Session 11 4-5/4/717 The Mad Wizard; to Harkenwold

Aelar account:
Aelar followed his companions towards the entrance of the final hall. Time was pressing upon them to find that human wizard as soon as possible.
The devil that he was threatening to free in our dimension was undoubtedly quite powerful and although Aelar's brother and sisters in arms where fearsome, he was not sure if the group would be a match for this kind of hellish conjuration...
Especially in the state of exhaustion that the mutiple battles with the minions of Gimbolge (and eventually himself) had brought upon them, the group was now quite close to the end of its tether.
A few steps later, when he started to distinguish a big mechanical contraption at the center of the room, his heart sank. Aelar really hated these metal montruosities: Full of spikes and tortured shapes, rusty and noisy... the polar opposite of the wind in the elegant branches of a giant tree when you have a nap on its canopy. Only dwarves could only create these aberrations... no surprises here...
His gaze followed the long chains coming from a hoist in the ceiling and were attached to a crank on the wall on one side, and split into four to link the corners of a stone slab on the ground, on the other side of the hoist.
Around the slab, some ceremonial candles were lit up and radiated with an ominous glow.
"Candles!... Awww this is so romantic!" Aelar joked, just for himself as it was not really a good time for public displays of sarcasm.
It didn't take an arch-mage to guess that the slab could be raised and would irrevocably open up a pit towards the very creature they were trying to prevent entering their realm.
Aelar tightened the grip on the rope of his bow and let the hunter's spirit take over as his first job will be without doubt to disable whoever would attempt to operate that crank.
Sure enough, a few feet away from the crank, in the opposite corner of the room, a human in a long robe was looking at them. And like them, he was gearing up for the final confrontation.
Messoria, Andraste and Roarzac(?) were about to burst into the room when a quatuor of gobelins jumped from the ceiling beams above us, and tried to surprise our elite fighters to not much avail.
Nevertheless that annoying diversion bought the wizard enough time to summon a huge bear out of nowhere.
The game suddenly was changing: Instead of targeting the wizard or raining arrows on these vicious little goblins, Aelar now had to stop that bear from coming to contact with the group or they would never prevent the wizard from pestering them and eventually activating the mechanism.
Aelar took a deep breath, armed his bow and brought the nock of his arrow toward his jawline in a swift motion. A few fractions of a second more, in order to focus for a disruptive shot and the arrow flew over the heads of his companions in a perfect straight line. When it reached the bear, the arrowhead lodged itself in the ankle of the animal, emerged behind the heel and wedged itself right between two floor tiles. The bear was stuck in place, the wound was too painful to allow the creature to extract the arrow or dislodge it from the floor, just yet. But that situation wouldn't last long... "That should buy us just enough time to clean up the room and transform that wizard into a pin cushion", Aelar muttered for himself as the battle was raging between the melee fighters and the pesky goblins. Forced into battle, the wizard was coming over and the fun was about to start....

Session 10 4/4/717 - Tannheim #4 - The Fall of the High Priest, Death of Ghesh

Messoria Account - The Fall of the High Priest

After our earlier foray, we decide to risk a raid on the Temple. Albert remains behind to pray over Arjhan and to try to ensure our hiding place remains secret while the rest of us move through the complex to the Temple via the flooded room where we fought the ghoul dwarves. Sehanine is with us as we manage to make our way to the Temple antechamber without encountering any of the Mountain King’s forces who are all now on the alert.
We make our plan that Aelar and Andraste should deal with any long range threats while Leleth, Ghesh and Messoria form a screen to hold down any melee attackers. Entering the temple we are shot at from a pair a dwarves on a high ledge flanking a weird diabolical statue that might be a representation of Abbathor. Aelar shoots at both and one is knocked from the ledge to fall to his death.
From behind the statue we hear the alarm gong sounding and suddenly a gout of scalding steam blasts from the statue’s mouth. Messoria is the only one in its range and the tiefling resistance to fire is enough to blunt its effect. We see no obvious exits from the room but the walls are covered with tapestries behind which we hear the sound of approaching reinforcements. We ready ourselves to meet a charge and moments later a band of orcs rushes towards us.
They attempt to mob Andraste and Messoria, but two of them are blinded by a cloud of shuriken flung at them by the eladrin. Only seconds after the orcs have closed the range a pack of five gnolls arrive, barking their frustration that the orcs are blocking their way. Only their axe-wielding leader is able to push his way through to challenge Ghesh and Leleth. The other gnolls content themselves with using their bows.
Surrounded by enemies, Messoria calls on the Frosts of Letherna to attack the orcs and many of them fall to the ground dead, covered in glimmering ice. Aelar concentrates his efforts on Gimbolge, the dwarven High Priest who has taken position on the ledge. His first arrow freezes him in place; subsequent arrows finish the job and knock him off the ledge to fall to his death alongside his henchman.
Ghesh falls before the Gnoll chieftain, but Aelar is able to pull him back from the brink of death. The dragonborn rejoins the fight, shouting encouragement to the beleaguered Messoria. Then to our dismay we see Irgut the Trapmaster enter the room, wielding his strange Blade Bow. Unable to get a clear shot at his nemesis, Aelar, he shoots at Ghesh. Messoria shouts a challenge at him and blinded by anger he rushes to fight her.
Too late Irgut realises his anger has brought him too close to his foes for his Blade Bow to be effective, but he still manages to shoot a poisoned bolt at Messoria who is just able to fight off the effects. Gradually the tide starts to turn as the last of the orcs fall to Andraste and Ghesh, but the dragonborn, already bleeding from countless wounds, is set upon by the gnoll pack and falls to the ground. Before we can reach him, a gnoll stabs him in the throat with its scimitar.
Seconds later, though too late for Ghesh, the last of the gnolls falls before us and the remaining dwarf crossbowman surrenders. Messoria interrogates him and he says that there is a devil beneath Tannheim called Azan Zog. He also says that Gimbolge had been working with a mad human wizard who has four goblin slaves, and who Gimbolge had been hoping would be able to make a deal with Azan Zog in order to draw on his power.
Messoria extracts a promise from the dwarf prisoner to turn from the worship of Abbathor and bids him go to Fallcrest to Kallain to take up an honest blacksmith’s trade there. Between Messoria’s castigation and Leleth’s threats, the dwarf swears on Moradin’s name, grabs his arbalest and runs.
We take Ghesh’s body and lay it beside Arjhan where Leleth performs the funeral rites as prescribed by the Raven Queen.

Andraste's Musings
A stroke of luck, meeting this band of adventurers. I've killed and damaged more bottom-dwellers than ever before on my own... The one downside is having to share the loot, but still, I got these understated Gloves of Piercing... The elf is very good with his bow, and the half-elf has potential. The tiefling is surprisingly generous, but shame about the dragonborn, apparently it's not the first one to die here... I need to get to know the humans better, though - they are endemic in this area, where my ancestral home is... There is still time to decide, I haven't even seen it yet!