Dungeon Fantasy Aersalus – B-Team – Session 4

Dramatis Personae

  • Fyadhiel, Elven Scout (386 points) (played by +Douglas Cole): An elvish warmaster sent on a quest to be more humane. It’s not working. Tagline: “Just Damn Better than you.”
  • Gaffer, Gremian Artificer (428 points) (played by +Christopher D.): Boom Squirrel. Tagline: “Stop damaging your gear! I’m the one that has to repair it.”
  • Galen Fallowhide, Halfling Scholar (Physick)/Cleric of Healing (385 points) (player by +Christian G.): He’s a doctor (but not a cannibal) that can heal with steel. He’s small, but deadly and a bit crazy. Tagline: “How many times have I healed you? Let me count the holes.”
  • Ryeleah Lopek, Human Wizard (358 points) (played by +Merlin A.): TBA. Tagline: “TBA”
  • Waraxe Mandrake, Dwarven Knight (350 points) (played by +Rob K.): A solid dwarf with miscellaneous scars and a long red beard. Usually seen in well-maintained (ahem) dwarven armor, and with Lydia, a rather large dwarven waraxe. Tagline: “Pass the beer and look out for the axe.”
  • Maxion “Twerp” Lopek, Human Cultist (Wizard) (84 points) (NPC): Twerp is a human boy (about 11, he’s not sure since his mother didn’t keep track) who dreams of one day becoming an auric knight and finally making his mother proud. Son of Ryeleah. Tagline: “Gee, I don’t know if that’s a good idea, mom.”
  • Ransolar “Ran” Khaban, Humanish Minotuar (Bard) (??? points) (NPC): Ran is an incorrigible con man, thief, and dangerous fighter. Tagline: He’s a cow boy, on a steel horse he rides. Wanted. Dead or Alive.

Previously . . .

Orcs are running. Titanic roars can be heard from the back of the mine. Everybody but Waraxe sees that the orc shaman dropped something. Ryleah pulls grabs it; inside the bag are a couple of things that look like potions, and a wand. From a  Thaumatology roll, he figures out that it’s a beneficial item of some variety. There are seven Potions of Major Healing, definitely not orc made. At the bottom of the bag is a gold banded ring, also magic. Ryeleah gives one of the potions to Twerp; he’s in really bad shape after foolishly running to the front despite a lack of armor and a lack of skill. More healing. Some buffing. Ryeleah casts Shield on a couple of people, giving +5 DB to Waraxe and +4 DB to Galen. Galen casts Armor, giving an additional +10 DR to himself (thanks to a crit), +5 DR to Waraxe, and +5 DR for Ryeleah. Fyadhiel rolls Tactics and gets 9 rerolls just as they hear another roar and the earth begins shaking as something massive comes running up.

Big, Bad, Gonna Punch You Till You Has A Sad

Fyadhiel, Gaffer, Galen Fallowhide, Ryeleah Lopek, and Waraxe Mandrake
??? (First Month), 23rd, 981 F.R., 6th Hour of the Sun (12:30 pm)
Camaronok, Dancorra Bay, Abolethe (“The Span”)

The PCS see a huge humanoid-like statue made of stone and ambulatory earth come running at us. It has gemstones for eyes in which we can see malicious hate. Ryeleah recognizes this as a nature spirit, a big angry nature spirit. Fyadhiel shoots a bodkin arrow towards the eye, and hits. (8 piercing damage) He does not substantially damage the eye, but knocks a bit of the eyelid off. Ran starts a couple of inspiring bardsongs, which give all the PCs an extra attack and extra damage.

The creature moves forward, slaming his stony fists into the ground: 9 points of crushing damage plus 22 knockback. Ran falls over, and a couple of others are unstable because of the rumbling ground. Moon-Moon forgets how to dog. Waraxe steps forward and swings Lydia at the elemental’s foot, but does not damage it; however, little bits and pieces fall off. Ryeleah flees, dropping her illuminated tome as she does so, letting the rest of us see. She has great confidence in us . . . Gaffer fires a syringe bolt with a combustion grenade into the big rock monster’s face damaging it; the face starts to burn.

Galen backs up, while Fyadhiel (also backing up) and fires again at the eye. 14 piericing damage this time. We realize we’ve been forgetting the extra attack…. Fyadhiel fires again; the rock monster moves his head aside for this one. The first arrow, however, is now sticking into the eye-gem. Ran starts his third bardsong, and the PCs now have +1 to combat rolls, +1 to thrust damage, +2 to swing damage, and an extra attack.

The rock monster brings his fist down upon Waraxe. Critical hit! But fortunately normal damage. Massive knockback, but Waraxe lands on his feet. He heroically charges back and chops at the creature’s foot twice. The foot is still attached, but he’s chipped away a lot of the semi-ablative armor. Moon-Moon runs for the foot with an all-out attack, but the rock creature dodges. Gaffer uses another Gizmo to pull an Alkahest Potion out of his… um… wherever he pulls things out of. He fires at the face, and the creature fails to dodge. DR does not protect against this. Using the extra attack given us by Ran, he fires another fire bolt, but this time the creature dodges.

Galen casts a Major Healing spell, which restores all of the gut damage the rock monster did. Fyadhiel fires three arrows at the eyes; the creature dodges two, but takes the third one. Ran moves around a bit and continues to sing..

The rock monster tramples Waraxe … but slips and loses his balance. Waraxe chops hugely at the foot, inflicting a lot of damage and causing a major wound. The foot is hanging on by the barest of stone. Waraxe chops again and severs the foot. The creature starts to ooze hot lava out the wound in its leg. The creature doesn’t fall over. Lava is all over the place; Moon-Moon gets it all over him. Gaffer pulls out a Gizmo, firing a syringe full of liquid ice at the stump. He then fires another firebolt to the face, but the creature dodges. Galen tries to heal the rock monster one point to stop it from leaking lava; it seems to work (GM Note: this was just a straight up clever trick).

Fyadhiel gets rope out of his backpack; he has a plan. Ran casts a Great Haste on Fyadhiel. Terberis does an all-out attack double with rapid strike at Waraxe, smacking him in the abdomen (pelvis), doing 24 cutting damage but only 8 gets through. Waraxe is smacked back into a pointy barricade. Waraxe steps back, spending 1 FP to do a long step (or something; gotta find the rule). He does a committed attack, three attacks, and chops at the other foot. He cripples it, and the monster falls forward; Waraxe manages to dodge out of the away. Ryeleah tries to use Apportation to pull out the creatures eyes, and gets a critical success; he pulls out both eyes, and pulls them right to him.

The elemental is prone. Gaffer fires at its face, doing hardly any damage. But, the face is still on fire and the PCs hope this blinds it. Galen casts another Major Healing on Waraxe at an extreme distance (10 yards!), again restoring him to full HP. Fyadhiel lassoes the rock monster with some sort of super-rope that Gaffer had. Ran starts casting a Dancing Object spell.

The rock creature gets to its knees; it is not acting blind. Waraxe swings twice with an axe, using a massively deceptive attack. The creature falls down again trying to dodge, and Waraxe hits a leg twice. Moon-Moon tries to nom the rock monster, succeeding once. Gaffer gets out arrows. Galen moves over to Moon-Moon to patch up the poor little doggo. Fyadhiel has attached the other end of his rope to a mine cart, and he gives it a running shove. Ran the minotaur bard finishes casting Dancing Object, helping to accelerate the cart. The cart starts to drag at the rock monster; as it’s soldered to the floor in lava, its legs start to break. It pounds on the ground with its fist. Waraxe chops at the creature’s, um, stones. This kills the creature. The body crumbles away, revealing the still-beating gemstone heart of this thing. The stone becomes lava, and cools off over time.

Ryeleah pays more attention to the creature. It was a very angry, disturbed unique earth spirit of some sort. Evidently the dwarves who delved here delved too deep.  Searching a bit through them mine, followed by Gaffer and Waraxe. There’s a barricade that the orcs had partially pulled up. Beyond it, there’s a shaft of some sort, with a mining elevator. Gaffer, curious, presses a button, and he and Fyadhiel go down very fast. (Ryeleah is way back with Galen looking at the toys we found. Waraxe is facepalming as the other two go down the shaft.)

Aftermath

At the bottom of the shaft there’s a lot of dwarven skeletons. Some are warriors some are miners. It looks like a giant cavern, filled with hundreds of years of bodies that have been dragged down a single shaft. The walls are filled with veins of crystal; Gaffer recognizes it as Empyrean Crystal. That’s the stuff that makes the magic go round for many of the devices all over the world.

There’s lots of other stuff amongst the skeletons. Gaffer sees an interesting looking ring and pockets it. It would take days or even weeks to search through all of this. The sheer volume of crystals down there (there’s not just one type; there is the whole rainbow making them highly valuable). There’s another shaft of light; the hole where the rock monster crawled its way up from below.

Discussing what to do here. Seem to be leaning towards sharing this all with the nearby town (Camaronock), setting them up as suddenly rich and us as the heroes of the domain. Perhaps we need to fortify; this is probably going to become a major strategic asset, with this hugeass fortune sitting right here.

After Action Report (GM)

This session was effectively a test of how powerful a monster I could use against the PCs and have them survive. It failed because of the sheer amount of bad die rolls the monster made. It succeeded in that it scared the bejesus out of the players, gave some more talking points for the PCs, and gave them more ties to the local area – if they wanted. Overall, another session where it took the majority of the time just for the combat.

Footnotes

None.

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