Towers Upon Towers

 In the City that was Moil,

Under a  lightning black roiling sky, the party decides to head to the nearest tower. On the lintel, the mage deciphers Tower of Portals and entering this open tower with a central catwalk and multiple 'gates'. Bypassing this tower they continue over to a steel tower that is half filled with salty water evidenced by the strong smell of brine. After dropping a summoned 'beaver' down into the brine from the 120 foot drop the mage decided to lower one in, who then promptly swam around attempting to get out. Looking at eachother they head back to try one of the other towers. The mage again deciphers the name, The Tower of Morning.
The rogue goes gaseous and begins to explore and finds a strange mural with multiple images of the sun. Also he finds a humanoid frozen in ice, so he goes back to open the lock so that the priest can examine the body. So the priest approaches the body and suddenly the priest feels damage being taken and the body's heart on the floor begins to beat as it breaks the ice and stands up! It appears that this 'Moilian zombie can steal animation energy from any kind of source it finds be it alive or dead. The priest surmises that it must be able to siphon off the connection to the Negative Energy Plane that all undead possess, which means that this is one mean undead type. Glad they don't exist anywhere else? The priest ends it with a Destruction.
Once the whole party examined the mural with its scenes of different times of day and different suns.  The priest again figures that this is correct due to the Moilians worship of the sun. Someone touches the mural and the panel lights up and with experimentation: only one stays lit. In Moilian the mage deciphers "Manifest of the Power of the Wand of Days". Moving on they find a double iron door encased in 3 feet of ice at the end of  a hallway. Skurr, the fighter and the priest bash at the ice or melt it then proceed to bash the iron doors open only to find more ice. Ten feet of ice and something illuminated in the center of the room. More bashing and melting reveal a wand set into what looks like a vise. The priest pulls the wand and tries the command word and illuminates 50ft with sunset. The vampires get a bit scared. The priest heads back to the mural and touches the noonday sun panel then they continue exploring this tower, a few rooms, quite a few Moilian platinum pieces and they now have a Moilian Zombie automated response. The vampires get away and the priest uses the Wand. Poof.
Heading to the next tower that reads "Tower of Chance", they find a small cabaret and a table pulled up and a bottle of absinthe and a single crystal goblet with "Desatysso was here" scratched with a dagger into the table. A few humanoid shapes in the ice minus the zombie raises a few eyebrows. Some private gambling rooms...more empty rooms. Then a skeleton encased in ice who turns while breaking ice and sprouting blackfire from his skull. The rogue and the wizard both are ineffectual so Skurr goes toe to toe and one his first round, Skurr, does a serious amount of damage but then has a serious amount done right back to him, then a failed attempt by the priest, leaves the death knight to try and control him. He makes it and forces the skeleton to walk off the walkways...

Interlude

The huge undead red dragon reared back, beating furiously three times as it and its rider came to rest on a giant stone tongue sticking out in a symbol of mocking. Upon stone that had never seen the sun, shaped into the face of a great demonic face floating in mid blackness. A single green lantern on a post illuminated an otherwise black vista.

A figure in dark robes, slides off the back of the dragon and pulls the cowl back from his head. The gaunt gray green of his skin, his unwavering eyes, mark him as githyanki, but something isn't right. The skin is to tight to the bones, and seems to shimmer as if moving.

The dragon and the githyanki exchange glances.

"This has to be it." a dry wispy voice speaks,"I'll head in and come back soon."

The dragon grunts his approval and he rears back on his haunches and stretches his wings again, revealing not the bright red scales but grayed white at the tips for a somewhat mottled appearance, and the eyes are just glowing red. He launches into the blackness and circles the great demon face and finds that it indeed has only one entrance through the mouth with naught but the back of the stone facade floating in the black. Then the dragon falters in flight. Then again as something overtakes his mind.

Then as the dragon rights itself and effortlessly comes back in for a landing and takes up a catlike stance and waits.

After some time the githyanki mage exits walking over to his 'companion' who promptly opens up by blasting him with the furnace of his breath. The huge cone expands for a second and running its course and seeing the mage still standing, the dragon rears back and unleashes claws, wing attacks, bite, and a tail sweep that sends the mage flying against the wall where he lies in a heap for a moment. 

"So glad you could join me here servant of the Lich Queen! Whatever your 'angle' here, it will be for folly," the voice does not sound the same as the dragon did previously.There was also a condescending hint to the entire statement.

The dragon slowly walks up to the crumpled form of the mage who by now is slowly trying to get up from being prone. 

The mage barely raises a finger when a jolt of electricity shoots forth directly into the dragon then a sphere of and explosive force bursts forth sending the dragon up into the air high above the landing tongue.  Easily righting himself, the Acererak dragon dives in a flyby attack flinging his breath down upon his foe. This time the fire is sticky and makes a fire carpet that continues to burn. The mage takes the attack, quickly casts another spell then disappears and reappears out of the flames. The dragon turns again coming back in for a attack. 

"ACERERAK! If that is you why can we not work together to destroy the Lich Queen. Stop this at once so we may discuss like civilized entities!" the mage yells, his tattered robe nearly burnt from his body and his flesh scorched and charred.

"I don't need you!" diving in for the attack.

The mage thinks for a moment of the day he found Abalathrax and readies a maximixed, empowered Cone of Cold. He could raise him later.

The powerful blast of cold and ice shards hits the dragon Acererak instantly snuffing out all as the huge mass of undead dragon flesh impacts the terrace crushing the mage underneath only to become a gas on impact.  The mage quickly stands and casts a wall of force and contains the gas. Then casting another spell that he has had saved for just such an occasion. He unleashes the power of the sun. Inside the forcecage the gas dissipates.

The mage walks in through the archway and disappears.

All goes silent.

How I Learned to Carry Wooden Stakes

Having somehow survived the near resurrection of the Temple of Elemental Evil and the god whatever his name even was, Gurrik, loyal cleric of Vecna, reflected somewhat lazily on the recent adventures of his group, currently delving into the tomb of the long dead wizard Acerak. If not for his seemingly irrational ability to shift his entire body to a pocket of the astral plane kept stable by his deity, he too may have fallen to the unholy and most intriguing forces behind the rest of the party's transformations. As it was, his lengthy trips to the astral plane had left a permanent mark on his body, imbuing it with magical energies and resistances.

Reappearing in the primal material plane next to his companions, Gurrik found himself in a great city of undeath and necromancers. The center of the city, dominated by a giant earth-forged skull in fact housed a great school of necromancy and the entrance to Acerak's tomb, often called the Tomb of Horrors. After sorting out various information spewed at him by his less-than-human and less-than-intelligent companions, Gurrik discovered they had come into possession of a journal written by a man calling himself Desatysso.

Studying the journal, unimaginatively being called the Journal of Tomb, Gurrik found himself understanding little of the grand plan of this Acerak who had apparently ascended to lichdom and then fled the prime material plane to a demiplane where used to dwell the city of Moil. According to other information, the city of Moil was cursed in some manner by some folly of dumb people and is now known as the City That Waits. What Acerak intends to do in or with the city is a complete mystery, even to the gods as Gurrik later found out while communing with Vecna.

But like all great scholars, Gurrik found himself driven to understand what he could not extrapolate and continued into the tomb with his now undead companions. The vampires he understood as he had met a very charming vampire during the jaunt through the Temple of Elemental Evil, but the paladin-cum-blackguard was still a mystery. One possibly solvable at a later date as the Acerak mystery was currently precedent in his mind.

In the two days of exploring the tomb of Acerak, they had encountered all manner of puzzles, riddles and traps. Secret doors seemed a matter of obligation to Acerak as every passage sported at least one and sometimes more. At one point the entire party traveled from within a small room through an orangish gateway that brought them back to the beginning of their journey, sans gear. Fortunately the gnome rogue was feeling benevolent and wished it all back.

Another puzzle, illusory colored spheres concealing secret doors or small crawlspaces took several hours of the party's time but did prove ultimately fruitful. A shifting weight trap nearly ended Gurrik's dungeoneering career, but fast thinking let him cast a spell to shift out of the prime material plane and into the ethereal. What he saw there wasn't exactly heart-warming, but it did give him a general overview of the elaborate layout of the tomb.

A brief encounter with a brain in a jar, some potent creation of some evil person (possibly Acerak himself) nearly found him a vampire at the hands of others in the group. Hopefully the realization that he would become far more powerful than any of them could hope to deal with dissuaded them, but for how long this could remain so is unsure. Another trap later found him waking up with the group staring down at him, a faint glimmer of hunger in their eyes. Quite disturbing in its own way.

Eventually Gurrik realized a combination of spells would help them accelerate their search for the remains of Acerak and in short order, they had indeed found them. The wizard, thinking to protect the party from the skull noted as slaying half of Desatysso's party, instantly disintegrated it with a powerful spell, assuming it to be the phylactery of Acerak. Shortly thereafter, communion with Vecna disproved this, but confirmed the dust and bone fragments with the skull were indeed Acerak's actual remains. Further discussion with Vecna led to the confirmation of the green skulls found earlier in their journeys would lead them to Desatysso's goal of the City That Waits, so long as they carried with them a fragment of Acerak's body.

Having also found an amulet that according to the group matched an amulet worn by someone at the school encompassing the tomb's entrance, they briefly discussed returning to retrieve the other half or using a wish or other similarly powerful spell to summon the other half from its current owner. This discussion turned out to be ultimately useless however and the party decided to enter the demiplane of the City of Moil.

If the City That Waits had once been the location of some great wizardry place of learning, it certainly stood so no more. Towers, often lined with great cracks or other signs of destruction and erosion, grew out of an eternal blackness below and showed no signs of inhabitation. Silver streaks of lightning offered little more than outlines of more towers in the distance, connected by snaking bridges.

Gurrik, being the only living member of the group left, had to quickly cast a simple spell to protect himself from the biting cold of the demiplane in which the city resided. By all accounts of the group's wizard, the pocket plane must be very close to the negative energy plane to show such characteristics. Fortunately for the undead members of the party, this not only posed little threat, but could in fact increase their effectiveness as combatants. Gurrik would have to make do on his own, though he felt that if he were to utilize his skills at undead creation, they could be very powerful creatures compared to prime material versions.

Before the group stood an immense monolith, inscribed with a great riddle, seemingly carved or otherwise manufactured by Acerak as a test to subjects or adventurers seeking to find him. The mysteries of this riddle yet unraveled and the group's destination in this dark and forbidding city remain unknown, but driven by the notion of appeasing Vecna with lore as yet undiscovered, Gurrik planned to forge ahead by whatever means necessary. He knew that whatever quests drove the rest of the group, they would follow suit if for no other reason than closure of the great adventure they had undertaken.

The Tomb of Horrors and the Sting of Cyclic Redundancy

So this party entered the Tomb of Acererak the Lich, proper from the entrance inside the Black Academy, with the help Drake. They explored the main hallways and its frescos and friezes of demonic scenes of torture, battle, and suffering. They found their way to a portal filled with white smoke and a great green demon face. Having the Journal of the Tomb from the wizard, Desatysso proved a great bit of help. Finally they went through the portal only to arrive in a room with no exits. Secret doors led to crawlspaces barely big enough to admit them, more secrets to rooms with 3 obviously locked chests. Back to the main hallway again, despair. Find crawlspace in bottom of pit trap find hallway with many orbs. Some painted and some appear real but are illusory and conceal more crawlspaces. Secret door after secret door ... then finally a massive mutant four armed gargoyle attacking into a doorway. Searching, brain in a jar, just funny, because everyone but priest is undead again the party considers changing him. Large seesaw trap into flaming lava mostly easily averted. Find that when you go ethereal the entire Tomb is surrounded by hundred upon hundreds of demons and devils. Find illusory cobwebs and dust and fake tomb with fake Acererak easily disintegrated.  Find the path and Detect Secret doors turns them toward only the end. Great columned hall, throne, scepter path leads on, false treasure room find the path again points onward, so they ignore. Secret door, arcane symbols, stone bier, glittering gemstone encrusted skull which gets disintegrated. Massive pile of treasure in which they find half of the Amulet. The priest communes with Vecna and learns that this Tomb is but a mask of the true purpose which not even the Gods themselves can determine its true purpose. The 'thing" Desatysso came for was indeed physical remains of the lich, Acererak and the great green demon face was indeed the portal to the next act of Acereraks plan.

Going through they stand in a Promethean anti-landscape devoid of any horizon. with only flashes of silent lightning far overhead. Slender spires stand silent and entropied in the intense cold and the darkness. Thin walkways arch out to some spires at different levels.

And then the boat turned 180 degrees

The battle over with The Third, they are standing in her room searching around when the priest disappears and the paladin reappears. The paladin moves for the next door and opening it they see a human male standing at the ready (he did hear through the walls) fully ready to fight. The paladin rushes forward bursting through the Forbiddance and attacking for little damage. Everyone who entered the room had to look at a Symbol of Death and very quickly the paladin was alone, the rest of his party dead on the ground. The evil priest takes a step back and casts a spell and the paladin finds himself dazed, paralyzed, and weakend  from a Blasphemy spell for two minutes. The evil priest tries a spell, the paladin saves, tries another, the paladin saves, priest vanishes, reappears, casts another spell.
Blackness for all.

Time passes.

"He will be mine!" Thrommel commanded pointing at the paladin. The First shook his head, "We have bigger plans for him. You can have his companions as they are of no consequence to our plan."

Awakened to conscious thought again, this time there is a hunger inside you and a new found power that excites you. Soon, books are made available that tell in detail about the true history of the temple and just what the plan is. The wizard makes a series of rolls about the process of returning Tharizdun and he can't seem to figure out just how they are going to do it and he doesn't think its actually possible. The Temple begins sending them out across the land on missions to acquire items or aid in the capturing of slaves for sacrifice or feeding. Weeks turn into months, and nearly a year later the Temple sends them as emissaries to a place called Skull City, a city of necromancers dedicated to undeath and the Tomb of Horrors that they sprung up around.
A simple two day journey by air to the Vast Swamp, and to a large city with black stone walls, an undead gate guarded by Dark Nagas, and a city of mostly undead or aspiring necromancers. An gnarled, magic twisted old man takes them on a tour of the city proper. The mad Danele, prophet of Acererak, so haunted by visions of evil that he gouged his own eyes out after painting a 40 foot mural on the wall. A crazed woman clutching a book approaches them and speaking in halting, broken words she says that she was there, inside the tomb with her friends, but they are all dead now. For some reason (wink) she feels compelled to give them the book she carries. The Journal of the Tomb, detailing Desatysso's group that entered the Tomb some time ago, that ended with sadness and seeming a wizard who went to the next level, what ever that is.
Heading to the Black Academy the party meets Leon the entrance guardian who says no one enters without a good reason. Being a human who is alive, the wizard uses his dominate ability to gain entry and replace the paladins longsword with Leon's greatsword(hehe). In the foyer of the academy, they meet Mistress Ferranifer, a vampire necromancer who is also the headmaster to the school. They explain that they are emissaries for the Temple and that they only wish to begin a dialogue to better ties for the future.

Your adventures up till this point have all been great and you have had lots of fun. For the most part, you have made lots of gold and hacked, slashed, and exploded your way to where you stand now.
The ruined temple on the Second layer of Pandemonium is a deafening howl of wind and subjective gravity. Hurricane force winds buffet you but the mage has protected you all well. Standing in the light of his glowing orb of magic and your continual flame torches you stand looking at the form of a five-foot statue of a humanoid skull. This shrine is to a being that calls itself Acererak. If there was anything in this place that would deserve a shrine is beyond you all. Wind blasted and stone, it seems it was born here about a 2000 years ago.
Searching the stone skull, which does not show signs of erosion you notice, the rogue finds a small gilded square of what appears to be skin. The writing is unknown to all but the wizard.

Born of devil and human, Acererak was born.
Of devil and human, his form until undeath.
Forever seeking, forever devouring.
Forever in undeath.

That is the only information you find and it seems inconsequential to this adventures events. Remembering your friend, the fighter who valiantly defended you only to be utterly destroyed by the Deck of Many Things you stand here, ready to return back to your homes for some down time and to search for a new front line offense.

Epic Return to the Tomb of Horrors is coming...
24th level
3.5x Dungeons and Dragons