Beybulat Tasho – Human Galmarian Swashbuckler and only member of the Notorious Nine on this expedition. Still a little confused about the details of what is going on but happy to be traveling with new folks for a bit.
Kelathadan (aka Kelli) – Elf Rogue. Continuing to follow along and hang back until it’s time for action, at which point she proves deadly when her rapiers and daggers find the backs of her enemies.
Fernith (aka Fern) – Half-elf ranger. Twin sister of Fynn and deadly archer. Although not necessarily thrilled to dealing with fiery threats she’d never allow Fynn to go into danger on his own.
Fynnhannar (aka Fynn) – Half-elf sorcerer with an affinity for fire. Twin brother of Fern and absolutely thrilled to be traveling into a fiery realm on the Astral plane. Accompanied by his rat familiar, Mr. Cheese.
Jasper Conroy – Human cleric and something of an unofficial father figure for Fynn and Fern. Finds traveling to new lands and having new experiences to be something of a religious requirement.
Skolax – Gargoyle NPC sent along to help the group by his master, Wrylish the Wizard.
Date unknown, Swallowed City, Astral Plane
The group proceeded to the warehouse to finding a large building seemingly without any windows. Jasper gathered everyone around to administer some healing after their recent skirmish and they approached the building.
Jasper advocated just charging in, feeling that with the Traveler protecting them and Bey’s assistance they would overpower any opposition. Fynn agreed to the plan with a shrug and a muttered “Ok.”
Fynn cast a magic detection divination through the door, revealing that beyond the door was mid-powered illusion magic in one area. He shared this information with his companions.
“There are child hostages within,” Jasper warned. “So try not to let them murder the children…”
With that Jasper gestured for Bey to kick in the door. Bey snuck up to the door and tried to listen at the door, hearing what might have been footsteps moving past the door. He decided to see if he could access the building from the roof and with a few swift jumps found himself upon the roof, and found a hatch that led down.
Bey gestured to the others, urging them to join him on the roof and go through the hatch, and they moved to join him. Once they were all on the roof, Bey moved to the hatch found that it was locked. They lacked a way to open it, but there was also a vent on the roof.
Peering through the vent they could partially see some fiery figures patrolling. Fynn drew a wand and used it to turn Fern into a gaseous form so she could get inside. Once inside, Fern realized she would be spotted soon should she become corporeal again. She did so, and immediately cast a spell to allow her to blend into the surroundings.
She made her way to the hatch and opened it as stealthy as she could, allowing those on the roof to get inside. They saw several dwarf like creatures with fiery heads patrolling as well as different larger creature. Jasper suggested that the dwarf creatures were Azers while the larger creature was an Ifreet and was probably Rannog.
Fynn peered down and cast a spell on the fiery head of one of the dwarf creatures causing it’s fire to explode into a massive fireworks display, blinding one of the creatures, but not affecting Rannog at all.
Kelli leaped into the building, landing gracefully thanks to magical boots she wore and moved towards Rannog. Meanwhile the Azers began moving into position, with the blinded one feeling his way along one of the many towers of crates and leaving smoldering sparks behind in the wood.
Rannog spotted Fern coming down the ladder and moved back to a defensive position and drew his sword. He gestured for Fern to attack him and said “Come to me mortal, and fall upon my blade.”
Fynn cast Feather Fall on himself, Jasper, Bey and Fern and they all leaped through the hatch, floating gently to the ground. As soon as he landed Fynn muttered “This goes against everything I believe in…” to himself and summoned an large Ice Elemental to engage Rannog. The creature had no sooner appeared than a magical energy cage appeared around it. Rannog repeated himself, pointing to the entire group now. “Come mortals, and fall upon my blade.” Fynn too decided to repeat himself, by summoning another Ice Elemental in response.
The new elemental started trying to pummel Rannog and the attacks just passed straight through the creature. He again gestured at them and repeated himself a third time “Come mortal, and fall upon my blade.”
“Ugh..he’s an illusion,” Fynn declared with disgust. “Don’t even bother with it.”
Fern, while falling with Fynn’s spell, pushed herself onto a stack of barrels, and Bey clambered up behind her. Skollax swooped through the hatch with his wings open to float down to the floor safely.
Bey noticed one of the stacked crates moving and pointed it out, suggesting there was an animal in there, though Jasper quickly posited that it might be one of the town’s children they were there to get. Bey ran off to join the battle, but Jasper went to investigate it, and his arm seemed to reach through the crate and he found he was holding the muscular leg of a humanoid. Taken aback he exclaimed “Who are you?! Friend of or Foe?” but he received no response.
Several of the Azer attacked Fynn’s Ice Elemental, though it was able to evade. Fynn climbed up onto the crates and used his Wand of Ice Storm to conjure a storm in the middle of the warehouse, killing four of the Azer’s immediately.
Two Janni suddenly came bursting from the small closed office, enlarging themselves to twice their size at the sight of the heroes though Fern, from her new vantage, fired a hail of arrows at one of them with several striking home. Bey followed up by leaping off the crates onto the same Janni, mortally wounding the creature.
Kelli, still invisible, slipped behind one of the Azer and cut him to ribbons, somewhat dismayed that the creature seemed sadly resigned to his death.
Meanwhile, the leg Jasper found ripped itself out of his grasp and the real Rannog appeared behind Jasper. With a word of magic his enormous blade burst into flame and he slashed at Jasper, his blade glancing off a magical protection spell that was on the cleric. Rannog screamed in a rage at this failure.
Fynn, seeing Rannog attacking Jasper drew a wand and fired a thin green beam of light that enveloped Rannog and he bellowed in rage and agony. The Ifreet survived the Disintegration but was left horribly wounded. Jasper attempted to scramble away from Rannog, climbing up the crates, narrowly avoiding a slash from his flaming sword. Jasper called on The Traveler and blindly fired a Spear of Purity behind him, though Rannog dodged it. Finally atop the crate, Jasper fully swiveled and followed up with a casting of Holy Smite, injuring the Ifreet further.
Meanwhile the Janni counter attack Bey, slashing at the Galmarian while the other turned himself invisible. Kelli, still invisible, charged up beside Bey and stabbed the large Jani that was still visible. Bey followed up by cutting the Janni down before it could do anything further.
Fern, seeing Jasper in trouble, shot Rannog with a flaming arrow and Skollax leaped onto the boxes and interposed himself between Rannog and Jasper, missing him with his claws. In response Rannog fired two fiery rays at Jasper and Skollax, missing the former and striking the latter. They were soon joined by Fynn’s summoned Ice Elemental, which engaged Rannog from behind while he focused on Jasper and Skollax.
Fynn then drew forth a petrified eye and fired a greenish/purplish beam of light that struck Rannog and very obviously drained his power. At the same time, the other Janni attacked Jasper from behind, turning visible as he did so. The blow struck the cleric, wounding him. Jasper fell back in response, drawing and chugging a Potion of Bull Strength as he went. Fern pivoted, firing on the Janni and filling him full of arrows. Skollax followed up, leaping on the Janni attacking it furiously with claws, teeth and horns. Kelli charged up and followed Skolax’s attack with a rapier to the back of the creature. Bey followed along behind, charging up to the Janni and finishing the creature off.
Rannog fell back, his back against a set of double doors, and magically erected a Wall of Fire to try to defend against the Ice Elemental, but the creature just charged through the stacked boxes and crates around the Wall of Fire. Fynn, from his invisible perch let loose with a flurry of Magic Missiles, slamming Rannog into the doors over and over until he finally slumped to the ground, unconscious or dead.
The wall continued to burn, however, catching the crates aflame. They began to fall back, searching for the missing children. Bey searched the office where the Janni had been, finding lots of paperwork related to operating a warehouse, but nothing that helped determine where any children might be hidden.
“Fynn, put out the fire!” Kelli urged.
“I start them, I don’t put them out,” the half-elf deadpanned back. He did have his conjured Ice Elemental begin moving flammable objects out of the path of the rapidly expanding fire though.
Jasper, looking around with a Detect Magic spell active, soon located a large area with illusion magic. A moment later he was able to pierce the illusion, seeing a cage with several children in it, screaming for help but silenced so none could hear them. As he approached the cage his voice cut out, due to the Silence spell obviously on the children.
Bey followed Jasper after a moment, but as the cleric was within the illusion, saw nothing, and it seemed as if he had simply vanished! He called to the others, informing them that Jasper had vanished.
Kelli and the twins came to investigate, with Fynn using Detect Magic to promptly realize that there was an illusion. This announcement allowed Fern to see through the illusion, where she saw Jasper smashing at the door of the cage with a club, but of course they could not hear him.
Jasper and Fynn managed to break the door and lead the children out, shocking Bey who still had not managed to see through the illusion.
The children began to panic about the fire. “It’ll burn the ship!” one of them said.
“What ship?!” Jasper asked.
“There’s a ship on the other side of those doors. The mean fire man made us clean it all the time!”
Realizing that the ship might be the vessel they need to reach their destination Fynn pulled out his wand and cast another Ice Storm to put out most of the fire. Jasper urged the children to go and find their parents while the rest of them went through the double doors Rannog had died near.
They found a strange ship in the next room, with odd fins and unusual sails. It was about 80’ long and around 20’ wide and could no doubt hold a good amount of cargo and crew. Even without the benefit of divination spells, Fynn and Jasper could tell the ship was incredibly magical.
Exploring the ship revealed some muffled noises below deck at the fore of the ship. As they went below decks and got closer they heard two voices, one that was still clearing calling for help and another that they could not make out the language of.
Bey went to the door where the man inside was speaking common and kicked the door down. Within they found an older man, who appeared somewhat burned. He introduced himself as Rhoderes.
“Ah, yes! the town wizard!” Bey declared. “They are wizard too!” he said, gesturing to Fynn and Jasper.
“No,” Fynn answered, annoyed.
“Close, I guess.” Jasper retorted.
They told Rhoderes that they slew Rannog and saved the children. He asked why they were here and they explained they sought the Planar Key of fire.
“Then the gods have sent you here to me,” Rhoderes said. “I have seen it. Rannog’s allies, Vrenex, a creature that calls itself a Draconian, and a ratman called Squik all serve a creature called the Dark Star . If you seek the Planar Key, you must know of the sphere.”
When they confessed they did not, he informed them that the creature that Rannog, Vrenex, and Squick worked for had pulled a star from its original location and housed it within a sphere that was shielded. He advised them they would have to go through the Ithonnak Expanse and disable the shield to access the Sun Sphere and reach the Planar Key. “They forced me to help them in these endeavors, but I can help you defeat them.”
Rhoderes advised that there was a Rougarou named Sek that the djinn had enslaved to help them operate the ship and that he could help them. Realizing that this must be the creature in the other room that was not speaking common. They released Sek and he seemed willing to help.
Fynn cast a spell that let him communicate with Sek, and he proved highly articulate and explained that the ship, the Prisim, was his ship before he was captured by Rannog and forced to serve them. Sek immediately agreed to pilot the ship for them.
The group retreated back to town to visit Rhoderes’ magic shop to acquire anything they might need for the coming battle. Making use of the pocket of real time that Rhoderes maintained his his store to rest and recover spells.
“DM’s” Notes: A fun, exciting fight! With Rannog defeated and the children of the Swallowed City safe, our heroes can move on in their search for the Planar Key of Fire. The main question, however, is who all these baddies call master?
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