Might as Well call this the Reset - Paragon's go!

So after several character swaps and other miscellaneous mishaps, the campaign feels like it is back on track.



What's happened in the in between - the short version.



Party with help from a tree stride teleporting dryad, goes after last Gatekeepers to buy time for them to come up with a plan to save their NPC companions who are held prisoner by the Cercators.



Party encounters some gnolls and griffons with assistance from their new friends the ranger and artificer. They defeat the first encounter with the ranger so badly wounded that he takes off never to be seen by the party again. The second encounter rolls on, and on, without much ranged assistance to bring down the manticore.



The battle over, the party takes shelter in the Manticore's cave, where they draw in the dragonshaped NPC Crusio (actually pelor trapped in Crusio form) - after a short puzzle about who Crusio is and who the party is to Pelor. Pelor emerges to awaken the locked powers of the soul in the party ( effectively giving them the ability to reach paragon or higher without using mod-soul weapons) Pelor says he can't act in this world, without catching notice from the soul society. Thus he leaves it to the party to finish the job, down into the caves they go and defeat a bloodfire harpy, rather easily. They use her teleportation circle to get to the basement of the Cercators chapel headquarters, where from their little Artificer friend decides to depart from them for his sewer home.



The party climbs through level after level of dungeon where they discover humans in all stages of the process of transformation from human to aberration. The reach a set of double doors and find a note torn from the armor of the mod-soul companion that pelor gave them, written in the hand of the girl they came to save - do not come for me, I'm safe for now, but if you follow I won't be. They see through her deception, and realize she isn't ok, but is trying to again save them while sacrificing herself.



They bust through the doors ready to battle, only to find a room full of cots and vagrants, who beg for change. The party hurriedly tosses change off in a corner to be rid of the vagrant pests. Then on up another staircase to an auditorium/gymnasium like room, where orphans are at play. They entertain what to do with the orphans or where to go, when the church bells ring, and the children file out to their dorms, and the vagrants file out to their dinner - all seemingly in a trance. The party follows the vagrant line to a dining hall, and instead of going through the line, duck off behind the kitchen, in the process noticing alchemical regents being poured into the food. They hide in a utility closet where they find their mod-soul buddy's armor, but no mod-soul jewel. Looking out a near by window, they find small foot prints that they follow to the woman's dorm, where they hear a girl screaming upstairs. They rush into the dorm causing a rucuss. To find the girl screaming about her bra moving on it's own. One party member convinces her to hold still while he helps her, and he removes the mod-soul jewel from the bra, causing it to stop moving. The girls are all still screaming, the party puts the jewel into a doll, and the talking doll leads them to the basement laundry where he last saw the girl they were looking for. Then the party hears the girls calling for Krul. The ground shakes as he approaches.



We pick up the following week, with the party convincing Krul that they were just lost and looking for a certain girl, he says he will take them to girls. Then the party attacks him while he is squeezed in the staircase. They effectively keep him in a tight spot most of the combat, so that he only makes one successful attack on them. A little healing later, they go up stairs and convince the girls that Krul is just resting and not to disturb him. They say they have to get ready for services and need their clothes, but the party convinces them to wear something else for now, because Krul really shouldn't be distrubed right now.



The party figures services is the best place to find the girl they were looking for, but in the 15 min wait they decide to explore the bell tower, breaking open the lock they enter and start up the stairs only to run into an acolyte who was coming down the stairs to see what the noise was. She tells them they can't be in there and to keep an eye out for who ever broke that lock. She goes back up stairs after barring the doors better. The party enters for services, and mid service the head of the Cercators who was giving the sermon stops because of the bells ringing late. The party manages to avoid communion by sliping out of the side doors, where they meet up with the girl they were looking for. She leads them back to the Auditorium where soon after a new party member shows up and tells them not to trust her, she isn't who she says she is. Then a combat starts between some upstairs baddies and the downstairs group. Lissera, the girl they were after runs off to go upstairs, but is passed by the barbarian in the group. He gets stuck in a trap the new guy party member place before combat. Then the swordmage passes Lissera telling her, to let him protect her this time. She says alright then, and doesn't enter the combat. After the baddies are eliminated the new guy still trys to convince the party not to trust her, and she tells the group it doesn't matter what he does or doesn't believe, they had all best leave there before anyone else shows up. She runs off ahead of the group, followed closely by the new guy, and the other 2 party members.



Lissera stops in the basement under the girls dorm, pushing a secret button on the wall, and goes quickly down into the opening. The new guys follows first, but when he gets down there and she is gone, he turns around to get back up to get out of the hole, but doesn't have enough movement to get completely out. The other 2 party members enter the secret passage, and the door immediately closes behind them all.



We'll see if they can get pass their distrust for the new guy long enough to survive the next encounter. It should be fun.