The battle for the finley farm was over. We had time to rest, gather our forces again. And then strike! While the iron was still hot!

First we had to get to know as much as possible, and that included getting some info on the magical eyes that always followed us around. However not only Esk, but also the Haugbui was keeping an eye (no pun intended) on us.  Me and Redemption tried to run from the thing, but it moved as fast as we could. I tried closing door, but from what I saw, I think that Esk her eye can move straight through solid obstacles (where the Haugbui’s eye had to move through cracks underneath the wall). In a moment of desperation, I contacted the Haugbui, asking it for information on how we would be able to get rid of the eyes that followed us around. But it demanded sacrifice, I reminded it that it would also benefit a lot from Esk disappearing. In response to my reprimand, it decided that bullying me, in this case infecting me with a debilitating disease would be the right course of action.. luckily Redemption could heal me again almost immediately.
The Haugbui just made a new enemy.

Speaking of fighting the Haugbui, a half-orc by the name of Amiri made a deal with K’Tau, she would help in the fight against the Haugbui, which she identified as a Veittaer, a younger version of the same spirit. She did not seem the brightest, but she was quite convinced of the matter.

Not seeing any opportunity to hide from Esk, we decided to go for a straight approach, hopefully out flying the army she had.

We tried to talk the reinforcement from Soro to help, but their leader, Thomas, did not think very much of the hammers. He refused to try to help end the menace of Esk. We did not have the energy nor the time to argue with this soldier without vision. So we left.

It took a day of flying, an uneventful night and another day of flying before we finally arrived at Esk her lair. And quite a lair it was. She had taken over a ancient ziggurat, the building itself was mostly broken down, but this was not visible due to a giant illusion over the complete place, an illusion in the shape of Esk her face.

While flying we were met by an illusion of Esk, she flew right in front of us. It spoke of having warned us enough, that she had she had learned much in the last 50 years. That she had discovered things about the ancient gods. That we the mortal races, the giants and dragons, had awoken the sleeping god. We should just leave her, we were only getting in her way while she tried to safe the world. She just need to kill, eat, absorb all the mortals on the continent and ascent herself.. nice try Esk.

The giant illusion on top of her ziggurat, was not a normal illusion. I could see right through it, but when trying to fly through it, everybody except for me bounced right into it. It turned out that the illusion was made partly of material from the shadow plane. If you couldn’t see through it.. it was real.

Inside the ziggurat there were more illusion, illusions of a big hole that was not really there. Illusion of a floor that disappeared as soon as somebody stepped on a trap.. thanks garritas.
As soon as he stepped on it most of us tried to go for something to hold on to. But garritas and K’tau fell. For them it seemed like a long time, while in reality it was just a second before they hid the ground, and landed in a room with 3 ghouls and the magic using vampire spawn. K’tau was able to take down the 3 ghouls with a single high powered spell. But the vampire spawn took him down in one spell as well. A tugging war over K’tau his body between Garritas and the vampire spawn ensued.

In the mean time we tried to get to our fellow hammers as quickly as possible. However the place was littered with illusion mines, so we had to tread carefully. We got as far as 1 junction (one side was an illusion), and a stair before we ran into our own problems. A animated carpet (which was dealt with quickly) and 2 animated suits of armor.

Let’s hope we will arrive in time to save K’Tau