Betrayed Tuern

Our group of hearty adventurers had just passed through another arched gateway.   They found themselves in another oddly shaped room.  Broken weapons and shattered bones littered the floor.  Blackened stone walls were set with racks of burnished steel.  The bodies of six devils laid upon the floor but a broader view was obscured by seven hulking metal figures crashing forward to attack.


The group was clustered in a alcove in the northern portion of the visible room.  Demin teleported to the front shot a crossbow in the air, and teleported back to his starting position.  A swarm of blades advanced to Mara and blasted the front lines  with a storm of blades, immobilizing several of the heroes.  Lythandar also tried the trick of moving forward, attacking and retreating.  The several sword bearing creatures moved north into part of the room which the characters could not see.  Melisana teleported several members farther into the room so as to ease further damage from blast attacks.

As the battle continued the heroes found that moving into an area of weapons and bones would cause them to move slower.  The bone and weapon areas also grew to cover all areas around them.  Standing to close to the swarms would also cause damage.  The sword Guardians moved in and attacked Mara and Pretis, who found that when they moved or shifted the guardians would attack with Blade Fury.  Lythandar moved into the south end of the room attracting the other swarm while Demin stayed in the alcove firing crossbow bolts.  Melisana, Alhellara and Gofin had gathered into a group near the eastern wall and found themselves the recipients of a charge attack by the Armor Guardians which stunned them.  Then Demin bloodied a swarm which immediately split into two smaller guardians.  

The sword guardians kept up their attack even as Mara pulled them all toward her.  Melisana after regaining her senses cast Written in Fire which soon eliminated the two Armor Guardians.  Then a Sword Guardian was bloodied followed by Explosive Shards, a burst that damaged the heroes after which the Guardian teleported away.  Gofin was placing shrouds and attacking but many times she missed.  Alhellara and Pretis were kept busy applying heals to the heroes as the battle continued.  Shortly the other two Sword Guardians were bloodied and Mara and Pretis were hit by Explosive Shards.  After the Sword Guardians were bloodied their attacks became even more as Relentless Cleave added another attack to their arsenal.  The other Swarm blasted Alhellara, Melisana and Gofin with Storm of Blades and now all of the party except Lythandar were bloodied.  The swarm then split in two.  

The adventurers finally took the upper hand as two Sword Guardians fell to Melisana's fire, the swarms were then eliminated as Lythandar kept tossing Magic Missiles.  After the battle the very bloodied group sat down to a short rest with healing.  Melisana wandered to the northern portion of the chamber where she had seen something else on the floor.  It turned out to be a graven image of a sword, a dagger and an axe, all exuding a blood red ichor.  Saying a quick prayer she determined that the image was the sigil of Tuern, brother to Bane and Kord, and one of the great war gods of old.  In ancient legend, the blood of fallen Tuern was said to have powerful restorative properties.   Tasting the ichor Melisana determined it was a potion of recovery, the group collected three vials of the ichor.

Lythandar check for magic and found a Level 24 Ring of Winter, a Star Opal Ring and Level 26 Gauntlets of the Blood War.  Demin was searching the bodies and found that the dead devils had the tattoo of Vecna on the palms of their hands.  The Metal monsters simply fell apart into weapons, armor and shields.   Amongst the detritus on the floor was a adamantine and diamond holy symbol of Tuern worth 45,000 GP.

Scorecard:  The group earned 4100 XP for the nights work and now have 177390 XP and became 21st level.  They now need 32610 more XP to reach 22nd level.