Everyone is very normal today! Bruce (Grenville d'Tharashk) proclaims that he is the most normal of all. Chris (Thaiphong) takes issue with this statement. In dramatic protest, he upends a three-liter bottle of buttermilk and drinks it in a single mighty draught. "Blauugh!" Chuck (Ashe) shudders a bit at the thought of rivers of gullet-bound buttermilk, but still offers a determined defense to his own claim of exceptional normalcy through a demonstration involving three bricks and a nutcracker. Paul can only barely bring himself to watch. His eyes tightly closed, he proclaims that he is both normal and artistic before plunging his face into a huge pot of blue paint. Tim (Doc Lungpuncture) sits quietly by, resolving, "I shall distinguish myself this week by being the only mature adult in the group." Ernest (Kurgash) mistakes Tim's restraint for shyness and tries to help by offering, "Here! Have a tear from my roast kangaroo leg! It's aborigiriffic!" Peco (Solmar) thinks to himself, "I hope this isn't representative of the way these yodels behave all the time..." Only Billy (Secheck) remains safe, but only because he is laid up with a serious case of the creeping dropsy and skipped the game.
The characters ended the last session in de facto possession of several floors of the Excoria Tower, having previously cleared them of an insect-ogre infestation at great personal risk. They look the place over and decide that they'd like to stay a while, not least because they need a place to stay in Sharn anyway.
Accordingly, Grenville Temban d'Tharashk seeks out the barrister who represents the family that owns the Excoria Tower. He ends up having several meetings with the guy and eventually manages to get him to agree to provide the characters a perpetual lease to their six floors for a fee of 1000 gold. Grenville gets the idea that the family's title to the tower is based in large part upon several archaic "laws", and he is somewhat suspicious that the family continues to exist only as a convenient legal fiction. He covers half of the cost. Thaiphong covers another 300 gold, with Kurgash and Ashe each covering half of the remainder. Grenville gives the money to the barrister, and he provides a massive amount of paperwork, deeds and contracts and so on in return. The most important of these includes the obligation to pay taxes to the city, which amounts to 50 gold/year for the property itself; the barrister warns that setting up additional businesses in the tower may include additional tax liability.
The net effect of this maneuvering is to get the characters the legal use of six floors in an annex off the main Excoria Tower. The characters have already explored three of them. The two upper levels are blocked off by rubble and the lowest level remains unexplored but accessible.
Kurgash devotes himself to removing the rubble blocking the upper floors. He disposes of it by dropping it to the streets below. Lungpuncture joins in, taking advantage of the fact that he never gets tired. They quickly find out that the reason the top two floors were blocked off was that they're partially collapsed and easy to pierce. He grumbles, "Oohh... That's going to cost us a lot of scratch to fix. We're going to have to find the best roofmaker in Sharn and see if he's got an adventure he wants to send us on."
Then there is the lowest floor. It turns out that it doesn't really have a door or stairway to access the levels beneath it. It looks like it was intended as a basement or storeroom, with the notion that the characters' six-level complex would be a sort of building-within-a-building. The characters figure out that there is actually a neighborhood underneath it, and if they were able to knock a hole through the floor and install a stairway that would provide a way for people to get to the tavern the characters expect to open.
Having spent at least ten minutes watching Kurgash and Lungpuncture engaging in honest work, Grenville promptly goes out to buy some new clothing. He spends 200 gold on a suit fit to make a courtesan blush. Or would that be "courtier"; Grenville can never quite tell the difference.
His tailoring done, Grenville heads straight for Ye Olde Arcane Scroll Emporium, where he spends 350 gold for two Shield scrolls, one Bear's Endurance scroll, and one Scorching Ray scroll.
Thaiphong heads to the milliners' to purchase a hat with a big floppy brim to keep the sun out of his eyes. He tells the others, "I like that new hat. I think it screams, 'I have a lot of money, but not a lot of sense.'"
Ashe, Thaiphong and Grenville put together 1000 gold for furnishing and repairs to their new home (Ashe 200, Thaiphong 500, Grenville 300). By the time they're done the place is still somewhat rough, but habitable. Ashe marvels, "And with the potpourri it barely even smells like insect-ogre wastes!"
Grenville reminds him, "The potpourri was my idea. You wanted to go with Thaiphong's plan of buying up kerosene and simply burning the smell off."
Ashe doesn't reply. Thaiphong makes significant gestures towards a can of kerosene.
The characters finally decide that they have settled in enough and need to find some work. They head over to the House Tharashk offices and talk to their new friend Snyder Abbrotaba, head of the local branch. He indicates that no matter how little he might appreciate the characters' high-impact strategy, it has attracted another client, a Shifter named Martin Leaps-the-Towers. He has a strangely flattened nose and flaps of skin between his fingers, and a terrible problem: his sister was kidnapped by slavers. Predictably, he wants the characters to hunt down the slavers and bring his sister back. He explains that he has heard of the characters' reputation in the Marches and thinks they would be just the sort of folk for the job.
He tells the characters that his sister is a shifter with brown hair. She isn't a man-bat like he is. The slavers were monks, human or maybe elves, and they kidnapped her in a foreign nation far from Sharn.
After providing some particulars, he admits, "I'm afraid that I don't have much to offer. I can provide free travel because I have deals with House Lyrandar. You will need to travel to the Blade Desert on the Talenta Plains. She was kidnapped from Kashral Oasis."
Lungpuncture grunts, "Halflings. I like that desert. Desert's where I'm a giant."
Grenville asks, "Not a Viking?"
Lungpuncture clarifies, "Nope. Never been a Viking."
Martin offers the characters a family heirloom Ring of Counterspells that Solmar appraises at 4000 gold.
Grenville tells the others, "I say we do it."
Solmar perks up, "I say we do her!"
Grenville scowls at the dwarf, "Ot-nay in ont-fray of the ient-clay!"
Thaiphong makes sure that Martin provides a letter describing the characters and asserting that they are in fact working for him.
Grenville goes off to buy a map of the Blade Desert. He quickly discovers that obtaining quality information about the place in the open market is quite a task: most merchants purporting to have maps of the area do not strike him as being anything close to reputable. Most of them seem to think that the Blade Desert is transplanted directly from the Arabian Nights, just with halflings instead of humans. Grenville leaves the market empty-handed, but confused about where he would have ever heard of the Arabian Nights.
A direct airship trip to the Blade Desert would be about five days nonstop. The actual scheduled time will be seven days because the airship makes several stops along the way. Martin Leaps-the-Towers is good to his promise, and provides round-trip tickets. The airship will dock at Gatherhold, some distance from the Kashral Oasis.
Lungpuncture says, "Hey! Elf-star, Grenville and bugbear-guy, you get Endure Elements. Enjoy the breezy winds."
Thaiphong mentions, "He's actually a dwarf, you know."
Lungpuncture points out, "I can also produce twelve gallons of water per day, for those of you who are not enjoying the calm protections of magic." Then Lungpuncture goes off and gets himself painted sand-yellow.
This is the characters' first time aboard a House Lyrandar airship. The vessel is very impressive. It is huge, and features a big ring of fire around its midsection.
Kurgash examines the ring and tells the others, "That can't be safe. I'm completely certain that it isn't natural."
Lungpuncture asks the others, "Is this thing built to code?" as he rather nervously looks around for crewmen.
Thaiphong is deaf to the others' concerns. He mumbles, "If I only had a stick, I could cook this swamp-rat!" He brought a writhing sack of the things on board, explaining that he got a special on live horrid rats at the marketplace. He notices the other characters' horrified expressions as he draws one out of the sack, and attempts to explain, "Sure, they've got horns and scales and poison and acid and disease and ill temper, but they're good eating."
Thaiphong offers, "No wonder you have it on a stick."
Lungpuncture asks Ashe, "You ever wondered what it looks like when a bugbear gets sucked into a jet engine?"
The airship travels at the unnatural speed of twenty miles per hour, so Sharn vanishes into the distance surprisingly quickly.
Gatherhold is completely rife with the citified kind of halflings. The tribal ones seem to give the place wide berth. Thaiphong tries to find some local garb in his size while the others buy tents and whatnot. Lungpuncture very helpfully points out, "I can walk day and night and never get tired and never suffer from heat exhaustion, but for some reason I know a lot about desert survival."
Grenville expends money, Sense Motive and Gather Information on finding a reliable local guide. He comes up with Gallen Bluescale, a halfling rider on board a clawfoot. Grenville offers Gallen a pay rate of one gold per day. The speed with which the tribesman accepts makes Grenville suspect that the value of a gold piece locally may be higher than he is used to.
Lungpuncture just can't take his eyes off Gallen's lizard. He prods it with a stick and hoots, "It's a dire gecko!"
Kurgash comments, "I want one of them things the stormtroopers ride! I want a dewback!"
Thaiphong replies, "Grwaawnk!"
Kurgash just stares at the bugbear in disbelief. Thaiphong fails to vanish.
Grenville goes looking for camels to ride. He finds the creatures for sale at a price of 75 gold each. He offers 300 for five of them. The camel dealer agrees. "Here you are! Five camels."
Thaiphong observes the transaction and celebrates, "Woohoo! When do we eat!"
Lungpuncture comes back with some kind of forbidden half-breed of a lizard and a horse. He comments, "This is a camel!"
Ashe peers into one of its misshapen eyes and muses, "That looks like one of them 'apprentice-bred' animals."
Grenville casts Friendly Face and starts asking people about slavers and the Kashral Oasis. He learns that slavers are making raids on small communities on the desert's edge. The problem started about a month ago. There are also rumors of a large black monolith thrust up through the desert sands during a recent earthquake. Several local scholars and archaeologists are planning expeditions there.
Kurgash comments, "Apparently those lace-pants scientists don't have nearly the recklessness of PC's. Give us some tents and we're off!"
Kashral is a small caravan oasis on the edge of the desert. It consists of two pools of water circled by date palms. The place is run by Samuel d'Gallanda, a member of House Gallanda. He is reputed to be a fair-dealing sort of guy.
People think the slavers are monks of some obscure order. They fight without weapons. Nobody really knows where they came from. They travel through the desert on foot. They are humans, or human-like.
The characters take off, at night, on their camels, to the Kashral Oasis.
The oasis is rimmed with billowy tents trimmed in purple and gold. The center of the compound is dominated by a twenty-foot water tower covered in tribal halfling designs. The characters put their camels up at the Gallanda House, where Samuel d'Gallanda himself greets them. He's an obese halfling with long, oiled hair pulled back.
Lungpuncture takes a look at the halfling oasis-master and exclaims, "It's like a short Grenville!"
Kurgash comments, "He looks like something you might see at Dragon's Lair!"
Samuel has some sworn warriors around to protect the place. They're carrying two-handed tangats that look pretty nasty and they seem to have their doubts about the characters' good intentions. Kurgash decides that he'd like to get one to put on his wall at home. "A tangat? Or a halfling?" "Whatever."
Grenville explains the characters' mission to Samuel, who is moderately impressed. He lets the characters stay in his guest tent for the time they're at the oasis. He's seen slavers on trade routes, headed into the deep desert and describes them as well armed.
Lungpuncture points out, "But they're monks!"
Samuel reflects, "Hmm... That's a good point."
The slavers have been scaring off the traders, which is bad for his business. But Samuel is confident: he has hired Karnos, the half-orc mercenary, to investigate, and he's confident that the fellow will show the slavers who's boss. Karnos sounds very tough, or very overconfident: he went out into the desert two days ago, following a fresh set of tracks, accompanied just by his horse.
There's also an elf scholar named Gazila here. Samuel advises Grenville, "You should talk to her about the desert." The characters go talk to her. Her tent is pleasantly cool and lit by two crystals, one yellow and one purple. The effect is very strange. The floor is decorated with a finely woven carpet depicting a battle between a couatl and a rakshasa aboard a manticore. Gazila is bronze-skinned elf with blue eyes that match her sapphire earrings.
She flutters her long lashes and asks Grenville, "Are you interested in desert ruins and rock formations?"
Grenville hesitates. Ashe elbows him. Grenville blurts out, "Yes! Yes I am!"
The others leave the tent. Grenville doesn't emerge for hours. Ashe comments, "Let's have some dung-beetle races to pass the time!"
Thaiphong replies, "Let's find some food. We're going to die soon." He takes the other characters to go look for beer; they are not disappointed.
Meanwhile, Gazila tells Grenville about an ancient city called Annak-Saul long lost out in the desert. She thinks that the obelisk may have risen at the ancient site of Annak-Saul. Legends tell that the ancient city was consumed in a vortex of fire. Legends also tell of the Order of the Obsidian Eye, founded by the ancient ruler of Annak-Saul. She still hears rumors that they're active and follow a mysterious master called the Harbinger.
Grenville trusts her implicitly. He reasons, "All female elves have Adam's apples."
The other characters disdain talking to scholars in favor of speaking to local drunks. Solmar learns that they're living in a desert. Lungpuncture learns that the Annak were hobgoblins who were masters of arcane magic, which allowed them to prosper. On the minus side, they were arrogant and into inbreeding so the quality of their rulers dropped over the generations. Annak IX was so crazed he killed off his own people. He gathered his faithful, sent half of them into desert, prepared the other half for entombment, and then did something that consumed the whole city in flames. Lungpuncture groans, "So we're gonna have to fight undead ninja hobgoblin mages."
Ashe reassures him, "Fortunately, they're only CR5."
Thaiphong wanders around asking about the slaver raid. Turns out that the slavers didn't actually make it into town, but the girl the characters are looking for was definitely staying here. She was out exploring away from the town when they took her. She'd tried to be a relic hunter but she didn't do well at the racket, so she ended up just working as a laborer in town. She was a very strong woman.
Kurgash refuses any meat the halflings offer him.
Shortly after sundown, a large half-orc in chainmail rides lazily into town on a massive charger. A blindfolded human staggers behind him. Everyone comes over to see.
Thaiphong yells, "Karnos! Is it true you're a mercenary!" But he doesn't yell very loudly. Karnos grunts back. Thaiphong notes that the half-orc is a bit dodgy and keeps his face concealed.
Karnos ignores the other townsfolk. He heads straight to Samuel and announces, "I have captured a slaver leader! And captured this runestone! Have Gazila look at it!" Samuel beams and invites Karnos into his tent.
Thaiphong warns the characters, "I don't think that's the real Karnos!" The characters follow Karnos into the guest tent. Gazila joins them in time to see Karnos hand the box to Samuel.
Thaiphong comments to Karnos, "I don't think you're the real Karnos. Who are you really?"
Karnos takes off his helmet. At the same time, the prisoner shrugs off his bonds. His blindfold actually comes off on its own. Thaiphong mentions, "I'm expecting him to have a face, but I bet I'm going to be surprised."
Thaiphong, Grenville and Kurgash all find that the false Karnos and the human slaver have strangely hypnotic eyes. They fall blissfully into sleep. Kurgash mourns, "I love the way in 3.5 gaze attacks are 360°. I mean, I was standing behind that guy and suddenly it's nappy-time..." Samuel and his guards also crumple.
Gazila aims a Wand of Magic Missiles at the slaver leader and shoots him. She bemoans her crappy spell list.
And then the jackalweres transform. Lungpuncture mourns, "Things just keep getting better and better."
Solmar's brief victory celebration for staying awake ends. He goes to sleep.
And then the Invisible jackalwere appears next to the "slaver" to cast Sunstroke at Gazila. She saves the first time, then fails the second time. She decides that now would definitely be a good time to rethink her morning spell selections. Agonize Jackalwere and Protection from Jackalweres both sound good, and would leave her with plenty of slots for Bullup's Jackalwere Blinding Blades.
Lungpuncture wakes up Thaiphong and Grenville as the jackalweres draw out scimitars and kukris. Grenville keeps his eyes tightly closed as he breaks out into song.
Meanwhile, Ashe finds out that a jackalwere can attack four times. He is out-and-out shocked. He is even more shocked when his return strike misses. Apparently the jackalwere has a good natural armor bonus, great Dexterity, and studded leather armor.
Gazila hides behind Grenville. Grenville complains, "She's trying to hide behind me? And she thinks that's safe?"
Lungpuncture replies, "Hey, you're the one who spent hours talking her up yesterday,. You can't complain when she comes to you for help in the fight later on." Once again, she nails the jackalwere druid with a couple of Magic Missiles.
Thaiphong and Ashe suck up a lot of hits. Fortunately, the jackalweres go more for the multiple small hits than the singular savage hit plan. Thaiphong gets bitten. Lungpuncture mocks him, "Ha ha! You're going to turn into a jackalwere!"
A jackalwere incompetently attacks Grenville with a staff. Grenville is shocked to find that he's unhurt. He celebrates by continuing to sing and dance while he wakes up Solmar.
Lungpuncture casts about for some way to wake Kurgash. Then he realizes, "Create Water has a range! Hah!" Splash! Kurgash wakes up and kicks in the rage. He comes up behind the jackalwere fencing with Thaiphong and delivers a spine-bending axe strike to the creature. The jackalwere notices enough to turn and mock Kurgash, "That didn't hurt near as much as it could! I have damage reduction!"
Thaiphong takes the opportunity to crack the creature in the ribs. The bugbear howls, "Damage Reduce this, you jumped-up excuse for a dingo!"
Then Karnos the jackalwere (facing Thaiphong and Kurgash) backs up and toasts both of them with his Wand of Burning Hands. This actually only toasts them a little bit. Both Thaiphong and Kurgash are more than used to falling into campfires, and take the flames in good stride.
Over on the other side of the tent, Ashe finds himself taking 18 points of damage from scimitar, kukri and bite. Lungpuncture asks, "Are you still up?"
Ashe groans, "Yep. But let's just say I can't take another one of those." Lungpuncture realizes that he can't possibly lumber over to him in time, so he casts Magic Weapon on his sword instead.
Solmar comments, "Let me do something useful instead." He uses an Action Point to infuse Lungpuncture's sword as a Magical Beast Bane weapon.
Ashe tumbles around behind the scimitar-armed jackalwere and pulls the scimitar away with his spiked chain. He crows in triumph, "Now he's only got three attacks per round, instead of four!"
Grenville rolls his eyes, but still decides that he'd better do something useful. He uses Glitterdust to blind the fake Karnos and the jackalwere druid. Kurgash howls, "Dunketa dunketa! Bad dog!" and cracks the fake Karnos. Thaiphong and Gazila cooperate in hurting the druid some more. Lungpuncture mentions, "Gee, she's Johnny-on-the-spot with that wand."
Even blinded, the fake Karnos still manages to critically stab Kurgash. Thaiphong offers, "Isn't that lucky!" Kurgash grouses about the unfairness of it all.
Ashe comments, "Hey, I took one of those and stayed up!"
Lungpuncture decides that the fight has gone on quite long enough and delivers a collarbone-severing attack to the jackalwere druid, who is now looking rather injured. Thaiphong complains, "Why isn't he dead yet? I mean, who knew that a druid could be so tough? Why can't any of our enemies hire the tissue-paper gang? Instead they get something that has damage reduction, tons of hit points, and a gaze attack."
Grenville pulls out a Scorching Ray scroll, finesses his way past three gaze attacks, and instantly incinerates the false Karnos. Whoosh!
Thaiphong sniffs and asks, "Is someone cooking rat?"
Lungpuncture looks towards Grenville to ask, "Why didn't you do that earlier?"
Grenville replies, "I was too busy sleeping. That attack just cost me 150 gold, and it was worth every penny of it."
Kurgash observes, "Gee, Grenville has been really lucky this game. That attack had about twelve possible points of failure." Grenville preens.
The jackalwere druid decides that things are going really badly. He changes into the shape of a jackal and runs out of the tent. His foolhardy compatriot decides to stick around to continue fighting with Ashe. The jackalwere stabs Ashe once in the lung and once in the leg. Thaiphong comments, "He's alive, but he ain't pretty no more."
Lungpuncture thunders after the fleeing jackalwere. He catches up with the unfortunate creature and stomps it druid flat, grousing, "Crap! I only did seventeen points of damage!" Then he examines his work and mourns, "Damn! No way am I gonna be able to get a good-quality pelt off this one."
Ashe hits the remaining jackalwere, then Kurgash outlines the creature on the tent wall with the spittle from his roar and crashes into him to deliver 39 points of damage. Turns out he was a jackalwere ranger. The jackalwere ranger rather weakly moans, "My damage reduction reduced that to only 34..." Then Thaiphong arrives to kick his ass. He is not dead, but very, very unconscious. The characters put a bag over his head.
Ashe points out his various wounds and asks, "Hey Doc! Can you fix this?"
Lungpuncture tells him, "Yep, but I'm going to have to put a metal plate in your head."
Thaiphong notes, "But he was never hit in the head!"
Kurgash shouts at the burned jackalwere carcass until the halflings wake up. Then the characters loot the bodies:
Solmar appraises the obsidian spheres as being worth about 10 gold each. The magical healing wand goes to Lungpuncture. Kurgash puts on the magical boots and finds that he no longer makes sound when he steps (+5 on Move Silently checks). He exults, "I'm a ninja!"
Thaiphong suggests, "Really? Ninja can live underwater."
Grenville takes the magical studded leather armor and determines that it is actually +1 Studded Leather.
Solmar takes the Wand of Burning Hands.
Ashe takes the magical scimitar and magical dagger; he determines that they are actually a +1 Scimitar and the +1 Dagger.
Kurgash takes the black camelhair cloak with lion-hair trim. He mentions that it's really, really cool.
The characters hold a brief debate on the wisdom of having Solmar open up the box, disabling whatever trap is on it. They decide that they'd rather have him alive.
Grenville brings Gazila some water. Ashe whispers to Thaiphong, "Awww... Isn't that adorable?"
Lungpuncture brings the captured jackalwere around after a couple of hours. The characters keep a bag over his head to avoid gaze issues. Everyone also makes sure that he's manacled hand and foot with masterwork manacles. Interrogation follows:
Grenville figures out that Gazila and Gallen Bluescale can find the obelisk between her lore and his local knowledge.
Lungpuncture asks the others, "Why are we leaving the chaotic evil creature with magical powers alive?" The characters hold a vote. It turns up four-two in favor of killing the jackalwere, who lodges a non-binding objection.
The characters determine that it will take them five days to reach the obelisk. Two days out, the characters see two giant scorpions approaching. The characters engage at 200 feet with bows and take them out. Thaiphong enlists Lungpuncture's help in harvesting poison from them. Sadly, doesn't work out well.
Thaiphong mentions, "On the plus side, you can't poison yourself. But don't touch me."
The next day, the characters kill a couple more scorpions. This time, Lungpuncture manages to get some poison. "Want to use this as rice seasoning? It's DC13 and inflicts 1d3 CON damage!
Kurgash suggests, "I say we take shots of it."
Thaiphong replies, "I think I'll actually use it on my arrows."
The next day, two undead things shamble up to the characters. They have a dehydrating aura. Kurgash grouses, "Curse it! This must be a sales job for Sandstorm! Rage! Hack!" He storms the nearest creature and quickly demonstrates that the things are not just 2HD zombies. Thaiphong joins in and takes it down. He reassures the orc, "I think they're standing around 4HD. Nothing to worry about." Behind him, Lungpuncture demonstrates over and over again that turning undead is not his forte.
Ashe makes an off-balance swing at one and discovers to his delight that their AC is pathetic, though they do have damage resistance to piercing weapons. He curses. Behind him, Solmar becomes dehydrated.
Kurgash storms the surviving undead with a full power attack and a scream of, "OVERKILL!" He hacks it to bits.
Grenville comments, "I feel like I really earned the 10 experience points I'm gonna get from this encounter."
Lungpuncture points out, "I think this was karma for the jackalwere ninja rape squad."
Thaiphong disagrees, "No, with that incredible gaze trick of theirs I'd have them work in an orphanage. Or maybe containing riots."
On the evening of the fifth day, the characters see a sandstone mesa split by a massive black obelisk in the distance. They can hear the sound of hammers and picks from the base. Evil oozes from the walls. The characters' guide comments, "Yep, I think that's your obelisk."
Ashe suggests, "You just set up some shelter and watch the camels. We'll be wanting a guide back to civilization in a bit."
Lungpuncture suggests, "Watch out for zombies. Or scorpions. Or jackalweres."
Thaiphong adds, "Or frog-men. On motorcycles. With flame-throwers. Wearing Nazi helmets. I mean the frog-men are wearing the helmets, not the flame-throwers."
The guide rolls his eyes and thinks about demanding hazard pay.
The characters slip closer to observe. Thaiphong boasts, "I have the magic telescopic eye-thing… Yep, it's definitely an obelisk." There is a slave pit area about a hundred feet from the obelisk. The slaves are kept on an area surrounded by a 20-foot trench during the day. They work at night. The slavers actually seem to be treating the slaves relatively well.
There are ten guards around the obelisk during the night, but only two during the day. It is hard to tell what they are, but they are probably hobgoblins. The guards spend their days inside the obelisk. Lungpuncture comments, "Time for me to put on the clown makeup again!"
The characters try to sneak up to within 100 feet of the guards, but the keen-eyed guards notice Lungpuncture fairly far out. Grenville immediately starts singing, while Ashe casts Mage Armor, Lungpuncture casts Bless and Thaiphong opens fire with his longbow.
The hobgoblin monks utter piercing ululations and rush towards the characters. Ashe goggles, "They're moving towards us? They must be colossally stupid!" He stands there just long enough to allow Lungpuncture to cast Bull's Strength on him.
Kurgash counter-charges one acolyte and cuts him in half. Thaiphong arrives on his flank just in time for the two of them to be swarmed by monks. None of them come close to hitting either character. Thaiphong spits, "Frickin' monks are so pathetic!" He wipes arterial spray from his eyes as Kurgash ends two more. Ashe runs up and kills another, leaving even fewer targets for Thaiphong. Thaiphong gurgles in happiness when his turn arrives and he is finally able to cut one down.
Grenville is shocked and amazed that the four surviving monks actually rush Kurgash and Thaiphong. Kurgash asks, "Why did the jackalweres even work for these guys? They should have killed them and taken their stuff!" He effortlessly kills two of them. Thaiphong obliterates the last one.
The characters arrive at the base of the obelisk. The thing is covered with writhing runes. Ashe taunts, "Hey Kurgash! I bet you can't throw a head through that doorway!"
Gazila gets put in charge of the prisoners after the characters verify that the changer they're looking for is here. The prisoners are pretty happy to see the characters. They think there are just two more left: the Harbinger and his consort. They don't go into the obelisk so they don't know what's inside.
The characters commence another round of preparatory spellcasting. It takes Grenville five rounds to cast Bear's Endurance on Ashe, but only one round to Shield himself. Thaiphong Spider Climbs up the walls. Kurgash is first on the ladder, followed by Ashe.
The ground floor of the obelisk features a central fountain, misaligned now so it no longer sprays into the next level but now simply splashes everywhere. Panels on the ceiling generate a soothing warm light. Desert plants run rampant from their pots. Several cots are scattered all around.
And then a giant praying mantis creature comes out of concealment. It says, "We have been hired to stop anyone from going further than this. Please turn around and leave."
Grenville steps up and asks, "How many of you are there? Can we make you a better offer?"
"How much"
"Five hundred?"
"Done." The three thri-kreen take the money, decloak and leave.
Ashe comments, "Note for the future: when we hire security, don't hire thri-kreen. Way to bribe the opposition, Grenville."
Kurgash yells after the departing insect men, "By the way, guys! Where's the Harbinger?"
One of the thri-kreen rasps, "Harbinger upstairs, consort below."
Thaiphong tells the others, "We kill the boss first, then the consort."
The floor of the second floor is divided by a grid of narrow sluiceways, now full of dust. Kurgash comments, "Bar number three!"
Thaiphong muses, "The furnishings are great, but the location is for shit." He sees three fur-lined nests across the room, probably jackalwere nests.
The characters waste no time heading up to the third level. The chamber is shocking in its majesty at the domed apex of the monolith. The walls are transparent, so the place just looks like four pillars with a peaked dome above. A model of a miniature city stands in the center of the room. At the center of the model is a miniature black obelisk.
Kurgash asks the others, "Where do we put the staff to find out where the Ark of the Covenant is?"
The Harbinger is standing at one side of the room in his black robes with his long appendage writhing around a column. Kurgash yells, "Okay tentacle-boy, let's dance."
It doesn't take long for the Harbinger to get surrounded by violent characters swinging at him. And then he tumbles past the characters and down the stairs. Lungpuncture decides that he's not going to let the Harbinger get away, so he throws himself down the stairs as well, just to cast Spiritual Weapon. He's not a monk, so he hits the ground with a resounding WHAM and takes damage. Kurgash follows him. He's a fast barbarian, so he's able to actually catch up to the Harbinger, but not to attack.
The characters run downstairs as fast as they can, just in time to watch the Harbinger tumble past both Kurgash and Ashe. This continues down into the basement, as the Harbinger runs to meet up with his girlfriend.
Kurgash decides that he's going to be first to the bottom. He gets past the Harbinger and arrives in the basement to be the first to get knifed by the consort. He reports with some amazement, "She's got a blade in her hair!"
Upstairs, the Harbinger somersaults past Grenville, blowing his Tumble check as he does. Grenville is shocked to find that he has an attack of opportunity. Flustered, he stammers out, "Do I even have a weapon? Whaaa!" He misses, more out of a sense of sheer surprise than anything else. The Harbinger finally arrives down in the basement to deliver ten points of damage to Kurgash.
Lungpuncture rushes down the stairs and gamely attempts to slam into the Harbinger. He misses completely and ends up stomping down into the basement.
Kurgash watches Lungpuncture go by, then ends the Harbinger in a single massive blow. And then comes the Cleave right into the consort. She staggers, but stays up. Ashe hurls himself down the stairs and cracks her on the head with his chain and leaves her stunned so Grenville can take her out. Everyone cheers, in part out of surprise that Grenville even owns a sword.
Lungpuncture casts Detect Magic. The consort had magic gloves and magic boots. The Harbinger had a magic robe, a magic amulet, and two potions. His tentacle is dead, but Kurgash hacks it to pieces just in case. It's not a symbiot, it's just a graft. Lungpuncture reports that there are no signs that the two of them were religious at all.
Kurgash decides to take a good hearty drink out of the fountain. He doesn't die. Everyone is glad. Then the characters realize that there are more stairs down. Thaiphong enthuses, "Ooh! We go downstairs!"
The characters find a grisly scene of carnage in the small basement. A twisted pile of copper and iron stands in the middle of the room, surrounded by a variety of dead humanoid types. Lungpuncture suspects that the destroyed construct might have been a nimblewright.
There is a single, strangely untouched, door in the southeast of the room. Grenville reports, "Duh... The door has all sorts of magic on it."
Thaiphong urges him along, "Go ahead, touch it. You know you want to." Common agreement that the best plan is to get Gazila in to take a look at it.
Gazila looks and says, "This is complex. This is a weird combination of hobgoblin tongue and draconic. This could take hours. Maybe days."
In the meantime, Lungpuncture discovers that the consort might not be much in a fight, but is resistant to threats of torture. Ashe asks, "Maybe we can get her to open the door?"
Grenville replies, "How are you going to do that?"
Ashe suggests, "Offer her a sack of puppies?"
The eventual plan is to have Lungpuncture learn up some uses of Comprehend Languages and read the runes on the door. After several hours of meditation, he is able to announce that the runes tell a complex story of the nine trials an ancient hero of Annak-Saul underwent to win the love of a princes. The important part of the inscription seems to be the line, "He who takes the eye awakens the desert and raises the head of the worm."
Bardic knowledge tells Grenville how to bypass the trap on the door by using the obsidian orbs on the door. He reflects, "Okay, so whoever the dead guys in the basement were, they weren't obsidian orb guys."
Glowing crystals line the walls of the room behind the door. A big hideous dragon skull stands suspended in a crystal fountain in the center. A big black sphere of stone hangs in the dragon's maw.
Lungpuncture yells, "I'm going for it!"
Grenville orders, "You stop now! I don't think that thing is salable!"
Solmar disagrees, "That thing must be worth a fortune!"
Ashe admits, "I don't know, so you must be right!"
Kurgash points out, "I think this is a sign we're too stupid to be messing with this. As a wise Gatekeeper once told me, 'Keep your hands off it!'".
Lungpuncture tries casting Detect Magic and falls to the ground stunned. Ashe shakes his head, "Frickin' warforged."
The characters finally decide that the best plan is to seal the place up and have Samuel deal with the local tribes to keep interlopers away. They reason that the tribes won't mind showing up to keep an eye on the place from time to time because they can get water from the fountain. Kurgash breaks all the obsidian orbs, even though Grenville wants to keep one to hand over to Samuel.
And then the characters return the twelve captives to their homes and get everything identified.
The magical loot includes:
Nonmagical loot includes:
Ashe takes the Gloves of Dexterity +2. Kurgash takes the Boots of Striding and Springing, but compensates by putting the Boots of Elvenkind back into the kitty. Grenville promptly takes the Boots of Elvenkind. Solmar takes the Wand of Burning Hands. Thaiphong gets the Harbinger's two potions.
The characters agree that the Amulet of Mighty Fists +1 and the Robe of Armor +2 should be sold. They also agree to sell Thaiphong's old +1 Greatsword.
The third-level characters each gain 2029 experience points. The fourth-level characters each gain 1880 experience points. This is enough to push Grenville up to fifth level. He jumps around like an idiot, trumpeting, "I'm a Dragonmark Heir! I'm a Dragonmark Heir! My bloodline's older than yo-ours! Ha ha hah haa haa!" Thaiphong sits back and grumbles as he takes a level of Fighter.