Good game here, though technically a bit long on the exposition and short on the interactive scenes, but this is where we closed a plot hook I gave the party on the first session. I need to give Pat's character, Kagemane, more opportunity to shine since he's actually been a bit short on the offense due to circumstance. Jon's arcanist is getting downright intimidating now that his cursed rolling seems to have left him. Oh, and I finally had a chance to give each player a unique magic item to call their own.
Kagemane and Flynn begin their trek to the opposite side of the city, bringing most of their camp with them just in case they need to leave quickly. As they travel, Flynn notices that the non-ruined part of the city has disappeared from view and realizes that the ruins are entangled in a jungle oasis. He doesn't consider this exceedingly out of the ordinary, and continues to follow Kagemane (who appears to be expertly striding around the trees and the like without worry). Eventually, they find the rest of the party, at which point Flynn comments as to whether they should be worried about the sound of drums he's hearing.
No other party member seems to be able to hear the drums surrounding the party, but they trust Flynn's word and everyone except Antric disappear behind cover. The drumming gets closer, followed by a nine-foot hulking frog man with a goblin sitting on his back, using a pair of drums in a pattern for war. The creature swipes at Flynn, where the rest of the party only sees Flynn leaping from his hiding place with wounds appearing ex nihilo. As he tries to fight, Audrius figures out that he's deeply embedded in a glamer, and creates another glamer in his mind of an ally similar to that of Jorn. Because this illusion is in the mind of Flynn, it is able to interact with the illusion of the slaad (frog man). A few more passes in combat, and the illusion is vanquished, with one of the goblin's drums actually fading into reality while the rest of the illusion is disbelieved away so that Flynn realizes it's just a sand covered ruin.
They gather their wits and descend into the dungeon, with Audrius having taken note of which passages he saw the original sorcerer adventurer take as the safest route. A couple traps are bypassed, a particularly vicious trap is dealt with that has the walls violently slam together. Shortly, they enter the chamber with the large dragon bleeding into the well, and contemplate the manner in which to free it. Remembering the favor the Melnibonean asked of them what seemed like so long ago, they activated the feather and sent a message stating that they found the source of Ino's bindings.
This conversation is interrupted by Ino, who had started to develop wrinkles and several streaks of white hair, who suddenly reverted to her child form. A sorcerer adventurer holding a gilded & runed amulet enters the room from one of the doors and thanks the group for bringing 'their' property back, and now they only need to have her original binding sigil. Flynn bluffs him, holding a piece of random paper and bolts down the hallway they came from.
The leader orders two of his spider adventurers to chase him and offers a cart full of gold and gems to the rest of the party if they help. Jorn lies and goes after Flynn, pulling out his bow to help kill the two sorcerer adventurers out of sight. It's only a few moments for Kagemane, waiting for an open moment after Jorn leaves, before he's charing at the leader with his weapon drawn. Expecting this, a wall of energy was formed around Kagemane, and called forth two more adventurers from the shadows to attack. These assassins horribly wound both Antric and Audrius, especially when the leader pulls out another spell and mind controls Antric.
In a desperation move, Audrius pulls out a massive enchantment spell and mind controls both assassins and Antric, then sends them at the leading arcanist. The arcanist pulls out the stops and hurls two bolts of power, one at Audrius and another at Antric, though the one at Audrius misses (would've killed him otherwise). The assassins converge, and Kagemane cuts his way out of the cage of energy (Tool of the Mender strikes again!).
Meanwhile, Flynn remembered the crushing wall trap, & rearms it as he runs by. He taunts the chasing sorcerer adventurers into walking without caution, and the two are grievously injured by the crushing walls; then finished off by Flynn who flips over their head and strikes them both in the back. Jorn takes this as a sign Flynn is fine by himself, and sprints back down the hallway just in time to slaughter the arcane leader of the Brotherhood of the Spider.
As they catch their breath and deal with the two mind-controlled sorcerer adventurers, the party takes note that several of the warding sigils inside the cavern are glowing hot enough to start making the surrounding rock itself glow. Audrius and Flynn pool their collective knowledge of sigils to safely remove the anti-teleportation wards, and the Melnibonean arcanist.
He thanks the party for showing what happened, gives them a talisman to break the scapegoat spell, and offers to take the innocence demon under his ward to help heal her wounds. The party agrees, and are thankfully warned that they should leave the presence of the dragon within half an hour, because there will be two millenia of continual mortal wounds applied all at once back to the dragon (read: BOOM). He wishes the party luck in the upcoming shield contest, and takes his leave with Ino.
The dragon thanks the party for freeing him once he regains consciousness, bestows a magical shield of ice to Antric and water that can be formed & reformed into steel-hard ice, which Flynn plans on using for upgrading his clockwork golem.
With this, the party tells the dragon good luck on his travels, and high tails it out of the dungeon and away from Quarzhasaat as fast as possible. There is a purplish explosion that sets their teeth on edge twenty minutes later, and any chance of pursuit is destroyed in that blast.
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