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Message: <blockquote data-quote="prabe" data-source="post: 8118043" data-attributes="member: 7016699">Session 17: We are the Wonderful Band! Also, The Great Gorgon Hunt Gets ComplicatedDramatis 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)/RangerJoybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)Imaktis - Tortle Cleric (Nature)/Shadow SorcererGM - Everyone Else30 Sunnin 748 (Campaign day 31)First thing in the morning, Imaktis began casting plant growth on the lands just outside of Tall Orchard -- the spell takes 8 hours to cast so that it will improve the productivity of the land for a year, so we were going to be staying in the town for the entire day.Joybell and Orryk, with the horses, dragged the bulette corpse out of the center of Tall Orchard to the edge of town and worked on removing the armor-like plates from it.Mo tried to figure out who was the leader of the town, but that hadn’t really been determined yet -- the mayor and most of the elders had been eaten (or at least killed) by the bulette. Despite the horrible losses they suffered, they wanted to try to make a go of it staying there.When Joybell finished helping Orryk with the bulette armor, she went to help the halfling villagers with whatever they needed a strong back for. As it turned out they were moving the possessions of families whose houses had been destroyed into intact houses left by families that had been killed. As she helped them move their possessions, she listened to them talk about and reminisce over their lost friends and relations, giving grief counseling as she could.As she talked to the villagers and helped them, Joybell assembled something of a map of the small villages in the area of Tall Orchard. The next village to the north (the only road out of Tall Orchard) is called Greendle and there are villages to the north-east and north-west of that.She asked if they’d heard of any of those other villages having problems with being attacked. They hadn’t specifically, but as they talked they realized that they heard anything from Greendle in several days.While Joybell was doing that, Orryk helped them build a pyre and move the bodies of the dead to it. Taman scouted the area around the village.Around 10am, Taman spotted five gargoyles flying overhead. It’s hard to estimate altitude from the ground, but he could tell they were out of arrow shot. They were coming from the north east. He gave an alarm -- so the party (all save Imaktis, just outside of town and busy casting the spell that would help the villagers remain in Tall Orchard) worked on spreading the alarm and getting the villagers into cover.As that was happening, Taman saw the gargoyles circle lower to take a look at the village, as the villagers were running into the intact buildings. They circled down to 200 or so feet right over the village (not where Imaktis was casting his spell) as the villagers were running for cover then they flew back up and away in the direction they had come.Mo and Orryk talked about trying to stop them from flying away, as they were doing so. Joybell, with absolutely no way to attack an opponent in the air, listened but didn’t have any ideas.Mo: We once let a lot of warlocks pass us….Joybell: And that didn’t work out so well.After the gargoyles flew away, Joybell helped them reinforce the front of one of their houses built into a mountainside, using some of the rubble from the destroyed buildings, so they’d have a safe retreat to barricade themselves into. Once she’d gotten them working on the project, she went out to where Imaktis was performing his ritual to keep watch over him. Taman went with her.An hour or so after lunchtime, the gargoyles returned, only now there were 8 gargoyles. They were coming in from the north(Ish), in generally the direction Imaktis was performing his ritual. Over the course of the three hours after the first gargoyle sighting, the whole party had moved in that direction. When the alarm went up, Mo cast rope trick and sent the eight halfling children still surviving in the village up into the extra dimensional space where they’d be safe.The gargoyles were coming in lower and with clear intent to attack this time.Taman took a shot at them as soon as they got in range and got a crit on one. Orryk and Mo also took shots at them when they got in range but didn’t hit.Joybell, on Scooby but standing near Imaktis who was still casting his spell, cast shield of faith on herself. (It occurred to her later that she should have cast it on Imaktis, but as it turned out it didn’t really matter.)Fiona held a spell (Fireball) until they got in range. When they did (on their turn), she let it go, catching four of them in the blast. They were still 130’ away and about 40’ up.Taman took a shot and hit one, but with his nonmagical bow he only did a small amount of damage. Orryk did the same, but his magical bow did a bit more damage.Then Mo stepped forward a few feet and said, “Look at the birdies!” before playing a little song on his pipe which emitted a hypnotic pattern of lights into the sky around the gargoyles. Four of them were caught up in the lights (we weren’t sure how many of them, if any, were the same as were caught in the fireball -- they weren’t in a static formation coming in). Three of them went still and glazed and then came crashing down to earth. One of those shattered on impact, breaking into rubble and gravel.Joybell, with no ability to do anything at range, stayed near Imaktis on Scooby, waiting for developments to develop.Fiona then moved up a little bit and cast slow on the ones that were still in the air. Three of them began visibly flying more slowly.At that the four still in the air, three slowed and one moving normally, turned around and began flying back the direction they came from, leaving the ones that had crashed into the ground behind. The three surviving ones on the ground took off and began flying as well, trailing a bit behind the others.Joybell (on Scooby), Taman and Orryk tried to follow them as far as possible but they apparently noticed that and split into two groups pretty quickly, one heading off to the north-west and one to the north-east. So the party members turned around and re-joined the others.We contemplated the situation -- it had been about three hours between the initial flyover and the return with reinforcements. So they couldn’t have flown more than an hour and a half in each direction. Translating that from their airspeed into our overland speed, it seemed like about four hours, perhaps, to wherever they’d gone.After another couple of hours, Imaktis finished his spell to benefit the fertility of the land around Tall Orchard.When he was done, Imaktis suggested finding a cave for the halflings to shelter in, rather than the house built into the hillside Joybell had helped them reinforce with rubble, but there wasn’t anything suitable right in the town where they could get to it quickly.We wound out suggesting to them that they stay out of the village for a little while until we investigated where the gargoyles were coming from. They decided to travel down to Rodzun the next morning -- some of them know Gorni the inkeeper and they hoped to arrange to stay with him for a few days. We can use a sending spell to let them know that it’s safe to return to Tall Orchard.After sorting that out with our halfling hosts, Joybell pulled out the real Dwarven ale and fine wine and good food she’d bought in Rodzun.Joybell: We’ve been traveling and working together for one month now, y’all! So happy anniversary!Orryk: It’s amazing we’ve survived this long.Someone commented that we’d been together for a month and didn’t have a name for our party yet.Joybell: I really like the Wonderful Band, or Mo W. Kang’s Wonderful Band. We’ve done wonderful things and really helped people!Mo: I don’t mind that.There was general agreement -- we are Mo W. Kang’s Wonderful Band (just the Wonderful Band for short). Yay!!We celebrated together and with our halfling hosts for the rest of the evening, before spending the night in a tiny hut Fiona made.1 Sicklin 748 (Campaign day 32)In the morning, we headed north out of Tall Orchard (more or less the direction the gargoyles had come from and gone in, and the direction the road went). We opted to leave Horse 1, Horse 2 and the cart here in Tall Orchard, with access to plenty of food and water, so we’d have the flexibility to head off-track.At the same time, the halfling villagers headed south toward Rodzun.About four hours after we left Tall Orchard we came to a village -- Greendle -- with a few buildings (a couple with damaged walls) and a lot of statues scattered around. Some of the statues showed signs of damage -- chunks broken off and missing -- others are entirely intact. Mo said that when we see the Gorgon, he’d cast a rope trick so we could climb up and safely use the oil of preventing petrification.We scattered a bit, looking around the first couple of buildings we came to. Joybell pinged for undead, but didn’t detect any then went to look in one of the buildings, calling out to see if anyone was in there. Imaktis and Mo headed around the corner of another building. Fiona went toward one of the damaged walls.Taman moved up the central track in the city, looking for tracks. There were a lot of gorgon tracks, which looked like very large cattle tracks, all around.All of a sudden some of the statues which were adjacent to party members started moving (3 living statues). Joybell wasn’t adjacent to one, so she wasn’t attacked. Because of the Sword of Warning, Joybell wouldn’t have been surprised if she had been, but she had moved far enough away from the rest of the party that it was unable to help anyone else. When her friends were attacked, Joybell remembered that we’d been told about moving statues (that were not the same as the gargoyles) when we were in Rodzun.The one on Fiona hit her for a great deal of damage. Worse than that, her muscles locked up and the process of petrification had clearly begun on her.The one near Taman missed him and the one on Mo and Imaktis missed Mo. Orryk, like Joybell, hadn’t been near one and wasn’t attacked.Before any of us got a chance to do anything, Fiona wasn’t able to force herself to move and break out of the petrification and she was turned to stone.Dammit.Orryk went to attack the one on Imaktis and Mo, missing with his main attacks and hitting with only one of his flurry of blows. Though he thought it was only a glancing blow, he could see cracks in the statue as a result.Joybell rode on Scooby as far as he could go, then jumped off and ran to the one on Fiona and attacked, missing with both of her swings.Taman attacked the one in front of him with his rapier -- getting a good hit for 8 points of damage. Then he disengaged and moved to the one on Fiona. As he moved in that direction, he passed another one, which animated and took an opportunity attack. Fortunately that one missed. (Running total: 4 living statues)Mo used a charge from the wand of magic missile to drop the one in front of him, then he inspired Taman. Imaktis moved over and shillelaghed the one that had turned Fiona to stone (which Joybell was also on), hitting it and exploding it.Apparently, they’re vulnerable to bludgeoning damage.Then the one that had activated to attack Taman, attacked Scooby but missed, thank goodness.Another one activated and missed Imaktis. (Running total: 5 living statues)Orryk, not wanting to get close to things that could turn people to stone with a hit, used his fists of unbroken air to hit one, blowing it apart with his air-punches.Joybell turned to the one that was menacing Scooby, but missed with both of her swings. Scooby disengaged and ran back behind Orryk. Taman attacked the same one Joybell had, also missing.Mo used two charges off the wand of magic missiles and sent two darts to the one Joybell and Taman were on and two to the one that had originally attacked Taman.Imaktis took a look at Fiona and, seeing that she was fully petrified but that she looked odd somehow, turned and attacked the one that Joybell and Taman were on, missing with his shillelagh.Another one in the street animated and attacked Taman from the back, but missed. The one that had originally attacked Taman, and the one that was surrounded by Joybell, Taman and Imaktis both attacked Joybell. Both missed. (Final total: 6 living statues)Orryk again used his fists of unbroken air, this time on the one that had just attacked Taman from behind, and again exploded it. Nice!Joybell took a swing on the one in the middle of the group, getting a crit that blew it into rubble and dust. Then she turned to the other one that had attacked her and exploded that one in to rubble as well.Then all was quiet.Imaktis, looking at petrified Fiona: We could leave her like that. She’s safe.The rest of us: No.So he used the Restoration bead from his prayer beads to bring her back. Which left the party without any way to deal with someone getting petrified until the next day.Orryk and Taman set about making rubble of all of the remaining statues in the village. At the same time Joybell went to all of the buildings and looked for any survivors, but there were none. Mo looked for papers that might mentioned what had happened, or any valuables, but found none of either.There was no sign of gargoyle tracks in town -- just the gorgon tracks and the tracks of the statues that had animated. Taman looked to find where it had entered and where it had left the village and was able to determine that. It moved through the forest knocking over trees leaving a very clear trail. It entered the town from the north-northeast and left to the south-southwest in the general direction of Lunn (the town before Rodzun on the coastal road).The statues were clean and unweathered, highly detailed. We estimated that they’d been here for a couple of days, so the gorgon had a head start on us.Joybell voted for going after the gargoyles -- they seemed to be a more immediate threat, and a warmer trail. Also, once we got the gorgon head we wouldn’t be coming back to deal with the gargoyle threat. And it wouldn’t be that hard to pick up the gorgon’s trail -- it moved through the forest without regard for trees or the underbrush, so it left a very clear trail.We left town on the road to the north. Just outside of town it forked, with roads going to the northeast and northwest. The fork in the road was very near where the gorgon trail entered torn, so we decided to follow that instead of the road hoping it would lead us to the center of the outbreak of earth-magic badness.We followed the gorgon’s path, like a bulldozer’s track, through the forest for about four hours. Taman noticed 10 gargoyles and we were not surprised by them, partly because of him and partly because of the Sword of Warning. Then he noticed something rumbling through the woods -- something large and bull-shaped with a dull, steel gleam (1 gorgon!)Orryk used the wand of web to create a cube of webbing on the gorgon, then he used his bonus action to use patient defense and dodge.As we had discussed in advance, Mo cast rope trick, but didn’t climb up. He planned to wait until everyone else had gotten up before climbing up himself.The gargoyles came in at ground level through the trees and split up so that there were three on Taman, one on Joybell, two on Fiona (oh, dear!), one on Mo, two on Imaktis and one on Orryk. It wound out better than it might have -- Taman was only hit by one of the many attacks he faced. Joybell was missed. Fiona got hit by a claw and a bite, but Mo was able to reduce the damage with cutting words. Mo got hit once but was otherwise missed. Imaktis cast shield to avoid a hit. Orryk was dodging but still got hit by one attack.Before any of the rest of us could do anything something humanoid in shape rose seamlessly up out of the earth -- it seemed almost xorn-like, but not quite. The best we could liken it to was an earth salamander. (The GM told us later that this was 1 myrriq -- we called it the earthamander through the combat. The notes will call it a myrriq.) After rising out of the earth, it did not attack.The gorgon was not restrained by the web, but was unable to get out of the difficult terrain. So it breathed its petrifying gas on Taman, Joybell and Scooby. Fortunately we all saved.As Taman got his turn, he was slowed as if under the slow spell. We figured out that this was an aura given off by the myrriq (and a big one - 40’ radius). He was able to retreat up Mo’s rope trick without issue.Imaktis was not affected by the slow aura. He cast spiritual guardians, creating a protecting aura around his own self of tiny, protective glowing spirits that would damage any enemy that entered it. The spirit guardians were catching all but two of the gargoyles and the myrriq, but not the gorgon. Then he cast spiritual weapon on the gorgon, but it missed.Fiona was affected by the slow aura and found herself in a pickle -- because she was slowed she couldn’t disengage from her attackers and move. Also with her movement slowed she could get to the rope but not up it. She ultimately decided to risk the attacks of opportunity from the two gargoyles on her and move to the bottom of the rope. Fortunately, only one of those two attacks hit.Joybell was also affected by the slow aura, but fortunately Scooby wasn’t. So she rode him over to the base of the rope then climbed up, slowly. As she entered the extradimensional space, she told Scooby to try and get clear.Orryk was also affected by the slow aura and decided to go up the rope. He faced four opportunity attacks, but again only one hit.Mo, unaffected by the slow, lifted Fiona up into the extradimensional space, then climbed up himself.Leaving only Imaktis (and Scooby) with what seemed like a million enemies around him, including a freaking gorgon. And that myrriq thing.Eight of the gargoyles moved in to form a box around Imaktis, blocking him off from the rope. All of them, plus the two that couldn’t fit into the box, took varying amounts of damage from the spiritual guardians. The eight around him all attacked and, with the help of a shield spell, all missed.The myrriq looked puzzled at the disappearance of almost all of the party and moved back a bit. The gorgon moved up so it was standing next to the myrriq but didn’t attack.In the rope trick, Taman freaked out in slow motion and stayed slowed.Imaktis missed with his spiritual weapon and then dodged because he didn’t feel he had a good chance of getting through the gargoyle between him and the rope without getting pummeled. Between his shell, his shield, and the shield spell, dodging seemed to him like the best way to survive.As he stood there dodging and weaving all nimble-like, Joybell noticed that he dropped the prayer beads, with the greater restoration bead. If he got turned to stone, the beads would still be available to the party.Scooby attacked the gargoyle between Imaktis and the rope, missing with his attack, then Joybell, still moving slowly, dismissed him.Orryk did shake off the slow, but didn’t see anything useful to do in the situation, so he stayed in the rope trick.Mo popped out of the rope trick to cast hypnotic pattern in a 30’ cube. The cube included Imaktis, but his wisdom is good and Mo felt he’d save against the pretty lights. All of the gargoyles but one and the gorgon, but not the myrriq were included in the effect. And most of them failed their saves, including the gorgon. Then Mo climbed back up the rope.Almost all of the gargoyles were stunned, staring at the pretty lights -- unfortunately the damage from the spiritual guardians shook them out of their daze. Fortunately the guardians dropped some of them. The last gargoyle moved in to fill in the box around Imaktis, not paying attention to the spiritual guardians. Then all the gargoyles attacked Imaktis, but because he was dodging all the attacks but one missed and that one he was able to use his shield spell to hold off.The myrriq, standing on the other side of the gorgon, was not in the hypnotic pattern. It was also apparently too smart to go into the cloud of tiny protective spirits. Instead it gave the gorgon a smack, to shake it out of being stunned by the pretty lights, then it spoke, in Terran to Imaktis, who (fortunately) knows another dialect of Primordial (Auran) and was able to understand and respond.Myrriq: I do not believe your friends have actually abandoned you.Imaktis: Oh, they know I can take care of myself. I dare you to breathe on me again.The myrriq’s eyes flashed at that and it glared at Imaktis, doing a great deal of damage and slowing him. Then it dissolved into the ground beneath it as seamlessly as it had emerged and disappeared. The gorgon then turned away and started trotting up the trail.With the myrriq gone, the slow effect on Taman, Fiona and Joybell in the extradimensional space faded.Taman came out of the rope trick and moved into the woods, then he hid and fired an arrow at the gorgon, doing a fair amount of damage with his sneak attack.Imaktis didn’t shake off the slow from the myrriq’s gaze, apparently that was more durable in the myrriq’s absence than the slow from its aura. Still in the middle of a box of gargoyles, he set himself to dodge their attacks.Fiona, moving freely again, came out of the rope trick and cast fireball on the gargoyles, conveniently all in a cluster around Imaktis. Imaktis felt the heat of the fireball all around him as he stood in a calm center, completely untouched by it.All but one of the gargoyles, the one closest to the base of the rope, died in the fireball. Or fire torus.Joybell came down the rope and dithered about the right thing to do for a second -- she had no chance of catching up to the gorgon with Scooby dismissed -- and finally settled on attacking the remaining gargoyle, missing with both of her swings. Then she moved away from the bottom of the rope to make room for others to come down, grumbling all the way.Orryk came down the rope and moved to a position away from the gorgon where he could shoot at it with his shortbow, and not be in Gorgon-breath Formation Alpha. He took two shots at it, but missed.Mo came down the rope and blew the loud crashing note on his pipe that cast shatter on the gorgon. It failed to save against it and took 19 points of damage.The last remaining gargoyle, still harassed (and damaged) by the spiritual guardians and having had absolutely no luck against the nimbly dodging tortle, turned to Joybell and bit her for a small amount of damage.The gorgon, without the myrriq to guide it, and having been attacked and hurt twice, turned back toward us, moving toward and past Mo without attacking him and continuing on until it was closer to the party.Taman hid in the woods again and took a shot at the gorgon, but merely bounced an arrow off its steely hide.Imaktis shook off the slow effect and looked around himself. Seeing only one gargoyle now, he picked up his prayer beads and rushed the gorgon, ignoring the gargoyle and its opportunity attack. Then he cast bless, from the prayer beads, on himself, Mo and Joybell. His attack with the spiritual weapon missed.Fiona cast fly on herself and moved up and away so she’d be out of range of the gorgon’s breath should it do that again.Joybell, staring into the nostrils of the gorgon and with an injured gargoyle at her side, ignored the gargoyle and moved to the flank of the gorgon, away from the end with the petrifying breath. She cast wrathful smite and hit it, doing maximum damage from the spell. It failed its save against the fear effect of the wrathful smite and was now afraid of her. With her second attack she did a regular divine smite, which wasn’t as powerful but still wound out doing a fair amount of damage.Orryk used the wand to place another web -- right on the gorgon on the side opposite Joybell. Unfortunately, it saved against being restrained, but the web still made difficult terrain that it was reluctant to enterThe gorgon saved against the spiritual guardians but because of its fear of Joybell (which it would have to take an action to steel itself against) it couldn’t move closer to her. So it was sort of wedged in between scary Joybell and the difficult terrain of the web spell with Imaktis in front of it and just a little off to the side. It was pinned between bad options and blamed Joybell for its predicament, so it attacked her with itshorns and missed.Taman took a sneak shot at the gorgon and did a goodly chunk of damage to it.The last gargoyle, determined to be the last one standing in this combat, didn’t fall to the tiny angry spirits.Fiona cast magic missile on the gorgon but didn’t manage to drop it. Finally, Joybell hit it with another divine smite, dropping it at last. Then she moved to the last gargoyle and dropped it.Taman, yelled into the sudden quiet: Come out, you dirt monster piece of naughty word!But the dirt monster piece of naughty word did not come out.Unfortunately, Orryk’s tremorsense wouldn’t be able to pick up the movement of the myrriq through the earth (earthglide doesn’t make tremors) even if it was within his 30’ range.The party compared notes (well, everyone but Joybell who’d never heard of these things) and assembled the following information about the myrriq -- it slows people and that starts a progression. Anything slowed has a chance of becoming paralyzed. Anything paralyzed has a chance of becoming petrified. Then it can turn anything petrified into those living statues we encountered in Greendle. It’s an elemental from the plane of earth and can dominate anything that’s innately immune to petrification or that has a burrowing speed.We cut the head off the gorgon in the waning end of the day and found, to our pleasure, that Fiona’s Tenser’s floating disk will be able to carry it (until we can get back to Tall Orchard and the cart and horses).While Fiona performed the ritual to cast Leomund’s Tiny Hut, Taman scouted around the area and found that there was a trail for at least one more gorgon. And we don’t know where the myrriq went, but it clearly needs to be stopped.Joybell pondered what we’d learned from this combat and her main takeaway was that 10 minutes in combat is an eternity. If we’d all gotten into the rope trick, the monsters (including the gorgon) would have all wandered off, bored, before we got the oil of prevention of petrification on. If a subset of the party started oiling up and another subset stayed out to keep the enemies occupied, the combat would be over one way or another before the oil was on. Either the party members would be dead or all the monsters would be.On the other hand, the rope trick totally saved our butts with the slow effect from the myrriq. If we had not been able to retreat to a safe space to shake it off, we would have been in a really bad place.So we can’t use it to make a safe space to put on the oil, unless we spot the gorgon (or the myrriq) on the horizon, less than an hour away but more than 10 minutes.In the morning, Joybell will prepare Find Steed so she can bring Scooby back.</blockquote>

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