![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothTonight, even though I'm on vacation, I went in to work after work to run the D+D game. It went pretty well -- I combined encounters as much as was reasonable so that the fights were challenging, even though the party has leveled up quite a bit more than the module suggested they should.
So after fighting off the guardians on the other side of the grate, the party explored that level, and saw a wraithlike figure fly through the ceiling, in a room filled with mist, with an incorporeal fountain of ghostly light. They didn't chase after him, though, instead exploring the level they were on, verifying that the rest of it was empty.
Then they took the stairs up, made their saves against a symbol of discord, and opened a door to confront a pair of rotting dragon corpses. Animated rotting dragon corpses. And the wraithlike figure. All waiting for them.
Conner turned the black dragon corpse into a living squid right off, then Erdann and his bear ran into the room to attack the wraith. The wraith cast an empowered Horrid Wilting on them, then the other dragon corpse, this one a dracolich instead of a zombie, moved up to finish off the bear. May flew in and prismatic sprayed the pair, but it failed to accomplish anything.
Abbey ran in to try to help, just in time to get blinded by Erdann's Sunray, a followup to Conner using his other Heal on the dracolich. The fearsome skeletal beast was destroyed, and the wraith fled through the floor, after tossing off a finger of death an magic missile at the blinded Abbey, wounding her horribly but not killing her.
May went into ghost form and popped down through the floor, but didn't see the wraith, and returned to tell the party the creature had fled. This turned out to be premature, as it flew back into the room and used a cone of cold to annoy (and lightly frost) everyone. Then flew back down through the floor again.
This time, May was more persistent in his pursuit, and found the wraith back in his misty room, and magic missiled him. Uselessly, because of his shield. May was then dispelled, losing most of his buffs, but he still managed to dodge the disintegrate the wraith shot in return, and when the wraith fled back up into the dracolich room, Conner was waiting, and beat him to death with his holy mace.
They decided not to raise the bear this time, figuring that it probably wouldn't want to come back after being killed twice in one hour. They couldn't cure Abbey's blindness, but they did cast Blindsight on her, so she could see within 30 feet at least.
They went up the rest of the way in the tower they were in, and found a lot of treasure behind a symbol of death (which they just had the death-warded Erdann trigger). They also found a shadowy human-looking person who claimed to be the emissary from the plane of shadow. They agreed to respect his neutrality.
Then they went down and searched the levels of the tower they'd skipped. It was mostly deserted, the normal inhabitants having been pulled down for the massive pitched battle at the exit to the dungeon that morning, but one room had a drider vampire and her pets. Again, Abbey was gravely wounded, but escaped death, and the party managed to take the monsters down, although it used up most of the rest of their resources.
So they cast a wind walk and headed back to Baldur's Gate. They were in a hurry, though, so they didn't identify magic items, find new animal companions, or do a lot of shopping -- they just dumped the 44 suits of magic plate mail (and the rest) into a couple extremely extended rope tricks they set up in Conner's church's vault. They did sell and split up the precious metals and gems and other commodities.
The next day they wind-walked back. The somewhat friendly stone giants were mysteriously missing, but the party didn't really care. The unfriendly fire giants cowered before them, and they gloated. The lower levels of the castle were silent, still abandoned, all their inhabitants still dead and/or destroyed.
They decided to cross the top bridge, to the second tower of the castle. It led to a room with a door, a staircase leading down, and a levitation shaft leading down. They decided to check the door first, and found it blocked by furniture. The two stone-giants (May and Conner were polymorphed, still) quickly shoved the furniture aside, revealing that the room was mostly empty, all the furniture having been piled up against the door they were opening, but had a glowing red marble sitting in the center of the floor.
"Delayed blast fireball! Run!" shouted May, and they ran, and it was. They went back afterwards to inspect the room, and found another door in the back wall, also blocked with furniture. May was impatient with this, though, and ghost formed to walk through the wall, where he found a trio of drow waiting to attack when the door was open. And they saw him.
Two of the drow reacted first, and dispelled several of May's enhancement spells, including his ghost form, trapping him in the room. The other flailed at May with a heavy flail, but didn't hit.
May zoomed up near the ceiling of the room, and prismatic sprayed the trio... turning one to stone, and wounding another badly with acid, and failing to affect the third, who shot a disintegrate back up at him, but like the wraith's, it missed.
By then, the door was open far enough for Abbey to squeeze through and kill the cleric. The last drow turned himself invisible and fled, but had trouble getting out the door, and by the time he managed it, Erdann could see invisible (thanks to May) and beat him within an inch of his life. He fled down the levitation shaft, and the party gathered at the top just in time to see him finished off by a pack of flayed zombies -- Quth Maren, like the ones they'd fought back in Szith Morcane.
There were also sounds of spellcasting, and indeed a cloudkill blasted the party (ineffectually, thanks to the Heroes' Feast they had every morning), as a Death Tyrant slowly slid into place, and the zombies headed for the stairs to attack. There was no challenge here, though -- a couple fireballs from May took out everything except the zombies, which were dusted by Conner. One drow lived to try to flee over a bridge to a third tower, but Erdann ran him down before he could raise the alarm.
The searched the rest of the second tower, but found nothing else threatening or of value -- apparently its defenders had gathered to try to repel them, without success.
The third tower was also mostly deserted, until after carefully searching it, they reached the very top, and were confronted by its massed defenders -- three abyssal ghouls, three blood fiends, a jade spider (golem), a vampire assassin, an evil paladin-type, a powerful wizard, and a less powerful cleric.
Conner's brilliant light from hell blinded all the living drow, and his righteous smite killed the cleric outright, and wounded many of the others. The assassin panicked, and filled the room with obscuring mist, to level the playing field -- if he couldn't see, no one could see.
Except that Erdann and May could see, with their blindsight spells. May tried chain lightning over and over, but the assassin (which he'd wrongly identified as a wizard) kept resisting with SR or dodging with evasion and excellent reflex saves... he finally switched to sonic, to at least damage the demons and ghouls.
The ghouls couldn't hit the party except by sheer luck, but the demons could at least unholy blight every round, plinking away at the party's health. The drow were blind and useless -- their second spellcaster backstabbed by Abbey without much delay. Then Conner went nuts with his holy mace, and slaughtered two demons and two ghouls in one round, and it was all over.
In a closet, after the dust (and mist) had settled, they found the ambassador from Shadow again, grumpy that he'd been forced to move. The party let him gather up his stuff and move back downstairs.
At the far end of the room, in the edge of what would have been the third tower (except that it was a stalactite, and they were already inside the ceiling of Maermydra's cavern) was a set of large double doors -- to the fourth tower? Would it be the last? Would they meet Irae at last, and end her annoying demon attacks?
last week next week
We won't play next week, and probably not the week after that. I'll be surprised if the party doesn't manage to finish this module in one more session, though.
So after fighting off the guardians on the other side of the grate, the party explored that level, and saw a wraithlike figure fly through the ceiling, in a room filled with mist, with an incorporeal fountain of ghostly light. They didn't chase after him, though, instead exploring the level they were on, verifying that the rest of it was empty.
Then they took the stairs up, made their saves against a symbol of discord, and opened a door to confront a pair of rotting dragon corpses. Animated rotting dragon corpses. And the wraithlike figure. All waiting for them.
Conner turned the black dragon corpse into a living squid right off, then Erdann and his bear ran into the room to attack the wraith. The wraith cast an empowered Horrid Wilting on them, then the other dragon corpse, this one a dracolich instead of a zombie, moved up to finish off the bear. May flew in and prismatic sprayed the pair, but it failed to accomplish anything.
Abbey ran in to try to help, just in time to get blinded by Erdann's Sunray, a followup to Conner using his other Heal on the dracolich. The fearsome skeletal beast was destroyed, and the wraith fled through the floor, after tossing off a finger of death an magic missile at the blinded Abbey, wounding her horribly but not killing her.
May went into ghost form and popped down through the floor, but didn't see the wraith, and returned to tell the party the creature had fled. This turned out to be premature, as it flew back into the room and used a cone of cold to annoy (and lightly frost) everyone. Then flew back down through the floor again.
This time, May was more persistent in his pursuit, and found the wraith back in his misty room, and magic missiled him. Uselessly, because of his shield. May was then dispelled, losing most of his buffs, but he still managed to dodge the disintegrate the wraith shot in return, and when the wraith fled back up into the dracolich room, Conner was waiting, and beat him to death with his holy mace.
They decided not to raise the bear this time, figuring that it probably wouldn't want to come back after being killed twice in one hour. They couldn't cure Abbey's blindness, but they did cast Blindsight on her, so she could see within 30 feet at least.
They went up the rest of the way in the tower they were in, and found a lot of treasure behind a symbol of death (which they just had the death-warded Erdann trigger). They also found a shadowy human-looking person who claimed to be the emissary from the plane of shadow. They agreed to respect his neutrality.
Then they went down and searched the levels of the tower they'd skipped. It was mostly deserted, the normal inhabitants having been pulled down for the massive pitched battle at the exit to the dungeon that morning, but one room had a drider vampire and her pets. Again, Abbey was gravely wounded, but escaped death, and the party managed to take the monsters down, although it used up most of the rest of their resources.
So they cast a wind walk and headed back to Baldur's Gate. They were in a hurry, though, so they didn't identify magic items, find new animal companions, or do a lot of shopping -- they just dumped the 44 suits of magic plate mail (and the rest) into a couple extremely extended rope tricks they set up in Conner's church's vault. They did sell and split up the precious metals and gems and other commodities.
The next day they wind-walked back. The somewhat friendly stone giants were mysteriously missing, but the party didn't really care. The unfriendly fire giants cowered before them, and they gloated. The lower levels of the castle were silent, still abandoned, all their inhabitants still dead and/or destroyed.
They decided to cross the top bridge, to the second tower of the castle. It led to a room with a door, a staircase leading down, and a levitation shaft leading down. They decided to check the door first, and found it blocked by furniture. The two stone-giants (May and Conner were polymorphed, still) quickly shoved the furniture aside, revealing that the room was mostly empty, all the furniture having been piled up against the door they were opening, but had a glowing red marble sitting in the center of the floor.
"Delayed blast fireball! Run!" shouted May, and they ran, and it was. They went back afterwards to inspect the room, and found another door in the back wall, also blocked with furniture. May was impatient with this, though, and ghost formed to walk through the wall, where he found a trio of drow waiting to attack when the door was open. And they saw him.
Two of the drow reacted first, and dispelled several of May's enhancement spells, including his ghost form, trapping him in the room. The other flailed at May with a heavy flail, but didn't hit.
May zoomed up near the ceiling of the room, and prismatic sprayed the trio... turning one to stone, and wounding another badly with acid, and failing to affect the third, who shot a disintegrate back up at him, but like the wraith's, it missed.
By then, the door was open far enough for Abbey to squeeze through and kill the cleric. The last drow turned himself invisible and fled, but had trouble getting out the door, and by the time he managed it, Erdann could see invisible (thanks to May) and beat him within an inch of his life. He fled down the levitation shaft, and the party gathered at the top just in time to see him finished off by a pack of flayed zombies -- Quth Maren, like the ones they'd fought back in Szith Morcane.
There were also sounds of spellcasting, and indeed a cloudkill blasted the party (ineffectually, thanks to the Heroes' Feast they had every morning), as a Death Tyrant slowly slid into place, and the zombies headed for the stairs to attack. There was no challenge here, though -- a couple fireballs from May took out everything except the zombies, which were dusted by Conner. One drow lived to try to flee over a bridge to a third tower, but Erdann ran him down before he could raise the alarm.
The searched the rest of the second tower, but found nothing else threatening or of value -- apparently its defenders had gathered to try to repel them, without success.
The third tower was also mostly deserted, until after carefully searching it, they reached the very top, and were confronted by its massed defenders -- three abyssal ghouls, three blood fiends, a jade spider (golem), a vampire assassin, an evil paladin-type, a powerful wizard, and a less powerful cleric.
Conner's brilliant light from hell blinded all the living drow, and his righteous smite killed the cleric outright, and wounded many of the others. The assassin panicked, and filled the room with obscuring mist, to level the playing field -- if he couldn't see, no one could see.
Except that Erdann and May could see, with their blindsight spells. May tried chain lightning over and over, but the assassin (which he'd wrongly identified as a wizard) kept resisting with SR or dodging with evasion and excellent reflex saves... he finally switched to sonic, to at least damage the demons and ghouls.
The ghouls couldn't hit the party except by sheer luck, but the demons could at least unholy blight every round, plinking away at the party's health. The drow were blind and useless -- their second spellcaster backstabbed by Abbey without much delay. Then Conner went nuts with his holy mace, and slaughtered two demons and two ghouls in one round, and it was all over.
In a closet, after the dust (and mist) had settled, they found the ambassador from Shadow again, grumpy that he'd been forced to move. The party let him gather up his stuff and move back downstairs.
At the far end of the room, in the edge of what would have been the third tower (except that it was a stalactite, and they were already inside the ceiling of Maermydra's cavern) was a set of large double doors -- to the fourth tower? Would it be the last? Would they meet Irae at last, and end her annoying demon attacks?
last week next week
We won't play next week, and probably not the week after that. I'll be surprised if the party doesn't manage to finish this module in one more session, though.
