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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 9842399" data-attributes="member: 143">Wow, eight players, that seems like a handful. I once showed up to a Meetup game at a local pub where there were nine players; I decided that was too much for me. My current groups all have five or six players, which can itself get a bit chaotic at times (and usually requires significant bumps to encounter difficulties).* * * Chapter 42Leana fought through the blinding haze of pain and focused on their foe: the high priestess of the temple of Chaos. She was out of her most potent magic, and further knew that if she went down, or succumbed to the woman’s dark power, then the undead she’d turned would return and destroy them.And so, while it went against everything in her nature, and felt like an abandonment of her friends, she turned and ran back into the hallway that led to the exit. At the last moment, as she left the line of sight of the evil priestess, she ducked to the side and sidled behind one of the thick velvet curtains.Folgar incanted a spell and launched a stream of magical darts at the red-robed woman. He infused the spell with extra potency, hitting her with four darts that tore through her robes and pierced her body. But she only smiled at him. “You will have to do better than that, wizard. I am Ivlis, champion of Chaos.”Greghan had watched Leana’s flight with his heart pounding. He turned from the final skeleton, which swung uselessly at his back, and charged toward the priestess. He swept his sword at her body, but Ivlis darted to the side, taking only a shallow gash along her hip. He kept coming, surging into a backswing toward her head, but again she was just faster, accepting a clanging blow against her helmet that tore off a few of the spiky decorations but failed to inflict a mortal wound.Ravani fitted another arrow to his bow and began to track the priestess, but aborted when he saw the zombie bandit chief start to follow Leana out of the room. “Hey, come get me, jerkface!” he said, shooting it in the neck. Again the blow failed to take down the undead monster, but it did get its attention. Ravani was forced to quickly dodge out of the way as the zombie swung at his head, and cursed in frustration as he drew it away from his friends, unable to help his companions against the cult leader.Ivlis reached up and touched the blood smeared on her lips, and smiled. “Your champion of the Light has fled,” she said mockingly. Greghan’s only response was to raise his sword again, but before he could strike, she presented her sigil and summoned her magic once more. The warrior, lacking Leana’s mental fortitude, succumbed to her power, and he just stood there, dazed, as she walked past him. “Now, where did she go?” she asked as she advanced to a spot where she could see down the hallway. Folgar, bypassed, began casting another spell, but Ivlis turned on him and conjured two more chaos bolts, this time hurling sprays of cold and fire that forced the dwarf to hurriedly duck out of the way. Folgar responded with a ray of frost that slashed the priestess’s leg, finally drawing a frustrated hiss of pain as she was slowed by the icy chill that seeped into the limb.Leana revealed herself just long enough to hurl a blast of sacred flame at the zombie-Pral. The holy fire immolated the zombie, just for a moment, but long enough to sunder the dark energies that animated it. She ducked back into cover, but Ivlis had spotted her. “Ah, fled not so far after all,” she growled, starting in that direction despite her numbed leg.Ravani, spared being cornered by the zombie, once more took aim at the evil cleric, but again his attention was drawn to an ally in need. He turned and shot the skeleton that was hammering on the unresisting Greghan from behind. The arrow shattered its skull, and it collapsed into fragments. The ones that Leana had turned remained at bay, the zombies having retreated back behind the curtain, and the skeletons to the far corner beyond the dais. “Snap out of it, man!” the elf cried.Greghan was doing just that, shaking his head to clear it, but before he could do more than take a step, Ivlis pointed at him and snapped her fingers, restoring the magical fugue holding him senseless. She continued moving toward the curtain concealing Leana, but Folgar moved to block her, his hands glowing with another cantrip. Clucking her tongue in irritation, the priestess summoned another burst of fire that seared the dwarf in the chest, followed by a jolt of electricity that briefly formed a white halo around him. When that flare faded, the dwarf collapsed to the floor, unconscious.“Now,” Ivlis said. “Let’s see about…”She didn’t get a chance to finish, as the curtain shot aside and Leana charged forward, her mace in hand. Ivlis lifted her arms, chaos energy gathering around her hands once more, but the halfling cleric reached her before she could unleash her evil magic. The silvery metal head of the weapon smashed into her knee, shattering the joint, and Ivlis’s exultant expression was replaced by a look of surprise and pain as she toppled heavily to the floor. The impact jolted her helmet free, revealing a pale face shrouded by tangles of dirty hair and wide eyes tinged with madness.Ivlis reached for her sigil. “Chaos will…”Leana cut her off by smashing her mace into her face. “I think we’ve heard just about enough out of you,” she said.Game Notes:The one mistake I made in running this fight was not remembering that Ivlis’s Sinister Command was a rechargeable ability; rather than redo the fight, I just assumed she rolled 5+ on a d6 twice in this encounter. But otherwise, this fight was just as close as it reads on the page. Leana rolled a crit on her final attack, doing just enough damage to take Ivlis out. If she’d missed, Ravani would have only had one shot to take the priestess down before she eliminated Leana and brought two skeletons and three zombies back into the fight. If that had happened, I’m not sure Greghan and Ravani would have been able to turn the tide.</blockquote>

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