Episode 36: Return to the Temple of Thaya Report

Caught in a Dream

The crew teleports back to Sarch na Thaya to put the Ginunting ng Thaya in the Tomb of Thaya which will awaken the elves and keep the sky islands afloat. They are waylaid mid-teleport into a nightmare castle in the Realm of Dreams. El notes they have physically entered the ethereal realm, which is deeper than the crew have ever been sent into the dreaming.

They see two strange beholder-kin who touch their mind with a warning that the dream realm belongs to their superior minds. The captain agrees, and is like, "Just let us out of here, then, we don't really want to be here." But the creatures release strange magic from their eyestalks and a battle begins.

They also let out cries of "Alarm, the castle is under siege". El opens her divine sense and feels the presence of aberrations, fiends and undead just before the Nightmare Shepherd appears beyond the castle portcullis.

One of the beholderkin beams drags Nia up into the sky, but Spark comes on his broom to secure her. El and Wicked Mind unleash spell and claw, and some powerful blinding magic from Lance finishes the first of the beholder kin, and leaves Lance a tree.

Nia fights her telekinetic restraints not with her body, but with her charm and magically takes influence of the many eyed creature. She feels herself push out another mind that had been controlling it, and finds herself the new master of a mindwitness. He feels caught between his duties and the captains charms, but he disengages from the battle.

Feeling the potted plants yearning to be inside the castle walls, Spark takes Nia on his broom and nabs Lance by the lance to fly over the gate. Once past the portcullis, he hands the broom and lance to Nia with a grab this then leaps down to face the nightmare shepherd.

Nia spots a flock of shadows around the shepherd and warns Spark who brings the power of his earth hammer to knock several away. One not at all extra dangerous shadow than shivved Spark in the back and the shepherd gave a whack too.

Before the Shadow pileup could take down the goblin, Lance used a ruby from the Cone of the Sun to make a Wall of fire that evaporated several shadows and held back the rest. Nia than blasted the not at all suspsicious shadow that had been murdering Spark back through the wall of flames and it, too kept away from the towering light and heat.

El flew with Wicked Mind over the gate and she began to smite the nightmare shepherd out of the dream realm and back into the Abyss. The shepherd fought back with the magic of his staff, and the crew was getting worn down. Spark tried to use the power of his Earth Hammer to knock the shepherd into the fire wall. The move backfired and sent Spark sailing through the air on a tour of pain.

El then smote the Shepherd into oblivion and the party took a short breather. The mindwitness worried about what to do, but Nia let him eat the fiend's brain and promised him a snack of illithid brain after he revealed the identitiy of his "former" masters. The crew also noted the presence of a gargantuan worm slithering around this nightmare realm.

Worms and Mind Flayers

They sent Tiik to scout and found the illithid with some duergar guards. He returned and the crew moved forward only for the massive worm to sense them and try to melt off their flesh. It failed. Nia than used her again legendary charm to make the massive neolithid friendly to the crew and hunger for the brains of the illithids who had kept him dominated.

The duergar showed themselves to protect their masters. An illithid tried to reassert control of the worm and failed, a second tried to unleash a lightning bolt on pretty much everything, but Lance used the old 'No'.

However, the attempted attack on the mindwitness put him firmly on the captain's side. It was the neolithid though who made the difference absolutely wrecking his enslavers after they tried to re-dominate his mind. The crew then asked the mindwitness his name, which was Bazanuth. Their new friend agreed to be a relay for Spark. Having adopted the mindwitness, Elenwe dreamed him a skin suit to let him pass as a human and brought him out of the dream realm.

Elf Awakening

They ended up in the Tomb of Thaya. Lance was transformed into an indestructible ball by virtue of some magic food he ate the other night. Spark pulled loose the Gigunting ng Thaya with his mind. Lance and El instantly felt flooded with a sense of serenity and release as the blade of the fallen moon goddess returned to its normal size and began levitating above its wielder's seplucher.

El immediately fell asleep, and the crew, exhausted themselves from the traveling, battling and dragon groveling all took the opportunity to also get some rest.