Desert of Desolation XV

Sir Blanque - swordsman and handsome, dashing noble half mer-person
Marion - stabby stabby dagger specialist; Nihrain who currently carries the Runestaff
Destiny - Menastrai sorceress covertly raised on Melnibone
Bomilcar - Weeping Waste nomad from a chieftain's family

Campaign Narrative

The four characters now have all five Star Gems, the last of which is supposed to be placed in the appropriate indentation in the obelisk at the centre of the deserted city. The obelisk has been giving off a rather lovely chiming sound, almost like a crystalline heartbeat, starting from the point the group retrieved the final gem from the Temple of Ra. When they do this, crystal pillars at various strategic locations around the city begin to emit an accompanying chime; according to an inscription on the obelisk, the players now have to touch one of the Star Gems against a pillar.

Doing so summons a teleport disk that takes them to a beautiful garden beneath a glorious crystalline dome - obviously a sub-plane of some kind. Their arrival is greeted with great enthusiasm by a bunch of people; it turns out that the chiming has been heard in here too. Marion keeps a wary eye on them because she can see that they are all interested in the party's equipment and clothing; she manipulates some shadows to show that she is an even greater thief than they could ever hope to be, and the cry goes up that these must be the fabled heroes fated to open the grand doors to the cathedral, whatever that is. These people speak a variant of Quar, close enough for the companions to understand them in broken conversation. The characters are treated to a feast, making sure they don't lose any valuables in the process. Marion's trickery seems to have awed the locals enough that they don't try too hard, mostly stealing stuff from one another instead. It's almost like a ritual game.

After a rest, the players move to the location of the doors into the cathedral the thief people mentioned. Waving the Star Gems opens the doors silently and majestically, followed by a series of 1,000 portal doorways that do the same in sequence. The characters finally find themselves inside an enormous crystal prism with what looks like a teleport or perhaps elevator mechanism at the centre, guarded (of course!) by some sort of construct. Swinging from a perch high above them, a metallic black phoenix watches majestically over a series of fiery pits from which jet huge gouts of plasma:

The guardian phoenix lets out a terrific screech, which seriously buffets Bomilcar, but which is pretty much resisted by the rest of the group. Using elementals to shield themselves from any further unpleasantness, the group runs for the centre of the prism. They manage to get to what does indeed turn out to be an elevator quickly enough before the enormous phoenix thing can sweep down and unleash more nastiness. The elevator swiftly swooshes downwards at great speed; the construct leaves them alone at this point.

They are now in a perfect cathedral built from a single giant crystalline substance, lit by a gentle glow that seems to emanate from the air itself. In the centre is a dais holding a large scale model of a beautiful palace with six towers rising around a single central dome. The minarets of the towers are missing. Closer approach shows that the whole thing is in fact insubstantial (a hologram!) and that six metallic plates etched with some sort of regular pattern are set into the dais over which the holograph is hovering. Leading from the room are six side chapels (for lack of a better term), and the players surmise that they need to accomplish six side quests to complete the model of the Citadel of Martek, which is presumably what the hologram is supposed to represent.

Umpire's Narrative

There is supposed to be some interaction between different groups of survivors in the gardens before the main cathedral entry, but I couldn't be bothered with that. This is turning into a major quest in its own right, and I had various things in mind to spice it all up later on, and I thought the squabbles in the garden would detract from that. Bomilcar had a really bad time with the sonic roar attack by the black phoenix, but he just managed to stay conscious. Running for the elevator while using elementals to create a sort of 'tunnel' to hold off any further blasts worked perfectly, and the characters were just quick enough to get there before the phoenix resorted to physical attacks. As a construct, of course, it had a program of ordered assaults. Just as well - something that size could easily have swept one or more players to their doom in the plasma pits.