Session 22 - Retaking the Power Plant

Plot points/Scenes

Scouting the Plant

• Retroactively, Jalan gets improved sets of armor for his mercenaries, and crits on his persuasion check to resell the old sets
  • We also splurge on full plate for Gregory (he fronts 300, Fritz 400, Jalan 100, and Jalan’s able to bargain it down to 800)
• Drant sends Nymph to scout ahead
  • There is some brief contention over the point “do spiders have a smell” or not, we decide to go with “no” after bringing up dead skin cells and pheromones but I really don’t think we’re any farther than when we began….
  • She sees two separate campfires with goblins and wargs, and the gate to the facility is guarded by a troll and two goblins
  • She sees some giant bird thing with the body of wolf, the talons/wings of bird, and the head of elk….but it sees her and starts screeching like an angry elk (which is terrifying in its own right)
  • Nymph tries to hunker down and be unthreatening, but a second one emerges from behind and starts circling, and two wargs from a nearby goblin camp join in
    • *it is decided that manipulating webs is sleight of hand for spiders
  • Nymph web-slings to a nearby tree, then makes a break for it
    • The two wargs have lost interest by now, but one of the elk-birbs takes some swipes
  • She barely makes it back to camp and relays information
• We try to plan
  • Full-frontal assault using dynamite
  • Try to be stealthy on one of the outskirt camps, then go full-frontal
  • Try to use the remainder of Nevermore’s coins to sneak by
  • We decide to send Jalan to stealth with Naomi and sneak-dynamite oe of the nearer groups, Fritz and Drant will loud-attack the farthest group of kobolds, and the heavies (Gregory leading the mercenaries and Robin)
• Jalan tosses his stick of dynamite into the fire (*natural 1*).....he misses, hits the nearest goblin in the back of the head and it plops to the ground harmlessly
• ROLL INITIATIVE

Combat - Get Out of Our House

• Round One
  • Drant dives into one of the campfires, Absorbs Elements, and starts swinging at the kobolds, taking 2 down
  • Naomi starts chipping away at the goblins at her/Jalan’s campfire
  • Jalan throws another stick of dynamite into the fire and makes it this time
    • Because he accidentally revealed his presence last time, they manage to jump away pretty effectively
  • Someone walks out of the tent at Fritz/Drant’s campfire - it’s fucking Gurk
    • He says “.....fuck” and bolts to the other side of the map
  • The elk-birbs dash by Jalan and hit him on the way by
  • One kobold attempts to attack Drant and fails so bad that Drant retaliates and kills him, the remaining kobold flees in terror
  • The goblins by Jalan/Naomi go for Jalan but miss, the wargs go for Naomi and hit just a bit
  • Fritz shoots herself up with adrenaline, charges by Gregory and the heavies shouting “MOVE MOVE MOVE” and makes for the campfire ringed by orcs
  • The orcs retaliate, none hitting but one crit fails and incapacitates himself, falling prone
• Round Two
  • Drant finishes off the kobold who was fleeing and starts heading back towards the combat
  • Naomi attacks and kills one of the wargs
  • Gregory and the heavies begin charging into battle but just barely make it onto the field
  • Jalan rapier-kills a goblin and hits another
  • Gurk attacks Naomi and Jalan and hits hard (crits, making Jalan vulnerable to slashing damage for the remainder of the encounter), then runs behind the (as of yet un-aggroed) troll and up the wall, then weaves the dirt around him into a sort of barricade-shield
  • The elk-birbs once more do flybys on Jalan but luckily do piercing not slashing
  • The troll finally decides to roll out
  • A gobbo fires (and crits) on Jalan (makes him frightened for the rest of the encounter)
    • J: “FUCK THIS, I’m out of here.”
    • F: *laughing* “he’s getting fucked up so hard and he’s now afraid, there’s no way he’s sticking around”
    • DM: “You’re gonna run away right in front of your girlfriend [Naomi]??”
  • Fritz kills the incapacitated guy on the ground then injures another
  • The orcs attack Fritz again and all miss again
• Round Three
  • Drant starts sprinting towards Jalan, who’s in trouble
  • Gregory and the heavies run in, Fritz directs Gregory towards Gurk, Robin runs up to assist Fritz
  • Naomi shoots one of the birbs but it doesn’t seem to do as much damage as it should
  • Jalan takes out his magic pocket watch and it apparently has sentience and activates itself, sprints away from combat, casts Darkness on himself, and hides in it
    • J: “Imma lay down in my bubble of darkness…”
  • Gurk sees him lay down in his bubble of Darkness….and turns it into a bubble of fire (fireball)
    • J: “nooooo I don’t have evasion yet”
    • *takes 36 damage*
    • J: “I’m dead.”
    • DM: “even if you save?”
    • J: “I had 2 health left.”
    • Fritz succeeds a Con save and takes 2 damage but knows he’s down
  • The birbs start moving towards the big group of heavies
  • Fritz bolts towards Jalan in the troll’s hands all the way across the battlefield, takes two attacks of opportunity from the remaining orcs, both fail (one crits and Exhausts himself), then hasted-jumps up the troll’s back and shoves a goodberry in Jalan’s mouth ‘with reckless abandon’ but manages to vault off the troll’s back just out of his reach
    • F: “Put him down”
  • The orcs attack the heavies and ALL miss
• Round Four
  • Drant gets under and Thorn-whips one of the birbs
  • The mercenaries deal minimal damage to the birbs
  • Gregory takes a stance next to Todd and holds his turn
  • Naomi attempts to shoot Gurk but misses
    • D: “jesus christ he’s a sorcerer, what’s his AC”
    • *DM does us a frighten by describing how tanky Gurk is*
  • Jalan comes to consciousness [still frightened] in the troll’s hand, finds he dropped his rapier, takes out his dagger strapped to his leg and slashes at the troll
  • Speedy boi Gurk tries to Earthen Grasp Fritz but she’s a fighter so nah thx
  • A birb attacks and misses Fishfinger McGee, the other hits Dan
  • The troll attempts to slam Jalan (1hp) into the ground but he succeeds on an acrobatics check to not take damage, the troll then punches Jalan in the face--
  • *TIME REWINDS*

• Fritz jumps in front of Jalan and takes the attack for him, tries to be risky and go all-or-nothing on damage but oof the troll beats her and she takes 24 damage
• The gobbos near Fritz/Jalan attempt to attack but miss (one crit fails and Jalan is no longer a scared bitch or vulnerable to slashing for the encounter)
• Fritz (who noticed the troll’s wounds start closing) smashes one of her remaining bottles of oil on her hammer, lights it on fire, and starts swinging
• One of the remaining orcs comes up behind Gregory but he uses his held action to end him before he can even raise his greataxe, Linus takes a greataxe to the face
• Round Five
  • Drant gets under the birb again and Thorn-whips it to the ground (also notices that his spell is dealing better damage to it than mundane weapons)
  • Jalan’s mercenaries go to help Linus who’s being assaulted by an orc and finish it off, Todd helps Drant with the birb and finishes it off
  • Gregory sprints towards Gurk now that he’s not in danger from the birbs/orcs
  • Robin and Link go for the remaining birb
  • Naomi shoots at Gurk, and even with half-cover and Shield he wouldn’t be able to make her miss, he takes 28 damage and drops concentration on Haste, incapacitated for 1 round mothafuckassss
  • Jalan disengages from the troll, climbs up onto the pillar with the archer gobbo, and shoves him to his death off the wall
  • The birb on the ground tries to
  • Troll’s wounds don’t close up, hits Fritz hard twice
  • The gobbo next to Fritz hits her hard too
  • Fritz gets some good hits on the troll and regains a bit of health (2nd wind)
• Round Six
  • Drant continues chipping away at the birb and crits, incapacitating it, dropping it to the ground and pulling it closer to him with Thorn Whip
  • Naomi tries to replicate her last shot on Gurk but misses badly
  • Gregory starts getting all up in Gurk’s biz but can’t attack
  • Jalan’s mercenaries try to hit the birb but they suck balls
  • Jalan
    • J: “I shoot my phantasmium crossbow bolt at the troll.”
    • DM: “You bought arrows.”
    • J: “........what.”
    • DM: “You bought arrows, not bolts.”
    • It is eventually decided that Phil was just being a dumb and doesn’t even own a bow so he would’ve bought bolts instead
  • Gurk shoots Fritz and Jalan with Chromatic Orb but only hits Fritz, then floats himself away from Gregory before he can get hit
  • The troll swings at and hits Fritz again, the gobbo next to her swings and misses
  • Fritz goes ham, swings twice and kills the troll, ducks under the gobbo’s swing and smashes him in the gut, killing him too, then sprinting up to Gurk and getting all up in his space
• Round Seven
  • Drant Slow’s Gurk
    • Cluuuuutch

• Gregory gets up into Gurk’s space but can’t attack
• Naomi attacks Gurk but misses
• Gurk starts casting a spell (won’t take effect until next turn), conjures up a door and holds his hand out to Fritz
• The birb goes for Drant
• Fritz hits Gurk a bunch and crits (causing him Exhaustion level 4 holy balls)
• Round Eight
  • Drant goes for the birb again
  • Gregory asks if he should show mercy, Fritz says yes - he ignores her and swings and hits (she failed an athletics attempt to stop him), almost kills Gurk, swings again, rolls really high on his contested athletics check but she rolls higher and manages to stop him
    • F: *growling* “I said no.”
  • Naomi and Jalan separately go for the remaining birb and Jalan kills it
  • Gurk offers his hand out to Fritz
    • J: “Don’t do it…”
    • F: “......I’m too curious.” *takes his hand*
  • Gurk Dimension Doors 300 feet in the air (from the spell last round), taking Fritz with him, then uses his action to Dimension Door again and disappears
    • Fritz floats harmlessly to the ground



Out of Combat - Into the Facility

• //Fritz finds a note in her suit of armor from G//
• Naomi starts getting pissy at Jalan for running, Fritz uncharacteristically defends his decision as “he died anyway”
• We discuss the plan of attack
  • We don’t have any healing…
  • D: “Well, I could heal you, Jalan, but I’d be hurting myself”
  • F: “No, save it for yourself, Jalan’s best when he’s not engaged with anyone.”
  • D: *giggles*
  • F: “I mean as a playa it really does make sense”
• We head in (Drant goes in through Nymph’s vent on the roof)
  • Four people eating at the table, look like two scaly bois (scaly boi2a and scaly boi2b), one sneaky boi (sneaky boi2), and one pure-blooded Goliath (goliath boi)
  • They offer to not kill us if we lay down our weapons and step aside - Fritz and Jalan step aside
  • Gregory’s not having that, gets Force-Choked and looks real winded
  • Jalan offers to pay double whatever they’re being paid, drops his purse of platinum in front of them but they don’t seem too interested
  • “We were told to turn off the power if our demands were not met, we were about to go on our way and would hate to have to take you down on our way out”
• They leave
• Fritz scans for “entities” - there are hundreds, about 1 foot cubed each, scurrying around the living quarters
  • Open one of the doors, there’s a bunch of stuff floating around the room
  • Drant crits his arcana check, knows its an incarnation of Unseen Servant
  • They seem to be looking for something
  • Jalan Dispels Magic and all the floating stuff drops to the ground simultaneously, we hear clattering coming from all the rooms around us too
• Fritz starts wondering what the servants could’ve been looking for
  • D: “Books? I go look at the books. Even though I can’t read.”
  • DM: “.....they’re books. You can’t read.”
  • D: “Worth a shot.”
• Gregory says we’re safe to stay here for the night, Fritz thinks we should go back and get our caravan
  • J going to go for Zavala, Fritz wants to keep an eye on Naomi
• Try to leave, there’s a forcefield blocking the way
• Fritz and Drant go out the vent
• Outside - scaly boi2a and scaly boi2b next to sneaky boi2 making some sort of concoction next to the entrance - goliath boi is not with them
• Notify Jalan/Naomi, who are able to climb up the vent and join us
• Sneak attack...three two one GO

COMBAT - They Were Trying to Gas Us Out!

• Round 0 - Surprise Round
  • Jalan’s phantasmium bolt hits some invisible barrier, it turns white hot and everything explodes - he broke whatever box was guarding them
  • Drant drops down in the middle and turtle-punches
  • Fritz drops down behind scaly boi2a and only hits once
  • Naomi sneak attacks sneaky boi
• Round 1
  • Jalan arrows sneaky boi2
  • Sneaky boi casts Darkness on himself, disengages, and peaces out
  • Naomi tries to go for sneaky boi2 in the Darkness but misses
  • Drant turtle-punches the scaly boi2a next to Fritz
  • Scaly boi2a hits Drant hard
  • Fritz swings and misses all attacks
  • Scaly boi2b hits Drant
• Round 2
  • Jalan chucks dynamite into sneaky boi2’s Darkness and he succeeds his concentration check to hold the darkness
    • J: “....aw.”
  • Sneaky boi2 sees out of his magical darkness (Shargaas’ sight, mothas) and crits on Jalan who takes a dirt nap, shoots again but misses
  • Drant turtle-punches scaly boi 2a
  • Naomi shoots and kills sneaky boi2 in his Darkness
  • Scaly boi2a moves and breathes fire on Fritz/Drant, Fritz crit fails her save, Drant fails his, Drant Absorbs Elements as a reaction and succeeds on some wisdom check and is now able to cast it at 6th level, which is fucking great because Fritz would be a crispy chicken if he’d failed
  • Fritz sprints over to Jalan (D: “you’re leaving me??”) and feeds him a goodberry
    • F: “Stop. Doing that.”
    • J: *sobbing* “I was just trying to he-e-elp…”
  • Sneaky boi2b breathes fire on Drant, he fails another save
    • D: “Guys this is starting to hurt.”
    • F: “Join the fucking club-”
    • J: “I’ve gone down twice-”
• Round 3
  • Jalan crawls around the side of the pillar, leans against it really lazily, and shoots his crossbow at scaly boi2b
  • Drant decides to risk it for the biscuit instead of turtle-punching and does 12d6+2d12+8 (69) damage, just barely killing the scaly boi2b which had been at full health
    • Dragonborn Yol-Toor-Shul shouted him back into the wall where the body starts smoldering
  • Naomi’s a little shook by Drant and crits on scaly boi2a, killing him
    • Arrow goes through his throat, we can see him trying to swallow but he can’t and drowns in his own blood



Cleaning Up and Leveling Up

• The concoction is now smoking a lot
  • Fritz YEETS it away - runs it like 20 feet and then chucks it into the nearby pond, fish start rapidly rising to the surface (luckily she makes her save, Drant retroactively also makes his Con save after standing on top of it through the whole battle)
• Jalan tries to loot sneaky boi2 (J: “I have to gain something from this fight”)
  • J: “How much gold do I take from sneaky boi?”
  • DM: “Zero.”
  • J: “[Fuck.] I Detect Magic, does he have any magic items or anything?”
  • DM: “No.”
  • J: “God DAMN IT!” [“I start stabbing it over and over and screaming at it”]
  • Naomi comes up behind Jalan, “well I was about to congratulate you for a job well done but are you sure you’re okay?”
  • J: “I did it all for you...” *sob sob stab stab*
  • N: “I don’t see how stabbing a body is for me?”
  • J: “I lied, this part is for me but the rest of it was for you”
• Bath time
  • J: “Fritz, why’d you have to chuck that thing into the pond, now I’m all bloody and I can’t wash myself off…”
  • F: “You realize we’ve got like bathrooms and showers and stuff in the house, right?”
  • J: “.....I’m not thinking straight….I’m going to go drink myself unconscious”
  • D: “You’ve already been unconscious twice, are you sure you want to do that?”
  • J: “It is a quick and painless slumber.”
• Jack and Jill get back to Drant, siege seems to be weakening rapidly (kobolds and goblins and orcs no longer seem to be getting along with each other very well)
• Everybody from the caravan gets back safely
• We all level up and get a long rest
  • Sidekicks level up
• Jalan talks to Naomi privately
  • Talks about realizing he doesn’t want to die and he doesn’t want Torchstone finding him
  • Offers to tell Naomi what she wanted to know from Francesca if she both doesn’t turn Jalan in to Torchstone and lets him know if she hears of him coming for him
  • Tells her everything, secret rooms, Wizmur, the book...she grabs his face, kisses him, and walks out the door
    • Fritz is livid
    • Phil gets 2 inspiration dice
• Discussing next steps
  • Fritz decides it’s totally safe to take the night to rest up because there’s nothing at all to worry about of course not
  • But we’ll head into Stonedeep first thing in the morning to collect our reward from Francesca and get to the Library
    • F: “After all, we know Naomi’s after what’s there, and we don’t know if she actually got any information out of Timothy before we got there.”
    • J: “YES! Yes, that. Timothy….if she knows anything it’s from Timothy.”
    • [F: *quietly seething*]

• Speaking of which, where is Naomi?
  • J: “Oh, uh, I mean I dunno, she sort of just kissed me and left”
  • F: “....are you sure that’s what happened, she seemed sort of pissed at you earlier”
  • J: “Nope yep totally no doubt don’t worry about it”
• Fritz spends some time in her workshop making tech (Taser Tier 2!)
• Drant gets “Giant Insects” and upgraded thorn whip: never improves from this level on (2d6) but he can use it as a punch
• Fritz gives Jalan a ball gag (goodberry feeder)
  • Mark I: ball gag, 10 minute setup, 10% success rate, Mark II: mouth guard, 25%
• DM also takes back what he said earlier and gives Jalan a Robe of Useful Items from sneaky boi2
  • Wooden ladder, pit: cube 10ft on a side that you can put 10 ft away from you, iron door up to 10ft (fills doorway), 10 gems worth 100gp each, rowboat 12ft long, 2 mastiffs, another pit, spell scroll revivify, another rowboat, portable ram, another rowboat, 4 healing potions
• LEVEL UP! LEVEL 7!

Plot type

Session

Parent Plot

Act 2: Uprooted