RECAP
The collected group of heroes, along with all the Celestial friends we met, gathered in Chase's Hidden Lodge to discuss the plan. We decided to enact our idea involving Asinjin breaking Daane free, then teleporting out to safety while the rest of us busted Dovan out of prison. We cast all manner of spells, protections, invisibility, fly, and other enchantments on ourselves to be as stealthy as possible. Asinjin Shapechanged into a tiny hippogriff and flew to Daane while the rest of us met with Dovan outside his prison cell. When we got to our destinations, we found out the only way out of the shackles they were locked in was to acquire the "Knight's Key" which we discovered was a psionic device kept around the neck of the Knight of Chains favorite slave; a Tiefling woman.
We decided to regroup and strategize a new plan since the consequences of trying to force the chains off would likely end in the deaths of those we were trying to save. We went back to camp and debated a new plan. The top two choices narrowed down to Asinjin using a Wish to cast Null Psionic Bubble (similar to Anti-Magic Shell) around Daane to neutralize the shackles, Polymorph him to get him out of the restraints, teleport him to safety, then meet us all at the prison to do the same for Dovan. The second choice was a full frontal assault of the caravan the next morning. Depending on who rode with the caravan, we would attempt our rescue at that time, acquire the key, then liberate the remaining hero (either Daane or Dovan) depending on who was still back at the concentration camp.
When we woke the next morning before dawn, we saw the Shackle King, Knight of Chains, several Loth's of varying potency, and the Ultralith all surrounding the grandstand that the slaves built in a type of send-off ritual that set the fiendish caravan on its way via the rail cars. The Knight of Chains, his favorite slave, and many other slaves (including Daane) were set out on the caravan. All others remained behind at the camp and proceeded to the gladiator arena.
As per our usual antics, we ended up heavily buffing ourselves and charging into battle. We rode in on Phantom Steeds and charged the caravan like a group of 19th century highwaymen hijacking a train. Asinjin signaled the beginning of the assault by launching a quickened, twinned empowered barrage of sonic/holy lightning bolts at the chief Piscaloth annihilating him in the process. Shar charged the Knight of Chains, Parker prepared himself temporally for the encounter, Gnickodemus sniped another Loth to death with a single shot, and Chase and Vega went after the psionic key around the favored slave.
One thing our Celestial friends told us was that the Loth's and some of these other fiends were susceptible to surprise. This proved to be invaluable data as we hit them hard and they didn't see it coming. The battle with the Knight of Chains was difficult and Shar's mighty attacks were largely being deflected by displacement. It wasn't until Parker made his "timely" appearance and wrecked him with temporally enhanced massive damage that the Knight teleported away like a coward. At this time, Asinjin finished off the rest of the fiends with a Mass Whelm spell, knocking them all out, but not before a massive psionic blast rocked Chase and Vega and sapped them of their wisdom. Vega was decimated by the blast, but Chase was able to stagger to his feet and regain some of his composure, although clearly affected. Once the Tiefling slave was unconscious, Asinjin used telekinesis to remove the key from the slave's neck. We touched the key to Daane's shackles and they fell off. We then freed all the unconscious slaves as well as performed coup de grace on all the remaining fiends.
We stopped at the end of the holy reckoning, once all the dust settled and all the fiends were dead. We gathered Daane and now have to decide what to do with the slaves before we head into battle again at the gladiator arena. We still need to rescue Dovan, but at least now we have the key.
