KC's Age of Worms

Game Master Kobold Catgirl

"What about chopping it with a sword?" Cuetzpalli says, hefting his shard of Kord's blade.

"Pretty sure that counts as damaging it, Cuetz."

"Hmm." Carina taps her chin.

"Would a dispelling bomb work?"

"What if we have something else do the damage? Like Tanith's lanterns, or I could conjure a shadow monster...?"

"You can't chop it with a sword - any damage would also set it off," Astraden says. "Maybe the archon could work? I say we try that before the bombs, just in case bombing counts as an attack. And when Tanith sends the archons, we should probably all stand outside these rooms, just in case."

"Throw a bag of holding over it?"

Tanith shrugs. "We can give it a shot."

So, plan?

"I could have sworn we had bag of holding at some point, but no idea if we held on to it. If we do have one, maybe we can have Eben send a shadow creature in to put it over." Astraden starts walking out of the knight suite, jumping off the bank of the worm lake and walking over to an outcrop. "I still don't wanna be anywhere near the thing when something interacts with it," she calls.

"Everyone outside", Tanith warns. "Eben try the shadow monster."

Are Tanith's archons expired? They'd have a better chance with their laser beams. But if they're gone:

Eben cracks his knuckles, sticks his wriggling fingers in front of the lights, and begins gesticulating. The shadow cast upon the wall takes a few seconds to resolve, but when it does, it's clearly an animal.

It's a cow.

The shadow steps off the wall, assuming three-dimensional proportions, and it becomes clear that it's not just any cow; it's a really large cow. And, while mostly composed of shadow and suggestion, what light there is inside its form seems... soothing. Perhaps Eben called upon higher planes than just the plane of shadow to form this.

It's a holy cow. Yes, the ancient saying actually has meaning.

Eben gestures towards the smouldering disk and the cow obligingly steps forward. It lowers its head menacingly, then seems to think better of its attack. Instead, it merely walks over to the disk and... steps on it with one enormous, glowing hoof.

Using shadow conjuration to summon a shadow celestial aurouchs. It's just gooing to do a trample attack on the disk for 2d6 + 9 ⇒ (1, 3) + 9 = 13 damage. If the disk counts as a evil opponent, it will use smite evil on that as well for 3 additional points. Since it's an object, it automatically 'disbelieves' the shadow effect, so it only takes 1/5 of that damage. So that's either 2 or 3 points... I'm not even sure that will get through hardness, but if it does, Well, let's see what happens.

Carina takes cover when the shadowy celestial cow starts stomping on the phylactery.

Aww... I kinda want to pet it. Too bad it's probably going to explode now.

Phylacteries are Adamantine hard, so even the full damage from the aurochs wouldn't have gone through. The lasers were really the only hope of having a summoned creature damage it since they ignore Hardness.

Well, maybe the aurochs will activate the trap and leave it free for one of us to smash?

The archon only lasts a minute so it's likely long gone but I can always summon another one. I suppose we should see if the aurochs set off the trap first.

Also worth noting, though: lantern archons lasers overcome all forms of DR, not hardness. We might need Carina to dispel-bomb after all.

Ah. For some reason, I thought they did both. We gon' have to go 2H boys.

The group evacuates the room.

The aurochs knocks the bed aside with a snort and brings its hooves down on the disk. As it strikes the phylactery, the hissing goes quiet for a moment. The aurochs's eyes, formerly the sole points of light in its shadowy shape, go dark. A moment later, the hissing returns—now with an echo. The summoned monster has begun to hiss as well. It sits very still, staring down at the disk with twin pits of darkness, and lets out a long, low hiss.

Carina nervously peeks into the room.

"...I don't think it worked." She swallows and ducks back behind the corner.

"You should probably try the bomb now, Carina. They say this spell is only dangerous to the least logical minds - I'm sure you can solve the maze so quickly we don't even notice." Astraden smiles encouragingly, but it's pretty apparent that she's really not sure what will happen when the warding goes off.

The priestess stares through the doorways at the shadowy celestial bovine hissing. "Eben, can you dismiss the weird cow now? It's giving me the jitters."

Carina gives Astraden a deadpan look. "I'm not sure whether to be flattered or irritated by your faith in my intellect."

"Let me have a crack at it if that doesn't work. I can probably at least damage the phylactery and I've always liked mazes."

Farrukh has a higher Int than Carina, so slightly higher chance of escaping before time's up.

Eben looks perplexed at his auroch's physical transformation and newfound hissing ability. "That's weird. I mean, it's mostly an illusion, so it shouldn't do that unless I commanded it to..." He approaches the shadow creature. "Okay, Bossy, guess you can't do what I had hoped you could even though you're the result of my most powerful and versatile spell, I mean that's two out of two times it's failed to come through for me... You can go now. G'wan, scat!" he makes shooing motions at the aurochs.

Dismissing the spell.

"Yeah Farrukh, I just think we should save smashing it until after we try dispelling it."

"Sorry Eben. Maybe next time? The magic around this thing just seems really weird."

So Carina should roll a dispel check.

Oh, right.

Someone roll for her. To be fair, we'll say that an expenditure of Action Points comes from whoever does the roll—that way, you can have the option without feeling like you're expending DCat's resources without his say-so.

Dispel: 1d20 + 12 ⇒ (17) + 12 = 29
Action Point: 2d6 ⇒ (1, 3) = 4

32?

As the bomb strikes the disk, the hiss turns to a strange hum. The entire world seems to visibly tremble and throb as the skill mixed into Carina's bomb struggles against an ancient magic. The bomb detonates with strange slowness. Antimagic energy expands outward over several seconds, bitterly pushing against the phylactery's power.

With a high-pitched whine, the ward shatters.

"Hey, I think it worked!" Astraden slaps Carina on the shoulder. "Farrukh, you wanna go smash it for real now? I mean, there's a chance there was a hidden ward my magic didn't pick up, but I'll bet you an improbably sized diamond that the Harbinger didn't think of that."

"Yeah, I'll give it a shot. I'll stay blurred just in case."

Farrukh sheathes his sword and takes his shield in both hands.

And swaps to Sand Bearer's Swiftness Stance.

Attacks: 3d20 ⇒ (1, 1, 20) = 22

Dice WTF

Farrukh's shield slides off the phylactery twice, before hitting it dead on.

Damage: 1d6 + 25 ⇒ (4) + 25 = 29

We'll see if anything bad happens before I keep whacking.

Sorry, I'll get a post up tonight.

Farrukh brings his shield down, hammering into the disk, but he is unable to put more than a dent in it. As he strikes it, though, he feels a shuddering pain rise up his arms.

Farrukh's whole body suddenly shakes and reverberates, caught in the strange vibrating power of the phylactery. Darkness surrounds him, slithers over him like a shadowy slug, crawls towards his eyes. He hears a hideous whispering in an unintelligible tongue fill his skull.

"Anything bad": Trap. Once per round when the phylactery is struck, the attacker must make a Will save versus (compulsion) (mind-affecting) or be affected as below:

Farrukh innately senses the trap's "one-round reset" when he is affected. Nobody else does.

Carina does a little fist-pump when her bomb undoes the phylactery's ward, but cringes when Farrukh smashes his shield into it.

Will: 1d20 + 13 ⇒ (5) + 13 = 18

1d100 ⇒ 31

Farrukh babbles for a round.

Upon recovering, he warns everyone to stay back.

"There's still some kind of trap on this, and it's going to keep going off until this thing breaks. I don't want you guys getting caught i it."

Does this count as a targeted spell, by chance? If so, it has a 20% chance of failing.

Farrukh lays into it again.

3d20 ⇒ (6, 9, 2) = 17

Will: 1d20 + 13 ⇒ (20) + 13 = 33

Whoo. Mo damage now.

Damage: 3d6 + 75 ⇒ (2, 2, 3) + 75 = 82

Total of 22 damage. Up to 31 now.

Round 3: FIGHT!: 3d20 ⇒ (16, 9, 2) = 27

1d20 + 13 ⇒ (20) + 13 = 33

Damage: 3d6 + 75 ⇒ (2, 4, 2) + 75 = 83

Another 23 damage, for a total of 64. I think it's busted now?

"Uhh, alright? Those were not good sounds you made."

Farrukh, the thing has hardness. When you lump it all together, it...gets harder to track. :P

Targeted Spell: 1d100 ⇒ 471d100 ⇒ 661d100 ⇒ 96

Farrukh hammers into the disk again and again. It sputters frantically, but with his final strike, he destroys it. His will proves strong, and he does not give in to the power again—on the last series of hits, the magic actually seems to slip around him, failing to even target him.

With the final crack, the disk breaks open. Farrukh is left standing over a two lumps of dark, glassy stone. As he watches, the darkness bleaches away, leaving a pale, colorless quartzite-like mass.

"Okay, NO WAY that was the real thing. I was already suspicious when it was just hid under a bed, but two nonlethal traps and he doesn't even show up to fight us himself? That has to be some kind of decoy, right?"

Astraden returns to the room. "I mean, I didn't notice anything funky when I looked before, but it's possible. Maybe the Harbinger has multiple phylacteries, somehow?"

Forgot to mention this important detail: You have about two rounds before Something Happens, so don't do anything past about there. Roleplaying is fine, of course.

I will update tomorrow morning.

"Seven. I have a strong feeling it's probably seven phylacteries. And one of them's a snake."

Eben looks over at the smashed stone. "Well, I dunno. What's a broken phylactery supposed to look like?" He shrugs. "I mean, if we're not sure, I guess we don't need to fight the Harbinger. It's trapped here, after all, I guess until the Age of Worms officially starts. At which point we'd probably have bigger things to worry about than a badly-out-of-date lich." He points at the three weapons the fallen knights left behind in the main room. "While we're deciding, maybe we can try and figure out what those can do?" He might be casting a greedy look at the bow.

Farrukh shrugs, and swaps back to his usual stance while re-arming.

"Who knows, maybe I'm just paranoid. Is there anything else we need to do down here, or can we just leave?"

"Well, if I were a lich, and I did want to conceal my real phylactery so that people took out a fake... you know where I'd put it? Bottom of the Sea of Worms."

"That seems like way too much effort for us to go through."

Astraden has already gone to the new rapier and added it to her belt. "Even if we had a sorcerer, I doubt we could blast the worms so bad that we'd get to the bottom. If there is a bottom. Seems like there's worms all through the soil as well."

There is a dark shimmer, and without a sound, the Harbinger blinks into sight in the main room. Images flash quickly through the party's mind.

~ What a pointless gesture. ~

"How's this for a pointless gesture?" Astraden holds up a hand.

"Can't blame us for trying. Anyway, no harm no foul. We can leave right?"

"Huh? Farrukh's klar has a point. It used to be a scimitar."

Its head tilts to the side. It pauses before answering. ~ If you wish to leave, you can. But I do not think you would destroy my phylactery without a reason. ~

Sense Motive checks.