Wren leapt back from the diseased dragon that had burst out of the Everdawn Pool. Assuming that Ileosa must have summoned this creature, she cast Banishment, hoping to send it back to wherever it was from, but the spell fizzled – whether because her magic wasn’t powerful enough to affect it or whether it wasn’t actually summoned, she couldn’t say. The Astral Deva standing beside her (was it hers? Or one of Nat’s? They all looked alike to her) conjured a Blade Barrier that formed a ring around the huge beast, hoping to contain it. The creature snapped at her with its jaws at the end of its long neck, sinking fangs dripping with diseased saliva into her celestial flesh, but then the magical blades of force appeared, and the dragon roared with pain as a red mist filled the air. Desperate to escape the blades, it flew out of the barrier, flying under the Everdawn Pool and straight for Nat. It sank those fangs into him, and his flesh crawled as he fought to free himself.
One of the other Devas (this one was Wren’s – she was sure if it), flew straight up towards Queen Ileosa. It swung its hammer at the Queen, but she easily avoided the blow. Erin was hot on its heels. Serithtial was vibrating with holy fury in her hands, and she swung a blow that should have cleaved Ileosa’s head from her neck. But somehow, impossibly, Ileosa was not where the sword had struck, her Displacement having deceived Erin’s aim. A loud growl rumbled from the direction of the Everdawn Pool, and a hairy black bear suddenly came flying out of it. For a moment, everyone thought the Pool had created yet another enemy, but then they recalled seeing Jax transform into a werebear as he’d flown into the Pool. Now he was fully in animal form, and came flying up from below the Wall of Force to try to grab Ilesoa in a crushing bear hug. But she saw him coming; the rapier that danced around her of its own accord stabbed down at him as he rose, stabbing deep into his lung. Jax bellowed in pain, but drove on, grabbing at the Queen with hairy paws, but she was too shifty, and eluded his grasp.
Nat’s summoned Lillend was playing her
harp in the corner, a lively tune that Inspired
all who heard it. With her song ringing in his ears, Tomas let fly with a
volley of arrows. His Seeking bow was
not fooled by the Queen’s Displacement,
but her Mirror Images were a
different matter. Two of the arrows only managed to whittle away at the cloud
of images, although one drew blood. Shadow was torn between the two foes; he
knew that the Queen was their prime quarry, but that diseased dragon was
threatening to eat Nat, and he figured he was probably next on the menu. So he
breathed out a Lightning Bolt that
zapped the dragon, although he was disappointed to see that it suffered far
less damage than most creatures would have. But he hadn’t forgotten about the
Queen; thinking fast, he conjured a Quickened
Mage Hand, and tried to snatch the Crown of Fangs off her royal head! Had
he succeeded, the combat might have taken a very different turn, but Ileosa was
difficult target, bobbing and weaving to avoid the three people (actually a
person, an angel, and a bear) attacking her. His Hand lunged for the Crown, actually brushed against it, knocking it
slightly askew on her head, but failed to get a solid grip.
Queen Ileosa was not happy. These
commoners had been a thorn in her side for months, never derailing her plans,
but always annoyingly harassing her minions, distracting her from more
important tasks. Now they were here, threatening to disrupt her final ritual.
They had passed beyond being a mere annoyance; they must be destroyed. Her rapier
flashed, a blinding flurry of cuts that drew blood from both Erin and Jax. One
thrust went straight for Erin’s eye; Wren cried out in fear, and felt the
Harrow Deck in her pocket stir, and somehow the blade stabbed Erin’s chest
instead. An Ice Devil suddenly appeared in front of Nat, stabbing at him with
its icy spear, while a Bearded Devil appeared behind Tomas, who narrowly
avoided its claws. The Queen regarded the party with an icy stare, then vanished.
Nat shook his head; his True Seeing revealed
that she was truly gone; his Greater
Arcane Sight told him she had cast Dimension
Door, but he wasn’t altogether sure how she had managed to do everything
else she’d just done.
But he had other problems at the moment,
a diseased dragon that was trying to eat him and an Ice Devil that was trying
to freeze him being the two most pressing. He flew up and away, taking a nasty
gash from the dragon’s fangs as he fled. When he reached the far side of the
room, he spun and blasted the dragon with a Polar
Ray, then followed up with a Quickened
Maximized, Empowered Orb of Light. The blinding flash cast stark shadows
all around the room, and when it faded, the dragon had dissolved into a pool of
blood.
“She’s gone downstairs!” Wren cried,
pointing to the shaft they’d ascended. Her Harrow-powered link to Kazavon told
her the Crown of Fangs was now below them, and off to the east. Ignoring the
summoned devils, all of the party and their cast of supporting angels flew at
full speed towards the shaft, then down it. Two of the Devas paused long enough
to cast a Heal each on Erin and Jax,
then followed. The Ice Devil flew after them, but he was no match for their Hasted speed, and fell behind; the Bearded
Devil, unable to fly, had to content himself with hurling Infernal curses down
the shaft. As they reached the bottom, Shadow turned and conjured another Wall of Force, and couldn’t suppress a
laugh as he watched the Ice Devil hurtle face-first into the invisible barrier.
They were back in the Great Hall; the
bodies of the Erinyes devils and the Scarlet Walker still littered the floor,
but Nat’s magical sight showed no sign of the Queen. Wren had pointed to the
east when she’d warned them of the Queen’s new location, and there was an
unexplored hall in that direction. Casting True
Strike as he flew, Nat headed for it. It led into a room that reeked of
blood. The reason was clear; one corner of the room contained a large square
basin, its rim decorated with a convoluted bas-relief of a jumble of snakes and
slugs. Within the basin was a pool of blood. More of the thin crystalline tubes
came out of the walls above the basin, wove through its rim, and protruded
above the blood like tiny spigots. A wooden platform along the far wall held a
clutter of alchemical supplies and surgical tools, and an iron stand on it
cradled a dark blue gemstone the size of a child’s fist. It glowed with a
strong magical aura, which Nat’s Greater
Arcane Sight instantly recognized: Trap
the Soul.
Their Invisibility spells had come back into effect as they’d left the
Everdawn Pool’s chamber, so no one knew where Nat was. But the blinding flash
of light and sound of screaming from the nearby room (not all of it Nat’s) gave
them a pretty good idea. Wren’s Astral Deva flew to the door to the room, just
beyond the buzzing wasps, and shouted a Holy
Word, and all of the wasps dropped the floor, dead; however Ileosa and the
figure of blood seemed unaffected. Erin charged into the room, crunching
through a carpet of dead wasps, and swung Serithtial at Ileosa’s head. Again,
the blow seemed a deadly one until it passed harmlessly through empty air,
misled by the Displacement spell.
Tomas dashed into the room and fired off a shot, but it too missed. Bear-Jax
loped down to the southern end of the room, hoping to circle around through the
bedroom they’d seen earlier to catch Ileosa from behind.
Queen Ileosa laughed. “To think I used
to fear that blade,” she taunted Erin. The Queen was speaking, but the voice
was deep and guttural, the voice of Kazavon. “I see now that the danger is not
from the sword, but from the hand that wields it. You are not worthy of that
blade, girl.” The Queen’s rapiers flashed again, and Erin gasped as they sank
deep into her flesh. An image of the Queen appeared behind Tomas, and reached
out to place a hand on his shoulder. For a moment he heard music, and felt an irresistible
urge to dance to it, but he fought off the spell.
Nat saw Ern bleeding out, and despite
Kazavon’s words he knew that Serithtial was their only hope of defeating the
Queen. He cast another Polar Ray at
Ileosa and was rewarded by a scream of pain. Wren ran into the room; despite
Tomas having dispelled some, she could still see a cloud of Mirror Images swirling around Ileosa, and
knew they would thwart many of their best efforts to hit her. She pulled a
flask of Alchemist’s Fire out of her
belt pouch and flung it a the Queen’s feet. The flaming liquid splashed
everything nearby, including the Queen and all her images, and they vanished in
the smoke. Two of the Astral Devas each cast Holy Smite on Ileosa, doing little damage but gradually whittling
away at her reserves.
Erin struggled to stay focused. Kazavon’s
words struck deep – was she really up to this task? She swung the holy sword
again, and again her aim was off. Ileosa laughed again, this time the Queen’s own
feminine laughter. Erin thrust Serithtial forward, but again found nothing but
empty air. Serithtial was humming in her hand, the holy blade forged by Iomedae
herself, and she was failing it, failing her goddess, failing her friends.
Failing her sister. Suddenly Brigitte was beside her, looking up at her as she
had that day in the market, her yellow hair ribbon bright in the sunshine. “I know you can do this, Erin,” she said
with a smile. “I believe in you.”
Then Brigitte was gone, and Erin was back in the dark pyramid. Queen Ileosa
stood before her, laughing, confident in her ability to kill these fools, and
everyone in Korvosa, so she could take her place as the Runelords’ heir. “For
Iomedae! For Korvosa! For Brigitte!” Erin cried. Her arm swept forward, and she
felt Madame Zellara’s spirit clearing her sight, revealing the true Ileosa. The
blade swept through Ileosa’s delicate throat in a single clean slice. Ileosa’s
expression changed from exultant to surprised, and then her eyes went blank as
her head fell back, nearly severed, and her body fell limply to the ground.
The Crown of Fangs rolled off her head
with a ringing sound, but Erin could see the gaping wound in Ileosa’s throat already
beginning to close. “The Crown!” Wren cried. “You have to destroy the Crown!”
Erin gripped Serithtial in both hands, and brought the holy sword down on the
golden crown. It shattered with a thunderclap, as sparks of electricity shot
around the room. When the sparks cleared, the Fangs of Kazavon had fallen free and
the Crown itself was just a pool of cooling molten gold.
But before they could catch their breath
there was another thunderclap,
one that vibrated the very stones of the Sunken Queen. It seemed to have come
from above them, from the chamber of the Everdawn Pool. “It’s Kazavon!” Wren
whispered in terror, her gaze drawn upwards. “I can feel him! He’s up there!” Erin stared at the Fangs at her
feet as they began to glow with an inner radiance and them began to grow
translucent, as though they were fading away. “We have to stop him!” she cried.
They flew back to the shaft, Shadow
dispelling his Wall of Force to allow
them to fly back upstairs. They flew back into the upper chamber to find the Everdawn
Pool transformed into a whirlpool, a deafening growling roar filling the air.
Suddenly a draconic talon lanced out of one side of the pool, then a skeletal
wing out of another. Lightning crackled around the room and great iron chains
began to lash through the air, wrapping around the emerging bones and
transforming into flesh. An immense shape of blood and darkness began to emerge
from the Pool, creating the form of an ancient blue dragon from the inside out.
“It’s Kazavon!” Shadow gasped. “He’s being reborn!”
But the ritual was not yet complete, the
Pool not fully charged, when Ileosa’s death and the Crown’s destruction forced
Kazavon to act. Leagues away in Korvosa, thousands fell writhing in agony as
Kazavon tried to siphon away their lives to create his own. Ileosa would not
have been capable of such a thing, but she was not Kazavon. His force of will,
combined with the unfathomably ancient power of the Everdawn Pool, drew the
essence of thousands of innocent souls to fuse into one evil one.
Inside the chamber, all was chaos. Wren and
Jax were slammed into the wall by flying chains as the summoned Devas were
blasted into oblivion by lightning. Tomas could feel parts of his memory and
fragments of thought being stolen away; what was his brother’s name again? Had
he even had a brother? Nat and
Shadow were stunned by the cacophony of sound and light. Erin dodged the chains
and the lightning, squinting against the light. Serithtial was thrumming in her
hand, and she could hear a woman’s voice singing a battle song in her head. She
raised the holy sword above her head, and it attracted the lightning like a
lightning rod. The blade began to glow white hot as Erin was enveloped in a
crackling cocoon of electricity. The whipping chains shattered into fragments
of molten iron as they met the blade. The lightning tried to repel her, but she
slowly rose up into the air, forcing her way forward against Kazavon’s power.
She reached the swirling pool of blood, and drove Serithtial’s flaming blade
into its depths, into the still-forming heart of the dragon. There was an explosion of gore that was instantly consumed by
a blinding divine radiance.
Everyone was thrown back against the
walls. When their heads cleared, they found the chamber free of any signs of
the chaos of a moment before; all was quiet, no bloodstains marred the walls or
floor, and the Everdawn Pool floated calm and enigmatic in the center of the
room. Erin still floated before it, her armor unstained and Serithtial’s glow
fading.
Erin turned to Wren. “Is he gone?” she
asked. Wren searched her feelings, her Harrow-born link to Kazavon and his
relics. Then she nodded. “Yes. The Fangs are still downstairs, where we killed
her, but Kazavon is gone.”
“Gone for good?” Nat asked.
Wren paused. “Gone for now.”
This concludes The Curse of the
Crimson Throne. For what it’s worth, your
characters would have earned 93,867 XP, and ended up at 800,652 XP, just short
of Level 17. I hope you all had as much fun playing it as I did running it.
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