Brother Maurice- Human Initiate of Avandra, the goddess of freedom and luck (155 points)
Sindri Blackshield - Tiefling Knight (302 points)
Locke Landen - Human Bard (294 points)
Player Absent:
Virgil the Grim - Human Barbarian (298 points)
Amothius 9th, 2526
Weather: Clear
Sindri and Morgan decided to look through the bookshelves for a little bit, and went back down to the library. They found books on a great many subjects, but not what they were looking for (lore about devils, and blueprints for the tower), though they didn't try any of the locked iron cabinets in case they were trapped, and headed back up to the atrium.
After some debate, they tried the door on the left, and found what seemed to be a torture chamber with a manacled and muzzled sleeping fire drake (identified thanks to Occultism), a similarly restrained and asleep troll, and a large purple force wall containing some men made of fire. There was also a bench with some surgical implements and buckets which Maurice figured were used to drain large amounts of blood, and closer looks at the drake and troll revealed heavy scarring.
Morgan tried communicating with the fire men, but they only spoke a strange language that sounded like crackling fire, and were ultimately left alone. The party didn't really have a way of freeing them anyway, so they headed over to the door on the right, and discovered an alchemy lab. There were some buckets that had clearly been full of blood, a rack of various herbs, and several unlabelled potions on a shelf.
Able to resist his Curiosity, Morgan suggested that Locke Mind Control the troll before heading up the grand staircase to fight Zargothrax, the Iron Mage, so they headed back to the torture chamber, only for the troll to crit its resistance roll. Morgan, as the only person who spoke Giant, tried to convince it to help, but failed, as it didn't trust them and was scared of the wizard's spells.
With the troll out of the picture, Locke decided to Mind Control the fire drake instead, and Sindri freed it from its chains, but broke one of its legs in the process. With a limping fire drake in tow, they headed up the grand staircase and through the double doors, revealing some sort of arcane workshop, with many tables filled with strange magical implements, and an ironbound wooden door on the left wall.
Two arbalesters hung from the ceiling at opposite sides of the room, but did not activate, nor did a pair of shield golems. A semi-completed construct resembling a suit of armour, with flames shooting out of its eye sockets and any of its uncovered parts, stood on a pedestal in the middle of the room, and an iron golem stood off to the far side. Morgan tried talking to the wizard, who was "probably listening in", but got no response.
Being courageous heroes, the party sent in the wounded drake to scout and nudge different constructs for a while before entering the room, but once they did, a Force Wall popped up behind them. The iron golem suddenly became blurry and unfocused, so the drake was sent to nudge it, only to be struck in the skull by a blinged-out golden quarterstaff that had suddenly appeared in the golem's hands.
The party spread out as the rest of the constructs activated, with the shield golems running towards the iron golem and the arbalesters taking aim at the squishies. Locke Mind Controlled the flaming suit of armour just as it drew a flaming greatsword, Morgan shot an arbalester with PK Lash, and Sindri and Virgil each attacked a shield golem. The fire drake tried to breathe fire at the iron golem, but missed badly, when suddenly, the center of the room went pitch black, forcing the casters to stumble out of the darkness to varying degrees of success.
Morgan finished off one arbalester before it could get a shot off, but the other hit Virgil in the back for a good amount of damage. The iron golem ran off into the blackness, and one shield golem held Virgil at bay while the other ran away from Sindri, who was too slowed by his armour to keep up. While trying to chase it down, Sindri Unluckily tripped over the small pedestal the flaming suit of armour had been on, and, while on the ground, noticed that he could see through the blackness to where the iron golem was standing.
Virgil went after the second arbalester, and together with Morgan finished it off, while the iron golem attacked Morgan from the darkness and was narrowly parried, getting rid of his Bless in the process. The drake regained its feet, while Locke took control of the shield golem that had evaded Sindri. Morgan tried shooting a PK Lash at where he thought the iron golem was, but didn't hit anything. Just as Sindri regained his feet, a Force Wall appeared, boxing him in.
Notes:
When discussing how pissed Zargothrax would be with them for killing his acolytes, we ended up talking about the rules for Resurrection. Back when we started the game, all the players were in agreement that they wanted death to be difficult to come back from, so there have been some serious changes in the setting.
Several years ago, resurrection magic ceased to work for normal clerics. Now, the only way to bring someone back from the dead is to go on a personal quest for one of the gods. The most noteworthy example of such a quest is the Tale of Sir Benjamin of Franklin, who captured a bolt of lightning for Kord, god of storms and battle, by using a kite and enchanted key to bring back his friend, Samuel Adamson.
Morgan wishes he had Psight, because then the darkness wouldn't be a problem. The whole "I need this one specific ability for this specific situation but don't have the points" thing seems to be how Psi is balanced, and makes it interestingly different from Wizard magic.
Sindri crit his Tactics roll, getting 7 rerolls, but so far they've only used one, though Luck has been expended, and a Bless lost.
Can constructs be Mind Controlled? Going by the rules, yes, as none of the examples in DF2 or either of the Monsters books have Immunity (Mind Control). That said, it's in-genre to have constructs be difficult or impossible to affect with mind magic. A good compromise is to give them all Resistant (Mind Control), at a higher level if they're already under somebody else's control.
XP:
1 for very mild progress
1 to Sindri for Unluckiness
MVP went to Morgan for smashin' up the arbalesters
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