Takar fed Devin a potion of Cure Moderate Wounds to get him back on his feet. Just then, Thord and Phillipe arrived, and joined the fight. Khalib reacted by summoning a reptilian/insect creature, though Devin and Zacartas were able to kill it quickly, before it did anything particularly nasty to us.

Phillipe cast Greater Dispell Magic on Khalib, which successfully removed four of his protections. Khalib put up a Wall of Force to protect himself from us, but Zacartas removed it with Disintegrate, quickly following it up with an Acid Pit, which Khalib deftly avoided falling into.

Phillipe then attacked the rune giant, after getting a Fly spell cast on him by Roy. Unfortunately, the giant hit him hard, reducing his dexterity. The giant got a few more strong hits on Phillipe, killing him, and then tossed his body right into the pit of acid. Not long after, Gulnyr killed Khalib, Takar finished off the last of the cloud giants, and Thord killed the rune giant.

With this epic battle concluded, we regrouped and pressed on. Zacartas cast Temporary Resurrection to bring back Phillipe, while Ash scouted ahead, deeper into the great hall. She found Khalib’s quarters, which we searched and looted. At the end of the hall was a giant golden statue of Karzoug, missing its weapon. A set of golden doors stood on the far wall, blocked by an energy curtain. A burning brazier stood nearby, as well as a large stone pagoda.

Takar cautiously approached the pagoda, and activated his Tremorsense to see if anyone was inside it. A Shemhazian Demon, who had been waiting invisibly nearby, turned visible and bit Takar, reducing his strength. Before Takar could get away, it attacked him several more times, draining more of his strength. Meanwhile, Ash was paralyzed by its gaze. Gulnyr and Phillipe fought the creature, while Devin channeled energy at it, and they brought it down. Devin then restored Takar’s strength.

We searched the pagoda. Inside was Karzoug’s sarcophagus, flanked by two statues of him. The sarcophagus was empty, and we found nothing else of interest.

Zacartas cast Disintegrate on the curtain of force in front of the golden doors, but it failed to remove it, and the curtain instead reflected a blast of force back at him. Phillipe tried to put out the brazier by pouring water on it, but it remained lit. He then threw the brazier at the force curtain, but it once again sent a blast of force back at him. Thord then broke through the force curtain by punching it repeatedly with runeforge-enhanced attacks.

We opened the door. In the room beyond were Lucretia, another lamia called Most High Ceoptra, and three cloud giants. At the back of the room was a giant rotating sphere, which Ceoptra referred to as the “Anima Focus“. As we entered the room, the cloud giants created fog clouds, and Ceoptra cast Blade Barrier around herself. Lucretia surrounded Ash with a miasma of wailing faces.

Gulnyr killed one of the cloud giants, and Zacartas summoned a fire elemental to assist us. Then he dispelled one of the fog clouds. After we killed a second cloud giant, Devin cast Greater Dispell Magic on Ceoptra, removing some of her protections. Meanwhile, Ceoptra telekinetically flung Roy into her blade barrier.

We killed the last cloud giant. Lucretia used Dimension Door to get next to Takar, and drained some of his wisdom with an attack. Zacartas meanwhile dispelled Ceoptra’s Blade Barrier. Devin cast Greater Dispell Magic on Lucretia, but it had no effect on her, because she had Mythic power. Ceoptra became ethereal, but we killed her. With only Lucretia left, we concentrated our attacks on her. When she was almost dead, she teleported away. Right before doing so, she said that this would be our last time encountering her, and urged us to kill Karzoug, because he would be angry with her.

We rested for the night, and those of us who died were resurrected. We returned to the saucer-shaped platform at the Pinnacle of Avarice, stronger than ever. We headed back to the lamia lair, and Ash peeked through the door using her gloves, and saw the gaping maw of a hungerer waiting to devour whoever opened it. We all took positions far back from the door, and Zacartas cast Open on it. We attacked the creature from a distance, but it charged at Takar, who was hovering near the ceiling. Fortunately, we managed to kill it fairly quickly.

We then spent the next hour searching the compound for Lucretia, but did not find her. So we retreated back to the outer curving corridor, and continued following it, until we came to a door. Ash looked through it, and saw a storeroom filled with broken crates. The far wall had a large hole, revealing the sky outside. Ash then opened the door and snuck inside, and saw a Planetar Angel, a winged celestial woman standing nine feet tall. The angel did not see Ash, so Ash retreated, but a moment later, the angel moved into view of the door. Upon seeing the rest of us, she began to weep.

She could not speak, so we asked her yes/no questions. We determined that she was tasked with guarding the opening in the wall, and was kept here by a Greater Plane Binding spell. We learned that killing her would free her, but she was likely too powerful for us to attack without sustaining heavy damage ourselves, since she would be compelled to fight back. Zacartas released her to her home plane by casting Greater Dispell Magic, but it took him three tries to succeed.

We continued along the corridor, and encountered another image of Karzoug. Devin cast Holy Aura to protect us, while Zacartas tried to dispell the image, but failed. Karzoug attacked us with a Fireball spell, and Takar created a wall of roiling earth in front of the image. Karzoug then cast Sign of Wrath on Ash and Gulnyr, but Ash resisted it due to the Holy Aura. Karzoug continued his attack, casting another Fireball, and then Black Tentacles. By the time Takar’s wall went away, Karzoug’s image was gone, so we continued on.

The corridor ended at a door. Beyond was a room with a set of double doors on the right-hand wall, and those doors were covered with runes that appeared to move when not looked at directly. Ash stepped forward to examine them, and suddenly vanished due to a Maze spell. Roy attempted to cast a spell at the door, which caused him to vanish as well, along with Zacartas and Gulnyr. A few moments later, they all returned, and reported having been to Leng.

Ash skillfully disabled the Maze trap on the doors, and then peeked through them using her gloves. However, the view she saw was of Leng, rather than what actually lay behind the doors, so we opened them. Beyond them was a long room, occupied by a dozen alien creatures who were tending to a device embedded in the walls of the room. At the far end was a curtain of energy, showing an image of Xin-Shalast as it existed in the distant past. We realized that this device could bring Karzoug’s ancient army through to the present, and that this was the “Leng device” that the talking spiders on Mharmassif told us to destroy.

We attacked and killed the creatures without much difficulty. As they died, the device gradually lost power, and shut down completely once all enemies were dead. We then tried destroying the device, but were unable to damage it. Suddenly, a giant quadruped with soulless eyes, known as a Hound of Tindalos, emerged from the device and attacked us. It was able to slash our skin with its mere gaze, but we eventually put it down.

We returned to the outer corridor, and went back in the direction we had come from. It took us to a set of doors, behind which lay a cavernous chamber. Two huge doors within the chamber led to a set of rune-giant-sized cubicles, each of which had a giant-shaped indentation. We entered the chamber, and saw that a corridor on the left side curved off into the distance, and was lined with more rune giant cubicles. Gulnyr and Ash ventured forwards, and encountered another image of Karzoug, who put Gulnyr in a Force Cage. We were then attacked by a devil armed with a spiked chain. The battle was later joined by a rune giant, an air elemental, and three cloud giants. Zacartas also spotted an invisible stalker going after Takar. A short while later, Khalib arrived. Zacartas defeated the invisible stalker with a Disintegrate spell. He then tried to stop Khalib by using Black Tentacles, but Khalib was protected by Freedom of Movement. During the fight, Roy killed the elemental, Gulnyr killed the devil, and Devin was knocked out. The battle continues…