#16 Demons, Witches, Wizards.. Oh My

 The party left through the volcano, back underwater, and resurfaced outside of the Thieving City. Upon entering, they were bombarded with numerous sketchy figures trying to pickpocket and sell them various items and trinkets. After a few minutes of being manhandled by strangers, they were greeted by Karn. Karn called the party out by name and scared away the various thieves and introduced himself and how he was at the arena in Skolitas when the party hacked and slashed through various monsters. The fanboy invited the party back to his run down home and told the party the dangers of the city, that there wasn't much there for them but the magical item shop. He escorted the party to the shop and said these items are one of a kind and couldn't be purchased anywhere else. Well, it was a troll magic shop. After I took about 80k from the players in various items (some are actually somewhat useful) they noticed Karn speaking to a strange man in yellow robes. After the man left, they confronted Karn about the mysterious hooded figure and Karn told them he didn't ask a name, he just wanted to know of a place he could set up his farm. Thinking that was odd, the party went to the location Karn had sent the man and seen a group of yellow robed people building a barn and silo. Then it was off to the Wizard Tower to notify Iris of all of the strange things going on. 

Halfway through the travel, they heard a familiar voice.. one of the maids from Baleek, Lupus Regina. She immediately told the party that Debura sent his regards, shed her shell showing her true form, and attacked. The party made quick work of Regina and didn't look back. Once they had reached the tower, they quickly noticed a pair of inexperienced wizards picking on an apprentice, they quickly stepped in and assisted in a task to help the apprentice with his training to become a Seer. The task was to find the magically bound book in the basement of the tower and read it. Simple enough.

In the basement they encountered a room with tiles on the floor that had a letter on them. Basically a word search with the schools of magic. Step on one a letter that was in the word of the school or the word magic, you set off a trap. Emmley quickly found out that 'Necromancy' let out a banshee wail and killed her instantly. Twice. Niamh, being a near master of the arcane arts, made quick work of the puzzle and pulled the lever on the other side of the room, deactivating the traps. The party rushed over and inside the next room was a lectern with a big leathery red bound book. The pages were empty and on the last page was a rune word. (The word was backwards and upside down, reading fireball) once the party had figured it out, the apprentice said the word, and words began to fill the pages of the book. 

“Dost thou seek to becometh a Seer? Thou require intellect beyond a commoner. Thou require a strong will to learn. Thou require to withstand… FIREBALL”

Spots in the bookshelves scattered throughout the room opened up and spit out 5 fireballs. Nobody died thankfully, and the apprentice was now a seer. He gave the party a shimmering crystal coin he had found while cleaning the tower. He didn't know what it did, but figured he should give them something for the help. When the PCs entered the tower again, the seers that were previously picking on poor Anthony, the apprentice, were flabbergasted as they could sense an aura of magic upon him. Iris came rushing down the spiral staircase due to the commotion and seen the party standing there. He quickly rushed back up the stairs and led them into a room with other high tier wizards.

Iris told the party he was awestruck at the sight of them at the tower, asked what news they had to bring, and asked them to do him a favor of good will. The Ice Witch, Koliada, usually causes minor mischief but hadn't for some time. He was worried something had happened to her that might upset the balance of the world. He asked the party to pay her a visit and come back with the result. Before leaving, he had seen the glimmering coin in Emmley's pocket and told them he had lost a wish coin he had made about a week ago but let them keep it anyway.

The party rested and left the tower and headed east, to the Ice Cave. They walked passed a pair of frost giants guarding a path up to a hilly plateau where a hill giant was fighting a frost giant queen. The party instantly seen a dark misty aura around the hill giant with black eyes, but it didn't even dent the frost giant. She uppercut him with the blunt end of her greataxe, sending him flying off the cliff. Rogar and Niamh couldn't dodge the 1100 pound giant and died on impact. After being healed they stood up, kicked the hill giant corpse and headed toward the caves.

Once they entered the cave, they noticed a sheet of ice on the ground and an ancient white dragon wrapped around white eggs blocking the exit. They tried to sneak passed the dragon but as soon as Rogar stepped on the ice, they all fell through into frigid water. While they brushed the icy water off of them they were greeted by a Frostbitten Colossus, a monster made of ice with giant icicles on it's back. Other than this being the first time they had their HP max drained, they melted the guy in a good amount of time.

They were then faced with 3 paths, they took the left and of course the hardest. 2 winter bears were resting in the snow as the party walked by them. Niamh had barely passed her check to see them and thankfully negated the surprise round. The bears shot out their icy breath doing a TON of damage and once the bears had hit 50% hp, they instantly recharged that breath and used it again. Probably the hardest fight so far, I'm glad none of them died.

They trekked their way through the rest of the cave and came upon the glistening ice castle. Not even bothered to search the rooms, they went straight to Koliada's throne room to find her dead, and HER, a Marilith, standing over her. HER greeted the party and seemed excited she wouldn't have to come find the group.

HER rushed over to the party, slashed the absolute shit out of Niamh with her 8 attacks, but the other two didn't let her do it unpunished. HER teleported away to the back of the room with 2 hp and summoned 4 Hezrou demons.

Now, I don't think that they knew if they had dealt the 2 damage to the Marilith that the summons would have gone away but it was a fun fight.

The hezrou blocked a shot by Emmley that she sent for HER then rushed over to the party, hacking and slashing at them and wearing them down. HER just said in the back and watched as it all went down, lacking heals. One by one the Hezrou went down. Niamh seen an opening at HER and took it after taking 3 of her summons down.

They made that fight a lot harder than it needed to be, and I was prepared to surround the Marilith with the Hezrou and have them spawn a d4? of dretch each. But, this way was a lot more exciting for me.