Date:
Weather:
Hot, session entirely underground
Player Characters:
Elias (Wiggles), Wood Elf Cleric, 436 points
Garreth (Zuljita), Half-Orc Fighter, 498 points
Ibizaber (Demented Avenger), Human Thief, 498 points
Polly (Kalzazz), Wood Elf Archer, 492 points
Seépravir (Archon Shiva), High Elf Wizard, 500 points
Significant NPCs:
Hrolad, Duergar Thane of Narborg
The Grand Devotee, Duergar-Werebat Cleric
2 Ebuul Lizards
Vulgaris, Minyad Druid
Several Young Stone Giants
Elweiss, Ghost Squire
The battle resumed, deep within the Duergar fortress of Narborg. The dire bats and known giant lizards were dead, so it was just Thane Hrolad and the Werebat Grand Devotee against the PCs.
Elias enabled Heroic Might and Heroic Grace and got +6 ST and +9 DX. Rolf Great Hasted Elias, and then tried Charming the cleric, which was doomed to failure. Garreth attacked the Thane's leg with a Rapid Strike, but his attacks were blocked and parried. The cleric healed the Thane. Another giant lizard crawled out of the water and scurried toward the battle. Zaber ran around the Thane and tried stabbing him in the back with a poisoned knife, but the just-healed Thane managed to dodge.
The Thane tried chopping Polly with his axe. She acrobatically dodged, but it required Luck to reroll a 15. She then shot a couple of arrows at the cleric. He dodged both, and Garreth, on the other side, had to use Luck to parry one of them. Polly then reconsidered and used her last arrow on the lizard, first successfully guessing where its vitals were. This wounded it badly enough to slow its movement, but failed to stun it.
Elias, now fully buffed, went after the cleric with a couple of extremely deceptive flail strikes. He managed to dodge the first, and the second just missed. Realizing Elias was also cheating with Holy powers, in what should have been a No Sanctity Zone for good, the cleric said "Your powers should not work here, heretic. Must be the lizards. I'll have them killed later."
Garreth attacked the Thane twice. The first was parried, but the second went through the Thane's heavy plate torso armor for serious damage, slowing the Thane again. Rolf tried Death Vision on the Thane, but were was no effect. Rolf then tried Death Vision on the giant lizard, which sunk to the ground and went into camouflage mode in response, trying to hide from the fatal arrow shot that it knew was coming. Garreth asked the werebat cleric his name, and he replied "Your future ruler!" and then told Garreth that he'd look cute with wings. Garreth responded that he had dibs on knocking over the altar.
The Grand Devotee told Elias to get his tree-loving god out of his caves, and then charged up a spell and tried biting Elias on the neck. Elias needed Luck to make his block roll. Zaber spun and stabbed the scared lizard in the eye, fatally. It had been so terrified of arrows it never saw the knife coming. However, as he finished one lizard, Zaber spotted another one approaching from the west.
The Thane prepared to attack, when suddenly he missed his consciousness check and passed out. The cleric, in his rage to kill Elias, had accidentally left his back facing Polly, which meant she could shoot him in the back of the skull with no defense possible (unless he had Peripheral Vision). She rolled a critical hit, making the facing irrelevant. The werebat rolled poorly on his stun roll, and a brain hit imposes -10. He failed by more than 5, for a knockout. And just that quickly, the battle was over. Polly kept shooting though, just in case, putting a couple more arrows in his brain. And then Elias joined in the overkill, bashing his skull in with his flail.
Except for the one remaining lizard that Zaber had just spotted, but 5 PCs versus a giant lizard wasn't much of a fight. Garreth flew over to take care of the lizard, but somehow missed with both swings of a rapid strike. Meanwhile, the Thane's beard was on fire for some reason. Rolf used Extinguish Fire to put it out. As he did so, he noticed that the Thane's crown was magical.
The giant lizard finally revealed its attack, breathing poison at Garreth. The cone was wide enough that he couldn't get out of it -- but Garreth is highly resistance to poison, so it hardly mattered. He made his resistance roll easily, and remarked that the breath might make a decent hot sauce. Polly flew over and shot the lizard three times, with the final arrow knocking it out. A few seconds later, Garreth had to make another HT check against delayed poison effects, but that didn't do anything to him either.
The Thane's head caught on fire again, with Rolf suspecting the crown was up to something. Zaber knocked the crown off the Thane's head with his sai, and got a few points of curse damage for indirectly touching the crown. Garreth worried that his chi might have been disrupted by the poison, so he tried kiai on Polly, which stunned her. He then apologized for the headache.
After recovering from stun, Polly shot the Thane in both eyes to finish him off. Rolf tried Apportation on the crown, but it resisted. She kept spamming the spell until it eventually worked. Meanwhile Zaber drank some healing potion, and then looted the Thane of his axe and horn and heavy plate armor. He tried blowing the horn, but nothing happened. He then jumped in the water and searched for more loot, but didn't find anything. Garreth removed the Thane's head and took it for some reason.
Elias was very tired, and not able to regain FP because he was so offended by the Low Sanctity Zone. Polly led him northwest until the aura was less vile, then he could rest. He sipped a bit of healing potion. Polly went south and started digging a tunnel, to try to make a path back to the rest of the level that didn't require going through the temple. Garreth went into the temple and started wrecking stuff. He broke all 7 statues of the Evil Duergar Septych over the altar, then used Power Blow to get enough strength to roll the altar over. By then Elias was rested enough to come over and help, using Exorcism to try to reduce the level of evil. The combined effect of their Evil Temple Improvement got it from no sancity to very low sanctity, which meant they could walk through it without losing all cleric spells.
Garreth piled up all the bat corpses and asked Rolf to burn them. Rolf rolled an 18 on Control Fire and accidentally burned his face a little. (Seépravir didn't bother using Luck; she's kind of hard on her Possessed enemies.) Elias smashed the altar some more with his blessed flail. On the way back out of the temple, Garreth told Polly she could stop digging.
On the second pass through the room, Zaber remembered to loot the Grand Devotee, which yielded a mace on a chain lanyard, mail armor, a large shield, and a black holy symbol of something evil. Elias immediately wanted to smash the holy symbol, but Garreth grabbed it and dodged. Elias then turned his attention to wanting to destroy the crown, but Garreth pointed out that it might zap his flail. Elias didn't listen, smashed the crown, and got zapped for curse damage. He then stopped trying to destroy the crown, for the moment.
Garreth remembered they should recover Koborth's bones and take them back to his tomb and the ghost of his squire Elweiss. Polly said they should go back and destroy the evil wall instead, because there was a duergar next to it with loot that needed to be recovered. Elias tried exorcising the crown, but it failed to do much except shock him for more curse damage. Polly suggested some Bless spells, so a lot of Elias casting Bless and then resting happened. (The immediate area seemed clear of enemies.)
The group headed back toward the wall, with Rolf stopping to appraise a dire bearskin rug on the way. (Valuable but very big and heavy.) The group filed through the arrow slit that Elias had widened into a doorway, and then headed north into the cave level. After running around in the wrong direction for a while, they finally found the derro potion seller and his minotaur bodyguard. Garreth showed the derro the Thane's head, and the derro said "Cheap ass duergar maybe still alive if had more healing potions." Garreth asked why light wasn't allowed. The derro said no light was allowed near the wall, Thane's orders. Then he said "Guess Thane makes no orders now! Derro own this level now!" and started cackling. Not needing to buy any potions, the group backed away from the derro toward the wall.
As they approached the wall, Polly noticed that the duergar they'd knocked out previously wasn't there any more, and got very angry at the wall for stealing their loot. The wall used a Fear effect to make them run away. Polly, Garreth, and Elias all failed. Zaber also failed, but used Luck to succeed. Everyone regrouped around the corner, where the scared people stopped running. Rolf cast Bravery on everyone to make them immune to fear for an hour -- but with the danger of needing an IQ roll to be able to run away. Zaber suggested not messing with the wall, but nobody listened to him.
Everyone flew up to the wall again, and this time it cast an attraction spell to try to make everyone charge into melee range. Garreth rolled a 17 and had to close; the others made their checks and could move as they wished. Garreth fast-drew a vial of Alchemist's Fire. Polly shot some Bodkins of Light at the wall, hoping it was vulnerable. The wall parried the first two with tentacles of darkness, and Polly rolled a 17 on the third attack, somehow missing the broad side of a wall.
Garreth ran closer, and lobbed the grenade at the wall, which smacked it aside, leaving a pool of fire on the ground. Rolf reached into his pocket and found a coin, then cast Continual Light on it, rolling a 4 for a critical success and getting a super bright light. Elias charged forward. The wall punched Garreth twice. He tried a retreating dodge, but trying to retreat from the wall gave him -4 to DX. He still managed to dodge both tentacles. Polly fired three regular bodkins at the wall, which parried the first two. The third one was a critical hit for solid damage, punching a small hole in the darkness. Garreth fast-drew his katana and rapidly struck the wall, with one blow getting through.
Rolf used Fast-Draw (potion) to pull the glowing coin out of his pocket, and ran toward the wall. The wall, seeing the super bright light leaking out of Rolf's hand, tried a Fear attack to make Rolf run away, but Rolf resisted. It then pummeled Garreth, who barely dodged. Zaber yelled for everyone to run away. Polly ignored him and kept firing arrows. Garreth also decided that running away was a good idea, and made his IQ roll to be allowed to, but took a copule more swings at the wall and hit it hard once. Rolf threw the coin and made really bright light right next to the wall, which didn't seem to damage it.
The wall tried Fear again, but those with Bravery were immune, so only Rolf and Zaber had to roll, and they both made it. The wall then zapped the glowing coin and destroyed it, ruining that plan. Zaber kept encouraging everyone to run away. Garreth agreed and started running, but Polly refused, and put more arrows into the wall. Elias also reached the wall, and critically hit it with his flail, damaging the nearby tentacle. Garreth, seeing Polly and Elias were not running, turned back around to fight the wall again. The wall attacked both Garreth and Elias, but Garreth parried and Elias was missed.
Garreth went for another rapid strike, and connected with the wall twice, for a lot of damage, tearing out a chunk of darkness. Elias missed. The wall went after Garreth twice, seeing him as the greatest threat, but he defended. Polly launched a volley of arrows but all were parried. Garreth went for another rapid strike, hit with the first, but then dropped his sword to his duergar chain lanyard. Elias smashed the wall once, and defended from its counterattack.
Polly fired another group of arrows, hitting with one. Elias went for a rapid strike with his flail, and hit once, which was the last blow needed to break the wall. The room started shaking. Everyone backed away from the wall, which collapsed upon itself into a pile of rubble, with a wide opening in the center.
Zaber checked out what was on the other side, and found a stairway down to the left, and a wide passage going on as far as he could see to the right. Polly looked for the duergar, but couldn't find him.
The PCs picked up as much loot as they could carry, then headed up a couple levels to the stone giants, and showed them the Thane's head. None were willing to carry treasure back to Cillamar, though. They then went up a level to visit Vulgaris, and showed her the head too. Then Garreth remembered he wanted to take Koborth's bones back to his tomb, so they went back down a couple of levels. The ghost of Koborth's squire Elweiss again asked for his spear back. Garreth gave him his spear (which disappeared and was replaced with the ghostly image of itself in Elweiss's spectral hand), and also the contract from the Company of the Black Osprey. With these items restored, Elweiss's memory recovered, and he started to talk about Koborth. But Garreth didn't have time to listen, interrupted him, and asked if he could use Koborth's hand to try something with the scabbard in Koborth's tomb. Elweiss did not object, and the hand drew out a broadsword, with several gems on the blade and a guard shaped like dragon's wings. Garreth took the sword, clearly disappointed that it was one-handed. (He thought it was going to be a greatsword.) Elweiss went back to his body in its glass coffin and disappeared.
At that point the PCs went all the way up to ground level, then flew back to Cillamar, for the first time in what felt like forever. (But was actually less than a day.)
GM's Comments:
Session 100. Sounds like a lot, but if you play every week, it's under 2 years. (We've missed a few weeks but not many.)
No Sanctity Zones affect cleric spells but not holy powers. So Elias was able to use Heroic Might and Grace even right next to the unholy temple of the evil Septych.
Both duergar bosses had Unfazeable, making them immune to Death Vision since they feared nothing. I faked a resistance roll to try to avoid giving this away, but when the players pointed out that the spell couldn't be resisted, it was clear what was going on.
The Grand Devotee leaving his back facing Polly was a GM tactical error. It happens. Didn't matter, though, because Polly rolled a critical hit, so even if he had the ability to defend, he couldn't have stopped that one. Skull hits are just nasty -- quadruple damage after DR, -10 to the stun roll, and if you miss by 5 you're knocked out.
I mistakenly gave a hint that Koborth's sword was a greatsword, but it's actually a broadsword. You just can't trust rumors sometimes.
It's been a lot of sessions since the PCs went back to town, so there will be a lot of decisions about spending points and trying to shop for gear before the next adventure.
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