Chapter 9 - The Path of Doom

As the Champions of Maclir headed toward an alternate, more dangerous path, they were faced with deadly traps. Primarily, more wave traps were implemented to push the party toward an encampment of very hungry Kuo-Toa. The Kuo-Toa began to chant to their god, a iron statue of a sailor, who came alive and attempted to kill the party. However, they managed to defeat the iron god, and with Brynn using a thaumaturgy spell to scare them all, the Kuo-Toa started worshiping her. Ithacus found himself dumbfounded by the situation.

"A fish wearing robes?! Worshipping a sailor statue?" - Ithacus, amazed by their bizarre encounter.

The party was then pushed on by the eager Kuo-Toa, who wanted them to continue down the hallway for an unspecified reason. The Champions soon discovered the eaten bodies of Kuo-Toa scattered down the hallway, making some insinuations about the true nature of what was going on. They encountered several chasms, but Tursi used her wild-shape to become a giant eagle to help the party surpass that danger.
It was not long before the party found the supposed "Treasure of Ages", strangely unguarded. Tursi tried to fly up to destroy the crystal, but she was soon bitten by a GIANT turtle. The room's disguise was dropped, and they soon discovered it was the lair of a Dragon Turtle, with it's Kobold Minions. The Kuo-Toa's earnest behavior hit them: they wanted protection from the dragon. Thus, a fight was on! Bogun and Ithacus were attacked by the steam breath of the dragon, damaging them severely while Tursi and Brynn fought their way around the dangerous cavern filled with cliffs and water.
With luck, Brynn laid several powerful attacks against the Dragon Turtle with her dagger, Tursi stabbed it with poisonous claws, Ithacus dealt with the Kobolds, and Bogun laid the final shot at the dragon with his pistol, sending it clean through the creature's mouth to the other side of it's body. The party then looted the room, taking platinum, gold, and riches beyond their dreams. It was not the end of their journey, however...

Relations

Protagonists

Tursi

Being so young, Tursi found herself exploring the curiosities of the world in this dungeon, including exploring the next of Kuo-Toa and grabbing one of the eggs, without anyone noticing, and harvesting poisonous mushrooms.

Bogun

Bogun found himself getting very unlucky despite being a halfling, with several of his guns exploding in his face during crucial moments on the battles. He found himself turning to Ithacus for support in their battles, including with some of his shots, as he began not to trust his own luck.

Ithacus

Fish creatures and the strange societies in the Path of Doom were not what Ithacus was expecting. What he did begin to use, however, was his spells, something he did not access but learned to trust in order to turn the tide in battle. Even drinking a Potion of Hill Giant Strength helped give him a clutch in the heat of the Dragon Battle.

Brynn Inkheart

One might argue that Brynn took Bogun's luckiness during these hours with some of her battle skill. However, she found herself shocked when she accidentally killed one of the kobolds. She resented her carelessness during the looting of the room.

Adversaries

The Dragon Turtle

Behold! The ferocious dragon, an enemy to any man. It had been eating the Kuo-Toa for it's meals, and it became hungry again as it laid a trap for the party. Unfortunately, it was also a clumsy and slow creature, and one could argue it led to most of it's own downfall. It was slain by the Champions of Maclir.

Backdrops

Locations

The Path of Doom

The left path for the Treasure of Ages had been avoided at all costs due to the dangers of a "leviathan" (which turned out to be a Dragon Turtle) by Cortez' pirate crew. However, since the right path was blocked, the party was forced to take this slippery, moldy, and unfriendly path to their "doom".

Encounters

The Nest of Kuo-Toa

When Tursi and Ithacus were pushed by a wave to get into this nest, they were found themselves surrounded by dozens of eggs, protected by the Kuo-Toa that laid them. When Bogun and Brynn arrived to assist them, they found themselves getting swarmed by the creatures, who all wanted to kill them. The Kuo-Toa priest awakened their iron god (which was the statue of a fisherman with an anchor), which came to attack the party.
Bogun felt the brunt force of the iron god, using it's anchor to smack him around. Brynn took out the Kuo-Toa priest, and Ithacus and Tursi took on some of the other creatures. Much to Ithacus' annoyance, the Kuo-Toa used their sticky shields to grab one of his short swords, leaving him to fight one handed with it. Bogun became unfortunate, as when he tried to fight the Iron god back, some of his guns blew up. Eventually, Tursi used the spell "Heat Metal" to start melting the iron god, weakening it for the party to finally slay it. Brynn proceeded to use thaumaturgy to scare the rest of the Kuo-Toa away. However, this actually resulted in them bowing down to worship her, as they started to think she was a goddess.

A Room of Darts

This was a rather easy puzzle, as the party found it was a room of pressure plates, where you only had to step on the correct ones. Tursi flew over them as an eagle, while the rest of the party carefully crossed it.

The Dragon's Dungeon

The Champions proceeded to head down the hallway some more, crossing chasms until they came into a room that seemed like the Treasure of Ages. Tursi went to work in her Eagle form, flying toward the giant crystal on the top of the ceiling to destroy it. What she got instead was a giant bite from a Dragon Turtle! The dragon used it's steam breath to hurt the players before they could attack, giving it a head start.
The misfortune of Bogun continued, with misfires leading him to face the destruction of more guns until he took the Gun of Waterproof to use against the dragon. It surprisingly worked using it's force damage! The dragon tried to retaliate, using a tail attack to hurt Brynn, but it accidentally slammed it's tail to a wall, sending it's nerves to knock it prone. This happened twice in the fight. Meta Knowledge!

The DM attempted to use these Tail Attacks to knock some of the party members prone. However, he managed to roll a natural 1 on each of these, making the dragon go prone for two different rounds of combat.

Tursi, meanwhile, landed on top of the turtle, using some poison claws she produced to scratch into the turtle to deal some destructive damage. Ithacus decided to go after some of the Kobold minions that were sent after the party, leaving Brynn to use her Dancing Sword and her skills as an assassin to deal heavy blows to the monster. In a stroke of phenomenal luck, she landed a critical blow to the dragon with her dagger! Meta Knowledge!

What happened was that the player for Brynn actually had an advantage roll, and managed to roll two natural 20s, which surprised all of us. It was a very insane fight, with luck being on the side of the players.

Eventually, Bogun dealt the final blow to the dragon, firing one of his Bullets of Seering Pain toward the turtle in his Gun of Waterproof and killing it with a nasty violent shot. Bogun said "Boom" before he fired his shot, in macho fashion. The bullet tore through the dragon's internal organs, killing it once it got to the other side of the creature. In this same round, Brynn became careless and fired an arrow at one of the kobolds, leading it to it's death. She regretted what happened instantaneously.

Plot type

Session