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Tonight's session was the final installment of the Champion's Belt.
Last session, the party defeated Bozal. The problem was, they defeated him so quickly with two successive Orbs of Force that Bozal did not have an opportunity to release the Ulgurstasta...
This session - the party did not resume trying to break the stasis field around the Apostolic Scroll. While there seemed to be a general acceptance that the "Great Worm within the bubble" would probably burst out during the final combat, the party did not appreciate how dire that event might prove to be.
So instead the party turned its efforts towards beating Pitch Blade, the Froghemoth and Auric's Warband. The Froghemoth proved to be very nasty - but was ultimately pasted by the party .
So when the fight against Auric's Warband unfolded, I had Loris Raknian's henchman (who I will not name here as my players may read this passage and his identity must remain a secret) release the Ulgurstasta with a Rod of Cancellation during the fight.
The worm burst out in to the arena on Round Three (after the Arena began to shake and rumble in Round 2) and Raknian then gave his speech, pointing the Apostle to Auric as "The Champion".
I shall not give the blow by blows. Suffice to say that Auric was soon thereafter grappled - but a PC rolled on behalf of Auric to resist the grapple check and rolled a 20.
Disaster averted... for the moment.
The next round for the Ulgurstasta, it bit Auric twice and easily grappled.
As fate would have it though - this proved to be the Apostle's undoing. The damage from the bites and the whipping tendrils actually dropped Auric into the negs and he was dying.
So there Auric was, unconscious and dying in the maw of the beast with his legs sticking out betwixt its foul teeth: Auric - and the City of Greyhawk - were teetering on the very edge of disaster. The PCs had but one round to act to prevent it...
As it turned out - it was the key fact that Auric was unconscious and dying that saved the City of Greyhawk and prevented the Apostle of Kyuss from completing the prophecy.
To save Auric, the party's Psychic Warrior (enlarged to Huge form) stepped towards the worm and touched Auric and Dimension doored away - taking Auric from the mouth of the beast as he was just about to be swallowed.
Because Auric was in the negs and unconscious - he was a willing target. He was, therefore, successfully dimension doored to the other side of the Arena without having to make a Will save. The Ulgurstasta was about to swallow him on initiative 19. The PC who saved him was at initiative 22. It was a *very* close thing.
The party did enough damage to the Ulgurstasta over the next round to drop it. Auric, who was quickly healed back to consciousness, thanked the Psychic Warrior who saved him from death and surrendered the Champion's Belt to him with a flourish.
The Crowd roared its approval and the "Captain" of "Shockwave" (the Team's name) is enjoying his brief moment of fame in the City of Greyhawk as a hero of the common people.
I actually spent a fair bit of time last night working out what would happen if the Ulgurstasta succeeded in swallowing Auric - the chances of which I placed at about 50/50.
I went through my issue "0", Volume 1 copy of The Living Greyhawk Journal and decided that Jallazri from the Circle of Eight would be in attendance in a VIP box at the Arena.
Given the speed with which the Ulgurstasta attacked - it would not be immediately clear that what was happening was not part of the show, as it were. By the time Jallazri would realize that something was horribly wrong - it would be too late.
She would immediately go to fetch Otis (also from the Circle of Eight) and they would decide to act against the Ulgurstasta and the Wights (and save any surviving PCs) after a minute has passed when the Wights would begin to overrun the City of Greyhawk.
Jallazri and Otis would then coordinate the defence of the City - such as it could be against the Wights. A considerable amount of blame was to be heaped upon the PCs for this disaster and they would be expected to help clear important neighbourhoods within the City of the wight infestation. (This scenario was a variant of the earlier discussions here on what might happen if a potion of Cure Minor Wounds with a Kyuss worm in it was unwittingly permitted to fall into unsuspecting hands of commoners within the City.)
I even had a plan to have Iggwilv intervene/interfere during the wave of horror that would descend over the City, forcing the Circle of Eight to turn away from the threat posed by the Age of Worms to deal with the new War which appeared to be imminent (and thereby preserve some reason for the PCs to still be the focal point of the campaign against Kyuss.)
Celeste, on behalf of Tenser, would prevail upon the PCs to continue the fight against Kyuss while the Circle prepared to deal with Iggwilv and Iuz. Tenser would disagree with Mordenkainen over which was the real threat facing everyone. I planned to play up that distraction as being the reason Tenser could not act to assist the PCs more concretely as the campaign unfolds).
As it so happened - all of that "what if" disaster which threatened to derail my Age of Worms campaign was about one second away.
A near thing. A very near thing indeed...
I was fascinated by the possibility of the ulgurstasta getting away with completing the unholy ritual that would imperil the Free City of Greyhawk. It almost happened with our party as well.
Bozal released the Apostle of Kyuss with his last breath (i.e. he had, like, 3hp left, courtesy of one of those wormbound spells, and knew he was doomed). The party's diviner, who had seen the ulgurstasta via a lead pipe he crawled into in the pump room, put two and two together when they heard the loud crash of the Apostle struggling to burst into the arena. It was midnight, so no games were going on, but the party went to destroy the abomination, nevertheless.
I went with the supposition that if the ulgurstasta devoured any target with a level of fighter, it would invoke the ritual. Our party's fighter/wizard/spellsword sufficed. While our cleric tried to cast a touch spell that would remove its undead immunties (from Spell Compendium, I forget which one), she failed, and the spellsword benign transposed (also, Spell Comp.) to rescue her. The Apostle tried to grapple him not once, but twice, as he struggled to maintain.
While spells were being blasted at him, and he freed himself, out came the necromantic acid. Then, came more bite/grapples. Our spellsword eventually managed to deliver the final blow, by plunging his weapon into the roof of the mouth of the ulgurstasta, and tearing it open, like something out of God of War. This was one of my favorite fights in the whole campaign.
I'd like to say I planned for the possibility of Bozal Zahol's plans coming to fruition. It would have been fascinating--if not distracting to the overall AP, given that my PCs would've no doubt tried to save the Free City--but in the end, like many of the great story mechanics of the AP, life would still go on...maybe not for some, but for the PCs, at least.
I gotta say, if you liked the wide-open style of free exploration of this adventure like I did, Tito Leati brings that quality back in the last adventure, as well.