In any case, the February 28 session started right where the one in December ended. The players were excited, having survived the last, furious battle. They quickly searched the bodies of Jacob, Robert, and Amelia and found several magic items (including two Bags of Holding), a bunch of gold, and Robert's journal. In a brilliant stroke, the players decided to stuff the three Big Bad Guys into the Bags so that the cleric, Peyton, could use Speak with Dead later to learn more about what Jacob and his entourage were doing in Neustria. The players then escaped from the burning tent. They killed a few of the guards remaining in Jacob's camp and eluded the rest.
After wandering around the city for about an hour, they found an abandoned building that was sufficiently intact to serve as a good resting place. Theodric, the magic-user, was in pretty bad shape. He had fallen to -7 hit points during the fight and still hadn't fully recovered despite the liberal application of Potions of Extra-Healing and Cure Light Wounds spells. The other players had also suffered pretty badly and were nowhere close to full strength. Everyone needed a break. They posted a watch and slept for the rest of the day and through the night.
The next morning the players examined their loot and read Robert's journal. They discovered that Amalric had sent Jacob and his minions to Neustria to find the tombs of Amalric's two most powerful generals: a Type VI demon named Sabnock and a death knight called Theron. The elves had imprisoned them at the end of the Olynthian war 10,000 years ago. At that time, Neustria had been an Olynthian city and the site of one of the last, most desperate battles in that apocalyptic conflict. When the war was over, the victorious elves had imprisoned both Sabnock and Theron in magic chambers deep below the city. Since then, many cities had risen and fallen above them. Sabnock, Theron, Amalric, and the Olynthians themselves were eventually forgotten. Neustria was the last city-state built over these ruins, and, in the end, even it was abandoned to the encroachments of Anauroch, the Great Desert. After Amalric was inadvertently freed in Olynthus Kios, he sent Jacob to excavate Neustria's ruins and release Sabnock and Theron so that they could again take their place at Amalric's side.
Besides these facts, Robert's journal also revealed that somewhere in Sabnock's tomb was a scroll left behind by the elves that could utterly destroy both Sabnock and Theron. Amalric's generals had been imprisoned, rather than simply annihilated, as part of a compromise between Amalric's patron god, Apophis, and the elves' deity, Corellon Larethian. Apophis had threatened to materialize in Faerun and destroy it if the elves had pushed their advantage to its utmost. Sick of war and exhausted, Corellon conceded to the compromise. However, he also had his elven mages hide the magical formula for destroying Sabnock and Theron in the hope that someone might someday finish what the elves had started.
Although Robert didn't know where Sabnock's tomb was located, the players learned that piece of information from Jacob himself after Peyton interrogated his dead body. This took a while. The players spent a considerable amount of time figuring out exactly what questions to ask because the spell only let them ask two. During this questioning, Peyton also discovered that Jacob had not yet freed Sabnock because Amalric had instructed him to release them simultaneously, and Jacob still didn't know where Theron was.
With this information in hand, the players searched the general area that Jacob had described and eventually found the entrance to Sabnock's tomb. It turned out to be a maze--literally. They wandered around in it for several hours, getting sidetracked here and there and occasionally losing their bearings. They also encountered a couple of zombie minotaurs and twenty 4 HD skeleton warriors. After the last session, these monsters were a breeze. More seriously, the players also tripped a variety of traps--the first time they had ever found so many in one place. These included a spring trap that fired a dozen crossbow bolts, a magical teleportation rune that nearly split up the party, and a magical mirror that cast an enhanced Fear spell on anyone who looked into it. This last trap made the doughty fighter Eirik foul himself and run away in abject terror when he missed his save. Sensing that the mirror might be protecting something important, the remaining, unaffected players searched behind it. They found the scroll that Robert had described. (Interestingly, they never located the chamber where Sabnock was held. In the end, it didn't matter.)
Eirik recovered from his Fear after two turns, and the party, with the scroll in hand, returned to the surface. Once above ground, Theodric read the incantation. The effect was electric. Within seconds, a massive earthquake struck the whole area, and the players heard what could only be described as the wailing of the damned. These were, of course, the death cries of Sabnock and Theron. The players had succeeded!
The session ended with Peyton peering yet again into the black orb taken from Merek so many months ago. The orb seemed to show their patron, the king of Cormyr, dead on a funeral pyre. The players decided, then and there, that the capitol of Cormyr would be their next destination.
This February session formed a fitting denouement to the climactic battle in December with Jacob and his minions. It required more problem-solving and role-playing than combat. The players, who are getting really good at fighting as a team, rose to meet this, somewhat different challenge. They also discovered a little more about Amalric's intentions and, having experienced a near Total Party Kill the last time around, learned just how dangerous this campaign could eventually turn out to be. Future sessions will surely hold even more surprises.
