Tales of Braxus: The Queen with Burning Eyes

Recap from 10/15/04

The group went back into the dungeon located in the ruins near Old Town in the rough part of town across the river.  We moved the now familiar rock and went down through the hole in the floor of the room there to continue our exploration.  We went down some passages to an area we hadn’t explored yet and heard voices up ahead.  Our sorcerer cast ghost sound to create the sound of a large group of soldiers marching up the hall towards the room but the men in the room paid it no mind and said something to the effect of “its about time you guys showed up” meaning they were expecting others.

We sent Malik to investigate and report back with what he saw.  He quietly snuck up to the entrance to the room ahead and as he looked in, an unusual spectacle was there before him.  It was Vestan Irsimul in a large and ornate chamber chanting some unknown ritual in an obscure language in front of a hole in the floor.  It looked like he was trying to summon something.  Seeing his chance, he loosed an arrow at our former employer since it was now obvious that he was some sort of evil necromancer and clearly up to no good.  To his surprise, the arrow bounced harmlessly off of his armor worn below his robes (we found out later he was wearing plate mail).  At this point, the screams of pending combat reached the group and we charged into the room to engage the enemy.  We fought with Vestan’s cronies while he kept chanting.

Eventually, we overcame his men but at about the time the last one was killed, something started slithering out of the hole in the floor.  It was some kind of large snake with the head of a woman – he had summoned a Naga from the realm of shadow!  So the group shifted its focus to fighting the Naga and Vestan.  We fought the hideous creature taking many grievous wounds while wounding it in turn and did our best to avoid its terrible gaze.  The battle with Vestan wasn’t going as well since, as we found out, he was wearing plate mail and was very hard to hit.  That’s when our sorcerer cast his Grease spell below Vestan’s feet and he slipped and fell into the pit screaming in terror “AAAIIIYYYEEEE!”.  We turned our full attention to the Naga and Hraal finally killed it with a savage flurry of blows.

After the combat, we took stock of our surroundings.  The room appeared to be some sort of throne room but the hole in the floor disappeared into a swirling dark and shadowy mist below.  Our sorcerer pointed out that this was no doubt a portal to the plane of shadow and that Vestan was summoning the Spirit Naga from the other side.  We were just glad that he was now residing in the plane of shadow with the rest of the shadow creatures if he yet lived…