Zim casts arcane eye. He sends it forth, to check out where the monk went.
Whilst Zim is casting arcane eye, Erepoth and Toth appear. Erepoth casts ice storm at us, not being able to hear past the wall of force.
Zim lost his arcane eye in the process.
We discuss whether to press on with Erepoth, or retreat.
Zim tries to locate the nearest longsword, using locate object. The nearest longsword is fairly close, one level down probably. It moves.
We continue to discuss what to do, and then leave.
We do a divination with Leo, who says the best time to go to Mystara so that less time passes here is tomorrow morning.
We plane shift to Mystara. We arrive over a river, and I lose my feet before we teleport elsewhere.
Date adjustment, little time has passed on Mystara.
We contact Minora, but her group is in the middle of finding Moulder dwarves in the middle of a large cavern system, and would have to abandon that quest in order to help us.
Unfortunately, in our absence, the people on the moon have had problems. Yes, they were infiltrated by the dark elf agents. Thora is helping out with that task.
We get a scroll of limited wish to see if that works on Tess. Lani casts it directly on Tess, and he feels better.
We decide we need to get Vander's pet priest to "fix" up Safranna. We do so, the pet priest appeals for higher intervention, and we receive an interactive vision, of sorts. Nikhi is there, as is Freyja (not looking happy). Safranna was also there, looking very content. Freyja and Nyx seemed to have come to an arrangement regarding Safranna, one that she felt would make Safranna happier, not an opinion shared by Freyja.
Nyx also indicated that she was not happy with the idea of partaking of the sacraments of Ogremesnk. She suggested there was another way.
When Safranna is returned, she says she feels different. She is not scared of the sun still, but she isn't quite a nosferatu anymore. She's probably more nature-oriented again.
We rest and rememorise, get the shamans to buff us up, and head in.
We get back to the fane. We have a Rary's telepathic bond going.
We're in the room we were in before. Tess goes down to scout.
Tess sees a large, blue skinned ogre on a bed, in a room before the room where we believe the lich to be. The party awaits further orders.
Tess chats to the ogre (he's disguised as the Succubus we met earlier). Tess does a good job imitating her (Tazania). Tess "invites" the ogre upstairs, and gets the ogre to carry her up the stairs to where we wait. We kill him in short order.
Tess says he said there was Kdank and Vmor in the main room downstairs. Tess goes down, looking like the Disdania. He enters the main room, and finds two people, old ugly women. Unfortunately, one of them figures out Tess was disguised. We charge into combat.
When we get in there, there are two big retrievers there as well. Combat ensues. The monk is also there. Grey chops down one of the hag-ish creatures, and Safranna massively chops down one of the retrievers.
Tess then chops down the monk down. Tess proceeds to ensure the monk doesn't get back up again.
The remaining creatures, one hag-ish creature, and one retriever, are behind a wall of force.
We prepare, then Grey drops the wall of force, and they get attacked in force. The retriever attempts to turn Grey to stone with a gaze, but is unsuccessful.
The retrievers also regenerate. Battle continues. The hag is killed by a cone of acid.
Safranna uses blessed arrows to stop the retrievers from regenerating.
Tess goes and scouts. He checks out another area, and finds a room with another spiral staircase, and some sort of tentacular creatures, maybe ropers.
We loot the area where the hagish creatures were. We examine some books. Arcane lore on the lower planes. We examine more carefully. We find a notebook, detailing the construction of portals, including how to make a portal that itself automatically summons things. We also find a diary. The diary suggests that the fane would have left after construction, but because the golden rain trapped them there, they shall now re-write history, and have their revenge.
The vampire is named Ungalish, master of the bloodhunters. He was the one who was usually brought back the sacrifices. The name Sussinst seems to refer to a priest, and the name Karmaknar refers to a demon.
We move to ambush the ropers, but the ambush does not go to plan. Fortunately, the ropers don't seem that tough. We kill them in quick fashion, but leave one Lani charmed alive.
Lani chats to the roper. The ropers are menial guards. They guard the women who goes up and down the stairs. The women feeds them, but hasn't been near anytime soon.
Lani plugs the roper for information. Apparently a variety of demons and the women were looking for the bloodhunter, as they were upset at him for some reason, but they couldn't find the coffin.
Apparently, up the stairs are giants.
Karaknar, the head in charge, is dead. Susten, the women with no fuzz (hair), is now in charge. Third in command is a bald, two hooves, mage named Lithros.
Tess explores further up from the ropers, and finds a heated area. There are fire giants up here. They've seen you. One of the giants is invisible, and they are aware of Tess being there. Tess then pretends to be Disdania, successfully.
The fire giants seem fooled. They complain that they just wasted their potions. There were two fire giants. Tess leaves.
We explore other areas. We find a room with some minor undead. Another room is also filled with minor undead.
Disdania then appears, and sees us all. She was carrying a suitcase. It appeared she decided to leave quickly. She tells us there's a button that opens a secret door in her room, then teleports away.
We search her room and find the secret door. Before continuing, Zim magically checks for longswords. There is one, but straight down.
Tess explores the secret passage, and finds the final pentagram.
Tess explores other areas. However, it almost seems as though no-one is around.
Tess goes back to the fire giants, and says that Susten gave orders to guard the upper area. Tess then explores the area properly. Unfortunately, the fire giants eventually figure out something is amiss. Tess leaves, and we forget about the giants.
We continue to triangulate the longsword, and figure out that it is 90 feet down from the lowest we've been (Zim figures this out).
In the room where the hags were, we investigate some magical pillars. We touch the pillars, and say "chaos and evil for Ogremensk", and we are teleported elsewhere.
Unfortunately, we end up in a magical darkness area. And get attacked. Blades fly through the darkness, damaging us. We flail blindly. Lani casts anti-magic field, and we can see what's going on. There are two poles with blades on them, and one guy in the middle of us. He's an orc, and a vampire. He gazes hungrily towards Tess.
Combat occurs. He is wounded. He flees. We chat for a bit. He comments that he wants to leave this cursed place. He seems a little out of his mind, and may not have had blood for a long time. Tess offers him blood by way of offering proof of our sincerity in "helping" him get out of the fane, in exchange for information.
He says there is a button on the throne which we can use to get out. He will follow us if we use it. He also says he will kill Susten for us if we promise to help him get out of the fane.
We press the button. We appear in a strange area, with a floor far below us, but before that, standing on some invisible platform, are two skeletal figures with distortion fields around them. They look like they're about to attack us, but the vampire appears, and says that they should leave us alone.
The vampire says he is the grand high priest of ogremensk. He says he shall retrieve the phylactery for us. In the meantime, a beholder appears. We have mild chit chat with the beholder, and then it disappears when the vampire appears.
He holds up the liches phylactery. He tips it out. He says the lich has been destroyed.
We tell him there is a drought, and the head has been exposed. He says thanks, and leaves.
Grey does a sending to Erepoth, and warns of the incoming vampire.
We move on.
We find another spot to use the phrase: Chaos and evil for ogremensk. Flying down, through a pit that opened, we smell blood and incense. As we go down, we feel something that tried to keep us out.
We find the big brazier/pit with burning incense. Zim, using his locate object, senses a longsword within the pit. Zim moves in, and finds the blue handled anti-demon longsword there.
We continue to search around. We find the liches lab. We find an illusioned to be invisible chest in the room. We dispel the trap on it, and open the chest. There is a magical dagger there. An intelligent one. It doesn't like anyone, although it thinks Grey is all right. It tries to force Grey to attack the other party members, but its attempt is pitiful. The name of the dagger is soulstealer.
We find further magic items. Including an iron box registering as overwhelmingly magical. Also, a jewelled box is overwhelmingly magical. We open the iron box, and within is an amulet and a couple of black-bound books.
The overwhelming magic seems to be from traps.
We bumble around for a while. Soulstealer indicates he's a sacrificial dagger for Ogremensk.
We search the statue, and eventually find a couple of small holes at the base of the statue. A number of small holes. Leo goes inside, reduces, and has a look around. The statue is hollow. It is also dirty. In the bottom is an impression of a sleeping figure. This could be the vampires coffin.
We decide to investigate the pentagrams. Grey goes through the burn one. We enter an area similar to the last place. Grey is the guinea pig again, and gets burnt by fire in a brazier presented by an imp.
For the last pentagram, Lani is the guinea pig, breathing in the fumes.
We get ack, but with no difference. Lani tries the chaos pole, and receives a vision: if she makes a living sacrifice to ogremensk, he will grant a wish, with which she could get to the heart.
We go chat to the ghost to get advice. We get advice. Grey decides to partake of the final sacrament. We go back. The smoke is now of a reddish hue. We chant, the flames change colour. We step through, and appear in a room where an orcish warrior is battling a big bat winged demon. There is also the hoofed guy, who looks like he just got here, accompanied by two bebiliths. Combat ensues.
Lani banishes one of the bebiliths. We blast the other bebilith, but it's still up. Safranna, as a dog, moves up and guards against the hoofed creature casting a spell. The hoofed creature attempts horrid wilting, but fails, as Safranna damaged him, bypassing his displacement spell. Grey casts a maximised dispel magic at the mage, and removes all of his buffing spells [ten of them].
Combat continues. The other bebilith is killed. He fireballs us, but to little effect. We then gang up on him, and whack him to death. Grey chops his head off for good measure.
We turn our attention to the Balor. We kill the Balor.
We chat to Anchileas. Nothing ends up changing. We chat for a bit. Very interesting. But he didn't know how to destroy it. We bid him well, and the time travel spell ends.
We appear in a heavily wooded area. Lani flies up, and sees the ruins of a temple nearby - no golden lake. It would appear he may have figured out how to destroy the temple. Tess finds out info about the place. It appears the place is called Veils Edge. The story changed: a great cleric was here long ago. He dealt with the fane, and destroyed it with the aid of Gruumsh.
Tess goes to the Graven Ones, and chats to them.
He describes the battle exactly.
We then all approach and chat to them. They aren't particularly trustworthy. But we eventually start trading spells and the like.
Tess wants teleport trace, but it doesn't look like they'll give it to us.
I do a sending to Mystara, and another three weeks has passed in the meantime.
Well, things seem back to "normal".
To get a wand of teleport trace, Zim deals behind the parties' backs to swap with Erepoth a scroll of foil trace that Zim found whilst adventuring in the fane, but didn't tell us about. Oh well, big deal.
We decide to rest and rememorise.
We head back.
Time re-adjusted. Much time has passed.