Boss Monsters
Aug. 26th, 2003 12:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothTonight was my D+D game, where the party cleansed the village, located (but didn't yet retrieve) the knowledge Oghma had asked for, and acquired the dragon's tooth they needed to get (Abbey, May and Conner) home. They're almost there.
The party carefully crept into the basement, and spotted what looked like an ancient battlefield, where wizards had fought golems, and neither side won. Abbey silently snuck in to examine the bodies, and found that the wizards all had identical amulets. Erdann flew in as an owl to cast detect magic, but the soft screech that cast the spell awoke the shrapnyls and guttersnipes, who attacked.
Erdann the owl ended up getting wrapped, but was immune to their control (being a plant). May's last two fireballs for the day took out most of the enemies, and the rest were easily dealt with.
However, at the end of the corridor was the flickering light that the party recognized as coming from one of the glowing pillars that usually had Glyphs on them, so they decided to teleport back to the village to clean out the Elder's books (since they knew how to search for the Information Elementals safely now, using mirrors) and rest the night before pressing on.
May missed his teleport and dumped his half of the party in the water just offshore. Samrat, despite having the lightest load, proved the worst swimmer, and had to be rescused by the flying May. Abbey and Tisarin were able to swim to shore just fine. They were on the correct edge of the demon-infested island, so it wasn't too much trouble to ferry them across the straight to the human village.
Finally, they could start the cleansing. For safety, they decided to conduct the cleansing operation entirely within the rope trick they'd stored the books in. Four wizards from the village (one of whom had come in the bathysphere with the party) and May and Erdann crowded into the already partially full rope trick and, using mirrors, began to search for elementals.
Sure enough, they found many blank books (although only about 10%) and four elementals, one of which was obviously larger than the others, which they figured were its kids. They started burning the books, then using magic missiles to destroy the elementals when they took incorporeal form to look for another hiding place. There were some complications (one of the village wizards forgot not to look at the book when they opened it to coax the elemental out, and it possessed him briefly) but in short order the infestation was cleansed and most of the Elder's library was saved.
The next day, they were able to use Fly and Wind Walk spells to swiftly swoop over the island and to the library directly, avoiding the demons and ragomoffyns. As far as they could tell, everything was still as they'd left it, and assuming none of the Information Elementals left while the door was open (they'd closed it behind them when they left, but left it open while they explored inside) the infestation was still contained.
So, returning to the basement, inspection around the glowing corner revealed a really, really big Glyph on another flickering pillar, four stone golems standing guard over a very large door, and a golem assembly area in the back. Carefully not looking at the giant glyph, they discovered that these golems were wiped too, and didn't respond to their presence or actions.
Then Abbey, who'd been examining the large panel next to the door, discovered that it was already unlocked, and hit the button to open it. This awoke the really big elemental, which swooped into the newly exposed room, doubtless with nefarious intentions.
The party followed it in, awakening the four stone golems that stood guard over the lift that would lower them to the floor forty feet below. The elemental was in the process of merging with one of the two very very large glowing pillars -- both of which were showing images and texts rather than random chaotic nothing -- and a gem too bright to look at projected similar, shifting images on the walls and ceiling and floor. There was also a large prismatic sphere, and glowing trails that seemed to indicate that all these elements were linked.
May and Conner flew into the room and assaulted the elemental with spells. Tesarin ran in and tried to shoot it, but it was incorporeal and his arrows didn't manage to catch on its lack of substance. Abbey and May and Samrat and Erdann ran onto the platform as well, but didn't really have anything to affect the elemental from a distance.
They'd put themselves in a wonderful position to be pummeled by the golems, though. These golems hadn't been wiped, and executed their program to destroy the intruders. Samrat and Tesarin escaped certain death by leaping from the lift while it was still 30 feet up, while Abbey and Erdann and his wolf, with Conner's help, fought a deadly battle with the golems. Erdann and Abbey were very lucky in their avoidance of the swinging stone fists, and Erdann and his wolf between them reduced the first golem to rubble in seconds.
May tried to fireball the elemental while it was in glyph form (in which it did NOT attempt to possess anyone, as it was busy eating the pillar) and succeeded in shattering the fragile pillar, forcing the glyph to take physical form again, where it was... well, not an easy target, but a target. It was destroyed before it could drain the second pillar.
That left some cleanup against the golems, but May kept putting 'fly' spells on anyone who was really hurt so that they could fly up out of reach, and eventually all four golems were rubble.
Conner told the party that he was pretty sure the bright gem was the source of knowledge that his god had asked for, but the rest of the party convinced him not to remove it just yet, in case it was the power source for the prismatic sphere that shielded the isles from the chaos mists. Once they had the dragon's tooth tuning fork they needed to get home, it would be time to fiddle around with removing obvious power sources.
There was a well locked door leading out of the crystal chamber vault and into a series of abandoned laboratories. An iron golem guarded the hallway against intruders, but NOW the party figured out that the amulets would prevent the golems from attacking, and put them on. Abbey searched the many labs, and found a couple magic items and some valuables. And a very large salamander... who didn't see her, as she was invisible.
The rest of the party came to talk to the salamander, which claimed that it was a servant of Lord Yaka, from the palace, and demanded to know what the party was doing. Things were tense but not violent, until it demanded tribute, and Abbey and Samrat decided that enough was enough, and skewered it over and over with well-placed rapier and dagger strikes in the back, until it was dead.
The party continued down the very long passageway, until they ran into the dead salamander's servants, who'd been guarding the passageway against people coming from the other direction. They were handily dispatched after inquiring about the status of their master. One wasn't killed outright, and Samrat fed it to his shadow while the rest of the party was around the corner dealing with the salamanders who'd tried to run.
At the end of the tunnel was a secret door, concealed behind an illusionary wall, leading to a narrow, hidden path leading up the wall of a volcanic crater in which floated a massive 500-foot tower: The palace. May flew around invisibly to scout, and discovered a platform with a teleport circle extending over the edge of the crater (but still not touching the palace) guarded by six salamanders and two gargantuan skeletal dragons -- more than large enough to provide the tooth they needed, assuming they were red dragons, which they were, according to the dragon's diary they'd read.
The party rested the night in a rope trick in one of the abandoned labs, and plotted a daring high-speed assault. With all the buffs they could stand in place, Conner and May would fly in, invisible, and Heal and Magic Missile one of the skeletal dragons, break off a tooth if the skeleton didn't fall apart into small enough pieces, and teleport away.
It almost worked, except that an invisibility purge effect on the platform revealed them a little sooner than they'd hoped, and while Conner still managed to destroy one of the skeletons with Heal and a mace whack, as planned, the other skeleton and the salamanders reacted before May -- dispelling most of the assault team's buff spells and bull-rushing the now non-flying wizard off the edge.
May, being a sorcerer, had another Fly where his last had come from, and the fall was long enough (almost 400 feet) that he had time to cast it before impact. He swooped up to Conner, who, having survived the guards' initial attacks relatively unscathed, considering, touched him and teleported, along with the lower jaw of the destroyed skeletal dragon. Mission accomplished.
Erdann, from earlier studies of the pictures projected from the crystal in the vault under the library, told the party that it was likely that the libary crystal didn't actually power the big prismatic shield -- there was another crystal in the palace, and that was probably the *true* power source for everything on the island. Still, they didn't want to take that risk before they were as ready as possible, which meant getting the tooth made into a tuning fork first.
last week next week
I think everyone had fun tonight. The swoop in battle I thought went particularly well, as it went badly enough not to be trivial without actually failing. The fight against the stone golems was pretty scary -- I'd expected them to figure out the amulets pretty much instantly and never fight that fight, so as a punishment it was a little harder than I usually set against them. Which ended up making it just about right as a 'boss fight' combined with stopping the elemental.
When I got home, I was spooked beyond all reason by a strange light from my bedroom, which turned out to be the Blue Screen of Death. My old 98 machine has had a few too many things installed and uninstalled, and sometimes forgets how to shut down properly, and sometimes I don't notice. I don't know why it was such a creepy thing to come home to, though.
The party carefully crept into the basement, and spotted what looked like an ancient battlefield, where wizards had fought golems, and neither side won. Abbey silently snuck in to examine the bodies, and found that the wizards all had identical amulets. Erdann flew in as an owl to cast detect magic, but the soft screech that cast the spell awoke the shrapnyls and guttersnipes, who attacked.
Erdann the owl ended up getting wrapped, but was immune to their control (being a plant). May's last two fireballs for the day took out most of the enemies, and the rest were easily dealt with.
However, at the end of the corridor was the flickering light that the party recognized as coming from one of the glowing pillars that usually had Glyphs on them, so they decided to teleport back to the village to clean out the Elder's books (since they knew how to search for the Information Elementals safely now, using mirrors) and rest the night before pressing on.
May missed his teleport and dumped his half of the party in the water just offshore. Samrat, despite having the lightest load, proved the worst swimmer, and had to be rescused by the flying May. Abbey and Tisarin were able to swim to shore just fine. They were on the correct edge of the demon-infested island, so it wasn't too much trouble to ferry them across the straight to the human village.
Finally, they could start the cleansing. For safety, they decided to conduct the cleansing operation entirely within the rope trick they'd stored the books in. Four wizards from the village (one of whom had come in the bathysphere with the party) and May and Erdann crowded into the already partially full rope trick and, using mirrors, began to search for elementals.
Sure enough, they found many blank books (although only about 10%) and four elementals, one of which was obviously larger than the others, which they figured were its kids. They started burning the books, then using magic missiles to destroy the elementals when they took incorporeal form to look for another hiding place. There were some complications (one of the village wizards forgot not to look at the book when they opened it to coax the elemental out, and it possessed him briefly) but in short order the infestation was cleansed and most of the Elder's library was saved.
The next day, they were able to use Fly and Wind Walk spells to swiftly swoop over the island and to the library directly, avoiding the demons and ragomoffyns. As far as they could tell, everything was still as they'd left it, and assuming none of the Information Elementals left while the door was open (they'd closed it behind them when they left, but left it open while they explored inside) the infestation was still contained.
So, returning to the basement, inspection around the glowing corner revealed a really, really big Glyph on another flickering pillar, four stone golems standing guard over a very large door, and a golem assembly area in the back. Carefully not looking at the giant glyph, they discovered that these golems were wiped too, and didn't respond to their presence or actions.
Then Abbey, who'd been examining the large panel next to the door, discovered that it was already unlocked, and hit the button to open it. This awoke the really big elemental, which swooped into the newly exposed room, doubtless with nefarious intentions.
The party followed it in, awakening the four stone golems that stood guard over the lift that would lower them to the floor forty feet below. The elemental was in the process of merging with one of the two very very large glowing pillars -- both of which were showing images and texts rather than random chaotic nothing -- and a gem too bright to look at projected similar, shifting images on the walls and ceiling and floor. There was also a large prismatic sphere, and glowing trails that seemed to indicate that all these elements were linked.
May and Conner flew into the room and assaulted the elemental with spells. Tesarin ran in and tried to shoot it, but it was incorporeal and his arrows didn't manage to catch on its lack of substance. Abbey and May and Samrat and Erdann ran onto the platform as well, but didn't really have anything to affect the elemental from a distance.
They'd put themselves in a wonderful position to be pummeled by the golems, though. These golems hadn't been wiped, and executed their program to destroy the intruders. Samrat and Tesarin escaped certain death by leaping from the lift while it was still 30 feet up, while Abbey and Erdann and his wolf, with Conner's help, fought a deadly battle with the golems. Erdann and Abbey were very lucky in their avoidance of the swinging stone fists, and Erdann and his wolf between them reduced the first golem to rubble in seconds.
May tried to fireball the elemental while it was in glyph form (in which it did NOT attempt to possess anyone, as it was busy eating the pillar) and succeeded in shattering the fragile pillar, forcing the glyph to take physical form again, where it was... well, not an easy target, but a target. It was destroyed before it could drain the second pillar.
That left some cleanup against the golems, but May kept putting 'fly' spells on anyone who was really hurt so that they could fly up out of reach, and eventually all four golems were rubble.
Conner told the party that he was pretty sure the bright gem was the source of knowledge that his god had asked for, but the rest of the party convinced him not to remove it just yet, in case it was the power source for the prismatic sphere that shielded the isles from the chaos mists. Once they had the dragon's tooth tuning fork they needed to get home, it would be time to fiddle around with removing obvious power sources.
There was a well locked door leading out of the crystal chamber vault and into a series of abandoned laboratories. An iron golem guarded the hallway against intruders, but NOW the party figured out that the amulets would prevent the golems from attacking, and put them on. Abbey searched the many labs, and found a couple magic items and some valuables. And a very large salamander... who didn't see her, as she was invisible.
The rest of the party came to talk to the salamander, which claimed that it was a servant of Lord Yaka, from the palace, and demanded to know what the party was doing. Things were tense but not violent, until it demanded tribute, and Abbey and Samrat decided that enough was enough, and skewered it over and over with well-placed rapier and dagger strikes in the back, until it was dead.
The party continued down the very long passageway, until they ran into the dead salamander's servants, who'd been guarding the passageway against people coming from the other direction. They were handily dispatched after inquiring about the status of their master. One wasn't killed outright, and Samrat fed it to his shadow while the rest of the party was around the corner dealing with the salamanders who'd tried to run.
At the end of the tunnel was a secret door, concealed behind an illusionary wall, leading to a narrow, hidden path leading up the wall of a volcanic crater in which floated a massive 500-foot tower: The palace. May flew around invisibly to scout, and discovered a platform with a teleport circle extending over the edge of the crater (but still not touching the palace) guarded by six salamanders and two gargantuan skeletal dragons -- more than large enough to provide the tooth they needed, assuming they were red dragons, which they were, according to the dragon's diary they'd read.
The party rested the night in a rope trick in one of the abandoned labs, and plotted a daring high-speed assault. With all the buffs they could stand in place, Conner and May would fly in, invisible, and Heal and Magic Missile one of the skeletal dragons, break off a tooth if the skeleton didn't fall apart into small enough pieces, and teleport away.
It almost worked, except that an invisibility purge effect on the platform revealed them a little sooner than they'd hoped, and while Conner still managed to destroy one of the skeletons with Heal and a mace whack, as planned, the other skeleton and the salamanders reacted before May -- dispelling most of the assault team's buff spells and bull-rushing the now non-flying wizard off the edge.
May, being a sorcerer, had another Fly where his last had come from, and the fall was long enough (almost 400 feet) that he had time to cast it before impact. He swooped up to Conner, who, having survived the guards' initial attacks relatively unscathed, considering, touched him and teleported, along with the lower jaw of the destroyed skeletal dragon. Mission accomplished.
Erdann, from earlier studies of the pictures projected from the crystal in the vault under the library, told the party that it was likely that the libary crystal didn't actually power the big prismatic shield -- there was another crystal in the palace, and that was probably the *true* power source for everything on the island. Still, they didn't want to take that risk before they were as ready as possible, which meant getting the tooth made into a tuning fork first.
last week next week
I think everyone had fun tonight. The swoop in battle I thought went particularly well, as it went badly enough not to be trivial without actually failing. The fight against the stone golems was pretty scary -- I'd expected them to figure out the amulets pretty much instantly and never fight that fight, so as a punishment it was a little harder than I usually set against them. Which ended up making it just about right as a 'boss fight' combined with stopping the elemental.
When I got home, I was spooked beyond all reason by a strange light from my bedroom, which turned out to be the Blue Screen of Death. My old 98 machine has had a few too many things installed and uninstalled, and sometimes forgets how to shut down properly, and sometimes I don't notice. I don't know why it was such a creepy thing to come home to, though.
