Just Means
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Chapter 27 - What Goes Up...
We crammed ourselves into a small bedroom at one point while searching, before we heard a door open and close. The party began arguing loudly after closing and locking the door, and we were obviously found out by the dragon men. They kicked in the door after a few minutes, and the party raged out, killing the enemy, though one managed to escape through a mirror.
The party explored the rest of the floor before heading upstairs to the next floor. There, more powerful dragon warriors in ceremonial armor were guarding. Another fight erupted. All was going well until the whole tower tilted horribly, as if falling sideways and people were thrown about. As it leveled, the fight continued but ended shortly thereafter with everyone charging up the stairs onto the roof.
On the roof were 4 dragon mages, 1 escaped dragon warrior, and an adult black dragon. The four mages were surrounding a huge silver magical ball, a mythal used to keep the city afloat. Apparently they were using it to raise the tower into the sky. The party attacked.
The party disrupted two of the mages, at the monk stunned one and Ferras breathed lighting at another. One erected a wall of fire to protect the others from the party, while the party advanced. The dragon took flight and flew over the flaming wall to breath upon three of the party. Lighting also arced through a couple members. A pillar of flame erupted around the dragon as Kory unleashed a spell upon it. Ferras finished off the dragon warrior and then flew up and over the wall of flame. He bothered the head dragon mage enough for him to drop his ball and strike Ferras down.
The party continued to battle, forcing the dragon to flee and finally disrupting all of the mages. The tower began to fall. The party finished off all of the mages and fought with the main mage over the rock he held as they and the tower plummeted from the clouds to the swamp below. In the end, the dragon man escaped with his stone while the party managed to survive the fall in various manners. Everyone survived though the tower hit the swamp and went straight through to the bedrock causing a small mushroom cloud to explode out and a wave of water and mush from the swamp to shutter out destroying much of the undead that had been around the tower. The party recovered themselves in the wreckage of the tower, and Kory raised Ferras.
Chapter 28 - Blood Red Skies
In the aftermath of the fallen tower there was a huge mushroom cloud of muck and mist that obscured view for a large area. The tidal wave of muck, stone, and trees had washed away most of the undead but the larger ones managed to survive. Kory healed Ferras, who then began searching for the others in the smelly, warm oozing muck. He stopped here or there to attack large skeletons with his mace (since he had dropped his sword, which had fallen..um..somewhere, which he assumed was lost)
They located gondogal, slade, wolanin, and ragnor a little while later and kory used locate object to locate Ferras' sword. It was deep deep under tonnes of muck in the center of the mushroom cloud formed by the tower. Since Slade was undead and didn't have to breath, they sent him down swimming into the muck. Somehow, using detect magic to allow him to see a couple feet in the solid slime, he came back with Ferras' sword AND one of the mages. Some more searching also found a magical sword. The haze of swamp matter was thinning in the downpour, and it was their only cover from the now patrolling dragon men, so they quickly gathered themselves up and flew up to the city above the clouds.
Above the clouds, out of the rain and muck, the party found a solid pink sky and a balmy atmosphere. They also found the city of Ioulm floating there. The huge island in the sky had magical protection over it, but gondogal and slade knew the password to get through and the party went almost directly to speak to Ioulm.
Ioulm was a young, reckless looking man with wise eyes. He lounged about and seemed to wield his power with a rather non-chalant attitude. The party didn't exactly trust or like him. Despite that, he cleaned them up and fed them food while they told their story. He explained that he needed a powerful artifact to power the cities journey to the portal in the swamp, and the party suggested the mythlar below that the dragon men had been using to float the tower and undead army up into the sky on.
The party also told him about where they come from, and discussed the difference in time lines with Ferras suggesting that the longer it took them to leave this place, the more time was flying by, back on the regular planes.
A fight about magical items seemed to break out rather suddenly, but the party calmed themselves, and split the loot up without much more mess. They also sold eight minor artifact goblets back to Ioulm (who they belonged to) for 50,000 gp. The party left to rest and equip themselves with some magical items before heading out on their next task.
Chapter 29 - Errand Boys
After doing a bit of shopping, the PC's went to the temple of Tyr. The priests were able to bring slade back to life and he was no longer undead. Then the party rested for a day before returning to Oulium. He discussed with the party about the plans to move the city, and then sent the party to go get the Mythlar.
Armed with scrolls to move the earth, scrolls to levitate the mythlar to the city, and potions of invisibility, the party headed down back below the clouds (flying) into the cold rain. Where they sought the mythlar, they found 3 dragon man generals, the undead massive dragon man with the stone embedded in his chest, and a bunch of foot soldier dragon men.
While they were planning the attack they were spotted (invisible in the rain isn't as useful), and a fierce battle erupted in the skies. Magic and powerful blades were drawn and the dragon man and PC's went head to head. Things were going well until Slade was felled by the priest dragon man who slew him with a touch. The party responded by doubling up their efforts on the huge undead dragon man, who Gondogal managed to slay, his fury evident, his blades a blur until a powerful strike took off the dragon man's head and he fell from the sky. Ferras turned and dealt two massive blows to the enraged barbarian dragon man, but in his fury he's shrug off the usually mortal blows. The battle looked close with many enemies still surrounding only a few PC's...
Chapter 30 - Cold Welcome Home
With a quick rally, and the major opponents out of the way, the party managed to recover itself and finish off the rest of the enemies. They party then recovered the massive magical orb as well as the evil artifact, and returned to the city. They gave the items to Ioulm who then began the process of flying the entire city towards the portal.
As the city moved across the sky, black dragons began circling it, but the shield was strong and the city made it to the portal. Ioulm began the final process and used up the power of the artifacts before him to open the portal. Nothing seemed to happen. Slowlly however, the dimension around them began to collapse, until it was like being inside a perfectly mirrored ball that was shrinking quickly towards you. With explosive force, the city was gated.
The city exploded out into the negative plane. The cold negative energy immediatly began to wreak havoc upon everyone. The party, seeing the wizards stronghold floating above them made their was there, and then through it to the portal back to the prime material. They used it and returned safely...leaving the entire city behind to it's fate within the negative plane.
The party immediately began to seek out Xej. They went first to Suzail to inquire about him, but found no news about him. They did find Zendrak however. They then scryed and contacted Xej and he asked them to meet him at his stronghold. Wary of this invite to his home ground, they went anyway. They used phantom steeds and travelled in force, Zendrak at their side.
Arriving at this stronghold, thanks to Kory's directions, they made their way inside where they met a gate. Locked. They called for Xej and his two apprentices came to open the gate and guide them inside. Kory's magic however revealed the apprentices to be demon's in disguise. The party quickly attacked them. A running fight into the bowels of Xej's domain led them to his library where the apprentices hid behind Xej. Xej smiled and welcomed the party.
A short conversation went back and forth with Xej trying to act normal. Then Kory's magic spotted the brown mage. The battle ensued. Both demon apprentices and the brown mage were slayed quickly, but Xej teleported away before he could be captured. The party spotted a portal being built and Ferras went about destroying it. A demon voice warned loudly if we continued Xej would die, but the party continued and then Xej appeared and unleashed more magic upon us.
The battle was quick, with the whole party ganging up on Xej. Before Xej was killed however, the demon leapt from his body. It tried to teleport away immediately, but Ferras had been waiting for some type of escape and leapt forward slamming his sword into the demon and caused his teleportation to fail. Then the party unleashed into the massive demon and managed to slay him before he could get away.
Xej not dead, was revived and the was returned to his own mind. At this point, with Wolanin missing from the entire scene, the quest for Wolanin's stuff was immediatly called off, and the party decided to head back to Suzail to see what they'd missed. According to the stories Zendrak was telling, it was a quite a bit.