DFRPG Arden Vul Session 42b: Neferet and the Wraiths

Date: 

Tothsday, 4th Mercedonian Day, 2994 AE

Weather: 

Cold, mostly sunny, snowy

Player Characters: 

Ioannes Grammatikos Byzantios, Archontean cleric of Demma (Demented Avenger)

Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)

Uvash Edzuson, Dwarven cleric of Zodarrim (Cosmo)

Thrainor "Thronebreaker" Ironvein, Dwarven mercenary fighter (Frank)

Lasselanta "Chrysalis" Ashcroft, Half-Elven mercenary martial artist (ArchonShiva)

Significant NPCs:

Mariposa, Chyrsalis's monkey familiar

Neferet, Greater Mummy

Several beastmen

Many wraiths

Imperial stone guardian

The Plan:

• Kill Neferet
• Take the Circlet of Ghanor

What Happened:

We resumed in mid-battle.

Battle of Neferet's Tomb

Chrysalis was trapped in one sphere of force.  Uvash, Thronebreaker, and Mariposa were trapped in another.  Ioannes and Vael were free, with Ioannes invisible and Vael controlling a lot of Created Fire using the Shape Fire spell.  Neferet had been pushed back into the entrance hallway, but the only visible and free opponent was Vael, so she was focused on killing him.  Chrysalis was still blind (though this affected her less than most because of her Blind Fighting).

Neferet started growing an Explosive Fireball, planning to chuck it at Vael after it reached lethal size.  However, Vael had other ideas.  He used Blink Other to pop Chrysalis out of the force sphere.  After a second to get her bearings, she started running down the hall at Neferet, striking with her staff.  Neferet had to drop her Explosive Fireball to be able to Blink away.  This continued for several turns, with Chrysalis keeping Neferet on the run and steadily burning her mana with Blink spells, while Vael freed Thronebreaker and Uvash from the domes.  Vael also started sending the Created Fire down the hall after Neferet.

Neferet eventually used a Command spell on Chyrsalis to flee, and rolled a critical success.  Chrysalis fled.  This bought Neferet a couple of seconds, but when Chrysalis reached Ioannes, he cast Bravery on her, fixing the problem.  Meanwhile Thronebreaker and Uvash ran down the hall after Neferet.

Neferet eventually reached the end of the hall, with its Dispel Magic field.  After clearing it and entering the Great Hall, she popped another Invisibility Bead from her necklace and disappeared.  Thronebreaker, Uvash, and Chrysalis ran out after her, with their Bless spells surprisingly intact due to some good rolls by Ioannes, but some of their other spells dispelled.

The PCs used a combination of Chrysalis's Blind Fighting and Uvash's Sense Spirit to find Neferet.  She was running low on mana, and decided to retreat and recover.  Invisibly, she went south across a barricade and started pushing through a hallway clogged with spider webs.  In the Great Hall, Chyrsalis spotted the moving spider webs and gave chase, but Neferet threw a Bead of Force to stop her.  The bead failed to trap or damage Chrysalis, but it did block the hallway.  Many beastmen warriors watched the fight from behind their barricades and arrow slits, but Neferet wasn't visible for long, and none took a shot with their bows.

Chrysalis tried pushing the force bead after Neferet, but Neferet tired of slowly pushing through the web and instead set them on fire with a Flame Jet, then was able to run at full speed.  The PCs ended up waiting a minute for the Force Spheres to dissipate.  By then Vael and Ioannes had caught up, with Vael using Blink Other then Blink to get them past the Dispel area, and Mariposa appeared a few seconds later.  Vael cast Seeker on Neferet, then followed up with Trace, so he knew exactly where she was: well up some stairs to the southwest.

The Right for Riches company debated whether to go back and loot Neferet's Tomb first and chase her later, or chase her immediately and loot later.  They decided to press the chase.  They went up the spiral stairs to the level immediately above the Great Hall, west of the southern baboon caves.  The Trace spell showed her going up more stairs to the west, so they followed that way.  A wall blocked their way, but they remembered a secret door they had found and bashed open before, and bashed it open again.  (At this point it had been bashed enough that it wasn't so secret.)

Another spiral staircase up took them to the Tower of Scrutiny, to a room with spiked doors north and west.  Trace showed Neferet about ten yards northwest and not moving.  Thronebreaker forced the western door open, revealing a hallway with several wraiths and one of the Imperial stone constructs.  The wraiths and construct reacted started heading at the intruders.  Vael put up a Wall of Lightning, which killed one wraith.  He then used Shape Air to try to blow the other wraiths in the hallway toward the Wall.  This was less effective than he'd hoped, as the diffuse wraiths were hard to blow around.  One more wraith got blown into the Wall and destroyed, while the construct stupidly ran right into it and took a severe shock, while Chrysalis smashed it through the Wall with a wooden staff.

The remaining wraiths regrouped out of sight and waited for the Wall and the Shape Air spells to expire, with one wraith far away peeking around the corner to watch.  When the Wall went down, a swarm of wraiths came down the hallway.  Thronebreaker, standing in front, got attacked a lot, but the wraiths' ranged attack was resisted by Will and he was implacable.  Vael and Chyrsalis also got attacked, and didn't resist as well.  Ioannes cast Affect Spirits on Chrysalis's staff, which then became more effective against the diffuse wraiths, and she killed a couple.  By then, however, the Right for Riches Company was in trouble, with Uvash and Vael badly wounded and several PCs without Luck or Bless.  They fled down the stairs, and Vael put up another Wall of Lightning to block pursuit.

They staggered back to the Beacon, intending to come back and fight their way past the wraiths to Neferet as soon as possible.

GM's Comments:

Neferet was pretty badass, but she did have limited FP, and once it was almost gone, she had to run to recover it.

Hilariously, the players never figured out that Neferet had Resist Fire up for the entire fight, and kept trying to burn her.  She pretended to be hurt to encourage such tactics.

Wraiths are no joke.  Especially swarms of them.  Wall of Lightning was a good way to slow them down, but the wraiths were too smart to just charge into it, and had effective ranged attacks that go past it.

Vael was pretty sure Neferet was only about ten yards away and not moving, but they never actually spotted her in the Tower of Scrutiny.

Achievements:

None.  (The Circlet of Ghanor was so close, but close isn't an achievement.)

XP:

• Exploration: 6 new locations, 1 XP
• Loot: Some jade jewelry, Boots of Levitation, and a few scrolls.  Probably 0 XP because they'll almost certainly keep the Boots rather than selling them for loot XP.
• Achievements: 0 XP
• Total: 1 XP.

Next Week:

They want to heal up and go right back after Neferet and the wraiths, but they also want to wait for Vallium to return from his trip to Newmarket.