(un)reason
Legend
All 6 regular players were present, although the githyanki's one had to leave a little early. Most of the characters stopped for a breather and a dip in the Binder's regeneration tank, just another of the many tricks she now has stored in her Enveloping Pit. Meanwhile, the githyanki did an ultra-quick plane shift and teleport to Tu'narath and back, spending half an hour picking up several scrolls, most importantly Discern Location. Another 10 minutes spent casting and they had a pinpoint location of the fungus lord, a mere 360' to the northeast of them, right in front of the forges in the dwarven fortress. They prepared a new set of buff spells and teleported over.
There, they found the fungus lord stretched out in front of the forges, with fungus-covered dwarves bustling over it, in the middle of fitting a custom suit of armor and horn enhancement fit for a giant worm monster. They tried to leap to attack it, but found that it had cast Antipathy on the area around to block their entry. Only the Githyanki made his save (and the binder is immune to mind-affecting powers, so she didn't even have to try) so only those two could actually move forward. The githyanki summoned some amnizu, who also failed their saves and headed out of the protected zone at full speed. On their turn, the dwarves pointedly did not leap to the attack, but instead said that the master was tired of this cat & mouse game and wanted to parlay. If they could beat him in an arena battle, he would leave this planet peacefully. They had no particular intention of honoring anything like that, but weren't given the choice, as on it's turn it simply used Transport Through Plants again to disappear into the fungus-covered wall to the east. This meant they had to waste a couple more rounds of their buffs getting the whole party back together and another 5th level spell slot teleporting back to J'bhulgolboth, coming out by the big shallow pool in area 17 that the kuo-toa once used for combat games.
When they arrived, they found that while Xhagevoxhab might not quite have had time to fully finish its new armor, it had been preparing in other ways. There was a full audience assembled surrounding the arena consisting of mold men, kuo-toa, grimlocks, a mind flayer announcer & umber hulk bouncer. In the centre of the arena was a massive humanoid body consisting of thousands of mold men that had bonded themselves together, (using the stats for the flesh colossus from the ELH without the profane bonus to AC and plant immunities rather than construct immunities, making it somewhat less able to no-sell their blasting magic) with the fungus lord curled up on top to form the head. They tried to have a brief moment of hyping up the combatants before the combat began (and so Xhagevoxhab could at least know the names of the creatures who had been slaughtering his minions for months now) but the PC's were in absolutely no mood to play along with his little psychodrama and just went into full attack mode straight away. The githyanki summoned more amnizu and set them to using their quickened fireballs every round until they ran out. The Drow cast anti-magic shell in the middle of Xhagevoxhab's bulk, which kept it from casting a spell in the first round, but as it was fixed in space, it could get out of it by stepping forward with the colossus and doing an area stomp that did a fair bit of damage to the priestess & winged kobold. It hit the githyanki once, but with his acid shield still up, it was obvious that direct attacks were a bad way to fight him, so instead it used reverse gravity to send him to the ceiling and do 20d6 points of damage in the process. Meanwhile, all the PC's were breaking out their best attacks, the binder was literally climbing up the body shredding as she went, and it only took three rounds of this before the colossus was reduced to negative HP by the final set of amnizu fireballs, with the priestesses acidic whip delivering the finishing blow shortly afterwards. Xhagevoxhab was sent toppling to the ground as the colossus lost cohesion and disintegrated into a fungussey mess. It tried to surrender, but the PC's had never intended on making any deal with it and kept on pressing the attack. Realising this, the audience rushed the arena in a last-ditch attempt to tip this fight back in it's favor. The illithid unleashed its mind blast, but only the winged kobold failed his save and got stunned. The drow got attacked from behind by the umber hulk and reduced to -9hp in a single round, which seems like a suitable cliffhanger to end the session on. But 4 of the PC's plus a bunch of summons are still able to fight and Xhagevoxhab is already down half it's hp. A few of them might still die in the process, but it's looking pretty certain that next session they'll finally finish off the big bad that has been their main challenge for a good 9 months of real time now. (and with a satisfying big multi-stage boss battle rather than an anti-climactic ganking in a corridor as well) But they still have to figure out how to break away from githyanki command, defeat the lich-queen and find out what else lies beyond the gate. When they do, they may find themselves wishing they were still just facing fungus ......
There, they found the fungus lord stretched out in front of the forges, with fungus-covered dwarves bustling over it, in the middle of fitting a custom suit of armor and horn enhancement fit for a giant worm monster. They tried to leap to attack it, but found that it had cast Antipathy on the area around to block their entry. Only the Githyanki made his save (and the binder is immune to mind-affecting powers, so she didn't even have to try) so only those two could actually move forward. The githyanki summoned some amnizu, who also failed their saves and headed out of the protected zone at full speed. On their turn, the dwarves pointedly did not leap to the attack, but instead said that the master was tired of this cat & mouse game and wanted to parlay. If they could beat him in an arena battle, he would leave this planet peacefully. They had no particular intention of honoring anything like that, but weren't given the choice, as on it's turn it simply used Transport Through Plants again to disappear into the fungus-covered wall to the east. This meant they had to waste a couple more rounds of their buffs getting the whole party back together and another 5th level spell slot teleporting back to J'bhulgolboth, coming out by the big shallow pool in area 17 that the kuo-toa once used for combat games.
When they arrived, they found that while Xhagevoxhab might not quite have had time to fully finish its new armor, it had been preparing in other ways. There was a full audience assembled surrounding the arena consisting of mold men, kuo-toa, grimlocks, a mind flayer announcer & umber hulk bouncer. In the centre of the arena was a massive humanoid body consisting of thousands of mold men that had bonded themselves together, (using the stats for the flesh colossus from the ELH without the profane bonus to AC and plant immunities rather than construct immunities, making it somewhat less able to no-sell their blasting magic) with the fungus lord curled up on top to form the head. They tried to have a brief moment of hyping up the combatants before the combat began (and so Xhagevoxhab could at least know the names of the creatures who had been slaughtering his minions for months now) but the PC's were in absolutely no mood to play along with his little psychodrama and just went into full attack mode straight away. The githyanki summoned more amnizu and set them to using their quickened fireballs every round until they ran out. The Drow cast anti-magic shell in the middle of Xhagevoxhab's bulk, which kept it from casting a spell in the first round, but as it was fixed in space, it could get out of it by stepping forward with the colossus and doing an area stomp that did a fair bit of damage to the priestess & winged kobold. It hit the githyanki once, but with his acid shield still up, it was obvious that direct attacks were a bad way to fight him, so instead it used reverse gravity to send him to the ceiling and do 20d6 points of damage in the process. Meanwhile, all the PC's were breaking out their best attacks, the binder was literally climbing up the body shredding as she went, and it only took three rounds of this before the colossus was reduced to negative HP by the final set of amnizu fireballs, with the priestesses acidic whip delivering the finishing blow shortly afterwards. Xhagevoxhab was sent toppling to the ground as the colossus lost cohesion and disintegrated into a fungussey mess. It tried to surrender, but the PC's had never intended on making any deal with it and kept on pressing the attack. Realising this, the audience rushed the arena in a last-ditch attempt to tip this fight back in it's favor. The illithid unleashed its mind blast, but only the winged kobold failed his save and got stunned. The drow got attacked from behind by the umber hulk and reduced to -9hp in a single round, which seems like a suitable cliffhanger to end the session on. But 4 of the PC's plus a bunch of summons are still able to fight and Xhagevoxhab is already down half it's hp. A few of them might still die in the process, but it's looking pretty certain that next session they'll finally finish off the big bad that has been their main challenge for a good 9 months of real time now. (and with a satisfying big multi-stage boss battle rather than an anti-climactic ganking in a corridor as well) But they still have to figure out how to break away from githyanki command, defeat the lich-queen and find out what else lies beyond the gate. When they do, they may find themselves wishing they were still just facing fungus ......
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