Sanctuary
A Runewardens Diary by Sister Mara von Witten
Warning! Contains spoilers for Ptolus Chapter 25: Jabel Shammar!
Session #7
The door seems to hold, so we begin exploring the rest of the chamber here in the Tower of Malice. We can find no mechanism to turn off the wheeled bladed trap, but Serai and Sercian evaluate it, proclaiming it a difficult trap to disable. We find a number of bedchambers here but not much else. While we discuss various options for disabling the wheeled and bladed trap, Sercian shoots the works with viscous globs from his brother’s chaositech gun to jam it. We rush in.
We make it to the stairway where we find a symbol of death waiting for us. It lays the impulsive Sercian low, but Tellian brings him back from the brink. From the top of the stairs Zophas hears a shout: “You move with the speed of a coward!” That compels us forward and we find ourselves atop a platform in a pool of red liquid – not blood, not lava, but something else. Two crystal obelisks rise up at one end of the room. Inside each is a diabolical-looking creature. Floating nearby is an insectlike creature with a spear, and a lanky blue creature with a polearm. We’ve seen beings like them in the Dark Reliquary, we recall.
“Welcome to the Court of Hate,” says one of the demons in the obelisks (we later discover them to be pit fiends). “You have been found guilty and shall pay for your crimes.”
“Who sees fit to pass judgment on us?” I call out.
“We who have been empowered to do so by Eslathagos Malkith!”
“Eslathagos Malikth is dead,” I reply. They answer me with jeering laughter. Then they open fire with a meteor swarm (target: Zophas). Gaerioth leaps out of danger – right into the blood-red liquid pool. However, the malefic mask he’s wearing seems to protect him, at least long enough for him to pull himself out. Then the insectoid ice devil hits us with a cone of cold, but Aliya takes down this gangly blue-skinned fiend. Meanwhile, the pit fiends inside the obelisks continue to hammer us with fireballs and worse. Lothian grants me a miracle that raises three of my fallen comrades and leads Canabulum to convert to the faith on the spot. Praise to Holy Lothian!
Canabulum uses powerful magic to remove the crystal obelisk around one pit fiend, and our group gangs up on him. However, he and his brother manage to stun me, Canabulum, and Aliya. In fact, all of us wind up stunned at some point, but in the end, two mighty blows take down one of the pit fiends. As we rejoice, the other one summons a new gelugon into the fray. But Tellian-Gelugon-Slayer takes it down with his enchanted arrows, then turns his wrath on the last pit fiend. (Aliya and I together manage to take down the obelisk first.) We revive Serai, who had expired in the last moments of battle.
All our foes lay dead, but we are exhausted, so we teleport back out of the tower to our previous refuge. Canabulum provides a magnificent mansion and we sigh in relief after this harrowing experience.
Session #8
We Runewardens return to the tower and locate a magical transport circle, which takes us to a curving plain stone hall. Several of us fall unconscious in the process due to the foul mood of the place. A feeling of overwhelming evil hammers at our skulls. It seems to be directed from the outer curving walls of this hall toward the inner tower. The mages can see that inside the central portion of the tower some good items seem to be secreted away behind a sealed black adamantium door – perhaps more evidence of Mosul Pearl?
Canabulum manages to get us into this room. Inside it smells like rose petals. The tinkling sounds of harp music surround us. It’s one of the nicest, most blessed places we have ever been in.
Here we see a marble statue of a winged lion and a female bald, green-skinned angel, as well as a book and a recessed area filled with pillows. A large chest of gold sits up against a wall. Incense of meditation burns in a brazier here. The book is titled Understanding, and the chest holds ten potions and ten flasks.
When Sercian and Canabulum search the statues, with a flash the planetar angel comes to life! “Greetings,” she said. “You are welcome here.” She introduces herself as Belaya and says her duty is to guard this place. She knew the lady Parnaith well, she says. When we show her the egg we found earlier, she tells us that we should open it, since we have already defeated the fiends of the Court of Hate. “Parnaith left that behind for just such as you.”
We consecrate the egg, and its two halves come apart. Inside is a small sphere of gold, bejeweled and three inches across. It smells like lilacs. Belaya said it was called Parnaith’s Heart; if someone pure of heart concentrates on it, it is likely to explode with a powerful burst of positive energy that will have all sorts of good effects. It will work twice per century.
“Is there a way to restore Mosul Pearl?” we wonder to Belaya. She is not sure, but she does know that a Malignancy is stirring here. “Even when Danar was defeated and slain, the Book was left here.” Ah, The Book of Inverted Darkness. “Its otherworldly power has grown like a cancer during the millennia that it has rested here alone. If it is allowed to continue, it is likely that the eternal soul of Danar, which is still, sadly, quite corrupt, will once again be given form. He will once again become Jabel Shammar. As much as he was one with his tower of Mosul Pearl, he was one with this tower in every aspect. His power is an extension on a most primal level of his will, even beyond the grave.”
Can the Book be destroyed, we ask? “I don’t think that is within your power. It may be within your power to send it away.” She says Eslathagos Malkith couldn’t destroy her because he couldn’t enter this Alabaster Sanctuary: the core of Mosul Pearl and the heart of everything good in the world at that time. “The great wall of evil surrounding this room is an attempt to weaken it, but it has not succeeded in thousands of years.”
She tells us that the winged lion statue is a manifestation of positive energy and can heal our physical and spiritual woes. Everyone touches it and feels its healing and benevolence.
Belaya says she thinks the dwarven Earthsinger overlord we heard about is still here, in the dungeons (accessible from the bottom of this tower). There we will find the Master of the Dungeons, who is quite powerful, she warns.
“If you proceed above, you will find levels used by Malkith to house his servants, his library, and his own personal suite. And somewhere, though the specifics elude me, you will find an entrance to pass into a place called the Test of the Book. I believe that is where you must go to reach it.” She says she thinks the Dread One’s bodyguard and harem may remain in his suite. She believes his spirit may be manifest within the heart of the Malignancy. It is more his shadow than his true presence, so he is likely more of a corrupting influence than a physical danger.
“The Book is not a sentient force per se, but it has a will, it has a presence. It is more than just a magical tome. The Natharlnacna brought it here; the Book is older than the world. The Malignancy is the extension of its will, its corruptive force given physical reality.” She says she thinks the tiny bit of the spirit of Eslathagos Malkith that remains will have no harbor here if we send the Book off the plane. If we destroy its physical form, that may send it back to the world that spawned it.
And how can our group approach the Book if Danar himself couldn’t stand against it? “Be strong of heart, be prepared and wary, do your best,” Belaya tells us. “As long as good has yet the slightest handhold in this, the heart of evil, then we have a chance.”
We rest in this room and gain the benefits of the incense, and the angel blesses us with several spells. Leaving the Corridor of Corruption, we make our way to another teleportation circle (following the angel’s directions) and arrive in a new chamber festooned with murals of demons and the Galchutt. A black spiral stair leads up.
Emerging into a new hall, we hear distant soft woodwind music in a minor key. We also hear chains rattling – something’s moving around to the left. Following the sound of chains, we enter a room with three coffins. Tellian thinks these might belong to the three unfortunate elves who brought the Book to Danar. The stone floor here is made to look like writhing snakes. Although we try to leave, the occupants of this room follow us out, then draw us back in. A few well-placed blows with sword and spell turn these undead elves to dust.
