11 Wealsun, 592 CY
The Silver Phoenixes traveled for a little more than a week, following the map that Ashton had acquired in Cauldron. Once they left the road that linked Cauldron and Sasserine, they found the trip through the jungle to be blessedly eventless. After the second day, they found themselves on the northeastern rim of the Demonskar, where another large pipe jutted from the ground, similar to the one leading down to Vaprak’s Voice farther south. Bransen then cast find the path targeting the entrance to Karran-Kural, and the spell directed him down the pipe. The group then traveled maybe a few hundred feet before they discovered that the pipe was completely filled with water.
They discussed how to proceed, and Greyjek asserted that he could make it down without the need for air. However, due to his incredibly short gait, he wouldn’t be able to make it very far very quickly. Bransen provided him with a freedom of movement spell, and the erudite set off with his psicrystal. The pair had traveled perhaps another twenty minutes before their exploration revealed a break in the pipe, which opened up into a couple of different lava tubes. These tunnels were home to an underground river with a relatively strong current. He could see multiple paths, but without the benefit of Bransen’s find the path, he couldn’t be sure which one might be correct. He returned and told them what he’d found, and the party decided to rest the night and try to sort it all out in the morning.
12 Wealsun, 592 CY
As fortune would have it, Bransen awoke with the necessary spells to get everyone to the entrance of Karran-Kural. The ancient flooded lava tubes opened into a pair of smaller, air-filled tubes that led to the east. The temperature dropped alarmingly in that direction, and the two passageways merge just before they were partially blocked by an enormous wall of ice. A narrow tunnel had been hacked through the ice near its southern edge, allowing access into a larger area beyond. Past the wall of ice, a second barrier once existed. Someone, has left the heavy iron portcullis in a twisted heap on the floor of the passageway. Beyond the ruined portcullis a large set of frost-rimed iron doors was all that remained of the once formidable barriers that protected the ruins.
Bransen boldly stepped forward and opened the doors to reveal a hallway. Pale blue lights set flush in the ceiling lit the hallway. The walls had a subtle curve, and the entire length was etched with disturbing images and symbols. Strange glassy circles, each roughly five feet in diameter, checkered the length of the hallway’s floor. Under each disc, a six-armed humanoid figure hung motionless as if suspended in fluid or encased in glass. At the far end of the hall, another pair of frost-rimed metal doors stood closed.
As he walked down the hallway, he noticed movement from one of the figures encased in the floor. It opened its mouth as if to scream, though no sound emitted. He mentioned this disturbing phenomenon to the others, who followed a little behind, but they didn’t see it occur, and the other spell weaver bodies remained motionless. Shrugging it off, Bransen made his way to the end of the hallway and opened one of the doors there. This chamber revealed was nearly circular, although two sides were made flat by thick walls of ice. The entire room was filled with a lattice of thin icy strands, each flickering with faint magical energies. It was also crowded with devils.
The nearer three devils appeared as had the osyluth the party had encountered in the Cathedral of Wee Jas, large flesh-wrapped skeletons with massive scorpion tails. The farthest of the devils looked like a tall, bipedal insect. It had clawed hands and feet, powerful mandibles, and a long, thick tail covered in razor-sharp spikes. An gelugon or “ice devil,” unless Ashton missed his guess.
The two closest bone devils brought their teeth to bear against Bransen and pierced his unarmored flesh. For his part, though he knew the devils to be immune to flames, Ashton led with a fireball which cleared the walls of ice and the strange icy filament. Jarvyk and Ryla came up to the front to hold the line against the devils, while Bransen moved back behind the still-closed door. The third osyluth vanished from sight, and the ice devil stepped forward trying to get close enough to attack. Cyrus launched a pair of soul arrows at the ice devil, but he failed to get past the baatezu’s thick carapace. Greyjek cut loose with his psionic might, wounding the invisible bone devil and drawing its ire. In response, it teleported right behind him.
Though the osyluths were not much of a challenge, the fight against the gelugon was rough, as everyone seemed to have a hard time getting its thick hide. It sloughed a couple of spells that Ashton sent its way and sent back a cone of cold which caught most of the party members, though Ryla and the wizard were protected from the spell effect. Greyjek systematically wiped away the memories of the ice devil that had come to threaten him, and the creature found itself all but ineffectual against him. In response to an order from the gelugon, the mentally deficient osyluth evoked a wall of ice to separate the ice devil from the rest of the party. The remaining bone devils were slain, Cyrus blew a hole in the wall of ice, and Greyjek was able to dismiss the icy baatezu from the Prime.
Bransen healed the majority of the party’s wounds afterwards, which exhausted most of his remaining spells, and so the group was not comfortable moving forward against any additional unknown threats. It was then that their predicament dawned on them. They had only made it to the entrance of Karran-Kural by virtue of Bransen’s magic. Now that his spells were exhausted, they faced the rest of the day and a long, frigid night before his power was replenished. Searching through packs revealed only enough blankets for three. Though Greyjek insisted he was unhindered by the low temperatures, that still left two party members out in the cold. Ashton spent a pair of his precious least wishes so that he and another could endure the bitter cold, while the others huddled under the blankets. The group spent the rest of the day miserable in the entrance hallways near the underground river and then slept fitfully through the night.
13 Wealsun, 592 CY
When they awoke, they ate what meager rations they had with them and continued exploring. The north door from the circular room ended in a frozen rocky wall, while the southeast door opened into a chamber with a pair of hallways leading off from it. The floor here was checkered with more of the spell weaver “coffins,” as the party had come to think of them. The eastern hallway from this new chamber proved to contain only more dead ends, but the hallway to the south presented a four-way intersection.
The south end of the corridor ended in a staircase choked in rubble and ice. To the west, the hallway ended in another pair of metal doors. To the east, six doors lined the north and south walls of the passageway, three to a side. The hall itself ended at a tangled lattice of icy strands that flickered and writhed with cold blue tendrils of light. They chose to explore this direction first.
Bransen opened the first door on the south wall to reveal a small room which was empty, save for a set of four of the ubiquitous discs set into the floor. However, unlike those they’d seen previously, these coffins contained the bodies of dwarves. Jarvyk, disturbed, stepped into the room to take a closer look, and a wave of agony washed over him from below. Intuitively, he knew that it came from the souls beneath him, and he staggered back out of the small chamber before he was overwhelmed. The next door revealed a similar room, also containing dwarves. The easternmost doors opened into similarly empty chambers, save for a single circular disc set into the floor. These contained spell weaver bodies, but there were no overwhelming emotions coming from them. The center and westernmost doors on the north wall opened into rooms like those on the south wall, except they contained the bodies of elves. Stepping inside, Bransen had to fight off the powerful sense of despair emanating from the trapped elven souls.
While most of the group discussed the possibility of freeing the trapped souls, Jarvyk investigated the mystical lattice at the end of the eastern hallway. It did not react to his touch, nor did it seem to be any colder than the stone walls of the rest of the complex. He was unsure what to make of it, and since no one else showed much interest, he rejoined the conversation. The consensus seemed to be that the group should seek out a whatever what keeping the souls here trapped and destroy it. That much decided, they turned and considered the double doors to the west.
As before, Bransen went first with Jarvyk standing beside him, but this time he opened both doors at once. The chamber to the west was a simple square with a hole in the floor against the back wall and a metallic statue that began to move when the doors opened. It charged Jarvyk and struck him hard with a massive iron fist. Ashton recognized the iron golem and realized he would serve a peripheral role to the fight. He told the others to use electricity, which should slow it down. Fortunately, both Ryla and Jarvyk had electrical attacks at their disposal, and even with its caustic breath and apparent resistance to psionics, the party had very little trouble putting the construct down.
Upon examining the hole in the floor, both Greyjek and Ashton realized that it had been caused by a disintegration ray. The vertical tunnel descended twenty feet before opening up into a room with a floor ten feet farther down. The Silver Phoenixes prepared themselves to enter the lower level of Karran-Kural.
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