Session 27 - Narrowly Avoided Losses - Ambush by Mau

Plot points/Scenes

Picking up combat where we left off -

• Round 2
  • Drant wakes up, Osh falls asleep
  • The remaining peryton swoops towards Gregory, misses
  • “Jalan’s Angels”
    • Nevermore dives under the pleasure barge with Jalan’s Angels (and Terrence [or is Terrence also a Jalan’s Angel??]) and casts a ward to protect everybody beneath the barge
  • Orcs take some swipes at Jalan’s mercenaries
  • Drant attempts to take out the remaining peryton but stuns himself, Brother Gurp and the Holy Cattle surround the ranger dude, Nymph attacks and crits on the ranger dude
• Round 3
  • Jalan attempts to parkour from the tree, over the troll, and light a stick of dynamite and shove it in one of the lengths of chain (does eh okay but we’ll see when it explodes), then takes a couple opportunity attacks to get the eff out of there, his mercenaries attack but are pieces of shit
  • Vincent Word of Radiance’s some of the dudes surrounding Fritz, Robin actually kills one and hits another, Gregory crit fails hitting one of his pair of dudes, and Fritz starts beating on a couple of the dudes surrounding her, not able to kill the prone one but shouting at him to “stay the fuck down if you want to survive” so she didn’t waste an action surge
  • Ranger dude crits on one of the rust monster, a series of vines sprout from the ground and start constricting it into the ground, it’s dying
  • Alvira hits the peryton with her shortbow (it doesn’t seem to do as much damage as she’d hoped) and then stabilizes the dying rust monster, and starts running towards Jalan’s mercenaries who are barely holding the western line
  • The great knight whips his three monsters around their chains and they attack Jalan
    • As Jalan takes damage, he sees what energy he lost absorbed into the now-glowing chains and flow into the knight, who seems invigorated
  • The dudes surrounding Fritz all attack her, the one who’d been prone who’d she’d yelled at to stay down crit fails and fittingly his crit chart incapacitates him, he falls right back down on the ground and she cackles, “I told you to stay down”
  • The archers fire a volley down on both Jalan’s mercenaries and the orcs threatening them (apparently they don’t care too much about friendly fire), even with advantage a couple of the mercenaries manage to roll natural 2s but they all survive
  • The peryton fly-by’s Gregory again, the orcs by Gregory attack and miss, the orcs facing the mercenaries attack and Marcus goes down
  • Osh inspires Fritz, Terrence inspires Jalan and bless’s Drant and Jalan (and Fritz but she’s already blessed from Vincent which she forgot about)
  • Brother Gurp and the Holy Cattle try to attack the ranger but fail, Drant makes his way towards Jalan and casts Slow on everybody over there, the troll and one of the ogres fail but the other ogre and the knight succeed
• Round 4
  • Jalan’s dynamite explodes, deals enough damage to destroy the link connecting the troll, he disengages and runs behind the line of archers, and uses his watch to cast Dancing Lights in a direct line between him and the monsters, hoping to get them to charge through the line of archers to get to him
    • The troll is too stupid to realize that it’s been released from the chain
      • DM: “It’s real dumb. It’s got a passive perception of 8.”
      • F: “....should I feel offended that I’ve only got one more passive perception than a troll”
      • DM: “what”
      • D: “It’s the eye, you’ve only got one eye”
  • The ranger makes the entire area surrounding him sprout tentacles, which the rust monsters fail against but the damage rolls are so shitty
  • Gregory tries to attack the two dudes by him but misses twice, Robin kills another of the dudes surrounding Fritz, Vincent kills another, Fritz deals some damage to another but doesn’t kill anybody
  • Alvira sees Gregory in trouble and runs over to him, and heals him for a solid 19 points, then tries to bonus action dagger one of the orcs flanking him but misses
  • The troll is aware of what Jalan’s trying to do but the ogres are not and charge at Jalan, but the archers save and don’t get squished, the knight’s eyes flare and the two ogres left on the chain appear to get hyper-focused on Jalan
  • The orcs surrounding Fritz decide “nope fuck that she’s scurry”, one hits Robin hard, another tries to skirt around Fritz but she smashes his knee in and he bleeds out, the other one tries to hit her but misses
  • The archers succeed on their morale check after being trampled by a troll but don’t get anything productive done
  • The peryton dives towards Gregory again but just barely misses twice, his brand spankin’ new armor saves him again (F *across the battlefield* “you’re welcommme”)
  • The orcs threatening Jalan’s mercenaries attack, Howard goes down next to Marcus
  • Drant’s rust monsters take a bunch of damage from the scary tentacles, Nymph saves, Brother Gurp becomes enraged that his Holy Cattle are dying; the holy cattle manage to make it out of the darkness (two healthy ones dragging out the stabilized one), Brother Gurp and Nymph make it out of the darkness, Nymph tries to attack but crit fails and gets her fangs stuck in the ground, Drant thorn whips the peryton twice and drags it towards him
• Round 5
  • Jalan just keeps kiting, Marcus crit fails a death save and Howard succeeds
  • Nymph is attacked by the ranger and takes 18 damage
  • Gregory actually deals damage, Robin fails to kill the guy next to him and just looks sad and very very hurt, Vincent flails the dude next to him and Healing Words Marcus from across the battlefield, getting him up, Fritz kills the remaining two orcs by her, Vincent, and Robin, shouts at Robin to get under the pleasure barge with the rest of the Squishies, and dashes across the field to support Jalan’s mercenaries and get closer to the big scary guys
  • Alvira runs up by Drant and kills the final remaining peryton which is hovering just barely above the ground, she uses her momentum to launch into the air and tackle it to the ground with her rapier
  • The black knight forces Jalan to make a strength save, which he spends his inspiration on, and then forces him to make a wisdom save, which he fails - an illusory darkness descends over his eyes and he starts walking forward; the ogre adjacent to Jalan swings but misses, and the other two slow ones don’t quite get close enough to attack
  • The archers fire point blank on Jalan and hit but also overshoot and hit and kill the one ogre which wasn’t slowed
  • The Squishies just stay squishy beneath the pleasure barge
  • The orcs, now aware that downed people can be magically healed, attack Howard - but even downed and with advantage they miss, but Linus goes down separately
  • Terrence gives Jalan another inspiration dice, Nevermore encases the black knight in a black shroud
  • Nymph succeeds on pulling her fangs out of the ground, then backs away because she’s hurting, the rust monsters just hang back because that magic tentacle darkness hurts, Brother Gurp (Helped by Nymph) runs into the magic darkness and hits the ranger hard but doesn’t kill them and goes down from the damage he takes from the tentacles BUT the ranger fails his Con save and the tentacles go down, the Holy Cattle now run in after Brother Gurp
• Round 6
  • Howard succeeds another death save, Linus succeeds his first, Jalan skirts away from the ogre/troll and around the backside of the archers, then casts Darkness right in the middle of the archers, his mercenaries surround and kill off one of the remaining orcs
  • The ranger disengages and runs the fuck away from these creepy rust monsters
  • Robin dives under the pleasure barge, Gregory sprints towards the black knight, Vincent starts sprinting towards Gregory/the knight, Fritz kills one of the orcs threatening the mercenaries, gets a hit on another, and also starts making her way up to the knight/Gregory
  • Alvira starts sprinting down towards the main combat, throwing a healing word at Howard who pops up with 1 hp
  • Black knight makes Gregory uncomfortably close to wanting to stab Vincent multiple times but he’s fine, he stares down Fritz who feels a chill of dread and feels marked
  • The troll makes a beeline straight for Fritz who’s marked, running straight through a bunch of the archers in Jalan’s Darkness (who save), the ogre (who’s still slowed) also moves but doesn’t quite make it
  • The archers in the darkness just start running haphazardly and find their way out of the darkness, the ones who weren’t in the darkness all fire on Fritz but both groups crit fail and hit the troll
    • DM: “oh, the troll’s finally taking damage!”
    • D: “he hasn’t been hit yet??”
    • F: “I think I’ve only got one flask of flammable oil, too….ya know, I would’ve bought more in Ambervern…”
    • ….
    • F: “I don’t have to finish that sentence”
  • Howard gets greataxed hard and goes down again
  • The rust monsters chase down and surround the ranger and destroy his weapon, Drant follows them and punches him
• Round 7
  • Jalan’s mercenaries surround and kill the remaining orc, the ones that are down succeed on their saves, Jalan runs towards them and gives Linus a healing potion (rolls all 4s on 4d4….goddammit phil), then shoots his crossbow at the troll
    • Crit fails but uses his last inspiration to not shoot Marcus in the back of the skull
  • The ranger deals damage to Drant, who Absorbs Elements
  • Gregory runs up to the black knight and attacks and hits, but wastes his inspiration dice to do so, Vincent backs up a bit and fires off a Guiding Bolt at the knight, Fritz skirts around to the back of the knight and taser-paralyzes him, then unleashes an action surge of attacks on him (and realizes a little too late that she should’ve paralyzed him before Gregory went….welp)
  • Alvira attempts to stabilize Howard but crit fails and he takes two failed saves, runs up to the paralyzed knight and absolutely destroys him with sneak attack - while he’s paralyzed, she removes his helmet and with surgical precision slices his jugular open with a scalpel
    • Fritz and Gregory just stand in stunned silence
    • A bolt of dark energy travels down the knight’s chain into the ogre and it seems hurt, and the dread pressing down on Fritz vanishes
  • The troll still doesn’t realize it’s been freed from the chain and attacks Howard, killing him, then runs over top of Howard’s body and attacks Todd but crit fails and all of the mercenaries surrounding it get an opportunity attack at advantage because it just killed their friend, and take it down, but its regeneration pops it back up (some homebrew regeneration rules that DM’s salty he hasn’t gotten to use yet because it took all 80hp of damage in one round)
  • The archers fire on some people but can’t hit anybody
    • DM: “plez tho”
  • Across the battlefield, Drant’s rust monsters go down from area of effect damage, Drant abandons the chase of the ranger and goes to stabilize Brother Gurp, Nymph starts web-dragging the rust monsters out of the area of danger (crit succeeding on her sleight of hand TWICE), getting two out of the area into safety but is too exhausted to drag a third completely out of the area
• Round 8
  • Jalan goes up to the troll and lights it on fire with a flask of oil, not enough to knock it back down but at least it’s taken fire damage, then Jalan’s mercenaries close in on it but suck balls and can’t take it down
  • Fritz and Gregory flank the ogre and take it down, Vincent fires a guiding bolt at the troll and takes it down
  • Alvira notices that Howard’s down (read: dead) and rushes over and casts Shocking Grasp on him (ooh advanced medical techniques??), but doesn’t do very well - he comes to life for a half second but immediately dies again
  • Drant is in full panic mode trying to save his rust monsters - he and Nymph manage to get all but one of them out of the area of death
  • The archers and the ranger are all running away
    • D: “come over here and chase this bitch down!”
    • F: “....we are all the way on the other side of the forest”
    • J: “yeah we don’t know that’s happening”
    • D: “what about Nevermore?! What’s that bitch doing??”
    • DM: “he’s protecting the squishies!”
    • D: “she’s running right by him!” (she wasn’t. She’s like 75 feet away)
  • Jalan and Fritz chase down and incapacitate four hostages (Jalan badass-tackles one, Fritz chases down and takes out the kneecaps of another three)
  • Drant’s final remaining rust monster dies, and the rest start making death saving throws - he stabilizes one of the ones that looks really rough, Nymph goes up to the other rough one and attempts to stabilize it (F: “she’s a spider” D: “she’s gonna try”)
  • Alvira starts sprinting over but she’s not fast enough, two of the cattle die - but Alvira gets to them quickly enough to attempt to defibrillate one of them and succeeds!
    • She then goes over to the stabilized but downed Brother Gurp and gets him up, he starts praising her as an angel when Drant tells him that she saved one of the cattle’s lives, he gets super angry when he realizes two of the cattle have died and starts beating down a tree with his club

OUT OF COMBAT

• Jalan lines up our four prisoners and drops Howard’s body in front of them “look what you’ve done, you killed my friend”
  • One of the orcs spits and says “we threw one of our best forces at you and only killed one measly man? We should die for this shame”
  • Jalan gets touchy and stabs that guy to death, who dies gurgling “death before dishonor”
    • D: “oh Japanese orcs”
    • J: “give them a paintbrush, draw me anime”
  • “We kill for the sport of it...what makes you think we do this for a purpose”
• Drant notices in a split second magic being cast - he yells “hit the deck” as a magical volley of arrows comes down, killing the three remaining archers and damaging us
  • Up in a distant tree we see the scaled-skinned female ranger climb down and disappear from view
  • Alvira instantaneously stabilizes one of the archers
    • F: “Vincent, why can’t you do that?”
• Nothing happens for the next hour, before the orc comes back to consciousness
  • O: “is this a cruel joke to you?”
  • D: “you wanted to die. We let you feel what it’s like”
• Orc
  • O: “they betrayed me [by trying to kill him to protect information], do you know the only response to betrayal?”
  • F: “revenge?”
  • O: “....more betrayal, but I like where your brain’s at”

QUESTIONING THE PRISONER

• Where is he from? A nearby (couple miles away) orc settlement
• Why were we attacked?
  • They were approached by a goliath (goliath boi) who said he knew of a party that was carrying immense wealth good for the taking and we were travelling along one of their raiding routes anyway
  • They would get 100% of the loot, minus a few particular trinkets we were carrying
    • J: “I look over at Fritz”
    • F: “....”
    • J: “....”
    • F: “do you have something to say”
• Monster that expanded his mind, pulled the giant creatures toward him and bent them to his will
• The pay was good enough that they agreed to ignore the atrocities
• They lost so many warriors that they’ll be hesitant to attack again
• Fritz tries to loot the body
  • Makes a wisdom save (failed), barrage of images of a hellish landscape of nightmares where people are being tortured, stunned for a round
  • Drant sees her flinch and notices the chains are important - they are necromantic and have runes of like life stealing or some shit
    • F: “oh Vinceeennnt….necromancyyyy”
    • V: “NECROMANCY”
      • Runs over and holds out his hand and a wave of radiant energy emerges, the armor disappears, the chains remain, and the body remains
  • Drant touches the chains - he feels a pulsing of life energy from within the chains - it doesn’t drain him but it’s like touching a pipe that’s full of running water
  • There’s a shield modified to hold the chains, they’re not permanently attached
  • Sword made of some kind of black metal
  • Orb that seems to be a spell focus
  • Stilven Sharpeye - one of the better archers
    • Volendrung??
• A whole SHIT ton of internal conversation about how to approach the orc settlement
• A brief funeral for the two rust monsters and Howard
  • Fritz gets 4 antennae
• Family bonding
  • Drant wants antennae tech, Jalan wants a cape fan
  • 2000 gold towards technology
  • Self-dissolving darts
  • Neuro-toxins? Other alchemical things
• Jalan confesses...to literally everything he's every done. Telling Naomi about library secrets and trying to sneak her up the elevator. Embezzling from the company. Basically everything, trying to start a clean slate. Fritz is not super impressed

Plot type

Session

Parent Plot

Act 3: Cults and Companions