As the party listened to the music, some of them sat down to listen. Urgmob, Siala, and Davinov all became entranced, and began to contemplate the peace to be found in music. Enli spent ten minutes casting a sending at the figure below, asking to parley, for the universe was in peril. The figure below stopped playing for a moment and said that he would parley. Enli flew down and introduced himself. In only a few sentences he outlined how Jiyoomenath and his followers were trying to save the world from complete planar collapse. Enli also mentioned that he, too, was a man of music. The human introduced himself as Melvius, and asked Enli to play along with him. Enli agreed and then promptly fell under the spell. Melvius explained through the music that all of the dire tales of powerful magicians saving the world were really overblown, and that it generally came down to a matter of personal power. In short, he said that there wasn't anything to worry about. Enli contemplated this and gave himself to the music once again.
Above, the rest of the party grew impatient. Rhin cast Silence on a coin, and Siala delivered it at the Melvius' feet, silencing the music. Hris leapt off the support beam and blew a charge on his battle horn. Rockaneeshoo and Rhin followed, with Rock actually catching up and casting a heroism spell on Hrir.
Melvius stopped playing immediately and then Siala stabbed him. Wincing in pain he stepped out of the sphere of silence and roused the giants with a fast battle ditty on his flute. He also did something that caused one of the horns surrounding the courtyard to sound. The three party members down with him were hit with a wall of sound that crashed against their bones. Siala shrugged it off and stabbed Melvius again. Enli tried casting Destruction against the man, but the spell fizzled on some sort of natural resistance. The giant attacked wielding greatswords and gargantuan flails. Enli was bludgeoned by two giants and lost a point of Con. Siala tried to grab the flute away from Melvius, but he was too strong for her. Melvius moved away, drawing yet another stab from Siala. Hrir charged in, but was intercepted by three air elementals, which caused his intended target to be pushed even further away. The giants counterattacked in force, cutting deeply into Hrir with their greatswords. One also cast Chain Lightning, which not only fried Hrir a bit, but also hit Rockaneeshoo and dismantled his mirror images. Enly fled his attackers for a short distance, then turned to deliver a flamestrike that barely burnt his attackers. The responded by chasing him down and crushing his body beneath their flails. Enli went down in a bloody heap, never to stir again.
Melvius blasted the party with yet another horn, causing damage and deafening Siala. Some of the giants on the perimeter had rallied and cast some sort of spell that gave them control over the suddenly growing storm. Lightning flashed several times, striking Rhin and Hrir. Sensing the dire situation, Rockaneeshoo flew down to snatch the flute from Melvius. He was successful, and immediately left with a quickened teleport to the southern coast. Hrir, on the verge of death, flew up out of the reach of the giants and cast Heal on himself. The giants followed him and started to levitate. Melvius cast a spell and disappeared. Siala made a pixie-line for Rhin, who was still floating in the air being struck by the occasional lightning bolt from above. Rhin offered his hand, which Siala took. Hrir flew over to Enli's corpse, grabbed it, and started to fly off. Several giants took swings at him as he flew by, and Hrir came close to death once again. But he made it to Rhin, who flew up out of range of the giants.
As they left, several air elementals came pouring down from above. Instead of attacking Rhin and company, they passed by and attacked the giants! A huge storm developed, and Rhin noticed that the castle was slowly starting to turn. As the winds reached hurricane force he teleported the three of them back home with a Word of Recall. Mere moments after feeling the wash of relief at having escaped, they all realized something : They had left Urgmob and Davinov back at the castle!
Rockaneeshoo sent a sigil message to the party, asking if they were okay. Rhin responded by saying yes, they had escaped, but that Urgmob and Davinov had been left behind. Rockaneeshoo made a limited wish that both of them, and all of their equipment, were in front of him, but not in one piece. Two cloud-forms of Urgmob and Davinov appeared, slightly shaken up. They slowly came back to solid form and told the tale of how, when they realized they'd been left behind, they jumped from the castle, braved the hurricane winds, and barely made the transition to cloud form before hitting the ocean below. They had set out for the shore, not knowing if the spell would hold long enough, when suddenly here they were right next to Rockaneeshoo!
The next morning, Rock made phantom steeds for the three of them, and they rode back to the teleportation circle in Luniel and returned home to Oriv. Rhin used a spell to speak with the dead Enli, who waxed poetic for several minutes. Eventually, however, he said that yes he'd like to come back, but only to be a chef and musician, not an adventurer. Rhin raised him, and Enli gave away most of his adventuring gear, keeping only his combat items and a few trinkets. No one seemed to blame him for this change of heart.
For fighting the remnants of the Blacktongue mercenary company, finding the flying castle, and retrieving what you think is Sky Singer; Enli, Rockaneeshoo, Siala, and Hrir get 5500xp. Urgmob and Rhin get 4750xp.
This brings the xp totals to:
Urgmob : 137,360 (LEVEL UP to 17th)
Rhin : 126,560 (needs 136k)
Rockaneeshoo : 152,568 (needs 153k)
Siala : 110,800 (needs 120k)
Hrir : 126,417 (needs 136k)
Enli would have made 18th level, but instead, the xp goes to Charlie's new character, which will come in at 15th level, with 110,500xp (just below Siala).
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