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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Radiating Gnome" data-source="post: 5846" data-attributes="member: 150">Brindinford VI, Endgame (?)Brindinford VI, Endgame (?)When we last played over a month ago, the party was making plans to enter the manor house of the Baron of Brindinford to try to kill the various bad guys in the place, including the Mind Flayer behind the mess, his Ogre Mage and evil priest henchman, and hopefully not kill the two charmed figures, the Baron himself and Minimonk.  The manor house itself was a two story sturdy stone building, with a three story tower on one end.  The roof of the main house was topped with a crenellated catwalk, and there was a parapet on top of the tower.  The heroes decided that the two characters with items that granted them spider climb (Uri and Irk) would climb to the top of the building, lower ropes for the other two, and then the entire party would enter the house through the top floor of the tower.  What they DIDN’T do is take any sort of precaution to insure that they were not heard by the Mind Flayer and his minions.  It was Minimonk himself who heard the noise on the roof and altered Axom, the Mind Flayer, to the presence of the party.  The party moved to the door of the tower, and found it locked, but easily picked.  Before actually opening the door Pah drank a potion of invisibility and a potion of non-detection.  Her plan was to sneak down into the main house ahead of the rest of the party and try to disable one or more of the targets with poisoned darts from her blowgun, which would help even the odds a little.  They opened the door and found the Baron’s bedroom.  There was a huge bed, an armoi presumable full of clothes, a coatrack with an odd leather long cloak or coat, and a full length mirror.  And, cowering in the room was a well-dressed but bedraggled noblewoman and two children.  The three frightened nobles watched as the party pushed into the room.  Pah was VERY interested in the leather coat/cloak and pulled it off the coatrack, forgetting that she was invisible for a moment and this would make for an interesting show for the nobles.  She put the coat on, but it did not resize to fit her, as most magic items will, so she began to investigate it further.  It was a strikingly well-made coat – the stitching was far finer and more even than any tailored work she had ever seen before.  It was black and leather and smelled good and had these cool epaulets on the shoulder and on the collar there were silver insignia – a square, in which there were a pair of ‘s’s shaped like lightning bolts. (DM’s note:  yes, Nazi SS insignia).  In the pocket of the coat she found a booklet of folded paper – all printed in a strange language she did not recognize, but again printed by a hand that was much smaller and more regular than any she had seen before.  She took the papers, and left the cloak, which Irk took from her and began to investigate himself.The Baroness was trying to comfort her children.  All three were clearly terrified.  “Who are you?” she asked.  Irk looked at her.  “I’m not going to tell you that.”The Baroness nodded.  “He’s in my mind.”That stopped everyone cold.  Pah stuffed the papers into a pouch without another thought and started to head down the spiral staircase to the lower levels of the house.The Baroness looked the three remaining party members over.  “He wants me to tell you something.This would be when the three heroes on this floor started to panic.  Pah’s panic would come in a few minutes.  The Baroness continued.  “He says you shouldn’t have come.”Irk had heard enough.  He stepped forward and punched her for all her was worth, knocking her through the doors of the armoire, where she ended up, very unconscious, in a pile of robes and gowns and broken cabinetry.  The two children began to scream bloody murder.Eli, by now, was already running down the stairs after Pah, hoping to press the attack and not lose too much advantage of surprise, not realizing that the advantage had been lost when they scaled the wall in the first place.  Irk too a long look at the two screaming kids, but in the end couldn’t bring himself to hit them, even when one stopped screaming and got very calm.  “Run,” said the child.  “Run run run run run run run run run run.”Irk did, to the stairs after Eli.  But Uri wasn’t going to let this go on much longer.  He stepped forward and punched the tyke in the face, knocking him out.  He turned to face the last of the children, but the sounds of screaming and combat on the lower floors convinced him that he was needed downstairs, and that there wasn’t anything left to protect by knocking children unconscious, so he ran downstairs.  When Pah snuck downstairs initially, while the others were upstairs having social interactions with the noble family in the bedroom, she found a dining area on the second floor of the tower, with a sideboard that held the family silver and china.  She gave it a quick look, then returned to the task at hand.  She decided to go downstairs one more flight to the ground floor to make her move. The ground floor of the tower held a small kitchen, and like the other floors, a door that connected it to the main house.  She quietly opend that door and slipped into the main house. The main house itself consisted of two floors.  The ground floor, where Pah was standing, held a reception room and meeting area, with fireplaces and plush furniture.  This was the room where they’d seen most of the villains earlier, while observing the house.  Closer to the tower the sitting room was separated from a sort of den or office by a wall, but there was a simple arch, no door that separated the two rooms.  The second floor was not complete.  Over the office, closest to the tower, there was another sitting area, into which the door from the tower dining room opened.  But there was a balcony which overlooked the main sitting room below.Pah passed through the door and snuck over to the wall near the entrance to the main room, waiting for an opportunity to make a move, but things started to go badly for her.  She couldn’t help but hear the commotion upstairs as the rest of the group ran down the spiral tower stairs.  But then she heard the cleric, in the main room, starting to cast a spell. And then, all of a sudden, she could see herself again.  She was visible.  That was when Pah started to panic.  Minimonk stepped into the doorway and started to hit her with his club.  Finding herself holding a very flimsy blowgun and dart, facing minimonk, and behind him the Baron and the cleric, she decided that she wanted to be somewhere else very badly.  She ran for the stairs, taking another blow from minimonk in passing, and started screaming “IRK!”By then of course, Irk was busy.  As was Eli.  Eli had been the first one down the stairs to the second floor, right about the time Pah opened the door on the first floor, he opened the door on the second floor.  From the doorway he could see the Ogre Mage and the Mind Flayer, not at all surprised to see him.  He took a single shot at the Ogre Mage by way of introduction, and waited for things to start happening.  And they did.  First Irk, flush after his victory over the noblewoman, charged past Eli into the room, and engaged the Ogre Mage.  The Ogre Mage, suddenly faced with two tough opponents in a straight line, fired off his Cone of Cold , which Irk managed to avoid the worst of, but Eli took full force.  Then Eli stepped into the room where he could have a clear shot at the Mind flayer, and sent off three arrows in rapid succession, each striking home in the Flayer’s center mass.  Gaereth Axom, the mind flayer, was through playing around.  Terror and charm had it’s place, but this was getting deadly.  He sent off a telepathic command to the cleric to get up there and do some healing, and then stepped into a position where he could Mind Blast Irk and Eli without hitting the Ogre Mage.  And he let them have a blast.  Once again, Irk managed to avoid the worst of it while Eli took it full force.  While Eli was stunned, reeling and trying to get his bearings for over a minute, Irk fended off a glancing blow from the Ogre mage and then set to pounding on the big blue bastard with his greataxe, knocking him out of action.  Uri had appeared, and added to Axom’s troubles with an Acid Arrow spell, and then started shooting his crossbow from the cover he could find behind the stunned elf.  The Cleric, down on the ground floor, and having just flushed Pah out of hiding with an invisibility purge spell, got the message from Axom and cast Air walk so that he could climb up to the balcony and heal Axom on his hext turn.  But Axom, seeing that Irk was finishing the Ogre Mage in record time, decided not to wait around for the dwarf to start pounding on him, and cast levitate on himself and skipped out into the air above the sitting room.  Right about them Pah charged into the balcony, followed by the Baron and Minimonk.  Irk, not willing to let the Ogre Mage just regenerate for a few rounds and then hop back into action, spent a precious round pounding on the fallen figure, making sure it would be a few minutes before there would be any trouble from it again.  Pah, having shed her pursuit at the door, where the Baron was trying to do something about Uri, moved forward to try to find a chance to use her poisoned dart.  She saw the cleric had joined Axom out in midair at the far side of the room, where the cleric was healing the Flayer’s wounds while the flayer pulled out arrows and swore a blue streak.  She moved around Irk, who was still pounding on the inert Ogre Mage, stepped up to the balcony rail, and took a shot with her blowgun.  Her dart hit the window behind the cleric and Axom.  She swore, and Axom looked up.  Seeing the crowd on the balcony, and the fallen Ogre Mage, he decided enough was enough. With a push off of the cleric, Axom positioned himself right next to Pah, where he could catch the entire party (and, incidentally Minimonk and the Baron) in the cone of his Mind Blast, and let loose with a second stunning blast.  This blast was devastating.  Of the entire group of combatants on the balcony, only Uri and the Baron managed to make their saving throws.  Everyone else was stunned and stumbling around.  Actually, Eli, still stunned from the first blast, manage to make this saving throw, for what it was worth. Things were going very badly.  Uri, figuring that he needed to change the situation as much as possible, shut the door on the Baron (who was still standing in the doorway between the tower and the main house) and cast Sleet storm on the balcony area, providing concealment for the group.  But the next round, the Cleric dispelled it, and the Baron crashed through the door, sending Eli sprawling (Eli had been standing near the door when the Baron crashed through).  While all of this was happening, Axom was worried.  He knew that this party had managed to close the hellmouth, his gate to his infernal allies.  Left with the Ogre Mage, who had fallen, the cleric, and a few charmed supporters, he didn’t think this was the best fight to try to stick out to the bitter end.  He needed to make his escape.  He sent off a quick command to the cleric, who cast shatter on the big window to allow the two to escape.  Then Axom reached over the balcony railing and picked up Pah’s stunned form, carrying her off with him as he escaped out the window, with the cleric close behind.   Axom figured Pah would make a nice snack before he left. When the cleric dispelled the sleet storm Uri was able to see the Flayer disappearing out the shattered window, with Pah under his arm.  By then the Baron was running around the balcony swinging his sword at the two standing figures, Irk (who was stunned, still) and Uri.  Uri, to avoid a beating, ran forward, towards the balcony, and used his spider climb ability to perch on the wall where he would be safe.  The Baron, left with just one target, started pounding on Irk, while Irk tried to figure out what was going on.Uri, perched on the wall just under the roof, heard heavy footsteps above. He ran along the wall to the window, out the window and up the wall again to the crenellated rooftop walkway again.  Once there he found himself standing on one end of the roof.  On the other end, between Uri and the tower door, which was swinging shut, stood the cleric, who had unlimbered his huge flail, and was waving it around in front of himself.  Electricity arced from the head of the flail to the roof.  The Cleric beckoned Uri forward with his shield hand.  Uri, despite his victory over the baron’s child, didn’t feel like a toe to toe fight with the cleric, and cast web instead.  The cleric failed his save and was cocooned between the crenellations on the walk, struggling to break free.  Uri ran past him and through the tower door.Uri crashed through the door with his crossbow in hand.  There, in the bedroom, just in front of the mirror, Uri saw the mind flayer holding Pah, having attached three of his four tentacles.  “GIT YER HANDS OFF MY PAH!” Uri shouted, shooting at Axom with his crossbow.  That round, Pah managed to finally recover from the effect of the Mind Blast, and wriggled free from the Flayer’s tentacles.  Axom closed in again, attaching two tentacles and grapping with her again, and Pah managed to get free..Downstairs, Irk shook off the effects of the Mind Blast and found himself bleeding from a couple of wounds and facing the Baron.  He punched the baron once (not enough to knock the baron out) and the ran for the stairs, following the sounds of Pah’s screaming, which was muffled one moment and clear as a bell the next.  Axom had had enough.  He grabbed his coat off the floor by the coat rack and started to put it on, while he lashed out mentally.  First he spoke into her mind.  “We’ll meet again, my sweet.  And I will taste your brain.” Then he reached out mentally and charmed Pah.  “Protect me,” he said to her. Uri saw trouble coming, and cast Web again, filling the tower, but not entangling anyone except the last standing noble child, who was still crying and screaming over her fallen mother and brother.  Pah drew a pistol and took a shot at Uri, but missed.  Downstairs, Eli of the fortunate saving throws, managed to recover from his initial stun.  He heard the commotion upstairs and started to head up there.  In the second floor of the tower he came upon Minimonk, standing there still stunned.  Eli grabbed some rope and began to tie up the little monk to take him out of the action.  Minimonk managed to recover from the stun a few rounds later, but Eli managed to get him bound and immobilized.Irk reached the top of the stairs in time to see Axom step into the mirror, which suddenly was not reflecting the baron’s tower bedroom, bur another room, apparently far away, in which they could see two humans, dressed in odd grey uniforms and holding devices that he did not recognize.  Irk charged through the mirror/gate, but was driven back when the two SS guards laid down a heavy hail of suppressive fire through the mirror, covering Axom’s escape.  Bullets tore into the web in front of the mirror.  Pah turned, drew her other pistol and took a shot at Irk.  Irk hefted his axe above his head and smashed the mirror.The Baron had been right behind Irk on the stairs, and charged into the room, but got hung up in the web.  When Irk smashed the mirror it severed the connection between Axom and his charmed subjects, releasing Minimonk, the Baron, and Pah, and bringing the battle to a close.  Uri, the one member of the party able to move freely through the web, walked back out onto the catwalk, where the cleric was still trying to escape.  Uri looked at him, struggling in the web, trying to swing his big sparking flail.  Then Uri put one foot on the cleric’s chest, leveled his crossbow on the cleric’s left eye, and fired.  Irk, once he was satisfied that things were stable on the tower, returned downstairs to the slowly regenerating form of the Ogre Mage.  He bundled the body up and dragged it outside.  Passing the Baron, who was trying to sort out what had happened and what he should be doing about it, Irk said, “got any marshmallows?”  Irk dragged the Ogre mage outside, built a huge pyre beneath it.   Standing over the battered body, which each round was getting a little closer to whole, Irk found an eye and looked into it.  “Yer still a dick.”  With that, he thrust a torch into the pyre.Pah, sitting on the floor by the shattered mirror, tried to sort out what had happened and to get the unclean feeling left behind by having the Mind Flayer in her mind, and trying to suck out her skull.  Tucked in a pouch, she found the papers she’d taken from Axom’s coat pocket, and wondered if he was going to miss those, wherever he’d gone.</blockquote>

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