DF Whiterock Session 73: The Zoo Room and the Goggled Archer

Date:

2019-11-15

Weather:

Cold (session entirely underground)

Player Characters:

Elias (Wiggles), Wood Elf Cleric, 374 points
Garreth (Zuljita), Half-Orc Fighter, 445 points
Ibizaber (Demented Avenger), Human Thief, 442 points
Polly (Kalzazz), Wood Elf Archer, 433 points
Seépravir (Archon Shiva), High Elf Wizard, 449 points

Significant NPCs:

3 Duergar Warriors
Duergar Wizard

2 Young White Dragons

2 Rhinoceroses

2 Dire Tigers

2 Owlbears

3 More Duergar Warriors

Human Archer

We resumed after the PCs defeated all the duergar in the guard room.  All were dead, except one, who was Possessed by Seépravir.  The others resumed interrogating the prisoner, who retained his duergar memories but was completely compliant since Seépravir was in control.

They asked where the wizard went.  (He didn't know.)  Where would the wizard probably go?  (Probably to the Senior Wizard or the Head Usher, down a couple of levels.)  What was behind the door to the west.  (Stairs down to the other arena levels.)  What was behind the other doors.  (Cells with prisoners and monsters.)  Who were the prisoners?  (Useless humans and surface sub-dwarves.)  What fate would await him for failure?  (He'd either be killed or spared, not sure.)  How does duergar enlargement work?  (It's a natural ability that takes a few seconds to activate, lasts about an hour, can be used once a day, and feels awesome.)  Were there traps ahead?  (Not on this level, maybe near The Impressario's quarters.)  Are The Impressario and the Head Usher duergar?  (Yes.)  Where is the best seat in the arena?  (The Impressario's box.)  How do we get there?  (Go down one level, using the stairs or an elevator, then you can't miss it.)  Do we need tickets?  (Normally yes, but since they are On Alert they'd probably just kill you.)

After questioning ceased, Seépravir started tying "herself" (the duergar) up, (Garreth decided to help), then went back to her own body, then cast Entombment on the duergar prisoner, to save him for later.  While she was resting up from all that spellcasting, Zaber heard noise through the door to the south.  Listening at the door, he heard yelling in Undercommon, which he didn't speak, and also what sounded like a huge howling cat.  Garreth, who did speak Undercommon, stepped up to try to translate.  It appeared two duergar were arguing about where to place a crate that was blocking the way.

Seépravir cast a couple See Invisible spells, and a couple of Invisibility spells, and then Zaber picked the lock on the south door and pushed it open.  Behind the door was a room, lit by a couple of lanterns, containing three duergar, and several very large crates.  Each crate contained a pair of animals or monsters: white dragons, rhinos, huge tigers, and owlbears.  The duergar were arguing amongst themselves, not paying much attention, and the PCs achieved surprise.

Zaber flew into the room, invisibly.  Polly shot an arrow at a duergar.  Somehow he blocked it, despite being surprised.  The second arrow hit him in the skull and knocked him unconscious.  She fired her third arrow at another duergar, but it was blocked.  Garreth ran up and fast-drew his katana.  Elias charged forward.  Seépravir Great Hasted herself.  The surviving duergar, monsters, and animals rolled to recover from surprise.

Zaber flew further into the room and fast-drew his knife.  Once he got around the crate full of rhinos, he spotted (via See Invisible) an invisible duergar wizard in the southwest corner of the room.  Polly shot a stunned duergar again, in the vitals and then the skull, and did serious damage but failed to knock him out.  Garreth flew forward into the room, and spotted another duergar in the eastern part of the room who had been out of sight behind a crate.  Elias also moved forward, and noticed one of the rhinos trying to break out of their crate.  Seépravir also moved forward, and, like Zaber, noticed the invisible duergar wizard, then moved back to safety.  At this point most of the duergar, animals, and monsters had recovered from surprise, and some were trying to break out of their crates.

Zaber decided to invisibly front-stab the duergar wizard next to him in the eye.  The wizard failed to hear him, and got no defense.  The damage was enough to cripple the eye and knock the duergar unconscious, as Zaber appeared.  Polly flew forward and shot a badly wounded duergar in the skull.  The first arrow was blocked (despite stun), but the second was not dodged, and was fatal.  She shot her third arrow at the Enlarged duergar, who blocked it.  Garreth waited for the big duergar.  Elias advanced toward melee range.  Seépravir used Rapier Wit to stun the large duergar, delaying his attempt to open the tiger create with his crowbar.  The large duergar recovered from stun, and the tigers, white dragons, owlbears, and rhino all succeeded in breaking open their crates.

Zaber put his Ring of Invisibility on, then "stepped" straight up.  Polly loosed three arrows at the large duergar, but he blocked the first and dodged the other two.  Garreth's wait expired unused, and he moved into position.  Elias moved.  Seépravir cast Mass Daze on the white dragons, and both failed to resist, so the most dangerous opponents were out of the fight.  The dire tigers picked random victims from among the prey scattered around the room.  The first decided to pounce on Polly, but she dodged.  The other went for Garreth, and rolled a critical hit, but he used Luck to make it reroll, turning it into a regular hit, which he dodged.  Both owlbears moved north.  One rhino backed into the corner, while the other rhino charged Elias, who dodged the slam.

Zaber "stepped" down and tried to stab an owlbear in the eye.  The owlbear rolled very well on its hearing roll and got a chance to defend, but failed to dodge.  The knife went into its birdbrain and knocked it unconscious.  The other owlbear saw Zaber appear, and got angry.  Polly shot that owlbear in the back of the head, killing it before it could get its revenge on Zaber.  She then finished off the unconscious owlbear, and the unconscious duergar wizard, not wanting to injure the cute cuddly natural animals.  (Owlbears are clearly unnatural wizard experiments who deserve no pity.)  Garreth used Rapid Strike to take two swings at a rhino, and did a large amount of damage, stunning it.  Elias smacked a duergar with his flail, doing enough damage to slow him and penalize his dodge.

Seépravir decided to try to save the tigers, by using Create Fire (which needed Luck to succeed) to make a bunch of magical fire, then Shape Fire to form it into a ring, which she could move in future turns to make a wall around the tigers.    The female dire tiger decided to pounce on the duergar, who managed to block the attack.  The male tiger pounced on Elias, who decided not to defend.  It inflicted maximum damage to his torso, which was not enough to penetrate his heavy armor, and also knocked him down and grappled him.  A rhino charged Garreth's back, doing enough impaling damage with her horn to penetrate his armor, but not by much.  The other rhino recovered from stun.

Zaber all-out defended (dodge) and moved into rhino-grabbing position.  Polly moved to where she had a side shot at a rhino's eye (rhino eyes are on the side of their heads; I checked a photo of a rhino to be sure), and then regretfully shot its eye out, fatally.  She put her second arrow into the other rhino's eye, rolled a maximum damage crit, and killed that one too.  She tried putting her third arrow into the dire tiger grappling Elias, but it dodged, and the arrow missed Elias and the other tiger.  Garreth used rapid strike to put two katana cuts into that tiger, wounding it badly.  Elias tried breaking free of the tiger's grapple, but failed.  Seépravir started moving the fire to encircle the tigers.  The somehow-still-alive duergar moved slowly toward the dragons.  Both tigers tried to bite Elias's head off, but his very stout helmet protected him.

Zaber flew over to stab the duergar in the face, rolled poorly, used Luck, and then had his attack blocked.  Polly shot the duergar, ignoring the nearby Dazed white dragons that she really didn't want to hit yet.  The first arrow stunned him, and the next arrow killed him.

Garreth took two swings at the male dire tiger, missing with the first and killing the tiger with the second.  This released Elias to move freely.  Seépravir manipulated the flames to maneuver the surviving tiger north out of the room, then through the guard room and up the stairs toward the Immense Cavern, where she could happily feed on giant lizards.  The only remaining foes were the Dazed white dragons.  Polly took careful aim and put an arrow into one dragon's eye, knocking it unconscious.  Garreth used Power Blow to raise his ST, then chopped the other dragon in the skull, killing it, while Polly killed the unconscious dragon.

With all opponents in the room vanquished, Zaber started searching the room.  A quick glance saw the duergars' weapons and armor, some 10' poles, the lanterns, and a crowbar.  There were also a couple of backpacks, and several potentially valuable animal and monster corpses.  Seépravir immediately noticed that one of the backpacks was magic.  Elias cast Major Healing on Garreth, while Polly started skinning dragons with Survival skill, and Seépravir started cutting deep into the dragons with Surgery, looking for valuable organs.  (She initially rolled an 18, a definite "oops you destroyed that!" critical failure, but her Luck had just returned a couple of minutes earlier, so she got to retry.)  After finishing the dragons, they decided to also retrieve a couple of rhino horns, the skin of the male dire tiger (they had successfully let the female escape), and both owlbear pelts.  This meant a lot of skinning for Polly, and she also had one critical failure, also fixed using Luck.

After resting and looting was done, Zaber checked for exits, and saw three more doors (east, east, and south) and a portcullis to the southwest.  He looked through the portcullis and saw a long hallway.  The door to the south had a little peep-hole door in it, and saw a large room beyond, with a couple of big wheels with handles, like the wheel on a ship except horizontal.  The southern of the two eastern doors also had a peep-hole door, and beyond was a small empty room, like a cell or closet.  The northern of the eastern doors had some noise behind it, clanging and banging and snorting.  Everyone lined up behind it, then Zaber put on his Invisibility ring, picked the lock, and opened it up.  There were no immediate targets visible, just a big hallway with more doors north and south, and a portcullis to the east.

The source of the noise was behind two portcullises to the east: a huge boar, trying to break out of captivity.  Polly wasn't sure if it was natural or a monster.  Zaber asked which door he should open, and Garreth expressed a preference for the closest door to the north, trying to explore in a way that left as little unexplored territory behind them as possible.  Zaber went down a passage to the east, then followed as it turned north, and entered another large room containing a couple of statues of duergar with many tentacles for beards, and a couple more ship wheels mounted horizontally.  Also, thanks to See Invisible, 3 huge invisible duergar with crossbows, and an invisible human woman with black goggles and a bow.

Apparently the woman could see invisible as well, as she started peppering Zaber with arrows.  He failed to dodge the first, then used his Luck to reroll and dodged all three arrows, then moved back out of the room to get out of her line of sight.  A couple of seconds later, Polly decided to make a strafing run.  She ran into the room, fired an arrow, and rolled a critical hit.  Sadly for Polly, the woman had Luck and used it to turn Polly's crit into a regular hit, which she dodged.  She then dodged Polly's other arrows.  The three duergar with crossbows had all been waiting for a target to appear, and they all tried shooting Polly.  One managed to plink her solidly with a bodkin bolt, but she dodged the other two, and got back out of sight.  Seépravir Great Hasted herself, and Garreth prepared a sai to throw if any enemies came into sight.

It looked like a possible standoff, with nobody wanting to expose themself to the other archer, but then Polly looked at Seépravir and asked "Missile Shield?"  Seépravir cast Missile Shield on Polly and Great Haste on Garreth.  Polly went around the corner again, and the archer, who had been waiting for a target, immediately fired at her.  This automatically missed, and the archer fired again, and on the second miss she cursed and said something about Missile Shield.  Polly fired three arrows back, all of which were dodged.  Garreth charged forward toward the woman and the duergar.

We stopped there, in mid-battle.

GM's Comments:

I thought the fight against the duergar monster herders and random monsters freeing themselves from the cages and attacking random targets was hilarious, and possibly dangerous for the PCs since the white dragons were kind of tough.  But the PCs achieved surprise, and then dropped a Mass Daze on the dragons, and then it was not that hard a fight.  Both Elias and Garreth soaked up pretty big hits from large animals with their excessive DR.  Large animals have a lot of ST, but foolishly tend to use thrust rather than swing damage, wasting it.

The archer fight looked interesting until Missile Shield swung the advantage to the PCs.  We'll see how it ends next time.