Kingston
Able gets official letter of intent to challenge the throne – it is Antony, Edmund, Gilbert, Morys, and Cecily. Cecily is a surprise. He also gets several invitations from the challengers, except Antony.
We enjoy a Heroes feast with Pyyrhos, Emma, Gilbert, and Rin. We then teleport to the Mausoleum in the Fire giant stronghold
Fire Giant Stronghold
We continue through the second level, and find that a guest quarters designed to hold Frost Giants is empty, they likely fled when they learned about the attack and wiping out of most Fire Giants.
We do encounter 6 trolls that were too stubborn, fierce, or stupid to leave. We defeat them. Beyond them are a group of gnolls cower and we allow them to leave.
We then take down the tentacle wall and then fight the two alhouns. They start out strong, attempting to disintegrate Codex and casting confusion on the others. We manage to kill one, but the other plane shifts away.
We then encounter a Skull Lord. They are made up of three faces, three personalities that war against one another. They are enemies of Vecna, which makes it very unusual for it to be here, and allied with the Alhouns. As we fight it, Codex asks the Skull Lord “Why are you here?”
After beating us like a drum, it replies. “I am here to destroy him.” So it turns out the Alhouns and the Skull Lord was here to kill the Master, and likely the Alhouns are here to help out to rescue the Mind Flayer chair. After Codex barely surviving a finger of death attack, we manage to defeat it.
FIRE GIANT STRONGHOLD
“There was no evil intent on the drowning of kittens” - Maud
We investigate our options on going to the third level. The secret door from the crypt leads to a natural cavern filled with fire beetles. The passage from the wererat hideaway leads down to a frozen chamber containing a Frost Giant Everlasting One. These things are Frost Giants corrupted by Vaprack to gain strength, regeneration, and power, but it deforms them to have multiple limbs and heads. It’s name is Arenus. We defeat it.
“it’s not a crime if it is in a dungeon” – Codex
We then head back to the Fire beetle chamber, so that we can make them uncertain as to where we are coming from. After exploring the beetle chamber, drawing the beetles away via some honey from the alchemy jug, we head to an abandoned lair occupied once upon a time by a lizard of some kind. We also find the lair of a Roper.
We backtrack and head into a different passage. We enter into a massive chamber, and initially see a sleeping red dragon sleeping atop a pile of treasure. This is extremely suspicious, and we don’t believe a dragon would just be lairing in here. Codex dispels the dragon and treasure, and instead we see a massive Gorgon. It charges us and almost turns Bale, Codex and Berdyn to stone. We defeat it.
We then fight a few nests of trolls. Nine of them are incinerated by Maud’s fireballs.
“Regenerate this!” – Codex
Near the troll nests we find a pool of water. Codex tests the water and it is filled with green slime, it touches his hand. He quickly uses his radiant damage to stop the slime.
We back away from that nonsense and take another passageway, and find a chamber containing two Boneclaws. They tear us up, telling Codex that “the Master knows you are here.” We defeat them.
We find a chamber that is covered by a boulder, we move it out of the way and find a tunnel that has a magical effect preventing polymorph. Berdyn goes past it and enters into an extradimensional space, seeing a red dragon on a hoard with a broken horn that has a golden replacement. This is Brazzemal – a red dragon that has been missing for 100 years. It seems like this is his prison, he cannot escape the extradimensional space because he cannot polymorph through the chamber.
This is a later problem. We back away and head down another set of tunnels. And then we find the mind flayer chairs, the Mentis Imperium. The mind flayers are still alive, but badly desiccated. This is an important find, as we need this to lure out the Elder Brain’s captured dwarves. But for now we have to find the Master.
We then enter a chamber with Hell Hounds and defeat them. They were guarding the way in. We are on the path to the Master!
We then find a chamber containing two more fire giants. Are they the last of the fire giants? It seems so. We defeat them, the final kings of the Fire Giants.
We then enter into another chamber and fight a Nalfenshee, a demon from the abyss. It tries to murder Codex but Bale saves him at the last possible moment, sending the demon back to the abyss.
We then face a devourer, who we fight in a narrow corridor, having to force it back to get us all to damage it. We destroy the creature, and take a short rest. The Master is nearby.