While the party's two-day, three-night visit to the Brass Mansion was not the most comfortable, it was also pretty uneventful. Stoneskins were cast, plans were debated, healing was administered, the Red Mage mentioned that the island in Silverton's harbor was covered with webs, the staff were obnoxious but harmless, Flambeau eventually reported that the orcs had all gone into hiding, and the party headed out for D-Day (except for Beeel's horse Bob [short for beast of burden], who will be enjoying efreet hospitality for just a bit longer).
About a turn after the party left the Mansion, Froot Loop appeared, asked Ganeth if he were feeling lucky, and gave him a yellow feather. Froot Loop couldn't tell Ganeth when to use it (beyond, "the worse, the better...sort of") or what it actually does, but it's activated mentally and might save G's life (or at least his spirit).
- Ganeth:
- "What happens if I get unlucky?"
- Froot Loop:
- "Don't worry about being unlucky. At that point you won't care."
Our songbird demigod confirmed that the orcs in Silverton are all hiding out in cellars and whatnot. Their ceremony apparently concluded successfully (all the behir's legs got broken off), but whatever happened was decidedly subtle.
Froot Loop then announced an alteration to the plan: Apparently Rillathorn didn't work out as a controller for the big demonic tree ("she wasn't feeling lucky"), so Stealth was needed to fill in. Silvana checked in with Plant Dude, and Plant Dude didn't leave Stealth much choice in the matter, so Froot Loop summoned a cloud of little yellow songbirds who whisked the party off into the ether to meet the tree. (Those without mind shielding got piercing tweeting sounds injected straight into their brains; this is expected to cause insanity in large doses.)
The tree turned out to be 30' tall and very stout; it also happened to have sharp-looking leaves, big branches for battering, and an eerie way of weaving darkness about itself. Stealth removed his mind-shielding/WIS-increasing circlet, went in, and was promptly hit with a 20th-level enervation (dropping him to F6/M5/T5); the tree woke up, and Stealth was in mental contact with it (and able to exert enough control to keep it from summoning farastu on the spot).
The party returned to the Prime some distance from Silverton and began heading toward the island by cloudship. Meanwhile the tree (monitored through the mental link with Stealth) was dropped into a square in Silverton, where it summoned a half-dozen farastu flunkies. They took out a bunch of phase spider scouts with utter ease and headed off toward the School of Magic. One farastu wandered off to kill some orcs and got booted off the plane, but the rest went underground (the tree smelled blood and told everyone to start digging), where they engaged and defeated a dreadnought (which was AC -3, had four big melee attacks and four fire gaze attacks per round, and exploded in a roughly-10d6 acid ball when it died, but didn't phase) and eight yellow spellcasters (who were AC 5 and stoneskinned, could cast communally in groups of any power of two, and also didn't phase). These spiders were guarding a crystalline lattice (with ethereal power feed) with an egg in the middle; the lattice had prismatic-style effects, but one of the farastu managed to save and MR its way in and smash the egg while another suppressed the power feed from the island. And thus was a distraction well and truly provided.
Meanwhile, the cloudship came in low, skimming over the harbor. The party discovered that the beach was rigged with exploding acid traps and the webs covering the island were fire resistant (though the Red Mage's special penetrating fire was able to burn a hole in them). They were unable to get past the beach, but they fought and obtained tissue samples from a variety of creatures:
- Normal phase spiders (some of which were able to screech and summon reinforcements)
- A big pudgy spider: AC 2, some MR, intrinsic acid shield (similar principle to fire shield, implemented with acid in sacs beneath the spider's skin), four gaze attacks (fire; each does about 1d4 if you save, 6d8 or so if you don't); melee abilities unknown
- Yellow-and-black spiders (one of whom was nailed with Silvana's insanity staff): AC 4, spellcasters, generally stoneskinned
- A swarming carpet of little red spiders that explode, doing lots of fire damage
- 20' diameter aquatic spiders: approx. 18 HD, AC -3, half damage from fire and electricity; pincer/pincer/bite routine, with grabbing and swallowing potential; carry small black poisonous spiders beneath the dorsal carapace (to swarm people who stand on it to avoid the bite); no gaze attack; no acid resistance
Meanwhile, the distraction team headed on to a second node and encountered a red carpet, a dreadnaught (AC -4), eight yellow-and-blacks, and some new creatures:
- Frankel:
- "Ganeth, are you inside the spider?"
- Ganeth: [dialogue courtesy of Dan]
- "Ymm, Im mmmmm the fmmmmmg spimmm."
Silvana got Plant Dude to sever the connection between Stealth and the tree, in case the space-warping spider had a chance of sucking Stealth, Silvana, PD, Whitemoon energy, and who knows what else (Silvana expects to be in big trouble with Whitemoon over this stunt, btw) through the link. So the fate of the demon tree and its farastu minions remained a mystery as the party flew off to Vlurshollow, hoping the wards the ki-rin had put up around that town were still holding out.
- Eight spellcasting phase spiders, generally casting abjures
- Large grey spiders: phasing, four stoning gaze attacks, approx. 100 hp, AC 0
- A small black spider with a palpable aura of LE that warps space around itself and sucks the energy out of anyone touching it (sort of a living sphere of annihilation -- some songbirds showed up to try to nick a power source in the node, but they saw this puppy suck up a farastu and chickened out); AC 0, phasing (vs ranged attacks)
- Frankel:
- "Why didn't we stop Rakni before she was this powerful?"
- Ganeth:
- "Because we were stopping the Shade Lord before she was this powerful."
- Frankel:
- "Oh."