Session 10 - We won the boss fight, y'all!

General Summary

When last we left our heroes...

They were locked in a desperate battle with the high priest Norath Pyloth and a bunch of evil henchskeletons. Oh, yeah. And a supercharged ghoul. (Although to be fair, that was really just Flaar's problem.)
Slappa, gathering Trickles and Marcel behind him and into the Sphere of Protection created by the Lute of Chaos, breathed out a large cone of ice at the skeletons lumbering towards his friends, blasting them backwards slightly and leaving icicles dripping off the bones everywhere. It looked super cool. The dragonborn tried to play the Lute again a couple of times but without any kind of success. Eventually he gave up on that and cast Vicious Mockery at Flaar's ghoul, causing magical psychic damage with his witty, vague, and appropriately bardic insults. They were so awesome that nobody could possibly remember what they were.
Flaar and Boner remained locked in combat with a Premium Ghoul they just couldn't seem to get away from. As Flaar dodged away to run towards the rest of the group, the ghoul managed to land a hit directly on Boner, collapsing the little skeleton into a semi-heap of semi-bones. A chorus of "noooooo!"s coming from everybody except Flaar rang out across the room. Flaar continued to face the ghoul - "Don't worry, Flaar will take care of this ghoul all by Flaar's self!" - and only managed to dodge its relentless attacks by slowing it down repeatedly with a Chill Touch spell.
Bearindorf ploughed through skeleton after skeleton, ripping them to pieces one by one with his mighty bear claws. Each exploded in a shower of destructive necrotic energy, but each skeleton down meant one less to hurt the rest of the party.
Trickles turned his attention to Norath along with Glitz, who engaged with the mage with a show of acrobatic prowess, leaping off Trickles's shoulders and dodging all of Norath's attacks effortlessly. Trickles then aimed a hook shot at the wall past Norath, slingshotting himself past the priest and slicing at him with his rapier. "Not so funny now, is it?" he quipped, as Norath did a strange side-step thing and managed to have the rapier glance and the damage not be as severe.
"Come. ON!" yelled Glitz, taking her shortsword in two hands and rushing at Norath. The gnome was so angry she couldn't even see straight, missed the priest as he sidestepped her attack, and nailed the stone with her sword, damaging it slightly. She leaned her head against the sword and shed a tear.
Marcel cast Sacred Flame at Norath, but the mage dodged out of the way. "Yeah, nice try cleric," he said with a sneer. Seeing the rage in Glitz's eyes and the random attacks coming out of everywhere, Norath yelled, "Enough of this!" and pulled out his wand. Another wave of Magic Missiles shot out of the wand, hitting Glitz, Trickles, and Slappa. Norath laughed as skeletons advanced forward on the heroes.
Moving quickly, Trickles positioned himself between Norath and the southern door, hitting the priest hard with both his rapier and his witty quip of "It's not just ghouls that want to have fun!"
"How dare you!" Norath yelled, grasping his side where Trickles had stabbed him. Glitz ran forward and started hacking at the arm Norath was using to hold his side with her damaged shortsword. "How DARE YOU!!!" he thundered again, dropping the wand he was holding.
Desperately, Norath conjured up a Sleep spell and threw it at the two adversaries closest to him. Trickles stumbled slightly but remained upright, while Glitz, weakened from the earlier battle, collapsed in a heap, unconscious. Marcel immediately ran over to shake her awake, and the gnome bolted up, a tiny ball of fury aimed at only one person - Norath Pyloth.
With a hook shot to the ceiling, Trickles swung onto Norath's chest, wrapped his legs around his neck, and managed to shove a vial of poison he'd picked up in the lab into the priest's mouth. Norath began to stiffen, then fell to the floor in a paralyzed state. Glitz charged towards the priest, shortsword raised high above her head, and with a loud battle cry hacked off the high priest's arm. Seeing that the tide of battle was turning, Marcel yelled "Don't kill him! We need him for information and the keys!"
Glitz promptly picked up Norath's dismembered arm, and swung it like a weapon. It collided with one of the skeleton's head with a sickening thud. At that moment Nyloth shook off the paralyses, looked down in disbelief at where his arm used to be, looked towards the door to the south, and then looked up, a murderous rage in his eyes. "My arm, my fucking arm!" he screamed.
"That's what you get," replied Glitz nonchalantly. Bearindorf, running out of skeletons to maim, saw his chance and charged across the room, right at Norath. With a mighty slash of his claws, the evil priest dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes, completely and irrevocably dead.
As the rest of the group threw themselves towards annihilating the remaining skeletons, Trickles grabbed Norath's wand off the floor and held it out to Flaar. The wizard took the wand, looked at the Ghoul, said, "Flaar can do this all day," and cast Magic Missile from the small piece of wood. All three missiles tore into the ghoul, ripping what little flesh it had off its bones, as it collapsed into a heap of rotting flesh.
Finally, everything in the room was dead.
Marcel started rifling through Norath's body to try and find the keys. Flaar scooped up Boner, slinging his bones and what was had spilled out of his chest cavity into Boner's robes like a knapsack. Slappa played a sad tune to memorialize the little skeleton. The strange black stone once again made everyone slightly woozy now that it was outside Boner. Finishing his search, Marcel found Norath's magical dagger, another wand that he couldn't immediately identify, and what he was really looking for - a key with weird magical vibes.
Standing up, Marcel argued that the group should head back and try to get the dragonborn out now, rather than trying to chase after the incredibly powerful warlock that disappeared at the beginning of the battle. "I personally am completely tapped out of magical energy, everyone looks pretty beat up, we've lost Flaar's Boner - and there's no way in the Nine Hells that we'd ever defeat that guy, even if we were well rested and at the top of our game."

Rewards Granted

Everyone is leveling up to Level 4 next week!

Optional Bardic Insults:

• You fight the same way you smell - lousy!
• I'd give that move a 3.5. Maybe a 4, if you can follow it up with something that actually does damage.
• Just look at yourself. Then look at me. Back at yourself. Back to me. I'm way more cool. I have a magic lute.
• Yo mama's so awesome, she would be ashamed to call you her child right now.
• You pennyfarthering bilgesnipe! Avast, and hie thee hence to the nearest dung pile!

Report Date

04 Nov 2020

Primary Location

Runswic Castle Level -3: The Necromancy Lair

Characters Interacted with:
Norath Pyloth
a bunch of undead

The Short Version

Part 2 of an epic battle against death cult high priest Norath Pyloth and a bunch of undead minions. Norath was defeated and Glitz got unexpectedly violent. Flaar finally defeated the ghoul, but not before Boner was destroyed.