Campaign journal
by RPGPunditWhen we left the group, the majority of the PCs were in Sind, while Alendalan had returned to Darokin city to send word of the rebellion in Sind.
Today Duroc's player couldn't make it, so Duroc was bitten by a strange fly that left him in a deep sleep. The players knew he'd come out of it eventually so they just carried him along on the flying disk and let him be.
Alendalan sees that the Hulean army is huge, and has surrounded the city and are building their own siege walls to cut the city off and to give them a defensive position from which to fire their artillery. They are bombarding the city with fireballs and other such spells, while the defenders of Darokin do the same back to the Huleans. Alen helps out, firing off what offensive spells he has, but ducks out after being hit by a fireball. He heads to the Defence Minister's offices in the presidential building, and sends word of the group's success at having Raised the Maharajah and the request for a peace treaty. The defence minister tells them to offer Chandra whatever he wants to convince him to go through with the rebellion. Then he wishes Alen luck and gets back to work, but not before making mention of the fact that they have received sad news from Ylaruam, of Lawrence's death at the hands of a giant mutant beholder that is very slowly floating this way.
Meanwhile, the other PCs are making their way through the desert of Sindrastan, and they encounter a Grey Worm that eats most of the camels they had captured from the Hulean soldiers, and scatters the rest. They slay the worm after a short bit, and keep heading to the hills where they had agreed to meet Alendalan the following day.
Unfortunately, Alen doesn't remember exactly where he was supposed to teleport. So he takes a wild guess, and ends up in the middle of the Sindi desert, but doesn't see the PCs anywhere. He does see the hills though, and figures that's a good place to go, so he teleports to the top of the nearest hill he sees on the horizon.
When he arrives there, he finds the hill inhabited by a Cyclops. The Cyclops attacks him, and Alen goes invisible. Thinking he's scared the elf off, the Cyclops goes back into his cave, and Alen sneaks in there, still invisible. Unfortunately, while the Cyclops is very stupid and has no depth perception, he does have a great sense of smell.
"Fee fi fo fum.. I smell the blood of an Elvenman!"
Alen figures, "ah, screw it" and fires off a lightning bolt.
The Cyclops panics, and runs for it, but Alen dusts off his old longbow and fires off a few shots into the Cyclop's back. The Cyclops turns around and starts throwing rocks, so Alen polymorphs him into a one-eyed cat.
Meanwhile, the other PCs have followed the trail of the Grey Worm back to the hills, where they find a cave that was the worm's lair. It has a few coins scattered on the floor, but the large cave also has a HUGE metal statue of a dragon!
The PCs are naturally wary. They investigate a bit and notice that the centre of the cave has a deep well that's been filled with sand. The gang decides to try to find Alen before doing anything else there, and they do after a bit of searching. Alen checks out the Statue and determines that its actually a Drolem (a Dragon Golem, created by powerful magic, usually to guard something). They also find out it has symbols pertaining to the immortal Atman (known elsewhere as Ixion). Corwyn casts a Commune and tries to find out what the Drolem is there for. He finds out that whatever its guarding isn't treasure, but that its down at the bottom of that well.
The group decides to get rid of the Drolem first; they all hit it at once, hasted, and Sir Firearm does short work of it, slicing it to pieces.
Alen casts Conjure Elemental (earth) and sends "juan carlos" down to retrieve whatever is in the bottom of the well. I should note that because of the pet names he's invented for them, and the way he treats them, the Elementals have a serious hate on for Alen at this point. If he should ever travel to the elemental planes he will be one elf with serious problems.
Anyways, the Earth elemental comes back up with a potion bottle.
Alen opens it to cast Analyse, and hot whirlwind bursts out of the bottle! Its a Pasha, a Djinni King! The PCs all take some serious damage from the whirlwind. Corwyn casts "Speak with Monsters" to keep the pasha busy, but they all take another round of damage from the massive whirlwind, and Alen and Galafilo both die, and Corwyn falls unconscious. Sir Firearm is the only one still standing, and he hits the Pasha with everything he's got, dispelling it.
Corwyn regains consciousness, and casts Raise Dead Fully on Galafilo, and then on Alendalan the following day. They discuss what to do next, and conclude that they should go meet up with Maharajah Chandra's rebel army. Casting "Find the Path", Corwyn finds out that Chandra is still up in the hills, but seems to have moved south since the last time, and deduces that the army is slowly on the march to Sayr Ulan. The group confers, and they decide it'll be better to travel there rather than teleport, figuring that the army won't move any quicker with them than without them anyways, and that they might have some good encounters (and loot) along the way.
So they start travelling across Sind. A few days go by without encounters, and then one night they are attacked by a pair of Jade Dragons. They take the group mostly by surprise, during Galafilo's watch. Galafilo takes to the sky, and fortunately for them the Jade Dragons underestimate the party and choose to attack them physically rather than with breath weapons. They manage to drop one of the dragons, and then the other wises up and breathes toxic gas at them. Alen drops, but Corwyn chooses to Fly sir Firearm up to smash the dragon while Galafilo uses the last of his arrows of Curing to bring Alen back up to positive HPs.
They Find the Path back to the dragon's lair, and find a great deal of Jade gems and jewels, as well as a few spell scrolls, a scroll of protection from undead (added to the scroll of prot. from Elementals that Alen had found in the Cyclop's lair), a +2 light crossbow, and some +2 arrows. They also analyse a spear Alen had found in the Cyclops lair (its a +1 returning spear), and a couple of potions (water-breathing and super-healing).
The group travels on, and the day before they estimate they'll meet up with Chandra's army, they find a small group of four Hill Giants. The giants are aggressive to start out, but Galafilo kills one; Corwyn Speaks with Monsters on another, and Alendalan Charms Monster on the third.
Finally Sir Firearm intimidates the three survivors into servitude. The one that Alen charmed is very pleased with the elf ("I will hug him and kiss him and call him George!!")
They find a few coins, and when they ask the Giants if they have any other treasure, the Giants answer in the negative but seem like they're hiding something (badly). The PCs decide to tell the Giants to wait there, and will go to meet up with Chandra first, and come back later to bring the Giants along to join the Maharaja's forces.
The PCs travel on, and meet up with the rebel army, who are pleased to see them.
That's where we stopped for the night.
Its the 9th of Thaumont, 1006 AC.
The PCs are:
Corwyn, Patriarch of Asterius lv. 30
Sir Firearm, avenger of Vanya lv. 22
Alendalan, elf wizard-lord lv. 10
Duroc, Dwarf Lord Lv. 10
Galafilo, halfling Sheriff lv. 8