Tim! Did you just finish reading the whole thing? You are right about the spell sheet. I'll work on designing one.
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Thanks. I started putting these posts up late - it actually took a little over 3 years to complete. The running joke is that the DM, my brother, keeps promising how long a module or side trek will take, and we have learned to double his estimate, at a minimum. The final battle with Demo went about 10 rounds, I think, that took about 5 hours to do. We broke up at 1:30 AM and all had to go to work that day! No one wanted to stop in the middle of the fight.
Session 94 – End Game – 14 Oct 2010 Alobar uses his Sphere of Ultimate Destruction to destroy the Olman’s body, and we pick up his equipment, including a key. Xan looks in the cauldron, and Enias feels within it, but there is no pearl. The arcane symbology around it seems to indicate that it is the proper location for the master pearl, but its not here, so we have to search. Al tries to destroy the cauldron with his Sphere, but it doesn’t work. Crap. We won’t be stopping the ritual this way. We continue searching through the complex, and find a room with a beach, and a door under the water. We decide to save it for later, and keep searching. We find a room with walls made of leather and a lot of arcane writing on them. Our knowledge checks reveal that the leather is purple worm hide, and the writings on the wall are some form of transformative magic. We don’t know what will happen if we go in the room, but we figure its not good. Al uses his Sphere to destroy most of the leather walls and hangings in the room. The sphere is gone now, but we try a door on the far side of the leather room, and we find a room full of sea water (is the temple half in the surf in this demi-plane?) and it has a rickety wooden walkway heading to door above the water in the far wall. Before heading out over the water, we check out two towers on the sides, but they are empty, beyond some strange windows with strange views that make us feel strange. Sol won’t look out, even though the others dared her to. We decide to go back to the rickety walkway over the water, and try the far door. Of course, we fly, since no one trusts the walkway. There is a lot of steam in the room, and the water seems really hot. The door is also very hot, and so Xan and Pheo, who can resist the heat, try the key. It just works, then breaks from the heat. We push the door open, and see another room with a large oyster! Inside the oyster is a large pearl! Of course, right when we see it, the oyster snaps shut! Is it intelligent? We start discussing ways to get the pearl out of the oyster. It looks big and tough and jagged. Maybe someone using Ghostform? The spell doesn’t allow you to become corporeal, grab something, and go incorporeal again (unless you cast it twice). Dang! Attack it? It looks really jagged. Enias figures what the heck, and attacks it with his greatsword. Sol swings away, as well. Someone starts casting Fingers of Death and other spells at us, and Xan spots Vanthus (?!) in the water, throwing spells at us. WTF! We’ve already killed this guy 3 or 4 times! Sure enough, the oyster is damaging us as we hit it, but our Stoneskin is still active. Suddenly, a Gate opens in the air, and Demogorgon strides into the room! We see Gwenhyver rushing to reach the Gate as well, but she is too late, and it closes without her. Crap! She only rolled a 3 on her initiative to beat him. Demo gestures, and we see the master pearl suddenly appear onto his tongue, and he swallows it. Then he summons a balor, and tries an enchantment gaze on Alobar. Al is currently immune to such things. An area Greater Dispel suddenly hits us, too. Is it the second head, or someone else? Pheo and his pig, Chops, both turn into Beholders again and place Antimagic rays on the balor and part of Demo. Al casts a Wish, to give Gwen another chance to beat Demo’s initiative roll and get through the Gate. She (Al’s PC, for her) rolls an 8 – almost, but still no good! Solaral then uses the ring of wishes (she had put it on, since her ring of counterspells was used up) to give Gwen another chance (we aren’t holding anything back – even Wishes – Do or Die time) and Sol’s PC rolls a 19! She beats Demo’s initiative and makes it thru the Gate this time! These uses of wishes prove to be worth our while, in the long run. Xanaphia casts a Timestop, and gets five rounds, so casts four ninth level, and one seventh level summoning, make her caster level check to force each into the demiplane. She summons an elemental monolith (earth), an elder water elemental, an elder air elemental, a Sphere of Ultimate Destruction, and a Mordenkainen’s Sword. Unfortunately, the Sphere fails the caster level check to affect Demo, and the only area to summon in the Monolith and the Water Elemental are in the AM rays, so they can’t attack Demo immediately. Demo hits Solaral with his two arms, but her Stoneskin helps with the hit points, and the Sheltered Vitality prevents the Con damage from the rot. Demo bites twice at Gwen and tail slaps Enias – which proves to be his most devastating weapon. Additionally, Demo (we think Demo) does a Greater Dispel over the party (the room is so small, it can effectively get the entire room with its 20’ radius), taking a spell from everyone. We have so many spells, that even with a max of +20 on the roll, rolling a D20 10-30 times over everyone will eventually roll at least one high enough to get a spell. The elder air elemental is also taken out with this Greater Dispel. The Balor flies to a better vantage and tries an Implode on Pheo, but it doesn’t take and Sol and Enias get AoOs on it. Pheo also takes a Finger of Death, we think from Vanthus. Jak busts some arrows into the balor. Pheo and Chops drop their AM rays, nad the water elemental and monolith pop in. Pheo hexes the oyster, exhausting it (we don’t know if any of the spells are from it) and tries to hex Demo. Chops throws a Disintegrate eye ray at the Balor, and rolls a 20 to hit, then confirms the crit – 80d6 of damage! (Note: Beholder’s eye rays are rays of spells that aren’t rays for normal casters, so we give them the standard 20/x2 of a ray spell). Chops gets 272 points of damage, and with the hits from Sol and Enias, its enough to kill the balor, and he dusts out. Father Seamus casts another Mass Death Ward, to get those who lost it to Demo’s (and Vanthus’?) Greater Dispels, and he also gets the monolilth and water elemental. Xan casts an Aura of Vitality and Quickened Haste, getting most of the party and Gwen and the monolith and elemental. The elder water elemental finds Vanthus, who has been hiding in the water, and starts hitting him. The Monolith and the Sword continue to attack Demo. Xan has to use a move action to concentrate on the monolith, and so can’t move the Sphere to Vanthus. Malconthet then speaks to Demo thru Al, the recipient of her kiss in her pleasure palace, and starts casting thru Al. Unfortunately, her spells blow, since charms don’t work well against Demo and his CL is too high (41+) for Greater Dispel Damage to strip anything from him. Al and Xan have Mordenkainen’s Disjunctions ready to go, but the room is so small that we don’t use them, because it would get the party, as well. Even if cast in an upper corner. That 40’ radius is a b*~&+. Demo doesn’t even move during the whole encounter, but stays in his corner. Enias and Sol are swinging at Demo, as is Gwen. None of us can bypass his DR, which is Epic, cold iron, Good and Lawful, so all of our attacks have minus 20 damage. Those that hit, that is. We can’t get past the Lawful bit, yet. Even Gwen, whose own DR is similar strength, doesn’t have the weapons to get past his. Her weapons aren’t even cold iron – WTF! Xan casts Investiture of the Hellfire Engine on Gwen, to help her out. Jak is shooting arrows that hit, though, and do fully penetrate the DR. He is only shooting the first 3 (of 5) arrows each round, because the last two don’t have much of a chance to hit and he doesn’t want to deplete his quiver too soon. Pheo and Chops are throwing Disintegrate, Slow, and Inflict Moderate Wounds rays at him. Pheo and Al are also throwing Horrid Wiltings at Demo (who we learn has the aquatic subtype, so is taking d8s from damage – yeah!), the oyster and Vanthus. We can tell that Vanthus is undead, because the Wiltings aren’t affecting him. So Father Seamus does a Mass Heal, because Sol, Enias and Gwen need it, and also gets Vanthus, killing him (destroying?) for the fourth time, by our count. Father Seamus moves up and takes an AoO to cast Align Weapon on Sol’s sacred evil-outsider-bane sunblade with a Least Fiendslayer Crystal, making it Lawful and finally she is getting full bore hits on Demo. Her offhand weapon is a Weapon Shifted vorpal shortsword, that is really a vorpal whip, but she never rolls 20 on the to-hit. Even with four off-hand attacks every round. Damn. Next round, Father Seamus aligns Enias’ huge holy greatsword, and he starts getting full damage, too. Finally, Sol, while in the midst of a rage, holy fury, and wild frenzy, gets 2 crits in the same round with her sunblade, and slays Demogorgon! A glowing nimbus of power takes shape over Demo, waiting to be taken! None of us want to – we don’t know what will happen. Will the taker turn Chaotic Evil and become a Demon? We use the Sphere of Ultimate Destruction to get the pearl out of Demo’s body, and Gwen says we can take it to the Court of Stars for disposal. Iggwilv shows up and uses Tourney’s Iron Flask to gather some stray motes from Demo. Glasya shows up and grabs the nimbus of power. We consider slapping her happy ass, but its late and we want to go home. One gee whiz fact - At one point, I realized that Xan had 33 spells active on her. They were: Resist Acid 30, Resist Cold 30, Resist Electrical 30, Resist Fire 30, Resist Sonic 30, Superior Resistance, Mind Blank, Barkskin, Freedom of Movement, Foresight, Greater Anticipate Teleport, Heart of Earth, Stoneskin, Heroe’s Feast, Darkvision, Protection from Energy – Fire, Deathward, Shield, Conviction, Cloud Walkers, Longstrider, Veil of Undeath, Tongues, True Seeing, Arcane Sight (permanent), Blindsight (permanent), Renewal Pact, See Invisibility (cast before the True Seeing), Ghostform, Dreaded Form of the Eye Tyrant (so she was an undead incorporeal beholder), Haste, Aura of Vitality, Spell Resistance. She was also sporting one alternate Wild Shape form (flight – from Unearthed Arcana (we were inside and Cloud Walkers was inactive)), and controlling a summoned Elemental Monolith (thru Extraordinary Concentration), Elder Water Elemental, Sphere of Ultimate Destruction, and Mordenkainen’s Sword. I wonder how that would look to a Detect Magic or Arcane Sight from another caster?
Session 93 – Kargosh the Destroyer – 30 Sep 2010 Vanthus is there, as a larvae. We slay him (again). Xan tries a Summon Nature’s Ally I, to see if she can summon, or half her top level spells are useless! It fails, after a level check. Crap! She tries a second, and makes it. So figure a 50% chance on any summoning spell? Open doors. Sol enters an antechamber, and her lungs are filled with water, but she manages to expel it. She opens next set of doors. Kargosh the Destroyer, the first death knight, is there! He is wielding a longsword and a mace/sphere thing, and is in full plate. Sol throws the doors wide, and K does an abyssal blast, getting most of the party. Thank the gods for evasion and fire resistance! Jakara tries a ranged disarm or two on K, and his animated tower shield intercepts the arrows – it’s a shield of arrow deflection or something. Crap, again. Jak doesn’t even know if he has a melee weapon. 11 or 12 ghast archers run out of side doors, and attack. Ha – Jak has someone he can shoot at, now. Sol rushes and attacks K, and gets him twice. His AC is pretty high. K attacks Sol, 5 hits with his longsword and 1 with his spherical mace. She is down half her hitpoints. He is doing combos of acid and sonic and Con damage. Fortunately, none of these can affect her! Enias rushes in and tries a sunder, but misses on K’s longsword, but misses the mark.
Pheo and his pig familiar, Chops, use Shapechange to become a pair of huge beholders (who have to stay within 5’ of each other, to keep the pig shapechanged). They throw their AM eye rays on K and his shield drops. Xan casts a Force Cage on K. She starts it outside the AM area, and its description says they are like Walls of Force, and the Wall of Force spell says its not affected by AM, so the DM allows the cage to pop in. Yay! Pheo and Chops move the AM rays off of K, and Al and Xan start hitting him with magic and chain missiles. Some ugly old Olman dude with no lower legs flies in, and Disintegrates the Wall of Force and then the Force Cage, in 1 round. Obviously a thrall of Demogorgon. Jakara shoots him full of arrows in 1 round, and he dies. That seems kind of easy, though, and we are worried that he will come back to life. Pheo and Chops keep shooting disintegration and slow eye rays at K, and eventually he fails a save. BAM! He is dust and his equipment drops to the ground. Awesome! Oh yeah, Father Seamus has been turning and destroying ghasts and healing folks. We are all much appreciative.
I think we don't believe it, because it would be a sudden fake out of the whole adventure path. It may be true, but we don't WANT to believe it, so we don't.
Session 92 – Entering Wat Dagon - 16 Sep 2010 We rest and plan our assault on the temple of Wat Dagon, which holds the master pearl. We decide to teleport to Wat Dagon, even though its only 30 miles away. Enias calls his elephant and Pheo teleports them. Xan casts an Elemental Swarm spell, gets four large air elementals, and we cast the teleport right before the huge elementals arrive, 10 minutes later. Al teleports the rest of the party. There is an army waiting for us, of 12 x ghast archers, 4 x ghasts manning 2 of the magic missile ballistas, and 8 x nabasus and 6 x chasme demons. We really don’t care to waste our fire power on them, but a big fight erupts anyhow. The nabasus try to use their death gazes, but we are all under Death Ward and Blindsight, so the gazes don’t affect us. Jakara gets hit with six targeted Greater Dispels, but they can’t touch Al or Xan’s caster levels, and only get the spells that Jak cast himself. Ha! Jak starts bringing some Nabasus down with arrows, and Sol charges and kills one. Father Seamus destroys two ghasts with a turning. The ghasts are trying to knock us down with arrows, and failing miserably. The magic missile ballistas would be more effective, but we all have spell-nullifying ioun stones, and they start obsorbing the spell levels, so nothing there, either. The chasmes are trying rays of enfeeblement, but again, the ioun stones absorb the spells. Xan casts a Wall of Smoke and we run inside. First, though, we kill the army commander, a balor or hezrou (not sure which, don’t ask). Sol does another charge and pounce, and slays him. Pounce may be even better than evasion, as a character ability! Unfortunately, Enias loses his elephant on the way in. The army has clearly heard about us, and figured out how to target us. Inside, another big bad guy comes out, a big glabrezu, and he pretends to be Lavinia (he is a “mortal hunter?”). He mocks us for not seeing through his deception these past months. We don’t really buy it, and we kill him, using Enias’ whirlwind breath and Pheo’s Evard’s Black Tentacles, followed by Pheo’s Forced Reincarnation, turning him into a dwarf. Quite frankly, we are amazed at the temerity of these underboss demons, who seem to think they can take us. Haven’t they learned by now? We are after more dangerous prey! This guy had some sort of human Vanderboren skull artifact that he tried hitting us with, but Enias disarmed him, and Father Seamus used his ring of telekinesis to whisk it away. The Skull of Kallum? We don’t know what it does.
the DM says 2 or 3. We had difficulty getting together around the labor day holiday.
Session 91 - Tetradarian - 12 Aug 2010 We immediately head into the tent, casting buffing spells as we do, such as Haste and Mass Spell Resistance. Inside the tent is General Tetradarian, looking just like his brother, Bagromar. There is also some huge undead plant guy in the tent, as well, whose name is Gromsfeld. He has four arms and a huge head and a stomach head, too. Not sure what that’s all about. He seems to be some sort of bodyguard. Tetra doesn’t seem surprised to see us, and orders the undead guy to kill us. Instead, we kill him (it?), but not before Solaral is charmed and sent to “guard the back of the tent.” Most of the damage is from Pheo hexing and Jakara shooting with his newly lawfully-aligned bow. Tetradarian appears to be observing, then he starts casting Greater Dispels, both area and targeted. Xan casts one on him, and it has no effect! So we realized his CL is at least 30. We swiftly kill Tetradarian, and have some trouble with his rotting arms. They do Con damage when they hit, and they hit alot. We return to Orcus’ legions and let them know, and they attack and scatter the Demos horde, while animating those they kill, as undead servitors of Orcus. Release Obox-ob from Turney’s Iron Flask at the walls of Lemoriax, and the disruption he creates causes the Interdiction Zone to fail. Orcus’ legions teleport in, and we get out. First, however, Iggwilv appears and demands the flask. We have no reason to keep it, and don’t feel up to fighting her (we are almost tapped out of spells) and so give it up. We go back to the beach portal point guarded by the eladrins, and settle in to rest – and level up!
Session 90 - Arendograst - 5 Aug 2010 We go to the portal point. We determine it is an anti-magic zone, radiating from the totem. How to disable it? Solaral and Jakara move forward to study it, and Arendograst strikes. He comes up from the ground, where he was covered by bodies. He is gargantuan, with three heads and four tenticular arms, and seems draconic in nature. Aren breathes a weapon from each head, a cone of fire, a cone of frost, and a line of acid. We take some serious damage, even with resist 30 on all energy types. Pheo tries a Forced Reincarnation (from Pathfinder Witch class), and Aren rolls a 1 on the save! However, Aren is immune to death effects, and the DM rules that this is one, so it’s a valiant attempt, but a no go. Solaral moves in and pounces, taking the AoO. Aren misses. Solaral does a lot of damage, but the DR takes a lot of it off. Its around 15 or so, and we can’t figure it out. We try good with cold iron, silver and adamantine, with piercing and slashing weapons, some epic. Maybe its bludgeoning that’s needed (we find out afterwards that its lawful)? Enias is hitting great blows with his holy sword, after sending his elephant out of range. Jakara is firing arrows. Xan shoots a quickenend Moonbolt at Aren, but is unable to pierce his SR – crap! Alobar is able to pierce its SR with magic missiles, so he decides to go bigger, but ends up not needing to. Xan casts Timestop, and gets 5 rounds. She casts Summon Elemental Monolith (which she will have to concentrate on), swaps a second such spell for Summon natures’s Ally IX and summons an Elder Earth Elemental, swaps a Cocoon for a Summon Nature’s Ally IX and gets 3 Greater Earth Elementals, swaps another 8th level spell and gets 3 more Greater Earth Elementals, and swaps a 7th to get another Greater Earth Elemental. Finally, Jakara deals the death blow with an arrow, and Aren falls! We are then able to tie ropes around the idol, and use Enias’ elephant and the remaining elementals (all outside the antimagic zone) to pull down the idol. Orcus’ hordes start coming thru again, and of course, there is another job for us. The capital city of Lemoriax is surrounded by an interdiction zone, that stops teleports and other forms of interdimensional travel, by those who don’t follow Demo. It has a radius of 10 miles, and the temple of Wat Dagon is included within its perimeter. As well, its guarded by an army called the Demo horde. We must kill the Demos horde’s leader so Orcus’ minions can shatter it. The leader is Tetradarian, a clone of one of Demogorgon’s head. Then we must ruin the interdiction zone bycreating a distraction near the city and its walls, that will undo the demons’ attention and concentration on maintaining the zone. We decide to HALO into the Demos Horde’s camp, and land at the leader’s tent. It’s made of demonhide and has a 60’ diameter. The camp has about 100k demons, and is similar to Bagromar’s camp. BTW, Bagromar hasn’t shown his face yet.
Session 89 – D Day – 15 Jul 10 Gwyn gives us a squad of 10 eladrins to assist us. A ghaele leader and nine braelani. We share our Heroe’s Feast with them, as well as many of our normal protective and buffing spells. Iggwilv opens her portals and the armies pour forth! The portal to the beach is small and we can only get 4 thru at a time. The first four thru, Solaral, Xanaphia, Jakara, and Father Seamus, are hit by five siege weapons. Two are acid shooters – ballistas that shoot a globe of acid. We make our reflex saves and our acid resistance does the rest. The next three are ballistas shooting 5 magic missiles, each. They do more damage throughout the battle, but some of us use Ioun Stones to soak up the spells. The ballistas are in bunkers, along a beach, and the whole area is swarming with babaus, hezrous and mariliths, with a nalfeshnee flying above. Jakara kills a hezrou with his bow.
Father Seamus does a mass heal, which we need after all those unholy blights. Another round would kill several of us. Alobar brings for a Sphere of Ultimate Destruction and hits the Nalfeshnee, who fails his save but is not completely killed.
The Tsunami hits and we quickly mop up the survivors. We leave the eladrin in charge of security for the portal, and head out after receiving a message from Iggwilv. Orcus’ legions are in trouble, as his portal was closed or blocked, by a love child (the first) of Malconthet and Demogorgon named Arendograst. If we “fix” the portal, then we can salvage the attack.
Session 88 – War Council - 8 July Iggwilv instructs us to just walk into Bagromar’s camp of 25,000 demons, and so we do so. We apparently won’t be able to keep it a secret. We must win him to our side, or kill him, and in any case, try to learn about Demogorgon’s dispositions. We make our way through and are directed to the Minister of Entrance, a huge balor (32 HD). We tell him we want to see Bagromar, and he says “follow me” then attacks! He casts Implosion on Enias, who shrugs it off, and then does four attacks with his huge vorpal longsword. One rolls a 20, but Enais uses two luck points to make him reroll, and he gets a 1. Whew! He also smacks Enias with his whip, but Enias has a Ring of Freedom of Movement and can’t be grappled, and it does little damage. Enias attacks the balor and gets a hit. Solaral waits for Xan to cast Haste, then charges and pounces, taking an AoO on the way in, and does 249 hit points of damage with her 9 attacks. Jakara kills him on the next round with a barrage of arrows. We proceed to Bagromar’s tent, and after negotiations, and a roll of 56 for Diplomacy from Enias (with a little help from his friends), Bagromar agreed to help. We depart. After a period of sendings and missives, we hold a war council with all of our allies on the Blue Nixie. Orcus, Iggwilv, Charon, Malconthet and the Court of Stars. We have Obox-ob in a box, and Bagromar does not attend. We hope he is still with us. At the council we decide to attack in 5 days. We have learned of a master shadow pearl in a temple called Wat Dagon, and so the party will go after the master pearl while others do their thing. Charon has a fleet of 5,000 ferrymen. They are marinoloths, a type of yugoloth. They will run interference in the brine flats vs a balor fleet, and pull Demo’s attention. Gwynhyver from the Court of Stars has two eladrin hosts of 50,000 warriors each. She will lead one, and Celeste will lead the other. They will attack thru portals on the flanks of Demo’s capital city. Orcus has four legions of 25,000 demons and undead each, and they will attack thru the portal closest to the city. Orcus will fight Demo directly. Malconthet has no troops, but knows many tricks and will act thru Alobar (We don’t really like this). Iggwilv will open five portals at weak points in Demo’s plane. The remaining two lead to a jungle, and the beach. The beach one is only 10 miles from the temple with the master pearl, so our plan is to go thru that one. Iggwilv tells us our goal is not to aid Orcus or the Eladrins, but to get the master pearl, an artifact in its own right. We are unsure how to destroy it, but we can at least grab it.
Session 87 – Crimson - 2 July We travel to Crimson’s place, hideout, lair, whatever she calls it. It’s a building that is built to be a mockery of a Peloran temple. There is no one upstairs, and we find a plain trap door, that leads down to crypts. Of course we go down, and find a large hallway filled with crypts, whose doors are closed. As we begin searching, we are approached by six priests of Pelor. Of course, we recognize them as false. They radiate evil, but not demon-ness, so we attack. Its then we discover that they are actually vampires. Vampire monks, as it turns out. Still, six is not a whole lot, and we aren’t too concerned, until six more pop out of gaseousness, and surround us. Ok, 12 vampire monks. You know what? We still aren’t concerned. They try hitting us, but have trouble. Sol and Enias each kill one, and then Father Seamus hits everyone in the area with a Mass Heal (250 hp, or 125 on a save, for the Vamps). By By vampires. We start following the gas clouds back to their coffins. They each lead to a different crypt. Some are marking crypts that gas clouds went into, while others are staking and cutting off heads. Suddenly, she is there. Crimson. She seems either bored or sad. She doesn’t want to go with us, and Malconthet wanted her alive. This poses a dilemma. We have to hurt her into unconsciousness, but not kill her. At this level, that can be difficult. Xan hits her with a dimensional lock, and she keeps talking. So Xan pops a Force Cage around her, and we start shooting. That’s when we find out her whip is vorpal, and has a 15’ reach. After some close calls to Jakara, we all make sure we are out of range. Crimson is able to blind some of us with a cool magic halo effect, but we all have 30’ blindsight permanentized on us, and Father Seamus hits us with a Mass Heal when its all over, to restore normal sight. Jakara uses his blunt arrows to deal subdual damage, and Xan and Al use magic missiles to take her down. Soon, she is unconscious, and we don’t wait around to search for treasure. We head straight back to Mal. At Mal’s place, we strip down again, while Father Seamus chooses to wait outside (again). This time, our reception in the palace is much more respectful. Malconthet gives us the Iron Flask of the wizard of forgotten name, and we watch the other rainbow sisters torture Crimson to death. Then we leave. The iron flask can hold 100 demons or one aspect. It has seven demons in it. We argue about what to do with them. Some want to let them out and kill them. Some want to unleash them on the next demons we have to fight. Some want to stage a gladiatorial combat between them. Eventually, Iggwilv shows up. She gives us ‘grats’ for a job well done, and tells us where we can find the aspect of Obox-ob. Apparently he is dead, but two aspects survived. One got back most of its full power, and one was forgotten. She tells us where to find the forgotten one – a location called the Blood Shallows. We explain our dilemma – we have to get rid of the seven demons in the flask to make room for the aspect – and she offers to take them off our hands. We let her do so, in exchange for a foci (for Plane Shift) for the Blood Shallows plane, level 81 of the Abyss. We head for our target location, and a supply camp for Demogorgon is built on it. Its full of Goristros and Rutterkin and run by another aspect of Demo. We have to cast Freedom in the central supply building. We veil ourselves as demonic birds that we see abouts, and fly to the camp. When we get close enough, Father Seamus casts Control Winds, and Pheo and Xan each cast Storm of Vengeance, and we hit the camp for six rounds, to cause a diversion. Then Solaral casts Dimension Door to get everyone past the perimeter and inside the supply building. Al casts Freedom, and out it comes. It’s a big ‘un, and starts wrecking the camp. The big boss of the camp is mad, but we figure we can’t please everyone. Al then sucks it into the flask, which just barely holds it. We teleport out of the camp, and then cast Earthquake and Tsunami, just to increase the damage, and high-tail it back to the Blue Nixie.
Session 86 – Enias the Champion - 17 Jun 2010 We decide to go to Orcus, and recruit his aid, following Iggwilv’s advice. We take the Blue Nixie to the plane of Thanatos, and dock at the city of Lacramosa. We must cross a thousand miles of undead enfested desert to get the Orcus’ capital. However, someone is aiding us again. We are met by “Sharon,” the leader of the dustmen, a group of outcasts who help travelers here. For 50,000 gp, she gives us a detailed map of Orcus’ city and palace, so we can use Greater Teleport to get right there. 50k. We wuz robbed. Our wand of Attune Form comes in very handy, or we would be taking damage from the negative energy effects of the plane. We teleport to Orcus’ palace, and see a line of undead petitioners. Since we have the note from Iggwilv, we go to the head of it, and manage to get the two balors on guard duty to let us in. We get our audience with Orcus, but before he will aid us, we have to prove ourselves and provide some entertainment. Our chosen champion must fight in his arena, versus two death giants and one crawling head. However, we get to buff up the champion before hand, but no help is allowed once the fight starts. We notice that Enias appears to be communicating telepathically with Orcus. We figure he is offering his services, or asking how to take over Demo’s plane if we kill him. Enias and Solaral roll for the pleasure of it – neither wants it. Jakara begged off, even though we thought he could fly around and shoot with his bow and really kick butt. The rest of the group bought his little act. High roll has to fight. Sol got a 4 and Enias an 18, so we start to buff Enias. He gets Deathward, Superior Invisibility, Ironguard, Aura of Vitality, Fires of Purity, Darkvision, Resist 30 for all five energy types, DR 5/adamantine from the gargoyle crown is activated, Freedom of movement, Sol’s ring of spell turning with greater dispel in it, Spell Resistance, Conviction, Heroe’s Feast, Renewal Pact, Protection from Evil, Fly from boots is activated, True Seeing, Sheltered Vitality, Bless Weapon, Haste, and probably some other things. (As players, we were all responsible for remembering what Enias had on him, so we would call out when he attacked or was hit, as to what might be affected or activated). Heck, even Alobar the gnome could have fought these guys in melee, when we were done. The gladiators started 360 feet apart. Enias called his elephant and started forward. The two death giants couldn’t see him, so they started throwing boulders at the elephant. 2 rounds later, it was dead. The crawling head started forward, but had a slow speed. Enias then flies and charges at the head, pouncing while hasted. He gets four hits with his huge holy greatsword and hit with his bite (each hit from the greatsword, while charging, did 7d6+23+15 fire + 1d6 acid. If he had remained mounted, it would have been 11d6+46+ the energy). He almost killed the head, but not quite. The head howls and does a Wail of the Banshee, but Enias is immune and then the head heals itself, but not completely. This becomes important. The head then bites (can get a vorpal on a critical hit) and swings 4 tentacles, but gets only 1 hit. Both Death Giants do area greater dispels, because they still can’t see Enias, and strip away his Conviction and True Seeing. Enias full attacks the head and kills it. The two death giants keep with the area greater dispels, and strip away Heroes Feast and Renewal Pact. Enias uses his Whirlwind Breath to get the head (we aren’t sure if its dead) and one of the death giants. The two death giants continue with the area greater dispels and strip Superior Invisibility and Spell Resistance. Enias charges and kills Death Giant number 1, whose attack of opportunity misses due to displacement. Death Giant number 2 charges and misses, and Enias then kills him. Orcus promises his help, but says he needs a few weeks to get his armies moving and in position. He warns us not to betray him. We teleport back to the ship, and Iggwilv congratulates us. She suggests we visit Malconthet next, because Mal can help us with Obox-ob, and Bagromar should go last, as the one most likely to be noticed by Demo. We travel to Malconthet’s plane, Shandrilavi. To get an audience with her, we must “present” ourselves naked. Father Seamus is not so hot about that, so he stays outside. Sol is so disturbed by the scenes of debauchery in Mal’s palace that she suffers wisdom damage. When we meet Mal, only Xan (with a base Will of +31 and a roll of 19) can resist her presence and is not affected by her profane beauty. Mal is willing to help us, but we must do for her. She calls Al forward, and gives him a long kiss, draining four levels. She also whispers something in his ear. To get her help, we must "return Crimson" to her. Crimson is apparantly some bard lilitu succubus type, who is rebelling or undermining Malconthet. If we do this, Mal will give us some demon-catching artifact horn thing and help us with Obox-ob.
Sesson 85 – Red Fang Part III – 10 Jun 2010 Admin Note: This encounter rendered me quite unhappy with the mechanics of Wish and Disjunction. Take Disjunction. ALL spells and ALL magic items are disjoined? Disjoin an artifact and possibly lose all spellcasting ability forever? What’s up with that? I think it should work more like Dispell Magic, with the ability to chose to disjoin a single item, instead. Or maybe a spell is needed, like Greatest Dispel Magic, that gives you up to +30 CL on checks to dispel. And Wish. The undo misfortune ability I find to be really confusing. You have to keep track of what everyone did each round, and undo it if someone undoes something from near the beginning of the round. But that’s just me. In any case, the Red Fang Safari continues… We prepare ourselves for the new day, and load up on all our daily, hour per level and minute per level spells, and return to Red Fang’s lair. We take positions and wait, while Pheo casts Greater Prying Eyes. It takes a minute. We cast some round per level spells, just to be ready, such as Haste, Aura of Vitality, and Holy Aura. Our plan is to recon with the eyes, and get back out. Unless opportunity presents itself. But Red Fang had Mind blank on last time, so divining things about him and his lair is near impossible. We spot prying eyes that aren’t ours, and follow them, but they are going everywhere. Red Fang attacks, but as all have true seeing, we recognize it for an image. Red Fang casts Disjunction, really screwing with half the party, and then Alobar Wishes he did not delay his turn (see Wish spell description) and shape changes into a beholder, placing the AM Ray on the image and causing it to wink out, thus we avoid the Disjuction from Red Fang's image, because now it was never cast. Red Fang casts a Prismatic Wall from somewhere to block the AM ray. Much discussion on casting a spell, while outside an AM ray, into an AM ray – a spell that is not affected by AM. The DM decided. I will remember this decision, for future favorable use. We D-door and teleport in two groups, and look for him. We spot him, even through his Superior Invisibility, and everyone starts attacking! Alobar starts with a Disjunction on Red Fang. Enias does great damage, and Solaral a lesser amount, but Con damage as well. Jakara is smacking down with arrows. Alobar does a Horrid Wilting. Xan is casting buffs left and right. Her Mordenkainen’s sword fails to penetrate Red Fang’s SR. Xan casts Dreaded Form of the Eye Tyrant and places AM ray on Red Fang. He jumps out of the cone, triggering attacks of opportunity. Sol hits with hers, but Enias is within the AM Ray, and goes from Large to medium, and can’t use his huge greatsword anymore, so doesn’t get one. Red Fang Wishes all his damage away. We consider whether its time to depart again, but figure we have the upper hand. Red Fang is minus his buffs, and many high level spells. We are buffed and angry. Alobar is particularly angry at Xan, because he wants the fight over! Alobar casts another Wish, allowing Jak to reroll his one missed arrow, and he hits! Red Fang is dead. (The miss, and so the subsequent reroll and hit, take place before Red Fang healed himself). Our mission was to free the stars he ate, so we crack him like a piñata, and out one comes. The eladrin later prove to be quite grateful. Of course, we loot his hoard. I love that about dragons.
Session 84 – Red Fang part II (Getting Our A&%s Kicked) – 27 May 2010 Enias charges, and gets a hit! Because of the feats he gets from his bindings, he gets double damage on a charge, too. He smacks Red Fang for quite a bit of damage with his huge holy greatsword. He is pouncing, as well, but the rest of the attacks miss. Fortunately, because of his displacement and the fact that Red Fang only has blind sense and not blind sight, Red Fang misses the attack of opportunity that Enias took to get within reach. Alobar casts a Horrid Wilting. Red Fang then takes a full round of attacks and tries to hit Enias with the first bite, but misses. He then bites Solaral and gets a critical hit, and decides to take his remaining wing and claw strikes on her, not missing once and takes her from 242 (including tempory) hit points to -15. Whoops. Xan casts Tactical Teleportation, and moves Solaral, Father Seamus and Pheophim together. Father Seamus casts Revivify and then Pheophim casts Heal and Solaral is Alive! But prone – or actually, supine. Alobar casts another Horrid Wilting. Enias smacks Red Fang for one attack (a 1, but luck it’s a 20, and confirmed the crit!) and then backs up to prepare for another charge – he doesn’t want to remain in proximity if he can help it. Red Fang casts a spell, or spell-like ability or something, and he is healed all damage. A Heal isn’t powerful enough for that. We later figure out he Wished it all away. We are down a tunnel, but Red Fang takes a jump and a squeeze and lands on most of us again, crushing and pinning (only a move action for Red Fang). Father Seamus and Pheophim end up caught and crushed. Alobar ends up on the wrong side of Red Fang, ala Solaral earlier, but decides its time for a little disjunction, and casts Mordenkainen’s. Red Fang seems more hittable. Enias charges and gets another crit – triple damage! Enias is also pouncing, and gets another crit! He has done quite a bit of damage to Red Fang, but then Red Fang disappears! The coward, he ran! What a wuss! Pheophim casts Greater Prying Eyes, and they move out. We heal up and start casting Stoneskin and some other buffs. However, just a few rounds later, some eyes are returning, and before Pheophim can get the download, Father Seamus, who is the only one with True Seeing active, calls “Look Out!” Xan actives a swift action true seeing and casts a Quickened Glitterdust on a charging Red Fang, who appears to have activated some mirror images and an iron body effect. The Glitterdust doesn’t work! It must be Superior Invisibility. Crap. This guy is really tough. We decide its time to run, and get out of there with a Greater Plane Shift. We are back on the Blue Nixie, and Father Seamus still has his True Seeing active, and notices the entire crew are Erynes devils. Crap again. They must work for Glasya. They confirm it. We decide to roll with it. Suddenly, we all feel a tug, and must make will saves. We use Spellcraft to realize someone is using a Wish to call us all back to Red Fang! Pheophim fails his save and disappears. However, when he appears next to Red Fang, he immediately casts Plane Shift to get back to the Prime Material plane, and escapes. Alobar casts his own Wish (thank the gods the DM doesn’t charge XP for most of these “regular” uses of Wish, such as replicating another spell, which is what we usually use it for) and brings Pheophim back to us – we hadn’t realized he escaped. Now what do we do? We figure Red Fang has cast at least four 9th level spells during the fight. We need to load up on Mord’s Disjunctions for him, and Displacements for ourselves. And try to attack when he hasn’t had time to prepare.
We play from 6 PM to 11 PM on Thursday nights. Some nights, we don't get thru the final combat, and since we all have to go to work in the morning, we end it. Its not as bad as it seems. We discuss it via email over the next week, and figure out what we want to do. Although when we actually get to playing, we usually end up doing something other than what we discussed!
Session 83 – Red Fang - May 6, 2010 We went to the Court of Stars. The queen said ours was a noble cause and she would give us the armies of the Eladrin to defeat Demogorgon. But first we have to prove ourselves. We have to kill Red Fang, an ancient dread lynorn. We spend a day on the boat preparing and the next day the Queen Gates us to the opening of Red Fang’s hole. Xan cast all her standard buffs on herself and the party, which include mass versions of Resistance 30 to acid, elec, fire, cold and sonic, and darkvision. Father Seamus casts death ward mass, spell resist 30, holy aura, and conviction mass. Al casts Haste, and we enter the hole. We enter the tunnel which is covered in light mist. Red Fang hits Enias’ elephant with a disintegrate ray before we can see it, and the elephant takes 5d6. Most of the party runs down a tunnel after it except the Father and Jak. Turns out we ran down the wrong tunnel as Red Fang used ghost sound, or similar, and then Red tries to disintegrate Father Seamus, but he had just cast spell immunity. We all run back to Father and Jak when Red Fang jumps out of the mist and tries to land on Sol, Slams Father and Breaths on the rest of us. He misses Sol, but now she is separated from the rest of the party behind Red Fang. Red Fang is also trying to keep us separated with Walls of Force. Father is grappled. Several people get AOO's, but not much damage. Red has two heads and breaths fire and cold on us. Most make saves and have the energy resistance going, and the rest take 6 HP damage. Now it's right next to us and we all scramble to back up. Xan is the last person to go and she can't withdraw without taking an AOO, so she casts time stop. In the 3 rounds, she backs up, summons two monoliths (earth, air), and casts freedom of movement. Red Fang dispels both monoliths the next round. Sol attacks but spends most of her time hitting mirror images. Xan's last attack, she casts stalagmite, but Red makes the save and takes no damage. Next up is Enius who intends to do a charge…
Sessions 81-82, Gaping Again - 8 Apr and 22 Apr 10 Ural and Lavinia have found a new, tougher crew for the Blue Nixie. Now maybe they won’t all die when we leave for our excursions ashore. Lavinia asks us to have pity on Vanthus’ soul, should we meet him again. We take the Blue Nixie into the Abyssal Ocean, using the Wake Portal, and make our way to the River Styx, and the location of the portal to the Court of Stars. Apparently, it is on its own little floating plane, and hard to get to unless invited in. Before we enter the Court, however, we decide to take care of a little unfinished business. We use Greater Plane Shift to enter the prison on Gaping Maw, thru Vanthus’ chambers, which allowed conjuration spells. Its either these chambers, or thru the break in the walls that we used the first time around to enter. We have buffed up with all of our 10 min per level and longer spells, expecting a trap. Alobar and Xan have Force Cage ready, to trap Shasharra. They also have Dimensional Locks and Dimensional Anchors ready, to prevent her from teleporting, and Limited Wishes, to give themselves an autohit with the Dimensional Anchor ranged touch attacks. Xan has a Telekinetic Sphere ready, as well. Finally, we permanently enlarge Pheophim. There is no ambush when we pop in, and we proceed out the door, onto the small bridge that connects to the rest of the prison complex. Unfortunately, we get into a long discussion on our next move, while standing on the bridge, and then we do get ambushed! 8 x Nabasu demons (the same type who slew Malaforte with a death gaze) fly up off the walls of the caldera and attack, and then someone begins casting Greater Dispels on us individually, each round. We can guess who this is. It’s a medium range spell, so we figure that Shasharra is somewhere within 300 feet. However, thru the combat, we have trouble spotting her. Eventually, and despite the dispels, we manage to slay the six nabasu demons, using Enias’ whirlwind breath, and Alobar’s Horrid Wiltings. Additionally, Alobar has shapechanged into first a beholder, then a huge air elemental. However, during the combat, we notice a large disturbance across the surface of the lava far below, and realize that Shasharra is casting Abyssal Blasts onto it. We don’t know why, until we see a gargantuan fire drake arise out of the lava, and begin flying up toward us. We also spot 6 x nycoleths, who are the neutral evil fiends. We slay them, but Alobar dies from demon blows. He was feeling randy, and shapechanged into a pyrohydra, but they are resistance to fire and he doesn’t do enough damage with his bite attacks to take them out quick. They concentrate their greataxe blows, and down he goes. Unfortunately, his body fell off the bridge. Xan runs and dives after him, wildshaping (fast wildshaping feat) as she goes. She is able to catch up to him and cast Last Breath (mobile spellcasting feat), doing a sudden reincarnation that changes him into a gnome (Ural has a new friend!), and leaves him at -1 hp but stable, with no level loss. They fell 600 feet in that one round, and are dreadfully close to the fire drake, who is taking quite some time to fly up the 1300 feet from the surface of the lava to the top of the caldera. Xan then casts heal on Alobar and yells at him to teleport them back to Vanthus’ chambers. He does so, but not before the fire drake took a bite out of Xan – taking two thirds of her hit points as he does so. While this was playing out, Shasharra teleports into Vanthus’ chambers, from which Father Seamus had been casting spells. She sneak attacks him to death, using Greater Invisibility and four strikes from her rapier and three from her dagger. She figured we were now so scattered, that we couldn’t gang up on her. Right then, Xan and Al pop back in, and Xan, who can see invisible, casts a quickened Glitterdust on Shasharra, wildshapes into a plant form (to protect against sneak attacks, etc) and moves out the door, while casting Aura of Vitality (giving everyone on her slide +4 morale bonuses to Str, Dex, Con). Solaral charges thru the door and pounces on Shasharra, hitting her four times with the Sunblade (double damage vs undead), while dropping her claw from her left hand and drawing Shasharra’s scimitar, to taunt her with it. It works, and she stays to fight, instead of trying to leave. Al casts a Dimensional Anchor at Shasharra, and rolls a 20! No save. However, he takes 10 on the Spell Penetration check, and we realize he may not make it, due to her now incredibly high SR. Al gets a 38 (CL 21, +1 for ioun stone, +6 for epic spell pen, +10 for arcane mastery) and she is a 38 – he just makes it! So she can’t teleport away now. Shasharra attacks Solaral with rapier and dagger, trying to disarm her, and knock Shasharra’s scimitar out of Solaral’s offhand. Unfortunately for her, Solaral has combat reflexes and beats every one of her disarm attempts, and knocking Sharsharra’s rapier and dagger out of her hands as she does so. The five subsequent empty hand disarm attempts that Shasharra makes, fail as well. Enias charges to the door, and with his reach, can hit her inside, and does so – he is pouncing, as well. With enough blows from his holy greatsword, he manages to kill her! Yeah! We hastily gather Shasharra and Father Seamus up, and greater plane shift to Ahazu’s well on the Well of Souls plane. H is excited to get her, and agrees that we have filled our part of the bargain. Yes, its only the body of a destroyed undead, but he assures us that he will grab and capture her soul now, and Demogorgon can’t raise her again. We cast Cocoon on Father Seamus, so we can raise him later with no level loss. Then then plane shift again to return to the Blue Nixie, with Father Seamus in a cocoon, on the Styx, in front of the gateway to the court of stars. So we can't call the mercanes to us.
We've had a little trouble getting together but we are still with it! I have a couple sessions to post and should do so within the next week.
Session 80 – What Do We Do Now?- 25 Mar 2010 The next day, after some research, we realized that Lynnorns are water creatures native to the Styx, and may have some treasure about. Pheophim casts Greater Prying Eyes and locates a treasure-filled cavern under the river. Alobar shapechanges into a Lynorn, and using telekinesis, he scoops the treasure into a bag of holding. Its mostly coin and a nice bit of magic- a helm of telepathy. We decide its just the thing for Jakara to wear.
Our next move: we had intended to raid the prison and free all the prisoners, and blame it on Orcus or Grazzt & Iggwilv, as we are tired of dancing to others’ tunes. However, we figure it is now a trap with Shasharra waiting for us, and that we still won’t be able to summon or teleport inside. Our plan now is to seek help from Eladrin Court of Stars. We also figure that wherever we go, Shasharra will eventually find us. Solaral is holding her scimitar, and anticipating the rematch.
Session 79 – Iggwylv – 11 Mar 2010 As we are calming down the crew of the Blue Nixie, an Arcanaloth approaches through the mists, and warns us away from this place, telling us that Iggwylv has no time for us. Of course, warnings haven’t stopped us before, so we pay no attention. What little we know of Arcanaloths is that they are yugoloths (neutral evil) who are powerful arcane casters. We figure that this will be like coming to the magician in Xanth who knows the answer to any question - we will have to pass a series of tests, to weed out all the suckers who want to come waste Iggwylv’s time. We decide that a Hero’s Feast will help us and the crew, and so partake of it, as well as our usual buffing spells. Pheophim sends out a series of Greater Prying Eyes, and they spot a castle, which we assume to be our destination. The GPEs reveal that it exists both on this plane and the ethereal. Xan tries out a new druid spell, Cloudwalkers, and everyone, including the ship’s crew, gets a fly speed of 60’ and perfect, but it only works out of doors. Sol casts an Alarm on the boat, so the crew can summon us back if needed, and we then set off for the castle. We don’t get far. As we rise from the Blue Nixie, two gargantuan dragons, with no wings or hind legs, fly up out of the Styx and attack! We recognize them as rare Stygian Lynorns. They are about to get even rarer. Father Seamus casts a Mass Spell Resistance on the party (SR 33) and then the Lynorns attack. They cast Quickened Enervations at Solaral and Enias, but fail to penetrate the SR. They both then use their breath weapons on the party, getting everyone twice. The Acid Resist 30 that everyone has does a good job of deflecting most of the damage, but some have to make saves versus Feeblemind, which is a secondary effect of their breath. Everyone makes it, except Enias’ elephant (we really have to give it a name), and although everyone knows that elephants have a good memory, the DM would not give it a situational bonus, so the elephant’s intelligence drops from 2 to 1. This does not have a great effect on the battle. Enias uses his marshall abilities to give everyone an immediate move, and we split up. Jak checks one of the lynorns with a Control Winds from the Nimbus Bow, and Al hits them with a Horrid Wilting. Sol pounces on the second one and attacks in a frenzy, hitting six times. She has to make a save vs feeblemind every time she hits it, however, as the Styz riverwater is still dripping off of it. Pheo tries a Cone of Cold on it, but misses the spell resistance roll. Father Seamus then casts Fire Storm on it, and kills it. The second lynorn teleports itself out of the winds into the midst of the party, and tries a Quickened Enervation on Jak, but again can’t make the SR. Enias, on his elephant, does a ride-by attack with over-the-top, but underneath it (as we are all flying) and hits it. Jak shoots it several times with the Nimbus bow. Sol then charges and pounces on this one, hitting it twice and killing it. We take quick stock of the situation, see that they have no magic to loot, reassure the crew of the ship, and continue flying to the castle. We approach the courtyard and the gate, and notice that the pathway to the door is lined with stone faces. They are the faces of her enemies, turned to stone and chisled off their petrified bodies, for Iggwylv to tread on. As we reach the door, an envelope floats up. It is an invitation to come in, follow the cat in the doorway, and Iggwylv will be with us in one hour. We follow the cat, black of course, inside and wait for an hour in the Demon Hunters’ Room. Suddenly, Iggwylv appears before us, seated in a chair. As she begins welcoming us, Xan, who can see invisibile, has a spot of +27 and knowledge arcana of +22, spots two arcanaloths at the ceiling, and recognizes that one is using Major Image to control Iggwylv – its an illusion! Xan casts a Quickened Glitterdust on them, and the fight is on! The arcanaloths each cast a Chain Lightning on the party, but it does almost no damage. Resist Electricity 30 and good saves. One casts a Web on us, and the second casts a Wall of Force to block us off, but it only goes up 30’. The ceiling is it 50’. Suddenly, two magic missile spells dive in, from the cat. It’s a third arcanaloth! Al casts Haste on everyone, and Father Seamus casts Miracle, to give everyone SR 33 again (Mass Spell Resistance). Jak shoots arrows, and we realize that the arcanaloths’ DR is silver and not cold iron. This is going to put a damper on some of our attacks. Once again, Solaral promises herself to buy some silversheen. Pheophim casts a Mass Cause Critical Wounds and gets all three of them. Xan uses a Tactical Teleportation spell to get the fighters and others out of the web. Sol activates her winged boots and moves up to confront one, as does Enias. One arcanaloth hits Sol with a claw, and does minimal hitpoint damage, but 1 strength drain, too. The others try spells, but can’t get thru the SR. Al hits them with a Horrid Wilting, and then Father Seamus hits one with a Power Word Kill, and bam! Its dead. (We find out later that it shouldn’t have worked because of their immunity to mind affecting, but too late. Oh well.) Xan misses one with an Orb of Sound. Sol charges one, and a swing and a miss. They have displacement! Jak shoots his arrows and kills the one that Sol missed. Pheophim tries a Hex of Agony on the last one, but it has a high SR. Al tries Magic Missiles, but it has a Shield spell. Father Seamus tries a Power Word Blind and it fails. Enias hits it. Xan hits it with a Sound Lance, and then finally Jak kills it with the last silver arrow in his quiver (35 cold iron, 10 silver, 5 adamantine, 8 steel, and 2 special is a typical breakdown in his magic quiver). A new arcanaloth then comes in the room, looks astonished, and apologizes for his colleagues “eagerness.” He also warns us away from looting their bodies, unfortunately. He says that Iggwylv will meet with us in 1 hour (again, an hour) and suggests we clean up. Xan uses a prestidigitation to clean our clothes, and Al casts a Veil to glam us up. Father Seamus has been carrying around the Rod of Splendor for awhile, and finally gets a chance to use its expensive cloth-making ability. We are ready. When we are taken to meet Iggwylv, we notice several things. She is wearing six rings. Her robe appears to be alive, and may be sentient. And she is a looker. Not bad for a woman of centuries, but its not polite to ask a lady her age, so we refrain (Father Seamus has a bit of difficulty on this point). After much discussion, we come away with several points.
Iggwylv warns us to speak to no one of her location, and sends us away. We can rest for a day.
Session 78 – Freeing Shami-Amourae – 18 Feb 2010 Rest inside Ahazu’s area, and go back to Shami-Amourae’s well. We begin preparing spells, and a green transparent dome surrounds us and the well. We think it is a dimensional lock effect. We later learn that its from the big retriever – it is suspicious of us! With good reason… Father Seamus casts a Blade Barrier on it and gets full damage. The Retriever fires an eye ray at Jak and flys up. We hit it with Shout from Jak, Whirlwind Breath from Enias and a Flamestrike from Father Seamus. Xan zaps it with a Targeting Ray and Al hits it with a Disintegrate and a Delayed Blast Fireball. Finally, Xan destroys it with a final spell – an Orb of Sound. The dimensional lock disappears, and we talk to S-A and work out deal. Just in case she wants to fight, we bring up our own Dimensional Lock, and Greater Anticipate Teleport. We free her, and she begins to thank us, then shudders, and a snake-thing pops out of her neck and she attacks! The snake-thing is controlling her! Al turns into a beholder and puts his Anti-magic ray on her, and the impossibly lucky happens…the snake-thing’s control over S-A is removed, and she rips it from her neck and stomps it to death! We start to talk to her again, and suddenly a rent opens in the air over the well, and the River Styx begins pouring through. We quickly get up out of the well, but Father Seamus, Al, Pheophim and S-A are hit by the water and forget the last 8 hours. She doesn’t know who we are! Additionally, 4 x bar-lguras, on 4 retrievers, come through the rent in space and attack. We kill them fairly quickly and restore our memories with Heal, as well as S-A’s. Finally, we can talk. S-A wants revenge on Demogorgon, and tells us that he is his own worst enemy. The two heads are essentially two beings that inhabit the same body, and they each want sole control. Aameul, the left head, wants to murder the other and cauterize the wound. Hethradia, the right head, wants to unleash the Savage Tide of madness on the prime material plane, and use the energy from the eruption of insanity to absorb the other head. His biggest weakness is that he can be distracted, because he has two reactions to each situation – multiple dangers can paralyze him into inactivity. S-A suggests we gather allies and invade Gaping Maw with multiple armies (yeah, right). First, though, she thinks we should consult with Iggwilv. She then departs. The River Styx is still pouring through the rent, and we see a boatman appear. It is Charon. He is angry at diverting the river, and we explain that it was not us, but Demogorgon. He tells us that enemies of Demogorgon are: the court of stars; Orcas; Grazzt; Obox-ob. Charon takes us to Niflheim, to meet Iggwilv, whom he says will know how we can recruit these as allies. He also gives us permission to ply the Styx, and places his mark on the Blue Nixie. Which is here, waiting for us! Charon promises to aid us in the final assault on Demogorgon, as well. 21st level, baby!
Session 77 – Ahazu - 4 Feb 10 We proceed directly to the tower, and find that it is one large, enclosed space, with a map of the plane, on the floor, laid out in tiles. Suddenly, everyone has to make a Will save as we move in the room (Forbiddence, maybe?) and Sol and Jak take damage. Then, two fingers of death each hit Father Seamus and Xan (2 of our 3 casters) but they are both Death Warded. 4 huge bat-like creatures then fly down from the ceiling and attack – they are nightwings, a type of undead. Two land next to Xan and bite her and two land next to Father Seamus and bite him. Pheophim runs to the far side of the room; no one knows why. They have DR of magic and silver, which we aren’t really prepared for, but we give it a go, anyway. Enias hits, blinds and critical one of them. Its not normally something that you can do to undead, but he has bound Kos, which allows all sorts of fun things with them. Father Seamus casts a Mass Heal and gets three within the spell radius, but fails to penetrate the SR of one of them. Solaral slashes and kills one with the sunblade. Al hits one with his Black Blade of Disaster, and then Jak shoots and kills two of them. Only one remaining, but it is untouched by our efforts so far. It tries a Cone of Cold over the party, but we all have Resistance 30 to cold, and no one is injured. Xan casts a Lesser Orb of Sound and hits, and Enias critical hits and blinds it. Sol moves in and hits with the sunblade, and then Xan casts an Orb of Sound, and kills it.
Just as we are relaxing, Greater Dispels hit Xan, Al, and Father Seamus, our three casters. All are stripped of about two thirds of their active spells, and we see three medium things (Varrangoin Binder Anima Mage liches we learn) – actually, we see 17 because of mirror images – in the bottom of the pit. Al throws down a fireball, but they are unscathed. Sol grabs the Nimbus Bow from Jak, and calls us a hurricane centered on the liches, with no eye, so they go whipping around. Father Seumus conjures a Blade Barrier across its level in the pit, to act as the chopping blade in a blender, and pieces of lich go flying. They are able to cast, however, and 15 magic missiles fly up and slam into Sol. She drops out of line of sight, and Xan uses a wand to put a Shield on her. The liches turn incorporeal (turn into ghosts with polymorph or similar ability) and Enias charges and kills one. He has bound Chucoclops, which allows him to hit incorporeals. Father Seamus does another Mass Heal, killing the second, but missing the third due to its incorp miss chance. Sol activates her Dionychous tattoo, and then charges and hits the third, or tries to. She can hit incorp, too, but it has displacement and she misses all four times with the Sunblade. It turns its icy glare on Sol but does no damage. Father Seamus casts a Cure Critical Wounds, Mass and kills it. We search the well and discover quite a trove of magic and spells, including an amulet of the planes and an unknown 7th copy of the Demononicon of Iggwilv. Enias makes contact with Ahazu and asks about freeing Shami-Amourae; he also learns that the well is the phylactery for the three liches. Ahazu wants souls, and we have to replace S-A with a soul of equal or greater power. He consents to the equal if we give him his tooth back. We have 66 days after releasing S-A to fullfil the bargain or Ahazu gets our souls. At least, that is what he says. Only Enias made the bargain with him, and some of us have already promised souls to Glasya. Not sure who has the better claim, or if our respective deities do, or if we are in the bargain, or what. Ahazu gives Enias a Book of Infinite Spells, with 1 page left: a Freedom Spell. Ahazu says this particular book is important to S-A and the spell cast from it will do the trick.
Thanks. I really don't have any idea what lies ahead, except we have gotten hints that we will fight Demogorgon, or his avatar. We are all looking forward to it! Some of us are looking forward to then starting at 1st level again, in one of the Pathfinder adventure paths.
Session 76 – Back Again…or Not! – 14 Jan 2010 Xanaphia completes her summoning, an elder air elemental. She brings it into being, next to her on the lip of the well. After a bit of discussion, we decide to test the well, and the retriever’s reaction. Xan activates her stoneskin and casts Greater Mirror Image, and then flies down to the bottom of the well, accompanied by the elemental. She examines the well, and sees S-A, but can’t make her react to voice or gesture. Xan chooses not to touch the black surface of the well. Alobar tries to pierce it with his Black Blade of Disaster, but it has no effect. We do note in the spell description, that it won’t affect an anti-magic area, or a spell of higher level than itself (9th). Xan then casts a Summon Nature’s Ally VII, and calls a pixie. The pixie tries to fly through the well, or make S-A react otherwise, but is unsuccessful. Finally, Father Seamus casts Miracle, asking for the knowledge of how to communicate with S-A. A cloud forms in the sky, shaped as a giant fist. It points its finger at Father Seamus, and a lightning bolt zaps from it, down to him. And he smiles…
Alobar uses a Wish spell to cast Find the Path, for the way to Ahazu’s Well. It leads us to the Fortress of Overlook. Before entering, we decide that now is the time to Plane Shift back to Broken Reach. We do so, and purchase diamonds galore, for spell components. Red Shroud summons us to her throne to hear our tale, and seems disappointed to find out that Shadowfox lived to run away. She says we have caused quite a stir and offers only 1 more night’s rest. We rest and then Solaral and Jakara are True Resurrected. However, when we try to resurrect Kundra – it fails! The devil pact with Glasya, maybe? We Greater Plane Shift back to the fortress, after preparing our spells. Pheophim casts Prying Eyes, and sends them through the fortress. Some fail of return, and none of those who return have video of the tower. They also show 2 groups of 4 Varguilles. We decide to get rid of them quickly, and be the ambushers insteadof ambushes. Al casts a Project Image and walks it down a hall, then attacks the Varguilles. They rage, charge and attack the image. After 6 rounds of combat and a number of spells, including Horrid Wiltings, Fireballs (including Delayed and Fell), Webs, Otiluke’s Freezing Sphere, Finger of Death, Storm Bolts (supernatural ability), Cones of Cold, and a final Magic Missile, and some bladework from Enias and Solaral, we kill them, with almost no damage to ourselves (only Sol took some damage; very limited).
Session 75 – Damn, A Lot of People Died! – 6 Jan 2010 Shadowfire tells us that Argulchear was a demon who made a pact with Ahazu, but was then killed bya trio of wizards. Before we leave the bottom of the well, we decide to look around, and Pheophim casts Prying Eyes, getting a total of 18. He sends them out to 1 mile, to scout around and come back. They show us that we are in an area with a lot of wells, connected by a pathway. The fortress of Overlook is not far away, and is built of blood-red marble. After some discussion, we decide to find and go to Shami-Amourae’s well first, before trying the fortress. If we can get what we need without visiting a fortress of undead, then so much the better. Pheo and Sol use Dimension Doors to get everyone to the lip of the well, and then Xan casts Find the Path. She also casts Mass Darkvision, and Mass Energy Resistance 30 (fire, cold, acid, elec, sonic) on everyone. Father Seamus, Enias and Xan each got a Longstrider, as well. Jakara casts a Barkskin on himself, and Xan casts one on Sol. We follow the spell, and the paths, to S-A’s well. Shadowfire confirms it’s the right one, the Well of Debased Eros. So far, so good. We hear hows and shrieks of anger and hunger arising out of it. It’s a large, 40’ diameter pit in the ground. We look in, and see treetops about 40’ below. We can’t see the floor of the well because they are so thick, but we do scent a lot of perfume! To keep our minds clear, Jak casts a Magic Circle vs Evil, and Xan, Sol, and Father Seamus each cast a Protection from Evil on themselves. Unfortunately, no one cast Deathward. That lack would come back to bite us, in short order. Jak gives the Nimbus bow to Kundra, and she uses the Control Winds feature to call up a tornado in the well. We are trying to uproot the trees and vegetation, to get a good look down. The wind strips away the foliage from the tops of the trees, and we see 4 huge girallons in niches in the wall, just below treetop. The roar at us and try to climb, but the tornado whips them off the wall and captures them in its funnel. They are flying around so fast, that we have trouble targeting them with our spells and weapons. Alobar casts a Horrid Wilting, and Xan a couple of Magic Missile spells. If only we had a Blade Barrier – we could whip them thru it like a blender! Alobar then casts a Black Blade of Disaster and puts it in their path, hitting and disintegrating 1. 3 are left. Meanwhile, Jakara is keeping watch for anything overhead, Sol is guarding Xan and the rest are readying to attack. Suddenly, 4 large bodaks charge out of the mists and hit us with their deadly gaze – they are the custodians! Sol and Jakara both immediately rolled 1s on their saves, and die! Crap! Kundra’s deathward armor took care of the first gaze, and for the 2d, she rolled low and has a poor Fort save. She dies too! Crap! Father Seamus casts a Mass Heal, and gets 2 of the bodaks, killing 1. Xan casts a Deathward on Alobar, and Father Seamus gets in another Mass Heal on the other 2 bodaks, killing both of them. Al casts a Greater Invisibility on himself. Enias closes his eyes, as he has blindsense, and gives a blindfold with blindsight to Pheophim. Enias casts his scouring breath on the remaining bodak, and then Alobar gets it with his BBoD, killing it! Meanwhile, Shadowfire pulled out a scroll and teleported away.
Pheophim drops the hurricane some more, and we see the bottom of the well, 100’ down. Unfortunately, we also see 4 more huge girallons, and a gargantuan retriever on the floor of the well. Enias charges down, flying courtesy of Al. His charge ends with a pounce, killing 1 girallon. The other 3 girallons then climb up out of the pit. Father Seamus activates his Vest of Flying and gets out of the way. Al attacks with the BBoD and misses! Pheophim flies up and attacks a girallon. Xan casts Shield and haste, and flies away (already had it up). Enias charges up and pounces again, killing another girallon. There are 2 left, and they are flanking Pheophim. Together, they slash and bit him so much that he dies! Father Seamus drops down and revivifies him, as his body begins dropping back down into the well. Then Father Seamus casts a Heal on him, but the tornado is still in the bottom 40’ of the well, and snatches Pheophim in its grip! Pheophim has held onto the Nimbus bow, and is forced to cancel the wind, just to save himself. Al hits one of the girallons with his BBoD, and Enias charges and pounces, killing the 3rd one. Xan casts a Cometfall on the last one, and damages it. The girallon attacks Enias, and then Al hits it with his BBoD, killing it. He finishes by casting a Fly spell on himself. Just the retriever remains! Strangely, the retriever has ignored us and the fight. Xan begins a Summon Nature’s Ally VIII, just in case…
Session 74 – Red Shroud – 29 Dec 09 We reincarnate Ural as a goblin, so he can help us navigate the ship back to the Abyssal Ocean, and find the Mercanes. We do so, but we also receive a couple of visitors. One is a Solar named Suriel, and the other is a Pit Fiend named Xaphon. They bicker with each other like an old married couple, and its not lost on us that they represent the side of Law. Over the course of a long conversation, wherein we were richly and frequently insulted, the two offer us some rather obvious advice, and little or no help, if we agree to continue the campaign against Demogorgon. They state we have attracted Demogorgon’s attention (like we haven’t heard that one before). They go on to say that
The two lawful beings (and by the way, we are quite the chaotic party) wind up their speil by saying that 4 of our party’s souls (Harliss, Lillith, Annie, and ?) are already taken by others, and suggest that all our souls are forfeit. We don’t really believe them. They also suggest that we will have to kill Demogorgon to win. Some of us find the idea intriguing – who will be the new ruler of Gaping Maw, if this happens? After two weeks to copy news spells into books, and do what little crafting we can (our party is probably averaging a +4 equivalence in our weapons), we eventually go to Broken Reach, in Pazunia. Xan casts Plane Shift, and Alobar does a Greater Teleport. We walk in to talk to Red Shroud, and have to give her Orgosh the lich’s spellbooks, and a Cloak of Charisma +4 to get the info we want. We learn that:
Red Shroud makes us welcome in her palace, and offers up her servant, a Gatecrasher named Shadowfire, to aide us. He is a whispling. We don’t know what that is, but he looks like a fiendish gnome. He seems surprised by her offer, as well. After some negotiation, we offer Shadowfire a half-share in what we find, if he will transport us to the Wells. We rest a night, and he teleports us to a gate on Pazunia, and takes us through it to the Wells of Darkness! We arrive in a pit in the ground, with a dark well in the center, and among a crowd of feasting fiends. There are 4 ghouls and 4 chasme demons, and they appear to be eating some flesh from the ground. We dispatch them fairly readily, but the ghouls were tougher than the demons! They were abyssal ghouls, a different variety. Enias killed two chasmes with his sword, and Solaral killed two more. Father Seamus turned a ghoul (only 1! A 20th level cleric!) and Pheophim hexed another. Two of us were stricken with disease, but Father Seamus performed yeoman’s work with a mass heal, that killed 3 ghouls and cured the rest of us. Jakara killed the last ghoul (it had 1 hit point) after Solaral ran, swung, and missed! (She rolled a 1 – argh.) Shadowfire informed us that we are in Argulchear’s Well. Don’t know who he is.
Update to last post: It was Kundra, the spellthief, who stole a bolt of glory from Father Seamus and killed Vanthus with it. I didn't correctly attribute her in her moment of glory! No pun intended.
Session 73 – Saving Lavinia – 17 Dec 2009 Note: 1 additional shadow demon was killed by the horrid wilting listed in the previous session. Vanthus charges us, and releases some sort of eldritch blast, that does unholy and fire damage, much like an evil flamestrike. Everyone has fire resistance 30, so we only take damage from the unholy. His blast also kills one of the shadow demons! His nightmare gives a snort and blows out a cloud of choking smoke, which has some limited affect on Xan and Alobar. Alobar casts Fly on himself, and moves up and back to hover over the trumpet archon’s cage. Unfortunately, Vanthus goes ethereal, and runs through the darkness and smoke to attack him. However, Vanthus is apparently so excited, that he doesn’t pay attention to what he is doing, and mostly misses Al. Jakara shoots a bolt of glory at the Nightmare, but it survives, although is injured. Enias kills a wraith with his sword. Father Seamus turns another wraith. Alobar moves back, behind the cage with the male human, who promises “something good” and casts Black Blade of Disaster. It appears and strikes at the Nightmare, who makes its save, but takes damage. Solaral flies up to threaten Vanthus, who disapparates the Nightmare and then swings at her. She would have taken several hits, but she was the recipient of a well-timed Ironguard spell from Xan, and so Vanthus’ longsword and sickle cannot harm her. Vanthus is frustrated! Father Seamus then casts a bolt of glory at Vanthus, getting 15d12 of holy damage, and kills him! Well, crap. Solaral was ready to go to town on him. Of course, all of Vanthus’ equipment falls into the lava below. Again. We have to stop killing flying bad guys over pools of lava. Sol does manage to grab his breastplate. The human in the cage casts a Heal on Alobar, and so Al cuts his lock with the BB of D. There are still some wraiths around, so Kundra steals a magic missile from Alobar. Jakara kills 2 with arrows. Father Seamus turns another one, and then casts a Mass Heal, getting Lavinia and the Trumpet Archon in its effects. Lavinia isn’t sure its us, at first. The TA has been a prisoner for several centuries, and says he was used as a plaything by Demogorgon and his onetime lover Shami-Amourae, who was a contender for Queen of the Succubi, before Malconthet. At some point, Demo got steamed at S-A and threw her in a prison called the Wells of Darkness. The TA then falls into the lava, in a fit of torment. We question the ice devil in the other cage, but he knows little. True to our word, we let him go, but Sol tells him the truce lasts only as long as we are in this room. Using track and scent, we follow Vanthus’ (and Nightmare’s) trail back to his lair. Not much is there. We also find Lillianth’s lair, and some more info. S-A is known as the Lady of Delights, and the Well of Darkness is the 73d layer of the Abyss – a graveyard and prison for major demon lords. S-A is supposed to know a whole lot about Demogorgon, including how to thwart numerous plans and schemes. The foremost scholar on S-A is someone know as Red Shroud, who is the ruler of a town called Broken Reach, on Pazunia, the 1st layer of the Abyss. We teleport back to the ship (normal spells work in Vanthus’ domain) and find all are killed. We get Ural’s head from the bottom of the bay, and begin sailing the ship back. We are still arguing about whether we should ambush Demogorgon when he arrives at the prison, or visit Red Shroud. We will trade with the Mercanes once we reach the Abyssal Ocean. And we have to decide if we Raise Dead or Reincarnate on Ural, or leave him in peace.
I loved reading the discussion about which is worse: the kopru or the fish (aboleths). My party had the same discussion, and I can't wait to find out what you all did with the Tear!
Session 72 – Finding Lavinia – 10 Dec 2009 We decide to rest for the night, back in the angel’s chambers. We debated the merits of continuing into Lilianth’s domain and looking for Lavinia, but we had used up so many of our abilities and spells that we were unsure how well we would do, if meeting another encounter, such as Vanthus. We cast Hidden Lodge, and rested with no incident. The next morning, we headed out for Lilianth’s domain, across the same span of bridge where we had fought her. We make our way to a large chamber, that overlooks a pool of lava. There are 4 cages hanging in the chamber, and they contain an Ice Devil, a trumpet archon, a human male, and Lavinia! We detect no evil or demon from her, and Kundra unlocks her cage. However, Lavinia is understandably a bit insane, and refuses to believe we are real. We decide to have Xan cast Heal upon her, but just before we can...we are plunged into darkness and 4 shadow demons strike! After the first round, these 4 are joined by 2 more shadow demons, and 8 dread wraiths. All of our enemies are incorporeal, which does present a few challenges. Solaral tries dispelling the darkness with her Sunblade, but it doesn’t work. Next Alobar cast an area greater dispel, which dispels the darkness, and strips a spell from each of the party members, as well. Of course, the darkness comes right back the next round. We wonder if this is an ambush set up by Vanthus? We will know soon. Enias blasts several of them with his whirlwind breath, and kills one of the shadow demons. Alobar kills another shadow demon with a Horrid Wilting. Father Seamus is able to Turn Undead and send 1 of the dread wraiths away. Enias kills another shadow demon with his sword, and Solaral kills one with her sword and claw. Jakara has been hitting them with his arrows, and Kundra with her sword. Eventually, Kundra starts stealing Deathwards from Father Seamus, to cast. Xan begins casting them as well. The Dread Wraiths are doing a Constitution drain with their hits – at least they allow a Fort save. In the 3d or 4th round, however, charging down the hallway, comes Vanthus, mounted on a Couchemar (huge nightmare)!
Session 71 – Murdering the Marilith - 18 Nov We elect to keep fighting, although Lilianth keeps up a running conversation throughout the fight, attempting to get us to see reason (hers) and become her allies/servants/slaves. Father Seamus removes the paralysis from Xan and Jak, while Alobar keeps his beholder-form antimagic eye ray on Lilianth. Lilianth doesn’t seem much bothered by the AM eye ray, and proceeds to b%!#$ slap the two trumpet archons. One she then throws off the bridge with her tail, after killing, and she simply leaves the second lying where he died. Our plan is to destroy the bridge under Lilianth, and then keep the AM ray on her as she falls in the caldera, so she can’t fly or teleport away. We expect the bridge will collapse, if we can break it. Kundra uses a disintegrate from the Serpent Symbol, Xan casts disintegrate, and Alobar casts two disintegrates on the bridge. Father Seamus then uses an earthquake. However, we are causing scant damage – the bridge is magically hardened. After Lil kills the two trumpet archons, she advances on us and we retreat, having to go around the blade barrier she cast earlier. Xan is not quick enough, and seized in Lil’s tail, and is slowly (actually quickly) crushed. Solaral rages and wild frenzies (she is already in a holy fury) and flies in to attack. She doesn’t do too well – Lil apparently has the multi-armed fighting feats, and is getting 4 attacks with each of her 6 arms. By this time, Kundra, using the staff of evocation, has managed to cast 3 walls of force around Lil, boxing her in. Father Seamus casts a Mass Heal, which brings Xan back from the brink of death, and Xan, making her concentration check, casts lighting leap (v component only!), which turns her into a bolt of lighting, and she zips out of Lil’s grasp. Lil realizes that we have her boxed and AM’d (walls of force aren’t affected by antimagic rays) and calls out “Linara!” A succubus (we later learn a succubus bard 8 / demon thrall 8) comes out from the building and tries to dispel one of the walls. She fails, and readies her sword. Father Seamus casts Destruction on her, and she fails the save! Dead! But all of her stuff falls in the caldera. Crap. Lil tries throwing all of her weapons at Al, and hits him often, but we are able to heal him up (Sol, Xan, Father Seamus contributing) and restore his lost Con from the wounding weapons, and he keeps his AM eye ray on her. Lil realizes she is in a tight spot, and she begins trying to break the bridge herself. She is doing a lot of slam damage. Xan and Al then cast Wall of Stone on the bottom of the bridge, to strength where she is trying to break through. It was nearly our undoing. With the AM eye ray off her, Lil turns into a willow-the-wisp, and flies out of the box. However, she is not quite fast enough (fortunately the dimensional lock is still in effect for the prison area) and Al is able to put the AM ray back on her, causing her to revert to form and fall back in the box made of the walls of force. Then finally, we kill her!! Now for Vanthus!
12 Nov 09 – The Final Deal? - Session 70 We decide that before going back to Soria, the fallen (or not) angel, we want to find the lich’s lair or laboratory or something. We take his skull and search his section of the complex and find two interesting totems. The first is a statue of demogorgon. Kneeling before it are statues of Grazzt, Orcus, Miska the wolf spider, and Obox-ob. We can tell it is the focus of much of the prison’s magic, but decide not to mess with it, yet. It may draw unwelcome attention from the man, himself. We also find a small totem that is what is keeping the undead in a state of torpor. We decide not to mess with it, either. We also find the lich’s spell books, which will help Alobar and Xanaphia (although one of Xan’s prohibited schools is necromancy, which the books are chock full of). We go back to Soria and get him and his two archons to help us fight Lilianth. Our thinking is relatively straight forward. We want Lavinia back. We can ally with the angels and fight Lilianth, or we can ally with Lilianth and fight the angels, or we can attack Lilianth by ourselves. We choose the first choice. The angels aren’t evil, so are the better allies, we believe. We also think it is better to attack Lilianth with their help, then without. We swiftly decide to cross the bridge, but Lilianth is in the center, and tells us to stand by her side against the angels, and we will get Lavinia. It is, of course, and illusion, which Xan breaks with a Freezing Fog. Immediately, 6 x hezrous and 1 x babau jump down from atop the prison and attack us from behind. And we have no idea where Lilianth is. Illusions abounded, but we found the right one – the real Lilianth, eventually. Soria was a help, as he constantly charged wherever she appeared. The two archons mixed it up with the demons. Our party helped with the demons, but we stay away from Lilianth. We are concerned with her melee ability. She is holding 5 weapons in her 6 hands: a two-handed sword, a pick, a dagger, and the scimitar and sickle from Shasharra, that we gave her. Soria charges and attacks Lilianth, but the huge marilith swiftly kills him (ie in her first round). She smacked him with 4 hits of her greatsword, and did 35 points average per hit. She didn’t even need to use her other 4 weapons. Soria fell into the volcano, and his two trumpet archon sidekicks got mad, and then moved forward to attack her, paralyzing Xan and Jakara with their trumpets, in the process. The damn things have a 100’ radius, non-discriminatory paralyzing ability. Of course, Lilianth makes her saves. Kundra used the Nimbus bow to hold Lillianth in check with a tornado force wind, and Alobar and Seamus attacked her with spells. However, because of the wind, we can’t use arrows (Jakara and Kundra) or orb spells to attack her, so we are a bit limited. Alobar then turned into beholder, and pointed his antimagic eye at her. The fight is not over yet. Do we keep it up, or talk to her, now that Angel-boy is dead?
Yeah, it was surprisingly quick and easy. The lich probably wasn't expecting the elephant to fly - he (the lich) was hanging out near the 50' ceiling. What we don't know is why the lich attacked us directly, and didn't use any of the undead he had wandering around. We saw dozens of them.
Session 69 - Licking the Lich - 22 Oct 09 After resting in Lilianth's domain, we gear and spell up and head out across the bridge, to the 3d section of the prison complex. The party is veiled as demons again, and we all have Resist Energy 30 for Fire, Cold, Acid, and Elec, as well as Darkvision, Heroes Feast. None of us is flying. Crossing the bridge is uneventful, and we come to a set of doors. They are poisoned, but no other traps are found. We open them and come into a large hallway, with a 50' ceiling. There are two trumpet archons here! One is concentrating on us, and looks surprised. We think he was detecting evil and didn't find any. Unfortunately, while we have detect magic and detect demon, we don't have detect evil or good. We assume they are fallen. However, during the ensuing conversation, they deny this. They also say that the angel, Sorian, is not fallen. We convince them to take us to him. Sorian is not in a good mood. Probably has something to do with the fact that he only has two stumps instead of wings. We make a deal with him (as we have with everyone else), to help him take over the complex. we offer to take him to another plane, but he and his two archons don't want to go. They claim they aren't fallen, but say they are two corrupted to go anywhere else. Whatev. They lead us to the lich's domain, and tell us not to attack any of the undead, but wait, and they lich will show. We are directed to a large intersection, and we go there and wait. Sure enough, its full of undead, many of them greater, but they just wander around, listless. Enias recognizes a weird music in the air that affects undead and keeps them in a torpor. Suddenly, the lich appears and speaks to us. We have been taken in by images before, so just in case, Alobar casts a Fog Cloud around it, to break the line of sight from a caster, if it is an image. We begin advancing to where the image was, when around a corner flys the (presumably) real lich. There are 8 of him. Enias hits him with a widened, empowered scouring breath, doing a great deal of damage. Father Seamus casts mass Spell Resistance (SR 30). The lich casts a quickened Enervation at Enias' elephant and a Finger of Death at Alobar, but both are defeated by the SR - Yes!! Jakara fires 5 arrows and gets 4 images. Kundra fires her bow and gets another image. Alobar casts a Reaving Greater Dispel, and gets the remaining images. Xanaphia feeds a potion of fly to Enias' elephant, and Enias charges and pounces on the lich, while hasting himself with boots of speed. Of course, using his huge holy greatsword, Enias finishes the lich off - beginning of round 2!. Unfortunately, we understand that Demogorgon has his phylactery, so we can't kill him for good.
Session 68 – Marriage (of Convenience) to a Marilanth - 15 Oct 09 Continued and came to throne room. Inside were a number of demons waiting for the party. They included a nalfeshnee and others. Enias didn’t even try to talk, but immediately shot out his scouring breath, widened. Then Xan cast Freezing Fog and Al cast an Otiluke’s Freezing Sphere into it, locking up a number of the demons. And eventually, we slew them all. The party heard clapping afterward, and saw a huge-sized marileth – Lilianth. She was standing on a balcony above us. After some discussion, we learn that she has Lavinia, and is using her for leverage over Vanthus. She desires to use Vanthus’ ability to control lesser undead to assist her in building an army. Lilianth actually works for Grazzt, and not demogorgon. Is she an escaped prisoner, we wonder? This does not seem to be a very secure prison, all in all. We made a deal – two, actually. First, we exchanged S’sharra’s two weapons for Lilianth’s. Lilianth wanted them, and we could actually use the ones she offered in exchange. Second, she will give us Lavinia if we help her seize control of the prison. We have already killed S’sharra, and the recent nalfeshnee, and emasculated the Big Guy who was the warden, so there are only two contenders left. One is a lich necromancer and the other is a fallen angel.
Session 67 – The Final Death of Malaforte – 8 Oct 2009 Pretty anti-climactic, actually. But we’ll get to that. First, we are standing there, wondering where Invisichick went, when the Big Guy on the other side of the magical Wall of Stone hits it, and breaks through. He yells for S’sharra, which we learn is Invisichick’s name, and seems angry that she got away. We make a quick deal with him: We bring him her head, and he will release Lavinia to us. Apparantly, he is the warden, and she is one of Demogorgon’s favorite retainers and assassins. It why she was able to teleport around, even though others can’t. Big Guy says she was usurping his authority, and he isn’t sure if she is working for Demogorgon, on this assignment, or not. Meanwhile, Alobar is using his crystal ball to scry for S’sharra, and spots her in her lair. She appears to be dead or unconscious. Much discussion ensues about whether a dead body is a “creature,” which can be scried and gets a Will save, or an “unattended object,” which wouldn’t get a Will save and couldn’t be scried, anyway. In any case, Solaral immediately heads for the lair, and the others follow. We want to get to her before any fast healing continues. It takes us 4 rounds, flying and hasted, to get there, and Solaral immediately charges and strikes! She appears to be dead, and Enias can’t detect anything with his Soul Sense, but Solaral cuts off her head, just to be sure. Of course, we strip the body of usuable magic, too, but we can’t find the cube of force. Crap! Suddenly, everyone has to make a Will save, from a Spell, but we don’t know what is was or where it came from. Those who fail, all suddenly argue that we must stay here. ???? As Solaral is tying S’sharra’s head, to her belt, by its hair, two babau demons attack, yelling for the head. We quickly dispatch them (Actually, Jakara does, with his bow), and Big Guy comes in, apologizing for his retainers’ ill manners. He wants the head, but we tell him that he gets the head when we get Lavinia. He then tells us that Lavinia is with a marilith demon named Lilianth, who is some sort of famous war leader. Big Guy promises us safe passage through his territory, for the next 12 hours, and points out the route to Lilianth’s place, and says Vanthus is somewhere near the Caldera. Why Lilianth have Lavinia, and not Vanthus, we don’t know. We have to cross one of the bridges between the two islands to get there. The PCs who failed their Will saves earlier, all want to cross immediately. ??? We cast Hidden Hut, and Mordenkainen’s Private Sanctum, in order to rest, and it proceeds with incident. We buff up on our usual spells, and prepare to cross the bridge. Alobar veils us as a group of babaus, vrocks, and hezrous. Malaforte is the only one flying, fluttering around like a vrock. This turns out to be a big mistake. As we are halfway across, a couple of Nabasu demons fly up, and gaze at Malaforte. He fails his Fort save and is immediately slain. Crap! The demons fly back to their pad. We think they may have been only targeting fliers. Why? We don’t know. Enias’ elephant manages to catch Mal’s body, but since he was slain by a death effect, revivify won’t work. Since this is the 3rd time for Mal, we decide to let him rest in peace, and throw his body in his own portable hole, which Solaral takes charge of. We come to the next section of the prison, after crossing the bridge, and open the door. Instead of following Big Guy’s directions to follow the hall, we open the first door, and are inundated from a room full of sludge, offal, and effluvia. Some of us take acid damage (thank the gods for resist energy-mass). Then 2 filth demons attack, with cones of acid. We slay them in 2 rounds, primarily with magic missiles from Al and Kundra, scouring breath from Enias (kills 1) and Jakara’s arrows (kills 2d).
Session 66 – Did She Get Away?! – 1 Oct 2009 This turned out to be one of the most unsatisfying sessions ever. Not only did the local Big Bad get away, but we don’t know if she is okay or dead. Maybe Alobar will use his crystal ball to find out? After Invisichick tumbled away, Malaforte short her with a hellfire blast, but it was blocked by her cube of force. Dammit! Those blasts do a point of Con damage to Mal! Mal later tries a Disintegrate, from his Serpent Symbol, but the cube of force flashes, but remains. We think we damaged it, however, and realize we have to keep hitting it with attacks – the difference between the cube and a normal wall of force. Xan cast Gust of Wind to push two of the gaseous hezrou back behind the blade barrier. Enias kills two of them with his sword and bite. Alobar cast a couple cones of cold, to weaken them. Their stench actually poisons Xan, who turns into a plant type to give herself immunity. Eventually, the remaining two turn solid and come for us. Mal blasts them and Enias hits them and Jakara shoots them and they die. Suddenly, a big, huge evil-looking guy begins running toward us. He is shouting something unintelligible, but looks angry. Al throws a wall of ice in his path, and Xan hits him with a stinking cloud when he tries to smash through. He fails the save and is nauseated! He begins moving to the end of the wall, to come around.
Eventually, Invisichick moves away from the longsword and Xan picks it up. Al does an Otiluke’s Freezing Sphere, and then a final cone of cold, and Kundra, with her Arcane Sight, sees the cube of force flicker and fail. She strikes at Invisichick with her rapier, with a readied action, but Invisichick had readied an action to disarm, and she does. Kundra misses with the attack of opportunity, and loses the disarm roll, and Invisichick is now armed with a +3 wounding rapier. Sol moves in and gets 9 attacks on Invisichick (with a +35 on her first two hits, dual wielding) and they all miss! We do learn that Invisichick’s AC is either 54 or 55, though (because she rolled an 18 and the DM said she would have hit if she hadn’t had to subtract 2 for attacking with each hand), and we know her touch AC is in the mid to upper 20s. Enias then attacks and rolls two 1s, but uses his luck feats to turn them into 20s, but can’t make the critical, even with his +10 to confirm a crit. Xan tries an Orb of Sound, but Invisichick’s displacement gets it. Invisichick strikes at Xan for 6 times, but only gets a mirror image each time (thank you, Greater Mirror Image). Al then hits her with Demondirge, and she takes damage, but finally looks angry, and departs via teleport. Crap! Demondirge has 3 more rounds of damage. Will it kill her? The big huge guy has come around the wall of ice, now, and Father Seamus casts a wall of stone, linked to the wall of ice and the cavern side, to keep him away.
Session 65 – It’s Stunning! - 24 Sep 2009 We are looking all around, but we can’t find invisichick. We do find a partially devoured horse in one room and tooth wriggling around among a bunch of severed fingers (somebody’s reincarnation kit?) in another room. Yes, you read that right. Solaral uses her sunblade to destroy the tooth. In the room where the vrocks hung out, we find half a body. It looks like it was a bard. Another room appears to be invisichick’s lair, and we find a pool of blood from a solar.
Stay tuned!
Thanks Sharoth. We have had 3 people do the right ups at times, as you can probably tell from reading them.
Session 64 – No More Annie, and Its Ugly - 17 Sep 2009 Annie runs up to where invisichick is, guesses at the location from where Mal’s blast failed, and attacks. She misses. Invisichick then attacks. Crap – its greater invisibility. She attacks 3 times with her saber and 3 times with her sickle. We know this because Mal is watching, and because Annie gets slashed 3 times with each. Yes, all of the attacks hit. Crap. Each attack does a point of Con damage, as well. Crap. One hit is a critical. Crap. And Annie is dead – completely and all the way. Crap. Jakara, who can see invisibility with his mask, takes 5 shots at invisichick with her bow, and only hits once (a 39 missed)! He does do good damage, though. I have to take a moment here to say that Jakara averages 25 points an arrow against evil outsiders, using cold iron arrows from a +3 sacred outsider bane bow, with outsiders as his primary favored enemy from Ranger and Totemic Demon Slayer levels. Enias blasts her with his vortex, and appears to do no damage. Evasion? Crap. Xan hits her with a Glitterdust, and everyone can see her now! Kundra and Solaral and Alobar ready for the 4 vrocks to pop in (whose teleport had been delayed). The 4 vrocks pop in and they all have multiple images. Alobar hits with a horrid wilting, Mal blasts them, but only gets 4 images, and they attack Sol, Enias, and Mal. At this time, invisichick runs away around the corner. We quickly dispose of the 4 vrocks (who are only normal vrocks right out of the MM) and stuff Annie’s body in a bag. Father Seamus does healing, Mal does detecting of magic, and Solaral begins scouting. The track disappears and we figure that invisichick must have teleported away or went through a secret door. We search but don’t find a door. We continue to follow the corridor, which follows what we figure is the outside wall. We come to a large room with an altar to Demogorgon, and full of larvae in a red jelly. We destroy them all with vortex blasts, fire, and lightning. We elect not to destroy an idol on an altar on Demogorgon’s own plane. Suddenly, Xanaphia is hit with a Greater Dispel, and we know that invisichick is back. While we search for her, Jakara is hit with a Greater Dispel, too. Mal spots her, and Xan gets her with Glitterdust again. She runs around the next corner, and we give chase, and she has disappeared again, but there are 7 more vrocks – 3 huge and 4 large. We have also gone in a complete circle (square, really) and are back next to where we battled the golem. Malaforte blasts the vrocks with an Empowered Maximized Chain Nauseous Hellfire blast. He gets 2 of the 3 huge vrocks. Father Seamus uses his Arrow of Glory on them. Jakara kills one of the large vrocks with his arrows. Enias kills a second. Alobar casts Deadly Lahar on the 3 huge ones, slowing 2 of them. Mal does another Empowered Maximized Chain Nauseous Hellfire blast, and rolls a 1. Crap. Xan tries a call lighting storm with a move (mobile spellcasting) and loses it! Enias kills a third large vrock and his elephant steed kills the fourth large vrock. Alobar casts defensively, trying to bring forth an Otiluke’s freezing sphere, and fails! Malaforte now tries his last maximized empowered feats (only 3 per day) with a hellfire blast (he takes 1 Con damage with each hellfire blast) and rolls a 20! He confirms the crit! 234 points of damage to the first huge vrock and 117 to the other 2. The first one dies and there are only 2 vrocks left. Jakara kills the second huge vrock with his bow, and Enias charges and kills the last huge vrock. While this was going on, Jakara noticed that invisichick was back, and shoot at her, but his arrow is deflected. Our other attacks against her are deflected, as well, and we realize she has some sort of wall of force in front of her. Kundra, using her arcane sight, confirms its from an item she is carrying. We want it! We want her weapons! We want her! She disappears again. Crap! Meanwhile, Solaral had run around the corner from where invisichick was, and went invisible. The vrocks ignored her, and so maybe they can’t see her. Hopefully, neither can invisichick. She stays at least 85’ from Father Seamus’ invisibility purge, moving silently, and waiting for invisichick to appear again, but so far, no joy. The 7 vrocks were killed without one blow from her!
Session 63 – Prison Break-In – 10 Sep 2009 We sail closer to Divided’s Ire, and about a mile out, we discover that the air around the isle is foul and poisonous. One of our crew members is affected, and we sail further away. Of course, the water appears bloody and dirty and poisonous too. We notice that one island has a large caldera, and the prison complex has a small housing right over the lava crater. We figure this is too obvious to be the spot where Lavinia is held. We notice that the sky has a lot of vrocks flying around, hanging around the prison like flocks of birds around a big tree. So after much discussion on how best to get in, Alobar casts Veil on us to make us look like Vrocks, and we head off (the 6 PCs and 3 cohorts). Everyone has some method of flying, be it spell or potion or magic item or wild shape. Ural and the sailors and followers stay to crew the ship. We head for a section of the prison fortress that is in a state of disrepair, and has a large broken section of wall. It does not say much for the abilities of the prison administrator. But what can you expect from demons? As we land and look inside, we notice that wall is stone, lead, and iron. We also notice a number of incredibly strong abjurations and other enchantments. We figure the wall and they are meant to block divinations and teleportions and such. We move inside, into a very large room, about the size of a football field, and see that this section of the prison has a large chasm running through it. The ceiling is a uniform 30 feet high, and most of the corridors and doors we see are at least 10 feet wide. There is a row of spikes with heads on them, atop a wall of rubble, built across one side of the room. We make our way over the wall, and come face to face with it! “It” is a gargantuan Lemurian golem, in the shape of Demogorgon. Solaral runs up and hits it, casting Fell the Greatest Foe as she does so. Enias, on his called steed (a huge elephant), pulls a ride by attack and hits it. Jakara begins shooting it with arrows, Annie and Kundra harass it, Father Seamus begins healing Solaral (who badly needs it hits her 4 times), Malaforte hits it with acid blasts, and Alobar shape changes into a large stone golem and swings at (missing). Enias hits it with his vortex blast, knocking it over, and Solaral finishes it off. Meanwhile, Xanaphia was casting buffing spells. It only took 2 rounds, and that was fortunate, because Xan spots a horde of incoming vrocks, coming down a large corridor. 5 are huge and 4 are large. Those of us who can get ready, and the first, and largest vrock, takes quite few AoOs as it busts out of the corridor and into the large space where we are. It releases its spores as it busts through, and so do the other 4 huge ones. Enias, Annie, Solaral, and Xanaphia are all infected with them, and take quite a bit of small damage that rapidly adds up. Its flying near the ceiling, so we can’t physically block it (yet), even with the body of the golem doing a good job of blocking quite a bit of the pathway.. Xan casts web, and traps the 4 large ones behind. Solaral uses the prayer beads to cast bless, destroying the spores. On their way in, Alobar was able to hit 7 of the nine with horrid wilting. Malaforte shoots a binding chain blast, ready to get 4 of them, but rolls a 1 on the attack. Crap. First use of his new, first, dark invocation (binding blast) and he gets a 1. Mal then shoots a quickened blast right after, and hits and kills the big one! Jakara uses his bow to kill another huge one. The 4 large ones in the web try to teleport in and behind us, but Xan has Greater Anticipate Teleport going on, so they are delayed for 3 rounds, and we know where they will come in. Alobar then turns into a 12-headed hydra, and begins biting vrocks. He kills a huge vrock and wounds another, hitting with all 12 bites. Annie kills another of the huge ones, and now there is only 1 left. Suddenly, Alobar is the target of a Greater Dispel, and stripped of most of his buffs, losing fly, veil, resist fire, hero’s feast, and shapechange. Father Seamus casts Invisibility Purge (85’ radius) and nothing appears yet. Jakara kills the 5th and last huge vrock with a fusillade of arrows. Alobar shrinks the gargantuan statue and puts it in a portable hole (you never know when it might come in handy). Malaforte, who can see invisibility, finally spots another figure, on the opposite side of the room. It is a medium-sized female (hereafter known as invisichick), with two small horns, red skin and black hair, red eyes, wearing what looks like tight leather armor, and carrying a serrated scimitar and sickle in her two hands. She looks like a fighter or rogue type. And she looks like a boss. Mal takes a shot at her with his blast, but 29 fails to penetrate her SR, and it fizzles.
Session 62 – Into the Maw, Gaping - 3 Sep 09 Alobar: Wizard (generalist) 17
We use the wake portal, to take the Blue Nixie into the Abyssal Ocean. Father Seamus casts divination to show us the way, and Ural is our navigator, to keep us on the correct path. We meet a ship of Mercanes, who are a strange group of humanoids. They are merchants, and wish to trade. They say they can get anything we need. Father Seamus buys an Arrow of Glory, but no one else gets anything. We had spent most of our cash in Sasserine.
Session 61 – Talking with Demogorgon - 20 Aug 2009 Little is left of the Crimson Fleet HQ after the extensive damage wrought by the Tornado. This is what we find: 1. Stone Watchtower: The tower itself was thirty feet tall. Little of value remains as the wooden roof was torn apart and everything within was sucked up from the resulting vacuum. 2. Condemned Shack: Little remains of this location where the advanced elite fiendish eye of the deep holed up. Nonetheless, as we searched through the wreckage and made it to the pool below, we found the following: 5,000 gp, 13 pink pearls, 100 gp each, +4 defending cold iron dagger, mask of the skull, red crystal staff of evocation (31 charges). 3. The Wreck: Miraculously, or probably through demonic power, the wreck is still intact. We examine it and realize that there are magical anchor points that function similarly to immovable rods. Bringing the wreck down would require dispelling the majority of these anchor points since they’re effectively magic items. A dispel magic only negates one for 1d4 rounds. We find that there are easily between two to three dozen of these anchor points. At the end of the day, Malaforte uses his Greater dispelling touch invocation to remove the anchor points one by one, and throw them overboard, where they float in the air – a hazard to navigation, yes, but the wreck eventually collapses. A. Prison (bottom ship): We find all of our crew members there (excluding Harliss), terrified, but otherwise in fine health. One additional prisoner languishing there is a badly beaten lemorian, Ratline Sid. We learn the following from him after we heal him as his broken legs and crushed jaw make communication difficult, besides the fact that he is near death: -Vanthus arrived and humiliated Captain Wyther. Once he left, Ratline was one of five captains who rose up in mutiny. The other four have escaped to sea and are being chased by the Crimson Fleet, Ratline was defeated in combat. He confirms that the fleet’s just finished delivering dozens of black pearls, but he’s not sure why they were giving the things away when they could have sold them again and stolen them back and sold them a dozen times over. He recounts Vanthus’ arrival in detail, adding that the woman he brought back was a mighty fine catch but that Vanthus kept her at his side the whole time. They finally left on Captain Wyther’s ship, the Crimson Scar, several days ago. Ratline is not sure where Vanthus went, but he does know that he activated the wakeportal on Wyther’s ship to travel to the Gaping Maw. There is one more wakeportal in the Wreck treasury. He has been to Lemoriax on Gaping Maw twice since his initial transformation into a lemorian. When asked about more details on Gaping Maw, Lemoriax, Demogorgon, or the process by which he was transformed into a half-fiend, he doesn’t answer. He has little to say other than he’s started to think that letting those fancy bat-winged ladies in Lemoriax put him in that big pool of sludge that turned him fiendish may not have been a great idea. B. Wyther’s Shrine (bottom ship): A grotesque scrimshaw statue of a towering two-headed monster dominates the chamber. The statue is composed of numerous whalebones that have been filed and fitted together like a jigsaw puzzle. The entire thing has an unsettling quality about it, almost as if the two skull-like faces could see. An iron brazier filled with ashes sits between the statue’s feet, and clutched in its tentacles is a single curious metal orb. Our knowledge planes/religion checks reveal that this statue depicts Demogorgon. But it is much more than a shrine to the Prince of Demons. As one of Demogorgon’s primary Material Plane agents, this statue appears to be some type of device. The metal globe clutched by the statue is a puzzle orb made up of interlocking slats and panels. After a successful Intelligence Check, combined with a high reflex save from Kundra to avoid tendon severing serrated blades, we unlock the puzzle. Twisted and folded in the correct manner, the orb opens like a metal rose and …the device floats into the air as a mauve haze seeps from the brazier below. The haze quickly fills the room with a sickening stink of rotting fish and seaweed – if we had not been immune to poison (thank you Heroe’s Feast) we would clearly be nauseated. As the foul mist fills the room, the statue of Demogorgon suddenly seems to slither to awful life! Its surface fills in with rancid greens and blues and sickly yellows as it takes on the fearful countenance of the Prince of Demons. His two simian heads scowl, writhing above his serpentine body on long snaky necks that make an obscene sucking noise. Two tentacle arms come into view, dripping, and he moves suddenly in long strides as though his body is dislocated. Clearly this orb has established an actual link with the Prince of Demons! The two heads look around the room, then settle their gazes upon Kundra, who activated the statue, watching expectantly. At that time, Kundra instantaneously realized how she could use the statue – by asking ten yes/no questions (as if using commune to contact Demogorgon), or she may ash a single question and receive a short answer. Unfortunately, we fall to arguing over what to ask, and the statue gets tired of our yammering and yells at us. We ask it what Vanthus’ weakness is, and it tells us “his ego” and the normal weaknesses of a death knight. The statue then explodes, dealing 20d6 of fire and 20d6 of acid damage to everyone in the room. Fortunately, everyone had resist fire, acid, cold, electricity 30 from Xanaphia, and so only Malaforte missed a save and took damage. C. War Room: A U-shaped table sits in this room, surrounded by wooden chairs. Dozens of scrolls lie heaped on the table, weighed down by several gold paperweights that resemble ships at sea. On the far wall hangs a map of the known seas and civilized lands. This room is where the Crimson Fleet worked out its raids, including shipments of shadow pearls to various large cities of the northern world. An investigation of the numerous notes, logs, and ledgers on the table reveal that they’ve sent shadow pearls to no less than 35 different cities, but aside from the fact that each of these deliveries was accepted by an unnamed by powerful ally, the exact locations are nowhere to be found. Further investigation of the notes here turns up several references to an event called the “savage tide”, and while some of these notes indicate that the savage tide will be occurring soon, an exact date is missing. Seven paperweights are solid gold and worth 700 gp each – yeah! D. Chambers: We cannot tell which creature occupied these chambers, other than it was not human. But this long room is split into two sections. To the starboard, near the doo, stands an oak bookcase, its shelves heaped with tomes of all shapes and sizes. A large padded chair sits nearby. To port, an oversized bed is flanked by an ivory washtub and an elegant writing desk. The collection of history books includes seven rare tomes worth 300 gp each – yeah! E. Wyther’s Quarters: A huge canopied bed, complete with diaphonanous silk curtains hanging from its sides, dominates this sumptuous chamber. To the stern, a locked cupboard sits in a nook near the door. We find a hidden panel in the bed’s headboard that holds: a pair of +1 daggers coated with Lemorian venom (DC 21 Fort, initial and secondary damage 1d6 Wisdom); a neatly folded paper that lists the following spells (not scroll – just list of spells), in order: fear, rage, crushing despair, crushing despair, rage, fear, and Tasha’s hideous laughter. In the locked cabinet we find seven specimens of fine clothing each worth 200gp and a private collection of rare wines, ales, meads, and grog (12 bottles x 500gp each). F. Treasury: The doorway to this room is locked and trapped. Fortunately, we found a black key on Captain Wyther, which fit the lock and bypassed the trap. The champer has lead-lines walls to prevent many divination spells from seeing into the room. The chamber is protected by a chaotic evil forbiddance spell (CL 16th) that Alobar was able to dispel. And the lead-lined walls are also lined with permanent walls of force with the exception of the doorway. The trap bypassed by the key is a chaining Energy Drain trap (CL 17th). The walls of this area are plated in what appears to be lead that shimmers with sparkling energy. A single long table sits against the wall immediately to the door’s left. A few chairs sit nearby, and a spherical object the size of a human head sits atop the table, covered by a deep purple cloth. We determine it is a crystal ball with telepathy. The contents of the rest of this room leave little doubt as to its purpose. Sacks of coins, sea chests too full to be properly closed, heaps of silks, suits of partially assembled armor, tapestries, mounds of fine furs and clothing, jewelry boxes, metal coffers, and racks of weapons line the port and starboard walls of the chamber, leaving an open area in the center where one might stand and admire the collection. This is, without a doubt, the treasury of the Crimson Fleet! We find 300,000 cp, 110,000 sp, 28,000 gp, 1,300 pp, Gems and jewelry worth 10,000gp, Masterwork weapons and armor worth 8,000gp, Rare silks and furs worth 4,200gp, Fine clothing and tapestries worth 5,600gp, Rare and exotic alcohol worth 6,000gp, Gold and silver bars worth 16,000gp.
We want to look in the chest, but are a bit apprehensive, so we take it very deliberately. Alobar turns into a beholder, with some 8th level spell he has, and puts the anti-magic cone from his central eye on the chest. Kundra then proceeds to do a quick search for traps, but finds none. As she realizes that the 7 faces on the chest can all be manipulated into different expressions, we remember the paper with 7 spells that we found in Wyther’s quarters. Kundra sets the faces into the expressions from the spells on the paper, and voila! The chest clicks open! Inside, we find 6 large black pearls, a golden crown, 12 bags of 500 gp each, a large 25,000 gp ruby. We end of selling everything, including the chest! For now, we take everything out, and put it and the chest into our portable hole (after determining the chest has no extra-dimensional spaces). It was a good thing that we found the right sequence of expressions, because we learned later, that as an artifact, the chest and its 7 traps would have continued to function in the anti-magic shell. G. Harpies Nest: We find where the three sisters of Lamentation, late of the Birdcage, nest in this area. We find a single large bag of 1,200 gp H. Other Quarters: We find a note written in blood but using Lavinia’s handwriting. This hidden note says: Vanthus lives! Back from death! He’s taken control of the fleet and says he wants to make me into one of them, to take me to Demogorgon’s realm wher 4. Bodies: Of course, we loot the bodies. Captain Wyther’s gear was particularly impressive, including +3 icy burst cold iron bastard sword (Sell! None of us want it – it doesn’t fit our party), gauntlets of ogre power +6, bracers of health +6 (as amulet of health +6), and keys to all locks on the Wreck. Other items found on the bodies include a ring of protection +5 on the yagnoloth (the big guy), a Serpent Symbol (allows destruction or disintegrate 1/day) on the 7th coil, and plenty of jewelry all around. After looting the bodies, and bringing down the whole twisted tower of ships, we teleport out to the Blue Nixie with our sailors. We stay aboard for the night, and give them instructions to keep sailing. We then teleport back to Farshore, where we persuade the gnome naturalist, Ural, to return with us as our navigator. We also drop off about 21,165 gp of masterwork arms and armor with the Farshore Militia, to increase their effectiveness and earn some good will. We take Ural to the Blue Nixie, and then teleport to Sasserine with all of our treasure, to sell and buy and make. Even at half price, we manage to make over 700,000 gp profit, most of which went right back into the Farshore economy and merchants’ hands. Unfortunately, use of divination spells reveal that we only have about 15 days before we need to get moving again to rescue Lavinia, and so our time to use our ability to make or improve magic is limited. We spend a lot of money, hiring others to upgrade our gear (contracting out more than the Pentagon). We also determine that we need a larger crew for the Blue Nixie, and so Enias comes to the rescue. He had taken Leadership, and has Annie as a cohort, so he recruited a number of followers – 12, to be exact. With our four original sailors, this gives us 16 to crew the ship. Annie has the skills to act as Captain. It occurs to Solaral, that while on board the ship, Enias and his minions actually outnumber the rest of the party…and they are all human. She is none too happy about it, and is wondering if she might find some elven sailors somewhere. Preferably female. Now, we are ready for the Gaping Maw!
We have had one more session, which I will put up soon - but it had no fighting. It was just a wrap up at the Crimson Fleet base, and some selling and buying of stuff. It ended up taking the whole session. We start the next adventure on Thursday.
23 July 09 – Alobars, Alobars Everywhere- Session 60 We decide to withdraw into the ship and teleport out. As we begin doing this, a Lemurian arrives. It is Cold Captain Wither. He charges and attacks Father Seamus with a bastard sword, trying to smite! He rolls a 3 and gets a 28, which is a miss! Alobar is attacked by another Lemurian, and several more arrive. 3 harpies come in and fly by attack. We continue withdrawing back into the cabin and some jump into the portable hole, to leave few enough for Alobar to teleport. Cold Captain Wither tries Charm Monster on Solaral and Jakara, but they are both immune. Xanaphia casts Solid Fog up on deck to cover their retreat. Alobar teleports us to Farshore. We have left Harliss with the boat, and we don’t know what has happened to the crew. We heal up, and cast Mord’s Private Sanctum. We also use a Sending to Harliss, who lets us know that she has been taken by Glasea and is being tortured. What the heck? Some sounds emanate from the mansion in the night, but we don’t let them disturb us. In the morning, we prepare our spells and teleport back, hoping to catch our chaotic opponents off guard. We teleport to the topmost ship, all veiled to look like Alobar. Jakara brings up his bow and casts control winds, sweeping a number of pirate archers and lemurians away, but the effect stops on the ship, where Cold Captain Wither is. He has prepared for us. Malaforte tries a maximized empowered hellfire blast at Capt Wither, 100’ away, but fails to penetrate his SR. Dang it! Alobar casts a cone of cold, but everyone who is hit makes the save, and has evasion. Dang it! We continue attacking, and so do they. Annie hits one with her rapier. Xan hits one with her Clap of Thunder. Sol hits one with her Sunblade. Father Seamus casts holy aura. Enias hits one with his greatsword. 2 charge and 1 hits Jakara. Jakara shoots his bow, and Malaforte keeps blasting. Enias keeps swinging his greatsword and kills the Cold Captain! Alobar casts haste. Annie keeps stabbing and kills another one. Solaral keeps moving and slashing. In round 2, the 6-headed, 2-armed snake thing comes in, with 4 assassins, and casts disintegrate on Alobar. Fortunately, it only hit 1 of his mirror images. 3 of the assassins throw beads of force at the party, imprisoning Alobar. 7 Lemurians and assassins surround Solaral! Enias blasts the whole group with his scouring cone of sand. Sol makes both her saves and takes no damage and remains upright. The buzzsaw continues, and begins to engulf the so-called “7th coil” as well. Enias wails on the big 7th Coil thing and hits it, but takes Str and Con damage from his strikes. Alobar casts a Horrid Wilting. Annie stabs it with her rapier, and is able to reduce some of its Spell Resistance as she does so. Jakara and Kundra are shooting bows. Solaral continues to mop up the assassins and Lemurians. Xan and Father Seamus conduct healing activities. The 7th Coil shouts a Blasphemy, getting 5 members of the party! Some are dazed, and some are dazed and weakened. Then the 7th Coil runs away!
16 July 09 – Annie’s Hour - Session 59 Xan grabs the prayer beads from Solaral, and uses them to unblind Father Seamus and Solaral. Meanwhile, Enias cuts his way through the bottom of the second ship, into its Cargo hold. Enias then cuts through the next deck, into a map or planning cabin, and then into the next deck, as well – which is the open top deck! As Enias cuts through this last deck, an incredibly huge red arm reaches through and smacks him. Enias is stunned! We see that the creature is only large, but funny, with one huge arm, and one small arm with a long sword. We also see 3 of the Yuan-ti assassins on deck, as well. Alobar casts a cone of cold out of the hole in the deck. Solaral rises up to engage the big-armed guy, and and gets in a hit, but is hit in turn and stunned into unconsciousness. Kundra shoots her bow at the big guy and hits him. We also notice that the big guy has DR of at least 10. We finally figure out that it’s a Yugoloth of some kind. Annie has come up on deck, and engaged with the Yugoloth and an assassin. She causes the Yugoloth to miss her, and stun the assassin! Eventually, we are able to kill it. Annie drops back into the hole, to get away from the big guy, and lands near the door. This ends up being fortunate for all of us. Solaral’s fly spell ends as she is stunned, and she drops back into the hole and into the cabin. Suddenly, the door in the cabin is yanked open by a yuan-ti, and two more try to throw beads of force inside. Annie, with combat reflexes, gets two attacks of opportunity, and manages to disarm each of the assassins – knocking their beads out of their hands. One explodes on the floor at their feet, trapping one assassin and pushing 1 back, while blocking the door. Annie explodes the 2d bead, lying on the floor, by throwing a vial of poison at it and hitting it. Solaral is healed by Father Seamus, and jumps up and kills the one Yuan-ti in the room. Alobar feels someone conducting some sort of death magic on him, but makes the save and takes 32 points of damage instead. Xanaphia looks up and spots a huge, bloated snake-like creature with 6 heads and 2 arms.
Session 58 – The Bigger They Are… - 25 June 2008 The fight in the Cove has started out very well – we killed 4 of the Crimson Fleet’s heavy hitters. And we mean heavy. We were on the ship, with the huge retriever, followed by the eye of the deep, coming after us. Our initial plan was to let these two come for us, and kill them out on the sea, but someone started casting dispels at us. It wasn’t a high CL, but we decided enough of that, and Alobar teleported half the group, and Solaral D-doored the other half, right to the bottom ship of the giant tree-house assembly. This level was made of two large halfs of two ships, stuck back to back around a giant tree. As we come in, we observe 2-4 harpies flying around, 4-8 Lemurians fluttering or running around, and what, or who, is obviously Vanthus, glaring at us from further atop the treehouse. We also see that the retriever and the eye of the deep have turned around and headed back into the cove. Right after we jump to the bottom ships of the tree-house, a gargantuan-sized retriever climbs aboard! Its much larger than the first one. Jakara brings the winds down from where they are at 40’, and checks it, so that it can’t move forward. We are all standing in the eye at the center. Solaral calls in a large air elemental, but it is quickly dispatched by the retrievers large claws. Alobar begins hitting it with chain lightings and Malaforte with eldritch blasts. The first retriever, now referred to as the “small one” climbs aboard the ship as well, swinging at Jakara but missing. The two-baboon-headed, 12-armed snake thing then teleports in and begins gazing at us. It’s a serious pain. Solaral moves and gets in 1 hit, and then the thing gets in 15 scimitar swings at Sol! Fortunately, only 1 hit. Things start looking up when Enias, pulling out one of his weird but just right abilities, casts a 60’ cone of wind into the small retriever and the snake thing. The small retriever falls over, and the snake is blown out of the eye and into the hurricane. Sol is a bit miffed, as she was getting ready to wail on it, but she wails on the retriever instead, which was blown right next to her. Sol gets in 7 of 8 hits, and destroys it. The baboon snake thing teleports in, but unfortunately for it, lands next to Enias, who whacks it four times with his large holy “cold ironed” greatsword, and kills it. At this time, the eye of the deep reappears, floating or flying up onto the deck. In short order, Father Seamus, Jakara, and Solaral are all blinded and stunned from its central eye. Xanaphia, Malaforte, and Alobar, meanwhile, have been continually hitting the checked large retriever with lightning and hellfire blasts, and finally a bolt from Xanaphia destroys it. Now we can all focus on the Eye. The Eye hits Enias, and in a funny turnaround, is itself blinded by the effects of the Holy Aura spell that Father Seamus had cast. Enias, while laughing heartily, swings and kills the big bag of blubber. Now we can begin ascending the tree-house! After unstunning and unblinding our teammates, of course. Maybe we will use the time-honored method of time?
Session 57 – The Hurricane - 18 Jun 2009 We transition now to the characters who were snatched away from the deck of the Blue Nixie by the bar-lguras, which were Annie, Jakara, and the 4 sailors. Ann and Jak were taken to a rickety wooden shack with 10’ high walls and no ceiling. There is a dead body in the corner, wearing red chainmail and an exotic sword. They quickly realize that the floor and the body are illusions, and hug the walls. However, a huge-size advanced fiendish Eye of the Deep rises out of the illusory floor and attacks. It has two claws, two eyes on stalks, and a large, central eye. Annie runs up the wall of the shack, and down the outside. Jakara flies up, using one of his tattoos, but the Eye attacks! The central eye flashes and Jak is blinded for 9 rounds and stunned for 4, causing him to drop his bow. 1 eye stalk shoots an enchantment beam at him, but he is immune. The 2d eye stalk shoots a cold ray at him, but he makes his save and has a ring of evasion. Meanwhile, Annie sees that they are in the cove, with ramshackle ships and buildings all around, including one large structure of 2 or 3 giant trees, with 4 or 5 ships in its branches. There is also a stone tower. She hears pirates running all around and manning crew-served weapons, such as ballistae, so she drinks a potion of invisibility. The Eye is too far below Jak to get him with its snappers, so it begins flying up towards him, zapping with the enchantment and cold rays as it does so. Ballista bolts begin flying towards Jak as well, who blinded and stunned, cannot do anything. As a side note, Jak has a scroll of remove blindness, but it’s a hard item to use when you can’t see. Sort of like Mal’s potion of remove paralysis. Annie gets a brilliant idea, and flies up to Jakara, then smashes a force bead against her own self. Although she and Jak are injured by the bead, because she didn’t attack anyone but herself, she stays invisible, and she and Jak are enclosed in the impenetrable sphere, where they begin downing healing potions. Jak, once unstunned, also uses a prayer bead of healing to cast remove blindness on himself. Jak drinks a potion of invisibility, as well. At this time, a sailor is brought to the shack by a bar-lgura, and he falls into the water and begins flailing around. He will stay here throughout the fight. We don’t know what has happened to the other 3 sailors. Meanwhile, back on the ship, the party begins healing themselves, and casting some longer term buffs such as barkskins and Cold Iron Weapons, and Resist Energies. Father Seamus puts a dispel magic into Malaforte’s ring of counterspells, too. Alobar casts veil on the party, to make us look like Yuan-ti sorcerers and assassins, and human thugs, as if we had captured the ship and were sailing it in. Eventually, one of the bar-lguras is able to dispel the sphere around Jak and Annie (they have a really low CL, and so took 6 attempts). Annie dives down into the water and activates the Cloak of the Manta Ray, and Jakara flies down, looking for his bow, and finding it. However, a bar-lgura catches Jak with a dispel magic, and strips away the invisibility, fly, and barkskin. The Eye, which apparently can’t see invisible things (the bar-lguras apparently can), begins shooting rays again at Jakara. Ballista and crossbows are flying at them, and someone is glaring down at them from the top-most ship in the tree. Ann and Jak also see someone on top of the tower. A quad of Yuan-ti assassins also arrive, gunning for Jakara. Annie is under water at this time. Alobar and Xanaphia send some sending spells to Jakara, asking what’s going on. They get the replies, but its not enough to teleport to. At this time, Jakara remembers that he has a Control Winds of CL 20 active, and immediately calls in a tornado with an 800’ radius, with himself at the eye. It is 40’ tall. The Eye of the Deep is blown away and begins taking damage. The ships, tree, and building begin tearing down, and the big tree/ship construct is shaking. Pirates are picked up and flown about, as are the 4 Yuan-ti assassins. Suddenly, a large, 2-headed, 12-armed half-Yuan-ti half-demon thing appears next to Jakara and hits him with a Vile gaze, for 2 points of Charisma damage. Jakara is able to escape it and begins flying toward the Blue Nixie, keeping the tornado around himself, and also over the cove, doing quite a bit of damage. He leaves it over the cove and returns to the ship, joining Annie back there, as well. Its our intention to sail a little closer, then Solaral will D-door over with half the party, to the top of the tower, and Alobar will teleport with the remainder. We are tired of running away, we have a lot of buffs active, and the tornado is causing considerable confusion and damage to the cove and our enemies. For example, they can’t fire arrows or crossbow bolts or ballistae bolts at us, or fly through the winds towards us. Jakara can move the eye with a standard action, to keep us in it as we move about, or keep the bottom of the winds at just over head height, so anyone coming to us has to be at ground level. Mal, up in the crow’s nest, then notices something running towards up, over the water. It’s an abyssal retriever! 3 guesses as to who its after. Actually, this isn’t a bad thing, we are thinking. We can engage and destroy it out here, away from any other support it may have, and then continue attacking the cove. Thank the gods for chaotic enemies, who don’t work well together.
Session 56 – All Hands on Deck! - 11 Jun 2009 We have decided to run the ship in, and Jakara casts control winds with his bow, driving the ship toward the hidden base of the Crimson Fleet. About an hour out, we begin casting our long-term spells. Everyone has Hero’s Feast, and gets Darkvision and Resist Fire 30. Xanaphia casts Commune with Nature, and detects the layout of the channel and harbor, but something is blocking the middle of the channel. We decide to keep running it, and at the last moment, we will slow the ship down, fly off to an appropriate structure, and the crew will sail the ship away as quick as possible. It doesn’t quite work like that, unfortunately. As we are still about a half mile out, 10 bar-lguras teleport in, and Malaforte sees they each had an invisible Yuan-ti with them. The bar-lguras begin snatching, and the Yuan-ti immediately fly up above the ship, to about 90 feet. The bar-lguras manage to snatch (grab and teleport with) a sailor, Ugly Annie, and Jakara. 4 bar-lguras try to snatch and fail, teleporting away without their victims. 3 bar-lguras don’t have appropriate targets, and so don’t try. 4 of the Yuan-ti are sorcerers, and 2 shoot black beams (enervation spell) at Enias. One hits him, but he is immune to level drain. The other 2 sorcerers shoot enervations at Malaforte, and one hits him, but Mal’s ring of counterspells goes to work, but has now lost its greater dispel. Of course, all the sorcerers now turn visible. The other 6 Yuan-ti are assassins and they begin observing the rest of the crew and party, who can’t see them due to the invisibility. Alobar casts an empowered horrid wilting (91 hit points) and kills 3 of the 4 sorcerers, and 1 bar-lgura. 2 bar-lguras are hit, but make their saves, and take damage, but don’t die. Harliss maneuvers the boat to catch 2 of the 3 falling sorcerer bodies. Solaral moves and attacks a bar-lgura on the deck, hitting it while in a holy fury wild frenzy. Kundra shoots arrows at the remaining Yuan-ti sorcerer, who has mirror images up, and destroys 2 of the images. Enias uses his boots to haste himself and attacks two bar-lguras. He kills one with a critical hit from his large holy greatsword, and hits the second with a bite. We notice they have a pretty good DR, maybe 10 points, of good and cold iron, we think. A bar-lgura fails to snatch Enias. Xanaphia casts glitterdust, following Mal’s directions, but fails to get any of the invisible assassins above the ship. Father Seamus casts invisibility purge on himself, but its only 80 feet, so the assassins are still invisible. Mal blasts an assassin with his eldritch blast. The remaining sorcerer casts a lightning bolt and hits Malaforte. Alobar casts mirror image on himself. The assassins are still studying. Solaral activates her winged boots and runs to stand directly underneath the sorcerer, preparing to charge straight up, but not yet showing that she can fly. Kundra casts a fiery burst at the sorcerer, destroying its remaining images. Malaforte casts a chained frightful blast, hitting 3 of the assassins and “shaking” 2 of them. Father Seamus jaunts up to the crow’s nest, bringing the invisible assassins within range of his purge, ripping aside their protection, and ruining their studying of victims. FS also drinks a potion of fly. Xanaphia casts sound lance at the sorcerer, but fails to penetrate its SR. 6 bar-lguras pop in, each with a human thug, and 2 with Yuan-ti assassins also come in, but we don’t know from where. There is not enough room on the deck, and 1 thug falls in the water and is left behind as the ship keeps moving. The bar-lguras appear to be from the original 10, who had popped out in snatches or failed snatches. We believe the count is 4 Yuan-ti Sorcerers, 8 Yuan-ti Assassins, 6 human thugs, and 10 bar-lguras. 1 bar-lguras snatch sailors and disappear with them. Harliss gets in an AoO against one bar-lgura, and hits. Another bar-lgura tries to snatch another sailor, but fails. 1 bar-lgura hits Alobar with a claw. 1 bar-lgura tries to snatch Xan and fails. The human thugs breath fire (from elixir of fire breath) and injure the remaining sailor, who didn’t have resist fire 30. The thugs can’t hurt the party, though. The 2 new assassins pull out composite longbows and fire arrows at Kundra, hitting her once. The assassins had come in invisible, but Father Seamus’ purge had stripped them of it. The Yuan-ti sorcerer flies up to 90 feet, and hits Mal with another lightning bolt. Crap. Mal is really taking damage. We realized that every single enemy is hasted. Alobar casts another empowered horrid wilting (85 hit points) on 6 (the originals) of the 8 assassins. All fail their saves, and 1 dies and the remaining 5 are severely injured. Thank the gods for Fort saves, instead of Reflex! 1 assassin attacks Alobar, who hits it with an AoO and kills it! 2 more attack Alobar and hit 2 of his mirror images. 2 attack Father Seamus and both hit him. Kundra steals an “enervation” spell from the Sorcerer, with her spell their ability, also hitting it with an arrow for some damage. Sol moves to attack an assassin flanking Alobar, and misses! The sorcerer is now out of her charge range. Enias hits a bar-lgura three times, and kills it. He then swings and misses at a human thug. Mal does another chained frightful blast, killing the two assassins flanking Father Seamus, and injuring 1 of the assassins by Alobar. Xan tries a touch attack, clap of thunder, against a bar-lgura and misses. She then does a quick teleport (abrupt jaunt) into the cabin and out of the fight for the moment. Harliss hits 1 thug with her rapier. A bar-lgura snatches the remaining sailor. Now all 4 are gone! The 2 newer assassins continue to fire arrows at Kundra, and get 2 hits. 2 human thugs fire crossbows at Kundra but miss. 1 thug fires his crossbow at Solaral and misses. 1 thug fires his crossbow at Alobar and misses. The remaining thug swings his scimitar at Harliss and misses. Alobar does an ethereal jaunt into the cabin with Xan. The 2 assassins then attack Solaral, and miss. Ha! Solaral does a quick haste, and makes 9 attacks on an assassin, only hitting once – but she kills it!! Kundra casts her enervation at an assassin, but fails to penetrate its SR. Enias hits a bar-lgura with the sword and a bite, and bull rushes it off the deck of the ship. Mal casts a quickened blast and an acid blast at the sorcerer and misses both! Father Seamus casts a flamestrike on the sorcerer, and fails to penetrate the SR! This last sorcerer is proving surprisingly tough to kill. Xan opens the door of the cabin, and casts a thunderous roar at the sorcerer, who takes damage but is still alive. 5 more bar-lguras teleport in. 1 tries to snatch Sol and fails. 1 charges and pounces on Sol, but misses all of its attacks. Harliss hits a human thug twice with her rapier. 2 assassins throw beads of force at Solaral. She takes damage but makes the entrapment saves. Xan, however, standing nearby, is entrapped, as are two of the human thugs. All take damage. 1 assassin and 1 bar-lgura are nearby, take damage, and both die. Another bar-lgura takes damage, too. 2 human thugs shoot crossbows at Kundra and miss all the shots. 1 thug swings his scimitar at Harliss and hits her. The sorcerer casts another lightning bolt at Mal, who is now down to 8 hit points! Alobar does a targeted dispel on the force sphere holding Xan, destroying it. Sol attacks a bar-lgura, and kills it. Kundra does a sneak attack on the sorcerer with her bow, using sniper shot spell, but misses. Enias hits a bar-lgura, cowering and then killing it. Enias then kills a thug, pushing him into anther thug and knocking that thug down. Mal casts an acid (vitriolic) blast on the sorcerer, and finally kills it! Yeah!!! Mal then does a quickened maximized empowered frightful blast on an assassin, hitting it. Father Seamus casts heal on Malaforte. Xan casts babau slime on Solaral, to give her an acid sheath. A bar-lgura tries to snatch Enias and fails. Another bar-lgura pounces on Solaral, but misses her. Two assassins conduct flanking melee attacks on Sol, and get two hits. The knocked-down thug stands up, but is hit by Enias in an AoO. Another thug fires his crossbow at Solaral, but misses. Alobar casts magic missile on a bar-lgura, and kills it. Sol attacks the two assassins next to her, and kills 1 and wounds the second. Kundra fires an arrow at the assassin next to Solaral, and gets a critical hit, but its still alive. Enias hits a thug and kills him, then hits another twice, but this one is still alive. Mal hits an assassin with an acid blast, and a quickened empowered maximized frightful blast, and kills it. Father Seamus casts cure critical wounds on Solaral. The remaining free thug is quickly killed. 2 more thugs are still trapped in a force sphere, and will be quickly killed. It is the end of Round 7. What has happened to the 4 sailors, Jakara and Annie, who were snatched? Our Total Kills for this, so far:
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