D&D Log: Session 10

It’s that time again kids; time for a D&D update! Man last night was a blast full of enough blunders and crowning moments of awesome to fill an entire TVTropes page. Let’s get started, but be warned friends, this is going to be a long one even though I’m abridging it.

So our first destination was inside the Black Library itself as we rushed to catch up with Esgalion (I had his name wrong before) before he could reach the Word of Morgana, however we came to our first obstacle of the night: a pit trap. We debated about how to cross it, and I’ll admit, I got a little bit annoyed. We spend way too long debating plans, and from here on out if we come across an obstacle like this, I’ll just go with the first plan that sounds sensible. I really am starting to detest the bickering between figuring out a plan when all of them sound about as good. Anyway, I can’t really tell you what our plan was because in the end we all passed the pit only to fall into a second trap which dropped us down a chute into a new chamber where we had to fight… OURSELVES!

Actually, we fought… THE SMOKE MONSTER! Even more terrifying. And since people complained, I limited my LOST references, but since this is my blog I’ll use them all here: “Quick, somebody find a magic cork and pull it! That’s the only way to remove their powers!” “Everybody stare into the smoke but don’t think about what a douchebag you are.” “Anybody got any white ash?” “Hurry, someone construct a sonic fence!” “Don’t admit you’re not sorry for what you did!” “Watch out for trees!” “If I recall Mr. Eko beat it by staring into it, so everybody roll Concentration checks!” “We have to make it to Dharama-ville, we’ll be safe there!”

Okay, I’m good. Anyway, we actually found shadowy versions of ourselves that appeared in some attempt to take over our bodies, kinda like that one season of Yu-Gi-Oh where they were stuck in the virtual world. What’s that? Too many nerd references? Alright, I’ll be good. So we began the epic battle against ourselves, or as I like to call it: The Battle of Many Blunders. I’m sure somebody can go back and count, but this battle probably had about nine or ten blunders. It a very humorous exchange Viktor attacked and botched. The botch table said he over-extended and he would get attacked. His mirror image attacked… and botched. There’s something hilarious about the two entities botching in unison. Bad news for Darstine though as the poor girl went the entire night on a bad streak. In the first encounter alone he rolled three 1s… in a row. He botched his initiative and his first two attacks, and his luck really didn’t get any better. Then more botches came, including a hilarious “Vicious Mockery” botch. Garret’s Shade called Garret sexy. Nice.

Eventually we wore down our spirits until only Garret and Darstine’s remained, but before we could finish them off they vanished saying they wouldn’t fail. I get the feeling they might still be lurking around, but I’ll debate that later. Anyway we came to a crossroads, but the party picked the right door and we entered an enormous room surrounded by portals of glowing glyphs. Colonel Vane went to investigate the portals when all of the sudden monsters started to pour out of the glyphs. Mechanical constructs they were. Warforged I think. Either way, these guys were intense. Colonel Vane, as a Defender, managed to hold his own, but these guys possessed a dangerous ability where they would vomit on anyone that attacked them in melee. Remember that only Juliet, Grae, and Garret have an effective ranged strategy, and that Grae was in melee due to a low supply of arrows. So basically our team got thrashed. Viktor’s bad rolls continued, and spent the battle as a meat shield absorbing blows while Juliet rained down artillery. I actually had a rather sexy set of rolls throughout the night complimented by my ability to “GAGOOSH GAGOOSH!” I killed two on my own, but managed to do enough damage to be in contention for battle MVP along with Vane and Viktor (even if the latter’s sole contribution was being devoured).

However the battle again, went rather poorly for most of our members. Darstine took the worst, and throughout the battle took ridiculous shots until she was KO’d, and came rather close to death. A few more damage points, and Darstine would have been no more. Grae didn’t go unconscious, but he did almost greet death. He spent the battle flirting with death, and Viktor, as I said, barely managed to stay on his feet. Without Juliet raining down burst damage and Lord Vane playing effectively, this battle could have easily gone south.

So after the machines were dismantled we were left with nothing but an enormous statue of Morgana towering over us. And yes, for the majority of the battle we all worried it would come alive and attack us, but thankfully it did not. Instead Juliet managed to spot a secret entrance behind the statue, and Grae attempted to scale the statue. However he was too fat, and the statue broke spilling hot oil all over everything except Juliet and… somehow Grae. I don’t understand that one, but s’well. So we climb into the secret entrance to find a ritual chamber with a big golden pedestal in the center of the room surrounded by a mosaic depicting Morgana leading her forces of vermin covered minions into battle. I instantly remembered Varreketh, the Lord of Vermin we defeated back in “We were fighting like men” time, and I wonder if there’s a connection. We still don’t know what the purpose of that portal was, unless it was all an entertaining side quest. Either way we debated about what to do as we were now at a dead end with a few routes left to explore, but we ultimately decided to check the platform to see where it went. With that we were whisked away to a new chamber, and an epic encounter.

We all appeared in a massive chamber with a pyramid in the center, and to our surprise we spotted Esgalion climbing the side of the pyramid towards an enormous coffin sitting at the top. Now it was time for our showdown—our revenge, and we attacked! However the portal split us up (random chance on a d6 for where we would start), and we had a very sizable difference to make up just to reach the pyramid. Vitkor was first up, and the only one lucky enough to get started on the teleporter closest to the pyramid. With a double move action point move (triple move), he managed to reach Esgalion, but the high elf was not impressed and summoned a small army of skeletons to keep us busy while he obtained the Word of Morgana. Now I am honestly surprised we won this battle, because this was a freaking difficult encounter. For everytime we’ve said “that wasn’t too hard”, we were promptly shut the fuck up. Even with our Dailies this battle was tough. Each Phantom Knight was +10 to attack and did about 1d8 + 3 damage, plus they fought in pairs for the most part. We all tried to occupy them, but even excluding Esgalion they outnumbered us bad.

Special mention has to go to Esgalion himself who threw out big damage like it was nothing. I’m honestly not sure how Viktor stayed standing after the damage he took. Props to the Russian. So Esgalion came closer to the top, and Colonel Vane was adamant about not letting him get the book, so he leapt on top of the coffin stop him. Esgalion brandished a ring with the marking of a ram on it, and with a single attack, hurled Lord Vane off the pyramid, and down thirty feet. The attack nearly killed Vane who went into the negatives soon after. I mean it sucked, but at the same time it was really epic to just kinda force push Colonel Vane off a pyramid, and Garret was just as kind. He got up to the pyramind’s peak, activated a power, hit, and then tossed Esgalion off the pyramid. Viktor followed, and the fight continued. Esgalion managed to his Viktor with an illusionary attack that caused him to hallucinate scarabs swarming and devouring him, and confident in his victory the high elf returned to his “destiny” of getting the Word of Morgana, but Viktor got his opportunity attack. With one roll Viktor redeemed every poop roll he made earlier in the night. Critical. 37 damage. With a single swing Viktor cleaved Esgalion’s head clean off, and our revenge was complete.

The remaining Skeletons/Phantom Knights didn’t last much longer, but the toll it took on us all was clear. Grae was out cold (stabilized, but out cold). Vane was up, but barely. The rest of us were all bloodied, and had expended all of our encounter powers and dailies. We were absolute wrecks. But, still we had work to do: looting. Yes, we looted Esgalion’s body clean. Lord Vane took his ring and broadsword. Garrett took his magical armor. I took his head. Yeah, I was adamant going into this fight that we’d use Esgalion to prove our innocence one way or another, so this will have to do. After that we opened the coffin to find Morgana’s corpse. Well, that’s what we thought it was, but before we grabbed her book I questioned did it look like a natural corpse, and it wasn’t. This shit was a Lich, but there was no time to debate as Darstine swiped the Word of Morgana only to have the Lich waken and grab her by the throat. Now the undead form of Morgana towered above us, hissing and demanding her book back. We had apparently woken her slumber, and now she would take over the world (OF COURSE!). However we quickly realized that a medallion we took from Esgalion was her phylactery, and we quickly had to destroy it. That however, didn’t work out so well, as Vane botched his own attack. This gave Morgana a chance to attack, and cue us shitting our pants at this part. Morgana had a +20 to attack, and her attack blasted Viktor almost to death. Still Vane redeemed himself by shattering the phylactery on his next turn, and Morgana, the all powerful witch, was turned to ash.

The energy released in the explosion of the attack sent Grae, Vane, and Viktor flying, and knocked Viktor out and brought Grae closer to death. Even worse it knocked out one of the pillars of the cavern, and the whole place began to crumble. If we didn’t escape now, we’d die, so we snatched up what we could from Morgana’s coffin, and fled back into the teleporter before Morgana’s tomb crumbled around us. We reappeared back in the mosaic chamber, our party devastated. Viktor and Grae are out. The rest of us are barely standing. Some of us may be carrying wounds we’ll never recover from. Yet we all couldn’t help but grin as not only did we just complete one of the most epic encounters ever, but we were the ones with the Word of Morgana in our hands.

So that’s where we stopped, and the entire session lasted almost seven hours. Twas a long one, but totally worth it. We accomplished a lot, but most importantly we got the Word of Morgana which means we’re a step closer to clearing our names and saving the King. What happens next week will be a mystery. We definitely need to think up a way into Sarmanath, but I’ve got several. More than that we need to know what’s in the Word of Morgana, and what needs to be done to save the King. We’re one step closer, but we’re still not there yet. Still, this victory means a lot to us, and I think this group is ready for a nice, long rest.

I hope you enjoyed everyone. Leave a comment below, especially if you have any suggestions. Curious to see what the viewers think we should do.