We had a guest player today, Larry. He will be playing an Armiger, a veritable tank (down to the taunt), made all the tougher once we got this one rule figured out properly (for those that know what this means, AC 31).
Character summary: Background will be in the session summary. He himself is a former captain of the guard for his home village, and does his best to protect all around him. He also has quite the singing voice, along with a talent for comedy, which is used heavily to taunt the opposition into wasting their attacks on him. His fighting style is to outlast his opponents through a long and painful grind against two spike-covered shields that deflect even the mightiest of blows.
We also took a break at about 8pm to go watch a movie, then played until 1AM.
As the party travelled towards the northeast, Adam noticed that they were moving parallel to the remains of a road, which was expertly broken and scattered to only seem like it was disused for decades. This was curious, as both he and the arcanist knew of no city that existed in this direction for a road to be bothered to be built.
As they got closer, the air shimmered, and suddenly the peak of the nearest mountain of the range erupted in flame with an eye seeming to open out of it. There lay a half-abandoned mining town at the base of the mountain, with armed troops patrolling, and giant floating eyes scouting the perimeter of the town.
They also noticed a shack about five miles from the town, behind a hill and hidden amongst the plant growth. Sneaking closer, they find a lone warrior clad in heavy armor, bristling with spikes and sharpening his javelin. After a bit of uneasy parlay, they discover that this town is called Zorcin, a mining town that unearthed semiprecious stones and does basic metalwork of a notable style.
Upon hearing the name, they suddenly remember about this town and its trade with the crossroads back to the southwest. The stranger tells them that the entire land is enchanted so that none remember the town and its contents if outside the light of the eye atop the mountain. He then continued on and told them his tale.
Several months ago, a Pan Tangian arcanist came to down with demons under his power, slaughtering man and woman alike if they stood in his way as he entered the cavern complex. The arcanist himself had but a single eye, and wore a large hood. The demons bore many arms and wielded their bows with inhuman strength and accuracy. None dared to enter the mining area to try and save the kidnapped women until the next day, when suddenly he and three gorgons emerged, petrifying large portions of the town. None were able to halt his takeover, and a burning eye was erected shortly thereafter, eliminating all hope for salvation.
The captain of the guard, along with a few other fighters, managed to escape and gradually attempted to mount resistance against Oog-Suer (the cyclopian arcanist). Every attempt failed, losing more and more men with each attempt to the stare of the medusa or the shaft of the demon's arrows, or even the dark magicks of Oog-Suer himself. His head had slowly grown too large for a hood to cover, and his body withered and shriveled, until his head was four feet across and the body was a vestigial flap of flesh on the back as he floated about.
This was to be his last attempt at assaulting the town, when the party arrived and said they would in taking him down. They asked if there were any other entranced into the mines besides the front entrance, so that they could skip the guarded town and strike Oog-Suer alone. There were several sinkholes, but the armiger did not know the precise way of the tunnels of the mines and could not guide them himself.
The arcanist disguised the armiger and executioner as demons and they snuck into the town to find one of the enslaved miners to rescue and use as a guide into the mines themselves. However, the armiger got too long a glimpse of one of the gorgons and succumbed to her gaze, breaking their cover before even getting a prisoner out of chains.
Moving swiftly, the executioner killed the meduse where she stood and before the demon could even react. A floating eye moved overhead and unleashed a ray upon him, but was resisted, unlike the hail of arrows from the demon. The rest of the party, watching from afar (with the archer's recently purchased spyglass), saw that the cover was blown and began to charge in to rescue them.
To make a long story short, the party ended up hiding inside one of the buildings and barricading the doors. The demon was too powerful for them with its veritable hail of deadly arrows. They waited for what seemed forever as they bandaged themselves and waited for the inevitable assault.
Meanwhile, the armiger's petrified form was dragged into the mountain to the presence of Oog-Suer, who taunted him for his failure. He magically releashed him from his petrified state, removed his eye & stored it in a pendant. Strangely, the armiger was able to see out of his eye socket before an eye patch was applied and noticed that Oog-Suer was missing an eye in one of his eye stalks. Later, he would have the party check on him, and all they could see was an empty eye socket. The room was then enveloped in darkness and the armiger was wrapped up in bindings and felt weights hung on his sides.
Back outside, the party set up a coat rack to look like a person if not scrutinized too much and shoved it out the door. Moving out after the dummy was instantly blasted with nine arrows and an energy ray from one of the eye golems, they began to attack the demon with its two medusa assistants. the arcanist unleashed the illusion of a more skilled version of the executioner, imbuing it with a sliver of reality so that its strikes would actually do some damage.
After a heated battle, they killed their opponents, freed most of the town, and began to creep their way into the lair of Oog-Suer. Once they got into his central chamber, the arcanist created a light demon for illumination, while Oog-Suer floated behind two demons.
As an aside, Ino had so far been sizzled by an eye golem, petrified, and trapped in a collapsing tunnel.
The archer saw something fishy with one of the demons and told the rest of the party focus on the other first. Fortunately, the armiger disguised as an immobile demon managed to finally break from his bonds (tearing some muscles along the way), and wasn't shot by the party. What followed was quite the brawl as the demon unleashed volley after voley of arrows and Oog-Suer lit up like a disco ball with various rays of death. Eventually, they persevered and overcame what proved to be their most powerful foes yet.
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