The Eye of the Beholder



Previous Quest: New Frenemies

Subsequent Quest: The Black Sheep

Company members: Ash, Cait, Drumak, Indri, Iola

New Company member: Leif Eldman

The Beholder's Lair
A 100' ziggurat stood at the centre of the ancient elven ruin. Surrounding it were several large groups of the mutated goblins, their bodies covered with multiple additional eyes. With only a little attempt at subtlety, the group engaged them and easily proceeded to cut a swathe through them, including using spells like Leif with Divine Word and Iola with Prismatic spray. Then, at the top of the ziggurat, appeared the beholder. It shot several of its eye rays at various characters, paralysing Leif and hurting some of the Companions. After being shot at a few times by Ash, it descended down a shaft into the centre of the structure. To aid the group, Leif cast Holy Aura to protect them.

Chasing after it, and wiping out a significant number of the goblins in the process, the group arrived at the top, near the entrance. Indri had killed a few of the goblins, who had then been raised as shadow creatures. Whenever anyone poker their head over the side of the shaft, various of the magical eye rays would shoot up.

There seemed to be a floor around where the beholder had stopped, around 150' down from the top. To give an idea of exactly where that was, the company dropped a few alchemist's fire down, along with a bomb which Drumak had acquired. The bomb unfortunately went off early, but the flames lit up the area enough for Ash to take another shot and then Cait to teleport the group down to where the beholder was.

It's a trap!
When the Company arrived next to the beholder, they discovered that they had teleported into a trap. The floor had been weakened by the beholder's disintegration ray, and it collapsed dropping most of the party down a 60' hole. The beholder activated its antimagic ray eye and all the magical items - even the Soul stones - were disabled. Neither Ash nor Cait were able to Shapeshift, and only Indri was able to fly around near the beholder itself. Two smaller eye creatures attached themselves to Indri and started biting into him.

Various little eye monsters, and one big eye monster, descended down into the pit to attack the Company. Also, the pit itself began filling with slime which oozed out from the walls. Ash kept up a constant stream of arrows shot at the beholder, as the others took on the monsters at the bottom of the pit. As the slime in the pit was rising, the Company sensed that some kind of ooze monster was coming down to attack them. A large pseudopod of slime kept trying to hit Drumak, but mostly with little effect. The slime rose rapidly, making fighting very difficult.

With a combination of the attacks from Indri and Ash, the beholder was eventually forced back into a side tunnel and out of the fight, so all the magic of the Company returned. Iola cast dimension door and took Ash up to the top, and Cait took Drumak, while Leif flew back up. Meanwhile, Indri was trying to chase the beholder. It had moved into a side tunnel and off through a network of tunnels. Trying to co-ordinate movement with the slime covering the walls and being a curtain over the side tunnels, proved to be quite difficult.

Also, when the Soul stones had been deactivated, they had fallen off. Most of the Companions had picked theirs up, but Lancelot was still at the bottom of the slime pit. Drumak summoned his elemental and it jumped down the shaft, hitting the slime monster at the bottom of the pit hard, before starting to boil away the slime in attempting to search for Lancelot. And, in all the confusion of battle, where was Stiltskin Ribbons?

Meanwhile, the beholder had flown across the shaft from a lower tunnel, heading in a different direction, and Indri followed it to just outside the curtain of goo. Iola cast dimension door and took Ash just inside, hitting it hard again with more arrows. Cait then also went down and in, and dealt the finishing blow.

They then skinned it and harvested its eyes and other organs. The main central eye had the potential to become an item which could produce an antimagic effect. Searching the lair, the Company found 27kgp in mixed coins, 5 1kgp gems, and a few minor magic items. And, buried in a little pile of rubble, giving him an air pocket when the slime filled the pit, was Ribbons.

An eye for an eye
The Company returned to Sigil after stopping overnight in Greenbank. When Iola gave Leif a basic introduction to their quest, he concluded that his being called to that area wasn't merely to destroy the beholder, but to join the Company in destroying the Thirteen Vampires.

In Sigil the Company sought out a place where they might do something with the potential components of the beholder's eyes. One shopkeeper from the potters guild said that attempting to fabricate an anti magic item from the central eye was a bad idea. Another from the guild of weavers said he would be able to produce something, made easier if the effects of the item were associated with that of the beholder. In the end, only a charm effect was chosen to add to Leif's magical wings.

The Company then picked up a selection of other useful items including a Sword of Dragon Slaying (or 'Hurting', as Drumak pointed out - blame marketing for misleading naming) and potions and traded the remaining eyes and organs in for an equivalent value gem.

The next step was to try and get to Skullport and from there on to the Fortress of the Shadow Dragon. A contact was made who could open a door from Sigil to Shadowfell, but didn't know the way to the Fortress from there. Cait briefly returned to her old Order and gave them her notes on the monsters that the Company had been fighting, and asked for any information that they might have on Shadow dragons. She was told that they didn't know about the head of the dojo whose title was the Shadow Dragon, but let her know what they had on shadow dragons generally, which she then shared with the group.

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