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Story Hour
Erkonin (Campaign #1) [Session 46: Making Deals with Devils is Stupid as well as Bad]
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<blockquote data-quote="prabe" data-source="post: 8077925" data-attributes="member: 7016699"><p><span style="font-size: 15px"> Session 8: Killing Them With Fire</span></p><p></p><p>Dramatis Personae:</p><p></p><p>Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore)</p><p>Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)</p><p>Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)</p><p>Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)</p><p>Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)</p><p>Imaktis - Tortle Cleric (Nature)/Shadow Sorcerer</p><p></p><p>GM - Everyone Else</p><p></p><p></p><p>8 Sunnin 748 (later that day) (Campaign day 9, an hour after sunset)</p><p></p><p>While we were taking a short rest, immediately following the combat with the wights and the Iron Zombies in the road, we discussed whether to continue on overnight or to stop for the night. Mo and (initially) Joybell, were in favor of going on -- it seemed like there was a great urgency to this, and if we stopped to rest the city could be overrun with undead. Mo also pointed out that we weren’t likely to get a quiet night’s rest in a forest crawling with undead.</p><p></p><p>Orryk and Fiona pointed out that Alighieri didn’t know how far we’d have to travel to find the center of the problem -- it could be days of travel away. Even if it was the very next town, it’s probably more than just a few hours travel to get there.</p><p></p><p>Imaktis appeared to be arguing that we could just abandon the whole city to its fate, but that was not seriously considered. Taman pointed out that Alighieri seemed pretty powerful and it’s likely that he, Ullar Truehammer, and Mogree could take care of the city (with the rest of the guard) for a few days (giving us time to take a rest).</p><p></p><p>Orryk and Fiona’s argument that we could be traveling for days convinced Joybell and she began to argue on their side that we should rest. Orryk’s absolute certainty that if we went on we’d die and not save anyone was also pretty persuasive.</p><p></p><p>As part of this conversation, Orryk also pointed out that in the previous combat, the two people with non-magical weapons or attacks wound out fighting the wights (resistant to non-silvered, non-magical weapons) rather than the zombies, which was a sign of unwise tactical decision-making on the parts of some members of the party. Joybell pointed out that some of her tactical decisions have to do with who she can get to with her little legs, but admitted that he really did have a good point.</p><p></p><p>Having agreed with Orryk on that, and on stopping for a long rest, Joybell and Taman went to look for a good place to camp for the night while Orryk and Mo continued to discuss. (Taman was sneaking around so Joybell stayed as far away from him as possible. To the extent she knew where he was.)</p><p></p><p>We found a campsite that was off the road, on some high ground with some trees and not a lot of game trails, but not too much underbrush -- so we could see things coming, but have some cover. Orryk used his move earth cantrip (from being a Way of the Four Elements monk) to dig a 5’ wide and 5’ deep trench around the camp at the top of the hill, with a 5’ wide area not dug out to make it easier to get in and out. Fiona cast alarm across that “entrance”. The dirt removed from the trench was spread evenly around on the top of the hill -- and the dirt let us make nice soft places to sleep. Very homey.</p><p></p><p>Orryk and Fiona took first watch, which passed without incident.</p><p></p><p>Joybell and Imaktis took the second watch. In the middle of their watch, they heard snarling, like ghouls (not like animals) a ways off from the campsite. We moved to where we could see (hopefully without being seen). There were 4 ghouls (apparently, it was actually 3 ghouls and 1 ghast, but we couldn’t tell that from a distance).</p><p></p><p>Joybell asked Imaktis if we should wake the others, and he said no. So she went back to hunkering and watching. When it became obvious that they were coming straight for us, not merely wandering around, she went and woke everyone up despite Imaktis saying not to.</p><p></p><p>When woken, Mo was all snarky about us being attacked by undead in the middle of the night, because he’d predicted this, but he got up.</p><p></p><p>Immediately on waking up, Taman shot one with an arrow, which was a good start. Mo viciously mocked the same one. Orryk took a shot at the same one (focusing fire) but missed horribly and started swearing in Gnomish. Joybell was shocked at his language.</p><p></p><p>One of the ghouls moved up faster than the others (that was the ghast) - this was the one that everyone had been shooting at.</p><p></p><p>Joybell threw a javelin at it, but totally missed (with a nat 1). Basically everyone missed that round, except Taman.</p><p></p><p>Orryk got a good hit on the ghast, then it ran up and went down and over the trench and got right up on Joybell. (The trench counted as two squares of difficult terrain.) It missed her, though, which was good. Imaktis, who used his shillelagh cantrip, hit it and dropped it right into the trench.</p><p></p><p>With the ghast right in front of her gone, Joybell threw a javelin at the nearest ghoul. The ghouls then finally got all the way up to the party, though they were mostly standing in the trench, which had them fighting at disadvantage. Taman used his rapier on one.</p><p></p><p>Mo flicked a spark from his pipe in the air, which burst into sparkling faerie fire that clung to two of them, giving us advantage on our attacks on them.</p><p></p><p>Orryk dropped one with his fists of unbroken air. Imaktis got a hit. Joybell tried to get fancy with an Ensnaring Strike spell on the one which wasn’t faerie fired, but failed with her attack. Until one of the faerie fire’d ones moved out of her threatened area and she hit it with an opportunity attack. At that point it, saved against the writhing vines.</p><p></p><p>Fiona firebolted the faerie fired one and then Taman hit the other one and killed it with a mighty backstab.</p><p></p><p>Mo stepped forward and threw a dagger at the last one and dropped it. With his dagger.</p><p></p><p>Mo: Are we done with this now?</p><p>Joybell: Yes. Go back to sleep.</p><p></p><p>We got all of the ghouls and the ghast into the trench and Orryk covered them up with his earth moving cantrip. Then Mo cast a sleep spell, though it really wasn’t going to work against the party. But everyone but Joybell and Imaktis did go back to sleep.</p><p></p><p>Around the time they woke up Taman and Mo for their watch, Taman heard more of the ghoulish snarling in the woods -- we stayed quiet until they moved on, then Joybell and Imaktis went to sleep.</p><p></p><p>The rest of the night passed without incident.</p><p></p><p></p><p>9 Sunnin 748 (Campaign day 10)</p><p></p><p>The next morning we got up and continued on our way -- we thought about traveling just off the road, until we remembered that the forest was difficult terrain and we’d be moving very slowly. So we let Taman scout ahead of us on the road and we stayed close to the forest side of the road so we could dart off of it and hide if we needed to.</p><p></p><p>About mid-day, Taman, scouting 60 to 100 feet ahead of us, saw some figures coming down the middle of the road toward us -- they were sort of bony looking, but not skeletons (4 ghouls (or ghasts, as we can’t tell them apart at a distance)) and 1 not-a-wight (GM didn’t say at this time what it was, just that it didn’t look like any of the wights we’ve been fighting all along; later we learned that this was a deathlock)). Taman came back to tell us about them (they hadn’t seen him), and we hid in the forest alongside the road, rather than confronting them. (We wanted to be at full strength when we found the Undead Warlock of Orcus person we were out looking for.)</p><p></p><p>We succeeded in hiding in the woods, despite Joybell wearing heavy armor. Also despite Joybell getting a look at that not-a-wight thing -- it looked really bad and was heading for the city and not fighting it was killing her. But Taman and Orryk kept her focused on the plan and she didn’t throw a javelin at it. Also Taman kept his hands on her shoulders and held her in place.</p><p></p><p>After they passed by, we resumed proceeding on our way with Taman scouting ahead. The rest of the day we travelled without incident until just before dusk we saw a logging camp in the distance -- there were a few bunk tents, a big stack of sawlogs, and a pier in the river. All were semi-randomly placed in a 60’ clearing starting at the river and extending over the road. Everything looked pretty tatty and we didn’t see anything moving.</p><p></p><p>We stopped inside the forest where we could see into the camp without being seen and Taman went in to scout around. Mo inspired him with a hearty “Best of luck!”</p><p></p><p>Taman cut a hole in the nearest tent and peeked in -- it was very dark in the tent, but the sunlight was coming in through the entrance (at the far corner). Taman saw and heard something in the tent recoil and hiss away from the light. (1 bodak).</p><p></p><p>(Note: GM told us what all of the big bad guys were after the combat and I’m going to use those names for them rather than the monikers I wrote in my notes. I’d rather not sound like an idiot talking about the hissing thing (later to be called the Abyssal guy), the was-invisible guy, the guy that came from the road, and the tall skinny guy.)</p><p></p><p>He then went to the next tent and cut a little peephole in that one. There was more light in that one and he could see three figures -- one was really tall and thin and the other two were ghoulish (1 fext and 2 ghouls). They were speaking with one another, but in a language Taman couldn’t understand. (He recognized the rhythms of conversation/speech, but not what they were saying.) The ghouls weren’t very articulate, but the fext was speaking.</p><p></p><p>(There was a third tent nearby, closer to the river, but there wasn’t any good way for Taman to get to it without risking being seen by whatever was in the other two, so he didn’t go peek in that one.)</p><p></p><p>As the rest of us waited for Taman to return, Orryk quaffed the Potion of Firebreathing and Imaktis blessed himself, Joybell, and Orryk.</p><p></p><p>After a few minutes, Taman came back and told us what he saw.</p><p></p><p>We spent a moment figuring out what we were going to do, and then Orryk moved up along the back of the nearer tent (the one with the bodak that hissed away from the light) to where he could throw a bead from his necklace of fireballs at the second tent (with the fext and ghouls). Joybell moved up along the front of the nearer tent and stopped where she was not visible from the door, but so she could get to the entrance the next round.</p><p></p><p>When Orryk threw the bead, the second tent more or less exploded in flames, entirely burning, and the nearer tent took some damage and caught on fire at one corner.</p><p></p><p>After the explosion, Joybell moved up further and stopped, sort of in the middle of the square, and took a dodge action. She was in a position to take on anything that came out of the first tent (burning at the corner and with the bodak in it) or second tent (entirely on fire with the fext and 2 ghouls) or the third tent (not burning at all and un-scouted). The fext, armed with a greatsword, came out of the second tent.</p><p></p><p>The fext was tall and skinny and seemed to fit the description of the guy that came off the ship at Istin’s Yard -- apparently a big bad if not THE big bad.</p><p></p><p>Fiona cast firebolt and hit the fext twice (does this make sense?). After she hit it, it turned and glared at her -- casting a Hex spell on her. Then it fired two Eldritch Bolts at Joybell, but missed.</p><p></p><p>Orryk couldn’t see anything still moving in the tent he fireballed, so he held his action to shoot at something that needed shooting when it appeared.</p><p></p><p>After a moment, one of the two ghouls came out of the fireballed tent. The other one apparently was killed in the fireball. The ghoul ran across the central square of the camp to the third tent and got just to the entrance. We assumed he was going for reinforcements.</p><p></p><p>At the same time, we saw 2 more ghouls running in from the far edge of the camp, beyond the pier.</p><p></p><p>Taman moved up a bit and shot one of the new ones coming in.</p><p></p><p>Imaktis cast Guiding Bolt on the fext and the fext cast Counterspell -- except he was 5’ out of range for the Counterspell (but well in range of the Guiding Bolt) and had to take the 16 points of radiant damage Imaktis was dealing.</p><p></p><p>Imaktis, Orryk and Joybell saw the flap at the entrance of the third tent fly open, but didn’t see anything other than that. Joybell yelled out that something invisible just came out of the tent.</p><p></p><p>Joybell couldn’t get to the fext and attack, so she moved up half her move and threw a javelin at it, hitting well. (This was her last moment of effectiveness until the end of the combat.)</p><p></p><p>Mo cast Faerie Fire on the area near the entrance to the third tent, hoping to catch the invisible thing. Unfortunately, the invisible guy didn’t get lit up, but the ghoul (which had already been through the fireball and taken at least one arrow) did get caught in the spell. </p><p></p><p>The fext took two swings at Joybell -- one missed but the other one hit for quite a lot of damage (more than a third of her total), and that was after Mo used Cutting Words to ameliorate the strength of its blow.</p><p></p><p>At this point, the 1 deathlock (the not-a-wight) and 4 ghouls that we’d seen on the road heading toward the city, came up behind us, from the road. We were all focused on the fight in the center of the camp, so no one noticed them coming up until the deathlock fired two Eldritch Blasts at Fiona. Fortunately, it missed with both.</p><p></p><p>Orryk moved up and threw a fireball that caught the fext and the ghoul that had already been through the other fireball. Then he breathed fire in a 30’ cone (thanks to the Potion of Firebreathing) in the direction of the fext. The fext managed to dodge and miss much of the damage from both of those attacks, but in doing so, it lost concentration and the Hex spell on Fiona went away. The ghoul, unsurprisingly given all that it had been through, died.</p><p></p><p>At that, the fext screamed out a name in Abyssal and said, “Get your ass out here!” (Orryk understood and translated for us.)</p><p></p><p>At that the bodak came out of the first tent and walked right up to Imaktis. It wasn’t a shadow -- it was entirely solid. It also didn’t take any damage from the fire that was consuming that side of the tent, but its skin was blistering in the fading evening sunlight. We finally got a good look at it -- it was barely human, looking like a slightly melted wax sculpture and wearing tatters. It was also wearing the ram’s head Orcus symbol (as the rest were).</p><p></p><p>Taman moved up to attack the fext, but missed.</p><p></p><p>Imaktis moved around the knot of combatants to cast Guiding Bolt on the fext, who counterspelled. Imaktis then moved back to his original position.</p><p></p><p>At the end of his turn he took damage from an aura of death and decay (necrotic damage) that the bodak was giving off.</p><p></p><p>A skeletally thin undead thing appeared next to Mo and cast Arms of Hadar, which created dark tendrils of energy that battered Mo, Joybell, and Imaktis. Joybell and Imaktis were able to resist it, but Mo took a lot of damage. This was the invisible thing, a deathlock mastermind.</p><p></p><p>The deathlock mastermind looked mostly like bones held together with stretched tight skin. Sort of lich-like, really, except not a lich.</p><p></p><p>At that point in the combat, Mo had been badly injured, Joybell was below half her hit points, Imaktis had been hit a couple of times. Everyone had been hit to varying degrees. And we’d killed one ghoul.</p><p></p><p>Joybell took a swing with her flail at the fext, missing, then moved around him to get out of range of the deathlock mastermind’s Arms of Hadar, if he chose to cast it again. Unfortunately she couldn’t get out of range of the bodak’s necrotic aura without taking an attack of opportunity from the fext.</p><p></p><p>Mo healed Imaktis with a healing word, then disengaged and moved out of the middle of things to a somewhat better position.</p><p></p><p>The fext took a swing at Joybell with his greatsword and dropped her with his first swing.</p><p></p><p>The deathlock fired two Eldritch Blasts at Fiona -- one hit and the other missed.</p><p></p><p>We had still killed exactly one ghoul. (Note: At this point we were thinking we’d stumbled into a TPK.)</p><p></p><p>Orryk then moved up to breathe fire on the fext and the deathlock mastermind. The fext finally died -- after two fireballs, two fire-breaths, and several hits from various people. The deathlock mastermind took a lot of damage from the fire and was looking rather worse after it. Orryk then took the rest of his move to head toward the deathlock and four ghouls that came in from the road and threw another fireball bead at them from the necklace. All of them -- the ghouls and the deathlock were burned up in the fireball. </p><p></p><p>After Orryk’s turn things were suddenly looking very much better.</p><p></p><p>The bodak took a swing at Imaktis, but missed. The two ghouls that had been running up from the far side of the camp finally arrived, getting right up on Taman and Joybell’s dropped body. Fortunately they both attacked Taman (rather than making auto-crit attacks as they went to eat Joybell). Even more fortunately, both missed.</p><p></p><p>Taman hit one of those ghouls, then disengaged and dragged Joybell 15’ away. Unfortunately that left her still in the bodak’s necrotic damage radius.</p><p></p><p>Imaktis turned undead, getting one of the ghouls but neither the deathlock mastermind or the bodak. He then dragged Joybell five more feet out of the bodak’s range so she wouldn’t take that damage (and auto-fail 2 death saves).</p><p></p><p>The deathlock mastermind moved to where he could see Fiona and cast dispel magic to get rid of her Blur spell. Fiona, in response, backed further away from the center of combat and cast chromatic orb, but missed.</p><p></p><p>Mo cast healing word and got Joybell back on her feet--figuratively speaking, anyway as she was still prone. Then he cast vicious mockery on the deathlock mastermind.</p><p></p><p>Orryk used his final firebreath from the potion on the bodak and the un-turned ghoul. That dropped the ghoul. Then he hit the bodak.</p><p></p><p>The bodak glared at Orryk--the effect was obviously bad because there was a withering energy and Orryk saved and still took 11 points of damage. Orryk then used his ability to Fade Away and turn invisible.</p><p></p><p>The turned ghoul continued to flee, running out of the field of battle and the logging town. (Note: We totally forgot to track this guy down, so there’s a random ghoul out there in the forest. Later note: Apparently he came back and we killed him later without incident.)</p><p></p><p>Taman studied the bodak for a bit to gain insight on it, then shot it with his bow, but even with the insight he didn’t do a ton of damage.</p><p></p><p>Imaktis used guiding bolt on the bodak, wherein we learned that it is not vulnerable to radiant damage, though its skin was blistering and peeling away from the sunlight as we watched. (The GM was surprised by this, too ...) He then reached down and stood Joybell actually on her feet.</p><p></p><p>The deathlock mastermind moved away from Orryk, who took an attack against him as he moved, which cost him his invisibility. Unfortunately, he missed. Fortunately, the mastermind also missed when he used eldritch blast on Orryk.</p><p></p><p>Fiona fired a magic missile at the deathlock mastermind, which hit.</p><p></p><p>Joybell, now standing, and angry, laid hands on herself and marched toward the bodak, getting about 10 feet away before her movement ran out. She was hoping that he’d come to her…</p><p></p><p>Mo dropped a shatter spell on the bodak and then inspired Joybell.</p><p></p><p>Orryk attacked the deathlock mastermind, missing with his first attack but doing some real damage with his flurry of blows.</p><p></p><p>The bodak died without anyone touching it from the damage it took from the fading sunlight -- its flesh blistering and sloughing away.</p><p></p><p>With the bodak gone and the one surviving ghoul having fled well away, the only opponent left on the field was the deathlock mastermind. Taman took a shot at it. Imaktis cast guiding bolt,and did some nice damage (and gave the next attack against it advantage).</p><p></p><p>The deathlock mastermind turned around and its hand started to glow with a black glow then it hit Orryk. Mo tried to use cutting words to reduce the amount of damage he took, but it wasn’t enough and Orryk was dropped.</p><p></p><p>Fiona hit it with a Melf’s Acid Arrow, which did some good damage. But it stayed standing.</p><p></p><p>Joybell moved up and absolutely botched her swing (with a Nat 1). There were swears at this point.</p><p></p><p>Mo healed Orryk with healing words then tried vicious mockery, but the mastermind succeeded in saving against that.</p><p></p><p>Orryk pushed himself to his feet, swore in Gnomish, and attacked. Woozy from having been knocked out and dropped, he missed with his first attack and the first of his flurry of blows, but he did get a hit with the last of them.</p><p></p><p>Taman moved up and attacked with his rapier but missed. Imaktis hit it with a guiding bolt, which did lots of damage and the next person to attack it once again had advantage.</p><p></p><p>After all of that it was still standing.</p><p></p><p>The mastermind took a swing at Orryk and dropped him again.</p><p></p><p>Mo: Stop that!</p><p></p><p>Fiona shot it with a firebolt and it took some continuing damage from the Acid Arrow.</p><p></p><p>It was still standing.</p><p></p><p>Joybell, really really pissed now, hit it and did a divine smite, calling down the power of nature she’s sworn to protect, and finally dropped it.</p><p></p><p>Imaktis cast Prayer of healing to get all of us into better shape, because we were all beaten and bloodied.</p><p></p><p>While the rest of us looted the bodies, Taman skirted around the camp and made sure nothing was in any of the other tents or coming our way from the woods.</p><p></p><p>All of them had the Orcus symbol (the ram’s skull) either carved onto their bodies or worn as an amulet. The ghouls looked like they were perhaps formerly the lumberjacks and sawyers of the logging camp. We did not find anyone who looked like Alin, which seemed a little surprising, though it had been suggested that there might have been a disguise self spell involved at some point.</p><p></p><p>We did not find any journals or writings or letters that would let us know for sure that this was the whole of the problem or if there are other deathlocks of various sorts out there planning to attack Embernook.</p><p></p><p>In the tent that wasn’t burned, we saw that the mastermind was again starting to set up a shadowpool. Fiona recognized it as the work of the same creator as the two we’d dealt with before. We disrupted that and Mo burned the tent down with a prestidigitation spell.</p><p></p><p>During all of this we took a short rest, so we were feeling much better by the end of it.</p><p></p><p>On the persons of the dead guys and in the tents, we found:</p><p></p><p>7 x 50 gp gems (2 jasper; 5 onyx)</p><p>12 x 100 gp gems (4 spinel; 5 tourmaline; 3 chrysoberyl)</p><p>4 x 25 gp art and valuable objects (1 silver ewer; 3 ornate mirrors with painted frames)</p><p>110 gp</p><p>1900 sp</p><p>2900 cp</p><p></p><p>GM says that the gems and art are freely interchangeable for money, which means that all divides like so:</p><p></p><p>293 gp each (with 2 left)</p><p>316 sp each (with 4 left)</p><p>483 cp each (with 2 left)</p><p></p><p>We also found:</p><p>+1 Greatsword (No one in the party can use this)</p><p>Gloves of Swimming & Climbing</p><p>Rod of the Pact Keeper (Warlock only)</p><p>Horn of Silent Alarm</p><p>4 spell scrolls (Hex (Warlock only), Armor of Agathys (Warlock only), Mirror Image and Expeditious Retreat) (Fiona has asked for and really should get the Mirror Image and Expeditious Retreat scrolls.)</p><p></p><p>We decided to travel through the night to get back to town as soon as possible -- there was enough moonlight to travel safely on the road.</p><p></p><p></p><p>10 Sunnin 748 (Campaign day 11)</p><p></p><p>We got back to town a couple of hours after sunrise. The town was no longer glowing.</p><p></p><p>As soon as we were in the city, Orryk said: “Hey, Alighieri, we’re back.” But there was no response.</p><p></p><p>As we went through the city and across Allacross to get to Centerkeep, we noticed that the city seemed to be in remarkably good shape, though the crematoria were clearly working hard. We didn’t see a lot of signs of anything having happened -- the people in the streets looked pretty normal and like it was just another day. However, we noticed that the <em>guards</em> we encountered looked tired, worn, and edgy. They had bloodshot eyes and looked like they hadn’t slept for the last two nights. The citizens were business as usual, but the guards had seen some business.</p><p></p><p>We reported to both Chief Truehammer and Commander Mogree.</p><p></p><p>Joybell: We killed lots of things. With fire. We think everything is dead. That’s all. The others can tell you anything I left out.</p><p>Everyone Else: No, that sounded good.</p><p></p><p>We were all aching to go to our respective beds and sleep. On our way out, we were told that the Guard have a storehouse and we should be able to trade in any of the items we got that we can’t use for something they have. Specifically the greatsword that no one can use and the warlock only items.</p><p></p><p>So that’s cool.</p><p></p><p>Exhausted, we left and went home.</p><p></p><p>We will wake later at level 5.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="prabe, post: 8077925, member: 7016699"] [SIZE=4] Session 8: Killing Them With Fire[/SIZE] Dramatis Personae: Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore) Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant) Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker) Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive) Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients) Imaktis - Tortle Cleric (Nature)/Shadow Sorcerer GM - Everyone Else 8 Sunnin 748 (later that day) (Campaign day 9, an hour after sunset) While we were taking a short rest, immediately following the combat with the wights and the Iron Zombies in the road, we discussed whether to continue on overnight or to stop for the night. Mo and (initially) Joybell, were in favor of going on -- it seemed like there was a great urgency to this, and if we stopped to rest the city could be overrun with undead. Mo also pointed out that we weren’t likely to get a quiet night’s rest in a forest crawling with undead. Orryk and Fiona pointed out that Alighieri didn’t know how far we’d have to travel to find the center of the problem -- it could be days of travel away. Even if it was the very next town, it’s probably more than just a few hours travel to get there. Imaktis appeared to be arguing that we could just abandon the whole city to its fate, but that was not seriously considered. Taman pointed out that Alighieri seemed pretty powerful and it’s likely that he, Ullar Truehammer, and Mogree could take care of the city (with the rest of the guard) for a few days (giving us time to take a rest). Orryk and Fiona’s argument that we could be traveling for days convinced Joybell and she began to argue on their side that we should rest. Orryk’s absolute certainty that if we went on we’d die and not save anyone was also pretty persuasive. As part of this conversation, Orryk also pointed out that in the previous combat, the two people with non-magical weapons or attacks wound out fighting the wights (resistant to non-silvered, non-magical weapons) rather than the zombies, which was a sign of unwise tactical decision-making on the parts of some members of the party. Joybell pointed out that some of her tactical decisions have to do with who she can get to with her little legs, but admitted that he really did have a good point. Having agreed with Orryk on that, and on stopping for a long rest, Joybell and Taman went to look for a good place to camp for the night while Orryk and Mo continued to discuss. (Taman was sneaking around so Joybell stayed as far away from him as possible. To the extent she knew where he was.) We found a campsite that was off the road, on some high ground with some trees and not a lot of game trails, but not too much underbrush -- so we could see things coming, but have some cover. Orryk used his move earth cantrip (from being a Way of the Four Elements monk) to dig a 5’ wide and 5’ deep trench around the camp at the top of the hill, with a 5’ wide area not dug out to make it easier to get in and out. Fiona cast alarm across that “entrance”. The dirt removed from the trench was spread evenly around on the top of the hill -- and the dirt let us make nice soft places to sleep. Very homey. Orryk and Fiona took first watch, which passed without incident. Joybell and Imaktis took the second watch. In the middle of their watch, they heard snarling, like ghouls (not like animals) a ways off from the campsite. We moved to where we could see (hopefully without being seen). There were 4 ghouls (apparently, it was actually 3 ghouls and 1 ghast, but we couldn’t tell that from a distance). Joybell asked Imaktis if we should wake the others, and he said no. So she went back to hunkering and watching. When it became obvious that they were coming straight for us, not merely wandering around, she went and woke everyone up despite Imaktis saying not to. When woken, Mo was all snarky about us being attacked by undead in the middle of the night, because he’d predicted this, but he got up. Immediately on waking up, Taman shot one with an arrow, which was a good start. Mo viciously mocked the same one. Orryk took a shot at the same one (focusing fire) but missed horribly and started swearing in Gnomish. Joybell was shocked at his language. One of the ghouls moved up faster than the others (that was the ghast) - this was the one that everyone had been shooting at. Joybell threw a javelin at it, but totally missed (with a nat 1). Basically everyone missed that round, except Taman. Orryk got a good hit on the ghast, then it ran up and went down and over the trench and got right up on Joybell. (The trench counted as two squares of difficult terrain.) It missed her, though, which was good. Imaktis, who used his shillelagh cantrip, hit it and dropped it right into the trench. With the ghast right in front of her gone, Joybell threw a javelin at the nearest ghoul. The ghouls then finally got all the way up to the party, though they were mostly standing in the trench, which had them fighting at disadvantage. Taman used his rapier on one. Mo flicked a spark from his pipe in the air, which burst into sparkling faerie fire that clung to two of them, giving us advantage on our attacks on them. Orryk dropped one with his fists of unbroken air. Imaktis got a hit. Joybell tried to get fancy with an Ensnaring Strike spell on the one which wasn’t faerie fired, but failed with her attack. Until one of the faerie fire’d ones moved out of her threatened area and she hit it with an opportunity attack. At that point it, saved against the writhing vines. Fiona firebolted the faerie fired one and then Taman hit the other one and killed it with a mighty backstab. Mo stepped forward and threw a dagger at the last one and dropped it. With his dagger. Mo: Are we done with this now? Joybell: Yes. Go back to sleep. We got all of the ghouls and the ghast into the trench and Orryk covered them up with his earth moving cantrip. Then Mo cast a sleep spell, though it really wasn’t going to work against the party. But everyone but Joybell and Imaktis did go back to sleep. Around the time they woke up Taman and Mo for their watch, Taman heard more of the ghoulish snarling in the woods -- we stayed quiet until they moved on, then Joybell and Imaktis went to sleep. The rest of the night passed without incident. 9 Sunnin 748 (Campaign day 10) The next morning we got up and continued on our way -- we thought about traveling just off the road, until we remembered that the forest was difficult terrain and we’d be moving very slowly. So we let Taman scout ahead of us on the road and we stayed close to the forest side of the road so we could dart off of it and hide if we needed to. About mid-day, Taman, scouting 60 to 100 feet ahead of us, saw some figures coming down the middle of the road toward us -- they were sort of bony looking, but not skeletons (4 ghouls (or ghasts, as we can’t tell them apart at a distance)) and 1 not-a-wight (GM didn’t say at this time what it was, just that it didn’t look like any of the wights we’ve been fighting all along; later we learned that this was a deathlock)). Taman came back to tell us about them (they hadn’t seen him), and we hid in the forest alongside the road, rather than confronting them. (We wanted to be at full strength when we found the Undead Warlock of Orcus person we were out looking for.) We succeeded in hiding in the woods, despite Joybell wearing heavy armor. Also despite Joybell getting a look at that not-a-wight thing -- it looked really bad and was heading for the city and not fighting it was killing her. But Taman and Orryk kept her focused on the plan and she didn’t throw a javelin at it. Also Taman kept his hands on her shoulders and held her in place. After they passed by, we resumed proceeding on our way with Taman scouting ahead. The rest of the day we travelled without incident until just before dusk we saw a logging camp in the distance -- there were a few bunk tents, a big stack of sawlogs, and a pier in the river. All were semi-randomly placed in a 60’ clearing starting at the river and extending over the road. Everything looked pretty tatty and we didn’t see anything moving. We stopped inside the forest where we could see into the camp without being seen and Taman went in to scout around. Mo inspired him with a hearty “Best of luck!” Taman cut a hole in the nearest tent and peeked in -- it was very dark in the tent, but the sunlight was coming in through the entrance (at the far corner). Taman saw and heard something in the tent recoil and hiss away from the light. (1 bodak). (Note: GM told us what all of the big bad guys were after the combat and I’m going to use those names for them rather than the monikers I wrote in my notes. I’d rather not sound like an idiot talking about the hissing thing (later to be called the Abyssal guy), the was-invisible guy, the guy that came from the road, and the tall skinny guy.) He then went to the next tent and cut a little peephole in that one. There was more light in that one and he could see three figures -- one was really tall and thin and the other two were ghoulish (1 fext and 2 ghouls). They were speaking with one another, but in a language Taman couldn’t understand. (He recognized the rhythms of conversation/speech, but not what they were saying.) The ghouls weren’t very articulate, but the fext was speaking. (There was a third tent nearby, closer to the river, but there wasn’t any good way for Taman to get to it without risking being seen by whatever was in the other two, so he didn’t go peek in that one.) As the rest of us waited for Taman to return, Orryk quaffed the Potion of Firebreathing and Imaktis blessed himself, Joybell, and Orryk. After a few minutes, Taman came back and told us what he saw. We spent a moment figuring out what we were going to do, and then Orryk moved up along the back of the nearer tent (the one with the bodak that hissed away from the light) to where he could throw a bead from his necklace of fireballs at the second tent (with the fext and ghouls). Joybell moved up along the front of the nearer tent and stopped where she was not visible from the door, but so she could get to the entrance the next round. When Orryk threw the bead, the second tent more or less exploded in flames, entirely burning, and the nearer tent took some damage and caught on fire at one corner. After the explosion, Joybell moved up further and stopped, sort of in the middle of the square, and took a dodge action. She was in a position to take on anything that came out of the first tent (burning at the corner and with the bodak in it) or second tent (entirely on fire with the fext and 2 ghouls) or the third tent (not burning at all and un-scouted). The fext, armed with a greatsword, came out of the second tent. The fext was tall and skinny and seemed to fit the description of the guy that came off the ship at Istin’s Yard -- apparently a big bad if not THE big bad. Fiona cast firebolt and hit the fext twice (does this make sense?). After she hit it, it turned and glared at her -- casting a Hex spell on her. Then it fired two Eldritch Bolts at Joybell, but missed. Orryk couldn’t see anything still moving in the tent he fireballed, so he held his action to shoot at something that needed shooting when it appeared. After a moment, one of the two ghouls came out of the fireballed tent. The other one apparently was killed in the fireball. The ghoul ran across the central square of the camp to the third tent and got just to the entrance. We assumed he was going for reinforcements. At the same time, we saw 2 more ghouls running in from the far edge of the camp, beyond the pier. Taman moved up a bit and shot one of the new ones coming in. Imaktis cast Guiding Bolt on the fext and the fext cast Counterspell -- except he was 5’ out of range for the Counterspell (but well in range of the Guiding Bolt) and had to take the 16 points of radiant damage Imaktis was dealing. Imaktis, Orryk and Joybell saw the flap at the entrance of the third tent fly open, but didn’t see anything other than that. Joybell yelled out that something invisible just came out of the tent. Joybell couldn’t get to the fext and attack, so she moved up half her move and threw a javelin at it, hitting well. (This was her last moment of effectiveness until the end of the combat.) Mo cast Faerie Fire on the area near the entrance to the third tent, hoping to catch the invisible thing. Unfortunately, the invisible guy didn’t get lit up, but the ghoul (which had already been through the fireball and taken at least one arrow) did get caught in the spell. The fext took two swings at Joybell -- one missed but the other one hit for quite a lot of damage (more than a third of her total), and that was after Mo used Cutting Words to ameliorate the strength of its blow. At this point, the 1 deathlock (the not-a-wight) and 4 ghouls that we’d seen on the road heading toward the city, came up behind us, from the road. We were all focused on the fight in the center of the camp, so no one noticed them coming up until the deathlock fired two Eldritch Blasts at Fiona. Fortunately, it missed with both. Orryk moved up and threw a fireball that caught the fext and the ghoul that had already been through the other fireball. Then he breathed fire in a 30’ cone (thanks to the Potion of Firebreathing) in the direction of the fext. The fext managed to dodge and miss much of the damage from both of those attacks, but in doing so, it lost concentration and the Hex spell on Fiona went away. The ghoul, unsurprisingly given all that it had been through, died. At that, the fext screamed out a name in Abyssal and said, “Get your ass out here!” (Orryk understood and translated for us.) At that the bodak came out of the first tent and walked right up to Imaktis. It wasn’t a shadow -- it was entirely solid. It also didn’t take any damage from the fire that was consuming that side of the tent, but its skin was blistering in the fading evening sunlight. We finally got a good look at it -- it was barely human, looking like a slightly melted wax sculpture and wearing tatters. It was also wearing the ram’s head Orcus symbol (as the rest were). Taman moved up to attack the fext, but missed. Imaktis moved around the knot of combatants to cast Guiding Bolt on the fext, who counterspelled. Imaktis then moved back to his original position. At the end of his turn he took damage from an aura of death and decay (necrotic damage) that the bodak was giving off. A skeletally thin undead thing appeared next to Mo and cast Arms of Hadar, which created dark tendrils of energy that battered Mo, Joybell, and Imaktis. Joybell and Imaktis were able to resist it, but Mo took a lot of damage. This was the invisible thing, a deathlock mastermind. The deathlock mastermind looked mostly like bones held together with stretched tight skin. Sort of lich-like, really, except not a lich. At that point in the combat, Mo had been badly injured, Joybell was below half her hit points, Imaktis had been hit a couple of times. Everyone had been hit to varying degrees. And we’d killed one ghoul. Joybell took a swing with her flail at the fext, missing, then moved around him to get out of range of the deathlock mastermind’s Arms of Hadar, if he chose to cast it again. Unfortunately she couldn’t get out of range of the bodak’s necrotic aura without taking an attack of opportunity from the fext. Mo healed Imaktis with a healing word, then disengaged and moved out of the middle of things to a somewhat better position. The fext took a swing at Joybell with his greatsword and dropped her with his first swing. The deathlock fired two Eldritch Blasts at Fiona -- one hit and the other missed. We had still killed exactly one ghoul. (Note: At this point we were thinking we’d stumbled into a TPK.) Orryk then moved up to breathe fire on the fext and the deathlock mastermind. The fext finally died -- after two fireballs, two fire-breaths, and several hits from various people. The deathlock mastermind took a lot of damage from the fire and was looking rather worse after it. Orryk then took the rest of his move to head toward the deathlock and four ghouls that came in from the road and threw another fireball bead at them from the necklace. All of them -- the ghouls and the deathlock were burned up in the fireball. After Orryk’s turn things were suddenly looking very much better. The bodak took a swing at Imaktis, but missed. The two ghouls that had been running up from the far side of the camp finally arrived, getting right up on Taman and Joybell’s dropped body. Fortunately they both attacked Taman (rather than making auto-crit attacks as they went to eat Joybell). Even more fortunately, both missed. Taman hit one of those ghouls, then disengaged and dragged Joybell 15’ away. Unfortunately that left her still in the bodak’s necrotic damage radius. Imaktis turned undead, getting one of the ghouls but neither the deathlock mastermind or the bodak. He then dragged Joybell five more feet out of the bodak’s range so she wouldn’t take that damage (and auto-fail 2 death saves). The deathlock mastermind moved to where he could see Fiona and cast dispel magic to get rid of her Blur spell. Fiona, in response, backed further away from the center of combat and cast chromatic orb, but missed. Mo cast healing word and got Joybell back on her feet--figuratively speaking, anyway as she was still prone. Then he cast vicious mockery on the deathlock mastermind. Orryk used his final firebreath from the potion on the bodak and the un-turned ghoul. That dropped the ghoul. Then he hit the bodak. The bodak glared at Orryk--the effect was obviously bad because there was a withering energy and Orryk saved and still took 11 points of damage. Orryk then used his ability to Fade Away and turn invisible. The turned ghoul continued to flee, running out of the field of battle and the logging town. (Note: We totally forgot to track this guy down, so there’s a random ghoul out there in the forest. Later note: Apparently he came back and we killed him later without incident.) Taman studied the bodak for a bit to gain insight on it, then shot it with his bow, but even with the insight he didn’t do a ton of damage. Imaktis used guiding bolt on the bodak, wherein we learned that it is not vulnerable to radiant damage, though its skin was blistering and peeling away from the sunlight as we watched. (The GM was surprised by this, too ...) He then reached down and stood Joybell actually on her feet. The deathlock mastermind moved away from Orryk, who took an attack against him as he moved, which cost him his invisibility. Unfortunately, he missed. Fortunately, the mastermind also missed when he used eldritch blast on Orryk. Fiona fired a magic missile at the deathlock mastermind, which hit. Joybell, now standing, and angry, laid hands on herself and marched toward the bodak, getting about 10 feet away before her movement ran out. She was hoping that he’d come to her… Mo dropped a shatter spell on the bodak and then inspired Joybell. Orryk attacked the deathlock mastermind, missing with his first attack but doing some real damage with his flurry of blows. The bodak died without anyone touching it from the damage it took from the fading sunlight -- its flesh blistering and sloughing away. With the bodak gone and the one surviving ghoul having fled well away, the only opponent left on the field was the deathlock mastermind. Taman took a shot at it. Imaktis cast guiding bolt,and did some nice damage (and gave the next attack against it advantage). The deathlock mastermind turned around and its hand started to glow with a black glow then it hit Orryk. Mo tried to use cutting words to reduce the amount of damage he took, but it wasn’t enough and Orryk was dropped. Fiona hit it with a Melf’s Acid Arrow, which did some good damage. But it stayed standing. Joybell moved up and absolutely botched her swing (with a Nat 1). There were swears at this point. Mo healed Orryk with healing words then tried vicious mockery, but the mastermind succeeded in saving against that. Orryk pushed himself to his feet, swore in Gnomish, and attacked. Woozy from having been knocked out and dropped, he missed with his first attack and the first of his flurry of blows, but he did get a hit with the last of them. Taman moved up and attacked with his rapier but missed. Imaktis hit it with a guiding bolt, which did lots of damage and the next person to attack it once again had advantage. After all of that it was still standing. The mastermind took a swing at Orryk and dropped him again. Mo: Stop that! Fiona shot it with a firebolt and it took some continuing damage from the Acid Arrow. It was still standing. Joybell, really really pissed now, hit it and did a divine smite, calling down the power of nature she’s sworn to protect, and finally dropped it. Imaktis cast Prayer of healing to get all of us into better shape, because we were all beaten and bloodied. While the rest of us looted the bodies, Taman skirted around the camp and made sure nothing was in any of the other tents or coming our way from the woods. All of them had the Orcus symbol (the ram’s skull) either carved onto their bodies or worn as an amulet. The ghouls looked like they were perhaps formerly the lumberjacks and sawyers of the logging camp. We did not find anyone who looked like Alin, which seemed a little surprising, though it had been suggested that there might have been a disguise self spell involved at some point. We did not find any journals or writings or letters that would let us know for sure that this was the whole of the problem or if there are other deathlocks of various sorts out there planning to attack Embernook. In the tent that wasn’t burned, we saw that the mastermind was again starting to set up a shadowpool. Fiona recognized it as the work of the same creator as the two we’d dealt with before. We disrupted that and Mo burned the tent down with a prestidigitation spell. During all of this we took a short rest, so we were feeling much better by the end of it. On the persons of the dead guys and in the tents, we found: 7 x 50 gp gems (2 jasper; 5 onyx) 12 x 100 gp gems (4 spinel; 5 tourmaline; 3 chrysoberyl) 4 x 25 gp art and valuable objects (1 silver ewer; 3 ornate mirrors with painted frames) 110 gp 1900 sp 2900 cp GM says that the gems and art are freely interchangeable for money, which means that all divides like so: 293 gp each (with 2 left) 316 sp each (with 4 left) 483 cp each (with 2 left) We also found: +1 Greatsword (No one in the party can use this) Gloves of Swimming & Climbing Rod of the Pact Keeper (Warlock only) Horn of Silent Alarm 4 spell scrolls (Hex (Warlock only), Armor of Agathys (Warlock only), Mirror Image and Expeditious Retreat) (Fiona has asked for and really should get the Mirror Image and Expeditious Retreat scrolls.) We decided to travel through the night to get back to town as soon as possible -- there was enough moonlight to travel safely on the road. 10 Sunnin 748 (Campaign day 11) We got back to town a couple of hours after sunrise. The town was no longer glowing. As soon as we were in the city, Orryk said: “Hey, Alighieri, we’re back.” But there was no response. As we went through the city and across Allacross to get to Centerkeep, we noticed that the city seemed to be in remarkably good shape, though the crematoria were clearly working hard. We didn’t see a lot of signs of anything having happened -- the people in the streets looked pretty normal and like it was just another day. However, we noticed that the [I]guards[/I] we encountered looked tired, worn, and edgy. They had bloodshot eyes and looked like they hadn’t slept for the last two nights. The citizens were business as usual, but the guards had seen some business. We reported to both Chief Truehammer and Commander Mogree. Joybell: We killed lots of things. With fire. We think everything is dead. That’s all. The others can tell you anything I left out. Everyone Else: No, that sounded good. We were all aching to go to our respective beds and sleep. On our way out, we were told that the Guard have a storehouse and we should be able to trade in any of the items we got that we can’t use for something they have. Specifically the greatsword that no one can use and the warlock only items. So that’s cool. Exhausted, we left and went home. We will wake later at level 5. [/QUOTE]
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