2023/03/01: Fungicide Part 2 Report
General Summary
Knight, Ril, Ba'alzamon, Eldrin, Union, Zaran, Sith, Durrian
Back in New Hallownest, the mages overseeing the ritual listened to a symphony of screams and explosions, the sounds of drow and perhaps other forces assaulting the city and running into the defenders. The hostiles got within a room of the ritual at one point, but the enraged super-trolls saw an end to that.
Adrienne enhanced the telepathic connection between the mages and the strike team, giving them the opportunity to watch and provide commentary.
Back with the strike team, colors went strange and a purple pit fiend suddenly burst through a wall. Most of the party immediately recognized it as an illusion. Behind them, apparently hoping to take advantage of their (nonexistent) distraction, a group of strange figures appeared. Long, thin, black limbs of indeterminate structure. All have humanoid heads, but wearing metallic helmets with lots of eyeholes in weird places. A few look female. One has jagged swords, another has a strange flute emitting a droning noise, some have robes, one has a bow, one has blades on his hands and feet and an extra pair of arms with a whip.
They are somewhat disturbing to look at. They have a somewhat smoky look to them.
Knight activated Ba'alzamon's contingency and his kote of striking and dashed through the first group of three to go for the second. He unloaded on them with an accelerated barrage of attacks. None of them went through. The cleric acted like he was made of smoke, the swings just bounced off the mage, and the druid was abruptly in 19 places at once, none of which were where the blade was. Knight forwent a second set of attacks on the first group, instead returning to parry for the rest of the party.
Zaran saw this and decided an area effect was the way to go. He upped his age category and used his breath weapon. Most of the hostiles ignored it. The caped opponent behind the leader took it to the face. The lady with the two swords was hurt as well, but avoided the worst of it.
Union activated telepathic invisibility, making him invisible to all enemies that can think. (In this case, that was five out of the six enemies.) The cleric with the strange flute, Jahaiha, acted at the same time, casting withdraw and then cursing the party.
Durrian ran at the hostile with the blade arm, then spear-vaulted over him and planted his spear through the head of the injured mage. The warrior had tried desperately to get in the way, but the distraction of parrying Knight's drive-by Sharp Shadow slowed him down. The mage disappeared like a dead Jedi, and his robes followed into nonexistence.
The blade-armed edgelord went berserk, launching himself at Durrian. Durrian didn't drop, but it was a close thing. The woman with the swords went for Knight, and the slowing effect of the curses reduced Knight's ability to defend. His body was battered, but he was invigorated by the pain.
Sith cast time stop. Ril happily joined it and then extended its duration to maximum. Sith cast dispel magic in hopes of removing the curses, which failed to have an effect, activated surge selector, then cast Mordenkainen's Disjunction on the opposing team to break any buffs they had active. Then he cast scan on two of the opponents in hopes of figuring out their puzzle details. Ril cast dispel evil to remove more of the curses and healed Durrian.
Scan results:
Jahaiha the Banished. Mercenary nightmare assassin. Priestess of nightmare itself. Doesn't worship gods. Currently exists in a sort of strange nonmaterial state bound up with her magic.
Tarpit the Unmoving. Mercenary nightmare assassin. Known for necromancy, bad things with tentacles. Evil twisted soul of a druid. Collects people's heads.
Ril and Sith cast withdraw. Sith started using limited wish to remove the curses, but only got one of them. He followed up with haste to counter the slow, then added coruscating shield, healed Knight, and gave Knight shadow blade. Ril inspected the history of the enemies, cast haste on the party to boost them further, then tried and failed to use greater paradox to pull Jahaiha back into phase. She did notice that Jahaiha was wincing in pain from something that had happened, likely from the cancelling her spells. Sith cast silence on Jahaiha and then went to beat Tarpit with the Blade of Chaos in hopes of getting the "target falls" wild magic effect. He got just what he wanted, causing Tarpit to suddenly fall from 11 feet up and start looking panicked. Ril went about countering more of the curses.
Suddenly, the floor of the room was transmuted to life-sucking mud. Tarpit struggled to his feet.
Ril cast protection from lightning to cancel out yet another of the curses. The eyeless archer smacked Knight with a force arrow.
Knight switched to shade form and tried to dash away from the dual-wielding duelist, but she kept pace. He lashed out with Void tendrils from the shadows around them, but she parried and dodged them without missing a step. She looked Knight in the eyes with her four-eyed helmet and said "You're mine."
Zaran cast a restoration spell on himself, countering another curse for the party, and healed himself and Union.
Jahaiha added another curse to the party, impairing their accuracy and resistances. Union tossed a temporal stun at the swordswoman, bypassing her defenses and stunning her. Durrian continued his duel with the edgelord, getting past his parries and hitting him directly but having no apparent effect. The edgelord's swings in return were much more successful, though Durrian still stayed up.
The swordswoman came after Knight, with Knight only getting away thanks to blackblink. She seemed to have shrugged off the stun with some effort, and was attacking twice as fast as before.
Sith withdrew again, casting protection from fire, remove paralysis, and prayer. This removed the last of the curses, and with her magic broken Jahaiha faded from existence. Tarpit, looking less panicked, tossed mud at Sith. A firehose of gooey mud spewed towards Sith, burying him. Sith was able to move to resist, making a little igloo of mud that he was safe inside. The mud then turned to stone.
Ril noticed that Durrian's hair wasn't glowing anymore. She reached out for the lifestream to check, and realized that the lifestream and leylines were gone, as if the battlefield had been moved to a different location. This was likely why the gods could no longer assist. Ril cast augury on the swordswoman, and it returned that the woman's weakness was "friendship". A second augury, this one on the edgelord, returned that his weakness was "wizards".
The eyeless archer fired another force arrow at Knight. Once again, it pierced all defenses and severely hurt him.
Knight ignored his attackers and dashed over to Tarpit, smashing the dome around Sith on the way. Knight's wind rake technique knocked Tarpit back, making him vulnerable, but the invulnerability lasted just long enough to resist Knight's remaining attacks.
Zaran, hearing that the edgelord was vulnerable to wizards, cast disintegrate. It succeeded spectacularly. The villain was there one moment, and the next he was dust. Zaran gave Knight a bit of healing on the side.
Union went for the newly vulnerable Tarpit. His psionics and invisibility got him past the few remaining defenses with ease. His sneak attack wasn't enough to kill, but it did wound the man.
Durrian had an idea for what "friendship" meant. He dashed forward, grabbed Knight with his spear, and used Knight as a melee weapon to whack the swordswoman. After a manually influenced headbutt and kick, followed by much more conventional spear attacks from Durrian himself, the swordswoman dropped. Knight gave him a vaguely dazed thumbs up.
Sith, frustrated, marched over to the archer and tried to grab her bow. She sort of slid out of the way, then slid back into place when he pulled his hand back. He elected to keep his hand in place, forcing her to stay displaced.
Tarpit clapped his hands in a spellcasting manner. Grey orbs appeared around the room and started releasing mist that began to pool. He dropped into the ground, then regrew a hundred feet away, on the far side of the room.
Ril used a more detailed augury on the archer. The response was that, essentially, the displacement only works if you're watching her.
The archer shot Knight with a final, lethal arrow of force. Knight evaporated, his mask falling to the ground. The archer appeared next to the mask, picked it up, and then started screaming. Knight's death curse had responded in kind.
Union tried to pull the druid towards the party with telekinesis. The druid was far too heavy to affect, however, at least while his invulnerability was in effect.
Durrian decided to stick to the friendship theme. He ran over to Knight, but as he ran he began taking bleeding cuts across his body, apparently caused by the grey orbs. He ignored this and expert disarmed Knight's mask from the archer's own internal inventory, a remarkable feat. Then, while still holding his eyes tightly closed, he swung his spear like a baton and beat the archer into the floor. Unlike the others, this one didn't fade away; she passed out and fell to the ground. Apparently the death curse had some odd effects.
Sith, on a suggestion by Ba'alzamon, used wish to cast reverse gravity on the druid. Unfortunately, the druid was held in place by the tendrils that bound him to the ground and gave invincibility, and the only result was the levitation of a bunch of rocks.
Ril used time manipulation to reverse Knight and Durrian to their status from before the fight. Knight, once again alive, shivered briefly and gave Ril a grateful nod. Then Knight joined Sith in preparation for a teleport jaunt over to the druid. Union joined them as well.
The druid summoned four shadowy trees with nooses hanging from them.
Sith transported the group over to the druid, and the nooses started launching themselves at the party. Knight battered the druid with wind rakes, but the druid braced and stayed rooted. Knight and Durrian's attempts to deflect the nooses was far more successful. Then Durrian planted his spear between the druid's legs and started prying upward, using the druid's groin as the point of leverage. The druid lost that contest.
Union tackled the newly vulnerable druid knife-first. The effects were minimal, but they were there. Ril tossed some spell damage the druid's way as well, with similar damage.
Then Sith flattened him with a blade the size (and shape, and weight) of a couch.
The reasoning for this fight is unclear, but it's very likely these were servants of the Lord of Nightmares, sent to assassinate Knight and take his soul. They likely won't be the last.
At least the group now has a comatose and immobilized prisoner to interrogate!
Rewards Granted
2 xp for anyone at level 45 or above, 3 xp for those between that and 20, 4 for the rest.
Sith
Union
Zaran
Knight of Darkhome
Eldrin Stormseeker
Aetheril
Ba'alzamon Dreamender
Report Date
01 Mar 2023
Primary Location
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