2023/02/15: Fungicide Report
General Summary
Knight, Ril, Ba'alzamon, Eldrin, Union, Zaran, Sith Sith responded to the call after the ritual was mostly set up. The ritual was handled, but Sith was happy to join the strike team with Knight, Union, and Ril. Ril called in a dark-haired elf named Durrian to provide Fighter assistance to the strike team. Used to be a villain. Ril's boyfriend. Ba'alzamon summoned a great army to defend the ritual:
Ication Battalion - x21,600 - +62 hp
Large air elementals x180 - +62 hp
Huge air elementals x90 - +62 hp
Greater air elemental x22 - +62 hp
Shifting Elemental Guard x270 - +62 HP
Efreeti x75 - +62 hp
Fire Drakes x972 - +62 hp
D’Avante Archers x1,296 - +62 hp
Fire Snakes x1,200 - +62 hp
Scrib Sprites x315
Fire Sprites x60
Guard Hound x7
12 - Super Trolls He spread these troops across the city, some defending the ritual itself, some on the fortifications surrounding the city, and some in the Webs on the city ceiling. The shifting elemental guards, starting as earth elementals, were arranged in the earth beneath the city itself. The people of the city were forted up between the rings of summoned guards, defended by the Sentries. The spiders of the Webs prepared to defend their homes and the Black Throne above the city. All were advised to let the summoned troops take the front line; they were expendable, and taking those hits was what they were for. Eldrin began deep meditation, preparing to throw all his psychic power behind the ritual. He hoped he wouldn't be used up like a spell component, but for this? If it happened, it was worth it. Sith joined the strike team. Ril cast group mind to allow communications between the two groups. Some last buffing effects were set up, and then the strike team set out. Some of the ever-present wandering crabs did try to attack the party. They were somewhat overconfident in their combat prowess. For the party, the result was less "combat" and more "sweeping". Farther on, the party was attacked by a set of eight mold kaiju that smashed their way out through the walls, followed by a column of fungal ghouls. Knight charged the closest kaiju and tore into it with his sword, though its regeneration and resilience kept it standing. Durrian charged the kaiju on the other side, stabbed his spear into it, and then started climbing. It also looked wounded. Zaran conjured a firestorm that wiped out 40 of the ghouls. Sith did similarly, but with a higher-tier wizard version of the spell; the 800-foot-wide blast annihilated another 700 or so. Union hid behind Sith and his own visual defenses. Then the swarm reached them. Zaran got bitten twice, one of them leaving a green tendril beginning to grow from the wound. The rest of the party on foot got dogpiled but the attacks were unable to press through their defenses. Ril, ignoring the horde, cast time crawl on the incoming colossi, slowing their regeneration and attacks. The colossi launched almost rocket-propelled fungus tendrils at Knight and swung at Durrian, but both ably dodged. Another colossus tagged Knight with a vast tendril of fungul matter, just getting a hold on Knight's shoulder and beginning to reel him in. Knight reacted by shifting to shade form, twisting himself free from the tendril. That handled, he lashed out at the colossus he had been targeting before, trying to entangle it and lash at its soul but getting no response. Zaran pulled himself free of the horde just enough to cast remove disease, but wasn't quite able to concentrate hard enough to free himself of the growth. Sith pulled his sword and started clearing the horde from on top of him and his teammates. Union joined in the stabbing, to little effect. The ghoul facing Union ignored the stab wound in its chest and charged him, reaching for his neck. It almost got him, his attempt to dodge turned futile as he bumped into a party member's back... and then he phased out of existence just long enough for the ghoul's hands to pass through him uselessly. The other 37 ghouls chewed on Sith's armor to no effect, got a minor nick through Ril's defenses, and chomped on Zaran uselessly a bit. Ril threw her sword into the ground, and it turned into a delicate young woman with white hair. She charged the colossi. One of the colossi formed its arm into a gigantic blade and swung at Knight, but it missed badly, as did the barrage of tendril-projectiles that followed. Knight, who had discovered with his shade attacks that these monsters apparently had no souls to hit, went back to drilling his way into the first colossus's torso. Durrian, on the other side of the room, continued to do the same, doing something flashy that no one else had a chance to see clearly. Zaran decided it was time to do something about all these distracting zombies that were trying (and failing, due to his strength) to pull him to the ground. Thanks to the elf rage spell, he lashed out with claws, wings, and tail despite his apparently elven form, smashing and tearing the ghouls around him into paste. Union valiantly won his duel with the ghoul attacking him. And then Sith, who had been cheering Union on and ignoring the ghouls chewing on his own armor, turned and flattened what ghouls remained. Ril hasted the party and boosted Knight. The colossi went for Knight and Durrian, and failed miserably. They, in turn, continued punching holes. Durrian's dropped, and Knight's nearly did. Zaran, clear of the ghouls, took the opportunity to try clearing the infection once again. Once again, his spell failed. Sith, seeing that Knight seemed to have the nearest kaiju in hand, charged the next closest. The randomness of his magic resulted in him blinking behind it just as it went to step on him in response. Ril, making good use of free time, stepped over to Zaran and rewound the infection out of existence. Her living sword battled with the colossi, getting stepped on, caring not a whit, and then chopping into it on her way out. The colossus that Sith attacked spent time searching for him, only slowly realizing that it was behind him. The colossus that Knight was dueling flailed at him uselessly. The remaining four colossi, the ones that hadn't yet joined the combat, lined up and blew a cloud of spores or gas across the combat zone. Most of the party resisted the associated infection (if not the accompanying acid damage), but Union was not feeling well. Knight finished chopping his kaiju in half. Durrian, whose hair seemed to have turned blue and yellow, charged the next unoccupied kaiju and started stabbing away, his strikes accompanied by blasts of lightning. He was, apparently, not sure who had buffed him, but lightning seemed effective! Sith continued whacking away at his own kaiju, but he started noticing something odd about his chaos blade. It seemed to be beginning to glow yellow-white, with sparks of lightning flashing across it. That, plus the barrage of disintegration, cure, falling object, haste, slow, and pretty light effects was enough to bring the kaiju down heavily, but Sith had the suspicion that his sword was hitting harder than it should have been. Ril messed with time and reverted all her allies to the state they'd been in at the beginning of the fight, curing Union of his disease and returning everyone to full health and spells. The remaining colossi charged. One latched onto Sith with a grasping tendril and started reeling him in. Knight got rocked around by a barrage of spiky projectiles but resisted being stunned, and the rest of the colossal attacks failed to have an effect. Knight flitted over to slash at the tendril holding Sith. This one seemed far softer than the last; his slightly glowing blade was going through this one like a hot knife through butter. Durrian, in turn, managed to finish off his own target and then end the kaiju Knight had wounded. Sith moved on to the next kaiju and started whacking away there. Among the random effects this time were two falling objects, one being a giant brass apple and the other an amethyst horse statue. Ril started to suspect those were linked to the source of the lightning boosts. Or sources in fact... (Adrienne and Nadira) The colossi retaliated. One of them finally caught Knight solidly with a giant club of an arm, bashing him across the room, while another stomped on Sith. The latter simply slid off, however; Sith's random magic had kicked in once again, this time his cloak making him temporarily invulnerable. Then his head exploded, but he seemed unbothered. Knight, briefly looking battered from the massive blow, activated a sash and suddenly became fully healed once more. He cheerfully flew back in and tore a few more holes in the kaiju facing Sith, and then Sith disintegrated it twice over. Ril, seeing what seemed to be will-o-wisps providing the lightning, focused power in hopes of fully charging the lightning boosts. Knight and Sith charged the last kaiju and battered it (and, thanks to Sith, disintegrated it, set it on fire, blasted it with water, healed it, made it fall 20 feet, and cast light on it). Knight, though, started to feel a sizzling sensation on his hands as his sword lit and heat up further. The near-dead kaiju responded with a gas breath weapon, which the party shrugged off. Knight finished chopping the kaiju in half. Then he fluttered back to the ground, stuck his sword in the stone, and started blowing on his poor burned hands. Ril chose this moment to stop channeling the lightning. The sword, fortunately, began to cool down. The party began debating the source of the lightning buff. Nadira had been providing the lightning, and Sith's wife, Adrienne, had been boosting it further. This was somewhat reassuring, but the fact that this effort had attracted direct divine intervention was also very concerning. This was only going to get tougher from here.
Rewards Granted
2 xp (4 for Union)
Character(s) interacted with
Durrian, Thelryden, General Jarkeld
