Welcome back friends, to another rousing post of . . . . THE ADVENTURES OF DELICIOUS CUPCAKES! (Did you read that in a mighty voice? Good)
As the last chapter of our epoch had come to a close The Party Soon Known As Delicious Cupcakes's fortunes had taken a turn for the worse, courtesy of a demented DM (In my defense they drove me to it), as they realized that they'd been teleported to the doorstep of the Shadowvar's last city Thultanthar.
What's worse, their destination led them even closer to it. But, not to be deterred by the threats of a GM, they refused to abandon the quest. Or even to wait until nightfall to sneak into the rubble. Or even make an attempt at camouflage.
Nope, they marched into those ruins in broad daylight, right under a floating city. Let me say that again. They marched into the ruins of a city in full view of people so powerful they had a floating city. After having been warned that said people (with a floating city) didn't appreciate looters. Now if that don't put the cock in cocky what does?
Despite all of this, the only hurdle they ran into as they picked through the ruins were another mating pair of Yrthak, which they promptly murdered in their usual methodically psychotic fashion.
Oh, yeah, and the dozen Whiptail Centipedes that, by some coincidence, just happened to have chosen the library as their nest. Not that they were ever much of a threat to an APL 7 group. They killed all but one with glee before it escaped, slipping through the cracks in the ceiling. The gnome was reduced to cheerleading as he reloaded his gun, and later cursing the slower members of the party. Poor little bloodthirsty murderer.
Afterwards it was a simple matter of perusing the remaining books for that mentioned in the passage found in Augerhead. While the bookworms were busy Velic began piling anything that anyone had ever even considered enhancing magically into a pile on one of the tables. Vex busied herself by piling the still oozing centipede carcasses in front of all the windows. Apparently she'd declared all out war on the party as a whole's olfactory senses . . .
Eventually they unearthed the tale of a great wizard by the name of The Great Victini who reportedly taunted the god Asgorath with the boast that he could solve any combination of riddles the dragon deity could come up with. Only the first riddle was recorded: From mountain to lake, in the beginning of Garl’s end, something hides deep ,Hidden below.
/*Dm's Note: At the beginning of this campaign I informed the group that they would only be allowed to do internet searches if they were in a library. This certainly qualified*/
Vex then keyed on the word lake and simply grabbed the closest one. I of course insisted Dan give me a reason besides it being the closest lake. The group eventually figured out that the lake the quote referred to was indeed The Shadow Sea. Vex was smug. Meanwhile Velic began shoveling said books into his bag of holding.
As they were leaving a deep voice carried from the door, commanding them to drop their weapons and surrender themselves for inspection. Velic responded to this in his typically provocative manner by telling said voice to go 'fuck itself'. Prepare for the fight scene.
Again, it turned out not to be a very difficult fight, primarily because I got the monk isolated in a position he couldn't withdraw from. The group did do a fine job of using the door to limit the Shadowvar agents' options.
Wishing to avoid any future encounters with said Shadowvar agents, the group decided to circle south and around the Scimitar of Spires mountains, eventually traveling a 270% arc to the sea. I truly will never understand this group. They show no fear at all until walloping a party of the people they were supposed to be afraid of. Now they're going out of their way to avoid them!
When they finally made it to the sea (which is north of the mountains they passed), Zubat sent the now magically flying (it had lost its wings) eidolon Scrambles to scout over the surface of the water for anything interesting. It came back empty, and the group decided to scout the seabed. As it turned out both Calith and Zubat could cast Water Breathing but didn't have it prepared. Besides, they'd already had a long day of plunder and murder.
But as night crept in an unexpected surprise (redundant much?) came from the sea in the form of a school of Landwalker Sharks. Sadly, not even being caught unawares and out of armor made this future seafood a serious threat.
Except for Vex whom they consistently crit. She almost died to land sharks!!! No doubt the group would never let her live that down. Once finished the group went back to sleep.
Not to be outdone by any DM, Quagrim dragged several of the shark corpses into a circle around Vex as she slept, and placed one just in front of her head. I know, but damn his stealth checks.
Next morning Vex awoke to the sight of the open maw of one of the things and jerked backwards instinctively . . . directly into another shark. One failed will save later and she had a shiny new phobia, courtesy of the gnome who was currently ROFLing.
For a while . . .