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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: 8190656" data-attributes="member: 7016699"><p>Session 30: The Forge Of Masks</p><p></p><p>Dramatis Personae:</p><p></p><p>Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)</p><p>Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore)</p><p>Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)/Cleric (Knowledge)</p><p>Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)/Ranger</p><p>Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)</p><p>Thneed - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)</p><p></p><p>GM - Everyone Else</p><p></p><p></p><p>4 - 7 Rippenin 748 (Campaign days 65 - 68)</p><p></p><p>Mo, once he’d sent the Tashin diplomats happily on their way (or returned them to the Administrator), gave us a report on his experience with them. He got them thoroughly drunk, even by dwarf standards, and used every trick in the book to keep them from drinking him under the table.</p><p></p><p>They told him that there had been Mask attacks near Tash focused not on assassinations or on kidnapping children but on stealing magic items. (Not their normal MO -- the ones in Pelsoreen specifically told Orryk that they didn’t do that kind of job.) They also told him that the Masks stole a dwarven crematorium/tomb/family shrine (about the size of a modern crypt/grave liner, with a hole for a chimney on the top) that was being transported to New Arvai. They recognized Steeltear as a duergar name and told Mo drunken stories of the duergar having been warped by generations as slaves of the Illithids in the underdark.</p><p></p><p>After putting the diplomats to bed, or under the table, Mo checked in with us in the evenings. And went to Trannell’s to buy the Broom of Flying. Because Broom of Flying!</p><p></p><p>We talked to Barnett and Tulmor about that information and Barnett found some more information about duergar -- it was hard to locate initially because the duergar are believed to be extinct but he found a bit more. He told us that most duergar could innately become invisible so he wanted to make sure that everyone who could possibly cast the spell See Invisible a) knew it and b) had it up when we teleported in.</p><p></p><p>Tulmor said that she would cast Rary’s Telepathic Bond on the party -- so we’d be able to communicate mentally with one another. So helpful! And she could cast that and not have to go with us. She also pulled out a little squirrel shaped entity with wings, Hulmon II, a homunculus. She has a telepathic bond with it and with an invisibility spell on it, it would be able to scout and keep an eye on things for us.</p><p></p><p>Barnett said that he could cast a wall of force, if we need it to keep the Masks out of the Forge room but if he does so, he wouldn’t be able to work on casting the teleportation circle we need to get out of there.</p><p></p><p>We reviewed again what Barnett had seen with the arcane eye in the Forge room and, on being reminded that the crystal is in some sort of mounting, we stocked up on crowbars and hatchets to have implements with which to free it.</p><p></p><p>Thneed asked what the Masks did during the day -- did they have watches or patrols around the complex? Barnett said that he never saw patrols or sentry duty -- just Masks sleeping, eating, cooking, and in that not-turned-off standby mode. Cool.</p><p></p><p></p><p>8 Rippenin 748 (Campaign day 69)</p><p></p><p>Before going to pick up her armor, Joybell passed out the healing potions she made -- one each to Mo, Thneed, Fiona, Taman and Barnett.</p><p></p><p>Then, on her way to Brightforge’s to pick up her armor, Joybell went by herself to the Administrator’s office and signed up on the list to talk to Thalith, thinking that the Administrator might like to know what we were planning. She wrote her name, Joybell L. F. Sympony, Rider of Wolf, and wrote after her name “Important!!”. After a few minutes waiting, she went back over and wrote, “probably”. After another couple of minutes, in which she realized that maybe the Administrator didn’t really care about this thing happening so far from Embernook, she went over and added “maybe”. Then she looked around at all the people there waiting, the tense faces and white-knuckled grips on packages and purses and realized that every single person there had a very important problem for the Administrator. So she went back to the list and crossed that all out and just left her name.</p><p></p><p>(Thneed's player: That’s the most Joybell thing ever.)</p><p></p><p>After a bit Thalith called her name and she went into his office. She told him that we were going to the Forge of Masks to bust things up and stop them being able to make more Masks again ever.</p><p></p><p>Thalith: That sounds very brave.</p><p>Joybell: It needs to be done.</p><p></p><p>He asked if that was what all the activity with us and Barnett and Tulmor was about.</p><p></p><p>Thalith: The Administrator would appreciate it if you don’t get Barnett killed.</p><p>Joybell: We’ll do our best. Umm, why?</p><p>Thalith: They have a good working relationship and he’s proven valuable to the Administrator in the past.</p><p></p><p>Joybell wondered a bit what if that meant the Administrator cared less if we got killed or just wasn’t as worried about us, but didn’t dwell on that too much. She accepted the charge of bringing him back safely.</p><p></p><p>Joybell: Some people in my party think that the Administrator is evil and we’ll have to fight him someday.</p><p>Thalith, laughing: There are many people in Embernook who think the Administrator is evil. He’s just doing his job.</p><p></p><p>Joybell then left and went to the forge for her armor. After a bit of time with final fitting and making sure everything went together properly, Joybell rode Scooby at full speed back to Tulmor and Barnett’s.</p><p></p><p>Once there, Tulmor cast longstrider on everyone in the party (giving us +10 movement speed). See invisible spells were cast by Barnett and Fiona. Tulmor cast invisibility on Thneed, Orryk, Taman and her homunculus. Tulmor cast mage armor on Mo and Thneed. Tulmor cast the Rory’s Telepathic Bond. And Joybell was given the steel plate we plan to use to barricade the door to the Forge Room.</p><p></p><p>Just before the teleport, Mo inspired Taman and Orryk.</p><p></p><p>Mo, to Orryk and Taman: I’ve known you guys for a while and I really want you to come back.</p><p></p><p>Mo, to Thneed: Good luck, new girl! (with no bardic inspiration)</p><p></p><p>Then Barnett cast teleport, teleporting us into barracks where the Masks we killed in the cave came from.</p><p></p><p>Team Invisible -- Orryk, Thneed and Taman -- were teleported to right near the entrance to the hallway/barracks. The rest of us were in the back of it, hopefully less likely to be visible to the Masks across the central chamber or in the next barracks/ hall over.</p><p></p><p>As soon as we arrived, we noticed that what we (or at least Joybell) thought we understood that Barnett had reported was not quite right -- there were five Masks not more than 20 feet from the entrance to the barracks/hall. They appeared to be waiting or watching for someone to come through the teleportation circle with all the Symbol of [Bad Stuff] spells in front of it. The other five were across on the other side of the cage. Barnett, not being a military-type mage, perhaps did not recognize sentry duty when he saw it. Fortunately their attention was away from us and toward the teleportation circle.</p><p></p><p>Almost immediately upon arriving, Taman (invisible) hid and ran as fast as he could toward the door of the Forge Room, making it to the doorway. He could see that there was some stuff in the disintegration chamber -- gruel residue (“gruel bones”), coffee grounds, dishes, chamber pots -- but otherwise it was exactly as Barnett had described.</p><p></p><p>Thneed hid and rode the broom of flying as far as she could go, not making it quite as far as the entrance, but well on the way and away from the Masks.</p><p></p><p>Barnett grabbed Joybell and cast dimension door, bamfing them both into the Forge Room. Mo, waiting for Fiona to dimension door them over with the cape of the mountebank, looked around to see what he could see without moving away from her. Unfortunately, all he saw was mussed beds. Orryk hid and then ran as far as he could (without spending a ki-point). Fiona put her hand on Mo’s back and used the cape to bamf them to the Forge Room.</p><p></p><p>Hulmon II, the homunculus, flew over the heads of the Masks, invisible, and observed that they did not appear to have noticed us. Tulmor relayed this information to the party through the bond.</p><p></p><p>Joybell took the steel plate and stood next to the door, waiting to put it over the door as soon as everyone was inside.</p><p></p><p>Taman, in the hall outside the Forge Room, poked at the priest hole in the other door -- it didn’t open, to his disappointment, then he ran inside.</p><p></p><p>Taman: Dammit!</p><p></p><p>Thneed came into the room and got off the broom. Barnett, who had been going to cast a grease spell outside the doorway, froze in place and didn’t move. Mo moved up to the other side of the doorway from Joybell, with the small iron boat and the feather token in his hands. Orryk moved into the room and used the wand to make a web spell right outside the door.</p><p></p><p>That made a noise (Note: Think Spiderman’s “thwip”), so we assumed the Masks would hear that.</p><p></p><p>Before they could react though, Fiona filled in the hallway outside the door, and some distance beyond, with a Wall of Sand.</p><p></p><p>Then Joybell closed the door to the Forge Room and put the steel plate up in front of it, holding it in place.</p><p></p><p>As she did so, we all began to hear cussing, lots of it, from Tulmor through the telepathic bond. The 10 Masks that were watching had turned, aware that something was going on back in the Forge room. And the wall of sand was dispelled almost immediately -- she saw something small with fluttering wings at the priest hole. The Masks immediately started moving.</p><p></p><p>Taman examined the Forge, looking for a way to disable it, but was unable to figure it out. Thneed looked at the table near the Forge -- it had cuffs and manacles on pulleys so that they were adjustable to the height of the subject on the table. Barnett was able to figure out the structure around the crystal and pointed out to Taman (and through the telepathic bond everyone else) the specific connections that needed to be un-done to release the crystal. Fiona started working on disconnecting those points.</p><p></p><p>Mo used the iron boat and the feather token to hold the steel plate in place and the door closed. Orryk put the immovable rod into place as well. We had secured the room according to the plan we developed over drinks at the Pewter Oar in the evenings during our week of preparation.</p><p></p><p>Tulmor reported that the web spell was burning -- lit up by a chromatic orb cast through the priest hole. And the Masks outside were moving up toward the door.</p><p></p><p>Taman helped with disassembling the Forge.</p><p></p><p>Thneed, worried about the reports of Masks right outside, readied herself to fire at anything that came through the door.</p><p></p><p>Barnett, looking visibly frightened with shaking hands, moved as far away as he possibly could from the door and started casting teleportation circle. Mo cast a rope trick, giving us a safe place to retreat to if the room was overrun by Masks. Especially since Tulmor reported again that the Masks were getting closer. Orryk moved to one side of the door and readied an action to punch something that came through.</p><p></p><p>Thneed expressed her concern to Joybell that if the door was blasted open or forced into the room, Joybell might be crushed or hit by shrapnel. Joybell agreed that was a reasonable concern. Rather than just moving aside, though, Joybell noticed that Barnett looked like he was fighting off a crippling fear, or struggling to, so she went over to him and, with his permission, cast heroism on him, because that would help him be less frightened. Then she headed back toward the doorway to stand guard with Orryk.</p><p></p><p>Before she could get there, the section of wall next to the door, where Joybell was heading to stand after Thneed’s advice, just disappeared. The whole wall disintegrated into a fine powder.</p><p></p><p>And a tiny flying thing shaped sort of like a dwarf with bat wings flew into the room followed by two Masks. And 14 more out in the hall with nothing to stop them entering.</p><p></p><p>Taman, turning around: Oh, naughty word!</p><p></p><p>He tried to use the eyes of charming on the tiny dwarf (Steeltear) but it didn’t work.</p><p></p><p>Thneed put her hunter’s mark on Steeltear and took her shots at the tiny flying dwarf-bat. She hit with both of them, doing a lot of damage.</p><p></p><p>Tulmor: Barnett, if you have something up your sleeve, now would be a good time …</p><p>Barnett: Got it.</p><p></p><p>Barnett, given courage (possibly false courage) by Joybell’s spell, moved up to the corner of the disintegration chamber (lower left rectangle in the room) and cast sickening radiance. Fiona recognized that he was somehow managing to re-write the spell as he cast it -- creating a 30’ radius sphere of a sickly greenish/blackish glow that did necrotic damage to everything in its area. All of the Masks on the little map here, plus most of the ones outside, were stun-locked by it.</p><p></p><p>Barnett: I can keep this up for a while.</p><p></p><p>Tulmor reported that the Masks that weren’t caught in the greenish radiance, five of them, drew their bows and didn’t enter it, seeing what it did to the others. Since it blocked the entire hallway into the Forge room it was as effective as a wall at keeping the Masks out. So we only had to deal with Steeltear.</p><p></p><p>Mo, seeing that the Masks were under control, cast polymorph on the dwarf-bat, Steeltear. Unfortunately, Turnik didn’t turn into a newt.</p><p></p><p>Mo: Welp, that didn’t work.</p><p></p><p>Orryk moved around to where he could attack Steeltear without getting into the greenish radiance and attacked him. Fiona tried to get Steeltear in a slow spell, but unfortunately he saved. (Two of the stunned Masks failed their saves.)</p><p></p><p>Joybell moved around to a position between Orryk and Barnett and attacked Steeltear, who was apparently flying fairly low (or she was leaping energetically). Her first attack missed, but with her second attack she hit and called down as much divine energy into her attack as possible to hit him quite solidly.</p><p></p><p>Steeltear turned a little bit and started casting a spell, but before the spell could be complete, Barnett shouted “No!” and a prismatic spray spell fizzled under the power of his counterspell. Turnik then moved out of the sickening radiance. Orryk tried to stop him from moving by attacking and using his stunning fist, but he saved against that. Joybell missed with her swing at him as he went by.</p><p></p><p>He wasn’t able to move far, but he was able to get away from the sickening radiance.</p><p></p><p>His move helped us some, because it meant that Taman was able to get up close to him and stab him with a zephyr strike for a considerable lot of damage as well. Thneed then took her shots and the tiny flying dwarf fell to the floor, gurgling and gasping. Thneed got the sense that she could move her hunter’s mark, which meant that he was at least unconscious. She did so and took her second shot at one of the Masks, using her horde breaker ability on the one next to it.</p><p></p><p>On the ground, Turnik, bleeding out and gurgling, began to transform into a normal-sized dwarf.</p><p></p><p>Barnett, still riding the swell of bravery imparted by the heroism spell, looked down at the dwarf and sent three magic missiles one-by-one into his chest. The gurgling and gasping stopped.</p><p></p><p>Mo cast a shatter spell that got most of the Masks caught in the sickening radiance. Orryk moved to a position near the door where he could punch the ones in the doorway without being caught in the radiance himself.</p><p></p><p>Joybell threw her new lightning javelin, hitting three of the Masks, then turned and attacked the body of Steeltear on the ground, screaming in rage as she hacked at it with her sword.</p><p></p><p>The Mask in the doorway (the only one in range of a melee attack without entering the sickening radiance) dropped. Taman couldn’t get close to attack one with his rapier.</p><p></p><p>Joybell: You can shoot them.</p><p></p><p>Taman nodded, and put down his rapier by stabbing it into the body of Turnik. Then he dropped the one in the doorway with an arrow.</p><p></p><p>Joybell asked Tulmor, still using her homunculus as our eye in the sky, if the ones out there appeared to have noticed Turnik dying. She reported that she did not see any indication of that.</p><p></p><p>We then began killing the Masks -- with area effect spells until most of the ones that were in the sickening radiance had died, until Tulmor pointed out that the spell had outlived its usefulness.</p><p></p><p>Barnett dropped the spell, allowing the remaining Masks to enter the room.</p><p></p><p>Thneed, to Barnett: You’re probably going to be their primary target. Take cover.</p><p></p><p>Then she held her attack to shoot at the first one to enter the room.</p><p></p><p>Barnett nodded and moved back next to where Fiona had gone back to working on getting the crystal out of the Forge.</p><p></p><p>The Masks approached the room -- dropping their bows and pulling their swords.</p><p></p><p>Mo viciously mocked the first one into the room.</p><p></p><p>Mo: Your leader is dead like your parents.</p><p></p><p>(Note: I love how sort of gentle Mo’s mockery has been with the Masks -- the recognition that they’re victims in this.)</p><p></p><p>Orryk moved out into the doorway and attacked one, hitting with the gloves and stunning one.</p><p></p><p>Fiona recognized that she and Barnett were close to getting the crystal disconnected so she cast a Tenser’s floating disc for it to be carried on in preparation for it to be removed from the Forge.</p><p></p><p>Taman pulled his sword out of Turnik’s abdomen, then went and attacked one of the stunned Masks, dropping it and clearing the room of Masks again. Thneed took up a position to shoot any Mask that came through the door.</p><p></p><p>The Masks got to where Orryk was standing, the one he’d stunned no longer in the way, and two of them attacked him. The attack once again reminded us why these things are so very very bad -- the two Masks took him from uninjured to nearly down in one round. Fortunately, Mo was able to use his cutting words to reduce the damage they did so that he was able to remain standing. Barely.</p><p></p><p>Orryk used his ability to fade away to turn invisible, then attacked them. Unfortunately he missed both times. He disengaged and moved away to the far side of the room between the Forge and the rack.</p><p></p><p>We then proceeded to gang up on one of the ones that had attacked Orryk -- Fiona locking it with a Toll the Dead and Joybell, Taman and Thneed attacking it -- until it dropped. Barnett cast a chain lightning that weakened all of them.</p><p></p><p>With their numbers reduced to just a few, our well-established Mask fighting tactics stood us in good stead and we were able to kill the remaining Masks.</p><p></p><p>We ended with the party looking around the Forge room, which was littered with the bodies of dead Masks and Turnik Steeltear, strange bat wings still on his back, in a pool of blood and gore, in varying degrees of shock, disbelief, anger and elation.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="prabe, post: 8190656, member: 7016699"] Session 30: The Forge Of Masks Dramatis Personae: Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant) Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore) Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)/Cleric (Knowledge) Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)/Ranger Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients) Thneed - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave) GM - Everyone Else 4 - 7 Rippenin 748 (Campaign days 65 - 68) Mo, once he’d sent the Tashin diplomats happily on their way (or returned them to the Administrator), gave us a report on his experience with them. He got them thoroughly drunk, even by dwarf standards, and used every trick in the book to keep them from drinking him under the table. They told him that there had been Mask attacks near Tash focused not on assassinations or on kidnapping children but on stealing magic items. (Not their normal MO -- the ones in Pelsoreen specifically told Orryk that they didn’t do that kind of job.) They also told him that the Masks stole a dwarven crematorium/tomb/family shrine (about the size of a modern crypt/grave liner, with a hole for a chimney on the top) that was being transported to New Arvai. They recognized Steeltear as a duergar name and told Mo drunken stories of the duergar having been warped by generations as slaves of the Illithids in the underdark. After putting the diplomats to bed, or under the table, Mo checked in with us in the evenings. And went to Trannell’s to buy the Broom of Flying. Because Broom of Flying! We talked to Barnett and Tulmor about that information and Barnett found some more information about duergar -- it was hard to locate initially because the duergar are believed to be extinct but he found a bit more. He told us that most duergar could innately become invisible so he wanted to make sure that everyone who could possibly cast the spell See Invisible a) knew it and b) had it up when we teleported in. Tulmor said that she would cast Rary’s Telepathic Bond on the party -- so we’d be able to communicate mentally with one another. So helpful! And she could cast that and not have to go with us. She also pulled out a little squirrel shaped entity with wings, Hulmon II, a homunculus. She has a telepathic bond with it and with an invisibility spell on it, it would be able to scout and keep an eye on things for us. Barnett said that he could cast a wall of force, if we need it to keep the Masks out of the Forge room but if he does so, he wouldn’t be able to work on casting the teleportation circle we need to get out of there. We reviewed again what Barnett had seen with the arcane eye in the Forge room and, on being reminded that the crystal is in some sort of mounting, we stocked up on crowbars and hatchets to have implements with which to free it. Thneed asked what the Masks did during the day -- did they have watches or patrols around the complex? Barnett said that he never saw patrols or sentry duty -- just Masks sleeping, eating, cooking, and in that not-turned-off standby mode. Cool. 8 Rippenin 748 (Campaign day 69) Before going to pick up her armor, Joybell passed out the healing potions she made -- one each to Mo, Thneed, Fiona, Taman and Barnett. Then, on her way to Brightforge’s to pick up her armor, Joybell went by herself to the Administrator’s office and signed up on the list to talk to Thalith, thinking that the Administrator might like to know what we were planning. She wrote her name, Joybell L. F. Sympony, Rider of Wolf, and wrote after her name “Important!!”. After a few minutes waiting, she went back over and wrote, “probably”. After another couple of minutes, in which she realized that maybe the Administrator didn’t really care about this thing happening so far from Embernook, she went over and added “maybe”. Then she looked around at all the people there waiting, the tense faces and white-knuckled grips on packages and purses and realized that every single person there had a very important problem for the Administrator. So she went back to the list and crossed that all out and just left her name. (Thneed's player: That’s the most Joybell thing ever.) After a bit Thalith called her name and she went into his office. She told him that we were going to the Forge of Masks to bust things up and stop them being able to make more Masks again ever. Thalith: That sounds very brave. Joybell: It needs to be done. He asked if that was what all the activity with us and Barnett and Tulmor was about. Thalith: The Administrator would appreciate it if you don’t get Barnett killed. Joybell: We’ll do our best. Umm, why? Thalith: They have a good working relationship and he’s proven valuable to the Administrator in the past. Joybell wondered a bit what if that meant the Administrator cared less if we got killed or just wasn’t as worried about us, but didn’t dwell on that too much. She accepted the charge of bringing him back safely. Joybell: Some people in my party think that the Administrator is evil and we’ll have to fight him someday. Thalith, laughing: There are many people in Embernook who think the Administrator is evil. He’s just doing his job. Joybell then left and went to the forge for her armor. After a bit of time with final fitting and making sure everything went together properly, Joybell rode Scooby at full speed back to Tulmor and Barnett’s. Once there, Tulmor cast longstrider on everyone in the party (giving us +10 movement speed). See invisible spells were cast by Barnett and Fiona. Tulmor cast invisibility on Thneed, Orryk, Taman and her homunculus. Tulmor cast mage armor on Mo and Thneed. Tulmor cast the Rory’s Telepathic Bond. And Joybell was given the steel plate we plan to use to barricade the door to the Forge Room. Just before the teleport, Mo inspired Taman and Orryk. Mo, to Orryk and Taman: I’ve known you guys for a while and I really want you to come back. Mo, to Thneed: Good luck, new girl! (with no bardic inspiration) Then Barnett cast teleport, teleporting us into barracks where the Masks we killed in the cave came from. Team Invisible -- Orryk, Thneed and Taman -- were teleported to right near the entrance to the hallway/barracks. The rest of us were in the back of it, hopefully less likely to be visible to the Masks across the central chamber or in the next barracks/ hall over. As soon as we arrived, we noticed that what we (or at least Joybell) thought we understood that Barnett had reported was not quite right -- there were five Masks not more than 20 feet from the entrance to the barracks/hall. They appeared to be waiting or watching for someone to come through the teleportation circle with all the Symbol of [Bad Stuff] spells in front of it. The other five were across on the other side of the cage. Barnett, not being a military-type mage, perhaps did not recognize sentry duty when he saw it. Fortunately their attention was away from us and toward the teleportation circle. Almost immediately upon arriving, Taman (invisible) hid and ran as fast as he could toward the door of the Forge Room, making it to the doorway. He could see that there was some stuff in the disintegration chamber -- gruel residue (“gruel bones”), coffee grounds, dishes, chamber pots -- but otherwise it was exactly as Barnett had described. Thneed hid and rode the broom of flying as far as she could go, not making it quite as far as the entrance, but well on the way and away from the Masks. Barnett grabbed Joybell and cast dimension door, bamfing them both into the Forge Room. Mo, waiting for Fiona to dimension door them over with the cape of the mountebank, looked around to see what he could see without moving away from her. Unfortunately, all he saw was mussed beds. Orryk hid and then ran as far as he could (without spending a ki-point). Fiona put her hand on Mo’s back and used the cape to bamf them to the Forge Room. Hulmon II, the homunculus, flew over the heads of the Masks, invisible, and observed that they did not appear to have noticed us. Tulmor relayed this information to the party through the bond. Joybell took the steel plate and stood next to the door, waiting to put it over the door as soon as everyone was inside. Taman, in the hall outside the Forge Room, poked at the priest hole in the other door -- it didn’t open, to his disappointment, then he ran inside. Taman: Dammit! Thneed came into the room and got off the broom. Barnett, who had been going to cast a grease spell outside the doorway, froze in place and didn’t move. Mo moved up to the other side of the doorway from Joybell, with the small iron boat and the feather token in his hands. Orryk moved into the room and used the wand to make a web spell right outside the door. That made a noise (Note: Think Spiderman’s “thwip”), so we assumed the Masks would hear that. Before they could react though, Fiona filled in the hallway outside the door, and some distance beyond, with a Wall of Sand. Then Joybell closed the door to the Forge Room and put the steel plate up in front of it, holding it in place. As she did so, we all began to hear cussing, lots of it, from Tulmor through the telepathic bond. The 10 Masks that were watching had turned, aware that something was going on back in the Forge room. And the wall of sand was dispelled almost immediately -- she saw something small with fluttering wings at the priest hole. The Masks immediately started moving. Taman examined the Forge, looking for a way to disable it, but was unable to figure it out. Thneed looked at the table near the Forge -- it had cuffs and manacles on pulleys so that they were adjustable to the height of the subject on the table. Barnett was able to figure out the structure around the crystal and pointed out to Taman (and through the telepathic bond everyone else) the specific connections that needed to be un-done to release the crystal. Fiona started working on disconnecting those points. Mo used the iron boat and the feather token to hold the steel plate in place and the door closed. Orryk put the immovable rod into place as well. We had secured the room according to the plan we developed over drinks at the Pewter Oar in the evenings during our week of preparation. Tulmor reported that the web spell was burning -- lit up by a chromatic orb cast through the priest hole. And the Masks outside were moving up toward the door. Taman helped with disassembling the Forge. Thneed, worried about the reports of Masks right outside, readied herself to fire at anything that came through the door. Barnett, looking visibly frightened with shaking hands, moved as far away as he possibly could from the door and started casting teleportation circle. Mo cast a rope trick, giving us a safe place to retreat to if the room was overrun by Masks. Especially since Tulmor reported again that the Masks were getting closer. Orryk moved to one side of the door and readied an action to punch something that came through. Thneed expressed her concern to Joybell that if the door was blasted open or forced into the room, Joybell might be crushed or hit by shrapnel. Joybell agreed that was a reasonable concern. Rather than just moving aside, though, Joybell noticed that Barnett looked like he was fighting off a crippling fear, or struggling to, so she went over to him and, with his permission, cast heroism on him, because that would help him be less frightened. Then she headed back toward the doorway to stand guard with Orryk. Before she could get there, the section of wall next to the door, where Joybell was heading to stand after Thneed’s advice, just disappeared. The whole wall disintegrated into a fine powder. And a tiny flying thing shaped sort of like a dwarf with bat wings flew into the room followed by two Masks. And 14 more out in the hall with nothing to stop them entering. Taman, turning around: Oh, naughty word! He tried to use the eyes of charming on the tiny dwarf (Steeltear) but it didn’t work. Thneed put her hunter’s mark on Steeltear and took her shots at the tiny flying dwarf-bat. She hit with both of them, doing a lot of damage. Tulmor: Barnett, if you have something up your sleeve, now would be a good time … Barnett: Got it. Barnett, given courage (possibly false courage) by Joybell’s spell, moved up to the corner of the disintegration chamber (lower left rectangle in the room) and cast sickening radiance. Fiona recognized that he was somehow managing to re-write the spell as he cast it -- creating a 30’ radius sphere of a sickly greenish/blackish glow that did necrotic damage to everything in its area. All of the Masks on the little map here, plus most of the ones outside, were stun-locked by it. Barnett: I can keep this up for a while. Tulmor reported that the Masks that weren’t caught in the greenish radiance, five of them, drew their bows and didn’t enter it, seeing what it did to the others. Since it blocked the entire hallway into the Forge room it was as effective as a wall at keeping the Masks out. So we only had to deal with Steeltear. Mo, seeing that the Masks were under control, cast polymorph on the dwarf-bat, Steeltear. Unfortunately, Turnik didn’t turn into a newt. Mo: Welp, that didn’t work. Orryk moved around to where he could attack Steeltear without getting into the greenish radiance and attacked him. Fiona tried to get Steeltear in a slow spell, but unfortunately he saved. (Two of the stunned Masks failed their saves.) Joybell moved around to a position between Orryk and Barnett and attacked Steeltear, who was apparently flying fairly low (or she was leaping energetically). Her first attack missed, but with her second attack she hit and called down as much divine energy into her attack as possible to hit him quite solidly. Steeltear turned a little bit and started casting a spell, but before the spell could be complete, Barnett shouted “No!” and a prismatic spray spell fizzled under the power of his counterspell. Turnik then moved out of the sickening radiance. Orryk tried to stop him from moving by attacking and using his stunning fist, but he saved against that. Joybell missed with her swing at him as he went by. He wasn’t able to move far, but he was able to get away from the sickening radiance. His move helped us some, because it meant that Taman was able to get up close to him and stab him with a zephyr strike for a considerable lot of damage as well. Thneed then took her shots and the tiny flying dwarf fell to the floor, gurgling and gasping. Thneed got the sense that she could move her hunter’s mark, which meant that he was at least unconscious. She did so and took her second shot at one of the Masks, using her horde breaker ability on the one next to it. On the ground, Turnik, bleeding out and gurgling, began to transform into a normal-sized dwarf. Barnett, still riding the swell of bravery imparted by the heroism spell, looked down at the dwarf and sent three magic missiles one-by-one into his chest. The gurgling and gasping stopped. Mo cast a shatter spell that got most of the Masks caught in the sickening radiance. Orryk moved to a position near the door where he could punch the ones in the doorway without being caught in the radiance himself. Joybell threw her new lightning javelin, hitting three of the Masks, then turned and attacked the body of Steeltear on the ground, screaming in rage as she hacked at it with her sword. The Mask in the doorway (the only one in range of a melee attack without entering the sickening radiance) dropped. Taman couldn’t get close to attack one with his rapier. Joybell: You can shoot them. Taman nodded, and put down his rapier by stabbing it into the body of Turnik. Then he dropped the one in the doorway with an arrow. Joybell asked Tulmor, still using her homunculus as our eye in the sky, if the ones out there appeared to have noticed Turnik dying. She reported that she did not see any indication of that. We then began killing the Masks -- with area effect spells until most of the ones that were in the sickening radiance had died, until Tulmor pointed out that the spell had outlived its usefulness. Barnett dropped the spell, allowing the remaining Masks to enter the room. Thneed, to Barnett: You’re probably going to be their primary target. Take cover. Then she held her attack to shoot at the first one to enter the room. Barnett nodded and moved back next to where Fiona had gone back to working on getting the crystal out of the Forge. The Masks approached the room -- dropping their bows and pulling their swords. Mo viciously mocked the first one into the room. Mo: Your leader is dead like your parents. (Note: I love how sort of gentle Mo’s mockery has been with the Masks -- the recognition that they’re victims in this.) Orryk moved out into the doorway and attacked one, hitting with the gloves and stunning one. Fiona recognized that she and Barnett were close to getting the crystal disconnected so she cast a Tenser’s floating disc for it to be carried on in preparation for it to be removed from the Forge. Taman pulled his sword out of Turnik’s abdomen, then went and attacked one of the stunned Masks, dropping it and clearing the room of Masks again. Thneed took up a position to shoot any Mask that came through the door. The Masks got to where Orryk was standing, the one he’d stunned no longer in the way, and two of them attacked him. The attack once again reminded us why these things are so very very bad -- the two Masks took him from uninjured to nearly down in one round. Fortunately, Mo was able to use his cutting words to reduce the damage they did so that he was able to remain standing. Barely. Orryk used his ability to fade away to turn invisible, then attacked them. Unfortunately he missed both times. He disengaged and moved away to the far side of the room between the Forge and the rack. We then proceeded to gang up on one of the ones that had attacked Orryk -- Fiona locking it with a Toll the Dead and Joybell, Taman and Thneed attacking it -- until it dropped. Barnett cast a chain lightning that weakened all of them. With their numbers reduced to just a few, our well-established Mask fighting tactics stood us in good stead and we were able to kill the remaining Masks. We ended with the party looking around the Forge room, which was littered with the bodies of dead Masks and Turnik Steeltear, strange bat wings still on his back, in a pool of blood and gore, in varying degrees of shock, disbelief, anger and elation. [/QUOTE]
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Erkonin (Campaign #1) [Session 46: Making Deals with Devils is Stupid as well as Bad]
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