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Message: <blockquote data-quote="bowbe" data-source="post: 3765159" data-attributes="member: 6328">The Minaret of Screams: Part 1 The Gullet of the BeastThis session begins with the return of the Psion. One of his other games broke up, so his wife let him come back (for now). The PCs had chucked his corpse into a bag of holding after the mission he had died in so its no large manner to get him raised and ready to go.The PCs seeing that the coast is mostly clear, again don a different disguise and take a flying carpet to the minaret, timing their travel across the city to a point shortly after the scream... which is an accepted call to prayer for the Sultan's Faithful.They land on the platform at the top level of the tower and make like Luke and Han escourting chewbacca into the prison section of the Death Star. Upon entering they note the near darkness, and the spongy floor, finding the whole place rather damp and uninviting. From their light sources they note figures shambling on the tiers below them and that the platform that extended outside appears to go straight to the center of the chamber. (See the photographs of the terrain I built of the area for further reference in the other COB thread if you haven't seen them already).Its a narrow stretch, about PCs wide, and at the end of the pathway are 3 burning dervishes who take one look at the PCs, note that they are not fire giants, or burning dervishes...or efreeti, and attack. The battle is pretty quick but with one side effect, the burning dervishes use bullrush and overbear attacks to shove the PCs off the main path and down into the rings below... which are filled with cannabalistic madmen, driven insane by the shrieks of the minaret. These madmen happen to have "escaped" confinement in the lower levels and crawled up the gullet to come out here. That said, overall burning dervishes aren't terribly tough unless they have piles of class levels so the party finishes them off, and has to crawl/rescue their allies who were knocked into the terraces below.. which are spiked slippery, coated with a caustic material that slowly dissolved metal! Yum!A search of the bodies notes that these burning dervishes are wearing rubber hip waiders and carrying vials of a minty smelling pink fluid... Obviously some potion. I added this bit in on the fly as a nod to what was to come. The vials give dr -5 over acid. 3 of the PCs don the waiders, they being the Sam Q2, Konn, and Ard... since the waiders wont fit over the armor that the rest of the troupe is wearing, and since the psion doesn't have anything of any real value other than some bracers, rings, amulets, and normal psion "what not". Konn hops down the hole in the center of the room, after pouring the pink lotion on himself while the other PCs finish off the rest of he madmen. Rhy, the Elandril and the Psion are down on the terraces at this time. Slurping his way down the esophageal passage he gets squirted out into a rubbery room and is confronted by 3 more burning dervishes all by himself! Woops!Glandril hops down the hole. I have him role a base attack roll... which he of course succeeds and he lands plop onto Konn, crushing him due to his 350 lbs of weight, and spiked mountain plate armor. Damage dealt. Ouch!The burning dervishes wirlwind attack both of them and they take some hits and some damage, because their AC isn't as crazy as Rhy's. The rest of the party has no idea what is going on because I've moved them to a 2nd table since they arent in the gullet chamber anymore. Next down the hole is SamQ2 who also makes his Base Attack and hits...landing on top of Konn, further damaging him as he gets more deeply skewered to Glandril, and of course SamQ2 takes some damage, Glandril takes some more damage... its getting just wrong.They get up and spend the round extricating themselves from each other and get wirlwind attacked again by the burning dervishes. The chamber is REALLY small, like maybe big enough for the 3 of them, and the burning dervishes are stabbing into the room with spears! A dark, dank, wet pinkish yellow corridor is seen beyond. PCs topside continue to finish off the madmen and crawl towards the hole so they too can hop down. Ard is next. He misses and is covered in the pink lotion, so no crush damage to him and he manages NOT to land on the other guys by missing his Base attack. The guys in the chamber fight back, managing to kill a burning dervish this round. Then Elandrin jumps down... wop, right on top of Ard. and Elandrin is wearing plate armor, so damage due. Ard has stoneskin going and scratches some damage off for that but is annoyed at being knocked prone. 3 in the doorway start the push into the hall to make room for everyone else.The psion hops in, lands on top of ard/elandrin... more damage and more laughs! Plop Plop Plop. They get up, but have nowhere to go because the hallway/doorway is blocked. The burning dervishes retreat a bit and someother figures can be seen coming from both directions.The original 3 move into the hallway but are kinda lined up... thats when the newcomers hit them from both sides with crossing blade barrier spells. One of wich manages to enter the small entrance chamber. Of course Konn and SamQ evade. No such luck for the others, tho a few make their reflex saves instead so take half damage x2 blade barriers. Glandril misses one, and makes one, he's raged and has 250 or some crazy hit points now, but the damage he's already taken plus the 2 blade barriers have him down to about 180 already. WOah!Then Rhy jumps down the hole, makes his base attack roll (of course) and I roll random... he lands on the Psion. They both take fat damage... with the psion taking much fatter damage of course... 4d6 or something. I dont remember but its whatever something falling on you says in the DMG... we looked it up. Rhy gets himself some big damage from the blade barrier in the room to top off his fall. The newcomers are Silaal... N'gathau reconfigured genie with virtually no soul and a penchante for inflicting a lot of pain. Two more arrive, and now we have 2 more blade barriers as these guys just kick back and laugh. SamQ2 fails a save vs. Dominate Monster, because he is raged, Glandril makes his. SamQ is instructed to sneak attack the nearest PC... which happens to be Ard... and his sneak attack is INSANE. Ard takes fat damage, and his contingency dealio goes off. He dimension doors away from danger... but not so much because dimension door away from danger puts him closer to Silaal and burning dervishes. Glandril says screw it to the damage and charges THROUGH a blade barrier... taking the damage and power attack/rage attacks a silaal, nearly killing it in one blow!Elandrin casts a dispel magic. It manages to dispel an area big enough for them to get out of the entrance chamber. The Psion heals himself with some psionic power because he's about dead. More of this shenannigans goes on with multiple blade barriers, dominated PCs, Ard in thoroogh danger for his life... goes on. Glandril ends up with his back to a wall slicing away at silaal that are near him... when the wall tries to engulf him. Glop. He's pinned till Rhy can cut him free. Rhy turns to face enemies and Konn gets dominated. Turning on Elandrin and hitting him for some good damage! Elandrin casts another dispel to free Konn of his curse. Ard casts dispel on SamQ to free him of his. The PCs take down another 2 silaal, when 2 more appear... along with a 3rd figure.. Rylon the Cruel, a flayer devil bearing a psionic sword that allows him to Coup De Grace as a standard action rather than a full round. Needless to say, once people get freed of mind control/ away from the various blade barriers, the Silaal finally go down and the PCs gang up on the devil, which tears them up pretty good but by itself cannot survive the onslaught of this fully operational battle station!The Psion has no idea that its a psionic sword, so they toss it in the pack and proceed to free prisoners who are engulfed in the walls of the various chambers, eventually freeing Abdul al Azul, the son of the Sheik of the Bayt al Joom (House of Stars). Freeing him, he offers to show them a way into the Repository that his father told him about... though it involves delving deeper into the Minaret of Screams.They proceed deeper finding the barracks area of the Burning Dervishes, and the Burning Dervish warden. A quick fight erupts and the PCs are victorious. Taking more of the pink lotion from the Burning Dervishes they hop down the next Esophageal passage and into the unknown... but take their time passing through so as not to all land on each other this time... they hope!Until the next installment!Case</blockquote>

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