final report

Mistress Jevvica,

I have succeeded in my mission, but in the process I have found myself some enemies of great power. I feel it is in my best interests to go into hiding for now. When I feel it is safe I will be in contact again.

We returned to the part of the Banewarrens where we had encountered the Vrock. It's the inside of some sort of spire, and we had no indication of how high the ceiling is.

The first order of business was putting the winged boots on Deathspank and having he and Ignitz fly up to get an overall impression of the layout of the spire. We could already see one or two galleries, and there turned out to be more of those, and then on opening in the very top of the spire. All in all it was probably close to half a mile in height.

On each gallery most of the doors were sealed with magics we could not overcome, but there were usually one or two that were free of enchantment. One might think that an indication that someone far more powerful than us had already been through, dispelling the seals as they went but that appeared not to be the case—we still found things of value and perilous challenges. Then again, that could just be an indication of the much greater power of those that had unsealed the doors; that they were uninterested in things we thought valuable, and untroubled by the dangers we encountered.

We found what I think was another minor plane. I have never done any planar travel before so having encountered two of these in the course of exploring the Banewarrens was a strange experience. In this case we opened a door only to have Ignitz, Lucius, and Deathspank vanish. In the room there was an amulet dangling temptingly from a chain. It looked too obvious to be safe, and so we exercised some caution but ultimately it was the only option to explore and we removed it from the chain. Then Damien noted an inscription on the back “Darkstar” and read it out.

Our party members returned to us, but along with them came a blue dragon. Ignitz was unconscious: Sir Lucius was on his mount, and Deathspank was swinging his sword furiously but they too look sorely wounded. I felt some guilt at the time that we had left them that long to face a dragon, but on reflection we did the right thing—it was just as likely to be a trap within a trap, and then everyone would have died.

The dragon was a reasonably tough fight—the cieling in the room was 80’ high so the dragon was able to constantly fly out of range. I cast a flight spell on Deathspank so he could, well, spank it anyway but it turned out to be unnecessary as it came down to attack and took some hard hits that brought it down permanently.

Then we thought we should go and explore the other plane, so Searc said the magic word. We all flipped to the other plane. The only problem was that the amulet didn’t. Pretty much everyone complained but I don’t really understand why—it seemed to me that everyone had (at least tacitly) agreed to the idea. There really was nothing to see, so we just had to wait until Searc could cast a spell to retunr us to this plane, and then we had Damien teleport us back to Ptolus.

Once more into the breach, and this time we found a room which showed clear signs of magical conflict. Ignitz caught some serious diseases from a skeleton he went to search, and Sir Lucius seemed surprisingly unconcerned. I guess, then, that it wasn’t surprising that in another room that was covered in blood that Ignitz refused to go search the pile of rags on the other side of the room.

Sir Lucius went instead, and as he rifled through the pile many incorporeal forms rose around him, completely surrounding him. As they all pawed at him the lifeforce was drawn out and he collapsed dead on the floor. It wasn’t an auspicious start to the encounter but with Searc turning some of them, and Deathspank cleaving through them we were able to destroy them all without any further serious damage.

We were able to prevail upon the church to restore Lucius, and to cure Ignitz. We also managed to find some other items in the pile of rags, in particular the sealing rod for the Banewarrens.

Searc wanted to go through the third door in this room, but as soon as we opened it we could perceive the vast magical aura filling the room. Without serious counter-magic we just wouldn’t get through. Searc was particularly distressed because he said he could feel the Black Grail in the room beyond. Well, that’s another item that I don’t mind having permanently sealed in the Banewarrens.

At this point the only area left to explore was the opening at the top of the spire. Deathspank again led the way, and once he gave the all clear we all worked our way in. The most notable feature here was a table with six helms. There was no evil, and no traps, so Aeriana tried one of the helmets. Nothing bad was happening so the rest of us donned helmets, leaving Lucius to stand guard.

The helmets gave us control of a massive construct, that seemed to inhabit some other plane. As we learned to work together to operate it we came across a nest of wyverns that we were able to dispatch effortlessly. Proceeding onward we came across a large building from which emerged a huge dark angel. At the same time a mounted dragon appeared from somewhere, and a fight began. I was concerned at first that the construct would be outmatched by the angel and the dragon, but it tranpired that they were not in fact working together. As a three-way battle things were much more even and I actually thought we had some chance if we could work out the correct strategy.

It was at this point that I heard Aeriana scream and the head of the construct (which she had been controlling) went dead. As we had been distracted, some creatures had teleported into the room and one had cut her down. The rest of us left the construct to its fate and engaged the newcomers. Our biggest problem was a large lizardman who was strongly enchanted such that he was almost impossible to hit and did massive damage when he hit us. He had a cohort who would, I think, have been similarly dangerous had Damien not sapped his strength magically. The third was a large spider that could wink in and out of existence, though it seemed quite innefectual for all that.

It was, as usual, a hard fight. In the end we were victorious, but when we returned to the construct it had been all but destroyed. One of its abilities was self-repair so Ignitz began that while the other fought in the distance. We waddled into the building just as we heard the dark angel’s death screams in the distance. Ignitz had changed to control the head, which incorporated some sort of grabbing device and he managed to get the final part of Yaeshla from the mounds of treasure in the room. The grabber incorporated some sort of teleporter so once he had the rod he returned it to our room and then he proceeded to grab as much treasure as he could before the dragon returned and destroyed what was left of the construct.

Knowing that there is some link between the Banewarrens and this other dimension we travelled by the swiftest means possible (including a lot of magic) back to the entrance of the Banewarrens, which we sealed and then destroyed the key.

The Banewarrens are now closed, hopefully for good.

Eternally yours,
Avach