User blog:Tokenas/The Archon's Assassination

Ava Stone and her compatriots, after regaining their composure following the fall of the Warchief, proceeded onwards to a guard room populated with numerous statues. Thanks to Ava's keen senses, the party quickly deduced that the statues were traps; although originally dedicated to Bahamut, and set to attack evil interlopers, the blessings had been corrupted with the addition of the holy symbols of one of the Scions of Tiamat, Malystryx, reinforced by the desecration of the temple below. The party, using sound strategy, quickly nullified the threat with barely a scratch, and, after taking rubbings of the symbols, proceeded onwards to the outer temple, defended by an underpriest and some cultists of Tiamat, as well as some Spawn of Kalarel and a creature of pure shadow from the Shadowfell. Blood ran around the room into a central pit, into which dangled several heavy chains.

Quickly dominating the last line of defense, the squad descended into a nightmare, with blood pouring from the open ceiling, and a room dominated by a gargantuan statue of Tiamat, a few undead defenders, including a wight, and Kalarel, nearing the end of his ritual. Perhaps most importantly, on the northern wall of the sanctum pulsed the Rift, with low noises emanating from it, and seeking tendrils emerging from the inky blackness within. In a pitched battle, the statues of Bahamut were offered to the temple to remove the desecration, shattering both Kalarel's defenses and the giant statue, and destabilizing the rift. With the loss of the desecration, the weakened Kalarel fell, cursing his failure, and the power within the portal snatched him away to an unknown fate. Some weaponry and coinage was recovered, but most importantly was a journal with Kalarel's account of his dark doings.