Session #44

Ok let’s just jump right into it.

Map

The entire night pretty much happened in the same location, as you can see in the map.

It was a long game night.

We last left the party in a bad situation; their only arcane caster had been deep-fried, the divine casters had used most of their high level spells, and just when they thought they had won, three iron golems walked into the room with the teasing voice of Invistis echoing throughout the room.

“Step aside adventurers! I promise not to kill you if you do so.”

The party, not being suicidal, stepped aside.

The three iron golems slowly walk through the room, as if looking for something.
One golem finds Kasteoficiss’s body, rips it apart, and then investigates the body as if looking for something.
Another golem walks farther into the room and investigates Kasty’s bed. (The bed was removed from the map because nothing yells “PLOT RELATED” like a big pink bed on the map when little else is shown on the map.) The golem rips up the bed and finds a large copper key. It grabs the key and all of the golems immediately begin to leave the room only to stop at the door.

“Now where have you hidden the ruby star? Give me that and I shall leave you alone.”

“We don’t have it. It’s hidden in the garrison of angels where you can’t get it.”

“I see. You probably think you are clever for doing that. But no, it’s quite the contrary.”

The lich walks into the room with a shield guardian in front of and behind him.

Invistis looks at the party one by one as if reading their thoughts. His eyes finally rest on Thunderclease.

“You will go alone to the garrison and retrieve the star for me while your friends wait here safely with me. You have one hour or they all die.”

The party realizes they are in bad shape. Their options are to fight while they have very few resources, with death being likely, or to take a chance and let their biggest fighter leave making them an even weaker fighting force.

Thunderclease agreed to go. The rest of the party was against this option, but that’s mostly because of role-playing reasons.

So Cleez used his still active Wind Walk spell and flew to the garrison.

He immediately looked for a high-ranking garrison member. He found Kelara and explained his situation. Kelara, surprised that Invistis was up and around, told him that she would help him and she would look for others to help, but don’t expect much because the whole of the garrison was called away because, “The tarrasque has escaped.” (The tarrasque is just my excuse to deny the party any more aid than they are getting.)

When he told Kelara that he wasn’t going to bring the ruby star, she suggested that he should because Invistis is quite powerful and may know if Cleez has broken the deal.

So while he retrieved the ruby star, Kelara grabbed some help. She found four volunteers that felt they owed the party a debt because of what the party has done. Among them was Spers, a Bralani with a few fighter levels. The rest don’t matter as much. You’ll see why later.

So the six of them gathered and set about returning to region N.

But in the meantime, the rest of the party was dealing with you standard insane, evil, arch-nemesis, who of course just had to fill the party in on his dastardly and evil plan.

He was the first lich that existed in the realms, but he was caught and imprisoned here for his crimes. He was placed in some green-glass coffin that was to keep him asleep for eternity. But he was too strong and too smart for that. He escaped his confines and set about creating an empire within this prison.
He became a warlord of the region and was quite powerful. But his actions were thwarted by the mad priestess of Jergal, Kasteoficiss. But her zealotry was contagious. She stole his servants by proselytizing and the promise of freedom. Invistis was forced to create his army. Now his only servants are the machines/golems he creates.
But he did learn from Kasteoficiss that in the center of the region is a great dark being who seeks to escape into the world destroy all life. He doesn’t believe it to be a god, but he does know it is very powerful. Although it is slowly escaping its bonds, the waves of negative energy are evidence of that, Invistis seeks to free it now, so it can bestow him with even more power.

When the party mentioned that the dragon Tyrus has made a deal with it as well, Invistis laughed. The dragon is a living being, and it will fall before the power of the great dark one and become the dark one’s slave.

As the end of hour approached Thunderclease and his retinue approached the room. The other half of the party was notified that only Thunderclease was approaching, and that he had the ruby star.

Now as DM, I would think that the party would let him have the ruby, and then hunt him down after they had rested and prepared for this fight, because hey, attacking a prepared lich while you’re at 50% of your power is just plain suicidal.

But of course they couldn’t do that. That would make sense, and we can’t have that.

So Cleez stepped around the corner to the hallway of the room, with his retinue of somewhat buffed up garrison members.

When Invistis saw Kelara, we rolled initiative.

Round 1:
Invistis has two iron golems and two shield guardians protecting him from the main party. But he only has a single iron golem protecting him from Cleez and the garrison forces. So he realizes he’s in trouble when Cleez steps up to the solo golem and takes 25% of its hit points away in a single swing.
Then Spers steps beside Cleez and casts a lightning bolt at 2 of the golems and Invistis. Invistis gets to cast 2 spells a round for the near entirety of combat. His first spell is Wall of Force. This basically cuts off the garrison forces except for Spers. His other spell is Slow on the party. Only Sen fails the save.
Invistis takes no damage, but the 2 golems are slowed.
Krieg casts Polymorph Any Object and turns himself into a rust monster. He’s out of the line of sight of Invistis. His plan is obvious.
Valden buffs himself up for combat.
Senmonious, seeing the greater evil, tries to make his way towards Invistis. The effects of Slow are really hampering his progress.
The iron golems begin to pound on Sen and Valden. Valden is under 50% already. And Sen has already used all but one point of his Lay on Hands.
The shield guardians maneuver themselves into a defensive area leaving room for someone to enter and be protected by them.
The remainder of the garrison force tries to find another way into the room over the next few rounds. When that doesn’t work, they go with their only option left. One of them has a Shield Other with Spers. So when Spers takes damage, one of them takes half of it. So they ready actions for when there is damage worth healing.

Round 2:
Cleez uses his full attack against the golem. Scrap metal is the result.
Spers moves to the lich to attack and misses.
Invistis, suddenly on the defensive, gets out of his location (provoking a missed AoO), and then sees a rust monster, and no Krieg. He casts a targeted Greater Dispel Magic on Krieg the rust monster. The DM rolls 11 or higher for every spell on Krieg. Krieg has been stripped of every single spell. Then a Spectral Hand appears behind Krieg.
Krieg, his plans ruined, steps away from the hand and buffs the party with a quickened Bless and a Prayer.
Valden attacks an iron golem, but, well Jeff had a bad night with the dice. He hit it once.
Senmonious, at the persuasion of his party, ceases trying to get to the great evil lich. Instead he attacks an iron golem. He hit, but no damage was scored.
The iron golems smack at Valden. Valden drops to the ground at -4hp.
One shield guardian does nothing but stands and protects its master. The other can reach Senmonious and gives him a little love tap.

Round 3:
Cleez tries to make it to Invistis by ignoring everything else. He suffers several attacks of opportunity. And he doesn’t quite get close enough to Invistis. But he’s close.
Spers flies to help the party with the iron golems.
While the iron golems are dealing with party near the northern statues, Invistis and his shield guardians are near the southern statues. He is now protected by the shield guardians to the north and east, the wall to the west, leaving only the south area open to attack. So he tosses up a Wall of Fire along the statues. He also casts a quickened Vampiric Touch through the Spectral Hand and steals some hp from Krieg.
Krieg steps away from the hand again and casts Flame Strike on Invistis and his shield guardians. Some damage is dealt, but Invistis appears to have taken very little.
Valden begins to bleed to death.
Senmonious uses his 1 point of Lay on Hands to stabilize Valden.
The iron golems pound at Sen now. Amazingly, only 2 hits connected, but it still left him at about 50hp.
The shield guardians miss their pray and tighten their ranks around Invistis.

Round 4:
Cleez gets to Invistis, and although he has to stand in the Wall of Fire, Cleez gets a swing in. Although some good damage is dealt, Invistis seems to take only about a third of the damage dealt. This was thanks to Invistis’s buffs and his shield guardian’s Shield Other abilities (something the party didn’t know about).
Spers continues to make a nuisance of himself with another Lightning Bolt on the iron golems.
Invistis, not wanting a psychopathic barbarian going off on him, casts a quickened True Strike followed by Otto’s Irresistible Dance. He almost missed even with the +20 bonus, but since he didn’t Thundercat began doing the Stray Cat Strut.
Krieg gets close enough to Senmonious and Valden to have his Mass Cure Critical Wounds work on them.
Valden stands up, and amazingly is missed by both AoO’s. He then casts another healing spell on himself.
Senmonious, correctly feeling he’s worthless in a fight with a construct, decides to take the hard route to Invistis.
Golems and guardians smack the party around some more.

Round 5:
Cleez is doing the happy-dance. He provokes some AoO’s and gets a minor concussion for it.
Spers does what he can to be a target.
Invistis tosses a Fireball on his golems and the party. Then he tosses a quickened one on them too.
Krieg heals as best he can.
Valden says forget the golems and moves to attack the shield guardians.
Senmonious continues to move closer to Invistis. His Ring of Fire Resistance (major) protects him from the Wall of Fire.
Iron golems and shield guardians continue to pound on the party.

Round 6:
Cleez is getting jiggy widit.
Spers repeats his action.
Invistis knows that Cleez will be free to act next round, so he casts Time Stop. During his bonus rounds he casts Greater Invisibility & Fly on himself, fills the area he was standing in with Obscuring Mist, and places a Delayed Blast Fireball within the mist. He then flies up and out of combat, and hides around the corner until the blast goes off.
Krieg, not quite sure of what is going on, Flame Strikes the shield guardians again.
Valden finishes off one of the guardians.
Senmonious wanders the Obscuring mist, looking for Invistis.
The iron golems follow after Valden.
The remaining shield guardian goes after Valden as well.

Round 7:
Cleez gets control of him legs and immediately goes to making rubble of the last shield guardian.
Spers...eh
Invistis waits in hiding.
Krieg heals some more.
Valden finally hurts an iron golem.
Senmonious is still searching around the mist. He sees a glowing red ruby on the floor. Although he has an 8 intelligence, he does roll a natural 20 on his intelligence check. He throws up a warning to the party and tries to get out of the way.
Iron golems do what they were meant to do.

Round 8:
Cleez gets away from the glowing ruby and still gets a swing in on a golem.
Spers flies up and away from the ruby.
The ruby explodes into a Delayed Blast Fireball. Thanks to Senmonious’s warning, most of the party was out of the area of effect. But Senmonious wasn’t. He had 6hp when the smoke cleared. His ring saved his life.
Then Invistis made his presence known. Flying 100’ off the ground, he flew into view of everyone. Well everyone who could see invisible, which was Cleez, Sen, and Valden.
He cast another quickened Fireball and Chain Lightning. This time Senmonious was guaranteed death. And poor Spers couldn’t withstand firepower of that magnitude.

What? Don’t like my lame sci-fi jokes and references? Well that’s too bad. At least it wasn’t often-repeated quote from The Princess Bride, Aliens, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Evil Dead II, or Army of Darkness. Those movies are quoted way too often. “’Tis but a flesh wound,” at my table will get you an actual flesh wound.

But anyway, Spers fell to the ground near Senmonious’s corpse.

The remainder of the combat went like this:
After Cleez and Valden finished off the golems, Cleez grabbed Sper’s magical bow and shot at Invistis, but it never did any damage.
Invistis used all of his remaining damage spells on the party. When he ran out of those, he attempted to Dominate, Hold Person, or Charm Person Cleez. The damage was never enough bring down a party member and Cleez kept making his saves.
Krieg, not being able to see any targets spent the rest of the combat healing where he could.
As did Valden once the golems were gone.

Since magic did not get him his second prize for the day, Invistis tried threats.

“I still have a disjunction spell and a wishing spell remaining. Don’t force me to use them.”

But the stubborn party did not relent. Even though they were quite sure he wasn’t bluffing.

He wasn’t bluffing. But he was also running out of time. He had very few spells remaining. And the Wall of Force that kept Kelara and her brood out of the combat would not last much longer.

So he flew just high enough to stay out of reach and cast Mordenkainen’s Disjunction that affected Cleez, Sper’s corpse, and Senmonious’s corpse.

The results weren’t spectacular. Senmonious was hit the worst. Since he wasn’t alive, his items didn’t get his bonus to saves. So he lost his Ring of Fire Resistance and his Attuning Longsword.

The round after that he flew into the small hallway exiting the room and cast another Wall of Force. And on the following round he dismissed the first wall of force and escaped.

He’ll save the Wish (and the 5000xp) for their next meeting.

The party and their friends gathered up their friends and returned to the garrison.
They raised Dariel and Senmonious, and paid 5000gp towards the raising of Spers.

And this week’s patience award goes to Brian. His character Dariel was dead the entire session. I even let him run Kelara, but she could do nothing. So he read his books and created a character for Dale’s upcoming campaign. Well we were expecting a TPK when the combat began, so why not get a head start on making your new PC.

Even over 2 weeks after it happened, I’m still surprised the party fought him to a stand still.

I guess in the Forgotten Realms it would be called a Maztican Stand-off.

Ok, I’m all caught up on the blog now.
About smurfing time.