we face off with the snarling Troll:

Mr Troll Bjarni starts.. trying to talk it out of a fight.

it casts a spell to Vulf identifies as protection from energy (fire?) Jestix casts stone skin upon Vulf. Fria continues the looting of the previous room/ purple worm. Combat is entered. Bjarni smites it roughly. Ahmumstut tries to dispel the fire resistance. Vulf inspires greatness. It claws & bites Bjarni, it is very strong and competent ! Bjarni smegs it hard. Fria eans her tools from dissecting the worm. Ahmumstut gets rid of a lot of magical fire & acid protection. The boys bash it into submission, but its fire resistance is not enough and we smeg the thing with flaming weapons.. The wall opens up again to reveal the exit

• mad, ranger, vorpal troll severed limbs with a rend!
• diamond nymph
• evil planetar
• entropy golem

Fria searches the troll and room finding lots of adamantium in the claws and armour & stuff. We heal and rest up, trying how long we can wait & recuperate after a challenge: not because we need to but we might later. Vulf is impatient so we ask him to recount the entire history of the mages-four. Lysander alchemy, spells, magic items. Phebian world weaver teleport & dimesional plane crossing stuff. Titan slayer magic & combat!

• adamantium looted from troll's body (32% of it, ~7000gp worth)
• planetars great sword magic moderate+ - bjarni
• golem head key
• nymphs circlet - magical
• 36 large diamonds.
• adamantium & mithril from golem

the voice challenges us to say who designed it: jestix says titan-slayer and we all appear back in the room. Welcome to the gauntlet arcane. another 'light' is illuminated.. we move on.

The third portal opens into a chamber filled with plants, walls and ceilings of stone, the floor is grass, with a pond and a hill behind it over which flows a waterfall which replenishes it. The ground rises beyond the pond. A female sits on a rock at the ponds egde crying. The evil creature int he next room stole my heart. There is no evil in this room detects Bjarni. Some kind of angelic creature thing took her heart. The scenery is magic / illusion but the grass and pond are generally real. (pond is 1“ deep). This area is similarly surrounded by blue steel (about 2' outside the walls), we look into the next room as the nymph seems innocent. There is a rocky mountain top beyond with sky & clouds projected don the walls and a big planetar 9' tall blue/green skin and wings: vicious looking great sword. “Greetings great one why are you here” asks Bjarni in celestial. Why have you stolen the heart of the lady in the previous room asked vulf.. Ahum looks at the area in true sight: and sees nothing out of the ordinary/ different to what we can perceive.

“I stole the diamond heart from that wench to stop her from being… vague excuse” Bjarni detects evil and it is a strong YES, this is a fallen angel. Ahmumstut asks to see it and he taps a leather puch at his neck and shows us. There is a tiny key inside a heart shaped diamond. Magic emanates from it. He casts a spell : blade barrier, Bjarni approaches, Fria dispels the barrier. He casts a horrible vibrating body spell on Bjarni (implosion!), which thankfully the bear shrugs it off. He seems surprised that his defense is gone and offense had no effect: the rest of the party join in. Jestix tumbles in and twonks him. Bjarni steps up, hastes, smites evil and launches himself into the fray: “he is an evil outsider, that's just glorious” by-passing the planetar's damage reduction 10 'good'. It stops for a moment and heals itslef (completely) recovering Bjarni 120+ points of damage. Ahmumstut replicates himself and attacks but bounces off the spell reistance. Jestix blats in with titan-slayer, twonking roughly. Vulf chooses an appropriate weapon and twonks it too: critical hitting twice and he falls to the sheer incoming damage tsunami.

Vulf returns the heart to the nypmph and she kisses him as he does. She grasps it to her chest, they key is in her hand as she does and she turns into a crystal diamond form and dazzles everyone. Vulf is blinded, the others in the room (Henry/ Leonora) are ok and she casts charm on the blinded Vulf. She tries to enslave him but he overcomes the baleful polymorph! The rest of the party is still with the planetar room (vulf rushed in where others fear to tread) and so only Fria (via Leonora) and Jestix (via Henry) know it's all gone wrong.

Vulf removes the blindness and says 'stop this' and hand over the key. The nymph is glowing brightly, she casts wind-walk and floats up. Fria lobs in a fireball that scorches her flippers. Isondel fires at her, the nymph toughs up her skin. Vulf weights in roughly. She flame-strikes Vulf as the party run in to help. Frias' disintegrate misses, but Ahmumstut's does not: Isondel adds to the glowing girls misery. Bjarni jumps from the cliff and grapples her mid-air. Fria fails to baleful polymorph her to a hamster. Jestix misses. Vulf thumps her and she falls, crushed by Bjarni falling on top of her.

Bjarni grabs the key while Fria grabs the diamonds, circlet and generally loots the place. We check out the door and it is unlocked. it opens into a smooth stone wall marked out with a 5' grid with a brass & mitril construct held together with glowing green bands of magical enegry. He is NOT standing on the lines of the grid.

In the crown of its forehead it has a keyhole! Bjarni attacks but it appears it has protection from lawful ! but fortunately his adamantium glaive strikes home for a solid blow. The golem has a 'field of destruction' that it invokes and damages Vulf and Bjarni in the front row of the parties attack. Fria invokes her griphon. The golem misses the invisible Bjarni and Bjarni bashes back at the heavily protected device. Jestix approaches and Isondel shoots it: it is massively armoured and protected from lawful creatures. Her chaotic attack hits but does almost no effect. Fria flies in and above on her griffon. All the folk nearby are affected by the area of destruction : ouch ! The team roll up and the serious twonking starts: it takes a lot of hits but goes down. Fria sticks a key into it's head and the far wall disappears and shows us the end-point. The adamantium weapons from the medusae were excellent.

• 2380xp each for 17th Level characters

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