Week 8 & 9 - Bahamut and to the Sky

For those who actually read these, I'm sorry again for never updating. I'm a procrastinator... so, y'know. I'm bad at this.

Since it's been quite a while (more than a month, I think...) it's going to be a little hard to remember Week 8. Week 9 might be fine, though.

Week 8: Trial of Ordeals

Present Warriors: Taliesin, Wesker, Viridia, Kvothe, and Coren

Party Level: 11

Some people didn't show up for some reason, I really can't remember. I know Illyria did show up but eventually left because she was very tired. Basically, at the end of the last campaign, the two split up and decided to meet up at this ruined castle. A voice calls from inside telling the Warriors to enter the castle.

Inside, the Voice tells the Warriors that it has a gift for them, and they'll only receive it if they pass the Trial of Ordeals. A wall at the other end of the huge castle room they're in opens up and leads to darkness.

Wandering through this tunnel, the Warriors are surrounded in complete darkness, yet they can still see each other just fine. They eventually find a light at the end and they emerge in the sky, on a stone platform with a fork in front of them. The left fork leads them to the Tower of Light and the right fork leads them to the Tower of Shadows.

The Warriors split up. Each tower has six floors, with a challenge on each floor. The towers are virtually the same except one tower's challenges are related to light and the other tower's challenges are related to dark. In the Tower of Light, each floor had very bright light that required perception checks to focus. Tower of Dark, same thing except it was very dark.

For both Towers, the first floor has either cracks leading to sky (Light) or spikes sticking out of the ground (Shadow). The next floor had a puzzle relating to earth, the next floor had a puzzle related to fire, next was a puzzle related to Water and the last one was a puzzle relating to Wind. The last floor of each tower required the Warriors to focus as best as they can to find the Stairs (it was randomly placed). Then, at the very top of the towers, there was a passage leading to darkness.

Going through the passage brought the Warriors back to the platform in the sky, where they can see the tower they were just in falling to the earth.

In the Tower of Darkness, Kvothe thought he could be tricky by skipping over the Wind puzzle by being pushed off the large hole in the ground so he can use his boots to teleport to the other sky. He's the first to discover that Magic does not work in this strange world and he fell to his doom.

When both parties got together, they see a black hole opening up between where the forks used to be. This passage lead them to a town surrounded by a large mountain. There's only four houses here. Looking inside one of the houses, the Warriors can see either the inside of an earthy cave, the inside of a lava passage, a shrine at the bottom of the ocean, or a patch of land in the sky, depending on which house they looked into. Opening the doors to these houses will reveal the face of a demon surrounded by a vast demon army.

The houses themselves are actually completely empty. When everyone looked into the houses a Well appeared in the middle of the town. Looking down, it seems to lead nowhere but Wesker immediately jumps down and Viridia grabs the rope and climbs down. Eventually everyone musters up the courage to climb down.

The Warriors climb down and then suddenly appear in the castle they were in at the beginning of the session, except this time it looks like it was just like new. There is a pillar of light in the room. Stepping into it the Warriors are taken to a tower where they have to figure out which pillar of light will take them up to the next floor (more and more pillars appear as they go up).

Eventually, they appeared in another tower where there is a single spiral staircase leading up to the darkness.

Climbing up, it's eerily quiet. Suddenly, Taliesin gets grabbed by something and disappears. The rest of the Warriors start running for their lives, as this thing keeps falling down and tries to grab more of the Warriors. They manage to escape its grasp and reach the top of the tower, where they enter a door into more darkness.

Walking in here, the Warriors eventually end up in the starry sky. Then, a large dragon appears! Bahamut, the God of this World appears and grants the Warriors a job well done. He brings back Taliesin and Kvothe and grants everyone an extra ability score to spend. He then tells everyone to go to the Deva village to learn where to go next.

Week 9: The Sky Fortress

Present Warriors: Everyone 'cept Viridia

Party Level: 11

And the Deva village they go. There they meet an old Deva named Gomorrah and they learn that Garland is still alive and was sent back in time to become a being of Chaos. There, he kills the Warriors of Light that go there to stop him and contacts his future self to do the same.

Gomorrah tells them to go to the Mirage Tower to get to the Sky Fortress where the Wind Crystal is.

So the Warriors head to said tower. In the tower, they need to find some keys to get to the top. There are also false keys to be wary of. The inside looks like a large spiral staircase, with four other staircases in each corner. Each staircase leads to a room with one of the four keys needed. Each room has a bit of a puzzle to get to the keys, and then the Warrior must figure out which key is the real one. Simple, no?

At the top, they are teleported to the Sky Fortress... which is a bit of an understatement, seeing as they are more like in Outer Space.

They travel through the Sky Fortress and find some treasure along the way. The materials used to make the sky fortress seems to be made out of a grey, see-through glass. All of the Warriors somehow go the right way each and every time, thus they missed a lot of stuff like a living quarters and some gold.

They enter a large room with a sphere in the middle. In the sphere, they see three lights all meeting up at one location: The old castle they first visited to defeat Garland. There is also a robot there which Illyria burns it until it melts into a blob.

Then, they enter a chamber where a large robot is guarding. It seems docile until Taliesin pulls a sword out of its back, the Kiku-ichimonji. It attacks but the Warriors attack back and manage to destroy it without too much damage.

Then they enter the chamber, where they can see the Wind Crystal on the other side of this bridge. Crossing the bridge, the Warriors hear a rasp womanly voice. She tells them that she is Tiamat and she will devour the Warriors!

Four heads appear from the sides of the bridge. The Warriors slowly whittle her health down as she swallows some of them whole. In the end, they manage to defeat Tiamat. Rhadgast gets the final hit, slashing one of her heads off. She flies into the sky and explodes in a bloody mess, dropping Kvothe who she just swallowed last round.

Wesker's Wind Crystal flies and interacts with the large crystal. The Wind and final Crystal gets revived! But before the Warriors can rejoice, the entire fortress starts to shake. Tiamat's voice comes back and says that her body is destroyed but she still has a small bit of time left to use her mind to destroy the fortress!

Then, Gomorrah appears and tells everyone to grab onto him. He teleports the Warriors back onto the Airship.

And thus, the Warriors know where to go: To the Ruined Castle to go back in time and stop Garland from becoming a being of Chaos! Can the Warriors of Light truly stop Garland once and for all!?