Session 7
Session Summary:
As the battle for the harbour continued, RT3 held their position in the lighthouse. Eventually, a longboat containing Captain Smith and a squad of Risuri marines came ashore. Captain Smith handed the investigators cigars, and enquired as to their activities. Erik used his good-standing as a veteran of the Fourth Yerasol War to convince the marines to accompany them.
Smith was followed later by a crew of medics, including a half-elven druid named Denin. The Risuri healers managed to restore some of RT3’s vitality, but they were still sorely pressed by the exertions of the day.
The attacking marines quickly established siege engines at the edge of the harbour and advanced. Just as they began to assault the walls, a fireball erupted in the harbour. One of the Risuri ships exploded into flame, and Wilheim spied a figure aboard wielding a weapon that seemed to change between a blade and a whip. The fire-and-smoke-wreathed figure jumped thirty feet to the sea wall on the other side of the harbour. The lanterns there went dark and the figure disappeared – only to reappear moments later at the base of a siege tower. It disappeared inside, visible only as flashes of flame, then re-emerged at the top only to slay both rebels and loyalists alike. With the wall clear, the figure jumped down into the outer fort.
RT3 decided to investigate, and moved off toward fort. Just as they neared the gate at the end of the seawall, a note of power rang out, sending the few defenders there to the ground. Tok emerged from the darkness and waved his companions through. Erik spared a few disapproving words for the changeling, and Tok studiously ignored them.
Moving to the spot where the flaming figure disappeared, Thornt’s keen nose picked up a blood trial, which RT3 followed to the warehouse Tok had discovered earlier. The obstacle he had left behind had been cleared away, but there was no sign of the fire creature, and no indication of what it had done there.
A marine runner summoned the investigators to the other side of town, where a makeshift prison filled with Danorans had been discovered. When they made their way there, the prisoners responded extremely well to Tok’s presence. Hessar Marseine, the Danoran lieutenant who led the captives, pointed RT3 to a maid who could explain how the Duchess’ forces had taken the fort – she had used the teleportation circle. Marseine maintained that the circle key was secret, and that the Duchess must have had inside help. When asked by Tok, he advised that Nathan Jierre would likely be found within the inner fort.
A flash lit up the sky, and footsteps sounded on the roof of the brig. Rushing outside, RT3 caught sight of the fire creature. Using powerful magic, it supplanted the street with a steaming jungle. The inner fort wall, caught in the effect, simply disappeared, and the figure charged forward into the inner fort.
RT3 made to follow, only for one of the Danorans to call “There is another way!”
The man, one of the architects of the fort, drew them a map of the sewers leading to the castle, and the route proved smelly and dirty but accurate. RT3 emerged in the basement of the inner fort. Moving up through the building, they noticed a tangle of hedge outside the ground floor windows. Upstairs, they discovered a collection of bodies; all marked with cauterised wounds.
Sneaking upstairs, they overheard voices from beyond a door and paused to listen. Inside, they could hear three figures (who turned out to be the Duchess, Nathan Jierre and the fire creature – an eladrin warrior named Asrabey Varal) discussing the Danoran activities on the island. Nathan mentioned a name – Kasvarina Varal – but most interestingly, the Duchess maintained that she had discovered something that threatened both Risur and the Unseen Court.
When Asrabey came to the door to check his escape route, he discovered RT3 crouched outside. Immediately his whip blade struck out at Wilheim, and then the fight was on in earnest. Tok attempted to call for parley, but Cassi continued her attacks and the eladrin returned her blows in kind.
Asrabey retreated to stand above the barely conscious duchess, who was slumped against a platform. Thornt pressed his attack, unleashing a cloud of stinging insects that filled the area. The Duchess cried out, then was still. Tok’s subsequent attempt to magically revive her failed. She was dead.
When Asrabey fey stepped into the party’s midst and unleashed a whirling blow, Wilheim’s luck and stamina ran out. The deva fell to the floor. Asrabey then made for Nathan Jierre, but RT3 were pressing too closely. Under assault from Erik and Cassi, the eladrin abandoned the tiefling. He teleported to the tip of the telescope that dominated the room, and from there jumped onto the roof. Cassi raced after him up the stairs, but Asrabey was gone.
In the aftermath of the battle, RT3 took Nathan Jierre into custody. The tiefling explained that he used Axis Island as a place to study the planets, and how they affected the world. Looking through his telescope, Tok discovered it was pointed directly at a distant blue sun similar to the one RT3 had experienced during earlier plane shifts. A dissected yellow frog was pinned down in a nearby cabinet. Jierre explained that Kasvarina Varal was an eladrin female and had toured the island a few months earlier and created the teleportation circle. When he explained that he had naively provided the Duchess the key to the fort’s teleportation circle, Tok pointed out to the teenager that he had betrayed Danor. In response, the tiefling begged them to grant him asylum in Risur. RT3 took him with them when they left the fort, unsure whether they had the authority to answer his request.
When more Risuri marines came through the sewers to assault the inner fort defenders from the rear, they found themselves ambushed by a fey entity lurking in the hedge maze surrounding the inner keep. Eventually though, the creature was routed and destroyed.
With Axis fort subdued, RT3 returned to the Risuri ships docked at the harbour. The captains advised them to allow Nathan Jierre passage to Risur because the tiefling could be a valuable source of information on Danor. The investigators put the thankful tiefling on a vessel, which soon departed.
As the light faded, and after most of the Risuri vessels had left the harbour, a Danoran warship named the Lux Prefectusque steamed into the harbour. Lya Jierre came down the gangplank accompanied by two bodyguards; a muscled half-elf named Rush and an unnamed half-orc who wore a strange padded helmet. Lya asked for her island back. Shown a letter of authority from King Aodhan himself, Erik signed a deed on behalf of Risur that released all claim to the island and handed it back to Danor.
Lya thanked RT3 for their efforts, and expressed the wish to meet with them again during the much-publicised peace conference to be held in a year’s time; or even at the wedding. When she – and later her half-orc bodyguard – enquired after Nathan, RT3 lied and said he was being treated in a nearby building. Then they boarded the Impossible and sailed away from Axis Island.
The Good
Asrabey's initial appearance in the harbour created an appropriate amount of awe in the party.
Likewise, they sat seemingly intrigued when I described the Immurement event. When they later asked Hessar Marsaine whethere he had ever seen anything like it, he emphatically declared he hadn't. That reinforced the threat level they were dealing with.
I didn't get to drop the plot hammer on Erik's player about his wife's unborn child, but I did have Asrabey stare in surprise and exclaim "You!" when he came face to face with Erik late in the encounter. Hopefully that's planted some fruit-bearing seeds in the players' minds that I'll be able to nurture later.
The Bad
Unfortunately, when given a moment to think about Asrabey after his initial appearance, my players then did what new-school D&D players everywhere have a tendency to do - chase the obviously overpowered enemy down to see what's going on. I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised, but for a moment there I truly believed the display in the harbour had been sufficient to dissuade them from following.
I initially compounded the problem by inventing a blood trail that led from the outer wall to the warehouse containing the teleportation circle. By doing so, I ensured that Asrabey would not have enough time to prepare his ritual before he was forced to abandon the buildlng. Fortunately, it turned out that he was able to escape his later confrontation with the party at the inner fort and no one thought to (or thought they had the health to) check the warehouse to see if he had gone there.
It all worked out in the end and I'm pleased to say that Asrabey will live to fight again another day (unlike most other Asrabeys I've read about).
The Ugly
I used the level 2 Asrabey and I'm torn about whether I wish I had used the level 20 version. In one sense I'm glad I didn't because all of the automatic damage from the Allied Soldiers the PCs had with him would have knocked him down much too easily.
But on the other hand, the level 2 version didn't really seem to have enough oomph. He struggled to hit Cassi (he needed to roll a 13 to hit her AC, and when he did hit someone, he didn't really do enough damage to make the PCs sit up and take notice. He did drop Wilheim and Erik during the course of the combat, but overally I never really felt there was a real chance of him winning the encounter. It was more a question of when he would be beaten. Given what I said last session about feeling the PCs were in trouble, I found the reality slightly depressing.
For those about to run the level 2 Asrabey, my advice is to be aggressive. Acknowledge that all 5 of your PCs will be able to attack him every round no matter what you do. In those circumstance, your best option is to fey step into the party's midst and unleash the close burst 2 Fire Sweep. Then use an action point and do it again. When Asrabey drops to 110hp (which will happen soon), teleport to the most advantageous position and do it all again.
I made the mistake of leaving Asrabey in the telescope room, with the result that his Fire Sweep attacks were hitting 2 or 3 targets instead of 5. If I'd been more aggressive earlier then the fight may have gone very differently.
On that note, at one stage I was due to make a close burse attack on Willheim, who was at the time on approximately -40% hp. I chose to make an exception and not roll the attack. I'm now rethinking that approach. If I want to engender a sense of caution in the players, I need to make them aware of the risk attached to combat. The easiest way to do that is to kill a PC and in this particular case I get the impression that Wilheim's player isn't really wedded to his PC. I might have killed two birds with one stone.
Oh well, I've put the PCs on notice that I plan to be a little less merciful in future, so we'll see whether that makes them a little more cautious.
- decided his PC would sneak off.
