We wake up, I feel off. We all seem to feel off.
Nothing more than a vague unease from the room.
Though with nothing more than a feeling to go on… We move on to the simulacrum of Acererak, Rerak.
Before entering the room, we consider the notes related to the simulacrum we found. Considering it’s own reluctance and its creator’s disdain, we may be able to
Bardon and I go unconscious. A few moments later, I come back and it is trying to bind me and strikes at me, while it is also against Treeavenger.
We, with some difficulty, manage to take it out. Bardon didn’t wake up until it fell. It left behind only its skull, two gems for eyes, and a pair of keys: one plain iron, the other platinum.
Bardon decides to check out some of the items in the room, noticing that the magic coming from them is different than that from the items we have collected so far. He tries touching the plates, and is nearly burned by them. We decide to check the door behind the throne instead.
It leads to a treasure room, with the Rod of Seven Parts (Sixth Piece) sitting on top of the blue sash we were looking for.
- 479 sp, 342 gp, and 179 pp
- Jade game board with platinum playing pieces, worth 7,500 gp in total
- Set of ruby earrings worth 500 gp
- Three fire opals worth 1,000 gp each
Treeavenger takes the board game excitedly.
We collect the goods and head out the back.
We head on out and find ourselves back at the beach, near the portal. Instead of absconding with the treasures, we decide to head back to the camp to return the Lantern of Revealing and treasures of her people.
She offers one of the artifacts to us and pays us 1000g for each artifact found, for a total of 6000g.
We head back to The Sanctum, where Mordenkainen and the others await us. Pash still studying in the corner.
Tasha buys the skeleton off of Treeavenger for 3000g, not wanting the now-mundane necklace that was attached to it… And takes it off to her chambers.
We take some time to sort through things. Bardon goes out into town to sell the trinkets we found, while Treeavenger studies his Manual of Bodily Health. Bardon getting some time in on his Tome of Understanding as well. I avoid the deal I broke off.
It’s dreaming time.
We see something that seems like the outer planes limbo.
A sludge tower approaches us. Ichor dripping, the doors swing open. Tentacles grab and drag me inside.
I see the others enter as I am being held in the darkness. They seem to just be running in place, unable to make any progress.
The tentacles shrink back after Bardon uses his Radiance of the Dawn to dispel the darkness.
Recite
Break Time
We see a vision of a village under a blood red sun. A scene of villagers chanting to burn the witch. A boy watches in the back as the woman is consumed. A voice tells the boy: “Never kneel, my son. Not to kings, and not to gods.”
I try to pick the lock, but am immediately burned.
A Bone Devil appears on the other side of the room.
We manage to take out the racist Bone Devil. It leaves behind only a left hand.
Bardon picks it up and attempts to use it on the locked door. It opens the door as if it was made for the act.
We enter a room and find another vision
The boy’s eyes flash with a growing storm of hatred. Day by day, he endures torment, humiliation, and arcane slavery.
We manage to take them out.
Another vision. A wave of panic and pain. Treeavenger becomes a very avid reader.
A night lit only by lightning and a blood red moon. The great tower shakes as the mans rage bursts free. One by one, the wizards fall: flesh withers, bones snap, and screams echo as magic turns deadly against its wielders. At the center, the young man stands, hands glowing with forbidden power — no longer a boy, but a force of destruction born of betrayal and fury.
I check the desolate courtyard at the other end of the library, leaving Treeavenger to his devices.
I get grabbed by the branches of the tree in the courtyard. Bardon tries firebolting the tree, but it does not relent.
Treeavenger collapses in the other room. Bardon manages to save him. Then Treeavenger comes into the room and just walks towards the tree. I struggle free. Bardon dispels the magic of the tree to free Treeavenger.
I head into the left room in the previous area.
I read an Unspoken Manuscript and I gain several effects.
- You gain advantage on all Insight and Arcana checks
- When making an Intelligence or Wisdom check, you may roll a d4 and add it to the total (Perma-Guidance)
- Your personality shifts to a more selfish nature, you are immune to life drain effects & you take only half healing from spells and effects.
Bardon and Treeavenger play around with a loose eyeball.
We head into the other room. Not much of note.
We continue upwards.
Another vision.
Endless armies of undead stretch across the horizon, black banners fluttering in a poisonous wind.
Cities bend the knee or crumble, their rulers kneeling before the man’s throne of bone and shadow.
Decades pass, and the empire expands, death marches with the beat of his heart, and his name becomes a curse and a command.
We read some of the notes on the nearby table:
“I have spent my years in solitude researching all of the cruel things that threaten my realm, to protect the people I love. But Vecna is not one of those cruel things. He promises life—an eternity of it!—if only we lend ourselves to his wisdom. For my servitude, he has promised a great gift, a way for everyone I love to be together. So great is this gift that I shall take all of the realm into my warm embrace! Imagine! A world that is one. A world that is me…”
The tube in the corner comes to life and screams at us to join it.
We manage to take it out. The ichor oozing out and seeping under the table.
Bardon finds a loose head to the headless and chained body on the table. It rolls to the side lifelessly.
We head on up.
The final floor. Tentacles fill the room.
You see this wizard, now gaunt and desperate, as mortality begins to take him. A swirling, monstrous figure looms before him—the Demon Prince Orcus, lord of undeath—his eyes burning with infernal fire.
A dark bargain is struck. Orcus grants the wizard forbidden knowledge—the secrets of lichdom. The wizard drinks a potion black as night, the ritual unfolding in a chamber crackling with necromantic power. His mortal body dies, but his eyes snap open—glowing with unholy green fire. He has become the first lich, master of death itself.
I inspect the gate/portal.
It has various indentions, a small one, a large one, and another with 5 indentions. Bardon places the eye in the small hole, the head in the large hole, and the hand in the one with 5 indentions. It reacts.
Another vision.
A great hall bathed in cold moonlight. The wizard faces his betrayer a figure in full plate mail who wields an ornate longsword as a tower crumbles in the background, he strikes with a blade of malice. The wizard screams as the blade severs his left hand and gouges out his left eye. The wound glows with necrotic energy, a terrible curse and reminder.
Their battle rages, shaking the very fabric of reality, until both disappear in a blinding flash.
We head through the portal.
The dream is not yet done with us.
Another vision.
You see a figure cloaked in shifting stars, stepping through rifts between worlds. He surveys realms of light and shadow, reality and dream. His motives remain unreadable — sometimes guiding events, sometimes watching from the sidelines. A whisper echoes: “I am beyond time and space… and yet, all worlds will bend to my will.” He is the boy, the young man, the wizard from the dreams. He is Vecna.
A Shade of Vecna appears at the end of the hall.
He blasts Treeavenger with a ray from his eye. We continue to strike at him.
He teleports around the room.
Bardon examines the Book of Vile Darkness at the alter.
Nature can’t abide the book’s presence. Ordinary plants wither in its presence, animals are unwilling to approach it, and the book gradually destroys whatever it touches. Even stone cracks and turns to powder if the book rests on it long enough.
I bring Bardon back up and try to stab the book, to no effect except destroying the dagger I used on it.
No one seems to have a clue how to stop the shade.
I pick up the book.
The Dream Fades.
I obtain the Book of Vile Darkness.
Level 17
Recite
END SESSION