Session 20+

Errrr.... um.... a bunch of stuff happened. It was a long time ago. Let's see if I can recall.

Vallana was cornered by the oncoming hairy masses and had both her arms torn off, then she was thrown over the side of the stair and splatted on the rocks below. Since she was already dead, this didn't actually slow her down too much.

The party had a fight with a bunch of githyanki on the lowest bridge. The githyanki managed to free the huge demon in the water and then buggered off back to their lair on the Astral Plane; unfortunately Justin managed to grapple one of them just as they blinked out and was taken back with them. No doubt he fought bravely and briefly before being killed by swarms of psionic killing machines.

Vallana got her arms stuck back on somehow; I really don't recall how, though I strongly suspect fairy involvement. Anyway, she thought she might be able to grab the Heart of the Maiden right out of the demon's chest using her Uncanny Undead Monster powers. Regrettably, she failed to take into account the fact that the demon was pretty much red-hot lava all the way through, and instead of grabbing anything she found herself bursting into flames and burning to death. Undeath. Redeath. Whatever. Anyway, she made recourse to that last resort of adventurers everywhere when they suffer the well-deserved penalty for their actions, and squealed to the Goddess for help, and lo! The dice were kind. Not only did she not end up a crispy cinder, but she got un-undeaded to boot. She's now a firm and committed convert to the worship of the Maiden.

Pandora flew up and investigated the Illithid lair, and found (among other things) a pretty little wind-up golden doll, which (being incurably curious) she wound up. Thus joined the party the tiny, but perfectly-formed, Sir Basil de Brass, a clockwork self-willed psionic automaton.

With all the Big Bad Guys taken care of (as far as they knew), the party eventually made their way up to the lair of the Mind Flayers. Fortunately nobody was zapped by the flesh-disolving field that barred the way, and they met up with Sir Basil either before or after a bit of a stouch with a badly-wounded but still psychically dangerous Mind Flayer. They also found another one in a regeneration tank and did something unpleasant to it before setting out to systematically loot the place of everything they could find. I seem to recall an incident with a fire-trap which almost killed somebody (and, incidentally, also destroyed most of the Good Stuff they were looking for). They did get some stuff though; I forget precisely what, though Barsh managed to avail himself of a Rod of Via'Gra embedded in one of the posts from a four-poster bed which led him to some truly un-monkly excesses over the following weeks.

Eventually they made their way up to the top-most chambers of the lair. Sir Basil was on recon duty, since the way up to it was defended by another flesh-destroying field, and he got up into a small round chamber with a mandala-like pattern inlaid in the floor. For some reason he thought it would be a good idea to trace the pattern — as it turned out, it was an astoundingly bad idea since all it did was open him up to cross-planar domination by an Illithid lord who promptly paralysed him and Gated in with several of his cronies. He dropped some kind of magical hand-grenade down the shaft which Barsh caught — fortunately, as it turned out, since it meant that everyone had a little more time to react as it split open and started pouring out thousands of flesh-eating flying insects. Pandora tried to trap them by turning the air into honey; her initial attempt was only marginally successful, but when she tried again she inadvertantly created enough honey to fill not only the entire chamber the party was in, but also enough to geyser up the shaft and fill the upper chamber as well! The Illithid lord managed to Gate out again, as did two of his cronies, but one was drowned in honey up above and the other fell down the shaft through the anti-flesh field when she dispelled the effect. Fortunately none of the good guys were drowned, though somebody (Barsh, I think) came within a gnat's whisker of being dead again.

A cut-scene ensued, since none of us really felt like role-playing through the long and tedious climb back out to the surface. I was a little surprised, considering the notorious aquisitiveness of players in general, that nobody thought to loot the bodies of either of the two Mind-Flayers killed in the Great Honey Fiasco, but there you go. They made it back up to Clancappail and did some stuff. Vallana gave a party, Barsh donated the Rod of Via'Gra to a bordello. Tallis went back to the Chapter House to report and get re-equipped. Then our heroes left the city to head down south on their quest to the Anforaois.

It was about then that somebody remembered that their guide to the Great Forest (Kaelli, the Wild Elf) had been dissolved by a hideous slime-monster some weeks earlier. D'oh!

Some stuff ensued. I seem to recall a wayside inn being burned down — not entirely the fault of the party, but they were definitely involved. Pandora turned a hedgehog into a horse so that she could free the real horse. Barsh was almost killed again, this time by some sort of tree-monster. The party crossed a river infested, supposedly, by some kind of terrible monster, which was never actually seen. They're now making their way inland, preparing to make the climb over the Pass of Dunatis to the lands on the eastern side of the Serpent's Spine.