The Phylactery of Acererak

With Acererak defeated, the heroes turned their attention to keeping him that way. They knew they had to find his phylactery and destroy it. Finishing their exploration of his Tower, they came across the three large gemstone statues of him. They could feel his hatred of them eminating from the statues and knew instantly what they had to do.

True to form, Ekeraath raised the Bloody Maul of Kord and using all his strength, hammered it into the statue. With the impact, a massive ball of necrotic lightening ripped through his body, leaving him slightly shaken and only a little pained.

Fortunately, that pain wasn't for naught. The force of his blast allowed Kuppies to better see and understand the arcane field that surrounded, and protected the statue. With an amazing arcana check of 50, Kuppies easily surmised the weakest spots in the field. Following Kuppies' lead, Rudy, with Ford's assistance(not really), made an excellent thievery check to find the imperfactions in the stone and help provide a more specific target for the maul.

Knowing she needed to assist in the destruction of this evil, Leenia said a prayer to Sehanine and she granted her blessing to Ekeraath and his mighty maul. With the maul now glowing a radiant white, Alexander attempted to use diplomacy to spur Ekeraath to greater heights, unfortunately, Ekeraath wasn't inspired enough and his subsequent blow was still inadequate.

As Ekeraath shook off the second blast of necrotic lightening, Alexander knew what he had to do. He used an Inspiring Word, granting Ekeraath all the benefits associated with that power.

Dropping his shield, Ekeraath raised the Bloody Maul of Kord and delivered a herculean blow to the statue driving it through a weak point in the arcane field, hammering into the minute flaw in the gemstone, splitting it open, and driving the essence of good into it, shattering it into 100’s of pieces. The force of the resulting explosion catapulted the heroes in all directions, but they had succeeded in destroying the phylactery of Acererak.

A couple notes here. I'm really proud of this challenge. It was part puzzle and part skill challenge. Every skill check was targeted at each persons primary skill, if they made the DC, the difference was added to Ekeraath's bonus, if they failed, subtracted. Everyone succeeded, netting Ekeraath something like a +30, before his own bonuses were added in. I think I spent over 2 hours figuring out each person's role.

Of note, after everything was said and done, each player had to make a will check. Those that failed, were unknowingly compelled to retrieve a piece of the statue. This will give me the option of returning Acererak at some point in the distant future, should I need the use of his services again.