Can We Still Do It?

or....The Fall of the House of Usher.....

The day began with the continuation of the evil party trip on the Astral plane. The group was inside the castle and searching for some sign of a "Demi-Lich", whatever that was. After dealing with the Githyanki in the halls, they proceeded down the corridor to a reinforced, trapped (discovered by detection), locked door. Feeling they had a good lead, they tried to use the wizard spell Knock to open the portal. Frank Rizzo was offered 10 gold pieces to try the door and eagerly tried to open it. What he found was that the door was somehow wired with electrical current.

Now physically attached and beginning to fry, Frank could not disconnect himself from the handle. Dion attempted to break him free by grabbing him and pulling, but to no avail. Sidnaceous attempted to lubricate them by means of a Grease spell. Unfortunately, when he did this, sparks began to come off the trapped door and ignited the grease, setting the duo ablaze. They then did break free. Quickly, several members of the group moved to blot out the flames. Frank was wounded badly, but was revived by Minerva.

With the door now disarmed and unlocked, the group moved inside a large throne room. It was empty save for the paintings (which emanated magic), the throne itself and the skeletal remains of a humanoid. The group took a closer look and found it had a jeweled pendant with an ornate (somewhat magical) arrow pierced through it, hanging around its neck. This piece and arrow they took. Anton and Dion went for a closer look at the paintings and the group investigated the remainder of the room. Sidnaceous found small vent slits around the throne chair, but could not determine what they were for.

Eventually, the group experimented with the chair, finding two button levers under the arm rests of the seat. When he depressed both of these, Sidnaceous was instantly whisked through the floor in the chair to a black room under the throne room. Therein, he had no light but could hear the shuffling of many beings around him. He cast a few spells and gave himself light to see by. He was surrounded by thousands of undead. Thinking back, he realized this was probably the army that Sven Larsson had promised the group. He placed a note on the chair and sent it back up to the throne room requesting the party join him.

When they were all down, they realized that the holy symbol Ursula possessed was much more influential on the undead than any of those held by other party members. To their surprise, a young elf was dragged in to the room by two zombies for her to feed on, which she did ravenously. A few short questions later, the zombies were able to direct the group towards the "Demi-Lich". They were off again. Down another corridor, a turn or two and they found themselves at a dead end. On the wall was a painting of a Xvart.

Unlike most, this one was moving, obviously in two dimensions. He taunted the party, going back and forth with insults. When he was attacked by Rod Usher, only Rod's sword was damaged. The party began to calmly discuss the situation with the xvart. He knew where their quarry lay but would not let them pass. No amount of magic or physical possession could sway him. Not until Willard came forward and offered him some of his cheese. Amazingly, the xvart seemed exuberant over this offer and quickly accepted wine with the food. He then allowed them to pass and gave them exact directions to find what they wanted.

The travelled through more castle passages until the came to a large entryway leading to two enormous arched doors. Sitting in the corner was a gnome. The gnome introduced himself as Marco and offered to join the group if they could get him out of the castle. He quickly unlocked the door (he already knew it had no traps but was locked), and the group entered the waiting chamber room. Inside there were 4 large xvarts each standing on a pedastal. Their attention was quickly diverted to the huge 12 headed hydra that charged out from the cavern mouth to their left. The group began to attack it with everything they had. The most effective attack was by Anton Phibes when he enthralled 4 of the heads with a Hypnotism spell.

As they attacked, the xvarts slowly joined the battle in assistance of the hydra. None of this was as disconcerting as the silver ball that emerged from the high ceiling and began shooting lightning bolts at anything that employed magic. Magic swords were struck and knocked from the wielders' hand, wizards that cast spells were struck directly. Those weapons that were jarred loose were flung in to the walls and were slowly sucked in by the wall. The group was fortunate to quickly destroy the opponents and stop the walls from absorbing their weapons. Sid tried one last Fireball to destroy the silver ball only to get zapped close to death, and the ball remained unscathed.

They traversed the last few corridors and found themselves before a pit. At the bottom of this 10 foot pit were the remains of several humanoids and one very old, ornate, jeweled skull. Knowing this was a dangerous situation, several of the party members were directed to leave the room while Dion floated down in to the pit to get the goods. It was decided to grab the skull first. This was their first mistake. The skull then rose on its own and began to spin. It emitted a high pitched wail and struck to the heart of the group.

The wail pierced several of the group and caused Rod and Raistlin to fall to the floor in agony. They quickly were overcome by the arcane magic at work and fell dead. As the skull slowed and began to settle back to the floor, Dion thought he had a chance to acquire the goods safely. He reached out with his empty sack to catch the skull. This was the second mistake. It immediately began the spin and wail again, this time effecting only Wun Hung Fuk, and he dropped to the floor dead.

Knowing now that this was not a good plan of action, they decided to clear the room. Sid gathered up several sacks, removed all his belongings and flew in to the pit. He collected the humanoid remains that he could without touching the skull and brought them out. While there, the group had noticed that there was a healthy amount of magical items in the pit. Sid tried to collect it. He put as much in a bag as it would carry and began to float out. The skull began to grow and spoke telling him ot leave its treasure alone. Sid could not let this be. After one fake to put it back, he tried to remove it. The skull attacked him magically and Sid withstood the blow. He tried to escape and once again the skull attacked. This time Sid lost and disappeared. The bag fell to the floor of the pit, nestled against the skull of the Demi-Lich.

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