The battle continues! Jain and Sugar are both under Myska's suggestion, which insists it would be "most beneficial to your existence to put the pieces of the rod in the arcane amplifier." Fell pulls a Piece out, Sugar dutifully puts one back.
Gnarls snaps Jain out of the suggestion with a psychic jolt, so Myska tries something gentler. He makes each of us an offer: a bardic lute for Gnarls, a lifesteal glaive for Jain, a genie for Sugar, a bow of oaths for Fell. He promises not to kill us. Jain answers by zooming across the room, scooping up two Pieces, and running.
Myska howls and tries to dominate Jain, who only holds on with Gnarls' help. Kas flees the Spirit Guardians into Fell's fog cloud, where Sugar is already working. Neither knows the other is there. Sugar takes a Piece out and seals it in an Otiluke's Resilient Sphere, completely impenetrable.
Gnarls pulls the last Piece and misty steps right up to Kas to hit him with radiance of rock. Then Jain cuts him down, and rings the Chimes of Unmaking over him before he can rise. Kas is banished to a domain of dread, cursing Vecna as he goes. He leaves behind his sword, his adamantine plate, and an iron crown: the Crown of Lies, which lets its wearer look like anyone. Illustrial, for instance.
With Kas gone we get a powerful sense of where in Pandemonium Vecna's ritual is. Myska is stuck again where he is, the ritual failed. We leave by the sea, and something in it notices: an astral dreadnought, titanic, taller than the citadel walls. Its eye throws an antimagic field across us, and the Hand of Vecna grows nastier on Sugar's arm. Fight, fight, fight!
Loot
- Six Pieces of the Rod of Seven Parts, and one broken Piece
- The Crown of Lies: a rare artifact that lets its wearer look like anyone, undetected
- Kas's sword: lifesteal, 2d8, crits on 19+
- Kas's armour: adamantine plate, AC 20