ully recovered from the running battle with the Darkweaver, the party took
stock of their situation. Two of the problems three called out in Acerak's poem had been successfully
completed. The third remaining was to face the Vestige which guards the
Sands of Time. Rosvenir's dream had
revealed the Vestige to be the creature of
mist which the party had faced once already,
and an earlier dream had revealed its
location. The group travelled through the
tower of the Brine Dragon, on through
the Tower of Portals, past
the Tower of Chance,
and finally across the bridge to the Tower which held the Sands of Time.
The stone bridge began to collapse underneath as they walked. As
everyone possessed some sort of Fly spell or item, this was scarcely
a problem and the party continued across to the tower. The structure was
made of grey stone and metal, with an entrance fully twenty feet across. A
crescent moon of silver was inlaid into the lintel, with flecks of gems for
stars. A long hallway met the entrance, with doors flanking either side.
Kurik's Detect Enemies spell found one, beyond the first door on the
right side of the hall.
Rosvenir
The halfling checked for traps on the door to the right, and then
opened it. Obviously the room had been a barracks, with beds lined up
against the walls. In the farthest bed something lay sleeping, which
registered to the Paladin's spell. No one approached close enough to disturb
its slumber. Ten cabinets hugged the wall at intervals, marked with
"Dreaming Stores" in the demonic Moilian language. I noted a
similarity in the spelling of "dream" with that of an ancient
Horadric tongue. I shall have to investigate this connection further when we
return to the Prime Material Plane. Our normally dependable thief was unable
to pick the lock on the first such cabinet, but making the door intangible
was just as effective. Several of the vials nestle now in my pack, awaiting
only the appropriate time for further study.
Many of the remaining rooms were empty, though a copper plate on
one door caught my attention. It read, "Lucidaphen Stores." I
Merged with the wall to get a look inside. What had once been
freestanding cabinets lay now strewn across the floor, their contents spilled
asunder. A fine white powder had issued forth from the lockers, and now
coated much of the floor. On the far wall a 20 foot tall crescent moon was
inlaid in silver with gemstones for stars, similar to the one over the tower
entrance save for its great size.
The Narrator
Not wanting to risk inadvertant inhaling of the substance,
Rosvenir returned to the hallway. The remaining area of the tower was
occupied by one enormous room. It was completely empty and uninteresting,
save for the large hole blasted in the floor by some unknown force. Glancing
over the edge of the hole showed a small irregular platform, attached to the
central support column of the tower some thirty feet below. It was all that
remained of a lower level, the rest having collapsed into the surging mists
of Moil. Upon the platform sat a dais, and upon the dais sat an hourglass.
Zem flew down to examine it closely. The dais was inlaid with a
decorative design of red stone. The hourglass was attached to the stone by a
metal cylinder, and was inscribed with red lettering in Common script,
"When the Sands run out, bring the glass about." Zem rejoined the
party, and Mystical used Telekineses to flip the hourglass. There was
an audible click, and the blue sand began to slowly drain from the top of
the glass to the bottom. The party waited in great anticipation. And waited.
And waited. And waited, while the sands slowly drained. Thoroughly bored,
Endira wandered over to the window and happened to notice an insubstantial
cloud slowly rising from the roiling mist below Moil. [Editor's note: a
natural 100 on Observation didn't hurt either.]
It appeared to be the same creature the party had faced the previous day, the Vestige that guards the Sands of Time.
Within a few minutes the strident murmurs could be mentally heard. Kurik
cast Courage True to ward off the effects of the Fear the
thing radiated, and Mystical used multiple Walls of Ice to seal the
window in the room and the entry hallway of the tower and prevent its
entrance. The group then hunkered down to wait. A pounding at the window
commenced, though the enchanted ice showed no sign of weakening. After a few
minutes the Vestige shifted its attention and began pounding at the ice
blocking the tower entrance. Its efforts came to naught, and the sands of
the hourglass ran out. Kurik flew down to flip it over again, as the
inscription seemed to imply, and was rewarded with a much louder and more
assertive "click."
The task accomplished, Mystical teleported the party back to
their fortified room in the Tower of
Health, where she had previously cast Store Location.
Mystical
I cast another Store Location in the room with the
hourglass, in case we had screwed up and had to go back. After teleporting
to the Tower of Health we crept back through the tower of the Brine Dragon and towards the one which held the
Phantom of the Void. It was a square tower, not round, and made of some sort
of black ice. There was no entrance at the foot of the bridge, just some
stairs wrapped around the outside of the structure, leading both up
and down. The stairs ended a short distance above, so we went down. We
disturbed some sort of bat-like demon things halfway down the tower, scaring
about a dozen of them out of a hole in the side. They tried to shove people
off of the icy steps, which might have been bad except we could all
fly, so instead it was almost comical. We dispatched them and moved
on.
The Narrator
Another half hour brought the party to the bottom of the stairs,
to a platform only a few feet above the mists. There was a twenty foot
square opening in the tower wall, with statues of jackal headed humans to either
side and a large eye carved above. None radiated power nor showed
up to Kurik's Detect Enemies spell, so they were ignored. The group
entered the tower.
Inside was very dark, and even magic illumination was subdued. From
the entrance led a long, straight hallway, which was cautiously explored. As
they walked deeper into the tower the party began to hear strange, muffled
noises. A short distance further revealed the source: there were undead
frozen into the walls, floors, and ceiling, row upon row of them, screaming.
The ice was too thick for them to break out, though their vile aura was still
damaging to living creatures. Zem and Kurik cast Holy Aura to dish
out some damage of their own, and the adventurers flew down the rest
of the hallway. [Editor's note: thus avoiding the trap in the middle,
which would have dropped them into a pit lined with more of the undead
things]
On the far side of the chamber was another
platform, in front of a cave carved crudely into the ice. Above the platform
was an inscription: "When the bars fall away the flyer stands revealed.
It can bring you my way by the route once concealed." Fortunately no one
suffered damage from Acerak's poetry critical. Crammed into a cave two sizes
too small was an incredible creature: huge, with enormous wings and twin
tentacles in place of a head. It was the Phantom of the Void.
