Session 14: Face of Evil - The Faceless One

After resting in a room deep in the maze of Vecna, the group healed it's wounds and studied spells to prepare for the inevitable confrontation with the Faceless One. The newly formed band of 6 survivors and 2 new comers opened the secret door to the area beyond the maze and found a hallway. The hallway was strange, having bone white tile and walls formed of green stones, shot through with moving pulsing purple veins of light. The stones also had strange hemispherical projections in a pattern along the length of the wall. The adventurers traveling down the hall until they came to an opening to a larger room, they then went inside. This was a sacrificial chamber. Along the sides of the hall strange black columns moved as if hands were stretching to get out. At the very back a flat altar of red rock was flanked by two purple robed acolytes. While closer to the adventurers 2 black cloaked and cowled figures paced. Ardgaal was frst into the room and the cowled figures turned on him. They floated toward him and he found their feet didn’t touch the ground, indeed on closer look they were not men at all, but something evil and insane. A type of undead he had read about at the temple - Allips. They are born from suicide and madness, and they steal sanity away. He backed away from them and into a column, which suddenly attacked him. Black stony arms reached out from the column and grappled him. The Allips spiked him with their ghostly arms and he felt his sanity flee. One of the Allips set up a cacophonous babble and half of the adventurers were caught in the insidious spell. Bornir enlarged Ardgaal, giving him enough strength and weight to break free from the stony arms. Lath tried to turn the undead, but he was blocked by the diabolical evil of the shrine, and his repeated attempts failed. In this dark place no god of good could hear his plea. Bornir cast a silence spell and temporarily stopped the hypnotic effect over half the group. Meanwhile the two acolytes had cast defensive spells one had fled and the second cast a web spell from a scroll. Feldnar burned much of the group out of the webs with a burning hands spell. Ardgaal approached the remaining acolyte but was stunned as the man in ragged purple robes cast a color spray in his face. The second robed figure then fled. Ardgaal was saved from ruin by Bornir’s Invisibility to Undead spell. The Allips were eventually cut down. The adventurers followed in the direction the men had fled. They encountered sleeping quarters and eventually an alchemical laboratory. At the back of this room were 5 figures, 4 in ragged purple robes, the 5th in green robes with mystical runes, he bore a strange 3’ ft. long carved rod, and his face was covered by a leather mask also indented with mystical symbols. In front of the 5 was a large ogre. Not just any ogre, but the dwarves recognized an elite ogre of the Ogre Mound, decked out in plate mail, and wielding a large shield and flail. Bornir remembered his grand dad, Thurgrid, telling him how he got his many scars. “See this gash right here? A mean foul ogre did that, nearly tore my arm off. I cut his foot off then when he fell went for the kill.” His aged grand dad’s eyes shore with the memory of the kill. “Ogre’s are the smallest of giants, but don’t underestimate ‘em. They’re mean and even the smallest can still kill ya. We dwarves know size isn’t everything.” The mage in the leather mask spoke in a strange voice "Fate conspires to kill us all. I arranged for an Ogre from the 'Ogre Mound' to act as my bodyguard should any on Dourstone's kin become suspicious and investigate." The Faceless One started casting a vile summoning spell, while the ogre bodyguard blocked the groups advance. An apprentice cast a color spray hitting several of the adventurers, blinding and stunning them. Bornir cast a silence spell. Moregrim moved cautiously forward to engage the ogre. The other 3 apprentices moved to a rear door and the Faceless One followed them out. The 4th apprentice closed the door behind them. The group was alone with the monstrous armored ogre. It’s flail was a huge metal banded club with chain and spiked ball attached. The Flail head was a ten inch ball of solid iron with wicked spikes. It smashed heavily into Bornir almost knocking the wind out of the solid dwarf. Bornir whipped his trusty axe out and hacked into the ogres shin with a satisfying spray of blood. Meanwhile the rest of the adventuring party filed into the room to try and surround the ogre. The ogre went down in less than a minute, but it gave the Faceless One enough time to cast warding spells and move into a fighting position outside of the silenced laboratory.
Lath and Feldnar were in the rear. Feldnar had moved from the hallway when a fierce creature sprang on Lath, crowding him into a corner and he pressed against his shield to keep the fiendish gorilla at bay. A second creature was barely visible behind it.
Bornir went to Lath's aid but the tight quarters meant only he was able to fight the beast. The rest of the group tried following the cultists. Stigand, Azrael and Ardgaal entered back into the sacrificial hall and ran straight into the second summoned fiendish gorilla. The fight started anew.
Azreal ran afoul of one of the grasping collumns and was caught in its rocky grip, and the Faceless One unleashed a lightning bolt into the trio. Ardgaal amazed his fellows by dodging the bolt. The second lightning bolt, this one cast from a scroll he wasn't so lucky. Magic missiles lanced into Stigand, and the group attacked the apprentices and the Faceless One after the second Fiendish Gorilla was slain.
Finally all the other foes had been killed and only the Faceless One survived, since magical wards kept many of the blows from connecting. He was firing off his remaining spells and controlling a flaming sphere to ward off the adventurers when a shot from Aarth downed the enigmatic enemy.
"My doom is to be your doom..." Were his last slurred words, as blood trickled from his leather mask and he slumped to the ground with a thud.

The group set about scouring the rooms for valuables. They found a trapped chest, in a room clearly used by the Faceless One as a bed room. His lab proved to be a fully stocked alchemical laboratory with almost a dozen vials, placed prominently on a shelf with small green worms of a vicious appearance. Their mouths were rings of serrated teeth, and their flesh was leathery and had noticeable ridges running the length of the 6" long abominations. All of them lay dead in formaldehyde, but this was clearly the origin of the worm found in an identical vial at Filge the necromancer's lair.
The group healed up as best they could, then Feldnar swept the rooms with his detect magic spell. He had trouble making out which items were magical since the entire complex was suffused with magic. Feldnar was able to discern a magical trap on the chest. With help Ardgaal located the trap, and actually disarmed it, by carefully excising mystical runes which had fire trapped the chest. Meanwhile Feldnar and Aarth were studying two captured spell book and a written letter. The first spell book was shard by the apprentices, and the second book belonged to the Faceless One! Aarth then looked at the letter and then read with concern as it described something which had already come to pass. It seems that when the heads of the three branches of the Ebon Triad cult are killed, it will summon a mystical being, called an Ebon Aspect from the cold black pool in the cathedral. As he read the letter aloud, the lighting provided by the writhing mystical bands suspended within the walls dimmed noticeably, then after a pregnant pause brightened. The group of adventurers quieted down, then slowly went back to what they had been doing.
Inside the chest was a smattering of treasure, a cloak that detected as magical, some coin, a few gems, and a long sword. Along the length of the blade was written in Elvish the word ‘Nenharna’ or ‘Light’s gift’ in elvish. The sword glowed with an alternating violet and blue radiance. When Lath handled the blade he felt a sense of wellness. After some testing he found the blade could dim in response to queries put to it.
While Aarth alternated between talk of magical spells with Feldnar, and appraising the long sword with Lath, the 2 dwarves were sharpening their blades. Ardgaal was re-reading the Faceless One’s letter. Azrael and Ardgaal were quietly discussing whether to join this larger group on a more permanent basis. Stigand was cleaning his weapons, while trying to listen in on Azrael and Ardgaal’s conversation.
Suddenly a great crash followed by and a mighty roar echoed down the hallways. The temperature in the room immediately dropped 10 degrees. The Ebon Aspect had arisen. The triads doom had come.