The Age of Worms - Morrus' Campaign - Finished 6th August!!
- Thread starter Eccles
- Start date
Eccles
Ragged idiot in a trilby.
Flushed with success, we rejoined Zollchin, who thanked us profusely for our assistance in ridding her of the liche. We handed her the dust-flecked robe from the liche’s back as both proof of his death and in payment of the ‘money’ portion of our bargain with her. In order to repay the next, I sang songs for her entertainment. I sang until my throat was hoarse, at which point she tossed me a healing draught and began to join me in duet.
We sang together for hours, and when she was satisfied she had reached the limits of my talents and understanding, she began to offer suggestions; my mind reeled at her suggestions which crossed beyond simple techniques with instruments and into the realms of magic and understanding of concepts which I had never considered before. Previously impossible leaps of potential opened up before me, and I sang all the more eagerly at the thought of what she had showed me.
.oOo.
The next morning, we met once again in her studio, and she passed the statuette of Balakarde to me; I was shocked at the surge of power and confidence which I felt as the clay miniature was passed to me. And I could feel a strange urge to hold it out to my comrades; I could hear a secret voice from Balakarde to touch the three artefacts together – looking at my comrades I could tell that they could hear it too. Almost woodenly we each held out the three items; the statue touched the pouch, which nudged against the heavy length of two-by-four.
Stillness settled across the room and the air felt heavy – with a flash the ghostly figure of a man materialised amongst us; Balakarde looked gratefully at us and he spoke – his voice entering my mind without being aware of actually hearing it.
“Thank you for reuniting the three shards of my spirit. Since Dragotha broke my soul, I have suffered in torment.”
“Wait,” interrupted Fez. “You’ve fought the dragon?”
“I tried,” the spirit shook his head ruefully. “He was too much for me. If you intend to combat him, however, I will be with you. He is a mighty dragon – perhaps the greatest in this world.
“Although Kyuss resurrected him, you should know that the power used to do so was such that he doesn’t have the traditional weaknesses that you might expect of ‘normal’ undead. Dragotha is not ‘normal’ in any meaning of the word – you should prepare as though you are fighting a most puissant dragon, not a liche.
“He has two different forms of breath weapon – a searing fire which is particularly strong and will cling to its targets like glue, whilst the second is an unholy breath of darkness. When I encountered him, he used the second, and whilst my spirit was still quaking he simply tore me apart with his claws.
“There is one other thing which you should know,” continued the ghost. “Beyond, of course, that Dragotha will have the greatest collection of treasures ever amassed on this realm. When I was there, there was a second dragon with him – a silver one, who clearly laired with him. The two were allies, yet she harboured resentment towards him and his position.
“When you are ready, I can take you to him. My soul is bound to his and I would be able to penetrate the mystical boundaries which surround his lair.” With a knowing smile, the spirit faded; waiting to be called.
.oOo.
The next two days were spent preparing our spells and teleporting back and forth to Mage Point, where a good deal of loot was sold and bartered for – once we were as ready as we could be, we touched the three artefacts together once again, and nodded to the ghost.
“We’re ready.”
.oOo.
The ghost’s magic left us blinking away a bright light, and Balakarde faded away with the light. We found ourselves at the top of a vast, seemingly bottomless shaft. A passageway led away from us, sloping upwards and leaking a trail of thick green fluid down into the shaft.
Some unseen magic was holding us up in the air and allowed us to swim over to the entrance – there we all triggered various items to allow us to fly ourselves and steer clear of the green mess and also the green ‘marble’ walls and floor of the tunnel. The stones glistened with magic and were semi-transparent – within them wriggled thousands of tiny Kyuss-worms.
Ahead, up the smooth green and glistening tube, we could see worms wriggling along and within the walls. They formed clumps in darkened corners and dripped revoltingly from the ceiling.
Ducking in between them all, Flynne led the way. Drinking a potion, he flew along the corridor before pausing thoughtfully next to an almost indistinguishable portion of the wall. Scratching it with an arrow, the line he etched along the wall was filled rapidly with writhing worms which solidified and hardened to become one with the marble.
Frustrated, Flynne bashed at the wall with the arrowhead. “There’s a way through here, I can almost smell it,” he snarled. My attempts to blast open the door with a spell of sound failed, and when Janga raised his holy symbol and concentrated, he yelled in pain and shock. Fez’s direct approach was more successful – he hacked at it with his flail, tearing massive gashes in the wall and sending chips of stone raining through the corridor. The chips fell to the ground, became worms and began to crawl towards the doorway to re-fill it, but the job was done. We stepped through and into a rocky corridor beyond. The corridor led to a dilapidated though once well-decorated chamber with relatively few worms. Similar rooms lay beyond, one of which contained a broken shrine to Kyuss – hundreds of worms stitched together into a humanoid shape.
Finding no other exits and nothing beyond a few large tarnished silver scales, we smashed our way back through the re-sealed wall into the green tube-like corridor.
.oOo.
A few dozen yards further down, Flynne poised and pointed at another stretch of wall. “Here,” he announced and looked back at Fez. Grinning, the barbarian set to this stretch of wall with glee, and we soon found ourselves stepping through the crawling ‘rubble’.
Beyond lay a small chamber containing only a 3 foot high font filled with water. Careful scrutiny of it suggested not only considerable magic, but also something I could only interpret as a rather sinister looking curse, and so we moved down the corridor to the end, where Flynne nodded, and Fez started smashing his way through.
.oOo.
We crashed through the worm-door into a vast cavern, one side of which was dominated by a vast green stone ziggurat, from the broken top of which gushed the green liquid which could me seen running down the tube-like corridor.
On the far side of the cavern lay a truly obscene pile of treasure, almost entirely covered by the vast sprawling figure of Dragotha.
“Oh Fahrlanghan.”
“We’re not ready.”
“Should we run?”
“Door’s already rebuilding itself…”
“We’d better get ready pretty fast, then.”
The dracoliche roared – the sounds blasted over us and buffeted us against the walls. So might was the roar that Janga was left literally dazed by it.
Fez leapt into action. He triggered the spells cast into his magical ring and turned into a truly enormous balor, bellowing back at the gigantic dragon as he flew to the top of the ziggurat.
Also taking to the air, Flynne flew up high and shot downwards, but the arrows simply shattered on the dragon’s massive scaled plates. The dragon’s skin stretched taut a it inhaled, and then breathed a tremendous blast of dark winds over us. The negative powers of the breath passed us by with the layers of protection we had set up. The rotting breath threw Flynne and Janga backwards, and they both fought to stay upright. A ring on my right had I had been wearing for months glowed faintly as the blowing gale passed me by like a light summer’s breeze.
The dragon’s head whipped around and glared at Fez even as he was closing in. The barbarian simply froze in the air and dropped down onto the worm-crawling surface of the ziggurat.
Pulling a scroll from my belt, I read it aloud, and instantly I felt time slow and then stop. I snatched a series of other items from pouches. Another scroll to protect myself from invasive mental spells, then two spells from a third which freed Fez from his entrapment and summoned a nearly invisible wall of force between the dragon and us. Finally, I used a staff to summon a large hand which I sent soaring towards the dracoliche. It struck the dragon’s 140 foot form square in the centre of its chest, and heaved vainly for a few moments; not so much as an inch of movement came from its vast body.
As time rushed back in, Fez charged forwards to hang in the air above the wall of force. His sunblade slashed into the dracoliche, but there was no familiar burst of sunlight. As Balakarde had indicated, Dragotha had all of the advantages, but none of the disadvantages, of the undead form.
Still shooting, Flynne hurtled up to the ceiling of the cavern, and the dragon slashed down repeatedly on Fez’s huge demon-like body. He stiffened once again, and fell from the sky suffering from wounds which would’ve killed a lesser (or less-enchanted) mortal.
The dragon’s head swivelled, and fire raged over Flynne, lighting the cavern from above like a vast sinister screaming torch – the dragon’s breath didn’t go out but stuck to him and kept burning, as Flynne carried on yelling in alarm as his mystical protections began to boil away.
Heaving another scroll from my belt, I read and gestured, and the flames wreathed around Flynne abruptly went out, and Janga leapt forwards to cure Fez’s wounds. Clutching a rod which let him cast a second spell rapidly, he also tried to dispel any protections around Dragotha, but we couldn’t see any obvious effect.
From the dracoliche’s feet, Fez hacked down hard, but only one blow penetrated the scales to scratch down the dragon’s hide, whilst overhead a rain of arrows shattered on scales as big as shields.
The dragon snarled out a word, and blurred before exploding outwards into 6 identical mirror images, all of which lashed out at Fez, who was frozen once more in place.
I changed my plan and sent the hand to dive into the vast heap of treasures, where it snatched up a bow and threw it up to Flynne overhead. As he grabbed it out of the air, we could all head the bow scream aloud “Fire me!”.
“Get knotted,” snarled Flynne as he stuffed the longbow into a deep sack, whilst I sang an enthusing song to help my comrades strike harder and deeper. Snatching up yet another item from a collection slung about my person, I cast a spell of hastening, whilst Janga flew across to both heal and enchant Fez once again, and this time he burst into action, lashing out around himself and destroying images left and right. When he paused, there were only two Dragothas still towering over him, and one of those was punctured by Flynne’s arrows – the others sailed into the dracoliche’s chestplates where they shattered once more.
Looking down, the dracoliche snarled out the words of a spell, locking him within a cage of force before slithering across his massive pile of treasure, sending a shower of gold and gems around himself as he dashed the length of the cavern to emerge from behind the wall of force I had erected to stop him advancing.
When the dragon stopped to turn on us, I hastened to drop a spell of silencing on his new location, whilst continuing my songs of enhancement. The glittering hand dropped another magical item (a gem encrusted drinking horn) to me, before diving back into the treasure pile, and then Janga’s second spell of disenchantment took hold, stripping away a large number of the dragon’s protective spells.
Calling on his magic ring once again, Fez opened a dimensional door and stepped out into the air near Dragotha, whilst Flynne dropped from the sky to be near my enchantments, shooting accurately enough now to find gaps in Dragotha’s less-protected form.
Spitting flames at Flynne once again, the dragon also slashed down repeatedly on Fez. Once again, Flynne erupted in fire which simply would not go out.
I threw my Rod of Quickening to Janga, whilst singing yet another song of enhancement to safeguard Flynne and I, and Janga began casting a powerful summoning spell.
The two warriors fought to their utmost, now that the dragon’s protective magics had failed. Flynne’s arrows slammed into the dragon’s flesh whilst Fez slashed heavily into the beast’s flanks. The beast began to edge out of the silent area, and lashed out at Fez once more, clawing and biting him in a frenzy of violence, lit by the flickering light of the still-burning archer. As he attacked, the dragon’s eyes blazed and his mouth opened in rage.
Once again, I began to feel an urge to touch my Balakarde artefact to the others, and I snatched the statuette from my belt and flung it to Janga, whilst pulling a scroll from a pouch. I read this hoping that it would further enthuse my comrades, but the complex prayer had no effect in this temple to Kyuss.
Still flying overhead, Janga dived in clutching the two artefacts, and chanted out a healing spell to revitalise Fez’s flagging form, and then the barbarian spun to touch his length of tremendously potent two-by-four to the pouch and statuette – I could see the burst of magical potency erupting from them as they all touched, and soul energy swirled around and was absorbed into Fez and Janga, and the barbarian’s huge balor form turned on the dragon baring his pointed teeth and huge fangs.
“Right, you bastard,” he bellowed at it.
As Dragotha took to the air, Fez delivered a vicious overhand slash cutting deeply into the dracoliche’s stomach. The beast bellowed in anger, and abruptly its rage was gone. Staring down coldly at us, the dragon blasted a tremendously powerful spell of negative energy down, followed by a cone of fire which lashed over all of my comrades.
Due to careful preparations, neither had any effect whatsoever.
I dived through the air to grab Fez by one horned wingtip, and tore a rift in space across the few yards to be close enough to attack the dragon without having to close first; at the same time Janga cast another powerful restorative spell, this time on Flynne just around the other side of the dracoliche.
Without having to worry about closing, Fez brought his sunblade down again and again, making more progress now that the dragon was greatly reduced and all of our potent spells of improvement were up and running. Three solid hits cracked deeply into and through one of the heavy armoured plates, which had no more effect than merely irritating the dragon.
Healed now, and still ignoring the inferno of dragonbreath which was clinging to him, Flynne carried on firing, whilst Fez carried on hacking; tearing off one plate. A dark green glow erupted from the dracoliche’s torso, and the beast’s wounds closed somewhat; the armoured plate growing anew to appear soft and more pliable compared to the aeons old armoured plates alongside it. The dragon again pulled away from us.
The glowing magical hand I had summoned snatched up a wooden box and dropped it into my arms, and I pulled 3 talismans from it, activating it in the hope that it might aid us in out time of need. It failed, and became phenomenally heavy. I then grabbed Fez and pulled him through another rift in space to confront the dragon. As I was doing so, an elder earth elemental summoned by Janga fell from the ceiling, smashed into Dragotha’s back and fell to the floor, having absolutely no effect whatsoever. Another spell from Janga failed, and he flew into the air to flank the beast.
This enabled Fez to hack down with abandon, unleashing his full fury – he hacked down again and again with his sunblade undoing the dragon’s healing spell in an instant. At the same time, Flynne dropped to the floor and rolled around, putting out the flames.
The dracoliche, concerned now, flung a powerful blast of antimagic straight at Fez, but he raised one hand on which was mounted a glowing ring which simply absorbed the spell . Taking another punishing blow as he did so, Dragotha flew away once more, and I followed again, dragging Fez through the dimensions in pursuit as the enchanted hand dipped into the treasure pile and flew over, showering me in gems and precious items.
Janga covered the dracoliche’s head in another globe of silence, and Fez lashed out again and again and again, leaving massive slash wounds in the undead flesh. Flynne joined in once again, speckling the dragon’s armoured hide with powerful arrows, but I was not quick enough to avoid Dragotha’s counter-attack. The huge toothy maw snapped down on my neck, and all went black; no sooner had I begun to feel everything going black than it all snapped back into sharp focus as Janga used a scroll to heal both myself and Fez.
Grinning, Fez ripped a lightning shaped blade from behind his back, and struck down. Three blows fell, each to the same spot on Dragotha’s neck, and the head fell clean of the body.
Dragotha, lieutenant to Kyuss for aeons, roared in disbelief and collapsed to the floor in an eruption of grave dust and rapidly decaying bones. A burst of energy flew from the artefacts, and coalesced into Balakarde’s ghostly form. He nodded to us each in turn, and spoke only three words.
“Find… the… monolith.”
His spiritual essence burst apart, and divided into four separate segments which floated in front of each of us in the form of spinning gold coins. As if in a dream, we each reached out and grabbed the coins, which disappeared leaving us all feeling enriched.
.oOo.
Over the next hour, we became much more enriched as we engaged in a positive orgy of looting and wealth.
We sang together for hours, and when she was satisfied she had reached the limits of my talents and understanding, she began to offer suggestions; my mind reeled at her suggestions which crossed beyond simple techniques with instruments and into the realms of magic and understanding of concepts which I had never considered before. Previously impossible leaps of potential opened up before me, and I sang all the more eagerly at the thought of what she had showed me.
.oOo.
The next morning, we met once again in her studio, and she passed the statuette of Balakarde to me; I was shocked at the surge of power and confidence which I felt as the clay miniature was passed to me. And I could feel a strange urge to hold it out to my comrades; I could hear a secret voice from Balakarde to touch the three artefacts together – looking at my comrades I could tell that they could hear it too. Almost woodenly we each held out the three items; the statue touched the pouch, which nudged against the heavy length of two-by-four.
Stillness settled across the room and the air felt heavy – with a flash the ghostly figure of a man materialised amongst us; Balakarde looked gratefully at us and he spoke – his voice entering my mind without being aware of actually hearing it.
“Thank you for reuniting the three shards of my spirit. Since Dragotha broke my soul, I have suffered in torment.”
“Wait,” interrupted Fez. “You’ve fought the dragon?”
“I tried,” the spirit shook his head ruefully. “He was too much for me. If you intend to combat him, however, I will be with you. He is a mighty dragon – perhaps the greatest in this world.
“Although Kyuss resurrected him, you should know that the power used to do so was such that he doesn’t have the traditional weaknesses that you might expect of ‘normal’ undead. Dragotha is not ‘normal’ in any meaning of the word – you should prepare as though you are fighting a most puissant dragon, not a liche.
“He has two different forms of breath weapon – a searing fire which is particularly strong and will cling to its targets like glue, whilst the second is an unholy breath of darkness. When I encountered him, he used the second, and whilst my spirit was still quaking he simply tore me apart with his claws.
“There is one other thing which you should know,” continued the ghost. “Beyond, of course, that Dragotha will have the greatest collection of treasures ever amassed on this realm. When I was there, there was a second dragon with him – a silver one, who clearly laired with him. The two were allies, yet she harboured resentment towards him and his position.
“When you are ready, I can take you to him. My soul is bound to his and I would be able to penetrate the mystical boundaries which surround his lair.” With a knowing smile, the spirit faded; waiting to be called.
.oOo.
The next two days were spent preparing our spells and teleporting back and forth to Mage Point, where a good deal of loot was sold and bartered for – once we were as ready as we could be, we touched the three artefacts together once again, and nodded to the ghost.
“We’re ready.”
.oOo.
The ghost’s magic left us blinking away a bright light, and Balakarde faded away with the light. We found ourselves at the top of a vast, seemingly bottomless shaft. A passageway led away from us, sloping upwards and leaking a trail of thick green fluid down into the shaft.
Some unseen magic was holding us up in the air and allowed us to swim over to the entrance – there we all triggered various items to allow us to fly ourselves and steer clear of the green mess and also the green ‘marble’ walls and floor of the tunnel. The stones glistened with magic and were semi-transparent – within them wriggled thousands of tiny Kyuss-worms.
Ahead, up the smooth green and glistening tube, we could see worms wriggling along and within the walls. They formed clumps in darkened corners and dripped revoltingly from the ceiling.
Ducking in between them all, Flynne led the way. Drinking a potion, he flew along the corridor before pausing thoughtfully next to an almost indistinguishable portion of the wall. Scratching it with an arrow, the line he etched along the wall was filled rapidly with writhing worms which solidified and hardened to become one with the marble.
Frustrated, Flynne bashed at the wall with the arrowhead. “There’s a way through here, I can almost smell it,” he snarled. My attempts to blast open the door with a spell of sound failed, and when Janga raised his holy symbol and concentrated, he yelled in pain and shock. Fez’s direct approach was more successful – he hacked at it with his flail, tearing massive gashes in the wall and sending chips of stone raining through the corridor. The chips fell to the ground, became worms and began to crawl towards the doorway to re-fill it, but the job was done. We stepped through and into a rocky corridor beyond. The corridor led to a dilapidated though once well-decorated chamber with relatively few worms. Similar rooms lay beyond, one of which contained a broken shrine to Kyuss – hundreds of worms stitched together into a humanoid shape.
Finding no other exits and nothing beyond a few large tarnished silver scales, we smashed our way back through the re-sealed wall into the green tube-like corridor.
.oOo.
A few dozen yards further down, Flynne poised and pointed at another stretch of wall. “Here,” he announced and looked back at Fez. Grinning, the barbarian set to this stretch of wall with glee, and we soon found ourselves stepping through the crawling ‘rubble’.
Beyond lay a small chamber containing only a 3 foot high font filled with water. Careful scrutiny of it suggested not only considerable magic, but also something I could only interpret as a rather sinister looking curse, and so we moved down the corridor to the end, where Flynne nodded, and Fez started smashing his way through.
.oOo.
We crashed through the worm-door into a vast cavern, one side of which was dominated by a vast green stone ziggurat, from the broken top of which gushed the green liquid which could me seen running down the tube-like corridor.
On the far side of the cavern lay a truly obscene pile of treasure, almost entirely covered by the vast sprawling figure of Dragotha.
“Oh Fahrlanghan.”
“We’re not ready.”
“Should we run?”
“Door’s already rebuilding itself…”
“We’d better get ready pretty fast, then.”
The dracoliche roared – the sounds blasted over us and buffeted us against the walls. So might was the roar that Janga was left literally dazed by it.
Fez leapt into action. He triggered the spells cast into his magical ring and turned into a truly enormous balor, bellowing back at the gigantic dragon as he flew to the top of the ziggurat.
Also taking to the air, Flynne flew up high and shot downwards, but the arrows simply shattered on the dragon’s massive scaled plates. The dragon’s skin stretched taut a it inhaled, and then breathed a tremendous blast of dark winds over us. The negative powers of the breath passed us by with the layers of protection we had set up. The rotting breath threw Flynne and Janga backwards, and they both fought to stay upright. A ring on my right had I had been wearing for months glowed faintly as the blowing gale passed me by like a light summer’s breeze.
The dragon’s head whipped around and glared at Fez even as he was closing in. The barbarian simply froze in the air and dropped down onto the worm-crawling surface of the ziggurat.
Pulling a scroll from my belt, I read it aloud, and instantly I felt time slow and then stop. I snatched a series of other items from pouches. Another scroll to protect myself from invasive mental spells, then two spells from a third which freed Fez from his entrapment and summoned a nearly invisible wall of force between the dragon and us. Finally, I used a staff to summon a large hand which I sent soaring towards the dracoliche. It struck the dragon’s 140 foot form square in the centre of its chest, and heaved vainly for a few moments; not so much as an inch of movement came from its vast body.
As time rushed back in, Fez charged forwards to hang in the air above the wall of force. His sunblade slashed into the dracoliche, but there was no familiar burst of sunlight. As Balakarde had indicated, Dragotha had all of the advantages, but none of the disadvantages, of the undead form.
Still shooting, Flynne hurtled up to the ceiling of the cavern, and the dragon slashed down repeatedly on Fez’s huge demon-like body. He stiffened once again, and fell from the sky suffering from wounds which would’ve killed a lesser (or less-enchanted) mortal.
The dragon’s head swivelled, and fire raged over Flynne, lighting the cavern from above like a vast sinister screaming torch – the dragon’s breath didn’t go out but stuck to him and kept burning, as Flynne carried on yelling in alarm as his mystical protections began to boil away.
Heaving another scroll from my belt, I read and gestured, and the flames wreathed around Flynne abruptly went out, and Janga leapt forwards to cure Fez’s wounds. Clutching a rod which let him cast a second spell rapidly, he also tried to dispel any protections around Dragotha, but we couldn’t see any obvious effect.
From the dracoliche’s feet, Fez hacked down hard, but only one blow penetrated the scales to scratch down the dragon’s hide, whilst overhead a rain of arrows shattered on scales as big as shields.
The dragon snarled out a word, and blurred before exploding outwards into 6 identical mirror images, all of which lashed out at Fez, who was frozen once more in place.
I changed my plan and sent the hand to dive into the vast heap of treasures, where it snatched up a bow and threw it up to Flynne overhead. As he grabbed it out of the air, we could all head the bow scream aloud “Fire me!”.
“Get knotted,” snarled Flynne as he stuffed the longbow into a deep sack, whilst I sang an enthusing song to help my comrades strike harder and deeper. Snatching up yet another item from a collection slung about my person, I cast a spell of hastening, whilst Janga flew across to both heal and enchant Fez once again, and this time he burst into action, lashing out around himself and destroying images left and right. When he paused, there were only two Dragothas still towering over him, and one of those was punctured by Flynne’s arrows – the others sailed into the dracoliche’s chestplates where they shattered once more.
Looking down, the dracoliche snarled out the words of a spell, locking him within a cage of force before slithering across his massive pile of treasure, sending a shower of gold and gems around himself as he dashed the length of the cavern to emerge from behind the wall of force I had erected to stop him advancing.
When the dragon stopped to turn on us, I hastened to drop a spell of silencing on his new location, whilst continuing my songs of enhancement. The glittering hand dropped another magical item (a gem encrusted drinking horn) to me, before diving back into the treasure pile, and then Janga’s second spell of disenchantment took hold, stripping away a large number of the dragon’s protective spells.
Calling on his magic ring once again, Fez opened a dimensional door and stepped out into the air near Dragotha, whilst Flynne dropped from the sky to be near my enchantments, shooting accurately enough now to find gaps in Dragotha’s less-protected form.
Spitting flames at Flynne once again, the dragon also slashed down repeatedly on Fez. Once again, Flynne erupted in fire which simply would not go out.
I threw my Rod of Quickening to Janga, whilst singing yet another song of enhancement to safeguard Flynne and I, and Janga began casting a powerful summoning spell.
The two warriors fought to their utmost, now that the dragon’s protective magics had failed. Flynne’s arrows slammed into the dragon’s flesh whilst Fez slashed heavily into the beast’s flanks. The beast began to edge out of the silent area, and lashed out at Fez once more, clawing and biting him in a frenzy of violence, lit by the flickering light of the still-burning archer. As he attacked, the dragon’s eyes blazed and his mouth opened in rage.
Once again, I began to feel an urge to touch my Balakarde artefact to the others, and I snatched the statuette from my belt and flung it to Janga, whilst pulling a scroll from a pouch. I read this hoping that it would further enthuse my comrades, but the complex prayer had no effect in this temple to Kyuss.
Still flying overhead, Janga dived in clutching the two artefacts, and chanted out a healing spell to revitalise Fez’s flagging form, and then the barbarian spun to touch his length of tremendously potent two-by-four to the pouch and statuette – I could see the burst of magical potency erupting from them as they all touched, and soul energy swirled around and was absorbed into Fez and Janga, and the barbarian’s huge balor form turned on the dragon baring his pointed teeth and huge fangs.
“Right, you bastard,” he bellowed at it.
As Dragotha took to the air, Fez delivered a vicious overhand slash cutting deeply into the dracoliche’s stomach. The beast bellowed in anger, and abruptly its rage was gone. Staring down coldly at us, the dragon blasted a tremendously powerful spell of negative energy down, followed by a cone of fire which lashed over all of my comrades.
Due to careful preparations, neither had any effect whatsoever.
I dived through the air to grab Fez by one horned wingtip, and tore a rift in space across the few yards to be close enough to attack the dragon without having to close first; at the same time Janga cast another powerful restorative spell, this time on Flynne just around the other side of the dracoliche.
Without having to worry about closing, Fez brought his sunblade down again and again, making more progress now that the dragon was greatly reduced and all of our potent spells of improvement were up and running. Three solid hits cracked deeply into and through one of the heavy armoured plates, which had no more effect than merely irritating the dragon.
Healed now, and still ignoring the inferno of dragonbreath which was clinging to him, Flynne carried on firing, whilst Fez carried on hacking; tearing off one plate. A dark green glow erupted from the dracoliche’s torso, and the beast’s wounds closed somewhat; the armoured plate growing anew to appear soft and more pliable compared to the aeons old armoured plates alongside it. The dragon again pulled away from us.
The glowing magical hand I had summoned snatched up a wooden box and dropped it into my arms, and I pulled 3 talismans from it, activating it in the hope that it might aid us in out time of need. It failed, and became phenomenally heavy. I then grabbed Fez and pulled him through another rift in space to confront the dragon. As I was doing so, an elder earth elemental summoned by Janga fell from the ceiling, smashed into Dragotha’s back and fell to the floor, having absolutely no effect whatsoever. Another spell from Janga failed, and he flew into the air to flank the beast.
This enabled Fez to hack down with abandon, unleashing his full fury – he hacked down again and again with his sunblade undoing the dragon’s healing spell in an instant. At the same time, Flynne dropped to the floor and rolled around, putting out the flames.
The dracoliche, concerned now, flung a powerful blast of antimagic straight at Fez, but he raised one hand on which was mounted a glowing ring which simply absorbed the spell . Taking another punishing blow as he did so, Dragotha flew away once more, and I followed again, dragging Fez through the dimensions in pursuit as the enchanted hand dipped into the treasure pile and flew over, showering me in gems and precious items.
Janga covered the dracoliche’s head in another globe of silence, and Fez lashed out again and again and again, leaving massive slash wounds in the undead flesh. Flynne joined in once again, speckling the dragon’s armoured hide with powerful arrows, but I was not quick enough to avoid Dragotha’s counter-attack. The huge toothy maw snapped down on my neck, and all went black; no sooner had I begun to feel everything going black than it all snapped back into sharp focus as Janga used a scroll to heal both myself and Fez.
Grinning, Fez ripped a lightning shaped blade from behind his back, and struck down. Three blows fell, each to the same spot on Dragotha’s neck, and the head fell clean of the body.
Dragotha, lieutenant to Kyuss for aeons, roared in disbelief and collapsed to the floor in an eruption of grave dust and rapidly decaying bones. A burst of energy flew from the artefacts, and coalesced into Balakarde’s ghostly form. He nodded to us each in turn, and spoke only three words.
“Find… the… monolith.”
His spiritual essence burst apart, and divided into four separate segments which floated in front of each of us in the form of spinning gold coins. As if in a dream, we each reached out and grabbed the coins, which disappeared leaving us all feeling enriched.
.oOo.
Over the next hour, we became much more enriched as we engaged in a positive orgy of looting and wealth.
Mathew_Freeman
Adventurer
Huzzah!
Sounds like a hell of a fight! I'm wondering just how many one-shot items and emergencies got used up in all of that?
Sounds like a hell of a fight! I'm wondering just how many one-shot items and emergencies got used up in all of that?
Cerulean_Wings
First Post
Hell of a fight, no doubt.
By the way, how does your group deal with buying/selling loads of magic items, Eccles? In my games that part is always slow and dull :\
By the way, how does your group deal with buying/selling loads of magic items, Eccles? In my games that part is always slow and dull :\
killjoy68116
First Post
Did I miss something, is Endo no longer playing? :\
Mathew_Freeman
Adventurer
Morrus said:
Hopefully that'll be one of the promised improvements of 4e that really works.
I'm imagining I might put into place the idea that players can get upgrades to their stats directly as part of levelling, rather than worrying about magical items so much. It's something that's been talked about and I really like the sound of it.
My perfect 'adventuring equipment list' has always been 1 weapon, 1 armour, 1 misc - the rest gets a bit much.
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