Party:
Arc Sol - Human Cleric of Pelor, the god of the sun (288 points)
Aurum Red-Brand - Human Wizard (288 points)
Mor'ath Enanqua - Elven Swashbuckler/Thief (276 points)
Zaxod - Half-Orc Knight (283 points)
Day 10 (Cont.)
After some debate, the party headed back through the worm room, and into the storeroom where they climbed up the barrels to the second floor so they could explore the pit of miasma. As they arrived at the room they noticed that the door on the right was no longer barred, so they decided to take a look through. Mor'ath opened the door, revealing an oddly clean empty room with stairs going up to a worn door on the far side, and 3 black blobs hanging from the ceiling.
Aurum took a look, used Thaumatology to identify them as black puddings, and informed the rest of the party that they were highly acidic, to the point where they could easily melt weapons and armour on contact. There was some debate over whether to cast Purify Air on the pit of miasma or to fight the slimes, and Zaxod became bored, switched to his wooden axes, and charged the nearest slime.
It leapt from the ceiling, but the half-orc managed to dodge, and combat was afoot. Aurum cast Flame Jet and Arc started charging a low-strength Sunbolt while still riding on the levitating disc; Mor'ath refused to risk his saber and just dodged attacks as they came. The second slime jumped at Aurum, but critically missed, and slammed into the ground taking some mild damage, while the third was dodged by Zaxod.
Zaxod struck, managed to take out one slime, and partially melted his first wooden axe, while Aurum and Arc wounded another. A slime slammed into Aurum, melting his cloth armour entirely, while a second hit Arc, vastly reducing the effectiveness of his mail shirt. Zaxod pretty quickly mopped up, but ended up partially melting his second axe.
The party then rested and headed back to the pit of miasma, where they noticed the bodies were gone, and then the casters rested for 35 minutes, and Mor'ath locked the door. Meanwhile, Zaxod scouted up the staircase, opened the ruined door, and found himself on the ramparts, with another, locked, iron door to his right. He went back, Mor'ath unlocked the door, and then they both went to go look. Mor'ath peaked through the door's lock and was able to see that the room was lit, probably by candles, and motion, but no more detail. With that, they decided to head back.
Once done resting, Aurum cast Purify Air and the party looked down into the pit. It appeared to be a garbage pile, full of muck and detritus, but they decided to check it out anyway. Aurum found a magical wand of some sort, with rune engravings, while Mor'ath found an urgrosh (a quarterstaff with an axe-head and butt-spike), and a lockbox full of several hundred hexagonal coins, including very rare platinum and electrum pieces, which they loaded on the disc.
That done, the party decided to go back up to the "final boss" door, in varying degrees of stealth. Mor'ath picked the lock, then Zaxod opened the door. Inside was a room full of stone pews, with an altar and tapestries at the front, decorated with some unholy sigil. Spread around the room were 8 zombified lizardmen, 6 dwarf-sized suits of armour wielding axes and shields, and some wizard-looking lizardman wearing a tunic apparently made of purple darkness was standing over a dead, legless lizardman lying on the altar.
The suits of armour held in a phalanx near the wizard, while the zombies rushed Zaxod. Luckily, none were able to grab him, and shortly thereafter he closed the door so that Aurum could start an Explosive Fireball, and Arc could prep True Faith. With both casters ready, he opened the door again, and was immediately shot with a purple energy beam, which he dodged. The zombies, fearing the light of Pelor, were driven away, but not as far as they should have been. Arc realised that the entire room must be low sanctity due to the altar, and continued concentrating on turning the undead while Zaxod and Mor'ath moved in and Aurum fired off his 8d missile, melting one zombie and badly scorching 3 others.
With Arc successfully driving the zombies away, Zaxod rushed down the middle of the room and started fighting the suits of armour, though he had difficulty landing a hit as they all blocked for each other. Mor'ath killed zombies, and Aurum started another Explosive Fireball while stepping into the room, resulting in the levitating disc blocking Arc out of the room.
Aurum launched his second spell and took out one of the suits, causing it to collapse, revealing bones inside, and wounded 3 others, opening a hole in the lines and allowing Zaxod to break through and target the wizard directly. The wizard cast Sickness, but Zaxod resisted, so it went back to firing off its purple energy beam.
Zaxod parried one zombie to death, and Mor'ath mopped up the rest. The wizard retreated back up onto the altar, and Zaxod followed, resulting in a Quick Contest HT roll against something, which he won, and then crippled one of the wizard's legs knocking it prone and half-off the altar. The suits started using their Shield-Wall Training to successfully block for the wizard, while Mor'ath moved in on the flank.
The wizard rolled back over, used some sort of ability and his skin became iron, just before Mor'ath stabbed him in the eye, resulting in no damage. Zaxod continued working away at the suits but they blocked for each other just as well as for the wizard, and he made no headway for quite some time.
Arc stopped concentrating and moved into the room, and then began concentrating again, accidentally driving one suit of armour away from the main fight and towards Aurum, who cast Flame Jet and burned through most of his mana in 4 seconds. Zaxod eventually landed some nice crits to the wizard's groin, and managed to force a death check which it crit-failed. Mor'ath targeted eye-slits on the suits to do some damage and took one out, while Arc advanced.
Aurum, meanwhile, lost his fight and fell unconscious. With Arc blocking the suit's way back to the fight, it took free hits on Aurum's body, forcing a death check which he passed. Zaxod and Mor'ath then mopped up the rest of the suits, and saved Aurum.
Notes:
Forgot the Hardened DR for the puddings, so they died pretty quick.
The lockbox is the first instance of bonus XP for looting. It's worth just over $20,000, which is $5k each, for 2XP.
Forgot about Low Sanctity affecting True Faith for about 10 rounds, so that was incredibly powerful for a while. We're also using a houserule where, if they have nowhere else to go, undead can retreat as far as possible and then take actions at a penalty equal to the difference between how close they are to the source of True Faith and how far it extends.
Forgot the lizardman caster's stench aura.
Forgot quite a few Bad Footings from bodies in the big fight, but at one point just said that anyone around the altar was suffering it because of at least 5 bodies in close proximity.
Kept referring to Shield-Wall Training as Sacrificial Block, confusing everyone, including myself.
XP:
2 for success
1 for roleplaying
1 for the hardest fight (outnumbered by fodder enemies)
2 for loot (21k from the lockbox)
MVP was Arc, because Aurum was disqualified due to not having the details on his spells written down.
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