Session 26: All such agreements are null and void Report

General Summary

The party was faced with a group of powerful individuals who demanded the party give them something which they claim to own by right. Roy declined to give these individuals the ring and assaulted their sanity instead, so they attacked in return, with powerful magics. The party was enveloped in maddening darkness, causing terror and blinding them all. Roy was instantly laid low, Cigfran was nearly killed, Jeeves survived only because of his indomitable will to survive, and the others were gravely injured. Boris rushed forward, bumped into a wall of some sort, then moved to the side, following the walls as fast as he could. The other enemies cast more magic, one crushed Jeeves ' mind, leaving him nigh vegetative. Roisin Marshfield, before she could act, fell to the combination of powerful magics. Cigfran likewise fell, as did Jeeves . Boris managed to remain standing, but continued to rush about blindly, finally tripping over Jeeves ' still form. Their enemies waited in eerie silence, making no effort to further engage the group. With everyone else unconscious, Boris quickly succumbed to the powerful magic, and fell as well. The evil wizard rewound time, and gave Roy another chance.

"Well, do you want to hand it over this time?"
"What magic did you just use?"
"I rewound time. You got 30 seconds to answer my question or I'll just let it go back forward. You can just take it off and throw it over here."
"I have nothing that belongs to you."
"That ring is mine."
"It wasn't..."
"The ring you're wearing. The ring you're wearing is mine. Throw it back or I let us go forward and you die." ... "You willing to sacrifice all your friends, for a ring?" ... "Everyone died. Everyone." ... "Just throw me the ring. You can all leave."
Roy still remained silent, not responding..."Well, can I have my ring or do I let you die, and take it from your corpse?"
Roy finally responded. "Let me die or let us all die?" "Everyone. You all died." ... "I let time go back to where it was; you're all dead and I take it from your corpse and I loot the rest." ... "But I have no reason to kill you. I just want my ring."
"I mean, it's not your ring, but if you're going to kill all of us..."
"It's MINE, I dropped it. You took it."
"That means you lost it..."
"Well you can give it back to me or you die. That's it. Yes, lost, found, it's still mine."
"It's not yours, but I guess if you need my ring to save my friends' lives, you can have it."

Roy finally removed the ring, and threw it. As it left Roy 's hand, it immediately began to glow and spark, flew straight to the dark wizard's hand, right on to his finger. The powerful individuals then simply walked away without another word and without a backward glance.

Everyone remembered death, the horror and pain of death by psychic madness and necrotic horror. Jeeves noted, "We need to figure out how to survive that, eventually." Roy responded that "You won't be, not magic that powerful."...

Quirico stepped forward, near the glowing mushrooms, and was suddenly covered in glowing motes, similar to what happens when Boris strikes with a radiant bolt. Quirico began to panic. "Get it off me. GetitoffGetitoffGetitoff!". Boris tried to cure a disease or poison, but that had no effect. "Someone, anyone, get it off me! getitoffme!" Roisin Marshfield finally just slapped him to bring him to his senses, and was herself engulfed in glowing motes. She failed to connect, but the motes disappeared. Roisin Marshfield ordered Quirico to punch her, so he did so, but then healed her injury, which caused the motes to dissipate. Roy threatened him if he ever touched Roisin Marshfield again, and he argued that she ordered it, and he couldn't protect her if Roy killed him. Roy said "I didn't say I would kill you" and Quirico replied "I almost died for a damn ring, you absolutely would", then walked off down the corridor. Quirico rounded a corner, there was a low roar and a billow of flame, and Quirico stepped back with armor and clothing smoking. "There was fire... OW!!"

The group again proceeded forward, this time with Cigfran again leading the way. Cigfran almost immediately stopped, pointing out magical symbols to either side of the hall. Roy came forward to identify the symbols, and noted that one set would explode with fire, and scratching it out carefully might be possible with the right tools. The other symbol would draw the life out of everything in a large area. Roy asked Cigfran if he could do such a thing, and Cigfran hapopened to have tools appropriate to the task... Roy recommended trying the flame symbol first, for practice. Everyone backed off a considerable distance as Cigfran deftly scratched out the fire symbol. Cigfran moved on to the second symbol. Cigfran then stepped forward, and discovered he had failed to disarm the trap. The ensuing pulse of necrotic power nearly killed everyone in the party, although Quirico managed to avoid harm by being further away. Cigfran then saw a crossbow behind the illusion guarding the room, and with Roy 's help found it to be magical. Cigfran picked it up and Roy identified it, noting it was particularly effective when striking a target's weakness. Cigfran said "I'm sorry" to his old crossbow, then put it down and hugged the new crossbow. The old crossbow was placed in Roisin Marshfield's Purse. Jeeves and Quirico patched people as best they could, and Cigfran moved forward, alert for more traps. A short distance further Cigfran again found a trap, but again failed to disarm it, and was struck with a set of poisoned darts. A second attempt to disarm the trap, and failed again, but managed to avoid the darts this time. Working around to another tunnel, Cigfran was able to cleanly disarm a trip-wire trap on that corridor. The party took a short breather to bandage and catch their breath. Roy made himself magically tireless. The group moved on, and found another trap, this time a very weakened ceiling. Roy set off the trap with magic, and Jeeves excavated the rubble with yet more magic over the course of about 10 minutes. With several more traps easily cleared, the group cleared the strange section of tunnels, then made steady progress on their journey. Eventually they reached a section with a warning on the map to watch their feet, and also saw the sun for the first time in days, looking up hundreds of feet through a narrow chimney which formed a natural skylight.

As Cigfran proceeded cautiously into the dark caverns beyond, he called out to a hidden figure, and the shadows beside him suddenly reached out and struck him, draining his strength and vitality. Cigfran promptly disengaged, backed up into light, and struck it with a crossbow bolt from the Heavy Crossbow of the Assassin's Guild as five more shadow creatures arrived. Jeeves tried to fire a pulse of radiance, but missed. One of the shadow creatures faded from view as Roy launched a bolt of magical energy that blasted two of the creatures to nothing and severely injured a third. The light above was closed off, plunging the party back into full darkness as Boris attempted to turn the undead, destroying one of them, then summoned a spiritual weapon to bash another. One of the shadows then appeared behind Roisin Marshfield and tried to strike, but failed. Cigfran dodged aside as another appeared beside Roisin Marshfield and struck at her but also missed. Roisin Marshfield then disengaged from these creatures and moved further into the cavern to get some distance but managed to bump right into a hidden shadow, which drained her strength and vitality, leaving her severely weakened. Cigfran again disengaged from the creatures beside him, moved aside, then struck the creature attacking Roisin Marshfield and destroyed it. Jeeves then stepped closer to the other two, and blasted them both to nothingness with a magical word that lit them with radiant holy fury. Roy took ten minutes to conjure a Fancy Floating Disk so Roisin Marshfield could ride on the disk. Boris rushed ahead, failing to wait for Cigfran , and a blade sliced out from the ceiling and slashed him violently. Cigfran stepped forward and began to deal with the multiple tripwires that were stretched across the cavern. Cigfran made it through several of the wires before cutting one out of order triggered a spinning blade that nearly sliced him to ribbons. Cigfran stepped back, and Jeeves patched his wounds as he rested for a few minutes. Jeeves tried to trigger the traps with mage hand, but the hand was not strong enough. Boris looked around for a boulder, but did not find one. Cigfran tried again, using his crossbow as a blocking guard, but it shattered the spinning blade, sending shattered blade fragments throughout the cavern, but Boris and Jeeves managed to dodge the shards. Jeeves again stepped up to treat Cigfran 's injuries, and also gave him some magical herbs to help him dodge further traps. Roy gave him fortune's favor, and Cigfran managed to get past the section of trip wires. Cigfran took one branch of the branching cavern, and found another death rune. Roy examined it, and pointed out how to disable it, so Cigfran , after everyone else moved well back, disabled the magical rune and stepped forward. Cigfran moved ahead, finding a room with bones in a pile in the corner. The party came closer, and Cigfran moved forward while Quirico guarded him from the pile of bones. Cigfran found a strange cobweb, and Roy identified the strands as appearing like spun glass. Quirico threw a rock at the webs, and it was instantly shredded. Cigfran tried a different path, and found a room full of the same webbing. Unfortunately, this part of the webs was not empty, and construct spider creatures slashed Cigfran , nearly killing him in the first flurry of blades. Roisin Marshfield moved forward, and directed Jeeves to attack, but Jeeves ' efforts were ineffective. More of the creatures moved forward, and one managed to paralyze Jeeves , leaving him at their mercy. Roy fired an orb of lightning energy at yet another construct that emerged from the first set of webs, and managed to hit, but these larger constructs seemed much tougher than the tiny ones. More of the larger constructs skittered out along the ceiling while another of the tiny constructs fired a poisoned needle at Jeeves , striking twice. One of the creatures struck Roisin Marshfield, causing a minor wound, but she managed to resist the poison. Boris rushed forward and struck the most distant of the constructs with a clockwork bolt, causing some damage. Roisin Marshfield directed Roy to attack, and he launched a bolt of fire only to discover that the larger constructs could completely ignore fire. One of the tiny constructs skittered over to Roisin Marshfield and slashed at her with it's sharp blades. Another of the tiny constructs moved to her other side and likewise slashed at her. The creature near Boris struck him, with some sort of metallic razor line, striking, though Roy used magic to limit the effect, and drawing the creature to Boris where it attached itself to his back. Roy then launched magical missiles that struck the creature on Boris ' back, damaging it severely. Roy then launched a fire bolt which caused a surge of wild magic, which struck Quirico mute for the next 2 months. Cigfran continued to lay on death's door, and two more of the constructs tried to strike Roy and Quirico , but both missed. Quirico struck the creature on Boris ' back, crushing it. Then his echo struck one of the creatures on the ceiling, bashing it powerfully. Another creature tried to poison Roisin Marshfield, but missed with both attempts. Jeeves recovered from his paralysis, and another creature struck him again, but he managed to resist the poison this time. Boris rushed back to where Roisin Marshfield was beset, and struck one of the creatures attacking her with the Rod of Justice. Roisin Marshfield then directed Boris to attack, and he struck again with the rod, Jeeves reacted by striking the creature behind him with his rapier. Roisin Marshfield then rallied Boris and Jeeves , bolstering their strength, but the creature behind her struck with it's sharp blades, leaving her unconscious and bleeding on the ground. Roy again launched magical missiles, blasting one of the creatures to pieces and damaging another while a surge of wild magic renewed his mystical energies. He also threw his dagger at one on the ceiling, conjuring a looming shadow; but soon discovered that these mindless automatons could not be harmed by psychic effects.