Note: this is long. A summary of the important events is at the bottom.
A Year and a Library Beyond Time
Walking towards Gravenhollow
We walked from the tower, down a path.. Following ring
- 3-day travelling montage*
We come across a ravine w/ 2 bridges. Many many caverns converge here. Caverns appear to come from different time periods.
- Some paths are crudely constructed ("woods trails")
- not all look like caverns - some look like:
- sleek white metal
- forest paths
- materials we don’t recognize
(tower from before was on a causeway)
An Unlikely Friend
Don feels heavy footsteps coming from somewhere in this cavern
Basilisk appears:
- Basilisks can turn people to stone w/ eye contact.
- This one intentionally averts its gaze and warns us of this effect.
- talks?
- "You can hear me." That means you're supposed to come to… [Gravenhollow]
- "I remember everything that comes through these doors… but I can't remember right now"
- "Being out here is messing with my temporal… [something]"
The Basilisk beckons for us to follow it, as one of us is worthy of entering Gravenhollow.
Atlan has everyone wait, reminding them that we are not yet unseen to Fraz.
Necalli then calls out to Fraz, taunting him…
Poking the Prince
Fraz appears - big form.
He kinda angy after Necalli insults him.
Fraz-Urb'luu unleashes a 7th level magic missile at Necalli, but it is counterspelled.
Donaar dives for his beard hair, but Fraz's eyes flare (CHA save) and, immediately, the distance between him and Donaar appears to stretch and warp. Don falls short, missing his target.
Fraz returns with a powerful punch to both Don and Necalli. Then his visage appears next to and bites Atlan.
Fae hits Fraz with a barrage of Unarmed Strikes.
Atlan casts Holy Weapon on Necalli and Fae, then blasts Fraz with Eldritch Blast (2/3).
Don, standing face-to-face with the demon prince, presses the forbidden button on his firework cannon. A massive blast of fire erupts at Fraz from close range, heavily impacting into his side. Don then tries to grab for his beard:
O_O
Don fails to pull anything free and is now hanging by Fraz's jaw.
Fae unleashes a massive flurry of blows for a total of 50 magical punching and radiant damage.
Fraz casts Mirage arcane, turning the entire area around us into sticky, gooey oil. Dex saves for us… All save but Atlan
Necalli rolls a natural 20 on his attack, dealing 144 damage, healing himself to full, and knocking Fraz's bottom jaw clean off.
Necalli Crit again, this time dealing a 170 dmg (%current health damage BB), and crashes his maul into the Demon Prince's exposed upper jaw.
Few more turns, Atlan Synaptic Static
Fraz teleports away, sending out a wave of psychic dissonance, leaving us each with a flaw causing us to intermittently experience hallucinations.
As he leaves, he says "This is round 1…"
Gravenhollow?
Basilisk leads us to a wall, asks for the worthy one of us, tells us to open the door. We don’t see that door
We think the worthy one is Donaar.
Fae sees a flat handprint at the center of the wall. Perfectly pized for her hand. She places her hand on it. Out of Fae's hand, multicolored veins of light shoot across the wall, splitting the wall in two, revealing the interior of Gravenhollow.
We make our way inside.
Gravenhollow.
Find an even larger gate, guarded by 2 enormous stone giants.
More and more of these various passageways.
Small creatures with mechanical wings. Little automatons. Mechanical bronze shell encapsulating a grey spherical body with 1-3 eyes.
We enter through the gates.
While inside, we seem to understand all languages. People are free to come and go, according to one of the giants outside.
We are left in a somewhat disappointingly simple library foyer
The little spherical things can understand me I think. -- It calls another, w/ 2 eyes instead of 1, then calls 1 w/ 3 eyes - this one has legs -
These winged (and occasionally legged) 1-3 eyed creatures are called Modrons (MOH-drons).
"A Blue Dragonborn Lady"
Don finds blue dragonborn lady!? ( I was afk when this started ) "I'm Marina"
Don: "Why are you the only one that survived everything!?" while kicking at her.
She sort of glitches around the kick. "That's not how it works here, you're going to get the big guy called on us"
"I'm technically not here where you are, and you're technically not here where I am "
(This is all happening away from the rest of the group. A modron led Donaar here. The rest of the group stayed behind.)
Donaar is confused.
Marina: "You not knowing what you're doing is making this much more difficult."
Don: "I left the village when I was 5 years old, taught to fight by some guy in the forest. You're the only one that left the village alive. It's weird, I want to kill ya."
Marina: "Sit down & talk… Do you know who attacked your village?"
Don: "the dark elves"
Marina: "The drow, yes. They attacked the village because I took something from them"
Don: "I still want to kill ya, go on"
Marina: "I was hired by some force -I still don’t' know who- to take a book from an archmage and bring it here so it could [not be used again(?)]. I was caught, and this is the greatest shame of my life: I told them that I hid the book back in my village."
Don: "…I don't forgive you… I want you to know that"
Marina: "I don't expect you to forgive me."
Don: "What this about you having seen me…? Did you know my parents?"
Marina: "I did know them, for a time. Sit…"
Food appears.
"We have every imaginable iteration of this drink…"
Fae and a Friendly Archmage
Atlan and Necalli walk off
Fae hears "Hmm… Interesting…" from behind her. She turns and sees the oldest drow she has ever seen in her life.
"Why are you in my library" "Honestly the details of these things get a little jumbled to me. I think we're looking for something." "I'd assume so…"
Vizirin Devir.
"Your name and house?"
"Faerel, no house"
"Oh, you're a peon"
"What's a peon"
"A country bumpkin"
(further back-and-forth)
Vizeran begins twirling his fingers, as purple strands of light begin twirling around his fingers. "You are of lesser status, and did not show respect, do you know who you are talking to?"
"you are not worth my time, I'd better spend my time talking to my butler" "You have a butler here" "no" "then we're the same, I don't have a butler either"
He turns away and casts magic missile over the shoulder for 7 force damage, walking away.
Fae runs after him. "AND THAT'S JUST RUDE" -> Casts fireball Vizirin snaps his fingers and a ward shaped like a stopwatch appears, and he vanishes. The books are fine.
The Red Mage
Atlan, searching to red mage
Asks the modrons:
"Can you take me to the red mage"
Atlan is walking for what feels like forever, every so often catching a flourish of red, telling him the direction to go. Finally arrives
She says "I feel like we should know each other."
"We do. Sort of."
-- Session End --
Summary (TL;DR)
We follow the Ring from Vizeran DeVir's tower to a series of caverns, which seem to all come from different times.
We meet a Basilisk which speaks to us and is friendly. It wishes to lead us to Gravenhollow.
We decide to first deal with Fraz. We intend to simply take some of his essence, so that we may hide from him with the Blinders of Blinding, but he is angry, so we instead simply beat him until he flees. (2x Necalli nat 20 for 300+ dmg)
Basilisk leads us to a wall. It tells us that the one who is worthy can see the door. We make room for Donaar, but he sees nothing. Fae takes a look and sees a handprint perfectly sized for her. Places her hand in it, door opens. We enter Gravenhollow. (pass through second set of gates w/ stone-giant guards). Can understand all languages inside the library, or so it seems.
Don finds Blue Dragonborn Lady. Her name is Marina. More info above. (Lore drop!)
Fae meets Vizeran DeVir he is not friendly. Sneers at her upon learning that she has no house. Mini chaos ensues between the two, they end up casting spells at each other as he is leaving (but he does indeed leave). He has the air of someone very powerful.
Necalli gets a little lost.
Atlan seeks out the "red mage." Finds her.
End session.