Hydra Golem DEATH story
Jul. 9th, 2004 12:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothTonight we had a session of Jeff's Dragonlance campaign. We fought one creature. It took a long time. Most of that long time, I was dead. Yay!
Kijj and Murphy spent a week reading the books that let them gain a level, but Sonnet did not, unsure that she wanted to take any more levels of bard. That gave Mike enough time to horn in on the book and steal it from her.
Actually, it was officially 'in dispute' for a while, but Sonnet eventually yeilded it to him.
At any rate, after that time was taken they teleported back to the caves, and continued on. They didn't run into any more monsters, until they found themselves unwillingly on the trail of some sort of giant monster so big and bull-headed that it gouged huge trails out of the walls and ceiling as it passed.
They spent a whole day on its trail, and rested in a side passage out of the way, behind a stone wall in a rope trick. The next day, the cavern turned into a chasm, roofed by a glacier... and at the exit, waited the creature itself -- a massive three-headed golem made out of shreds of dragons sewn together, perching atop two pillars over the exit from the cave, with brightly glowing third eyes in the forehead of each dragon head.
So the party powered up, and attacked. Kijj and Thor flew up to face it in melee, and to no one's surprise, its red and gold heads breathed fire on them. The crystal head breathed pure force, and its attacks were force as well, meaning that Kijj's Blink was useless against it. A combination of Blink, Starmantle, and Stoneskin kept the dragons' bites and claws from doing much, and in a couple turns Thor and Kijj had smashed its massive but poorly-armored body to shreds.
Unfortunately, the battle was only beginning. The pillars were gone by this point, taken down by a 'soften earth' spell cast by Sawyer, and the golem was flying under its own power. It spread its wings, and dragged Kijj and Thor to the ground, smashing them with massive force and crushing them under its bulk.
Then its heads, which turned out to be completely separate constructs, breathed fire and force, all focused on Kijj, but also hitting nearly everyone else in the room. Kijj failed to blink out of the way of any of the breaths, and was burned to a crisp, along with Thor.
Mike saw both fighters go down, and called for a general retreat, swooping in to teleport away with the bodies, back to the temple where they had ONE True Resurrection waiting.
Sonnet and Morgan weren't quite ready to run just yet, though -- they both had ranged weapons effective against the golem (Morgan had five charges of a bolt of pure force that wasn't subject to a golem's impenetrable spell resistance, while Sonnet had forty admantium arrows for her shortbow), and thought/hoped they could stand out of its range and potshot it... but the range of the crystal head's force-blast was effectively unlimited, and it brought the ceiling down on them, while the fire-heads had a limited range, but longer than they'd expected (they hadn't taken the necks into account) and managed to hit both of them several times.
Lini was still around to heal them, though, and they were better at dodging than Kijj or Thor had been, so they both survived long enough to take out the crystal head. At that point they were able to retreat to a stone redoubt made by Mike (who'd come back after releasing his friends into the temple's custody) out of range of the breath and strong enough to withstand thrown boulders, and over the course of ten minutes (with a delay in the middle for Mike to teleport back to town to get more admantium arrows) Sonnet slowly chipped away at the red and gold heads, until the entire golem was finally dead.
The only loot was the 'third eyes', which turned out to be massively powerful artifacts -- the Orbs of Good, Evil, and Neutrality. There were certainly people in the party who could use the Good and the Neutral orbs, but the Evil orb was more of a conundrum. They eventually ended up giving it to the good church in return for an extra True Res, which they knew was a very bad deal, but they weren't willing to sell it to Dalamar or his ilk, as not only would it make them VERY VERY powerful, but it would corrupt them even further and drive them insane.
Once everyone was alive again, and all that was disposed of, they returned to the cave where they'd fought the golem, and walked out onto the glacier, still four weeks ahead of schedule. From that point on, they couldn't turn back -- teleportation would alert Frost and ruin the whole plan. Should they head out now, and spend up to a month waiting around in an ice cave for the day to arrive, or spend the extra time in preparation back in town, and leave less leeway for unexpected mishaps?
last session | next session
Kijj and Murphy spent a week reading the books that let them gain a level, but Sonnet did not, unsure that she wanted to take any more levels of bard. That gave Mike enough time to horn in on the book and steal it from her.
Actually, it was officially 'in dispute' for a while, but Sonnet eventually yeilded it to him.
At any rate, after that time was taken they teleported back to the caves, and continued on. They didn't run into any more monsters, until they found themselves unwillingly on the trail of some sort of giant monster so big and bull-headed that it gouged huge trails out of the walls and ceiling as it passed.
They spent a whole day on its trail, and rested in a side passage out of the way, behind a stone wall in a rope trick. The next day, the cavern turned into a chasm, roofed by a glacier... and at the exit, waited the creature itself -- a massive three-headed golem made out of shreds of dragons sewn together, perching atop two pillars over the exit from the cave, with brightly glowing third eyes in the forehead of each dragon head.
So the party powered up, and attacked. Kijj and Thor flew up to face it in melee, and to no one's surprise, its red and gold heads breathed fire on them. The crystal head breathed pure force, and its attacks were force as well, meaning that Kijj's Blink was useless against it. A combination of Blink, Starmantle, and Stoneskin kept the dragons' bites and claws from doing much, and in a couple turns Thor and Kijj had smashed its massive but poorly-armored body to shreds.
Unfortunately, the battle was only beginning. The pillars were gone by this point, taken down by a 'soften earth' spell cast by Sawyer, and the golem was flying under its own power. It spread its wings, and dragged Kijj and Thor to the ground, smashing them with massive force and crushing them under its bulk.
Then its heads, which turned out to be completely separate constructs, breathed fire and force, all focused on Kijj, but also hitting nearly everyone else in the room. Kijj failed to blink out of the way of any of the breaths, and was burned to a crisp, along with Thor.
Mike saw both fighters go down, and called for a general retreat, swooping in to teleport away with the bodies, back to the temple where they had ONE True Resurrection waiting.
Sonnet and Morgan weren't quite ready to run just yet, though -- they both had ranged weapons effective against the golem (Morgan had five charges of a bolt of pure force that wasn't subject to a golem's impenetrable spell resistance, while Sonnet had forty admantium arrows for her shortbow), and thought/hoped they could stand out of its range and potshot it... but the range of the crystal head's force-blast was effectively unlimited, and it brought the ceiling down on them, while the fire-heads had a limited range, but longer than they'd expected (they hadn't taken the necks into account) and managed to hit both of them several times.
Lini was still around to heal them, though, and they were better at dodging than Kijj or Thor had been, so they both survived long enough to take out the crystal head. At that point they were able to retreat to a stone redoubt made by Mike (who'd come back after releasing his friends into the temple's custody) out of range of the breath and strong enough to withstand thrown boulders, and over the course of ten minutes (with a delay in the middle for Mike to teleport back to town to get more admantium arrows) Sonnet slowly chipped away at the red and gold heads, until the entire golem was finally dead.
The only loot was the 'third eyes', which turned out to be massively powerful artifacts -- the Orbs of Good, Evil, and Neutrality. There were certainly people in the party who could use the Good and the Neutral orbs, but the Evil orb was more of a conundrum. They eventually ended up giving it to the good church in return for an extra True Res, which they knew was a very bad deal, but they weren't willing to sell it to Dalamar or his ilk, as not only would it make them VERY VERY powerful, but it would corrupt them even further and drive them insane.
Once everyone was alive again, and all that was disposed of, they returned to the cave where they'd fought the golem, and walked out onto the glacier, still four weeks ahead of schedule. From that point on, they couldn't turn back -- teleportation would alert Frost and ruin the whole plan. Should they head out now, and spend up to a month waiting around in an ice cave for the day to arrive, or spend the extra time in preparation back in town, and leave less leeway for unexpected mishaps?
last session | next session
