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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Reynard" data-source="post: 8351309" data-attributes="member: 467">UPDATE!So we played tonight. The party still decided to stay in the outpost without disabling the teleportation circle. They did stay a room away, and cast Alarm on the chamber with the portal, so they were alerted when the scout/strike force came through an hour into their rest (I rolled a d4). It was an audible alarm, though, since they didn't want the cast to be the only one to hear it, so the bad guys knew the jig was up.The fight was pretty rough. I got a couple lucky criticals and while most of the PCs had hit points to spare, they did not have many tricks left. Eventually, the barbarian made a charge at the leader and got himself surrounded. After ANOTHER lucky crit by the bad guys, bringing the barbarian down close to death, the rest of the party decided to cut and run. On the upside the barbarian got to say "I told you so!" on his way out of this life.Except that didn't happen. The player pulled a rabbit out of his hat on me. it was glorious.Waaaaay back in the first adventure, when the PCs came face to face with Maud Chiselbone, she liked the barbarians gumption and instead of killing him for trying to attack her (at first level!) she gave him a gift. Not for himself, but for the shaman of his tribe. You see, Maud wanted to bring some power and knowledge to the barbarians as a tool against the people of Ten Towns. This was just me laying groundwork for some personal stakes for the player later on. I didn't even know what was in the "bone box" she gave him. I'd figure out the right thing at the time. then, I promptly forgot about it.So, alone and surrounded by duergar with 2 hit points to go, the barbarian player opens the box. I did a double take before I shifted into Evil GM mode."The world recedes from you vision and you find yourself in the shadowy spirit world. You have been here before, when you died for a moment upon passing your Trials. But you are not alone. There is something in the darkness, hissing and whispering. it wants to know what you want."I decided at that moment that the hag's Patron -- something horrible and grotesque from the Far Realm --  had charged her with finding more souls for it and she was trying to get the Shaman to join her in her coven. Instead, it got the barbarian, who wished that all the duergar attacking him were killed.No other PCs could see the barbarian, although one -- the gnome wizard whose idea it had been to remain -- could see one of the duergar. A screaching howl filled the outpost and the pale duergar turned inky black like swamp mud then exploded in sprays of slime. The barbarian emerged covered in the goo with the hag's gift empty and useless.When the barbarian went to clean off the goo he found he was covered in squamous tattoos. When next he rages, his former "storm aura" will instead be a mass of muck and tentacles.So they fled, rested, leveled and decided to go back to Bryn Shander to warn the Council before heading to the main fortress to hopefully stop the completion of the chardalyn dragon. We have 2 or 3 sessions left before we run out of time due to other commitments I have. I hope they can either win or get TPK'd in an epic final fight by then.</blockquote>

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