Heart of Vecna

The group reentered the palace and moved swiftly back up to the third floor.  They moved to a couple of unopened doors looking for more stairs up.  Two rooms just held various palace guards and wights, seemingly barracks.  Moving past a guard room they opened a door to a room behind the central open foyer.  In this chamber was a staircase going up.  Pretis found that the chamber was symmetrical with another door on the opposite side leading into a similar area they had just left. 

As they headed up the stairs a undead creature moved from the walls out to the stairs, fixed her fiercely glowing red eyes on Mara, and inquired,  “Who is our lord and master?”.  Mara and Pretis both answered Lord Vecna.  The creature then returned into the wall.  This stairway led up two floors.  The group exited onto the platform at the top of the circular stairs from the entry foyer.  Heading east they found inhabited and uninhabited chambers, sometimes there was a Memory present.  The chambers had no doors so the group just kept walking past the doorways.  They also found a couple of storage rooms filled with vestments, robes, holy symbols of Vecna, etc.  Each party member grabbed a robe at least.  Also discovered were two stairways heading up and down.

In the south eastern area the group happened upon some doors.  One was a plain wooden door, another seemed to be made of gold, highly polished and as Mara approached she could see herself in the glittering surface.  She didn’t get too close though as a feeling of dread overwhelmed her with evil emanations.    The last door was made of red and black marble, featuring bas-relief of large serpents twisting through obscuring fog.  The carvings were excellent and it was almost as if the serpents would come to life.  Approaching this door was also very difficult.

Opening the plain door they found a austere chamber with a woman.  Mara indicated they were looking for The Arm of Vecna, she suggested that Iuz was a greater threat and suggested she take them to Vecna’s throne room.  She led them through the red and black door.  Beyond the doors, the heroes found a chilling room with a
black ceiling supported by pillars of red and black marble. The pillars were carved to resemble life-size naked humans writhing in states of passion (or agony it was difficult to tell) as huge snakes slither over them.  The walls and floor were of white marble. The floor was sculpted with more life-size images of humans-some clearly undead-and large snakes, making for uneven footing. The walls were covered with bas-reliefs featuring some of the most important moments of Vecna’s history, all dealing with his interaction with his benefactor, the
mysterious Serpent.

The Priestess then led them through a secret door into another chamber decorated entirely in red-veined
black marble, and black pews stood in neat rows. The room was even more dimly lit that the rest of the palace, and it took one minute for a human character’s eyes to adjust and distinguish shapes from shadows. Red and black banners bearing the eye-and-hand symbol stirred gently against the wall, moved as if by an imperceptible breeze, filling the room with whispering sounds. Unlike the outer shrines, there was a clearly defined altar at the front of the room. It was a circular platform 20 feet across with a large reddish block of stone at its center.  A circular staircase rose directly through what would be the pupil of a massive representation of the Eye of Vecna painted on the ceiling.  In the room were several shadows and a fiend, who ignored the party.

The Priestess led the party up the staircase, into the black tower, stopping on the 3rd floor of the tower. Then she led them to a room in which 3 ogres were attacking a young woman on  a bed.  She ordered them to kill the “Heart of Vecna.” A battle ensued in which the Priestess was attacked, the Ogres hammered away with their mauls and Demin killed the "Heart."  After a few rounds of battle, five more ogres filled the hallway attacking Melisana, and 3 Wraiths passed through the walls into the room.  The Wraiths were difficult to damage but Mizayana soon fell to the parties ministrations and when a Wraith fell it let loose a blast damaging several members.  The battle was soon over and the party took a quick rest, finding around 3500GP and a set of Deathburst Scale Armor +5, which Pretis claimed.

Leaving the room the group opened another door where the "Hand of Vecna", a huge Golem made entirely of hands requested their help in dispatching Iuz before he destroyed Cavitius entirely.  He led the party up two more levels into a large chamber.  In the chamber were several Ogres, half ogres, a couple of Lichs, Iuz an Vecna in a heated battle.

Scorecard: The group earned 7236 XP for their adventures and now have 125634 XP and are 19th level.  They need 17366 more XP to reach 20th level.