We reached a rather large group of islands today, and a scouting group (the party plus ten marines) were sent onto one of the larger islands. Koslov stayed behind, as he was putting the finishing touches on a new, golem-like body for himself. As soon as we headed inland we encountered a score of elf-raised dogs. They were rather growly around Zerin (demon heritage, even though he's good-aligned) and Lady Missinget (drow upbringing, and her alignment is less clear), but they were jumping all over half-elf Obelix. We found a kennel and a nearby long-abandoned house. A quick sweep of the house turned up some magical hound-training equipment and an elven skeleton holding a small vial. I surmised suicide by poison.
Venturing further inland, we found a massive, ancient tower of marble and mithril. There was a door outline at the base of the tower which proved quite resistant to unwanted entry (no, "Mellon" did not work). Obelix impersonated an elven officer to the door, which rendered it transparent, but still firmly shut. I, however, found that my helmet of blinking was now effective on it (the helmet allows me to, among other things, walk through walls). Inside was a staircase leading up to a similar wall-door at the second floor. I couldn't bluff this one on my own, but the rest of the party and the marines followed into the tower as soon as Zerin used a miracle to provide everyone with a similar blink effect. When he did so, his arms became withered and blighted, although nothing some healing spells from Missinget couldn't fix. This appeared to be a result of Vateo's condition deteriorating. Upon reaching the higher-up floors, we found two things. The first was a control panel of sorts, with some panels providing magnified views of the surrounding region and others activating a defense mechanism: the mithril winding about the tower animated, uncurled, and whipped around very destructively until we turned it off. The second object of note was a floating, silver orb in the center of the room. Gerrard's reaction? "Ooh! I touch it!" My reaction! "NO!" I tripped him and dragged him back just before he reached it. When we attempted it analyze it, it registered overwhelming magic of every type except illusion and necromancy. Yeah. No Touchy.
We then spotted a small, airborne figure approaching rapidly on one of the viewscreens. This was Koslov how inhabiting his new body, but he appeared as a particularly nasty construct, and Obelix (immense construct-hater that he is) went a little berserk and activated the tower defenses, which gave Koslov a nasty pummeling until Missinget laid down a magical field designed to severely punish anyone who took hostile actions within it. Gerrard then re-declared his decision to touch the orb. I accepted the magical consequences and tripped him again, but he directed his psicrystal to the orb anyway. *touch* KA-BOOM! A burst of magical electricity exploded his psicrystal, gave the party nasty wounds, and instantly killed all of the marines. As we picked ourselves up off the floor and healed our burns, I gathered the corpses and declared that we were to return to the ship posthaste. Gerrard displayed a rather...nonchalant attitude toward the deaths of the marines. Upon our return, charred corpses in tow, the captain confronted Obelix, Zerin, and me and asked what happened. I explained, finishing with an urging that Gerrard be arrested for manslaughter. The captain agreed, but we found that Gerrard had taken off to another island in his own ship. As we prepared for the manhunt, Obelix and Koslov reconciled.
We began sweeping the island chain, and as sunset neared, Obelix spotted fresh footprints on one of the smaller islands. Reuniting and taking the scout ship to the island, we disembarked (no marines this time) and began a closer search. After going a few hundred feet, we heard a voice behind us cry, "Look over here!" We turned just in time to see a trio of imps next to the scout ship...touching torches to barrels. KA-BOOM! The ship was blown to smithereens, killing the commander and wizard aboard. WE retreieved the bodies and gave them a funeral pyre. As this happened, elves sprang up from everywhere and began pelting us with arrows. We recognized their garb as that of the Atherton society from 500 years ago.
Missinget took two shots to the chest right away and beat a hasty magical retreat. I performed a leaping charge into the trees and engaged one of the archers, Meteledes attempted to demoralize our attackers (doing rather well, for once), Koslov directed his pet constructs into melee, where they wrought havoc), Obelix engaged enemies in the shallow water just offshore, and Zerin wrought a firestorm to torch the trees and their dwellers (avoiding me). Oh, and Gerrard also appeared in the trees, hurling a blast of cold Obelix's way. We had previously planned to arrest him, reverting to deadly force if necessary, but now there was nobody who intended to do less than kill him.
As the battle unfolded, I smashed the bows of a few archers, which caused their bodies to corrode, Koslov and Zerin focused their efforts on neutralizing Gerrard, who hit me with a not-very-effective fire blast and Zerin with a much-more-effective burst of constricting ectoplasm, and the elves continued firing high-knockback arrows at us. Eventually the elves were decimated, and Gerrard was caught immobile between me and a grapple-happy construct. It was clear all around that, despite displaying an amazing capacity to absorbing punishment, he was moments away from execution. Obelix then showed the flexibility of his class by emulating a powerful dispel effect on Gerrard to get rid of his protections...which also peeled away the magical effect that had been driving him to try to kill us. As this happened, a rather large demon appeared on the field and an unusual adamantine staff appeared in Koslv's hand. We also noticed that commander campion (not the blown-up one) had snuck onto the battlefield...just in time for the demon to impale him on a large spine. Our attention promptly switched from the now-helpless-and-in-massive-pain Gerrard to the demon...and to the late Campion, who has undergone a couple of surprising changes. First, the lower half of his body has degenerated into ice slush. Second, part of his face had slid off to reveal a different face: that of Sethos. Koslov, using the suddenly-appeared staff to trap the demon in a telekinetic sphere, deduced that Campion had, in fact, been a magical creation sent by Sethos this whole time. The demon hissed that the staff's owner (determined to be Sethos again) would want it back and vanished. We then returned to the writhing Gerrard...as the captain stepped forward and executed him with a dagger to the back of the skull.
As the party and captain talked to determine everything that had just happened (during which Sethos' staff vanished), I began piling the corpses. As I dumped Gerrard on the pile he began screaming. Huh. Alive again. Turned out that Gerrard, having crossed the line from Chaotic Neutral to Evil after killing the marines and showing no remorse, had been sent to the Nine Hells in death (not the Abyss, as he had made some very specific enemies among devilkind) before Vateo dragged his soul out of hell and hurled him back to the Material Plane. Apparently it was not a pleasant experience. The captain, feeling that Gerrard had still not paid the price of his actions, took Gerrard's left eye.
When we returned to the ship, we found it in grave disrepair. During our fight the ship had been assaulted by a formidable force of demons, who had been pyrrhically beaten back.
Scoreboard: 10 marines dead, commander Callebe dead, wizard Helliot dead, our scout ship destroyed, our main ship quite battered, Gerrard under arrest, the captain in favor of returning home, and Obelix in possession of an elf-hound puppy. The DM said afterward that we had departed from expectation a lot. Gerrard had not been expected to touch the orb, and we as a whole were expected to reach...some other vents, which will almost certainly happen at tomorrow's--er, today's meeting.
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