Soul-Rending Adventures in Carnac
Because we are such nice people, we are off to Carnac to rescue Richard, son of Odo. We find a group of nice Centaurs and dance with them a while, then they give us directions to the Chateau des Fausses Flames. We travel there using Improved Dimension Door and find some more Satyrs. Their leader left a while ago because he was seeking Isis. We stop by Cluny to get more info, and tell them that Gerbertus has disappeared.
At the chateau itself we find mostly ruins. There is a secret door marked with a triangle which leads to a very cobwebby ladder - it appears to have been abandoned for a long time. In the middle of a corridor is a magic portal of some sort that teleports us to a less run-down continuation of the corridor. Unfortunately the shock of passing leaves Quiteria, Ailyll, Dawa and Trappo comatose. A voice from around the corridor says in Faun (which, luckily, Haizea speaks) that our friends did not withstand the crossing into the realm of Nicea. We also hear some rather nice singing. Harald takes a liking to the music and goes dancing down the corridor, revealing a Korid, who had spoken earlier. Haizea is unable to hold him back and he dances off. Lila teleports our friends' bodies back to Cluny for caretaking while Haizea sends a Message to Basra calling for help. Bernard the Chaotic Evil monk agrees to come help us rescue our friends.
We return to find the chamber empty, so we sneak in to find Harald. We end up fighting the Korid, some Lamia, and a lot of tiny centaurs. We find Richard and Harald, as well as the lady Nicea, who is loath to part with her two new companions. We find ourselves far outmatched by Nicea, even after the Korid turns coat and helps us. Only Richard and Lila make it out alive. They retreat to Cluny with more bodies to rest and recover. Meanwhile Deirdriu scries on them from Basra and comes to help. The priests at Cluny divine for us:
Ancient subjects too hard for bard No good searching around here Either use your noggin or strong arm in Bring bodies near certain 4 coordinates Not far from her with barques of yore Those left behind not unguarded Seek queen on throne, don't forget circling stones Back doors approximate, dangerous Friends wait, sit with beards 7 fathoms long
We scry on Bernard but just see a pile of ancient bones. As far as we can tell Nicea's realm is VERY far in the past - she knows of Cronos but not Zeus or Apollo.
Meanwhile, Harald frees Celdrix from his crystal sphere and they escape together. They encounter some Cyclopses and find Nonacris, passing into the kingdom of Tartarus. They watch Nicea gather a large army of some sort and sneak back to her palace to investigate.
Back in the present, we gather reinforcements and return, only to find the portal blocked by a prismatic wall. We assemble the necessary spells and get rid of it. This time we lose Lila, Richard, Saiiq and Akim to the time portal. Deirdriu, Mamun and Thora press on, chat with an ancient hero guarding a trap door leading to the Great Worm, who he tells us we should not release. Some judiciously placed fireballs get us out the front door and we flee, avoiding a chimera and eventually making it to Tartarus's realm. We chat with him and he tells us he does not have our friends' souls - we should check with Pelazgus. Pelazgus has been hoarding souls somewhere around here, which is pissing Tartarus off. They are stored somewhere in Arcadia. He also tells us that Nicea has killed some powerful people, and can resurrect them to do her bidding. A scry on Harald shows him turned into some sort of crystal and covered with what look like poisonous frogs.
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We find our way to Arcadia, Commune with Nature and locate a network of tunnels containing evil, unnatural things, and a container full of souls. Sounds promising. Hagno the river nymph leads us through the tunnels, right into the jaws of a nasty monster. We beat him up and chat with his master the Aboleth via one of his followers. He offers us free passage through the realm of Kraken in exchange for some souls. We find our way through ourselves, and come to a great big crystal obelisk. We smash it and our friends' souls return to their bodies. Yay! Ailyll keeps a shard of the crystal to talk to later.
On our way out we find the Aboleth and fight him. We dispel a bunch of magic, including his hold on one Kuthonomus, King of the Pecs. He turns the Aboleth to stone and thanks us for rescuing him. He says he can help us fix Harald's crystalinity, just cast stone tell and call him when we need him. We leave the passages and attempt to rest.
Our rest is rudely interrupted by an 80 foot tall man with snake legs. He is Enkelados, and has come because Nicea mentioned she'd really like it if someone were to come kill us. We fight but he decides we're tougher than he anticipated and leaves. We go back to talk to Tartarus some more. He is very glad that we returned all the souls Pelazgus had stored, but can't help us much with Nicea. He does bind our souls to our bodies so we can go home without risk this time.
We rest in Tartarus' realm. Nicea sends some ravens to challenge us to a duel. She and her champions will fight an equal number of us. If we win we get Harald back and free passage out. If we lose we are her slaves forever. We tell her we'll think about it.
