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terryclothToday was another episode of my Tuesday D+D game that won't... quite... die. It came even closer tonight, egged on by what is, in retrospect, a series of poorly planned encounters, as well as technical difficulties.
So, the party had been tasked with retrieving the spell components that the mages hiding in the anti-chaos bathysphere needed to complete the enchantment from the locked, antimagicked rooms on the third floor of the tower whose roof they were attached to.
Since Vashti was unhealthily obsessed with the storm, and Slee was despondent over his nearly killed companion, it was Loren, May, and Abbey who went out to find said components. Loren, at least, had spells again, having successfully contacted Ogma at last. [read: his new player rebuilt him from scratch, and didn't choose to worship make-your-own-demigod]
So Abbey was sent out to scout, flying and invisible. She landed on the correct landing, and unlocked the antimagic door, and stared right into the face of a pseudo-dragon, which screeched at her and fled deeper inside the tower.
Unwilling to venture into the antimagic zone to, you know, do her job, Abbey instead decided to prowl around the rest of the tower, until she set off a massive explosions, alerting all the chaos beasts in the vicinity to her presence, at which point she fled back to the sphere and reported nothing useful.
But the door was open, so off they went. Spotting pseudo-dragons fleeing through a hole chewed into the door to one of the magic component storage rooms, they decided to open THAT door. Inside was a ransacked storage room, and three pseudo-dragons, which flew around the party's heads, screeching and hissing at them, but not attacking.
This spooked May, who fled out of the antimagic zone. His pseudo-dragon followed him... and exploded, nearly killing him. The other psuedo-dragons assumed the party had attacked, and fought back ineffectually, but the party was likewise ineffective against them, although they were eventually driven off after slight injuries were inflicted on both sides.
During the battle, May tried to pick off a helpless chaos beast sitting on a landing where it had had to stop while chasing Abbey, but it managed to get out of sight before being fried by fireballs.
While collecting other components, however, the party did spot that the park at the bottom of the central shaft of the tower was full of not only chaos beasts, but empty sets of clothing -- had the partygoers been transformed? Was that where all the chaos beasts came from?
But as they brought up the last load -- save for the batwings which had all been eaten, and the tar needed to affix the 200 pounds of silver dust to the outside of the sphere -- they were met by a gruesome sight: Slee, their lizard friend, lying in a pool of his own blood, bleeding to death. Loren rushed up to heal him... and the insane cleric of chaos attacked!
Loren was filled with fright, and immediately fled to the entrance of the sphere and opened it, revealing a chaos storm in progress. May tried to help him, but his dispel magic failed, and Abbey opened the door revealing the enemy.
Then the cleric activated his 'Control Winds' spell, tossing Abbey out the door and, in fact, completely off the top of the tower -- not so much of a problem as it might sound, as she still had a Fly spell up, but more than it might sound as this left her out in the middle of a chaos storm. May and Loren managed to keep a grip on the edge of the door out of the sphere, and Loren dragged it closed, but not before the storm had wreaked some havoc, although no one was seriously hurt by it.
Then the cleric used a flamestrike, downing Loren and severely wounding May. May grabbed Loren and fled, but there was nowhere to run, and with a single punch the cleric finished him off.
Abbey, who'd taken shelter from the storm in the anti-magic zone, returned to the sphere after the storm to find it deserted, save for Slee's dead body (it looked like he'd been accidentally killed by the hurricane-force winds, having already been seriously weakened) and the sleeping wizards. Once awakened, the wizards pointed Abbey towards the nearby temple of Chaos, and one of them offered to show her the way.
So, Abbey snuck up behind the cleric, who stood on the roof of the temple chanting over the unconscious forms of Loren and May, and stabbed him repeatedly in the back, failing to hurt him much. A flamestrike and a dispel magic hurt Abbey and prevented her from fleeing, and she was forced to surrender and stand near her friends, although she managed to convince the cleric to allow her to keep most of her items.
So the cleric took out his scroll of plane-shift, prepared to send the party to Hell... and May woke up enough to whisper the words to Teleport and whisk them all back to the Isle of the Gods, where the Tximisti harvested sheep. Although not today.
The young, naive replacement priest at the village there was happy to heal the seriously wounded Loren, but estimated that it would take him weeks to heal all their wounds with his limited powers... so they thanked him, walked around the corner, and teleported back to the sphere.
It had been about an hour and a half since the first attack, though, since May's teleport spot was a distance from the village, and they'd had to walk in, since spellcasting was illegal. They retrieved the items they'd left hidden in the bathysphere before going out for components, which included a wand of cure light wounds, and heald up and buffed up to take the cleric on once more.
With surprise (and buffs) on their side this time, they managed to take him down, although he got off a flamestrike and nearly killed Abbey. They then searched the rest of the Chaos temple until they found the wizard that Abbey had brought with her, sitting terrified in the temple dungeon across the hall from a caged demon, which tried to Fear them, but failed because they had had the foresight to protect themselves from chaos. Then they joined hands with each other and the mage and teleported back to the sphere.
Oh, before finding the wizard they finally fought an actual chaos beast, which injured Abbey but failed to transform her, hiding in a small hidden compartment in the wall, which proved to be MUCH MUCH larger inside than outside. Loren had True Sight up, and saw that the chaos beasts were indeed transformed people, although May's dispel magic failed to change them back.
But anyway, they still have some components to retrieve, but hopefully the threats are gone, so the rest should be routine. The wizards warned May against teleporting through the chaos mist -- apparently if it were to go wrong in the mist, it would go VERY VERY wrong, in the 'no one has ever been seen or heard from again' sense.
last session next session
Halfway through the session -- just before the first fight against the cleric -- Luis lost his voice connection and had to drop out for the night. It was very hard not to kill Abbey with Ed running her.
So, the party had been tasked with retrieving the spell components that the mages hiding in the anti-chaos bathysphere needed to complete the enchantment from the locked, antimagicked rooms on the third floor of the tower whose roof they were attached to.
Since Vashti was unhealthily obsessed with the storm, and Slee was despondent over his nearly killed companion, it was Loren, May, and Abbey who went out to find said components. Loren, at least, had spells again, having successfully contacted Ogma at last. [read: his new player rebuilt him from scratch, and didn't choose to worship make-your-own-demigod]
So Abbey was sent out to scout, flying and invisible. She landed on the correct landing, and unlocked the antimagic door, and stared right into the face of a pseudo-dragon, which screeched at her and fled deeper inside the tower.
Unwilling to venture into the antimagic zone to, you know, do her job, Abbey instead decided to prowl around the rest of the tower, until she set off a massive explosions, alerting all the chaos beasts in the vicinity to her presence, at which point she fled back to the sphere and reported nothing useful.
But the door was open, so off they went. Spotting pseudo-dragons fleeing through a hole chewed into the door to one of the magic component storage rooms, they decided to open THAT door. Inside was a ransacked storage room, and three pseudo-dragons, which flew around the party's heads, screeching and hissing at them, but not attacking.
This spooked May, who fled out of the antimagic zone. His pseudo-dragon followed him... and exploded, nearly killing him. The other psuedo-dragons assumed the party had attacked, and fought back ineffectually, but the party was likewise ineffective against them, although they were eventually driven off after slight injuries were inflicted on both sides.
During the battle, May tried to pick off a helpless chaos beast sitting on a landing where it had had to stop while chasing Abbey, but it managed to get out of sight before being fried by fireballs.
While collecting other components, however, the party did spot that the park at the bottom of the central shaft of the tower was full of not only chaos beasts, but empty sets of clothing -- had the partygoers been transformed? Was that where all the chaos beasts came from?
But as they brought up the last load -- save for the batwings which had all been eaten, and the tar needed to affix the 200 pounds of silver dust to the outside of the sphere -- they were met by a gruesome sight: Slee, their lizard friend, lying in a pool of his own blood, bleeding to death. Loren rushed up to heal him... and the insane cleric of chaos attacked!
Loren was filled with fright, and immediately fled to the entrance of the sphere and opened it, revealing a chaos storm in progress. May tried to help him, but his dispel magic failed, and Abbey opened the door revealing the enemy.
Then the cleric activated his 'Control Winds' spell, tossing Abbey out the door and, in fact, completely off the top of the tower -- not so much of a problem as it might sound, as she still had a Fly spell up, but more than it might sound as this left her out in the middle of a chaos storm. May and Loren managed to keep a grip on the edge of the door out of the sphere, and Loren dragged it closed, but not before the storm had wreaked some havoc, although no one was seriously hurt by it.
Then the cleric used a flamestrike, downing Loren and severely wounding May. May grabbed Loren and fled, but there was nowhere to run, and with a single punch the cleric finished him off.
Abbey, who'd taken shelter from the storm in the anti-magic zone, returned to the sphere after the storm to find it deserted, save for Slee's dead body (it looked like he'd been accidentally killed by the hurricane-force winds, having already been seriously weakened) and the sleeping wizards. Once awakened, the wizards pointed Abbey towards the nearby temple of Chaos, and one of them offered to show her the way.
So, Abbey snuck up behind the cleric, who stood on the roof of the temple chanting over the unconscious forms of Loren and May, and stabbed him repeatedly in the back, failing to hurt him much. A flamestrike and a dispel magic hurt Abbey and prevented her from fleeing, and she was forced to surrender and stand near her friends, although she managed to convince the cleric to allow her to keep most of her items.
So the cleric took out his scroll of plane-shift, prepared to send the party to Hell... and May woke up enough to whisper the words to Teleport and whisk them all back to the Isle of the Gods, where the Tximisti harvested sheep. Although not today.
The young, naive replacement priest at the village there was happy to heal the seriously wounded Loren, but estimated that it would take him weeks to heal all their wounds with his limited powers... so they thanked him, walked around the corner, and teleported back to the sphere.
It had been about an hour and a half since the first attack, though, since May's teleport spot was a distance from the village, and they'd had to walk in, since spellcasting was illegal. They retrieved the items they'd left hidden in the bathysphere before going out for components, which included a wand of cure light wounds, and heald up and buffed up to take the cleric on once more.
With surprise (and buffs) on their side this time, they managed to take him down, although he got off a flamestrike and nearly killed Abbey. They then searched the rest of the Chaos temple until they found the wizard that Abbey had brought with her, sitting terrified in the temple dungeon across the hall from a caged demon, which tried to Fear them, but failed because they had had the foresight to protect themselves from chaos. Then they joined hands with each other and the mage and teleported back to the sphere.
Oh, before finding the wizard they finally fought an actual chaos beast, which injured Abbey but failed to transform her, hiding in a small hidden compartment in the wall, which proved to be MUCH MUCH larger inside than outside. Loren had True Sight up, and saw that the chaos beasts were indeed transformed people, although May's dispel magic failed to change them back.
But anyway, they still have some components to retrieve, but hopefully the threats are gone, so the rest should be routine. The wizards warned May against teleporting through the chaos mist -- apparently if it were to go wrong in the mist, it would go VERY VERY wrong, in the 'no one has ever been seen or heard from again' sense.
last session next session
Halfway through the session -- just before the first fight against the cleric -- Luis lost his voice connection and had to drop out for the night. It was very hard not to kill Abbey with Ed running her.
