the rebellious Tanar'ri after they rebelled against the Obryrith, though they couldn't find it in them to destroy her. She retains cordial relations with Baphomet and is the mother of one of the dark six, Graz'zt.
In her court she commands each of the party to serve her. Kodrus resists and is choked out by a magical force then dragged off to guard the well of the Obyrith, a powerful wishing site. He wishes to escape from the abyss, but his prayers are ignored.
Whosis Kid tries resisting as well and is knocked unconscious after bearing witness to her true form, which is said to be horrifying enough to cause death in some. Afterwards he is dragged to the dungeons where he serves her as a torturer and he becomes evil and twisted in his ways.
Veszafein claims to be a servant of Lloth alone and for his heresy he is struck dumb so he can cast no spells and he is made the personal valet of Pale Night. Garret refuses to yield to her, so she uses the vorpal blade to cut off his left hand and she replaces it with the Hand of Vecna, a powerful artifact which turns him evil and makes him a willing servant to her. Garrick gladly offers his services after seeing what has happened to the rest of the pary and he is given guard duty and the front gate.
Several weeks later, Pale Night asks for a volunteer to go to Lyktion, the Tower of Science. Whosis, now the most twisted and evil of all the party, willingly volunteers and is sent there to be experimented on. He comes back hairless after they test a new demonic disease on him and he become a terrible pathetic sight that creaps along the halls of Shubgottia, reviled like a rat by the Tanar'ri and other creatures that dwell there.
After a month in Pale Night's service the party is taken by her to the 471st layer of the abyss called Androlyne; her personal hunting grounds. In the vast grayish fields of tall grass and rubble there is a ruined temple of Correllon and within dwell the survivors of the generation of Eladrin children that Aseroth captured and gave to her. She asks the party to enter the temple to flush them out so she can hunt them with her bow.
They enter and Kodrus immediately begins to try and gather the children in a friendly manner, but they are frightened by the towering statue of the minotaur. The other party members begin coralling the children to flush them out into the open where they can be hunted when Garret sees an altar of Correllon along the far end of the ruins. Using what good remains in his being he grasps the magical waterskin and sneaks over to pour it on the altar.
The temple shakes and after several long moments of violent quakes and a loud chorus of angelic singing sounds, light spills in through the entrace. The party emerges to find they are in a wooded city. They are surrounded by Eladrin soldiers, then greated as heroes when it's discovered they have rescued the lost generation of children from the Abyss. They are greeted with the full hospitality of the Far North's peoples and are given magical gifts as tokens of thanks.
The Eladrin magically cure all corruption of evil from the Tanar'ri items. The also cure Whosis Kid's hairless condition, restoring his prized foothair back to normal. They remove the evil taint of Vecna's influence over Garret's soul, but they do not have the power of knowledge at their disposal to remove the hand itself.
The party learns that Marshgate has fallen to the Dark Lord Nortumal. Garrick discovered in Shadowmarsh Cliffs that Lady Xyrlynn has impersonated Lord Shadowmarsh after killing him and she changed the mercenary armies orders. Once the army served Blackshore, but now they marched under Nortumal's flag. They surrounded and defeated Ironview's army guarding Marshgate.
Blackshore has fallen under a veil of ice and no one has heard from the city in a month. The party is offered griffon and pegasi to travel across the great ocean to Blackshore so they can investigate. When they arrive they find that the city and it's people are frozen by a cloud of snow and ice that hovers over the city.
All within the city are frozen in place except for the invaders. Minotaurs and ogres guard the city's port. The gates are manned by goblins, hobgoblins, orcs, kobolds, and gulvoorgs (huge blue wolf-like creatures bred to be seige engines in war). The merchant district is full of undead. Temple street is crawling with priests of the dark six. Drow traders have moved into noble row and plundered the mansions. The wizard's school is on fire due to experiments left unattended that have gone awry. The poorest neighborhood called thieve's town is abandoned and uninhabited.
Catching some arrows and bolts on the way in, they land in thieve's town and start looking around. They are eventually lead by a mischevious spiretop drake to a small normal looking builing that leads down into the theive's guild of Blackshore. There they are greated by Ezak No-Hack the assassin the captured in the first session and Corus Copperscale, the head of the theive's guild of Blackshore.
Veszafein the drow warlock heads off to Noble Row to check on the drow traders there and see what he can learn from them. Garrick and Ottian leave the rest of the party to explore the magic school and see what is amiss there.
Ezak explains that he was framed for the assassination attempt on the Duke of Blackshore's life a year ago by Lady Xyrlynn, who assumed his form. Also, someone who looks like Lady Xyrlynn now rules the palace of Blackshore, but she never speaks, so they suspect she may be an imposter. The castle is also run by the Daughters of Darkness, powerful witches who command the dark sixes disparate forces.
Veszafein passes through a gate manned by goblins and a gulvoorg, talking his way past them. He learns from the drow that the daughters of darksness and Xyrlynn rule the city for a month now and that Aseroth's winter magic captured it totally unaware.
Corus Copperscale, who happens to be a small young copper dragon offers to join the party and leaves Ezak to guard the guild chambers. The two paths to the magic school lead either through the open streets of the market and a horde of undead, or through the sewers which are full of Kobolds. Copperscale discourages the latter.
They travel on the surface, outrunning the undead mob which is too numerous to fight. They barricade themselves inside a dormitory build and then slip across the rooftops to the adjacent main building of magic school. Inside they find a Thunderblast Cyclone, an evil thunder elemental, is trapped in place but destroying the contents of building, sucking everything into it's vortex.
The party saves what items they can from the vortex while Garret scales the wall outside to check out the upper levels of the building that are inaccessible due to the vortex. He finds that everyone here like elsewhere is frozen in time, many seemingly amused or amazed at the snowfall with hands outstetched in windows and smiling faces.
When he returns below to report, Ottian and Garrick arrive. Ottian finds a way to dispatch the cyclone back to it's home plane so it will cause no further damage. The undead outside begin to gather around the magic school and beat upon the bolted heavy doors.
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